If this picture (from Reddit, click to embiggen) doesn’t give you your morning dose of schadenfreude, then perhaps Conor Friedersdorf’s collection of various right wing heroes (Erik son of Erik, Coulter) throwing Palin under the bus might do it for you.
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Southern Beale
This doesn’t bode well…
Steerpike
I saw a display rack of “in my Time” at the grocery store yesterday marked down 40%, and I wondered if the ink was even dry yet…
Montysano
Hunter S. Thompson in The Great Shark Hunt, speaking of Pat Buchanan ( a role model for political grifters everywhere).
jibeaux
I like the comment that it would be a very safe place to store money and valuables, if you hollowed out (further) the inside.
Mark S.
@Southern Beale:
Shit, I’ve got family in southern France.
This says it’s in the Gard region.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Southern Beale: n explosion has rocked a nuclear plant in southern France on Monday, the French nuclear safety body said, according to the Associated Press.
There has been no contamination from the explosion, French police said.
One person was killed and three people were injured, including one seriously, local newspaper the Midi Libre reported, according to an AFP news agency report. The accident happened at a processing center for nuclear waste, the report said.
The Marcoule site is located in Langedoc Roussillon, in southern France, near the Mediterranean Sea.
Mark S.
Don’t worry, Sarah’s already plotting her comeback tour.
Ash Can
Schadenfreude? Meh. Now, if this were to mean that the press would start ignoring her and she were to return to the trailer parks of
AlaskaArizona, never to be quoted or featured in the national news media again, that would be something worth cheering for.zmulls
I wish we all would stop taking such cheap shots. There are plenty of perfectly good reasons to disparage and ridicule Sarah Palin, and she deserves all of them.
But this is an unfair photo. Borders, as you all know, is liquidating, and has been having an “everything must go” sale for the last several weeks, and they are now at the 90% off stage. *Everything* in the store is 90% off. Not just the Sarah Palin book.
This picture seems to imply “Hah, nobody wants to buy her stinkin’ book, it’s already 90% off!” Can we at least confine ourselves to actual data?
sb
Quickie poll: does anyone know a person who paid full price for a Palin book? I know friends who have bought books by wingnuts (O’Reilly, Hannity, Coulter) but I don’t have a soul in my life who forked over $25 for the prose of Palin.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@zmulls: “seems to imply”. sheesh
RosiesDad
At $2.59, still to expensive to use as cat litter. Which reminds me of the old Robin Williams line, “The Sarah Palin book? I can’t even get my cat to shit on it.”
RosiesDad
@efgoldman:
Sad but true. And on that, I wonder what, if anything “I’m Not a Witch” got as advance for her comic book?
dmsilev
@zmulls: True, but. The but is that by the time Borders or any liquidating store gets to the 90% off stage, all that’s left is stuff that they couldn’t sell at prices closer to list. All the meat is gone, and what’s left are the odd bits and pieces that the scavengers didn’t want. That this Borders has a whole table full of copies of Palin’s book says that there were few if any buyers at more modest discounts.
lol
@zmulls:
At this point, the only stuff left at Borders is the crap that no one wants at any price.
PeakVT
Marcoule, the site of the explosion, is sort of the French equivalent of the Hanford Site, the Savannah Rive Site, and the Idaho National Laboratory. It’s where the French plutonium production reactors were, and there are still two small-ish heavy water reactors that are operational (though I don’t know if they’ve actually been operating recently).
Litlebritdifrnt
OT anyone else having a problem with twitter this morning or is it just my ‘puter going all weird again?
Southern Beale
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
Thanks, I hadn’t heard any more about that event except CBS News’ tweet.
So I also saw that The Undefeated is on Cinemax now, sandwiched between all of the soft-core porn. Guess that movie didn’t break any records. Sarah Palin is the biggest fail out there. But you know, she WILL be running for president forever. She is not going away.
Southern Beale
@Litlebritdifrnt:
It’s just you.
HeartlandLiberal
In my youth in the fifties we would visit my father’s mother, who lived until the early 60’s, alone in her old age, on the old family farm in the middle of nowhere in Alabama. The road by the house was not paved until the mid-1980’s.
We boys who were growing up with amenities like indoor plumbing learned to draw well water, and when the time came, to make the trek behind the house to the little outhouse that straddled the brook.
