From the Annals of Improbable Research file, in the Washington Post, “Americans aren’t getting married, and researchers think porn is part of the problem“:
… A team of researchers, who published their findings in The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Germany, determined that the rise of free Internet pornography is not only correlated with a pronounced decline in percentage of young adult males who are married, but might actually be contributing to the trend…
Broadly, higher Internet usage was associated with lower marriage rates. But pornography use in particular was more closely linked to those participants who were not married than any other form of Internet use, including regular use of financial websites, news websites, sports websites, and several others. The opposite, for comparison, was true for religious website use, which was positively correlated with marriage…
Apart from offering everybody involved a wet wipe, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the evening?
Baud
I think I may have an idea for boosting unionization rates in the U.S.
CrustyDem
I think they have that correlation backwards…
Steeplejack
Repeated from below:
For anyone who gets the Eurotrash micro-channel MHz on their cable system, I will once again recommend the excellent Italian crime series Inspector Montalbano, which is getting a marathon this week: episodes (in order) at 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. EST every night (repeated at midnight and 2:00 a.m.). Great scenery (Sicily), good acting and better than average scripts. And good food! The first episode is on now.
Baud
@CrustyDem:
Do correlations have directions?
dedc79
@Steeplejack: Love those books – didn’t even realize there were television adaptations.
Heliopause
Wow. These refs are doing everything in their power to throw this to the Cards. Recent example; Card center moves the ball up a full foot when he grabs it, Seahawks get called for lining up in the neutral zone. Twice in a row. I mean, Jesus, it’s high school level trickery — on the refs.
jl
” Roberto A. Ferdman is a reporter for Wonkblog covering food, economics, immigration and other things. ”
Maybe he should stick to ‘other things’.
Young adults have been slammed economically since the 2007 recession and consequent financial panic, and throughout the recovery that has been until how totally crummy and stinko for vast majority of the population, and even now have unreliable few monthly indicators of increased wages and serious job growth (monthly indicators that have given false signals before of the last few years BTW). They don’t have secure career or entrepreneurial futures and resulting economic security. Maybe free porno explains why they are not buying as many cares or single family homes as expected too.
My opinion is that, well, anything free and and better than nothing will be popular among people who do not have much money. I would guess that includes free internet porn.
TriassicSands
I’m going to spend some time this and every other evening hoping that if Dick Cheney ever sets foot outside of the US again, he will be snatched up and delivered to the International Criminal Court for trial as a war criminal. Otherwise, I’d be satisfied with his demise from natural causes — the sooner the better. The death of few Americans would be cause for the riotous celebration that the death of Cheney would warrant. If anyone ever doubted that Cheney is a murderous sociopath, this exchange should be sufficient to erase that doubt:
CHUCK TODD: Let me go to Gul Rahman. He was chained to the wall of his cell, doused with water, froze to death in C.I.A. custody. And it turned out it was a case of mistaken identity.
DICK CHENEY: –right. But the problem I had is with the folks that we did release that end up back on the battlefield. […] I’m more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent.
CHUCK TODD: 25% of the detainees though, 25% turned out to be innocent. They were released.
DICK CHENEY: Where are you going to draw the line, Chuck? How are– […]
CHUCK TODD: Is that too high? You’re okay with that margin for error?
DICK CHENEY: I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective.
Shorter Dick Cheney — there is no limit to the number of innocent people I would gladly torture if it meant we could get even a single guilty person.
jl
I think FYWP ate my snarky comment and no time to resnark.
Did the study look at economic reasons that young peope aren’t getting married, or buying as many cars or durable goods, or single family homes as expected? Many more than previous generations do not have secure employment futures, do not have high paying jobs and do not have as much money as in the past.
So, anything free and better than nothing will be popular. maybe free internet pron explains lower than expected auto, durable goods, and single family home sales?
MattF
Set up a humidifier in my bedroom (Honeywell evaportative). We’ll see if it helps with the dry eyes and dry skin.
lamh36
Sitting here watching ABC airing the Sound of Music sing-along version.
