Huh. Is that how you do it? I’m cleanign the kitchen right now so my daughter can make 4 dozen cookies for the “cookie crew” in her school for “cookie monday.” Its literally the least I can do.
I would eat all of those. Which makes blackmailing myself to do the housework particularly hard. Trying to learn how write business-type things. These days, for graphic design, I need wordpress, web design, flash, video, copywriting and RFP/RFQ skills. For about 18hr but at least full time. So now I’m studying business writing and wordpress CMS. Guess I should be happy that I’m still willing. How come skill sets go up, pay doesnt?
7.
Ash Can
This made me LOL. Betty, you and your kids have terrific senses of humor.
8.
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: I’m coming at it from the other angle — a scribe who has acquired rudimentary graphic design skills by necessity. And you’re right: the pay does not increase. No fair.
9.
muddy
When I had teenagers around foraging constantly I used to hide the goodies in the vegetable drawer. Later it was where I hid my beer.
My son was outraged at my perfidy when I told him later. Punked by mom for years at a time, whatta burn. One of the best parts of being a parent.
“@WendellPierce: 50 Years ago today the KKK killed 4 little girls in a Birmingham church. We will never forget them or the murders who still live amongst us”
15.
LM
Last night I watched Wrath of Khan with my son. When the camera zoomed in on Spock’s palm, pressed against the containment field glass, my son said, “Not Penny’s boat.”
16.
max
Sneaky buggers. Please feel free to discuss whatever.
Friedman wrote (or rewrote?) a sensible press release for GE’s use of 3D printers. Bruni wrote a decent column about the costs of war – the surprise is that it only took ten years or twelve years for the MSM to cough up that kind of run-of-the-mill column. Douthat wrote a quite sensible column (essentially) outlining Putin’s view of the world instead of banging on about how Putin’s going to reconquer western Europe sometime in the next three weeks, which has been the conservative concept since Palin barfed out that thing about Russia and her house. Kristof makes very little sense on the war that we’re not having, which is consistent since he didn’t make much sense talking about any other war we’ve had either (he tends to sound like what you’d get if you hacked up a bunch of Bill Kristol columns and cut and pasted from those at random), and he should probably go back to what he normally does.
Dowd appears to be talking about Homeland and the CIA, but I reread it twice and I have no idea what the point of the column was or in fact, what events she was actually reporting relating. I *think* she had lunch with Claire Danes. Maybe she had a seance and contacted Claire Danes. Possibly the CIA was involved. Maybe they gave the seance. Whatever. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but did actually cause me to get dizzy and almost fall over last night.
max
[‘I have no idea if McCain’s head exploded this morning, but it did, hopefully they got video.’]
17.
IowaOldLady
I just shut the doors to my study so I can’t hear Fox Sunday on Mr IOL’s TV. Much better. The Democrats are apparently the ones who want to shut down the govt and the American people deserve to have this law delayed. I feel fury just typing that.
18.
khead
From my hometown paper. The only thing missing is the welfare Cadillac. Doug J could’ve written this piece.
Skill set and pay level are independent variables.
20.
the Conster
Earlier headline on MSNBC touted that the CW deal was a way out for….. Obama. Not Assad, Obama. WTF.
21.
SiubhanDuinne
@aimai: I doubt if anything happened to her. Toward the end of the last thread I jokingly said I was concerned that she hadn’t shown up to do her usual Sunday morning garden thread. I’m sure she’s fine and enjoying a weekend off. Sorry, didn’t intend to be a scaremonger!
22.
muddy
@aimai: Maybe nothing. It’s just that she usually posts a wee hours thread, or at least the Sunday gardening one.
23.
Betty Cracker
@max: I agree that Douthat’s column was sensible in its assessment of what Putin wants. But, like all conservatives, he missed the boat on what Obama’s aims are, I think. Projection, I guess.
Earth Wind and Fire on CBS Sunday Morning made me happy this morning.
I’m making a lovely chicken stuffed with thyme, garlic and lemon and roasted with carrots, onions and fennel, creamy garlic mashed potatoes and a great gravy I got from an Ina Garten recipe that has onions, white wine, heavy cream and cognac. Dee-lish. I told John that I’m making my favorite mom’s Sunday dinner, but kicked up a notch.
No Stillers, so doing housework and laundry.
26.
PeakVT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Informative, but the article focuses way to much on the city’s debt and not enough on the underlying demographics. Detroit might have been able to avoid bankruptcy, but it was always going to end up a wasteland given the huge population loss. That’s the real story, but it’s a lot more difficult to talk about.
27.
muddy
@IowaOldLady: Oh dear. There was a story in the news here a few years ago where a very senior lady beat her (also very senior) husband to death with a shovel in the driveway. Every older woman I know said how terrible it was, but you could see how that could happen, etc.
28.
Ash Can
@max: Speaking of McCain, you know that op-ed he was going to write for Pravda in response to Putin’s op-ed for the NYT? Yeah, no. (Courtesy of commenter Backwoods Sleuth at LGF.)
29.
Ben Franklin
I’ve watched everyone get apocalyptic about chemical weapons, and they are indeed monstrous. Just as monstrous are the long-term effects of certain approved weapons causing horrific genetic mischief. Cue some more outrage.
Obama today on ABC, this one will have the Bushies squealing & of course the beltway will be oblivious that he sticking it to them.
As for the public perception of his own management of the U.S. response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, Obama said, “Folks here in Washington like to grade on style.”
“And so had we rolled out something that was very smooth and disciplined and linear – they would have graded it well, even if it was a disastrous policy,” he continued. “We know that, ’cause that’s exactly how they graded the Iraq War – until it ended up… blowing up in our face.
Talking about his relationship with Putin, Obama said he doesn’t think his Russian counterpart “has the same values that we do” and that Putin has a “different attitude about the Assad regime.” But, he said, both countries “have an interest in preventing chaos” and “preventing terrorism.”
“This is not a contest between the United States and Russia. I mean, the fact of the matter is that if Russia wants to have some influence in Syria post-Assad, that doesn’t hurt our interests,” he said.
“And I think there’s a way for Mr. Putin, despite me and him having a whole lot of differences, to play an important role in that,” he continued. “And so I welcome him being involved. I welcome him saying, ‘I will take responsibility for pushing my client, the Assad regime, to deal with these chemical weapons.'”
Someone needs to pry the creature living on Donald Trump’s head off it so that the poor Donald will stop spouting ridiculous shit that the fuckheads at Newsmax feel obligated to report on.
38.
lamh36
Here’s a great post from Booman Tribune discussing the timeline of the actions & thinking of admin & particularly POTUS on the whole mess with Syria. I def recommend it.
@max: Thank you for reading the NYT op-ed pages so that I didn’t have to. Looks like, nothing to see here, move along, move along.
40.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: I suspect FYWP screwed up and failed to deliver a scheduled post. It’s happened to me before. I usually don’t schedule things ahead of time, but a time or two I’ve set a post to launch later so as not to step on someone else’s effort, and FYWP screwed it up so I had to manual post it later. Dollars to donuts that’s what happened here.
I make something similar to that but without the gravy (mostly because my kids aren’t fans of gravy). I put the chicken on top of thick slices of red onions and add potatoes and whole cloves of garlic to the carrots, and other root veggies in the pan. Lots of fresh lemon and herbs, too.
Sometimes I do mashed potatoes and put fresh squeezed orange juice, tarragon and paprika on the chicken. My one rule is that I always serve myself at least one of the “oysters” and give the kid who sets the table the other one. Those things are super tasty!
Good post. I’m not sure I agree with the entire argument, but I do agree that it seemed that Obama was, through the whole two-year period of this civil war, trying to avoid the neocon pressures. This is why I tried hard to wait to see how the most recent crisis played out before making too many hard judgments. I didn’t always succeed in that and I fell on both sides at one point or another, but the basic premise of the post seems to show that booman has come to the same conclusion I have.
45.
scav
@lamh36: This one’s the one I’m rolling on the palate for a while.
Asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos whether the recent events changed his view of former President George W. Bush, Obama said, “No, no. What it says is that I’m less concerned about style points. I’m much more concerned about getting the policy right.”
