Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

So many bastards, so little time.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

People are complicated. Love is not.

In after Baud. Damn.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The willow is too close to the house.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Accountability, motherfuckers.

A consequence of cucumbers

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

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Reader Interactions

175Comments

  2. 2.

    Tree With Water

    Willie’s beautiful rendition of Unchained Melody makes the Righteous Brothers cover sound like Al Jolson.

  5. 5.

    FlyingToaster

    We survived the fall recital; WarriorGirl was spot on, as were all of her violin group. She is, however, a terrible audience member. Sitting still is truly foreign to her nature.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    So both teams that I cheer for are on top of their divisions. Of course, the home team is only 4/6… who would have thought.

    @Corner Stone: If the President mentioned that he loved listening to xmas music this time of year, twenty-seven percent would say, tsk.. it’s not even Thanksgiving.

  8. 8.

    Botsplainer

    Glorious diving today. After an evening that started with hours of text fighting and my soul crushed by some of the foulest statements any spouse could ever hear (followed by me drinking all of the whiskey on this island in an effort to create conditions which could allow me to at least fall asleep), it was like the morning after the storm – rage having played itself out, on the home front, normalcy seems to be re asserting itself.

    On the diving, conditions were beautiful and I was efficient with my air; nothing big but the coral and fish were beautiful. Water was a chilly 80 and I wore a wetsuit for once. Visibility easily exceeded 100 feet. Dove three times, the last being over an hour long.

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    @Mr Stagger Lee: He’s making a fortune at SCAR and can play golf pretty much with no limits. Why the heck would he want to get back to a high spotlight grind at UF?

  14. 14.

    Another Holocene Human

    You know what would be cool? Recast The Front Page (His Girl Friday)’s central crime story as Pennsylvania’s ongoing drama with Mumia Abu Jamal, the cop’s family, and their political allies. It always bothered me that the Black community plays the role of scapegoat in that movie (offstage) but reality is that it’s the cop clans in the Irish community who are always calling for alleged–alleged–cop killer’s heads.*

    *they get prosecutors to put people away in fix-up jobs and if justice is ever done and the victim is exonerated the cop widows beat their breasts as if their loved one has been killed all over again

  15. 15.

    Mike J

    @JPL:

    If the President mentioned that he loved listening to xmas music this time of year, twenty-seven percent would say, tsk.. it’s not even Thanksgiving.

    Muslins don’t like christmas.

  16. 16.

    Another Holocene Human

    Mumia derangement syndrome in Penna is alive and well, as they passed a constitutional-challenge law sparked by a several years ago incident of a Vermont school reading some written remarks by Abu Jamal at a commencement or something like that.

    Unlike in other countries, he’s not allowed out of prison on weekends for good behavior or anything, but the fact he can still write letters out of prison slays them right in the heart.

  18. 18.

    Botsplainer

    @Corner Stone:

    She would never leave me over something rational like a boyfriend; that would be something that would make sense to the casual observer.

    She’s more of a self-immolating girl would would leave me just to prove that she was right, goddammit, no matter how miserable the action would leave her.

  19. 19.

    jeffreyw

    I have Pandora on in the basement, tuned to the Gary Moore station. It may be on shuffle, dunno. Finished off the chicken noodle soup for lunch. Been simmering chicken bones for stock nearly all day. Roasted an 8 lb sirloin tip and put it into the fridge getting ready for a big slice-a-thon. It’ll be sliced for Italian beef, I also have a corned beef chilling and a boneless ham. The vacuum sealer will get a workout tomorrow.
    Mrs J just spotted a snowflake. They are saying 1-3″ tonight.

  21. 21.

    donnah

    Bengals won, so all is right in our world.

    We are looking at potential snowfall and accumulation tonight, our first really measurable snowfall. If it happens, it will be considrered very early in the season for us.

    It’s fine to get snow now, but come Thanksgiving, I’m hoping for clear weather so my son can drive home for the holidays.

  22. 22.

