I always hate it when we have serious posts at the end of the night on week-ends, so here is another open thread.
Trying out this crazy SKYPE shit. This will end badly.
by John Cole| 97 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
I always hate it when we have serious posts at the end of the night on week-ends, so here is another open thread.
Trying out this crazy SKYPE shit. This will end badly.
Comments are closed.
ABL
I have heard the voice of John Cole.
I’m ready to be raptured now.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Skype is now part of The Borg. You probably want to use Google Voice – you know, from The Other Borg. ;-)
http://www.google.com/chat/video
Cheers,
Scott.
JGabriel
It starts with Skype, and ends with seeking random strangers on Chatroulette for webcam sex.
Stop, John, before it’s too late!
.
trollhattan
Korea: Still messed up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13820124
Also, too, their neighbors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13819767
bago
Just wait until you get into the craziness that will become of kinect chat. 3D and headtracking… Good stuff.
TooManyJens
@ABL: Aw, no video chat?
General Stuck
It’s getting harder and harder to separate what is serious and what is not with what is going on in this country. Weinergate shorted out a few of my fuses, that haven’t been quite repaired yet.
On another note, we really need rain here, not only for the forest fire situation, but for mental health reasons as well. I am a sun worshipper, which is why I choose to live where I do, but jeebus fucking christ, we haven’t had any measurable precip since it snowed in Febuary, or thereabouts, and it works on the head after a while. Living back east, you just take water for granted, cause there is so much of it. It takes on a more prominent role in one’s psyche when there is so little of it.
Anywho, no matter, the yearly Hummingbird parade is about to start here in a couple of weeks, and my camera is ready.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Fortunately, President Obama has the guts to listen to John Yoo and not those motherfucking peacenik retard firebaggers. Deciderin’ is still hard work.
.
.
John Cole
That easy? I haven’t even shown you my three inches of dangling fury!
I am off to bed, as I have to get up in a few hours and start making sauces.
jwb
@General Stuck: We’ve already started the hummingbird parade here; they started showing up in numbers about two weeks ago. Very few butterflies so far, however. I blame the drought.
JMY
So Dan Choi’s appearance on the Last Word seems to be ruffling some feathers on Twitter.
Trurl
Not only is Obama’s war on Libya illegal, he was told so by his own Justice Department.
All of you who vote for him again will deserve everything you get.
joeyess
Cole, using Skype you should try to employ this bit of internet magic. Just engage in the Skype at the appointed time, then after it’s release, edit it like the video above and upload it on youtube.
A debate with Teh Pantload would be priceless.
BD of MN
this is what happens when you only pay partial attention to all the comments: “hummingbird parade” makes complete sense in relation to “three inches of dangling fury”, Skype and Chatroulette….
(working for a living kept me out of downtown Minneapolis tonight, any chance of a Saturday get-together?)
Quicksand
GAH! Please pass the brain bleach.
Roger Moore
@General Stuck:
What’s so odd about 5 months without measurable precipitation? Enquiring Angelinos (actually a Pasadenan in this case) want to know.
Seriously, going long periods without rain is par for the course if you live in a semi arid area. If going for 5 months without rain is a major mental heath issue, you probably need to move somewhere that has both lots of sun and reasonable levels of precipitation. They do exist.
General Stuck
jwb
We have a few hanging around raising young nearby, of the Broadtailed and Blackchinned species. But almost to the day every year on July 1, the Rufous and Caliope show up and it’s game on. With numbers increasing when all the fledlings show up, then it’s party time until mid September.
I thought you lived back east, where there has been no drought.
General Stuck
Lived here 12 years, and no, it’s not that unusual. Nor is it unusual that someone on a blog will take ordinary griping as something way more serious than it was meant as.
Besides, you folks have an ocean nearby.
Xenos
11-dimensional chess time. In case a terminally stupid Republican become president (probability approaches 1), we need the War Powers Act to be functioning. So if he can lose this lawsuit Obama could do more to cut the possibility of the re-emergence of the Unity Doctrine (or whatever they call it) than 20 million hippies could do in decades.
