(Narration mildly NSFW)
Speaking of spiky yet oddly lovable primitive predators from before the dawn of time, Dave Weigel reports “Witness the Devastating Impact the Benghazi Story Has Had on Hillary Clinton’s Poll Numbers“:
Public Policy Polling has come out with some of the more trollish-yet-useful polls of the 2016 race. (By definition, any 2016 poll conducted in 2013 is trollish.) Because they always put a ballot test in the questionnaire, PPP’s robots get a pretty lean, accurate measure of what people think of the candidates as candidates, not as famous people….
No wonder that, as Dan Amira reports in NYMag, “Mitt Romney’s Chief Strategist Thinks Hillary Clinton Would Lose 2016 Democratic Nomination“. (Or at least, he’s willing to say that to the National Review.)
***********
Apart from prodding the h8terz, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
lojasmo
Three mile singletrack run in my stupid five fingers. Scared shitless I would break or dislocate my toe again. Dumb.
Ash Can
Which means she’s a shoo-in if she runs.
ranchandsyrup
Making some spring rolls and egg drop soup. Then spreadsheet hell until I fall asleep.
kindness
I went through a whole bunch of those vids yesterday. I believe it was via one of Sully’s links. They are fun. Hey, better than working, amirite?
Omnes Omnibus
@lojasmo: I can’t wear those things which is just as well as I would probably damage myself running in ’em. OTOH I have ridden over 110 miles since Monday and that appears to have damaged me – or at least deadened my legs.
gogol's wife
I just love “casting aspersions on my asparagus”! New catchphrase, courtesy of Louis Gohmert.
MattF
National Review exists in a space-time continuum where being “Mitt Romney’s chief strategist” makes you an expert in politics. Rather than, say, a buffoon.
JGabriel
Does anyone else think hedgehogs look like spiky punk tribbles?
Gex
I suppose it could occur to certain fuck faces that I *need* the support I have been getting here. I know he’s just a troll. I know it is just the internet. But it is exactly what I expect this world to be like. It did not disappoint.
Whatevs. Done with personal shit. The hit I take isn’t worth what I get out of it.
gogol's wife
@Gex:
What happened? There are certain people here I just ignore. They are truly a minority.
jl
I want some hedgehogs now. They seem so cute and delightful. And they probably will never fart. What more could anyone want in a pet?
Gex
@gogol’s wife: It is not about the minority status of the trolls. It is that I can’t take it. There’s no pie filter that will ever prevent me from seeing that if he wants me to see it. So better not to put myself out there for that.
aimai
That hedgehog video was the greatest thing ever. I mean EVER.
Jay C
One thing I’ve noticed about the Clintons (both Bill and Hillary) is that they seem to have usually learned shit from their political travails, and they are highly unlikely to make the same mistakes twice. And proactively pre-empting bullshit scandals (like Benghazi!) and letting their enemies discredit themselves before wasting time and effort themselves seems to have been one of the main lessons learned.
So the main result of Darrel Issa’s buffoon circus of an “investigtion” has been to raise Hillary Clinton’s “favorable” rating by 2%? Whatta shock…
dewzke
My dog! Ugly noncuddable animals! I’m gonna go scratch a random puppy to erase this pic from my memory.
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: I have trouble thinking of them as anything but the ones in The Once and Future King.
jl
I see the ‘can’t edit my own comment’ demon is back. I guess that a is feature not a bug that I don’t understand.
Anyway, was going to add that if my pet hedgehog does fart, I own the new universe, right? A win-win proposition.
aimai
@Gex: I totally get how different it is to feel targeted by someone than merely to skip the comments of a troll. It just leaves you feeling raw, and frightened, and sickened. But its really important that you take care of yourself right now and that you not let anyone drive you away from any familiar places, or any support that you can get. I’m sorry that you have become a target by some troll–its a horrible feeling and I’ve experienced it myself. But try to get over heavy ground as lightly as possible. Post when you need to post, read what you need to read. You will have the last laugh on whoever is trying to get your goat. Its like that old joke “in the morning–he’ll still be a trolling asshole.”
lojasmo
@Gex:
CS? JSF?
ETA: Stick around, please.
MomSense
@Gex:
I saw that the other day. I’m so sorry. Most of us do not feel that way at all! But I completely understand if you don’t feel safe sharing as a result–that pisses me off.
Sending you a hug.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gex: The guy was being an ass. If crying out into this wilderness helps you, then, by all means, continue to do it.
NotMax
What, no new ‘scandal?’