    Another Holocene Human

    Could the summary killing of Mike Brown and other young Black men by law enforcement be part of a reaction of law enforcement’s failure through the justice system to enforce the killing of Mumia Abu Jamal? Whether guilty or not, from the cop’s POV the scorecard was death penalty–success–then suddenly, in a way they don’t understand, it got taken away, and now they suffer the exquisite pain of status anxiety every time his name is spoken because like GlaDOS he’s Still Alive. He’s a living, breathing, reminder of their failure. So they must be judge, jury, and executioner because they don’t “trust” the system to execute cop-killers. (Finding the right person who actually did it never enters into this narrative, btw.) And it’s always us vs them, been hearing it since I was a small child and they were fighting over integrating the units and shooting Black cops in the back, “us” versus “those animals”, they should be “grateful”, “we ought to let them just all kill each other.”

    Am I stretching too much? I don’t read PoliceOne but I work with a couple ex police and I’ve seen the nutpicked comments. It’s only gotten worse, hasn’t it?

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Could the summary killing of Mike Brown and other young Black men by law enforcement be part of a reaction of law enforcement’s failure through the justice system to enforce the killing of Mumia Abu Jamal?

    That would be a more plausible explanation if law enforcement hadn’t been summarily executing young black men since long before Mumia’s parents were born.

  24. 24.

    Another Holocene Human

    Does anyone, after watching the STL, STL County, and Ferguson police at work, really seriously believe the “evidence” against Mumia Abu Jamal at this point? I mean, come on, he shows up a short time after the shooting because of his brother, who may or may not have had something to do with the killing, but he wasn’t going to testify against his brother and he probably wasn’t a witness anyway. He was a community gadfly that the cops couldn’t stand and here was their big chance to get rid of him. Their case was so fucking ironclad the state ended up having to knock it back from DP to life.

    Remember that woman who got shot by cops in Ferguson and they showed up to the hospital to take the bullet and are now putting out a story that she was hit in a mysterious drive by shooting by invisible men in an invisible car that like 20+ witnesses say didn’t exist? Uh huh.

    It sounds like those stories from lefties persecuted by the CIA in the 1980s, you know is this for real or is this a real case of schizophrenia, paranoid type, but I saw it all happen on twitter, it is real.

    And the Philly cops are so famous for being the most honest, scrupulous department in the Northeast. They’ve never taken bribes, planted evidence, set fire to a whole block, got investigated by DoJ….

    “Sprinkle some crack on him.”

  25. 25.

    Cacti

    I just had quite the terrifying experience with my 8 year old.

    After playing with one of his neighborhood playmates, he came home and proceeded to show a live .9 mm cartridge that he said was given to him by his friend.

    I don’t own any guns, and was wondering if the friend hadn’t been into his dad’s ammo, so I went with my son, bullet in hand, to ask the friend’s dad about it. Apparently his father doesn’t own any guns either.

    So I’m left to conclude that my son and his friend either found a live round lying around somewhere, or that someone else gave it to them.

    Hooray for lax gun laws!

  26. 26.

    Another Holocene Human

    Speaking of community gadfly’s, some of you have been following a blog run by none other than Charles Grapski. He was arrested at a city commission meeting a few years back. Why? Because he would make public records requests and when they would illegally stonewall him he’d come to public comment and ask them questions they didn’t want to answer. I think they actually arrested him while he was filming them. And the media coverage was all Grapski, he’s such a clown, ha ha. Same coverage during Don’t Tase Me Bro (imagine if there had been tasers in Cambridge given all the heckling that goes on at public lectures there … would Dershowitz consider torturing his hecklers with tasers “Statist” or “justified by the ends”, henghhh?), but only a little while later UPD shot a disabled grad student (who, just “happened to be”–NOT–a Black African) in the fucking face.

  28. 28.

    Corner Stone

    @Cacti: A live round in and of itself isn’t any issue to be worried about.
    The mystery of where it came from should be resolved to determine who is doing what.

  33. 33.

    Another Holocene Human

    Amazing how they protect crooked cops. Keith Smith was fired by Gainesville Police Department in 2009 or allowed to resign, then let go by University Police Department (University of Florida) in 2011. Then, I believe, rehired by the city’s transit department but fired during probation following an arrest for an assault on a pregnant woman. This man is a sociopath. But he’s been scrubbed from the City’s employment verification page or allowed to put out a false name (police officers do appear on employment verification). See for yourself:

    http://www.cityofgainesville.org/HumanResources/EmploymentRecordsVerification.aspx

    What the fuck.

