Cant’ watch videos at work, so I’ll just copy the first Newmax headline instead:
Rove: Hillary May Have Brain Damage
3.
Mike E
@Belafon: Turdblossom has observed a fair amount of cognitive impairment in his day.
4.
PurpleGirl
The tune is catchy and I really like the video shots of all the different drivers from films. I watched twice, may watch it again later to see if I can name more movies.
5.
donnah
Cool. Kim and Kelly Deal, the twin sisters who formed the Breeders, are from my home town of Dayton, Ohio. Kim was with the Pixies first. Their father worked at Wright-Patt AFB here.
Local girls rule!
6.
dr. bloor
@Belafon: Just like that old fortune cookie gag, everything Rove says should be followed by the phrase “…in Ohio.”
7.
Punchy
If Hillary wins in both 2016 and 2020, will Chelsea be old enough to run in 2024? Can we have 16 years of the Clintons?
Edit: holy crap, Chelsea’s 34 already. Had no idea.
8.
dr. bloor
@Punchy: Have to have an interregnum. Maybe there’s a stray Kennedy running around out there with four years to spare.
I would up this morning from a dream about a documentary with John Cole talking about his neighbor, Lady Bird Johnson. Though the description of her life (and accompanying stock footage) sounded more like Shirley Temple. And it was all accompanied by Song of the South/Gone With the Wind choral music.
Wish I could remember more of it, but I hardly ever remember my dreams at all. I have no idea what it means, but I wanted you all to know.
The Reverend William Barber is charting a new path for protesting Republican overreach in the South—and maybe beyond.
—By Lisa Rab
| Mon Apr. 14, 2014 6:00 AM EDT
On a recent Sunday afternoon, the Reverend William Barber II reclined uncomfortably in a chair in his office, sipping bottled water as he recovered from two hours of strenuous preaching. When he was in his early 20s, Barber was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a painful arthritic condition affecting the spine. Still wearing his long black robes, the 50-year-old minister recounted how, as he’d proclaimed in a rolling baritone from the pulpit that morning, “a crippled preacher has found his legs.”
It began a few days before Easter 2013, recalled Barber, pastor at the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). “On Maundy Thursday, they chose to crucify voting rights,” he said.
“They” are North Carolina Republicans, who in November 2012 took control of the state Legislature and the governor’s mansion for the first time in more than a century. Among their top priorities—along with blocking Medicaid expansion and cutting unemployment benefits and higher-education spending—was pushing through a raft of changes to election laws, including reducing the number of early voting days, ending same-day voter registration, and requiring ID at the polls. “That’s when a group of us said, ‘Wait a minute, this has just gone too far,'” Barber said.
Dear Fresno: I am about to be in you. On the plane to SLC first. Training is going to be boooooring. Luckily I rented a car.
13.
Cassidy
@donnah: Funny. I got family in Dayton. One of the branches through my dad is Swearingen and I’m second or third cousin to Nate Farley, guitarist for The Amps.
14.
shelley
I’ll just copy the first Newmax headline instead:
That caught my eye as well. Nice to see that Rove is doing his upmost to keep his reputation as a total lying POS.
@shelley: I was amused at the headline a few days ago, “Benghazi Panel Packed With Legal Powerhouses.” I was curious which the 30-watt GOP minds NewsMax considers “powerhouses,” but not enough to click through.
16.
maya
@Punchy: Chelsea could run against Jenna Bush for the hearts and hinds of Ameriway, Inc. Or the other one, Not-Jenna. Wouldn’t that be peachy, Punchy?
17.
lukeallen1
Once again the glorified reddit poster demonstrates what crap taste in music he has.
Tomorrow, I will be heading South to the Hangout Music Festival. Will be stopping at this little town in AL that has this great BBQ shack (and it is literally a shack).
Sure looking forward to it.
25.
PIGL
Loved that album, and the song in particular. Field – work music from the summer of 1995.
26.
donnah
Wright-Patt is still running strong. My father-in-law worked on the Base in logistics, top secret. We found out after he died that he was involved in the development of the F-16.
And my best friend growing up was a Swearingen. I don’t know her family lineage, though, or if there are many Swearingens around Dayton anymore.
27.
geg6
Step it up, people. I’m trying mightily to waste time at work reading BJ rather than writing my annual development action plan. I don’t mind an annual evaluation, but the amount of writing I have to do on this thing is beyond ridiculous. I already wrote about 2000 words on my accomplishments, my professional development activities, my work-related strengths and interests, any areas for growth or development or improvement, ways I’d like to contribute to the University beyond my job responsibilities and how I contribute to sustainability. That’s already been turned in and my boss has gone over it and his evaluation of it. Now I have to come up with another 1000 describing at least four performance expectations for the next year, the knowledge/skills/behaviors needed to achieve them, professional development activities to reach each goal, resources and support needed from my work unit and supervisor and target dates to reach them.
I’m tempted to make one of them not having to waste hours and hours writing hypothetical scenarios that often don’t happen because there is nothing in the budget nor enough time beyond my day-to-day responsibilities to accomplish many of these goals. I’d also like to point out that they gave me a promotion and raise and expanded supervisory responsibilities about six months ago and that is probably the gauge on which my evaluation should be based. However, because of the rigid nature of this evaluation process, I am being evaluated on how well I followed through with my action plan from last year when I didn’t have all these new responsibilities. But I fear I will be the only one who finds the humor in it.
Oh well. They promise me that we’re moving the a different system for evaluation next year. Nothing could be worse than this, right?
28.
Belafon
@maya: The not-Jenna one is named Barbara. They were named after George and Laura’s moms.
@Belafon: Well, that certainly has both ends of winning ticket written all over it.
32.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: Let’s see how long it takes before that title disappears from the NewsMax list.
33.
Roxy
Dennis Weaver and Steven Spielberg, director in Duel. Pretty good movie.
Janet Leigh in Psycho
Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw in the Getaway
Frances McDormand in Fargo
Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, in Easy Rider
Tatum and Ryan O’Neal in Paper Moon
Christina Ricci (don’t know the movie)
Left out a good Twilight Zone episode with Inger Stevens called The Hitchhiker
34.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Almost Yogic in its simplicity: “I really didn’t say everything I said.”
35.
Belafon
@Gin & Tonic: Rove tries to say that he was implying that her age is the issue. And while I agree that her age will be one of the factors in determining her qualification to serve, the biggest reason we were concerned with McCain’s age was the fear that he would leave Palin as president.
36.
Schlemizel
Actually it is Pee Bush that believes he is next in line. He has started the slog toward the appearance of competence currently in Texas. Be afraid, be very afraid.
37.
Paul in KY
@geg6: Least you get to write your own. That’s a plus, right?
38.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: I was afraid Lady Snowbeth would find some way to off him. She’s not got the patience to wait for McAsshole to die of natural causes.
39.
Amir Khalid
@Paul in KY:
I feared the same, although I tended to see her as more of an Iago in red stilettos.
40.
ruemara
@Yatsuno: come north to Davis, I’ll make cupcakes.
41.
D58826
And the crazy continues. Sen. Cruz has some questions about Benghazi. Why wasn’t the Prersident in the situation room that night?. Apparently being in the Oval Office wasn’t close enough. What orders did he give to the military as the night progressed? Given Obama’s vast military experience he should have overridden the orders issued by the military. Of course if one of Obama’s orders to the military had backfired then Cruz would be angry about that. And last but not least Cruz wants to know if the President went to bed early that night?.
Former congressclown West has a different issue. He thinks the Boko Haarem kidnapping of the girls is a wag the dog story to deflect from Benghazi. Now if I remember the movie correctly it was the President who concocted the imaginary incident. Since we know that the girls really were abducted, is West suggesting that Obama ordered Boko Haarum to abduct these girls to divert the publics attention from Benghazi? Possible I guess since Obama has so many contacts within the Moooslim terrorist community.
42.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY: Now you are making me wish McCain had been elected! Given all the talent she has displayed I am sure the murder attempt would have been Wiley Coyote levels of hilarious bungling. Assuming she did not end up taking a rocket powered roller skate ride off a mile high cliff while holding one of those olde tymeie ball shaped bombs with a burning fuse followed by an anvil she might have succeeded and the impeachment that followed would have been the most entertainment Congress could provide.