If ya didn’t know, now ya know, Sound of Music is like my favorite movie musical ever.
If there was a way for me to see a Broadway production of it, I’d pay to see it.
Saw it as a teen and have loved it ever since.
My sister all look at me like I crazy though…lol
jl
@TriassicSands: If Cheney was given free reign, his 99% doctrine would begin to include most of us. “Where do you draw the line.” Well, how about at not abusing or keeping imprisoned, who have been shown beyond any reasonable doubt to be innocent? I speculate that Cheney would trot out a new 99.99% doctrine.
Tree With Water
I knew it! Ed Meese was right!
BGinCHI
Cole is not married.
Draw your own conclusions.
Just Some Fuckhead
Jesus, I got stuck in the Wayback Machine and spent the last three hours reading old Balloon Juice comment threads. A lot of shit has happened in 10 years.
I don’t want to alarm anyone but someone may be murdering Balloon Juice commenters.
BGinCHI
@Just Some Fuckhead: I sense a made-for-TV movie coming out of this.
John Schuck as John Cole.
Woodrowfan
@Steeplejack: is there nudity? (just keeping the the post’s theme)
jl
@BGinCHI:
” Draw your own conclusions.”
I never believed that Warcrack stuff either.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
We put the leash and harness on Charlotte and let her wander around the living room/den for a while. I would call it a qualified success — she only hissed once, I think at a piece of furniture, and decided on her own that she’d had enough and retreated back to her room. The other cats gave her a lot of space, but I’m not sure if that was because they’re still wary of her or because she had a long red string coming out of her back. We’ll try another session tomorrow night.
BGinCHI
@jl: Euphemisms, how do they work?
JPL
@Just Some Fuckhead: You could post the names and we could do some research. Of course, you’d have to post all the aliases, too. For example, Doug goes by many names. btw.. How’s Laura?
jl
@Just Some Fuckhead:
” I don’t want to alarm anyone but someone may be murdering Balloon Juice commenters. ”
We Balloon-Juice commenters are not spring chickens anymore, by cracky.
Look for belts with onion holders cloud megaphones in the BJ gear shop near you soon.
Botsplainer
Me suspects that Deutschebank (or its retainers) may have a role in funding the study.
Pointing out the negative economic consequences of austerity for those not in a position of primacy in the status quo is bad for the self-image of austerians.
sharl
@Just Some Fuckhead: “
Jack Anderson was a bad manThose commenters were bad people who deserved to die.”….–Mrs. Falbo*
*Link to video only for reference purposes; audio quality really sucks.
Yatsuno
@JPL: I think he’s just solidifying evidence that we are all DougJ now.
Steeplejack
@dedc79:
Luca Zingaretti doesn’t look anything like the Montalbano described in the books, but the series is very faithful to the “vibe” of the Andrea Camilleri novels—at least the two or three I read.
The series is also available on DVD in three-packs for $20-25.
I would compare the show to Foyle’s War: a great gallery of continuing characters, interesting stories, and, like Foyle, Montalbano is a keen mind with a distinctive style.
lamh36
@efgoldman: don’t matter what anyone says, I LOVE IT!
It is bittersweet though, when I remember Julie Andrews losing her range and no longer singing …
BGinCHI
@Yatsuno: Sometimes I do wonder whether it’s just me and Doug with the latter posting under all your names.
Chilling.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Oh noes, how undignified, poor Charlotte.
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: How do we know that you are not DougJ
BGinCHI
@lamh36: As compensation, she’s great as Gru’s mother in Despicable Me.
Villago Delenda Est
Clearly, correlation equals causation in this case.
Unlike so many others where it’s justly dismissed as bullshit.
MattF
@BGinCHI: Well, I’m not DougJ. Not today, anyway.
BGinCHI
@schrodinger’s cat: You don’t.
Now, can anyone think of their favorite song about covered bridges? Or reflex cameras?
