Important things to note today:
1) My 5 year old is an excellent quasi-random character generator. I needed to reset a series of passwords this morning. She helped! A Snorfrapzle is an animal that lurks under her bed.
2) Pitchers and Catchers are REPORTING — six more weeks of snow.
3) I’m going ice skating tonight for the first time in ten years. Hopefully I won’t pull a Cole.
Talk about whatever
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
Just don’t take any pets with you.
FridayNext
I haven’t pulled my Cole since I got married.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
I want to thank Mistermix for recommending myfreetaxes dot com. I went through them and got my taxes taken care of without any issues. Since I was a prior customer of H & R Block, I was comfortable going through the process and my refund has shown up.
Very happy.
Omnes Omnibus
This piece about Cruz messing with the Senate GOP leadership was rather interesting. It is the kind of thing that keeps me hopeful about the ’14 elections.
Napoleon
Keep your cloths on and don’t bring a mop.
Linda Featheringill
@Omnes Omnibus: I suspect that Cruz is not a team player and thus his political future will be limited.
OzarkHillbilly
Pitchers and Catchers Day!! My 2nd favorite holiday of the year. The only one better is Opening Day. And of course, everyone knows the last 2 words of the National Anthem, don’t they?
OzarkHillbilly
@Linda Featheringill: Political future, yes. But his future as a grifter extraordinaire is assured.
raven
OK Georgia peeps, how ya’ll doin?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Haha. Cruz embarrasses GOP by making them act responsibly.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: JPL is conspicuous by his absence.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I think he’s a she. . .I think.
cane giallo
@OzarkHillbilly: Play Ball!!
Belafon
@raven: We need gender neutral pronouns.
raven
@Belafon: it?The hockey announcers spent a good amount of time explaining that “defensemen” and other suck terms were gender neutral.
some guy
speaking of kids, my 6 year old daughter was just made Citizen of the Month at her school. February’s virtue is Bravery and Courage, which she has plenty of. proud papa over here.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: more snow this morning in johns creek. Also, a snow plow just went down my street.
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
@raven:
In football, we call’em “goalkeepers”, “defenders”, “midfielders”, and “forwards” — 19th century terms which have always been gender-neutral. Maybe you could use them in ice hockey too.
mai naem
Ted Cruz’s skin looks so unnaturally white. Like the super pale red heads you see once in a blue moon. Also too, I think Cruz is a Democratic mole. Only that explains his behavior.
feebog
The Mrs. is scheduled for surgery this morning. Full Knee replacement. We have one of the best surgeons in the state, but she is still a bit jumpy. Heading off to the hospital in just a minute, think good thoughts…
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: I was thinking more in terms of our commenting here. We try to mention something about some other commenter and when it comes time to use a pronoun, we’re left guessing the gender.
Phylllis
No power since about midnight last night. And the wi fi hotspot is about to give up the ghost.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Apparently I misspoke with “footie” too!
Jerzy Russian
@mai naem: Remember that Mr. Cruz is Canadian. Perhaps that helps explain his paleness.
raven
@Steve in the ATL:It’s melting like mad here in Athens.
IowaOldLady
@some guy: Good for your daughter! Bravery is a great virtue. The best advice anyone ever gave me was to be brave.
Elmo
5″ of heavy wet sludge in Southern MD. Other DC suburbs got a foot or more, but mine is so wet it condensed on itself.
I made the mistake of trying to shovel a path. Oy. I’ll be icing my right elbow now TYVM.
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
Simple: If a commenter doesn’t claim a gender, just call them “it”.
/Not sure if I’m kidding.
raven
@Amir Khalid: great minds
Belafon
@Richard: When my youngest was 4-5, he would build figures out of the Lego Bionicle sets, and would give a name to every one of them. They were random strings of sounds, but he had no problem putting them together, where my mind would have just prevented me from doing it. My other two never did that, even though they would make different creatures out of the Legos.
