Grillin’ It! Jan. 12, 2010 ← FREE KRAUT!

Grillin’ It! Jan. 12, 2010 333

We got Abu Ghraib.  We got torture and Guantanamo and violation of our privacy and civil rights.  But not giving Mark immunity?!  Alberto Gonzalez, j’accuse!  Regardless of your politics, you’ve got to admit this was an asshat move.

Title’s going for this:
Scientology and Diane
The only problem is those legs are supposed to be Shelley Long’s.

We had this debate the other day and I’m completely unsure why I never found her attractive. I’ve been on record as dating/liking/living with intellectuals for a while now. Why I prefer Rebecca to Diane is still a point of contention for me.

Rebecca is meaner and I do like mean women, plus there’s the whole unattainable thing, if we live the series (which I believe we do) vicariously through Sam. In reading the Wiki page, the only three actors part of every show were Sam, Norm and Carla, so maybe we’re more supposed to identify with Norm? But he lives vicariously through Sam as well, so…did the female viewers live through Carla or were they forced to pick (an even harder choice) between living through Diane or living through Rebecca?

I’ve recently discovered the joys of DVR, so I’m reliving my emotional connection to a fake bar in Boston.

Plus that movie had Tom Cruise in it. It’s strange how a person’s trajectory can affect the way we view them. When he was younger, there wasn’t anyone as cool as Tom Cruise. The reality is that he probably didn’t change a whole lot–he was probably always kind of a freak. But our perspective of him shifted as we were exposed to different parts of his character.

Similarly, my perspective of Bob Costas has changed, mainly because mb continually points out he’s wearing a (bad) hair piece. Why I chose to not see it before is annoying to me now, as it clearly is not real hair and it seems like he could afford a much better one. I am obsessed now with seeing him without it.  Anyone know where we can find a picture of him au natural?  Well, without the wig anyhow?

Okay, I’m not often very fond of ESPN, but their commercials can be very good. That’s what this is.

Moar baseball? Well, I don’t wanna really rehash the ashes of Mark, so…I’ve developed two categories and I expect you all to participate, and create moar categories of your own!  See?  It’s a fun interactive game!

Ugliest man in baseball?

My choice: Otis Nixon. Looked 65 when he was 18.
Gimme a quarter.

Biggest butt in baseball?

My choice: Kirby Puckett.  The man had ass for days.
I know I told you I'd be true

Your turn.

Dump, Monkeys! And, um, related non-monkeys.

333 thoughts on “Grillin’ It! Jan. 12, 2010

  1. Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 6:07 am
    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 12:29 pm || Up
      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • whiteshoes40 Jan 12,2010 5:56 pm || Up

      Sigh. I think they’re missing the point.

    • Poppy Jan 14,2010 6:21 pm || Up

      Hey xbx, if you’re ever here… fuck you.

      There's a wild thing in the woolshed and it's keeping me awake at night.
      • oblique Jan 15,2010 10:04 am || Up

        Meh. Seriously, ** has completely changed since we were there, from a place where fans like us could have fun watching games “together” and talking about baseball-semi-related-or-not stuff, to a place where to make any comment at all you have to be ready to PROVE that you’re RIGHT.

        The fact that people want to delete all the old nicknames and (more importantly) stories and replace it with a statistical acronyms dictionary makes that very clear.

        Personally, I’d rather hang out in a bar than join a debate team.

        • Poppy Jan 15,2010 1:01 pm || Up

          Yeah, it’s way less appropriate to nearly come to blows with Giants fans when you’re at a debate

          There's a wild thing in the woolshed and it's keeping me awake at night.
  2. salb918 Jan 12,2010 7:21 am

    Top prospect chef.

    Shawn Haviland’s blog is great. If you don’t read it, you really should.

    • salb918 Jan 12,2010 7:24 am || Up

      More.

      I really wanted to order the Pancake and Pork Sandwich (yes it really exists) but sometimes you need to make sacrifices.

      That’s a sigline waiting to happen.

      Greek Yogurt happens to be at the intersection of the two matrices, delicious and good for you. Anytime those two matrices intersect I am going to try to eat that food every day.

    • batgirl Jan 12,2010 10:48 am || Up

      Everyone’s a critic–I like how the 2nd comment goes after his plating.

    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:18 am || Up

      I’m about 75% sure I was on the 45 last night with Mattin Noblia.

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • batgirl Jan 12,2010 12:29 pm || Up

        Was he wearing a saucy red bandana around his neck?

        • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 12:45 pm || Up

          No, but he was wispy and was wearing some Euroweenie overstyled slacker shirt.

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  3. doctorK Jan 12,2010 8:15 am

    I see your Otis Nixon and raise you one Willie McGee

    I was at a Giants-Cardinals game back in the mid-80’s. When Willie came up to bat, someone nearby yelled out “ET, PHONE HOME”.

    • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 1:53 pm || Up

      Willie was indeed quite ugly. Good call.

  4. oblique Jan 12,2010 8:55 am

    I can’t believe no one’s mentioned Randy Johnson.

    Randy Johnson

    • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 1:54 pm || Up

      he’s an ugly like my cousin in West Virginia ugly.

  5. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 9:23 am

    Don. Mossi.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 1:54 pm || Up

      Bonus points for him being an Athletic.

      • oblique Jan 12,2010 2:23 pm || Up

        Indeed. And McGee was a A for a little bit as well!

    • salb918 Jan 12,2010 7:28 pm || Up

      Gustavo Chacin:

      • FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 12,2010 7:35 pm || Up

        Ezequiel Astacio

        "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
        • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 8:08 pm || Up

          The ugliest of them all:

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  6. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 9:39 am
    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 10:06 am || Up

      {sends nm an email threatening to ban him for Knapp-linking without suitable warning}

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 10:08 am || Up

        Why yes I would like to learn how to make my knob firm like steel. Thanks for the email!

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:11 pm || Up

        On her little time line there, how come she mentions us losing to the Dodgers and winning versus the Giant and does not mention losing to the Reds?

        And is she always such a douche chill?

    • mjdittmer Jan 12,2010 10:32 am || Up

      On the one hand, there is that. On the other hand, this is a much more succinct and therefore preferable argument.

      • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 10:39 am || Up

        it’s safe to say that a good number of Mac’s homers would have been warning track flies without the steroids.

        Is that right? My (selective) memory is that subtracting 20 feet wouldn’t effect a lot of his HRs. I’d be interested in seeing a hittracker-esque analysis, but I don’t know if that’s possible.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 10:48 am || Up

          Yeah, that struck me as not necessarily right.

          I’m also firmly in the camp that believes (albeit without much/any evidence) that the ball was juiced.

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • mikeA Jan 12,2010 10:50 am || Up

            I think (meaning other trustworthyish people I’ve read think) there is strong circumstantial evidence for that.

          • salb918 Jan 12,2010 10:56 am || Up

            Bingo.

            I’m definitely in this camp. I liked Tango’s take on the juiced ball:

            Greg allows us to estimate that at 8.7 feet of clearance, 1,265 homers would have cleared the fence. That is, if you can change the composition of the ball to reduce the length of the long flyball by 8.7 feet, you’d end up with 1,265 fewer home runs. In 2006, we had 5,386 home runs on 135,626 PA, for a rate of 4.0 percent. Knocking out 1,265 would bring the homer rate down to 3.0 percent. The average home run rate from 1982-1992 was 2.9 percent. So, all we have to do is reduce the length of homers by around 8.7 feet, and we’ll get home run output rates from the 1980s. Is this possible? Quoting the good doctor once more:

            The Major League balls are manufactured in Costa Rica and have a compressed cork sphere per the specifications. The Minor League balls are manufactured in China and have a cork center as specified in “1996 Minor League Baseball Proposal”. This cork center is the likely source for the decrease in performance, which results in a comparable Minor League ball hit of 391.8 ft under the same conditions as the Major League balls. Small samples of 1998 MLB baseballs were also tested. The 1998 MLB baseball had a comparable batted-ball distance of 400.5 ft.