I assume if B. HUSSEIN Obama wanted to use Boko Haarem to distract us, Cruz would expect them to perform “Whiter Shade Of Pale” That song always gets to him and he assumes they are the group that did it originally.
45.
The Moar You Know
Let’s see how long it takes before that title disappears from the NewsMax list.
Nigeria is ready to talk to Islamist militants Boko Haram for the release of more than 200 abducted schoolgirls, a minister has told the BBC.
Nigeria submits to terrorist demands because FLOTUS emoted.
47.
dr. bloor
Oh well. They promise me that we’re moving the a different system for evaluation next year. Nothing could be worse than this, right?
Poking the gods is generally a terrible idea.
You’re stronger than I am. A moronic, HR-wet-dream evaluative process like that would have me naked on the roof with a deer rifle thisfast.
48.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: I knew the name ‘Iago’, but had never seen or read Othello. So I went to Wiki & educated myself. Yeah, she could have been that kind of person too. Whatever she felt would get her to President (while being the easist to do).
On a side note, I have run into these cool books where this person has made Star Wars into a Shakespearean play. Very entertaining read & could be actually done as play:
R2D2: Beep, beep, meep, meep, beep, whoo. (sample of dialogue). Although it has a Chorus & R2D2 does speak in English as asides (occasionally).
Highly recommend them.
49.
The Moar You Know
I was afraid Lady Snowbeth would find some way to off him. She’s not got the patience to wait for McAsshole to die of natural causes.
@Paul in KY: Great minds think alike or something like that. My thought after watching Caribou Barbie’s speech was “watch your back, McCain”. I have no doubt that woman has what it takes to have someone she sees as an impediment offed. For that matter, I don’t think she’d have too much of a problem doing it herself.
50.
FeudalismNow!
@Schlemizel: I believe ‘Conquistador’ would be a nice follow up to announce their release.
51.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: I would have expected her to get caught. The only thing would be, would it all get hushed up to spare America from the fact that it’s new President was a murdering scumwad.
52.
Eric U.
the good news would have been after she offed McCain, Palin would have been shocked by how much work it actually is to be Prez and quit after a month.
53.
Paul in KY
@The Moar You Know: I have no doubt she would be capable of murder to further her ends. The only thing that stops her or has stopped her is that she’s damned lazy.
54.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
That would be a big part of the entertainment value! Then watching goopers trying to defend her. It would be particularly spectacular as evidence dribble out so that yesterdays BS defense would be invalidated and a new redoubt would have to be formed. It was the only enjoyable part of Nixon’s final year.
@Schlemizel: Do you think Nixon’s crimes would have come to light with the current journalists we have (not the ones we wish we had)?
57.
D58826
@Paul in KY: If it had been up to the more experienced journalists the story would have died. Woodward and Bernstein were to young and stupid to know how the game was played even back then. Of course Woodward is so deep in the establishment now that he has simply disappeared.
58.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
Nope! Oh sure, the story would get covered by The NYTimes & DCPost but more tangentially and on higher number pages. People suspected of cooperating with the investigation would be set upon by the flying monkey brigades from Malkin and Red State. Reporters would fear losing access to Haldamen, Erlichman and the other good Germans of the inner circle (hey! Its my group, I can kick them!) so they would not press too hard. 40 years of GOP stacking of key positions with true believers would leave few insiders to play deep throat.
Is it just me or has this blog been phoning it in lately?
ETA- I want my subscription fee back
61.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: Then I wonder (unless it was farcical), if Palin’s crimes hypothetically would come to light, considering our courtier class.
I get more cynical with politics about every day, it seems.
62.
Eric U.
@Schlemizel: the republicans learned a lot from watergate and the obviously corrupt Reagan preznitcy. Reagan had 30 of his people indicted or convicted in the first year. I’m really surprised that the IOKIYAR memo never really went out during that tenure, but Bush I and Bush the lesser perfected it.
63.
Iowa Old Lady
@Paul in KY: IMHO, if Nixon hadn’t recorded events in the Oval Office and the tapes hadn’t come to light, he’d have walked. Back in the day, you needed actual evidence to impeach a president. Quaint, I know.
No. No, it is not a plus. At all. I write all this crap and then my boss still writes his own take on my performance for the last year. It’s totally stupid.
Believe me, naked on the roof with a deer rifle would be a mild reaction. I’m ready to throw an armed nuke off the roof when I get done with this idiocy.
65.
srv
Speaking of monsters, HR Giger ist tot.
66.
BillinGlendaleCA
@geg6: Got one better than that for ya. After they announced that our entire group was being let go, we had to finish our evaluations before our last day.
Every time you think the crazy right has hit rock bottom, they find more shovels to keep digging. Some Sandy Hook truther told the Mom of one of the victims that her daughter never existed. He also admitted stealing the memorial to the little girl from a local park. A second memorial in another park was also vandalized. The theory seems to be that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation to allow Obama to take the peoples guns.
There have always been crazy conspiracy theories out there. I remember the John Birch society worrying about the 1 million man Chinese army in northern Mexico that only they could see. What seems different now is that so many of these conspiracies begin to bleed into the mainstream via the GOP/tea party and faux news. The reality based community spends most of its time trying to debunk these ideas, without much success it seems.
Back in the day, you needed actual evidence to impeach a president.
The big difference is that there was enough evidence to convict Nixon, while the Clinton and hypothetical Obama impeachments are purely political theater.
@D58826: If I’m the parent of said girl, I dont know how I wouldn’t find said truther and beat him to within one picasecond of death, then pull back and piss on his body. To be told my deceased daughter didnt exist would be a flash point that I wouldn’t be able to control.
@Roger Moore: Andrew Johnson was impeached on pretty bogus charges. Basically the Radical Republicans wanted him gone because he wasn’t pursuing reconstruction so they impeached him. In their defense, they appeared to think they actually could get rid of him, while House Republicans know they’re just wasting their time.
74.
Paul in KY
@D58826: That is some deranged shit right there. Don’t see how some our our grieving ‘reality based’ citizens manage to keep their cool (not kill/maim crazy assholes) when confronted with those odious views.
75.
Paul in KY
@jeffreyw: That’s a very distinguished looking puppy right there, jeff.
Andrew Johnson was impeached on pretty bogus charges.
It was bogus in the sense that the law was passed exclusively to rein in Johnson’s power as president and was probably unconstitutional, but he clearly violated the law he was accused of violating.
@Roger Moore: That still adds up to some very bogus circumstances. All of which I support because Johnson was a terrible president. I’m just saying, there’s precedent for impeaching someone on political grounds.
82.
Phylllis
@geg6: I’m distracting myself from working on a Safe Routes to School grant where I get to describe to the funding agency, the state Dept of Transportation, all the reasons why DOT roads/right-of-ways hinder kids walking or biking to school. Along with an aerial photo of the site with a 1.5 mile radius delineated. Thankfully I’m married to a CAD wizard whose boss didn’t mind him helping. Still trying to figure out why I have to send a photo like that to the one agency in the state with the equipment and know-how to do it themselves.
83.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
I know I would not be able to remain sane & calm. My son was in Afghanistan when the run-up to Iraq started. He wrote that they had problems getting both the gear and the people they needed because they were being held for use when the invasion started. I made him certain promises about the fates of certain individuals should any harm come to him because of this embargo. I have no doubt I would have carried out my promise had it come to that, I don’t know how at least one of the people who lost sons & daughters for no good reason did not act out a similar attempt.
Once again some anonymous chowderhead wins the Daily Douche Award for having nothing better to do in life except carp about a post or choice of posts from someone who took more than 30 seconds to think about writing something before applying stubby, barbecue stained fingers to a keyboard.
85.
Schlemizel
@Iowa Old Lady:
I think the tide had pretty well turned by the time the tapes became public. Nixon had enough people spill their guts that he would have been convicted in the Senate. The vote would have been close with a few goopers holding on & making excuses. The tapes removed the fig leaf so that no public official cared to stand with the criminals.
In a weird way, I can almost understand the truthers on this one — after all, who wouldn’t rather live in a world where those first-graders were never gunned down? Who wouldn’t rather believe that there’s no way a crazy guy could go into an elementary school and kill helpless children?
Unfortunately for them, they’re insisting on living in a fantasy world where bad things never happen, but I can’t entirely blame them for preferring that world to the real one where Sandy Hook really happened.
