Here’s some potential subjects for you:
Airbus A350 prototype makes first flight.
Moore, OK Veterans memorial to be repaired after heavy damage from recent storms.
The OTHER unanimous decision by SCOTUS is extremely important to just about anybody who drinks water. BTW–Tom Cole is what passes for a moderate in the modern Republican party.
Military Judge bans Fort Hood shooting suspect’s proposed defense at court-martial.
Corner Stone
Obama has failed me today!!
jeffreyw
Sliders
pokeyblow
Sure is a shame that Bush, Cheney et al. won’t be held accountable for killing those hundreds of thousands of people and pissing away/stealing those trillions of dollars.
At least I think so.
kdaug
No dinner plans yet? This will get you started.
(I’ll be re-posting at some point next week for a refresher. Full-service, and all that).
Mnemosyne
Does that sketch show Hasan in a wheelchair? I haven’t been following the trial, so I’m not sure what’s up with that.
Corner Stone
Since this is the second term of the Obama presidency, when can we expect someone to release:
THE PROGRESSIVE KRAKEN?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
As someone who lives in the DFW area, it will be interesting to watch the reactions to the SCOTUS ruling. We are already on stage 3 water restrictions, which means watering our lawns only once a week.
srv
Irony Fail:
sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Lawmakers-want-to-name-Bay-Bridge-for-Willie-Brown-4599233.php
It’s like renaming NOLA after W.
gratuitous
Interesting court ruling that Hasan can’t use the “defense of others” defense at his court martial. That is, the tribunal has determined that because nobody at Ft. Hood posed an immediate threat to anyone in Afghanistan, Maj. Hasan can’t argue that his actions were justified in protecting anyone in Afghanistan.
It seems we’ve heard a version of this defense when it comes to the summary execution of Anwar al-Awlaki by our military. At the time al-Awlaki was killed by remote control, my understanding is he was riding in a car in Yemen. While I’m sure there are zillions of terrorists all over the globe just thirsting for my blood at any given moment, I’m not terribly threatened by some guy tooling around in Yemen.
‘Tis a strange world we live in.
Amir Khalid
@Mnemosyne:
He got shot by MPs responding to the incident, as I recall, and was consequently paralysed.
geg6
I just want to note my dismay that anyone would take that creepy Cumberbatch dude over George Clooney. I knew the standards in this country had gone way down when people were sighing over Paul Ryan, but Cumberbatch is a new low.
piratedan
@Corner Stone: it’s currently in committee waiting on a cloture vote
The Dangerman
@Corner Stone:
Maybe after the midterms; recall, W won by a few votes in Florida/Ohio, but he had mandates. Obama, not so much.
Betty Cracker
@jeffreyw: I would remove the pickles, but after that, I would inhale every damn one of them.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@geg6: Not that I bat for the team in question, but Cumberbatch has been around a while. He was the new Sherlock Holmes (available on Netflix) long before he showed up in the latest Star Trek, and quite a handsome chap, all things considered.
piratedan
have heard that supposedly Rick Perry has just vetoed the Lily Ledbetter act in Texas
Higgs Boson's Mate
Chained CPI. Now where have I heard of that?
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Cumberbatch isn’t conventionally handsome, but he has presence.
gene108
@srv:
I hate it when they rename bridges. I know NYC did this with the Queensboro and Triboro Bridges and as not being a NYC resident, I have a hard time remembering what the new names of those bridges are. I think one is the Ed Koch bridge and the other RFK, but when I’m looking at the signs, being an out of towner, I expect to see Queensboro or Triboro and I’m not sure what those new names are pointing me at.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Republicans
NickT
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Maybe we could just present a Chained Inhofe Amendment and leave the CPI alone?
peach flavored shampoo
I’m surprised that people appear surprised that fresh water is a limited commidity, and that unchecked population growth would eventually collide with said limited resource.
Let the Texans make their own water. Desalination plants every 10 miles of coastline. Come on TX, get your shit together and quit five-fingering the wet stuff from the wingtards in OK.
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
Right. He’s not my type physically, but his intelligence and incisiveness make him sexy.
I do admit that he didn’t make much of an impression on me when he was on an episode of Miss Marple. It was Sherlock that did it.
Soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, he’s wheelchair bound. Amir Khalid at #10 is partially correct. The law enforcement officers who engaged MAJ Hassan were civilians from the Department Of Defense Police Service, who serve alongside and augment Military Police but do not deploy to combat zones.
Subsequent to those events, both of the DoDPS officers involved were furloughed in a cost-cutting reduction in force.
nydailynews.com/news/national/police-officers-fort-hood-shooter-maj-nidal-hasan-lose-job-army-base-a…
NickT
@piratedan:
Sweet FSM, that man gets dumber by the month.
Hill Dweller
The Beltway media is telling me Obama’s trip to Africa is a crime against humanity.
Dubya took a couple of trips to Africa, but that didn’t seem to warrant any negative press.
srv
@Corner Stone: I’m thinking the Kraken is going to have an epic WTF COURTESY BOMBS FOR SYRIA! post any time here.
Or he may still be basking in the joy of his successful business trip.
BGinCHI
@Betty Cracker: Ouch. That’s like telling a dude he’s nice and you just want to be friends.