The Sears Roebuck catalog always had a place of honor in that house.
These books by Sarah Palin would serve the same purpose very well, I think.
PurpleGirl
@zmulls: Ah, but I saw a paperback copy of Going Rogue at my local grocery store in a remaindered bin for $7.00. And the price sticker was a commercially printed one with the price and bar code, so her books are being returned from some where and sold at deep discount.
bemused
@Montysano:
Sarah looks like she has run out of rocks to roll. If there is anything she could do to reboot her money train, I’m not seeing it.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: yup, that’s true.
Amir Khalid
Is there sales data for In My Time? What does it say? Are right-wing organizations still buying the book in bulk, as they do to make their politicos look good? Or are they ignoring it?
zmulls
@Purple Girl
That’s more like it. I’d gladly indulge in schadenfreunde if I saw piles heavily discounted copies at a store where other books were selling for full price.
(For the record, I believe that her book is selling poorly, at least far worse than she expected, and is only selling copies to the dwindling faithful. I just think taking a shot from a liquidation sale is the sort of out-of-context journalism we associate with Fox News. That’s their sort of trick)
RosiesDad
@zmulls: At Amazon, 159 new copies from $0.98. And nearly 200 used copies for as little as 1 red cent (plus $3.99 S&H).
Southern Beale
Republicans are craven political opportunists. I know, y’all are shocked.
Sam Houston
http://www.novelrank.com/asin/0062010964
ant
@HeartlandLiberal:
So ya’ll just shit in the brook?
GregB
You liebrals will not be laughing when St. Sarah rises from the ashes of the bonfire of the Hannity’s and swoops in to ride a flaming phoenix of victory into the White House.
No one bill be mocking Sarah then!
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@RosiesDad: Speaking of cats, watch this interview with the Coastal Carolina football coach!
shpx.ohfu
Trailer park? Have you seen the palatial digs she put up with the cash she grifted from the rubes?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Southern Beale:
Thanks now to figure out how to fix it.
jibeaux
@zmulls: I went to our local Borders closing sale when it was just down to 50 to 75% off. The bookshelves, racks, etc. were all sold, including many that you couldn’t figure out how they’d be practical in a person’s home (do you have a good spot for a triangular display with books on both sides?), and there were very few books left. Slim, slim pickings. The fact that there are so many copies of that book left at 90% off is not misleading. I guarantee you there’s no other book in that store with half as many copies left.
ET
Doonesbury is apparently doing a whole series on Palin with McGinnis input in the lead up to his book going on sale.
Hal
Wait, Palin “wrote” two books?
Also, it’s always been fascinating to me how much less women like Palin then men. Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan were some of her early critics on the GOP side. She has always been buoyed by the support of GOP men far more than women.
mk3872
Someone would actually pay $2.59 for the book??
Wasn’t the majority of the sales for her book actually from right-wing media & FreedomWorks giving the book away for FREE ??
EconWatcher
Palin never really scared me, because I couldn’t picture her ever actually ending up in the driver’s seat.
Rick Perry scares me more. But I think the impact of the social security stuff has not really registered yet. And unless the law of gravity in American politics have been repealed, that should be his undoing.
butler
Having been back to borders several times in the last few weeks, I can tell you that Palin’s tome was not the only right wing screed still available in mass quantities for a low low price.
The “Political” book section (a term which pisses me off because they are 95% right wing propaganda and there isn’t an actual work of political science or policy analysis to be found) was well stocked with all your right wing favorites despite having the largest markdown and the rest of the store being picked bare. It was almost enlightening to know that there are so many different ways to write a book that says “Fuck Obama, that (traitor/socialist/muslim/hippie/asshole)”.
Also available for your home collection/litter box: plenty of Scott Brown’s book.
Rommney’s book went quick, but it was already in the bargain section before the liquidation. 50% off of 75% off is almost too good to resist. Almost.
dmsilev
@ET:
The local rag isn’t running Doonesbury this week because it “violates our standards of fairness”. I must have missed the memo that said comics have to be fair.
handsmile
My thanks to Southern Beale for alerting us to the French nuclear plant explosion, and to Raven and PeakVT for additional information. Occurring just one day after the six-month anniversary of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami and the resulting Fukushima catastrophe, this story may have a poignancy that compels close attention to updated government reports on plant conditions and contamination risks.
