When the national parks are privatized, no one will ever be denied access.

At least, no one with an oil derrick.

At first glance, I read this as "oil dick." Dr. Freud is calling me.

Well I guess it's better than no lube at all...

...If they can afford the entry fee.

What, some crazy assed person started driving a lawnmower around on public property and got kicked off by law enforcement? Fascism. Because there's no way an unauthorized crazy person driving a machine with wildly spinning blades can ever go wrong.

You'd think a law perfessor would have an inkling of the concept of liability.

He does. His readers don't.

You'd also expect a law perfessor not to confuse 'disinterested' with 'uninterested'.

They must've missed that episode of Mad Men where the secretary was driving the riding mower around the office during an office party.

some crazy assed person started driving a lawnmower around on public property and got kicked off by law enforcement?

Life imitates Larry Niven stories.

Oh for God's sake, shut up! They'll start on the organlegger stuff next (and since in A Gift From Earth it starts with the prison population of my home state, it makes me nervous).

Was Niven always a wingnut, or did he just go insane in his later years like so many others?

Funny, I thought that the GOP leadership was now giving other reasons for the shutdown (the deficit! entitlement reform!), so although 67% still think it's all about the ACA, it's a "victory"? Peeking into the bubble is fascinating.

It’s worth recalling that the Park Service has always been deeply ambivalent about the public which they’re charged with serving...

Damn straight. I remember that ranger on Yogi Bear always had a stick up his ass about something.

You're joking, but that's damn close to how Republicans actually argue in their usual "ruling by anecdote" mode.

"Damn straight. I remember that ranger on Yogi Bear always had a stick up his ass about something."

Yogi = Andrew Breitbart
BooBoo = James O'Keefe

Yogi = Vice President Cheney
BooBoo = Scooter Libby

Yogi = Lucianne Goldberg
BooBoo = Jonah

Yogi = Karl Rove
BooBoo = Tim Griffin

Yogi = Mark Levin
BooBoo = Sean Hannity

{add to list at will}

No wonder the ranger always had a stick up his ass. Bears multiply like crazy.

Yogi = Sen. Cruz
BooBoo = Sen. Lee

Beautiful...

oh yeah and...

Yogi = Paul Ryan
BooBoo = Marco Rubio

Why, soon they won't even let you piss in the reservoir.

Psst.... Just wear your swimming trunks and jump in. And then if the park ranger asks about the funny expression on your face, you can say you were just resting.

Where the vegetables are green,
And you can pee right into the stream! (And that's important)
We're back from the shadows again!

I think we're all Bozos on this bus! Go ahead, squeeze the wheeze! Many people like to.

Bear Whiz Beer! It's in the water -- that's why it's yellow!

"click on through and buy some gold!"

Worst Doors song EVER.

"Break on Through to the Boehner Side" was a lot worse.

"Defund Me Two Times" was my least favorite.

The teabaggers in the forest brightly feathered, they are saying, "Out here we is stupid, immaculate!"

Ghosts crowd a teabagger's fragile eggshell mind.

Jonah Goldberg's organ solo on "Light My Fart" was fairly pedestrian, in my opinion.

True. But you should hear him wail on "Riders on the Stormtroopers."

To be fair, if you'd ever seen his organ, you'd know how little he has to work with.

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

I would like to offer this comment an air sickness bag and some eau de toilette on a lace hanky.

Who knew "LA Woman" was actually about Louisiana?

"There's a killer on the road; his brain is squirming like a Toad."

No, wait...those are actual Doors lyrics. They seem to fit the riff so well, though.

"There's a moron in the House; he's orange and stinking like a souse."

Investors scattered on gold’s
high yields leading

Bonds crowd the
market’s fragile derivative indices.

I'm thinking more of "When You're Deranged."

So Obama's "petulant and upset" because his approval ratings have gone *up* since the Republicans decided to stage a remake of "Dog Day Afternoon" on the House floor? Yeah, that makes sense.

They just always feel the need to portray Obama as petulant and upset. I think it might be in the contract. Because the guy is somewhat famously unflappable and calm. I think its part of the general insistence on babyfying dems and the old "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" And, of course, it works on their voters.

I bet the wingers' capacity to believe the opposite of what is right in front of them, and of what they've been told for weeks if not years, begins in religion and "faith." If it's not only possible, but virtuous and praiseworthy, to believe in the invisible and the unproven as regards God, why NOT embrace the ability to believe in anything else you prefer, despite evidence to the contrary?

But scratch "prefer." Rather, need. Fox Muldur says, "I want to believe." Wingnuts say, "I need to believe [for reasons of which I am utterly oblivious], and so I do!"

Jonah Goldberg once wrote that Obama "desperately" wants to appear cool.

Distillation of 21st-century Republican thinking: Jonah Le Petomane thinks someone else is uncool.

Jaw has dropped to lowest floor, entering sub-sub-basement levels now. Shows no sign of stopping. Emergency. Emergency. Jaw heading to China.

In terms of projection, that has to be a 500-seat IMAX, especially coming from "This is central to my point/I'm on a deadline/Pop culture babble/be my unpaid research assistant" Pasty Doughboy.

It's like calling Prof. Krugman "shrill". He doesn't sugar coat his opinion, but where do they get the appellation, "shrill", except from the skree in their own minds when Krugman's opinion skewers their pet conventional wisdom.

So Obama's "petulant and upset" because his approval ratings have gone *up*

Well, duh. If he's rewarded for appearing to stand firm, and the other side eventually backs down, how will he ever be "forced" into gutting Social Security? If I were he, I'd be furious.

The Republicans are coming out with their own version of Breaking Bad. It's kind of a sequel and it's called Broken Badly.

or Breaking Wind

marrying the disinterested contempt of a meter maid with the zeal of an ambitious party apparatchik.

Police officers cracking the heads of Dirty Fucking Occupy Protestors, are just enforcing the law because we are a nation of laws and actions-have-consequences etc., but meter maids are the Gestapo x∞ !

Allowing meter maids to marry zeal is destroying traditional marriage.