It was also kind of interesting trying to figure out what kind of creature they had made. Were any one of them a god of a world, there would be one legged three armed creatures with one eye, Four legged creatures with a large claw on one arm…
Belafon
@Amir Khalid:
@raven:
Possibly, though ‘it’ does sound a bit harsh. I suspect if I googled, someone has already tried to solve it. Maybe later.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Entertaining Dana Milbank piece at WaPo on the Paul suit:
Hehe.
Seriously, though, Fein should have known this is just a grift. He’s not stupid.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Being lazy and housebound, just like yesterday. But the sun is shining brilliantly. I’ll wait until the temp gets up to around 40° and then go scrape off the car, check the roads, and take it from there. How do the Bodhi and Li’l Bit like ice-encrusted snow?
Amir Khalid
This has got to be one of the strangest sports news stories ever. Even the fittest 41-year-old man in the world could never hope to pass for 17.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Yes, JPL is a she. I have spent extremely pleasant time in her company.
Belafon
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Rarely do lawyers become story. They may have fame in their own right, but the story is almost always about the case. Even OJ’s trial ended up being about OJ getting acquitted.
boatboy_srq
@Linda Featheringill: There’s plenty of mileage in being That Senator From Texas. Although he could be primaried by the secessionists as some sort of sellout (going to Washington and all).
Mike E
My daughter recorded over my vhs tapes and dialed 9-1-1, all before the age of 14 months. We called her “Button” back then.
Hundreds of abandoned cars here in the Triangle, but just 6% lost power so we got extremely lucky. I’ll take it after my share of ice storms!
boatboy_srq
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
The Eating of Their Own may actually have begun.
More popcorn, please.
rikyrah
U.S. senator drops bombshell during VW plant union vote
Thu, Feb 13 00:33 AM EST
By Bernie Woodall
CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Bob Corker of
Tennessee said on Wednesday he has been “assured” that if workers at the Volkswagen AG plant in his hometown of Chattanooga reject United Auto Worker representation, the company will reward the plant with a new product to build.
Corker’s bombshell, which runs counter to public statements by
Volkswagen, was dropped on the first of a three-day secret ballot
election of blue-collar workers at the Chattanooga plant whether to
allow the UAW to represent them.
Corker has long been an opponent of the union which he says hurts
economic and job growth in Tennessee, a charge that UAW officials say is untrue.
“I’ve had conversations today and based on those am assured that
should the workers vote against the UAW, Volkswagen will announce in the coming weeks that it will manufacture its new mid-size SUV here in
Chattanooga,” said Corker, without saying with whom he had the
conversations.
In the past few weeks, Volkswagen officials have made several
statements that the vote will have no bearing on whether the SUV will be made at the Chattanooga plant or at a plant in Puebla, Mexico.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/13/us-volkswagen-corker-idUSBREA1C04H20140213?irpc=932
Big R
Also, “they” is a perfectly acceptable gender-neutral singular pronoun, as evidenced by its hundreds of years of use by such hack writers as Shakespeare, Austen, and Thackeray.
rikyrah
February 10, 2014 1:25 PM
The Vast Shredding of America’s Moral Fiber
By Ed Kilgore
The only silver lining for the extended debate over extended unemployment insurance is that we are getting a good clear look at the standard conservative mindset about wealth and poverty, and fortune and misfortune. Paul Krugman calls it “hard-hearted and soft-headed,” an inversion of the famous formulation whereby the liberal reformers of the recent past pledged to conduct a fearless examination of what worked and what didn’t work in programs aimed at expanding economic opportunity. It’s based politically, as Krugman notes, on all sorts of counter-factual assumptions about the nature of the long-term unemployed (i.e., that they are mostly those people).
But what it most comes down to is the belief that economic success is almost invariably the product of virtue, and economic disaster is almost invariably the product of vice, especially sloth. When one is a Republican politician, these equations tend to flatter one’s voters at the expense of people who are less likely to vote and far less likely to vote Republican.
