Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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

Let me file that under fuck it.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

T R E 4 5 O N

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Morning Open Thread: This Year’s BE VERY AFRAID!!! Fads

Monday Morning Open Thread: This Year’s BE VERY AFRAID!!! Fads

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Like falling leaves and Christmas layaway advertising, it happens every autumn…

Parents across the country may have been spooked by warnings spread through social media in recent days, raising fears that Ecstasy tablets could be mistaken for brightly colored Halloween candy — potentially putting children at risk…

In fact, according to the myth-busting website Snopes.com, these drugs have been around for years in the same shapes and colors, and there’s no evidence anyone has ever slipped them to a child in a trick-or-treat bag…

Moreover, the site notes, “The small collection of pills depicted here represents a street value of hundreds of dollars, so the notion that a neighbor would be distributing them to trick-or-treaters for no ostensible reason is rather implausible.”…

If you prefer a more cerebral brand of grassroots terrorism, our modern Republican party is always ready to serve. Per Jim Newell, at Slate:

… Buried relatively deeply on Politico’s front page, beneath stories about Benghazi and the Jeb Bush campaign’s pay cuts, is a piece about how we are a handful of legislative days from surpassing our statutory borrowing limit and no one is doing anything. Earlier this week the plan was to pass a stringent Republican Study Committee–backed bill that would have frozen all new regulations, among other deliciously fantastical conservative goodies. But GOP leaders have backed away because even that did not have enough support among Republicans…

Heck, the Repubs can’t even find themselves a new Speaker, because nobody is pure enough. Even the House Freedom-Humping Caucus is taking flack, because they decided to throw their gang colors behind a certain zombie-eyed granny-starving RINO, per the Washington Post:

… “You should all be replaced,” a critic told Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.). Another called Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho), one of the most persistent thorns in Boehner’s side, “a RINO establishment lap dog” and “another go-along to get along phony who will GLADLY step on the throats of the Conservative electorate.”

Things may never be the same for the Freedom Caucus after most of its members moved last week to support Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as the next House speaker. Suddenly, they may not be conservative enough for some in the party.

The groundswell of support from hard-core conservative voters that emboldened the group as it battled Boehner and the GOP establishment seemed to subside for the first time in months. That has put its members in the unfamiliar position of defending their right flank…

The anger over Ryan’s ascent has been fueled by voices across the conservative media landscape. On the Internet, sites such as Breitbart.com and the Drudge Report have pumped out a steady stream of anti-Ryan stories casting doubt on his record, while such prominent commentators as Erick Erickson, Ann Coulter and Mickey Kaus have sharpened their teeth and urged conservatives to contact lawmakers and tell them to spurn Ryan…

Laura Ingraham last week called Ryan “basically John Boehner with better abs” and featured segment after segment attacking Ryan’s positions on trade and immigration. She also mocked his desire to spend his weekends with his family.

Another influential host, Mark Levin, lambasted Ryan as a creature of the establishment elite. “I think it’s time, ladies and gentlemen, to choose a speaker from outside the House of Representatives,” he told his audience Wednesday. “This is the best the Republican establishment can do; it’s just not good enough.”…

A veritable cornucopia of cartoon ghouls — just in time for trick-or-treating!

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    Pie Happens (opiejeanne)

    So who outside the House would be pure enough for these folks?

    Yeah, I’m enjoying the spectacle while worrying about the fall-out.

  3. 3.

    Gimlet

    Be afraid, very afraid!!1!

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-primaries/257997-cruz-america-one-more-liberal-justice-away-from-irrevocable

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) says the U.S. of today will become unrecognizable if “one more liberal justice” is appointed to the Supreme Court.

    “One more liberal justice and our right to keep and bear arms is taken away from us by an activist court,” Cruz said at a campaign rally in Iowa on Friday, according to the Des Moines Register.

    “One more liberal justice and they begin sandblasting and bulldozing veterans memorials throughout this country,” he added.

