The mister saw these wild turkeys strutting around on a golf course this morning:
Do they know it’s almost Thanksgiving? Asking for it, they were.
In meaningless NFL news, my team won! Woohoo!
I am now testing Mistermix’s (??) theory about the Willie Nelson station being the best ever on Pandora. So far? He’s right.
wmd
Turkeys on a golf course? Why was I expecting a picture like this one…
Tree With Water
Willie’s beautiful rendition of Unchained Melody makes the Righteous Brothers cover sound like Al Jolson.
Ruckus
@wmd:
You must have an inside line on brain bleach to be posting that. What’s your cut per gallon?
Corner Stone
“Do they know it’s Christmas time, at all?”
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.
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.
FlyingToaster
Florida Turkeys are pikers.
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.
Mr Stagger Lee
Is Spurrier coming back to Gainesville?
Corner Stone
@Botsplainer: How old is her boyfriend? Is there a betting pool on this yet?
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?
NotMax
Have shot a birdie and shot an eagle on a gold course, but never shot a turkey.
NotMax
@NotMax
Corrected
Have shot a birdie and shot an eagle on a golf course, but never shot a turkey.
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
Mike J
@JPL:
Muslins don’t like christmas.
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.
Major Major Major Major
When I was in college one of the hippie co-ops renamed the holiday “thankssharing”.
They were annoying. Threw a good Beltane party though.
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.
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.
Howard Beale IV
What the hell was an NFC North (MIN-CHI) game doing on CBS?
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.
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?
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
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.
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.”
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!
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.
gogol's wife
@Botsplainer:
Text fighting is good. I hate the silent treatment. Good luck!
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.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Another Holocene Human: From satire to playbook, or was it the other way round?
Tree With Water
@Howard Beale IV: I ask the same thing about the Raiders every week, and I live in their market.
Howard Beale IV
@Tree With Water: I expect Oakland to be on CBS, but not the Bears and Vikings-that’s a FOX/NFC setup.
Roger Moore
@Tree With Water:
Judging by some of their costumes, I assume there’s a large block of Raiders fans who are masochists and want to be humiliated.
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.
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.
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
Howard Beale IV
BREAKING: Gordie Howe take a turn for the worse.
Corner Stone
Speaking of police, why the heck does the VA need its own police force?
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.
Mike in NC
@Major Major Major Major: That would have inspired Bill O’Reilly to knock out a book on the “War on Thanksgiving” just for another quick buck.
raven
Gurley is done, ACL. He should have bailed and taken the dough.
raven
@Tree With Water: Oh, bullshit.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
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.
hildebrand
A college chum of mine was on CBS Sunday Morning this morning. Scott is a phenomenal photojournalist, so it is good for him to get this kind of publicity for his work and art. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scott-strazzante-on-finding-common-ground/
Corner Stone
Come on Fox, please show any other game than this PHI at GB debacle.
Bow-ring!
Corner Stone
RG Cheese is going to need that USAA membership.
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.
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?
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: oh no.
Amir Khalid
@Botsplainer:
Oh no. I hope they find her alive.
Corner Stone
Come on. It’s 30 to 3 and at the two minute halftime warning.
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?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: For you perhaps.
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.
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.
Another Holocene Human
@FlyingToaster: In Florida, nuisance fowl = dinner.
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.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: Wow. That was a close call.
Corner Stone
Don’t take the stupid points, Chip Kelly. Go for it you magnificent fool.
Amir Khalid
@Botsplainer:
Thank God.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
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.
FlyingToaster
@Another Holocene Human: Watertown keeps offering Brookline our coyotes, but so far no takers.
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.
raven
@mai naem mobile: Liberal guilt
mai naem mobile
@Botsplainer: where are you – just general town/city? I was just wondering.
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.
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.
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.
srv
@mai naem mobile: I just buy BJ tote bags for trash and throw them out.
I wish DougJ had a line of totes.
JPL
@Botsplainer: I’m pleased at least with the outcome.
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.
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.
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.
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)
JPL
@raven: yup
Corner Stone
Finally!! At 39 to 6.
Steve from Antioch
Everybody enjoy watching the football:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/federal-drug-agents-launch-surprise-inspections-of-nfl-teams-following-games/2014/11/16/5545c84e-6da5-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html
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 :)
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.
raven
@dance around in your bones: And some people are not meant to be together.
Another Holocene Human
From the other thread:
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.
raven
@Roger Moore: Damn handles on the Trade Joe’s paper bags suck.
Another Holocene Human
@Nutella: Rahm and Giuliani have both done their turn personally toting that handbasket that is taking us nowhere good.
Corner Stone
@Another Holocene Human: I always wonder why people randomly capitalize random letters for Nouns that aren’t Proper Nouns.
Corner Stone
@dance around in your bones: She has a boyfriend, or heck maybe a girlfriend, and he doesn’t seem to want to get that.
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.
debbie
@Botsplainer:
What happened to not thinking about this until you came back home?
raven
@Mnemosyne: I was married for 20 years, sometimes things run their course. Been married 15 this time. I’ll also say that alcohol rarely helps these situations.
Roger Moore
@raven:
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.
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?
redshirt
I am in the process of getting my heart broken. It’s been fun, all things considered!
