Is it just me, or does everything just seem stupider than normal this August recess? Between Mouthpiece Theater and the Atlantic phoning it in and Alessandra Stanley making a mistake every sentence and morons getting caught while taking a luxurious stroll through Iraq and wingnuts threatening congressmen because they are trying to reform health care and congressmen whinging about empathy and racist latinas on and on and on, it just seems like everything is dumber this summer.
And I say that knowing full well that last August brought us Sarah Palin. Times like this, there really is only one thing that can cheer me up:
I feel better.
SGEW
I feel better now too.
Zifnab
“Smithers, are they getting louder or dumber out there?”
“I believe both, sir.”
WereBear
Maybe it IS the Event Horizon.
When the Density increases and collapses.
Jorge
Semi-long time lurker here. Just have to say that “dog in bucket” has the right idea.
robot eating
I agree. I’m pretty sure that I was even dumber this summer. It’s all I can do to–PUPPYBUCKET!
Aaah.
gex
There’s a Democrat in the White House this August. Coincidence? I think not.
GReynoldsCT00
Funny, my boss and I were having the same observations of stupidity earlier this morning.
The pup-in-a-bucket is always helpful, almost as helpful as Lily but not quite
BombIranForChrist
Shhh … don’t mention that it is the one year anniversary of our love affair with Sarah Palin, or CNN will catch wind and do a 3 hour Anderson Cooper show on Sarah Palin: America’s Cheerleader.
schrodinger's cat
OMG! the dog has the lolrus bucket. Can we also has Tunch please? I loves that kitteh!
MattF
Well, here’s a hopeful interpretation — maybe the stupid seems worse because there’s something smarter around to contrast it with. And, yes, I’m including both of the Clintons in that latter category.
gex
@gex: Damn, I miss the edit function. I do not mean to imply that Obama is the source of the stupidity, just that people are being particularly stupid in reaction to him.
GReynoldsCT00
and BTW John that close up of Lily from the other night is classic… should have permanent placement on the blog
Kryptik
It’s the end of the summer. People made plans and underestimated how quickly the months go by, so they’re forced to force out all their planned stupid in one giant blast. It’s like priming a fire hose and realizing the house is burning to fast…so you decide to pop it like a balloon instead in hopes the blast will extinguish it instead.
Or it could just be that it’s precisely because they have the congressmen to personally vent their stupid on face-to-face rather than through the TV.
In any case, here’s more to take your mind off the stupid: a Cat with a Theremin
John Hamilton Farr
It’s not just you, John.
The big O’s triangulatin’ is biting everyone in the ass. He’d better come back from the Vineyard with guns blazing. FORCEFULLY making the case for *real* health care for suffering Americans and denouncing the cable news hate-fest would be a start. Harry Reid and Mac Baucus need to be thrown under the bus, too.
Poll numbers are probably down because of his being wishy-washy instead of sticking up for us, not because of stoopid “socialism” bullshit.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
As other commentors on a previous thread pointed out, it is the 8th year annivesary of another more important event in US history. I wonder if anyone in the MSM will remember it. Haaaahaaaahaaa, yeah right [wipes away tears].
mak
My next band is gonna be called “Dog in a bucket.”
ricky
I would feel better if you clearly disclaimed the dog was not harmed in staging that photo.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Hey, isn’t today the anniversary of the “Alright, you covered your ass. You can go” Presidential Daily Briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”?
Comrade Dread
Yes.
Camacho/Palin 2016
blogenfreude
Don’t forget Orly Taitz.
malraux
It’s not that the stupids are louder or dumber relative to last year, its that the not stupids are quieter, now that we are out of the election season. Well, possibly the stupids have found a larger megaphone. But really, the emergence of Sarah Palin has a high stupid index.
And its only for marketing reasons why the greatest stupid of the last decade wasn’t rolled out in august, and instead pushed to september 2002. “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.” Or when was that PDB handed to Bush about Bin Laden?