46.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Figured I jinxed her with my garden pics.
47.
Suzanne
I have work work to do this weekend, and studying, but I simply cannot face it without a clean house and a stocked fridge and pantry. I suppose it’s my subconscious trying to assert control or something.
I suck at psychoanalysis; this is why I’m an architect.
OMG, not liking gravy is like not liking bacon! Your kids are cray cray! ;-)
49.
muddy
@Villago Delenda Est: Someone in here referred to it as an anemic muskrat (iirc). I am always expecting it to lash out and bite at someone. Like a fox stole in a horror movie.
50.
raven
Nice mahi sale, big piece for $4.99 lb for a 4lb filet. Got a pineapple, black beans and plain greek yogurt. Gonna fire up my new Weber Q320 a get on down!
51.
FlipYrWhig
@lamh36: nice. And totally true. Even the criticism from the self-declared left has built on the “style” argument: they think he tried to hard-sell a war and fucked it up so badly that he had to be bailed out by Vladimir Putin, Good Samaritan.
Thanks for the great article about how detroit went bankrupt. Best thing I read all week. However, might I present as a counterargument “It is Obama’s fault!!”
53.
Yatsuno
@scav: Shorter Barack: “Fuck your horse race George.”
However, might I present as a counterargument “It is Obama’s fault!!”
Everything negative is, always and forever, Obummer’s fault. Anything good dates back to the previous administration. Updated daily. Call it a corollary of Cleek’s Law.
54.
muddy
@Suzanne: When money looks tight, the first thing I do is run out and buy a bunch of food. Even though I probably didn’t need to spend that much on food when I was already short. I realized that it just made me feel secure, that no matter what else went wrong, at least there was the necessary. I will also say that I did not develop this routine until I had a child, so put some down to maternal instinct I guess.
I used to be a draftsman (ink on mylar) which I guess is a dead profession now.
55.
Ben Franklin
Newport Beach has an old haunt called the Crab Cooker. Their motto is Eat lotsa Fish. Better stick with farm-raised for a while.
[…] Scientific estimates predict that the radioactive plume travelling east across the Pacific will likely hit the shores of Oregon, Washington State and Canada early next year. California will probably be impacted later that year. Because the ongoing flow of water from the reactor site will be virtually impossible to stop, a radioactive plume will continue to migrate across the Pacific affecting Hawaii, North America, South America and eventually Australia for many decades. […]
As I contemplate the future at Fukushima, it seems that the escape of radiation is virtually unstoppable. The levels of radiation in buildings 1, 2 and 3 are now so high that no human can enter or get close to the molten cores. It will therefore be impossible to remove these cores for hundreds of years if ever. […]
[…] the EPA should immediately start monitoring the fish routinely caught off the west coast and it must also, as a matter of urgency, establish many effective airborne monitors up and down the west coast and across the US continent, so that if there is another large release of radiation it will be effectively measured and the information rapidly passed on to the public. The same holds true for Canada. […]
I read Booman’s post this morning and it was indeed an excellent one. He has a rare ability to use logic and history to figure things out and explain them to the rest of us.
57.
lamh36
wow so now it’s dangerous for black folk to run to police for help. we gotta walk slowly and steadily with our hands already up! hmm noting racial about this shooting amirite?
Probably a dumb ? but can’t they build something around the reactors to to slow or stop the leaking? It seems like Japan is just shrugging their shoulders about this and doing nothing.
66.
Yatsuno
@Betty Cracker: AL has said in the past she sets her Sunday posts on auto since she doesn’t know for sure if she can post them live. You should see it on the dashboard though Betty although I have no idea if she works with working titles.
On the topic of teenagers, and also related to the old-skool hip-hop thread, but I’m noticing a sudden and marked trend among some white yoots I know (ahem, and live with, and buy clothes and food for) just in the last week to NOT consider it OK anymore for white people to appropriate black culture. This is very weird for me because, being something of a conniseier of all manner of black music, it seems to me that white people have been enthusiastically appropriating black culture for almost a hundred years now (ragtime, jazz, R&B, rock and roll, funk, disco, hip-hop, etc). Elvis was a hero to most, but he was basically a white kid who sounded black. Without black people, American music would suck balls, IMHO. So would most of American style, fashion, and vocabulary (I particularly enjoy employing “motherfucker” as an all purpose word that can mean almost anything depending on tone an inflection).
I think Miley Cyrus finally jumped the shark so overwhelmingly that, among the cohort who grew up with her, they’re starting to be ashamed to see white people acting/talking/dancing/singing black in a lame attempt to try to be cool. I’m seeing it start to look/sound/feel icky to them. Maybe the aversion will be so strong it will stick permanently, or at least for a generation.
I have to think it’s a good thing, and probably a positive development. Cyrus may have really done the world a favor. I have to expect that black folks are so sick to death of a century of white people biting their style that it’s long past time for that shit to stop. But it’s very weird to suddenly feel racist for throwing quotes from old-skool rap or Samuel Jackson lines from Pulp Fiction into conversation like I’ve done for 20-30 years now. All of a sudden, in the last week, I get: “STOP THAT DAD!!”
So yeah, I guess I got to stop doing that. My open apologies to black folks, for a lifetime of stealing your shit.
70.
raven
SInce the gators suck, the eers suck and the Steelers suck I guess the next football thread will be some weak soccer sauce.
They built an icewall to contain, but the UN or someone else has to get Japan to relinquish their control and mismanagement. It’s embarrassing for them but is a potential regional catastastroke.
(Fantasy Putin to fantasy Douthat) “I thought you are used to propaganda.”
(Fantasy Douthat replies) “Well, if it’s our own. But it’s different being lectured on peace and human rights by a ruler who doesn’t give a fig about either.”
So in Douthat world, being lectured by George W Bush on peace wasn’t being lectured by someone who “didn’t give a fig” about peace.
Putin is no saint, but one thing you have to realize is that Douthat never writes anything sensible. Celebrating our good points is one thing, but engaging in complete fantasy about “American exceptionalism” is another.
79.
Dead Ernest
@Betty Cracker:
I like the phrase ‘dollars to donuts,’ it rolls of the tongue nicely.
But given the price of donuts, it doesn’t make sense anymore. May not be long before it becomes ‘donuts to dollars.’
I suck at psychoanalysis; this is why I’m an architect.
Ah, so [stroking beard] how does this building make you feel about your father?
83.
lamh36
@kc: I think if there is ANY good from the Zimmerman mess is that local law enforcement agencies are more likely at the very least not treat alleged shooting victims the way they treated Trayvon Martin esp in cases of interracial shootings and especially in cases of police shootings
84.
Yatsuno
@lamh36: The best good to come from that is Zimmerman never spawning. Karma catching up with him will be a nice touch.
@Suzanne: Hah, I do that all the time! It’s called “work avoidance”, linked to procrastination, where you avoid doing what know you have to do but desperately don’t want to do by doing other, less important stuff to make you feel like you’re, um, well, accomplishing stuff.
I tell ya, around tax time my house gets ssoooooo clean…! :-)
Standard kabuki. To save face they have to charge the cop and broadcast the fact widely. Later, when no one is looking, charges will be dropped and the cop exonerated.
88.
FlipYrWhig
@Dead Ernest: Good one, but I think that’s the basic premise of the documentary My Architect.
89.
Betty Cracker
@Bill E Pilgrim: I said I thought it was sensible in its assessment of what Putin wants, not sensible overall. Here’s what the column said about Putin’s aims:
[Fake Putin]: I have been dealing with American government for 13 years, and my needs have always been simple, straightforward. I just want what Russian leaders will always want: a sphere of influence, a partner to fight terrorism, stability at home, respect abroad.
I think that’s probably pretty accurate.
90.
lamh36
Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) tweeted at 8:48am – 15 Sep 13:
This is Martin Luther King’s telegram (“I shudder”) to Pres Kennedy after Birmingham church murders 50 yrs ago today: pic.twitter.com/0WsugIsCEU
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Moar of this, plz. The second-best response to GOP idiocy is laughter and ridicule (with the best of course being voting their sorry asses out of office and never letting them near any levers of power again).
