Dual Wielding Comedy on the Back of a Unicorn
Apparently this is what we all look like to conservatives.
Susan D. Harris, American BWAHAHA:
Comedy as a Weapon of the Left
Did I survive that holiday season? Holy fuck, how?
So yeah, turns out that one’s first holiday season after being disowned sucks such great donkey balls that it served as Christ’s first bestiality porn show.
It’s a fitting end to 2013, a year which has served as probably the worst year of my entire life, I suppose. Which is a shame, because overall, I rather like the number 13.
But it’s no matter, for today is the beginning of a new year, one that I can’t really be too pessimistic about, because I swung by our good friends at American Thinker and, you know what, I found out that apparently, I’m some kind of badass ninja assassin or something.
Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):
- Comedy is a deadly weapon because McCarthy is a joke.
Oh hell the fuck yes.
Now that’s the way to feel on New Year’s Day! Like a powerful warrior woman with sword and shield slicing up mofos and taking no shit. Ha, how is it that it’s the wingnuts who have given me the best gift of all? It’s almost enough to make me want to give them a little slack.
…
Nah!
How is it that leftist mockery of conservatives became a staple of popular culture?
A staple of popular culture? Oh you silver tongued flatterer, you!
But to answer your question more seriously, it’s probably because conservatism has become a bitter joke, so disconnected from reality and real life experiences but possessing such great power to destroy lives, that black comedy is the only possible response.
I mean, how does one soberly respond to assertions like “Obama is a secret Kenyan muslim” or “gay people are mind-controlling space aliens who will make us all queer” or “Giving all the money to rich fuckers hoarding up to play a game of ‘who’s richest’ will somehow magically make infinite jobs appear”? It’s rather impossible, so instead one turns to comedy because the absurdity of the whole pretense mocks itself.
And it reveals those powerful people who are hoping to use terrorism and fear to enforce a narrow band of conformity as the walking jokes they are. Tiny men who want to play at being Gods on golden mountains of bullshit and fear of change, inherently comedic, simply by the cold march of time.
The world hardly needs us miserable lefties to poison the chalice with our acerbic wits, but it helps dull the ache of tyrants and idiots while we pass the time to inevitability.
One of the major sources of the attitude that now pervades the dominant media of our time is a man named Herbert Lawrence Block, aka Herb Block, aka Herblock.
Who?
I mean, I get that this is one of those bizarre “this random man is our stand-in to a cultural phenomenon or true theory we would like to be eliminated” things, but usually in the case of things like Darwin or Betty Friedan, I’ve actually heard of the bloody person.
I mean, if this is supposed to be the stand-in for all snarky leftie bastards, mocking wingnuts on the internet, I’d like to be at least somewhat familiar with his work.
As a political cartoonist, Herb Block used comedy and mockery with cunning skill.
…
That may be the first time I’ve ever heard the words “political cartoonist” heralded with the descriptor “cunning skill”.
I mean, not to malign the profession anymore than the profession has already done so, but political cartoonists are some of the basest hacks on the goddamn planet, churning out predictable “St Peter” cartoons whenever someone famous dies or easy overly-labeled digs at soft targets. I mean, this and this are the profession that she is heralding as the height of comedy and a genuine threat to the dominance of right-wing idiocy.
Sigh, I don’t know about you, but my valkyrie fantasies are starting to feel somewhat tarnished by this association.
But please, continue about how a (quick google search) random 30s era political cartoonist who died 12 years ago, somehow began the Snarkpocalypse of liberals lightly mocking conservative idiocy which has laid low proud empires of steel and gravitas.
Throughout his seventy-two year career, he helped influence the political landscape through thirteen presidential administrations.
It’s always amazing to me the magical superpowers that right-wingers give to their Emmanuel Goldsteins of the day.
Oh, was Herblock a sorcerer supreme? Single handedly shaping the course of epic destinies behind his Shadow Throne upon the Washington Post Dread Fortress of Doom? How ever did poor Nixon and Reagan survive his single panel with random labels fury when he cast his fiery eye upon them? Oh repent, ye conservatives, repent and surrender before the horrifying power of the simplest and most menial form of “comedy”.
Born (not surprisingly) in Chicago,
I wonder if wingnuts raised in the cities randomly hated ever resent the “cursed by vague association” way whole cities become verboeten or heralded depending on the flow of presidents or perceived snubs.
Like all the New York City wingnuts who got to enjoy a brief fling in the sun of right-wing worship after Guilliani and then had to start hand-waving their domicile once Bloomberg did something a wingnut somewhere didn’t like.
Honestly, the whole thing seems like it must be extremely exhausting.
with a father and brother also involved in the newspaper business, Block projected his own brand of ideology for decades.
I suppose the right-wing wouldn’t be the pack of desperate authoritarians that they are, if they didn’t see the notion that other people can have opinions about the world, opinions that may in fact disagree with their own, as some sort of nefarious attack on them personally.
We saw it in the whole “Duck Dynasty” bullshit, this pained expression of shock and dismay at the cruelty of the world where people other than them get to express opinions in public and even spend their money where they like to support works that do not alienate or abuse them or refrain from products sold by people who hate them.
And it’s the reason that conservatives could not long survive a world built of their own successes. With all of us filthy liberals slaughtered or subjugated, they’d only have each other. Bitterly sniping at each other for minor disagreements or deviations and brewing each tiny difference into endless feuds and blood vendettas.
Sometimes he stood on the right side of history — crafting imagery attacking American instigators like Father Coughlin and Huey Long, and later standing in favor of the Civil Rights movement.
Yeah, uh huh, you on the right-wing were against populist appeals to fascism and supported the Civil Rights movement. Uh huh, sure, pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
Just because you got your ass beat down so hard you can’t even admit what side you were on when you’re about to try some historical revisionism in defense of eternal fuckhead McCarthy, doesn’t mean you fuckers were “on the right side” as you’re insinuating here.
You were on the side of wrong, as you were on every political issue that has ever been.
You can at least have the ovaries to admit it.
Other times he was on the wrong side, supporting progressive policies and New Deal reforms.
There we go. Supporting Depression forever. That’s a brave stance in this day and age. Or it at least would be if your fellow conservatives hadn’t completely lost the plot and made that a mainstream position among the right.
And in his true oxymoronic style, even while he was attacking McCarthy, he created his 1953 Pulitzer Prize winning cartoon on the death of Stalin which is lauded as one of his greatest works. It portrays the Grim Reaper telling Stalin upon his death, “You were always a great friend of mine, Joseph.”
It’s kind of amazing to me how pissy right-wingers get when everybody else refuses to play by their Calvinball rules.
Hey, I said, that if you resist our petty wannabe dictator and the ideological war he waged against the livelihood of all those he disagreed with, then you are a filthy commie lover, but then you went and critiqued a commie, so you are a hypocrite because I say so, and also a poopyhead, too! Hey, how dare you ignore me! I said it makes you a commie lover, so it does, even though you are at best a moderate liberal who has always been suspicious of socialism and socialistic reform! Wah! Why aren’t you playing the game anymore?
Which I guess, is why it makes sense that there would be a resurgence effort to whitewash the stain McCarthy cast upon himself.
After all, McCarthy began that great game of ruining people’s lives by stating that they were tainted by vague, possibly made-up connections to words like “commie”. In his time, one could silence a union agitator, a populist speaker, a Jewish actor, with a mere insinuation of “communist” leanings and the echos of his blacklists served to hobble all economic resistance to total feudalistic “reform” for decades afterwards.
Even today, in times of unregulated corporate greed, people are scared to fully acknowledge even successful socialist reforms as those undergone in Sweden for fear that the taint of “commie” will somehow ruin them.
It was a great run for the forces of fear and bigotry and neo-feudalism, so it’s natural that they’d find themselves in a society that no longer fears the Red Menace, nervously worrying that the cold march of time has made obsolete their favorite method of control and domination.
To which I can only reply, tough titties, bitch.
Ironically it’s even posted on the Democratic Underground website, where one commenter calls it “grave dancing,” and another responds, “I’ll keep that in mind when I grave dance over (Dick) Cheney…His victims, they were many.”
Dude, if you find yourself oppressed and attacked by random forum comments, you need to rapidly get yourself a life, because you are so devoid of real oppression it is as inherently comical as your attempts at argumentation or philosophy.
After being drafted in WWII and spending two years in the army drawing cartoons and writing press releases, he joined that joyful glee club of liberal ideology, The Washington Post, where he remained until his death in 2001. A lifelong Democrat, he mostly used his creative powers to attack Republicans. He was in his glory during the Nixon years, winning a Pulitzer Prize that he shared with colleagues who conspired to bring down a president.
Dudes, Nixon had no one but himself to blame for getting taken down like that. He decided to steal an election and then break countless laws covering it up.
I mean, are you so devoid of connection to our broken justice system that you really view “getting caught” as some grave miscarriage of justice when the fuckup is seen as a conservative tribesman?
Oh wait, your reactions to the arrests of Anders Breivik and George Zimmerman.
Never mind.
In retrospect, Block’s greatest nationally inflicted harm was mocking America’s response to Communism. Only six weeks after Joseph McCarthy announced he had a list of known Communists,
You mean, the naked lie that turned out to be a complete fiction of his making that was nonetheless used to completely economically ruin countless people and kick off the disastrous political careers of villains such as Nixon and Reagan?
No, please, don’t mind me, I’m curious as to where you are going with this.
Block began a propaganda campaign that would change American history forever.
OH MY GOD! Herblock was a sorceror! AIEEE!
In a 1950 Washington Post cartoon, he officially mounted his campaign against McCarthy coining the term “McCarthyism.” The cartoon depicted Republican senators pushing an elephant towards buckets of tar representing a platform consisting of a smear campaign.
Oh noes, pictures with everything captioned in simplistic form! Conservatives with enough power to ruin the lives of random strangers with mere unproven insinuations of things that wouldn’t have been that bad if they even were true were absolutely powerless against wizardry that cruel!
The concept that Joe McCarthy was a nut job on a witch hunt has been consistently taught to every generation since.
Because he was.
I mean, I imagine in wingnut world, you imagine that the con could have continued on forever, but it was only a matter of time that the empty suited fascism revealed itself as it was.
People were eventually going to notice, and maybe you thought that if he remained an object of fear, instead of the perpetual joke and national embarrassment he was, that we would be too cowed to mention it, but that paranoid and self-destructive state of affairs couldn’t have continued forever.
Which I guess explains the bitter hatred of comedy as some vile leftist plot. Because one of the best powers of comedy is eliminating fear and revealing the tragedy that hatred embodies. A posse of clowns following the Ku Klux Klans every move do much to blunt their intended threat.
And if there is anything that wannabe authoritarians fear more, it is that they will no longer be feared or viewed as anything more than the sad old men that they are.
In his 2007 book, Blacklisted by History, The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy, author M. Stanton Evans “dismantles the myths surrounding Joe McCarthy and his campaign to unmask Communists, Soviet agents, and flagrant loyalty risks working within the U.S. government. Evans’s revelations completely overturn our understanding of McCarthy, McCarthyism, and the Cold War.”