Yeah, its gotta be the larger megaphone over anything else, or just more attuned ears.
Molly
It’s not just you. I feel like I’m watching the worst of humanity every day right now. Yes, the only cure dogs and buckets and splendidly rotund felines.
c u n d gulag
The fog of stupidity hugs the country like one of those miasmatic mists in a Stephen King story.
JackieBinAZ
I’ve just been watching in fascination, wondering if something like stupid really can reach critical mass. When you truly can’t out-parody parody, some essential balance in the universe just has to break down.
Mr Furious
Not just you. The vocal people in this country are by and large the “Stupidest fucking guys on the face of the Earth.”
JackieBinAZ
that was supposed to be “outparody reality”
be glad when the edit key is back.
schrodinger's cat
Hunter Gathers
August 2009 : Peak Idiocy.
@Comrade Dread: Camacho/Palin 2016 with Attorney General Orly Taitz and Secretary of State Liz Cheney
Trinity
I have begun to seriously consider that the movie “Idiocracy” is coming to life.
Puppy going Galt in bucket = very good
New Tunch pics = even better
Brick Oven Bill
This disturbs me greatly.
After reviewing the membership, these mobsters definitely appear to be Brooks Brothers trailer park Nazi mobsters, but more dangerous. These mobsters have posted no demands for compensation, or even cigarettes. They appear to be decentralized, but nonetheless organized. As such, the insurance industry has likely developed some complex computer algorithm, generating these mobsters at random, a troubling development.
Some of them even appear to be able to read.
Please pass this on to [email protected] .
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Is it just me, or does everything just seem stupider than normal this August recess?
Hasn’t to me.
Remember, John, you were still Under the Spell for the prime brush-clearing years.
Zifnab
@blogenfreude: We can make her Secretary of Investigating Birth Certificates, in the Department of WTF.
Joshua Norton
The ill bred bigots, trailer trash and hicks have been too used to getting their own way. Now that they don’t, and since they didn’t have any social skills to begin with, all they can do is have a complete temper tantrum and public meltdown.
freelancer
It’s not just you. Yesterday, I kind of snapped after seeing Tintin’s post @ Sadlyno about fauxtrage over Obama’s birthday cake.
http://forgetthisnoise.blogspot.com/2009/08/to-every-conservative-that-ever.html
It’s not just you, even among the wingnuts, they are twisting themselves stupid in some kind of “Wimp-lo” my-nuts-to-your-fist-style Fail-Jitsu. See their coverage of Malkin today:
serge
Has anyone accounted for the whereabouts of Dr Evil? Where’s Austin Powers to combat the latest assault on reason, intelligence, and all-around appropriate cognitive reality?
Pasquinade
World Nut Daily’s Jerome Corsi reports that O RLY! Taitz’ Kenyan document is a fake.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106135
Hitler is a Pissed Birther!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqt0GkhxAZQ
Koz
It’s just you.
Max
Question for the Group –
I’m considering going to the Albuquerque Balloon Fest this year. I’ve never been.
Is it cool?
Seebach
So, um… yeah…
“President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.”
I can just believe it. I really, really can.
Jay B.
XG has it right. It hasn’t been much dumber than normal. After all, itt was the fabled “Summer of the Shark” which proved to the Bush Administration that Gary Condit and a not-increase in coastal shark attacks were way way more dangerous than any “osama bin laden determined to strike the US” threats.
Mike E
@WereBear:
It’s the wingnut event sphincture — I believe Einstein knew something about this, and fled Germany
RememberNovember
The downside of free speech is that we have to let the idiots talk every now and again, just for them to affirm their idiocracies.
freelancer
[stifled gut-laugh] Well, I guess if you have to ask if something’s cool, it’s not.
*unless they serve alcohol.
RememberNovember
@Pasquinade:
Ah Jerome Corsi, that guy who was going around shilling a book he wrote that was 99% made up on 100% paper.
