As The World Boils

But but but but but but but but but but but it’s snowing!

@ManchuCandidate: My friends in Atlanta have their fourth snow day in a row tomorrow. I’m so psychotically jealous I can’t see straight.

@flippin eck:
Well you can some of the snow I had to shovel today.

I got about 8 inches on my driveway from last night’s mild blast. Snow days are fun till the old man decides that you’re old enough to shovel the driveway.

BTW, when you work from home, there is no such thing as snow days.

What do you mean, snow? How quaint.

Sport TJ: Lone Fan Greets Ducks Upon Return to Eugene

ouch.

@SanFranLefty: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

@nojo: No word as to whether or not he was holding a little green hand.

SNORT

Native American blessing, ginger singing “God Bless America,” I guess that means Barry is next? I’ll be watching on the tubez from my desk…

@SanFranLefty: First, Tracy Flick.

OMG, if I were that student association president, I’d be on so many Xanax right now in order to get that speech out without passing out.

By the way, if you’ve never seen Hernandez, he’s a Big Dude.

Wow, Hernandez is good. Snap.

@SanFranLefty: Can he move to Sandy Eggo, so I can vote for him?

I think the 2040 election has just been decided.

FUCK it’s cold outside! Oh, and after the cute overload palate cleanser, I think the graphic for this post is quite inappropriate. ;-)

Skeletor’s doing a decent job.

@nojo: I’d vote for him.

@JNOV: Boiled eggs? If I was in a nasty mood, I would have gone for a boiled frog.

JamieSommers, if you’re out here, I know you’d want to know that I approve of Napolitano’s outfit.

@nojo: Made me think of Fatal Attraction. :-) Please don’t boil the Franch.

I NEED CIGARETTES!

Unlike a number of wingnuts out there, Napolitano consults the appropriate Testament.

Holder, on the other hand, botches it.

ADD: On second thought, it’s a safe presumption that some of the other victims were Christian.

@JNOV: We do not speak of that movie around flippin’.

@JNOV: I’ve never seen Fatal Attraction. What else is there besides the beaver shot?

Oh thank FSM, I was afraid that Walnuts was going to be next.

Here’s Barry!

@nojo: That’s a different movie, dearie.

Attention University of Arizona students – this is not a fucking pep rally.

@SanFranLefty: Ooooh. Did you guys knows that rabbits can’t digest their food until they poop it out and eat the poop at night. They know it’s gross.

@SanFranLefty: Ah. I haven’t seen either of them.

Besides, I prefer to remember Glenn Close for Dangerous Liaisons and Sharon Stone for Casino.

@SanFranLefty: Didn’t notice. I’ve been watching for glimpses of my Asshole. Which is pathetic and sad. I am suitably ashamed of myself.

I will say that Sandy’s earlier smile at Daniel Hernandez is amazing and genuine. She’s been around a lot of events here lately, always with the same reluctant grin/grimace. I think she might have a crush on him. I can’t blame her.

@SanFranLefty: This. Thank you. It’s embarrassing.

@nojo: Heh. Speaking of that movie you mentioned (I forgot the name, too), I don’t think you can see anything. Now that little person that committed suicide in the Wizard of Oz… (I know. I know.)

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: Sandy O’Connor? The camera work for the streaming leaves a lot to be desired – I can’t see if she’s there.

@JNOV and nojo: Jesus, people, it’s Basic Instinct.
LURVE Dangerous Liaisons

Barry looked pretty choked up talking about Christina Green but pulled it together. Guess it feels even weirder when you have a little girl the same age.

@SanFranLefty: Yes. She’s sitting between Hernandez and Justice Kennedy.

Man, I knew Shelley was tall but I never had such a clear frame of reference before now.

Oooh, I just discovered streaming CNN on my very smart Smart Phone.

Needle, threaded.

And Boehner — offered a seat on Air Force One — chose instead to attend an “RNC Cocktail Party”.

@SanFranLefty: The Republic‘s web headline right now is one of the biggest fonts they’ve ever used on that site.

http://www.azcentral.com/

@nojo: No, he didunt!!

