Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

You are here: Home / Music / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Happy Vernal Equinox!

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Happy Vernal Equinox!

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Google has a doodle, but I think Nettles’ ode to her newborn son is more Eostere-y.

Speaking of the verdant season, thanks [allegedly] to Exxon, a Mississippi couple are up to their… torts… in alligators:

… As Mr. Christmas tells it, he was rabbit hunting in October 2007 when his dog crawled under the fence into the property next door, Rogers Landfarm, which is owned by ExxonMobil. Mr. Christmas drove around to the entrance to retrieve his beagle and what he saw floored him.

Signs on the imposing metal gates said: “Keep Out. Waste Disposal Site.” A land farm, the rustic name notwithstanding, is a waste dump in which the waste is plowed into the soil, eventually to be decomposed by naturally occurring organisms.

For decades, Exxon had trucked containers of oil waste sludge, as much as 140 tons a day, from its refinery in Baton Rouge, La., to Centreville, according to court records.

Beyond the gates was another sign: “No Fishing. Snakes and alligators in area.”

“I started seeing all these alligators all over the place,” Mr. Christmas said, shaking his head. “I said, ‘Good God!’ ”…

The Christmases, who say they lost two calves and a Catahoula hunting dog named Bear to the gators, began making inquiries. Neighbors, including people who worked at the land farm, told them a strange story.

The company, they said, had brought in a menagerie — alligators from Louisiana, as well as ducks, chickens, geese and peacocks — to serve as coal-mine canaries, their health intended to gauge the environmental health of the land.

The chickens, geese and peacocks are no more, ground birds offering the equivalent of a snack-food machine for alligators…

***********
Apart from bidding farewell to a winter whose passing very few of us will regret, what’s on the agenda for the day?

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    Now this is passing strange.

    A man once believed to be one of Sweden’s worst serial killers was freed by court order on Wednesday after spending two decades confined in a mental institution after a string of false murder confessions.

    In a series of trials between 1994 and 2001, Sture Bergwall was convicted of eight murders, despite there being no forensic evidence or witness statements, and confessed to many more. Source

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Or not. Finding something as small as 24 meters in the middle of an ocean based upon satellite images who knows how old and that had drifted how far in what direction based upon uncertain winds, currents…..

    You know more about the big waters than I, what do you calculate the odds at now?

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Sea winds and currents are far from uncertain, the mapping and tracking of them going back to the 1850s. (see Matthew Maury) Refinements with modern technology all build on a long trail of seafaring, naval and meteorological data.

    While one may or may not be able to pinpoint an exact point of origin of debris by latitude and longitude, an area of best likelihood for debris travel can be extrapolated back. And with far greater certitude than trying to estimate the location in the sky of a powered craft which is not transmitting location data.

  8. 8.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: Beats me. It’s funny though, I had an email conversation with a buddy from high school yesterday that flew P-3’s for 20 years and that’s the craft that is on the case.

    And the Joe crew says they are using a P-8 too.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: Yeah, but…. things happen. Especially in a world of changing climate? shrug I admit my ignorance. Living in Hawaii I am sure you know far more than I.

    @raven: My old man flew B-29s over Japan. The only thing worse than bailing out over Japan was bailing out over the Pacific. Things sure have changed since then. There is always a chance I guess.

  14. 14.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Betty Cracker:
    The real chicken from Hell is the T-Rex. Our modern understanding that birds are dinosaurs started with an ornithologist looking at a T-Rex skull and going ‘Damn, but that looks like a giant chicken.’

    @NotMax:
    Basically, crazy people are crazy. False confessions are not a new thing at all, but it’s understandably hard for the police to disbelieve a confession, especially if there isn’t enough evidence to cast doubt. If the crazy person is smart enough to spin a believable story, that’s it. They’ve got their killer.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    The Anzu bones are the first detailed evidence that oviraptorosaurs also lived in North America.

    The specimens were found in a geological formation known as Hell Creek, which has been extensively explored and is the source of many dinosaur fossils discovered in North America.

    Scientists have nicknamed it “the chicken from Hell” because of its appearance and where it was found.
    [snip]
    Although the Anzu skeletons were discovered several years ago, scientists work in “deep time”, says Dr Lyson. Bones have to be catalogued and compared with other specimens while scientific evidence has to be peer-reviewed. It can take a decade before any official announcement is made. Source

    Missed a bet by not naming it Anzu wyliei instead of Anzu colonelsandersi.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Well, that didn’t make much sense. Should read:

    Missed a bet by naming it Anzu wyliei instead of Anzu colonelsandersi.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    Wishing spring weather for all you mainlanders, but keep in the back of the mind that just last year, on March 26, only 6 states did not have some fresh snow on the ground.

