Tomorrow is a marker day — Candlemas, Imbolc, Groundhog Day — the point halfway between the Winter solstice and the Spring Equinox. Still plenty of ugly weather to live through, but as my Irish ancestors used to say, “Live, horse, and you’ll get grass.”
Coldest weekend so far here in New England, but there’s a wild bunny buck the size of a well-fed cat ensconced in the huddle of planters next to our front steps.
demkat620
Morning everybody. Really sucks, but I gotta go to work. :)
SiubhanDuinne
Makes sense you have a bunny hanging out. After all, this is the first of the month: Rabbit Day! (Does anyone still do that?)
demo woman
Paulson is going to be on GMA to talk about the President’s stimulus plan. Sometimes snark just writes itself.
rootless_e
http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/story.aspx?storyid=124061
mai naem
Paulson should be in prison with a very long prison term. Two weeks ago, Morning Ho was talking about Scott Brown winning Mass because of the HCR. This week its because the Terra trial was going to be held in NYC. Also too, why doesn’t Ho discuss the real reason for why Bloomberg doesn’t want it held in NYC which is $$$. The city can’t afford the trial.
Also, I wish the next time Lieberhole is on MTP or FNS, the anchor would ask him why he can’t being his BFF Republican buddies along on any Dem. bill. That was something he was supposed to do remember?? Yet, all I hear is McCain being nastier than ever and even Susan Collins who Lieberhole campaigned for against a Dem. was talking how Obama was responsible for the Undie Bomber.
rootless_e
which paulson are we sending to prison? Bush’s Treasury Secretary who seems to have become invisible (apparently the bailout was entirely Tim Geithner’s fault) or the speculator who took Lehman to the undertakers?
Keith G
@SiubhanDuinne:
Another day to learn new stuff at B-J
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_rabbit
At the Google, I also learned that Feb. 2010 has been designated by some one as Adopt A Rabbit Month.
I grew up in the 60s hunting rabbits in the fields of NW Ohio. Couldn’t do that now, but I may checkout the local store that often carries the frozen kind next to the geese and duck.
Speaking of rabbits in the 1960s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0
Enjoy and feed your head!
aimai
Annie Laurie,
Happy Imbolc! If we live that long.
aimai
chrome agnomen
i was hoping for replacement
when the sun burst through the sky.
Brick Oven Bill
Astronomy is the Seventh Liberal Art. Its primary value was breaking the power of the men of the Catholic Church. But it also provided for us the concept of the cycle, which was helpful for farmers.
The foundations of Astronomy are the ellipse and gravity.
But Astronomy came to us before the advent of the Era of Fossil Fuels, and the unleashing of the power of the atom.
Thus Astronomy should be replaced by Physics as the Seventh Liberal Art, seeing all the crap that Paulson, his handlers, and their President, are presently throwing at us.
Brick Oven Bill
Let us again review Paulson’s actions. He was the figurehead of Goldman Sachs when they originated the majority of the Collateralized Debt Obligations. These were then sold to other banks, and before they went south, Goldman was not holding them.
By this time, Paulson had convinced Bush to seat him at the Treasury. From this office, Paulson engineered a program whereby taxpayer funds would cover the losses of the buyers of his CDOs. The alternative to this would be the buyers of the CDOs to compel Goldman to buy them back at face value, based on fraud.
There have been no law-suits. There has been no discovery period.
beltane
Good morning, everyone. Happy to think that spring is just around the corner as our pipes froze last night (or unfroze: water was pouring through the kitchen ceiling like crazy). Lucky that no electrical appliances were involved.
Hope the rest of the week goes better.
Chinn Romney
Ugly weather? Au contraire, Winter in New England rocks! There are still a good 8+ weeks of downhill to be had. And close to that much x/c. Except for a couple of weeks of mud, the hiking never stops. That’s my only real gripe about the weather here, Spring is a very spotty affair.
demo woman
@Keith G: My back yard is now called warren. The mutt, Miss Moxie, digs on one side of a burrow and the rabbit or rabbits come out the other side and watch.
mr. whipple
And, mr. whipple’s birthday. This is very important.
jeffreyw
@mr. whipple: Happy bday, dude.