            And 400.5 feet minus 391.8 feet equals 8.7 feet.

            It’s probably not as black and white as Tango makes it out to be, but there’s some strong evidence that the ball was juiced, and I submit that it was juiced in an effort to make the game more exciting after the strike.

            • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:03 am || Up

              Right.

              Basically, by (relying on the testimony of others) confirming the Steroid Era, Selugworth is using that as a coverup for the ball juicing.

              Hence, my sigline.

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • mikeA Jan 12,2010 11:15 am || Up

              I also remember watching an episode of Baseball Tonight in 95 or whenever and they dropped a new ball and an old ball off a balcony and the new ball bounced higher.

              • andeux Jan 12,2010 11:25 am || Up

                Depending on how old the old ball was, it might have just lost some resiliency. These things are hard to measure after the fact.
                I thought I read somewhere that the issue was not with the cork center, but with the tension of the windings. That might be something you could still see a difference in later. But maybe not, since afaik no one has done it.

                TINSTAAFK
        • mikeA Jan 12,2010 10:52 am || Up

          Subtracting 20 feet would make a big difference, along the lines of switching Hr-friendly vs. unfriendly parks. It’s not clear that that’s a good way to describe the effects of steroids, though.

          • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 10:54 am || Up

            Well isn’t there a correlation between muscle mass and distance? I thought I’d read something about that at some point.

            And you’re right it would make a difference, just less than people think (is my hypothesis) because he hit particularly long ones.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mk Jan 12,2010 10:49 am || Up

      So remind me again why we care more about McGwire than someone like Petitte or Tejada? Because he was better player? Are we supposed to scale our outrage according to excellence in performance? Is there a career WAR cut off?

      Just trying to figure out who I am supposed to be mad at. I want to make sure I’ve got my moral compass pointed in the proper direction.

      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:04 am || Up

        We’re supposed to be mad at him because he was the Great White Hope who saved us from having to rely on Sosa to save the game.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • mk Jan 12,2010 11:12 am || Up

          That’s the other thing I get confused about. I thought Cal Ripken saved baseball. In any event, that’s clearly the angle we should go with, since he seems really wholesome and never had suspicious looking muscles.

          • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:13 am || Up

            I’m with mikeA — I pray to Ba’al daily that we finally get the revelation that Cal roided.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • andeux Jan 12,2010 12:02 pm || Up
          TINSTAAFK
          • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 12:06 pm || Up

            Boy does he have some odd troll commenters.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  7. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 10:02 am

    Bob Herbert flogging.

    Ms. Weingarten’s ideas for upgrading the teacher evaluation process are good ones and should be embraced and improved upon where possible by those in charge of the nation’s schools. The point is not just to get rid of failing teachers, but to improve the skills and effectiveness of the millions of teachers who show up in the classrooms every day.

    If the union chooses not to follow through on these proposals, its credibility will take a punishing and well-deserved hit.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  8. mjdittmer Jan 12,2010 10:23 am

    Hmm, this guy seems under-valued using traditional metrics. Maybe the A’s can get him.

    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:20 am || Up

      Lucy with football : Charlie Brown :: Chavvy’s health : Beane

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 1:59 pm || Up

        did Chavy give Beane a signed affidavit?

  9. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 10:44 am

    Barren farm system. For comparison, our first B- is #5 (Cardenas) and we don’t have a C in our top 22.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mikeA Jan 12,2010 10:56 am || Up

      They’re in a tough spot. This year figures to be their best team for the next several years, but it’s not that good and it won’t be easy at all for them to improve after 2010.

      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:24 am || Up

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  10. mjdittmer Jan 12,2010 10:47 am

    Maybe not as good as the video about getting stoked, but still pretty funny.

  11. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 10:49 am

    Never, ever, ever play poker with Morgan Freeman.

    The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
    Harry Reid’s Racist Comment
    http://www.colbertnation.com
    Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  12. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 10:55 am

    I actually don’t see any problem whatsoever with this. The ground rules seem to me to have been: we’ll keep you anonymous unless you quote yourself, in which case we have to say it’s your own account of your words.

    Now, to be sure, there are other problems with it (multiple anonymice could gang up on someone and mis- or misleadingly quote him, and he’d look like a douche defending himself, and I really dislike the immense blanket of anonymity approach), and somehow I doubt that Reid himself was the original source for the quote — seems likelier that they got the “negro dialect” quote from other source(s), then went to Reid and confronted him with it for reaction, and he didn’t deny/hemmed and hawed, said “I may have said something like that,” and by their ground rules, they had him set up for a gotcha.

    But the basic rule itself is pretty straightforward, and anyone who agreed to it and still provided quotes has to be a bit of a tool.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 11:01 am || Up

      Doesn’t bother me too much either. But then, neither does the fact he said it.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:06 pm || Up

        …it’s true, isn’t it?

        • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 4:23 pm || Up

          Yes.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  13. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:08 am
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 11:18 am || Up

      I like to think that 40 years ago major newsanchors didn’t work that way. Am I right?

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:08 pm || Up

        I can’t imagine Walter Cronkite saying that, no.

        Hell, I can’t imagine Peter Jennings saying that.

    • mikeA Jan 12,2010 11:19 am || Up

      Maybe he wanted to say “Why the fuck do people care so much about this?”

  14. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:14 am

    What do our resident lawyers think of this?

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 11:21 am || Up

      Any profession needs admission standards (in our case, the Bar Exam). Those standards are flawed/stupid/etc, but they’re what we have.

      As far as the income thing, there are very good law schools and very bad ones. If you choose to go to a very bad one, you do so with your eyes open, knowing you need to be top 10% (or whatever it is) to get a market-rate firm job (the bump on the right in that graph).

      I don’t think it’s inherently a problem for more people to graduate from law school than there are jobs (heck, they’re better off for learning anyway).

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:29 am || Up

        Yeah, my reaction was pretty much yours and mikeA’s. Good to see it confirmed.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mikeA Jan 12,2010 11:23 am || Up

      1. Yglesias is right.
      2. Going to a bottom-half law school is a really bad idea.

      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:27 am || Up

        2. Better call Saul!

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 11:34 am || Up

        Re 2: unless you know the city you want to work in and are confident you finish at the top of your class.

        We, for example, often hire one USF person in a year.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • mikeA Jan 12,2010 11:43 am || Up

          I don’t think anyone should feel particularly confident about finishing at the top of the class beforehand.

          • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 12:42 pm || Up

            I dunno. I have a friend at Hastings (admittedly, much better than USF) who was always smart but didn’t apply himself well for awhile. As a result, he didn’t have the top end credentials he needed for top tier places. Still, since he applies himself now it was a safe bet he’d do well enough to land a firm job.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
            • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 12:47 pm || Up

              {adds “applying top end credentials to bottom-half school” to Euphemism Directory}

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • mikeA Jan 12,2010 11:46 am || Up

          Btw, I call-back-interviewed at your firm the same year as you I think, so we almost worked together. Maybe they didn’t like me because I was too focused on Game 1 vs. Detroit that day…

          • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 12:40 pm || Up

            You did? That would have been cool.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • green star oakland Jan 12,2010 11:24 am || Up

      I’m no lawyer, but this

      We generally accept the idea that putting low-skill laborers in competition with Chinese factories and Mexican immigrants ultimately makes a larger pie for everyone.

      is enough for me to call bullshit.

      If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:29 am || Up

      Follow-up question: is the ABA going the way of the AMA?

