Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let there be snark.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Everybody saw this coming.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Infrastructure week. at last.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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

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

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

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67Comments

  3. 3.

    Kristine

    I was a freshman at USF-Tampa. I have photos somewhere of the campus in the early morning, blanketed with about a half-inch or so. We had snowball fights. All the native Floridians were boggled. Folks were piling into cars and driving to Gainesville because they heard that a couple inches had fallen there.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    We’ve had a very temperate winter so far in The Greater Houston Metro Area. A couple days of mid-30 overnight lows, one suggested hard freeze warning that never came through.
    The back and forth between balmy one day then crisp 40’s for two days, then mid 60’s again has been absolutely killing me.
    Aging is hell.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Ha! That’s a photo from the newspaper. It couldn’t be me since I was an infant in 1977, obvs.

    @Baud: @Kristine: It was the first time I’d ever seen snow. My clearest memory of it is trying to convince my younger sister to get out of bed to come see it. She thought I was lying — with good reason because a) it doesn’t snow it Tampa, fercrissakes, and b) I lied to her all the time about stupid things.

  7. 7.

    Violet

    Where I live the winter of 1999 was feakishly warm. I had a fall tomato plant that never got nipped by freezing temperatures, grew through December and January, started producing tomatoes again in February and by early March was covered in red tomatoes. We never hit freezing once that winter. We’ve had a couple of freezes here so far and my tomato plants aren’t looking good even though I covered them.

    I remember what that warm winter felt like–I think it was a La Niña year–and although it was nice not to be cold, it was really weird. And that summer was rough. I fear we’ve got more of that in our future.

  8. 8.

    sparrow

    @Corner Stone: I don’t miss Houston winters. Usually wet, and often close enough to freezing to be no fun outside but not cold enough to ever get any fun things like snow. Just rainy cold misery. Ugh.

  12. 12.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Lots of snow in SW OH in 1977 and very cold (subzero) temps. The Ohio River froze. That cold winter period continued for a bit; in 1985 it was -25F on my birthday, which was during a 10 year stretch of subzero temps for my birthday. Sunny and 45F here today, and predicted to be near that warm for my birthday. With sun!

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    We went to Disney World that winter and just missed the snow. Let’s just say, those of us who came from the Midwest were a lot less excited about snow than the locals were.

  14. 14.

    Quaker in a Basement

    I remember that cold snap. I was 22, not yet a Quaker or in a basement, and living in Key West that winter. The mercury plunged to…55 degrees!

    I realize that doesn’t sound very cold at all, but you have to realize that most buildings in the Florida Keys have no heat! So it was 55 degrees outdoors, indoors, and everywhere else except inside all of the clothing we owned. Folks packed into Captain Tony’s Saloon because he had a fireplace.

  17. 17.

    flukebucket

    I believe 1977 was the year that it didn’t get above freezing the entire month of January here in the North Georgia foothills. It was awful.

  18. 18.

    prufrock

    I was a kindergartener in Clearwater for that “snowstorm”. I don’t know if they shut the school down, but I didn’t attend in any case.

    I do remember throwing snowballs at my dad. Good times!

  19. 19.

    satby

    Betty @ top

    It’s nearly 70 degrees in Tampa today. This has been the warmest winter I can ever remember, and I’m old enough to remember the snow.

    I just talked to my mom yesterday and she was complaining about how cold and windy it was at her condo off Boca Ciega Bay. Of course, she’s 84 and is in the hothouse flower stage of her life, where everything lower than 72 is frigid.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    @prufrock: The schools in Tampa were definitely shutdown, so they probably were in Clearwater as well. We made sleds out of cardboard boxes and took them to a nearby golf course to slide down the slope of the greens. Sadly, it was all over by 11 AM or so. I remember yelling at some kid who was attempting to make a snowman because he was “wasting” the snow!

  21. 21.

    FlyingToaster

    I don’t remember incredible amounts of snow in ’77, just ice storms and learning to drive on ice. That was in Kansas City, and I was used to thermal underwear and toques and balaclavas.

    This year in Bwahstin we’ve had a lot of cold but almost no snow. WarriorGirl has been wearing her balaclava and occasionally keeping her mittens/gloves on.

