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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Let there be snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

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

This really is a full service blog.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

The lights are all blinking red.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Consistently wrong since 2002

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You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Sunday Morning Open Thread

Sunday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  December 13, 20155:36 am| 172 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Open Threads, Science & Technology

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xmas tree v toilet pickles

(Pickles via GoComics.com)
.

An agreement, if we can enforce it. Per the Washington Post:

LE BOURGET, France — Negotiators from 196 countries approved a landmark climate accord on Saturday that seeks to dramatically reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for a dangerous warming of the planet.

The agreement, adopted after 13 days of intense bargaining in a Paris suburb, puts the world’s nations on a course that could fundamentally change the way energy is produced and consumed, gradually reducing reliance on fossil fuels in favor of cleaner forms of energy…

The deal was struck in a rare show of near-universal accord, as poor and wealthy nations from across the political and geographic spectrum expressed support for measures that require all to take steps to battle climate change. The agreement binds together pledges by individual nations to cut or limit emissions from fossil-fuel burning, within a framework of rules that provide for monitoring and verification as well as financial and technical assistance for developing countries.

The overarching goal is to bring down pollution levels so that the rise in global temperatures is limited to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial averages. Delegates added language that expressed an ambition to restrict the temperature increase even further, to 1.5 degrees C, if possible…

The accord is the first to call on all nations—rich and poor—to take action to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, with additional reviews required every five years to encourage even deeper pollution cuts. A major goal, officials said, is to spur governments and private industry to rapidly develop new technologies to help solve the climate challenge.

“Markets now have the clear signal to unleash the full force of human ingenuity,” said Ban Ki-moon, who praised the pact as “ambitious, credible, flexible and durable.”

“The work starts tomorrow,” he said…

***********
Apart from planning for the future, what’s on the agenda for the day?

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172Comments

  1. 1.

    Keith G

    December 13, 2015 at 5:45 am

    A nice bit of political news for the good guys is the election of State Rep. Sylvester Turner as mayor of Houston. He will be Houston’s second mayor of African American descent and he will replace the first lesbian politician to helm a major American city.

    I like Sylvester. He has been around our politics for a long time. He is soft spoken but a very intense guy.

    Here is his acceptance speech if you want a hint of his personality. I liked the ending, and yes that is Houston’s own US Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee standing next to him (camera side) as she is want to do

  2. 2.

    Peter

    December 13, 2015 at 5:55 am

    I’m sanguine about the fact that that this agreement will almost certainly not go as smoothly as everyone involved would like, but it does represent a very positive step in the right direction.

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    December 13, 2015 at 6:06 am

    @Peter:
    I look forward to hearing the Republican party, especially its presidential candidates, denounce this agreement, refudiate the science behind it, and declare that the world is not the boss of the USA.

  4. 4.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 6:19 am

    @Amir Khalid: Silly Amir, don’t you know America is Exceptional™.

  5. 5.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 6:26 am

    I finally uploaded(and took more) pics of local Christmas displays around these parts, here’s a link to the Flickr Album.

  6. 6.

    Gimlet

    December 13, 2015 at 6:39 am

    Last I heard was something about Kaus and a goat

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/kausfile#.sleK76Or5K

    Mickey Kaus finally stopped blogging this year when he got fired from The Daily Caller for criticizing Fox News — from the right.

    He now lives off his savings, and writes solely on Twitter, where he has emerged as an unlikely man of this political moment: a Democratic intellectual who thinks that Donald Trump is the “most credible” candidate for the presidency.

    “The hope, maybe even Trump’s hope, is that by going ‘too far’ Trump may push us to go ‘far enough’” in limiting immigration, said Kaus in a recent email. A total outsider, seen by even his close friends as a bit unhinged, Kaus offers a glimpse at how we got to the ugly place in which we find ourselves at the end of 2015.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 6:42 am

    The differences continue to be heightened.

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Your morning photo links are quickly becoming something I look forward to.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 6:43 am

    @Gimlet: Democratic intellectual?

  9. 9.

    raven

    December 13, 2015 at 6:45 am

    I’m making duck gumbo for the garden club xmas thing.

  10. 10.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 6:48 am

    @Baud: Thank you. I’ll be adding to the Christmas album over the next few weeks(I also use the pics as my desktop background on this here PC). Get yourself some red/blue anaglyph glasses, I’m going to put a 3-D album.

  11. 11.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 6:49 am

    @Baud: He ran for Senate here and lost badly, to I think DiFi.

    ETA: Nope, Boxer in 2010. He did run as a Dem. Intellectual? Well, wiki says he went to Havad(college and HLS).

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 6:49 am

    ‘Good without God’: Nebraska atheists take over nativity to promote tolerance

    Some kind of tolerance. Appears they are so busy promoting their own agenda they couldn’t tolerate the traditional Nativity. Idiots.

  13. 13.

    Gimlet

    December 13, 2015 at 6:54 am

    @Baud:

    Democratic intellectual?

    I guess that’s what you call a self-identified Democrat that spews conservative and Republican political positions.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    December 13, 2015 at 6:57 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    George Walker Bush want to Yale and Harvard, and no one calls him an intellectual.

  15. 15.

    MattF

    December 13, 2015 at 6:58 am

    Larry Kudlow at National Review (no link) thinks we should ‘seal the borders’. Am I the only one who’s noticed that right-wing ‘solutions’ to international terrorism always seem to involve vast increases in domestic police power? Needless to say, when the emergency is over we’ll all go right back to normalcy… Amirite?

  16. 16.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 7:01 am

    @MattF: Happy to do that if he’s on the other side.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 7:02 am

    @Gimlet: Even Democratic intellectuals like Kaus…

  18. 18.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 7:02 am

    @Amir Khalid: Have seen his brother John? In that family, he just might be.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 7:06 am

    So… Time to add “Male Dancer and Friend” to the list of things that will “stop a bad man with a gun:.

    They arrived at the club in Friend’s 2005 Nissan at approximately 8 p.m. on a Saturday. A black 2000 Acura pulled in behind them. As Friend got out of the Nissan, a young man wearing a hoodie got out of the Acura. He was carrying a MAC-10.
    …
    The young man with the MAC-10 approached Friend and demanded his money. No problem, said Friend. Then the young man with the MAC-10 asked for the keys to Friend’s car. Sure, said Friend.

    Then Friend did a foolish thing. As he handed over the keys, he grabbed the MAC-10! He and the would-be robber struggled, both trying to gain control of the weapon. A shot went off and the bullet ripped through the passenger window of a nearby car and lodged in the headrest. Fortunately, the car was empty.