If I had to pick a guy, and I’m only saying this for scientific purposes, I’d go with Clooney, though Jeremy Scahill is a close second.
seanindc
Can someone explain to me (like I’m a 5 year old) the SCOTUS ruling? I get that it states TX can’t just grab up as much water as they need, as structured in the compact. But what implications does this hold for TX? For OK? Can TX buy access to the water from OK? I’m not seeing how this is a bad ruling. If DFW’s zoning and expansion laws didn’t adequately take availability of natural resources into account, I’m not sure how it’s ok to steal from your neighbor…
Higgs Boson's Mate
@NickT:
Now that has legs! Does anyone in the GOP think for one minute that those who are living on SS are going to welcome a regime that reduces the COLA?
geg6
@gratuitous:
Well, personally, I’d say that his proposed defense fails simply because he, himself, voluntarily joined the organization that he now says posed an imminent threat to those sweet, cuddly Taliban fighters.
I just love how you manic progressives love you some al-Awlaki. He was just a cuddly dude exactly like the Taliban, right?
BGinCHI
@peach flavored shampoo: When TX secedes Jesus will make it rain Shiner Bock for a month.
/makes that hook ’em horns symbol
MikeJ
@Betty Cracker:
One thing that counts in his favor as opposed to Mr. Clooney is that people’s mother’s sigh about George Clooney. Making goo goo eyes at the same old dude as your mom has got to be sort of creepy.
Ed Drone
The Syrian BOS (Bucket of Shit):
Possible (though distasteful) Syrian Solution
I posted this at the end of a long thread, but think another look at it might be beneficial. Juan Cole knows whereof he speaks when it comes to the mid-East.
Ed
BGinCHI
@seanindc: I thought TX had no zoning laws. Or is that just Houston?
Corner Stone
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
From Martin?
Hal
@Betty Cracker:
Love the voice, and he’s a great actor. Eagerly waiting for Sherlock this Fall.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: He has some serious geek-hawtness, and should go far.
It takes a certain kind of actor to make science fiction work. Look at all the most successful Star Trek Captains; Shakespearean training, every one of them.
Corner Stone
@BGinCHI:
[sobbing gently]
piratedan
@seanindc: think about the implications that this has out west, think Los Angeles and the State of Arizona. How the LA land developers managed a way to split off La Paz county from Yuma county so they could buy all of their water…..states have to sit down and plan and cooperate as opposed to “we’re the biggest so it sucks to be you….”
Flying Squirrel Girl
@Hill Dweller: Did they cost a HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS like Obama’s is going to? That’s whY!
geg6
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Well, I’m not a Sherlock Holmes fan or a Netflix fan, so I’ve missed him up until now. And having seen him, I now know that I wasn’t missing anything.
Seriously, how does he rate being called handsome? I don’t see it and I usually like me some young hunky guys. Hell, I’d take Robert Redford at his current age and physical condition over this guy. The Cumberbatch dude is not just homely, but kinda creepy looking. Sorta not as handsome but every bit as serial killer-like as Ted Bundy.
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman:
Ok…2015 then?
Good…good…
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
As I said above, so did Ted Bundy.
Citizen_X
@Corner Stone:
The nomination fight is gonna be a bitch.
NickT
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I guess that might depend on whether they think it hurts liberals more.
jeffreyw
@Betty Cracker: Pickles are required.
geg6
@MikeJ:
Even when I was 20, I would have found Cumberbatch homely. And I don’t get the presence thing at all. I kept wishing Ricardo Montalban or someone with at least a modicum of his looks and acting ability could have been found to play such an iconic character. He ruined the film for me.
WereBear
@geg6: Different chemistries work for different people. I like Robert Redford as a person, but even at his physical peak he never rang my chimes.
Suffern ACE
So naturally, the Fort Hood Shooter is begging to be declared an enemy combatant.
Citizen_X
@BGinCHI:
[Runs out to buy SECEDE bumper sticker.]
BarbCat
OT! BarbCat is fostering her first dog ever. He is 6 lbs.of fearless sweetness, with 3 service-able legs . He made friends with some bigass Venice Beach dogs on his first morning walk. I was scared to death, but not Solly. The cats are skeptical/pissed/afraid/insulted/indignant/sad/mad/curious/hatin’ – but they’ll get over it. I’m so excited and just want to make sure I don’t fuck it up.
plus.google.com/u/0/photos/104871394607581361294/albums/5889444082444062497
I made this album public. I hope you can see him. Wish us luck (as in hope his Nevada forever family changes their minds when they learn his leg probably won’t ever work).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@seanindc:
BWAHAHAHAHA! This is Texas, a libertarian paradise. And I believe the ruling violates the libertarian principle of the state with the most guns wins.
kdaug
@BGinCHI: Zoning is largely local.
seanindc
@BGinCHI:
I guess that’s sort of my point – the utter lack of planning and developmental restrictions have led them to a water crisis (as I understand it).
Soonergrunt
@seanindc:
Basically, SCOTUS said that neither Texas nor the Tarrant Rural Water Board had the right to unilaterally take water from the Oklahoma side of the state border, and that there was no mechanism under federal law or the original Red River Water Compact to force the Oklahoma Water Resources Board to license either Texas or the TRWB to purchase water and transport it outside of Oklahoma. The TRWB originally tried to buy water from an entity in Oklahoma, but the OWRB told them that entity that it could only sell water to an organization or municipality that was licensed to buy water. Subsequently when the TRWB attempted to procure a license from the ORWB, the ORWB refused to grant one on the grounds that TRWB intended to take the water our of Oklahoma. TRWB and the State of Texas sued for the right to take the water from a shared resource that crossed state lines, and failing that, for the right to purchase a license to buy water and then move that water out of Oklahoma. SCOTUS said that TRWB knew it had no rights to the water or it would never have tried to buy the water in the first place, and Oklahoma was well within its rights to prohibit the sale of Oklahoma water to out of state entities.
Ultraviolet Thunder
In case you needed an ego boost today, the Dems beat the GOP in the Congressional Baseball Game.
22-0.