    “One more liberal justice and we lose our sovereignty to the United Nations and the World Court.”

    Cruz was critical of the high court after its decisions to uphold Obamacare and legalize gay marriage last term.

    The GOP primary hopeful also said Chief Justice John Roberts put on an “Obama jersey” in his King v. Burwell majority decision that upheld the Obamacare subsidies.

  6. 6.

    Randy P

    @Amir Khalid: So do we get a Napoleon next? Is that Cruz?

    Rarely do you get such a perfect textbook view of “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. George Orwell also covered this ground in “Animal Farm”.

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    If there is one lesson we can learn from today’s GOP it is the fact that fear is a commodity for which there is a consistent demand.

    Funny that the last thread had an ongoing discussion about firefighters the day after we had a small forest fire 2 hollers over. I live near the boundary of 2 different fire districts, Richwoods, which is all volunteer firefighters and Sullivan, which is a mix of full time and volunteer. I am just within the Sullivan district, thank dog. Volunteer firefighters generally don’t get the respect they deserve for all the work and training they do but let’s face it, while the closest fire house is volunteer, it is nice knowing that just a little further away is a fully staffed, continuously trained fire house.

    There were trucks from both fire districts out there yesterday but Richwoods was about 15 mins later in arriving plus volunteers showing up in their personal vehicles from wherever they were when the call went out. 15 mins can mean the difference between a kitchen grease fire and a fully enveloped house fire. Out here, most house fires, if not stopped by the homeowner, are total losses.

    I like having an extra 15 minute edge.

  9. 9.

    Satby

    @Amir Khalid: yep. And he’s right about the next election being about the “soul” of the country. If he and his fellow travelers get their way, this country will be unrecognizable to those of us who are sane.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    @Randy P:
    I would never carry a historical analogy that far. I’m aware that 21st century America isn’t early 19th century France. But Ted Cruz might just be enough of a megalomaniac to see himself as a new Napoleon, even if no one else does.

  12. 12.

    BGinCHI

    GOP at all-time crazy high, and just basking in it, not trying to hide it at all.

    It’s like the high point of the McCarthy hearings when the media stepped up and told the American people that this could no longer….

    Oh, wait. I just remembered that didn’t happen.

    Where is our Murrow?

  13. 13.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I was a volunteer firefighter in a suburb of Minneapolis. In addition to weekly training many of us attended formal college level classes in firefighting provided by the community college on our own time. Departments today require many of those classes. I’m sure we were not as rural as your area but our response times were the equal of our full-paid neighbors and the cities insurance rating was A+.

    The biggest problem with part-paid today is the inability to find people who are allowed to leave work so many suburbs are going to full-time day staff and part-paid evenings and weekends but that has its own problems.

  14. 14.

    Pie Happens (opiejeanne)

    @OzarkHillbilly: About ten years ago we visited the Ozarks farm that was owned by one of my great grandfathers; the place is still in the family, owned by some cousins. We had the local mail carrier as a guide because the place was near impossible to find even with a map. She told us she had had to lead the fire dept to that house a few years earlier when there was a kitchen fire because even though they lived in the area they couldn’t find it. It’s at Turner’s Ford on the Little Osage, not far from Coffey Holler. There are no street signs and no paved roads, and back then I couldn’t find a decent map of the area anywhere so I printed out Map Quest pages and taped them together, which helped only a little. It was a strange adventure.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    Expecting the Republicans to sacrifice a goat on the House floor and read the entrails any time now.

  17. 17.

    Another Holocene Human

    I saw a Suspected Republican wearing a shirt that said Regulate! and I was grieved, because my world made no sense, but then she turned around and the back said “Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol” and my soul was glad.

  18. 18.

    Bart

    Not all cats are assholes: http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/25/a-mother-cat-snuck-into-a-vet-clinic-to-be-with-her-abandoned-kittens-5460826/

    When a vet in New Zealand found a litter of kittens abandoned on their clinic doorstep, they naturally thought nothing of taking them in and looking after them.