    The driver of the Acura got out and started over to help his buddy. The driver had a .38-caliber revolver. By this time, Friend had the upper hand in the struggle with the first assailant, who had dropped his MAC-10. Friend pulled the would-be robber in front of him so if the second assailant shot, he’d hit his buddy. The second bad guy retreated back to the Acura.

    Dancer was now out of the Nissan and hustled over to help Friend. Dancer put the first would-be robber in a headlock while Friend ran back to the Nissan to get a hatchet. A hatchet!

    The second bad guy was in the Acura and backing up. Armed with his hatchet, Friend jumped on the hood of the Acura, which then moved forward and crashed into the Nissan.

    Friend jumped off on the driver’s side. Using the blunt side of the hatchet, he bashed the second assailant. Once, twice.

  20. 20.

    MattF

    December 13, 2015 at 7:13 am

    @Gimlet: Oy. That excerpt has a lot of ‘I can’t be too explicit about this ’cause I don’t want to get sued’. We’re clearly doing compare-and-contrast between ‘reality-based’ vs. ‘not so much’.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    December 13, 2015 at 7:17 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Your pictures are wonderful.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 7:20 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    At first I thought they vandalized the nativity scene. They simply booked the space first.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 7:24 am

    @Baud: Yes. All available space. I’m an atheist and I am sick and tired of assholes like this who give the Bill O’s of this country all the ammo they so desire.

  24. 24.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 7:25 am

    @JPL: Thanks, but I’m really unhappy with the way one shot came out. These folk have a headless Santa on their porch, the shot came out too dark and grainy(even after some work in Photoshop).

  25. 25.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 7:29 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    I can’t say I look forward to it but I do expect it. In fact, I expect there to be a race to see who can claim the worst steps he (or she) would take to ensure the agreement is not followed in the US.

    I figure the starting position is “This is not a treaty so:”
    a) we don’t have to follow it
    b) it requires approval from Congress

  26. 26.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 7:30 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Clements said the atheist groups were excluded from the state capitol last year, after the nativity scene went up.

    “So this year we wanted to make sure we had the opportunity to be in,” he said.

    I don’t know. As tactics go, this seems reasonable. It’s not like they’re going to local retail establishments and wishing people “Happy Holidays.”

  27. 27.

    JPL

    December 13, 2015 at 7:31 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: The headless Santa means somebody has been naughty.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 7:31 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Needs snow.

  29. 29.

    MattF

    December 13, 2015 at 7:33 am

    @Amir Khalid: And, don’t forget, blame Obama.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 7:36 am

    @Baud: There is making sure you get to put forth your point of view, and then there is making sure nobody else can. Sounds pretty dogdamn childish to me.

  31. 31.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 7:36 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: It snows here in town every night at 7pm and 8pm; though just at the fancy outdoor mall.

  32. 32.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 7:37 am

    @JPL: Heh, my kink of people.

    ETA: I meant to say kind, but kink works.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 7:39 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s a debate about religion. Of course it’s childish.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 7:40 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: In southern California, they call it “blow.”

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 7:41 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Wow, scheduled snow. I’m gonna have to talk to the weather Gods about that.

  36. 36.

    Botsplainer

    December 13, 2015 at 7:43 am

    Another early morning flight, another Delta equipment fuckup with a bunch of useless “I’m sorrys”. Fucked up our connection, too.

    Fourth time on a leisure trip in 14 months – and that’s 4 out of 6, a record of service clearly unsurpassed. Obviously, the CEO deserves a bonus and a tax cut.

  37. 37.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 7:45 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And there’s a legal limit to the snow here
    In Camelot.
    The winter is forbidden till December
    And exits March the second on the dot.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 7:46 am

    @Baud: True. I just think people who default to reason are supposed to be better than that, at least as a group if not individually. Naive, I guess.

  39. 39.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 7:47 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: As I said, it’s a fancy outdoor mall. Americana at Brand.

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    December 13, 2015 at 7:50 am

    Good morning, BJ pals. Missed you. Back from my non-wired Caribbean cruise. It was lovely.

    NYTimes yesterday. Republicans Make Presence Felt at Climate Talks by Ignoring Them

    … Except for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, no prominent Republican has participated in the events in this Paris suburb.

    … Of the candidates seeking the party’s nomination for president, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Donald J. Trump reject the scientific consensus that human activities are warming the planet, while Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Marco Rubio have acknowledged that the planet is warming but oppose President Obama’s view that the government can and should do something about it. [Isn’t that position even less defensible than the first group of candidates, who refuse to admit the problem’s existence?]

    Anxiety that the Republican-controlled Congress or the next president might undo Mr. Obama’s ambitious goals for weaning Americans off fossil fuels was so high that 10 Democratic senators flew here last week to reassure other countries.

    …. [GOP Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma] said Congress would continue to try to block Mr. Obama’s emissions rules.

    In that way, the Republicans are very much present in Paris. Delegates and supporters of a deal are aware that Mr. Obama cannot portray one as a “treaty,” because a treaty would never be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate. In discussions before the talks, many Europeans expressed dismay over United States politics, coupled with an urgency to reach an agreement before Mr. Obama leaves office.

    …. Surveys have shown that in no other country is climate-change denial as prevalent as it is in the United States.

    Watched BBC World News on the cruise. Europeans and those watching BBC are better informed than TV viewers in our country, by a factor of at least 10. [Did you hear that Chennai, India experienced 100-year flooding recently?] Ship had MSNBC too (in full-on San Bernardino crisis mode for about a week, then Trump, Trump, Trump and some limited topics after), as well as Fox and CNBC (didn’t watch, but for a 2-minute Fox segment I’ll mention later).

    Around the ship, TVs in public rooms were overwhelmingly turned to BBC, with MSNBC in second place.

    And mostly going unwatched. It was thrilling.

    PS: TVs mostly tuned to sports.

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 7:53 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Proof that the Gods must be crazy.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    December 13, 2015 at 7:55 am

    @MattF:

    Larry Kudlow at National Review (no link) thinks we should ‘seal the borders’.

    Yeah sure we will:

    In 2013, a record 70 million international visitors traveled to the United States, spending an all time high of $180.7 billion, an increase of more than 9% from 2012. International visitors spent
    nearly $1.3 billion more a month in the United States in 2013 than they did the previous year.
    The U.S. travel and tourism trade surplus was $57 billion in 2013, a 20% increase from 2012 and the largest such surplus on record.

    70 million people.

  43. 43.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 7:57 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Around the ship, TVs in public rooms were overwhelmingly turned to BBC, with MSNBC in second place.

    And here I thought the whole point of a cruise was to get away from it all. Glad you enjoyed it anyway.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    December 13, 2015 at 8:28 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I love Christmas lights. They’re so exuberant!