Jay
The Greenwald picture below should contain the phrase, “sparkle – ponies.” (h/t: Chris Kluwe)
Rathskeller
Bachman and King urge their conservative followers to “melt the phone lines” in opposition to the immigration bill.
srv
Oh, for those of you who are still cool
Ghost in the Shell: Arise
NickT
@Jay:
Hmm, but then we’d have to include “lustful cock-monster”.
PurpleGirl
Bless you Sooner for a new posting and a new thread.
How is your family (wife, kids, parents, in-laws, etc.) ?
Eric S
@geg6: ” He ruined the film for me.”
I saw the film last night. What started as a reasonably entertaining film was ruined when the writers all but photo copied the last half of the script from 1982.
gene108
@WereBear:
I remember how shocked I was to find out Patrick Stewart wasn’t French. His impeccable French accent and stylings for Jean-Luc were amazing. I felt like he should’ve been at a salon in Paris, after the first world war. /snark
Comrade Mary
@Betty Cracker: Yep. I think Clooney is sexy because he’s also sly and funny and a goofball and funny, not just symmetrical. (The litterbox prank? Priceless.) But his sense of humour was apparent early. It took me a long time to warm up to Brad Pitt because he is just so blandly handsome, but Snatch and Oceans 11 showed that he could be funny, so he registers as sexy to me.
But Cumberbatch had me at whatever the otter equivalent of “Hello” is. That genuine presence, that stillness, and the delightful combo of odd and pretty in his looks: it all works for me. Yep. Not just going along with the hip kids. He just works. No thinking required at the moment, as much fun as it is to analyze my reaction after.
piratedan
random awesomeness:
social-consciousness.com/2013/02/fifteen-year-old-invents-cancer-diagnosing-method.html
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: Ok, I should have gone with Keith Hernandez.
MikeJ
@gene108: There’s a man on the wing of the Enterprise!
Mnemosyne
Okay, there’s definitely some comment weirdness going on — first my comment vanished without posting, and now it’s telling me “duplicate comment detected” even though the first version hasn’t posted.
gene108
@srv:
Found the movies to be too slow paced. The Stand Alone Complex episodes were awesome though.
BGinCHI
@seanindc: Yeah, I get it. But the failing to plan is in this case a real planning to fail, unless you think natural resources are limitless.
Wait, I think that’s a plank in the GOP splatform.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: Tis true. For my money, Marlon Brando in his youth was the hottest male creature to ever walk the earth. He was already old and fat when I first became aware of his existence. But damn!
piratedan
@srv: looks like they’ve done a bit of tweaking from the original character designs at first glance. It’s a cool vision, look forward to revisiting it again.
gene108
@MikeJ:
Damn it Jim, I’m doctor…
I can’t waste time looking through your window…get security to blast him off the wing…wing of the Enterprise? What kind of twilight zone do you think this is?Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@srv: Awesome. I’ll have to watch it when I get home. My middle son will be excited as well.
Mino
@Soonergrunt: Don’t they need that water for fracking? They can let Texas have it after they are done with it. We’re a hardy bunch down here.
Francis
@seanindc: Part A: Interstate compacts are contracts, not waivers of sovereign authority. So even though Oklahoma signed the compact, it did not give up its sovereign power to regulate water. Part B: Oklahoma’s regulatory scheme makes it virtually impossible for any out-of-state party to acquire water rights within the state. The Court did not reach the question of whether this scheme violates the Commerce Clause, because there is no surplus water in the Red River for the Texas water district to appropriate. The issue is moot.
This decision is entirely consistent with the Court’s jurisprudence on interstate water disputes. If you’ve got nothing better to do for a couple of years or more, you can read up on the Law of the River (the set of laws, decisions, treaties, rulemakings and miscellaneous materials governing the use of the Colorado River).
Amir Khalid
@geg6:
I wish Khan Noonien Singh had been played by an actual Punjabi, or at least someone from the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. It’s annoying to see ethnically unbelievable casting; it just takes you out of the story. Like when I saw Leo DiCaprio introduce Amitabh Bachchan as “Meyer Wolfshiem”.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
In fact, you could say exactly the same for every actor who played a Picard on ST:TNG.
raven
@piratedan: Forget it, it’s Chinatown.
and that water is bad for the glass
seanindc
@Francis:
Thank you and Soonergrunt for the clear explanation.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
I thought Khan, from the original series was from Australia or maybe he was imprisoned in Australia before being shot into space. I don’t remember, which but I’m not sure if there’s a specific reference to him actually being Indian other than the name and if Uma Thurman can be a tall blond, I guess it doesn’t mean all Uma’s (or Khan’s) are Indian.
MikeJ
@Betty Cracker: Unrelated to rating the relative hotness of men who are not me, has your daughter joined the cult of The Fault in Our Stars readers? I ask because I believe she’s of age to be squarely in the demo, and I was about 30 years too late in reading it.
It was mentioned in one of the recent “what are you reading” threads and despite being “young adult” fiction is very, very good. The other book I picked up from the same thread was not. It was some sort of Left Behind series for members of the SCA. Which doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed that book too, but where the kiddy book was relentlessly good, the other was relentlessly stupid.
scav
@BGinCHI: No no no no no. Intelligence, presence, moves and a voice. “A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: . . . “. Clooney himself doesn’t fit the cardboard cutie genre, but Cumberbatch can compete.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
???
There was more than one actor playing Jean-Luc Picard?
BGinCHI
@scav: This is absolutely the last time I bear my soul for you all in talking about which men I think are attractive.
/sniff
Trollhattan
Holy chit, I’ve completely missed what’s been going on in Arizona with Governor Pointy-finger Laydee.
This is making me dizzy. What’s next, Joe Arpaio learning Spanish?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
So, anyone else see Man of Steel yet? (While we’re on the subject of pretty….)