92.
JordanRules
@fuckwit: Interesting, though I don’t know how widespread that really is.
My Mom recently had to tell my white cousin to not post the n-word on Facebook. He’s notoriously quick-tempered and has short human-fueled bad boy tendancies but deep down a good young guy…I hope. He said he didn’t mean to offend and I was surprised he didn’t pop-off with the ‘it’s not fair’ BS.
It will be interesting to see how the next few generations deal with all the changes and how it’s expressed artistically, in language and accepted norms.
Teach your kids one point of black history or expose them to part of the black experience they will never learn in school and then grant yourself one hearty Sam Jackson sample to use at your leisure.
Ah, so [stroking beard] how does this building make you feel about your father?
In one of my final reviews in graduate school, I made everyone uncomfortable by noting the cock resemblance of an array of corporate headquarters buildings, then I showed my design, which was a very refined slit into the ground. I was surprised that so few of my reviewers had noticed that before. But all my reviewers were dudes (as 90% of architects of that cohort are). Cock is the default, I suppose. Just like a fish doesn’t know about water.
SWF seeking SM with a boat, preferably an ark or at the very least boat building skills. Gentlemen with the name Noah will get first consideration.
It’s still raining here.
103.
Poopyman
@fuckwit: Ask ’em if Eric Clapton should stop playing.
104.
Suzanne
@fuckwit: I think the cultural appropriation issue is not so, pardon the pun, black and white. The issue with Cyrus’s performance wasn’t that she was influenced by the artistic forms of another culture, but that she was making fun of them to further her own relative position. I love to eat the foods of cultures that aren’t my own, and listen to their music, etc, but white people seem to have this tendency to both borrow ideas/be influenced by other cultures, and simultaneously behave as if the other culture is “weird”, “quaint”, “spicy”, “sexy”, “funny”, etc etc etc.
Are you sure it’s not just your kids thinking that you’re an old parental unit that’s embarrassing them by trying to act cool?
Interesting thoughts about cultural appropriation. I’m a little concerned that if what you’re describing is a real trend then the reason that kids are ‘not acting black’ these days is not because it’s disrespectful but because black culture is seen as uncool. That would be problematic.
106.
JordanRules
Crazy ass ending to that ASU – Wisconsin game yesterday. Welp, we’re in the top 25 now after that nap on the ball.
I interviewed Christopher McNair for the 45th anniversary of the Birmingham Church bombing for @nprnews He usually lays low on anniv
@michele_norris
Today the city of Birmingham is remembering the Bombing with solemn ceremonies and 87-year-old McNair will be there with his wife, Maxine
@michele_norris
Christopher and Maxine McNair are the last surviving parents of the four girls who died 50 years ago today, including their daughter Denise
@michele_norris
If you are old enough to remember the news coverage, Denise was the little girl who wore the matching coat and hat.
@michele_norris
Christopher McNair said he did not cry for months after the 16th Street bombing. Felt he had to hold it together for everyone else
110.
Yatsuno
Methinks FYWP is about to throw another major fit. Again.
111.
Suzanne
Fuck, my comment about Miley Cyrus and cultural appropriation got eated. In short: I don’t think being influenced by the art forms of people who aren’t you is problematic if one is honest and respectful about it. MC was neither.
@PsiFighter37: Congrats….that’s an awesome accomplishment.
Jordy Nelson! The taken-back touchdown catch was prettier, but nicely done!
113.
Suzanne
Fuck, my comment about Miley Cyrus and cultural appropriation got eated. In short: I don’t think being influenced by the art forms of people who aren’t you is problematic if one is honest and respectful about it. MC was neither.
@PsiFighter37: Congrats….that’s an awesome accomplishment.
114.
Omnes Omnibus
Jordy!
115.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@lamh36: The Reuters version didn’t mention race but I knew the poor fucker had to be a black guy.
Also appears the dickhead who shot him may be in a wholly justified world of shit:
“Our investigation has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter,” the police department said in a statement.
I can’t recall any police department in this country EVER saying anything like that, especially only twelve hours after the fact. So hopefully “justice” of some sort will be done. Of course, it would be better if cops wouldn’t shoot unarmed black men, but hey, slow and steady incremental process is OK with black folks, right?*
*Sarcasm. If I were black I’d have gone on a killing spree years ago. I honestly don’t how black folks are able to just sit there and take it. No slam on them, it’s the safest thing to do, but goddamn…injustice doesn’t even begin to describe it.
@lamh36: The Reuters version didn’t mention race but I knew the poor fucker had to be a black guy.
Also appears the dickhead who shot him may be in a wholly justified world of shit:
“Our investigation has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter,” the police department said in a statement.
I can’t recall any police department in this country EVER saying anything like that, especially only twelve hours after the fact. So hopefully “justice” of some sort will be done. Of course, it would be better if cops wouldn’t shoot unarmed black men, but hey, slow and steady incremental process is OK with black folks, right?*
*Sarcasm. If I were black I’d have gone on a killing spree years ago. I honestly don’t how black folks are able to just sit there and take it. No slam on them, it’s the safest thing to do, but goddamn…injustice doesn’t even begin to describe it.
119.
Omnes Omnibus
Is the site slow for anyone else?
120.
Yatsuno
@Suzanne: FYWP is being a champion right now. Or I got banned. Again.
121.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@fuckwit: Hope you’re right, but I would see this more a symptom of the entire nation’s culture coming unglued as a result of a “cold civil war” than a realization among white folks that they’ve done anything wrong.
122.
Amir Khalid
Just finished watching Les Misérables on YouTube. It’s a 2004 performance in Berlin, und sie ist naturlich auf Deutsch. Magnificent. I’m regretting that I didn’t go down to S’pore to see it back in the mid-1990s. …
Und vergess nicht die Wahrheit steht geschrieben
Zu lieben einen Menschen heißt, als Antlitz Gottes sehen
123.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
124.
Just Some Fuckhead
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
125.
Amir Khalid
Just finished watching Les Misérables on YouTube. It’s a 2004 performance in Berlin, und sie ist naturlich auf Deutsch. Magnificent. I’m regretting that I didn’t go down to S’pore to see it back in the mid-1990s. …
Und vergess nicht die Wahrheit steht geschrieben
Zu lieben einen Menschen heißt, als Antlitz Gottes sehen
126.
Just Some Fuckhead
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
127.
JordanRules
@Suzanne: Yup.
Bieber wants to be um, “bad”, sooo…
128.
Just Some Fuckhead
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
Police officer who ‘shot dead unarmed man who was seeking help after car wreck’ is charged with manslaughter
Jonathan Ferrell appears to have crashed his car down an embankment about 2:30 a.m. and then knocked on the door of a nearby residence looking for help shortly after
The homeowner opened the door thinking it was her husband. When she realized it was 24-year-old Ferrell – a stranger – she closed the door and called 911
When police arrived, authorities claim Ferrell charged officers before one of them shot him several times
Just finished watching Les Misérables on YouTube. It’s a 2004 performance in Berlin, und sie ist naturlich auf Deutsch. Magnificent. I’m regretting that I didn’t go down to S’pore to see it back in the mid-1990s. …
Und vergess nicht die Wahrheit steht geschrieben
Zu lieben einen Menschen heißt, als Antlitz Gottes sehen
Obama today on ABC, this one will have the Bushies squealing & of course the beltway will be oblivious that he sticking it to them.
Thus demonstrating that the Bushies are smarter than the Village. At least the Bushies are smart enough to know when their intelligence has been insulted.
Admin Note: I would put up an NFL thread for y’all, but the FYWP mobile platform isn’t working for me. Could explain why no one else has posted either. I put this post up via laptop, but I can’t get on via smartphone or tablet. Weird.