Also I’m really good at math. 10 times 10? Not even a challenge. 100 times 10? Give me a sec.
BGinCHI
@MattF: Hah. Good one, Doug.
lamh36
@BGinCHI: oh she’s awesome in everything. I loved her in Princess Diaries (I have a young sister who loves those) and yes, she’s hilarious in Despicable Me
schrodinger's cat
They are going to air the Jewel in the Crown on Master Piece theater in January. I had a crush on the actor who plays Hari Kumar when I saw it the first time. Is anyone else going to watch it?
Heliopause
C’mon refs. It’s merely a 9:1 ratio of penalties right now. You can do better.
Steeplejack
@Woodrowfan:
There is the occasional tasteful nude shot, but no bunga-bunga (as Silvio Berlusconi would say). Nothing to prevent a young man from getting married.
BGinCHI
@lamh36: Too bad, son, NASA isn’t sending the monkeys any more….
jonas
@CrustyDem: Exactly my thought: cutting back on expenses and watching daytime TV may be responsible for unemployment?
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: Real mathematicians scoff at arithmetic, more proof that you are DougJ.
lamh36
@BGinCHI: lol “eh”…lol
BGinCHI
I think the krauts have it backwards. Now with easy to access porn why would anyone stay single?
Best of both worlds, I say.
PurpleGirl
@lamh36: Did you know that NBC did a live version of last night? Carrie Underwood did well as Maria, I thought. (My sister promised to take me to the stage play but then only bought me the cast album for my birthday. I was very disappointed.)
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Steeplejack:
An extremely pregnant Kristen Bell was on Craig Ferguson’s last show and he had a really funny line along the lines of, “Boom-boom, ooh-la-la, and next thing you know, you’re driving a minivan to school.”
schrodinger's cat
My plan for this winter, hibernation
BGinCHI
@schrodinger’s cat: I could never live in WNY again. Even if I had a sweet gig at U of Rochester and wore a lot of tweed blends.
I’m strictly a western shirt and jeans kind of guy in the classroom.
TheMightyTrowel
Checking out a house tomorrow… we weren’t going to start looking until Jan, but I was perusing the listings over the weekend and spotted a historic house with lots of land AND central heating (believe it or not that’s a huge problem in this nation’s fine capital) within our price range so…. Let’s hope this isn’t one of the ones with asbestos insulation. Ah australian builders.
lamh36
@PurpleGirl: God yes. Refused to watch it. Don’t like Carrie Underwood and her whole light country twang bothers me.
Instead I watch the DVD i have
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: One of my math profs used to dress like a homeless person, so a western shirt and jeans would be an improvement over that.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Steeplejack: I wish Netflix would get it. But it seems to me they are starting to walk away from foreign TV and movies and feeding us America, Fuck Yeah.(Big Underbelly Fan and a fan of Spiral) Oh the BBC has good shows, but C’mon.
Southern Beale
I think it’s the decline in the number of pirates, myself.
Seriously, I can think of a gazillion reasons why people wouldn’t get married and porn has to be way on the bottom of the list.
Southern Beale
@jl:
Pretty sure we draw the line at the Cheney family.
BGinCHI
@Mr Stagger Lee: LOVED Spiral. What is “Underbelly”?
Will look it up.
Did you see Happy Valley? See it. Also Peaky Blinders. Outrageously good.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
Watching “Christmas in Connecticut.” The romance is no great shakes, but Sydney Greenstreet and Barbara Stanwyck play off each other beautifully.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
I’m sorry to see Ferguson go. I discovered him only about a year ago and found him to be consistently funny and an excellent interviewer.
BGinCHI
@Steeplejack: Did you ever get a copy of my book?
Southern Beale
The season finale of “Homeland” was a buzzkill.
TriassicSands
@jl:
You’re already too late — it’s now the 99.9999999999999999999% program. One of the huge problems with Cheney’s approach (apart from its being monstrous and illegal) is that it will create dedicated terrorists out of people who might never have gotten involved. Dick Cheney — al Qaida’s best recruiter from 2001 to the present.
delk
I thought my gay marriage was the reason traditional marriage is doomed.