That still adds up to some very bogus circumstances.
I’m not 100% sure it does. My impression is that impeachment was included in the Constitution with the intention that it should be used politically rather than purely legally; the framers wanted a way of getting rid of political liabilities short of assassination or civil war. This seems surprising after over 200 years of peaceful transfers of power, but the framers had been dealing with the long-term fallout of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution (e.g. the Jacobite rebellions) for their whole lives, so their perspective was very different from ours.
Nowadays instead of writing and mailing a poorly mimeographed 2 page newsletter with an audience of a thousand or so, today’s conspiracy theorist can reach a potential audience of millions at very little expense as well as organize meetups and events using social media tools..
Whether or not this is a good thing…..
90.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think that is the reason why they are inventing these conspiracy theories.
@BillinGlendaleCA: I hope you spoke very well of yourselves!
@geg6: I worked in a fairly small engineering company c. 1990. For your evaluation, 4 engineers I worked with would rate me on various things, then the big boss would rate me. He’d average the other people’s numbers together, and then average that with his own opinion. You won’t be surprised to hear that he was a full on conservative asshole. Cheap and punishing tipper kind of guy. Anyway, on the score of being friendly at work, the 4 guys who I interacted with daily gave me a high score. Ramrod-in-his-ass gives me a really low score. I was pretty much incredulous because we all got along great! We never saw him.
Well, once a day he would “proceed” through the offices, for everyone to tug their forelock. He never stopped, just sailed through like a frigate under steam, making sure everyone tugged appropriately. Imagine his retired-British-colonel from India ‘stache. John Boltonish, if you will. This was my only interaction with him on a daily basis, and he is going to decide how much money I should make by that?
I said to him that he wasn’t very approachable, was he? He was very startled and amazed that anyone would challenge him on this or anything. OMG!!
I think that’s part of it. If you’re already slightly delusional, it’s (relatively) easy to slide from I can’t believe something this terrible would happen to I can’t believe something this terrible could happen.
They don’t want to believe that a crazy guy would murder 20+ schoolchildren, so they don’t believe it. The fact that it also allows them to keep believing that Guns Are Always Good only pushes them harder into disbelief.
(Again, we’re not necessarily talking about guys like Wayne LaPierre, though I do have my doubts about his mental stability. But people who would try to tell a grieving mother that her child never existed have something else going on in addition to their obsessive gun-hugging.)
@Roger Moore: That’s my point- it’s not a purely legal move and it probably never was. Say Republicans somehow got a veto proof majority in congress and passed a law, say, forbidding Obama from mocking Republicans, then he broke it (because you know he would) and then impeached him. That’s not too different from just going “BENGHAZI!! YOLO!” and impeaching him for whatever they claim he did or didn’t do. At any rate, if they get the numbers they’ll do it. That’s not entirely a terrible thing IMHO. It’s just terrible that our side is too chicken to do it to their lousy presidents.
And at some point the Republicans will get so stupid about impeaching presidents that Democrats will be forced to take their stick and break it. It will take Democrats way too long to do it, but they will, eventually.
95.
muddy
@Phylllis: For the medical cannabis in Vermont, each year you have to send a picture of yourself to the state so they can use it to print and send back your new ID. You have to send it on a CD. No other storage is accepted, and they won’t take the picture by email, although they communicate with you via email. I don’t have an optical disk on my computer even, it’s a hassle. Waste of a CD, special mailing envelope, extra postage all for one pic. Can’t use your picture from last year, clearly old people are going to look very different from one year to the next!
But when you renew your driver’s license, you can do it online and ask them to use the old photo that they took of you previously. Gods forbid that 2 state agencies that print licenses use the same system.
96.
D58826
@Glocksman: Yep and the really crazy offensive stuff never made it past the editor on the letters to the editor page. They could always stand on a street corner but most people just walk on by and don’t take the papers they are handing out. They were very small frogs in a very very small pond. The internet now gives these same small frogs a much bigger pond to croak in.
@Glocksman: They can be infiltrated, mocked, and doxed in real time, too. It used to be very physically risky to infiltrate these groups. They seemed quite adept at organizing back in the 80s, at any rate.
Certain things feed these movements. That’s what we need to focus on. Inequality, want, isolation, and indoctrination. Something simple like that Finnish baby box could make a huge change in how Americans treat each other over time.
And at some point the Republicans will get so stupid about impeaching presidents that Democrats will be forced to take their stick and break it.
Not gonna happen:
1) Impeachment needs to remain a possibility for the occasional Nixon who has genuinely done something wrong.
2) In any situation where the Republicans are trying to impeach the President, they’ll have enough power to block attempts to amend the Constitution to stop them.
3) Impeachment is unlikely to be a political winner for the Republicans outside of the party primary, so the Democrats have little political incentive to eliminate it.
@donnah: Until we recently moved (thanks, sequestration!), I was a neighbor of Kelly’s. She was active in the neighborhood and even led some little musical events at one of neighborhood watering holes.
103.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: I think they just want to believe that the government is ready to do outrageous (in their minds) things to them, so they dream up these fantasies. I think the ‘kids not really existing’ is just convenient for the fantasy scenario realted to Sandy Hook they want to believe.
I don’t think they really give a shit about those kids or their parents, in personal or the abstract.
104.
Cacti
Just in case anyone thought Rand Paul was serious about voting rights.
From the director of his PAC:
Senator Paul was having a larger discussion about criminal justice reform and restoration of voting rights, two issues he has been speaking about around the country and pushing for in state and federal legislation.
In the course of that discussion, he reiterated a point he has made before that while there may be some instances of voter fraud, it should not be a defining issue of the Republican Party, as it is an issue that is perhaps perceived in a way it is not intended. At no point did Senator Paul come out against voter ID laws. In terms of the specifics of voter ID laws, Senator Paul believes it’s up to each state to decide that type of issue.
105.
Paul in KY
@muddy: That’s probably on purpose. Make you jump thru as many hoops as possible, so as to stop lazy recreational stoners from glomming on to the medicinal program.
Bet somebody in power up there thought about it that way.
106.
Paul in KY
@Cacti: I’m fine with that, as it would mean Hillary! won 2 terms, which means a Repub POS didn’t.
@Roger Moore: I don’t think they’ll eliminate it entirely, I just think they’ll make it much harder to use. And of course Democrats would have to do that when they’re in the majority, after Republicans have repeatedly impeached Democratic presidents on flimsy charges (which they will do, because there is nothing but gain in it for them right now). And I don’t think they’ll do it for votes- they’ll do it because they’re sick of wasting their time. That’s my prediction, it’s naturally going to take a while to see if it pans out.
108.
Phylllis
@muddy: Heh. I have to submit this in a binder, with six copies and the original, and burned to a cd. Really? Can’t pdf it & email it to you? Okeydoke.
Thats wonderful! So he is firmly on the public record as being against voter ID laws but we’re all friends here wink-wink-nod-nod so the states can go right ahead and pass the most repressive voter ID laws they can get away with and I am plenty OK with that.
Its so damn easy being a libertarian, I may try it myself.
Just in case anyone thought Rand Paul was serious about voting rights.
It should be obvious by now Rand Paul isn’t serious about anything other than his political career. But that hasn’t stopped way too many progressives from continually buying his bullshit.
Thats exactly the beauty of the libertarian position!! “Its not my fault that you will be crushed under the whims of the powerful. I certainly don’t approve of it. Its OK with me for people to do whatever they want, the consequences are not my doing.”
Damn, I really should become a libertarian, simple, neat, mindless, and its all totally whatever you guys want to do.
114.
D58826
@Schlemizel: Like Pontius Pilot, given them a bowl to wash their hands in and they can sleep like a baby
115.
Trollhattan
Today, in hippie-punching.
Congratulations to the environmental community and the elected and appointed officials you’ve bought and paid for over the years. Human beings in California now have no running water while the fish you worship do. [While my Gaiafish are doing swimmingly, I wonder where hippies got the cashola to buy our elected and appointed officials?]
Feel better now? {Not yet, please proceed.]
The Fresno Bee reports on an elderly couple living near Porterville, Calif. who recently lost their 20th Century access to running water and must now carry water into their home like they do in third world countries. [Have had several friends with failed wells over the years, and my house water lateral broke once. I blame Obamafish.]