Police officer who ‘shot dead unarmed man who was seeking help after car wreck’ is charged with manslaughter
Jonathan Ferrell appears to have crashed his car down an embankment about 2:30 a.m. and then knocked on the door of a nearby residence looking for help shortly after
The homeowner opened the door thinking it was her husband. When she realized it was 24-year-old Ferrell – a stranger – she closed the door and called 911
When police arrived, authorities claim Ferrell charged officers before one of them shot him several times
@Ben Franklin: and @Burnspbesq:
It doesn’t matter if it’s accurate. It doesn’t apply. The very first thing it says is that all they can verify is what happens if you directly implant DU into a fetus, and their research has no bearing on environmental studies.
His Fukushima update, meanwhile, is a letter from an MD with no apparent credentials in nuclear science speculating about how he finds it all very worrisome. It’s paired with what everyone in the nuclear energy community has already told us a hundred times, that even a regular reactor has to remain sealed and is unusable for decades after it’s decommissioned, and these melted down reactors will be unsafe for much longer. Like the implanted DU study, this information is irrelevant to environmental impact.
EDIT – Hopefully this will not end up being the third or fifth or fourteenth time this posts, thanks to FYWP.
According to twitter, George Steph asked Obama about “his lost year”. Does anyone know what George was talking about?
No idea. If I had to guess, I’d say it may be Villager-speak for the past year when the teabaggers blocked everything because they hate Obama, or from the Village’s perspective, because Obama didn’t reach out enough or play golf with the right people or something.
145.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Testing testing
146.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Friedman has a talent for gibberish I never managed (or worked up the desire) to approach in a decade and a half of my own journalising about technology. He should think about writing Dr Seuss style verse for executive types.
I actually wouldn’t be surprised if DU ends up being the Iraq War’s version of Agent Orange: something that the people using it were assured was safe but ends up causing problems for themselves and their children. I’m fully expecting to start hearing about clusters of rare cancers showing up at VA hospitals and reports of birth defects in the children of Afganistan and Iraq veterans in about 10 years. And that’s leaving aside the effects those munitions will have in the countries where they were left behind. Radioactive materials are not something to fuck around with, even when they’re “depleted.”
Still not quite the same thing as deliberately using nerve gas on civilians, though.
150.
Robert Sneddon
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Depleted uranium penetrators are specialised tools for cracking open heavy and medium armour such as tanks and armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) in an open battlefield situation. They’re not used in urban warfare or in antipersonnel situations because they don’t kill and maim as well as high explosive shells do and they’re pretty much useless against buildings and homes and even bunkers. The word “uranium” is magic to a significant segment of the population though so it is the scapegoat for all sorts of ills, many of them imaginary.
It’s only supposed to be used against equipment. Like belt buckles.
157.
tybee
canteens are equipment. as are uniforms.
and willie pete works great on thatch roof buildings where equipment is stashed.
158.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: FWIW the best shell/fuse combo for a POL dump (fuel storage facility) is a mix of HR and WP – both with variable time fuses for an air burst.
I have work work to do this weekend, and studying, but I simply cannot face it without a clean house and a stocked fridge and pantry. I suppose it’s my subconscious trying to assert control or something.
I’m late as usual to the thread, but this reminds me of something one of my kids sent me: You look like type #1.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Maybe it will be. Hell if I know. I do know that Ben Franklin’s references don’t support his points.
161.
Robert Sneddon
@Frankensteinbeck: After WWII there was a lot of research into the effects of uranium and plutonium in animal and human tissues since there was suddenly going to be a lot of it around, from ore mining through weapons development and nuclear fuel production and people working with it were going to get exposed and contaminated. The experimental results were pretty much meh — absorbing uranium into the body was difficult since the most common elemental metal forms and oxide forms (UO2, U3O8) didn’t dissolve very easily even in stomach acids. If it did get into the bloodstream it was filtered out by the liver and kidneys which could take some damage if the levels were high enough but that was about it. There was nowhere it would concentrate like iodine in the thyroid or calcium and strontium in the bones. Compared to real killers like arsenic, beryllium, mercury and cadmium and neurologically-active metals like lead and lithium, uranium and plutonium are remarkably inoffensive chemically speaking.
The two most common isotopes of uranium, U-235 and U-238 have such long half-lives (750 million and 4.5 billion years) that they are very innocuous in terms of radioactivity. Raw metal and processed yellowcake (U3O8) are quite safe to handle and work with, not quite as radioactive as no-sodium salt (potassium chloride) is pound for pound. The raw ores have a lot of fission and decay products like radium and radon released over billions of years which paradoxically makes them more radioactive than purified uranium. Depleted uranium, the dreaded DU is less radioactive than regular uranium metal.
Plutonium is a lot more radioactive with a much shorter half-life than uranium but nearly all of it is man-made and it’s not used in conventional weapons as an armour penetrator so much less of it is floating around in the wild.
162.
Anne Laurie
@Betty Cracker: Just in case you read this after the fact, yes, that is what happened, and also if you ever want to hand-publish one of my ‘missed schedule’ posts from the dashboard, do not hesitate. (I’ve already told people that Sunday’s garden chat will go live on Monday, for this week’s special.)
163.
Bill Arnold
@Ben Franklin<
[Edit – I see you've elaborated. Ramblings below still stand though – tx for good cite for uranium toxicity]
You seem rather worked up about radioactive materials. I am one of the few people here who had a lab-grade Geiger counter as a toy as a kid. Gave some perspective; there is always, always background radiation. Antique clocks and watches with radium paint were radioactive enough to be findable (learned how to search statistically). My dad was once radioactive for a couple of days due to some radioisotope-based diagnostic. (We measured the half life together). Never did get rocks to measure noticeably, even pitchblende-bearing granite.
None of this held a candle in dangerousness to playing with lead (melting in spoons, pouring into molds, etc). Now that stuff was bad, and probably made me significantly stupider. Depleted uranium is a similarly toxic heavy metal.
And the Pacific ocean is really big. I'd worry about fishing next to Japan's east coast, a little, maybe. Cesium is chemically similar to potassium, and potassium-40 (including from the potassium in human bodies) is a significant part of background radiation.
Also the frozen soil thing that they're doing at fukushima will probably work. Crazy expensive. Also, whoever sited the plant so close to sea level should be punished severely if they're still alive.
chrome agnomen
so where are the chocolate bars?
aimai
Huh. Is that how you do it? I’m cleanign the kitchen right now so my daughter can make 4 dozen cookies for the “cookie crew” in her school for “cookie monday.” Its literally the least I can do.
c u n d gulag
It’s ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Started to get worried, there.
Hawes
Technically, I think you were bribing them, not blackmailing them, but I’ll defer to any lawyers out there for clarification.
#bettercallsaul
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
From the Detroit Free Press:
How Detroit went broke: The answers may surprise you – and don’t blame Coleman Young
ruemara
I would eat all of those. Which makes blackmailing myself to do the housework particularly hard. Trying to learn how write business-type things. These days, for graphic design, I need wordpress, web design, flash, video, copywriting and RFP/RFQ skills. For about 18hr but at least full time. So now I’m studying business writing and wordpress CMS. Guess I should be happy that I’m still willing. How come skill sets go up, pay doesnt?
Ash Can
This made me LOL. Betty, you and your kids have terrific senses of humor.
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: I’m coming at it from the other angle — a scribe who has acquired rudimentary graphic design skills by necessity. And you’re right: the pay does not increase. No fair.
muddy
When I had teenagers around foraging constantly I used to hide the goodies in the vegetable drawer. Later it was where I hid my beer.
My son was outraged at my perfidy when I told him later. Punked by mom for years at a time, whatta burn. One of the best parts of being a parent.
The Pale Scot
Really, wake the Funk up people.
Theme From The Black Hole
SiubhanDuinne
@c u n d gulag: I’m still worried about AL, though very happy to have BC start a new thread.
aimai
@SiubhanDuinne: Wait,what happened to AL?
aimai
@SiubhanDuinne: Wait,what happened to AL?
lamh36
LM
Last night I watched Wrath of Khan with my son. When the camera zoomed in on Spock’s palm, pressed against the containment field glass, my son said, “Not Penny’s boat.”
max
Sneaky buggers. Please feel free to discuss whatever.
