It’s The Weekend!

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Let the mutherfuker burn!

Edit: Shouldn’t a post include at least some text other than the headline? I think so, anyway, so there you go. -SC

Filed under: Open Thread |

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63 Responses

  2. Brent Nyitray, on March 1, 2014 at 8:49 am said:

    fristing your own post is dirty pool

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    • ScottC, on March 1, 2014 at 12:08 pm said:

      Brent:

      fristing your own post is dirty pool.

      Apparently he was in such a rush to Frist, he forgot to actually write anything in the post itself.

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  3. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 1, 2014 at 8:55 am said:

    Spoken like a person kicking themselves for missing an opportunity.

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  5. quarterback, on March 1, 2014 at 12:54 pm said:

    From my admittedly limited following of the Mann v. Steyn war, I think Mann is going to be hammered, and it will be gratifying to see. What a creep and miscreant he is.

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  6. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 1, 2014 at 1:31 pm said:

    Whole lotta fristing butthurt going on.

    A whole lotta.

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  7. quarterback, on March 1, 2014 at 2:55 pm said:

    I have been a National Review subscriber for over thirty years, maybe thirty-five. At some point, my mother in law took over paying for it for me for Christmas each year. In my basement are shelves of issues from the 80s. All of them, I imagine. But I haven’t actually read the print issues in a long time. I read a few articles and the Corner on line. But I just opened up the March 10 issue, and I’m a little surprised to find that it’s still pretty darn good. Not the glory days of the 70s or 80s, but darn good. NR has done a lot to disappoint me in recent years, but it is still publishing some terrific material by terrific writers. I’m amazed that Rob Long is still writing his satire feature. It is the bomb.

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  8. quarterback, on March 1, 2014 at 5:16 pm said:

    Troll, since I was gone for a long time, may I ask what the deal is with your new alias? Have you read Witness? I did years ago when I was educating myself. Great book.

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  9. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 1, 2014 at 5:30 pm said:

    It’s this article by Cass Sunstein. It is objectively the stupidest thing EVER written. In it, this moron believes that the Tea Party believe’s that Progressives harbor a secret, or not so secret desire to control the population. They (us Baggers) believe this because Whitaker Chambers told us to believe it because Algier Hiss er, secretly held a view that he and his ilk should control the populace.

    To sum up, idiot sites Whitaker Chamber’s proven fear as inspiration for us Bagger’s irrational fear.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/how-the-alger-hiss-case-explains-the-tea-party.html

    It really is breathtakingly stupid.

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  10. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 1, 2014 at 6:28 pm said:

    Giggle.

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  11. quarterback, on March 1, 2014 at 6:29 pm said:

    “Chambers’ broader charge — that liberalism was a species of socialism, “inching its ice cap over the nation” — polarized the nation. His attack on the patriotism of the Ivy League elite reflected an important strand in American culture, and it helped to initiate suspicions that persist to this day.”

    Clearly he’s right, Troll. I hope you aren’t suggesting that anything that has happened since 1949 could possibly explain Tea Party paranoia. What more could progs have done to prove to you that they aren’t really socialists. Obama has practically dismantled the federal government. We might as well live in Somalia.

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    • ScottC, on March 2, 2014 at 11:54 am said:

      qb:

      Cosign your Dionne comment, Scott. Excellent.

      Thanks.

      I have a question for anyone here who thinks that using the law to force someone to cater to a gay wedding celebration is even remotely consistent with notions of justice or freedom:

      Should a Jewish business owner who closes his shop on Saturday for religious reasons be forced by the law to open his business to people who only want to shop on Saturday?

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  12. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 1, 2014 at 7:40 pm said:

    I’m sorry you can’t unread it QB. My IQ dropped again when I perused tonight.

    And as many here will attest, I have none to spare.

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  13. Michigoose, on March 2, 2014 at 11:46 am said:

    Have you guys missed your token liberal this week?

    Been offline and out of town.

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  14. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 2, 2014 at 12:16 pm said:

    Fascinating reason as to why she’ll take the fifth.

    Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment rights not to implicate herself when she appeared before the committee in May 2013, but only after delivering a brief statement defending herself. At the time, Issa and other Republicans said she had waived her Fifth Amendment rights by delivering the statement.

    Notice the word choice?

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2014/03/lerners-attorney-says-she-wont-testify-issa-wrong-184292.html

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  15. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 2, 2014 at 12:16 pm said:

    Hi Michi,

    Hope all is well.

