Not really feeling this year’s DJ Earworm mash-up, 50 Shades of Pop — too mechanical for my elderly folkie sensibilities — but the YouTube rabbit hole led me to this charming little get-up-and-go short, so it’s all good.
What’s on the agenda as we start the new day, one foot in front of the other?
OzarkHillbilly
Not getting caught in a mass shooting. I’ve already forbid my wife from such frivolities, I told her if she gets so needlessly killed I will shoot her through the coffin.
Marc
Sylk couldn’t wait as I poured kitty milk into bowels, and hopped up on the counter – right on one of the bowels. Kitten got soaked, I got to clean the kitchen floor, and there was one less bowel placed on the floor for the purr monsters to enjoy. Going to bed now – I’ve had my quota of excitement for Thursday…
MattF
I appear to be out of bed. In fact, it appears… that I’ve showered, shaved, and dressed. More news later.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: I stay away from my normal newsy shows on days like this. Though today I was otherwise occupied, I spent about a hour trying to find a tie, any tie.
ETA: The young woman in the center of the vid is kinda cute. ?
OzarkHillbilly
Call it a case of cabin fever.
I better watch out they don’t come and steal mine.
Betty Cracker
Was just checking on a couple of batches of experimental hard cider I’ve got going. Pulled one out of the fermentation cabinet and put it in the fridge to try after work and left the other to bubble awhile longer. I was thinking that in a post-apocalyptic world, my modest skills as a chicken wrangler and maker of beer and hard cider might be far more valuable than my crappy college education.
Schlemazel
I have been asleep the last few hours, did I miss any mass shootings?
Judging only on my FB feed, this could have been the one that broke the camels back. A lot more anger, particularly aimed at the ammosexuals and their political playthings. One can only hope.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: While I don’t consume the boozy stuff anymore, I do like chicken, so I could still be a potential customer. In fact, I had Korean chicken soup last night.
PurpleGirl
Tomorrow I have an appointment at Opthamology clinic at hospital. So, this morning I come in the living room, turn on the computer and pick up my reading glasses… And a lens has popped out. It was held in place by a plastic cord across the bottom of the lens. So I’m trying to read with only one lens. (I’d gotten these glasses after an exam at the vision store because I was out of the clinic cycle when my last pair of glasses broke and needed to be replaced. I have errands to run this morning and now will need to include the vision place to see if these glasses can be fixed. There was other stuff I wanted to do today… Argh!
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: The chicken thing… meh. But the age old ability** to turn raw materials into tasty alcoholic beverages, now that is a skill set that is always desirable.
** I do sometimes wonder if prostitution really is the oldest profession. I would put even money on distilling alcohol.
BillinGlendaleCA
Joe seems horibly confused about how law enforcement could find out if someone is being radicalized and might commit an act such as occurred yesterday.
Hey Joe, maybe if we registered guns and tracked their purchase. That might help.
Schlemazel
I forgot to mention I have been extended at my new position for another 90 days. This is good news & indications are when they finally post the job I will get it. The guy back filling my old job is really struggling with the same set of issues I am running away from (really incompetent lousy boss, stumble bum contractors in supporting roles) without my 40 years of experience. I end up helping him every day because I like the guy. The reorg they keep promising us should be announced any day now and we’ll see if I made a mistake in changing jobs but at the moment I am loving the low stress of this assignment. I still have another 7 years to go and I’m tired of trying to make a difference at work, I’m ready to just do a job well and not care.
Betty Cracker
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’d sell or barter eggs, but not the chickens themselves. For better or worse, they are my ill-tempered and messy pets.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
Probably not distillation but I bet fermentation was happening before. Civilization was built on growing grain for making beer.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: You can have the booze, I’ll take the chickens. I like eggs too.
raven
@PurpleGirl: I have a pair just like that and the fishing line that holds the lens in can easily be fixed. I stepped on mine at the beach last week and, if I could find both lenses, the can be repaired.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: Yes, but have you ever had samgeatong? You might reconsider. As you said they are a bit ill-tempered.
ETA: They use cornish game hens for samgeatong, so your birds are safe from that fate.
Tommy
All in Enya this AM.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: Distillation, fermentation… a distinction without a difference if alcohol comes out in the end ;-) I know not really, but you got my point.
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’ll take both! Seriously though, the ability to make alcohol has long been a highly valued skill by all societies (even Muslim, black market booze is highly sought I would bet, maybe Amir could weigh in) and beer, wine, and whiskey will fetch a lot more money than a few chickens.
