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The Donnybrook
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
 
What are your favorite watering holes?

A great idea for a thread submitted by smallandpettypat.

For the local angle, I'll take any of the Tyler's Taproom locations in the Triangle. The Flying Saucer in Raleigh is great, too. The Hibernian on Glenwood is a classic as well.

Mitch's Tavern is also worth mentioning since I got wasted and vomited all over their bathroom when I was 18 years young.

On the international tip, I'll take just about any of the fine public houses my wife and I enjoyed on our trip to Ireland a few years ago...

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Monday, March 30, 2009
 
Lest they miss an opportunity to capitalize on a genuinely sad situation...

Fox News tries to pin Natasha Richardson's death on the ultimate evil on Earth: The Canadian health-care system...


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Dodger fan filmed himself catching a BP homer during 2008 NLCS...

Pretty impressive feat for a guy whose team wound up losing to the eventual 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies...


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You know what sucks?

A broken air conditioning unit at your place of business.

It REALLY sucks...

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Friday, March 27, 2009
 
A big thanks to the Memphis Tigers...

...for harpooning my NCAA bracket TWO YEARS IN A ROW!!!

What a bunch of no-heart choke artists these shitheads are!!!

If Jesus Christ Himself comes down next year and signs with Memphis, I still won't take them next year as long as John Calipari, that overrated piece of low-grade dog shit, is coaching the team.

You guys are an embarrassment to that hayseed state you live in...

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
 
Will North Carolina get rid of its backward-ass blue laws?

Is anyone still pious enough to support these antequated laws?

The liquor industry wants to make it legal for liquor stores and bars to sell booze on Sunday, a move that would erase the final remnant of the church-driven "blue laws" in North Carolina.

Legislation filed Tuesday would let cities and counties open their local Alcoholic Beverage Control stores and allow restaurants and bars to serve liquor on Sundays.

The recession is buoying the bill's prospects. The longstanding resistance to selling distilled spirits on Sunday may weaken in a state grasping for revenue. Gov. Beverly Perdue proposed balancing next year's state budget partly on a higher alcoholic beverage tax. Liquor industry analysts project that North Carolina would get at least an additional $5.5 million in tax revenue by allowing sales on Sundays.
If you can make a case in favor of keeping blue laws on the books, please feel free...

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No time to be creative...

Consider this open thread, cause I got nothing...

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Monday, March 23, 2009
 
Reason #12543 the original "Office" will never be topped...

Ricky Gervais is a god...


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Friday, March 20, 2009
 
Caribou Barbie makes her priorities crystal clear...

You betcha she does! 2012, she's comin' right atcha!

Gov. Sarah Palin just told reporters that she’s accepting only 55 percent of the federal economic stimulus money being offered to Alaska. The governor said that she will accept only about $514 million of the $930 million headed to the state.

"We are not requesting funds intended to just grow government. We are not requesting more money for normal day-to-day operations of government as part of this economic stimulus package. In essence we say no to operating funds for more positions in government," Palin said.

The biggest single chunk of stimulus money that Palin is turning down is $160 million for education.
Given her own family's approach to education, it makes sense that she would say "thanks, but no thanks" to millions of dollars intended for that very purpose...

UPDATE: It turns out that about $40 million of the money Palin is rejecting is marked for special education purposes. Very nice...

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Thursday, March 19, 2009
 
CNBC's journalistic integrity goes up in smoke...

Literally...



UPDATE: Since today is the 6th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I wonder if Mr. Kudlow would care to comment on the $656 billion (and counting) that has been spent on George Bush's pet war...

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My birthday is May 5th...

...and I'd really love for one of these to show up on my doorstep that morning.

I'm just saying...

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
 
Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Here's a catchy little ditty that you can get drunk to...

"The Wild Rover" by The Dubliners


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To all you loyal Fox News viewers...

How does it feel to be brazenly lied to by your most trusted news source?


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Monday, March 16, 2009
 
10, 12, 9, 6, 6, 4...

Do you know what that number sequence represents?

No, it's not some random Fibonacci series that I pulled out of my arse. It's the number of non-BCS conference (I say "BCS" for a reason, more on that later) teams that received at-large berths into the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament from 2003 to 2009.