On the subject of the Half-Term Governor, British documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield presented his latest work, “You Betcha!” at the Toronto Film Festival last week. Broomfield travelled to Wasilla to interview family and friends, classmates and colleagues of the town’s most famous Quittah.
Here is the Guardian’s review of the film: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/10/sarah-palin-you-betcha
Attached to the review is a file with film excerpts and a mordant interview with Broomfield for your delectation.
ppcli
@PurpleGirl:
This seems like a good time to make sure everyone is familiar with perhaps the greatest schadenfreude poem of all time – Clive James’ “The Book of my Enemy has been Remaindered”:
http://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/bookofmyenemy.html
jibeaux
@ppcli: Now that is a great poem.
gene108
@Southern Beale: What’s funny about the House R’s saying India doesn’t care the wood’s being exported, is from what I’ve read, Gibson got into trouble from woods exported from Madagascar and not India.
If there are rose wood or sandal wood or whatever plantations in India, which can grow these trees and export them, I don’t see the issue.
In Madagascar the issue is more about rampant deforestation and the potential extinction of plant species from the Earth.
I feel Republicans need to (re)read Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, with regards to sustainable forestry.
Southern Beale
@gene108:
The raid in 2009 was wood from Madagascar. The raid this year was India.
They are conveniently overlooking that 2009 raid because it doesn’t gel with their “we’ve been doing this for 17 years and no one had a problem until now” storyline.
It’s horribly dishonest. The Republicans all voted against the 2008 farm bill which amended the Lacey Act to include wood products. Bush even vetoed it. So they know damn well WHY there wasn’t a problem before … the law was changed! They’re trying to make it look like capricious retribution, it’s horrible spin and I’m really angry at those musicians who are saying “yeah who needs stinking endangered species anyway?”
The media reporting on this story has been awful … as usual.
Violet
@zmulls:
How about an eyewitness account where Sarah Palin’s books at Borders appear in Politics, Bestsellers, Religion and some category like “Family” or something like that, and in all categories seemed to be the most numerous of any specific book. In other words, they’re everywhere at Borders and the numbers of them seem to be far larger than of any other book.
Perhaps Borders just overbought and they’re selling well, or perhaps Borders bought based on her last book and could hardly give them away. And there are articles like this from December, 2010:
Southern Beale
@mk3872:
I think if you signed up for a Human Events subscription you got it free.
Wingnut welfare, we call it.
ppcli
@dmsilev: Perhaps they meant “violates our standards of “fair and balanced” -ness:
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/archive/2011/09/08
zmulls
@ppcli:
That is awesome. I need a cigarette.
Ash Can
@shpx.ohfu: Trailer park is as trailer park does. ;)
gene108
@gene108:
I would like to add (hahaha) that we don’t know, if Gibson got these woods through poached sources or from legal operations.
I don’t know what information the Feds are acting on in this case, but I don’t think jumping the gun and either assuming Gibson’s dirty or politicizing it by saying Obama’s trying to destroy America’s right to rock and create jobs is productive.
When the government wants to bear down on someone, with every detail in the law, they can probably screw over 9 out of 10 Americans, whether it is on taxes, privacy rights, or other aspects of the law.
We exist in a country where laws (generally) are loosely applied and to strictly apply it can cause a huge, sudden shift, in how business gets done and puts businesses at a sudden disadvantage because of governments, seemingly, arbitrary actions.
PurpleGirl
@ppcli: LOL. Thanks for the link.
Gin & Tonic
@Hal:
I’ve said before, those guys all view themselves in the Henry Higgins role.
RosiesDad
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): That was awesome.
Han's Big Snark Solo
I wonder if whoever it was that actually wrote the book is embarrassed about this. Is it his/her fault the book bombed so badly? Is it poor writing that doomed the screed or Sarah’s flailing popularity?
These wingnut books are fairly interchangeable. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there is a hoard of such rightwing books pre-written lacking only an “author” to assign the book to.
wasabi gasp
At this price, picking up ten copies for each teabagger you know sounds like a very reasonable and highly disappointing Christmas gift. Don’t forget to not remove the price tags.