Evinfuilt
My day kept feeling crappier and crappier.
Then along came Dog in Bucket once more to make me smile and laugh.
Greatest dog shot ever, and I doubt it’ll ever be used too much.
Mark S.
Who is Camacho?
As for the stupidity, I think it is a lot worse than the Clinton years. I remember all the stupid shit about Clinton smuggling cocaine in Mena (where I actually had a flat tire once) and murdering about three dozen people, but I don’t remember the MSM giving much credence to it. Back then, Fox News didn’t exist and Lou Dobbs, if he was working at CNN back then, wasn’t as batshit crazy.
What amazes me is how supernova crazy the Right gets once it is out of power. While the Left never liked Bush, they didn’t really start hating him until Iraq. With the Right, it’s like the reaction whenever a picture of Emmanuel Goldstein is shown.
RememberNovember
@Jay B.:
and that is what really scares me, and this time I fear it’s going to be some domestic, home grown a-hole that lights the fuse.
Lola
I am taking it out on my Senator’s staffers. I live in Texas so I have Hutchison and Cornyn. Yipee!!!
I grill their staffers and it makes them very uncomfortable to have to answer smart questions. Why is Cornyn opposing Sotomayor? Why doesn’t he think Sotomayor would be an impartial judge? It’s not based on her gender? So it’s based on her race? He didn’t understand Sotomayor’s explanation of her wise Latina remarks? He thinks the Ricci ruling was biased? So why did the two white men rule the same as Sotomayor? Okay, so it is about Sotomayor’s gender AND race.
I grilled Hutchinson’s staffer on health care. What are her thoughts? She doesn’t support it? What is the “it” she doesn’t support? The Senate hasn’t released a bill, right? What proposals doesn’t she like? Oh, all of her constituents want her to vote against it? Even though they, like you, also don’t know what “it” is yet?
Trust me, these staffers get very uncomfortable fast. They are unable to answer rationally because their Senators are acting out of pure partisanship. The last line is usually the equivalent of the argument ending phrase Just Because.
Sentient Puddle
@Max: Yes. If you’re an early morning person (I’m talking before the sun comes up early), watching the balloons go from rolled out on the ground to takeoff is amazing. Or if you’re like me and prefer waking up a little later, simply looking out the window and seeing the sky filled with hot air balloons is also quite the sight.
(This all said, I was born and raised in New Mexico, so I’m obligated to speak kindly of it.)
Brick Oven Bill
Stuck in moderation. In any case, nine new Brooks Brothers trailer park Nazi mobsters in the past week alone!?! Just in Rochester!
[email protected]
freelancer
@Mark S
Who is Camacho?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0O7_3o3BrI
President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, porn super-star and five-time ultimate smackdown wrestling champion
Ash Can
No, I think you have a point. Given an administration that 1) is headed up by someone with a darker-than-lilywhite complexion and 2) isn’t making any glaring missteps so far, the opposition is both more willing and more limited regarding their counterarguments. In other words, the ones who aren’t flinging feces because they’re simply racist are looking desperately for something of even a modicum of substance to pin on the Obama Administration and coming up empty. As a result, they’re forced to eschew the “substance” bit, and they’re left with the brain-damaged, chaotic circus that we’re seeing in the media.
Trinity
@Lola: Awesome.
Mark S.
@Max:
Yeah, it’s worth seeing. It’s really awesome looking up there and seeing literally hundreds of balloons in the sky.
jcricket
From the movie Idiocracy
I do think he and Palin would make an appropriate team.
Just Some Fuckhead
John, I’m pretty sure everyone is just as stupid as they always were. Which means the problem is with you. When I’m feeling smarter than everyone else, one thing I’ve found that helps is cleaning my guns. I’ve found there’s nothing that clears up stray smart thoughts like the monotonous disassembly, thorough cleaning and oiling of my personal weapons cache. Sometimes I’ll be so overcome with the sheer patriotic joy of personally upholding the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic that I’ll just sit there aiming a half broken down gun at nothing in particular for an hour while imagining myself riding with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders killing mexicants. Others have described it as a semi-catatonic state. Whatever, I just know it’s magic.