PurpleGirl
@raven: I’m hoping that it can be easily fixed. I don’t have any fishing line right now at home (I’ve used it for stringing beads) and since it’s the close work/reading glasses that broke, I can’t see the parts to try fixing them myself.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: I’d be happy to be a purveyor of the boozy stuff, but I’ve had my lifetime allotment.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Someday I’m going to make a batch of whiskey. But it’s pretty time-consuming, I hear, and takes a lot of special equipment.
Phylllis
@Schlemazel:
.
This is where I’m at as well; it’s been a struggle to change my approach, but I’m getting there. 2.5 years to go until retirement.
Schlemazel
@Betty Cracker:
The thing that scares me is that a degree or 2 one way or the other and you get poison not potable. Obviously the process is well known but still I would worry when done by a newbie amature.
I’d love to give it a try but won’t
scuffletuffle
@PurpleGirl: Should be a quick and easy fix. I just had it happen with my glasses and Lenscrafters took care of it in about 15 minutes.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: I know. I gave up the single malts a few years back as I was just getting too fond of them. Every now and again I’ll have a beer but these days I am mostly limited to some wine in the evening.
@Betty Cracker: Could be fun. I really don’t know about the equipment, I know a few folks who make their own Lightening in a Jar and none of them are exactly rolling in dough, so maybe it could be done cheaper than you think.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s an open secret that many elites in Saudi Arabia and the other nominally “dry” countries of the Muslim world do like their tipple. Historically, Muslim attitudes toward alcohol consumption have varied with time and place. The Arabian Nights and other writings from the Golden Age often reflect a tolerant attitude, for instance. Among Muslims in my own country I’ve seen social and legal tolerance for drinking go down sharply in my adult years, as Muslims have become generally more outwardly devout. Thirty years ago I could have gotten away with buying a case of beer at the supermarket, if I wanted to; nowadays, I’d be charged with an offence, and so would the supermarket.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: Thanx. Sounds alot like the old joke of how much beer one should bring when going fishing with 2 Southern Baptists: Just a 6 pack, you’ll be drinking alone. How much beer should you bring if you go fishing with 1 Southern Baptist? Better bring a case.
The attitudes towards alcohol get really weird down in the Bible belt.
Amir Khalid
Facepalm-worthy news from the word of football:
C de F Real Madrid, one of the most legendary football clubs in the world, is on the verge of being disqualified from the Copa del Rey (King’s Cup) tournament. Madrid fielded a suspended player. Manager Rafa Benitez took Denis Cheryshev off early in the second half, once he realised the error, but by then the damage was done.
He’s done this before: Ten years ago, when Rafa was managing Liverpool FC, he almost sent 12 players out, instead of the more usual 11, for the second half of the Champion’s League final. Liverpool had taken a hammering from AC Milan in the first half and were trailing 0-3, so maybe Rafa was feeling flustered.
bystander
@Betty Cracker:
So does having an offspring, but did that stop you?
I appreciate the Daily News headline about not relying on Ted Cruz’s personal love of Jeebus to solve our mass murder issue, but the “mental illness must be addressed” smoke screen is wafting into place. No word yet if Donald has suggested the murderers’ six-month old and her grandmother be exterminated yet.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@OzarkHillbilly: The fundies I grew up among waved away all the mentions of wine in the Bible with “But they didn’t have clean water.”
Iowa Old Lady
Ethical question. IMHO, someone close to me drinks too much. I think they’re self-medicating for depression, which they more or less acknowledged when I told them that. After saying that, I don’t say anything when I’m with this person and we both drink because I figure it’s this person’s decision. So for Christmas, this person has asked for a bottle of expensive booze. Is it wrong for me to give it? Doesn’t than enable? Or do I need to respect this person’s judgment about their actions?
MattF
@bystander: Probably only need ‘strong interrogation’ right now. Afterwards, if they get in the way, they can be shot.
raven
@PurpleGirl: They have the correct stuff to do it right.
MattF
@Iowa Old Lady: Don’t do it. I used to hang around in bars, so I’ve known quite a few alcoholics and ex-alcoholics. They’re responsible for their own drinking, but not buying that bottle of Glenfiddich is concrete evidence that yes, there’s a problem here. And that bottle of gin under the kitchen sink needs to go too.
raven
@MattF: I’ve been sober for over 20 years. My wife still drinks and there is liquor and beer on the house all the time. I don’t drink it.