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  15. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:24 am

    Yikes. He’s finally really starting to look like his dad. He looks like he’ll be dead inside of 10 years.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  16. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 11:31 am

    If anyone is looking for reasons to like Posnanski, here’s one.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:34 am || Up

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • andeux Jan 12,2010 11:57 am || Up

        There ain’t nuthin’ more powerful than the smell of mendacity!

        TINSTAAFK
  17. mjdittmer Jan 12,2010 11:33 am

    Did anybody see this interview?

    It was a sobering reminder that for years, a mostly pliant press has allowed a comedian to do a reporters’ job. Yesterday, we were reminded how inadequate a solution that really is.

    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:39 am || Up

      I saw about 30 seconds of it, and that was my instant take. I got a sick feeling in my stomach, and I clicked away.

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 11:49 am || Up

        The worst part is that Stewart really is the best we’ve got for this sort of thing. Yoo is smarter than Stewart by a fair margin, so it didn’t work out the way some of his other stuff has.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:55 am || Up

          Colbert would have been a more interesting choice.

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:31 pm || Up

            agrd.

            But I think he’s sharper than Stewart.

            • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 2:58 pm || Up

              He’s a worse interviewer though. His shtick is to not let his guests get a word in edgewise.

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
              • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 3:03 pm || Up

                I’m not really talking about his schtick. He’s capable of turning VERY sharply on something as minor as a facial reaction/body language and he’s very quick on his feet and he’s also intuitive.

                His schtick kinda grows wearisome. I tune in regularly for the bits that fall through the cracks.

                • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 3:07 pm || Up

                  BUT LEWIS BLACK ISN’T EVEN THERE TO CATCH THEM!!!!

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 3:11 pm || Up

                  Lewis Black’s good, too, now.

        • salb918 Jan 12,2010 6:51 pm || Up

          I just watched it – I know Stewart has had some pretty good takedowns in the past, but (views on torture aside) Yoo kinda owned Stewart. The best/worst part was when Yoo refused to get frustrated, and responded to Stewart’s irritation with increasing kindness.

          • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 7:50 pm || Up

            Clearly, Stewart should have waterboarded him to get the answers he needed. Further proof that mollycoddling terrorists doesn’t work.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 8:56 am || Up

            Yep. That’s pretty much the consensus.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mk Jan 12,2010 11:54 am || Up

      The Stewart-as-journalistic-hero idea is past immature, halfway down the road to stupid. I know it feels good when someone occasionally poses an uncomfortable question to people who are allowed/encouraged to lie with impunity on “hard hitting” Meet the Press type shows, but he is hardly an avenging force for Truth, nor should anyone expect him to be. He is selling books for most of the people he tussles with, after all. Also, he and Brian Williams are BFFs.

      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 11:58 am || Up

        A drowning man distinguisheth not between a thin reed and a USCG rescue helicopter lowering a sling from a winch.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 12:45 pm || Up

        Hey, he single-handedly ended Crossfire. He’s not totally useless. Of course, I agree with Ezra’s take:

        This outcome was predictable, though. Anyone who watched Stewart’s interviews with Amity Shlaes or Betsy McCaughey saw it coming. Stewart’s early takedowns came before people understood that this late-night comedian did takedowns. When Stewart appeared on Crossfire, a scolding was the last thing the hosts expected. At this point, though, Stewart’s interviews are well known and so too are his political opinions. It’s obvious who he’ll take down and how. And so his guests come armed to rebut, and they have more experience defending themselves than Stewart has attacking them. At this point, Stewart is doing more harm than good by giving people whom he thinks are liars and frauds a platform on his show.

        I wish there was a news program as reputable as the Daily Show that would do this sort of stuff, because they’d do it much better.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 12:51 pm || Up

          … and yet the cycle would still repeat itself.

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • salb918 Jan 12,2010 1:02 pm || Up

            Uh…doesn’t it make more sense for the guests to know what to expect, to know what kind of show they’re coming on, and allow them to prepare instead letting the host engage in gotcha ambushes?

            • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 1:08 pm || Up

              Interrupting the buy-my-book infomercial to call people on their bullshit constitutes not “gotcha ambushes.”

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
              • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 1:16 pm || Up

                Depends upon whether you think asking Palin if she reads newspapers is a “gotcha ambush”

                "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 1:21 pm || Up

                  Or if you think that “All of them” is an honest and truthful response.

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
              • salb918 Jan 12,2010 1:26 pm || Up

                Maybe I misunderstood you. Here’s what I heard:

                fact: Stewart should no longer have guests with whom he disagrees, since hi MO is known and the guests will come prepared to rebut arguments.

                nm: dang, it would be great if real news people asked the tough questions that Stewart did.

                mb: no, because once their game was known, guests would come prepared and the game would be up, so it wouldn’t matter.

                salb918: instead of making this a game, what if there was a show where the freakoftheweek could pitch their book but still have to face tough questions, and know that they were going to face tough questions (without knowing the questions themselves)?

                Do I have you wrong?

                • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 1:32 pm || Up

                  Sounds plausible to me. And I agree with you over mb.

                  I imagine what mb meant is that they would just skip the show.

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 1:36 pm || Up

                  No, my position is that any show that started off asking tough questions would get softer and softer as it went on.

                  I still don’t know where you got the “gotcha ambush” angle from.

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • salb918 Jan 12,2010 2:09 pm || Up

                  Perhaps I’ve been sniffing too much solvent?

                • oblique Jan 12,2010 2:24 pm || Up

                  Understandable to think that this method would ultimately lead to the solution.

        • mk Jan 12,2010 12:57 pm || Up

          Don’t get me wrong, I like him. And I think the lefty expectation that he decimate all the conservo-villains he brings on his show is unfair to him.

          He is much more effective at media satire than politician/issue satire.

          I wish there was a news program as reputable as the Daily Show that would do this sort of stuff, because they’d do it much better.

          Honestly, I wonder if there is even a market for that. Everyone claims that’s what they want, but I don’t think I believe them.

          • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 1:03 pm || Up

            You’re right about all of this (although he does good politician satire in the video editing room too).

            As far as the last part, the problem is it would instantly be labeled partisan or be so careful as to be uninteresting. The closest thing to perfect would be factcheck.org doing a TV show, but you’re probably right that there isn’t a market.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 1:04 pm || Up

            I’m pretty sure there’s a solid consumer market for that kind of show. I don’t know that there’s an advertiser market for it; nor, more importantly, a producer/talent market for it — what current on-air personalities would want to transition to such a project (I don’t think it’s at all possible that there are any Tortured Noble Intrepid Journalists who work in the salt mines of MSM network/cable news but O So Dearly Wish They Could Blow The Lid Off The Motherfucker With Some Old-School Speakin’ Truth 2 PWR), and what would be the career arc of someone coming in and then moving on?

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • mk Jan 12,2010 1:51 pm || Up

              Right. Though I remain dubious about the first sentence; I guess it depends how exactly you define this hypothetical news program. If it eschews overt partisanship, that winnows the potential audience by a lot right off the bat. Then its target is, what, the portion of Jim Lehrer’s demographic that doesn’t think the News Hour is sufficiently hard-hitting?

              • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 2:07 pm || Up

                In fairness, factcheck gets a lot of traffic. As does snopes.

                "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • mk Jan 12,2010 3:36 pm || Up

                  Internet is apples and TV is oranges, though.

                  Maybe monkeyball is right. I don’t really know. It’s an interesting question.

            • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:33 pm || Up

              They dangle the carrot of access in front of them.

          • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:30 pm || Up

            It doesn’t matter. We don’t have anyone that will do it.

            If we don’t give a shit enough to want anything but the fucking sound bites and talking points they ALL feed to us, then we don’t deserve it.

