Speaking of sociopathic fetus-fetishists, maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster Himself is finally fed up with the bastards:
Nation’s Capital in Crosshairs of Huge Snowstorm
Washington, D.C., was bracing to be in the heart of a monster storm that will clobber the East Coast with snow and ice this weekend, forecasters warned. The nation’s capital could get 12 to 24 inches of snow, the National Weather Service said, calling the system “a potentially crippling winter storm.” With Washington and nearby Baltimore under a blizzard watch for Friday afternoon through late Saturday, the weather service urged people to avoid any travel if at all possible.
The storm sounds scary, and I hope our readers in the area are stocked up on food, beverages and pet treats as appropriate to ride it out. But while they are snug in their abodes, participants in the annual “March for Life” event are set to arrive in DC at roughly the same time as the howling blizzard. I hope the stalwart fetus fetishists won’t let a little bad weather stop them from their appointed rounds!
Open thread!
randy khan
This won’t be the first time that the March for Life has been zapped by a bad storm. My very first winter in D.C., there was a bad (and unexpected) storm the day of the march. One of my colleagues gave me a ride home, and I remember driving very slowly past marchers and only barely resisting the temptation to roll down her window to tell them that the storm showed that God did not agree with them. (She would have been up for it, but I didn’t want to get snow in the car.)
Now, granted, this confluence of the march and bad weather really is mostly a consequence of the march happening on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, but it still amuses me when it happens.
Baud
This just gives Republicans in Congress an opportunity to deny global warming again.
Elizabelle
Snow v. Wade!
(H/T: One of the Jezebel reader comments.)
Don’t the fetus marchers need a permit? I wonder why the DC authorities would allow them to march the day a blizzard is forecast.
Prospect is snow falling by 3:00 p or so, with several inches possible by Friday evening and the bulk of the snow and blizzard winds setting in Saturday.
Idjits.
Germy
A new full-length feature film from Key & Peele
Elizabelle
Metrobus service ends tomorrow afternoon, closed for the weekend; Metrorail closes early Friday evening. Again, no service over the weekend.
How are these fetusbats going to get out of DC? As if the police don’t have enough on their hands …
Roger Moore
@randy khan:
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that way. The storm is obviously God’s punishment for their misdeeds.
Tommy
I forgot the exact year in DC, but we got like 2.5 feet in a day.
I am out early evening walking around to see if a bar or any liquor store was open (none were) and in the distance, I see this other lone soul walking down the same middle of the road I am walking down.
We meet, he says he is out for the same reason I am. We introduce ourselves and have a good laugh about how dumb we are.
Go back to his place and maybe, just maybe smoke some of that stuff that is now LEGAL in DC. Become best friends that still, although I live many miles away from DC now, keep in contact.
Snow storms in DC don’t have to be all bad, just saying :)
Mnemosyne
Sigh. Yes, I saw on the book of faces that a friend’s sister is somehow associated with the march but decided not to have her daughter go because of the weather. She is, at least, employed at a shelter for homeless pregnant women, so she’s not 100 percent a hypocrite
gene108
As long as the power does not go out should not be too bad.
Basically stay in all day Saturday. Watch the snow come down.
Dig out Sunday.
Back to normal Monday.
eemom
I’ve never seen a grocery store as picked over as Giant was yesterday. Hope that’s not the case when I make my wine run tomorrow.
Also too, fuck the pro-coat hanger march. Hope they fucking freeze…..but I have no doubt they’ll be congratulating themselves even more on what righteous warriors of God they are to brave the blizzard to fight for the unborn. Fucktards.
Tommy
@Roger Moore: Oh and it will kick them in the ass if they get the snow fall I hear on the news is coming. I can’t speak for other major metro areas on the Eastern Corridor, but DC does not, I repeat DC does not even handle a few inches of snow very well. Kind of embarrassing how bad it is. I just always felt it might be you have so many people from throughout the country, many not used to snow, but Capital Hill becomes an island almost cut off from the rest of the area if you get a couple feet (I know from experience).
Germy
@eemom: There’s a planned parenthood in my neighborhood. Occasionally I’ll see one or two old men holding protest signs, but only in the nicest weather. I’ve never seen them in the rain or cold or if it’s snowing.