  34. 34.

    zippity

    My Chiefs won, and the Broncos lost-it’s a good day. Going to make some shrimp and asparagus risotto and watch The Walking Dead.

  35. 35.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): I’m sure it was the other way around, they just filed the names off and replaced with a community that didn’t have the media mojo to fight back (at the time).

    ETA: it’s not like ravening, bloodthirsty, unthinking and uncritical mobs are anything new

  38. 38.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Roger Moore: We can’t know what the rate is because they won’t reveal the figures. ETA: so we don’t know if it’s going up or down or how it tracks with false prosecutions.

    And what’s curious about right now is that the violent crime rate has been going down for YEARS but the police overreaction is wilder than ever.

    They didn’t used to issue cops the pieces they carry around now.

    Cops have always lied, they’ve always been dangerous, they’ve always been on crime sprees but there is something ugly going on here that belongs to us and our time.

  42. 42.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Holocene Human:

    We can’t know what the rate is because they won’t reveal the figures.

    They can’t release the figures because nobody is collecting them in any reliable, systematic way, and they certainly weren’t collecting it systematically under Jim Crow. Not that this is an excuse; it just pushes the question back one step to why nobody is collecting the data.

  46. 46.

    Botsplainer

    Shit. There’s a diver missing here on the house reef where I’m staying. Apparently a husband and wife got separated as the light was dimming and he came in, but she didn’t.

    Everybody who hasn’t had a drink is out searching, there’s a wall that goes down 150 feet, and I guarandamntee that it’s pitch black below about 10 feet right now.

  47. 47.

    Another Holocene Human

    I’ve met people who were cops in the 70s in the Northeast and I’ve seen candid street photos from that era. Now I know cops in the 70s did a lot of shitty stuff and white supremacy was alive and well. But it didn’t seem like every cop bathed in gallons of attitude. The arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr was all about attitude. The media showed up at the cop’s front lawn and he’s been drinking and he seems like he’s stoned out of his mind, just loopy like Mr. Burns in his “I bring you love” sequence. Then you listen to what an asshole he was on the radio to his own dispatcher. This guy, whoever he is, has been socialized to think being a cop means being the alpha asshole and then goes home and hits an altered state of being just to get away from it all.

    The weapons have gotten nastier. The SWAT was invented, then went everywhere, for everything. The tactics have gotten more aggressive. Stop’n’frisk isn’t how things have always been. The profiling, sure. The pressure to constantly make stops (even though they’re illegal)? That was a political and institutional choice. (They did it while crime was dropping and now a bunch of cargo culters think stop’n’frisk actually reduced crime.)

    So much of this was choices. When the FBI belatedly came after the mob, they instituted witness protection so the mafioso couldn’t just shoot the stool pigeons and walk. But when the police declared war on drugs during the crack epidemic, they REFUSED to do anything to protect witnesses and guess what, some of the fine young capitalists figured out they could shoot a couple witnesses, intimidate the rest into amnesia, and walk.

    To this day, local police refuse to do anything to protect witnesses. Crime went down in spite of their “efforts”.

    Chicago’s suffering higher than average murder rates right now, and guess what? Turns out they cut cut cut homicide squad to focus on having patrol officers hassle the fuck out of people, because that’s the best use of limited resources, amirite? So you have people who’ve killed over and over again and they haven’t been brought to justice. I think Rahm brought on 200 detectives with some fanfare a few months ago but the clearance rate and backlog are just ugly.

    North and South aren’t the same. I don’t know first hand but I’ve been told a lot of stories about Southern cops in the 70s and it seems like things are better now than then, copwise. So this is a regional argument. As crime went down, cops went wild. Why?

  51. 51.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Roger Moore: You’re correct; I put that inartfully. Local cops aren’t under any requirement to carefully record and report just about anything, and FBI is making no efforts to find out about shootings of “citizens”. There’s a law out there … no teeth. Most of the reporting into federal databases is voluntary. The lack of federalization and good standards is one reason the US has had such spectacular criminals … they’re not getting caught quickly enough. Defunding police in the cities so they had no resources to do proper investigations during one of the biggest crime waves in US history is another reason. “Oh we’re so rural, blah blah blah.” Well, so is Finland, dumbasses. Nice excuses.

