A persistent low has turned our normally bathtub-placid shoreline stormy:
Open thread.
by Betty Cracker| 133 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
This post is in: Garden Chats
From indominable garden correspondent Mary G:
Two years ago, my driveway had only a few things in it – on the very sunny side there was a 15’ brick flower bed with a foot or so wide growing area, and three trash cans. On the very shady side, there was the gas meter and the water heater in its little shed, and what used to be another brick flower bed. Someone who owned the house before my mom apparently got frustrated with low-light gardening and filled it up with concrete, so my mom slapped some flagstone over the top to make a ledge. Smokers were exiled there occasionally, but otherwise it got no use. Now the driveway is my main garden, where I mostly grow succulents due to the drought here in California.
Courtesy of HBM, the sunny side has this two-decker table with all succulents.
Also this raised bed. Almost everything in there is a volunteer plant that stayed over from last year. I broke my ankle very badly last October and was still trying to regain confidence and energy this spring, as well as worrying about water, so I did not plant seeds this year at all. The only exception is one cinnamon basil plant I bought because the bees love it so much.
The plant hanging over the left front corner is oregano I planted last year from seed; it has spread across the whole planter twice now, once over the winter and then over the mulch I put in this spring. The sage in the right front is also last year’s from seed I planted. The tomatoes are also last year’s, except one vine of a Roma type that was either a rogue seed in my packets last year, or kindly planted by a passing bird or insect. The vines never looked like much this year, but starting in February (thanks, global warming!) produced a ton of tomatoes through about the middle of July, when it started getting hotter, the city restricted watering to two days a week and they kind of gave up the ghost. This bed does have drip irrigation and you will notice the tub and tray underneath where I catch any water that comes through for re-use on the succulents.
Sunday Garden Chat: SoCal Update (Part I)Post + Comments (83)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Enhanced Protest Techniques, Open Threads, Clown Shoes, Nobody could have predicted
New Daily Show is going to take on internet outrage culture, because what that needs is more amplification.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) July 30, 2015
All across the valley, tech startups are asking one question: how do we monetize these online mobs?
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) July 30, 2015
Well, the hardworking staff of the Atlantic will be right there, taking notes!
Late Night Open Thread: “My Outrage Is Better Than Your Outrage”Post + Comments (36)
This post is in: Election 2016, Hillary Clinton 2016, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Go Fuck Yourself, Our Failed Media Experiment
Reality 1: Biden hasn't hired a single 2016-related staffer and has no '16 fundraising apparatus yet
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) August 1, 2015
Reality 2: If he decided to get into race, he'd not only be behind HRC in Dem Invisible Primary, but Bernie Sanders, too
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) August 1, 2015
I'm not sure who loves Biden more right now: the press or Republicans.
— Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) August 2, 2015
This is almost too silly to talk about, except it’s a Saturday evening in August and the moon was full last night. Maureen Dowd, in a lunge for the Peggy Noonan deluded-lady-of-a-certain-vintage market, ended her latest NYTimes column with a fanfic scenario of a dying Beau Biden, with his last breath, beseeching his old man to save our trembling nation from the horror of the Hildebeast. [No link, because really: ewww.]
But she knows her audience — not the readers, but the NYTimes management, who hate Hillary Clinton with as fierce and burning a hatred as can be mustered by a bunch of damp slugs in pricey suits. So some poor reporter had to sit down and compose a “serious” article for the front page:
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his associates have begun to actively explore a possible presidential campaign, an entry that would upend the Democratic field and deliver a direct threat to Hillary Rodham Clinton, say several people who have spoken to Mr. Biden or his closest advisers.
Mr. Biden’s advisers have started to reach out to Democratic leaders and donors who have not yet committed to Mrs. Clinton or who have grown concerned about what they see as her increasingly visible vulnerabilities as a candidate.
The conversations, often fielded by Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti, have taken place in hushed phone calls and over quiet lunches. In most cases they have grown out of an outpouring of sympathy for the vice president since the death of his 46-year-old son, Beau, in May…
Mr. Biden’s path, should he decide to run, would not be easy. Mrs. Clinton has enormous support among Democrats inspired by the idea of electing a woman as president and her campaign has already raised millions of dollars. Mr. Biden, who is 72, has in the past proven prone to embarrassing gaffes on the campaign trail, and he would also face the critical task of building a field operation.
One Democrat with direct knowledge of the conversations described the outreach as a heady combination of donors and friends of Mr. Biden’s wanting to prop up the vice president in his darkest hours, combined with recent polls showing Mrs. Clinton’s support declining, suggesting there could be a path to the nomination for the vice president…
The only professionals who’ll go on the record as encouraging this airy daydream are Joe Trippi and Dick Harpootlian, neither of whom I would trust if they walked in soaking wet and told me it was raining.