Ahhhh. I feel human again.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: Do you check out Benson’s cartoons?

@nojo: Maybe he didn’t want the solar radiation on the plane to fuck up his tan.

@karen marie has her eyes tight shut: Let’s check the source:

The Ohio Republican is holding a 7 p.m. cocktail reception Wednesday night for 168 RNC members, who are in the Washington area for an annual meeting. The event is sponsored by Boehner’s political action committee and will take place at Maryland’s National Harbor resort.

When I first noticed he wasn’t there, I thought it was a line-of-succession thing.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: Right, but you notice directly below is a story of ‘Two Incomplete Tunnels Found’ implying all of Arizona needs to be ready, Glock in each hand, 30+ round magazines packed, for the horrific onslaught to come against the Reconquista fanatics hungering to chew the faces of white Americans down to their skulls.

@JNOV: You got smokes?

@FlyingChainSaw: Yepper! Now I’m waiting for the feeling to return to my ears.

Oh, your FB group is having quite a good time!

@JNOV: What? They got froze running to the store?

Oh, cripes, the Immense Evil of Talibunny thing? Lemme look.

“A Boehner aide said the Speaker plans to leave the RNC party before Obama begins his remarks.”

So that’s all right then.

@nojo: “Needle, threaded.”

No shit.

Are we sure Talibunny isn’t on the DNC payroll? Because this morning sure as hell made him look all the more presidential.

@karen marie has her eyes tight shut: He attended the memorial on TV. It’s the House Republican Way.

@nojo: Have they figured out the swearing-in-by-teevee-from-a-fundraiser bugaboo yet?

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: Is it too soon to say how much I loved Shelly O’s purple wool coat?

P.S. Jamie, will I lose my lefty credentials if I admit that Jan Brewer is growing on me in a very teeeny small little way, for no other reason than because she’s been quite classy in this whole situation?

Tweety: “Not to judge morally, because it’s about scheduling.”

No. No, it’s not about scheduling.

@SanFranLefty: My understanding is that Jan & Gabby go back a ways. And yes, Saturday’s statement was the first honest thing I’ve heard from her.

@FlyingChainSaw: Yeah. I hate wearing winter hats. Think I’ll be getting over that soon. ETA: Have chullos jumped the shark? I like this one.

I missed the whole thing. I was afraid that somebody would take a shot at Obama.

@Dodgerblue: I won’t deny it. Crossed my mind.

@JNOV: This looks adequately snuggy. And so goofy no one will steal it. Built in security is its own discount.

@FlyingChainSaw: Oh, Imma knit it myself and put LoJack on it. I need to finish a Mardi Gras hat for my brother.

ADD: The younger people in my house directed me to “Look at This Fucking Hipster.” I will not be making that hat.

@Dodgerblue: Yep.

@Dodgerblue: There’s a reason people were standing in line for 10 hours to get in. I’m imagining they experienced TSA-levels of body scans and anal probes to get in there. Plus Barry was wearing a vest, you could see the outline a couple of times when he moved. Not to mention the ginormous circle of Secret Service agents around Shelly, Justices Kennedy and O’Connor, Hernandez, Napolitano, and the astronaut.

@SanFranLefty: [Obama] said he was told that shortly after his visit, Ms. Giffords opened her eyes for the first time

St. Barry?

@Nabisco: I’m reading that Pelosi was there, too. She has a more direct line.

Pat Robertson says blizzard is God’s way of punishing people who want to go out and do something gay.

@Nabisco, nojo: My question to Mrs RML: “Whose first miracle is it? Speaker Pelosi’s?”

@FlyingChainSaw: Got my two extra Glock 19 15 round magazines tonight at a Sportsman’s Warehouse on my way back from a road trip.

@SanFranLefty: He does look a little thicker and you can see the top edge of it. Wonder if we went for the soft armor for handguns or the ceramic or steel plate version for rifle rounds?
http://www.bulletproofme.com/Photos/Rifle_Plates_Testing_PHOTOS.shtml

@JNOV: Make the hat. It is so rad.

@redmanlaw: The troops in combat zones, are their helmets made of Kevlar? Will that stuff stop anything?