This is not only sad, it’s extremely embarrassing. How can a state that prides itself on building and exploiting the technology that brought us the personal computer, smart phones and the computer software that runs the world force human beings to go without running water in their own homes? [How many of our 38-million citizens lack running water at this very moment? An embarrassing number?]
As climatically unprecedented in modern times that our current drought is, one fact remains: the cause of this drought is more regulatory than it is a natural phenomenon. [I wonder if Mr. Fitchette is of the opinion that a final 2014 northern Sierra snowpack 7% of average is due to regulation?] This is exactly what we get when we view a subservient nature in higher esteem than the humans it’s meant to serve.[Wait, what?]
The reason residents are left with no running water in their homes is appalling.[Please appall me with some reasons.] Why is it acceptable to allow residents to go without running water while we feign offense at the notion that fish can somehow swim and relocate themselves when conditions reduce stream flows? What did those fish do during all those years they didn’t benefit from regulated stream flows because of man-made structures?[Clap louder.]
“Timely Reliable Information for Western Agriculture”–Western Farm Press masthead
116.
muddy
@Paul in KY: Probably! Because in Vermont the program is run under the Dept. of Public Safety (po-po), and not the health dept. like in many states. So if it’s all cops, why not share?
You have to choose a dispensary too, you can’t shop around. If you want to try a different one you have to pay $25 for a new card, but in this case they will actually use the saved picture, as long as it is within a year. You can only change every 90 days.
When they were locating a local dispensary, stupid people carried on about how it would “draw crime”. I went to Meeting and said that they ought to close the Rite-Aid then, as it was full of oxy-wev. Also the state liquor store should be closed on these grounds.
117.
Schlemizel
@D58826:
“I personally am against your crucifixion JC, but I leave it to the individual states to decide. I can’t possibly be held accountable for knowing the fix is in and the outcome obvious.”
That is a thing of beauty and a joyB forever for a politician.
118.
muddy
@Phylllis: When I was in engineering, and we’d have a stack of blueprints an inch thick for a project, when they wanted changes you would have to print out a whole new stack of 24×36 even if it only changed wording on one page. I offered to go over to their office and mark it up in pen on their copies, the lettering would match. No! All new paper! Fuck the trees! That was 20 years ago, I don’t know what they do now, but would not be surprised that they still print out a whole stack, but this time from a disk.
119.
muddy
FYWP double
120.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: Good point on the beating. Still think that in this case, the murdered kids have to have been non-existent for the specific scenario, so that’s why they are. Not because these whackos are unable to comprehend the horror, etc. so they create a fantasy to remove that horror.
And of course Democrats would have to do that when they’re in the majority
But they need more than just a majority. Any Constitutional amendment would require 2/3 of both Houses of Congress and 3/4 of the states to go along. The Democrats aren’t likely to get that kind of power in a one-off win after a period of Republican impeachment attempts; they’re only going to get it after a long period of Republican decline. If/when that time comes, I expect them to have a lot of other Amendments that are higher priority than restricting impeachment.
Chris Matthews’ head just exploded. His lead story last night was Republican scare tactics against Hillary, so he’ll have a field day with Rove’s comments.
123.
Paul in KY
@muddy: If you deliver it in person, make sure you are not stoned, as they would love to ticket you for DWI.
124.
Trollhattan
@muddy:
Not directly involved but at my joint I see them stamp and ink final approved plan sets for distribution, presumably like they’ve done since forever. One set can be pretty darn large. What I don’t know is how changes and errors are handled, prior to producing the final sets.
When I was doing CIRCLA reports a single copy could take as many as twenty 4-inch binders, which we’d produce in-house in sets of a couple dozen. After my umpteenth binder-building session I noted it would be cheaper to provide each copy loaded on a complementary laptop, and for a brief moment you could actually see the gears spinning in a few heads….
@Paul in KY: What, drive to the state capital? It’s not near anything but itseIf (can’t get theah from heah, kind of thing)! I am so rural I rarely go more than 20 miles from my house! You also have to get your application notarized. My b-i-l does mine. State recommends going to the Town Clerk, but I know they will all gossip about it. Still, I shouldn’t whine. At least it’s available and legal. Altho an ounce of street weed is only a $50 ticket these days anyway. Dispensary, you know what you are getting, and this particular place is entirely organic.
Interesting thing I’ve found, the weed=paranoia thing goes away when you are legal. I don’t think the cannabis is inherently paranoia-inducing. But when you think you will get busted all the time, well you ought to be paranoid if you don’t want to get popped.
Wow. Is that Ross Perot’s old company, or am I thinking of somewhere else?
128.
muddy
@Trollhattan: Ugh, I hate inefficiency. My motto is that Laziness is the Mother of Efficiency. I was the chief draftsman at this place, they would have me do final drawings off the sketches and notes of junior engineers. When I was done, they would be reviewed by senior engineers, who would mark the half of it wrong, and then I was to fix. Would have been faster to start over, I was not on a computer. When you erase a line it leaves a hole in all the other lines it crosses. Ink on mylar. But NO, don’t start over, there’s no time!
I asked why the senior engineer could not *glance over at least* the sketches before I drew them up, so it would not be a jumbled edited mess at the end, arrows crossing etc. I point out that it would be the same review that they do from my finished drawing. No no, “we don’t have time, we are senior and very busy”. Gods forbid they have to look at a yucky sketch! I guess I had all the time in the world, to do it 3x. Then they’d freak out because the drawings were not done faster.
Feh. Glad I changed careers. Too many libertarian assholes in engineering. Now I’m one with the mud. Although today we are off to the lumber yard, making new fence to contain naughty digging jumping puppy.
129.
Howard Beale IV
@satby: That 40% on the low-end is pretty brutal-normally that’s usually the bottom 10% that gets the treatment.
But people who would try to tell a grieving mother that her child never existed have something else going on in addition to their obsessive gun-hugging.)
Yeah, I think that’s called “hate”
131.
D58826
Should the d’s take part in the Benghazi show trial? At first I thought no just boycott the thing. The problem is that will give the GOP an unchallenged platform to repeat the various and sundry talking points that have been debunked multiple times. The media isn’t going to challenge the GOP narrative. They will just say well both sides do it.
The d’s get 5 seats so what I think Nancy should do it:
1. pick two reps who have experience in building a case and cross-examining witnesses. They would be well versed in the Benghaz record and have a good knowledge of military capabilities.
2.pick Allen Greyson to be the designated bad-cop/pibull to be used when needed.
3. the remaining two will be in effect potted plants. They will ceed their question time to the first two.
4. Build a narrative with the facts and admit when mistakes were made. Don’t be in a reactive mode to the Gopers.. Have a proactive case to build and present
5. Use the allotted time to build your case, cross examine witness and where necessary debunk the GOOPER conspiracy theories.
6. DONOT waste time making speeches
The GOP thinks of this as a trial so the democrats have to play the same game. If the GOP is going to act like a prosecution team then the democrats have to be the defense team.
And much as I would like to see the democrats flip the bird at the committee I don’t think they can afford to allow the GOP to generate hours of misleading sound bites. I realize the faux news will lie no matter what but the democrats have to give their people sounds bits that they can use in election ads.
132.
Paul in KY
@muddy: Sounds like you have it nailed down. Glad to hear that. I will have to be circumspect at this music festival. It is not Bonnaroo, so there will be a police presence, etc.
@Howard Beale IV: They’ve spent the last year laying a couple thousand people off (like me) who have higher evaluations (I got a 1 in the NPS sector) but who’s jobs were being sent to India. They still have too many people to support contracts that they’re losing, so they have to trump up an excuse to unload a few more thousands.
The scuttlebutt is that the execs are looking to pump and dump the company.
Edited for typos
135.
JoyfulA
@dr. bloor: That sounds like the evaluation system I toiled under in my last corporate job circa 1979. It was a week’s worth of work, and there was no time to do it at work, of course.
Some days I need reminders of what I left behind.
136.
Origuy
@Trollhattan: Fitchette is getting beaten up in the comments. I clicked through to the Fresno Bee article; the old couple’s private well has dried up. How that relates to water flowing into the Delta, I don’t know. They want to drill a deeper well, but that only delays the problem. They’ve been getting by without public water service for years, now they want the county to help them drill a well.