It’s always been preposterous, though. As I like to ask, when the Great Depression hit, did a quarter of the U.S. population collectively lose its moral fiber? Or worse yet, had these millions already fallen into decadence and sloth, causing a righteous God to smite them with unemployment and poverty? No, of course not. Yet there is a definite connection between recent conservative claims that the Great Recession was caused by the avarice and shiftlessness of low-to-medium income families—especially those people—who refused to live within their means, and today’s conservative claims the long-term unemployed could find work if they tried. What makes this approach so maddeningly persistent is that any concession to a more compassionate and factual way of looking at micro-economic catastrophe undermines the base-pleasing assurance that Americans fortunate enough to be doing well earned every damn penny via hard work and sturdy folk virtues. That’s why the “You Built That!” meme was so powerful among the Republican rank-and-file in 2012, beyond its ostensible audience of business owners.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_02/the_vast_shredding_of_americas049010.php
MomSense
@feebog:
Good thoughts for Mrs. Feebog thunked!
Richard, I am wondering if you could offer some thoughts on the Politifact ‘if you like your insurance you can keep it’ Lie of the Year being. This is being run as ads against Democrats all over the country and it seems to me that it is not accurate or particularly fair.
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
Unless Bob Corker can name who gave him this “assurance”, which doesn’t sound like it came from Volkswagen, he’s lying.
JPL
I’m here, just signed on late. The sun is shining and the snow is falling from the trees. It might be time to take a few pictures before all of this is a distant memory. For those who are in the path of Pax, take care.
Belafon
@rikyrah: I believe Corker is full of it. Maybe VW should announce that they only way they are going to expand is if the workers are unionized.
The Republicans don’t really know how to handle a company that wants a union.
different-church-lady
Pulling a Cole is not injuring yourself during an activity where people commonly get injured. Pulling a Cole is injuring yourself during a completely normal activity. Like cracking your skull open while sitting in an armchair, for example.
JPL
Does anyone remember when as a nation, we were compared to other industrialized nations? Without question, the one percent compares our lifestyle to that of those who live in third world countries.
Honus
I’ll always remember this snowstorm as the day I stayed home and watched an old Miami Vice where Bill Russell was a crooked judge and Cosmo Kramer was the arch-villain threatening to off him.
Honus
@JPL: Yes, we’re a mildy mechanized third world country with all the freedom from health care, prejudice, and random gun violence that implies.
JPL
@Honus: But Sarah Palin told me the MSM was liberal…
Baud
@JPL:
You mean when Democrats controlled the government? Yeah, good times.
Cervantes
From 1987:
Sid Caesar died yesterday.
Cervantes
@some guy: Congratulations!
She sounds great — and so does that school.
Punchy
So much inanity to unpack here. Someone shocked at Cooch’s behavior? Legal genius of Bruce Fein? And Bruce employs HIS EX WIFE as his spokeswoman?
Good fucking lord. Ringling Bros. doesn’t bring this much circus to D.C.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: What happened to half-backs and full-backs? All just plain “defenders” now?
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: They are fine, we’ve been put a bunch and the Bohdi really loves it. Lil Bit could go either way.
Just One More Canuck
@different-church-lady: Or breaking your leg while shaving your cat’s ass
Cervantes
@Big R: Yes, and it would be somewhat churlish to object, I’d say.
Mike in NC
@Honus: Random gun violence, you say? Noted union-basher and firearms enthusiast Governor Nikki Haley is backing a bill that would pretty much allow anybody who lives in SC to run out and buy a gun, no questions asked. The bill would abolish all current requirements for permits and safety training, because that’s the way Jesus wanted it!
Baud
@Mike in NC:
Even the blacks?! Fascinating.
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: Even when I was stuck in the muck a few weeks ago, I didn’t see a snow plow. I assume the city will plow Crabapple St. but it will be tomorrow afternoon before I venture that far.
@raven: Mr. Finch loves the snow. He’s like a little kid because he comes in for a cookie and to warm up before he ventures out again.
raven
@JPL: Yes!