@FlyingChainSaw: HA! Chainsaw identity clue #210: He used the term “Rad” so he is about my age…

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: I think he’s calling me a fucking hipster.

@Dodgerblue: Big problem is even more basic than that. Guys are just having their brains shaken in ways that don’t kill but disable invisibly, destroying key neurocognitive and sensorimotor faculties. I work with someone who sees these people and who specializes in traumatic brain injury and she says the returning servicemen and women are facing a new world of hurt that has never been encountered on this scale.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: So, you don’t think it is possible that this term was employed with ironic intent?

@JNOV: That is true without question. But who is FCS? That is the question that haunts me…

@FlyingChainSaw: Yes. Shear injuries are a problem. The brain isn’t completely snug against the skull — it can move inside the skull, and the vessels that connect the inside of the skull to the brain can shear off and cause bleeds, swelling, major to minor brain damage and death. Shaken soldier syndrome.

@FlyingChainSaw: True that. While we trumpet the “low casualty rates”, especially KIAs, few are acknowledging publicly the generation of seriously brain rattled we’ll be taking care of throughout Pax Sino-tania.

@Dodgerblue: I think the helmets are K-pots (kevlar), but the body gear is seriously heavy stuff. My fifth lumbar still screams out from the single day I had to play around in it.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Envy me. ;-)

@FlyingChainSaw: The freaky ironic thing is that she’s benefited from all the docs have learned in the past 5 years of treating soldiers with traumatic brain injury.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Nabisco insists that the phrase “Skate a little lower” is prophetic. But truly, only Kabayashi knows.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: I say Dude, although I’m clearly from the Man era. It’s an Irony Thing.

@JNOV: Yes, and there’s never been so huge a population of people who’ve survived those kinds of injuries. The people who treat them are a guild of self-taught specialists who’ve gravitated to it from traditional medicine, physiatry and psychiatry, a very small crowd.

@SanFranLefty: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That guy was a gift providential.

@FlyingChainSaw: Yeah. Mos def not the cardio-thoracic surgeon in Bethesda who was blind in one eye (and still operating!), so the sea story goes.

@Nabisco: Oh, yeah. These are guys in a stunned fog that never goes away. A year, two years out, they’re still kinda staring into space, watching TV and not knowing what they’re supposed to do, or that they’re supposed to care, or forgetting where they are or what they’re supposed to be doing, or caring that it matters that they know all that and act on it. Cripes. And we’re still at war in two theatres for reasons no one can explain. I am ashamed I don’t wake up screaming every day and do something to stop it.

@JNOV: Eek. Yeah, well, depth perception matters, even if the subject is only 14 inches deep. Oy.

tj/ Who was it who really liked Florence and the Machine? They’re opening four shows for U2 this summer in the US. We’re going to the Denver show in May. Who the fuck is The Fray?

http://www.u2.com/tour/index

Nojo – check these the fuck out:

http://www.zazzle.com/sarah_palin_suicide_keychain-146273519029379735

We have to have these on the Stinque crap website. They are just too tasteful to omit, really, the heart and soul of Stinque.com gestalt.

@redmanlaw: You missed the show in Perth.

@FlyingChainSaw: That reminds me — I really have to switch from Cafe Press to Zazzle one of these days.

And, uh, no. Although I was strongly considering using the graphic as part of a broader discussion after ruminating on Blood Libel all day. Finally decided that I just didn’t feel like dealing with it.

Working title for aborted post with graphic: “Just Shoot Me”.

@nojo: The drawing wouldn’t work for a story like that, unfortunately.

@FlyingChainSaw: It would have been a Long-Winded Serious Discussion of the differences between political and satiric imagery, also referencing the NatLamp cover, the Claudine Longet Invitational, and my own inflammatory college-satire headline involving the local DA and the football coach: “Horton Promises to Shoot Brooks”.

I take this shit seriously. If you’re gonna go there, you better make damn sure it works. My stewardship of the annual satire edition had the town up in arms for a week. And my dad.

@FlyingChainSaw: I know. I often read reviews, peruse setlists and watch videos if something grabs my attention, i.e., Italian crowd taking over for Bono on “Mysterious Ways.” Looks like Jay-Z opened for them in Perth.