Svensker
@beltane:
Oh, ugh. The worst. My sympathies.
Never turn your heat way down at night when it’s pipe freezing weather, and always leave one faucet just dripping slightly.
Or did you do that and they froze anyway?
PurpleGirl
A blessed Imbolc to everyone tomorrow and Happy Birthday Mr. Whipple.
Thanks for the morning’s musical interlude, Anne Laurie. I went to Faun’s website and I’m thinking about buying a CD or two.
One thing about living high up, without lots of other buildings around and lots of window — I notice the changes in sunlight throughout the day and feel more connected to nature now. Actually I began to see it when in moved to this apartment 20 years ago, but this year I’m really feeling attuned to the light changes.
burnspbesq
@mai naem:
Really? Of what crime(s) is he guilty? Do you have a file with admissible evidence that proves every element of some crime beyond a reasonable doubt? If yes, please share it with your local US Attorney’s office. If not, …
Ash Can
Winter, shminter. Pitchers and catchers start throwing the baseball in just 16 days.
rootless_e
@mr. whipple: Congratulations.
Kirk Spencer
@mr. whipple: Not as important as the fact it’s Kirk Spencer’s as well. :P
Morbo
@mr. whipple: My grandfather’s, too. 92 years old, bitchez!
jeffreyw
@Kirk Spencer: Happy bday to everyone who has a bday today!
jeffreyw
I have big plans for the day, myself.
Doctor Science
Hi guys, back from a weekend off. While my back was turned, Amazon and Macmillan had a serious tweetle beetle bottle battle, and Amazon pulled all Macmillan materials — one-sixth of their total inventory — from their site. Without telling *anybody* ahead of time. John Scalzi’s take. Charlie Stross’ take. Amazon has now relented, but I’m seriously wondering if I should cut the relationship between GoodBookoftheDay.com and Amazon. I’m prepared to deal with the normal pace of link rot, but the prospect that 20% of my links might go dead at once, without notice, is … not happy-making.
Doctor Science
Correction to the above — the links didn’t go *dead*, but Amazon wasn’t offering to sell the books itself — they were only linking to the Amazon Merchants.
Punchy
This. As the reigning champ of my highly-competitive fantasy baseball league, I could not be happier.
Cant stomach that my Cubs just signed chronically injured Nady….unless it’s to kick lazy-ass and clubhouse cancer Sorry-ano to the pine.
beltane
@Svensker: The bozos who built my house had the bright idea to put the thermostat right next to the wood stove. Half the house can be 80 degrees while the other half is freezing. This summer we are going to have to bit the bullet and do some major structural changes so we can stay warm without putting the thermostat up to 85.
RedKitten
I’ve noticed that the days are finally starting to stretch out again. I usually get up at 7am, and for the longest time, it was absolutely pitch black out, not even a hint of sunrise. Now, finally, after teasing us for a month, it’s pretty much daylight at that time of day. In some ways that’s good, but by the same token, it means that I’ve got to get my ass in gear and make some curtains for Sam’s room if I don’t want him waking me up at 5am two months from now.
Svensker
@beltane:
Brilliant.
Have you thought about getting a wireless thermostat? That way you don’t have to do any re-wiring.
ChrisB
The halfway point of winter is big for me too. February is a short month and before you know it spring will be right around the corner. It’s now light to about 5:15-5:30, which means I’m not always coming home from work in the dark any more.
jeffreyw
@beltane: Move the ‘stat?
jeffreyw
Signs of life from the bedroom hearten the doggies.