    ETA: lack of standards is how the worst crooks become cops and fire. some town is cheapskate and pays less than everyone else, ends up getting desperate and taking rejects from other areas, that LA arsonist was not hired by LA, didn’t pass muster, but a smaller area hired him and made him an arson investigator. he killed a bunch of people. and UPD happily hires the motherfuckers GPD fires. good work. Or Ferguson, remember that?

  53. 53.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Botsplainer: Holy crap. I was about to say I’m glad radio silence has been broken, but I skimmed down and read this. That sounds bad. I hope it turns out better than it sounds.

  54. 54.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: Showing it in your area is great. But there’s no reason I have to waste my afternoon by wasting it on such tedium.
    I only have so many of these wasteful Sunday afternoons left to waste this wasteful season.

  56. 56.

    Botsplainer

    She turned up alive, down current at a property about 200 yards away.

    That was scary dangerous. It’s a great sport, but there are way too many ways to die than to ignore the basic lost buddy rule. Lose contact with a dive buddy, you stop. If you don’t see them in one minute, you surface (making sure you do a 3 minute safety stop). Had they done that, she wouldn’t have drifted 200 yards – that current isn’t that bad.

  60. 60.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Holocene Human:

    As crime went down, cops went wild. Why?

    When crime was through the roof, the police were stretched and they had to prioritize, focusing on the worst crimes. As crime has come down, they’ve had more energy to devote to more and more minor stuff. In a lot of cases, they have deliberately focused on stupid, minor crimes and hassling people without probable cause. They call it by fancy names like “broken windows policing” and “stop and frisk” that are supposed to make it sound better, but the basic policy is to bully poor minority communities. It should be no wonder that police who have been given bullying as a major part of their job should act like bullies.

  62. 62.

    mai naem mobile

    I went to Trader Joes this AM and I noticed there were only 2 of us in about 10 who weren’t using reusable shopping bags. Heres the thing- I use the bags for trash – both paper and plastic. If i didn’t i would end up buying trash bags to use so what difference does it make? I am not a wasteful person in general and i recycle a lot. I don’t compost but i will put some obvious stuff right into.soil like tea leaves, some fruit stuff and coffee grounds.

  65. 65.

    fleeting expletive

    What really is the deal with Flash/Adobe not working with Mac computers? Apparently I can’t get Pandora because I’ve got to have Flash. I would so like to listen to a Willie Nelson station.

  66. 66.

    Botsplainer

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Incredibly close. Hopefully those two get the ass chewing of a lifetime when the staff has a private moment with them.

    The search effort had significant risks associated with it. All the material on night diving that I’ve ever seen says that limited visability dives should not go below about 35 feet because of the challenges that arise when something goes wrong – like a lost buddy.

    They were working a 150 foot wall with a fuckton of holes and obstructions.

  67. 67.

    Roger Moore

    @mai naem mobile:
    I would rather shop with a bag that’s designed to function as a shopping bag and put trash in a bag that’s designed as a trash bag. I switched to canvas shopping bags before there was a big push in that direction because I find that they work a lot better. I’ve never had the bottom rip out of a cloth shopping bag, even when carrying far more than I’d ever put in a disposable bag, and the handles have only started to go bad after many years of heavy use (and routing laundering). Also, too, the handles on cloth bags are usually long enough that you can slip your arm through them and carry the groceries up on your shoulder, leaving your hand free. They’re just way nicer to use.

    I also find that purpose-designed trash bags are nicer than re-used grocery bags. Again, they’re actually designed to hold up to a full load of trash, and they have more reliable means of closing the top. They cost a little bit of money, but the added utility seems more than worth it to me.

  70. 70.

    scav

    I personally believe the single revealed and ultimate truth of the unique and manifestly correct form of garbage bag behavior somehow got lost on a defective yellow sticky before being inscribed on the stone hard-drive so we all sort of have to make things up as we go alone.

  71. 71.

    Nutella

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Oh, yeah. Chicago does a fine job of allocating police resource. Some months ago a crowd of black teens came over from the west side to hang out at the McDonalds at Chicago and State. They indulged in a little very mild law breaking (pushing, shoving, jaywalking) and were run off by a crowd of cops. No big deal, right?