            If they don’t question people because they won’t give them access if they do and we’re dumb enough to just swallow what they feed us, well, then…

            We divide up the turf, pick a team and lob rocks at the other side, all the while oblivious to the fact that the dichotomy makes us all cogs in the same machine. We’re fucking batteries, just like The Matrix.

            • mjdittmer Jan 12,2010 3:51 pm || Up

              Damn, but that humans-as-batteries imagery does burn an imprint in the memory, doesn’t it? What an awesome movie.

            • lenscrafters Jan 12,2010 7:12 pm || Up

              Depressing, but I’d say accurate.

  18. mikeA Jan 12,2010 12:09 pm

    haha

    THE COURT: The last marriage that I performed, Mr. Cooper, involved a groom who was ninety-five, and the bride was eighty-three. I did not demand that they prove that they intended to engage in procreative activity. Now, was I missing something?
    MR. COOPER: No, your Honor, you weren’t. Of course, you didn’t.
    THE COURT: And I might say it was a very happy relationship.
    MR. COOPER: I rejoice to hear that.

    Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/18/100118fa_fact_talbot?currentPage=6#ixzz0cQkcsdKU

  19. FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 12,2010 12:10 pm

    40 crazy-huge meals which are free if you finish ’em. This pulled pork and sliced pork beauty from Kansas City looks really good:

    (found via boingboing, which has a bunch of interesting stories today, including pieces on the Jelly Belly founder who has been banished from his empire, secret aeriel spy drones being used by the Houston PD, new photos of the famous Phineas Gage, the webpage of “Britain’s Most Famous Virgin,” and this neat photo from Mars:


    )

    "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 12:12 pm || Up

      re: the photo of Mars:
      It was … the salmon mousse!

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 12:17 pm || Up

      After looking through all 40, I have resolved never to eat anything again.

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 12:59 pm || Up

      I would dominate 3, 4, 10, 16, 24, 33, and 37. The question, of course, is why.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • sslinger Jan 12,2010 2:38 pm || Up

      You have to … clean up your mess if you vomit.

      ‘Nuf said.

  20. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 1:14 pm

    Next time you see Fox talking about how “a majority of Americans oppose health care reform” think about this.

    Fox story line: 67% of Americans do not agree with the way HCR covers Americans.
    Actual story line: 57% of Americans either support the way HCR covers Americans or wish it would do more.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  21. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 1:34 pm

    Serious question for our FK-ing conservatives: What is the non-Yglesiasmic interpretation of “Real Jobs for Real People”? I am hyper-attuned to things that I think are dog whistles, so I am quite possibly too-swayed by his analysis.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • salb918 Jan 12,2010 2:15 pm || Up

      That seems like a harmless enough slogan, albeit without any actual meaning. I think you have to have a hyper-attuned sense of partisanship/an unhealthy obsession with conservative Kremlinology to actually read anything into that slogan.

      • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 2:22 pm || Up

        I would like to agree on the second sentence, but I can’t buy that someone’s primary campaign slogan is meaningless either.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • salb918 Jan 12,2010 2:27 pm || Up

          “change we can believe in” is similarly vague and could probably be snarked on by conservatives. Martha Coakley is “A Different Kind of Leader” – also vague, pretty much meaningless, and if I were a conservative, I’m certain I could snark on that as well. MY is being ridiculous.

          • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 2:46 pm || Up

            FWIW, “CWCBI” allegedly took a very hard sell by his campaign team to get Obama to sign off on it.

            Yes, all campaign slogans have a significant amount of breeze blowing through them. However, the people who craft them usually know exactly what they’re doing.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 3:01 pm || Up

            I can tell you exactly what Obama’s meant: that he was actually going to make the changes that his opponents talked about (and that Bush was a shitty president).

            I know nothing about Martha Coakley (and I certainly would not say that all Democratic slogans are good, so I’m sure you can find bad ones).

            I’m just saying “Real People” must mean something. I don’t want it to mean what MY says, but I don’t have a better idea. I was/am hoping someone else will.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
            • andeux Jan 12,2010 3:13 pm || Up

              I would think it is along the lines that MY/mb are suggesting, but with more emphasis on class resentment than racial, appealing to ranchers, miners, and construction workers. Implication that these sectors would thrive if the damn government just got out of the way. Classic conservative populism.
              [In reality, of course, the Nevada economy is based mostly on shitty service jobs in the casino industry.]

              TINSTAAFK
              • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 3:18 pm || Up

                That makes sense.

                "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 2:43 pm || Up

      It’s pretty clear to me that it means “Non-gubmint/non-ACORN/non-stimulus jobs for white people.”

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:51 pm || Up

        where’s my motherfucking movie check?

  22. oblique Jan 12,2010 2:26 pm

    Beef: It’s Real Food For Real People.

    • salb918 Jan 12,2010 2:30 pm || Up

      Tofurkey: It’s fake food for fake carnivores.

      • salb918 Jan 12,2010 2:30 pm || Up

        i: it’s an imaginary number for the real world.

        • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:47 pm || Up

          woo: who the hell let that ghost in here?

        • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 3:02 pm || Up

          pi: it would be delicious, if only we could figure out exactly what it was

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  23. Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 2:52 pm

    Why does the ANcillary Terms thing piss me off so much?!

    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 3:03 pm || Up

      Because it’s inherently stupid.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mk Jan 12,2010 3:37 pm || Up

      I don’t know?!

      My advice is to spend less time obsessing over the flaws of something (AN) you clearly enjoy.

      I hear hypnosis helps. Maybe there is a patch you can try.

      • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 3:47 pm || Up

        Thanks for being an asshole to me.

        • mk Jan 12,2010 4:08 pm || Up

          You’re welcome?

          I’m not going to do the eggshells thing, LB.

          You like AN. You post there lots. Yet you seem constantly discontented by it. Don’t you think you’d feel better about the whole thing if you stopped sweating the small stuff?

          • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 4:53 pm || Up

            Yes, I’ve been too sensitive here–you’re right. Sorry for the overreaction.

            There’s some things about AN I like. There are others which I don’t.

    • FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 12,2010 3:51 pm || Up

      Without having read the current AN thread, I’d offer the opinion that I believe Poppy would, if she were posting today: the ANcilliary terms piece was designed to be a living, regularly updated page, and since Blez cluelessly set it up in a way that made it uneditable, it quickly became obsolete. So yes, it offers a view of a certain moment in AN’s time, but like a history book from 1980 it offers little in the way of understanding anymore.

      "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 3:59 pm || Up

        Yeah, the SBN exec/code team seems to really really hate anything they didn’t think up/design/steal in the first place.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • Poppy Jan 14,2010 6:35 pm || Up

        That’s an accurate representation of what Reasonable Poppy would say. Poppy’s a little bit irrational and pissed off right now, though.

        There's a wild thing in the woolshed and it's keeping me awake at night.
      • green star oakland Jan 14,2010 6:50 pm || Up

        Not only set it up to be un-editable, but also added a whole bunch of spectacularly bad nicknames used by no-one but himself.

        If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
        • Poppy Jan 14,2010 7:24 pm || Up

          Srsly. Los Kirk?

          Bueller? Bueller?

          There's a wild thing in the woolshed and it's keeping me awake at night.
  24. green star oakland Jan 12,2010 3:00 pm

    The book is open on whom Sarah Palin will offend first as a Fox commentator.

    At first sight, some of the lines seem off (Christians at 18/1 ahead of Inuit at 20/1), but note the requirement:

    Settled on the first public apology Sarah Palin makes on Fox News.

    If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 3:06 pm || Up

      It’s a REAL book! Wow.

      Gay/Lesbian at 4:1 is sure money in the bank. No way she talks for an hour without offending the Gay/Lesbian community.

      • green star oakland Jan 12,2010 4:25 pm || Up

        But that apology requirement is a tough hurdle.

        If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 4:53 pm || Up

          hmmm…good point.

        • FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 12,2010 6:36 pm || Up

          Yes indeed, given her Murdochian overlords, who were in no hurry to make Britt Hume apologize for curtly dismissing the very idea of Buddhist compassion the other day.

          I’d bet on it being Christians, or Corporations, or White Men…some group firmly in her camp. Hell, Fox might even contrive a faux brouhaha which ends up showing us all what a big happy family the right can be. Not at all shrill and hairy like the Feminazis.

          "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
          • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 1:07 am || Up

            Britt Hume is part cyborg, so he doesn’t need to apologize. Didn’t you ever wonder what he’d do after he killed Sarah Connor?

  25. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 3:08 pm

    Timely, given our discussion.

    While we don’t currently have any plans for a FactCheck.org TV show, we do occasionally appear on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and radio to talk about misleading and false claims.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  26. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 3:25 pm

    Being truthful is always the correct course of action, I:

    The one-day plan — coordinated over the past month by Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary who runs a crisis-communications company, and the St. Louis Cardinals, who recently hired McGwire as their batting coach

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 3:37 pm || Up

      (sigh)

      He played baseball. He is not a politician. The fact he took steroids affects our lives about as much as a fucking rabbit in New Mexico does. The stakes of his using steroids are NOTHING, especially when compared to the evil transcendent methods employed by those cocksuckers in Washington.

      I may have to cancel my recent subscription to the NYT. Investigate the guys making policy, you stupid fucks.

      • oblique Jan 12,2010 4:04 pm || Up

        Depending on how frequently that rabbit is fucking, the effect on our lives could be huge.

      • andeux Jan 12,2010 4:09 pm || Up

        I knew I should’ve taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

        TINSTAAFK
  27. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 3:26 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 3:41 pm || Up

      Unless you need the money and/or allowed a HR off your own head. Then it makes you a pretentious blowhard since it forces us to admit things before we are ready.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 3:43 pm || Up

        Yeah, Calcaterra’s really taken a turn for the conventional since joining NBC.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 3:47 pm || Up

          Inevitable, really

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 3:59 pm || Up

            But much faster than I would have thought.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • mk Jan 12,2010 4:10 pm || Up

              I still like him.

              • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:12 pm || Up

                Oh, I still like him, and he’s still bringing the snark — it just seems as if a bolus of conventional wisdom is hitting his bloodstream.

                you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 3:45 pm || Up

      (sigh)

      La Russa had one of the most steroid-happy locker rooms around, in two cities no less, with the most brazen user of them all in Canseco under his supervision. He has always played dumb and no one has ever taken him to task over it.

      Just as no one takes you to task, Craig Calcaterra, for being complicit in an obviously trumped up home run race in 1998. Just like none of us call ourselves into question for believing in something that was so obviously contrived. It’s not the fucking inquisition. It’s baseball.

      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:02 pm || Up

        Eh, Calcaterra was a private citizen then.

        But why/how was the ’98 HR chase “trumped up”? I mean, more so than the 5-8 years surrounding it on each side? Were those HRs not hit? Did Sosa and McGwire not hit more of them than all of the other humans on the field? Was it still not the most difficult single task in sports (or however the Splinter defined it)?

        I mean, your dad was Santa Claus — that doesn’t mean that the gifts you got were somehow less fun or more immaterial.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 5:00 pm || Up

          It was trumped up because there were long stretches of time while we were growing up where no one came close to fifty, much less 70, much less TWO people blowing past a thirty year-old record. But…I liked it at the time, too. I enjoyed it and reveled in it and all that, too. In retrospect, it was silly of me to believe it was “on the level,’ whether it was steroids or a juiced ball or a combination of the two (my vote). It was contrived. It was a plot to get us all to “buy in” again. And we did.

          It doesn’t make the presents any less enjoyable, no. But we were lied to and we were manipulated. And, unlike the five year-olds who allow Dad to be Santa, we could have known better.

          So regardless of whether he was a private citizen or not, he’s every bit as complicit as we all were. All we really had to do was pay attention.

          • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 5:03 pm || Up

            but the reality very well could be that I’m just grumpy today.

            • mk Jan 12,2010 5:27 pm || Up

              I’m confident that each time I’ve used “evil”, “transcendent”, and “cocksuckers” in the same sentence, whether in writing or aloud, I’ve been in a grumpy mood. I could see a happy person saying “evil” or “cocksuckers”, or even “evil cocksuckers”, but the addition of “transcendant” seals the deal.

              • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:31 pm || Up

                In college, I played amplified klaxon for the Evil Transcendant Cocksuckers.

                you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 1:08 am || Up

                  Al Swearengen was an evil transcendent cocksucker.

      • oblique Jan 12,2010 4:08 pm || Up

        Nooooooooo-body expects baseball!

        Our weapon is a bat. A bat and a ball. A ball and a bat.
        Our TWO weapons are a bat, a ball, and intangible grit.
        THREE.
        Our THREE weapons are a bat, a ball, intangible grit, and an almost fanatical devotion to conventional wisdom….ah!
        AMONGST our weapons are: a bat, a ball, …

        • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:17 pm || Up

          Nooooooooo-body expects the Congressional Inquisition!

          Our weapon is a subpoena. A subpoena and a pliant media. A subpoena and a pliant media.
          Our TWO weapons are a subpoena, a pliant media, and manufactured outrage.
          THREE.
          Our THREE weapons are a subpoena, a pliant media, manufactured outrage, and an almost fanatical devotion to conventional wisdom … ah!
          AMONGST our weapons are: a subpoena, a pliant media …

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 4:26 pm || Up

            Nooooooooo-body expects an honest politician!

            Our weapon is a disingenuous riposte. A disingenuous riposte and a populist appeal. A populist appeal and a disingenuous riposte.
            Our TWO weapons are a disingenuous riposte, a populist appeal, and a refusal to answer questions.
            THREE.
            Our THREE weapons are a disingenuous riposte, a populist appeal, a refusal to answer questions, and an almost fanatical devotion to playing the refs … ah!
            AMONGST our weapons are: a disingenuous riposte, a populist appeal …

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  28. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:15 pm

    Byg Csnurb massages Chavvy’s back

    Actually, it’s a decent piece. Some labored metaphors, and it meanders a bit, but not bad.

    Also: did we know this?

    “Last year at spring training my shoulder blew apart within the first two weeks, so I kinda knew I was treading some dangerous waters there.”

    And it looks as if, yes, Chavvy’s health has always been far worse than we’ve been told (either that or he’s had some weird personal issues):

    “There have been things I’ve been through that people don’t know about,” he says. “So Billy and the guys (in the clubhouse), they know how bad I want to play, and they know that the fact that I haven’t been able to live up to my part of the bargain is probably eating at me more than anyone could imagine.”

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 4:28 pm || Up

      I endorse this:

      “What I’ve expressed to them is that this potentially could be the last year I ever play baseball, and I don’t want to tippy-toe it,” he says. “I want to go out there full-bore, enjoy the game and give it the best effort I can. Obviously I’m going to be smart, and if it works out, great. If it doesn’t and something happens, it’s apparent my career’s not going to go any further.

      If he isn’t healthy (and he isn’t) I want to know/deal with it asap.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:37 pm || Up

        If he can only, best-case scenario, play 3 games in a row, he’s done and the A’s need to move on with a 100% 3B. Chavvy can do what he likes, but the org needs to move on.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 4:47 pm || Up

          I’d rather have him there 3 days a week for the first 6 weeks of this season and then have to scramble for the leftover-leftover-leftover FAs than have Fox et al. there those days

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:49 pm || Up

            Fixed

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 4:58 pm || Up

              Still true. There’s no FA I’d rather have than Fox et al.