And, hey, if I accidentally shoot off a toe that’s just the Holy Spirit reminding me hey, we all do stupid shit sometimes.
jcricket
@Mark S.: BTW – I think the Obama stuff is worse b/c it’s happened so quickly into his term. Imagine 8 more years of this. Took people a while to get to this level of Clinton Derangement, and he was white.
Although the good thing is that the deranged Obama haters are dragging their party rightwards off a cliff with them. Fealty to Rush, birther-ism, anti-immigrant sentiment, hatred of muslims, etc. have become giant albatrosses on the necks of the GOP.
Fine by me.
The Grand Panjandrum
Hey, now that I think about it this is the 8th anniversary of the infamous PDB: Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S.
@Max: And yes the Albuquerque Balloon International Fiesta is cool. Until last year I lived in that area and the festival is great, especially if you’ve never been before. Nothing quite like it. But many of the locals are pretty jaded because they see balloons on an almost year round basis (except maybe the hottest days of summer). Albuquerque isn’t a bad place either. Plenty to do.
If you want more info I will be happy to provide it.
Cat Lady
Somehow miraculously 10 million more smart people than dumb people showed up to vote on November 4th, which has to stand for something. This in spite of the fact that the media makes you dumber for watching it. We lucked out that the wingers had stopped making any sense by the time the economy crashed, making it scarier to vote for the old white incompetent and maybe incontinent guy than the young half black smart guy. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it, really. Smart prevailed then, and it still may.
Mike E
@Just Some Fuckhead:
ZOMG full of WIN
Max
@freelancer: Umm, I’m not sure I understand your logic.
How would I know if its cool, i.e. worth the trip, to attend something I’ve never attended unless I ask those that have.
So, by your train of thought, I should never ask if a movie was good, or if a restaurant is worth going to, or if a book should be read.
– – – –
The Grand Panjandrum
@Max: BTW go to Duke City Fix and check out the site for more info. Good group and lots of people willing to give you the lowdown on local stuff.
The Saff
@Lola: Good for you! I’m in Michigan so both my senators are Dems.
Yeah, teh stupid is more than I can take. My only respite from the madness is Balloon Juice.
Ruckus
Seems like there is more stupidity but then maybe we’re just more exposed to it. It’s like radiation – a little bit can be tolerated, and sometimes useful, (x-rays, etc.), a lot it just burns and kills.
And we see stupid everywhere, like ads – Ann Coulter for Free – and that’s way too high a price to pay.
PeakVT
It’s spelled bukkit, folks. Let’s stay up to date on the internet’s traditions, okay?
demimondian
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: And it’s the 64th anniversary of a far, far more important event than the PDB of August 6, 2001. I wonder if anyone will remember that, other than the dead.
Rick Taylor
I’ve felt a roughly escalating sense of stupidity over the past decade or so. Nothing has topped the selection of Palin and the subsequent attempt to defend her as a viable candidate for the vice presidency though. That was the last thing that broke new ground.
Poopyman
I assure you, I am aware of all internet traditions (TM JC).
And I think it’s about time to change the water in that pug’s bukkit. Lookin’ kinda funky, if you ask me.
superluminar
For extra stupid, Atrios has a couple of clips up today from everyone’s favourite crazies that smash together Godwin and Wingularity into Teh Epic Lobster* Fail.
*check out first min of Limbaugh. Really weird.
Colette
@Just Some Fuckhead: I think JSF has just revealed himself as teh genius behind the BoB-spoof-bot. Either that, or BoBism is contagious, and you can catch it from touching your keyboard.