    Nope, those black kids had done this in a rich, white, touristy neighborhood, filmed by a crowd of TV crews, and they had to be stopped because the locals and tourists were terrified by the sight of multiple young black people filling the sidewalks.

    Every since then the area around North Michigan Avenue has had the most ridiculous oversupply of foot patrol cops, mostly standing around doing nothing at all except giving directions now and then because there’s very little to do. (By “oversupply”, I mean 2 or 3 cops on every block.)

    Which means, of course, that they’re not available to do anything about crimes all over the city but the tourists feel much better.

    It infuriates me every time I see them.

  72. 72.

    WereBear

    @Roger Moore: In addition, they make the cheap plastic bags thinner and thinner. I see the checkout people putting minimum items in each and send you out the door with a dozen bags.

    Far better to put all of it in one sturdy bag.

  73. 73.

    JPL

    @hildebrand: What a wonderful story. The way he juxtaposed the photos gave me goosebumps. CBS Sunday Morning still does a good job on this American life. (suck on that fox news)

  77. 77.

    dance around in your bones

    @Botsplainer: You know, I hope you guys can get past that ‘text – fighting’ and etc because once you do there will be wonderful moments in your marriage,

    Once my husband and I got older, we couldn’t even remember what we used to fight about. Like, WTF was SO importante that we had to argue over it after 30+ years of marriage.

    Just keep on keepin’ on because one day you’all will really enjoy it.

    I know I miss my husband terribly, because he understood me so well, and and I still look over my shoulder to tell him something only HE will understand, and effortlessly., That’s a good thing in a human being :)

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @WereBear:
    I kind of wonder how much one of those plastic bags can handle; it can’t be very much. In contrast, I know I can fit 15 pounds of flour or a 3 gallon water bottle into my canvas bags without the tiniest hint of a problem. Maximizing my load in a single carry is a big deal when I walk to the store, and it’s still nice when I drive because my parking space is far enough from my condo to make multiple trips to and from the car a hassle. The big point here being that I choose to use reusable bags for practical reasons rather than as a political statement.

  80. 80.

    Another Holocene Human

    From the other thread:

    Mike G says:
    November 16, 2014 at 6:03 pm

    @Ruckus:

    A very liberal friend who put in 30 yrs as a CHP confirms that in his experience these are the types now being hired and they are the types that move up in the ranks.

    In my job I occasionally work with a state university police department and I’ve noticed this change in mentality. The more experienced cops are recognizably human and semi-reasonable to talk to, but many of those hired in recent years are like killer robots, very military in their bearing, full of themselves and walking around cocked and locked like they’re on patrol in Fallujah.

    So I’m not the only person to notice a change … shit I was in mandatory diversity training class, which always just brings out the best in everyone, that was sarcasm, and this white dude who had been a cop in the ’70s up north in an all-Black neighborhood talked about how that experience taught him to be more open to people, not to judge a book by its cover, that it actually gave him faith in people in general and that he stereotyped people less than when he started. Huh. About 18 months ago my wife and I were having a chat with a white new hire in the local PD, not sure why but we were looking at moving into a particular ‘hood and had carefully looked at the crime stats. He went on and on about how that complex was a shithole and “I’m not supposed to say this” but we should move into his majority white commuter community. It was the most outrageous, unselfconscious, ridiculous performance, he was in his uniform and on police property. Just jaw-dropping. Did the chief of police know he was saying this stuff? Did he care? I didn’t report him … I guess I almost felt like we “tricked” him into running his mouth by being very white. Also, I’m scared of cops and the way reporting is set up around here there’s more scrutiny on you than on the person you report. That’s why I gave up on reporting that asshole who had placed vending machines on City property and wasn’t displaying a City tax certificate.

    If you think up North is corrupt, it’s because you’re confusing convictions with the overall rate of graft, racketeering, mildly obscured conflicts (confluence) of interest, and other vicious behavior.

  82. 82.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Nutella: Rahm and Giuliani have both done their turn personally toting that handbasket that is taking us nowhere good.

  85. 85.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    I dunno, it sounds as though Botsplainer and his Mrs. have been together for 20+ years already, including two kids. It sounds like there may be some empty nest tensions going on now that kid #2 has gone off to college.