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
              • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:05 pm || Up

                I’d take Crede on a deal similar to Duchscherer’s.

                you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • mk Jan 12,2010 5:39 pm || Up

                  Every time I so much as beam a hesitant ray of Dallas McPherson quasi-hope at my computer, you interject with a snarky comment about how he’s going to be eating jello with Chavvy at a Scottsdale rehab clinic by May.

                  Crede, games played:

                  2007: 47
                  2008: 97
                  2009: 90

                • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:47 pm || Up

                  Fair ’nuff. No, Crede won’t likely be healthy either. But at this point I’m happy to prioritize potnetially outstanding D over potentially not-entirely-sucky O at the position.

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • mikeA Jan 12,2010 5:51 pm || Up

                  I would say: Mc is broken and bad; Crede is broken and ok.

                • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:55 pm || Up
                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • andeux Jan 12,2010 5:13 pm || Up

            If he’s not healthy enough to play more than half time, I don’t think it likely that he’ll be any good for that half time. Similarly, if his back is hurting too much to play defense, then he won’t hit well enough to be an asset at DH.

            TINSTAAFK
            • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:24 pm || Up

              Plus, there’s the unreliable/unproductive eating up of a 25/40-man spot.

              … which would explain the A’s interest in The Other Hairston (and, I suppose, theoretically the previous interest in The Other Patterson).

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
              • FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 12,2010 6:51 pm || Up

                And goddamn it, the way they piss away 25-man space on guys who can only play every fifth day has been the A’s approach that has angered me more than any other over the past few years.

                "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
                • grover Jan 12,2010 7:46 pm || Up

                  I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.

                • FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 12,2010 7:57 pm || Up

                  Quite serious. Given a choice between keeping a veteran on the roster through a nagging stretch of unavailability (Nomar, Chavvy, Bradley, etc etc) which often as not ends up as a DL trip anyway, or bringing up a AAAA bench filler, the A’s seem to go with the wasted roster spot every time.

                  "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
                • salb918 Jan 12,2010 7:59 pm || Up

                  See, I thought you were snarking about mollycoddled rotation pitchers and their once every five days routine.

                • grover Jan 12,2010 8:15 pm || Up

                  Which is why I was confused. FSU’s comment could have been brilliant or a face palm moment, depending on if he was thinking about the pitching staff at the time.

                • FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 12,2010 9:14 pm || Up

                  The tragedy is that I actually paused to choose what interval I’d write…pissing away space on guys who can only play every third day didn’t seem long enough to warrant my anger. I was gonna go with every fourth day, then decided that fifth sounded funnier. I’ll never surely make that mistake again.

                  "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
    • whiteshoes40 Jan 12,2010 6:26 pm || Up

      [sigh] I still heart Chavvy.

      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 7:51 pm || Up

        {places ws40’s heart on the 60-day DL)

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 1:10 am || Up

          who we calling up to replace ws40’s heart?

          • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 8:58 am || Up

            Dan. Johnson.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • 5Aces Jan 13,2010 11:16 am || Up

            shouldn’t he have at least been day-to-day with an aorta for a week or so?

            Camelot sure fell apart, didn't it? -Steve McCatty
  29. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:24 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mikeA Jan 12,2010 4:53 pm || Up

      “Saying moronic things for which you are mercilessly mocked need not prevent you from making millions!” This message brought to you by the Liquor Council.

  30. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:24 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  31. nevermoor Jan 12,2010 4:33 pm

    True (political, but non-partisan) story. Calling things we don’t like unconstitutional is usually about as apt as calling them Nazis.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mikeA Jan 12,2010 4:56 pm || Up

      I’m pretty sure Joe Buck is unconstitutional.

      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:05 pm || Up

        And Costas’ rug violates the separation of church & state.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 12,2010 6:55 pm || Up

          And baseball owners piss on the Commerce Clause.

          "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
  32. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:50 pm

    Conan’s monologue from last night was a’ight, but this is genius:

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  33. green star oakland Jan 12,2010 4:51 pm
    Late entry for ugliest man in baseball

    If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
  34. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 4:52 pm

    Ah, David. I knew him when.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mikeA Jan 12,2010 5:03 pm || Up

      I don’t like #10. He talk good but he still scum. He get too much respect.

      • Leopold Bloom Jan 12,2010 5:08 pm || Up

        I really liked The Elf Chronicles, BTW. Good job.

    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 5:04 pm || Up

      When… he was funny?

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:07 pm || Up

        It’s the Letterman deadpan so-unfunny-it’s-funny-especially-if-you-repeat-it-enough school.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 5:45 pm || Up

          I disagree. I think it’s petty (which is especially bad in her case since there’s so much seriously wrong with her).

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:50 pm || Up

            Well, yeah.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  35. monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:26 pm

    The tags here are awesome.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Jan 12,2010 5:41 pm || Up

      “Show me on the doll where Rahm touched you” almost made me piss myself.

      • monkeyball Jan 12,2010 5:48 pm || Up

        Yeah, the FDL people have really and truly cracked.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 5:49 pm || Up

      Balloon Juice wins reliably at two things: pointing out stupid (both far far left and right) and tags.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • andeux Jan 12,2010 6:08 pm || Up

        Blaming progressives for a Democratic machine politician’s inability to win easily in a state where they have a partisan edge of something like 2:1 is its own kind of stupid.

        TINSTAAFK
        • nevermoor Jan 12,2010 6:19 pm || Up

          I don’t think that’s what’s going on. I think he’s blaming democratic blogs for focusing on other (very very stupid) things like getting Rahm fired for not turning Ben Nelson into Nancy Pelosi while ignoring the fact that Ted’s seat could switch parties (which wouldn’t kill HCR but would kill Cap and Trade/Stimulus 2/etc)

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  36. salb918 Jan 12,2010 8:30 pm
  37. JediLeroy Jan 12,2010 8:35 pm
    az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
    • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 8:59 am || Up

      I thought you’d link to this.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 10:07 am || Up

        Boy, he’s just a right cranky bastard, isn’t he? I’ll be he doesn’t even like Coen Bros. references any more.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 10:12 am || Up

          That Meester Moonkeyball, he’s a-nice poo-flinger. I give him a-double stitch anyhow.

    • mk Jan 13,2010 10:15 am || Up

      Poor guy. He’s trying oh so hard to start a fight, but AN appears to have collectively lost the will and/or capacity to deploy the snide retorts necessary to really kick the flame war into gear.

      Come back home, xbx. There’s an apple pie in the oven, Billy and Susie are playing checkers in the living room, and if you tell us something we enjoy is idiotic, I promise we’re not too mature proud to tell you where to stick your meany mcmeanness. It’ll be an angsty yet cleansing experience, like yelling and showering at the same time. And at the end of it all, pie!

      • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 10:25 am || Up

        I can’t even get you to fight with me.

        • salb918 Jan 13,2010 10:49 am || Up

          You are a transcedentally evil cocksucker, you know that?

          • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 11:01 am || Up

            Thanks, Sal! I lovelovelove Al Swearengen.

        • mk Jan 13,2010 11:02 am || Up

          That’s because, transcendant cocksucking aside, you’re in it for the hugs. xbx is in it for the punching.

          • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 11:13 am || Up

            oh. okay.

            um, can I have a hug?

            • andeux Jan 13,2010 11:17 am || Up

              Isn’t it a little early in the day to be taking ecstasy?

              TINSTAAFK
              • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 11:59 am || Up

                It’s NEVER too early for ecstasy. Don’t talk the crazy talk.

  38. Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 5:21 am

    Metal merchants peddle their wares.

  39. Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 5:28 am

    From here:

    “The politics on this is really quite easy,” said Doug Elliott, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a former managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “The public would be supportive of anything up to shooting and burning the bankers.”

    I’m fairly certain he’s underestimating us.