Ash Can
@Seebach: I saw that too. I so, SO wish it weren’t true, but I’m not optimistic. Yeesh. When I see that, I’m just glad the entire fucking world didn’t get blown to shit during the Bush admin.
Cat Lady
Cat takes bus every day for four years:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5933325/Pet-cat-catches-the-daily-bus-for-four-years.html?connect
PaulW
The problem with the Atlantic and with all media in general is the loss of accountability. Everyone answers to their corporate overlords and no one answers to the public. Unless the stupidity is so egregious that they have no choice but to fire people… who then go to work for FOX or the Washington Post or National Review and start all over again.
The other problem: lying. No one gets punished for that anymore. When’s the last time we saw a libel or defamation lawsuit involving some of the stupid sh-t coming off of the major news channels anymore (and all of them are guilty of it, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, that financial channel for NBC that nobody watches…)? We had George Will misrepresenting some ecological research group’s findings, and then refusing to correct himself. Why didn’t that research group take his sorry ass to court?
Makewi
The world was better when the unorganized average citizens were spontaneously protesting against the fascist Bush regime. I do like it how you turned one claimed death threat into “wingnuts threatening congressmen” – so perhaps the dumb is catching?
calling all toasters
My theory is this: for 8 years we had someone providing profoundly stupid leadership, at the head of a stupid administration. Now that there is no centralized stupid, people feel it’s up to them to be as retarded as possible: the government’s not going to do it for you any more.
ricky
Max @ 37
“I’m considering going to the Albuquerque Balloon Fest this year. I’ve never been.
Is it cool?”
My wife I took my five year old son several years ago. We all had a blast. The kid was too young to ride a balloon, but the folks operating them had fun showing him how they works. The special shapes and night light events are incredible.
Other things in Albuquerque were nice too for a kid, and we stayed in a nice B&B no took far from the festival grounds.
Tax Analyst
Are there soap suds in that bucket, John? I thought it looked like there were. Which made me think of a hot dog and a beer…’dog & suds’…
Sounds like you could use one right about now…it doesn’t sound bad to me, either.
MikeJ
Aug 6th: This guy from Switzerland has a neat idea for a global information system
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/395f282a67a1916c
and today is a good day to visit the world’s first web server
Linda Binda
@demimondian #66… Uh. Wild guess.. The Japanese surrender and the end of World War II? :D
schrodinger's cat
Aug 6, Bombing of Hiroshima?
DonkeyKong
2009: The Great I.Q/Civics Test. This country has been traveling for 30 years to this point, and now it is here.
Call it.
jacy
BRB, going to put my dog in a bucket.
Being a transplant, every year I forget how fucking hot it is in Louisiana in August. Teh stupid people just make it feel hotter. Sigh.
malraux
Well, they did give credence to the people who gave the Clinton Chronicles credence. Jerry Falwell was certainly give way too much latitude to spout nonsense by the MSM in the 90’s and he was the Billy Mays of the Clinton Chronicles. It did take about a year for the video to get made, but in the pre-internet era, that’s very fast. The early 90’s saw the rise of Rush, going so far as to give him a TV show in 92 in addition to his radio show. The big difference now is that its easier to organize the stupids, easier to get messages heard by large numbers of people, and easier to learn what the stupids are doing.
Well, the violent crazies response does seem to be happening faster than in the 90’s, but that’s about it.
freelancer
@Makewi:
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=6950802
(North Carolina Congressman’s Death Threat)
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25646.html
(NY Rep requiring police escort).
Two reported instances of threats and non-verbal intimidation requiring a police presence is plural.
You’re WRONG.
TR
perhaps the dumb is catching?
Hard to say. Are you contagious?
jacy
And is it just me, or do we have an influx of teh stupid people here over the last couple of days? I mean, I know B.O.B. exists just for contrast, so that we can fully appreciate cogent, witty commentary from decent people by having something pathetic to compare it to. But goshdarnit, BJ is supposed to be a little island of sanity during my day, and you people — and you know who you are (or maybe you don’t, being obvious halfwits) — are getting on my last nerve.