  45. 45.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 8:29 am

    @Kay: That’s actually shocking to me; so many of my online friends in other countries have explained in the past several years that they’re either terrified of or morally opposed to traveling to the United States, and won’t unless they absolutely have to. You’d think we were becoming an isolated hermit kingdom.

  46. 46.

    The Golux

    December 13, 2015 at 8:31 am

    @Schlemazel:

    I expect there to be a race to see who can claim the worst steps he (or she) would take to ensure the agreement is not followed in the US.

    I fully expect at least one of the clown car occupants to arrive at a rally rolling coal.

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 8:32 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Did you hear that Chennai, India experienced 100-year flooding recently?

    Yes, actually… but through work. People in tech industry hear what happens in Chennai.

  48. 48.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 8:38 am

    I am actually deeply skeptical that we’re going to come anywhere close to keeping temperature rise under 2C, let alone 1.5C. I just don’t see it. We would have had to get started on it 20 years ago. At this point it’d take something like a nuclear war or plague that destroys most of modern civilization.

    That said, it’s important to understand that 2C isn’t some kind of binary threshold between “OK” and “end of the world”. It was a line drawn many years ago for the sake of having a line, as a rough indication of “this much would be very bad”. Even if we don’t make that goal, it’s not as if we failed and might as well do nothing. Eliminating carbon emissions actually gets more urgent, not less.

  49. 49.

    p.a.

    December 13, 2015 at 8:41 am

    @raven: filé? Or does that go with only certain proteins?

  50. 50.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    December 13, 2015 at 8:41 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: If the only change in background noise, however much ignored, is from CNN Airport to BBC, that’s an improvement. Beats the hell out of Fox news.

    In the general sense I agree but apparently it’s cheaper to put up an LCD Tv in public areas than it is to put up wallpaper or windowpanes. When every Dunkin Donuts over a certain size switched to them I knew it was inescapable.

    Remember this one little scene in Robocop? In the men’s room sight there was a throwaway bit of how executives got a monochrome stock ticker over each urinal. In 1987 that was the bright of cutting edge futurism, and today it pales in comparison to the church that runs in 1/57th the screen during money news.

    Other topic: Mickey Kaus is two questions; Democrat? Intellectual?

  51. 51.

    Satby

    December 13, 2015 at 8:42 am

    @Matt McIrvin: Yeah, I heard from friends who are former co-workers in IT. India has had killer heat waves and 100 year floods this year.

  52. 52.

    Satby

    December 13, 2015 at 8:44 am

    It’s December 13, and I had my morning coffee out on my deck this morning. It’s not quite 60 degrees out with very light rain. As much as everyone is enjoying the perfect springlike weather, we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hard.

  53. 53.

    p.a.

    December 13, 2015 at 8:47 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    POSTED ON JULY 28, 2005 BY JOHN HINDERAKER
    A STROKE OF GENIUS?
    It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

    The Wayback Machine strikes again. Above can NEVER be unwritten.

  54. 54.

    Satby

    December 13, 2015 at 8:49 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Really nice! But yeah, seems odd with no snow. Of course up here in the tundra we don’t have any either.

  55. 55.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 8:49 am

    @The Golux:
    Cheeze! I never thought of that, it would make a great statement coming from the candidate. I could picture the Dumpster arriving in some big monster truck belching out soot, the crowd going wild.

    You should volunteer to do PR for baud ’16 you have a vision!

  56. 56.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 8:52 am

    @p.a.:
    I don’t follow the funnies but isn’t the modern ‘Joker’ supposed to be a genius too? Not that Boy Blunder actually appears to be smart (to anyone other than ass rocket and his ilk) but smart does not necessarily connote good or decent.

  57. 57.

    debbie

    December 13, 2015 at 8:54 am

    @Satby:

    I once went to a sales conference in Puerto Rico during the first week of December. Palm trees draped with twinkle lights, Feliz Navidad on a loop piped in everywhere, 95 degrees on the beach with umbrella drinks. It was all very surreal.

  58. 58.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    December 13, 2015 at 8:56 am

    @Satby: But can you assure us that “By nine a.m. the morning fog has cleared”?

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 8:57 am

    @ThresherK (GPad): I guess it’s just me. When I go away, I. GET. AWAY.

    Reminds me of some friends experiences on 9/11. They had taken the week off to float the Missouri River from KC to STL. They had noticed a distinct lack of planes overhead and were curious but otherwise took little note of it. Didn’t know anything had happened until 9/13 when they pulled into a small river town for supplies.

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    December 13, 2015 at 8:58 am

    @Satby: Was running around in 65 degree weather in NYC yesterday, looking at Manhattan department store windows. Get thee to Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor windows, among others. They’re superb. Better than the Rockefeller Center tree (meh).

    Confluence of springlike weather and Christmas/holiday decorations made staying another day in NYC a no-brainer.

    On November 29, spied little trees blooming in Brooklyn. White blossoms. Will they come out again in Spring, or is some little creature who was counting on them appearing then going to be disappointed?

    It’s like South or North Carolina’s weather has been displaced to the mid-Atlantic and points elsewhere.

  61. 61.

    WereBear

    December 13, 2015 at 8:58 am

    @p.a.: It is embedded in my brain. Things that happen that are terrible and shocking have a way of doing that.

    Siri tells me our next chance of snow is the 21st. And we are a NE skiing town.

  62. 62.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 9:00 am

    Having been pessimistic above, I should add that I think decarbonizing a modern society (without some kind of radical deindustrialization) is actually a lot more feasible than it would have seemed even a few years ago.

    Brad DeLong just linked to this interesting article by Ramez Naam arguing that large-scale energy storage is in the early stages of a technological virtuous cycle that will put it everywhere in the energy grid.

    If that’s so, then running civilization on renewable energy is going to be feasible, and even competitive. The prices of wind and solar power have crashed over the past decade, but the bottleneck is still finding ways to deal with their inherent intermittency. Grid-scale and household-scale energy storage can fix that if they can be made cost-effective. At some point it doesn’t even matter if people think anthropogenic climate change is real.

    The article gets a bit speculative when betting on future technologies like flow batteries and compressed air; the tech that wins on the grid might not be either of those, but there are a lot of avenues being explored. I’ve also heard of some early work on batteries that could be usable for things like car and household applications that use more plentiful substances than lithium.

  63. 63.

    debbie

    December 13, 2015 at 9:01 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Forsythia is blooming and crocuses are coming up in Ohio.

  64. 64.

    Marc

    December 13, 2015 at 9:04 am

    @Matt McIrvin: There is already .5º in the pipeline, so 2º is just where we’ll see the sign which reads; “Here Be Dragons”. The reality deniers will point to the mounting effects as ‘Dog’s Will’ punishing us for our sinful ways. Between the radioactive release in the western Pacific, an overdue super volcano under Yellowstone, and the nits infesting the House of Representatives, I’d bet we will be harmed most by the nits.