Thanks to people like Herb Block and his ilk, McCarthy became an American laughingstock, allowing communism and socialism to become “cool” in Hollywood, while Conservatives became unofficially “blacklisted.”
You know, there’s IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION and then there’s balls so big it’d make AC/DC blush IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION.
Because what else do you call the sheer gall of trying to claim that “conservatives” are “blacklisted in Hollywood” in the same breath as you are trying to whitewash McCarthy’s many crimes against the national landscape.
I mean, for fuck’s sake, many conservatives being too damn incompetent and anti-imagination to want to break their backs becoming Hollywood actors does not equal blacklisting.
Fuck, if McCarthy were here, he’d tell you about blacklisting. He’d ban you from ever participating in your career, despite your great talent, tainting your name to such levels that obscurity and possible starvation were very likely occurrences. Your friends ruined on a rumor as backbiting snakes like Nixon and Reagan ripped through the ranks, building careers and connections by eliminating all they disagreed with or hated.
And you’d finally understand… or maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you’d need to have to have a real career and actual talent to understand why blacklisting was such a grave injustice in American economic history.
Either way, fuck you, and an extra fuck you, for trying to claim that being a communist became “cool” in Hollywood society after the endless blacklisting and harsh constriction of all media output beginning in the 1950s under things like the Hayes Code.
Fuck, this is why we mock you vile wreckage.
Sixty years later his methods of using humor and sarcasm for social influence are a template for those still seeking to destroy conservative values.
HOLY SHIT! Herblock invented sarcasm! Completely from whole-cloth. No one ever thought of pretending to agree with someone’s idiocy while pointing out its fundamental flaws before some random cartoonist!
Block’s unyielding support of gun control and unquestioning belief in climate change also succeeded in influencing public opinion. According to the Herb Block Foundation, he won a total of four Pulitzer Prizes.
A) Believing in true things only “tarnishes” one’s reputations if one is as dumb as you.
And B) Really? Pulitzer Prizes are proof of “level of influence on public opinion”? Really? Um, not to spoil print media’s hard-on for itself, but… BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
To help further his ideological legacy, the foundation awards its own ‘Herblock Prize.’ Among recent winners are editorial cartoonists for The Washington Post, Politico, and a weekly cartoonist for the Daily Kos political blog. The foundation is funded with $50 million he bequeathed to, “encourage the art of editorial cartooning and to support charitable and educational programs that help promote and support the causes he championed,” ensuring his influence lives on.
Oh no, people who were not conservative were allowed to use their money, to support the health of the mediums in which they made their career!
What a horrible attack on you personally and all conservatives! The notion of someone who isn’t a conservative billionaire, paying the wingnut welfare of professional halfwits, actually being allowed to have money and use it to support causes he believe in during life!
Why that’s downright unfair! We should blacklist such people so they have no economic power whatsoever to support things that are not approved by insane rich plutocrats!
Yeah, not at all obvious that you are hurting over losing the power to just destroy a person’s career and legacy with a single word. I’m sorry, have you tried not being horrible authoritarians desperate to control the lives of other people? It might help.
And while most of us hadn’t heard of freshman Senator Barack Obama in 2005, he was the guest speaker that year at the Herb Block Prize & Lecture Awards Ceremony.
Man, birther conspiracies about the crafting of the Obama Antichrist are getting more elaborate by the second. What’s the next random liberal “figure” to be sucked into the web of Obama? Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Joseph Chamberlain? Abigail Adams? A random Princeton professor who showed up on a Glenn Beck blackboard once? I’m honestly curious at this point.
Affectionately nicknamed “Herblock,” his humorous deflections enabled the Communists of yesteryear to train subsequent generations of America-haters, capitalism-detesters and democracy destroyers.
If a random political cartoonist didn’t invent all humor everywhere, then nobody would have noticed that unregulated rapacious capitalism was a soul-crushing, economy-devastating, democracy-poisoning, bitter pill to swallow.
I mean, I’d hardly even notice how hard my generation has to work for even minimum wage retail slave positions if it weren’t for Herblock noting a crazy tinpot dictator with a fetish for destroying lives to support his own political ambitions was a “slimy” guy who engaged in “mudslinging”.
Truly it would have been paradise for bitter authoritarian fucks still cowering under the bed in fear of Big Red. Well, if they ever managed to crawl out of their sheets, that is.
It’s an art all liberal ideologies have been perfecting since Herb Block drew his first cartoon. From Bill Maher to Tina Fey, Steven Colbert, and Jon Stewart, the left presses the grapes of comedy into a fine wine of vintage derision and acrimonious scorn for those they disagree with.
Ah, you noticed. How sweet.
To be fair, it’s not only that we scorn and deride you. We also think you are vicious pathetic scum whose philosophy is based on the wishful fantasies of bigots and plutocrats. So there’s also that.
Shows billed as “political programs” like Chris Mathews’ Hardball, and “live news coverage” like Lawrence O’Donnell’s The Last Word, are nothing more than yellow journalism on a comic soapbox.
Yeah, I don’t think any conservative anywhere gets to ever try and claim that political news television has become “tarnished” because a few perennial hacks manage to hit the right side of somewhere on a few errant tosses.
But nice try at writing a post entirely in IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION instead of just mostly.
Rachel Maddow takes the prize for her inability to deliver one sentence that’s not dripping with sarcasm and mockery. If anyone claims to watch her for “news,” you can be sure they have been educated in nothing more than her personal opinions.
We fears the smart lesbian! We fears it!
Also, yeah, duh, all those are political opinion shows.
I mean, did you really think that they might be mistaken for general news programs… okay, Fox News, state of modern media… I’ll grant you that one, but…
Well, I guess that’s the real bitterness being spewed here. That you have so tainted the landscape of what is sold as “news” that the only way one can get even close to a real reflection of what the world looks like is to turn to comedy shows such as Colbert Nation or the Daily Show or listen to the opinion show of informed pundits such as Rachel Maddow.
And you are lamenting that instead of following the propaganda being spooned out to the masses, people are instead turning to blogs or watching “comedy shows” or just generally floating to alternate media or creating their own.
That the world is slipping out of the nooses your people have cast and your false tower of fear and control is finally being torn apart, brick by infuriating brick.
And that, we don’t even have the good taste to mourn with you for this loss, but rather marking the occasion with laughter and mockery.
And to that plaintive request I say… HA!
Comedy, sarcasm and satire are the successful weapons of the left, despite their poor ratings. Air America couldn’t make a go of it. Among cable news ratings, unabashedly liberal news channels MSNBC and CNN fair abominably compared to the self-professed, “fair and balanced” Fox News. So how did they do it? How did the Socialists and the Communists and the Progressives and the liberals, and every name they go by, succeed in brainwashing Americans? One little joke at a time. Jokes filled with bitterness and lies that spread through universities, office cubicles and bars across the country and permeated the minds of low information voters.
YOU’RE NOT EVEN RICH! How dare you get away with mocking your wealthy peers without groveling before advertisers and prostituting to billionaire psychotics trying to enforce their worldview.
And after all the effort we went to to skew the numbers in order to make ourselves seem big, you just go off and form alternate modes of making your voices heard and go on being… ick, liberal, without our express approval!
It’s enough to want to blacklist you fuckers!
The tables are turning with Obamacare however. A majority of cartoonists seem to be hammering Obama’s “Unaffordable” Care Act, while cartoons that proclaim things like “Let thousands get sick and go broke and be a burden on already strained social services because you hate Obama,” are definitely in the minority.
But we’ll show you, you miserable mocking bastards! Cause, see, we’ve studied your demon spells and are ready to create works of our own that will lay you as low as your light mockery has done to us. Like, heh, we got a bunch of hacks to call the ACA the “Unaffordable” Care Act. Boom! Gotcha looney libs!
Pfft, oh poor pitiful wingnuts, your attempts to grasp even the basics of comedy never fail to amuse me. It’s like watching a monkey try and figure out how to operate a laptop.
Liberals are like schoolyard bullies picking on the new kid.
I guess this is the new talking point, now that conservatives draw ever closer to the dustbin of obscurity due to their bitter refusal to even slightly respond to the forward march of time.
And it just reaches new peaks of preciousness to see it at the tail end of a “McCarthy was right, we should have locked up the lot of you” rant. I mean, talk about hammering home just how much this is IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION.
And yeah, I could note the same inherent irony in bullies claiming the mildest of pushback from their victims as “bullying” as I have a million times before, but this time, I’d rather focus on how sad it must be to be conservative.
I mean, think of it. They are painfully incurious people, unable to imagine anyone different from themselves. No wonder they are so fearful to be losing their power to abuse and bully those they deem inferior.
In their minds, all their victims are just waiting for the moment to do the same to their captors. And because that’s the assumption and because they’ve lived lives so devoid of any actual suffering, even the mildest of commentary has the capability of utterly destroying any semblance of safety or self-confidence.
And that must be a small and shitty way to live one’s life.
I’d weep for them if well, these weren’t overprivileged assholes pretending that mild sarcasm is somehow equal to destroying people’s livelihoods, threatening their ability to survive, and encouraging their wholesale slaughter.
By skillfully employing baseless ridicule they eventually convince the entire school that the new kid is an idiot to be shunned. Never mind the fact that they’ve never taken the time to get to know him or collect the facts. The destruction of Sarah Palin by condescending interviewer Katie Couric, and comedian-with-an-agenda Tina Fey, was a prime example. A shocking number of people still believe Palin said, “I can see Russia from my house.”
See the difference between a bully victim and professional martyrs like Palin, is that one is deliberately silenced and one had ample opportunity in unparalleled public fashion, reveal the whole of their character.
Palin wasn’t mocked because Sally once said that Bridget once said she saw her kissing a girl behind the pool shed. She wasn’t mocked because some jock thought she was too much of an egg-head. Or because some asshole who needed to take someone down a peg just decided they were weird and that could not stand.
She was allowed to go before national television and tell the world who she was and what she believed in. She got to stand as she was and be accepted as exactly the person she was.
What you are bitter about is that what she was was a fucking beauty queen idiot with nothing but hatred and hypocrisy to offer the world.
She wasn’t some queer kid with dreams and a voice that could make the angels sing if only she could survive the conformity mill of society’s judgment. She was a small minded tyrant and it didn’t take long for that emptiness to become an inherent comic note on the tragedy that our democracy had become at that point.
But hell, if I needed to spell that out for you, it’s no wonder that you thought that McCarthy was ill-done by the existence of jokes and people with eyes.
In this way, the greatest country in the world has been eaten from within by agitators
See! McCarthy was right! My delusional stretching proves it so!
that have the emotional maturity of second graders.
Oh please, as if. We’re first grade maturity at BEST!
The worst part is that we capitulated to these juveniles as we failed in what should have been our parental-like roles as defenders of our founding principles. We say, “Why take them too seriously, after all they’re only kids, right?” or “What harm can they do?” We invoked no authority nor enforced any discipline.