@redmanlaw: Beck gives five stars to Spider-Man. Despite Bono.

@JNOV: No, he’s an attention whore.

@SanFranLefty: From the moment of silence? I love that coat too. As well as the suede boots. That whole look was amazing. Looking at that picture of her shaking hands with the Asshole (who is a big guy, this I know for sure), I now understand her awesome power. She could easily snap me in half and look fabulous while doing it. I have such a crush!

And no, you lose no credibility on Jan. She’s no dragon lady; she’s actually a nice person. Just not the sharpest knife in the drawer and, I think, easily susceptible to the Machiavellian machinations of the ruthless advisers around her. She knows Gabby so this is personal and she’s been through an attempted assassination before. When she was on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, another supervisor named Mary Rose Wilcox was shot by some nut job over a proposed stadium sales tax during a supervisors’ meeting. She probably relived a little of that when she heard the news on Saturday.

@Nabisco: Rep. Wasserman-Shultz was talking to her at the time. This is a Jewish miracle.

@redmanlaw: Great stuff.

@nojo: Sell your kidney for tickets!

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: Oh really? Tell me more?

@JNOV: Perfect. Simply perfect.

Jon Stewart asks an interesting question of Tim Pawlenty: To what degree does political rhetoric match reality? Are we really heading toward tyranny?

Pawlenty either misunderstands, or ducks.

But it’s the right question: Do they believe their own shit?

(Answer: No, of course not. But good luck getting an answer.)

@JNOV: About Benson? He likes pushing buttons. That’s it. His cartoons aren’t about making an astute point through humor, as good editorial cartoonists do; it’s about pissing people off so they’ll write a letter to the editor complaining about him. He’s beaten the black sheep of the prominent Mormon family angle to death through reincarnation and back to death again.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: ::thinking:: I see what you’re saying. He’s been pretty whipsawed, and we really got into it when Tony Snow died, but he also has the crazy burden of being ETB’s favorite grandson and heir apparent. You should have seen the vandalism people used to put on his Wiki page until the mods finally protected it, and he gets a lot of hate mail from Mormons. Many ex-mos give him a hard time, too, because they either wanted to be him or wanted to marry someone like him (a potential prophet) when they were believers. He’s not used to people being nice to him. I dunno. I don’t like his videos much, but some of his cartoons have moved me. I think he’s just used to fighting all the time — some of it he brings on himself.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Consider it punishment for mocking Snowmageddon. :-P

Missed the Speech on account of… um… forgetting?

But on topic: since we’ve lived here in God’s country (10 years) we have become one whole zone warmer. We used to be zone 5, now we’re zone 4. And spring bulbs were all at least 3 weeks early last year. Which has the locals freaked. Me too. All of the double poppies that used to hit the peak of their bloom like clockwork on Memorial Day all bloomed early and were over and done by the end of May.

@Benedick: But, as a loyal Republican, belief that gloval climate change is real is heresy. It must be comforting to live in a world of rhetoric where facts don’t matter.

@Dodgerblue: Now I can enjoy extended growing seasons with earlier tomatoes. Obviously this is a good thing. Plus, warmer weather makes the garden staff feel more at home.

@Benedick: Did you see the latest Masterpiece Theater show, somewhat of a remake of “Upstairs, Downstairs” with Dame Maggie Smith? My favorite line was the Dame asking “What is a weekend?”

@FlyingChainSaw: I don’t like it. It’s scary. I find violence and threats of violence very unnerving.

I much prefer people like Palin suffer a thousand small cuts on a daily basis for many, many years.

When I look at that image I see the aftermath, and it’s just too much.

ADD: This is a big reason I never worked as a court reporter but just do transcripts — I could not handle having to mark bloodstained clothes as evidence.

Lefty,

In re Nappy’s outfit: No. It looks cheap and I have no idea what that small strip of color is. Is it part of the polyester Kohl’s jacket or is that her attempt at a scarf? Ugh. She should never get into the same shot as Shelley. If I still cared, I’d be embarrassed for her.