MomSense
@lamh36:
I was singing along here, too lamh36. Kids were teasing me because I know the whole thing including the choreography. Julie Andrews is brilliant.
Mr Stagger Lee
@BGinCHI: Peaky Blinders is good, almost finishing up, I will put happy Valley on the list. Underbelly is an Australian Crime Series, different stories per year, Netflix used to have 3 years on streaming, now it is down to one on DVD. I guess I could go to You Tube, but they are not a reliable source.
JCJ
@lamh36:
If you ever go to Salzburg you will have to take one of the “Sound of Music” tours. They show you places that were in the movie.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
I really hope you can sort this out with your cats and that harmony is restored.
schrodinger's cat
@Southern Beale: Is Homeland still on? I liked the first season of Homeland, it lost me somewhere in the second season. I no longer cared for the twisted love story of Carrie and Brodie
schrodinger's cat
@MomSense: How is your new kitten?
BGinCHI
@Mr Stagger Lee: Crap. We only do streaming.
Southern Beale
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, Brody died at the end of season 2 so this season was Brody-free, except for one brief flashback scene. I think this season was far superior to last season. But the finale seemed … I dunno, somehow muted or something. Definitely more subtle than last season’s finale.
BGinCHI
@Mr Stagger Lee: We also liked Dicte. Danish show. Worth a look.
BGinCHI
Typical BJ thread: no interest in puerile nudity but lots of info on musicals, quality crime drama, and fuck Dick Cheney.
lamh36
@JCJ: someone was saying that on twitter.
Next year would be the 50th Anniversary of the film, so I’m wondering if there is something interesting planned
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@lamh36: Victor Victoria. One of Julie’s best movies.
lamh36
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Oh. I love Victor Victoria too.
Sound of Music just has a special place in my heart. Blame it on my teenage years ;-)
I love Mary Poppins more than Victor Victoria though. If I had to rank them
1) Sound of Music
2)Mary Poppins
3)Victor Victoria
Mr Stagger Lee
@BGinCHI: The Protectors, a show about the Danish version of their Secret Service was superb. One thing I am thinking, when HBO streaming comes out I wonder how much they will hurt Netflix? If I ran Time-Warner, I would expand the stream to include TCM.
Villago Delenda Est
@TriassicSands: The deserting coward and the Dark Lord did precisely what bin Laden said they would. He played them like the chumps they are.
Karen in GA
@BGinCHI: I’m watching Borgen right now. Looked up Dicte — I swear Denmark has, like, ten actors, tops.
Tree With Water
@TheMightyTrowel: By any chance, do you have any idea what a round trip airline ticket would cost from Australia to Guadalcanal? If memory serves, it’s about 700 miles one way, and the island has a modern airfield. If and when I ever get Down Under, I’d like to check it out. I’ve read a fair share the battle, and would very much like to visit The Canal of one of these days. I was likewise informed (by books) before I toured some of my country’s Civil War battlefields, and found it a profoundly enriching experience.
PurpleGirl
@lamh36: I didn’t notice a twang, hmmm. The problem was that the Captain wasn’t very strong, he seemed confused and puzzled. Christopher Plumber was such a good Captain. Theodore Bikel once sang a song or two on the Ed SUllivan Show. (Theodore Bikel played Worf’s adoptive father on ST: Next Generation.)
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
Things are interesting. The daughter of the other family came home for a visit and picked him up and then dropped him back off when she went back to her mom’s house. I think we have the weirdest but coolest feline custody arrangement. We have to tire him out during the day or else he keeps us awake at night. Right now the kids are on winter break so the cat is on a good schedule. He plays like a mad cat all day and sleeps under the covers with his head on the pillow next to my youngest son. He and my old cat have been giving each other little nose kisses so that is working out, too. I can’t play too much with the new kitty because my old cat (he’s at least 14) is very clingy and has determined that I shall be solely his–which is fine with me. Old cat and I had a lovely and lazy day taking cat naps and watching movies.