That’s it, I’m breaking out the Xanax. I think I’ve ceased to make sense, even in my own head…..
jacy
argh – first time caught in moderation. What do I win?
Will try again, this time without what I assume is the offending something or other:
And is it just me, or do we have an influx of teh stupid people here over the last couple of days? I mean, I know B.O.B. exists just for contrast, so that we can fully appreciate cogent, witty commentary from decent people by having something pathetic to compare it to. But goshdarnit, BJ is supposed to be a little island of sanity during my day, and you people—and you know who you are (or maybe you don’t, being obvious halfwits)—are getting on my last nerve.
That’s it, I’m breaking out the [ anti-anxiety stuff]. I think I’ve ceased to make sense, even in my own head…..
Blue Raven
@PeakVT: It’s spelled bukkit, folks. Let’s stay up to date on the internet’s traditions, okay?
Then it must clearly be called a puppehbukkit or a goggiebukkit.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
Sorry to pile it on but this really is kind of over the top.
Palin-autographed 360 on Auction For $1.1M
And it’s being sold by a guy living in a Canuckian town, no less. As if things can’t get any weirder…
Makewi
@freelancer:
Jesus. Pathetic. Rather than just admit that there has been one non verified death threat, which doesn’t make it plural, you decide to expand the definition to include the “need” for a police escort to fit into the category. I’m not wrong, your just a dishonest person.
mcc
morons getting caught while taking a luxurious stroll through Iraq
Wait
What?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@demimondian
re: August 6,1945. Yeah I knew about that one too. I was extremely fortunate to have a chance to attend a public reception/lecture in Santa Fe a couple years back given for/by a very frail and elderly lady who is one of the surviving Hibakusha, which was an unforgettable and deeply humbling experience.
Unfortunately I’ve kind of given up on the general public in the US ever paying much attention though, especially given that anything more than 2 years old is ancient history to our news media. That ship has sailed I’m afraid – better luck next generation perhaps – they can teach it in the history books sandwiched between the Sand Creek Massacre and OIF/Gitmo. Of course it would also be kind of cool if they finally got around to teaching in the Japanese schools about all that unpleasantness in China circa 1937-1945. 20 million dead or so IIRC, that ought to merit at least a footnote.
Makewi
@jacy:
Aw, is someone messing with your need to believe that you side with the angels because you have chosen the correct “side”? I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m really not.
gwangung
It’s getting epidemic around here. See #89.
jacy
@Makewi:
Ooh, goody! You DO know who are! Yay for me.
That’s enough fun for now — back to manuscript rewrite hell, right after I write “no more blog posting to kill time instead of working” 100 times.
freelancer
*HEADDESK*
You’re: a contraction of the words “You” and “are”. As in “You’re a fucktard.”
Your: 2nd person possessive. As in “Your grammar skills are found to be lacking.”
If the dumb is, in fact, catching, then you’re Patient Zero.
Sentient Puddle
Sort of on the topic, but if you ever find yourself in Japan for whatever reason, do try and take a day to visit Hiroshima. Obviously to visit the museum and memorial, but (at least for me) simply being in the city has the most impact. It’s sort of the confluence of many different things…the “Oh shit, I’m an American” realization as my tour bus started driving through the city that my country near obliterated years ago, the fact that the city was rebuilt so spectacularly, the locals being incredibly friendly to us stupid Americans, how psyched they were that the Hiroshima Carp were playing that day (baseball team who happened to have the same cap as the Cincinnati Reds)…all things that I’m not sure I could really separate from each other. Might’ve just been me experiencing the city through the prism of the bomb, but hell, that’s still an important takeaway.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Max
How could you comment on a blog named “Balloon Juice” and not come to see the balloons for real?
