by Ugh
It's Super Bowl weekend. My pick is Seattle winning 34-10. I just don't think New England is the good, they were lucky to beat Baltimore. Seattle was even more lucky to beat Green Bay, but I don't see Russell Wilson having a god awful game again
Tiger Woods is back and... He's terrible. If anyone cares.
A great Aussie open women's final of Serena v. Sharapova. Go Serena! Too bad it's on in the middle of the night eastern.
Will Kentucky have an undefeated season in men's college basketball? They have as good a chance as anyone. I mean, to be leading UCLA 41-7 at the half is just unbelievable. OTOH they do seem prone to lapses.
And there's probably something extremely depressing going on in the political world too. When is Bibi's speech to Congress?
Talk about any and all.
The first pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in 20 days.
Posted by: Countme-In | January 30, 2015 at 10:38 AM
About Bibi's speech: Since the speaker has found a lackey who has undeniable communication means with Israel Their embassy has become superfluous and should be sent home.
Posted by: Shirt | January 30, 2015 at 10:47 AM
When is the current Congress going to register as an agent of a foreign power?
Tiger's short game used to be the best in the world. It's current state of ineptitude is inexplicable, but it looks more like mine now.
GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!!!
Posted by: bobbyp | January 30, 2015 at 10:59 AM
Barack and Michelle Obama should be proud that the worldwide conservative AXIS of murder unites in hatred of them.
Putin, Netanyahu, this disgraceful, racist, genocidal thing called the Republican Party, ISIS, the Saudi Royal Family, the leaders of Iran, Syria, and Iraq --- murderous swine all, eminently killable in their own right.
The lot of them have no idea of the violence that is coming to them.
It will be here soon.
Not as soon as Spring Training, but first, baseball, and then justice.
It's the order of things.
Posted by: Countme-In | January 30, 2015 at 11:14 AM
Looks like Romney's out, after a couple of weeks of testing-the-waters, preening narcissism.
He's off to Barbados to fondle his money, the tax cheat.
Posted by: Countme-In | January 30, 2015 at 12:06 PM
And parts of the GOP in Congress is preparing for a trip to Israel led and paid by a bunch of people* that don't think that the 1st Amendment rights apply to Jews too (although in public they most often only name Muslims, Hindus, atheists and gays as exempt). The same guys also push the "The Nazis were a 100% gay thing" meme and have recently unmasked Beyonce as a satanic agent.
I assume Bibi follows Sharon in considering these guys useful idiots. As long as they put the interests of the extreme Right in Israel above their US oath of office, they can talk rubbish as long as they like.
*The American Family Association.
Posted by: Hartmut | January 30, 2015 at 12:11 PM
bobby, it looks like it might only be the Republican caucus in Congress that will have to register as an Agent of a Foreign Power. Thanks to Boehner's "deft political move," the Democrats seem to be rethinking their reflexive support for anything and everything that the Israeli government does.
We even saw the Senate Democrat (Menendez) who was co-sponsor of the new Iran Sanctions bill announce that he was not going to vote for it. (At least for a couple of months, while talks continue.) If I was an Israeli, I would be thinking that Netanyahu had managed to do serious damage to our support from our major and most critical ally. And maybe reconsidering how I was going to vote in a month or so accordingly. Brilliant work, guys!
Posted by: wj | January 30, 2015 at 12:34 PM
More of this please:
Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and defensive end Michael Bennett both gave impassioned speeches Thursday about how student-athletes are unfairly maligned and how universities don't do enough for them.
Posted by: Ugh | January 30, 2015 at 01:19 PM
Bibi
Schadenfreude is probably not quite the right word in this context, failing as it does to capture the essential bathos, but I was unable at short notice to come up with a better...
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.639717
Attorney general mulls probe into Sara Netanyahu's bottle deposit scandal
The PM's wife Sara Netanyahu kept thousands of shekels of bottle deposits owed to the state.
Posted by: Nigel | January 30, 2015 at 03:26 PM
A good take on the latest John Chait bru-ha-ha...........
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/01/identity-politics-4
Posted by: bobbyp | January 30, 2015 at 04:51 PM
How many days until the NFL season starts? It has become the only sport I spend any substantial time watching. Baseball, hockey and basketball are a waste of time until the third round of the playoffs. Golf is slowly becoming even more boring, granted some small group may create a spark like Tiger and Phil used to. Not sure Jimmy Walkers it.
Posted by: Marty | January 30, 2015 at 04:53 PM
Wouldn't the Israeli attorney general first have to extradite Netanyahu from this country once he's named U.S. Secretary of State under the next Republican President.
Could be dicey diplomatically. It would be like extraditing Iowa Governor Christie back to New Jersey to stand trial for his crimes.
I hope Bibi can help the Jews and Muslims in Texas who now must sing the Star Spangled Banner, pledge allegiance to the flag, and harmonize "Texas Uber Alles" before they are permitted to visit their state representatives down at the Texas State Capitol who have stolen the former's hard-earned tax dollars and used the money to implant newly arrived Mexican children with internal stun devices, so they can be zapped every time they get within a hundred feet of a medical clinic.