137.
Cassidy
@Mnemosyne: That’s not what they believe, though. They have no problem with the 20+ schoolchildren being massacred. They just believe the gov’t did it to take away their precious fetish items.
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jeffreyw
Daddy left his shotgun to me.
Belafon
Cant’ watch videos at work, so I’ll just copy the first Newmax headline instead:
Mike E
@Belafon: Turdblossom has observed a fair amount of cognitive impairment in his day.
PurpleGirl
The tune is catchy and I really like the video shots of all the different drivers from films. I watched twice, may watch it again later to see if I can name more movies.
donnah
Cool. Kim and Kelly Deal, the twin sisters who formed the Breeders, are from my home town of Dayton, Ohio. Kim was with the Pixies first. Their father worked at Wright-Patt AFB here.
Local girls rule!
dr. bloor
@Belafon: Just like that old fortune cookie gag, everything Rove says should be followed by the phrase “…in Ohio.”
Punchy
If Hillary wins in both 2016 and 2020, will Chelsea be old enough to run in 2024? Can we have 16 years of the Clintons?
Edit: holy crap, Chelsea’s 34 already. Had no idea.
dr. bloor
@Punchy: Have to have an interregnum. Maybe there’s a stray Kennedy running around out there with four years to spare.
Redshift
I would up this morning from a dream about a documentary with John Cole talking about his neighbor, Lady Bird Johnson. Though the description of her life (and accompanying stock footage) sounded more like Shirley Temple. And it was all accompanied by Song of the South/Gone With the Wind choral music.
Wish I could remember more of it, but I hardly ever remember my dreams at all. I have no idea what it means, but I wanted you all to know.
Roger Moore
@Mike E:
Yeah. It’s staring at him every morning when he shaves.
rikyrah
Meet the Preacher Behind Moral Mondays
The Reverend William Barber is charting a new path for protesting Republican overreach in the South—and maybe beyond.
—By Lisa Rab
| Mon Apr. 14, 2014 6:00 AM EDT
On a recent Sunday afternoon, the Reverend William Barber II reclined uncomfortably in a chair in his office, sipping bottled water as he recovered from two hours of strenuous preaching. When he was in his early 20s, Barber was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a painful arthritic condition affecting the spine. Still wearing his long black robes, the 50-year-old minister recounted how, as he’d proclaimed in a rolling baritone from the pulpit that morning, “a crippled preacher has found his legs.”
It began a few days before Easter 2013, recalled Barber, pastor at the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). “On Maundy Thursday, they chose to crucify voting rights,” he said.
“They” are North Carolina Republicans, who in November 2012 took control of the state Legislature and the governor’s mansion for the first time in more than a century. Among their top priorities—along with blocking Medicaid expansion and cutting unemployment benefits and higher-education spending—was pushing through a raft of changes to election laws, including reducing the number of early voting days, ending same-day voter registration, and requiring ID at the polls. “That’s when a group of us said, ‘Wait a minute, this has just gone too far,'” Barber said.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/william-barber-moral-monday-north-carolina
Yatsuno
Dear Fresno: I am about to be in you. On the plane to SLC first. Training is going to be boooooring. Luckily I rented a car.
Cassidy
@donnah: Funny. I got family in Dayton. One of the branches through my dad is Swearingen and I’m second or third cousin to Nate Farley, guitarist for The Amps.
shelley
That caught my eye as well. Nice to see that Rove is doing his upmost to keep his reputation as a total lying POS.
Redshift
@shelley: I was amused at the headline a few days ago, “Benghazi Panel Packed With Legal Powerhouses.” I was curious which the 30-watt GOP minds NewsMax considers “powerhouses,” but not enough to click through.
maya
@Punchy: Chelsea could run against Jenna Bush for the hearts and hinds of Ameriway, Inc. Or the other one, Not-Jenna. Wouldn’t that be peachy, Punchy?
lukeallen1
Once again the glorified reddit poster demonstrates what crap taste in music he has.
Yatsuno
@lukeallen1: Durf is that you ya knucklehead?
catclub
@maya: So Chelsea could actually run in 2016.
JPL
@Redshift: Did your dream have fields of wild flowers?
There are wild flowers in West Virginia and wild flowers in Texas. just sayin.
Paul in KY
@Mike E: Did he ever!!
Paul in KY
@donnah: My father was stationed at Wright-Patterson back in 1965 – 1966. I went to 1st grade at the base elementary school.
Paul in KY
@Punchy: You’re getting old, man :-)
Paul in KY
Tomorrow, I will be heading South to the Hangout Music Festival. Will be stopping at this little town in AL that has this great BBQ shack (and it is literally a shack).
Sure looking forward to it.
PIGL
Loved that album, and the song in particular. Field – work music from the summer of 1995.
donnah
Wright-Patt is still running strong. My father-in-law worked on the Base in logistics, top secret. We found out after he died that he was involved in the development of the F-16.
And my best friend growing up was a Swearingen. I don’t know her family lineage, though, or if there are many Swearingens around Dayton anymore.
geg6
Step it up, people. I’m trying mightily to waste time at work reading BJ rather than writing my annual development action plan. I don’t mind an annual evaluation, but the amount of writing I have to do on this thing is beyond ridiculous. I already wrote about 2000 words on my accomplishments, my professional development activities, my work-related strengths and interests, any areas for growth or development or improvement, ways I’d like to contribute to the University beyond my job responsibilities and how I contribute to sustainability. That’s already been turned in and my boss has gone over it and his evaluation of it. Now I have to come up with another 1000 describing at least four performance expectations for the next year, the knowledge/skills/behaviors needed to achieve them, professional development activities to reach each goal, resources and support needed from my work unit and supervisor and target dates to reach them.
I’m tempted to make one of them not having to waste hours and hours writing hypothetical scenarios that often don’t happen because there is nothing in the budget nor enough time beyond my day-to-day responsibilities to accomplish many of these goals. I’d also like to point out that they gave me a promotion and raise and expanded supervisory responsibilities about six months ago and that is probably the gauge on which my evaluation should be based. However, because of the rigid nature of this evaluation process, I am being evaluated on how well I followed through with my action plan from last year when I didn’t have all these new responsibilities. But I fear I will be the only one who finds the humor in it.
Oh well. They promise me that we’re moving the a different system for evaluation next year. Nothing could be worse than this, right?
Belafon
@maya: The not-Jenna one is named Barbara. They were named after George and Laura’s moms.
maya
Another heroic accomplishment from a fine, noble, outstanding, American institution.
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
Latest from Karl Rove: I didn’t say that.
maya
@Belafon: Well, that certainly has both ends of winning ticket written all over it.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: Let’s see how long it takes before that title disappears from the NewsMax list.
Roxy
Dennis Weaver and Steven Spielberg, director in Duel. Pretty good movie.
Janet Leigh in Psycho
Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw in the Getaway
Frances McDormand in Fargo
Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, in Easy Rider
Tatum and Ryan O’Neal in Paper Moon
Christina Ricci (don’t know the movie)
Left out a good Twilight Zone episode with Inger Stevens called The Hitchhiker
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Almost Yogic in its simplicity: “I really didn’t say everything I said.”
Belafon
@Gin & Tonic: Rove tries to say that he was implying that her age is the issue. And while I agree that her age will be one of the factors in determining her qualification to serve, the biggest reason we were concerned with McCain’s age was the fear that he would leave Palin as president.
Schlemizel
Actually it is Pee Bush that believes he is next in line. He has started the slog toward the appearance of competence currently in Texas. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Paul in KY
@geg6: Least you get to write your own. That’s a plus, right?
Paul in KY
@Belafon: I was afraid Lady Snowbeth would find some way to off him. She’s not got the patience to wait for McAsshole to die of natural causes.
Amir Khalid
@Paul in KY:
I feared the same, although I tended to see her as more of an Iago in red stilettos.
ruemara
@Yatsuno: come north to Davis, I’ll make cupcakes.
D58826
And the crazy continues. Sen. Cruz has some questions about Benghazi. Why wasn’t the Prersident in the situation room that night?. Apparently being in the Oval Office wasn’t close enough. What orders did he give to the military as the night progressed? Given Obama’s vast military experience he should have overridden the orders issued by the military. Of course if one of Obama’s orders to the military had backfired then Cruz would be angry about that. And last but not least Cruz wants to know if the President went to bed early that night?.