BGinCHI
@Mr Stagger Lee: We liked that too. Netflix is still pretty good. I wish Amazon Prime streaming was better. Or that someone would do a whole foreign TV and film streaming service.
BGinCHI
@Karen in GA: Exactly. We are already familiar with all of them.
Maybe even more repetition than seeing Bryan Cox in every single movie some weeks….
Borgen is really good.
BGinCHI
@Karen in GA: You watching Borgen on disc?
JCJ
@lamh36:
If you go to Salzburg you will recognize many of the scenes in the movie. The tour shows you the gazebo (Rolf and Liesl), the house with the terrace, the lane where the kids were playing in the trees, and the church used for the wedding scene. I think the church was in Mondsee, not far from Salzburg. I remember my mother in law wanted to take the tour and I thought I wouldn’t like it, but it was quite nice.
Never did understand climbing the mountain to get away – if you climb the mountains around Salzburg you end up in Germany. Also, isn’t he a captain in the Austrian navy? Austria is landlocked. Maybe the navy patrols the Danube? Doesn’t matter. I think in general efgoldman is a sharp cookie, but he is all wet in not liking this movie!
lamh36
@PurpleGirl: the guy who played the Cap’n on tv was the dude from True Blood, who’s married to Anna Paquin
Steeplejack
@Mr Stagger Lee:
MHz runs some interesting stuff under their International Mystery label every night at 9:00 p.m. EST (repeated at midnight). The Montalbano marathon is different this week, but they have shown a bunch of interesting series, including Spiral (one season is on now), the Australian cop show East West 101, the French series Nicolas Le Floch (a detective working Paris in the 1750s!), the original Swedish Wallander and some other Nordic shows. Even a hard-boiled Finnish P.I. working the mean streets of Turku (Vares: Private Eye).
Even the shows that aren’t masterpieces are interesting because of the different scenery and cultures. They make a nice change from American TV.
Karen in GA
@BGinCHI: I have it on disc, but LinkTV is rerunning it, so I’m watching that at the moment.
Suzanne
@BGinCHI: And cats. Don’t forget the cats.
I am currently multi-tasking: reading BJ while on the elliptical, while my hairdye processes on my head. As I said to Mr. Suzanne, this is what having it all looks like, damnit!
I bought my Luna a new memory foam doggie bed for the upper floor of our house. She doesn’t want to leave it. I have officially become one of those people who buys Christmas presents for her pets. Sigh.
Spawn the Younger turned four today. This has been a really busy week. But I have all the gifts wrapped! On the 21st! Someone has abducted Suzanne and replaced her with someone who gets homemaker-y tasks done.
BGinCHI
@Steeplejack: Is that a cable channel?
BGinCHI
@Suzanne: Over-achiever.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Damn, I just checked, and you can stream MHz live at their Web site. The second episode of Montalbano started at 10:00 p.m. EST. The first episode will run again at midnight, the second at 2:00 a.m. Worth it if you want a taste.
PurpleGirl
@JCJ: Yes, Austria is landlocked but back when Captain von Trapp was in the Navy it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire and there was a coastline in the subsidiary countries of the Empire. A lot more territory.
Southern Beale
So apparently nobody liked Julie Andrews in “10.”
catclub
@Steeplejack: MHZ network is excellent. And comes on one of the the public TV over the air stations here. Some of the Scandinavian Mysteries are disturbing.
BGinCHI
@catclub:
Thank FSM.
TheMightyTrowel
@Tree With Water: Expedia says a rando flight on a rando date from sydney to the solomon islands would set you back about $3000 (aussie dollars). The internet is your friend.
MomSense
@Suzanne:
If I dyed my hair while on the elliptical, the other people at the gym would really give me looks. My having it all usually involves some chore while the hair dye processes like folding a load of clothes or loading/emptying the dishwasher.