Friedman wrote (or rewrote?) a sensible press release for GE’s use of 3D printers. Bruni wrote a decent column about the costs of war – the surprise is that it only took ten years or twelve years for the MSM to cough up that kind of run-of-the-mill column. Douthat wrote a quite sensible column (essentially) outlining Putin’s view of the world instead of banging on about how Putin’s going to reconquer western Europe sometime in the next three weeks, which has been the conservative concept since Palin barfed out that thing about Russia and her house. Kristof makes very little sense on the war that we’re not having, which is consistent since he didn’t make much sense talking about any other war we’ve had either (he tends to sound like what you’d get if you hacked up a bunch of Bill Kristol columns and cut and pasted from those at random), and he should probably go back to what he normally does.
Dowd appears to be talking about Homeland and the CIA, but I reread it twice and I have no idea what the point of the column was or in fact, what events she was actually
reportingrelating. I *think* she had lunch with Claire Danes. Maybe she had a seance and contacted Claire Danes. Possibly the CIA was involved. Maybe they gave the seance. Whatever. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but did actually cause me to get dizzy and almost fall over last night.max
[‘I have no idea if McCain’s head exploded this morning, but it did, hopefully they got video.’]
IowaOldLady
I just shut the doors to my study so I can’t hear Fox Sunday on Mr IOL’s TV. Much better. The Democrats are apparently the ones who want to shut down the govt and the American people deserve to have this law delayed. I feel fury just typing that.
khead
From my hometown paper. The only thing missing is the welfare Cadillac. Doug J could’ve written this piece.
http://bdtonline.com/columns/x250214400/Taxpayers-footing-much-of-the-bill-for-culture-of-drug-addiction
Anoniminous
@ruemara:
Skill set and pay level are independent variables.
the Conster
Earlier headline on MSNBC touted that the CW deal was a way out for….. Obama. Not Assad, Obama. WTF.
SiubhanDuinne
@aimai: I doubt if anything happened to her. Toward the end of the last thread I jokingly said I was concerned that she hadn’t shown up to do her usual Sunday morning garden thread. I’m sure she’s fine and enjoying a weekend off. Sorry, didn’t intend to be a scaremonger!
muddy
@aimai: Maybe nothing. It’s just that she usually posts a wee hours thread, or at least the Sunday gardening one.
Betty Cracker
@max: I agree that Douthat’s column was sensible in its assessment of what Putin wants. But, like all conservatives, he missed the boat on what Obama’s aims are, I think. Projection, I guess.
muddy
@LM: That’s perfect.
geg6
Earth Wind and Fire on CBS Sunday Morning made me happy this morning.
I’m making a lovely chicken stuffed with thyme, garlic and lemon and roasted with carrots, onions and fennel, creamy garlic mashed potatoes and a great gravy I got from an Ina Garten recipe that has onions, white wine, heavy cream and cognac. Dee-lish. I told John that I’m making my favorite mom’s Sunday dinner, but kicked up a notch.
No Stillers, so doing housework and laundry.
PeakVT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Informative, but the article focuses way to much on the city’s debt and not enough on the underlying demographics. Detroit might have been able to avoid bankruptcy, but it was always going to end up a wasteland given the huge population loss. That’s the real story, but it’s a lot more difficult to talk about.
muddy
@IowaOldLady: Oh dear. There was a story in the news here a few years ago where a very senior lady beat her (also very senior) husband to death with a shovel in the driveway. Every older woman I know said how terrible it was, but you could see how that could happen, etc.
Ash Can
@max: Speaking of McCain, you know that op-ed he was going to write for Pravda in response to Putin’s op-ed for the NYT? Yeah, no. (Courtesy of commenter Backwoods Sleuth at LGF.)
Ben Franklin
I’ve watched everyone get apocalyptic about chemical weapons, and they are indeed monstrous. Just as monstrous are the long-term effects of certain approved weapons causing horrific genetic mischief. Cue some more outrage.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/suppressed-who-reports-on-rise-of-cancer-and-birth-defects-in-iraq-cover-up-of-war-crimes-committed-against-the-iraqi-people/5349866
lamh36
Obama today on ABC, this one will have the Bushies squealing & of course the beltway will be oblivious that he sticking it to them.
Obama on Syria criticism: Washington grades on style, not substance
jeffreyw
Doop-De-Doop…Hmm… Backup Fail! Lemme see, “run chkdsk /r from the command line” Okie Dokie…
Scanning and repairing drive (C:): 27%…27%…27%…27%…27%…[2 hours go by…] 27%…27%…
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!
Betty Cracker
@jeffreyw: The 27% crazification factor? Man, that is scary!
debbie
@lamh36:
BOOM! for the win.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw:
There’s that number again!
lamh36
@lamh36:
Another quote:
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker: GMTA
Villago Delenda Est
Someone needs to pry the creature living on Donald Trump’s head off it so that the poor Donald will stop spouting ridiculous shit that the fuckheads at Newsmax feel obligated to report on.
lamh36
Here’s a great post from Booman Tribune discussing the timeline of the actions & thinking of admin & particularly POTUS on the whole mess with Syria. I def recommend it.
Against A World Arrayed for War
fuckwit
@max: Thank you for reading the NYT op-ed pages so that I didn’t have to. Looks like, nothing to see here, move along, move along.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: I suspect FYWP screwed up and failed to deliver a scheduled post. It’s happened to me before. I usually don’t schedule things ahead of time, but a time or two I’ve set a post to launch later so as not to step on someone else’s effort, and FYWP screwed it up so I had to manual post it later. Dollars to donuts that’s what happened here.
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh36:
More than a slam on the deserting coward, it was a slam on the vile scum of the Village.
You go, Barack! You go!
aimai
@geg6: That does sound delicious.
MomSense
@geg6:
I make something similar to that but without the gravy (mostly because my kids aren’t fans of gravy). I put the chicken on top of thick slices of red onions and add potatoes and whole cloves of garlic to the carrots, and other root veggies in the pan. Lots of fresh lemon and herbs, too.
Sometimes I do mashed potatoes and put fresh squeezed orange juice, tarragon and paprika on the chicken. My one rule is that I always serve myself at least one of the “oysters” and give the kid who sets the table the other one. Those things are super tasty!
geg6
@lamh36:
Good post. I’m not sure I agree with the entire argument, but I do agree that it seemed that Obama was, through the whole two-year period of this civil war, trying to avoid the neocon pressures. This is why I tried hard to wait to see how the most recent crisis played out before making too many hard judgments. I didn’t always succeed in that and I fell on both sides at one point or another, but the basic premise of the post seems to show that booman has come to the same conclusion I have.
scav
@lamh36: This one’s the one I’m rolling on the palate for a while.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Figured I jinxed her with my garden pics.
Suzanne
I have work work to do this weekend, and studying, but I simply cannot face it without a clean house and a stocked fridge and pantry. I suppose it’s my subconscious trying to assert control or something.
I suck at psychoanalysis; this is why I’m an architect.
geg6
@MomSense:
OMG, not liking gravy is like not liking bacon! Your kids are cray cray! ;-)
muddy
@Villago Delenda Est: Someone in here referred to it as an anemic muskrat (iirc). I am always expecting it to lash out and bite at someone. Like a fox stole in a horror movie.
raven
Nice mahi sale, big piece for $4.99 lb for a 4lb filet. Got a pineapple, black beans and plain greek yogurt. Gonna fire up my new Weber Q320 a get on down!
FlipYrWhig
@lamh36: nice. And totally true. Even the criticism from the self-declared left has built on the “style” argument: they think he tried to hard-sell a war and fucked it up so badly that he had to be bailed out by Vladimir Putin, Good Samaritan.
Sir Nose'D
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Thanks for the great article about how detroit went bankrupt. Best thing I read all week. However, might I present as a counterargument “It is Obama’s fault!!”
Yatsuno
@scav: Shorter Barack: “Fuck your horse race George.”
@Sir Nose’D:
Everything negative is, always and forever, Obummer’s fault. Anything good dates back to the previous administration. Updated daily. Call it a corollary of Cleek’s Law.
muddy
@Suzanne: When money looks tight, the first thing I do is run out and buy a bunch of food. Even though I probably didn’t need to spend that much on food when I was already short. I realized that it just made me feel secure, that no matter what else went wrong, at least there was the necessary. I will also say that I did not develop this routine until I had a child, so put some down to maternal instinct I guess.