@gene108: Khan and crew were imprisoned on a ship named the Botany Bay.
raven
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Amir has!
raven
Naveen Andrews was good as a Sikh.
Betty Cracker
@MikeJ: Yes! One day we were both reading at opposite ends of the sofa, and I looked up and noticed she had tears streaming down her face — I take it the ending is sad, and knowing the general premise, I can guess why. The kiddo told me I need to read it, and it’s in my stack, but I haven’t got to it yet. Glad to know it’s adult friendly as well.
Soonergrunt
@gratuitous: MAJ Hassan is not an enemy combatant. He cannot avail himself of the legal protections and immunities that members of an armed force (like, say, a Taliban member) could on the battlefield. He is (under the law) a Commissioned Officer of the United States Army who stands accused of multiple counts of premeditated murder of other members of the US Army.
If he were Joe off the street, he might have such a claim under federal criminal law, but there is no recognized right under the UCMJ to murder one’s fellow service members.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Betty Cracker:
My mother, who is a white as Wonder Bread, shocked me as a kid by saying Sidney Poitier was “A fine looking guy”. But really, he was.
scav
@BGinCHI:Heavens no, what’s the point if we can’t have long arguements comparing preferences point by point and arm-waving? discussing the importance of well-fitting clothes, favorite scenes and the value of cheap desserts along with more substantial offerings.
raven
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Um, he is an is not a was.
Speaking of him, Something of Value and the Mau Mau, did you see where the Brits are paying reparations for torture in Kenya?
france24.com/en/20130606-uk-compensate-kenya-tortured-mau-mau-colonial-uprising
MikeJ
@Betty Cracker: I was alternating between print and audiobook and went for hike this morning. I was wandering through the forest attempting not to cry out loud and have my face relatively composed every time I met someone on the trail.
Got to the trailhead with 30 minutes left of the book, couldn’t drive and listen. Had to finish it at home.
Betty Cracker
@Trollhattan: Governor Bat Boy down here in FL tried to do the same thing but got hip-checked by the teabagger super-majority in the state house. I suspect the for-profit healthcare orgs are eager to get their mitts on some of that dough, so I’d be surprised if we’ve heard the last of it.
Soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: Nothing in the filter.
piratedan
@Trollhattan: it’s the money…. while R’s foolishly invested budget windfalls (leftover from a D governor, natch) in real estate, that took a nosedive when the chite hit the fan. Then they followed that up with SB1040 which had that disastrous economic effect of managing to piss off the state’s biggest trading partner (Mexico) and it’s biggest source of tourism (Mexico). So needless to say, there’s only so many people you can kick off the transplant rolls and kids you can deprive of a hot meal. Arizona also is one of the big three for retirees. Pissing away federal cash at a time when someone might have to think about the T word made this decision for her. The fact that she must deal with those who are ideologically pure and melanin challenged, made it schadenfrudenly fun to watch her battle the monster that she had aided and abetted so many times in the past. To her credit, she stuck to her guns (how very arizonish of her) and vetoed every damn thing that came down the pipeline from crazytown central until she got her way. Chalk it up to the stopped clock theory.
Comrade Dread
@geg6: I do know that I really wish I had the man’s voice and could sound like him.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@raven:
At the time, he was in his mid-30s. He’s now 86 and it’s a different deal.
WereBear
@BarbCat: What a total cutie pie.
Let’s hope they won’t care about his bad leg, either.
kdaug
@srv: Cool.
raven
@Ultraviolet Thunder: wow
Corner Stone
@BGinCHI: Personally, I have a thing for Daniel Craig.
Soonergrunt
@PurpleGirl: We’re all holding together. Getting slowly moved in. We sent soonerdaughter to Europe with her aunts for a month. We saved up for that for a year, and sprung it on her. She’s loving it. The weather has calmed down here, which means that it’s unnecessarily hot and humid. But at least it’s not overtly trying to kill us. I need to post some dog pictures, but she really needs to be groomed. She’s pretty messy looking right now.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
There’s an episode where Jean-Luc goes on leave and visits his brother Robert at the family vineyard in France.
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I have indeed, as Raven says, and I had this to say about it. Just one thing to add: the comic relief in a Superman movie traditionally comes from the adult Clark Kent as a diffident bumbler, but here he only shows up late in the film so don’t expect very much of that.
Soonergrunt
@Mino: We kind of need it for drinking, actually. We have a pretty significant drought throughout part of the state. Of course, the recent storms actually ended the drought for part of the state, there’s still the western part of Oklahoma which is under an “exceptional” drought, which I gather is the highest rating.
NickT
@Mnemosyne:
Give the NSA time. You can’t expect them to analyze every comment and return it instantaneously.
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: @piratedan:
Thanks for the followups (followsup?). Being one of Jerry’s kids I’ve been inundated with the California healthexchange rollout and just assumed we’d be the southiest state to ever participate. (Not talking about you, Hawaii.)
Insurance company leverage is an interesting counterpoint to tealogics. I’m holding out hope they’ll gain traction on climate change action, as they watch their profits disappear one storm/fire/flood/drought at a time.
Haydnseek
Let’s cut pay for military personnel! Great idea! What’s that you say? Military pay is already so low that many families have to use food stamps? Well, they must be moochers and takers! Once their pay gets low enough, they’ll be motivated to do better, because poverty builds character!
NickT
@Trollhattan:
They’ve taken to calling it Obrewercare.
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: I like him too. But just as a friend.
Amir Khalid
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
If anything, the dignity that comes with Mr Poiter’s years and his long record of activism in good causes only add to his handsomeness.
schrodinger's cat
@geg6: Just because you don’t like him, does not make Cumberbatch a creep.