Those folks planning to march for coathangers in DC must be made of stronger stuff.
NotMax
The difference is that among the marchers, all the flakes are alike.
A Ghost To Most
@Tommy:
1996 we got a bunch of snow; maybe that is the storm you are thinking of.
i was living in Frederick Co (MD) then, It took several days to get back to functional.
Germy
Bobby Thomson
I thought this post would be about an anticipated baby boom in September 2016.
Tommy
@A Ghost To Most: Yeah that is it. That was the year I had in my head but honestly I was too lazy to Google it and didn’t want to post the wrong year and have folks bitch at me :).
Ramalama
@Tommy: What a great story.
Tommy
@Germy: LOL. There is a huge Planned Parenthood in the strip mall around the corner from where my brother lives. The highest per capita income zip code in my area. It is next to a Dicks Sportings goods. Across the street from an Outback and Target.
I’ve never seen a single person picket/protest the place, and I find that very comforting!
jharp
Anyone recall the blizzard of ’78?
Holy shit. In north central Ohio we had a semi trailer buried in a snowdrift for 13 days. With the driver in it.
Good luck out there. Don’t go out unless you have to.
Germy
@jharp: I was in Boston in ’78. It was quite a storm. I have clear memories of that time.
replicnt6
@eemom:
Totally. This is just Gawd testing them to see if they are worthy.
Germy
Any Annette Hanshaw admirers here?
Tommy
@Ramalama: Thanks. It is a good/happy story. I texted him about the snow and he said he’d have to wait to get back to me. He is a high-end property manager of a few buildings on K Street and to say he is a little busy right now, well that would be an understatement I am guessing.
Another happy/fun story for you …..
One of the buildings he manages has this huge hedge fund company in it. Think the fund that was all for war and terrible, terrible things when Bush was in office (they made headlines they didn’t want to make).
Well each 4th of July, we’d use his all access key card. Go to their top floor offices and a group of us “hippie liberals” would watch the fireworks from their conference room and roof.
I am sure all their executives were out in their Hampton estates, but I always wanted to like piss on their carpet. Of course I didn’t. But I thought about it more than once :). Instead we just enjoyed their view of the Mall.
Randy P
@eemom: I remember that pre-snowstorm panic from my MD days (Montgomery County, 80s-90s). And how the plows would only plow about 2/3 of the street, leaving a lane unplowed on each side. And nobody cleared their sidewalks, so there would be pedestrians walking in the little street that remained.
It seems it was always steaks, toilet paper, and white bread that got cleaned out of the grocery store. Oh, and milk. I could never figure out why those were the go-to products for people afraid they were about to be snowed in for 6 months from an inch falling.
The panic isn’t quite as bad here in southeast PA, but there’s plenty of stocking up going on at the grocery stores.
Randy P
@jharp: (Blizzard of 78). Not sure. I lived in Syracuse in those days. There were LOTS of blizzards. The year doesn’t stand out in my memory. Is that the year that even Buffalo’s snow equipment got overwhelmed, by about 5 feet worth?
Elizabelle
WaPost:
Some of the police and emergency personnel deployed to keep these fetusbats’ lives safe may not be able to make it home safely to their own families.
raven
The Chicago Blizzard of 1967 struck northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana on January 26, 1967 with a record-setting 23 inches (58 cm) of snow falling in Chicago and its suburbs before the storm abated the next morning. To this day, it is the worst blizzard in Chicago history.[1]
I was at Ft Knox, KY when it hit. Like the dumbass I was I had volunteered to be a “fireman” thinking it would be some cool firefighting gig. What it turned out to be was the crew that had to keep the coal fired furnaces that heated the boilers in the nasty old wood barracks going night and day. It is not what you want to be doing blizzard or no.
Mnemosyne
@jharp:
Our major Chicago blizzard from my childhood was 1979. It decided a mayoral election because the snow removal in the city was so botched. I was young enough that I just remember the massive snow forts we were able to build, with tunnels and turrets.
raven
@Mnemosyne: Jane
jharp
@Randy P:
Not sure about Buffalo but it was the mother of all blizzards.