I used to be a draftsman (ink on mylar) which I guess is a dead profession now.
Ben Franklin
Newport Beach has an old haunt called the Crab Cooker. Their motto is Eat lotsa Fish. Better stick with farm-raised for a while.
http://enenews.com/fukushima-radioactive-plume-will-continue-to-hit-shores-of-u-s-and-canada-for-many-decades-impossible-to-remove-molten-cores-for-hundreds-of-years-if-ever-flow-of-contamination-from-plant-will
Josie
@lamh36:
I read Booman’s post this morning and it was indeed an excellent one. He has a rare ability to use logic and history to figure things out and explain them to the rest of us.
lamh36
wow so now it’s dangerous for black folk to run to police for help. we gotta walk slowly and steadily with our hands already up! hmm noting racial about this shooting amirite?
Police Fatally Shoot Unarmed Former Football Player Who May Have Been Seeking Help After A Car Crash
Hungry Joe
@max: Re “I reread [Dowd] twice and I have no idea what the point of the column was or in fact, what events she was actually reporting relating.”
Copy and re-paste every Sunday. You can’t lose.
Yatsuno
@lamh36: Link no work. Please to fix.
askew
According to twitter, George Steph asked Obama about “his lost year”. Does anyone know what George was talking about?
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker: Makes sense. Thanks for the peek behind the curtain.
jeffreyw
Another big load of tomatoes, boiling this batch down to ketchup. Experimental recipe. Fingers crossed
scav
@Yatsuno: Here’s a ChiTrib holder until we get hers.
Amir Khalid
@lamh36:
Bad linky. please to fix?
askew
@Ben Franklin:
Probably a dumb ? but can’t they build something around the reactors to to slow or stop the leaking? It seems like Japan is just shrugging their shoulders about this and doing nothing.
Yatsuno
@Betty Cracker: AL has said in the past she sets her Sunday posts on auto since she doesn’t know for sure if she can post them live. You should see it on the dashboard though Betty although I have no idea if she works with working titles.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Ben Franklin:
Now find some published, peer reviewed articles. Don’t come back until you find some. (I have searched. You will be gone a long time)
MomSense
@geg6:
They don’t get it from me, that is for sure!
fuckwit
On the topic of teenagers, and also related to the old-skool hip-hop thread, but I’m noticing a sudden and marked trend among some white yoots I know (ahem, and live with, and buy clothes and food for) just in the last week to NOT consider it OK anymore for white people to appropriate black culture. This is very weird for me because, being something of a conniseier of all manner of black music, it seems to me that white people have been enthusiastically appropriating black culture for almost a hundred years now (ragtime, jazz, R&B, rock and roll, funk, disco, hip-hop, etc). Elvis was a hero to most, but he was basically a white kid who sounded black. Without black people, American music would suck balls, IMHO. So would most of American style, fashion, and vocabulary (I particularly enjoy employing “motherfucker” as an all purpose word that can mean almost anything depending on tone an inflection).
I think Miley Cyrus finally jumped the shark so overwhelmingly that, among the cohort who grew up with her, they’re starting to be ashamed to see white people acting/talking/dancing/singing black in a lame attempt to try to be cool. I’m seeing it start to look/sound/feel icky to them. Maybe the aversion will be so strong it will stick permanently, or at least for a generation.
I have to think it’s a good thing, and probably a positive development. Cyrus may have really done the world a favor. I have to expect that black folks are so sick to death of a century of white people biting their style that it’s long past time for that shit to stop. But it’s very weird to suddenly feel racist for throwing quotes from old-skool rap or Samuel Jackson lines from Pulp Fiction into conversation like I’ve done for 20-30 years now. All of a sudden, in the last week, I get: “STOP THAT DAD!!”
So yeah, I guess I got to stop doing that. My open apologies to black folks, for a lifetime of stealing your shit.
raven
SInce the gators suck, the eers suck and the Steelers suck I guess the next football thread will be some weak soccer sauce.
FlipYrWhig
@askew: Maybe they’re both John Prine fans? The Missing Years.
askew
@FlipYrWhig:
Lol, that’s a better theory than I’ve been able to come up with.
OT – This Vikings game is killing me already.
raven
@fuckwit: Yea, watch this honky rip off the brother!
raven
@askew: Great GO BEARS!
Ben Franklin
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
I just pray this meets your standards.
http://www.usuhs.edu/afrri/outreach/pdf/50thMiller_in-vivo.pdf
Conclusions in Vivo: Internalized chronic DU exposure in vivo:
1. – causes uranium re-distribution to multiple organs.
2. – Is associated with urine mutagenicity
3. – Induces chromosomal damage
4. – Indices leukemia development in mice
5. – causes preconceptional paternal exposure to induce genomic damage in unexposed offspring
6. – Induces germ cell DNA damage
Ben Franklin
@askew:
They built an icewall to contain, but the UN or someone else has to get Japan to relinquish their control and mismanagement. It’s embarrassing for them but is a potential regional catastastroke.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/japans-nuclear-migraine-ending-disaster-fukushima/story?id=20226885
kc
@scav:
Oh, God, that’s awful.
At least the cop was charged.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Betty Cracker:
From Douthat’s “sensible” column:
(Fantasy Putin to fantasy Douthat) “I thought you are used to propaganda.”
(Fantasy Douthat replies) “Well, if it’s our own. But it’s different being lectured on peace and human rights by a ruler who doesn’t give a fig about either.”
So in Douthat world, being lectured by George W Bush on peace wasn’t being lectured by someone who “didn’t give a fig” about peace.
Putin is no saint, but one thing you have to realize is that Douthat never writes anything sensible. Celebrating our good points is one thing, but engaging in complete fantasy about “American exceptionalism” is another.
Dead Ernest
@Betty Cracker:
I like the phrase ‘dollars to donuts,’ it rolls of the tongue nicely.
But given the price of donuts, it doesn’t make sense anymore. May not be long before it becomes ‘donuts to dollars.’
Burnspbesq
@Ben Franklin:
That may or may not be accurate, but your source is notorious for lack of connection to reality. Try harder.
lamh36
@Amir Khalid:
Police Fatally Shoot Unarmed Former Football Player Who May Have Been Seeking Help After A Car Crash http://thkpr.gs/16uVZr3 via @TPJustice
Dead Ernest
@Suzanne:
Ah, so [stroking beard] how does this building make you feel about your father?
lamh36
@kc: I think if there is ANY good from the Zimmerman mess is that local law enforcement agencies are more likely at the very least not treat alleged shooting victims the way they treated Trayvon Martin esp in cases of interracial shootings and especially in cases of police shootings
Yatsuno
@lamh36: The best good to come from that is Zimmerman never spawning. Karma catching up with him will be a nice touch.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
ABC This Week panel laughs at Justin Amash
spudgun
@Suzanne: Hah, I do that all the time! It’s called “work avoidance”, linked to procrastination, where you avoid doing what know you have to do but desperately don’t want to do by doing other, less important stuff to make you feel like you’re, um, well, accomplishing stuff.
I tell ya, around tax time my house gets ssoooooo clean…! :-)
Anoniminous
@kc:
Standard kabuki. To save face they have to charge the cop and broadcast the fact widely. Later, when no one is looking, charges will be dropped and the cop exonerated.
FlipYrWhig
@Dead Ernest: Good one, but I think that’s the basic premise of the documentary My Architect.
Betty Cracker
@Bill E Pilgrim: I said I thought it was sensible in its assessment of what Putin wants, not sensible overall. Here’s what the column said about Putin’s aims:
I think that’s probably pretty accurate.
lamh36
Ash Can
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Moar of this, plz. The second-best response to GOP idiocy is laughter and ridicule (with the best of course being voting their sorry asses out of office and never letting them near any levers of power again).
JordanRules
@fuckwit: Interesting, though I don’t know how widespread that really is.