    But soon after they did, vets and nurses noticed a tabby cat stalking the premises for days on end.

    And every time they opened the door, she tried to dart inside.

    Eventually they gave up and let her in, and were surprised to find that not only was she a nursing mum, she was running straight for the kittens.

    It turns out, they were her babies all along.

    Needless to say, they whole family was happy to be reunited.

    Yes, there are pictures.

  19. 19.

    Another Holocene Human

    That has put its members in the unfamiliar position of defending their right flank…

    Authoritarian party reduced to Hobbesian anarchy: Let us savor.

  23. 23.

    Satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: When I first bought my house in Michigassippi and was arranging homeowners insurance, the agent told me that it cost about 2x as much as homeowners insurance in Chicago because if there was a fire it was more than likely to be a total loss by the time the volunteers were able to assemble, get their equipment, and get to my house. After it took 20 minutes for ambulances from the 3 rural towns to show up at a car wreck on my road – the extra two called because no one had a backboard to remove the guy from the wreck until the third crew showed up- I believed her.

  24. 24.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    It’s really, really bad for the GOP when the Morning Joe crowd is laughing at the GOP Presidential field.

    For those who missed my latest IR photo experiment in the last thead: IR Photo.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel: It has got to be especially hard to staff a station with volunteers out here as there just isn’t enough work to keep people close.

    In addition to weekly training many of us attended formal college level classes in firefighting provided by the community college on our own time.

    When I first moved out to Bourbon I thought about joining…. “Nahhhhhhh, too much like work.”

  27. 27.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: Thanks, I’m going to try some pics at our local mall later today. I tried to take some pics from Mt. Hollywood on Saturday, didn’t work well.

  29. 29.

    Satby

    @Schlemazel: @OzarkHillbilly: I think it’s a combo of not enough people available to do it either due to local demographics (my area skews old,the kids leave to get jobs elsewhere) or lack of job flexibility and the refusal of Republican areas to tax sufficiently to support a better solution, ie. paid professional firefighters. I really admire the volunteers, and they do get some sort of small pay, but I think they’re taken advantage of.

  34. 34.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I enjoyed the work very much & felt like I was making our community better. My only real problem was that there were a number of testosterone poisoning victims on the department who would get all machoed-up & came close to getting people killed.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @Satby:

    And he’s right about the next election being about the “soul” of the country.

    Agree. Do you think enough Democrats feel that way?

  38. 38.

    Baud

    Via TPM last night

    Ben Carson called for “groupthink” to combat the looming funding crisis in the country’s Social Security program at a campaign rally in Ames on Saturday.

    “We have to start thinking, have groupthink in this country,” Carson said in response to a question from the crowd about unfunded entitlement liabilities.

    “We need to maximize the potential of all our people if we’re going to be able to compete in the future. So we have to start thinking corporately as an entity.”

    Carson 2016: We are Borg.

  41. 41.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Satby: Don’t forget “decline of the middle class”.

    It’s not so burdensome if you make a full salary on 40 (or 37.5) hours a week, with release days.

    But many people have to work 50-60 at the primary job to still not do that well. And employers don’t want to release employees for anything. If not for FMLA, so many people I know would have been fired already.

  42. 42.

    Another Holocene Human

    @amk: They’re still crazy, they just want to rebrand because the last brand didn’t bring about change they could believe in.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel: Yeah, after the Cliff Cave rescue I started taking some training, going to NCRC (National Cave Rescue Commission) week long seminars and they were filled with agency people trying to get their man card punched. And yeah, they were a danger to others. First lesson of cave rescue: Don’t be a victim. You don’t take risks. Period. But some of them just never seemed to learn that simple lesson.

  46. 46.

    Warren Terra

    For FSM’s sake, for decades now kids have been told only to accept candy in intact, sealed wrappers, because of the dire threat of monsters poisoning kids, as they supposedly do, even though (1) that never happens and (2) it wouldn’t be hard for the dedicated monster to get past this precaution, for example by injecting through the wrapper. So, even if someone were so “generous” as to give out handfuls of expensive street drugs to kids, the kids would in theory reject them, for lacking the required packaging.

