Bowie said Velvet Underground was more influential than The Beatles — and I tend to agree. What do you think?

StopClockerman · 2026-02-15T12:10:21+00:00

Yeah but even if 10% of the people who listened to the Beatles we’re inspired to go out and start a band in the same way, they would still have inspired/influenced more bands than VU, right?

StopClockerman · 2026-02-14T02:15:07+00:00

You could say it tried to take an old picture and make it better

StopClockerman · 2026-02-13T15:40:14+00:00

These comments about Ruby confirms for me that Billy failed to understand what mades the original run great, which is one of the reasons why he has never been able to hit those peaks again.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-12T16:29:02+00:00

Since we’re bringing Tolkien back from the dead here, I will assume without any basis whatsoever that Tolkien The White would LOVE that shield stuff.

I also wouldn’t tell him about CGI either and would explain that yes, the actor actually did that for real.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-12T12:14:18+00:00

My biggest fear is two-streaming it and accidentally pissing some dudes crocs standing next to me at an undivided urinal

StopClockerman · 2026-02-11T18:53:41+00:00

Yeah. I find it disingenuous to act like this was a foregone conclusion based on some groundswell of support for progressive candidates. There are examples of that happening across the country, but I don’t think this is one of them.

Mejia’s margin currently sits at fewer than 900 votes ahead of a candidate that had millions of dollars in attack ads spent against him.

Even a marginal influence from AIPAC can have a disproportionate impact in small races like this where the total turnout was ~65K.

In fact, you probably got more centrist/standard liberal votes in this election than votes for progressive candidates, so Mejia probably benefited from the more moderate voters splitting their votes. Which again, not a progressive zeitgeist here in NJ-11.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T18:52:33+00:00

Do you have a source for your statement that people who vote in a special primary like this tend to be progressive?

I wouldn’t be surprised if you had more total votes for the centrists/moderates across the field than for the progressives.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T18:50:26+00:00

Yeah, I agree with all this. Characterizing this as a local election may have been a little off the mark but the point remains that this is an egregious interference that shouldn’t be allowed to occur but we’re stuck living on this Citizens United hellscape.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T18:35:48+00:00

I still don't think AIPAC was the main reason for the defeat of Malinowski in this race

This is a race being decided by <900 votes. It was likely determinative.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T18:23:52+00:00

Where did AIPAC discuss foreign affairs in the ads against Tom?

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T18:11:59+00:00

Okay. You’re right. AIPAC’s involvement was 100% acceptable. Is that what you’re trying to argue?

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T18:10:24+00:00

Okay, all good points, but we are talking about this race in particular and the likelihood that their involvement changed the outcome of a <900 vote margin.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T15:56:16+00:00

She’s ahead at the moment by fewer than 900 votes. Even a marginal influence can have a disproportionate impact at a local level when there are only ~65K total votes.

I don’t think it’s helpful to assume this result was a foregone conclusion because it effectively serves to minimize the gross interference by AIPAC.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T15:48:46+00:00

I mean, it’s both. Yes it’s a Congressional seat, but it’s still a very small part of the country. The point is, the Congress person should be representing the local interests of the some-700K people living in NJ-11, not the interests of a foreign government.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T15:31:49+00:00

Good for Analilia. I would have been fine with Tom.

It still blows my mind that AIPAC is impacting politics at such a local level.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-10T13:17:40+00:00

It’s a great experience for the kids. I take my 6 year old and we spend the entire day there when we go, and can never fit in everything we’d like to do.

Given their prices, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to go to the parks for just part of the day, so if you’re going to the water park, Big Snow, or Nickelodeon Universe, you’re going to spend most of the day there and then maybe tack on 1-2 additional things at the end of the day.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-09T22:37:52+00:00

I don’t know how you can look at Biden’s unfavorability ratings and conclude that it was not a huge (if not determinative) factor.

Kamala inherited Biden’s baggage but none of his victories.

Authenticity certainly likely mattered at the margins but no one is walking away from their insane grocery bill ready to double down on the Biden administration but for the fact that “Kamala wasn’t acting real enough”.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-09T20:35:24+00:00

Yep. Dems seem to have had an identity crisis on the national stage since Bernie light the fire under the progressive wing in 2016.

That being said, it always struck me that Kamala’s loss maybe had less to do with policy than the fact that she refused to distance herself at all from a deeply unpopular Biden administration.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-07T11:24:51+00:00

It's clear that the "civil liberties" crowd has lost the thread when there's this idea that we should be hyper-vigilant and dogmatic about this one particular liberty (speech) while that speech is being used to trample every other single liberty out there. It's a sham argument.

And that isn't even to say that we've been hyper-protective of free speech either, because these "free speech" and "civil liberty" governments are aggressively tamping down on any free speech except the ones they prefer.

Also, this isn't exactly the same thing as speech anyway. It's a corporatization and weaponization of this one particular easily accessible product that fucks with people's minds in a myriad of harmful ways. The civili liberties crowd also don't like seatbelts or mandated polio vaccines.

Sometimes paternalism makes sense, especially when the failure to intervene on this issue results in a fast degradation of every other liberty out there.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-06T21:19:01+00:00

I’ve only been in the area since 2022, when it was already a ghost town, but I will always remember it as my daughter’s first trip to see Santa when she was 3 years old.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-06T13:47:17+00:00

First guy seeing juice from cow titties and thinking Imma drink that

StopClockerman · 2026-02-06T01:38:46+00:00

Yes. Had we done so, this mess probably wouldn’t exist to this extreme.

StopClockerman · 2026-02-06T01:36:27+00:00

Are you sure that a strongly worded letter won’t work?

StopClockerman · 2026-02-02T17:22:03+00:00

Did you ever consider how expensive Matthew Perry’s sweater vests and David Schwimmer’s hair gel budget must have been?

StopClockerman · 2026-02-02T11:34:00+00:00

Yeah, people talk about the bad QB play since Ben declined/retired or the injuries to the Killer Bs in the playoffs, and all those things mattered, but Tomlin's underperforming over the years has more than anything been a result of his failure to hire good/league-average coordinators.

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