Sooo, in other words…
“You young whipper-snappers, I oughta bend you over my knee.”
Yeah, cool story, grams.
Also, hate to break it to you, but with the broken economy and broken planet, you’ve pretty much thrown all the “punishment” you’ve got against my generation and well, we’re still here and we still think you are jokes.
I really don’t think trying to hurl more abuse and control is magically going to make McCarthyism viable again.
We made the grave mistake of deciding to be their friends instead of their teachers.
Are you our peers or our superiors? Cause, see, yeah, no one respects the narc trying to pretend that they’ve got the gravitas of the system behind them just because they’re a little brat.
And also, obsessing about high school cliques? Totally hides the IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION about your “emotional superiority”.
Unfortunately when we walked into the classroom, we found a chaotic revelry straight out of Lord of the Flies. The children took control by ganging up on everything that was right and decent and good and giving it the Bronx cheer — An infantile, but historically efficacious strategy that began, at least in part, at the end of Herb Block’s pen.
And here we have a perfect distillation of the right-wing terror that underlies pretty much every broken worldview.
The raw terror that the chaotic world of diversity and difference, of a million different lives and backgrounds and histories and herstories and sexualities and races and viewpoints will fail to quail and fall in line to a powerful threat enforcing a rigid order. That people will remain themselves instead of falling to what a random pathetic stranger wants for them.
And well… good.
The world is complex and diverse and big and people shouldn’t be driven by fear into making themselves small and hidden all the damn time.
The cruel enforcement of authority for its own sake is an archaic practice that must die. For it serves the general populace about as well as it does a classroom.
I’ve seen the terrified teacher try and use authority to control the chaos of youth. And it just ends in uselessness and rebellion, a bitter mistrust where there could be learning and fun.
Cause chaos isn’t scary. I tend to teach with a large amount of intentional chaos, allowing the interest and self-discovery invest students in their work and make them as interested in following the flow of instruction and discovery as I am in presenting it.
The diversity of people is not something to fear. It is not something dangerous and cruel. It is fun and loveable and so capable of genuine education and growth. It is something to laugh with and enjoy and if you mess up, you can always grow and continue forward.
Cause it has been far too long since we’ve cowered in the shadow of McCarthy fearing what a bunch of stick-up-their-asses fuckwits think about the reality that surrounds us and their petty ante attempts to control and destroy it.
And if breaking that false bondage is as simple as spinning a few jokes at the absurdity of all of us being held to heel by bitter scared idiots trying to hold onto a past that never was, then fuck it.
Let me clad myself in spiky armor of jibes and jests and wield my dark sarcasm like a black humor blade and send at me your minions of horror and hate. Why not?
For I am the Snark Mistress and you shall hear me roar!
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Snort. Can you imagine a three headed jester of a fool trying to play warrior. It is to laugh. I’m just some random bitch using dark humor to survive a shitty world, same as the next. But if idiots and fools want to turn that into an object of fear, I’m only happy to oblige. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Oh Boy ! Frist !
Actually, the Hayes code came in 1934, not in the 50s. But otherwise, good article.
A common trope in anti-Obamacare cartoons is Obama/Uncle Sam giving John Q. Public a prostate exam. This ironically is a good analogy for Obamacare. Spending money on healthcare insurance, like prostate exams, may be painful, but in the long run it’s good for your health. (And if there were some medical method to check the prostate without the glove and lube method, that would be an analogy for single-payer)
That was my Frist Time. Snif. I enjoyed it.
So, her beef is that Herblock stopped McCarthy from Stopping Commies from being commies and that’s why the country is all f*ed up.
And that Jon Stewart is doing Just The Same and now the country is going to be even more f*ed up.
Nah, not convinced – even good ol’ Jonathan Swift never really had that much influence.
What can we look forward to next…his anguished critique of Thomas Nast?
Joe McCarthy? Seriously, JOE fucking McCARTHY?!?! These assholes are staking their reputations on one of the worst scumbags in American history?
Sorry to go OT so soon with Rose Bowl rants, but I can’t help it:
1) Why does ESPN have to cram in two, three or four commercials every fucking time the ball changes hands? It’s not even free TV.
2) I know what a punchable face is, but is there such a thing as a punchable voice? Because if there is, Denis Leary definitely has one.
3) Where the fuck did they get those officials?
4) Stop handing the ball off to Tyler Gaffney. It’s not working.
Herblock was a famous political cartoonist back when I was a child. That’s a long fucking time to hold a grudge.
Al Gore never said “I invented the Internet” but that never stopped the Right from making a cottage industry out of it.
ALTERNATE SOLUTION:
One sure-fire way to get some dynamite on the tracks & derail that left-wing Snark Train before it gets to the dreaded Bridge Of LOL is to not be completely fucking absurd incarnate punchlines to a fucking joke in a bad meat-dream 24/7. Reagan was so batshit that he seemed like a cartoon in 1980 – & he’d be MUCH too sane to survive a GOP primary in 2015 … Poe’s Law can’t exist without the ongoing freak-show of the legions of inbred window-licking frothers that make it a necessity. If you truly are sick & tired of our constant pointing & laughing, perhaps you might want to STOP FUCKING ALL THOSE CHICKENS & JUST CHILL OUT FOR ONCE.
/nevergonnahappen
Seriously.
As the Marines like to say: If that’s really the hill you want to die on….
STANFORD LOST!!!!!
*sob sob sob*
If it weren’t for that horseshit pass interference call in the end zone on a ball that the Jolly Green Giant wouldn’t have been able to catch…
Nice post Cerb. As usual. Also too, exactly what Bitter Scribe said. Fucking Joe fucking McCarthy. A man undone by the question”at long last, have you no sense of decency?” – undone because they answer is pretty obvious.
Although, that’s an interesting analog being drawn there – Palin and McCarthy. Riding high on the conservative honey-wagon, right up to the point where people got to actually see them for reals. Maybe some day they might realize that all the stuff they love so much is totally abhorrent to the general populace.
Hey Justiceisserved, you can spell “fucking” right and this blog won’t explode. Or do you think sounding like an Irish lout makes you cool?
…STOP FUCKING ALL THOSE CHICKENS & JUST CHILL OUT FOR ONCE.
First Laugh out Loud moment of the year Jim, thanks.
…
And if there were some medical method to check the prostate without the glove and lube method, that would be an analogy for single-payer
There are certainly alternatives to using a finger, but that is probably not the comparison you intended.
American instigators like Father Coughlin and Huey Long
“Instigator” is a badword in this ducktalker’s vocabulary? Nonsense! It is in fact a fine Doppelbock.
Sometimes he stood on the right side of history — crafting imagery attacking American instigators like Father Coughlin and Huey Long…
Does this guy not realize that Coughlin and Long were both opponents of the hated FDR?
(Coughlin started out as a supporter, but turned against him when Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau—a filthy Jew, or “devious Oriental,” in Coughlin’s formulation—had the temerity to reveal that Coughlin’s church was snapping up silver certificates while Coughlin was tirelessly advocating for remonitization of silver.)
If he thinks cartoonist Herblock was a thorn in the Right’s side, wait until he digs up the Paul Conrad archive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Conrad
Ooh! And don’t forget John Henry Faulk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Faulk
And this part
Has always amazed me with the lack of awareness (deliberate?) that this was what they’ve been implying with every expressed fear of changing demographics/definition of “socially acceptable.”
Apparently this is what we all look like to conservatives.
If only I looked that good.
Hey, remember THE HALF-HOUR NEWS HOUR, Fox News Channel’s “answer” to THE DAILY SHOW? Yeah — neither does anybody else.
Man, birther conspiracies about the crafting of the Obama Antichrist are getting more elaborate by the second. What’s the next random liberal “figure” to be sucked into the web of Obama?
It’s the whole six degrees of separation thing. Which begs the question of how one would connect Obama to Kevin Bacon.
mmmmmmmmmmm……….. Obama bacon………
Le POOP
The fact is, liberals and leftists think making fun of partiots os funny, but point out that Obama is dumb or black they say you are a rasist and a traiter.
“It’s an art all liberal ideologies have been perfecting since Herb Block drew his first cartoon. From Bill Maher to Tina Fey, Steven Colbert, and Jon Stewart, the left presses the grapes of comedy into a fine wine of vintage derision and acrimonious scorn for those they disagree with.”
Don’t ever hand this woman a copy of “Tartuffe”, “Candide”, or any of Mark Twain’s political writing… she might very well soil herself.
He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.
jim the heretical anti-tar pit mastodon skrev:
…until yesterday, I would have asked you if that internets would be carry-out or delivery, but that was before Some guy won the internets so thoroughly that only Pennis hasn’t noticed, and even he’s having to make an active effort to not notice. He may in fact have won it forever, in which case I will have no more internets to give. 🙁
While I was composing that last turn of deathless prose, Baron Elmo skrev:
As mentally constipated as she is, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
J Neo Marvin, I’ve seen grown men pull their own ‘eads off rather than be caricatured by Herblock.
Thanks to people like Herb Block and his ilk, McCarthy became an American laughingstock, allowing communism and socialism to become “cool” in Hollywood, while Conservatives became unofficially “blacklisted.”
Yeah, I remember all those films from the 50s on with the really cool communist good guys. And I’m sorry she can’t find any platform for the stuff we just read.
… aw, gosh… (blushes) …. Thank you, Mr. Loomis.
And may I say that I am old enough to remember Herblock, the greatest political cartoonist of his generation… Yet young enough to be a fan of Tom Tomorrow, the greatest political cartoonist of his generation… and well-deserved winner of the 2013 Herblock Award.
And for those younguns who think mockery of religious bullshit, conservatism and racism is a recent phenomenon, I can only encourage you to read Voltaire, Thomas Paine, or Mark Twain…
I will take this opportunity to especially encourage everyone to read “Huckleberry Finn”, chapter six… in which Huck’s idiot drunken father rails against the guvmint and n######s
http://web.archive.org/web/20110212031051/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Twa2Huc.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=6&division=div1
Oops, my bad— forgot to compliment Cerb on an extra-fine posting!
I disagree with your description of political cartoonists in general. Tom Toles helped me survive the Bush II administration. And Block, I wish he could have been around a little longer. I am sure he would have had more fun with Dubya than he did with his daddy. Maybe it is just a matter of the bent of your local paper, but often it seems the only reason to pick up the Washington Post is the frickin’ politoons.
I assume she picked on Block, however, because he’s dead and can’t lampoon her. That just leaves all the other pen wielding smart asses who admire him. Bwaha.
Sarah Palin was destroyed?
I learn something new every day.
The fact is, liberals are mean and viyndictive. They have so much hate for usa, and America, they try to destroy good partiots with snarkiness and using bad language, when it is pionted out that liberals are dumn and make mistakes, this is said to be Not Humorouros by the liberal PC brigade and media that is in the tank for Obamas class warfare.