JCJ
@PurpleGirl:
Right, but I thought Austria-Hungary ended in 1918.
lamh36
@Southern Beale: Good Lord, I didn’t even remember her being in that movie. It’s all about Bo Derek as ya know.
Hell I haven’t seen the whole movie in soo long. I forget that Dudley Moore was even in it. I only really remember Bo Derek.
Those damn braids..
Suzanne
@MomSense: I have an elliptical at home, because I don’t have a gym membership. I think I’m gonna join the Y, though. I don’t want to spend even more time away from my munchkins, and the Y would let us do stuff together.
Southern Beale
@lamh36:
Well more to the point, it’s all about Bo Derek’s corn rows.
PurpleGirl
@JCJ: It did, but he was in the Navy during the First World War, 1914 – 1918.He commanded u-boats and earned enough commendations to win the title Baron from his naval service.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
Not a musical, but the best thing she ever did, bar none, was The Americanization of Emily. James Garner was terrific in that, too.
Violet
@ lamh36: @MomSense: I’m with both of you. The Sound of Music is my favorite musical of all time. I know all the words to every song. I adore Julie Andrews.
lamh36
Um what is this Galavant mess coming on ABC in January? And why is Rutger Hauer in it?
Steeplejack
@BGinCHI:
I did recently buy the e-book, but it hasn’t bubbled to the top of the reading queue yet.
MomSense
@Suzanne:
We’ve been Y members forever I think. When the kids were little we did lots of swimming and tumbling type things together. Now it’s kind of fun because we all go off and do our own thing and occasionally bump into each other when we are on the track at the same time. Friday nights we have a climbing wall and I’ve only recently started doing that instead of just watching the kids do it. I’m trying to not be so afraid of heights.
lamh36
@Violet: love Julie Andrews too. As i said, it’s always bittersweet watching the movie and knowing we’ll never hear her singing again.
JCJ
@PurpleGirl:
Thanks! I didn’t think it through that far – that he would have been in the navy during World War I.
lamh36
Alright, that’s my night folks.
The weekend started off crappy thanks to yesterday, but Sound of Music lifted my spirits a bit, so I”m gonna get off the interwebs before some other crap happens.
ETA: @efgoldman: I think we ALL agree on Julie Andrews, she’s a def treasure.
Karen in GA
@lamh36: Looks very silly. Evidently it’s supposed to be a comedy, though. If it’s goofy enough, I’ll watch — I kind of like the premise.
In the meantime, Arab Labor is starting. I’ve only ever caught a minute or two here and there. Looks interesting, so I might as well watch.
Tree With Water
@TheMightyTrowel: Well, thanks so very, very much for breaking a sweat. And $3 grand in any currency seems a little steep for what amounts to a hop, step, and jump. Britain’s excess criminal population, indeed.
Tommy
@Violet: Yes, yes, yes. I can’t sing. But I can sing every word for that movie. The fields are alive with the sound of music.
MomSense
@lamh36:
I think she may have filed a suit against the surgeon who either botched the surgery or didn’t sufficiently warn her of all the possible consequences. I don’t remember how that turned out. She had nodules on her vocal chords IIRC.
satby
@BGinCHI: for British and Aussie shows try Acorn TV. I get it on Roku.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: Yes, I remember him on various other TV shows. I knew he was an influential folk singer. Maybe I should have been clearer, I heard sing numbers from Sound of Music on Ed Sullivan, besides other musical numbers.
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: Austria-Hungary was a huge empire up through WWI. It had a coastline on the Adriatic and a navy. Miklos Horthy, who ruled Hungary in the run up to and through WWII, had been an Admiral in the A-H navy.
Violet
@efgoldman: Sorry. Do not agree with you one bit. It’s a fantastic musical. Love the story, love the music, love the lyrics. Love it all. I like most of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s stuff, but The Sound of Music is by far my favorite. You may think they mailed it in. I think they finished their with their best.
Mike in NC
@lamh36: But he was so good in “Blade Runner”.