It was my senior year in high school and it happened on a Wednesday night. Schools were closed the rest of the week and the entire next week.
As I posted earlier. A semi trailer with the driver in it was buried for 13 days. He survived by eating snow.
GregB
@raven:
Feel the Byrne!
Brachiator
This just in:
Former Oklahoma officer sentenced to 263 years in prison for sexual assaults
Daniel Holtzclaw will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted for raping and sexually assaulting eight different women while on duty
The sentence concludes a trial that became a symbol of police abuse and the marginalization of women of color. A total of 13 women – all of them black, most of them living in troubled circumstances – testified that Holtzclaw had raped or assaulted them. (In court documents, Holtzclaw is identified as Asian or Pacific Islander; in police reports, he is identified as white.) In many cases, Holtzclaw used his knowledge of their criminal histories as a means of coercion.
from The Guardian
MattF
Went to the local Giant yesterday, and I swear that a sizeable percentage of the customers were trundling huge packs of toilet paper in their shopping carts. I don’t get that, but what do I know?
In any case, I’ve got more-than-adequate amounts of food, reading material, good scotch– and my (new!) car is safely parked in the condo garage. So, I’m OK.
Tommy
@Mnemosyne: We were snowed in, as in couldn’t open our doors. I recall as a kid going out of the second story windows of the house with my dad, jumping down into the drifts with the snow shovels we got out of the garage (we had access via the basement) and starting to dig.
I just liked jumping off the roof into the driveway. I did that maybe 50 times.
Schlemazel
@Germy:
My feelings exactly
Mnemosyne
@raven:
Jane got in because Bilandic screwed up.
Germy
@Schlemazel: A white rabbit in a blizzard.
Tommy
@MattF: LOL.
Yeah and good for you. Enjoy!
I joked to this new business partner I am working with, I am nothing close to a hoarder nor do I worry I need food for the end times, but my gosh I got some stuff in my house, shit gets serious, if I have access to water I can live for a long, long, long time then these yahoos at Malheur Wildlife Refuge.
But then again I learned to buy rice in sacks of it, not the single instant “boil in bag” thing. She was Korean and dating and married an earlier roommate many years ago. Assume they’d not listen to her.
jl
If you look at the TPM blog front page today, you will see the exciting news that HRC and Sanders are each leading the other by 9 points in the latest polls.
I guess that settles it. Both Democratic candidates are winners!
Germy
I haven’t seen any polls since Sarah endorsed Trump. Did his numbers shoot through the roof? Or unchanged?
Baud
@Germy: I think it takes a few days to capture any change.
Schlemazel
@Germy:
Is that a Jefferson Airplane reference?
chopper
some of my best memories from my 20’s was living in DC when snow would sock the whole place in. trudging down to pharmacy bar for hot coffee and whiskey, lunch at kramerbooks…trying to carry home some groceries from the secret safeway down the block.
A Ghost To Most
@jharp:
In early 1977, a massive blizzard hit western NY, dropping 2-5 ft and several days of blizzard winds.
The main road out of the town I had lived in (I was in USAF in Omaha), had a 25 ft snowdrift blocking the road.
It took multiple loaders several days just to clear that one snowdrift. The only transportation for almost a week was snowmobiles.
Buffalo people are probably laughing their asses off at the DC people. I did when I lived there.
chopper
oh jeez, fuck you wordpress. let’s try again:
some of my best memories from my 20’s was living in DC when snow would sock the whole place in. trudging down to pharmacy bar for hot coffee and whiskey, lunch at kramerbooks…trying to carry home some groceries from the secret safeway down the block.
Germy
@Schlemazel: Yes.
I saw an interview with Grace Slick recently. I didn’t know she’d been in a coma.
From wikipedia:
geg6
We won’t be getting Blizzard of ’96 or ’78 snow totals here, the weather people tell me. We’re too far north here in Western PA, so at most, they expect 4-6 inches. Which is just your average winter snow storm around here. In fact, I’ll probably go to visit my sister in the middle of it in the afternoon just like every Saturday. DC and anything south of the capital will be in absolute panic mode, though. I always find that comical.
