Link salad, again.

It’s been a long day, with the sort of desk-bound screen-staring and maddening phone calling (the bank again). I salvaged it with a little gym time, but now I’m sitting here in a soggy bra, thinking I might go to bed soon and shower in the morning.

Sometimes, I just don’t have much to say. (Or I have a lot to say, but can’t say it. Like, about the bank.) Which means you might need some bloggage to get you through. I haz some.

Charles Pierce is quite good at towering rants, but this one might be a needle-pegger:

It is not merely unseemly, but positively obscene for people like Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee, and the unspeakable Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods to use surviving World War II veterans to advance a political agenda that would make the lives of those veterans immeasurably worse. …How dare these idiots? Tailgunner Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee, the constitooshunal skolar from Utah, and Ms. Palin. How dare they traffick in this manner of grave-robbing? They would all throw these veterans off Medicare, close the VA hospitals, bury the brave old men and women in substandard nursing homes rather than give an inch away of their indomitable ideology of entitled selfishness. Ted Cruz doesn’t think the government has a role in making the lives of these veterans easier. Mike Lee thinks the Founders wanted vets to starve. Sarah Palin doesn’t think, period, and is proud of it.

“60 Minutes” did a piece on Detroit Sunday. Frankly, it wasn’t very good. One always has to consider, when judging these things, that not everyone has the knowledge you do, and so, complaining that a piece is superficial sort of misses the point. I’ve seen “60 Minutes” only a handful of times in the past, what? 30 years? And it seems so, so tired — the aging correspondents with their towering self-esteem, the strolling long shots with the subject, all of it. But as disappointing as the segment was, this web add-on was awful. Glib, cliché-ridden, smug — the definition of parachute journalism. Argh.

So, maybe a palate-cleanser? T-Lo on Madonna. Who is apparently turning into Michael Jackson, only with more zippers. Those gloves!

Let’s try again tomorrow.

Posted at 12:30 am in Current events |
 

51 responses to “Link salad, again.”

  1. Sherri said on October 15, 2013 at 3:10 am

    Along the lines of something we were discussing a few days earlier, about working on live electrical lines, here’s some people who intentionally work on live electrical lines, because the lines are too busy to be shut down, and they do it by helicopter: http://boingboing.net/2013/10/14/electric-linemen-fly-in-by-hel.html, Follow the links to see some of the videos; they’re incredible (and insane!)

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  2. coozledad said on October 15, 2013 at 3:33 am

    It’s probably just my failing eyesight, but I’m getting more of a Truman Capote vibe from Madonna.

    Let the dildo jokes begin!

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  3. Deborah said on October 15, 2013 at 3:37 am

    I actually kind of like the look, except for the pants.

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  4. ROGirl said on October 15, 2013 at 5:01 am

    60 Minutes waited till now to do that crap? Ruin porn, ruin porn, ruin porn, downtown, ruin porn, DIA.

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  5. beb said on October 15, 2013 at 7:49 am

    An irony-junkie would over-dose on the amount of tomfoolery going on during the government shutdown. Here are Republican leaders and attention whores complaining about the closed WWII memorial when it was their party that shut down the government. Here’s Palin running up the impeachment flag again, over what? Who knows. Apparently there are some Southerns who are upset that some progressives are blaming Southern Racism for shutting down the government. But what is one supposed to conclude when all the people involved in shutting down the government are southerns?

    Madonna? Do we still care about her?

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  6. Julie Robinson said on October 15, 2013 at 7:49 am

    Thanks for the Madonna laughs, I certainly needed them. My sister is being discharged from the hospital today and I’m worried that it’s too soon.

    Nancy, your bank doesn’t sound very motivated. We bought a car last week and the financing got done in about two hours. What a pain for you.

    Charles Pierce says just what I want to but with eloquence.

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  7. Heather said on October 15, 2013 at 8:09 am

    So much filler in Madge’s face! As I steadily march on into my 40s I understand on a visceral level that aging isn’t fun, especially for us ladies, but the puffy, waxy face is truly a gruesome simulacrum of youth more than anything else.

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  8. coozledad said on October 15, 2013 at 8:13 am

    In the Republican parallel universe, that Confederate flag is the flag of civil rights, and the twin skanks Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz are Martin Luther King divided into masculine and feminine essences. The WWII memorial is their Edmund Pettus bridge, our derisive laughter= water cannon and dogs.

    They have a dream that one day we will all live up next to each other at the trailer park and sport breed enough crosseyed whey colored younguns to lift a mid-sized pickup out of a ditch.