Linda Featheringill
@ppcli:
Fun poem. Thanks for the morning smile.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: OT, but weren’t you asking about brunch in PVD?
dmsilev
@efgoldman: Chicago Tribune, and thankfully they’ve spared their readership the pain of even glancing at The Duck.
Judas Escargot
@Southern Beale:
I remember reading about that raid on Gibson and half wondering if conservatives would start boycotting Fender, because, obviously, Obama must be a Fender man.
jwest
Some liberals have risen above the pettiness of taking cheap shots at Palin and have actually started looking at her record and policies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/us/10iht-currents10.html?_r=3
Of course, real progressives should ignore any actual information and continue to disparage anyone who they can characterize as “trailer park”.
Nutella
That link to Friedersdorf. Ugh.
The dictionary’s got his picture to illustrate their entry for “sophomoric”.
To his credit, though, he does know the correct usage of the word loath.
Amir Khalid
@jwest:
These observations might make Sarah Palin an astute critic of government in America, if there were anything new or original about them. But other people have been saying such things for decades, since well before Palin was born. And where in the story is she reported as having particular knowledge of issues facing a president and some insight on how to address them? These are what would actually qualify her for that office, and what she was so deficient in — both during the 2008 campaign, and since.
gene108
On the Gibson issue, I think I’m on the side of Gibson.
Seems they got caught in violation of a relatively new law and then looked to a supplier, who would conform to the new law.
Stripping them of their inventory is really, really a low blow by the government, because it is effectively shuttering Gibson’s production ability, with those materials, until however long the government feels it needs to take to sort through things.
It’s not like the wood’s going to get replanted anytime soon, so I don’t see the benefit of stripping Gibson of its inventory. Seems heavy handed to me.
kindness
Even at $2.59 that book is over-priced. I wouldn’t buy it.
They should ship it north & give it away for people to use as starter fuel for their fireplaces this winter.
jwest
Amir,
What most liberals miss in their evaluation of Palin is that she not only speaks of a different form of citizen-based populism, but she practiced it throughout her public career.
Fighting against crony capitalism and corruption in her own party for the good of the people in her state places Palin in a unique category of politicians totally devoid of Democrats.
Southern Beale
@gene108:
That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. The point of taking the inventory is a) IT’S EVIDENCE – there can be no prosecution without evidence, and b) if you say “oh well, bygones!” then there’s no point in having the law to begin with, is there? Everyone will just say “Oh woopsies I had NO idea, sorry!” and they’ll keep doing what they’ve been doing.
This was the SECOND time Gibson was raided. They were first raided in 2009, in a completely different case. It’s kind of hard for them to claim they didn’t know about the new law when they’ve already been busted once before.
mellowjohn
@Southern Beale: sweet jeebuz, what a great skinemax double feature that would make: “the undefeated” and “who’s nailin’ palin.”
Amir Khalid
@jwest:
Your characterization of Sarah Palin as a fighter against crony capitalism and corruption doesn’t quite gibe with what I know of her. I am aware, for instance, of the dubious claims she made for per diem living expenses and travel, as well as the vendetta she conducted from the governor’s office against her former brother-in-law the state trooper. It is hypocrisy to rail against crony capitalism and corruption while taking personal advantage of public office, as Palin did.
Lojasmo
@jwest:
If you had actually read the article, you would have recognized that the only cogent passages were penned by the author.
The quotes from Palin were her regular word salad grifter snowbily bullshit.
Palin is a moron. Every American who ever bought into her fluff is a moron, including you, jwest. Go fluff Ron Paul. Palin is done.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@jwest: I like the part of her record where she skipped out on half of her elected term as Alaska Governor so she could be a reality TV star. A real progressive should see nothing wrong with shirking your duties to chase after a quick buck, at least by jwest’s definition of the word.
Amir Khalid
@Judas Escargot:
Well, one of the most prominent musicians among his supporters is definitely a Fender man.
mellowjohn
@dmsilev: yeah, but they still had some really bad news on their op ed page today: “Charles Krauthammer will return next week.”
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@jwest: Yeah, Palin was really taking the fight to corruption and cronyism when she gave up her position as Governor in favor of the much more efficacious position of randomly wandering the country in her bus in between seasons of her show. Who cares about executive power when you could be doing a crossover with Kate Gosselin instead?