WereBear
@Tommy: ummm, Tommy, I’d have one of the moderators delete that comment?
Someone is identifiable in it?
MattF
@Schlemazel: Speaking of which, when I saw Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at the Strathmore a few years ago in their ‘The Harrow and The Harvest’ tour, this was what they did for an encore.
Schlemazel
Of course out here on the tundra blizzards are a regular enough thing most just run together. The ones that stick out:
74 – started as rain, then freezing rain then snow. I had to chip through a half inch of ice to get into my car which was frozen to the parking lot
85 – 21 inches of snow the Wed before Thanks giving & 26 inches Thanksgiving. We had just moved to a house with a long driveway that spring & I bought a snowblower really cheap that summer – a huge break!
91 – about 2 feet on Halloween night & two little kids who insisted on trick-or treat. They plowed through drifts over their heads but of course it was worth it.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
i still have pics from that one of my brothers and i standing next to 10+ foot drifts.
Pogonip
@jharp: I do! You could not drive, but you could walk on top of 2-foot snowbanks.
debbie
@Brachiator:
A rare bit of good news!
Schlemazel
@Germy: WOW! I didn’t know that. Is she doing better?
Tommy
@WereBear: No not as much as you’d think. I do appreciate you thinking about this, but it could be about 5-7 firms. And then endless number of people after that.
Schlemazel
@MattF:
Nice version, I sort of wish they had picked the tempo up at “when you just had some kind of mushroom” but its the style they are working in.
Nobody can touch Gracie on “Feed your head” but Gillian does great.
thanks for sharing
Germy
@Schlemazel: Seems okay. I honestly didn’t recognize her when I first saw her:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/singer-artist-grace-slick-attends-her-art-exhibition-at-art-news-photo/122142496
Schlemazel
@jl:
That seems appropriate since all the GOP candidates are wieners.
raven
@MattF: This is so badass.
Throw Me a Rope
Pogonip
Questions! I have questions!
1). Do you hate the pro-lifers so much because you think they are all Christians? They’re not. Or is there another reason and, if so, what is it?
2). Are there any circumstances under which you think abortion should NOT be legal? Sex selection, for example?
3). Is Thurston still wearing that bag on his head?
4). How many chickens does Betty Cracker have?
Tommy
It never ends.
That is totally BS. He is not covered by his House plan because, well he doesn’t care and/or want coverage. Waved it. This hurts the head. He has the best health care this nation offers if he and his family want it. But provided by the government, and I guess that is too much for him.
Schlemazel
@Germy:
Well, she must be about 100 now!
None of us look like we did 40 years ago
Baud
@raven: Harmony.
Cermet
@Tommy: Very nice to make good friends like that. I live deep in the countryside where we import sunlight so not looking forward to this storm (no cable or HDTV signal either. DSL is the best one can get!) If the DC-Baltimore gets 12 inches, we get 18; if they get 2 ft, our’s is 3 feet or more. Last to get plowed, too. Worse relative with this Nor’easter, with its high winds, combined with heavy snow we will likely loose power for at least a day so stocking up on gasoline for the generator, besides food. Also, no power no water (in the country one has a well & pump.)
Hate living in the wilds when massive storms strike but the quite, beauty and being surrounded by trees and wild life makes up for that – as for the ticks with lyme or Rocky Mountain spotted fever, venomous snakes and spiders, suicidal deer trying to get hit by one’s car at night/early morning does add a decided downside, to the nature aspect. Still, even people 1/2 a mile away are considered neighbors, most often friendly, and generally will help anyone who asks. So, a mixed bag but in no way superior to city life.
raven
@Baud: Here’s a nice one
Richard & Linda Thompson – A Heart Needs A Home …
Not so much a harmony but still. . .
Germy
@Pogonip:
1). Do you hate the pro-lifers so much because you think they are all Christians? No
They’re not. Or is there another reason and, if so, what is it? I don’t like the way they harass women going in for medical care
2). Are there any circumstances under which you think abortion should NOT be legal? Sex selection, for example? No one should abort a fetus because of gender. But has that ever happened?