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  9. beb said on October 15, 2013 at 8:22 am

    Also in the irony department, the White House press corp had a tizzy because the WH Press Secretary described the Republican hostage demands as “ransom.” This is funny because Chuck Todd just recently said that if Democrats are unhappy that he only gives ?Republican talking points its because the Dems aren’t out there giving him their talking points. So here’s a Dem giving a Dem talking point and the press doesn’t like it. I think that’s why the most honest news organization in America has become Al Jezeerha. They don’t like anyone equally.

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  10. Judybusy said on October 15, 2013 at 9:07 am

    Julie, I hope all goes well for your sister.

    Actually, if Madonna had a different jacket with fewer zippers (sooooo 15-year-old in *1983*) and better pants that had finished hems, it would be an ok look. I really like the shoes.

    Charles Pierce nailed those yahoos.

    On a brighter note, I would love to go to this dark sky park.

    Has anyone heard much about an awful oil spill connected with fracking in North Dakota?

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  11. nancy said on October 15, 2013 at 9:16 am

    I’m not sure when that photo of Madge was taken, but if it was in the last few days, it’s revelatory. I assume NYC has been having the same unseasonable warmth we’ve been enjoying, and yet, she’s bundled to within an inch of her life, including a scarf and those ridiculous gloves. No, this is the look of a woman who’s slowly realizing her vampiress days are over, that she has finally, truly stripped the planet’s surface of people she can suck the creative juices from, the better to plump up her own corpse-like persona. It’s all about the next generation now, and no matter how much she looks at Miley Cyrus and says, “Hey, I already did that,” no one cares. She is going the way of all botox’d, filler’d, lifted and restuffed flesh.

    Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

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  12. Julie Robinson said on October 15, 2013 at 9:37 am

    And look at her fingers in that second photo down. They look like chicken talons, skinny and wrinkled. I’m a couple years older and though my hands don’t look 20, they’re nowhere as wrinkled as that. She should have worn full coverage gloves, because those hands give away everything the face is trying to portray. Ick.

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  13. Pam (the sister) said on October 15, 2013 at 9:37 am

    I can’t believe you’re having so much trouble with getting a Line o Credit. Perhaps it’s due to the real estate situation in the Detroit area. If you default, what do they really have? But with your credit rating, you would think they would conclude that you pay your bills.

    The radical right Rs think that we need less gov’mint. So now that we have less gov’mint, they want the parks and monuments open? By whom, the gov’mint they want to shrink? What services do they think would go first? They are so idiotic and irrational that I just shake my head that their idiot followers can’t see the illogic of their arguments.

    When he wrote “princess dumbass of the north woods” my mind went first to Bachmann. But I guess she’s out there preparing for the impending end times.

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  14. Jolene said on October 15, 2013 at 10:05 am

    I love the idea of a dark sky park, Judybusy. I first learned about light pollution when I taught at the University of Arizona, which has an important astronomy department. The city of Tucson works to minimize light pollution, but I’d never heard of setting aside a site for that purpose.

    And, yes, I had heard about the ND oil spill. Sounds like the state government has been doing a bad job of communicating about it. One (of many) disadvantages of such highly consequential energy development projects in such remote locations is that there aren’t many reporters around to jump on the story when things go wrong. In fact, there aren’t many reporters in the whole state.

    Here’s a short report from NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/12/232786292/delay-in-reporting-oil-spill-in-north-dakota-raises-questions

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  15. brian stouder said on October 15, 2013 at 10:09 am

    I found this article somewhat reassuring, after the Raphael & Sarah goomwah-fest, yesterday…although the possibility that it’s a snow-job – especially given that the pollster is named Blizzard – cannot be dismissed. Afterall, even in the rosey-scenario interpretation of the data, we still have a lot of brazenly crazy people.

    http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/15/20960588-the-new-american-center-why-our-nation-isnt-as-divided-as-we-think?lite

    an excerpt:

    “Just because Washington is polarized doesn’t mean America is,” says Robert Blizzard, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, the lead pollster for Mitt Romney in 2012. His firm co-created the survey with the Benenson Strategy Group, pollsters for President Obama, and the result is a nation in eight distinct segments: two on the far right (“The Righteous Right” and “The Talk Radio Heads”), two on the far left (“The Bleeding Hearts” and “The Gospel Left”), and four in the middle that represent nothing less than a new American center (“Minivan Moderates,” “The MBA Middle,” “The Pick-up Populists, and “The #WhateverMan.”)

