Six more weeks of winter my ass. Tell it to my flowers and my dog, you fat rodent. The 40-50 degree days have them both acting like it’s Spring in February. Here’s an open thread.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
A consequence of cucumbers
Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity
White supremacy is terrorism.
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?
Let’s finish the job.
How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.
Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
Republicans do not pay their debts.
A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.
Fuck these fucking interesting times.
Their freedom requires your slavery.
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
In my day, never was longer.
RedKitten
And here in Canada, the fuzzy marmots predicted an early spring. Go figure…
redshirt
Groundhog don’t care about Global Warming!
The Other Bob
I live on high ground in Michigan. Global warming is awesome.
Waldo
I’ve seen people here in New England out jogging in shorts the past few days. I’m thinking of joining them. Might as well enjoy what is most likely the fleeting upside of global warming.
cathyx
I love the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray.
satby
Hey, for all juicers who contributed to SCRATCH for Tiffany, an update: Today Tiffany was able to have her splint removed. The healing process will continue and she will be the one to decide how fast she wants to apply weight to the leg. The surgeon was very pleased with how well things have gone for her thus far. And she’s even put on a pound while she’s been on crate rest. Soon she will once again enjoy a day at the “spa” and sport a new look.
Thank you for your continued support for Tiffany. None of this would have been possible without your donation.
Linda
S.C.R.A.T.C.H.
Saving Carolina Rescue Animals to Caring Homes
http://www.scratchrescue.petfinder.com
RossInDetroit
@The Other Bob:
I’m responsible for 10 tractors with snow blades and 22 snow blowers. The low precipitation this winter has been a blessing.
dsc
you like fruit?
My crocus have bloomed out; daffodils have buds; tulips rising; onions and garlic 8 inches tall.
But with 5 or 6 days of 60-65 days ahead my plums WILL bloom. When the bitter cold of Feb arrives, sap running, it may kill the trees.
If the apples bloom, there will be no fruit there either. No peaches no pears.
All these folks soooooo happy it is “warm” have no clue. I’m not sure the apples have even had enough chill hours to make fruit. Time will tell.
And, to my despair, the peepers were singing this morning. February’s frozen frogs.
but you know, it’s cold in Alaska and Belarus, so the globe ain’t warming
rikryah
you leave Phil alone
flukebucket
It is going to be over 70 degrees here in North Georgia today. I don’t know if we can stand 6 more weeks of this or not.
But I have been told that Erik Erikson is filling in today for Neal Boortz so I have that to look forward to.
General Stuck
No way Gracie. Newt probly can’t see his own feets, let alone his shadow.
redshirt
@The Other Bob: I have a house in the mountains of Maine – I, too, love Global Warming. Bring it on!
(Half kidding – I’ll take milder winters anytime, though I understand the long term/widespread damage GW will cause).
Schlemizel
@dsc:
To say nothing of the fact that no matter where you live the local flora and fauna are there because the climate was ideally suited for them. F up the climate & a lot of those things are going to die and be replaced by other things, some of those other things will be things you don’t like and things that do not interact with your life style the way you are used to. This is a slow motion (for now anyway but that might be changing) train wreck & we all get to sit in the front row and watch it happen to us.
Oh, and don’t for get larger and more powerful storms to help cleanse the earth
Old Dan and Little Ann
My roommates and I drove to Punxsutawney at 2 in the morning from Pittsburgh when I was in college. I couldn’t believe how many other idiots were standing around in the dark and cold to witness that spectacle.
RossInDetroit
Low precipitation this winter (we’ve had less than 2″ of snow so far and it’s long gone) will be bad for farmers. They count on soil moisture from the winter to get their crops through the dry months of the summer. Unless we get a LOT of snow at the tail end of the winter (20″) crops are going to run out of water and stop growing prematurely around here.
Punchy
65F here in KC. Total snowfall so far this year: 0.4 inches. Current record all-time low snowfall: ~4.5 inches.
