You do the work.
Division of labor bitches. Get used to it, because we are doing our best to elect a socialist. I read as much at Red State.
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
You do the work.
Division of labor bitches. Get used to it, because we are doing our best to elect a socialist. I read as much at Red State.
by John Cole| 83 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Dean Barnett is dead at the age of 41 from Cystic Fibrosis.
This is a post I do not want to write, because there is always the chance that when you write these eulogies, some jackass will decide that now is the appropriate time to lace your comments section with expletives about the deceased. Be warned- those sentiments will be deleted.
But back to the point- Dean Barnett is dead, and I am sad. He more than likely has no idea who I am, and there really is no reason he should. My opinions of him mirror the trajectory of my own opinions regarding politics in general – I am too lazy to look, but I am sure I waxed rhapsodic about the things he wrote when I agreed with him in the early days of this blog, and recently, when my opinion of his thinking slipped, I referred to him less politely as Hugh Hewitt’s jockstrap or other less pleasant things (and perhaps that says more about me than it does about Dean). In some respect, I agree with Spencer Ackerman, although I would not change anything I said, and I doubt Barnett would have cared.
But that is neither here nor there. What matters is that he is dead, and life is too short. Not a day passes when I do no ponder my own mortality, and not a day passes without me wondering how I will continue without my parents and the people who mean everything to me. A very selfish part of me hopes that I die before them.
Life is too damned short, and right now Dean Barnett’s family and friends are going through hell. I hope they are able to cope, and I am going to call my parents and tell them I love them and then hug my cat. I suggest you do the same thing with the ones you love. This whole racket is just way too short, and at times is a cruel hoax. Forty-one is just way too damned young.
RIP, Dean Barnett.
To donate to to the Cystic Fibrosis foundation go here. I just sent $50 bucks in Dean’s name, and I hope you will toss out a few dollars, as well. We are all human. This show is just way too god damned short.
This post is in: Assholes, Clown Shoes
And, no doubt, from pro-American portions of the country:
Federal agents have broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree, ATF officials said today.
In court records unsealed today, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.
Scumbags.
*** Update ***
Ok. The “plot” included dressing in white tuxedos and tophats with guns blazing. I have added the required “clown shoes” tag to this post.
by John Cole| 99 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Schadenfreude
CNN reporting that Republican Senator Ted Stevens was found guilty on every count. This election just got better.
Links when they become available.
*** Update ***
CNN:
A jury found U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska guilty Monday of all seven counts in his federal corruption trial.
The jury found Stevens guilty of “knowingly and willfully” scheming to conceal on Senate disclosure forms more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from an Alaska-based oil industry contractor.
Stevens faces a maximum sentence of up to to 35 years in prison — five years for each of the seven counts.
Legal experts note the judge has the discretion to give Stevens as little as no jail time and probation when he is sentenced.
Of course, it goes without saying that this is excellent news for John McCain.
This post is in: Open Threads
You know, I don’t understand this:
If you don’t believe me, just watch how Congress and Barney Frank run the banks. If you thought they did a bad job running the post office, Amtrak, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the military, just wait till you see what they’ll do with Wall Street.
Ignoring the rest of the stuff, because I have no personal experience with Amtrak or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but I guess I don’t understand the post office hatred. I used to make the same cracks about the post office, but now I guess I just do not get it. For me, the post office works. Yes, the hours piss me off at times, but every time I put something in the mail, with exceedingly rare exceptions, it gets where it is going. And that includes the times that I, in a drunken stupor, put in the wrong zip code or scrawled the address in such a hasty manner that it was damned near illegible. Every day I go to my mailbox and find things addressed to me from all over the world. Sure, occasionally, my mailman accidentally includes a piece of my neighbor’s mail, but by and large, I would have to say the post office works. My sister, hundreds of miles away in another state, can mail something to me for a little more than a quarter, and the next day or two days later, I can walk to a box right outside my apartment in my underwear and slippers, sloshing coffee on the way, and there it is. How is that a bad thing?
So, if Barney Frank is in fact in charge of the Post Office, I guess my overall response is “Job well done.” Hell, unless I am mistaken, the Post Office is no longer even subsidized, right? Or if so, at a minimal level. If I could change anything, I would make it possible to have a mail version of the “No call list” so the idiots at the local newspaper could not send me their seemingly weekly trash, but overall, the post office seems to get the job done pretty well (the time it takes to get a passport pisses me off, but that is the State Department, most likely).
Am I just lucky with my service here in WV, or are USPS horror stories just another bit of lore?
What Is Really Wrong With The Post Office?Post + Comments (179)
by John Cole| 21 Comments
This post is in: Clown Shoes
That someone is Jesse Taylor:
This has been shown as a “dead heat”, in no small part because one of the tests to become a conservative blogger is to solve the problem 2+6 with a reference to Edmund Burke.
Yes.
by John Cole| 30 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Clown Shoes
The flying spaghetti monster does not love me enough to let this happen:
House Republican Deputy Whip Eric Cantor has spent the last week making calls to fellow Republican House members he believes will survive next week’s election, according to several members who received the call. “He is already lining up support for his next job,” says one member who spoke to Cantor. “I’m not sure what it is, and he doesn’t seem to know, but it’s not going to be deputy job, that’s for sure.”
Please, please, please, Republicans, make this guy your leader:
I am begging you. I think what the Republicans need is this guy on every news show defending the “true conservatism” you all plan to bring us in your comeback.
*** Update ***
I am reminded in the comments that Cantor is the brain trust who, immediately following the failed vote on the bailout (you know, the one McCain suspended his campaign to make sure it passed), stated that the reason it failed was because Nancy Pelosi insulted Republicans:
Railing against her words yesterday, the Republican whip, Eric Cantor, said Pelosi had “frankly struck a tone of partisanship that was inappropriate in this discussion”. He continued: “There is a reason that this vote failed – and that is Speaker Pelosi’s speech.”
That, of course, led to all sorts of awesome, to include having the entire house wingnut caucus being taunted on national television by Barney Frank:
In all seriousness, I hope the Republicans choose Cantor. I am begging. Please.