  65. 65.

    Elizabelle

    December 13, 2015 at 9:04 am

    From The Economic Times (of India): Chennai floods result of bad town planning; the new project that never took off could have averted the havoc

    When the first floods arrived in the city of Chennai around November 15, RR Kuberan, a retired chief planner with the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), was a man terribly upset.

    Chennai need not have seen flooding at all, he repeated to friends and family. The deluge though came two weeks later — an unprecedented wash of water that took 90 lives in Chennai alone, as per the state government.

    The December 2 floods in the city have raised many questions since — about official apathy, delays in taking crucial decisions, reservoir management and lack of coordination amongst rescue agencies. Urban planners agree that all of these were failures of the state government, but the more pertinent issue that has steered Chennai towards a disaster of this magnitude is the utter lack of political leadership for decades.

    Kuberan would not say so but he does speak of missed opportunities, way back in the early 1990s.
    …

    Read more at:
    http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/50152691.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst ..

  66. 66.

    Satby

    December 13, 2015 at 9:08 am

    @debbie: @Elizabelle: it does seem a bit surreal, and it’s been happening more the last few years I think. Nicer November and December, then cold, dank, horrible January, February, and March. I noticed yesterday that my lilac bushes are beginning to bud out, and some of the butterfly bushes never even went dormant all the way.

  67. 67.

    Satby

    December 13, 2015 at 9:10 am

    @ThresherK (GPad): nope, not here. Now it’s pouring rain.

  68. 68.

    p.a.

    December 13, 2015 at 9:11 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Nice stuff. Those hi tech blue headlights make the nighttime street scenes pop.

    Do you ask homeowner permission to photo? Because I know some areas near me where there could be issues for someone doing this.

  69. 69.

    PurpleGirl

    December 13, 2015 at 9:20 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Nice pictures. Thanks for posting them.

  70. 70.

    PurpleGirl

    December 13, 2015 at 9:25 am

    @Marc: You forgot the tsunami that’s going to hit the East Coast of the US when the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Isla La Palma (Canary Islands) explodes and sends most of the ridge down into the Atlantic Ocean.

  71. 71.

    gelfling545

    December 13, 2015 at 9:25 am

    Moving slowly this morning. Went with my sister & her husband to dinner at Ulrich’s Tavern (founded 1868) for fine German food & on to the holiday concert of the Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus. Great food; great concert – moving, funny & everything one wants in a holiday event. Concert venue was a prominent Lutheran church in the area (ELCA which, if you know anything about Lutheranism, you’d know immediately that it had to be.) Wonderful to see this group & their supporters welcomed into a mainstream Christian church, a thing I would never have thought possible 10, maybe even 5 years ago. Also cool to see lots of elderly parishioners turning out to hear the group though I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised as Lutherans have a long musical tradition. Still, heart warming, eclectic and a high quality musical performance – what else can one ask for?

  72. 72.

    rikyrah

    December 13, 2015 at 9:26 am

    Good Morning Everyone:)

  73. 73.

    gelfling545

    December 13, 2015 at 9:28 am

    @Satby: My chrysanthemums & snapdragons are still blooming – in Buffalo.

  74. 74.

    p.a.

    December 13, 2015 at 9:29 am

    @Schlemazel: Epistemology, philosophy are way above my head, but as far as Hindrocket and W’s ‘genius’ all I have to add is to note that to an ant a curbstone looks like a mountain.

  75. 75.

    debbie

    December 13, 2015 at 9:30 am

    It never ends. I can only hope this is a joke:

    US town fears solar farms would ‘suck up all the energy from the sun’

    A proposal for a solar farm has been rejected by the town council in Woodland, North Carolina following public concerns.

    Members of the locality expressed their fear and distrust of solar panels before a vote on whether the land in question should be rezoned to allow Strata Solar Company to build a solar farm off US Highway 258.

    One local man, Bobby Mann said that businesses would stop going to Woodland, the community would suffer as a result and the farms would suck up all the energy from the sun, according to the Roanoke-Chowan News Herald.

    https://www.rt.com/usa/325536-us-town-fears-solar-farms/

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    December 13, 2015 at 9:30 am

    @Satby: Highs have been in the 80s for the last couple of weeks here in West Central FL. That’s not unheard of, but it is unusual to have such sustained warm weather. The poor manatees seem confused!

  77. 77.

    MomSense

    December 13, 2015 at 9:31 am

    It was really warm here the last few days so we went out on some nice hikes. Today it is down to the 40s which is still warm for December. Another outside day for us.

  78. 78.

    debbie

    December 13, 2015 at 9:32 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    A couple friends are “wintering” in Siesta Key, which is experiencing red tide. Is that normal for this time of year?

  79. 79.

    Satby

    December 13, 2015 at 9:32 am

    @gelfling545: Nice!
    @gelfling545: if I had not stopped watering them, I think the snapdragon in my deck flower boxes would still be blooming too. I quit after we had a hard freeze,but they were protected on the deck and now are a wilted but still green bunch of almost dead things.

  80. 80.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 9:33 am

    @Satby: I guess it’s living in the north country, no snow is quite normal. The only time I’ve lived in a place it snowed was Seattle, and in 3 years we got about 3 weeks of snow.

  81. 81.

    Satby

    December 13, 2015 at 9:35 am

    @Betty Cracker: oh boy. My mom was complaining the other day that it “was only” 70ish out and she thought it was cold. I must have talked to her early in the day.

  82. 82.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 9:37 am

    @p.a.:
    The ass rocket is a lawyer in a very high power firm downtown Minneapolis. I assume that he is not stupid, at least in an academic sense. That means he is either crazy or a BS spewing sycophant. While I often hoped to run into him when I worked downtown I never did but I assume he is not crazy or the senior partners would have eased him out. That leaves only one option and it seems to fit. He wrote that garbage to get attention from his betters. He got patted on the head and bet grinned for weeks at how clever he was. As far as I can tell he fell off the end of the earth after being named Time Blogger of the year.

  83. 83.

    Satby

    December 13, 2015 at 9:39 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: You aren’t missing anything you can’t get going to the mountains. Much as I love snow (I snowshoe and cross country ski) slogging through it to get to work is a nightmare sometimes. My exchange daughters were thrilled by our first snowfall, but I could tell the thrill was fading by about day three. Then it got nice again and it all melted.

  84. 84.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 9:41 am

    @p.a.: You know, I don’t; Google runs down these streets about every year and takes pictures, they put up lights to be noticed and it’s a public street. The only time I’ve been asked not to take pictures is our local malls, the fancy one is kind of puzzling since they have an Apple store and the first thing folk do after getting their new fruity phone is take pictures. I think it was because I was using a real camera.