RedKitten
@jeffreyw: Very nice! :)
I’ll see your alarm clock doggies and raise you someone discovering his feet.
beltane
@Svensker: A wireless thermostat is definitely something I will look into. If I had the money, I’d put in a whole other zone for the cold part of the house, and add another chimney for a second woodstove.
mr. whipple
Thanks, all!
jeffreyw
@RedKitten: Ooh! Aww…but he has left himself wide open for the my famous “tickle the tummy” maneuver. You should train him to ignore it lest I ever meet him.
Keith G
Yay. Pics of cute pups and a smilin’ Sam to start the day.
aimai
Beltane,
This actually happened to us, too. After doing a whole house gut rehab and putting in different zones on the first, second, and third floors our beloved contractor (and we really did love him) managed to put the thermostat for the second floor in our bedroom right over a hot water pipe for the heat to the third floor. As long as we aren’t heating the third floor at all we’re ok, but if that pipe gets hot the thermostat that controlls the bottom two floors has to be cranked up to eighty to make a dent in the cold where we actually live. Not sure I want to get into it to fix it. I think its a weirdly common mistake of imagination and foresight.
aimai
jnfr
@SiubhanDuinne:
Rabbit, rabbit!
Barry
Well, I survived this weekend in Boston, with that bitterly cold New England weather – almost as bad as Michigan :)
A friend got married, and we even got to the ceremony on time (when hiring Cambridge, MA cabs, carry a print-out of the Google map and directions, because they don’t know, and they don’t have those new-fangled GeePeeEes thingamajiggers).
Little Dreamer
Ummm, anyone got any clue what this is supposed to be about?
In googling for more news stories, I see that this is only covered by Press TV and right wing blogs. No credible news source that I can find, WTF?
Keith G
@Little Dreamer:
Sounds like Shakespeare to me:
Both on the part of the leader and of the blog.
carlos the dwarf
@aimai, @beltane:
I feel your pain. I work in a deteriorating suburban office park with full-height windows. So much cold air gets in through the cracks that it’s impossible to heat the offices with windows. Keeping warm on cold days requires three layers and two space heaters.
Kirk Spencer
@Doctor Science: In a nutshell, that’s the sort of thing that tells me Amazon won’t be the Big Winner in the ebook sweepstakes. They have a commanding lead, but they keep doing this sort of thing to both their suppliers and their customers.
SIA
Mr Whipple! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
burnspbesq
This is pretty cool (h/t Andrew).
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/rnr/1574293261.html
srv
@mr. whipple: Mr. Whipple, you share a birth day as great as mine. Congratulations on a job well done.
But why did it take this long for someone to give me these warm flannel sheets?
srv
Oh, and who else has a palindrome for a bday?
Linda Featheringill
Re: Cold weather
We just got a little relief in Cleveland, OH. It is 25 degrees now [MUCH warmer!] and is supposed to hit 32 degrees tomorrow.
So just hang on, New England. You should get some relief in a couple of days [I don’t know how long it usually takes for weather to travel from my house to yours.].
One more really cold month to go this winter. Then we have a cold and nasty spring to look forward to.
PurpleGirl
@burnspbesq:
That was written by Fred Clark, aka Slacktivist and posted on January 24, 2010. It has 780 comments and they are an interesting read. Go to http://slacktivist.typepad.com/
ETA: Fred also has been critiquing The Left Behind series and does a few pages at time. Those posts also have great comments.
Little Dreamer
@burnspbesq:
Awesome link, thanks.
I especially liked this:
I was reading an article recently (can’t remember where it was or how I linked to it), which stated that right-wingers vote against their best interests simply because they hate having things explained to them… that said – if they never listen to this awesome lesson on how they are getting screwed, won’t the huge amounts of right-wingers suffering the loss of their income dollars in a paycheck in a few years eventually learn the lesson (simply by their recessive ability to make payments and buy necessities) to eventually turn them into voters who don’t vote against their interests? Or, do you think they’d simply decide that because they didn’t/couldn’t make it financially, they and their family must have deserved their fate and it’s time to snuff out the entire group?
twiffer
@RedKitten: wow, he’s almost as cute as mine. [grin]