The fact is, you liberals are realy mean to Dennis, he uses facts and you call him potty names which dooes not make your argument tryu, it makes you in to dums.
The fact is, liberals are all very stupid and cannot see logic and facts, they make up history and realty to feel good about things, just to bias the media and shiftless and lazy class war.
The fact is, liberals are communists because they want the lazy and unproductive to have a greater share in America than they deserve. Well, here in the heartland we are not buying it, we think freedom and hard work rules, even if coastal eleites dont, just grubbing for socialism votes and Islamic Sharia Law.
The fact is, why wont you debate me with facts and logic, liberals, why wont you engage me , is it because you got nothing?
Because it’s not sporting to fight an unarmed opponent.
The fact is, this is why America hates you liberals, you cant engage us with realty and you shove socialism and fags down are throat
If you like having things shoved down your throat, who am I to judge?
I avoid mockery by not being a stupid asshole and blabbing all over the place about it instead of being mad at the people mocking me for being a stupid asshole and blabbing all over the place about it.
DUCK DINOSAURS 4EVA
To quote Erick Erickson from the last time we had him tongue-swab our jackboots for a nice shiny nickel:
“You fuck the chickens you HAVE, not the chickens you WISH you had.”
We are trampling out the vintage where the grapes of laughs are stored.
While we’re at it, I suspect I’m not the only one who translates “a tingle running up my leg” to “a tinkle running down?”
you cant engage us with realty
I don’t have my real estate license, but if I did, YOU’D BE SORRY.
How can this be? I have long regarded McCarthy as a dangerous thug, the droolers who followed him are the laughing stock YET I NEVER HEARD OF HERBLOCK UNTIL NOW! Curse you, mind controlling political cartoonists!
Herblock? Really?
Still to give Herblock credit he was on Nixon’s Enemies list – and not without reason – during the 50’s he drew a cartoon of Nixon crawling out of a Sewer which aptly summed up the man that he got many requests to repirnt the cartoon as watergate came to a climax.
I’m shocked she didn’t go after Walt Kelly who in Pogp had, for Pogo a rather savage caracture of McCarthy as a Wildcat Simple J Malarkey.
And even the white bread Bob and Ray did a riff on the Senator in the 50’s growning out of Ray’s dead perfect impression of Tail gunner joe’s vocal ticks.
That <Huck Finn is some good stuff … I gotta read the whole thing again sooner or later.
1) Why does ESPN have to cram in two, three or four commercials every fucking time the ball changes hands? It’s not even free TV.
Because money.
3) Where the fuck did they get those officials?
The Big 12. The actual “Big Twelve Conference,” the one with ten teams, not the twelve team Big Ten.
BIG TEN WINS! phtphpthptphptpthptptphpt
but that was before Some guy won the internets so thoroughly that only Pennis hasn’t noticed, and even he’s having to make an active effort to not notice. He may in fact have won it forever, in which case I will have no more internets to give. 🙁
i was going to let this go, but now that internets are being awarded, i will take the time to AHEM and point this out:
bbkf said,
December 29, 2013 at 17:12
George Will was laughing at the Onesie Boy ad. That is not rage. That is laughter.
he also makes me laff…’onesie boy’ not will…what’s yer point? the ad certainly did it’s job (which was to spark aca conversations), didn’t it?
i can’t help but wonder how codpiece boy would have gone over instead?
Sarah Palin was destroyed?
I learn something new every day.
especially since she then went on to become the star of “the undefeated”…i was more shocked to learn that katie couric is ‘condescending’…i always thought she was criticized for being too perky…
dammit!
Just visited author Susan D Harris’ website and found this comedy classic
http://susandharris.com/god-bless-president-bush/
Sample these delicious mangoes:
President Bush’s greatest mistake may have come with waiting too long to strike Iraq as he sought approval at home and abroad. Many still believe that Saddam Hussein’s WMD’s have returned to haunt us in Syria. Liberals are already on the defensive about this, because if true, that means years of tiring their arms holding “Bush lied…” signs were all for naught.
He gave his all when we needed it. He saved our economy, boosted our spirits, and stood firm in his defense of a country he loved as much as we did.
Yeah, those damn pesky voters, always electing black presidents and shit.
A Right Winger who still supports Bush is a rare bird. Unless she’s leading the wave of Dubya Rehabilitation?
1) Why does ESPN have to cram in two, three or four commercials every fucking time the ball changes hands? It’s not even free TV.
Because money.
I KNOW it’s because money. But why do they have to squeeze out so much money? Brent Musberger and Herb Whatshisbutt can’t cost that much. It’s not like they would be able to get jobs anywhere else.
BIG TEN WINS! phtphpthptphptpthptptphpt
Same to you and The Ho.
A Right Winger who still supports Bush is a rare bird. Unless she’s leading the wave of Dubya Rehabilitation?
Hey, if they’re going to rehabilitate Joe McCarthy, Dubya is practically a candidate for Mount Rushmore.
Hey, if they’re going to rehabilitate Joe McCarthy, Dubya is practically a candidate for Mount Rushmore.
This is an idea that does not need to spread.
Dubya is practically a candidate for Mount Rushmore.
i was going to make a joke about density, but it pretty much writes itself…
Many still believe that Saddam Hussein’s WMD’s have returned to haunt us in Syria.
I like the ghost angle, but I’m not sure it’s doing Harris any favors. After WoMD failed to turn up in Iraq, wingnuts made up this buried-in-Syria business. (My mum told me ten years ago that she “believes” the WoMD are in Syria.) It’s the buried-in-Syria IDEA that’s coming back to haunt us.
Liberals are already on the defensive about this,
No. Don’t spin too hard, lady, your various components will separate. I don’t need a centrifuge to know you’re full of shit and not tightly wrapped.
because if true
When you’ve gotta use this qualifier, you’re barking up the wrong tree, no? Surely there are true things, known things, one could base an argument on … but these are wingnuts, so maybe no.
Good lord, you’ve never heard of Herblock? Brush up a bit on your Nixon history. Herblock was probably the best political cartoonist since Nast.
Didn’t someone want St. Ron up on Mt. Rushmore?
I thought I recalled increased fluffing of Joe concurrent with trashing Dubya. Personally I hope they go with the mean, delusional drunk in the Senate vs. the White House. Besides, more reminders that Carnival Cruz looks like him are a good thing.
Many still believe that Saddam Hussein’s WMD’s have returned to haunt us in Syria.
Which is completely asinine. Syria already had their own chemical weapons stockpiles. They had no need to take any from Iraq and I can’t think of any compelling interest for them to do so.
I’m sure this is perfectly true – in the “one, two, three, many” sense.
The fact is, you liberals cant deal with the facts from Susan Harris, which means you loose.
Many still believe that Saddam Hussein’s WMD’s have returned to haunt us in Syria. Liberals are already on the defensive about this, because if true,
That old chestnut of a trope again. It becomes true in their minds no matter how vapid, ridiculous, unrealistic, impossible, against the laws of the universe, it may be. Bless her pointy little head.
I don’t think he was up to the climb.
But, seriously, I remember hearing the same appalling idea.
Sneaky brown furrin people sneakily defying White American Presidents. I am sure Obama let them use his time machine so they could shuttle the WMD out without any of the intelligence agencies watching the area being the wiser.
You were on the side of wrong, as you were on every political issue that has ever been.
I’ll say a big amen to that, Cerb.
I was born in 1951, and I rack my brain trying to think of one single issue in my entire lifetime in which conservatives were actually proven right and liberals wrong… from school integration, to civil rights, to Vietnam, to financial deregulation, to the war on unions, to women’s rights, to LGBT rights, tax-cut-mania, the Iraq War, climate change denial, filling up the prisons full of black people, fetus-mania, enabling crazy gun carnage, income inequality… the list goes on and on…
Yes, they have a LOT to be ashamed of!
But I suppose if they had any honesty about themselves, or compassion for others, then they wouldn’t be conservatives, would they?
Join me with my fellow FAPers (Friends of the American People) to fight against the subversive Aramchek organization!
Hey, remember THE HALF-HOUR NEWS HOUR, Fox News Channel’s “answer” to THE DAILY SHOW? Yeah — neither does anybody else.
It’s a self-refuting statement. These are inherently funny. How do you not recognize that. Much of the greatest comedy is based on paradox, such as how Bahusseinrack Ohusseinbama is both a marxist and a communist and a fascist. Ooooh. Oooh. See, I did it. I listed three things and called them ‘both.’
Not for nothing, it must also be pointed out that there is very good evidence that Steve Spurrier and Lou Holtz were found naked writhing on a pile of penetrated pomeranian pelvises. Fuck the SEC.
Happy New Annum, skrev I!!!!!!
Pretty sure Assad saw the US coming with their tanks and their bombs and said, “hey, send us some of those imaginary chem weapons so we can get some US bombs all up in our business!”.
Seems legit.
“ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place. However, ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials.”–Wikipedia
That second sentence is interesting. In a world where megatons of illicit drugs are shipped about, where human trafficking continues apace, etc., we don’t know whether material X was moved from Y to Z and if so, when. The obvious conclusion is to invade the world.
Of course I didn’t mean that the Iraq Study Group would’ve wanted us to invade the world on the basis of these troubling uncertainties. That would be for Dick “1% Doctrine” Cheney to suggest.
That second sentence is interesting. In a world where megatons of illicit drugs are shipped about, where human trafficking continues apace, etc.,
That would have some credibility if we weren’t paying attention to the constant bombings of any facility that even remotely resembled a facility that might have the capacity to produce or store WMDs, the crippling sanctions, round after round of UN inspections during the 90s that took place. We decimated their SCUD batteries, their air force, much of their fixed ground forces, and a whole shit ton of military infrastructure installations.
So no, I’m not buying all this sneaking the weapons into Syria bullshit. It’s not passing the historical smell test.
In other words, had this transfer taken place, it would have happened between 91 and 95 or so.
Besides, what point would there have been in transferring those weapons just before an invading army shows up? Not saying Hussein was a brilliant military strategist, but giving away last resort weapons is a total rookie move. Nobody ever doubted that this war was coming.
Fake Gary Ruppert skrev:
I haven’t actually read more of her column than the excerpts include, but it sounds like the handful of facts she deigns to include (with an embarrassed look, as not being able to explain how they got there) are true and relevant, but (as the old joke goes) the ones that are true are not relevant, and the ones that are relevant are not true.
Also too, I owe bbkf an apology. Her comment, by itself, packs more wallop than either component of Some guy’s one-two punch. (Does that make her our Sally Kimball?)
you’re barking up the wrong tree, no?
Even a blind squirrel will sometimes bark up the right, no, I’ll come back in.
We decimated their SCUD batteries, their air force, much of their fixed ground forces, and a whole shit ton of military infrastructure installations.
In late 2002, when I was flying ONW, the Iraqi Air Force had maybe 10 flyable aircraft on any given day. On a normal day they would launch maybe 3 training sorties.
If they were really feeling frisky they might send a high-fast MiG-25 towards the no-fly zone just to see if we were still paying attention.