    “minivan moderate”? Well, OK.

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  16. Deborah said on October 15, 2013 at 10:12 am

    I dunno Julie, I’ve always had skinny wrinkled hands, even when I was a teenager my hands looked like a 60 year old. Now that I’m in my 60s the rest of me has caught up with my hands.

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  17. Deborah said on October 15, 2013 at 10:17 am

    And since we’re talking about how people look, Ted (Raphael as Brian says) looks creepy to me. He always looks like he’s wearing eye make up, his face is weirdly puffy (botox?) and his hair appears slimy. I think he is in his early to mid 40s but he looks like someone much older who’s trying to look younger.

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  18. Jolene said on October 15, 2013 at 10:31 am

    Agree, Deborah. Ted Cruz is a creep on many dimensions.

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  19. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 15, 2013 at 10:32 am

    I liked that Chuck Todd also pointed out, in the discussion of that poll on Morning Joe, that there’s plenty of passion and commitment among moderates. But not being the kind of passion that is dangling off a cliff waving its arms, it doesn’t get the same sort of attention. Passion to make the system work, and to link existing groups together to co-operate, takes fervency and drive and devotion, but it’s not what gets you a seat in those four-way screen smackdowns on cable news coverage. I mean, what would I say, even given that I can bellow with the best of them?

    “Greta, we’re just glad that the GIS implementation protocols for McKinney and HPRP funds from HUD allow us to create more connectivity between Veterans Services and ODADAS databases so we can get people housed more quickly; our drawdowns are being held up and that’s creating a new budget burden having to use a line of credit that mandated to be noncompensated, even though Congress created the obligation as well as the delay, but we’re coping well thanks to community partners and local foundation grants, which are crucial even if they can’t support ongoing work. ICM with our MDTs are making SAMSHA dollars converge with Housing First in ways that reduce long-term Medicaid costs, and everyone wins!”

    The producer would have cut my mike in the first ten seconds.

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  20. brian stouder said on October 15, 2013 at 10:51 am

    …and the scrunch-faced tea-partier would go apoplectic about how YOU – PERSONALLY are CAUSING all this backlog and misery…we just gotta blow everything up real good, and start all over…etc etc

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  21. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 15, 2013 at 11:04 am

    “Greta, I can see why Mr. Veeblefester might think that, but really, it’s about a short term cost that realizes long term savings for . . . Greta? Is this mike on? Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

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  22. MaryRC said on October 15, 2013 at 11:33 am

    I loved this comment on T-Lo’s page about Madonna: “She looks bulky like when a group of elves/kittens/tiny-somethings puts on a trench coat to pass for a grownup. Like her head is just a sham, and her outfit is full of underage leprechauns trying to sneak into an X-rated movie.”

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  23. Prospero said on October 15, 2013 at 12:24 pm

    Jon Stewart pointed out last night that GOPer bad behavior has shut down Meals on Wheels, which delivers meals to half a million veterans. And it is assuredly bad behavior, in the form of a freath-holding, blue-in-the-face tantrum. Surprise, surprise. These are the people that denied that any Viet vets were sick from Agent Orange. And let the VA hospitals run into the ground infested with rats and roaches, out of unadulterated poltroonism. And claimed John Kerry’s honorable service history in SE Asia was somehow fabricated, which was their ultimate bitchfest about Milhous’ impeachment.

    Remember that horrible Rebecca Black song Fridays. That same vanity producer has come up with something more execrable,and it’s totally obnoxious in a racist sort of way.

    BP has spent $42.5 million on the Gulf cleanup and claim it’s all done. Not by a longshot. Every single oil spill proves the oil companies incompetent to deal with accidents. Makes Keystone XL seem like a really terrible idea. And it’s not getting better with the Feds shut down.

    Our Gang did that stacked up kids in a grown-up coat to perfection.

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  24. coozledad said on October 15, 2013 at 12:26 pm

    Jason Chaffetz gets his green ass beat down like a rent boy:
    http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/10/15/parliamentary_procedure_goes_viral.html

    I love the smell of singed dumbfuck in the morning.

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  25. Prospero said on October 15, 2013 at 12:31 pm

    Alfalfa and Spanky pretend to be a G-Man. Includes Alfalfa’s dramatic reading of Charge of the Light Brigade.

    The Gulf cleanuppers recently found an oil collection mat that BP had lost track of on a LA barrier island. It weighed 25 tons of collected oil. Heckuva job, BP.