Texas State Republicans will also yank out their fillings.
Rumor has it that the Republican Party will defund Obamacare and use the money to fund an addition on the U.S. Capital, which will house the Israeli Knesset, giving us a tripartite legislature which can overrule any veto of an Obama White House refusal to blow the entire world to smithereens every time North Korea points two thumbs down on the latest Ayn Rand film festival, despite the similar prose styles of official state pronouncements from Pyongyang and John Galt's tirades in Atlas Shrugged.
Posted by: Countme-In | January 30, 2015 at 05:10 PM
cleek and Brett, I just excavated some oldish comments of yours from the spam filter. You don't want to be caught with the rest of what's in there, it's *disgusting*.
Posted by: Doctor Science | January 30, 2015 at 11:01 PM
Sometimes, I wish I could give a damn about the Super Bowl. But the feeling soon passes.
Deflategate got me interested in football just long enough to calculate that 20 degrees Fahrenheit ought to be worth about 1 psi inside a pigskin. If the ball is filled with ideal gas, that is. If it's originally inflated with isobutane that may make a bigger difference. If I cared, I'd calculate that.
Speaking of gas bags, Andrew Sullivan's farewell tour of bloggistan reminded me of the one thing I am grateful to him for: it was a link from The Dish that brought me to Obsidian Wings lo these many years ago.
I have no clue what Sully thinks of the new Mormon stance on homosexuality, but I suspect that as a devout Catholic he is all in favor of religion(s) being free to exercise their god-given bigotry. Religion(singular) is free to do that in, say, Saudi Arabia, and look how well that has worked out. One (if "one" is a member of the American Family Association) can only hope that Christianity will prevail in the US the way Islam prevails in Saudi Arabia, or Judaism prevails in Greater Israel when the Likudniks are in power there and the Republicans here.
The week's major event was of course Snowmageddon. I gather the Mainstream Media were, uhm, liberal in their precipitation forecasts for NYC, but they were pretty much right (I mean, correct) in the Boston area. As a veteran of the Blizzard of '78, I was still not impressed. But by the same token, I got a lot more tired shovelling than I would have gotten back then.
BTW, it seems that you people post many more comments on weekdays than on weekends. Do you all have weekend jobs or something?
--TP
Posted by: Tony P. | January 30, 2015 at 11:21 PM
it seems that you people post many more comments on weekdays than on weekends
on weekends, i'm not required to be in front of a PC for 9 hours a day.
it was a link from The Dish that brought me to Obsidian Wings lo these many years ago
i got here from Tacitus, way back when, when Moe Lane and Josh Treviño were both apparently sane and this place had conservative front pagers.
none of the ObWi Originals are left. maybe it's time to update the About page?
Posted by: cleek | January 31, 2015 at 01:41 PM
"maybe it's time to update the About page?"
Don't touch the kitteh, or there will be consequences.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | January 31, 2015 at 02:19 PM
The "About" page certainly does need updating. But Snarki is right, the kitten stays!
Posted by: wj | January 31, 2015 at 02:37 PM
I followed Publius when he closed Legal Fiction and started posting here. Maybe, "How did you find Obsidian Wings?" would be and interesting topic for discussion.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | January 31, 2015 at 05:29 PM
You want conservative, I'll give you conservative:
Don't touch The Kitteh, on pain of excommunication.
Leave the "voice of moderation" tag alone, or I personally WILL actually seize the radio station.
In fact, changing ANYTHING about the format will result in charges of treason. Specifically, removal of the Recent Comments sidebar would be a capital offense in my book.
The width of the main column is perfect; the plain white background is ideal; the fonts are familiar and comfortable; the whole ambiance is practically sacred.
At one time, I thought that maybe one thing could be improved: maybe the commenter's name should appear above and not below the comment. But that was back when I was an innocent newbie. For years now, I have been able to identify the author 6 times out of 7 before scrolling down enough to see the name. So leave that alone too.
Change has its good points, but some things are already perfect.
And yes, I too would like to hear more ObWi discovery stories.
--TP
Posted by: Tony P. | January 31, 2015 at 06:16 PM
The Kitty is going to need a higher caliber weapon.
With maximum-capacity clips.
Came here from Tacitus.
As HE was in the process of becoming Caligula.
Posted by: Countme-In | January 31, 2015 at 07:24 PM
De-lurking. (ObWi is a regular read - has been for years now - but I don't comment much; if I have one criticism it's that non-regular commenters are sometimes not well engaged during discussions.)
But really I wanted to chime in that I, too, found ObWi during the Publius-outing brouhaha.
Also: Pats by 10.
Posted by: bob_is_boring | February 01, 2015 at 01:19 AM
Came here via my boy "Anarch," who has since moved on to marriage and fatherhood and a real job and other such time-sucking activities.
