The insane hype around Franklin mystifies me, but I guess I just need to try it again. I recently went to a family wedding in California and a whole bunch of people were asking me about Franklin.
I have a deep and abiding love for both Salt Lick and Ruby's. I took a college pal to Ruby's for lunch when he visited recently and the place was empty, but the food was amazing! Why don't they get more love? I guess people want something new.
― odd proggy geezer (Moodles), Friday, 11 July 2014 17:37 (ten years ago) link
ruby's is my fave tbh if only because its the only bbq joint to make a policy of feeding touring musicians
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 11 July 2014 17:45 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/8WRQPXf.gif
― Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (nakhchivan), Friday, 11 July 2014 23:13 (ten years ago) link
hypno.......tic
― cpt navajo (darraghmac), Friday, 11 July 2014 23:19 (ten years ago) link
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view3/1653073/black-or-white-mj-o.gif
― balls, Saturday, 12 July 2014 00:46 (ten years ago) link
more bromwich:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n13/david-bromwich/the-worlds-most-important-spectator
pretty good rundown of how half-assed everything turns out. but in the end i don't know how this analysis differs from ron fournier.
― goole, Tuesday, 15 July 2014 21:48 (ten years ago) link
the specifics of his charges aside, this guy is a good writer. i especially like:
Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, presents himself as another adoptive and grateful American of Cuban descent (though born in Canada). He bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Joe McCarthy – a clean-shaven, teetotal McCarthy, without the jowl and the after-hours squint. Cruz talks smoothly and skilfully, always in a tone of accusation: a manner that one might suppose had passed with the death of McCarthy, but nationalist rage and resentment have a melody that lingers on.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 16 July 2014 23:40 (ten years ago) link
a few instances of passive voice keep this from being a real success, and I question this insistence on Obama's poor relations with congressional Dems; we'll know when the bios are published.
Something to chew on: A perilous and unspoken accord in American politics has grown up while no one was looking, which unites the liberal left and the authoritarian right. They agree in their unquestioning support of a government without checks or oversight; and it is the Obama presidency that has cemented the agreement. The state apparatus which supports wars and the weapons industry for Republicans yields welfare and expanded entitlements for Democrats. The Democrats take to the wars indifferently but are willing to accept them for what they get in return. The Republicans hate the entitlements and all that goes by the name of welfare, but they cannot escape the charge of hypocrisy when they vote for ever-enlarging military entitlements.
This sounds like it was true in 1988.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 July 2014 23:57 (ten years ago) link
i'm probably overrating bromwich a bit but i feel like so much political writing these days is pitched at the same tone of apocalyptic hysteria that it's a relief to find someone saying these things in a calm and reasonable way.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 17 July 2014 00:24 (ten years ago) link
a few instances of passive voice keep this from being a real success
hah this sentence was spoken in a tweedy baritone i hope
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 17 July 2014 02:02 (ten years ago) link
rubbed the corduroy off my elbow patches from leaning on table too long
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 17 July 2014 02:04 (ten years ago) link
The passive voice is no more egregious than actively attributing specific thoughts and emotions to huge, vague abstractions, such as ''most christians', 'all right-thinking people' or 'white liberals'.
― frog latin (Aimless), Thursday, 17 July 2014 02:11 (ten years ago) link
he IS motherfucking Dubya.
@ggreenwaldSome nice folks tortured some other folks. But we shouldn't judge them and definitely shouldn't punish them
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/obama-cia-torture-some-folks-brennan-spying
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 2 August 2014 15:49 (ten years ago) link
Obama Told Aides He's 'Really Good At Killing People,' New Book 'Double Down' Claims
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/03/obama-drones-double-down_n_4208815.html
― Mordy, Saturday, 2 August 2014 15:52 (ten years ago) link
we can't even be sure it's his birthday today, can we?
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 4 August 2014 20:33 (ten years ago) link
found myself wondering this the other day -- what quotes are ppl going to associate with obama in the future?
considering how excited so many ppl were back in 2009 to have a smart, literate, well-read president, i'm hard-pressed to think of many memorable things he's actually said since then. most of us would instantly associate FDR, JFK, LBJ, nixon, reagan, even W with two or three memorable lines -- i can't think of anything for obama.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 21 August 2014 22:24 (ten years ago) link
i guess 'we tortured some folks' is a contender, sadly.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 21 August 2014 22:25 (ten years ago) link
Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.