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  26. coozledad said on October 15, 2013 at 12:53 pm

    That video has to be especially unsettling for the White House Press Corps, NPR and the Washington Post, who’ve been trying to find a way to get their lips back around some Republican crank for a couple of weeks now:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/white-house-press-corps-reaches-for-peak-derp

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  27. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 15, 2013 at 1:03 pm

    Foolishly, I’m sitting here watching the WH press conference. “As much as I’d like to improve the accuracy of the TV countdown clocks…” chuckles Jay Carney, trying to deflect the fascination the pool has for armageddon. The House GOP wants apocalypse with an unseemly and grasping passion, and the media wants doom for the ratings bonanza it should gather back to their moist and heaving bosom.

    And the nation turns its lonely eyes to Wall Street, from whence cometh our help. Will a free fall this afternoon become the dive that allows us to pull up the stick, or is the fight in the cockpit going to end augered deep into the National Mall?

    Stay tuned, and watch our creepy little (no, we’re not enjoying this) digital ticker in the corner.

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  28. Prospero said on October 15, 2013 at 2:32 pm

    BP’s and Halliburton’s Gulf oil spill. Mendacious from Day 1.

    The great Terry Southern on baton twirling at Ole Miss.

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  29. brian stouder said on October 15, 2013 at 2:33 pm

    It seems to me that Raphael really wrecked his resume’ here, and we know he’s a smart guy (despite looking like the sort of creeper you might run into in public restrooms, or roller rinks)

    so – what was he thinking? Rachel Maddow, who I love, has expressed the opinion (credibly, I think) that Newt Gingerich – for one – is simply and literally a grifter (to use Cooz’s word), in it for the money and the attention, period.

    Is this Raphael’s raison d’être? (or at least, the raisins in his bagels)

    I begin to think so; ’cause that guy is topped out, right about two weeks ago

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  30. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 15, 2013 at 2:39 pm

    On a completely different topic, I found this an enjoyable diversion, having worked in one and visited three or four others of ’em. Purdue Memorial Union is quite a pile, and was a real joy at Christmastime even down in the steam tunnels and hidden kitchens for those of us who labored there deep in the 1920s infrastructure. The new OSU union is almost too much, as so many new university amenities are, and the Mountainlair at WVU was a well-designed structure in an ugly age, which I’m sure they’re thinking about replacing. A few others I’ve just sprinted through, like the Michigan facility.

    http://www.bestcollegereviews.org/features/most-amazing-campus-student-unions/

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  31. coozledad said on October 15, 2013 at 3:11 pm

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/house-gop-sang-amazing-grace-at-caucus-meeting

    Actually it was Amazing grace/That’s when your heartaches begin

    Amassing grift how sweet the gas
    Pumped up the ass of me
    I once was po but now I’ve learned
    To ho myself with glee

    Tis said tis easier for a fly
    To eat a box of shit
    Than for a teatrash congressman
    To try not to sell it

    I’ve blown more dudes than Elton John
    Plus Freddy Mercury
    This here lapel pin makes me the
    Fresh Prince of Mayberry

    Background humming commences
    If you find your gravy boat sinking, my friend
    Brother, that’s where the veterans come in
    When the grift of a lifetime threatens to end
    Open the gates, let them in
    Vets are a thing we never can share
    They die for Amway
    Because we send them there
    And you know, brother, When your back’s to the shithouse, and the rifles are cocked
    That’s when to check if it’s locked

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  32. Jeff Borden said on October 15, 2013 at 3:24 pm

    Hmmm. No surprise. The test offered by NBC paints me as a bleeding heart liberal. Guilty as charged.

    I also do not understand the end game of Tailgunner Ted. He’s clearly very smart -even if he acts the rube and surrounds himself with stupid people like Mooselini– so what is he really thinking?

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  33. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 15, 2013 at 3:49 pm

    Deus ex machina.

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  34. brian stouder said on October 15, 2013 at 3:53 pm

    http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/center-interactive-quiz

    It gave me the “MBA middle”

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  35. Charlotte said on October 15, 2013 at 4:15 pm

    Play Ball!

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  36. Connie said on October 15, 2013 at 4:27 pm

    Bleeding heart liberal here as well. I knew that.

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  37. Prospero said on October 15, 2013 at 4:44 pm

    Our Gang, not, despite the obvious likeness, the US House of Representatives.