Been 24 hours.
Baby vultures get noisy when not fed.
@Ash Can
Harken back to 2007, when the so-called conventional wisdom also labeled her a shoo-in for the nomination.
Amir Khalid
@lojasmo:
I’ve read that those “barefoot” shoes take months or even years to get accustomed to, because they require a very different stride — landing on the mid-foot or towards the ball of the foot rather than on the heel, where unlike on traditional running shoes there’s no cushioning to speak of. That you have to build up speed and mileage gradually, to avoid injury.
gogol's wife
@lojasmo:
sounds like T&H to me. He’s always on about the fact that no one is real.
West of the Rockies
I hope you stick, too, Gex… We need all the rational voices we can get.
Tonight, I am watching my 11-year-old daughter test for her jr. black belt in Kung Fu. Very proud dad here….
gogol's wife
@West of the Rockies:
We also seem to have lost Arguing with Signposts the other day. It makes me sad, along with the disappearance of General Stuck.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: I think AWS is merely re-nymed.
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
What happened to Arguing? Stuck just disappeared one day.
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
What happened to Arguing? Stuck just disappeared one day.
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid: Cleek was running in them. If he pops up he may have something to say about it.
Seanly
@lojasmo:
My wife has 3 pairs of those now. She didn’t get them for running – just general walking around. She likes them but has come to realize they might not be good for hikes in the woods with the dogs.
I tried on a pair, but I have long toes & thick big toes (I mean really, really thick). Couldn’t even get them on all the way…
Amir Khalid
I don’t know why, but I believe every word of the narration.
GxB
@gogol’s wife:
And the dolt has the social skills of someone with severe Asperger’s syndrome – got to fit that in somehow.
ETA: Yea! embiggened comment font!
Patricia Kayden
Those Hillary Clinton polls are sweet! If the Repubs keep going, her favorable rating may skyrocket to the 60s. Keep going, Repubs.
Violet
@Gex: Hey, Gex. Just wanted to say that it sucks that you are having to deal with this sort of crap right now. Sending you good thoughts. I hope the good here outweighs the bad here enough so that you stay. I’ve always enjoyed your posts and your thoughts. Would miss you.
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus: @Baud:
I know he’s re-nymed, but I can’t remember the new nym. But he was offended by the jokes made on the thread in which people were worrying about Gen. Stuck, so he said he was leaving.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: Oh, I missed all that by being out of town over the weekend (I guess).
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Were you with the 19 yr old again?
God bless and keep you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: She’s 21, and, sorry, no. I was helping my parents deal with emptying out my grandmother’s house. And, of course, Mother’s Day.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh well. A man can dream.
Amir Khalid
@Gex:
Let me join the chorus saying that you’re among friends here. You belong here more than any troll does. I too hope that you’ll stay, because you need every bit of support and good wishes you can get right now. Because the rest of us would hate to lose the chance to share that with you. And because, like others have said, you add so much to the conversation here.
Tonal (visible) Crow
The comment editor no longer works for me. The “expand and wrap” button is missing, and all my changes get lost when I click “save”. Is there some obnoxious Google script I have to unblock to make this work, and, you know, to let Google know which IP address I’m using to access this site? FSM I hate Google-hosted scripts.
West of the Rockies
What is up with people who troll anyway? Are they just purely misanthropic morons who enjoy pissing in the Wheaties? Do they get sociopathic jollies out of being contrary (to the point of revealing their own stupidity and ignorance)? Yeah, I know that some of them are probably teenagers who are trying to establish some sort of “social space”, but what of the adult versions?
I teach jr. college English, and in that setting the subject of pants sagging came up. Two students said people do it specifically to annoy other people. Are trollers cyber-versions of saggers? Do they simply want to anonymously diminish the moods of total strangers?
West of the Rockies
@gogol’s wife: I sometimes disappear for a few days because of workload… I’ve also wandered away for a few days after a particularly unpleasant exchange on this forum. During football season, I was posting on an open football thread. I, along with a number of other BJers, started talking about the old days: “I sure think Deacon Jones was a great player!” One of the regulars started vehemently complaining, suggesting we were all just ruining the thread with our old-school commentary. I suspect it was a case of drunken posting, but it was rather annoying.
Shirley Jackson said it best: “Hell… is other people.”
Yatsuno
There’s a picture of a Dawg holding an umbrella for President Obama at his press conference on CNN. The Dawg does not look happy. I don’t blame him.