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
should be musicians. FYWP refused to accept my correction.
harlana
@Southern Beale: For a second there, thought you said you saw The Undefeated; I was gonna give you a medal for bravery.
srv
You know, at that price, I think it’s cheaper than toilet paper.
gene108
@Southern Beale:
They did know about the law and went to a different supplier, which seems to be a legit supplier.
Financial Times summary of the case. The quote from the Indian supplier, seems to me to be what pushes my opinion in Gibson’s favor.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c993759c-d01f-11e0-81e2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1XkUEOoOS
If Exotic Woods Co. was dirty, why not shut those guys down? Seems to me, if the Feds are looking to strictly enforce the Lacey Act, they’d take out the suppliers first, if they have enough evidence for a warrant against Gibson, why not Exotic Woods Co.?
Trees can be grown in a sustainable manner. Even “exotic” woods can be grown, so you don’t kill off ecosystems.
It seems one pallet got flagged and some over eager government folks decided to make a big issue of the whole thing.
The presumption of guilt against corporations is a bit much in this case.
Bills of lading, shipping records, etc. would be evidence to prove, if the goods were shipped or purchased illegally.
A pile of wood is a pile of wood and without documents to prove its origin and ownership, through the shipping process, it really isn’t going to do much good to prove things either way.
If this ever goes to trial, I doubt the Feds are going to wheel in pallets of wood into the courthouse.
The only thing it may prevent Gibson from doing is saying they never received the wood, which at this point can clearly be established by photos or taking samples of the inventory, without having to scoop up the entire inventory.
Southern Beale
@gene108:
Um, no. If it’s done illegally then those things IF THEY EXIST only tell part of the story. And they don’t help in this case, in which the charge is that illegal wood in question was supposedly “laundered” through India, misidentified as legal wood when it wasn’t.
And Gibson hasn’t shut down, they are open for business and selling guitars. This is the second time they’ve been caught dealing in illegal wood and they’re crying for the whaambulance. Not feeling it.
Oh and that FT article was horribly slanted to Gibson. This:
Well that’s one way of putting it, the other way being this is standard issue smuggling procedure.
Lojasmo
@gene108:
If I import a car illegally, the government will confiscate and crush it. Why should Gibson be given preferential treatment?
Frankensteinbeck
Unpronounceable Name @ 34:
This is the source of my (admittedly unadmirable) cruel joy. Palin is a *short-sighted* grifter who thinks the money train will never end. I expect a rags-to-riches-to-rags story as she spends this money on luxury she eventually can’t afford, and gets grifted herself repeatedly. I grew up surrounded by trailer trash with a vast sense of entitlement. They like to spend.
gene108
@Southern Beale:
And a warehouse full of wood is going to prove things about its origin that legal documents can’t?
They took a big loss by having their entire inventory of these woods confiscated. I don’t how well they are doing, but this is the sort of thing that can push a struggling business over the edge and either out of business or to move operations out of the U.S.
No charges are pressed, therefore Gibson is presumed innocent.
The presumption of guilt by folks, without the government winning a verdict against Gibson in court is un-American.
The Feds go off the deep end enough of the time, with regards to charging people with illegal activities, that I think a dose of skepticism about any DoJ prosecution – under any Administration – is healthy.
Exotic Woods Co. has an office in Sicklerville, NJ (from their website) and warehouses in NJ and PA.
Why haven’t these warehouses been raided, if these guys are shipping illegal imports to Gibson?
That part of it just doesn’t add up.
Maybe there’s a guy at the Forest service or whichever department that got the warrant, who is a major Fender lover and wants Gibson out of business.
kindness
@gene108: Seriously dude, what are you even arguing?
The law states that shipping finished wood products (like vaneer wood or wood that has been sanded, stained and laceured is legal. The idea is that the people of India increase the value of the raw wood and make money off it. Raw wood is illegal to be shipped (this exotic raw wood that is). The shipment manifest was fraudulently labeled finished wood.
Any you seem to think Gibson is OK because they have people in other parts of the world willing to lie for them? What kind of a moran are you anyhow?