  40. salb918 Jan 13,2010 10:25 am

    • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 10:48 am || Up

      I love you right now. Like, a lot.

      FYI, peeps, there’s an 11th hour attempt to keep me at the sign shop, or reinsert me, if you will.

      • mjdittmer Jan 13,2010 3:25 pm || Up

        Stop (resists the urge to just end the comment right there after the one word) just a minute and do tell: what’s the story? “Reinsert” is a movie reference, no? Do you have a protege (S.D.) who is set to take over the sign shop for you? Why the yearning to return to the Bay–more connections there than in Florida? How’d you end up over there anyway?

        • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 3:44 pm || Up

          reinsert is an Arrested Development reference, ala Tobias Funke.

          We have a manager installed over there right now who is not working out. he refuses to learn how to do printed signs and insists on sticking with cut lettering signs. This is in keeping with 1995, not so much 2010.

          I’ve basically told them that I would take it back over until they find someone else. My brother works fulltime, like 70-80 hours a week and my sister-in-law does not know how. So here I am in this damn bed and whose gonna feed them hogs?

          I love the Bay Area/California–I miss my friends, the A’s, the weather and the coast–not necessarily in that order. Especially in summer.

          I had graduated from grad school and returned ot CA from Chicago. Got divorced and basically retreated to my parents and brother. I was doing the Minneapolis (brother)/Ohio (father), Sarasota (mother) rotation when they conspired to strand me in Florida, which was okay at the time because it was winter. Since then, summer’s come and gone a few times and I realize how horrible Sarasota is. Dad died, so I can’t go to Ohio (not that I’d want to live in rural SE Ohio), and my brother moved here and bought a sign shop for some unknown reason. When we worked there together in the beginning, it was a combination of fun and frustration. After we could not afford to pay us both, he left (I was the one who learned to make signs, after all) and got another job. He abandoned me there. I was stuck doing about 75% of the work of a VERY busy sign shop and it was still not making enough money because of the overhead he incurred in procuring said sign shop. So it was maddening and frustrating and involved a great deal of martyrdom on my part and a compromise of values (I don’t really believe in capitalism) of sorts for me.

          • mjdittmer Jan 14,2010 8:46 am || Up

            1) I had thought it was a “Matrix” reference.
            2) I once did a story on a small-town trophy shop for my old small-town newspaper. I imagine the business model is similar–one shop in town, and so the only competition is with the next shop several miles away, and the hope is to cover the biggest geographical area possible?
            3) My fee-yahn-say came home when i was in the middle of this comment, and I was like, “whoops. I got online to look up a recipe for something I was going to make you when you got home, but …” Oh well. That was last night.

            • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 8:57 am || Up

              “Looking up a recipe to make for you…”

              I’ll have to remember that one. If I ever have a girlfriend ever again.

              (sigh)

            • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 10:12 am || Up

              Is that the sort of “recipe” that calls for [butterflies, strawberries, and other non-disgusting things]

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
              • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 10:18 am || Up

                That reference has been, and will continue to be, stricken from the internet.

                "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 10:27 am || Up

                  Man, if you were going to go for the x, y, and z happy things list, you really at least should have used “sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.”

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 11:44 am || Up

                  Jesus Christ, no wonder they took so many fucking drugs.

                • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 10:28 am || Up

                  Plus, dammit, I spent a good 3 minutes figuring out the precise phrasing for that joke to work with “recipe.”

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 10:36 am || Up

                  I stand by my decision.

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 3:49 pm || Up

          Missed opportunity:

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 10:53 am || Up

      Fan-fucking-tastic.

      And I’m shocked that this is new for me.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • salb918 Jan 13,2010 10:54 am || Up

        I was really surprised that I hadn’t seen that either. Can’t keep up with the internets, I guess.

        • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 11:01 am || Up

          must be new if all of us are hitting it for the first time.

          • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 11:10 am || Up

            salb: early leader for FKGSOTD

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
            • salb918 Jan 13,2010 11:15 am || Up

              I give up. I think the g is for geek.

              • green star oakland Jan 13,2010 11:20 am || Up

                Free Kraut Green Star Oakland Tweak Droid

                If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
              • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 11:23 am || Up

                Gold Star

                "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 12:00 pm || Up

                  Free Kraut Gold Star Oakland Tweak Droid?

                  That makes even less sense.

                  And why the fuck does my spell check not know droid?

                • JediLeroy Jan 13,2010 2:18 pm || Up

                  because that’s not the droid it’s looking for.

                  az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
                • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 2:42 pm || Up

                  You got room on your couch?

                  We’re all coming and we need a place to stay.

  41. nevermoor Jan 13,2010 10:50 am

    My proposed response to terrorism, counter-terrorism approved:

    “We give comfort to our enemies,” said Charles E. Allen, a 40-year C.I.A. veteran who served as the top intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security from 2007 to early last year. Exaggerated news coverage and commentary, he said, “creates an atmosphere of tension and fear, and to me that’s exactly the wrong way to go.”

    Note that he was promoted to that position by dirty-hippie-in-chief Dubya.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  42. monkeyball Jan 13,2010 11:24 am

    Yeesh.

    Where the fuck, I wanna know, is Tim Kaine?

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 11:28 am || Up

      I’m glad that a shitty politician doesn’t coast to an easy win just because they’re running as a Democrat in Mass. At the same time, it sucks that Mass. couldn’t get a real senator in line.

      If she loses, HCR is ok but everything else is screwed.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 11:34 am || Up

        I think (and I’d guess that you’ll agree with me) that this is also evidence that when one party gets a stranglehold on power in a given state, that that state party ossifies into a classic “machine” that becomes (a) increasingly detached from the electorate, reality, and the media/information landscape (local media is *not* like national/Beltway media in that respect) and (b) unable to generate any “superstars” from its “farm system” (instead, it’s all Corey Pattersons and Tommy Everidges and mid-to-late-career Jason Kendalls).

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 11:39 am || Up

          I’m not sure that necessarily follows. It seems more likely that when a state has two slam dunk senators (neither Kennedy nor Kerry would have ever lost an election under any circumstances) it makes it hard to keep a good replacement ready. But then, Connecticut appears to be all over that issue so maybe I’m wrong about that too.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 11:43 am || Up

            But when does a state have two SDS’s of the same party, and that same state party does not have a stranglehold on power?

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 12:02 pm || Up

              AR, AZ, CO, ME, MI, MT, ND, VA

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
              • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 12:13 pm || Up

                SDS: Lincoln and McCain both look to be in trouble for reelect (and the AZ GOP doesn’t have a stranglehold on power? I’m talking federal representation and state leg; as we know all too well, gubernatorial power is … idiosyncratic); Udall maybe, but Bennett as SD?; Maine and Montana I’ll give you; is MI not a solidly D state, insofar as leg control + fed rep?; Dorgan’s retiring; and I don’t know that I’d call Warner or Webb necessarily SD

                you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 12:22 pm || Up

                  Fair enough on Lincoln, but I don’t see McCain losing. AZ could well have gone Obama if anyone other than McCain was running. It’s not a perfect example though.

                  MI is usually pretty swing-y, especially as union jobs dry up and people get angrier.

                  In short, it happens but is unusual. They’re certainly overlapping considerations, but neither is a subset. I think the SD thing is worse whether or not they’re aligned with the dominant party in that state (Feinstein is getting nutty, Snowe should have voted for HCR, etc). I certainly don’t think MO, for example, has a healthier political system just because they’re among the swing-iest.

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 12:26 pm || Up

                  Well, I think we may be talking past each other a bit — I think you’re more focused on POTUS vote as an indicator (which I’m inclined to agree with Yglesias and the poli sci people on: that’s less an indicator of party loyalty [and even less of party infrastructure] than it is of, basically, the national/state economic situation and the wartime-status [however defined]), while I’m more concerned with the state-level party infrastructure issue.