    Has there ever been another instance in US history when a law was passed by the legislature, signed into law by the President, challenged and affirmed in the Supreme Court, subjected to 43 attempts to repeal, only to have one political party insist none of that process actually took place, and calling for the law to be arbitrarily and summarily defunded? I doubt it, and I believe in a less insane climate, the demand would have treated like the loony BS it truly is, and the perpetrators would have been treated as clueless yahoos without a leg to stand on or a pot to piss in.

    James Spader had an absolutely stunning scene in last night’s episode of Blacklist. Well worth checking out on Hulu or the CBS website. He is great at evil creepy guy.

    Don’t tell AquaBuddha, but them funny looking’ light bulbs he thinks don’t work are extremely efficient. Now ol’ AB is a Teabanger’s favorite kidnapper who thinks fluorescent and LED lamps are a gubmint plot to steal our freedom, and he hasn’t had a crapper that works properly in 15 years, so he gets mighty riled by being told those lamps work beautifully. That is one hell of a lot of coal not burned and a lot of nuclear waste not produced by an industry that has spen 60 some years trying to figure out what to do with that toxic shit and gotten exactly nowhere. Unless you consider the Fukushima solution of putting it in leaky pools on top of containments. Some assclown thought that was a good idea.

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  38. Prospero said on October 15, 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Give Oompa Loompa’s storied lack of a Protestant or any other kind of work ethic, I’d bet he’s spent his last several afternoons wanting to throw up his hands and say “No mas! I’m heading for a smoke and some happy hour.”

    I find the terms bleeding heart and kneejerk applied to the political description liberal offensive. The former seems to be a reference to Jesus, the latter is ridiculous when there are no more knee-jerking shibbolleth spouting-fools in American politics than Conservatives. Especially the paleo and Teabanger varieties. The party line rules for those people.

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  39. Minnie said on October 15, 2013 at 5:01 pm

    Another proud bleeding heart reporting.

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  40. Jeff Borden said on October 15, 2013 at 5:20 pm

    When I survey the far-right and the whole teabagging enterprise, I think there are two major kinds of players. Louis Gohmert, Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods, probably Jim Imhofe and Rand Paul in the Senate, and quite a few others really, truly believe the horseshit they peddle. People like Tailgunner Ted, however, would seem to be too intelligent to believe the nation can default on its debt or remain in unlimited shutdown without horrific consequences nationally and internationally. He’s a giant horse’s ass, but by all accounts, he was a brilliant thinker at Princeton and Harvard, noted for his intellect as much as for his pomposity. Even if he suffers delusions of grandeur that only he can guide the country forward, why would he seek to blow up the whole shebang?

    I suppose he could be what my dad used to refer to as an “educated idiot,” but I get a sense of a long game here and I’m totally flummoxed by what it might be.

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  41. Deborah said on October 15, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    Josh Marshall and his wife went to Princeton at the same time as Cruz. Josh’s wife was in the same class, then she also went to Harvard Law when Cruz was there too. According to Josh everybody thought Cruz was an “arrogant ass” but “super smart”. How can someone so smart be so dumb?

    Went to Abiquiu again, drove out to the Ghost Ranch to see the colors that are almost peaking. We were going to go tomorrow but it’s supposed to snow so we went today instead. Gorgeous. We picked up some more wood on our land, but it was a little to cool and windy to stay for a picnic.

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  42. Deborah said on October 15, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    I really didn’t think I was a bleeding heart, I thought I was more moderate, but I’m not apparently. I’m not complaining about my score, I’m just surprised.

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  43. Sherri said on October 15, 2013 at 6:34 pm

    There are days when I wish I had a Y chromosome.

    I’ve been having a problem with my 10 year old vehicle. A while back, every fifth time or so I went to fill up with gas, the pump would click off almost immediately, even though my tank was far from full. I’d have to patiently put in gas at a trickle. I called the dealer and made an appointment for that and a few other things, but the dealer service guy essentially told me that I just didn’t know how to put gas in the car! He said I was putting the nozzle too far into the car, and I should just not put it in as far and everything would be fine.

    Of course, that was stupid; I know how to put gas in the car. The problem continued. I tried every conceivable way of manipulating the nozzle in the fuel neck, but nothing helped. I researched the problem on the internet, came up with a likely culprit, and again had the car into the dealer for this and some other small issues. I told them what I thought the likely culprit was, but they ignored me. They said they couldn’t find anything wrong.