Here’s the thing. You can get ebony & mahogony from other countries legally. Just not from India. Some folk feel those other countries raw wood isn’t as good as the Indian stuff. So honestly, your suggestion that Gibson is OK and that the US is the bad guy is complete and utter bullshit. just like your reasoning. Well Played there….well played.
RalfW
@efgoldman:
Yep.
I’m all for fact-based argument when it comes to policy. When it comes to lying liars and the lying lies they lie about, well, turnabout and all that.
gene108
@Lojasmo:
If you buy a car from a car dealer, who sells imported cars to many people in America, why should assume the car has been imported illegally?
Why would the government go after you and no that car dealer, if they found your car imported illegally?
I just don’t think Gibson is the bad guy in this. I think they didn’t catch up on the new law in 2009 and tried to make sure they were compliant, by changing where they got their woods from.
@Southern Beale:
As opposed ebony and rose wood plantations operating legally in India, where the wood should be coming from? The government has yet to prove anything, so I don’t understand the rush to condemn Gibson.
A pallet of ebony wood didn’t have the right shipping information on it, when it was inspected by customs.
That’s about all the info that’s out there about Gibson’s guilt in this matter.
The government may have grounds to have suspicion of illegal activity based on this, but I think there are better ways of handling this, than some sort of high profile raid.
Think about enforcing immigration law.
What good is a high profile raid on a plant, where you round up everybody, who doesn’t look American versus solving actual issues of employment verification?
It’s the wrong action to solve the problem at hand or supposed problem at hand, in Gibson’s case..
Link
goblue72
The day I lose a moment of sleep over punching a right-winger below the belt is the day I need to get my head examined.
Samara Morgan
mixie, she is still a base favorite. Hot Air and Ace posts over a thousand comments.
the conservative elite doan liek her, big whup….the base has the votes.
Conor once wrote a post called snowmobile wreck.
all gone down the memoryhole with the rest of Culture 11.
Conor is still a glibertarian–hes diddling you from the front on Palin while he fists you with the “freed” market and “divided” government from behind.
dumbass cudlip.
you chew that kumbayah cud.
djork
Re: Gibson–
Who cares? Gibsons have sucked for awhile. They should put them in jail for pissing all over the name of a good American company by overcharging for shoddy workmanship.
Signed,
A Fender Guy who once owned a Les Paul, but those fuckers are too heavy.
Elie
@efgoldman:
I totally agree — she is a mean girl and sends out a vibe that most women will despise…
I always knew she would end up here. There is nothing there and nobody home. She was entirely a media creation and now her fall will also be used for entertainment.
If she saved all that dough, she should live a comfortable but obscure existence again. If she doesnt get the message that the “Grift Train” has pulled out of the station, and attempts to run after it, we may have the opportunity to see a very flashy ride down…
Lol
I’m not on a jury so I don’t have to be impartial. Lying aboun the contents of a shipment and taking extraordinary steps to conceal the origin and destination of a shipment screams “smuggling” to me.
We don’t cut Nike or other clothing brands slack because it was “only” their 3rd world suppliers using sweat shop/child labor so why should Gibson receive any here?
DFH no.6
Is this thread still about the snowbilly grifter?
Among my Teahadist co-workers (who are legion) Palin is now considered “unelectable”. Most of them say this with some sadness, and blame the “lamestream media”, not sister Sarah herself.
One, a sales dude, confided in me that, despite his initial enthusiasm, he now recognizes that she is completely unqualified for any high office, and always has been. He’s less critical of her “grifting”, telling me that if that’s how she can make a pile of money, then good for her (and I agree with him, considering that money is coming from the rubes).
He’s also glad she appears to be drifting away on the national scene, and further expects his fellow Republicans to “come to their senses” and nominate Romney to oppose Obama (he sees Bachmann as nothing more than a Palin-clone, and just as unqualified).
Most of the others are chomping at the bit for a W reprisal in Perry (they not only do not accept at all that W’s was a failed presidency, but instead believe he was one of our best presidents!).
That’s the current view from the fascist base in my neck of the woods.
kindness
@djork: If a standard Les Paul is too heavy for you (20 lbs) then get a Les Paul Jr. The Strat is an excellent guitar but there are tones a Les Paul can make that you can’t make on a Strat. Gibson still makes a fine product.