Trollhattan
@Soonergrunt:
Checking the map, only your pointy bit is under drought status, and a middle bit is even under soggy status. But everything south and west of you is well and truly screwed this year.
cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/palmer.gif
BGinCHI
@NickT: They have that in Wisconsin too but it’s called beer. Cures all kinds of stuff.
Redshift
@WereBear:
True, Shatner was known as the Laurence Olivier of Canada.
Higgs Boson's Mate
The weird thing about Inhofe’s proposed amendment is that he finds it necessary to cut the military’s COLA (And that of everyone on SS) in order to finance the military. There’s no way that this is to benefit those who are serving, this is to benefit the contractors.
Soonergrunt
@Trollhattan: why are you looking at my pointy bit? And where the hell ARE you? None of the roofers across the street from my office have laptops that I can see.
WereBear
@Ultraviolet Thunder: And he is. There’s also Paul Robeson (from an older era) and currently, Mykelti Williamson; speaking personally.
And, even though he hasn’t been seen much of lately, I adore John Lone.
BGinCHI
@Trollhattan: Holy shit is WY dry! I feel bad for the animals.
We’re wet as hell, which is annoying except for the alternative.
BGinCHI
Netflix streaming rec:
“Longmire.”
I don’t know who this Robert Taylor dude is but he’s terrific. Plus Katie Sackhoff. Hubba freakin’ hubba.
Haydnseek
@BGinCHI: Yes, and it will remain indistinguishable from rain water.
NickT
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
We have to starve the beast to feed the beast! A zero calorie diet is the best way to achieve nutrition! etc etc.
maya
Why not build an XXXL pipeline and pump water from Lake Michigan to TX & OK ? Only problem would be they would have to pay & play Chicago style politics. Kickstarter anyone?
NickT
@maya:
I believe Lakes Michigan and Huron were at record low water levels earlier this year. There may not be any water to spare.
raven
Coming back from the Y yesterday a house up the street had 5 cop cars and the coroner out front. It turns out the guy shot himself and his wife found him. His next door neighbor is a good friend and I just spent a few minutes with her. He retired from Social Security and it turned out to be a mistake. All I ever knew about the dude was that he was constantly working on his yard and, it turns out, other people’s yards too. My friend said she went out of town and, when she came home, he had planted a bunch of stuff in her yard. I wish he had chosen a way that didn’t involve his wife finding him but I guess he was really sick and that was they was he decided to go.
Mnemosyne
@Soonergrunt:
I never got an “in moderation” message, which makes it extra weird. It just vanished into the ether.
Maybe FYWP is a “Sherlock” fan, because I was saying some harsh words about some of the plotting of that series.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@NickT: For what we’re paying them, I expect them to post my comments for me as soon as I think of them.
ETA: hey, that works
Baud
@raven:
Damn.
NickT
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Sometimes you see the PRISM and sometimes the PRISM sees you.
MikeJ
@Trollhattan: Seattle is unusually moist.
Mnemosyne
@piratedan:
IIRC, the majority of Medicaid money is spent on elderly people in nursing homes who ran through the rest of their money. So it makes perfect sense that Florida and Arizona want to make sure that money keeps coming.
MikeJ
@maya: The Great Lakes Water Resources Compact exists to make sure the water in the lakes is never sent anywhere else.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Amir Khalid: You have to remember that the year was 1966. There weren’t a whole lot of dark-skinned folks on TV. Montalban was darker than paste or copy paper and at the time that was believable enough.
Trollhattan
@Soonergrunt:
The nose, the nose! It’s peeling.
daverave
@Trollhattan:
yep, Trollhattan, looks like a good time to build 10,000 more houses out 50 south of Folsom…
Trollhattan
@raven:
How horrible, for him and for her.
Joel
@srv: I thought Brown was well-liked, cronyism notwithstanding?
Mnemosyne
@raven:
I was a little worried towards the end that my dad was going to do that, especially since he had quite a few guns in the house, but I think he ultimately decided he couldn’t do that to my mom. If nothing else, he knew better than the rest of us that she is a neat freak to the point of OCD and would have literally driven herself insane trying to get the “damned spot” out.
(Seriously, she refuses to have wallpaper in any house she lives in because she becomes convinced that there’s secret dirt accumulating behind it, so it would have been extremely cruel to expect her to clean up that kind of mess.)
BGinCHI
@MikeJ: I think the acronym is OMERTA.
Trollhattan
@daverave:
We learn nothing; the developers get everything they freaking want, whether it’s building in waterless rangeland or in a sub-99-year floodplain. I don’t even feel my head hitting the desk anymore.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: That is what is so crazy about Florida. It’s crammed to the gills with retirees and lives on tourism.
Yet seems determined to deliberately create a desperate, impoverished, dangerous underclass of screwed-over people.
Mnemosyne
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Plus Montalban was awesome. I never knew that he had been “greylisted” in the 1970s because he was outspoken in favor of Chicano rights. “Fantasy Island” was a huge triumph for him because he’d had a very difficult time getting work up until then because of his activism.
And, yes, that really was his actual physique — at age 60 — in The Wrath of Khan. The costume designer got a look at him when she was measuring and designed the costumes to show off his chest.
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
This.
burnspbesq
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Secession? Could the rest of us get that lucky?
Frankensteinbeck
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Like almost all conservative positions, it’s about hate. He’s found an excuse to hurt people in need. They’ve gone completely around the god damn bend on this, and conservatives cheer with gusto anything that provides that visceral asshole thrill, even in small amounts.