Of the 34 at-large berths available, 30 went to programs from the six largest conferences, continuing a trend that has seen the number of mid-major schools in the tournament dwindle since the high-water mark earlier this decade. Mid-majors earned 10 at-large bids in 2003 and 12 in 2004. Since then, the number had fallen to nine, six and six before Sunday.
The trend is pretty clear, isn't it?

The big conferences don't want teams like St. Mary's (26-6) getting into the field of 65, when it comes at the expense of mediocre BCS teams like Arizona (19-13).

Nobody likes the BCS in college football, and many bring up a playoff as a way to fix the situation. Meanwhile, the same six conferences that make up the BCS in football (Big 10, Big 12, ACC, SEC, Pac-Ten, Big East) have an absolute stranglehold over which teams get into the field of 65, which by the way, is only 65 because those same conferences didn't want to give up another at-large bid a few years ago.

It looks better, and it's a lot more fun, but don't forget that the same people who resist a playoff in college football are the same people who run the show in college basketball...

P.S. Memphis will win it all this year, while Kansas, Pittsburgh and Oklahoma will round out the Final Four...

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Friday, March 13, 2009
 
What is it with governors of Texas???

Are they always such conservative douche nozzles???

Gov. Rick Perry will announce today that he is blocking the state from accepting $550 million for expanded unemployment benefits as part of the federal stimulus package.

With an upscale Houston hardware store as his backdrop, he will paint the expansion as a burden on small business.
Maybe Chuck Norris would fit in as the chief executive of the Lone Star State...

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Thursday, March 12, 2009
 
Ari Fleischer: Still a moron, still an asshole...

Here's Dubya's former press secretary, displaying the kind of blind stupidity usually reserved for, well, the Bush Administration!!!

After September 11th having been hit once how could we take a chance that Saddam might strike again?
Those were the days...

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Delawho? Delawhat? Delaware...

Finally, an elected official with a common-sense view of sports betting...

During his campaign for Delaware Governor last fall Jack Markell often hinted that, if elected, he'd support sports betting in his state. Now that he's got the job, Markell is done hinting.

ESPN The Magazine has learned that sometime next week, according to a statehouse source, Markell will introduce a proposal which, for the first time in more than 30 years, makes gambling on sports legal east of the Mississippi River. The plan, which could be approved by the state legislature as early as April, would likely be operational come fall, just in time for the NFL season.

Markell's proposal calls for a statewide sports lottery that only allows parlay bets. In a parlay, gamblers have to get two bets right in order to win. It's an idea that has been brewing in Delaware for a while, long before the economy imploded and the state found itself with a budget shortfall of $700M. In fact, a proposal to allow gambling on sports died in the state legislature last year, when then governor Ruth Ann Minner made it clear she'd veto a resulting bill.
It always amazes me how puritanical this country can be when it comes to the issue of gambling...

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
 
Feel Their Pain...

Downturn trims list of world’s billionaires...which has lost almost a third of its members

The world's richest are also a lot poorer. Their collective net worth is $2.4 trillion, down $2 trillion from a year ago. Their average net worth fell 23 percent to $3 billion. The last time the average was that low was in 2003.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
 
Will they change the name of the show to "Jon Minus 9"?

Is anyone else not terribly surprised by this news?

Jon and Kate Gosselin of TLC's docudrama Jon & Kate Plus 8, about their family life with two sets of multiples, may have trouble in paradise.

The couple appears to have serious marriage problems now that Jon has started spending increasing time away from home and partying with college girls, claims InTouchWeekly.com.

In a Feb. 6 incident, Jon was reportedly hanging out at Mimi's martini bar in Huntingdon, Penn. -- easily three hours away from the new home he and Kate moved into with their children -- when he met some girls from Juniata College who invited him to a house party.

"He walked in with two girls he met at Mimi's bar," a senior tells the magazine. "It was so cool."

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A comment so brilliant, I wish I had made it...

From Talking Points Memo...

Bobby Jindal is to Kenneth the Page as Michael Steele is to ... Michael Scott.

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Monday, March 9, 2009
 
I Wish He'd Break Clean...

...from Bush on signing statements. I can understand that it may be useful during his time in office, but it is a slippery slope to go down, letting Presidents ignore the intent of the laws that they sign. President Obama, don't be like Bush/Cheney/Addleman.

