Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

Nevertheless, she persisted

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

We Survived Breitbartpocalypse!

Just a few bad apples.

We can agree to disagree, but I’m right.

Lighten up, Francis.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

We are aware of all internet traditions.

This Blog Goes to 11…

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

How has Obama failed you today?

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Wetsuit optional.

Too inconsequential to be sued

Our job is not to persuade Republicans but to defeat them.

An army of rabid, anonymous commenters

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

We still have time to mess this up!

Militantly superior in their own minds…

Almost as fun as hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Verified, but limited!

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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Reader Interactions

133Comments

  4. 4.

    schrodinger's cat

    Plz Tunch, can we has the EDIT button back?

  8. 8.

    schrodinger's cat

    @trollhattan: I think we need to appease him by giving him tuna and no jokes about his size.

    I ar a serious cat an this is a serious blog.

  11. 11.

    Warren Terra

    It took me twelve refreshes to get this page to load!

    (kidding; and in any case it actually loaded quite rapidly).

  13. 13.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Well I should help a little. After having the wrap around paragraph problem on both my home and work computers for days (which meant I had to constantly refresh to try and fix it) I finally broke down and downloaded Firefox on both machines. Problem gone.

  14. 14.

    dexwood

    Oh, great, you’ve just told trolls how to sabotage this place.
    Actually, it seems fine at this end.

  17. 17.

    geg6

    Just to be clear, I only bitched once.

    /suck up

    my John is forcing me to watch the CBS Evening News. Is it wrong to want to pinch an old man like Bob Schieffer in the neck? If it is, I don’t want to be right.

  19. 19.

    schrodinger's cat

    Another request: Tunch photo!
    The reason blog is slow to load. Tunch.

    I ar in your intertoobz distorting the space time continuum.

  22. 22.

    geg6

    Make that punch Bob Schieffer, not pinch. Fuck. I NEED EDIT BUTTON NAOW PLZ!

    Okay, make that twice, John.

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I will once again remind you that there is simply no point spamming the refresh button if your load time is long.

    It works for elevators.

  30. 30.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @schrodinger’s cat: “The reason blog is slow to load. Tunch.”

    Yup. Everything we see here passes through Tunch first. If he gets pissed then everything has to go around him first.

    Shortest distance between points A and B and all that… ;)

  31. 31.

    Dee Loralei

    If anyone is in Memphis we’re having a SOTU watch party at LooseGoose @8014 Club Center Dr. in Cordova. And I’ll be live tweeting it @EShelbyTN4Obama and @deeloralei. Sounds like it’ll be a fun evening.

  32. 32.

    joeyess

    but I will once again remind you that there is simply no point spamming the refresh button if your load time is long. It does nothing but slow down the site even more by sending repeated requests.

    I’m not doing that. I was merely wondering if Tunch ate one of the hamsters.

  33. 33.

    beltane

    Question: How was Mitt Romney ever elected governor of Massachusetts? He makes Martha Coakley look like Madonna in comparison. The only explanation I can think of is that his opponent was a convicted sex offender and necrophiliac.

    Someone just told me that Mormons are allowed to drink caffeinated soft drinks but that coffee and tea are forbidden. What about iced coffee and tea?

  35. 35.

    jacy

    @geg6:

    Pinch him, punch him, poke him, hit him with a stick. It’s all good.

    Bob Sheiffer, not Cole, or, heaven forbid, Tunch.

    I personally want to fit everybody I see on the TV with shock collars hooked to a control panel I can easily master. Let’s see how negative reinforcement really works.

  36. 36.

    Libby

    It’s quite possible it’s because of the solar storm. Apparently the earth is being bombarded by some kind of solar plasma flare. Lots of people complaining about internet weirdness.

    FTR, it was loading slow yesterday for me, seems okay now.

  37. 37.

    Garbo

    Pls let us know if there is anything we CAN do to help, I.e., if you need to raise funds for hosting expenses.

