Yeah, right, but how many girls?
Considering the whining on the Internet rhetoric of the committedly unsatisfied, that seems a pretty good score.
He hasn't done enough! Let's vote Republican.
Considering the whining on the Internet rhetoric of the committedly unsatisfied, that seems a pretty good score.
Well they consider the health care bill a promise kept. To me that seems like more of a compromise so I don't know exactly how they are scoring these things. In short I am going to keep whining.
He's doing much better than my "I'm not smoking anymore and this time I mean it" record.
4: "Whine to Win". (Which actually looks like it might work for the Repubs in the mid-terms--FML.)
This is silly. Who care about just counting? Some of the promises are deeply important and others aren't. And they give him an awful lot of "in the works" credit on things that are going nowhere.
Who care about just counting?
Mathematicians and bureaucrats.
Let me see:subtract one point for every woman and child collaterally dead in GWOT
subtract one point for every unemployed American, every foreclosure, every bankruptcy
subtract one point a day an innocent kid is still at Gitmo
...long long list...
Final Score: negative infinity
Now, since Obama is getting credit for those things on the list, we will not have any "Congress's Fault" thank you very much.
He's doing much better than my "I'm not smoking anymore and this time I mean it" record.
On that same score, though, his promise appears to be still "in the works".
Bob: Final Score: negative infinity
That would require Obama be actually worse than Bush. Also worse then Hitler, bob. Methinks you exaggerate.
Anyways, I'll bite and be all contrarian and risk the wrath of McManus and say that Obama has so far been a better president than Clinton. Obama has health care, the stimulus, plus financial regulation to his credit. Clinton did exactly none of those things. Obama's appointments have generally been better than Clinton's, and Obama's biggest failures have been failing to do discontinue Bush administration policy, such as in Afghanistan and at Gitmo.
The last 18 months have turned out way better than I was afraid they would way back in 2008. So overall, 2009-2010 will turn out to have been awful years due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, and those years also happened to be full of win for liberals. Someday we may get the payoff for the big wins.
max
['No, no numeric score from me, not even positive infinity.']
Plusplus points for Hungry Children?
And fiscal rectumtude.
Look, a Democratic administration that wants to cut food stamps during the worst recession in 75 years doesn't deserve any defense.
Oh, and here's Digby on Forced Pregnancy For Sick Women Bart fucking Stupak is outraged by the ruling. Obama = worse than Stupak on abortion
Obama has health care, the stimulus, plus financial regulation to his credit.
Devil's in the details and outcomes, dude.
DeLay and Hastert passed many things with pretty titles.
doesn't deserve any defense.
Oh wait. New New Neo-Democrats of the UMC young urban creative professional brie-sipping indie-rocking carbonfiber-riding just might have different priorities than we old DFH Great Society boomers
Obama's Black! and Cool!
So fuck hungry kids and pregnant women with cancer.
Tough call and a fair debate is required.
Sorry?
Unbalanced, not listening to reason, unfair, hostile, outrageous?
Damn right I am. All those things. And I don't even feel a need to explain why I won't put the white and black beans on the scales.
It just takes a feather to damn you eternally.
Bob was thinking of a very ripe St. Marcellin.
15: I bet Grant Achatz would do it for you.
9: Not me, I'm now 1-14,056 on that count.
14: It just takes a feather to damn you eternally.
One would hope a just and merciful God wouldn't judge that stiffly.
12: Devil's in the details and outcomes, dude.
Agreed; nonetheless, to make anything at all you have to pass bills. Obama has done this, Clinton couldn't manage it (partly because he only won 43% of the vote). Now if you want to condemn Clinton and maybe Carter too, then saying Obama is awful actually makes some sense.
13: New New Neo-Democrats of the UMC young urban creative professional brie-sipping indie-rocking carbonfiber-riding just might have different priorities than we old DFH Great Society boomers
I'm so not most (or any) of those things Bobarino. I'm just a working class boy in a UMC world, and I say Obama is better than Clinton.
max
['Sorry starving orphans.']
8: subtract one point for every unemployed American, every foreclosure, every bankruptcy
What?
Were you whirly-eyed or something, bob?
I kilt the blog.
1) Teenage Fanclub is/are really fucking good. Who said they were overrated?
2) 2012 was one of the worst experiences of my life, and I have been straitjacketed to the loony ward. Worse than two tooth abscesses at once. Worse than losing my cat. I watched the whole thing, in disbelief at the mindful waste of money and talent. Emmerich needs some serious fucking suffering for the crime he committed.