We’re going to blow away the old average temp and snowfall records.
Nancy
@satby: Good on all of you who are helping little Tiffany.
I’m walking up to my pond in a few minutes to see if my daffodils are confused and sprouting up already. I suspect they are as I have seen irises all over the place when I drive into town. I also heard frogs yesterday. Poor babies.
JPL
Did anyone watch the prayer breakfast? I just caught part of the Presidents statement. Robert Griffin III gave the closing prayer and he was quite amusing. He said he didn’t realize that it was going to be so long and didn’t realize he was suppose to drink both cups (didn’t mention what was in the cups) and now had to go to the bathroom.
scav
One year ago Chicago’s 3rd largest blizzard. 20 inches of snow in 24 hours at O’Hare. pause right, nothing’s changed. (well, I’m still warped, I’m actually a little nostalgic.)
Steeplejack
@Schlemizel:
I read somewhere the other day that Baltimore may be losing its orioles. They’re gradually moving north for cooler weather.
Litlebritdifrnt
In the high 60s here today too and the forecast for the week is it only dipping down to the mid 50s. Daffs and hyacinths are already blooming, as is my Forcythia. Got lots of supposedly tender annuals that are still alive (gazania, african daisies, begonia). I suppose we could get a really cold snap in February but right now I don’t see it happening.
Schlemizel
@Steeplejack:
Northern MN is losing its moose – they are killed off by an insect that gets frozen out every winter so they were never a problem before.
The Aspen are dieing at low elevations and low latitudes. Blueberries are dieing out in the lower part of the State. The list goes on but of course there is nothing we can do about this.
Maybe the baseball team can become the Baltimore Flamingos!
JPL
@scav: My son the consultant was working on a project north of Chicago. When he finished up that job, he arrived back in Atlanta and sent out resumes. He doesn’t travel much anymore. That storm changed the direction of his life.
Cat Lady
@JPL:
I watched it. Obama did a pretty good imitation of a practicing Christian, for being a seekrit mooslem out to destroy murka.
Face
Meanwhile, Yurupp freezing their tetes and noggins off.
satby
SW MI here, high today and tomorrow will be around 45. Daffodil buds, some iris and tulips starting to peek up. Haven’t heard any little frogs yet, but the pond is still more than 1/2 ice covered. Our snowfall was better than eastern MI, because we get a bit of lake effect, but I told the BF last week we’ll be in drought by June if we don’t get some big spring storms or late snow.
John O
And here I picked this week to get out of the cold in Chicago and head to AL to visit my brother. May have to extend my stay!
It’s going to be too bad not to grow old enough to watch the climate change deniers whimper and beg forgiveness.
scav
@Litlebritdifrnt: Europe’s got a freeze going that’s killed ~ 110. BBC here Coldest in 27 years. I don’t know that I’d rule anything out: that cold is still over the pole.
Yevgraf
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
In the pantheon of ridiculous, small minded white people made up holidays, Groundhog Day may be the dumbest.
scav
@JPL: my parents did the same after a snow in the late 60s. and yet here I am. must be a recessive snow-day gene or something.
donnah
My vet said flea and mosquito populations would be up because we didn’t have a sustained freeze. Is this true? Here in SW Ohio, as in much of the country, the mild weather has been okay, because our heating bills are smaller and there are fewer problems with driving. We have had a lot of rain, too.
But I hate what it means for fruit orchards, farmers and their planting situation. damn.
zzyzx
I’m used to plants coming up around now. Seattle winters are wet and chilly but rarely cold.
JPL
@Cat Lady: What are the odds that Griffin has his basketball game with the pres scheduled already? It wouldn’t surprise me if they met later today. lol
RossInDetroit
@Yevgraf:
I’ll still take the rodent over Sweetest Day.
One year they went to rouse Phil out of his burrow and he had died over the winter. Big public OOPS! They brought in a substitute and now Phil is monitored regularly so he’s ready for his closeup.