  38. 38.

    joeyess

    Apparently the refresh button is like the crosswalk buttons in America. It serves no function other than making us feel like we’re affecting the world around us.

  40. 40.

    JGabriel

    From C-Span’s front page:

    Watch the president’s speech on C-SPAN2, including live tweets on your screen from members of congress.

    Can I just say that tweeting from the the Capitol audience should be banned during the SOTU, and any Rep. or Senator breaking the rule should be censured or impeached?

    Seriously. I don’t want our MoC’s tweeting smart-ass remarks in 140 character bursts while the President is speaking to the nation.

    A) It’s disrespectful.

    B) Most of them aren’t very good at it.

    C) That’s our job.

    D) Their job is to fucking pay attention to the president and pass (or oppose) the legislative agenda he outlines. Not to blow raspberries and call him a commie during the SOTU.

    /Rant.

    .

  42. 42.

    Politically Lost

    I used to sell cars. One of the worst (of the many worsts) parts of selling cars is doing the delivery with a customer. I’ll explain: Customer buys a new Cadillac Escalade. The freakin’ things are complicated with steering wheel controls, On-Star, navigation, seat settings, etc. etc. etc. On top of this they’ve just spent four to six hours at the dealership on a Sunday and they want to leave…now. But, they can’t actually operate most of all of these “features” without some rudimentary instruction. While trying to teach the basics so I can get them on their way–the process would always seem to devolve into them picking a random button and pressing it over and over and over again as some way to get the machine to do what they want. Until I could wean them from the random button the process would go nowhere.

    Reminds me of something. Actually reminds me of many things, but one specifically right now.

  44. 44.

    WereBear

    @beltane: Someone just told me that Mormons are allowed to drink caffeinated soft drinks but that coffee and tea are forbidden. What about iced coffee and tea?

    That sounds incredibly stupid if true. This is the kind of thing that drove me away from organized religion.

  45. 45.

    Bago

    Seriously, an imported resource like something from the CSS or JavaScript on the site is referenced through a dns lookup, and your browser’s thread blocks on the lookup. Thus it seems to take forever to load. Use a diagnostic proxy like http://Www.fiddler2.com to analyze the source of the slow blocking http request used to construct the page.

  46. 46.

    joeyess

    @beltane: Postum is caffeinated. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Postum is sifted like flour thru their magic underwear thereby making it acceptable as a magic mormon drink.

    Really, I think was that no one would sell them coffee or tea anywhere during their long journey looking for a territory where everyone didn’t want to kill them all.

    So, it was probably deemed that they were going to drink Postum or it was nothing at all.

    Here’s a thought experiment: Who was the first one to try Postum and what kind of face did that person make when that putrid gruel hit their palate?

  47. 47.

    beltane

    @WereBear: The information came from a LDS blog but I don’t understand the rationale behind it. Maybe I’m weird but I don’t want to worship a God who won’t let me have a cup of coffee in the morning.

  49. 49.

    Comrade Mary

    @geg6: Vulcan nerve pinch. Works for me.

    And here’s the real reason why John took a while to get back to us: he’s been been teaching Tunch how to text.

    Expect results like this the next time John brings home a date.

    Expect this when John’s mom comes over.

  50. 50.

    jl

    Darn, Cole is on the reply button problem already?

    No more jokes about getting his mom to make him do it, then.

    Oh well.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @beltane: My guess is that coffee and tea existed at the time the religion was founded and were explicitly banned. Subsequently invented drinks were not. Kind of like an originalist interpretation.

  52. 52.

    Comrade Mary

    CRAP! One tiny extra link and I’m in moderation.

    If there any any FPP types around, please please please de-mod my previous comment.

    They were good links. I’ve been waiting for the chance to release them. And they’re all locked up now.

  53. 53.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @geg6:

    Is it wrong to want to pinch an old man like Bob Schieffer in the neck?