When we actually invaded they didn’t bother to put a single plane in the air. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
That’s how big a threat they were to
usanybody in 2003.WRT to the
excusesreasons given for invading Iraq, I will just bring up the little item I brought up then. From reading the paper, I knew that North Korea was claiming it had nuclear strike capability at the same time the Bushies were spreadingmanurestories about Iraq’s burgeoning nuclear (that’s NOOK-LEE-ARE, btw) capabilities. I figured North Korea was at least as credible a threat (as in, not), but no one was saying a mumblin’ word.Also, since the reasons being given for going to war on Iraq (which, unlike Saudi Arabia, had no citizens wielding box cutters on 9/11) kept changing, I knew they were excuses. Civilized countries (which we are not, given our national discussion on when torture is acceptable) simpky don’t go to war on excuses.
Even if it were true that the WMDs were hidden in Syria, that would still make the Iraq War one big fuckup because it would mean the US failed its goal to destroy the WMDs.
In late 2002, when I was flying ONW, the Iraqi Air Force had maybe 10 flyable aircraft on any given day. On a normal day they would launch maybe 3 training sorties.
I remember hearing more than one news report of these aircraft disappearing after violating the no-fly. I also didn’t hear about a single SCUD missile in 2003. No air, no ground to air or ground to ground, just regular infantry with light weapons. Mission Accomplished.
Also, since the reasons being given for going to war on Iraq (which, unlike Saudi Arabia, had no citizens wielding box cutters on 9/11) kept changing, I knew they were excuses. Civilized countries (which we are not, given our national discussion on when torture is acceptable) simpky don’t go to war on excuses.
I knew they had nothing when Colin Powell was showing pictures of choo choo trains to the UN Security Council and calling them mobile chem weapon labs. Even the Bushites admitted that this war was a foregone conclusion and that selling it to the public was part of the mobilization plan, rather than part of the decision to do it.
But anybody with half a brain would have known that when a guy like Hans Blix testifies that the administrations claims about WMD are total bullshit, we should have just taken a step back and looked a little harder. In all the post 9/11 furor, however, that was just not really possible.
I also didn’t hear about a single SCUD missile in 2003
They didn’t have any working SCUDs in 2003 as far as I know.
They did launch a handful tactical missiles, most of which missed or were intercepted.
Most of their air defenses had been reduced to mounting (unguided) SA-3s on the back of trucks and occasionally lobbing one at us.
It would have been pure luck to actually hit anything with one. We called these “Iraqi science projects”.
A professor called **reactionary** conservatives radicals? Bad professor or phony story.
when a guy like Hans Blix testifies that the administrations claims about WMD are total bullshit, we should have just taken a step back and looked a little harder.
This was the clear crossover point for me, when possible became bullshit. I can still remember the press conference when Blix utterly refuted the yellowcake “argument” and exposed the White House’s justifications as wishful nonsense.
In all the post 9/11 furor, however, that was just not really possible.
…this is the other thing…the way Congress cowered and rolled over for the administration because they were (most of ’em, anyway) afraid of being labeled as “soft on terrism.” Fucking cowards.
Seems like this sort of statement might indicate
There are at least three layers of weasel-wording here, and the ratio of honest assertion to weasel-word is approaching a Divide-by-zero situation.
Justice is served….
(takes off sunglasses)
has been served.
YEEEAAAHHH!
From way upthread:
Behold.
Behold again.
Both are from Shrub’s post-9/11 heyday.
Oh, hell yeah. Totally lost whatever shreds of respect I might have had remaining after their PATRIOT rollover.
You could substitute “Soviet government” for “conservatism” to explain the prevalence of black comedy under that regime, as well, and find similar examples dating to the ancient Greeks: Black humor appears to be the human default response to great harm caused by great, uncontrollable ignorance.
Both are from Shrub’s post-9/11 heyday.
But if, God forbid, a horror like 9/11 should occur during Obama’s presidency, the Republicans will rally around him like the Democrats did around Bush, right?
[laughs self into asthma attack]
Both are from Shrub’s post-9/11 heyday.
1. Allow worst terrorist attack in US history to occur.
2. Come out of it looking “tough” on foreign policy.
It never ceases to amaze me.
Ball-shattering cold in Nashville, tonight. WTF, Neighbor Al?
.
LOL ROLL TIDE
Someone is going to carve four decent Presidents into his forehead?
Best served with a heaping plate of fragrant schadenfreude.
I thought yesterday was cold, but it’s twenty four below this morning. That minus thirteen for you folks still using Fahrenheit. It’s a bit less windy than yesterday so it probably feels about the same – I’ll tell you as soon as I can feel anything again.
Re: Giant heads
It’s called Mount Rushmore. Thus what it needs is more Rush – so Geddy Lee should be next.
It’s also called Mount Rushmore. I don’t think the National Park Service is going to go for a giant carving of Geddy Lee being uhh …mounted.
nyuk, nyuk, nyuk…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/02/1266816/-My-CONSERVATIVE-PLAN-to-FIX-AMERICA
Didn’t Sarah Palin say she could see Rush from her house?
No rush, but MUSLIMS!! AAAAASAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
Herblock was actually a big deal in the cartooning world, and he was a friend of the family. He was also an influential stylist. He won three Pulitzers too.
We still have a cartoon he did for us when my grandfather — a victim of McCarthy — was in the hospital, in no small part thanks to the stress that McCarthy and his ilk managed to put on him. Herb was many things, certainly no radical, but the fact that he stood by many people in the left Labor movement is a big point in his favor.
Might want to check out the Herb Block Foundation too.
http://www.herbblockfoundation.org/
So you know what? I am happy that some right wing nutter thinks this highly of Herb. If he’s still able to raise their ire after he’s been dead for more than a decade, more power to him. It just shows how bereft of ideas they really are.
Sorry for the lack of snark. 🙂
Happy New Year, people!
Happy New Year oh large bald illegitimate one!
From now on I’m gonna assume that Cerb looks like that badass dual-wielding “snickety snack” drawing. Unless instructed not to so assume.
Also too, I owe bbkf an apology. Her comment, by itself, packs more wallop than either component of Some guy’s one-two punch. (Does that make her our Sally Kimball?)
well, thank you kind sir…it’s not often i get a good one off…
ugh…sounds like icky weather and cold is everywhere! what’s that about global warming, amirite?! haha, where’s tigris, i need directions to the tropics…
FTFY.
We’re having rain. Which is good. Also, it being winter, it’s been getting down into the mid sixties (F) at night. Get your coats and scarves out!
From now on I’m gonna assume that Cerb looks like that badass dual-wielding “snickety snack” drawing.
Snicker-snark!
it’s been getting down into the mid sixties (F) at night. Get your coats and scarves out!
i will be there by sunday…our high for that day is -15 and the low will be -22…that is not including windchill factors…winds are going to be NW at 20-30 mph…ugh…
also, too…freezing rain in tonight’s forecast!!!
Just … be quiet.
If it helps, our cost per kilowatt hour is the highest in the US, twice as high as the next highest. Of course, we don’t generally use it for heat …
It’s somewhere between “Fargo in January” and “Siberia” here in Ohio today.
woot! gov dayton has ordered all mn schools closed on monday due to eyeball flashfreezing temperatures…wonder if i can cash in on that and work from home on monday…
..this is even more hilarious than you think, Cerberus. The dolt is probably referring to the Herbloc(spelling?) prize, awarded to cartoonists once in a while for surviving politics with a sense of humor.
A vast, left wing conspiracy, undoubtedly, like so many other things that aren’t fueled by coal, and lubricated with the tears of children.
now starts the semi-monthly great mn debate:
some people: ‘when i was a kid we didn’t get out of school because it was too cold/hot! we didn’t even have heat/airconditioning either!’
other people: ‘shut-up, it was pretty stupid to risk lives like that!’
some people: ‘you shut up! kid’s are big lazy babies nowadays!’
“CRA said,
January 3, 2014 at 17:35
From now on I’m gonna assume that Cerb looks like that badass dual-wielding “snickety snack” drawing. Unless instructed not to so assume.”
No, “Cerb” looks like this:
It’s even a little chili deep in the heart of Dixie. THANKS CANADA.
We don’t use electric for heat, but that doesn’t help at all. Electricity is for people who are indoors. If you’re hitting mid-60s in January you all should be out frolicking in the streets.
But if you say the average temps during the summer are +100 with humidity to match … I still won’t care because D.C. is fairly awful.
I was at an xmas thing with some guy who was arguing that +4 in Vancouver was colder than -20* in Edmonton because it’s damp here.
But you know, even when it’s rainy and dark I see very few people here in snow pants, let alone a scarf.
*Celsius you savages.
Tried ginjinha, the Portugese cherry brandy. Odd tasting at first, the flavor grows on you after a few sips. Not bad.
After a ten day garbage worker strike, Lisbon is a bit grubby. Even so, I can see the appeal.
This is dry Edmonton cold not damp seaside BC cold.
It’s the inverse of the ‘dry heat’ Phoenixians go on about.
Odd tasting at first, the flavor grows on you after a few sips.
i find this is true with most alcohol…except rumchata, because effing yum…
Lisbon is a bit grubby. Even so, I can see the appeal.
I got stuck in Lisbon for two weeks once. Nice place.
We were supposed to deadhead to Lisbon, wait for an Airbus to come out of maintenance and then fly it to Barcelona.
They never did get that Airbus fixed the whole time we were there (they were doing something pretty major like replacing the tail).
I forget how many days the trip was originally planned for but we went into time-and-a-half and finally double overtime before they finally gave up and flew us home after two weeks.
So I got paid some insane amount of money for flying business-class to Lisbon, sitting for two weeks and then flying business-class home.
That’s the kind of luck you get once in your career.
That’s the kind of luck you get once in your career.
Still waiting.
Nah. Temps in the hotter parts of the island get into the 90s in summer. Humidity’s always high, as is salt content in the air, so stuff like hard candy goes into fridge to avoid becoming a wad of goo, and anything metal will oxidize. Also, plastic doesn’t do well – bags shatter, and all the hard plastic bits in my sister’s 23yo car interior are breaking up.
I was hired as an alternate to winter over when I was working in Antarctica as a computer technician. When their telephone technician failed to pass his physical, I was hired to winter over. So they sent me for a weeks worth of training in Virginia Beach. To get there I flew from McMurdo station to Virginia Beach (via stops in Christchurch and Aukland NZ, LA and Washington DC) to take my training in the arcana of communications wiring installation. Over the next week,my head was crammed full of exciting new skills, and snot from the fierce cold I caught from leaving the isolated disease environment of an Antarctic research station. On my return trip, my butt was dragging, I was still fighting off the cold, I handed my boarding pass to the flight attendant for the LA to Auckland leg of the trip. I was expecting 14 hours of misery, when they told me “Section J is upstairs”. Really? and then when they showed me to my Lazy-Boy looking seat, they asked if I would like champagne, to which I answered in the affirmative. It was fourteen hours of the best sleep I ever had. I had never before gotten off a plane feeling better than I boarded except that once. I felt like a new man when I disembarked in Aukland.