Posted by: dr ngo | February 01, 2015 at 02:03 AM
In fact, changing ANYTHING about the format will result in charges of treason. Specifically, removal of the Recent Comments sidebar would be a capital offense in my book.
Second this. ObWi has always struck me as more comment-driven than most blogs, and not being able to jump straight to where the action is would be awful.
--
No idea how I got here. Maybe from a minor and obscure flash-in0the pan lefty blog. Maybe via Poorman or LGM. Or maybe I got to those via here. That was over 10y ago, and I just plain can't remember at this point...
Posted by: Nombrilisme Vide | February 01, 2015 at 03:58 AM
I too followed Publius here. I can't remember how I first encountered his Legal Fiction though.
Posted by: Hartmut | February 01, 2015 at 04:28 AM
Now I think of it, I had read a post here before coming here regularly. It was an excellent bioethics post I came upon somehow. When Publius came here, I recognized the place as the one where I had read that awesome post (on abortion or cloning?).
I'm going to try to find that old post (assuming I'd be able to recognize it X years later). Now I'm curious who wrote it.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | February 01, 2015 at 09:52 AM
It may have been this one, on the Terri Schiavo case - by Hilzoy! How could I have forgotten that she was a bioethicist? (Probably because she wrote so eloquently on so many other subjects.)
There's some weird guy named John Thullen in the comments section.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | February 01, 2015 at 10:10 AM
I have no recollection of how I got here. But I'm pretty sure that Andrew was still posting.
Posted by: wj | February 01, 2015 at 11:41 AM
The inimitable McManus, Cella, Macallan, the gentle rilkefan, as Hilzoy once called him, Hilzoy her own singular self.
dems were da days.
The ghoulish dance macabre of conservative clowncern for the tragic Ms. Schiavo, and the fetishistic outrage over Mr. Schiavo getting a little on the side (it was called "living his life", probably as his wife would have wanted), despite his herculean care for his wife (no bedsores -- unheard of) for years.
I experienced a little nostalgic throwing up in my mouth just reviewing that thread.
To answer the question I raised in that thread regarding how her care was paid for, she was the beneficiary of non-profit hospice care, Florida Medicaid, and a one million dollar award Mr. Schiavo won in a medical malpractice suit against doctors or hospitals who, according to the Court, f*cked up her care years before.
Note, there is only one of those three sources of funds to preserve Ms. Schiavo's life that the malign conservative death cult in this country doesn't want defunded, bankrupted, and repealed.
I'd have preferred she lived, though I had zero standing to make that my business (McManus' on the money point in that thread), like EVERYONE, but my choice for her would have been for the Republican majority in Congress and the Republican Administration to fund her care completely with federal tax dollars, move her to a more plush residence, perhaps in the White House, or better in Jeb Bush's Florida Governor's mansion, get her off welfare, back in school and into the workforce, perhaps run for the U.S. Senate on the Republican ticket (they could have used her vote against Obamacare in 2009 to prevent Americans with pre-existing conditions from being eligible for health insurance -- her eyes sweeping over the text of the 500-page document and Mitch McConnell interpreting her reaction to the press "If Senator Schaivo can't read the text, then I'm certainly not going to"), perhaps to have marriage proposed to her, after her divorce, by one of the conservatives on that thread who were apparently willing to spend the rest of their lives conducting bake sales on her behalf.
She could have been Jeb Bush's running mate in 2016, with Sarah Death Palin as her sign interpreter, you betcha.
They could have outfitted her with concealed weapons as well and she could be wheeled into the Supreme Court Chambers and consulted by the five conservative murderers regarding her opinions on the Federal subsidies (Scalia would exclaim excitedly -- "she's casting her gaze to the far right corner of the ceiling, that's us boys, that means we decide for King, are you with us Kennedy?", as Paul Ryan, Jodi Ernst, and Steve King rub their hands together and cackle like the Manson Family writing their victory on the walls with Sharon Tate's blood or like the three witches in Macbeth).
Yes, well, Birnam Wood is going to move to Dunsinane Hall to kill this King too.
Posted by: Countme-In | February 01, 2015 at 01:17 PM
Seems I got that Super Bowl thing wrong.
Posted by: Ugh | February 01, 2015 at 10:05 PM
[still alive] After conversing with Sebastian at the Washington Monthly I dropped by here and wound up staying. Very busy with work lately but I'm glad to see familiar ummm.... handles?
Posted by: ral | February 01, 2015 at 10:29 PM
Ugh, the Patriots made enough mistakes to make it real interesting. But the Seahawks made the final, critical, one.
Posted by: wj | February 02, 2015 at 12:10 AM
Andrew Sullivan led me to ObWi, by linking to Hilzoy discussing the ways that torture of terror suspects violated specific laws. I think this was early 2004.
Posted by: Tsam | February 02, 2015 at 10:47 PM
Dr ngo,
Best to anarch, who was an intelligent and clever commenter.
Posted by: byomtov | February 09, 2015 at 09:09 AM