  52. 52.

    cminus

    such prominent commentators as Erick Erickson, Ann Coulter and Mickey Kaus

    Wait, Mickey Kaus is back? I thought his career was ended by the stories about him and the goats. I guess if David Vitter can call himself a “defender of traditional marriage”, I suppose Kaus can still find an audience in the GOP.

  53. 53.

    Botsplainer

    On Benghazi, let’s not forget that the whole poutrage started in order to insulate wingnut Pator Terry Jones from criticism over the Koran burning video.

    Jones also made this one, NSFW, which no one mentions:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxh2etKZT1k&oref=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.google.com%2FCheckCookie%3Fhl%3Den%26checkedDomains%3Dyoutube%26checkConnection%3Dyoutube%253A367%253A1%26pstMsg%3D1%26chtml%3DLoginDoneHtml%26service%3Dyoutube%26continue%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fm.youtube.com%252Fsignin%253Faction_handle_signin%253Dtrue%2526app%253Dm%2526feature%253Dmobile%2526hl%253Den%2526next%253D%25252Fverify_age%25253Fclient%25253Dmv-google%252526layout%25253Dmobile%252526next%25253D%2525252Fwatch%2525253Fv%2525253DUxh2etKZT1k%252526tsp%25253D1%252526utcoffset%25253D-300%26gidl%3DCAA&has_verified=1&layout=mobile&client=mv-google

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    He’s the fundie religious candidate. He can literally say anything he wants on policy and they’ll tell you “he’s a good man”. Matters not a bit.

    I watched C-SPAN coverage of Ted Cruz after an event. He was meeting and greeting his supporters. Boy, is he targeting fundie religious Republicans. He was doing the same thing Carson’s doing, playing up the “persecution of Christians” angle. It must be huge on the far Right because they talk about this “persecution” they’re all suffering like it’s universally known. It’s reached that kind of saturation, where they believe “everyone knows”.

  60. 60.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: Same with old WSI, don’t let a panicked swimmer take you down too.I had to put it in play when a drunk buddy got stuck in a river. He was hanging onto a root and kept begging me to get him. I laid flat, got his wrist and waited for help.

  62. 62.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Warren Terra: Or as Tevye says in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, “I know, I know we are the chosen people. But once in a while, can’t you choose someone else?”

  63. 63.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Morning Joe is just being brutal to the GOP field this morning; damn, jeb? is screwed.

  64. 64.

    Warren Terra

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Morning Joe is just being brutal to the GOP field this morning; damn, jeb? is screwed.

    I notice you’ve replaced Jeb!s exclamation mark with a question mark. I really think he should rebrand to a percentile sign, Jeb%, to demonstrate integrity.

  66. 66.

    Patricia Kayden

    @OzarkHillbilly: “If there is one lesson we can learn from today’s GOP it is the fact that fear is a commodity for which there is a consistent demand.”

    To be fair though, there should be a lot of fear on the part of the Progressive community vis-a-vis a Repub in the White House with a Repub Congress. That would mean that the Supreme Court could turn sharply right (even moreso than it has already) and many of the rights we have would be severely limited (voting, reproductive rights, etc.). I know I would be terrified at the prospect of a President Trump, Carson, or even Rubio.

  71. 71.

    Shakezula

    I’m fairly certain the Accidental X for Trick or Treaters story has been a mainstay of the October news cycle for a few years. What’s most depressing is “Thing found on Social Media” is considered good enough to form the basis of a story.

    As for The Rebels rebelling against grown up Eddie Munster, is anyone really surprised? I’m not sure how anyone could be surprised unless one believed that the GOP is still a functioning political party, i.e. delusional or a lackey of the GOP.