Pretty nice here in Spoklahoma. 34° and calm. Even a little bit of sunshine. One of the reasons I stay in this whitebread douchewarehouse is because of the mild weather. We don’t get “weather events” here.
So I got paid some insane amount of money for flying business-class to Lisbon, sitting for two weeks and then flying business-class home.
But did you hafta remain on-alert sober the whole time?
Milwaukee’s current weather is making me miss Palm Springs in the summer, which is saying something. All-in-all I prefer the heat.
Did I ever show these before?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo1Blguv9
Lisbon’s current weather is about like Seattle in May, that is to say 55*F, overcast and drizzle. The giant Jesus statue has been half-hidden by the cloud ceiling all day.
That said, the castle was interesting and the walking tour of the old part of town was pretty cool, as was the aforementioned brandy stop and the pastry shop too. Legs are a bit wooden after days of walking old European cities and we all miss the Malamutt back home.
We are reaching that point in the trip where thoughts turn toward home and routine.
And jet lag. Can’t wait for that.
I disembarked in Aukland
There are in fact no Auks in New Zealand’s largest city. Also too, it is actually spelt ‘Orcland’.
Pretty nice here in Spoklahoma
“Spoklahoma” – I’m totally stealing that one.
Best served with a heaping plate of fragrant schadenfreude pie.
FTFY
I made schadenfreude pie last spring for Pi Day (3/14). It was damn good.
I have seen 2-3 pieces online lately about why Lisbon (and Portugal generally) is a great place to visit. Non-mercenary pieces, unless we’ve been misled. Well, I’m sold, but since I don’t travel much, I may go to my grave sold, sight unseen. Which’d be too bad, because it sounds potentially sublime.
Although I may get around to playing the Portuguese civilization in Civ 5. The naus, the feitoras, the buffed trade routes: all very intriguing. Apparently there’s some suspicion that the game company chose Maria I not because she’s the archetypal Portuguese leader, but because she’s female, and they needed more of those, but whatever.
(Some time ago I recall a Sadlynaut writing, apropos of nothing, that he/she was enjoying Civ 5: Gods & Kings. I sorta slept through that expansion, but now that BNW is out, I have been nuts for the whole.)
First link no work for me but very cool.
75 and rainy today, bbkf. Man, looks like rain much of next week. Dry season my ass. No, that was not a command.
Try talc.
oh jeesh,
Not entirely sure if I should mention that our temperature today was 35C. Still sweaty at nearly midnight. Expecting a break Sunday as Atlantic cold front moves in. Thank FSM.
Dry season my ass.
LIKE A RACK O RIBS
Not entirely sure if I should mention that our temperature today was 35C.
That’s OK, Suezboo, I have no idea what this [C] means.
Savages I say!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo1Blguv9f8
I may be a savage but it’s not because I’m unfamiliar with Celsius it’s because I want to apply dry rub to SHUT UP MIGUELITO.
I don’t want to dismiss the entire theory of global warming due to one incident, but what is the deal with the Aurora Austrilis fiasco? I’ve tried to find an explanation from a climate change expert but all I’ve found are gloats from the deniers.
I are not a climatologist, but “global warming” is just media shorthand for “anthropogenic rapid climate change,” which means (relatively) quick changes in climate (not weather) caused by humans. Weather is what happens day to day, year to year, climate happens over longer periods. So you can have a really cold summer somewhere that is still gradually getting warmer, overall.
Does this help?
can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait. 31 day dry aged prime ribeye steaks done sous vide tonight. Spinach cheese souffle. Twice baked russet potatoes – mix with butter, salt, pepper, a bit of sour cream, minced chives, and a teensy squeeze of lemon. Yes lemon. Stuff back into skins and bake until slightly browned. Oysters were CHEAP so Imma make that oyster bisque I had in mind t’udder day. Caesar salad.
Only 356 more days until Christmas!!
Oh, no!!! I haven’t even begun my shopping!!!
Wait, what?
The fact is, ship fully of global warming nuts stuck in ice = fail.
Thank you, DKW.
Also if it snows anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere in January that totally disproves global warming.
Because shut up that’s why.
Retracing Mawson’s trip; careful what you wish for. At least they didn’t have to haul sledges or eat dogs.
So I got paid some insane amount of money for flying business-class to Lisbon, sitting for two weeks and then flying business-class home.
That’s the kind of luck you get once in your career.
The closest I ever came to that was when I was returning home after a junket in France with a bunch of other hacks. A passel of Americans, myself included, got bumped from the flight and were pestering the Air France gate lady with loud, obnoxious questions, in English of course. While they did, I practiced under my breath saying enregistrement (check-in), which can be a mouthful if you’re not really fluent in French. When my turn came, I said as politely as I could, “Madame, there seems to be a problem with my check-in.”
Long story short, I ended up getting upgraded to first class. Oh man, you haven’t lived until you’ve flown Air France first class. That’s the one and only tangible benefit I ever got from years of French classes.
I don’t want to dismiss the entire theory of global warming due to one incident, but what is the deal with the Aurora Austrilis fiasco?
Part of the problem is that the water’s salinity is somewhat lower than normal due to the massive loss of sea ice in the area. So now, when there is a sudden drop in temperature the sea ice forms somewhat faster than it would have five or ten years ago, possibly catching people who thought they were experienced with local conditions by surprise.
Outstanding post, Cerb. Bookmark this one for your Best of Cerebrus anthology.
I rate for Lisboa. My faves were St. George’s Castle (duh!) and the Jeronimos Monastary. It’s an unusual European city in that it was almost completely rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake.
Style tip for Fake Gary: Needs fewer misspellings; sprinkle in @ 3 – 5. Toss in a mis-keying [extra space, dropped word] once or twice. Go for one misspelling or mis-keyed ‘punchline’ at the very end. (I liked your efforts back at 18:42, btw.) Keep working on your craft! Being a Fake Gary is High and Noble Calling.
Hiya, BBBB ! Best wishes for a wonderful 2014.
Let the beheadings begin. Roll out the guillotines! Let’s get this party started.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jan/02/blog-posting/bloggers-say-obamacare-coding-system-could-usher-b/
From the link above:
I think (hope) the author of the piece was having fun with the ridiculousness of it all. Some choice bits:
The author then goes into some detail:
As I said, I really hope the author’s having fun with this.
Major Kong skrev:
FTFY.
The fact is, record breaking cold is coming. Therefore, global warming nutjobs are wrong again.
Still dry in the Pacific Northwet. If we don’t get serious snow next year will be very bad for a lot of people.
The fact is, conservatives for saw the Obamacare beheadings long before ICE-9. We warned America of The One’s death panels and liberals just laughed, no the joke is on you. ‘Politifact’ has been shilling for Obama all along. Now Politifact is being used to cover up the truth about Obamacare. Beheadings are part of Sharia Law. Now Obama is bringing Sharia Lad beheadings to the Land of the Fee and Home of the Brave.
Currently 48 (F) in Albuquerque. Expected to climb to 61 today.
Currently 26 in Baltimore. Expected to climb above freezing today (36). I’m glad I made the move to ABQ!
I’m sorry to hear of the brutal cold and icy wind in so many other places … especially in bbkf country. The best antidote is probably hot chocolate* and a good pooch sprawled on your lap.
* unless you are Pajama Boy. In which case, whiskey.
Blatant blogwhore: Chris Kluwe
For what it’s worth…
The ICE-9 bit is a stretch too far for the real Gary. It makes Fake Gary even more BS, less worthwhile. Into the killfile with you.
*Yes, you see what I did there.
“Polar Vortex” Bears Down on Midwest. Yikes!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/historic-cold-polar-vortex-midwest
The coming mass of cold air–from the North Pole, no less–sounds mucho wicked.
Minnesota called off school for Monday statewide, the first such closing in 17 years, because of projected highs in the minus teens and lows as cold as 30 below.
Also dibs on Polar Vortex as a band name.
Okay, Pup, critique recieved. Nevertheless E and D are in close proximity on the keyboard. It’s an entirely plausible mistake. (ICD-9 to ICE-9). Also close proximity of D and R (Sharia Law to Sharia Lad). I thought I deserved extra credit for the comma splice.
Also, in keeping with Fenwick’s suggestions, I radically trimmed the errors: three misspellings, sprinkled in two or three other mis-keyed mistakes. (Not bad for a six sentence parody, imo) Finally, I thought I deserved some extra credit for the comma splice.
Oh well. You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.*
* Line from song lyric. Quiz: Can anyone name the song’s title and singer?
Quiz: Can anyone name the song’s title and singer?
“Garden Party” by Ricky Nelson.
Or a bag of tits?
WANT! http://makezine.com/2014/01/02/more-death-ray-lasers/
And even the white bread Bob and Ray don’t disparage the creators of Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife
I got stuck in Lisbon for two weeks once. Nice place. My friend who is a flight attendant for an airline that used to be affectionately called “Agony Airlines” spent a week after 9/11 in Charleston, SC because there were too may flights trying to land in Jacksonville, FL
Climate does not equal weather – The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time. NASA
Let the beheadings begin Disclosure I work for CMS. ICD9 has been used since the 70s
Climate is weather over time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtRvcXUIyZg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nzwJg4Ebzo
As the Arctic ice recedes the jet stream slows and is amplified. That leads to a blocking pattern so fewer storms come through. Weather patterns get stuck – dry as hell here in the Northwet, wet as hell over eastways.
Test. For some reason, my last two comments failed to appear in the thread. So I’m trying a Test.
I blame Obamacare. Also Benghazi.
Brent Bozo on Sarah Silverman:
“She claimed that Hitler could kill six million Jews, then go to confession, and have a priest say, “no problem, say ten Heil Marys, and Hitler goes to Heaven!”
What, aside from the particular penance assigned, is not true about that? Catholic doctrine says that if he repented and confessed he would be ripe for heaven. Perhaps Jewish Sarah Silverman knows more about Catholic doctirne than does Mr. Bozo.
I did one of my art-school projects on Herbert Block – a talented artist. It’s actually quite difficult to draw recognizable people. IIRC, he often threw humour out the window and just baldly stated how fucked-up something was. Because he did it in cartoon form, he likely reached more people. Part of my learning was that he actually helped his readers make some sense of congressional obfustication, and reading his books is not a bad way to pick up some of the major things happening in US and world political history in the 20th century.
But I totally get how completely unrelevant he would be to most people today; art history is one thing, but expecting everyone to know who he was is a bit disingenuous.
As for ocean water freezing, like others here have said, that’s a consequence of melting ice-caps. When ocean water drops below a certain salinity level, it freezes. For reference, 400-some years ago, the planet experienced a minor climate event, which plunged Europe into a mini ice age, yet caused a 100-year drought in the Americas at the same time. Climate change is just that – the climate is changing. I’m always amazed at how few people seem to understand that (not you guys – you understand – but even non-conservatives don’t seem to get it).