Howard Beale IV
@Steve from Antioch: And since hydrocodone just went from Schedule III to Schedule II, the penalties are much more serious.
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.
Corner Stone
@redshirt:
You didn’t really think Mark Sanchez was the answer in Philly, did you?
Morzer
The Packers are showing us that when life gives you Philadelphia, make cream cheese out of them.
Corner Stone
Drew Stanton is getting the piss knocked out of him.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
Could be, but it seems like a bit of an overdiagnosis based on one reported text fight. Time will tell, I suppose.
Tree With Water
@Another Holocene Human: In my day we called the breed King Shit cops.
Corner Stone
Exactly how damn bad are the Panthers that the Falcons beat them at home?
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.
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.
Corner Stone
4 and 6 leads the NFC South. Wow.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven:
If anything, it makes things worse(also from experience).
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.
Corner Stone
@BillinGlendaleCA: “To alcohol! The cause of… and solution to… all of life’s problems.”
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.
joel hanes
@Roger Moore:
@Another Holocene Human:
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.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: We’re you on campus? Pretty little place.
Howard Beale IV
@Corner Stone: Didn’t matter-the birds beat the kittehs.
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.
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.
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.
raven
@Mnemosyne: I’m done
skerry
@Roger Moore: Try these. They are well made and mine have lasted for years.
ETA: @raven:
joel hanes
@raven:
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.
raven
@skerry: Dead links
wmd
@Ruckus:
lol. I’m actually brewing brain bleach today (aka pale ale). No charge for friends.
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.
raven
oops
skerry
@raven: Crap.
Trying again.
http://www.mixedbagdesigns.com/Retail-Home
I don’t know why the link isn’t working for me. FYWP
raven
@skerry: Wait, you had it and now you don’t.
joel hanes
@raven:
Agreed.
On the other hand, the web-strap handles on their re-useable canvas bags will reliably lift 25 lbs without strain.
raven
@skerry: Here
skerry
@raven: Exactly.
AGH. I’m going to eat some chocolate.
Iowa Old Lady
I finally got around to seeing Gone Girl. Creepy book and creepy movie.
JPL
@Corner Stone: Yup we’re number 1.
Botsplainer
@mai naem mobile:
Bonaire, for the week.
Botsplainer
@debbie:
She resumed contact, and initiated it.
Tree With Water
@raven: “The worst vice is advice”.
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.
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.
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?
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!
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.
Morzer
@Botsplainer:
I envy you the sight of the fish waking up at dawn. That sounds like a wonderful thing to see. What is a salt pier?
Botsplainer
@Morzer:
Salt Pier is neat. There is a large salt work at the southern end of the island. The pier is where barges go to take on salt loads. At night, the atmosphere is supposed to be ethereal – it was shut down for years.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4vVOmsALz7k
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.
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.
Violet
@Botsplainer: That sounds really cool.
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.
Morzer
@ruemara:
Are atlatls and shuriken banned?
BillinGlendaleCA
@ruemara: You could always use a club.
Morzer
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Lure the turkeys into a position between Sarah Palin and a camera.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: I believe that’s been done, and turkeys were hurt.
ruemara
Not sure an unlicensed Palin is allowed within city limits.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
More like enjoying a damn fine coffee and laughing to myself at what delicate flowers some fans of the Patsies are.
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.
dmsilev
@ruemara: Is it allowed as long as someone documents that she’s had her rabies shots?
BillinGlendaleCA
@ruemara: Ya never know, there are quite a few of them. They could be hiding among the birds.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
Just a touch of defensiveness there, eh, ef? Still, the Aaron Hernandez Memorial Franchise has quite a lot to be defensive about.
Morzer
Oh look, children, another Brady interception!
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.
Morzer
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I know. Honestly, I don’t pay it too much mind. He’s just sour because his last attempt at trash-talking crashed and burned.
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….
Howard Beale IV
@ruemara: How about a bolo?
Roger Moore
@Morzer:
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.
Morzer
@Roger Moore:
John Cole naked with a mop?
ruemara
@Howard Beale IV: I like your style.
Also, where’s Mem?
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
To add to the list:
hunting boomerang
blowgun
javelin
slingshot
trained hunting animal
luring them close with offers of food, then killing one with your bare hands
Morzer
@Roger Moore:
I quite like the idea of Anne Laurie and a pack of trained cheetahs going after the turkeys.
Belafon
@Roger Moore:
Yo-yo
nunchucks.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Howard Beale IV:
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.
Morzer
To general amazement:
Bill Belichick didn’t have a lot to say at half-time.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
Nearly as good as the end of the first half.
Roger Moore
@Morzer:
I was thinking of a trained bobcat.
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.
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).
ruemara
@Roger Moore: I could go for a trained bobcat. training a bobcat would require a bobkitten and that’s a kitten with more bob.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I just showed up. :-) We were watching “Cutthroat Kitchen.”
dance around in your bones
@raven: Well, you are right about that.
I guess I just got lucky:)
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!
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!
dance around in your bones
@Botsplainer: Fuck. Doesn’t sound good :(
dance around in your bones
@Botsplainer: Oh, thank FSM.
That sounded really bad at first……
redshirt
@Morzer: Convenient. After the Pats destroyed the Colts.
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