New Widget
If you look to the right, you will notice that we have partnered with Change.org to put up an activism widget. You will be able to easily participate in online petitions which will not only add your name to the petition, but forward letters to your congresscritters when you sign. Additionally, this website receives a small stipend every time you sign one, so it is a win/win for us.
There will be any number of issues that you can participate in, and it will be a permanent addition, so I hope it is not to harsh on the eyes for you delicate flowers who manage to complain about literally everything on this website.
Right now there are petitions about HCR, blackwater, and the recent SCOTUS ruling.
March 16, 2010 9:55 am
Posted in: Open Thread
36 Comments
36 Responses
The Grand Panjandrum - March 16, 2010 | 9:58 am · Link
Sigh … the good old days of the PETA ad. Jayzuz! I’m getting all misty eyed.
Mako - March 16, 2010 | 10:00 am · Link
Flash ads make babies weep.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - March 16, 2010 | 10:00 am · Link
I have yet to recover from the loss of ms Pamela A. Bunch a prudes.
jibeaux - March 16, 2010 | 10:04 am · Link
ooh, can I start? It’s “too harsh”, moran!
Just Some Fuckhead - March 16, 2010 | 10:04 am · Link
Oh jesus. My poor poor Balloon Juice, co-opted by the do-gooders. Wonkette, here I come.
Just Some Fuckhead - March 16, 2010 | 10:05 am · Link
Maybe Tbogg needs an A-list commenter.
beltane - March 16, 2010 | 10:06 am · Link
Just promise me that Change.org will not be sending around a petition threatening Bernie Sanders with a primary challenger if he doesn’t dance the hokey-pokey on the Senate floor.
Violet - March 16, 2010 | 10:10 am · Link
Do those petitions really do any good, or do they get sent right to the circular file? I’m always a bit skeptical of internet petitions. Figure they’re ways for the organizations to gather email addresses for spam and don’t do much good for the cause they claim to support.
arguingwithsignposts - March 16, 2010 | 10:13 am · Link
Just one request: could you go with a fixed width instead of fluid? I resize a window, the center column is reduced to nothing while the side columns maintain their width. There are ways to fix that.
Mike Kay - March 16, 2010 | 10:14 am · Link
Word is Obama plans to nominate Kucinich to replace Stevens on the high court.
soonergrunt - March 16, 2010 | 10:24 am · Link
@Violet: Oh, internet petitions are worth EVERY BIT of the effort needed to create them and fill them out.
Oh. Ummm. Yeah.
BTW, does Balloon-Juice have a mobile URL for my phone to use?
Felonious Wench - March 16, 2010 | 10:24 am · Link
Very cool, John. Don’t listen to the haters, they’re still bitter it took so long to get the edit funcitonality returned.
gbear - March 16, 2010 | 10:31 am · Link
Isn’t that the kind of form-letter email message that congresscritters think of as spam?
Delicate flowers want to know.
Sentient Puddle - March 16, 2010 | 10:34 am · Link
Spam or not, I’d say this is the important part:
I’m all for kickbacks to the site.
slag - March 16, 2010 | 10:36 am · Link
Change I can believe in. First-class snark and do-goody action combined. The future is now.
cleek - March 16, 2010 | 10:38 am · Link
holy crap:
h/t phil.
YellowJournalism - March 16, 2010 | 10:40 am · Link
@gbear:
I was under the impression that they ignore those, too. Anyone who watched Olberman last night would agree that a sincerely written personal letter probably will do the job better than a form-letter sent off by an organization.
However, if it gets BJ money, I suppose it’s worth a click-see. I just wish I would stop getting the “Curvy” ad with what looks like two lesbians about to engage in something the ad even describes as NSFW. (Still better than Pammy, though.)
Woodrowfan - March 16, 2010 | 10:47 am · Link
Yeah, can we get some SFW ads on the left please!
Ash Can - March 16, 2010 | 10:49 am · Link
@cleek: Will they also be changing the name of the show to “The Tool Shed?”
gbear - March 16, 2010 | 11:08 am · Link
@Woodrowfan:
To make BJ safe for work, I ‘un-maximize’ (sorry but I’m not computer literate) the BJ window and then shove the left side of the window off my monitor. I still have to scroll quickly past big brother Tunch and the tortured animal ad, but it works to hide the stuff on the left hand side of the screen from co-workers.