Also, really sorry this has been a bad year for you, Cerberus. I hope 2014 is much, much better.
“She claimed that Hitler could kill six million Jews, then go to confession, and have a priest say, “no problem, say ten Heil Marys, and Hitler goes to Heaven!”
Bozell is making way too much out of a joke, but then it’s his vocation.
Catholic doctrine says that if he repented and confessed he would be ripe for heaven.
And given that the Vatican signed a Concordat with the Third Reich, I’m sure the RCC could dig up a priest to hear the confession.
Snark has completely left this building.
But you haven’t, Dennis.
And you never will. No matter how many times they throw you out.
Oh come on: Brent Bozell knows that Catholics have never supported anti-semitism.
I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
Check out our cool uniforms that say “Gott Mit Uns”.
What, aside from the particular penance assigned, is not true about that?
Maybe people who aren’t repentant cannot be forgiven? I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.
Not trying to be snarky, just saying, it’s probably an established rule that gaming the forgiveness system is right out. Theologians, what say you?
Can’t be the real AH, he’s at the Eagles game.
Clearly you have to be sincere. And if you screw up you have to be sincere again.
Nor a theologian, but that makes sense. I would hope, though, that the repentance would have to be about the wrong, not about being caught at it.
It’s not for me to say who’s forgiven and who isn’t.
For all I know Hitler may have given a perfect act of contrition in the bunker.
I seriously doubt it, but it’s not for me to say.
Can’t be the real AH, he’s at the Eagles game.
If he is, he didn’t do them any good. Saints 26, Eagles 24.
Who dat?!! Dirty birds done creole style.
It’s nice of them to give Obama credit for developing the ICD, I wonder what will happen if they get their hands on a CPT manual (the big book o’ codes for medical procedures). Twould be fun to watch them run around waving the proof that Obamacare will include mandatory colonoscopies and abortions.
p.s. Thanks for this link, it is going to have my coworkers on the floor come Monday.
Just finished “Rise Again Below Zero.” Spengler, if you’re striding the land still: nice job. You’re a hellofa storyteller.
Hiya, BBBB ! Best wishes for a wonderful 2014.
Thanks, old chum! Glad to see you made the move successfully. Go ‘Topes!
Just finished “Rise Again Below Zero.”
Wait, he didn’t title it “Rise Again, Again”? Grrr…
On a serious note, I’ll have to pick this one up, the last sentence of book one was amazing.
Test. For some reason, my last two comments failed to appear in the thread. So I’m trying a Test.
Thank you, ye gods and goddesses of the internets…
Wait… Hitler was a Christian?
I was always told that he was an atheist…? Sadly, no!
http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm
I’m not testing.
.
The Vikings game will be played in the very cold. Forty below and that’s Fahrenheit you snobby foreign fucks with your special scales and all.
Yeah, somehow it became common knowledge that Hitler was atheist which is very far from the truth. Bryan Fischer, spokescritter for an SPLC-identified hate group, is trying to convince everyone that the SS was comprised entirely of homosexuals. Because only homos could be so savage and brutal and viscious.
Yeah, somehow it became common knowledge that Hitler was atheist which is very far from the truth.
Even if he was, and I rather doubt it, millions of Catholics and Lutherans were tripping over themselves in their rush to follow this guy. They couldn’t wait for a Hitler to come along.
Germany in the 1930s was a “Christian Nation” with prayer in schools and everything else the Christian Right says we’re supposed to have.
Vikings?
Vikings?
The football kind or the raid-Europe kind?
Its hard to imagine the celcius equivalent of 40 below F
-40C = -40F it’s the one point that they cross over.
You probably knew that already but just in case you didn’t.
The picture accompanying this post is a male fantasy about what a woman should look like.
Thanks for the conversion, Major.
Pup, can you explain, from the top of your head, the basis for the Fahrenheit scale? Celsius makes sense: water freezing temperature/ water boiling temperature.
-40°F is quite cold. I lived in northern Minnesota, I don’t remember the temperature going so low (even though it must have been close), and we went through three weeks without the temperature going over -15°C. I never experienced being so overheated indoors…
As for gay nazis, it was Röhm, but Hitler disliked his deviousness, and it’s one of the reasons he got the SAs murdered during the Long Knives night.
The picture accompanying this post is a male fantasy about what a woman should look like.
Um, not mine. I prefer a few more curves, and a lot less blades.
.
The picture accompanying this post is a male fantasy about what a woman should look like.
Compared to most women in comics/games, this one at least has a physique that’s within the realm of possibility.
The picture accompanying this post is a male fantasy about what a woman should look like.
Nuh uh, that’s a dead ringer for an old friend’s daughter and I’d just as soon not see her with any sharp blades.
Pup, can you explain, from the top of your head, the basis for the Fahrenheit scale? Celsius makes sense: water freezing temperature/ water boiling temperature.
Fuck no. It’s quite convoluted as I recall, and very arbitrary.
[…]
Yeah, even after reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#History I can’t explain it.
Le oops.
Also, -40 is fucking cold. It’s not nearly that cold today, even in Minnesota. I was trying to incite the Fahrenheit : Celsius HOLOCAUST!
I actually went to the Wikipedia page. They first say that 100 was the estimate for human body temperature, then it’s 96. (I thought it was 97, but well…)
Nym changing is hard work.
Who never dreamed of being Adolf Hitler just for one day?
Also, -40 is fucking cold.
For me, it all stops at zero.
And then you don’t move, my dear baron.
-11 w/windchill = -38….not leaving the house…tonight’s low will be -24 with 20 to 30 mph winds…not even sure what sort of windchill that will bring…but we are all looking forward to tomorrow with it’s promise of -13 for a HIGH!
it would be an excellent day to experiment with mac & cheese recipes, eh pup*?
*not so subtle hint…
Onions, potatoes and lard/ bacon. In a Dutch oven with a cup of white wine or beer. You stay close to the oven too. Season with your favorite spices.
I almost always make my mac’n’cheese on autopilot. Roux with mustard powder and a wee bit of cayenne => bechamel + some fresh grated nutmeg => sharp cheddar (and whatever small amount I have on hand [today it’s some Rogue blue, a small chunk of Emmentaler, a bit of Overjarig Gouda, and some chevre] and maybe some neufchatel for creaminess. The Emmentaler and aged Gouda can lead to a grainy sauce – the cream cheese helps the overall texture.
I insist on topping with panko and baking. The contrast in textures is delightful. I’ve been known on occasion to put half the mix into a baking dish, lay some sliced tomatoes in there, then continue as usual.
Can you say bacon? Strew crispy crumbled bacon on top. Some people add jalapeños but I find that tiring. Caramelized onions on the other hand, are nice.
Browse through http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/slideshows/slide-show-a-guide-to-portlands-mac-and-cheese-scene-october-2013#slide=1 for some ideas.
And of course, look at http://www.seriouseats.com/tags/recipes/mac%20and%20cheese
There’s also this very interesting cheese sauce that I haven’t tried yet but it would be interesting to try. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/09/cheese-sauce-for-cheese-fries-and-nachos.html
Nation’s best Mac Cheese recipes mix it up in Portland
Oh, forgot about this: http://www.katu.com/amnw/segments/Macaroni-and-Cheese-for-Grownups-231665921.html definitely worth a watch and take not of the author’s other m&c dishes.
Including some processed cheese and using condensed milk help keep the sauce from separating during baking. It’s one time when significant quantities of processed cheese is called for.
This planet could use a lot more guys who fantasize about women who know how to use two swords. The Tits the Size of Watermelons Tottering Around in 6″ Heels dudes are a fucking nuisance.
Who never dreamed of being Adolf Hitler just for one day?
AdolpH Hitler imposes a political litmus test.
This planet could use a lot more guys who fantasize about women who know how to use two swords.
Mrs. Kong doesn’t know how to use a sword but I’ve seen her shoot 1″ groups with a .357
BTW, that sous vide dry aged USDA prime rib steak is probably the best steak I’ve ever had. I’ve done beer cooler sous vide steaks before but never used beef like that. DAYUM IT WER GUD.
I’ve been having problems with my SV eggs. First go around was 45 minutes at 145° as reco’d but the white was completely unset. Got out my best thermo – the machine calibration is spot on. Next time I went for 147° hoping to get a nice “soft boiled” but the thin white and the firm white were STILL just runny. The yolks however were perfect. Maybe I need to see a new egg monger.
Tonight I’m making pork shoulder in the pressure cooker. Super easy pulled pork! On Kaiser rolls with quick pickled onions. Creamy slaw on the side. And deep fried Tater Tots because this is Portland.
AdolpH Hitler imposes a political litmus test.
Pandering to his political base.
danke for the links and advice, gents…i had never thought of condensed milk!
i shall enjoy the research…
Heh. I said “Vikings” game. Vikings, Packers, it’s all the same. In that section of the country anything north of Chicago is basically South Canada.
Pandering to his political base.
Such acidic commentary! It’s rather ionic, coming from you.
Edited to avoid insult to the Very Accurate Mrs. Kong.
This planet could use a lot more guys who fantasize about women who know how to use two swords weapons.
oh, we do…they are called palinbots…
PM have you used the Thermapen? Not saying temperature is your sous vide problem but its a really cool tool.
http://www.thermoworks.com/products/thermapen/?gclid=CPurnr646LsCFfBcMgod1HMA0Q
I bought it for brewing but have used it way more for checking meat temps…
Teh sous vide is very intriguing. I’ve got all the necessary equip at work but wouldn’t want to put food in there! I’d also love to have the rotovapor from work at home but thats not gonna happen…
Not used a Thermapen. I use my trusty dial thermo with a plastic sleeve and pocket clip. Kinda like this one: http://www.chefsresource.com/proaccurate-instant-read-cooking-thermometer-cdn.html I’ve had mine for years and years, cal it about once a year even though it’s never needed recal. And it cost me like $10 or $15 twenty years ago. So that’s good for us anti-consumerist types.
ya, wifey was skeptical about spending 100 on a thermometer. it is a joy to use though, just hope I never drop it into the mash…
I really like my thermapen. Dropped a fancy headlight into a wort kettle once. 15 minutes later when I drained the pot I was astonished to find it still lit at the bottom.
I once made an IR thermometer, just for fun. Useless for cooking but it was fun to demonstrate some tire warming facts (as in, exploding some myths) to my motorcycle buds. Afterwards the y still did the swerve around a la F1 to warm up the tires thing even though I had shown that it didn’t work for motorpickles.
People. Whatcha gonna do?
Teh prok is in the PC. Pickled red onions now resting. Creamy slaw marrying itself.
Had a demo of an ungodly expensive IR unit once in a lab and craved it for my brick oven. New made brick ovens have implants so you can get deck, dome and air temps but mine was made in 1822.
People. Whatcha gonna do?
I know. Can’t live with them.
Who never dreamed of being Adolf Hitler just for one day?
Is this a reference to Poly Styrene? I will admit, though, to dreaming of being the Ruler of the Supermarkets.