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @raven:

    Damn handles on the Trade Joe’s paper bags suck.

    Slightly less than the handles on the cheesy plastic bags. In any case, I suspect that stores have ever less incentive to provide good disposable bags; reusable bags are a profit center and disposable bags are a cost center.

  89. 89.

    Morzer

    @Botsplainer:

    Hey, Botsplainer. Glad the diver turned up, but sorry you had a hard time with the Gräfin von Botsplainer. It might be that she was stressed during her trip, felt that you tried to shut her down and is now dumping that stress onto you, as people do, especially with those close to them. Try not to take the angry texts as evidence of “her real feelings” or react to them with the same anger. Hopefully you can have some good dives, see some wonderful things and relax a bit and resolve matters when you get home. Can you tell us more about the area where you are diving, what we might see there that kind of thing?

  92. 92.

    Morzer

    Having just seen that the Fisher King’s Sheeple beat the Papa John’s Pizza Franchise, I am inspired to hope that maybe, just maybe, the Lucky Strikes can annihilate the Patsies.

  93. 93.

    Corner Stone

    @redshirt:

    I am in the process of getting my heart broken. It’s been fun, all things considered!

    You didn’t really think Mark Sanchez was the answer in Philly, did you?

  99. 99.

    raven

    @Mnemosyne: Really? Everyone else seems happy offering all kinds of advice about this situation. I’ve stayed out of it for the most part but I can read and
    I’ve been in a similar situation so my perspective is as good as any IMHO.

  100. 100.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Botsplainer: I’m glad to hear the absent diver was located safely. There must be a stern talking to indeed, given how much risk everyone faced. I’m sorry that the textversations are not going well. I will not speculate about anything, but I do send you good wishes.

    @raven: True. As is the observation that alcohol and/or other CNS altering substances rarely help in such circumstances.

  102. 102.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @raven:

    I’ll also say that alcohol rarely helps these situations.

    If anything, it makes things worse(also from experience).

  103. 103.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Another Holocene Human: The police in the US have been killing Black people long before Mumia, so I think you’re stretching a little bit. But I get your point. I’m sure many police officers are pissed off that Mumia’s death sentence was overturned. Not sure how much of a role that rage has played in the killing of other Black people though.

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Drove to Valdosta yesterday for a concert by the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra (can’t remember if I said this here, but the conductor of the VSO is married to the sister of the wife of the couple with whom I stayed in Boston). The piano soloist was Awadagin Pratt (Beethoven 4). Nice program, fun evening with pre-concert drinks, pre-concert talk by the soloist, the concert itself, and an enjoyable afterglow gathering at a local restaurant. It was well after 1:00 a.m. before I got back to my hotel. Returned to Atlanta today in time to attend a baby shower for a young couple I know. The skies were blue and clear and sunny, and the temperature was around 68° when I left Valdosta late morning. By the time I got to Atlanta, it was 42° and dropping, the skies were leaden, and there was, and is, a light but persistent heavy mist.* I’m not ready for this.

    * Yes, I know “light but heavy” sounds oxymoronic. Or maybe just moronic. But it’s exactly true.

  106. 106.

    joel hanes

    @Roger Moore:

    @Another Holocene Human:

    As crime went down, cops went wild. Why?

    1. The misbegotten doctrine of “civil forfeiture” makes it profitable for cops to accost innocent people under color of the war on drugs; it’s a strong incentive to police corruption. Members of corrupt teams are very defensive and tribal, by necessity.

    2. Blowback from America’s excellent military adventures overseas. Many cops are ex-military, often ex-MPs. As our government demonstrates less and less regard for humanity in the way our military is deployed, those vets bring the war back home, between their ears.

    3. The death of community policing (on foot, bicycle, or horseback) and a assigned beats.
    Cops love their black-and-whites, but the damned cars separate the cops from everyone around them, separate the cop from the community and from any relationship to the community.

    4. Cops watch Fox too. It makes them sick, just as it makes everyone who watches it sick.

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    I think most people have been offering advice specifically on the situation of the fight via texting, not necessarily on the long-term prospects. I see that the occupant of my pie filter has been posting, so I have no idea if something different has been coming from that quarter.

  110. 110.