And if O. wins the lawsuit, maybe some GOP house members with put together a law that will really limit future presidents. I don’t see a downside here…
eemom
@ ABL
[hushed whisper] What does it sound like?
Is it like The Ten Commandments?
“I am the John thy Cole, and thou shalt have no other Coles before me.”
Comrade Kevin
@ABL: Did you hear dogs barking and a cat yelling in the background?
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
You Angelinos also get perfect fucking weather with your no measurable precipitation. Every morning I check the Weather Channel and notice that L.A. is perking along with highs in the mid-60s. Bastards. I think Stuck’s corner of New Mexico is a little more, uh, sere.
PeakVT
@trollhattan: FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT – Lessons from Chernobyl
MikeJ
Skype is what keeps me off of airplanes. All hail skype. But not too much. I like having others pay for me to go to yurp, just not every goddamned day.
General Stuck
Not having air conditioning kind of puts an exclamation point on the sere, as well. Wait till about late July and my bitching about being too hot will reach a crescindo
Steeplejack
@General Stuck:
Good luck with the hummers, Stuck. I always like looking at your pictures.
The last place I lived in Atlanta had a ton of hummers, and it was incredibly relaxing to sit on the screened-in porch and watch them bustling around the feeders. And somewhere I have a picture of my brother in Las Vegas manually feeding a hummer from the cap of a plastic Coke bottle. (Not Coke, sugar water, but they seem to like the color red.)
And, speaking of your camera being ready, I just lucked into a very good deal on a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS6, and I’m looking forward to stretching some photo muscles that haven’t had a workout in years. I was looking for something in the small point-and-shoot category that would have enough manual dials and levers to give me the illusion of control, and I think this will do that. Plus it feels good in my hand and looks cool, like something that Cartier-Bresson might have carried in the ’30s. So I guess I’ll be looking for that “decisive moment.” . . . Wait, what? I think that was one that just went by. Damn.
Jewish Steel
I imagine Cole’s voice to sound like James Coburn.
The White Sox have scored 1 run in 27 innings. Nice work, boys.
Steeplejack
@Quicksand:
And yet I can’t turn away.
ETA: Actually, I think “Three Inches of Dangling Fury” should be a tag for future political sex scandals.
AnotherBruce
@20 eemom
Well, apparently the CIA has other Coles before John.
Yutsano
Your alternative is…the slick Mormon job destroyer who has more positions than Gumby on speed?
DO YOU THINK YOU COULD STOP AND THINK FOR A SECOND BEFORE YOU ANSWER A QUESTION??
RossInDetroit
If God had meant us to talk into machines he’d have… said so in the Bible or something.
It just ain’t natural.
Comrade Kevin
The people who think they’re going to teach the Democrats a “lesson” from the (cough) “base” are the types who helped give us what’s happening in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, etc. They’ve already started it again for 2012.
Yutsano
I smell rodent copulation. But I have been told I’m cynical.
FlipYrWhig
No, they don’t get credit or blame for that. There are too few of them. Far, far too few of them.
IrishGirl
Awwww, John wants his happy Skype ending….somebody has to give it to him, right?
(I’m just being a bitch, never mind my sideshow…maybe if I pull out a wiener, take a picture and tweet it, someone will notice)
Comrade Kevin
@IrishGirl: Since this is an Open Thread, have you seen Rory McIlroy at the US Open? Every time I hear his voice on the TV, I love, love, love it. It used to be you only heard that wonderful accent when something got blown up. When I hear it, it reminds me of family.
Yutsano
He’s from Ulster? SWEET!!
Comrade Kevin
He is indeed!