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  16. Michigoose, on March 2, 2014 at 12:36 pm said:

    Hi, “Carl”.

    All is fine; I made a spontaneous trip down to DC on the train on Monday (and I love being able to say that sentence) and then headed to SLC for a few days for Race for the Cure coordination meetings. I feel like I’ve been away for months rather than just a few days for some reason. . .

    And I do have to agree with Brent: fristing your own post is dirty pool! 🙂

    EDIT: I also have to agree with Scott, and you’ve gotta have more than just a headline!

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  17. quarterback, on March 2, 2014 at 12:50 pm said:

    There’s no doubt in my mind that the same people who want to compel objectors to perform at or cater gay weddings will have a rationalization to avoid the Jewish shop owner. It isn’t a matter of principle. It is a matter of making failure to conform to homonormative ideology illegal. Call it the new homosexualism. It is about destroying any sense of the natural order of sex and gender. And family. It is about suppressing religious dissent.

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    • markinaustin, on March 2, 2014 at 8:32 pm said:

      QB – while I agree that the expansive view of the commerce clause is the heart of Congressional power in the federal system today, the original CRA was thought to authorize statutes outlawing discrimination against the former slaves in a broader context than direct state action. The phrase “under color of law” was thought by the post CW congresses to include rail travel because the rails were operating on public easements. It was thought that municipal licensing of road houses could bring them within the ambit of federal reach by those congresses as well. There were other areas that were thought to be covered, but I am going from memory.

      Also, there was the whole debate about whether Chinese immigrants were protected, which I think came down in favor of protecting them.

      I suppose this stuff is available to read on the web somewhere by now.

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  18. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 2, 2014 at 12:59 pm said:

    And I do have to agree with Brent: fristing your own post is dirty pool!
    EDIT: I also have to agree with Scott, and you’ve gotta have more than just a headline!

    Sore, sore losers.

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  20. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 2, 2014 at 1:29 pm said:

    For Brent, Mon Amor.

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  21. quarterback, on March 2, 2014 at 8:50 pm said:

    Mark, I assume you mean the original Civil Rights Act of 1866/75, held unconstitutional in 1883? Yes, the court held the 14th applies only to state action. That has always seemed to me perfectly clear from the text.

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    • markinaustin, on March 3, 2014 at 6:50 am said:

      QB, I previously described the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 which voided the CRA of 1875, but not the 1866-70 CRA. What I am saying here is that the same Congress that wrote the 13th, 14th, and 15th A. THOUGHT their amendments were broad enough to permit statutes that covered private actions that were permitted or licensed by state action, most particularly access to rail transport. It was the basis for the dissent of the elder Harlan in 1883.

      From memory I had suggested that the Civil Rights cases were decided in ’85. 1883 is correct.

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    • ScottC, on March 3, 2014 at 7:07 am said:

      qb/mark:

      Wikipedia (I know, I know) has this to say about the CRA of 1866:

      Senator Lyman Trumbull was the Senate sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and he argued that Congress had power to enact it in order to eliminate a discriminatory “badge of servitude” prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.[9] John A. Bingham, principal author of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, was one of several Republicans who believed (prior to that Amendment) that Congress lacked power to pass the 1866 Act.[10] In the 20th century, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately adopted Trumbull’s Thirteenth Amendment rationale for congressional power to ban racial discrimination by states and by private parties, in view of the fact that the Thirteenth Amendment does not require a state actor.[9]

      I don’t know if that is true, but if so it is yet again an example of SCOTUS being totally disingenuous about what the constitution says. The 13th amendment relates only to “slavery and involuntary servitude”, and says nothing whatsoever about “racial discrimination”.

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  22. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 2, 2014 at 9:07 pm said:

    Who else agrees with this?

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  23. quarterback, on March 2, 2014 at 9:34 pm said:

    I can’t fathom why Obama and Kerry are even trying to look relevant at this point. They are making Carter look like Churchill or Reagan.

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  25. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 6:58 am said:

    Mark, I’ve never studied the historical basis for the factual premise (same Congress …). My memory tells me that the first series of acts, pre-70 or 75, was passed before the 14th was ratified, and fell for that reason. Perhaps my memory is wrong. But one could surmise that Congress then, as in the 20th and 21st centuries, just didn’t pay much attention to the limits on its powers.

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    • markinaustin, on March 3, 2014 at 7:53 am said:

      QB- 1866 CRA was reenacted in 1870 to meet the possible objection that the 1868 ratifications did not by themselves ratify the 1866 CRA. 1875 CRA was the first Public Accomodations Act – and it was the subject of the ’83 cases.