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady:
If you feel uncomfortable making a gift of alcohol to a problem drinker, then by all means give them something else. You don’t owe your friend an explanation; it might turn into an argument over the drinking, which won’t necessarily help your friend. Maybe a lightbulb will light over your friend’s head, and they’ll get the hint.
debbie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Yesterday morning, I decided to stop listening to Glenn Beck because he was pissing me off instead of amusing me, but after yesterday’s events, I want to know his B.S. interpretation. This has to be worse than bath salts.
Elmo
@Iowa Old Lady: I’m going to disagree with MattF and say get it. To me at least, there is a difference between a bottle of the expensive stuff, which is a special treat sort of thing, and, say, asking for a case of cheap tequila.
But let me ask – does your friend’s drinking (not the depression but the drinking) reach the level of a health or professional hazard? I didn’t get the impression that it does from your comment, and it sounded more like a subjective “real meds would be better” thing.
magurakurin
@OzarkHillbilly:
and the tinker he can’t mend kettle nor pot without a little Barelycorn
greennotGreen
Hey, the HTML buttons are visible! How refreshing!
Did anyone watch the video Ms. Cracker posted? After I saw it, I wanted to see where it was filmed. Okay, I guess I still don’t know, but Epic Motion Dance Company is based in NYC. That rainbow of people – that’s us! That’s America! And we’re beautiful! We contain multitudes! And that’s what Donald Trump and his minions are afraid of.
If we welcome and embrace the world, they will stand with us. If we reject them, we’ll be on our own.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: I’m with Matt and Amir. If it makes YOU uncomfortable, than it is the wrong gift for YOU to give.
MattF
@greennotGreen: Looks to me like the West Side.
magurakurin
@raven: me, too. And I bought all the booze in the house she drinks. She doesn’t drink very much, a glass of wine or one beer or one cocktail a night. And not every night. So I have been able to make a nice little collection of whiskeys, rums, gins and the sort. It ends up taking her over two years to finish a bottle of something. I make her the drinks. I have no desire whatsoever to drink it myself. It’s as if it isn’t even there in that regard.
greennotGreen
@Iowa Old Lady: I vote no. If your friend had poorly controlled diabetes, would you give that person a box of chocolates?
Of course, alcohol has another downside. You might give that special bottle, and your friend might be over-partaking of it when the depression (not well treated by alcohol!) gets the better of him or her. How would you feel then?
Play it safe.
magurakurin
@OzarkHillbilly:
This sounds like good advice.
OzarkHillbilly
Uruguay makes dramatic shift to nearly 95% clean energy
If Uruguay can do it why can’t the US of A? Whatever happened to that old American “can-do” spirit? Did we kick it out of the country along with all of the illegal immigrants?
BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: I don’t listen, or have ever listened, to Glen Beck. I’d need some pretty hard stuff to get through that. Joe was talking about this being planned and wonder how we could know if someone had been radicalized.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
America can do anything the Republican party feels like letting Obama do.
debbie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
According to a FB post I just read, you can tell by their haircut.
Betty Cracker
@raven: I’m the same way about cigarettes — I smoked for 20 years, and when I finally quit a few years ago, I was done. I don’t expect anyone else to hide their cigarettes around me. It’s my choice not to smoke. I don’t allow smoking in the house, but I never did, even when I was a smoker.
PurpleGirl
@greennotGreen: It was filmed on the Lower East Side, along Allen Street to be exact. The bus in the video is an M15 limited stops blue light bus. Allen Street has a pedestrian mall separating the uptown and downtown sides. I recognize it very well because I used the M15 to get to Liberty Street when I worked downtown. These days Allen Street is a hodge-podge of stores, at one time it was almost all Jewish shops and was a dividing line of sorts between the Jewish side of the Lower East Street and other parts.
bystander
Just heard the latest smokescreen on Moanin’ Joe: San Bernadino police response was too conservative. They didn’t respond in the way some police trainers have come to believe is the best approach post-Columbine. Obviously, better police training in this matter is necessary and may eradicate mass shootings, especially after potential murderers read about how busy professional police advisers and trainers are teaching police how to help them get to Gloryland quickly.
Iowa Old Lady
I appreciate the advice. The person’s drinking does not seem to be affecting their job or life, though I have to think it affects their health. Why can’t everyone I love be healthy and happy and sane all the time?
PurpleGirl
@PurpleGirl: It won’t give me permission ot edit my comment…
I worked on Maiden Lane and took the M15 bus to Water Street and Maiden Lane for 6 years.
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady:
Because they’re humans. Humans is screwed up like that.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: I heard that joke about Mormons. “Better bring two, because if there’s just one he’ll drink all your beer.”
