Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This blog goes to 11…

Fuck if i know. i just get yelled at when i try it.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The revolution will be supervised.

This blog will pay for itself.

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week.

Consistently wrong since 2002

This is all too absurd to be reality, right?

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

I swear, each month of 2020 will have its own history degree.

How has Obama failed you today?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Militantly superior in their own minds…

This is how realignments happen…

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot.

Han shot first.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The math demands it!

There’s some extremely good trouble headed their way.

Women: they get shit done

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

You are here: Home / Archives for Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix

Read a fucking book.

mistermix has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2010.

Brooks Would Be a Lousy Whip

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On NPR’s All Things Considered, David Brooks was discussing how Nancy Pelosi would convince House members to vote for HCR. He said she would say something like, “Well, you’re going to lose your seat over this, but for the good of the country, you need to make this vote.”

Horseshit.

Pelosi would say the opposite: that failing to pass HCR would be a body blow to every Democrat, and if you’re in a tough district, switching your vote to oppose HCR will make you look like a waffling, unserious, gutless wonder. She’d also say that people appreciate consistency and loyalty, that they’re sick to death of hearing about this bill, and they’ll consider you a useless wanker for wasting their time yakking about reform while delivering nothing.

I realize that DougJ has the Brooks beat, but this was some of the most vapid “analysis” I’ve heard in a long time.

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The Central Scrutinizer

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Those of you who are thinking about places to move after Palin wins in 2012 might want to cross the home of the Lord of the Rings, Bondi Beach and Tuscany from your list if you want to keep reading Balloon Juice.

Over in Frodo’s back yard, New Zealand has just implemented net censorship.  Last month, without telling anyone, two of the country’s Internet providers (ISPs) started using a government filter.  It supposedly only screens out depictions of child sexual abuse, and it’s “voluntary”, though the ISPs volunteer, not individual users.   By the way, New Zealand also has a government position called The Chief Censor, and the current one, who is openly gay, has been accused of promoting a gay agenda by not banning some films.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the ruling Labor party (center-left conservative, of course) wants to create a mandatory “great firewall” that would make ISPs take down any R or X-rated content hosted at sites without adult verification in Australia, and block it from sites hosted outside Australia.  Trials of the firewall haven’t gone well, and Labor has lost the votes for it in the Australian Senate, but it’s still a live issue in Australia’s politics.

Finally, a court in Italy recently convicted three Google employees and gave them a 6 month suspended sentence because YouTube hosted a video of a developmentally disabled kid being bullied.

It’s interesting to note that these three major incursions on Internet freedom by “good countries” have taken place with little notice in the mainstream US press, while China’s censorship policy is hashed over in painful detail.

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This is for Bart

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Since there’s a special rule that all Catholic Democrats can obstruct any legislation in conflict with their religion, just like all Jewish Democrats, and even all Muslim Democrats (those were added when Keith Ellison got elected), I thought this little educational video might help us better understand some of the Catholic teachings that Bart Stupak must never, ever violate.

It also will satisfy those who want more of the F-word on B-J.

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Intro

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Some commenters in the last post wondered where I came from.  Others asked to have me kicked out.  I guess that’s the Balloon Juice community’s way to ask for an introduction.

So, hi, I’m mistermix. I’m a friend of DougJ’s IRL, as the kids say.  When he pastes a rant “from a friend” into one of his posts, chances are that it came from me. For example, I contributed this subtle encomium to Byron Dorgan, and this gentle suggestion that B-J stop linking to Politico.

Apparently because the word “fuck” hasn’t appeared on B-J with sufficient frequency, DougJ and John asked me to come on board, and I’m happy to be here.  My day job is writing software and system administration.  I’m toying with the idea of posting about technology every so often.  Other than that, expect a few rants.

Just to this post isn’t entirely useless,  head over to Google Maps and check out the new biking feature.   It’s amazing — I’ve been riding the same bike commute to work for 10 years and it showed me a better way.

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Purely Useless

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If  the mighty Rahmbama was able to eject Massa from Congress, how did he miss the continued existence of Dennis Kucinich, who’s done little but  bitch and obstruct for his 7 terms in Congress:

In fact, according to the Web site GovTrack, of the 97 bills Kucinich has sponsored since taking office in 1997, only three have become law. Ninety-three didn’t even make it out of committee.

The three that were enacted are, in chronological order from first to last: bill “to make available to the Ukranian Museum and Archives the USIA television program ‘Window on America,'” a bill “to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 14500 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio as the ‘John P. Gallagher Post Office Building” and a bill “proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously.”  (via Kos)

Unlike Massa, who was the best Democrats are going to get in a R+5 district, Kucinich lives in a D+8 district where a well-financed Democrat would probably win the general.   Yet he’s coasted to more than a decade of easy wins.

Kucinich is the Ron Paul of the Democratic Party: a useless, one-man purity squad.  In Paul’s defense, the whole point of being a libertarian Congressman is to accomplish nothing.   Kucinich doesn’t have that excuse.

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Some Non-Whining

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Looks like we need an open thread.  Here’s something you might want to consider:

Publishers can do whatever they want. If you don’t like it, don’t send them nasty emails or browse their sites with ad-blockers: just don’t support them. Don’t read their content, don’t link to them, and don’t talk about them. Since money’s not usually involved, vote with your attention and read elsewhere.

(via DF)

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A Song For Roberts’ Butthurt

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Roberts has hurt feelings about the SOTU:

Roberts said anyone was free to criticize the court, and some have an obligation to do so because of their positions.

“So I have no problems with that,” he said. “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum.

“The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”

Something’s going on with embedding, but here’s the song.

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