3) Digby is on a roll, a string of brilliant and artful posts.
This is just an admiration of Coates, but in quantity of links and selected quotes, an admirable admiration.
I have, in my writing, a tendency to become theoretically cute, and overly enamored with my own fair-mindedness. Such vanity has lately been manifested in the form of phrases like "it's worth saying" and "it strikes me that..." or "respectfully..."...CoatesWhen engaging your adversaries, that approach has its place. But it's worth saying that there are other approaches and other places. Among them--respectfully administering the occasional reminder as to the precise nature of the motherfuckers you are dealing with.
Repeat after Coates, Mr President:"I have, in my speaking..."
It is fun to quote out of context.
21:I am like totes whirly-eyed about the capacity of government to help people and improve conditions social and individual. FDR did about 10% of what he coulda and shoulda in 1933.
There is very little real "can't be helped" in me. Crazy.
8, 11-14: Nice honeypot, Heebie.
FDR did about 10% of what he coulda and shoulda in 1933.
That's why he got put on the dime instead of the dollar.
I am like totes whirly-eyed about the capacity of government to help people and improve conditions social and individual
And Obama was therefore supposed to, in a mere 18 months, completely fix the economic disaster, restore jobs, reverse foreclosures and bankruptcies, and his failure to do so renders him a negative infinity on the rating scale of effective leaders. Right.
I'm much more alarmed that Bob can use "totes" properly and I can't.
FDR did about 10% of what he coulda and shoulda in 1933.
I guess that's enough to make him only the second-worst president in US history?
Teenage Fanclub is/are really fucking good. Who said they were overrated?
The people who remember Spin naming Bandwagonesque album of the year in 1991 over Nevermind and Loveless.
23:I was amazed myself.
25:The economy is only one of his many failures.
Javier & Penelope! Life is not all bad.
27.2:I was aware, and I agree with Spin.
I'm afraid I may have to start ignoring you, bob. I don't really want to do that, but hey. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a die-hard Obama fan, and criticism of his policies is not a problem, but if you insist on blaming him for failing to utterly turn the economy around in this amount of time, you're not sitting at the same conversational table.
I note that the "Obameter" in the original post has no categories for executive privilege or executive power, civil liberties, or torture.
Moreover, the fact-checked entries in the categories immigration, terrorism, legal issues, and homeland security do not address unlawful detention, Guantanamo/Bagram, assertions of the executive's right to asssassinate people, or any of a mulitude of Bush-era expansions of executive power that Obama has embraced and even broadened.
The fact-checking itself is moderately good, at least judging by the 12 or 14 entries I read.
they have a torture category:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/175/end-the-use-of-torture/
it is in the top 25 promises:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/subjects/politifacts-top-promises/
32: Ah, I was looking at the list of subjects.
Don't you go off the deep end too. We're called citizens, not subjects.
Indeed, just this evening I was exhorting some of our fellow citizens to take advantage of the opportunity afforded them in this great country to air their views.
150 Months to "full employment"
We will fall. And this time Democrats will be blamed for generations to come.
30:Hooverbama has only bailed out the bankers. He is a horror.
And we aren't at the same conversational table.
Actually I agree with Timmy. Elizabeth Warren ought to be gunning for Timmy's job. Fire Geithner. Now. Elizabeth Warren for Treasury Secretary! And in 2012, Warren for President. We should settle for no less. And Obama clearly does not want that job, anyway. Sorry folks, the audacity of hope can only carry us so far. Time for a new face in the White House. Elizabeth is our man, or woman."time for a new face" as in right now, any way that's legal L Randall Wray ...is my taste in dinner companions.
31: Guantanamo and unlawful detention are also addressed. Under "Terrorism", "Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center" is scored as "In The Works" and "Develop an alternative to President Bush's Military Commissions Act on handling detainees" is scored as "Stalled".
Hoverbama has only bailed out the bankers. He is a horror.
I agree with you there. It's hard to get too worked up about Californians being underwater on their houses, what with them having the nice weather and having spent astounding sums on those houses. But, I don't see why the bankers got helped out so much.
22
... an admiration of Coates, ...
Coates of course is a big Obama fan.
Well, not about the "He is a horror" part.
The Atlantic should cast a wide net until they find a blogger named "Chall" so they could do "Chall and Coates."
It's hard to get too worked up about Californians being underwater on their houses
Dude, of course the point is that some schmuck's underwater mortgage is some bank's zombie asset. Combine with ten years of underemployment and the banks are going down. It would be nice for banks if Obama and Bernanke can bleed the workers long enough to clear their balance sheets, but I don't think the game can last long enough. Defaults are US.