Why no one is talking about no-one being able to use real rosewood for the fret board in this thread, I can’t figure.
Davis X. Machina
We never have these problem with bodhrans.
Catsy
@zmulls:
You appear to have mistaken humor for an argument involving facts and data.
@GregB:
That is an outstanding line.
Glen Tomkins
I feel cheated.
When the price was $25.99, I could save $25.99 by not buying this turkey. Now I save only $2.59 by not buying this turkey.
They cheated me out of $23.40!
gene108
@Lol:
Please show me where anyone lied about the contents or origin of the shipment?
The best I could come up with was an article from Australia, which states the wood was allegedly sawn and Indian export laws don’t allow for sawn ebony wood to be exported. It didn’t say the wood was harvested illegally from India and shipped to the U.S.
Link
Why the destination wasn’t marked on the shipment can be anywhere from some super secret nefarious plot by Gibson to smuggle in rare woods, when they could get the same wood legally from plantations in India, to a guy in a warehouse/shipping department screwing up.
I don’t know what seems more likely, but I’ll let the reader decide.
John Weiss
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Gods that’s weird.
brad
Our local Borders closed (sign of the times), and there were plenty of Palin books still available. Also, too, a book called “the source of Obama’s rage” by D’nesh D’dickwad. I laughed when read the title.
djork
@kindness:
Sorry, but Gibsons are horribly, horribly overpriced. A decent new Les Paul is over 2 grand these days and any new Les Paul cheaper than that is likely made from wood scraps glued togther. (So I’ve been told by friends that worked at Gibson.) I find it hard to believe that Gibson can’t make a solid Les Paul for well under their current pricing scheme.
And, it’s not just a weight issue. I’m not the biggest fan of neck-through bodies and humbuckers anyway. They just don’t have the spank that I like from an electric. I already have an Epi Casino, so I’ve got the P90 sound covered, which negates wanting a Junior.
As you can tell, I think the Telecaster is the alpha and omega of the electric guitar. :)
Intercalation
@gene108: Jesus, dude, you really are credulous, aren’t you?
gene108
@Intercalation:
Why do you think the government cannot act badly in the use of its police powers?
And you call me credulous.
Intercalation
I don’t have to believe anything like the opinion you’re trying to put in my mouth to see you putting in a lot of work to imagine a series of events that separates Gibson from its responsibilities under the law. And ultimately, they are responsible here. If their suppliers aren’t in compliance, then they need to hold their feet to the fire or look elsewhere. If it’s just that their shipping procedures aren’t in compliance, then they need to delay receiving the shipment until the proper documentation can be provided.
In the course of our business we do some international shipping and receiving, and I’ve had to deal with similar issues. Perhaps Gibson is just staffed with profoundly incompetent people, but that’s not a valid defense for breaking the law here and they are apparently suffering the consequences of that incompetence.
Jeffro
@wasabi gasp: You know, that is a darned good idea…I guess I know where I will be stopping by this weekend!
(maybe a few graphic novels or tpb collections too, you never know…)
gene108
@Intercalation:
It maybe incompetence or some other form of negligence, but the theory floated by some that Gibson is in some sort of nefarious smuggling operation that is in gross violation of U.S. law just doesn’t seem to match up with the facts as presented so far.
Southern Beale’s blog post on her blog raised issues about the environmental impacts of poaching. I agree poaching has serious consequences to endangered plants and animals.
There’s no reason for Gibson to obtain these woods from poached sources, when they can obtain them legally from growers overseas.
They are importing something, which is not contraband in this country, as long as you are obtaining it from reputable sources.
There seems to be a rush to judgement against Gibson, without knowing much about what’s happening.
There aren’t a whole lot of facts out right now.
The government HAS NOT CHARGED Gibson with any violation of the law yet and people are already declaring Gibson guilty.
I think that’s presumptuous, without enough information out there to really make anything more than wild speculation as to what happened.
VOR
No surprise that the mean girl brigade would start dumping on Palin. After all, Ingraham and Coulter’s niche is to be the hot conservative woman who says “controversial” (i.e. mean-spirited) things. Palin is cutting in on their speaking engagements and book sales (ok, bulk purchases by conservative groups), stealing not just their thunder but their money.