    Mike E

    Turkeys on the field…how dare you call my Iggles such a fowl name!

    60 Minutes story on depletion of aquifers is quite sobering, but Leslie Stahl’s reporting reminds me of a clown’s horn.

    Speaking of turkeys and clowns…whither the Raiders? 0-10 with 6 games left in the season. Epic.

  111. 111.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven: Yes, there is a tight relationship between the VSO and VSU Music Department. I had visited VSU campus a few times, years ago, when I was responsible for Canadian Studies. VSU had a history professor, now deceased, who taught a few courses on Canada and Canada-U.S. relations, and I was guest lecturer to some of his classes back in the day. It is a nice campus.

  114. 114.

    joel hanes

    @raven:

    liberal guilt

    Come walk streambeds with me.

    I’ll show you literally tons of disposable, non-degradable plastic shopping bags
    festooned from every willow at the floodline,
    collected into masses embedded in the mud of eddies.
    Bits of them in the crops of water birds, and in the digestive tracts of fish.
    Wads of them blocking storm-drain grilles.

    I think that if anyone is alive a couple centuries from now to consider the issue,
    they’ll think that making masses of disposable crap out of non-degradable plastic
    was an extremely foolish choice.

  117. 117.

    raven

    @joel hanes: You should see the seaside mountains on the mainland side of the Sea of Cortez. There are bags in the cacti on the slopes and they are not going anywhere for a long time.

  121. 121.

    joel hanes

    @raven:

    Damn handles on the Trade Joe’s paper bags suck.

    Agreed.

    On the other hand, the web-strap handles on their re-useable canvas bags will reliably lift 25 lbs without strain.

  129. 129.

    sharl

    More on a topic that came up in comments to the last post, and fwiw: It looks like Anonymous is planning a take down of Beavercreek, Ohio’s government website(s) soon. That is, assuming I am interpreting the tweet-stream at #OpJohnCrawford correctly.

    Eh, who ever knows about Anonymous? Anyone and everyone can call themselves ‘Anonymous’ – that’s kinda the point of it’s amorphous/compartmentalized structure, though it leads to, um, quality control issues, like it did with OpFerguson, as reported recently by Adrian Chen.* Only with time can one figure out – maybe – whether any given Anon group knows what it’s doing and what their members’ agendas are – true radicals, bored teens, or LEO operatives (including their CIs), probably some combination of all of those.

    Eh, I report, you decide…

    *I like and respect Chen, and appreciate this article he wrote, but he has a troubled and weird history with Anonymous that needs to be taken into account when reading his stuff on this topic. It’s very complicated, and still being hashed out among some generally respectable reporters and activists who know that turf. The back-&-forth in this Twitter exchange offers some clues on the dispute. CAUTION: May cause vertigo.

  130. 130.

    Botsplainer

    @Morzer:

    Her latest communications have been very pleasant. I’m pleased that things are coming around, and am positive.

    I’m in Bonaire, down by Aruba and Curaçao off the Venezuelan coast. The island is scruffy, but the diving phenomenal. Food and beer is cheap, and the resorts cater to the dive crowd in every way – unlimited nitrox, easy boat schedules and an entire infrastructure that caters to the specific needs of divers – recompression chambers, orgs that maintain the reef, etc.

    Visibility is frequently over 100 feet, which is amazing. There are corals in amazing variety, every kind of sea life, and topography underwater that really facilitates great recreational dives.

  131. 131.

    Morzer

    @Botsplainer:

    It sounds like a little piece of paradise – and I am really glad that communication between you is more positive and friendly. Are you taking underwater pictures of your dives? Are there sharks? Lost pirate ships?

  132. 132.

    reality-based

    talk about your adaptable birds – we have a resident flock by our house, here in small-town North Dakota. Although not native here – they were introduced in the early 50s, decided they didn’t mind the winters at all. They’ve spread all over North Dakota, got through our recent miserable winters just fine.

    they will cheerfully hold up traffic,(such as it is, in a town of 1200,) while they try to reach a consensus on whether to cross, or not cross, a road!

  133. 133.

    Botsplainer

    I’m taking some photos and video, but to do it well, would need to drop about 3 to 6 thousand on really large and cumbersome equipment that disrupts the fun for me. Besides, two of the guys on our trip do amazing photography and email them around.