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, we get great weather until summer arrives. Then it gets fucking hot any place that isn’t smack by the coast, and even right by the coast if there’s a Santa Anna. I’ve seen it peak over 100 degrees every day for well over a week, and I’ve personally measured it at 115 at my work. Admittedly, it’s a dry heat, what with the lack of precipitation and all, but it’s still melt your brain hot.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
Dude, spare me your apologetic outlier-weather anecdata. The fact remains that your average daily high is around 80° this month and soars into the mid-80s the rest of the summer. I’d take that in a heartbeat.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
so the big anti-gay gun is david tyree?
i would like to take that as a positive sign.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Testing . . .
Checking to see whether a shorter version of the handmade reply gizmo works.
ETA: Yeah, it works.
If you want a quick and dirty reply gizmo:
Replace COMMENT NUMBER with the actual number of the comment to which you want to reply (visible when you hover over the “link” button for that comment).
Replace PERSON’S NAME with the name of that commenter.
mk3872
So, another successful Netroots wrapping up this week, right?
Another opportunity to show the MSM and conservatives that one thing all progressives can agree on is that we shoot our own if you ain’t “pure” enough.
Did you read tonight’s post on FDL by Scarecrow?
“I’m not support or voting for Pres Obama”.
He then goes on to give a laundry of reasons why he feels that Romney would do the exact same things as Obama and why -get this- Obama is WORSE than Bush.
It’s amazing the # of things that you have to cherry-pick and ignore to believe that sort of junk.
But this is the result on over-focusing on nasty commentary by folks like Greenwald (ignore Obama’s assertion that waterboarding is torture and exec order to close Gitmo) to believe that he’s worse than Bush and Cole’s complete lack of credit to Obama for his success against terrorism to rail against actions in Libya and Pakistan.
Congrats, progressives, for giving us the Tea Party congress and Tea Party president. Thanks!
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Testing . . .
Checking to see whether a shorter version of the handmade reply gizmo works.
ETA: Yeah, it works.
If you want a quick and dirty reply gizmo:
Replace COMMENT NUMBER with the actual number of the comment to which you want to reply (visible when you hover over the “link” button for that comment).
Replace PERSON’S NAME with the name of that commenter.
ETA: My comment at 42 was farkled by FYWP. FYWPWAVRPF!
ETFA: I think this version might cure the “hexadecimal shmutz” problem that Yutsano and asiangrrrlMN were having in their browsers last night. Nota bene.
asiangrrlMN
@Steepman: You are so cute the way you keep trying.
S’up, my dogs?
ETA: It didn’t work, and then I removed the extra quotes, and it worked!
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: Hmm…maybe.
EDIT: I just did old-fashioned HTML linkage. But too much work for me. Bah.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsy: Honnnnnnnnney! You’re hoooooome!
Yutsano
@ wifey: Yesh. And slightly cranky. But at least I’m nekkid. :)
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsy: Well, that does ME no good!
ETA: Wooooot! I figured it out.
Comrade Kevin
@mk3872: Why, no, I didn’t read that crap. I’m getting tired of the Hamchoiwalds trying to hijack the whole thing to push their bullshit.
Yutsano
@Wifey: What I done did now?
(I think as a patch this will work in the interim. I highly encourage a blog fix soon however. We iz a fickle lot round these parts.)
BruceK
Skype is … well, what you make of it. If you know people you talk to a lot, then it makes sense. For me, Skype means folding my international phone bill into my broadband bill (which saves a big chunk of money) with the added bonus that phone calls to the folks back home now come with added 2001-video-phone style “isn’t it cool to be living in the future?” gee-whiz-ness.
Not just for geeks, either; my mom and her sister (one in New York, the other in Athens, both pensioners) have made long Skype video calls a part of their daily routine. Gives an added dimension to the conversation when you can see and not just hear the people you’re talking to … though you can always turn off the camera and just talk, if that’s your thing.
It’s a tool. Someone could cave in someone else’s skull with a frozen rack of ribs, but that doesn’t make baby-back ribs an inherently deadly weapon.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsy: You being nekkid does ME no good. We have a true Republican fake-marriage.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN :
You laugh, but this was troubling my dreams last night. I finally figured out that this short version would probably work for people with the “hex shmutz” problem, and it was my duty to get the word out.