Steeplejack
@BGinCHI:
MHz is a “local” channel run out of the D.C. area, but it is carried on a number of cable systems. In Chicago, it runs over the air on WYCC and is available on Comcast (channel 372?) and DirecTV (2183). During the day it’s mostly foreign news shows and “cultural” programming.
Omnes Omnibus
@PurpleGirl: Actually, von Trapp’s father was ennobled. Georg himself sank 11 Allied ships with his sub. All in 1917. I think that is probably a good record – but I am often confused by naval traditions.
MomSense
@efgoldman:
My favorite R&H song may be Younger than Springtime. Such a gorgeous melody.
BGinCHI
@Steeplejack: Thanks! And hope you enjoy the book.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: He was better in Soldaat van Oranje – a fantastic movie.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: Look who’s late to the thread. Probably something to do with onanism.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: One of the great Verhoeven movies. That guy did some great stuff, esp early on.
Steeplejack
@BGinCHI:
Let me know if you actually find MHz.
Gin & Tonic
@Tree With Water: You can fly it from the NY area for under $2k US.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Soldier of Orange—great movie! I don’t think I’ve seen that since it first came out. I presume it’s available on DVD; I’ll have to look it up.
mdblanche
@JCJ:
To be specific, you wind up in Berchtesgaden, where Hitler had his country retreat. Climbing the mountain just made for a more dramatic story than the mundane real life escape route, much like still using your rank in a navy that no longer exists.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI:
My brother is still alive.
Karen in GA
Okay, Arab Labor was pretty funny.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: Man, you are really a literalist.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: I am a lawyer. I will be a literalist if it works; I will be a post-modernist if that works. I am adaptable.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s why I pay you that big retainer.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: If only…
Comrade Luke
Seahawks, bitches.
Mike J
@Comrade Luke: Damn straight.
BTW, fuck macarons. I like eating them fine, but I’ve been baking since 1:30 this afterfuckingnoon.
GregB
@Southern Beale:
She was even better in S.O.B.
srv
@BGinCHI:
DougJ is the new Dexter, you’re in this season.
Chris T.
Krugman’s column for tomorrow is a must-read.
One snippet:
Corner Stone
@Chris T.:
That’s a little weird. They imagined themselves shirtless while riding grizzly bears?
dance around in your bones
@schrodinger’s cat: oh Gawd, I read all the books first and then was smitten by the series on TV. Art Malik was the actor’s name who played Hari Kumar.
Will definitely be watching it again! Thanks for the head’s up!
Chris T.
@Corner Stone: Well, the ones that are tops, anyway. I think more of them are bottoms. :-)
(But no, that was about how Putin “won” his “war” to retake the Crimea. Which is now a big loss to Russia, just as its economy collapses. The point of the article is that war is a losing proposition.)
dance around in your bones
@BGinCHI:
Doncha loveit! i sure do. AND search out Underbelly -l guarantee you will love it (or hate it) at all costs,
OK.. I have to say this about porn – I think it has driven the shave the hair baloney so you can see the parts better. I personally think that hair is there for a reason. Only my humble old hairy hippie opinion. YMMV
TheMightyTrowel
@dance around in your bones: I would join your body hair appreciation club, but i am at work and the pictures in the newsletter would probably get me in trouble. All praise for lovely lady forests and verdant man meadows!
Chris T.
@TriassicSands:
He’d torture and kill 99 innocents to catch one guilty person (1 in 100).
He’d torture and kill 999,999 to catch 1 (1 in a million).
Heck, he’d torture and kill for 1 in a billion … or 1 in 7 billion.
Conclusion: nuke the earth, kill everyone. All the guilty will be caught. A few innocents may die, sure, but all the guilty will perish.
Mike J
@TheMightyTrowel:
I think that getting rid of the underbrush makes the tree look bigger, iykwimaityd.
BTW, anybody see the salute to Rik Mayall last night? The Young Ones was enough to make him a legend on its own.