Raven
@donnah: I question all that stuff about freezes and skeeter. The skeeters in the north woods and Alaska are incredible.
Schlemizel
@Face:
Did you know that the last European ice age was caused by a global warming event? It stopped the gulf stream & without those warm currents Europe froze.
Our understanding of what “global warming” really means is stunted and incomplete
ChrisB
@Yevgraf:
How else would Punxsutawney find a way to bring in tourist dollars?
The Moar You Know
No rain to speak of here in SoCal. No snow, either. Everything started blooming by the middle of January. This is going to be like the 1975-77 drought, with one important difference – six times as many people live here. If this goes three years again, we’re going to have to stop showering. And possibly drinking.
handsmile
@scav:
Appreciate your post last night on the death of Wislawa Szymborksa. (I read it after midnight and had been unaware of her passing.)
I have long enjoyed and gained much insight from her writings. The clarity of her expository style and the breadth of her moral vision demonstrated poignantly what poetry offers to contemporary life.
In its obituary today, the Guardian cited a passage from the Nobel Committee’s citation: Szymborska was the “Mozart of poetry, but with something of the fury of Beethoven.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/02/wislawa-szymborska-dies-88?newsfeed=true
I was happy to learn of your own enthusiasm for her work. Let me recommend a poet I’ve been reading of late, Robin Robertson, and two collections of his work, The Wrecking Light and Swithering. Born in Scotland in 1955, he now lives in London. A recent, very favorable in the NYRB brought him to my attention.
Nancy
@donnah: I was thinking the same thing about chiggers and ticks—the bane of my existence here in NW Arkansas. They are proof that God has a malicious streak. On the other hand, the proboscis monkey may be proof of a sense of humor.
scav
@handsmile: Thanks. I will definitely give him a go. Poetry isn’t my natural language but I keep trying (with Szymborksa, it’s as though the words were already there, unspoken, in my head).
Cat Lady
@JPL:
I wouldn’t bet $10,000 against the pres in a three point competition. Griffin may win the one on one dunk contest, because the pres can’t go to his left as well.
Yevgraf
@donnah:
Absolutely. Its going to be painfully buggy, with likely increases in mosquito-borne illnesses.
Also, farm ponds and lakes are going to be overrun with algae by the first week of July, and will be useless after that.
Yevgraf
@ChrisB:
The planning for each annual event is probably about like an episode of “Parks and Recreation”.
handsmile
@RossInDetroit: (#34)
Nancy
@scav: May I recommend Eleanor Rand Wilner as well. You can start with “The Girl with Bees in Her Hair”. And for earlier in the 20th century, Theodore Roethke.
RossInDetroit
@handsmile:
It happened in the ’70s so the Intertubes don’t know about it. I read about it in the newspaper.
handsmile
@RossInDetroit: (#47)
Newspaper. Newspaper? Evidently you are an antiquarian when you’re not fixing machinery. Thanks!
The Ancient Randonneur
Here at my undisclosed location in Vermont we’ve been around the average high during the day but overnight lows were 15F when they should have been 8F. Maple trees need that deep, deep freeze over the winter to prepare them for sugar season. It probably won’t be a good year. Snow? It looks like mid-April around here.
chopper
six more weeks of winter? doesn’t that assume that we’ve had at least one?
Kevin
This is ridiculous. Depending on the calendar, winter ALWAYS ends around March 20-22. So this year it is nearly seven weeks till Spring. There is always a six week minimum from Groundhog Day until the official first day of Spring. Sheesh.
burnspbesq
@The Moar You Know:
Seriously. We could definitely use a little Pineapple Express right about now.
DanielX
There’s some sort of large sporting event in my fair city this weekend and I was hoping for a blizzard. No such luck, 46 on Sunday and they’ll probably open the roof on the stadium.
WaterGirl
@Cat Lady: That might be funny if I didn’t now that is exactly what my evangelical christian sister believes. So sad.