Having said that, I’m about to go to bed. I have gargled through a bottle of champers to celebrate the start of the three-day weekend, and I need to try to get a haircut at some point tomorrow morning. My go-to gal, who does a great job, is leaving to go to another place, and I need to get a (long overdue) haircut before she disappears. Will decide later whether to follow her to the new (and very expensive–yay for her!) place or find another person at the current place (which is very convenient). I keep getting these middle-aged Asian women who want to cut my hair like that rugged noncom dude they knew back in Saigon in ’73. High and tight. Not really my look. Not now, anyway.
ETA: That reminds me: where has Soonergrunt been lately? Haven’t seen him at all. Or have I just missed him?
Yutsano
@Wifey: Oh shush. You’ll be knocking boots with your Canuckistani soon enough. I expect at least pictures you know.
@Steeplejack: You ask a good question, though I think he posted a couple days back. He did turn into ebil gubmint worker like me though.
IrishGirl
@Comrade Kevin Actually Ulster accents don’t do much for me I’m afraid. My family are all from the south and west…Munster towns like Limerick, Cork and Dublin. I may be Irish American, but I can tell the difference between their accents. ;)
asiangrrlMN
@Steepman, aw, poor baby. I’m glad you were able to figure it out. And, I hear ya on the hair-cutting dilemma. Fortunately, I just have to trim the ends of my hair once every other month or so.
@Yutsy, true! In less than a week! No pictures of boot-knocking, though. I do have SOME sense of decorum (not much, but a little).
OK. I’m outie. Y’all keep it real for me.
bryanD
Good overview of the Obama Administration’s “gunwalker” scandal.
http://globalorganizedcrime.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2011/05/31/atfs-fast-furious-obamas-weaponsgate/
jaleh
I just happened to go to FDL, that site is a right-wing site, no ifs and buts about it. The comments there are the same as redstate.
stuckinred
jaleh –
scarecrow has really gone off the deep end. How the fuck do they know what Mitt would do?
jaleh
stuckinred:
I am in Europe right now, and it’s amazing that you don’t find one person who does not think Obama is amazing.
We just drove through the highways in France, not ONE pot-hole, the roads are unbelievable and so well maintained. Then you have these a-holes, not believing in government. I just can’t get my head around Republicans, then you have FDL!! yikes. depressing. So, FDL people think Mitt will fix the roads better than if you have Obama in the office? OR, he will sign the gay marriage law? Why do they even claim they are Dems?
arguingwithsignposts
Against my better judgment and at the suggestion of @mk3872, I peeked at the front page of FDL. The lead political headline: “Late Night: At NN11, White House Propagandist Pfeiffer Preps for President Romney” by Scarecrow. I’m not linking it. You can look for yourself if you like.
Bad thing to do first thing in the morning on a fine saturday. The conclusion:
Holy Fucking Shit. I had no ideal Obama Derangement Syndrome was that bad.
Obamism destroyed a once-proud party? WTF? I mean, WTFF!?!
ETA: the comments are just as bad. Ugh. I need a shower, some brain bleach, something to make sure none of that weapons-level stupidity rubbed off.
liberal
President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya…
lacp
Hey, it’s too early on a Saturday morning for this sour stuff. Here’s something to chill out with:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/icy-beauty-goes-skinny-dipping-with-beluga-whales-the-shy-dancers-of-the-deep/story-e6freuy9-1226077408684
liberal
@mk3872 blithered,
Uh, no. It was abysmal economic conditions that gave us the Tea Party congress. (House, actually.)
arguingwithsignposts
@liberal: I’ve seen that headline pop up several times over the last coupla days. It’s incredibly misleading, as is the lede of the story that follows.
And
Not like politics would play a role in how this action should be interpreted by a bunch of lawyers.
Thanks for playing the meme, NYT.
arguingwithsignposts
@65 liberal:
Um, yeah.
Jethro Troll
A story about a dog
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13819764
It will probably not cheer you up.