EDIT – Let me put it a different way. The conservative philosophy used to be IGMFY. Now they don’t care about the IGM part, as long as they can scream ‘fuck you!’ at the world.
gnomedad
‘Cliff’ from ‘Cheers’ wants Allen West to spread his ‘gene pool’ across America
Eeewww.
Baud
@gnomedad:
Link broken. Please do not fix.
NickT
@Baud:
Clearly the NSA really does know what is best for us.
daverave
@Trollhattan:
Color me blown away that a housing bubble could reinflate this fast after the last one… I foresee more… PAIN.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Amir Khalid: I just got back from seeing it, and I’m trying to put my finger on where it went wrong for me.
The main non-spoilery thing I can say is that if I’m picking up on symbolism and references to other movies on the first viewing, they needed to do better.
Positives: Lois Lane isn’t an airhead. Physics works like it should, mostly. Someone put some real thought into what growing up with those abilities would be like. I really like this version of Zod. (That monologue just before the big fight was tasty.) Clark has no kung fu.
Negatives, well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. The CGI was a problem, I think. I really shouldn’t be sitting in a theater thinking “I think they used some of the City of Heroes cape code; that odd motion around the shoulder looks awfully familiar”. The final fight was more of a blur. Which it should be, with two Kryptonians involved, but if anything should call for using bullet time, it would be that fight. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention by then.
YellowJournalism
@Betty Cracker: I will see your hot Brando, and raise you a young Paul Newman. And his hotness lasted well into his later years!
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: And we are all grateful!
Always been a huge fan of Ricardo Montalban, whose first Hollywood film was 1949’s The Border Incident. Gripping piece, BTW.
Always a hummina-hummina class act, too.
Jebediah
@BarbCat:
He looks like a great doggie! It’s funny how little dogs don’t seem to see size the way we do. My Juno is ten pounds, and loves to play with dogs ten times her size – doesn’t seem to make her nervous at all.
Is he a lap dog? He looks like he would be great to curl up with on the couch with.
A Ghost To Most
@jeffreyw:
As I am in the process of evaluating, buying, and attaching pieces to my 4runner to protect it from the aptly named Rocky Mountains, I saw your comment about sliders, and thought you were showing me another set of rock rails to look at.
I was initially confused when I saw a picture of hamburgers. Yours look better.
burnspbesq
@NickT:
There’s also the small matter of invasive fish and plant species that are in the Mississippi river system and need to be kept out of the Great Lakes. It’s serious enough that there is talk of draining and blowing up the canal that connects the Chicago River to the Mississippi system.
WereBear
My personal Ace-high Royal Flush from that era is Burt Lancaster.
Circus acrobat in his youth, body like a broad-shouldered panther, and yet rocked a pair of eyeglasses and produced some heartfelt and socially significant films with his own production company.
Beefcake with a brain. Oh yeah.
Amir Khalid
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Bullet time was hokey by the time the second Matrix movie came out. So I don’t know that using it here would have helped. When there’s a brawl between two supermen, it seems quite natural to lose track on occasion. Yeah, the brawl itself was tiring to watch; it could’ve been a little shorter.
Seanly
@gene108:
Haven’t seen the new film.
In the original series, they come across Khan’s ship, the SS Botany Bay. The eugenics folks were kicked off Earth & named the ship after the first colony of Australia.
WereBear
@Seanly: This is the reboot, the parallel-but-not-identical timeline which lets them play with the known elements enough to appeal to younger audiences, yet retains enough of the original structure to satisfy the people who watched Star Trek in its original broadcast version, and became the devoted fandom they still are today.
SatanicPanic
Visiting Washington State this summer, anything I should see?
srv
@Joel: The bridge is 6 years late and cost many billion more because Willie and friends didn’t win the contract and he got Clinton to make a federal case out of it.
MikeJ
@SatanicPanic: Which part of the state? There’s tons to see in Seattle, a lot of great parks in the hinterlands, and very little (but not nothing) else to see anywhere else in Washington. It very much depends on how long you’re here and what you like to do.
Wayne t
This seems like kind of a bombshell charge to be followed up on. The guy heard Dick Cheney had a system set up where he could monitor all White House emails. Seems like some one should figure out if that’s true. Yowza.
thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/06/14/2160241/veep-creator-armando-iannucci-on-dick-cheney-being-in-yo…
Mike in NC
@Amir Khalid: Last night the wife put on an oldie called “Rains of Ranjipur” (1955) which apparently didn’t feature a single real Indian. Richard Burton and John Banner (Sgt. Schultz of ‘Hogan’s Heroes’) played Hindus! Of course few Westerns made before the 1970s featured actual Native Americans.
Now we have Johnny Depp playing one. Progress?
Emma
@Comrade Mary: Works for me too. Just enough odd in the handsome mix.
YellowJournalism
@SatanicPanic: During what part of the summer are you visiting? That makes a difference, too.
SatanicPanic
@MikeJ: @YellowJournalism:
July, for around ten days, going to visit Seattle and Spokane, Olympic peninsula.
Dee Loralei
My folks are taking me out to dinner for my birthday at a restaurant called AndrewMichael, the chefs have been written up in Bon Appetite and Food and Wine, so I’m pretty excited. So yea the American Flag, the U.S Army, Che Guevera and me all born on this day.
? Martin
@Mike in NC:
Sure. He’s playing a gay indian after breaking through the gay pirate genre.
ruemara
@srv: It’ll have to wait until I finish my Inuyasha phase.
jeffreyw
Chicken
sacrablue
@daverave: I can’t believe how quickly we got bubblishious (can’t spell). If I had the energy to get my house ready to sell, I think I would jump in right now. This can’t last because mortgage rates are going up almost as fast.