― example (crüt), Thursday, 21 August 2014 22:28 (ten years ago) link
LATERS
― owe me the shmoney (m bison), Friday, 22 August 2014 01:55 (ten years ago) link
"Folks have gotta settle down."
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 22 August 2014 02:04 (ten years ago) link
Those song mash-ups, maybe--he'll be singing "Fancy" or "Blurred Lines" or "Call Me Maybe" staccato.
― clemenza, Friday, 22 August 2014 02:09 (ten years ago) link
The first part of this is depressing to revisit, but lol at max's vivid fanfic from April 30, 2008
― Karl Malone, Friday, 22 August 2014 02:10 (ten years ago) link
This thread, I meant
the audacity of hope
― the late great, Friday, 22 August 2014 03:49 (ten years ago) link
'likeable enough'
― j., Friday, 22 August 2014 03:56 (ten years ago) link
so now he's just going and betraying the constitution
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opinion/obamas-betrayal-of-the-constitution.html?smid=tw-share&_r=4
― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, 12 September 2014 15:42 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/kWYUV4Z.png?1?7534
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 12 September 2014 16:52 (ten years ago) link
yea this whole thing has been wildly disappointing, some victories aside. should've known better though than to expect a lot. also he was still the best electable person running in 08, doesn't say much though.
― marcos, Friday, 12 September 2014 16:55 (ten years ago) link
my favorite thing on earth is the hilary fans in my life keening for the day she's president, as though she'd lead us into the light rather than tweak the crosshairs
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 12 September 2014 22:29 (ten years ago) link
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-meltdown/
― Mordy, Friday, 12 September 2014 22:54 (ten years ago) link
i know a lot of enthusiastic pro-hillary dems but they're probably to the right of yr hillary fans
I'm not sure I agree with the estimable Commentary writer about the missile shield/Poland and citing Israel's disappointment re our changing Iran policy.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 12 September 2014 23:49 (ten years ago) link
Yet, with the qualified exception of the liberal-democratic model, each of these systems wound up collapsing of its own weight—precisely the reason Dean Acheson, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and the other postwar statesmen “present at the creation” understood the necessity of the Truman Doctrine, the Atlantic Alliance, containment, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and all the rest of the institutional and ideological architecture of America’s post–World War II leadership. These were men who knew that isolationism, global-disarmament pledges, international law, or any other principle based on “common humanity” could provide no lasting security against ambitious dictatorships and conniving upstarts. The only check against disorder and anarchy was order and power. The only hope that order and power would be put to the right use was to make sure that a preponderance of power lay in safe, benign, and confident hands.
ok stop
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 12 September 2014 23:51 (ten years ago) link
obv there's plenty to disagree w/ there - commentary is not exactly ilx-spectrum politics. but i think there's a strong case there too, or at least a fun enough one to read that it deserves inclusion on this illustrious thread.
― Mordy, Saturday, 13 September 2014 00:06 (ten years ago) link
hasn't morphed into Dysentery yet?
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 13 September 2014 04:43 (ten years ago) link
Not that Egypt's 2 successors to Mubarak have been anything to write home about, but I don't agree with the Commentary writer that Obama should have tried to have done the below
Was there anything he could realistically have done to prevent Hosni Mubarak’s ouster
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 13 September 2014 14:03 (ten years ago) link
i don't really feel qualified to play monday night quarterback with regard to obama's middle east policy. bret stephens believes that bush had the answer, which is that the US must project power abroad to maintain global order. we've only ever done this surreptitiously though; the myth of the sovereignty of our client states was never something we abandoned. reagan wasn't open about his involvement in nicaragua. cold war conflicts were justified in national security terms -- communism was framed as an existential threat. what stephens is calling for seems out of line, not with the practice of foreign policy in past administrations but with the theory. it's disingenuous for him to frame obama's relatively hands off policy -- as he understands it -- as a diversion from the mainstream of what presidents have done. i think the real situation here is that there was no clear series of moves that would have prevented the rise of the islamic state that didn't involve US troops staying in iraq.