I can't break the habit of associating the name "Coates" with the surprisingly erudite libertarian Pink Floyd-loving guy from my first-year college dorm. Can't we always say Ta-Nehisi or TNC or something to avoid confusing me?
Combine with ten years of underemployment and the banks are going down.
Probably. Our old bank already went under and the FDIC hived-off our account to some small bank to stop some big bank from getting super big. Now we have shitty ATM locations.
Some days, I can barely keep from writing folk music.
Was it the libertarianism or the Pink Floyd love that made his erudition more surprising?
42
Dude, of course the point is that some schmuck's underwater mortgage is some bank's zombie asset. Combine with ten years of underemployment and the banks are going down. It would be nice for banks if Obama and Bernanke can bleed the workers long enough to clear their balance sheets, but I don't think the game can last long enough. Defaults are US.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA are busy guaranteeing lousy refiancing loans. Every one of which takes a bank (or other mortgage holder) out from under a bad loan. I expect the banks will be fine.
Yes, and if I robbed a liquor store, I wouldn't be out of gin.
42, 45, 48: The regional banks are going to continue to get crushed. Their problem isn't residential mortgages--if they made those loans at all, they sold them off almost immediately for securitization--it's commercial real estate lending. The regionals couldn't compete with the CMBS shops for the kind of lending on reasonably-stabilized commercial properties that used to be their bread and butter, so they went with the sorts of commercial real estate loans that couldn't be securitized, i.e., land (including not-yet-permitted land) and construction, which you may be shocked to learn are the kind of loans one least wants to be holding right now. An underwater cash-flowing property that can't refinance can at least continue paying you interest if you extend the loan, even if it will likely never pay off.
47: It was the whole gestalt, really. One of those UChicago types who would seem implausible in a work of fiction, were they not real. You know, like nosflow.
Don't worry. They're going to make it all back by charing me $.30 every time I do a debit at Whole Foods.
When you said "Coats" I thought you meant Dan Quayle's less bright replacement as Indiana senator
And neither the banks nor us will be fine if we keep importing cheap Chinese deflation and unemployment. Though being a zombie (even zombie bank) is better than a hobo, i'd guess.
This is hilarious, brilliant, perfectly executed, and profound as hell.
Fuck reality.
The regional banks are going to continue to get crushed
Of course they are. The plan was all laid out in the film Force of Evil, but no one was paying attention.
(How's that for conspiracy mongering?)
||
Wachovia admitted it didn't do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007.
"But you transfer $10,000 to a prostitution ring front organization one-time and you're ..."
-- Eliot Spitzer
|>
||
Not that there are really any sharks left for Washington Post ombudsmen to jump, but Andrew Alexander is out there giving it the old college try on the farcical New Black Panther Party voter intimidation story.
Joan Walsh has the gory details.
|>
The Panthers will be lucky to win 9. They certainly won't be intimidating to anybody in the Big 10.
People need space to breathe and consider. The wordy Quiggin thread over at CT is exhausting, you know; when you're not drowning in all the people using their words, you're freaking out about the Republicans. So.
That's going to be an expensive book, little brother.
Facebook question: someone I didn't like from school has requested to friend me. In her profile photo, one nipple is clearly visible through her top. Is this enough for me not to have to friend her?
62: Parsimon: At every bookstore, one of the clerks is always a slim, slightly-built fellow, with spectacles and a bald head. He often has a thin, reedy voice and sometimes a supercilious manner, occasionally he sports a neatly trimmed mustache. The thing is, you never see this type of man except at bookstores. Where do they come from? Do the bookstores just extrude them, or is there some kind of central depot that you order them from?
64: Is she someone you would ever see socially otherwise? If not, IGNORE!
64, 66: No "if" about it. She's not worthy.
65: Jeepers, Natilo. I don't know anyone in the book trade like that, so it's difficult to know where to begin. My first thought is that they're frustrated librarians.
Frankly, if you start with a younger man who's slim and slightly-built, with a supercilious manner, you can turn him into the balding bespectacled version in a matter of a few decades. How's nosflow's hair situation looking?
Hmph. I'll have to start taking pictures of them and put up a flickr gallery.
68: Ack, I feel like I'm always reminding people of the importance of context in aesthetics. You can't judge the quality of the nipple without thinking about the whole boob. Both boobs really.
The second breast is semi-cropped out of the photo. Can you see this?