    These cats aren’t here to do anything except scream “NOBAMA!” and chant “Not one of us!” And thanks to the GOPs careful program of gerrymandering and disenfranchisement, they aren’t going anywhere. Bwaahahahaahaaa!

    @NotMax: I’m sure Kaus would be willing to give them one of his.

  73. 73.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: No, it’s not. No mention of Hillz emails. They did show Bill opening for Katy Perry saying he’d break the glass ceiling that women have on being the first spouse.

  74. 74.

    danielx

    Visions of a guillotine being set up on the National Mall…Michelle Malkin in a cheerleading uniform instead of old ladies knitting…

    It’s too early for these horrible images.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s funny because I feel like I am constantly keeping my mouth shut and listening to them here. This idea they have that they are this quiet, humble “silent majority” who are constantly shouted down could not be further from my experience with them as individuals. I’m on a public school committee and I would estimate they do half the talking although there are 2 out of 30. I’m not clear on how much they want if they think they are “silenced” now. I sometimes feel a little persecuted and saintly in my role as “listening to scolding lectures I have heard 5000 times”

  79. 79.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    “We have to start thinking, have groupthink in this country,”

    Wait. Wasn’t he recently talking about silencing liberals? You can’t have groupthink when a large part of the group isn’t allowed to think.

    Hope your administration wouldn’t consider this kind of thing.

  80. 80.

    MattF

    @Kay: I think they regard any opposition to their views as persecution. After all… their opinions come from the Deity, so any opposition is sacrilege. Sacrilege challenges their beliefs, and any challenge to their beliefs is persecution. QED.

  81. 81.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Credit where credit is due. Showing up is half the battle, and they are very good about showing up.

    The right-wing schtick is to raise the cost and difficulty of everything good and productive that people want to do, so that people eventually give up and move onto other things. It’s been very effective.

  82. 82.

    Tommy

    @Kay:

    He was doing the same thing Carson’s doing, playing up the “persecution of Christians” angle.

    I am not really sure who is persecuting them. I live in a town of 5,700 people and we have 14 churches. Seems to me they are pretty darn free to do as they wish, as it should be.

  83. 83.

    debbie

    @raven:

    Nice! Maybe it’s my bleary eyes, but the first photo looks sage greenish, while the second one looks bluish. Both are beautiful, but is it a trick of the light?

  85. 85.

    Randy P

    @Amir Khalid: I was joking about a Napoleon. But not about the classic post-revolution phenomenon of the revolutionaries eating themselves. Four legs good, two legs better!

  87. 87.

    Matt

    My secret hope: the Freedumb Caucus sticks to their gunz, and the remaining marginally-sane GOPers have to coalition with the Dems to pick a speaker and keep the country running. Mind you, bringing only 30 votes means they’d lose pretty much all their committee seats – but if that’s enough to keep them from doing the right thing to avoid a national default than we’re already up shit creek.

  91. 91.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud:

    Showing up is half the battle

    Joe was saying Marco doesn’t even do that in the Senate. Though both sides, Obama hated the Senate too.

  92. 92.

    Tommy

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I have no patience for them not showing up to vote. And yes I have a problem when our side does it. I don’t think it is asking so much for them to show up for work.

  93. 93.

    ThresherK

    @BillinGlendaleCA: The ne plus ultra of BothSides may be having someone compare Rubio in the Senate with John Adams’ loathing of the “Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve”* Continental Congress.

    *That’s a great song from the musical 1776 which really introduces the audience to the intractability of the Continental Congress, because it argues about, literally, whether to open windows in the Philadelphia summer.

  94. 94.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Tommy: I have no idea what the President’s voting record was in the Senate BEFORE he started running, Marco had an awful voting record prior to running. I agree, you do the work you’re paid to do, or quit.

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    they are nuts

    ……………………….

    Fuming over Ryan, some conservative voices turn on the Freedom Caucus

    By Mike DeBonis October 25 at 8:03 PM
    Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) has been able to count on his Facebook page for stalwart support during his long-running battle with the House Republican leadership, including a successful effort to oust House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

    “Keep up the great work,” read a comment posted last week. “We the people thank you for ridding us of John Boehner!”