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 12:27 pm || Up

                  And, yeah, DiFi is nudging toward Lieberman/Blue Dog territory on her own weird set of issues. She really needs to be replaced.

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • mk Jan 13,2010 12:32 pm || Up

        I will be shocked if she loses.

  43. nevermoor Jan 13,2010 11:30 am

    Would you like to see why the US has a massive budget deficit?

    Here’s the answer.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 12:00 pm || Up

      our straws are all messed up?

    • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 12:02 pm || Up

      so we should all go join Jedi Leroy in JP?

      • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 12:13 pm || Up

        Pretty much, yeah. Or anywhere else in the “first world”

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  44. monkeyball Jan 13,2010 12:14 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • salb918 Jan 13,2010 12:22 pm || Up

      Elder hot of the highest order.

      • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 12:28 pm || Up

        Abso-freakin’-lutely

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • mk Jan 13,2010 12:30 pm || Up

        I just finished watching Prime Suspect in its entirety. Her awesomeness is something like nine galaxies outside the boundaries of what language is able to express.

        • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 12:43 pm || Up

          Following the Beeb tangent, I just watched the pilot of the original Life on Mars. Wow.

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mikeA Jan 13,2010 12:40 pm || Up

      Why does Peter Weir make so few movies?

    • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 12:48 pm || Up

      My name is Jack….

      (Note: if I’m the only one who has played rugby this’ll be a missed reference)

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  45. monkeyball Jan 13,2010 12:15 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 12:23 pm || Up

      Marin local politics is a disaster with which I have a lot of second-hand experience. It amounts to Generic Observation #1: People are stupid.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  46. FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 13,2010 12:43 pm

    I hardly ever read Rick Reilly–not good for my blood sugar level–but this column is a good account of the troubled transgendered LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner/Christine Daniels, who killed herself a few montsh ago.

    "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
  47. salb918 Jan 13,2010 1:20 pm

    I appreciate that MLBTR’s WAGs are usually marked as such, but I sometimes wonder if they just throw the A’s name into the ring for no good reason.

    • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 1:24 pm || Up

      Let’s sign another immobile, defensively challenged sorta-kinda 3B with back issues who can hit HRs!

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  48. monkeyball Jan 13,2010 1:23 pm

    Oh, come onJMM seems to think this means Palin ain’t taking the money. Seems self evident to me that they’re simply giving it to her “PAC” (read: retirement fund) instead.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Jan 13,2010 1:49 pm || Up

      SarahPAC FAQ:

      How will contributions be spent?

      Your support of SarahPac will make it possible for Gov. Palin to continue to be a strong voice for energy independence and reform. By supporting SarahPac, you will allow Gov. Palin to help find and create solutions for America’s most pressing problems; priority number one is building a strong and prosperous economy that recognizes hard work, innovation and integrity by rewarding small businesses and hard working American families. SarahPac will support local and national candidates who share Gov. Palin’s ideas and goals for our country.

      I’d love to see an accounting of that last sentence.

  49. salb918 Jan 13,2010 1:31 pm
    • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 1:44 pm || Up

      Their handling of the stimulus has been notably incompetent from Day One, in concepting, execution, and communcation

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Jan 13,2010 1:48 pm || Up

      I haven’t read the article, because I can sense it says mean things about Obama, but I would just like to note that ProPublica is fantastic. I don’t know what their finances look like; hopefully they’re stable enough to maintain the operation long term.

      • salb918 Jan 13,2010 1:51 pm || Up

        I wouldn’t say mean things…but it does indicate that the accounting (the new era of government transparency!) was perhaps overly ambitious.

    • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 2:20 pm || Up

      Fair criticism. They did over promise and under deliver. We can get into why (congress slashed stimulus, admin underestimated size of recession, etc) but you’re dead right on this one.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  50. salb918 Jan 13,2010 1:34 pm
    • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 1:46 pm || Up

      One immediate advantage springs to mind: When your draft number gets called to go before the Death Panels, the odds will be higher that all the Death Panelists will be out on mandated holiday.

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • andeux Jan 13,2010 1:49 pm || Up

        or on strike.

        TINSTAAFK
        • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 1:53 pm || Up

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mikeA Jan 13,2010 1:58 pm || Up

      I am living the European Dream right now. High hourly, wages, low hours.

  51. salb918 Jan 13,2010 2:04 pm

    I thought the first paragraph was funny. (I haven’t read the full article and have no opinion (yet) on school gardens.)

    • mikeA Jan 13,2010 2:09 pm || Up

      Paraphrased quote from her boss: “she is one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met.”

      which is why she was fired from the new yorker…

    • andeux Jan 13,2010 2:12 pm || Up

      I just came across that also (via sfgate)), and ditto your parenthetical, but this logic

      I have yet to find a single study that suggests classroom gardens help students meet the state standards for English and math. Our kids are working in these gardens with the promise of a better chance at getting an education and a high-school diploma but without one bit of proof that their hard work will result in either.

      fails to impress me. Shouldn’t the same reasoning apply to art, music, and sports?
      There are lots of annoying things about Alice Waters, and school gardens may be pointless, but I just can’t believe they’re doing any harm.

      TINSTAAFK
      • salb918 Jan 13,2010 2:19 pm || Up

        They may not do harm, but they may have an opportunity cost.

      • nevermoor Jan 13,2010 2:25 pm || Up

        Heck, healthier eating actually DOES lead to better scores. There was another survey in the UK recently, but I couldn’t quickly google it.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • FreeSeatUpgrade Jan 13,2010 2:45 pm || Up

        My kids go to Malcolm X Elementary in Berkeley (a neverending source of mirth and head-shaking among my staid East Coast relatives), which is one of the schools with a Waters-funded garden. Berkeley schools also have a Waters-driven healthy school food plan (I’ve eaten there myself) which produces meals which are much, much more healthy and more palatable than anything I ever saw in a school cafeteria in my day.

        The garden curriculum basically amounts to one hour twice a month, where a classroom of kids hangs out in the garden with the gardening instructor, helping with the upkeep and generally learning about plants, nutrition, etc. My third grader now has a remarkable (for her age) understanding of DNA, for example, which was learned exclusively in the garden classes.

        In addition, the garden is open for kids during recess, lunch, and afterschool, which is where many kids spend time in lieu of playing cootie tag or stealing others’ lunch money.

        While I’m sure there aren’t any empirical studies associating the isolated variable of garden instruction availability to overall test scores, I have not that faintest doubt in my mind that the program is a net plus for my kids’ learning. It encourages more learning time outside of classroom hours, and on balance takes away less classroom time than stupid-ass assemblies and fire drills. I also note that Malcolm X is a consistently high performing school, though I won’t claim that’s because of the garden program.

        "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 13,2010 3:00 pm || Up

          I now am filled with bitter regret that my school did not have a garden program.

          • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 10:12 pm || Up

            In currently Soviet Berkeley, bitter regret is filled with *you*

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • salb918 Jan 13,2010 4:14 pm || Up

          That’s a great anecdote. Thanks for sharing.

    • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 3:43 pm || Up

      1. What everyone else already said (esp. FSU, who offers empirical data)

      2. IIRC, CF is an unmitigated bitch on all sorts of issues

      3. I’m all for DFH-bashing, but it’s a sign of the typical wheelspinning required of magazine feature-writing to pad out word count that THE ENTIRE FIRST PAGE HAS ESSENTIALLY NO CONTENT (but vitriol, handwringing, and whataboutthechildren-izing)

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  52. Ice Cream Jan 13,2010 9:02 pm
    Where is the good in "good-bye"?
    • monkeyball Jan 13,2010 10:11 pm || Up

      Kraut, what a jackalope

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come

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