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
I’ve known functioning alcoholics. That ability doesn’t last forever.
Germy
Clark Kent meets Bruce Wayne and the moment becomes tense. Jesse Eisenberg (as Lex Luthor) is delighted.
Kay
@bystander:
The fact is we all need elaborate training in order to protect gun owners from regulation. One of them was saying last night “don’t pull the fire alarm in a mass shooting!” Thanks. I’ll make a note of that.
It is INSANE that everyone else is taking training on defense while gun owners refuse to accept any regulation at all. The burden of gun ownership is being placed on the wrong group of people.
Baud
@Kay:
Freedom isn’t free, Kay.
Satby
@PurpleGirl: go to Lenscrafters, they often fix glasses even if you haven’t bought them there. A restring isn’t hard for the techs there to do.
PurpleGirl
@Satby: The Pearle Vision where I bought these glasses opens at 10 AM and I have other errands in the same area. Thanks to everyone for their comments back to me.
Satby
@Schlemazel: I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. A lower stress job is great.
I have an interview (finally!) tomorrow for another job coaching job. If they offer I am of course accepting, because I only have about 18 months to go until SS. I just want to get through the next 18 months… actually getting to June so the girls don’t have to go to a different host family is my main goal now. After that, getting down to Florida for my mom.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
they stole a cabin?
Satby
@Phylllis: I’m sure there’s a lot of us.
bystander
@Baud: Paul Ryan is explaining that we don’t want to infringe the due process rights of people who have erroneously been placed on no-flight lists. So what are a few dozen lives so long as a handful of potential terrorists can get guns and ammo?
Satby
@OzarkHillbilly: @Iowa Old Lady: I’ll echo what the others have said: what you give as a gift is up to you and if it makes you uncomfortable, then give an alternative gift. Not all requests or suggestions need to be honored. Do what you feel comfortable with.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: Yep, the only thing they left was the ruts from their tires. Built app 1870, estimated worth $50,000. The owners were trying to donate it to the county for a park.
Matt McIrvin
@debbie: I already saw the standard-Facebook-bigot interpretation: The guy’s brother is in on it, his whole family is in on it, they’re all big old terrorists crying crocodile tears for the TV and all the Muslims need to be “sent home”, including the US citizens, and this is why real Americans don’t want Syrian refugees, and liberals are just pissed off now that their white-guilt narrative has lost because the shooters weren’t white.
You probably could have guessed that.
rikyrah
MEDIA ALERT:
THE WIZ, LIVE
Tonight, 8pm EST on NBC.
PurpleGirl
Off to get breakfast and run errands… later folks.
scav
@Matt McIrvin: Well, of course their mind-reading abilities have returned with a vengeance, along with the ability to suggest sweeping, comprehensive solutions involving all sorts of uninvolved individuals. something about a white man christian shooting for da bayyybeeees is kryptonite to their being able to suggest solutions other than prayer, waiting for more information and blame the victems.
debbie
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, that seems pretty standard now. Glenn Beck’s convinced that at some level this was an attack on Christians. After all, the media labeled the gathering as a holiday party — until they started calling it a Christmas party. This country’s become so unhinged.
rikyrah
Will they send him to jail, that’s the question
……………
‘Blade Runner’ Pistorius found guilty of murder on appeal
BLOEMFONTEIN, Dec 3 (Reuters) – South Africa’s “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius was found guilty on Thursday of murdering his girlfriend, in an appeal court ruling that could see him sent back to prison for up to 15 years.
The Supreme Court upgraded the 29-year-old Paralympian’s sentence on appeal to murder from “culpable homicide”, for which he had received a five-year sentence.
Pistorius was released on parole on Oct. 19, having spent one day less than a year in prison for shooting dead model Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013. He was meant to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest.
The athlete, known for the carbon fibre prosthetic blades he uses when running, will be sentenced for the new murder conviction by a lower court at a date still to be determined.
It is likely his lawyers could argue that his physical disability and mental stress should be considered as mitigating circumstances.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/blade-runner-pistorius-found-guilty-of-murder-on-appeal/ar-AAfYaxl?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=HPCDHP
debbie
@debbie:
Well, he went there, accusing Obama of being either delusional or stupid, or maybe is enacting his agenda based on the dream of his father (nudge, nudge).
debbie
@rikyrah:
At least they’ve named it what it was.
rikyrah
‘Misguided missile’: A GOP strategist’s private advice on a Trump nomination
December 2 at 3:20 PM
Donald Trump has become such a force in the Republican Party that the official overseeing next year’s Senate races has proposed a delicate strategy for GOP candidates: Tap into Trumpism without mimicking Trump.