  85. 85.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 13, 2015 at 9:43 am

    @debbie: Well, that *is* RT, always known for its objectivity in covering US affairs.

  86. 86.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 13, 2015 at 9:44 am

    @Satby: The kid and I have plans to hike up on one of the local mountains(8500′ level), we might see some snow up there.

    ETA: It’s supposed to rain here tonight and it’s a toasty 39 degrees outside.

  87. 87.

    Germy

    December 13, 2015 at 9:48 am

    Hansen On COP21
    Guardian UK: James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks ‘a fraud’ -The former Nasa scientist criticizes the talks, intended to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020, as ‘no action, just promises’
    “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”

  88. 88.

    debbie

    December 13, 2015 at 9:52 am

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Not sure I’ve ever heard of RT, but I assume you don’t think much of them.

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 13, 2015 at 9:52 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, the laws on photography on public streets are very liberal. If you can see it from the street you can photograph it, you don’t need permission. If someone is walking down the street, you can take their picture, again no permission required. The mall, being private land, can ban photography. The only exception I know of is the post 9/11 restriction on taking pics/videos of certain gov’t buildings and I really don’t know how they thread that needle or even how stringent they are.

  90. 90.

    bystander

    December 13, 2015 at 9:53 am

    @Elizabelle: Ran by Bergdorf the other day. The 58th Street side windows are as spectacular as the 5th Avenue side, and maybe a little less congested. The surprising part was the counterpart to the mob scene on the sidewalk, the very quiet men’s store. Also, I’m really shocked that they haven’t finished the 57th street side renovations for Christmas.

    Why is Jon Stewart not shaming the repubs for holding up the Zadroga bill? Are there any major Dems opposing the bill?

  91. 91.

    Iowa Old Lady

    December 13, 2015 at 9:54 am

    @bystander: Stewart is shaming them. He did a long segment as a guest on The Daily Show.

  92. 92.

    Betty Cracker

    December 13, 2015 at 9:55 am

    @debbie: It happens. IIRC, no one really knows why. Hope it goes away soon!

    @Satby: Yeah, the temps have been plunging into the mid-60s overnight! I don’t know how old your mom is, but it seems like elderly folks have a tough time with a chill. I was at the Gulf beaches yesterday, and everyone was running around in bathing suits, shorts and t-shirts except for the very old and very young. The water was too cold for a swim, IMO. I wouldn’t go in past my knees. But plenty of others were swimming.

  93. 93.

    Poopyman

    December 13, 2015 at 9:58 am

    @debbie: The Rooskie Times, doncha know.

    Here’s the article from the local paper, the Roanoke-Chowan News Herald. Makes the natives actually sound worse than the RT article does.

  94. 94.

    bystander

    December 13, 2015 at 10:02 am

    @Iowa Old Lady: I caught the Colbert appearance and thought it was pretty tepid. I don’t question Stewart’s commitment to the issue, but he has a history of “both sides do it”ism.

    Personality-challenged Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz has scored another important victory for in his ongoing effort to gain support from the Religious Right.

    On Thursday, he was officially endorsed by Bob Vander Plaats, who leads the Iowa-based conservative group, The Family Leader.

    Plaats is a two-time gubernatorial candidate who has previously backed the likes of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.

    That’s from queerty, and it sounds like the lip-smacking kiss of death.

  95. 95.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 13, 2015 at 10:03 am

    @debbie: RT is Russia Today, a government-funded and -controlled Enlish-language media outlet. Here is a great recent exchange between their reporter and the US State Dept spox.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    December 13, 2015 at 10:06 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The big US travel growth areas are tourists from South America and China. I just can’t stand the “seal the borders!” nonsense. That is never, ever going to happen if it in any way hampers any kind of commerce, and it would.

  97. 97.

    ThresherK

    December 13, 2015 at 10:09 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, me too. There’s just something messed up in the extent to which I have to do this. I’m getting my teeth cleaned next week, and my dentist’s office has more TVs in it now than my entire neighborhood did when I was a kid.

    Also, your punctuation of I. GET. AWAY. is very stealable.

  98. 98.

    Mike in NC

    December 13, 2015 at 10:10 am

    @bystander: How is it that somebody named “Bob Vander Plaats” is not a ridiculous cartoon character?

  99. 99.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 10:12 am

    @Kay:
    We spent a week at Yellowstone this summer (better than advertised in case you were thinking of it) and there were time I felt we were the only European decedents in the park. We often found ourselves in huge crowds of Chinese speaking tourists and it made me realize THEY have the new middle class that we have lost. I can’t imagine it is a cheap trip for them & there were thousands, as a percentage of 1.4 billion probably not that many but an impressive number.

  100. 100.

    Debbie

    December 13, 2015 at 10:16 am

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Thanks. Do you think they would go so far as to make up statements like that guy saying he’s afraid the solar farm would suck up all the energy from the sun?

  101. 101.

    WereBear

    December 13, 2015 at 10:21 am

    @Mike in NC: How is it that somebody named “Bob Vander Plaats” is not a ridiculous cartoon character?

    On some level, he is.

  102. 102.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 10:24 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Geez, Ozark, it’s in the capitol building. Is that really an appropriate place to be selling winter holiday display space to the highest bidder?

    We don’t live in the 7th century anymore. We live in a pluralistic society. It might be appropriate for the capitol to have a space dedicated to small displays from multiple faiths if that’s what they really want to do. (That’s separate from whether there’s decoration the public doesn’t see in work areas–this is what the legislature is broadcasting to the whole citizenry.)

    Clearly the atheist group gamed the (stupid) system to make a point. The lege may have created the stupid system because they were comfortable with sectarian displays in their space and wanted to avoid a first amendment lawsuit, so they set up a “what, us push Xtianity?” setup which the atheists have just 0wned.

    They really, really need to stop using public buildings to push Christianity. Many Americans belong to minority religions such as Judaism or Buddhism or even to Christian sects that don’t celebrate the same holidays as the majority of Christians. It is not appropriate to use public spaces for religious displays. Leave that church-state marriage buried in the ground with the Roman Empire.

  103. 103.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 10:28 am

    @Baud:

    It’s not like they’re going to local retail establishments and wishing people “Happy Holidays.”

    God forbid anyone other than a Christian should feel welcome to be an American during the winter holiday season!

    The angels bring strife on Earth and hate between men!

  104. 104.

    ThresherK

    December 13, 2015 at 10:30 am

    @Schlemazel: Where in Yellowstone? All I have heard of the summer season is that for such a big place and yet the concentration of tourism takes place in one very small area of it, near (I think) the West Yellowstone WY entrance.

    PS Winter there is indesribably wonderful; some companies have Sno-Cat transport in to heated yurts.