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1984....as in George Orwell
You have no expectation of any right to privacy when you post online. Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have been warned, you will be assimilated...

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Take Me to Your Leader

So is it Steele, Rush, Sarah, Mitt, Sam(Joe)? Who? Eye of Newt?

Republicans.....who are you and what are you about? You don't need to really decide on a standard-bearer until 2010, but just what is the GOP in agreement with itself about? That would be a start. Perhaps the 2009 Governor's races will give hope, with both VA and NJ is play. But the GOP has yet to make any headway on its identity. Will this party punish Snowe and Collins for aiding Obama? Will it force Arlen Specter to switch (back) to the Democratic party/oust him in the primary for a sacrificial candidate in To0mey? It boils down to this: does the GOP aim to fire up it's base or move toward moderates? No having it both ways when you have made the sort of bedfellows the GOP has. The GOP will almost undoubtedly pick up seats in the House in 2010, but the Senate is a different question. The longer the indecision by the GOP as to what it really stands for, the worse the damage will be. Nat Silver suggests we will know Steele's fate after March 31st.

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Congressman from North Carolina opens the Republican playbook...

Allow me to paraphrase it for you:

Fuck the economy and the unemployed, the American people hate our policies, so we're gonna bitch about Democrats until the 2010 elections.
And just in case you thought I was exaggerating, here's Rep. McHenry's actual quote:

"We will lose on legislation. But we will win the message war every day, and every week, until November 2010," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., an outspoken conservative who has participated on the GOP message teams. "Our goal is to bring down approval numbers for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint."

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Saturday, March 7, 2009
 
An Old Standard..


As it has never been before. If you must, skip to around 2:40 in......Vic is the man.

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Friday, March 6, 2009
 
A classic groove to take you into the weekend...

This is one of those songs I like more as I get older...

"Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson


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To anyone who thinks the Democrats conspired to get Rush Limbaugh more attention...

Look how your beloved Fox News has been covering the pill-popping, limp-dicked leader of the GOP...



Oh, and if you believe this conspiracy theory, please slam your head in a door.

You're not going to need it, anyway...

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Thursday, March 5, 2009
 
For any of you that are stupid enough to put your faith in Jim Cramer, Rick Santelli, Larry Kudlow or anyone else employed at CNBC...

Take some of that great advice they peddle on a daily basis and plant it squarely into your keister. It's much less dangerous there than anywhere in the real world...


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Wednesday, March 4, 2009
 
Who else laughed their ass off the first time they saw this?

One of the few movie moments that has made laugh so hard, I cried...



What other movie moments made you laugh this hard?

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America loves President Obama and hates Republicans...

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise...

After Barack Obama's first six weeks as president, the American public's attitudes about the two political parties couldn't be more different, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds.

Despite the country's struggling economy and vocal opposition to some of his policies, President Obama's favorability rating is at an all-time high. Two-thirds feel hopeful about his leadership and six in 10 approve of the job he's doing in the White House.
"What is amazing here is how much political capital Obama has spent in the first six weeks," said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "And against that, he stands at the end of this six weeks with as much or more capital in the bank."

By comparison, the Republican Party — which resisted Obama's recently passed stimulus plan and has criticized the spending in his budget — finds its favorability at an all-time low. It also receives most of the blame for the current partisanship in Washington and trails the Democrats by nearly 30 percentage points on the question of which party could best lead the nation out of recession.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
 
If You Have A 21-ft Boat...

Perhaps you shouldn't go 50 miles offshore! Sad, useless loss.

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The head of the RNC remembers who his real boss is...

...and promptly tucks his tail between his legs to issue a pitiful apology to GOP demi-god Rush Limbaugh.

Steele even went so far as to hand his testicles wrapped in a shiny golden bow...

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an "entertainer" whose show can be "incendiary."

"My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh," Steele said in a telephone interview. "I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership."
Very ballsy move, Mr. Steele. The party is lucky to have you.

The Democratic Party, that is...

UPDATE: Bobby "deer in the headlights" Jindal is out with a statement chastizing the head of the RNC for daring to speak ill of the pill-popping leader of the Republican party...

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Monday, March 2, 2009
 
How Nixon-esque...

It's not illegal if the President does it.
Warrants? Pah!

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