In a seven-page confidential memo that imagines Trump as the party’s presidential nominee, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee urges candidates to adopt many of Trump’s tactics, issues and approaches — right down to adjusting the way they dress and how they use Twitter.
………………
In the memo on “the Trump phenomenon,” NRSC Executive Director Ward Baker said Republicans should embrace Trump’s tough talk about China and “grab onto the best elements of [his] anti-Washington populist agenda.” Above all, they should appeal to voters as genuine and beyond the influence of special interests.
“Trump has risen because voters see him as authentic, independent, direct, firm, — and believe he can’t be bought,” Baker writes. “These are the same character traits our candidates should be advancing in 2016. That’s Trump lesson #1.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/private-memo-lays-out-how-the-gop-would-deal-with-trump-as-its-nominee/2015/12/02/78514cba-9909-11e5-94f0-9eeaff906ef3_story.html
oldster
That video makes me happy. Bunch a young kids doing what kids should do–dancing, looking great, enjoying themselves. I would get up and join them if I didn’t have a bad back and non-functioning knees. Oh, and no sense of rhythm.
It makes me think about the phrase, “they hate us for our freedoms”.
They really do–they hate seeing kids of all colors dancing together and being free.
Where “they” equals Saudis, the Taliban, fundamentalist Christians, and most of the Republican party.
rikyrah
OH WELL..
shrug.
you built it. you keep him.
…………..
The one sentence that shows how worried Senate Republicans are about Donald Trump
By Amber Phillips December 3 at 7:30 AM
“If he carries this message into the general election in Ohio, we’ll hand this election to Hillary Clinton — and then try to salvage the rest of the ticket.”
That’s a quote from Matt Borges, chairman of the Republican Party in Ohio. He’s just one of several Republican operatives who recently told Jonathan Martin of the New York Times just how concerned they are that Republicans’ chances of keeping a hold of the U.S. Senate are inversely related to Donald Trump’s chances of getting the nomination.
Borges is in the thick of that right now. He’s trying to keep Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) in office in what is already a competitive reelection race in a presidential battleground state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/03/the-one-sentence-that-shows-how-worried-senate-republicans-are-about-donald-trump/?tid=pm_politics_pop_b
rikyrah
Sikh woman ordered to show breast pump after fellow passenger suspects she may be a terrorist
03 Dec 2015 at 09:32 ET
A Sikh woman said she was asked to show her breast pump to fellow passengers on a Delta Air Lines flight to prove she wasn’t a terrorist.
Valerie Kaur, an attorney and filmmaker who regularly appears on MSNBC, said she was waiting to board a flight to Los Angeles when she removed the luggage tag on her carry-on bag, where she kept her breast pump.
“The passenger behind me raised his voice,” Kaur wrote on her Facebook page. “I turned around. He was a white man and his face was angry. He asked why I removed the tag. I offered to explain but he said he didn’t want to know.”
She said the man instead raised his suspicions with other passengers in line, and an “alarmed and angered” gate agent questioned her.
“I explained that I was a nursing mother, but she still didn’t let me board with my bag,” Kaur said. “Her face was just as angry. I had to pull out the breast pump to show her. Only then was I allowed to take my seat. All the passengers in first class watched and I smiled weakly to show them I wasn’t a terrorist.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/sikh-woman-ordered-to-show-breast-pump-after-fellow-passenger-suspects-she-may-be-a-terrorist/
debbie
@rikyrah:
Hopefully, the GOP’s death-grip on Ohio is nearing its end.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s called the oldest professional on account of the notion that every woman is a hoar. But we know that in stone age societies women worked just like men. Prostitution as such arises with agriculture, originally in a cultic, sacred context. For example the Cherokee prior to first contact only had one profession as such, and that was the role of medicine man or medicine woman. The next one would have to be trained over a period of years by the previous one. It’s possible that in the Old World, specialization may have come in with metallurgy, whereas tool-making had previously been everyone’s job.
Brewing was considered a time consuming drudge and we often see it show up as women’s work.
Another Holocene Human
@Schlemazel: Good for you. Hope the reorg shakes out ok.
Bob
Again. Balloon Juice readers and writers manage to avoid seeing the okeydoke in Syria. Our war on terror is a lie. Enjoy it, you’ve earned it by ignoring it.
Theodore Wirth
It is obvious that you haven’t seen THIS yet:
https://youtu.be/FrG4TEcSuRg