    This am in H2OTown we had black ice everywhere that the sun couldn’t reach, like under the arbor and between the cars.

  22. 22.

    shelley

    I think that was the same year I was on a class trip to Paris. Flying back to NY, we heard a blizzard had shut down most of the east coast and we were diverted down to Washington.

  23. 23.

    ranchandsyrup

    Was at an HOA meeting where neighbor was saying that he knows it’s been unseasonably hot but it has been snowing in N. Calif. so everything is going to be OK.
    Me and the guy who just replaced his lawn with field turf started laughing at the sentiment and incurred some withering stares and clucks.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve been to the highest point in Florida. My Floriidian friends took me there, and marveled at it. My reaction was “um…this is like a very mild hill where I come from”.

    So I can see how the sledding might be less than spectacular, even for those few hours that it was at least theoretically possible.

  26. 26.

    WaterGirl

    I remember that show and cold snap in Florida. I was working at a grocery store, putting myself through college. I remember it vividly because that was when I discovered a sad truth.

    The price of orange juice went sky-high because of the freeze, but the prices never came back down again.

  27. 27.

    dedc79

    Interesting and troubling story out of Argentina:

    One day before he was to testify about an alleged cover-up of a deadly terrorist bombing attack at a Jewish center in Argentina, a federal prosecutor was found dead of a gunshot wound in his Buenos Aires apartment.

    Alberto Nisman’s body was found Sunday. Officials say they also found a gun, but no note that might indicate his death was a suicide, according to local daily Clarin. An autopsy is being performed today, the newspaper adds.

    Nisman’s death comes days after he accused President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of being complicit in a cover-up of a deadly attack that has been a source of controversy since it occurred 20 years ago.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    All you people who remember the weather in ’77…. I don’t remember a single damn thing about ’77. or 76 or 78 or 75 or… What was I talking about?

  37. 37.

    NCSteve

    Oh dear god. The dreadful winter of 76-77. In central Kentucky, every time the roads would start to clear, we got another snow storm. No governmental entity had the kind of equipment and employee bench to keep anything except the major roads and streets clear and as soon as they’d get them scraped, another snow storm would roll in.

    Over a forty-five day period, we had school only two days. The snow lost its fun factor within a couple of weeks and after that It was just me and my brother and my sister trapped alone in our snowbound country house, day after day after endless day. Nothing but four channels of TV, new and ever more ill-considered cooking experiments and finding new ways to get on each others’ nerves to keep us entertained. When it finally melted off, we were in school an extra hour and a half a day until late June, even after the state board of education granted all the state’s schools several days grace.

    That winter was to me and snow as the U.S.S. Indianapolis sinking was to Quint and sharks.

  39. 39.

    burnspbesq

    I was in school in Schenectady, NY that winter. In late January – early February we had a 10-day period when the highest temperature recorded on campus was 4 degrees Fahrenheit. It didn’t snow very much, but it was -15 every night. Walking back to my dorm (in the extreme southwestern corner of the campus) from the field house (in the opposite corner) after four hours of refereeing intramural basketball was NOT fun.

    People who had cars on campus were running extension cords out their dorm room windows down to the parking lot and putting block heaters (a heating element that goes where the dipstick normally goes) in their cars.

  40. 40.

    Cervantes

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Can I recommend the Jerusalem Post?

    I don’t know. Can you? I can’t. They publish Shmuley Boteach and Alan Dershowitz, among others. Not my idea of discourse.

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    Betty
    It’s 66 in my part of LA right now probably get up to low 70s in the afternoon. There’s a reason people want to live here, in spite of all the rest of us, the cost and yes the heat. I’ve seen snow in the valleys before but not anywhere the amount like that photo.

  44. 44.

    burnspbesq

    @Ruckus:

    I’ve been in OC since 1986, and have never seen snow below 2,000 feet elevation.

    In February 1987, there was a freak storm that dumped enough hail in OC that people were cross-country skiing on PCH, but no snow in the flats.

  45. 45.

    catclub

    @NCSteve:

    It was just me and my brother and my sister trapped alone in our snowbound country house, day after day after endless day.

    Somebody has read Dr Suess. The Cat in the Hat.

  47. 47.