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
“You Angelinos also get perfect fucking weather with your no measurable precipitation. Every morning I check the Weather Channel and notice that L.A. is perking along with highs in the mid-60s.”
Check back with us in September when the Santa Ana winds are blowing 40 miles an hour, it’s 105 with 12 percent humidity, and the entire fucking world is on fire.
burnspbesq
@liberal:
A client didn’t follow his lawyers’ advice? Zounds! I shall now faint dead away.
burnspbesq
@arguingwithsignposts:
Holy fucking shit, indeed.
arguingwithsignposts
@burnspbesq:
Even that isn’t accurate. He had advice that pointed in two different directions and he took one direction not the other.
Even the BBC is screwing up this story: “Barack Obama ‘overruled top legal advice.”
ETA: Italics added to point out the contradictory parts of the paragraphs. He didn’t ignore top legal advice. He took advice that differed, and chose one set of advice over the other. Geez, is it really that hard, journalists?
burnspbesq
Speaking of folks from Ulster …
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=hmK5WDQ3kUs
JPL
@Jethry:
It was a rabbi not an imam so no problem. Can you imagine the reaction if it was a Muslim.
edit..my reply didn’t work. The message was in response to Jethro @ 68
Trurl
“Hm. Who is likelier to be right on whether bombing a country to kill its leader constitutes hostilities under the War Powers Act? The Pentagon General Counsel and the acting head of the Justice Department? Or the guy who was my personal lawyer? Ah, fuck it… I’m just going to listen to the one who says it’s OK for me to have my war.”
burnspbesq
@ Trurl:
Hmmm … Who should I believe here, Walter Dellinger or some random Balloon-Juice troll? Tough call.
arguingwithsignposts
@Trurl
Show us on the doll where Obummer touched you.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Trurl: The State Dep’t and the lawyer whose job it is to provide legal advice to the President (not the “guy who was my personal lawyer”) vs. the Defense Dep’t and the acting head of the OLC. Seems like a wash to me. Of course, that isn’t as fun as rhetorical bomb throwing.
jaywillie
Okay, so I peeked at Scarecrow’s daft post at Firebaggerpuddle and this…
…is just the epitome of the myopic obliviousness of some on the left. Let’s take one example from this past week: the House Republicans gutting funding for implementing new food safety regulations, regulations pushed for by Pres. Obama and passed by Democrats (every Democrat voted against this current House GOP insanity, during the debate of which Rep. Jack Kingston argued that we don’t need such regulations because the private sector “polices itself,” which is just GOPspeak for, “The private sector can do whatever the hell it likes.”) Let’s consider what’s happening in states like PA, WI, MI, FL, OH, and NJ. Sure, my ex-gov Rendell was a bit of a sleaze, but he NEVER gutted education funding or scapegoated nurses, police officers, firefighters, the poor, the sick, the elderly, and children to enact draconian budget cuts. These schmucks are just absolutists and ideological dogmatists who have never successfully advocated for any lasting policy changes in their lives.
burnspbesq
This is a pretty thoughtful look at the WPA/Libya question.
http://opiniojuris.org/2011/06/16/latest-on-war-powers-and-libya-resurrecting-the-wpr-probably-not/
Trurl
And when in doubt, always err on the side of starting a war. After all, it will be over in days, not weeks…
arguingwithsignposts
@Trurl – You seem to forget who was pushing for this action. Hint: It wasn’t the U.S.
But please, continue with your rich fantasy life.
burnspbesq
Mark Kleiman figures out Obama’s fiendish plot, with help from Michelle Bachmann.
http://www.samefacts.com/2011/06/watching-conservatives/the-plot-revealed/
Omnes Omnibus
@ Trurl: Excellent job of goal post shifting there.
handsmile
I’m new to the Open Threads portion of “The John Cole and Friends Show,” so am unfamiliar with protocol. But if international news stories are permissible on a Saturday morning, this item accompanied my first cuppa and muffin:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/18/us-talks-taliban-karzai
There’s also yet another story on the unfolding catastrophe (3 months on and years more to go) that remains Fukushima Daiichi. [Sorry couldn’t get the link to work.]