The Balloon Fiesta is a blast, as long as you aren’t a jaded hipster hating on anything that large numbers of people have fun at. One of the things I like about it is that the crowd is not segregated from the balloons, you can wander right down onto the field and be close enough to touch them as they launch, or even sign up to volunteer with one of the launch/chase (the retrieval phase) crews if you want.
There is plenty of (overpriced) drinking as well. Ditto what SP said at #49 about it being a very early morning event, although they do now put on a couple of early evening events now as well where the balloons stay tethered to the ground but glow like lanterns when their propane burners are firing. The cool thing about the mass ascensions being so early in the AM is that after they are over you have the whole rest of the day to go do other stuff around ABQ or to daytrip out to surrounding places, many of which are within an easy half-day’s drive.
If you do decide to come, here’s some advice for the 1st time vistor:
-Dress in layers so with the same outfit you are prepared for near freezing temps in the early AM and warm/hot by lunch time (if not earlier). A lot of 1st time vistors show up here thinking the weather will be like in Phoenix, AZ and end up freezing their asses off at 6am, given that you are at 5,000 feet above sea level in October.
-Allow lots of time for getting to the balloon park as the traffic getting into the park can get very backed up and we just aren’t that great at traffic management around here since the rest of the year a 50 min cross town commute is considered to be outrageous. If you can, try to catch a bus rather than driving yourself.
– The balloons don’t launch every morning – it depends on how good the weather conditions are on any given morning (too much wind is bad) and most days nobody knows if the launch will occur or not until takeoff time. So that means if you want to see a mass ascension it is a good idea to schedule several trips during the fiesta knowing that some of them may be on days when the launch is scratched at the last minute, rather than planning on just one trip and having bad luck on the weather that day mess it up.
Good luck, and have fun. If you decide to do it, I can throw out more ideas re: food and sights if you wish.
Dreggas
Given the 24 hour news networks and the interwebs it’s no surprise that the stupid gets a lot more coverage. Especially if it’s controversial and loud.
It’s like the idea that there are child predators lurking around every corner. Thanks in large part to cable news, the internet, and the news cycle in general there is a general anxiety that, that is the case.
It gets coverage, it makes good headlines. Who cares what kind of news it is if it means a ratings increase. Who cares that fears are being stoked if it means winning a larger percentage of a given demographic. “News” for the most part borders on being nothing more than tabloid trash but with just enough facts thrown in to make it believable.
Max
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Thanks! I think I’m going to go. My mom is going to drive up from T or C. She’s lived in NM for like 8 years and has never been.
“Dress in Layers”. I live in the Bay Area, so I live in layers. I totally appreciate the tip.
I’ve downloaded the 2009 Guest Guide and will probably go for the opening day. Hopefully the weather holds. Side trip to Sante Fe is definitely a possibility.
Yum. Green chili cheeseburgers, here I come.
freelancer
Update:
Freshman Democrat assaulted.
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/freshman-dem-physically-assaulted-astro
I guess the “threat” aspect is besides the point if you’re just going to pop-off like some shit-kicking wingnut hick.
That makes three.
gwangung
@freelancer: Um, the guy you’re talking about is so vain, she probably thinks this thread is about her….
Just Some Fuckhead
@freelancer:
yo yo, don’t be a playa hata.
*thumps chest twice, makes gang sign for sometimes names can be hurtful*
mcc
“Freshman Democrat assaulted.”
…this is kind of odd, is there a reason Gerry Connolly can’t name a name here? It seems like this would be big enough news we wouldn’t be hearing about it solely anonymously and secondhand. Is it possible Connolly was confused or exaggerating Brad Miller’s experience? Does the original Roll Call article contain more detail? Has anyone pressed Connolly on this?
Chuck Butcher
A more stupid August? A louder stupid August maybe, but that would discount “terrorist enablers” from the center of government and some other such from BushCo years, and discounts a hell of a lot of Clinton hatred, and certainly misses the Reagan mythologizing. Paying actual attention to what’s going on also raises consciousness of ‘teh stupid.’