I don't think you can ignore a friend request on the basis of that photo, but it sounds like you have other good reasons.
I've never ignored a friend request. I just mostly ignore Facebook.
74: How about "luxury South African golf and safari holidays" as a reason not to friend her?
I started a group "Shower-Free Wednesdays" and people still friend me.
Well, one person refused but that was because they didn't think "Shower-Free" needed a hyphen.
This felt pressure to friend people you don't want to friend has got to stop, I tell you what. I got a follow-up email from a sometime ex after I ignored his friend request saying "Well, you may not want to friend me, but I hope your life is going well, as you certainly deserve it."
Agh! I don't really know what to do.
I suppose you could friend her and then block her from seeing anything on your Facebook page. That's not really a solution.
I have a tag called "arm's length" that I assign to more tangential connections, who get no photos, profile updates, etc., just contact info. But I still wouldn't accept a friend from someone I unambiguously didn't like.
79: That's stupid. "shower-free" is being used as an adjective, so you definitely need the hyphen. I'll ask Molly, but I'm sure she'll back me up.
82: So *that's* why you didn't accept mine -- you didn't even see it!
I like the "arm's length" tag idea. Like real world interactions, there are various levels of friendly (or not) interaction.
83: You are correct. Most grammar-whiners are ignorant.
84: No, it's because I don't want you reading the stuff Rory writes on my wall.
I mean, someone's gotta protect the poor kid's privacy.
87 is pretty funny.
OT: I am stunned to report that Thomas Friedman is making sense, in this column in which he says it was stupid for CNN to fire a 20-year correspondent over a Twitter message.
It's hardly groundbreaking, but it's remarkably common-sensical, and I would never have seen it if I hadn't accidentally clicked on a headline link without knowing it was a Friedman column.
83, 85: Neb is the one who complains about my hyphens, not that he is responsible for over correcting on my part.
88: The Pittsburgh Pirates fired one of the guys who ran around the based dressed as a pierogi. The guy was fired because he noted, on Facebook, that the Pittsburgh Pirates were managed by idiots. They had to re-hire him because he was right and because the pierogi races are better than the baseball. Anyway, I am right now cooking pierogi of the same brand as that guy had for his costume. I'd never tried them before and curiousity kept building until I had to buy some.
"ran around the based" s/b "ran around the bases."
I thought maybe they fired him because he ran around, debased.
My whole house smells like onions and butter. That is not a complaint.
88: Thanks for pointing that out, Witt. Friedman's "what has gotten into us?" is well-placed and valuable, given the vague debate on media freedom and accountability that's been going on lately. Good for him.
I'm really surprised, actually. Huh.
We need to see a lot more pushback like this -- from mainstream opinion makers -- not only on that issue, but on whatever the fuck the Republican party thinks it's doing to the country, or wants to try to do.
I sound sickly earnest to my own ears here; I think it's because I sort of feel like we have to go to the mainstream media, hat in hand, and entreat them to help out, because things are getting kind of unfunny.
I can recommend not over cooking pierogi, but even if they get a bit crunchy, they're still pretty good. Frozen pierogi are near the top of my frozen pasta list.
We need to see a lot more pushback like this...
Yep. And everybody should read Jay Rosen's newest essay, "Objectivity as a Tool of Persuasion," and his previous one too.
Bah. 98 was me.
And I should say that there is one howler in Friedman's piece, and that is the notion that reporters should not express condolences when someone on their beat dies. I have probably watched fewer hours of television news than 99.999999% of living Americans, and even I can remember numerous occasions. It's just that there are rules about which ones you're allowed to express sympathy for.
I can recommend not over cooking pierogi, but even if they get a bit crunchy, they're still pretty good. Frozen pierogi are near the top of my frozen pasta list.
If you, by which I mean me, do not have the fortune to live within 1,000 miles of fresh pierogi, frozen pierogi are goddamn wonderful.
Damn, it just occurred to me that 101 should have said:
Pierogi!
I'm probably very close to a fresh pierogi, or at least close to where a fresh pierogi will be tomorrow at lunch. I'll have to look around because it is possible I've never had a fresh pierogi.
Pierogi/kolache zones probably correlate well with Zepplin/Skynard zones.
Central Texas is, as it turns out, a kolache zone. Lots of Czechs settled here back in the day. Sadly, no Poles, though.
To further complicate the correlation, this is a Bob Wills zone.
I have a hard time distinguishing between pelmeni, vareniki, and pierogi, but it seems very important when ordering to get it right.