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Aren’t those rugby positions? Nowadays they have defensive midfielders (who help with the defending), and offensive midfielders (who don’t bathe, or something), and I thank God for books like this one which I heartily recommend to all football fans.
schrodinger's cat
Lolympic Kitteh wants to say Ohai..
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks.
Well, he’s obviously more worried now about the general than about the “tea party challenge” in the primary.
Cassidy
Found a new site with some good workout routines, all body weight.
http://neilarey.com
I think I’m gonna try out a few weeks of her workouts. Since I’m a rover, the quality of the exercise equipment at each station varies and my apartment’s room is barely adequate. The workouts look sound, though.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Got a cheap copy! Thx.
kindness
@boatboy_srq:
Why do I feel like I should be donating ketsup to them? Salsa would be a better low blow.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m incapable of optimism, but this from the Newsmax round up makes a little less pessimistic
Limbaugh: I Predict GOP Midterm Wave
Poopyman
@JPL: Crabapple St?!? I thought everything down there was Peachtree This or Peachtree That.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Maybe, but definitely soccer (or “association rules” football, if you prefer).
David O’Leary, for example, who played more matches for Arsenal than any other human being, was famously a centre-half.
Here’s an article currently on Arsenal’s web-site where the term “full back” is featured (and the position discussed).
Not saying you or your reference book are wrong — just interested to watch the language vary and change (if that’s what’s happening).
Thanks much.
MomSense
@Just One More Canuck:
Different Church-Lady said normal activity!
Cervantes
@kindness: On the other hand, salsa is usually healthier.
A tough call.
Honus
@JPL: Go over to Charlie Pierce and read the post on Sara’s 50th birthday bash. Speakers included Phil and Si Robertson, Ted Cruz, Condi Rice, Newt Gingrich and John McCain. A real festival of stupid.
raven
@JPL: BTW, you are of the female persuasion, no?
RSA
Speaking of snow, we have some here in Raleigh. My wife had a morning appointment at the dentist, 20 minutes away, that I thought would get us home with time to spare. The procedure went just a bit longer than expected, and our 20 minute drive stretched out to over 3.5 hours. Very frustrating. On the plus side, my wife was dozing in the passenger seat, still recovering from sedation. On the minus side, we were not well-prepared for spending that long in the car.
So, poor judgment on my part (not to mention the dentist’s office, whom I talked with the day before). My question was why there were so many other people with poor judgment on the roads yesterday afternoon… (I’ll forego the “I used to live in Massachusetts and know how to drive in the snow” complaint, as well as the “We need better infrastructure in the South” complaint.)
Mnemosyne
My (older) boss of 7+ years retired as of yesterday and is having knee replacement surgery today that may have complications. Very mixed feelings today — I’m happy for her, and I’m happy for myself (because she was not always an easy person to work for), but it’s still very weird.
PaulW
I am home, sick, head cold…
the kittehs in my closet were born just as the Super Bowl ended more than a week ago. They are now beginning to open their eyes. I am doomed.
rikyrah
February 12, 2014 10:20 AM
Has the Radical Conservative Fever Broken?
By Ed Kilgore
Yesterday House Republicans voted against a debt limit increase by a margin of 199-28. It was widely interpreted in the MSM and among progressive writers (examples: Molly Ball and Noam Scheiber) as a sign of Republican “pragmatism,” of a thaw in radical conservatism that might lead to other “bipartisan breakthroughs”—perhaps on immigration reform!
There was some disagreement (mainly on Twitter) as to whether the passage of a “clean” debt limit bill confirmed John Boehner’s status as a legislative wizard, or rather the playing out of a weak hand; I seemed to be the rare voice suggesting Boehner’s leadership credentials had been severely damaged.
You will forgive me for an enduring skepticism on this latest “proof” that “the fever” (as the president calls radical conservatism) has broken, the Tea Party has been domesticated, the grownups are back in control, and the storms that convulsed our political system in 2009 have finally passed away. We’ve been hearing these assurances metronomically from the moment “the fever” first appeared.