Redshift
@mdblanche: The actual real life escape was even more mundane – they were on tour abroad and just never went home.
Redshift
@Steeplejack: Check out Ferguson’s full-episode single interviews if you can find them – Desmond Tutu (the one that won him a Peabody), or his conversations with Stephen Fry. They’re excellent. Also, his boss are great, too – a memoir and a novel.
I don’t know how of a game show is less work than a talk show, but I hope it is and will leave him more time to write.
dance around in your bones
@TheMightyTrowel</aSeriously, when you are getting pounded, the hair acts like a little mattress.
Sorry, I have no pictures to post :) I am a rather private person., except on Balloon Juice!
Steeplejack
@Redshift:
I know Ferguson is a writer, and I plan to read his books—at least his memoir.
One of the first things I liked about his show was that he had crime writers on as guests, and not just huge American names. Denise Mina and Jo Nesbø are the first two I remember. I was shocked to see them appearing anywhere on American TV.
Xenos
@PurpleGirl: “Austria is landlocked but back when Captain von Trapp was in the Navy it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire and there was a coastline in the subsidiary countries of the Empire. A lot more territory.”
Yes, Trieste is not landlocked.
srv
DougJ’s glorious town bulldozes the homeless yesterday.
A veritable village of sociopaths. I guess the city workers didn’t want it to bleed into their Christmas vacations.
Tommy
@srv: That is kind of hard to watch.
Schlemazel
@mdblanche:
The true story is that the whole family just got on the train and left. Nobody tried to stop them. According to one of the kids who talked Maria was a shrewd PR person & knew that American’s would fall for the BS story better than the boring truth. It worked.
Amir Khalid
The study may have established a correlation between watching internet porn and not being married: that they go up together even after you rule out other factors. But it doesn’t come anywhere near establishing that watching internet porn makes you less keen to get married. That would take a quite different kind of study.
As with everyone else, my own intuition is that people, even young men, are well aware of the qualitative difference between what they get from porn and from an actual person in their life: nobody would prefer porn to a real relationship.
ETA: I think porn is another symptom of the problem, rather than its cause.
TriassicSands
@Chris T.:
The upside? Dick and his putrid daughter Liz would be left to kill off any innocents missed by their foolproof plan.
Cheney really needs to visit The Hague — in chains. His punishment, something I wouldn’t find acceptable for most, if not all, other murderous thugs, would be to serve whatever the remainder of his abhorrent life is left being tortured by some of the innocent people he was more than willing to sacrifice. Of course, most of them would be sickened by the thought of treating human beings that way — even or especially those who are undeniably guilty.
To Dick Cheney, the ends always justifies the means — so long as the ends are his and the means cost him nothing personally. For this monster, no sacrifice on the part of others is too great. He is truly a giant among parasites.
NobodySpecial
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sockpuppets usually get mysteriously eaten by the dryer.
Booger
@schrodinger’s cat: I remember watching it when it was originally aired, and as I recall, it’s filmed in realtime, beginning with the uplift of the Himalayan range.
Paul in KY
@TriassicSands: How do you know that wasn’t one of the side benefits? The war machine always needs excuses to go to war.
stickler
@JCJ: Captain von Trapp was a successful U-Boat commander in the First World War; he served in the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Austria-Hungary, along with Germany, lost the First World War and broke apart into many little nation-states, one of which became the Republic of Austria, which after 1919 didn’t have access to the sea.
Salzburg is indeed a wonderful city and well worth a trip. Be prepared, though, for the fact that the Austrians by and large know nothing about the Sound of Music except that Americans love it.
And yes, if you followed the movie family and walked out of town in the same direction they did, you’d end up in Germany — at the foot of the same mountain where Hitler’s Eagles Nest is. The real von Trapps simply got on a train to Italy.
Original Lee
@Amir Khalid: Based on anecdata from family in Germany, the guys want to get married but the gals do not. Something about societal expectations for married women – they call it the German KKK for a reason.