  105. 105.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 10:31 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Well, I guess this is your Sistah Souljah moment.

    Personally, I don’t care for the coercion, which is hardly only directed at atheists–hello? But these atheists are people who are otherwise people of privilege. So they take it more personally and they don’t fear reprisals.

    It seems this state decided to do something illegal but play games about it because they know it’s illegal, so they beat the game to make a point.

    There’s no reason they can’t allow multiple small sectarian displays showing favor towards none. They don’t because THEY DON’T WANT TO. They want a giant Jebus display to smack visitors between the eyes.

  106. 106.

    Robert Sneddon

    December 13, 2015 at 10:32 am

    @Schlemazel: Last summer when I was in Tokyo the shopping areas in places like Akihabara had busloads of Chinese tourists buying up household goods, kitchen appliances, computers and the like. All the big stores like LAOX and Yodobashi Camera had Chinese-friendly signage and in-house staff who spoke Chinese. I did notice the tourists seemed to be buying Japanese-branded goods, stuff from Panasonic, Hitachi and the like possibly for the cachet of having non-Chinese goods at home.

    We get a lot of Chinese tourists here in Edinburgh but not usually busloads of them, more like family groups or young couples. There’s also the semi-permanent population of Chinese students too as Edinburgh University and its satellite universities (Heriot-Watt, Napier etc.) have a top-class reputation around the world (Professor Higgs, step forward and take a bow please…)

  107. 107.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 10:34 am

    @Matt McIrvin: Maybe we’re getting more non traditional visitors from countries with rising standards of living.

    Seen a lot of East Asian students with parents visiting, and I know that South Asians travel a lot to get together with family.

    Also, I’ve heard Canadian tourism is up in South Florida. I guess folks got over the new border protocols.

  108. 108.

    benw

    December 13, 2015 at 10:35 am

    @debbie: someone should tell them that the sun sends billions of neutrinos through the earth every day, so a nearby solar array will help suck up those dangerous particles!

  109. 109.

    PaulW

    December 13, 2015 at 10:36 am

    Today is 1) laundry, 2) Bucs vs. Saints, 3) confirming my ebook upload took on Smashwords and Amazon Kindle, 4) blogging

  110. 110.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 10:39 am

    @debbie: It’s RT. Even if the guy did say that, they didn’t say it was a city commissioner, crucially. We all know that kooks show up to say kooky stuff at public comment.

    RT is Putin’s propaganda arm. In case anyone was still in doubt about that.

  111. 111.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 10:44 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    The only time I’ve been asked not to take pictures is our local malls, the fancy one is kind of puzzling since they have an Apple store and the first thing folk do after getting their new fruity phone is take pictures.

    They thought you were scoping them out to do the burglary, or, even more frighteningly, the terrorisms.

    In our post 9/11 world there’s nothing worse than making a record of what a commercial place looks like and then posting it online. I got scolded by Small Business Owners (our modern saints, amen) for trying to make a map of the street leading onto a T station in order to put it online. Heaven forfend somebody should know there’s five storefronts down until you get to the convenience store that sells T passes.

    Oh well, Google did it, too late, assholes!! Enjoy the terrorisms, oh wait, you never did get blowed up. How disappointing.

  112. 112.

    MattF

    December 13, 2015 at 10:47 am

    @debbie: This is the original news report. I have to say, Virginia doesn’t seem like a prime area for solar farms, but I’m no expert.

  113. 113.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 10:48 am

    @Poopyman: The comments are classic.

    eta: agree with the commenters who think there is a money agenda behind the city commission’s decision. if they approved 3 other projects and not this one? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

    public comment on the day of rarely sways a vote the day of. that doesn’t mean it’s pointless, but you have to understand what it does and doesn’t do. no way photosynthesis lady changed their minds.

  114. 114.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 13, 2015 at 10:50 am

    @Debbie: No, I doubt they’d manufacture something like that.

  115. 115.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 11:01 am

    @Schlemazel: We did not “lose” the middle class. We demolished it.

    Chinese spies did not make jerky white people vote for Ronnie Rayguns.

  116. 116.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 11:06 am

    @Gin & Tonic: Looks like they were so sloppy they attributed the comments to the wrong loon, though.

    Local paper says it was a retired science teacher. Cry … for the children …

  117. 117.

    Anoniminous

    December 13, 2015 at 11:08 am

    @Matt McIrvin:

    At this point it’d take something like a nuclear war or plague that destroys most of modern civilization.

    With the spread of anti-biotic resistance the “plague” part is being locked in.

  118. 118.

    opiejeanne

    December 13, 2015 at 11:16 am

    @Elizabelle: Al Jazeera had the news about the flooding in India.

    CNN was the station that had the shooting in San Berdoo at first, so we did watch it until the local stations caught up. My husband grew up there (on the north end of town), worked around the corner from the shooting for years, and his parents were in a “board and care” about two blocks away for several years. He played golf at the course across the street from the shooting, in an “Engineers and Drunken Contractors” tournament quite a few times.

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 11:45 am

    @Kay: That makes sense. The people fretting about being shot or disappeared by the authorities if they set foot in the US are mostly European or Anglospherian.

  120. 120.

    debbie

    December 13, 2015 at 11:48 am

    @MattF:

    I have a friend in North Carolina who installs them as a side business (in addition to his photography business) and it seems to be going well for him. It’s probably just a matter of time until the Roanoke ethos oozes into North Carolina.

  121. 121.

    Dolly Llama

    December 13, 2015 at 11:48 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Sounds like the Christians can dish it out but can’t take it.

  122. 122.

    ArchTeryx

    December 13, 2015 at 11:48 am

    Could someone post a link to the new pie filter? Tired of the trolls infesting the board, and my copy broke weeks ago.

  123. 123.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 11:48 am

    @Anoniminous: It takes a lot to wipe out a large fraction of the human population. Antibiotic resistance is a big problem, but plagues that big were infrequent events even when people didn’t understand what a germ was. The biggest one ever was caused by a new contact between continents that hadn’t had significant human traffic between them in thousands of years.

  124. 124.

    Redshift

    December 13, 2015 at 11:51 am

    @Another Holocene Human: No, the local science teacher was a different nutty comment. She was also worried about photosynthesis, but wasn’t the one who talked about it sucking up all the sun’s energy.

    My favorite part was this, which seems like the purest distillation of old-school conservatism:

    Bobby Mann said he watched communities dry up when I-95 came along and warned that would happen to Woodland because of the solar farms.

    “You’re killing your town,” he said. “All the young people are going to move out.”

    “Back when we were small and isolated, everything was fine, and young people didn’t move away because they had nowhere to go!”

  125. 125.

    Tom

    December 13, 2015 at 11:55 am

    @debbie: I suppose the good news is that if this is the best argument opponents can make against solar, they’re on their last legs.