Former congressclown West has a different issue. He thinks the Boko Haarem kidnapping of the girls is a wag the dog story to deflect from Benghazi. Now if I remember the movie correctly it was the President who concocted the imaginary incident. Since we know that the girls really were abducted, is West suggesting that Obama ordered Boko Haarum to abduct these girls to divert the publics attention from Benghazi? Possible I guess since Obama has so many contacts within the Moooslim terrorist community.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY: Now you are making me wish McCain had been elected! Given all the talent she has displayed I am sure the murder attempt would have been Wiley Coyote levels of hilarious bungling. Assuming she did not end up taking a rocket powered roller skate ride off a mile high cliff while holding one of those olde tymeie ball shaped bombs with a burning fuse followed by an anvil she might have succeeded and the impeachment that followed would have been the most entertainment Congress could provide.
peach flavored shampoo
@Belafon: That’s the hot one, right?
Schlemizel
@D58826:
I assume if B. HUSSEIN Obama wanted to use Boko Haarem to distract us, Cruz would expect them to perform “Whiter Shade Of Pale” That song always gets to him and he assumes they are the group that did it originally.
The Moar You Know
@Belafon: My money is on “five years”
srv
Nigeria submits to terrorist demands because FLOTUS emoted.
dr. bloor
Poking the gods is generally a terrible idea.
You’re stronger than I am. A moronic, HR-wet-dream evaluative process like that would have me naked on the roof with a deer rifle thisfast.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: I knew the name ‘Iago’, but had never seen or read Othello. So I went to Wiki & educated myself. Yeah, she could have been that kind of person too. Whatever she felt would get her to President (while being the easist to do).
On a side note, I have run into these cool books where this person has made Star Wars into a Shakespearean play. Very entertaining read & could be actually done as play:
R2D2: Beep, beep, meep, meep, beep, whoo. (sample of dialogue). Although it has a Chorus & R2D2 does speak in English as asides (occasionally).
Highly recommend them.
The Moar You Know
@Paul in KY: Great minds think alike or something like that. My thought after watching Caribou Barbie’s speech was “watch your back, McCain”. I have no doubt that woman has what it takes to have someone she sees as an impediment offed. For that matter, I don’t think she’d have too much of a problem doing it herself.
FeudalismNow!
@Schlemizel: I believe ‘Conquistador’ would be a nice follow up to announce their release.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: I would have expected her to get caught. The only thing would be, would it all get hushed up to spare America from the fact that it’s new President was a murdering scumwad.
Eric U.
the good news would have been after she offed McCain, Palin would have been shocked by how much work it actually is to be Prez and quit after a month.
Paul in KY
@The Moar You Know: I have no doubt she would be capable of murder to further her ends. The only thing that stops her or has stopped her is that she’s damned lazy.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
That would be a big part of the entertainment value! Then watching goopers trying to defend her. It would be particularly spectacular as evidence dribble out so that yesterdays BS defense would be invalidated and a new redoubt would have to be formed. It was the only enjoyable part of Nixon’s final year.
Paul in KY
@Eric U.: You have her pegged, Eric!
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: Do you think Nixon’s crimes would have come to light with the current journalists we have (not the ones we wish we had)?
D58826
@Paul in KY: If it had been up to the more experienced journalists the story would have died. Woodward and Bernstein were to young and stupid to know how the game was played even back then. Of course Woodward is so deep in the establishment now that he has simply disappeared.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
Nope! Oh sure, the story would get covered by The NYTimes & DCPost but more tangentially and on higher number pages. People suspected of cooperating with the investigation would be set upon by the flying monkey brigades from Malkin and Red State. Reporters would fear losing access to Haldamen, Erlichman and the other good Germans of the inner circle (hey! Its my group, I can kick them!) so they would not press too hard. 40 years of GOP stacking of key positions with true believers would leave few insiders to play deep throat.
Paul in KY
@D58826: Agree with you here.
SatanicPanic
Is it just me or has this blog been phoning it in lately?
ETA- I want my subscription fee back
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: Then I wonder (unless it was farcical), if Palin’s crimes hypothetically would come to light, considering our courtier class.
I get more cynical with politics about every day, it seems.
Eric U.
@Schlemizel: the republicans learned a lot from watergate and the obviously corrupt Reagan preznitcy. Reagan had 30 of his people indicted or convicted in the first year. I’m really surprised that the IOKIYAR memo never really went out during that tenure, but Bush I and Bush the lesser perfected it.
Iowa Old Lady
@Paul in KY: IMHO, if Nixon hadn’t recorded events in the Oval Office and the tapes hadn’t come to light, he’d have walked. Back in the day, you needed actual evidence to impeach a president. Quaint, I know.
geg6
@Paul in KY:
No. No, it is not a plus. At all. I write all this crap and then my boss still writes his own take on my performance for the last year. It’s totally stupid.
@dr. bloor:
Believe me, naked on the roof with a deer rifle would be a mild reaction. I’m ready to throw an armed nuke off the roof when I get done with this idiocy.
srv
Speaking of monsters, HR Giger ist tot.
BillinGlendaleCA
@geg6: Got one better than that for ya. After they announced that our entire group was being let go, we had to finish our evaluations before our last day.
Paul in KY
@geg6: Sorry to hear that.
D58826
Every time you think the crazy right has hit rock bottom, they find more shovels to keep digging. Some Sandy Hook truther told the Mom of one of the victims that her daughter never existed. He also admitted stealing the memorial to the little girl from a local park. A second memorial in another park was also vandalized. The theory seems to be that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation to allow Obama to take the peoples guns.
There have always been crazy conspiracy theories out there. I remember the John Birch society worrying about the 1 million man Chinese army in northern Mexico that only they could see. What seems different now is that so many of these conspiracies begin to bleed into the mainstream via the GOP/tea party and faux news. The reality based community spends most of its time trying to debunk these ideas, without much success it seems.
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
The big difference is that there was enough evidence to convict Nixon, while the Clinton and hypothetical Obama impeachments are purely political theater.
jeffreyw
All thread and no puppy make me have a sad.
raven
@jeffreyw: arf
Face
@D58826: If I’m the parent of said girl, I dont know how I wouldn’t find said truther and beat him to within one picasecond of death, then pull back and piss on his body. To be told my deceased daughter didnt exist would be a flash point that I wouldn’t be able to control.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: Andrew Johnson was impeached on pretty bogus charges. Basically the Radical Republicans wanted him gone because he wasn’t pursuing reconstruction so they impeached him. In their defense, they appeared to think they actually could get rid of him, while House Republicans know they’re just wasting their time.
Paul in KY
@D58826: That is some deranged shit right there. Don’t see how some our our grieving ‘reality based’ citizens manage to keep their cool (not kill/maim crazy assholes) when confronted with those odious views.
Paul in KY
@jeffreyw: That’s a very distinguished looking puppy right there, jeff.
Paul in KY
@Face: I don’t know either…
Amir Khalid
@srv:
Das ist eine Schade. I can’t help but think of this song, from an album that Hans Rudolf Giger did the cover for.
D58826
@Face: Only thing that saved him was being a coward he called and didn’t confront the Mom face to face
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
It was bogus in the sense that the law was passed exclusively to rein in Johnson’s power as president and was probably unconstitutional, but he clearly violated the law he was accused of violating.
Paul in KY
@D58826: Should’ve known…
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: That still adds up to some very bogus circumstances. All of which I support because Johnson was a terrible president. I’m just saying, there’s precedent for impeaching someone on political grounds.
Phylllis
@geg6: I’m distracting myself from working on a Safe Routes to School grant where I get to describe to the funding agency, the state Dept of Transportation, all the reasons why DOT roads/right-of-ways hinder kids walking or biking to school. Along with an aerial photo of the site with a 1.5 mile radius delineated. Thankfully I’m married to a CAD wizard whose boss didn’t mind him helping. Still trying to figure out why I have to send a photo like that to the one agency in the state with the equipment and know-how to do it themselves.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
I know I would not be able to remain sane & calm. My son was in Afghanistan when the run-up to Iraq started. He wrote that they had problems getting both the gear and the people they needed because they were being held for use when the invasion started. I made him certain promises about the fates of certain individuals should any harm come to him because of this embargo. I have no doubt I would have carried out my promise had it come to that, I don’t know how at least one of the people who lost sons & daughters for no good reason did not act out a similar attempt.