The evidence for this meme on this particular occasion seems to be that John Boehner felt free to bring up a debt limit bill and pass it with Democratic votes without fear for his political life. Having promised repeatedly that he would not allow a debt default, it is reasonably clear he had little choice but to pursue this course of action. But aside from the fact that he could only secure GOP votes from a handful of leadership allies (though not, significantly, Paul Ryan), committee chairs, and bicoastal quasi-moderates, it is not all that clear just yet that the GOP back-benchers racing to get out of Washington before a winter storm are satisfied with how the deal went down. Their level of equanimity will not improve after puzzled conservative constituents grill them on this “surrender,” and after they are congratulated by everyone else on the political spectrum for their abandonment of “conservative principles.”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_02/has_the_radical_conservative_f049043.php
schrodinger's cat
@PaulW: We need pictures and webcams and up to the minute reports.
Mnemosyne
@feebog:
I posted about my boss’s knee surgery before reading the thread! Hopefully everyone will come through okay (my boss doesn’t go under the knife until late afternoon). I think geg6 has some experience with this since her spouse equivalent had a knee replacement last year.
Good luck to you and Mrs. feebog!
JPL
@raven: Yes
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: May I just say it was a bit startling to hear (read!) you mention Arsenal and Man U.
I hope all our southerners are managing. We had such a heat wave here yesterday (35F) that Layla spent 4 hours outside without her Baker blanket and even spent some of that lounging in the shade of an oak trunk.
rikyrah
Luxury CEO: The poor should stop whining
By: Robert Frank | CNBC Reporter and Editor
Bud Konheim, Nicole Miller co-founder & CEO, says the U.S. poverty level is wealth in most of the world, so people should stop complaining.
Bud Konheim has a message for all of the 99 percenters: You’re luckier than you think.
Konheim, CEO and co-founder of luxury-fashion company Nicole Miller, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that Americans not in the top 1 percent would be considered wealthy in most of the world. He said the 99ers should stop complaining and understand how lucky they are.
“We’ve got a country that the poverty level is wealth in 99 percent of the rest of the world,” he said. “So we’re talking about woe is me, woe is us, woe is this.” He added that “the guy that’s making, oh my God, he’s making $35,000 a year, why don’t we try that out in India or some countries we can’t even name. China, anyplace, the guy is wealthy.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101410955
Mike in NC
@RSA: We fled Charlotte on Tuesday afternoon under blizzard conditions. The main roads were OK and seem to have been treated with brine. Visibility was limited yet half the vehicles on the road didn’t even have their lights on. Quite a few drivers also seemed to be thinking, “Hey it’s snowing! Why drive the speed limit of 50 if my pickup truck can go 70?”.
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Hell, I like sports. I ordered the book that Amir posted. I said it yesterday but I started the kids soccer program in the department I worked at 27 years ago. I especially look forward to the World Cup because it gives me a break from the endless grind of baseball.
Just One More Canuck
@MomSense: Normal activity for Cole, or normal activity for normal people
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@RSA: Somewhere on the net, there is a vid showing a bridge near Fayetteville going from clear to undrivable in less than fifteen minutes. We’re not used to roads getting that bad that quickly.
Belafon
@rikyrah: Fine. I will go to his store and pay the $35 it would cost for me to get a piece of furniture in China or India.
patrick II
@Linda Featheringill:
That depends on who you think his team is. If the Tea Party republican unseats McConnell in the Kentucky primary in part due to this vote, Cruz will have a new and grateful member of his own Tea Party team.
NotMax
re: passwords —
Always – always – mix letters and numbers.
Steve in the ATL
@Poopyman: in the city every street is named Peachtree. Out in the suburbs most streets are named after whichever bridge you have to cross to get to the peachtrees. The crabapple area is a more recent development and the post office won’t let us name anything else Peachtree. Probably because of their well funded pension plan.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: Just use ze and hir. Those have been around for decades.