Origuy
@Ultraviolet Thunder: My mom (white Hoosier Republican) had the same reaction to Billy Dee Williams in Lady Sings the Blues. Not sure what my dad thought of that.
MikeJ
@SatanicPanic: On the Olympic peninsula you can camp and hike. Those are really the best things there. The Dungeness river (which flows into the bay that gives the finest tasting crabs in the world their name) is a beautiful hike. You can also see the Hoh rainforest, and Ruby Beach is very pretty.
Of course Cape Flattery is as far northwest as you can get without encountering canuckistanis on their own turf. I’m one of those weirdos than when I’m near a geographic absolute like that I feel compelled to go there in person.
Further south down the coast you can see Kurt Cobain’s hometown, Aberdeen (motto: Come as you are), but there’s not a lot to see there. The town next door, Ocean Shores is a touristy beach town (where Safety Not Guaranteed was shot), which is ok if you like the beach. Or dead 100′ long fin whales like the one that washed up there this week. They also get snowy owls.
piratedan
@SatanicPanic: Mt. St Helens
scuffletuffle
@BarbCat: Utterly adorbs!!!
raven
@SatanicPanic: The San Juan Islands and the Bridge Troll.
Steeplejack
@gene108:
The first movie was particularly good visually. Lots of scenes stick in my mind just because of the backgrounds.
Looking forward to the new series.
trollhattan
@piratedan:
And Mt. Rainier, especially if you can get up to Sunrise. The mountain is stunningly huge from there.
North Cascades NP, the Leavenworth area, ferry rides on Puget Sound…a lot to see and do.
JPL
@raven: Good news for me. The trees that fell are over my fence and the insurance will cover after my deductible.
I have been working outside all day.. and hope to catch up by Monday.
raven
@JPL: Yay!
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I’m headed to the 3D version at the Cinerama (the ONLY place to see a movie in Seattle or, well, anywhere — I’m actually thrilled that nice Microft billionaire took the place and gussied it up to it’s former glory).
I”m mostly drawn in by the music (Zimmer fan, and have been enjoying the soundtrack since it’s release on Monday). The third moviehouse trailer is pretty good, too, but I know it’s going to contain a snootfull-and-a-half of the one-up action that summer movies are known for and that I very seldomly attend.
My first Superman flick since the orignal ’79 Donner/Reeves(/and John Williams) version, which I sat through three times in a row in a first-row seat one Saturday all those years ago.
JPL
GA storms aren’t of the same magnitude of storms out west and for that I am fortunate. There might be 30 houses in my little neighborhood and probably close to 100 trees taken out last night. As far as I know only a few houses were damaged and a few cars. A neighbor had an Oak that was close to two hundred years that is now spread across his yard and driveway. It pulled up part of his driveway and has a swimming pool size crater.
JGabriel
gene108:
If it’s any consolation, I don’t think many NYC residents know the difference either. I certainly don’t. Everyone I know still calls them the Queensboro and Triborough. Of course, most NYC residents don’t drive very often, and I don’t drive at all.
That said, I think the only people who know the new names are people who regularly commute over them. And only some of them. The people, that is, not the bridges.
MikeJ
@JGabriel:
Everyone I know still calls National Airport National Airport.
BillinGlendaleCA
@MikeJ: I’d add Hurricane Ridge to the Olympic Peninsular. Interesting thing about the area around the Dungeness. They get about the same amount of rain that we get in southern CA. They actually have irrigation canals.
SatanicPanic
@MikeJ: Oh that looks beautiful. We planned to visit Mt Rainier, but I don’t know if we’ll have time.
@raven: Definitely going to stop and check out the bridge troll
MikeJ
@BillinGlendaleCA: IIRC, you cross Hurricane Ridge on the way to the Dungeness river trailhead.
The Friendly Libertarian
I want to clarify some of my statements about China on the earlier thread.
My point was not that China was “better” on liberty than the Federal Government, only that, in the end, there’s no real difference between the two. They’re both authoritarian systems, but the United States is a more powerful one than the Chinese one so that’s why it’s a bigger threat to liberty worldwide.
Emma
@The Friendly Libertarian: You still have it wrong. Congratulations.
(added) And this is the wrong thread.
SatanicPanic
@MikeJ: Hurricane Ridge is definitely on my list
Bobby Thomson
@SatanicPanic: Mt. Rainier. You can drive up to Paradise and see glacier. In Seattle, take a boat tour.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JGabriel: Here in SoCal we name our freeways but with a few exceptions nobody uses those names. The exceptions would probably be the 5 since it has two segments(Golden State and Santa Ana) and the Ventura(101 & 134). Mostly we call them by their numbers ALWAYS proceeded by “the”. For example the Ronald Reagan Freeway is called The 118 or the Lanterman Freeway is called The 2. The one possible exception is the 105 which is officially called the Anderson Freeway, but is usually called the Century Freeway cause it goes along Century Blvd(not because it took so long to build).
quannlace
How soon before John starts asking for movie suggestions?
Comrade Jake
@? Martin: the new Lone Ranger movie looks epically bad.
What’s the word on the street for the Man of Steel?
PsiFighter37
GREENWALD can SUCK HaIRY CHESTNutS.
Also, the assholes next to me are hating on their wives, because they’re a bunch of asshole losers who picked goldsiggers as wives.
PF37 +starships /Nikki minaj
Todd
At Churchill Downs. Cashed a single exacta ticket in four races. Meh. I used to handicap better.
+4, coming back tomorrow for a bigger beating, as I’m out of practice.
Jay
@NickT: Nah. Come to think of it, since BOTH pictures contain actual sparkly-thingies, maybe the phrase “Sparkle – Ponies” should appear in the two.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@SatanicPanic:
Carbon Glacier in Mt. Rainier National Park. It’s an easy day hike and fantastic.