Trurl
Oh yes, I forgot – despite its superficial resemblance to a war of aggression against yet another oil-exporting Muslim country, this is merely a “kinetic military action”. Thanks for the correction.
Poor Obama… a peace-loving man ruthlessly bullied by the more powerful members of NATO into a conflict he would have preferred to avoid.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/06/18/libya/index.html
Alex S.
I’m not sure how the War Powers Act deals with multilateral actions. There is a UN resolution that has to be executed, there is a NATO action that has to be supported. Anyway, as soon as the US recognizes the Benghazi government as the official government of Libya actions against Ghadafi aren’t hostilities against foreign powers anymore.
burnspbesq
This. The action against the Libyan regime was authorized by the UNSC. That resolution, and the UN Charter, impose certain obligations on the United States. Congress can override a treaty by subsequent legislation, but in non-tax cases the courts typically require clear evidence of Congressional intent before finding an override. See, e.g., Cook v. United States, 288 U.S. 102 (1933). The WPA, as I read it, is internally inconsistent; it’s difficult to reconcile section 1547(a)(2) and section 1547(d)(1). So I think it’s a very open question whether there is clear evidence of an intent to override, particularly given the absence of any statement about treaty obligations in section 1541.
Trurl
And yet, bizarrely, even though Obama, according to you, could have said, “Sorry, guys, I don’t like this war any more than you do, but it’s an obligation imposed on me”, instead he went the shit-on-your-plate-and-call-it-pate route of claiming that it’s not actually a war.
That doesn’t make sense to me. But then I’m not an 11-dimensional chess grandmaster.
Alex S.
You know, he did it just to confuse you. He can be a real troll sometimes.
burnspbesq
@Alex S.:
I don’t think any action by Obama was needed to achieve that result.
eemom
@ burnspbesq
I had Walter Dellinger for Con Law first year. He’d show up for class 10 minutes late every day and he spent the first six weeks blathering about Marbury v. Madison. Wearing tight jeans and strutting his, um, stuff for the viewing pleasure of folks in the front rows.
Also too, I FIRST saw him a party in August 1984 before classes started. He was drunk as a skunk and grabbing the ass of every woman he could reach.
It is easy to see how he and Bill Clinton got along like the proverbial house on fire.
Bruce S
If you’ve got kids or grandkids in another part of the country/world, Skype is great. This said from someone who avoids Twitter like the plague and doesn’t even like to text message.
Also this – the deficit hype has totally poisoned our politics. Evidence increases from England that it’s a recipe for disaster. The Dems’ timidity and cow-towing to Tea Party bullshit drives me crazy…
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/06/more-on-dangers-inherent-in-austerity.html
We’re screwed. And, although I believe Obama will be re-elected, it’s because the GOPers are shooting themselves in the foot with crazy over-reach when, in fact, they’ve largely succeeded in setting the terms of economic debate. Not a pretty sight on either side – insanity vs. timidity.
Skepticat
Skype is the only “phone service” available to me in the Bahamas, and it’s vital. Quick, easy, and free–what’s not to like? Even the cost to call cells and landlines is minimal. I’ve tried all the other VoIPs, and Skype is my favorite.
That said, now that I’m back in the States for hurricane season and have access to actual phone service, I must admit that I hate phones, so having one isn’t necessarily a good thing.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
All of which says exactly zero about his analytical abilities.
I had Eustice for Reorgs in the LL.M. program at NYU. The worst teacher I ever had, even worse that Sister Mary Atilla in third grade. But he literally wrote the book on corporate tax.
The point is that neither being a lousy teacher or being a cretin correlates especially well with being able to get to the right answer to a difficult question.
eemom
I wasn’t suggesting that it did, burns. I just thought it was a funny story.
burnspbesq
@ eemom:
At least your guy blathered about a case that’s still relevant. My guy blathered about Shreveport and Carolene Products.