I know some people hated ze because it sounds like “sie/sie/Sie” (she/they/(formal You)) in German but hell, I think the fact that it sounds like “they” which is the OTHER English singular gender neutral pronoun (cry, junior high grammar sticklers, cry) is a plus. Anyway, it’s pretty well adopted in the American genderqueer community.
Don’t use “it”. Use “they” if you hate neologisms. “It” is rude.
Another Holocene Human
As a queer person, I can’t stand it when people call mcclaren “it”, no matter how vile or unhinged she’s being.
NotMax
@Another Holocene Human
Been using hown (a contraction of his own/her own) as a gender neutral pronoun since about 1971, but remain a solitary voice in that respect.
boatboy_srq
@MomSense: I would really like to know why the “you can keep your insurance” is Teh Big Lie and the “if you like your insurance, then…” part is conveniently forgotten. That to me has always been where Teh Big Lie proponents fall flat. The assumption that people would like their crappy catastrophic coverage is the only mistake.
Cervantes
@Another Holocene Human: When they manifest, mobs, by their very nature, are rude (at best).
I don’t know that there’s much to be done about it — except, for example, what you just did.
Thanks.
Comrade Mary
@RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual: Is it really free? What’s in it for H&R Block?
DFH no.6
Pitchers and catchers are reporting, not far down the street (ok, freeway) from my house, in fact (D-Backs spring training facility).
Mid-80s today for a high, and for the foreseeable in the forecast, though it does get down to the 50s and 40s at night, so still a bit chilly for my pre-dawn run. Initial spring fertilizing of the palm trees and shrubbery on the agenda for the weekend.
I keep seeing all these pictures on my TV and intertubes of this “snow” of which you speak. Doesn’t look like much fun.
Yes, I am a bad person.
Mnemosyne
@DFH no.6:
My brother-in-law is coming out here to Los Angeles next week to visit us. I’m sure he will be sad to miss the predicted heat wave in Chicago, which will bring temperatures all the way up to a high of 43 degrees.
Although we will have to deal with Jamzilla in order to pick him up at the airport, which sucks.
PurpleGirl
@JPL: We are most often compared to other industrialized nations when the subject is medical care, I think. But for years now, our poverty problem has been compared to third world countries to say that being poor here compares to being rich there and that our poor people (and liberals) should stop complaining and whining. That is comparing apples and peanuts, the whys of the status and the problems of living are not anything close to comparable. Besides the .01% have no idea about how anyone else lives, either in their own country or someplace else.
boatboy_srq
@kindness: Cuccinelli goes best with barbecue sauce. Fein might need ketchup, though.
MomSense
@boatboy_srq:
The “if you like your insurance” part is left out as is that insurance companies had about three years to make sure the plans were compliant. Why were they selling those plans knowing that they would be dropped?
Jebediah, RBG
@rikyrah:
I saw that somewhere else…Corker needs to be punched in his fucking neck.
boatboy_srq
@MomSense: There’s always a market for snake oil. My question is why anyone buying it would be happy with it – and hence why not keeping it would be such heartburn when other, better, cheaper coverage would be available? The whinging can’t all be because it’s the Blah President’s program.
Mnemosyne
@boatboy_srq:
My theory is that the people whinging about it have never actually had decent health insurance coverage. They have no idea what it’s like to be able to go see a doctor when they want to, or not have to rely on the emergency room, so all they can see is that someone is making them pay more money for what they already have.
Once they experience the difference between junk insurance and real insurance, I think a lot of them are going to do a 180. That’s why the Republicans have been so desperate to try and kill PPACA off. Once people don’t have to go in fear of bankruptcy because of an accident or appendicitis (or, as recently happened to a coworker of mine, gallbladder removal), they’re not letting those benefits go without a fight.
Jebediah, RBG
@rikyrah:
It’s almost like Mr Richtard has never heard the phrase “cost of living.” Or has no idea that it can vary from place to place. Or does, and is just a smarmy, dissembling shitnugget who should be forced to live in Manhattan on $35,000 for a few years.