  126. 126.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 11:58 am

    @Redshift: Everything was fine when locals could scam unwary travelers on the US route system, but when those interstates with their “government contracts” and their “corporate convenience stores” showed up it just killed everything! Makes me sick!

  127. 127.

    scav

    December 13, 2015 at 11:58 am

    @Another Holocene Human: Well, the one intelligent person they let move into the town must be sucking up all the neural energy from the inhabitants, no?

  128. 128.

    Svensker

    December 13, 2015 at 11:59 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    The poor manatees seem confused!

    What does a confused manatee look like?

  129. 129.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 12:00 pm

    @Elizabelle: Welcome back!!!

  130. 130.

    Mike J

    December 13, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    @MattF:

    Virginia doesn’t seem like a prime area for solar farms,

    It’s 15° south of Berlin, and Germany has lots of solar.

  131. 131.

    FlyingToaster

    December 13, 2015 at 12:04 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yes. All available space. I’m an atheist and I am sick and tired of assholes like this who give the Bill O’s of this country all the ammo they so desire.

    I’m going to have to disagree with you here; there’s two factors going on that may not be on your radar.

    1) Turnabout is fair play; this is exactly what was done to them last year.
    2) The discourse in Nebraska is an ongoing right-wing Xtianist Gish Gallop. If you want to be heard at all, you need to either come up with a way of drowning them out (good luck) or take away their soapbox, at least temporarily.

    My sib who lives there thinks they’re all insane. Like Opus Dei without any education, replaced by buzzwords.

  132. 132.

    p.a.

    December 13, 2015 at 12:06 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: The Columbian Exchange William Cronon’s Changes in the Land is another example especially of interest to New Englanders. They’ve probably been bypassed by more recent works, but were among the first of their type.

  133. 133.

    p.a.

    December 13, 2015 at 12:10 pm

    @scav: Small towns are closed systems. Everyone knows that. Exogenous inputs ruin everything.

  134. 134.

    jeffreyw

    December 13, 2015 at 12:10 pm

    Want to join the discussion?
    Feel free to contribute!

    Kittehs! Discuss.

  135. 135.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 12:12 pm

    @jeffreyw:

    The mobile site still says

    Leave a Reply

    Reply: Awwww

  136. 136.

    Mike J

    December 13, 2015 at 12:14 pm

    @Baud: I just wish I didn;t have to scroll down so far to get to the submit button. The whitespace between Name, email, and website needs to be tightened a lot, and preferably, move them ahead of the comment box.

  137. 137.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 12:17 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: Maybe they were like Bernard on Black Books. You wouldn’t want perfect strangers learning the actual location of their shop so they could come in and disturb their tranquility.

  138. 138.

    p.a.

    December 13, 2015 at 12:18 pm

    How ’bout: BJ atheists’ favorite xMas music.

    Mine:
    Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown stuff.
    Chieftains have a nice cd.
    Booker T & MG’s xmas album.
    Mahalia Jackson xmas stuff. (Like Mozart, she’s almost proof there is a higher being.
    Don’t remember artist(s), German Christmas Music of the High Renaissance.
    Alligator Record’s Blues xMas cd

  139. 139.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    @Mike J: Maybe the scrolling is the blog’s subtle way of asking, “Do you really want to post that?”

    It was probably implemented in response to some of my comments. Sorry.

  140. 140.

    FlyingToaster

    December 13, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Heaven forfend somebody should know there’s five storefronts down until you get to the convenience store that sells T passes.

    What a bunch of tools. They ought to be worrying about the Red Line Ghost Train.

  141. 141.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 12:21 pm

    @Mike J: One thing I do remember noticing is that the American Southeast has relatively little potential for wind power. I once saw a map of wind farms in the US and initially assumed that the paucity of them in the South (east of Texas) was political, but it’s not.

    Solar, though, they could do.

  142. 142.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 12:21 pm

    @srv: I agree with Sanders, but he should have pitched it as ignoring the entire Democratic side.

  143. 143.

    Amir Khalid

    December 13, 2015 at 12:23 pm

    @Mike J:
    Oh jeez. When did Alain do that? And why?

  144. 144.

    Kilgore Troit

    December 13, 2015 at 12:23 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    What ship? My wife and I just got back this morning on the Getaway. She kept tweaking me by putting on Fox News when we were in the cabin for a few minutes. What a joker she is.

  145. 145.

    Mike J

    December 13, 2015 at 12:27 pm

    @Amir Khalid: I assume it happened on green day.

    The comment editor hasn’t worked for me since the first set of changes rolled in. It won’t show as a pop up, takes over the whole screen, and edits don’t stick. Javascript is allowed (but not cross site), adblocker either on or off.

  146. 146.

    Mike J

    December 13, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    West Brom got one to stick.

  147. 147.

    PurpleGirl

    December 13, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    @jeffreyw: Baud is right… Awwwww!!!

  148. 148.

    Amir Khalid

    December 13, 2015 at 12:32 pm

    @Mike J:
    Ouch. Liverpool scored first today. Now they’ve blown a lead and gone behind.

  149. 149.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 13, 2015 at 12:34 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: …though the Appalachians in western Virginia and North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and Kentucky are actually an exception.

  150. 150.

    scav

    December 13, 2015 at 12:36 pm

    @Baud:

    You Just slip out the back, Jack
    Make a new plan, Stan
    You don’t need to be coy, Roy
    Just act like a God, Baud ….

    (formerly) 50 ways to Leave a Reply.

  151. 151.

    Mike J

    December 13, 2015 at 12:37 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Lazy Sunday for me. I woke one minute before the opening whistle, lay a-bed until the half when I put on my Seahawks t shirt and made coffee. The Hawks game starts seconds after the Liverpool game.

    After that I may relax some.

  152. 152.

    Baud

    December 13, 2015 at 12:38 pm

    @scav:

    Oh behave, scav(e).

  153. 153.

    scav

    December 13, 2015 at 12:39 pm

    @Baud: But I’d be all alone!!!!

  154. 154.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 12:44 pm

    @Svensker: About the same as a regular manatee, I would reckon.

  155. 155.

    cosima

    December 13, 2015 at 12:45 pm

    Making gallons of tomato sauce & prepping for dinner. While also being amused by this:

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1240879722596037&set=o.652511461552216&type=3&theater

    Is there a U.S. facebook equivalent that mocks the misspellings of racists/teapartiers/right-wing-loons, or is that left to bloggers?

  156. 156.

    Shlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 12:46 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:
    No doubt but that was not my point. The ugly American tourists is being replaced by the ugly Chinese one. They have the economic means to travel as well as the time. These are things we have lost ans Dt. Reagan was just a start

  157. 157.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 12:47 pm

    @FlyingToaster:

    My sib who lives there thinks they’re all insane. Like Opus Dei without any education, replaced by buzzwords.