Tokyokie
@Gex: I realize not having been the specific target of any troll (I’m aware of), this is easy for me to say, but if you were to change your behavior to accommodate the asshole, he’d get satisfaction out of it. So fuck him. Post even more. Other BJers have your back. Which doesn’t mean we’re not grumpy.
gogol's wife
@West of the Rockies:
I thought that was Jean-Paul Sartre!
ETA: I once stopped commenting here for a while because my feelings had been hurt by M_C.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: No, Sartre wrote: L’enfer, c’est les autres. Completely different.
lojasmo
@Amir Khalid:
It takes six months or so to learn to wear them. My feet and ankles got really weak from wearing supportive shoes, and I had a lot of problems. I have been wearing minimalist shoes exclusively for several years, and my feet and ankles are all better!
I wear merrel trail gloves when singletracking because I dislocated my pinkie last year wearing five fingers.
I’ll never wear shoes with arches again.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
I think I missed that specific exchange and which troll it is (crazy busy at work, building Ikea furniture at home), but point me to the troll and I’ll rip him a new one for you.
Unless it’s CS, in which case the only thing I know is that he is inordinately fond of pie. I love ya, but I’m not willing to un-pie him for you.
aimai
@lojasmo: really? I think I need arches but I’d be willing to give anything a try to make walking more comfortable.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Personally, I love a good chocolate pudding pie.
No one can help your sad sack little bitch ass if you can’t actually ever make a truthful and honest statement when trying to argue points.
Because you can’t. Time and time again you lie. Just straight fucking lie your balls off. You lie, and you’re a liar. The lying that happens every time you type some response is stunning and incomprehensible to normal people, with brains that have the ability to determine answers/responses.
Your fucking wrecked ass shit house of a brain does not count in this regard. Because you are a lying piece of shit. You lie. You’re a liar. And just a disgustingly warped fucking blackhole of lies.
Every time you respond to anyone. You lie and you’re a liar.
StringOnAStick
@aimai: Give ’em a try; I did last summer and now they are my favorite hiking wear. Yes, you do need to start out slowly because you are making demands on joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments that have gotten lazy thanks to overly supportive footwear. And it will change your gait, running or walking. It made me walk a lot “lighter”, which my touchy knees definitely benefit from. Just be aware the going to having no heal height will stretch your calves more than you might expect.
My best so far is a 12 mile hike, and I do recommend the little socks you can use with them. I had a bone spur removed from a big toe joint 3 years ago, and I can hike pain-free in Five Fingers, but my old stiff hiking boots are now painful. I think my old boots make my foot bend where it doesn’t want to, and in minimalist footwear your foot gets to decide where the bend-points are. It’s funny, but you wear a cast when you break your foot, so why should you wear cast-like stiff boots when everything is fine? I’m with lojasmo; I’m never going back to stiff support in my shoes.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
I have some of the Merrell shoes, but I really mostly use them for 15 minutes at a time (two walking breaks at work). They make you walk a little differently right away, so it’s easier than you think to adapt to them. I’m still not sure I’d be willing to wear them for a full day, though.
They don’t cause my bad knee to make a clicking sound, which puts them one up on traditional running shoes so far.
Mnemosyne
@StringOnAStick:
I partially got the Merrells because I’m starting to have some plantar fasciitis problems as I get into my mid-40s and the barefoot type shoes are supposed to help. Maybe the extra calf stretch is helping, since plantar fasciitis and shin splints (which I also have) are somewhat tied together?
StringOnAStick
@Mnemosyne: Well, that does make some sense, especially if you look at your musculature as continuously connected sheets instead of as individual muscles; the body functions like the former, and only looks like the latter in those color-coded plastic models we had in high school.
Tight calves and plantar fasciitis tend to go together, since the sheets of fascia on the bottom of the foot ‘grade’ into the fascia at the heel bone that then grades into the sheet of fascia that surrounds the calf muscles. You definitely need to go slow with adapting to these kinds of shoes though, plantar fasciitis is no joke and you sure don’t want to over-do and irritate that area even more. We’ve all been using shoes with heels that are higher than the toes for our whole lives, so it is going to take awhile to have everything adjust to a heel at the same level as the toes.
My husband has always suffered from shin splints when he tries running, but with the Merrells he can do wind sprints and not end up with debilitating shin splints the next day. Running isn’t his sport, but when we are visiting his dad (midwest) we both do wind sprints up hill in the back yard in order to get some exercise and sunshine. I wish we had that nice sandy soil here to run on!