    Pinch, or punch? I mean, either one works just fine, but they are Different Things.

  55. 55.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus: My understanding is that coda with caffeine was also not allowed for a long time. The LDS changed their mind, supposedly after the church invested in some soft drink companies, or found it difficult to manage their portfolio without something that produced a caffeinated soda. But that last cynical bit is from my non LDS Utah family branch, who are very down on Mormons.

  57. 57.

    pragmatism

    the onion made me laugh today:
    Ron Paul Supporter Likes The Way Paul Tells It Like It Has No Chance Of Being
    RICHMOND, IN—Self-proclaimed strict constitutionalist and freethinker Rick Crawford told reporters Monday he is supporting Ron Paul in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries because of the way the candidate looks people directly in the eye, doesn’t mince words, and tells it like it will never, ever be in a million years. “Ron cuts right through the fat and doesn’t sugarcoat anything when he talks about policies that would be absolutely impossible to implement, like abolishing the federal income tax, eliminating Medicare, or putting the nation’s currency back on the gold standard,” Crawford said as he pounded a hand-painted “Ron Paul 2012” sign in his front lawn. “He’s not afraid to give Americans no-nonsense straight talk about his completely delusional fantasy world. That’s why I’m part of the highly unlikely Ron Paul revolution.” Sources close to Crawford’s family said his wife supports Mitt Romney because of the way he tells it like people want to hear it.

  58. 58.

    Davis X. Machina

    Question: How was Mitt Romney ever elected governor of Massachusetts?

    With a veto-proof Democratic majority in both Houses since Noah shut the door on the ark — and a lot of them the kind of party hack you used to see standing on Lenin’s tomb — the citizens of the Commonwealth have elected a series of GOP governors, as a counterweight.

    Competent, non-corrupt Democratic candidates would help, and the state party is an even bigger bastion of ‘it’s his/her turn’-ism than the national GOP.

  66. 66.

    JGabriel

    @Veritas:

    So who else is ready to see the last State of the Union by the TOTUS?

    Veritas, you told us Romney won Iowa and would win SC, and neither of those were true!

    We will never be able to believe you again. Our trust is decimated.

    .

  67. 67.

    Mark S.

    @beltane:

    Interestingly (or not), the divine revelation Joseph Smith got was against “hot drinks,” which were interpreted as coffee and tea. Most of the Mormons I know drink sodas.

    More here.

  68. 68.

    Veritas

    @JGabriel

    Iowa was a tie, and I only said he would win SC if he won both IA and NH outright.

    Anyway, let’s see what Teleprompter Jesus says tonight. He must be pretty desperate at this point.

  69. 69.

    5x5

    Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa.

    I read your blog on a work computer that’s only allowed to run IE. Sometimes I have to reload eleventy billion times to get the page to load properly.

    I’m sorry. I’m going to beat myself with a stick and never do it again.

    Thank you.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WereBear: I have heard the same about Christian Scientists but am not quoits interested enough to research further.

    (I left the sentence as is, comp,tee with weird autocorrection, but you know I typed, and meant, “quite.”)

    ((And that one, I typed, and meant, “complete,” but weird autocorrection had it’s own ideas.))

    (((Typed “its

  73. 73.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @beltane:

    What kills me is that everyone is ignoring that Romney is the perfect Republican candidate. Almost. He’s wealthy, he’s made much of his money through the financial markets that the right worships, he’s white, he has a nice looking wife and kids and he goes to church.