    Actual Opus Dei is pretty fucking insane.

  158. 158.

    Shlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 12:51 pm

    @ThresherK:

    There are several’choke points’ all the well known attractions are often packed. We sceduled our days for less busy times at those. The only geyser works notover run eas in the northwest corner. Forget the name but there is a town there too.

  159. 159.

    Svensker

    December 13, 2015 at 12:52 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Me too

  160. 160.

    Mike J

    December 13, 2015 at 12:53 pm

    Liverpool equalise!

  161. 161.

    Amir Khalid

    December 13, 2015 at 12:53 pm

    @Mike J:
    Liverpool are hammering at the West Brom goal, but nothing’s going in. Feh.
    ETA: I type too slow. Double feh.

  162. 162.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 13, 2015 at 12:53 pm

    @FlyingToaster: My brother sent it to me. I was astounded at how thoroughly Charlie Baker managed to put his foot in his mouth. I’m sure the underlings told him EXACTLY what probably happened (setting something wrong and getting off the train or bus or truck is sadly not an uncommon occurrence in the transportation industry and sadly quite a few operators have died–yeah, hurr hurr Darwin Award, but it’s not very funny when it happens close to you), but Charmin’ Charlie just had to put his own spin on it!

    Finally, a governor dumber than Mitt Romney* and William Weld** combined!

    *-in all fairness, Mitt Romney wasn’t dumb, just a flaming asshole who didn’t care about Mass
    **-objectively an idiot

  163. 163.

    Kathleen

    December 13, 2015 at 12:56 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I refer to those places as “Fake Town”.

  164. 164.

    Amir Khalid

    December 13, 2015 at 1:01 pm

    A face-saving draw for Liverpool. It would have been really embarrassing to lost at home to West Brom. But it would have been a win if not for the Mignolet clanger that gave away West Brom’s first goal.

  165. 165.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm

    @ThresherK:
    The well known tourist place get jammed at the peak times. We made it to them either early or late & it was not as bad. There are several other, not as well known beautiful places that generally do not draw the same crowds but that varies. Yes, the East side of the park is the worst, Mammoth, which has a really beautiful set of attractions is in the far Northwest & was not busy at all.

    Hint you don’t see in every guide book. Twice a day the lower falls sports a huge rainbow (assuming good sunshine) There is a place on the official website that tells you when the times are, go and enjoy the view but have your camera ready because it only lasts a minute.

  166. 166.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 1:30 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:
    Yeah, I made no value statement about how we lost the middle class. I was noting that Chinese have the vacation time and the money to see Yellowstone in large numbers, something Americans gave up & St. Ronnie was only a major player in a century-long battle between workers and masters.

  167. 167.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 1:38 pm

    @Robert Sneddon:
    Having been to Europe in the 70s and having the misfortune of running into American tourists I admit the ugly tourist reputation was a fair cop. But I bet the Europeans love us a whole lot more now than they did then. Yes, American tourists are loud, boorish and provincial but we are not as pushy as the rest of the world. It took me a little while in Europe to understand that it was expected when using public transportation to use your elbows and bags to force yourself in front. I got beaten up by more than one little old lady before the light went on. It passes for polite I guess, the way we act but I’m not sure.

    The CHinese tourist we ran into were hyper aggressive but did not expect to not be jostled back so I was OK with that. They also were fearless to the point of insanity. Selfie sticks were everywhere & I saw more than a few people stand within 3 feet of wild animals, turn their backs to the animal and whip out the selfie stick for a picture. I don’t know how they didn’t end up gored.

  168. 168.

    Schlemazel

    December 13, 2015 at 1:48 pm

    @ThresherK:
    BTW I would love to go back in winter and only in part to avoid the mobs. We did a little very light hiking while there in large part because of mobility problems, the Mrs. knee (the one a student attacked with a metal desk drawer) chose this time to really act up. But she is tough & powered through some times & others (like the hike to the bottom of the upper falls) she was willing to let me do on my own. I think it would be great to snowshoe the park but it is so huge and we are so green I’d have to have help. I did a lot of camping as a scout/leader but I am not so silly as to think I am well prepared.

    One thing that made me wonder, they rent bear spray in the park. Now I understand there are bears there and had I thought of serious hiking I would have taken the standard precautions and not given it more thought. Maybe these rented repellents are just a gimmick to fleece the tourists but it shook me to think it is that serious. I really would be more afraid of a bull elk or bison than a bear out there and I bet those first two get a lot more scores than the bears but it does make me stop and think.

  169. 169.

    Elizabelle

    December 13, 2015 at 2:05 pm

    @Kilgore Troit: Twas the sister ship, the Breakaway. Loved it. First cruise ever; won’t be the last. Hope you enjoyed your days at sea as much.

  170. 170.

    Cermet

    December 13, 2015 at 2:06 pm

    Well, our best hope for a carbon free energy sources that can provide gega-watts is nuclear fusion – the energy source of the future and appears that it always will be …that is, after one failure after another over the decades or at best, vastly expensive break-even jokes (break even if one doesn’t count most of the power used by the device (lol).)

    That all said, the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) just came on line with its first plasma. This stellator is currently using helium for its first test plasma. If all goes well, after twenty years (!) in the development, this advanced stellarator will use hydrogen in January to test plasma stability and confinement with the very near real thing. Unlike ITER, this design does not operate as a pulsed system but will run for 30 minutes; also, it is modular so the design lends itself to power plant design, These two characteristics tend to make these devices better for power plants – that is, if it works. In fact, it could operate continuously which is a very important feature in any power plant.

    The question – will it offer similar or superior plasma confinement compared to tokamaks? If not, it is an expensive “yet another failure”; but if it does, it offers the basic design for a true fusion power plant prototype.

  171. 171.

    mclaren

    December 13, 2015 at 5:10 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:
    You’re really not thinking it through. Widespread antibiotic resistance means: sky-high infant mortality; women dying like flies in childbirth…no more major operations like cardiac bypass; and diabetes as a quick death sentence.

  172. 172.

    J R in WV

    December 13, 2015 at 7:41 pm

    @Shlemazel:

    We went there the week before Memorial Day – Old Faithful was being faithful, even tho few were there to watch – maybe 30% of the seats were taken. As we left Jacksons Hole on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, there was bumper to bumper RVs for miles heading north to the Hole and the two huge parks. But we missed that crowd by going earlier. Timing can matter.

    If you walk a mile on a path, you will suddenly feel alone… people don’t walk any more. There are mud pits and steamers and sprayers and smokers everywhere, although nothing really compares to the major field like below Old Faithful, which is the most active field in the world.

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