― Treeship, Monday, 15 September 2014 00:36 (ten years ago) link
would be v. happy to never read anyone praise truman or the odious acheson as 'great statesmen' who saved us all from postwar chaos et al ever again.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 15 September 2014 21:42 (ten years ago) link
you might want to avoid the recent 'the unknown known' film about rumsfeld
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 16 September 2014 04:17 (ten years ago) link
ha -- i'm a fan of morris but couldn't bring myself to spend two hours with rumsfeld.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 04:24 (ten years ago) link
Does stupid stuff.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 23:22 (ten years ago) link
p. zero bama doesn't think it's important to put advocates of monetary stimulus on the Fed board?
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/18/6392635/obama-monetary-policy
― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, 19 September 2014 18:39 (ten years ago) link
7-4
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/25/ryan-lizza/lizza-says-obama-has-bombed-more-nations-bush/
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 25 September 2014 15:40 (nine years ago) link
richard cohen regurgitating a narrative i've seen in many places
For a while Obama seemed to be sleepwalking through this unraveling, as if resigned to America’s more limited role. “The world has always been messy,” he said in August, sounding almost like a bystander. His attempt to calibrate every action, as if a perfect result were attainable, resulted in inaction. Vladimir Putin saw this. ISIS saw this. Now he has awoken to the need for American leadership and firmness. It is a belated awakening, but important. Syria has demonstrated how inaction can be more dangerous than the focused use of force, and a vacuum the best incubator of terrorism.
questions here. what would cohen have had obama do to provent putin's aggression. invade? start a war with russia? and in iraq, short of keeping ground troops there, what could obama have done to prevent the rise of ISIS. put "more pressure" on maliki to integrate sunnis into his government? but how? give "more support" to the syrian rebels? the support we did give them is the source of ISIS' current arsenal. follow through with his plans to bomb assad last year? that probably would have helped ISIS if anything.
when people say the president is "sleepwalking" or "inactive" or whatever, are they just saying that he has been too slow to go to war even though he has been controversially and illegally bombing several sovereign countries at a time since the day he got into office? and now that he has "woken up" to the importance of american unilateral power, does that mean that we will see more defense spending and more invasions and more violence perpetrated by america from now on? is the obnoxious smugness of cohen et al a winking acknowledgment that obama's original, stated goal as a candidate of focusing on domestic policy has been discredited? they say it in such a coded way.
― Treeship, Thursday, 25 September 2014 15:51 (nine years ago) link
that's a masterful recitation of received wisdom, Rich.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 25 September 2014 15:52 (nine years ago) link
It is a belated awakening, but important. Syria has demonstrated how inaction can be more dangerous than the focused use of force, and a vacuum the best incubator of terrorism.
srsly these sentences are deadwood. This is Heritage Foundation twaddle.
yeah, it's grotesque. "the king's come home at last." it sounds like every rogue group or leader in the world is just a disobedient child and all obama has to do is come in from the den and yell "enough!" to get them to sort themselves out. completely ignores the fact that literally no one who lives in these countries regards the united states as the legitimate authority there.
― Treeship, Thursday, 25 September 2014 15:59 (nine years ago) link
“The world has always been messy,” he said in August, sounding almost like a bystander. His attempt to calibrate every action, as if a perfect result were attainable, resulted in inaction. Vladimir Putin saw this.
this shit is so stupid. does he seriously not remember that russia invaded georgia when bush was president?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 25 September 2014 19:08 (nine years ago) link
when people say the president is "sleepwalking" or "inactive" or whatever, are they just saying that he has been too slow to go to war even though he has been controversially and illegally bombing several sovereign countries at a time since the day he got into office?
unfortunately, yes that is exactly what they mean. obama's bombed more countries than bush did, and that's still not enough. these guys are out of their minds.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 25 September 2014 19:10 (nine years ago) link
salient point
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 25 September 2014 19:16 (nine years ago) link