      Scott, I think I understand your objection to confusing slavery with discrimination. You don’t have a quarrel with outlawing state action that denies the privileges and immunities of citizenship – say, discrimination against blacks serving on juries – but you think any private entity can discriminate under the literal language of the three amendments. Is that correct?

      Would you distinguish between private businesses in general and those which had obtained a franchise from the state, like public utilities?

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      • ScottC, on March 3, 2014 at 8:10 am said:

        mark:

        You don’t have a quarrel with outlawing state action that denies the privileges and immunities of citizenship – say, discrimination against blacks serving on juries – but you think any private entity can discriminate under the literal language of the three amendments. Is that correct?

        Yes, that is correct.

        Would you distinguish between private businesses in general and those which had obtained a franchise from the state, like public utilities?

        Well, I would distinguish between a private business and one which had been granted some kind of legal monopoly (like a public utility or perhaps railroads), but I would not take the next step of distinguishing between an entirely private business and one which requires some kind of government approval or license.

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  26. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 7:00 am said:

    lol Fineman. Couldn’t we take everyone like him and Dionne, put them on a barge, and push them out to sea?

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  27. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 7:20 am said:

    I had completely forgotten about Jones v Alfred H. Mayer. Yes it seems a big stretch. Anything can be construed as “a badge of” slavery.

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    • markinaustin, on March 3, 2014 at 7:37 am said:

      New subject: movies.

      We saw several of the nominated films. R and I avoided both 12 Years and Wolf of Wall Street.

      Of the others, we thought all were good except Her, in which we were supposed to become interested in a self pitying man who is a professional writer of personal letters for people who are too busy or shallow or lazy to write for themselves and who falls in love with the A.I. in his cell phone. It was awful, we thought.

      The next worse film, we thought, was American Hustle, but it was pretty good.

      Gravity in 3D IMAX was spectacular. Nebraska and Dallas Buyers Club were thoroughly entertaining and our favorites. Philomena and Captain Phillips should not disappoint you either.

      We also saw and recommend 20 Feet from Stardom and one of the foreign nominees, The Hunt.

      In terms of our differing tastes, I enjoy action films and plot twists more than Rosanne, so although we both liked and disliked the same films I liked Captain Phillips and American Hustle more than she did. She was clear in her preference for Nebraska as the best film she saw.

      There are movies I avoid as painful: holocaust films, horror films, and brutal films. I know I have missed many great movies, but I slept better. I also have never enjoyed frat prank movies unless Bill Murray was in them, so if WoWS had starred a young Bill Murray I might have gone to see it.

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  28. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 7:34 am said:

    But Mayer at least has some tenuous connection to the text, unlike cases like Roe and Windsor. Honestly, it’s time for anyone who hoped the Court would ever return to any respect for its governing document to let go of that hope. The Constitution is a dead letter. The Court uses it as a basis for the authority of its own rulings, and that is all. Everything after that is just sophistry. Obamacare and Windsor ended the charade.

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  29. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 7:45 am said:

    I pretty much only see action/adventure/scifi at the theater, and with my son at college now, even that is limited. Gravity was indeed spectacular, although I saw scientific flaws that surprised me, and I had a couple of story complaints. Wanted to see American Hustle but didn’t bother. No way I would pay for WOWS after reading the reviews, nor would I in a million years pay to see Her. Give me a break. Would have liked to see 12 Years but couldn’t make myself. I am sure it is great. But I’ve just plain spent enough time watching and reading about those horrors. No desire to see Captain Phillips (yawn), Nebraska (huh?), or DBC (no chance).

    The movie theater is too expensive to waste on “good” movies.

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    • ScottC, on March 3, 2014 at 8:01 am said:

      I liked American Hustle, although not as much as I expected. I was compelled to do some post-viewing research on ABSCAM, an event that I had only a vague familiarity with and the movie caused me to be interested in knowing more.

      The effects in Gravity were fantastic, although I was a little irritated by the implausibility.

      I watched Captain Phillips just this past weekend and liked it. Like American Hustle, it compelled me to learn a bit more about what actually happened. Apparently there is some question as to just how “heroic” the real Captain Phillips was.

      I ignored WoWS, after hearing about it from a few colleagues. I will watch 12 Years a Slave at some point, but will probably try to read the book first. Never even heard of Her or Nebraska until I read Mark’s post. (I did not bother with the Oscars last night…zero interest in Hollywood’s narcissism and self-congratulations.