WereBear
Gee, the last Lone Ranger movie WAS epically bad. My spidey-sense detects a trend.
YellowJournalism
@SatanicPanic: Spokane has its own food fair that’s smaller but similar to Bite of Seattle. Not sure if its on at that time, but it was fun when I went yers ago with Hubby. If you get a chance, hit up Lake Chelan.
Westport is the other touristy ocean spot the opposite way from Ocean Shores. They have a pirate days sometime in July that my kids loved. People really get into it. Plus there’s a ton of neat little shops and places to find goodies like taffy.
If you have kids, Ocean Shores would be fun. You can rent mopeds and there’s a few fun centres with the usual fare of go-karts, mini golf, and bumper boats. Personally, I love flying kites on the beach and climbing on the rocks way down at the end of the beaches. I spent a lot of summers in Ocean Shores. There’s a casino out there, too.
If you’re a Nirvana fan, there’s a small memorial park in Aberdeen like MikeJ said. You have to be careful and watch the signs as you drive in. You have to drive through Aberdeen to get to Ocean Shores or Westport.
And definitely take a ferry ride. One of my favorite experiences in Washington.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Comrade Jake:
Wait, a western brought to us by the same subtle crew who gave us Pirates of the Caribbean. With Johnny Depp in heavy makeup as the Indian sidekick. What could go wrong?
Mike in NC
@WereBear: Initial reviews for the new Superman movie are decidedly mediocre.
Also, too, “World War Z” was a pretty good novel but the movie version is sure to disappoint.
WereBear
I agree; that’s too sprawling a novel, and too documentarian an approach, to the usual head-asplodey Hollywood conception.
Too bad, actually; the novel was quite chilling and effective.
gwangung
Too busy to comment much on the movie blockbuster…too busy making up my own creative content.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@gwangung:
Steampunk theater.
{Doffs hat}
magurakurin
@SatanicPanic:
that’s a lot of ground to cover. You could cross over the Cascades on 2 and come down the other side through Leavenworth where the mountains are very beautiful(fun rock climbing.) Then motor a bit north on 97 and work your way to the Grand Coulee Dam and from there on the surface roads to Spokane. Leaving Spokane one can motor on I-90 towards the big mountain and then head up on 410 along the very, very beautiful Natches and American Rivers. Back to Seattle for some much needed rest and then drive again a bit South to Tacoma to get around the bottom of the Sound. Heading north again on 101 you pass Potlatch Park, a little park on the Hood Canal. In the summer especially later the water actually gets pretty damn warm. The only place I ever felt the Pacific Ocean water to be warm in North America. The Olympic Penisula is pretty huge. But a trip up to Hurricane Ridge doesn’t take so long. Hikes deeper in take some preparation and time though. It is a fairly wild place in the middle. Going around on the Pacific side can be depressing. It is often foggy and the clear cutting of the forests outside of the Park is absolutely devastating and heartbreaking. The towns are super depressed and far to the wrong side of friendly. I’d probably just turn around at Hurricane ridge and explore little places like Port Townsend on the way back to Seattle. Weather should be gorgeous in Western Washington and hot in the East.
magurakurin
christ, why is a trip suggestion in Washington State in moderation?
MikeJ
@magurakurin: You misspelled peninsula and made word press think you were going to make the Olympics bigger for her pleasure.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@magurakurin:
Don’t know how much time the OP has. Speaking from personal experience, few things in my life have been as affecting a camping at Chilean Memorial Cove.
Yatsuno
@SatanicPanic: It really is the ultimate tourist trap, but the Space Needle really is worth the visit. Pike Place is as well, plus there are all kinds of nifty little things hidden away in the hills that every street is an adventure.
Depending on your timing we could do a big meet-up with Psi and you the same night. No pressure though. Wait, yes there is. :P
Anne Laurie
@geg6:
Spousal Unit’s take was that Cumberbatch, in his posed stills, looks like a humanoid constructed to spec by aliens who have never actually seen a human. Very accurate specs, closely followed, but there’s something a little ‘uncanny valley’ when he’s not moving/talking.
First photo I saw, I wondered if the guy had undergone reconstructive surgery after some kind of horrible facial trauma. He looked very good, in a not-quite-natural version of ‘good’.
Anne Laurie
@BarbCat: OHMAGAH WANT! (although my own three rescue dogs would not agree). Best wishes that his forever family does the right thing — how could anyone look at that face and not want to cuddle him forever?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: That looks really good hike, I’ve been wanting to hike to a glacier. The opportunities to do that in CA are not that great. Yes, I’ve looked.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Seeing an actual glacier was a humbling and delightful experience. The hike is easy and the country is gorgeous.
Anne Laurie
@Dee Loralei: Happy birthday, and many happy returns!
Gwangung
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: We shall attempt it, sir!
Ruckus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
On a motorcycle tour of New Zealand I took a helicopter ride around Mt Cook and we landed on Fox Glacier. It looks pretty small from the foot where all the calving is going on but on the top it is huge. And yes there are larger glaciers in the world but where else do you have a rain forest and a glacier in sight of each other?
BarbCat
@Jebediah: Thanks for the reply. He would be a lap dog but I am waiting a few days because my cats are super-pissed at us. They, well, live ‘off the ground’ since he arrived because he’s so short. He would love to be their friends but they don’t understand that little barks and quick head fakes are a way of showing that.
I am trying to think of way to will his forever family into changing their minds so I can keep him!
BarbCat
@scuffletuffle: Thanks. He is in personality too.
BarbCat
@Anne Laurie: Indeed. I am considering holding a seance to telepathically convince them he is is not the dog for them.