    It’s that last one that is killing him and many on the right are trying to argue that his flavor of religion isn’t what they hate about him, it’s that he’s a “Massachusetts Liberal”, “Romneycare” and so on and so on. I call bullshit on that because of the guy the right is endorsing over Romney; Gingrich. The Noot has more personal baggage than a fleet of AirBus A-300’s can carry and yet they prefer him over Romney. He’s twice divorced and thrice married, has had an unknown number of affairs, is a lobbyist, sided with Nancy Pelosi (and sat for an ad!), was for the individual mandate, has been convicted and fined for an ethics violation, was kicked out of the party leadership and he left the House in disgrace. I’m just scratching the surface here but for every plus Romney has, Noot has a negative. Yet they are pushing for Noot over Romney, it’s damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

    Being a Mormon is killing Romney in the south and anyone who says otherwise is lying. I’m sure that his mediocre public performances haven’t helped him either but when you look at the glaring differences between the top two candidates, it’s clear that the right has put on the blinders so they can focus on taking Romney out while ignoring the glaring inadequacies of Noot. One other point is that I believe that the wealthy don’t want Romney to win the primary because his lifestyle and wealth are going to give everyone a little glimpse into the advantages that the wealthy have over everyone else.

    IMO they don’t want to go under the microscope right now, not in this economic climate. They live in their gated worlds and talk of Romney, his wealth, how he acquired it, who suffered for his taking it, how he now lives off of it while more cash rolls in without his having to exert one muscle and yet he pays less in taxes than people who work their asses and actually do something useful. Public discussion of this is improper, it should be discussed privately in quiet rooms. ;)

    Nope, it’s better that they put their money behind Noot, let him run interference, be a distraction and then bomb spectacularly in the election, than it would be to invite unnecessary scrutiny into ‘their world’.

    That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. ;)

  75. 75.

    dmsilev

    @JGabriel:

    We will never be able to believe you again. Our trust is decimated.

    Our trust in Veritas is 90% of what it was? I guess that’s true. 90% of zero is still zero.

  79. 79.

    General Stuck

    Newt is just exercising his supernatural powers. The MUP will fix his wagon good, soon enough.

  81. 81.

    AA+ Bonds

    That would seem to indicate though that there is a point to hitting refresh a million times, which is to punish all of you for things you can’t understand, like making a kid go to church

  83. 83.

    Bago

    @Buck: I know right? It’s not like I worked for a fortune 500 company to track action script black list hackers wearing a white hat. Not like I have rooted f5 resolvers to get my job done.

  84. 84.

    AA+ Bonds

    I’m still giggling at those poll results that show that 80% of South Carolinian evangelicals proudly go to church “at least once[!] a month[!]”

    Motherfucking Protestants, I swear, they’re born live and die and never acquire any idea of what it is like to actually practice religion

  89. 89.

    Keith G

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    My guess is that coffee and tea existed at the time the religion was founded and were explicitly banned. Subsequently invented drinks were not. Kind of like an originalist interpretation.

    But wouldn’t a prophet be able give them a “heads up” on what lays ahead?

  90. 90.

    General Stuck

    @MikeJ:

    Not an insult, I think Cole came up with it to mildly mock all of Obama’s Stuart Smally togetherness blather.

    Magical Unity Pony

  91. 91.

    Brachiator

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    One other point is that I believe that the wealthy don’t want Romney to win the primary because his lifestyle and wealth are going to give everyone a little glimpse into the advantages that the wealthy have over everyone else.

    The wealthy have never been afraid of showing their stuff. Nowhere in the world. That’s why they have armed guards.

    You’ve had programs like “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” And in America, everybody, except 3 progressive activists, want to be rich. Kim Dot Com rich.

    The wealthy in America tried to turn it down a bit after the Bradley Martin Ball in 1897. But just for a hot second.

  95. 95.

    MikeJ

    @Bago: Normally I’d agree with your diagnosis except earlier FYWP was throwing unable to connect to DB errors. I’d like to look at the load on the mysql box.

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @AA+ Bonds:

    Motherfucking Protestants, I swear, they’re born live and die and never acquire any idea of what it is like to actually practice religion

    Broad fucking brush there, eh?

  97. 97.

    MikeJ

    @General Stuck: Thank you. Would have driven me nuts.