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    • markinaustin, on March 3, 2014 at 8:08 am said:

      I see Bond movies and action movies and scifi with my male friends and/or my son. My wife and I do date movies.

      These are date movies. Saw Monuments Men with wife and double dated with daughter and her BF. Date movie with some action touches.

      As to wasting money on date movies – well, she won’t willingly see James Bond – and we like our date nights.

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  30. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 7:52 am said:

    Scott, I have no argument with anyone who says Wickard was the end. I openly laughed at it in law school and have always considered it probably the best place to mark the end. I referred here to the end of the charade that has been going on ever since to pretend what the Court is doing has something to do with the Constitution.

    Most Con Law case books only include the actual document at the back of the book. That is how the Sunsteins and Tribes of the world see things. The document is an afterthought to the wise words of our overlord judges. In a sane world, one might think the first assignments would include actually reading and analyzing it. That’s considered foolish and hidebound.

    Edit: Tribe’s book is really a treatise, not a case book.

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  31. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 8:04 am said:

    I did not bother with the Oscars last night…zero interest in Hollywood’s narcissism and self-congratulations.

    And how! I watched Walking Dead. I did see a note that Bill Murray called out the late, great Harold Ramis.

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  32. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 8:08 am said:

    My big aversion to American Hustle, although I will watch it someday, is to the same 70s fashion extravanganza that everyone else thinks is so cool about it. 70s fashion was horrific. Saw it once, don’t need to see it again.

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    • ScottC, on March 3, 2014 at 8:14 am said:

      qb:

      My big aversion to American Hustle, although I will watch it someday, is to the same 70s fashion extravanganza that everyone else thinks is so cool about it. 70s fashion was horrific. Saw it once, don’t need to see it again.

      It actually does a good job of reminding us just how horrific it was. Also worth noting was the fantastic 1970’s description of one of the first commercial microwave ovens as “a science oven”. Very funny.

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      • markinaustin, on March 3, 2014 at 8:29 am said:

        Why do we give a flying fuck whether or not Putin takes back the Crimea, which is historically Russian and which houses the Russian warm water fleet? The Ukraine has been a complete kleptocracy and is now pretty much bankrupt. I realize that standard diplomacy “views with alarm” but this is all that there is to see here. The Russians need Sevastopol, they need to keep it, and whatever they do to keep it is their business.

        Why does the press think Russia securing its naval base is destabilizing? Suppose Cuba said we had to vacate Gitmo. We would ignore Cuba and “world opinion”.

        If Kiev can hang onto the non-Crimean Ukraine, that would be an accomplishment only if the new government is less corrupt than the previous ones.

        I don’t think we can help the actual western leaning population of most of Ukraine without their having an honest government. Aid? Natural gas? All gets stolen by bureaucrats, unless this coup is a sea change from the previous two.

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        • ScottC, on March 3, 2014 at 8:44 am said:

          mark:

          If Kiev can hang onto the non-Crimean Ukraine, that would be an accomplishment only if the new government is less corrupt than the previous ones.

          Wasn’t the previous one basically just a Putin proxy?

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        • markinaustin, on March 3, 2014 at 9:02 am said:

          Scott, my recollection is that they split from Russia and had a corrupt government, then the pro-Putin guy took over and put the crooked woman in jail, and he was corrupt, and now there is a pro-western coup and maybe it won’t be utterly corrupt, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

          My guess is that it is not an overplay for Putin to secure his naval base against a pro-west regime but that it would be if he invades the Ukraine proper, because Russia’s interest in the long run is to be at ease with Europe, not in what could amount to a trade war it would perpetually lose.

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        • ScottC, on March 3, 2014 at 9:12 am said:

          mark:

          My guess is that it is not an overplay for Putin to secure his naval base against a pro-west regime but that it would be if he invades the Ukraine proper…

          I don’t now how significant this is, but it is at least notable that Putin both asked for and got his parlaiment’s approval to use troops in “Ukraine”, not just “Crimea”.

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        • markinaustin, on March 3, 2014 at 9:23 am said:

          Scott, I am sure Putin could overplay this and may well do so. We have no ability to respond with force until he threatens Poland, and he knows it. So Ukraine may well be doomed to become a Russian vassal again. But this time it would chill Russia’s relations with Europe and lead to a long term fortification of Poland, CZ, Slovakia, and Hungary, and trade barriers Russia does not want or need.

          Russia twenty years from now would be richer and happier if it simply secures the Crimea and does not invade the Ukraine proper.