My Mom recently had to tell my white cousin to not post the n-word on Facebook. He’s notoriously quick-tempered and has short human-fueled bad boy tendancies but deep down a good young guy…I hope. He said he didn’t mean to offend and I was surprised he didn’t pop-off with the ‘it’s not fair’ BS.
It will be interesting to see how the next few generations deal with all the changes and how it’s expressed artistically, in language and accepted norms.
Teach your kids one point of black history or expose them to part of the black experience they will never learn in school and then grant yourself one hearty Sam Jackson sample to use at your leisure.
Batocchio
Cobb!
Omnes Omnibus
@Batocchio: Woohoo!
Suzanne
@Dead Ernest:
In one of my final reviews in graduate school, I made everyone uncomfortable by noting the cock resemblance of an array of corporate headquarters buildings, then I showed my design, which was a very refined slit into the ground. I was surprised that so few of my reviewers had noticed that before. But all my reviewers were dudes (as 90% of architects of that cohort are). Cock is the default, I suppose. Just like a fish doesn’t know about water.
TaMara (BHF)
SWF seeking SM with a boat, preferably an ark or at the very least boat building skills. Gentlemen with the name Noah will get first consideration.
It’s still raining here.
lamh36
@lamh36:
PsiFighter37
Ran the Philly half at an 8:04 pace today – way better than I had been training. Really happy about that, and also really tired legs.
At least I can drink a beer when I get home.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
PsiFighter37
Ran the Philly half at an 8:04 pace today – way better than I had been training. Really happy about that, and also really tired legs.
At least I can drink a beer when I get home.
PsiFighter37
Ran the Philly half at an 8:04 pace today – way better than I had been training. Really happy about that, and also really tired legs.
At least I can drink a beer when I get home.
TaMara (BHF)
SWF seeking SM with a boat, preferably an ark or at the very least boat building skills. Gentlemen with the name Noah will get first consideration.
It’s still raining here.
Poopyman
@fuckwit: Ask ’em if Eric Clapton should stop playing.
Suzanne
@fuckwit: I think the cultural appropriation issue is not so, pardon the pun, black and white. The issue with Cyrus’s performance wasn’t that she was influenced by the artistic forms of another culture, but that she was making fun of them to further her own relative position. I love to eat the foods of cultures that aren’t my own, and listen to their music, etc, but white people seem to have this tendency to both borrow ideas/be influenced by other cultures, and simultaneously behave as if the other culture is “weird”, “quaint”, “spicy”, “sexy”, “funny”, etc etc etc.
VincentN
@fuckwit:
Are you sure it’s not just your kids thinking that you’re an old parental unit that’s embarrassing them by trying to act cool?
Interesting thoughts about cultural appropriation. I’m a little concerned that if what you’re describing is a real trend then the reason that kids are ‘not acting black’ these days is not because it’s disrespectful but because black culture is seen as uncool. That would be problematic.
JordanRules
Crazy ass ending to that ASU – Wisconsin game yesterday. Welp, we’re in the top 25 now after that nap on the ball.
lamh36
@lamh36:
Yatsuno
Methinks FYWP is about to throw a major fit. Again.
lamh36
@lamh36:
Yatsuno
Methinks FYWP is about to throw another major fit. Again.
Suzanne
Fuck, my comment about Miley Cyrus and cultural appropriation got eated. In short: I don’t think being influenced by the art forms of people who aren’t you is problematic if one is honest and respectful about it. MC was neither.
@PsiFighter37: Congrats….that’s an awesome accomplishment.
Batocchio
Jordy Nelson! The taken-back touchdown catch was prettier, but nicely done!
Suzanne
Fuck, my comment about Miley Cyrus and cultural appropriation got eated. In short: I don’t think being influenced by the art forms of people who aren’t you is problematic if one is honest and respectful about it. MC was neither.
@PsiFighter37: Congrats….that’s an awesome accomplishment.
Omnes Omnibus
Jordy!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@lamh36: The Reuters version didn’t mention race but I knew the poor fucker had to be a black guy.
Also appears the dickhead who shot him may be in a wholly justified world of shit:
“Our investigation has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter,” the police department said in a statement.
I can’t recall any police department in this country EVER saying anything like that, especially only twelve hours after the fact. So hopefully “justice” of some sort will be done. Of course, it would be better if cops wouldn’t shoot unarmed black men, but hey, slow and steady incremental process is OK with black folks, right?*
*Sarcasm. If I were black I’d have gone on a killing spree years ago. I honestly don’t how black folks are able to just sit there and take it. No slam on them, it’s the safest thing to do, but goddamn…injustice doesn’t even begin to describe it.
? Martin
@chrome agnomen:
With the mustard and Cole’s dignity, having a 3-some.
JordanRules
@Suzanne: This.
Justin Beiber wants to be bad so…
CONGRATULATIONS!
@lamh36: The Reuters version didn’t mention race but I knew the poor fucker had to be a black guy.
Also appears the dickhead who shot him may be in a wholly justified world of shit:
“Our investigation has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter,” the police department said in a statement.
I can’t recall any police department in this country EVER saying anything like that, especially only twelve hours after the fact. So hopefully “justice” of some sort will be done. Of course, it would be better if cops wouldn’t shoot unarmed black men, but hey, slow and steady incremental process is OK with black folks, right?*
*Sarcasm. If I were black I’d have gone on a killing spree years ago. I honestly don’t how black folks are able to just sit there and take it. No slam on them, it’s the safest thing to do, but goddamn…injustice doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Omnes Omnibus
Is the site slow for anyone else?
Yatsuno
@Suzanne: FYWP is being a champion right now. Or I got banned. Again.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@fuckwit: Hope you’re right, but I would see this more a symptom of the entire nation’s culture coming unglued as a result of a “cold civil war” than a realization among white folks that they’ve done anything wrong.
Amir Khalid
Just finished watching Les Misérables on YouTube. It’s a 2004 performance in Berlin, und sie ist naturlich auf Deutsch. Magnificent. I’m regretting that I didn’t go down to S’pore to see it back in the mid-1990s.
…
Und vergess nicht die Wahrheit steht geschrieben
Zu lieben einen Menschen heißt, als Antlitz Gottes sehen
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
Just Some Fuckhead
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
Amir Khalid
Just finished watching Les Misérables on YouTube. It’s a 2004 performance in Berlin, und sie ist naturlich auf Deutsch. Magnificent. I’m regretting that I didn’t go down to S’pore to see it back in the mid-1990s.
…
Und vergess nicht die Wahrheit steht geschrieben
Zu lieben einen Menschen heißt, als Antlitz Gottes sehen
Just Some Fuckhead
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
JordanRules
@Suzanne: Yup.
Bieber wants to be um, “bad”, sooo…
Just Some Fuckhead
Delightful post, Betty. Regrettably, I am unable to participate in the levity due to your recent firebaggery.
Villago Delenda Est
WP is being…WP this morning, more so than usual.
I blame Obama.
rikyrah
Police officer who ‘shot dead unarmed man who was seeking help after car wreck’ is charged with manslaughter
Jonathan Ferrell appears to have crashed his car down an embankment about 2:30 a.m. and then knocked on the door of a nearby residence looking for help shortly after
The homeowner opened the door thinking it was her husband. When she realized it was 24-year-old Ferrell – a stranger – she closed the door and called 911
When police arrived, authorities claim Ferrell charged officers before one of them shot him several times
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420992/Jonathan-Ferrell-North-Carolina-cop-charged-manslaughter-death-unarmed-man.html#ixzz2ezDr1YU9
Amir Khalid
Just finished watching Les Misérables on YouTube. It’s a 2004 performance in Berlin, und sie ist naturlich auf Deutsch. Magnificent. I’m regretting that I didn’t go down to S’pore to see it back in the mid-1990s.
…
Und vergess nicht die Wahrheit steht geschrieben
Zu lieben einen Menschen heißt, als Antlitz Gottes sehen
mdblanche
@lamh36:
Thus demonstrating that the Bushies are smarter than the Village. At least the Bushies are smart enough to know when their intelligence has been insulted.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes.