    Sadly the indy voters (ie, those so low info they don’t know what the parties stand for) like to hear the MUP noises. Hard to get elected without at least pretending the other side isn’t run by evil fuckwits.

  98. 98.

    WaterGirl

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Just out of curiosity, I called my sister today (evangelical republican sister who lives in colorado) and asked her about the republican candidates.

    She said she really likes Santorum, but that if it comes down to Romney and Gingrich by the time they get to Colorado, she would vote for Gingrich. She is willing to forgive the 3 wives and extramarital affairs, but she is not comfortable with the mormon agenda as related to politics.

    I asked about the general election. If it came down to Romney vs. Obama in November, she would vote for Romney. She still believes that Barack Obama is Muslim and socialist and he had a communist father. So she would take the mormon over Obama. I asked if she would stay home rather than vote for either of them, and she said she would have to think about that.

    Just one person, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. I think it’s fascinating to see what trumps what.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    Josh Marshall retweeted this just now:

    Per Dem source: Biden in SOTU preview call to Dem officials summed up where things stand: “Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”

    Sweet.

  100. 100.

    JPL

    What infuriates me are the hypocrites who complain about modern day conveniences such as Teleprompters while complaining on a blog and typing on a computer.. They need to use typewriters just like they did in the good old days. You know who else used a typewriter.. Assholes all of them.

  102. 102.

    pragmatism

    @JPL: along with 57 states, the prompter is the only other “see, he’s stupid” trope that has shown any legs. this is why the wingers are desperate to parse transcripts. plus there is still residual butthurt from C+ Augustus’ reign.

  103. 103.

    Bago

    @AA+ Bonds: True, but you have to remember the way HTML is parsed. You grab the first chunk to fill out the DOM, and then you start the dependency tree. In other words, the modular model allows you to pull in resources from other parts of the network, which you first have to resolve the name, and then use (usually top) to connect with the machines that will provide the desired content. The problem is that third party content is delivered in a bubble, meaning that the context can be hijacked.

    If you control the names on a network, you control the content.

  108. 108.

    JPL

    @pragmatism: If they want to bitch wouldn’t it be more effective to use a stamp and envelope just like their hero who raised taxes on the middle class did. They give hypocrisy a new name.

  109. 109.

    Roger Moore

    @WereBear:
    My understanding is that the whole thing about caffeinated beverages is wrong. I’ve been told that Brigham Young said something about not drinking hot drinks, and since coffee and tea were the drinks he was thinking about people assume it’s because of the caffeine. But it’s credible that he really meant something about them being hot, not about them being caffeinated, especially because lots of people didn’t know about caffeine back then. A quick search says that the LDS church doesn’t have any specific rule about caffeinated soft drinks, but recommends against consuming potentially addictive substances in general.

  111. 111.

    matt

    @WereBear: So did I. Grad school, to be precise. It was like cheeseburgers for me: At some point I realized that it wasn’t that I didn’t like cheeseburgers, it was that I didn’t like bad cheese. Same with coffee.

    I wonder if they’ll okay the “new” Starbucks blond roast in Utah. Lots of blonds there, and they like stuff that sucks.

  113. 113.

    Cassidy

    @Mark S.: Just you. :)

    Personally, there is a lot of stuff I’m willing to watch, but I also love foriegn action films and B horror movies.

  117. 117.

    lamh35

    so josh marshall made a gr8 point on twitter. that romney campaign thought by releasing the tax forms today that they’d get buried in the SOTU coverage but…not knowing POTUS would be discussing fair tax and equality, and the Buffett Rule…by releasing the taxes today, Romney just became the poster child for the Buffet Rule…

  120. 120.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @chopper: I’ve never owned a mustache comb. I’ve never had a mustache, so I never felt like I was missing something by not having one. But now….

  121. 121.

    Brachiator

    @MikeJ:

    Sadly the indy voters (ie, those so low info they don’t know what the parties stand for) like to hear the MUP noises.