          The Kiev regime should quickly reinstate Russian as an official language and reverse its first big mistake, btw.

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  33. Michigoose, on March 3, 2014 at 8:29 am said:

    70s fashion was horrific. Saw it once, don’t need to see it again.

    I agree completely with you on this. Platform shoes–ugh! And polyester. . . I still have the occasional nightmare of my dad’s powder blue leisure suit.

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  34. lmsinca, on March 3, 2014 at 8:51 am said:

    I never watch the Oscars………………really hate them. But I do like movies. I thought “Nebraska”, which we watched at home, was the most boring movie ever. I couldn’t decide if I should take a nap or just turn it off. The end resurrected it somewhat but not much. I loved “American Hustle” and thought the acting and story were both superb. “Captain Phillips” was pretty good but only because of Tom Hanks really and the the main Pirate did a great job of acting I thought. Didn’t see “Gravity” or “WoWS”. I like both Bullock and Di Capprio but I think they’re in an over acting phase right now and just don’t enjoy watching them like I used to! I’ll probably watch “12 Years” at home some time although I haven’t really heard that much about it.

    Who doesn’t hate 70’s fashion?

    @ Mark, I love date night movies too but truly love a good James Bond or even “Thor” type movie. Can’t imagine why?

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    • markinaustin, on March 3, 2014 at 9:16 am said:

      LMS – I look at it this way – if R loved UT basketball live, or Star Trek or Bond or Iron Man or westerns or war or spy movies I would never see my son.

      I thought Nebraska was funny all the way through it. It just tickled me.

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  35. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 3, 2014 at 9:02 am said:

    I did not like last night’s Walking Dead.

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  36. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 3, 2014 at 9:05 am said:

    I did switch to the Oscars just as Jim Carrey did a hilarious impression of Bruce Dern from The Cowboys.

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  37. lmsinca, on March 3, 2014 at 9:27 am said:

    I thought Nebraska was funny all the way through it. It just tickled me.

    I though it was sad and depressing. Weird. I’ve been to those parts of Montana and Wyoming etc, never Nebraska though, and they’re really depressing places to me. That’s why my grandparents left and came to CA, thank God!

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  38. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 10:25 am said:

    Everyone had a powder blue leisure suit. Just wow. We did that.

    I have this view that part of the 60s actually happened in the 70s, the 70s in the 80s, the 80s in the 90s, so you don’t really have to be quite old enough to remember the 70s to remember the 70s. But I was born in 61 (Barack and I in the same month!) and saw enough, wore enough. Checkered bellbottoms, pastel polyester, lime green, fringe, wide collars, bad hair (although mine was ultra cool)–blech.

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  39. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 10:26 am said:

    Troll, whassamatta, you don’t like Daryl’s senstive side coming out?

    I could have used a little breakaway from Daryl and Beth, too. The girl who plays her btw looks about 10 years older than she does in the show and the part she is playing. Weird.

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  40. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 10:34 am said:

    My knowledge of Ukraine is too poor to have a worthwhile opinion about what should really happen to it. Since it is obvious that the US isn’t going to do anything about any of it, I just think it is foolish to pretend we are, let alone engage in bluster and Obama > Putin bravado.

    Obama tries to hold some imaginary d***-measuring contest with Putin; the world laughs.

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  41. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 3, 2014 at 10:43 am said:

    I’m tired of repetitive storylines. It’s filler to add more episodes.

    Let’s get back to drama like when Carl whacked his mother.

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  42. quarterback, on March 3, 2014 at 11:04 am said:

    Walking Dead really has been such a waste of potential. I still will watch to the end, but I sometimes would like them to just kill all the characters except maybe Daryl, Carol, and Maggie and move on to a better approach. It’s strange how so many people get killed, but it seems like nothing ever really happens that is important. I couldn’t wait for Herschel to be wacked. Also thought the “almost” smothering of the baby by the creepy girl was just so exploitative and cheesy. Still can’t fathom or see any real chemistry between Maggie and Glenn. Makes no real sense. Love how they all had no plan for what to do if they lost the prison. Fitting it’s based on a comic; many of the characters are so cartoonish.

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  43. Whitaker. Motherfucking. Chambers, on March 3, 2014 at 11:28 am said:

    QB, I think WD is a victim of it’s own success. They had a very tight story arc because they did not have the funding. The season on the farm was obviously done on the cheap. The show took off and the network said “MORE!” So, interspersed with the good episodes, you get “filler.” The whole Governor second coming was obviously filler. We got it the first time, dude’s a psycho.

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