    Ruckus

    @burnspbesq:
    We are talking well before 86. The 50-70s had more than one occurrence but at best it was a light dusting as much as I remember and mostly very little stayed for more than seconds on the ground. Don’t remember more than a couple of flakes here and there from around 80 on.

  48. 48.

    Phylllis

    I remember flurries in Palmetto; we ran outside trying to catch the flakes in our hands. Because Floridians with no experience with snow.

  49. 49.

    NCSteve

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Nope. Part of the great brain draining diaspora, the thing the Commonwealth is known for after basketball, bourbon, horses, coal, and particularly loathsome Senators.

    @catclub: Actually, the little-known sequel: “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and Horrible Frozen Hell Comes With Him.”

  52. 52.

    PaulW

    My family just moved down from Virginia Beach to live temporarily in Tarpon Springs while a new home got built in Palm Harbor. This was just as the housing boom began and the suburbs were taking shape. All of North Pinellas County grew up around me. House was finished and we moved in August 1977… just about that time we saw Star Wars in the Clearwater Bijou. My parents are moving out of that house now, sad to say. It’s too big for them anymore. :(

    We didn’t notice any snow, to be honest. I didn’t even see much of snow in Virginia the two years there (it was mostly slush and mud. I never built a snowman in my life).

  53. 53.

    NMgal

    We went on an elementary school field trip that day, to ride an excursion train. I lived up in Pasco County. The first time most of the kids had seen snow. It was great. And I think I saw Star Wars at the Clearwater Bijou too!

  54. 54.

    FlyingToaster

    @burnspbesq:

    People who had cars on campus were running extension cords out their dorm room windows down to the parking lot and putting block heaters (a heating element that goes where the dipstick normally goes) in their cars.

    My family did that my entire childhood. I used to go out at about 6:15, take the block heater stick out of the back of my Bug, close the hatch, go up and start the car (to help melt the ice off the windows), scrape the windows, and run back inside to grab my backpack, clarinet, my sister and her backpack and flute. We’d get to school at 6:45 for PepBand practice and try to park next to the steam vent so that my car would start in the afternoon.

    We had an outdoor plug; one block heater for my dad’s Bug, one for mine. My mom’s Bug and the Microbus stayed in the garage.

    If we start staying below zero at night, I may have to invest in a block heater for my minivan. sigh.

  56. 56.

    Fair Economist

    I remember snow in South Alabama around ’77 – not absolutely sure about the year. Not as remarkable as in Tampa, but still pretty unusual. It had snowed a few years before, but before then it had been 30 years according to my parents.

    Unusually warm here in Southern California – for yet another winter. We had about 2 months of only slightly above normal temps and well above normal rainfall, but it’s back to nearly 10 degrees above average and no rain at all. The weather here has changed notably even from when I moved here 25 years ago. When I moved here, it would freeze at least once about every other winter, but not anymore. It’s been over 15 years since the last freeze in the coastal basin.

  57. 57.

    Juju

    @satby: So it’s not just my mom who is always cold and needs a sweater in July? My mom is almost 82 and it’s 61 outside and 71 inside and she’s wrapped in her electric throw.

  59. 59.

    JR in WV

    No big deal but this link:

    Let Freedom Ring: 15 Rare Photos Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (PHOTOS) | Global Grind

    Returns “nothing found” from twitter.

  60. 60.

    Birthmarker

    @Fair Economist: I was in Auburn from 71 to 74, and it snowed there one winter during that time. People went nuts b/c many students from south GA and AL had never seen snow!

    I moved to north Alabama in the Fall of 1974 and I nearly froze to death. I had not used a winter coat at AU and had to take money out of meager savings to buy one!!

    There were some very cold winters for a few years in the late 70’s. The usually fairly mild winters here now are much preferable. 62 and sunny here today, which is a nice break! Last winter was cold, though.

  62. 62.

    gene108

    @Schlemazel:

    The Daily Currant is slipping. They should have included some bill/resolution number folks could try and verify against THOMAS at the Library of Congress website.

  64. 64.

    Chickamin Slam

    A warm winter here too. There was rain at times but so far none of the freezing temperatures of yesteryear. But Al Gore is fat so there’s no such thing as climate change.

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