I have no intention of harping on the pre-rational Balloon Juice days, but I leave it to John to contrast that to now and tell me about stupid volume.
freelancer
Yeah, I regret to some degree claiming it as a third example of violence or the threat of violence. No police report? No local news?
Pretty damned specious. But I heard from a guy whose cousin got an email that the Freshman Democrat who got beat up was Barack Obama.
Michael
I think we’re back to the GOP as being my favorite Jesco White video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX0F1fGEfKA
jacy
Appropos of nothing other than the fact that time seems intent on steamrolling over our formative years, apparently director John Hughes is dead of a heart attack at 59.
More puppies in buckets, please?
Now I’m really going back to work, really, before I read any more depressing news.
Michael
BTW, if you notice, that crowd of “bitter clingers” is incapable of designing the machinery they’re recklessly destroying. Also consider that they sure in shit couldn’t cooperate in making the decisions to build it, cooperate in the engineering or cooperate in following the commands required for the manufacturing process.
They can destroy it and be loud about it, though, a uniquely American trait – at some point, they undoubtedly play some Lee Greenwood and speak negatively about urban dwellers.
Makewi
@freelancer:
Yeah, a mistake. These things happen.
Woodrowfan
there WILL be violence before the Fall, count on it. Some RW loser will take it upon him (or her) self to turn to violence. They’ll be so hopped up on anger and the right’s lies that violence will seem like a logical response. And the MSM will tut tut and wonder why there can’t be bipartisanship…
Makewi
@Michael:
Oh, I would think the ones who want to “fix” a particular system by working to make it worse and more expensive would be the ones recklessly destroying something. But then, it’s easier to identify enemies then it is to actually think about what is being proposed and the likely outcomes of it.
milesofMiles
Way to chill in that bucket, dog. The birth of the new cool, dig it!
Chuck Butcher
August = Makewi?
This … person … proposes that reform will break something that isn’t broken? This is a step farther than the GOP itself is willing to go.
The number one cause of bankruptsy in the US is medical costs and bankruptsies hit a lot more than just the jilted provider, those costs ripple all through the economic system. About ten years ago thanks to sitting slighty above the edge of safety nets a procedure for my wife that I could afford with great pain went awry and the costs exploded bankrupting me. A lot of people who shouldn’t have gotten screwed got it in the process and the hit to my economic interests was huge.
The Makewi’s exist and their stupidity is not harmless and needs to be countered and that falls to those who will actually think about issues. We’re not going to get single payer but may still get something useful if the Congress is bucked up by intelligent support.
UnkyT
@ricky: She was actually having a bath and loving every minute of it. Not staged at all. I have a whole bunch of photos from that particular bath I’ll have to send along one of these days. Kaya loves here little bath bucket :)
Spiny Norman
“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.” -FZ
Mike in NC
@ Makewi
Like your conception?
pattonbt
I think the stupid is thus:
1) The past two presidents gave their opposition enough normal ‘stupid’ material to work with (Bush manglin English, startin wars, hatin on the others, etc. – Clinton with the Clenis and playing the inside game) that the stupid was at least ‘mainstream’. But…
2) Obama doesnt give any decent / normal ‘stupid’ ammunition to the opposition. Hes boring, smart and simple. Still, professional haters have to hate, so they have to go with something / antyhing. The problem is the ‘somethings’ they have are so ludicruous that they are more stupid than in the past. But the game forces them to go with it, so they hate away. Thankfully, its to their demise with independents.
So I think the same level of stupid is there but with Obama the reach is so much greater that the stupid appears exponentially more stupid.
Given that, what I wrote is probably stupid as well. It is August after all. Thus ends my dissertation on stupid.
Batocchio
Thanks, I needed that. The first pic does it for me better, but to each their own.