    Fast forward. Now the problem is happening every single time. I give the dealer one last chance. This time, they actually try to put gas in themselves, see the problem happen, and find the culprit, and you guessed it: it’s the very thing I told them to look for last time. Of course, it’s an integral part of the gas tank, so I have to have the whole tank replaced, to the tune of $1900.

    You might wonder why I put up with the dealer this long. Other than this, I’ve had a good experience with them, and they are very convenient; they provide a loaner vehicle, so I don’t have to rent a car or be stuck. But I just suspect that had I been a man, they might have been more willing to listen to me when I told them what the problem was…

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  44. coozledad said on October 15, 2013 at 6:34 pm

    Maybe the Republicans can lease this mascot, the Cadbury meltdown egg, Fukuppy.

    http://wonkette.com/531729/new-fukishima-mascot-fukuppy-is-the-new-coke-of-japanese-rebranding

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  45. Prospero said on October 15, 2013 at 7:33 pm

    Those shoes Madonna is wearing are actually pretty cool. Like spectator pumps made into boots. But the pants legs look like that evil assistant principal in Ferris Buelller after the dog got finished with him, or a costume for a community theater production of Huckleberry Finn. But that borsalino she’s sporting looks asinine. Maria Bello pulled one off in Prime Suspect, but I think thats because she is tough enough to kick Ciccone’s ass.

    cooze@44: Reminds me of that fine old joke about the Fuckawee indian tribe.

    I always read this anecdotal evidence about Ted Cruz’ intelligence a leavening of effective yeast. He has just completed about as stupid a three political weeks as is humanly possible to conceive. Megadumb, basically.

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  46. Deborah said on October 15, 2013 at 7:45 pm

    Jeff B, here’s a possible theory about Cruz’s messed up strategy: one of the profiles I read about him recently said that the first couple of cases he argued to the Supreme Court he got his “ass whooped”, actually his term. So maybe it takes him awhile to figure it out, since he’s new to elected office.

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  47. Suzanne said on October 15, 2013 at 9:02 pm

    Best college student union sites but no Indiana U in Bloomington?? So, this tells me the list is bogus, through and through.

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  48. Deborah said on October 15, 2013 at 9:21 pm

    My husband suggested a really depressing scenario to me that the Koch brothers et al are drooling at the possibility of an economy meltdown as a result of not raising the debt ceiling. I’m not sure I understand this or if I’m conveying it properly (I’m probably not) but he says when the economy crashes worldwide it will allow organizations to buy low and sit on it until it eventually sells higher again, and opens up Europe for them to get their grubby hands on. Is this possible? I’m really ignorant about how the economy works.

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  49. Diane said on October 15, 2013 at 9:59 pm

    A “pick-up populist” here and I am shocked; I think of myself as a bleeding heart liberal.

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  50. Deborah said on October 15, 2013 at 10:42 pm

    Jeff (tmmo), the company I worked for before the last one (before retirement) had the job of redesigning the student union of OSU before we lost it. I went to at least one meeting with the client and it was painful. I’m not sure what happened with regard to why we lost the job but I can say it was one of the most ridiculous meetings I have ever attended. I wasn’t involved from the beginning and left the company myself before it was resolved so I have no idea what the politics were.

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  51. Brandon said on October 15, 2013 at 11:41 pm

    I’m not sure when that photo of Madge was taken, but if it was in the last few days, it’s revelatory. I assume NYC has been having the same unseasonable warmth we’ve been enjoying, and yet, she’s bundled to within an inch of her life, including a scarf and those ridiculous gloves. No, this is the look of a woman who’s slowly realizing her vampiress days are over, that she has finally, truly stripped the planet’s surface of people she can suck the creative juices from, the better to plump up her own corpse-like persona. It’s all about the next generation now, and no matter how much she looks at Miley Cyrus and says, “Hey, I already did that,” no one cares. She is going the way of all botox’d, filler’d, lifted and restuffed flesh.

    Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

    I think Madonna is never going to age quietly. She probably looks at Miley Cyrus and all the others and says, What you think is new and transgressive, I’ve done before and even more outrageously. No one cares? Maybe, if only because their perspective is limited and their sight shortened.

    Her last consistently good album was American Life (2003), but Madonna has also mentored, collaborated with, and signed (through Maverick Records) musicians from MeShell N`degeOcello and Alanis Morissette to Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. Do they feel like the Minas to Madonna’s Dracula? I doubt it. Likelier, they feel honored to work with Madonna, not unlike the pride Heavy D. and the Notorious B.I.G. took in guesting on Michael Jackson’s songs.

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