I once made an IR thermometer, just for fun. Useless for cooking but it was fun to demonstrate some tire warming facts (as in, exploding some myths) to my motorcycle buds.
You want to be careful about that. Tires lose a ton of temp on the surface very quickly, while a probe-type temp gauge will show that the carcass is still quite warm. My IR gauge was useless for autocross just in the time it took to drive off the course and back into grid.
Cheney, spawn of Cheney banished back to the Think Tank dimension. Not a bad start to the first full week of the year.
Who never dreamed of being Adolf Hitler just for one day?
I think there was an old Twilight Zone episode where a guy wishes to be ruler of a country who can’t be voted out of office.
He ends up as Hitler – in the bunker.
Cheney, spawn of Cheney banished back to the Think Tank dimension. Not a bad start to the first full week of the year.
I dunno, I was looking forward to a bruising, expensive primary that would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of wingnut dollars being pissed down a hole in a solidly red state.
A new era of arson dawns!
I guess we can look forward to a National Death Ray Laser Association in coming years.
I guess we can look forward to a National Death Ray Laser Association in coming years.
I’d settle for a National Death Ray Davies Association.
Let’s start it ourselves so we can cash in on the phat laser industry cheddar.
I humbly accept your nomination to chair the National Death Ray Laser Association. As chairman I promise to protect and defend our Second Amendment rights to the best of my ability.
Your membership fees are due. Please remit the annual $500 basic membership fee or join the Emperor’s club with your contribution of $1000 or more. Check out nifty premiums!
i am eagerly awaiting my ndrla coffee mug and tote!
because of the polar vortex, i am working at home today…hubbkf got farrah started, but bonnie refused, so yay! working in jammies! also, too…don’t have to worry about this…
but i do have to worry about getting distracted…by things like this…
Don’t let the liberals in Washington restrict your god given right to start forest fires from 2 miles away on a clear day! Don’t let the laser grabbers interfere with your constitionally guaranteed freedom to blind airline pilots on approach to major airports! Friends, once lasers are outlawed only outlaws will have lasers. Don’t let the evil tentacles of big not-dying-in-a-forest-fire-or-fiery-plane-crash take our death rays!
Hey bro, here’s a cool story;
editor’s note: At $9.32/hour, Washington State has the highest minimum wage in the U.S.
I went to our regional burger chain for lunch today, and got a prompt apology for the price of my combo meal. My quizzical look brought an explanation that minimum wage went up, thus driving up the prices of all of the food. I was a bit stunned that a person who almost certainly earns minimum wage would apologize to me for getting a pittance of a raise.
My reply: “Well, that’s a good thing for you, isn’t it?”
Lady: “Yeah, but it drives up the price of everything.”
Your boy tsam: “No, only those industries that rely on minimum wage labor, and competition provides downward pressure on that pricing. You’re just getting a slightly bigger share of the profits the company makes.”
Lady: “….”
Me again: “What this really means is that the free ride for us guys getting lunch for $5 at YOUR expense is over. I’m not complaining. I think you guys earn it, don’t you?”
Lady: (smiles) “Yeah!”
Me: “Alrighty then.”
More editorial note: The minimum wage increased by $ .13/hour, which, for a full time worker is in the neighborhood of $ 270.00/year.
Not exactly something you can blame for any sharp rise in shitty food and shitty goods from WalMart.
Good job, tsam.
WTF? Was she required to apologize?
I said the same thing the other day as we were watching the whole new season. And who would have guessed Mary dies in a car crash as well?
Burgerville? Doesn’t sound like the sort of thing Burgerville would have going on.
Okay, you don’t have Burgerville up there in West Idaho. More’s the shame.
This is a place called Zip’s, which I don’t believe reaches further than Lewiston, ID and Colville–in this Inland Empire area only.
And no, Shaka, I don’t think she was required to apologize, I think she just got the standard speech from the scumbag owner about how raising minimum wage threatens their jobs because suddenly everything goes up and OMFG we’re all gonna die like everybody in Russia….yada yada blahda.
Okay, you don’t have Burgerville up there in West Idaho. More’s the shame.
No, don’t believe I’ve seen one of those.
Good job, tsam.
Oh, HELL YEAH! It’s long past time to break the working poor out of the self-esteem deficit drilled into them by the oligarchs.
I humbly accept your nomination to chair the National Death Ray Laser Association. As chairman I promise to protect and defend our Second Amendment rights to the best of my ability.
I nominate May 16th as “National Death Ray Laser Day”!
And who would have guessed Mary dies in a car crash as well?
damn your hide…
Burgerville:
We rarely get fast food but when we do it’s likely Burgerville. Except in the spring when they have tempura aspargus with garlic aioli. Right now they have a chocolate hazelnut (Oregon accounts for 99% of US hazelnut production) shake. Yeah, basically a nutella shake. Tempted to pick one up next time I go by a B’ville.
Burgerville is the bees knees. Cats pajamas. Outta sight.
Keen, also too.
I have had an unopened jar of Nutella in a cupboard for close to TWO DAYS now.
Yes indeedy! I’m the guy who put the “O!” in coprophilia.
Yeah, basically a nutella shake.
Yeah, WANT!!!!
Oh that sounds so damn good. I LOVE the smell and taste of hazelnuts. I sometimes put it in my coffee, but mostly I just drink it black.
Oh, HELL YEAH! It’s long past time to break the working poor out of the self-esteem deficit drilled into them by the oligarchs
Right? The thing about $9.32/hour is that in the Eastern part of the state, that’s actually not a terrible wage (assuming you can get full time hours out of your lord). In the I5 corridor, however, not so much. It’s still a problem, but in the more remote areas, people manage to get by on that–barely.
But no person should ever feel guilty for earning a wage that’s slightly above shameful and insulting. It’s not like an extra dime on the price of my burger is going to stop me from torturing my GI system with it at intervals that I don’t care to admit to..
Ice Bubbles
http://distractify.com/culture/arts/frozen-bubbles-in-wintertime/
i’m so glad you happened upon that young lady tsam*…it’s sad that she felt the need to apologize for a miniscule raise and that employers are still able to make their employees scrape, bow and grovel while getting shat upon is beyond shameful…while we’ve learned that corporations are people, this incident underscores the fact that most corporations are horrible, greedy people…
*i am also not surprised at how you handle the sitch…
maeve is totally killing me…she went outside for the 800th time today…no, cold does not bother her a bit. after jumping over the rock wall and various snow clumps for a while, she found a flatish chunk of ice to play with…she snuffled it all over the driveway, then out to the road…we live on a hill, so the ice chunk started sliding down the hill and she kept after it…would get it up the hill a bit…only to have it go back down…she finally got back up to the driveway, lost her ice chunk in the snow a couple of times, but she finally got it into her mouth…she raced up the driveway to the the front door only to slip on the ice, slide on her side and drop the ice…
maeve is totally killing me…
That’s SO WEIRD. That almost perfectly describes my Saturday this past weekend.
Our cat poked her head out the door momentarily and decided she wanted no part of it.
Our cat poked her head out the door momentarily and decided she wanted no part of it.
That’s SO WEIRD. That almost perfectly describes my Monday morning.
I hope you two opened the door.
I hope you two opened the door.
PARTY POOPER!
maeve will go out in anything…luci, not so much…if she goes within five feet of the door and feels a chill, no can do…she has amazing bladder capacity…
Teh Ho was not properly (read: sufficiently) effusive about dinner last night so tonight it’s dirt and sticks. Mossy sticks but sticks none the less.
maeve is totally killing me
It could be worse, she could be stealing your cattle.
It could be worse, she could be stealing your cattle.
isn’t irish lore the best?
Teh Ho was not properly (read: sufficiently) effusive about dinner last night so tonight it’s dirt and sticks. Mossy sticks but sticks none the less.
oh my…hubbkf’s diet would consist mainly of sticks and dirt…’pretty good’ is about as effusive as he gets…
Teddy the Porcupine eats pumpkins (turn up the sound):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cILZ_cB3_so
Won’t share his corn-on-the-cob:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGz8jcbJjRw
Teddy takes his pleasure fully. I like the way he talks.
OT: Current wind speeds in the Nation’s Capital are fluctuating between Whoops There Goes Another Trash Bin and Holy Shit I Hope the Roof Stays on.
If the house gives up its long relationship with the foundation I’m aiming this son of a bitch for the nears GOP Congresscretin.
nears = nearest.
Albuquerque (at 9 PM Mountain)
Clear
32 degrees F. ((( or 0 degrees C ))
Precip: 0%
Humidity: 30%
Wind: 0 mph
I hope the bitterly cold temps and wicked winds abate SOON for all the Sadlies caught in the huge mass of frigid air !!!
I went out about 5 PM today, and it wasn’t that bad, despite the temp. of -9F or less (before wind chill). However, I think it made me Prius act funny.
Teddy the Porcupine eats pumpkins (turn up the sound):
Cute, but not cuddly!
I hope the bitterly cold temps and wicked winds abate SOON for all the Sadlies caught in the huge mass of frigid air !!!
Working the graveyard… it’s supposed to hit the single digits, perhaps even zero, but feel like -10 to -25 with the wind chill. I’ve brought enough clothes to layer that I look like I’m holding a tag sale. When I go out, the only part of my epidermis that will be exposed is the area between my eyes.
Before I even left the house, I slathered myself head to toe with a couple of generous helpings of Queen Helene Cocoa Butter Lotion. That’s one key to thriving in the winter- the first layer goes on even before the clothing.
FSM story….
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pastafarian-sworn-in-wearing-colander-town-council
New post.
BBBB: I don’t know if you visited Sadlyburg when I posted a link to a 25-minute video of ‘Batterstone Castle’–a 39,000 Lego construction–so I’ll put it up again for you. (You can see what Fenwick looks like!) May help you while away the graveyard shift.
(Also, could you forward it to N_B? He might find it amusing.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SqNkxDHOYc&feature=youtu.be
I slathered myself head to toe with a couple of generous helpings of Queen Helene Cocoa Butter Lotion.
Not Nutella?
!#*$@*!!! Jumpseat to Memphis crapped out on me.
I was trying to get to work on one of our MD-11s but the damn thing broke 3 times.
By the time they got it fixed (5 hours delayed) crew scheduling had already bumped me off my trip so there was no point in me trying to get to Memphis any more.
Since it was one of our jets, I don’t get in any trouble but I do lose the trip and more importantly the pay.
I’m a big political cartoon fan thanks to George Fisher, the cartoonist at the Arkansas Gazette. It was very inside baseball on Arkansas politics, particularly the Faubus and Rockefeller administrations, and he was hell on the Corps of Engineers and raised enough ire to keep the Buffalo River from being damned.
I grew up reading Herb Block, so I know who is was, but I’m an old fart. My 2nd favorite Herb Block is here. I’m looking for my favorite, which shows the same Atom character measuring the Earth for a coffin while a “peace conference” goes on. “Don’t Mind Me, Gentlemen” is the caption that I recall.