GregB
@lukeallen1:
Once again some anonymous chowderhead wins the Daily Douche Award for having nothing better to do in life except carp about a post or choice of posts from someone who took more than 30 seconds to think about writing something before applying stubby, barbecue stained fingers to a keyboard.
Schlemizel
@Iowa Old Lady:
I think the tide had pretty well turned by the time the tapes became public. Nixon had enough people spill their guts that he would have been convicted in the Senate. The vote would have been close with a few goopers holding on & making excuses. The tapes removed the fig leaf so that no public official cared to stand with the criminals.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
In a weird way, I can almost understand the truthers on this one — after all, who wouldn’t rather live in a world where those first-graders were never gunned down? Who wouldn’t rather believe that there’s no way a crazy guy could go into an elementary school and kill helpless children?
Unfortunately for them, they’re insisting on living in a fantasy world where bad things never happen, but I can’t entirely blame them for preferring that world to the real one where Sandy Hook really happened.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: I hear ya, mom!
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
I’m not 100% sure it does. My impression is that impeachment was included in the Constitution with the intention that it should be used politically rather than purely legally; the framers wanted a way of getting rid of political liabilities short of assassination or civil war. This seems surprising after over 200 years of peaceful transfers of power, but the framers had been dealing with the long-term fallout of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution (e.g. the Jacobite rebellions) for their whole lives, so their perspective was very different from ours.
Glocksman
@D58826:
The internet plays its part as well.
Nowadays instead of writing and mailing a poorly mimeographed 2 page newsletter with an audience of a thousand or so, today’s conspiracy theorist can reach a potential audience of millions at very little expense as well as organize meetups and events using social media tools..
Whether or not this is a good thing…..
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think that is the reason why they are inventing these conspiracy theories.
Paul in KY
@Glocksman: Good point.
muddy
@BillinGlendaleCA: I hope you spoke very well of yourselves!
@geg6: I worked in a fairly small engineering company c. 1990. For your evaluation, 4 engineers I worked with would rate me on various things, then the big boss would rate me. He’d average the other people’s numbers together, and then average that with his own opinion. You won’t be surprised to hear that he was a full on conservative asshole. Cheap and punishing tipper kind of guy. Anyway, on the score of being friendly at work, the 4 guys who I interacted with daily gave me a high score. Ramrod-in-his-ass gives me a really low score. I was pretty much incredulous because we all got along great! We never saw him.
Well, once a day he would “proceed” through the offices, for everyone to tug their forelock. He never stopped, just sailed through like a frigate under steam, making sure everyone tugged appropriately. Imagine his retired-British-colonel from India ‘stache. John Boltonish, if you will. This was my only interaction with him on a daily basis, and he is going to decide how much money I should make by that?
I said to him that he wasn’t very approachable, was he? He was very startled and amazed that anyone would challenge him on this or anything. OMG!!
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
I think that’s part of it. If you’re already slightly delusional, it’s (relatively) easy to slide from I can’t believe something this terrible would happen to I can’t believe something this terrible could happen.
They don’t want to believe that a crazy guy would murder 20+ schoolchildren, so they don’t believe it. The fact that it also allows them to keep believing that Guns Are Always Good only pushes them harder into disbelief.
(Again, we’re not necessarily talking about guys like Wayne LaPierre, though I do have my doubts about his mental stability. But people who would try to tell a grieving mother that her child never existed have something else going on in addition to their obsessive gun-hugging.)
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: That’s my point- it’s not a purely legal move and it probably never was. Say Republicans somehow got a veto proof majority in congress and passed a law, say, forbidding Obama from mocking Republicans, then he broke it (because you know he would) and then impeached him. That’s not too different from just going “BENGHAZI!! YOLO!” and impeaching him for whatever they claim he did or didn’t do. At any rate, if they get the numbers they’ll do it. That’s not entirely a terrible thing IMHO. It’s just terrible that our side is too chicken to do it to their lousy presidents.
And at some point the Republicans will get so stupid about impeaching presidents that Democrats will be forced to take their stick and break it. It will take Democrats way too long to do it, but they will, eventually.
muddy
@Phylllis: For the medical cannabis in Vermont, each year you have to send a picture of yourself to the state so they can use it to print and send back your new ID. You have to send it on a CD. No other storage is accepted, and they won’t take the picture by email, although they communicate with you via email. I don’t have an optical disk on my computer even, it’s a hassle. Waste of a CD, special mailing envelope, extra postage all for one pic. Can’t use your picture from last year, clearly old people are going to look very different from one year to the next!
But when you renew your driver’s license, you can do it online and ask them to use the old photo that they took of you previously. Gods forbid that 2 state agencies that print licenses use the same system.
D58826
@Glocksman: Yep and the really crazy offensive stuff never made it past the editor on the letters to the editor page. They could always stand on a street corner but most people just walk on by and don’t take the papers they are handing out. They were very small frogs in a very very small pond. The internet now gives these same small frogs a much bigger pond to croak in.
Another Holocene Human
@GregB: Barbeque chowder? Ugh, sounds depressing.
Cacti
@Punchy:
Hell no.
Another Holocene Human
@Glocksman: They can be infiltrated, mocked, and doxed in real time, too. It used to be very physically risky to infiltrate these groups. They seemed quite adept at organizing back in the 80s, at any rate.
Certain things feed these movements. That’s what we need to focus on. Inequality, want, isolation, and indoctrination. Something simple like that Finnish baby box could make a huge change in how Americans treat each other over time.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
Not gonna happen:
1) Impeachment needs to remain a possibility for the occasional Nixon who has genuinely done something wrong.
2) In any situation where the Republicans are trying to impeach the President, they’ll have enough power to block attempts to amend the Constitution to stop them.
3) Impeachment is unlikely to be a political winner for the Republicans outside of the party primary, so the Democrats have little political incentive to eliminate it.
Belafon
@Another Holocene Human:
Right Wing Radio.
john b
@donnah: Until we recently moved (thanks, sequestration!), I was a neighbor of Kelly’s. She was active in the neighborhood and even led some little musical events at one of neighborhood watering holes.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: I think they just want to believe that the government is ready to do outrageous (in their minds) things to them, so they dream up these fantasies. I think the ‘kids not really existing’ is just convenient for the fantasy scenario realted to Sandy Hook they want to believe.
I don’t think they really give a shit about those kids or their parents, in personal or the abstract.
Cacti
Just in case anyone thought Rand Paul was serious about voting rights.
From the director of his PAC:
Paul in KY
@muddy: That’s probably on purpose. Make you jump thru as many hoops as possible, so as to stop lazy recreational stoners from glomming on to the medicinal program.
Bet somebody in power up there thought about it that way.
Paul in KY
@Cacti: I’m fine with that, as it would mean Hillary! won 2 terms, which means a Repub POS didn’t.
Think of it that way.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: I don’t think they’ll eliminate it entirely, I just think they’ll make it much harder to use. And of course Democrats would have to do that when they’re in the majority, after Republicans have repeatedly impeached Democratic presidents on flimsy charges (which they will do, because there is nothing but gain in it for them right now). And I don’t think they’ll do it for votes- they’ll do it because they’re sick of wasting their time. That’s my prediction, it’s naturally going to take a while to see if it pans out.
Phylllis
@muddy: Heh. I have to submit this in a binder, with six copies and the original, and burned to a cd. Really? Can’t pdf it & email it to you? Okeydoke.
Schlemizel
@Cacti:
Thats wonderful! So he is firmly on the public record as being against voter ID laws but we’re all friends here wink-wink-nod-nod so the states can go right ahead and pass the most repressive voter ID laws they can get away with and I am plenty OK with that.
Its so damn easy being a libertarian, I may try it myself.
Hill Dweller
@Cacti:
It should be obvious by now Rand Paul isn’t serious about anything other than his political career. But that hasn’t stopped way too many progressives from continually buying his bullshit.
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
Even murderers and rapists will beat up a guy who’s in prison for hurting a child, so it’s not like it’s a sign of deep moral conviction.