    But in recent days, the tone of the comments on Meadows’s page, and those of the other members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, have changed significantly.

    “You truly should be ashamed,” one commenter wrote Thursday. “The people in the caucus will be held responsible come election day.”

    “You should all be replaced,” a critic told Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.). Another called Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho), one of the most persistent thorns in Boehner’s side, “a RINO establishment lap dog” and “another go-along to get along phony who will GLADLY step on the throats of the Conservative electorate.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fuming-over-ryan-some-conservative-voices-turn-on-the-freedom-caucus/2015/10/25/8194f3ce-7999-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html

  97. 97.

    Tommy

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Obama’s voting record before he started running for POTUS was pretty solid if my memory serves. Afterwards not so much and he used the same excuse Rubio used, he was there for “important” votes. I tend to think every vote is important even if it is just naming a Post Office.

  98. 98.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Tommy: @BillinGlendaleCA: In Marco’s defense, there are votes and then there are votes. I really couldn’t give a rats ass if one of my Reps missed a vote on the renaming of a post office or skipped voting on a bill that was passing or failing 97-2. Of course, my Reps never vote the way I want them too anyway, so if they miss a few I consider that a win for me!

  99. 99.

    Tommy

    @OzarkHillbilly: For me missing votes is a symptom of what is wrong with your system. It costs so much money to win an election you have to fundraise 24/7 and you miss votes.

  100. 100.

    BobS

    @Satby: Welcome to rural living. Services of any sort –emergency or otherwise –are going to be compromised (I have to drive 60 miles to get Thai food and over 100 for Indian). My own township (as well as the entire county) is more than adequately served by volunteer firefighters and a combination fulltime/volunteer ems. I think the only place for improvement might be cross-training sheriff deputies and city cops (in the handful of places in the county that actually have their own departments) as paramedics since they’re frequently the first responders.
    I worked as a paramedic in Detroit & several of it’s suburbs back in the 70’s & 80’s. My own opinion is that the necessity for a full-time fire dept diminishes pretty rapidly the farther out from the central city (with taller buildings as well as the greater density of older structures) you get. Fires are actually less than 10% — probably closer to 5%- of the call volume of suburban fire departments. Virtually all of the times you’ve had to stop your car for a pumper busting through a busy intersection they’ve been responding to a medical emergency or vehicle collision. With regard to the patchwork of city/suburbs of most metropolitan areas, there’s also the inefficiency of reproducing the administration every time you cross the border from one city to the next — it seemed to me that if one was determined to saturate a metropolitan area with full-time departments, have an actual metropolitan fire department and rotate firefighters from busy stations (for instance, all of Detroit) where they could perfect their firefighting skills, to less busy suburban stations, where they might be fighting the occasional leaf or frying pan fire.
    By the way, one of Detroit’s larger suburbs – Troy, a city of 80K with a daytime population of around 150K and about a dozen buildings of 10 stories or more- manages to maintain a high insurance rating with a fire department that’s around 95% volunteer.

  102. 102.

    danielx

    When it became evident, in mid-July 1794, that Robespierre and Saint-Just were planning to strike against their political opponents Joseph Fouché, Jean-Lambert Tallien, and Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier (the latter two of whom were members of the Committee of General Security), the fragile truce within the government was dissolved. Saint-Just and his fellow Committee of Public Safety member Barère attempted to keep the peace between the Committees of Public Safety and General Security; however, on 26 July, Robespierre delivered a speech to the National Convention in which he emphasized the need to “purify” the Committees and “crush all factions.”[11] In a speech to the Jacobin Club that night, he attacked Collot d’Herbois and Billaud-Varenne, who had refused to allow the printing and distribution of his speech to the Convention.