This is American politics in the Second Gilded Age, so one never says never, but c’mon. Joe Biden is wrapping up eight years as second-in-line to the most activist President of the past fifty years, he’s just lost another child, he’s got young grandchildren who he loves dearly, he’s 72 years old, and he’s been a crusader for women’s rights since Maureen Dowd was a tipsy coed (Before you prune up your lips: she’s used that description herself). If there’s any politician who deserves not to be forced back on to the rollercoaster of another campaign, it’s Joe Biden.
Talked to a variety of sources close to BidenWorld, And so far, nothing but cold water being poured on this buzz
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) August 1, 2015
@BrendanNyhan @NickFoxNYT America loves & trusts Joe because we know he loves & trusts us. Perfect campaign slogan. draftbiden #Biden2016
— willowbarcelona (@willowbarcelona) August 2, 2015
Saturday Night Silly Season Open Thread:<em> Unleash the Biden!!!</em>Post + Comments (133)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Excellent Links, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Riveted By The Sociological Significance Of It All
Many thanks to dogged commentor Brachiator for a most enjoyable read, Chris Lehman’s LRB report from early June on “the race for the Republican nomination“…
It is a cliché of American electioneering for candidates to advertise their humble beginnings and unstinting ascent in the face of adversity… But the emerging field of Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential election is something else altogether. Of the dozen or so people who have declared or are thought likely to declare, every one can be described as a full-blown adult failure. These are people who, in most cases, have been granted virtually every imaginable advantage on the road to success, and managed nevertheless to foul things up along the way.
There is, for starters, George’s younger brother Jeb… Jeb has dined out for most of his career on his image as the clever Bush brother, but as his quasi-campaign heated up and the press started to ask questions about actual policies, he immediately undermined this unearned plaudit by saying he would have followed to the letter George’s catastrophic decision to invade and occupy Iraq. After realising that this was a position now seen as insane even by most Republicans, he tried to retreat from it with a series of flailing clarifications.
Jeb Bush’s own track record is terrible. He was elected as governor of Florida in 1998, touting his ambitious plan to ‘reform’ – i.e. privatise – the state’s underperforming schools. The actual returns of his ‘education miracle’ are equivocal at best: it’s hard to tell how individual schools are performing because the letter-grade system he instituted (from A to F) is recalibrated almost every year in an attempt to improve the figures…
Bush’s other accomplishments in office include two curiously complementary policy fiascos: signing the nation’s first ever ‘stand your ground’ gun law (the legislation that gave us the Trayvon Martin killing and countless other instances of unpunished citizen bloodletting); and prolonging the life of the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo in a cynical bid to burnish his culture wars résumé. Also disgraceful was the disenfranchisement of Florida’s black electorate on his watch…
Bush’s long litany of failure merits close study both because, in spite of it all, he represents the sober, can-do face of executive GOP leadership, and because nearly every other candidate in the crowded Republican field recapitulates his slog into market mediocrity. Failure isn’t just an option for the vast company of Republican presidential hopefuls, it’s a well-trodden career path. Take Marco Rubio, a former protégé of Bush, who is often hailed as the great other-than-white hope for a party that fares badly among younger and Latino voters. On paper, Rubio presents as an American success story in the log-cabin mould: the son of struggling Cuban immigrants, he scaled the heights of the American meritocracy… But Rubio’s roster of actual achievements is notably thin – and sometimes disturbing. The Daily Mail recently revisited Rubio’s tenure as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 2007 and 2008, and found that despite declaring a net worth of just $8000 when he left the legislature, he had charged $160,000 to his party-issued AmEx card…
Long Read: “The Candidates (good grief)”Post + Comments (256)
This post is in: How about that weather?, Open Threads
93° in Seattle today, 100° in Portland. Almost August & I can say, without irony: Thank God I was on East Coast & out of that terrible heat.
— Billmon (@billmon1) August 1, 2015
Also figures if climate change was going to benefit anyone in US, it would be DC-NYC power axis. Probably rigged it that way. #justkidding
— Billmon (@billmon1) August 1, 2015
@PaminBB I said I was kidding. I didn't say Alex Jones will be kidding.
— Billmon (@billmon1) August 1, 2015
@PaminBB Although in Alex's case I think it's not so much kidding as cashing in.
— Billmon (@billmon1) August 1, 2015
@billmon1 Oh, maybe not; Washington is sinking, and the sea is rising fast in Chesapeake Bay: http://t.co/QtYvpY3Rn3
— Marv Clowder (@MarvClowder) August 1, 2015
***********
Apart from the Beltway returning to the muck from which it was born, what’s on the agenda for the afternoon?
Open Thread: Hot Time, Summer in the CityPost + Comments (154)
by Sarah, Proud and Tall| 44 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
Like A Version – Jebediah cover The Chemical Brothers ‘Go’
Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique – ‘Set Me Free’
Cosmo’s Midnight – Walk With Me (feat. KUČKA)