    And then there was 1997.

  19. 19.

    Cailte

    Four inches of snow overnight. First day of spring my a$$!

    At least I have the basketball to console me.

  20. 20.

    Tommy

    As a former Baton Rouge resident (heck born there) the Capital is the tallest in the nation. You can go up in it and you turn and you see chemical plants for as you can see. Exxon just one of them.

    Oh and alligator, cooked right (that would be broiled), taste really good. Just saying.

  25. 25.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Should you happen to pass Paul Broun on the road, could you wave at him for me?

    No need to risk straining all your fingers. One will suffice.

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    @Tommy: Broiled gator? Seriously? My stepmom makes a gator nugget beer batter with corn meal, flour, salt and pepper and fries them. That is the only gator I’ve had that doesn’t taste like pencil erasers.

  28. 28.

    PurpleGirl

    @NotMax: As I keep saying:

    Winter doesn’t end in NY until it snows on Easter in April.

    I couldn’t find anything on the net about it but I remember Easter Sunday in April 1970. I was working in a toy store and we had only one customer all morning. (One of the regular cigarette people.) The owner’s sons decided to close the store at noon.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    Filet the gator.

    Place in pan and pour a pint of bourbon, a pint of rye and a pint of gin over it.

    Bake until browned.

    Throw the meat away and drink the gravy.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    @PurpleGirl

    Can’t pinpoint the year exactly, but it was sometime in the mid-1970s.

    Tax refund check received in late April was in my hot little hands.

    Drove from where I was living out in the wilds of rural Pennsylvania to New York with the intention of blowing most of it buying a good stereo.

    Turned out to be a terrible, terrible snowstorm, and I was the only customer the store had seen the entire day. Big, big place which specialized in audio equipment only.

    Talked with the clerk and explained how much I wanted to spend.

    Was told, “Ignore this shelf, that top shelf over there, and the speakers on the left side of the door in that wall. Put together anything else you want as a system and it’s yours for that price.”

    Several hours later (and still the lone customer), walked out with a great set-up (my audiophile acquaintances at the time positively drooled over it). Same one still using today.

  35. 35.

    Cervantes

    @NotMax:

    And then there was 1997.

    In the back of the house, we couldn’t open two of the doors or see out of the (first-floor) windows, the snow was so high.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    @Yatsuno

    Sometimes it would seem almost worth it to have someone named P*nis C*sino run for office, just to witness FYWP melting into a blurping pile of goo.

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    @kindness:
    @OzarkHillbilly:

    What happened to the beagle?

    NYTimes story is silent on that, but the Christmases are not complaining that alligators ate their beagle. Gators alleged to have eaten a bigger hunting dog and two calves, and a real estate agent warned that gators had attacked a horse as well.

    Beagle appears in 2007 rabbit hunting escapade; not mentioned again. But if it’s still a family pet, bet they’re keeping a close watch on it!

    More from NYTimes story:

    … Other discussions touched on dogs (Mr. Christmas’s beagle), horses (a real estate agent was said to have warned the Christmases before they bought the property that a “vicious” alligator had attacked his horse) and, inevitably perhaps, duck hunting.

    [They didn’t say late beagle.]

    … If the court allows the case to go to trial, how and why the alligators got there may prove a crucial issue. If Exxon or Rogers Landfarm, acting as Exxon’s agent, imported them, the Christmases argue, the company should be held responsible for them.

    A jury would then have to decide whether the alligators were indeed canaries, whether a horse or a rabbit set the statute clock ticking, and what any of this has to do with duck hunting.

    Good story, but what a headache for the Christmases.

  44. 44.

    kindness

    @OzarkHillbilly: Did it taste like chicken? You first in asking the alligator.

    @NotMax:

    Place in pan and pour a pint of bourbon, a pint of rye and a pint of gin over it.

    Is this a recipe for Pegs Noonan?

  45. 45.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Apart from bidding farewell to a winter an asshole whose passing very few of us will regret, what’s on the agenda for the day?

    Fix’ted. And what I’d put on his grave wouldn’t pass for roses.

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