We've got all kinds of eastern Europeans each with their own church, national filled pasta, and confusing history that I can never remember. However, of all of the places I've lived, this is the one where I've heard the least Skynard. Zepplin levels have been fairly constant throughout my life.
Ježíšmaria. Kolač is sweet (singular, koláče plural), about like a danish. Pierogi are savory. The nasty things sold as kolache in TX airports are the equivalent of a microwaveaqble burrito.
Restaurant cooking in CZ gets better every time I go back, but the only tradition of great food is for feasts. On the other hand, there are english cooks shouting at a camera on TV now, so who knows? Czechs tend to like their music maudlin (country music sung in Czech is popular), and are not that fond of our own culture. Mayor Cermak probably liked polkas.
Speaking of pierogi, I have to have a meeting tomorrow to plan the meeting on Tuesday where I get to lay off 30+ people. The fun never stops!
Would it be weird if I just encouraged them to strike and occupy the building? I mean, that's what being a revolutionary manager is all about, right? Does anyone here know Tom Frank so they can ask him?
The nasty things sold as kolache in TX airports are the equivalent of a microwaveaqble burrito.
I have no idea if the things sold as kolaches at the Texas Czech stops are more authentic than the things sold at the Texas airports, but it's at least a decent enough sized cultural presence that mocking the airport version doesn't mean much.
I have a hard time distinguishing between pelmeni, vareniki, and pierogi, but it seems very important when ordering to get it right.
Are two of the three filled with bugs? What's the danger?
I have to have a meeting tomorrow to plan the meeting on Tuesday where I get to lay off 30+ people.
Oh man, Natilo, that's horrible. What a miserable task for you, and how unlucky for them.
I wish I had something helpful to say.
Somehow I was too absorbed in kolaches and pierogies to fully absorb 110 until Witt quoted it. That totally sucks, Natty.
Really, it's okay. One of our organizational mentors told me I would do a good job because I am a caring person.
Just another "put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels" moment that I will fail to take advantage of.
(Just to be clear, everybody pretty much knows what the content of the meeting will be. My biggest concern is that things will blow up because some of my fellow managers are congenitally incapable of sticking to one message, especially if it feels better to say something else in the moment.
Facebook tricked me into sending two friend requests a while back. They weren't clearly labeled suggestions and I wasn't reading carefully (so, uh, maybe they were), so I thought I was accepting them. I would have accepted them had they been requests.
I suspect that I inadvertently declined a fb friend request from someone here because I didn't match the name with the pseud and didn't bother to check out the mutual friends. If that was you, sorry!
Pierogi are savory.
Not necessarily. Blueberry pierogi are one of the traditional forms, and people also put other berries in the things, as well as sweet cheese. I'm jealous of all these folks who can apparently find good pierogi for sale in the US. Here in New York they're inevitably way too heavy on tasteless gummy potato. I'll have to wait till my next time in Poland to get my aunt's amazing ruskie pierogi aka Ruthenian aka white cheese and fried onion pierogi. Serve with skwarki and sour cream and yum. Also good are the sauerkraut and porcini pierogi.
Restaurant cooking in CZ gets better every time I go back
I haven't been there for around a decade, but Christ knows it couldn't get worse.
I don't think it was you, but I can't remember. I guess I could check, but that would involve logging in. I may be the most disappointing facebook friend to accept, since I posted one update almost two years ago. That's it.
The nasty things sold as kolache in TX airports are the equivalent of a microwaveaqble burrito.
As heebie says, I'm not talking airports. I'm talking Czech bakeries.
119: Nice try, Jesus, but you could have figured out Sir Kraab-A-Lot if you really wanted to be my friend.
Blueberry pierogi
That must taste funny with onions.
But I'm already your friend in this alternate pseudonymous universe. That's what I tell myself, at least.
Sauerkraut and porcini pierogis are making my head melt with their imagined goodness.
I made my own pierogis for the first time a couple of months back and I still can't get over how good they were.
I made my own jiaozi a few months ago too. Surprisingly easy! I might have to try more dumplingish things. Kreplach might be fun.
Jiaozi is really easy; the only thing that can make it seem difficult is the fact that it's usually made in large batches, which can give the impression that there's lots to do.
I believe that there's no good restaurant for Pierogis in LA, but I'm probably wrong. I live near the Polish church, and the food at their annual festival is insanely good. Also truly bizarrely attractive people.
I made my own pierogis for the first time a couple of months back and I still can't get over how good they were.
Recipe?