Betty Cracker
Admin Note: I would put up an NFL thread for y’all, but the FYWP mobile platform isn’t working for me. Could explain why no one else has posted either. I put this post up via laptop, but I can’t get on via smartphone or tablet. Weird.
raven
@Betty Cracker: it’s fucked
Ash Can
@Omnes Omnibus: Every so often, out of the blue, FYWP just decides to stop and take an enormous shit. This is one of those times.
raven
@Betty Cracker: it’s fucked
rikyrah
Police officer who ‘shot dead unarmed man who was seeking help after car wreck’ is charged with manslaughter
Jonathan Ferrell appears to have crashed his car down an embankment about 2:30 a.m. and then knocked on the door of a nearby residence looking for help shortly after
The homeowner opened the door thinking it was her husband. When she realized it was 24-year-old Ferrell – a stranger – she closed the door and called 911
When police arrived, authorities claim Ferrell charged officers before one of them shot him several times
By Daily Mail Reporter and Ap Reporter
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420992/Jonathan-Ferrell-North-Carolina-cop-charged-manslaughter-death-unarmed-man.html#ixzz2ezMlRrU8
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
gbear
New word via Joe My God:
Blacktrack (blak’trak) verb – The act of changing one’s mind because president Obama has agreed with you.
JPL
test, test, test
JPL
Balloon Juice has become so popular that the Syrian Electronic Army has decided to close us down. This is a warning..
also, too.. The Rams just scored but we are still ahead.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ben Franklin: and @Burnspbesq:
It doesn’t matter if it’s accurate. It doesn’t apply. The very first thing it says is that all they can verify is what happens if you directly implant DU into a fetus, and their research has no bearing on environmental studies.
His Fukushima update, meanwhile, is a letter from an MD with no apparent credentials in nuclear science speculating about how he finds it all very worrisome. It’s paired with what everyone in the nuclear energy community has already told us a hundred times, that even a regular reactor has to remain sealed and is unusable for decades after it’s decommissioned, and these melted down reactors will be unsafe for much longer. Like the implanted DU study, this information is irrelevant to environmental impact.
EDIT – Hopefully this will not end up being the third or fifth or fourteenth time this posts, thanks to FYWP.
JPL
NFL thread… wahoo
schrodinger's cat
My reaction to Friedman’s latest.
Redshift
@askew:
No idea. If I had to guess, I’d say it may be Villager-speak for the past year when the teabaggers blocked everything because they hate Obama, or from the Village’s perspective, because Obama didn’t reach out enough or play golf with the right people or something.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Testing testing
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
Friedman has a talent for gibberish I never managed (or worked up the desire) to approach in a decade and a half of my own journalising about technology. He should think about writing Dr Seuss style verse for executive types.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I posted my first movie essay on my new blog. Please be gentle. ?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Ben Franklin:
Good job! Not sure how it relates to DU in context of the Iraq theater.
Pretty sure we’re not using DU in Iraq now, either. We did during the last administration, though.
So let’s recap. DU bullets are bad. We agree on that.
DU bullets cannot suffocate 1400 people in one setting.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Frankensteinbeck:
I actually wouldn’t be surprised if DU ends up being the Iraq War’s version of Agent Orange: something that the people using it were assured was safe but ends up causing problems for themselves and their children. I’m fully expecting to start hearing about clusters of rare cancers showing up at VA hospitals and reports of birth defects in the children of Afganistan and Iraq veterans in about 10 years. And that’s leaving aside the effects those munitions will have in the countries where they were left behind. Radioactive materials are not something to fuck around with, even when they’re “depleted.”
Still not quite the same thing as deliberately using nerve gas on civilians, though.
Robert Sneddon
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Depleted uranium penetrators are specialised tools for cracking open heavy and medium armour such as tanks and armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) in an open battlefield situation. They’re not used in urban warfare or in antipersonnel situations because they don’t kill and maim as well as high explosive shells do and they’re pretty much useless against buildings and homes and even bunkers. The word “uranium” is magic to a significant segment of the population though so it is the scapegoat for all sorts of ills, many of them imaginary.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: His columns are so glib and filled with jargon, I would give it an F if a student submitted a paper like that.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Robert Sneddon:
Well put.
tybee
@Just Some Fuckhead:
i shall continue despite your asshattery.
tybee
@JPL:
and, finally, despite our efforts to give it back, we win.
Ben Franklin
@Robert Sneddon:
To think we haven’t even broached the subject of White Phosphorus.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ben Franklin:
WP has been around for a very long time.
It’s only supposed to be used against equipment. Like belt buckles.
tybee
canteens are equipment. as are uniforms.
and willie pete works great on thatch roof buildings where equipment is stashed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: FWIW the best shell/fuse combo for a POL dump (fuel storage facility) is a mix of HR and WP – both with variable time fuses for an air burst.
cckids
@Suzanne:
I’m late as usual to the thread, but this reminds me of something one of my kids sent me: You look like type #1.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Maybe it will be. Hell if I know. I do know that Ben Franklin’s references don’t support his points.
Robert Sneddon
@Frankensteinbeck: After WWII there was a lot of research into the effects of uranium and plutonium in animal and human tissues since there was suddenly going to be a lot of it around, from ore mining through weapons development and nuclear fuel production and people working with it were going to get exposed and contaminated. The experimental results were pretty much meh — absorbing uranium into the body was difficult since the most common elemental metal forms and oxide forms (UO2, U3O8) didn’t dissolve very easily even in stomach acids. If it did get into the bloodstream it was filtered out by the liver and kidneys which could take some damage if the levels were high enough but that was about it. There was nowhere it would concentrate like iodine in the thyroid or calcium and strontium in the bones. Compared to real killers like arsenic, beryllium, mercury and cadmium and neurologically-active metals like lead and lithium, uranium and plutonium are remarkably inoffensive chemically speaking.
The two most common isotopes of uranium, U-235 and U-238 have such long half-lives (750 million and 4.5 billion years) that they are very innocuous in terms of radioactivity. Raw metal and processed yellowcake (U3O8) are quite safe to handle and work with, not quite as radioactive as no-sodium salt (potassium chloride) is pound for pound. The raw ores have a lot of fission and decay products like radium and radon released over billions of years which paradoxically makes them more radioactive than purified uranium. Depleted uranium, the dreaded DU is less radioactive than regular uranium metal.
Plutonium is a lot more radioactive with a much shorter half-life than uranium but nearly all of it is man-made and it’s not used in conventional weapons as an armour penetrator so much less of it is floating around in the wild.
Anne Laurie
@Betty Cracker: Just in case you read this after the fact, yes, that is what happened, and also if you ever want to hand-publish one of my ‘missed schedule’ posts from the dashboard, do not hesitate. (I’ve already told people that Sunday’s garden chat will go live on Monday, for this week’s special.)
Bill Arnold
@Ben Franklin<
[Edit – I see you've elaborated. Ramblings below still stand though – tx for good cite for uranium toxicity]
You seem rather worked up about radioactive materials. I am one of the few people here who had a lab-grade Geiger counter as a toy as a kid. Gave some perspective; there is always, always background radiation. Antique clocks and watches with radium paint were radioactive enough to be findable (learned how to search statistically). My dad was once radioactive for a couple of days due to some radioisotope-based diagnostic. (We measured the half life together). Never did get rocks to measure noticeably, even pitchblende-bearing granite.
None of this held a candle in dangerousness to playing with lead (melting in spoons, pouring into molds, etc). Now that stuff was bad, and probably made me significantly stupider. Depleted uranium is a similarly toxic heavy metal.
And the Pacific ocean is really big. I'd worry about fishing next to Japan's east coast, a little, maybe. Cesium is chemically similar to potassium, and potassium-40 (including from the potassium in human bodies) is a significant part of background radiation.
Also the frozen soil thing that they're doing at fukushima will probably work. Crazy expensive. Also, whoever sited the plant so close to sea level should be punished severely if they're still alive.
Paul in KY
@lamh36: Very sad. Hope justice is done.
Paul in KY
@fuckwit: As long as they don’t go Hammersmith and all that…