Hill Dweller
@Schlemizel: Paul is also purportedly against discrimination, but thinks businesses should be free to discriminate. Maddow had Paul pegged years ago.
Schlemizel
@Hill Dweller:
Thats exactly the beauty of the libertarian position!! “Its not my fault that you will be crushed under the whims of the powerful. I certainly don’t approve of it. Its OK with me for people to do whatever they want, the consequences are not my doing.”
Damn, I really should become a libertarian, simple, neat, mindless, and its all totally whatever you guys want to do.
D58826
@Schlemizel: Like Pontius Pilot, given them a bowl to wash their hands in and they can sleep like a baby
Trollhattan
Today, in hippie-punching.
There’s more, if you’re perverse enough.
http://westernfarmpress.com/blog/californias-regulated-drought-impacts-aquifers
“Timely Reliable Information for Western Agriculture”–Western Farm Press masthead
muddy
@Paul in KY: Probably! Because in Vermont the program is run under the Dept. of Public Safety (po-po), and not the health dept. like in many states. So if it’s all cops, why not share?
You have to choose a dispensary too, you can’t shop around. If you want to try a different one you have to pay $25 for a new card, but in this case they will actually use the saved picture, as long as it is within a year. You can only change every 90 days.
When they were locating a local dispensary, stupid people carried on about how it would “draw crime”. I went to Meeting and said that they ought to close the Rite-Aid then, as it was full of oxy-wev. Also the state liquor store should be closed on these grounds.
Schlemizel
@D58826:
“I personally am against your crucifixion JC, but I leave it to the individual states to decide. I can’t possibly be held accountable for knowing the fix is in and the outcome obvious.”
That is a thing of beauty and a jo
yB forever for a politician.muddy
@Phylllis: When I was in engineering, and we’d have a stack of blueprints an inch thick for a project, when they wanted changes you would have to print out a whole new stack of 24×36 even if it only changed wording on one page. I offered to go over to their office and mark it up in pen on their copies, the lettering would match. No! All new paper! Fuck the trees! That was 20 years ago, I don’t know what they do now, but would not be surprised that they still print out a whole stack, but this time from a disk.
muddy
FYWP double
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: Good point on the beating. Still think that in this case, the murdered kids have to have been non-existent for the specific scenario, so that’s why they are. Not because these whackos are unable to comprehend the horror, etc. so they create a fantasy to remove that horror.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
But they need more than just a majority. Any Constitutional amendment would require 2/3 of both Houses of Congress and 3/4 of the states to go along. The Democrats aren’t likely to get that kind of power in a one-off win after a period of Republican impeachment attempts; they’re only going to get it after a long period of Republican decline. If/when that time comes, I expect them to have a lot of other Amendments that are higher priority than restricting impeachment.
hilts
@Belafon:
Chris Matthews’ head just exploded. His lead story last night was Republican scare tactics against Hillary, so he’ll have a field day with Rove’s comments.
Paul in KY
@muddy: If you deliver it in person, make sure you are not stoned, as they would love to ticket you for DWI.
Trollhattan
@muddy:
Not directly involved but at my joint I see them stamp and ink final approved plan sets for distribution, presumably like they’ve done since forever. One set can be pretty darn large. What I don’t know is how changes and errors are handled, prior to producing the final sets.
When I was doing CIRCLA reports a single copy could take as many as twenty 4-inch binders, which we’d produce in-house in sets of a couple dozen. After my umpteenth binder-building session I noted it would be cheaper to provide each copy loaded on a complementary laptop, and for a brief moment you could actually see the gears spinning in a few heads….
Sigh, not to be.
satby
@geg6: Well, it could always be worse, you could be evaluated like my old employer is doing.
muddy
@Paul in KY: What, drive to the state capital? It’s not near anything but itseIf (can’t get theah from heah, kind of thing)! I am so rural I rarely go more than 20 miles from my house! You also have to get your application notarized. My b-i-l does mine. State recommends going to the Town Clerk, but I know they will all gossip about it. Still, I shouldn’t whine. At least it’s available and legal. Altho an ounce of street weed is only a $50 ticket these days anyway. Dispensary, you know what you are getting, and this particular place is entirely organic.
Interesting thing I’ve found, the weed=paranoia thing goes away when you are legal. I don’t think the cannabis is inherently paranoia-inducing. But when you think you will get busted all the time, well you ought to be paranoid if you don’t want to get popped.
Trollhattan
@satby:
Wow. Is that Ross Perot’s old company, or am I thinking of somewhere else?
muddy
@Trollhattan: Ugh, I hate inefficiency. My motto is that Laziness is the Mother of Efficiency. I was the chief draftsman at this place, they would have me do final drawings off the sketches and notes of junior engineers. When I was done, they would be reviewed by senior engineers, who would mark the half of it wrong, and then I was to fix. Would have been faster to start over, I was not on a computer. When you erase a line it leaves a hole in all the other lines it crosses. Ink on mylar. But NO, don’t start over, there’s no time!
I asked why the senior engineer could not *glance over at least* the sketches before I drew them up, so it would not be a jumbled edited mess at the end, arrows crossing etc. I point out that it would be the same review that they do from my finished drawing. No no, “we don’t have time, we are senior and very busy”. Gods forbid they have to look at a yucky sketch! I guess I had all the time in the world, to do it 3x. Then they’d freak out because the drawings were not done faster.
Feh. Glad I changed careers. Too many libertarian assholes in engineering. Now I’m one with the mud. Although today we are off to the lumber yard, making new fence to contain naughty digging jumping puppy.
Howard Beale IV
@satby: That 40% on the low-end is pretty brutal-normally that’s usually the bottom 10% that gets the treatment.
satby
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I think that’s called “hate”
D58826
Should the d’s take part in the Benghazi show trial? At first I thought no just boycott the thing. The problem is that will give the GOP an unchallenged platform to repeat the various and sundry talking points that have been debunked multiple times. The media isn’t going to challenge the GOP narrative. They will just say well both sides do it.
The d’s get 5 seats so what I think Nancy should do it:
1. pick two reps who have experience in building a case and cross-examining witnesses. They would be well versed in the Benghaz record and have a good knowledge of military capabilities.
2.pick Allen Greyson to be the designated bad-cop/pibull to be used when needed.
3. the remaining two will be in effect potted plants. They will ceed their question time to the first two.
4. Build a narrative with the facts and admit when mistakes were made. Don’t be in a reactive mode to the Gopers.. Have a proactive case to build and present
5. Use the allotted time to build your case, cross examine witness and where necessary debunk the GOOPER conspiracy theories.
6. DONOT waste time making speeches
The GOP thinks of this as a trial so the democrats have to play the same game. If the GOP is going to act like a prosecution team then the democrats have to be the defense team.
And much as I would like to see the democrats flip the bird at the committee I don’t think they can afford to allow the GOP to generate hours of misleading sound bites. I realize the faux news will lie no matter what but the democrats have to give their people sounds bits that they can use in election ads.
Paul in KY
@muddy: Sounds like you have it nailed down. Glad to hear that. I will have to be circumspect at this music festival. It is not Bonnaroo, so there will be a police presence, etc.
satby
@Trollhattan: Perot’s old company was EDS, he sold it to GM years ago. Don’t think it’s around anymore.
satby
@Howard Beale IV: They’ve spent the last year laying a couple thousand people off (like me) who have higher evaluations (I got a 1 in the NPS sector) but who’s jobs were being sent to India. They still have too many people to support contracts that they’re losing, so they have to trump up an excuse to unload a few more thousands.
The scuttlebutt is that the execs are looking to pump and dump the company.
Edited for typos
JoyfulA
@dr. bloor: That sounds like the evaluation system I toiled under in my last corporate job circa 1979. It was a week’s worth of work, and there was no time to do it at work, of course.
Some days I need reminders of what I left behind.
Origuy
@Trollhattan: Fitchette is getting beaten up in the comments. I clicked through to the Fresno Bee article; the old couple’s private well has dried up. How that relates to water flowing into the Delta, I don’t know. They want to drill a deeper well, but that only delays the problem. They’ve been getting by without public water service for years, now they want the county to help them drill a well.
Cassidy
@Mnemosyne: That’s not what they believe, though. They have no problem with the 20+ schoolchildren being massacred. They just believe the gov’t did it to take away their precious fetish items.