    The are usually some sharks around-didn’t see any today, but I saw several last trip. A lot of pelagics, turtles, lobster. Some small wrecks, and there is a salt pier that I’ll night dive this week. There is also some bioluminescence on night dives in certain spots, including chaining activity.

    I’ll also do a couple of dawn dives and watch the fish wake up-that is really cool.

  136. 136.

    Violet

    @Botsplainer: Just because she initiated contact doesn’t mean you have to join in. You can acknowledge her contact and refuse to get drawn in. It is possible.

  137. 137.

    Tree With Water

    Now what do you make of this:

    “Federal drug enforcement agents showed up unannounced Sunday to check at least two visiting NFL teams’ medical staffs as part of an investigation into former players’ claims that teams mishandled prescription drugs.

    There were no arrests, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne said Sunday. The San Francisco 49ers’ staff was checked at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, after they played the New York Giants. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ staff was checked at Baltimore-Washington International airport after playing the Redskins”.

    The Niners sure seem to keep stepping it, one way or the other.

  139. 139.

    ruemara

    Turkeys? Hah, how about these birds. At my apartment complex, the park across the street and that’s not even half the flock. We’re allowed to hunt them, since they’re a growing pest, but we can’t use snares, bow or gun in city limits. Basically, it’s either a box or you hit them with a car.

  146. 146.

    Roger Moore

    @skerry:
    I normally use the heavier-duty Trader Joe’s canvas bags, the ones with blue canvas bottoms and handles. I also have a couple of very nice, light bags from Baggu. They fold up small enough to take with you easily but will still hold dense groceries like flour and sugar without threat of tearing. They’re a great response to the problem of not having your reusable bag with you when you go shopping.

  151. 151.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Morzer: Nah, EF was just telling you in a round about way to get off of his lawn. Yes, he is wearing an onion on his belt.

  153. 153.

    Morzer

    And Hakeem Nicks brings the TD home for the Colts. All to play for in the second half and the Colts get the ball to start with….

  155. 155.

    Roger Moore

    @Morzer:

    Are atlatls and shuriken banned?

    I was thinking a glaive would work nicely; you can improvise one by attaching a kitchen knife to a long tool handle. Maybe just a staff would work.

  161. 161.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Howard Beale IV:

    What the hell was an NFC North (MIN-CHI) game doing on CBS?

    Too many comments to look through to see if someone’s answered, so possible repeat here:

    It’s a correction for the Thursday night game poaching a Fox or CBS game. The Bills at Lions game earlier this season- normally a CBS game- was covered by Fox because the Thursday night game was an NFC-NFC match-up.

  165. 165.

    Morzer

    @Roger Moore:

    That could work too.

    Anyway, Morzer honored mother-in-law (changmu-nim) is coming over for the great kimchi making session and I have just been told that I am the designated cook for the toiling masses. So, for now, I shall have to love y’all and leave you.

  166. 166.

    Steeplejack

    @Roger Moore:

    I have three or four of the blue-bottomed Trader Joe’s bags and like them pretty well. The straps are a little long, but I notice that only when I’m going upstairs to my apartment (have to raise my arms a little for the bags to clear the steps).

  170. 170.

    dance around in youres

    @Corner Stone

    Gads, I know it’s many hours later…..I’ve been busy today..
    Also waiting for my new hookup dude to come back home so he can…..uh, service me as well as he did last night ;)

    Gads, I love young dudes…..they are so easily ready to go again, and they don’t have take a blue pill to do it.HAHA!

  171. 171.

    dance around in your bones

    @Corner Stone

    Gads, I know it’s many hours later…..I’ve been busy today..
    Also waiting for my new hookup dude to come back home so he can…..uh, service me as well as he did last night ;)

    Gads, I love young dudes…..they are so easily ready to go again, and they don’t have take a blue pill to do it.HAHA!

  175. 175.

    J R in WV

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Hey, you said “but only a little while later UPD shot a disabled grad student ” UPD, what does that mean?

    I’m out here in the country, miles from the nearest stop light, and I have no idea… so help me out, and don’t use inscrutable acronyms that help render your comment less meaningful.

    Thanks,
    JR

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