    There is no such thing as a low information voter. There are only people who are not as obsessed with politics as the average blogger.

    And even if there were such a thing, if stupid voters overwhelm you with their numbers, then what good is your more informed stance?

    If you cannot understand why groups of voters don’t eagerly rush to your side, and if you cannot persuade them to join your cause, it doesn’t matter how right you are or how “low information” they might be.

  122. 122.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Anoniminous:

    No weed. Someone told me I should let the wine breathe, and if it wasn’t breathing after 10 minutes I should give it mouth-to-mouth.

  126. 126.

    MikeJ

    @Brachiator:

    There is no such thing as a low information voter.

    Bullshit. Ask your typical Fox viewer about the WMDs that were found in Iraq.

    And even if there were such a thing, if stupid voters overwhelm you with their numbers, then what good is your more informed stance?

    If having poison in the water overwhelms your spring water, what good is it for you to have clean water?

    If you cannot understand why groups of voters don’t eagerly rush to your side, and if you cannot persuade them to join your cause, it doesn’t matter how right you are or how “low information” they might be.

    Part of wooing them is making the stupid noises they like to hear like, “I’ll work with the other party.” You know that it’s moronic to say you’ll work with republicans because they obviously won’t work with us. However, you have to look like you’re trying (if you’re a Dem) to pick up the low info voters.

  127. 127.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: What’s interesting is that as recently as five years ago, moustaches on any guy under about 35 were considered “creepy.” Now every other hipster in Williamsburg has a moustache. What changed?

  128. 128.

    JGabriel

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I’ve had a moustache for two decades, and have never owned a moustache comb.

    Now all your loved ones know what to buy you for next Christmas.

    .

  130. 130.

    Brachiator

    @MikeJ:

    Bullshit. Ask your typical Fox viewer about the WMDs that were found in Iraq.

    Back at you. You are confusing people who are willfully ignorant, who wear ideological blinders, who reject facts, with people who don’t know.

    You pushed the typical nonsense that all independent voters are “low information” voters. Now you shift your ground and talk about Faux News viewers. Not the same group at all. We’re not talking about the morans who are fixed in their views.

    If having poison in the water overwhelms your spring water, what good is it for you to have clean water?

    Interesting Zen koan. Lousy analogy.

    Part of wooing them is making the stupid noises they like to hear like, “I’ll work with the other party.” You know that it’s moronic to say you’ll work with republicans because they obviously won’t work with us. However, you have to look like you’re trying (if you’re a Dem) to pick up the low info voters.

    Do you want to win an election, or do you want to preen in the mirror of your ideological purity?

  131. 131.

    handsmile

    @Bago:

    Being an irredeemable Luddite (“Say it loud, say it proud”), I haven’t clue one as to what you’re writing about in your comments #45 and #102 above.

    But as a published poet, I would consider it a good day at the office if I were to come up with a line as both obscure and evocative as this from your comment #83:

    It’s not like I worked for a fortune 500 company to track action script black list hackers wearing a white hat

    Man, it’s like reading John Ashbery. Truly, I’m grateful for your reminder of how mutable language can be. :)

  132. 132.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Brachiator:

    Seeing the ‘goods’ that they wealthy love to show off and looking at the raw numbers are two different things IMO. One makes you drool and the other will probably piss you off if you have a functioning brain. Of course, that could be the problem.

    Most of our fellow citizens lack a functioning brain.

    @WaterGirl:

    Your observation pretty much backs up what I’m saying. I do find it interesting that she thinks that Obama is a Muslim and so her ‘logic’ leads her to supporting the Wrong Cult Christian. I wonder who she would vote for if she believed Obama was a Real Christian…lol!

    If it ain’t one thing then it’s another… ;)

  133. 133.

    just me

    I suspect the slowness may have to do with the solar flares which seems to have caused minor problems with the internet for a day or so.

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