Brian J - March 16, 2010 | 11:21 am · Link
Another sign of that overbearing, always evil, never honest liberal media: RedState’s Erickson joins CNN. From the link:
Erick Erickson, who runs the influential conservative blog RedState, is now joining CNN as a contributor, according to a network release. He’ll appear regularly on John King’s new 7 p.m. show, which starts Monday.
“I grew up in Dubai and then in rural Louisiana as an obsessive news junkie. CNN was the only place to go for nonstop news,” said Erickson in a statement. “Joining CNN is like coming home and being in Atlanta makes the decision right for me and my family.”
CNN political director Sam Feist said that Erickson is “a perfect fit for ‘John King, USA,’ because not only is he an agenda-setter whose words are closely watched in Washington but as a person who still lives in small-town America, Erick is in touch with the very people John hopes to reach.”
“With Erick’s exceptional knowledge of politics as well as his role as a conservative opinion leader,” Feist continued, “he will add an important voice to CNN’s ideologically diverse group of political contributors.”
JohnR - March 16, 2010 | 11:21 am · Link
I’d like the Change.org thingy a whole lot better if it had the sexyhighheels pic attached. In fact, why not just make that your background? You could still have an American Flag lapel pin somewhere on the site if it’s important.
EdTheRed - March 16, 2010 | 11:34 am · Link
Someone needs to check on John…this Erick Son Of Erick news may have blown his head clean off, Dirty Harry-style.
The Grand Panjandrum - March 16, 2010 | 11:35 am · Link
@Brian J: Something quite poetic about the chief blogger at Red State going to work for the network that wingnuts often refer to as the Communist New Network. The material keeps writing itself.
Ash Can - March 16, 2010 | 11:37 am · Link
@cleek:
@Brian J:
LOL! CNN got messily eviscerated in the comments, then closed the comments for the article. Poor delicate things.
FreeAtLast - March 16, 2010 | 11:38 am · Link
@cleek: To save anyone else the trouble of going to RedState, I can report that in his announcement, Erick informs us that in his new endeavor he is doing god’s work.
Brian J - March 16, 2010 | 11:39 am · Link
@The Grand Panjandrum:
It’s kind of like Bill Kristol claiming that The New York Times should be prosecuted for treason but then accepting checks as he wrote bad columns for its Op/Ed pages. Apparently, his desire for money outweighed his uber-patriotism.
The Grand Panjandrum - March 16, 2010 | 11:45 am · Link
@cleek: @Brian J: Which wingnut will lead the mail-in protest to Erick son of Erick for appearing on the godless Communist News Network? Maybe they can send him boxes of Massengill?
Ash Can - March 16, 2010 | 11:45 am · Link
If the comments on CNN’s announcement are at all representative of the network’s audience, CNN has well and truly rogered itself for the 7PM slot. It should be interesting to see what kind of ratings result from this little stunt.
Citizen_X - March 16, 2010 | 11:48 am · Link
That’s all well and good, John, but will this widget make me look Great in Sexy High Heels?
jibeaux - March 16, 2010 | 11:58 am · Link
“John King, USA”?
This is a show title?
And people say we’re getting dumber.
Bad Horse's Filly - March 16, 2010 | 12:48 pm · Link
so I hope it is not to harsh on the eyes for you delicate flowers who manage to complain about literally
Somehow, I don’t think that was an invitation to complain about everything. But what do I know?
Ecks - March 16, 2010 | 1:32 pm · Link
Kickbacks to BJ are all well and nice, but who is paying them? Is this money from corporations trying to whore out influence (which is awesome to skim), or from individual people trying to do-good (not so ok)?
JohnR - March 16, 2010 | 5:37 pm · Link
@Bad Horse’s Filly:
It wasn’t? Goodness gracious me! I completely misread it..
metalgirl - March 16, 2010 | 5:53 pm · Link
Thanks for adding this! It will be useful to readers and we’ll be helping B-J too!
Parole Officer Burke - March 16, 2010 | 7:12 pm · Link
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.