    On the following day, 27 July 1794 (or 9 Thermidor according to the Revolutionary calendar), Saint-Just began to deliver a speech to the Convention in which he had planned to denounce Collot d’Herbois, Billaud-Varenne, and other members of the Committee of Public Safety. However, he was almost immediately interrupted by Tallien and by Billaud-Varenne, who accused Saint-Just of intending to “murder the Convention.”[12] Barère, Vadier, and Stanislas Fréron joined the accusations against Saint-Just and Robespierre. The arrest of Robespierre, his brother Augustin, and Saint-Just was ordered, along with that of their supporters, Philippe Le Bas and Georges Couthon.

    A period of intense civil unrest ensued, during which the members of the Committees of Public Safety and General Security were forced to seek refuge in the Convention. The Robespierre brothers, Saint-Just, Le Bas, and Couthon ensconced themselves in the Hôtel de Ville, attempting to incite an insurrection. Ultimately, faced with defeat and arrest, Le Bas committed suicide. Saint-Just, Couthon, and Maximilien and Augustin Robespierre were arrested and guillotined on 28 July.

    The more things change….

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Tommy:

    For me missing votes is a symptom of what is wrong with your system.

    My system? It ain’t my system! ;-) If it were up to me, all decisions would be by papal decrees handed down by Pope Baud the I.

  106. 106.

    Tommy

    @OzarkHillbilly: Ain’t my system either. I live in a very blue district. Elected a house member that was a Democrat for 70 years. Well until the last election and we elected a far, far, right loon. He had more money than you can shake a stick at and just dwarfed the incumbent in a sea of negetive ads. He was able to paint a two star general, the former head of the of the Illinois National Guard as weak on defense and terrorism is beyond me. But I guess when you have close to unlimited funds shit like that can happen.

  109. 109.

    Tommy

    @Bobby Thomson: They are not stupid, you are correct there. They might be crazy, but crazy like a fox. I just noted I live in a district that had a Democrat House member for 70 straight years. Super low voter turnout but I got to respect the Republicans. They GOTV and won. It was stunning. Most years the Republican party can’t even find somebody to run. But they found somebody that would campaign, spend a ton of money, and they GOTV.

  113. 113.

    shell

    \Cripes, the razor-blades-in-apple and laxatives-disguised-as-candy have been around since I was a kid, and Im 60!

  115. 115.

    Pie Happens (opiejeanne)

    @OzarkHillbilly: I found that map company right after we got back from that trip, and bought their map book although we haven’t been back since. Most of the people we met with on that trip are gone now, including the cousins from Peculiar, and they were. They had the contact info for the mail carrier.

    The mail carrier is not related to me, unlike the 300 people in Macks Creek, but she and her husband walked across the hills around the farmhouse, calling to each other, until one of them tripped over my great grandmother’s grave. Everyone knew it was there, but they weren’t sure exactly where. Some other cousins, the Coffeys, put up a low fence around the site; there are at least ten graves. When they heard we were coming they mowed the deep grass inside the fences, so we were less likely to be bitten by chiggers.

    I don’t know if we’ll ever go back now, but with that taped-up map I made, and with an overhead photo that showed where graveyards were in the area, we managed to locate some family graves in another remote area.

  117. 117.

    J R in WV

    @debbie:

    No, just different filters between the digital sensor (used to be film) and the light coming into the camera. By using different spectra of light you get different contrasts and colors than with normal visible light.

    Infrared is light too low in color/frequency (lower than red) for our eyes to perceive it, while ultraviolet (higher than violet) is too high in frequency for us to see. They have other properties as well. Can be very complex, used in all kinds of scientific work, materials science, astronomy, biology, etc.

    UV light is mostly invisible, but makes some substances glow unearthly colors, fluorescence it’s called. Long wave UV light is called black light and is used in clubs to make things look unreal, it’s harmless to eyes, while short wave UV is dangerous to the eyes. Think arc welding, which is very bright visible light, but also produces dangerous UV light.

    IR is used for night vision, but that isn’t what is going on here.

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