3). Is Thurston still wearing that bag on his head? Unlikely. But anything’s possible at Cole’s place.
4). How many chickens does Betty Cracker have? Don’t know. They won’t stay still when I try to count them.
Pogonip
@MattF: Yes, but (another question) do you have enough toilet paper?
Target had one of those specials where you have to buy 100,000 rolls to get the sale price. We’ll NEVER run out. Over the last 88 years my father has saved enough to put him in the top 10%. How he did it I do not know because he does not approve of sales. He wasn’t too happy about Mount Charmin but I noticed he’s using it!
JanieM
@jharp, @Germy — there were two separate off the charts blizzards in 1978, the one in Ohio and the one in the northeastern US.
I was living just outside Boston. We were sent home from work mid-afternoon on (Wikipedia says it was) a Monday in February. The snow seemed light at that point but was blowing horizontally, a big clue about what was coming. We shoveled snow at roughly our shoulders the next morning. Driving was banned for a week except for emergency vehicles and food deliveries etc. I’ve lived for almost 66 years in snow country and that, along with the ice storm of ’98 in Maine, was the most memorable storm of my life.
The Ohio storm was in January. My grandma was still alive then and said it was the worst storm she had ever lived through. She was evacuated from her home, along with a lot of other people, because of the expected winds.
[P.S. Random lurker, commenting for perhaps the first time. I hope the links work.]
Germy
@Schlemazel: She looks great. Probably only about 70 or so. The older I get, the younger that seems.
geg6
@Pogonip:
1) I hate them because they are hypocritical control freak panty sniffers who should mind their own business.
2) I wouldn’t do it for sex selection but what other people do is none of my business. It’s theirs and theirs alone. (I should probably mention here that I’ve had an abortion and know dozens of other women who have also. Never considered sex selection in my decision and no one I know did either.)
3) Probably not, but I’m sure he’s found other trouble to get into. I know this because his sister is the same way.
4) I’m curious about that, too.
Schlemazel
@Pogonip:
the answers, in no particular order
no
yes
a bunch
place wherever it make you happy (note some answers may be used more that once)
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
On the ledger’s plus side, maybe a few of the bastards emerge from snowbanks during meltoff, still clutching their signs.
Mnemosyne
@Pogonip:
Speaking for myself, I hate the forced birthers because they’re either stupid people who have no life experience to understand why someone might need an abortion, or they’re assholes with no empathy who don’t give a shit about other people. Their “Christianity” is usually about a millimeter deep, but their hatred of women goes all the way to the bone.
I don’t think we need additional laws about abortion — the trimester system of increasing restrictions as you get closer to birth works just fine. Sex selection is a bad idea, but I don’t think we need to outlaw it until it seems to becoming the norm here.
MattF
@Pogonip: I actually restocked my toilet paper supply last week, well before all the snow predictions. I suppose one could argue that my toilet paper restocking was what prompted the coming blizzard. Just sayin’.
debbie
@raven:
Dick though he is, Richard Thompson is a great musician. I saw him in Boston in 1971 with Fairport Convention.
Germy
@Mnemosyne: I don’t like “pro-life” candidates and politicians because most of them are cynical hypocrites obviously pandering to the religious right and they wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to obtain an abortion for a family member (or mistress) if they wanted.
Schlemazel
@raven:
Love them. They also do one of my favorite bits on Prairie Home Companion.
Marvin and Mavis Smiley and the Manhattan Valley Boys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hENekY0u-lA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJDXEuBHAc8
MomSense
The last two years we have had snowstorms where we have had to go out of the house through a window and shovel our way to a door. My kids did enjoy jumping off the roof but I was too chicken to try it.
raven
@debbie: Ah that must have been something. I saw Mose there that summer along with the Allmans free on the Commons.
Mose Allison – Everybody’s Crying Mercy –
Schlemazel
@Schlemazel: damn, forgot about naked links
@raven:
Love them. They also do one of my favorite bits on Prairie Home Companion.
Marvin and Mavis Smiley and the Manhattan Valley Boys
Broadway Bluegrass
Down Home Divas
Tommy
@Mnemosyne: Amen. I can’t imagine any situation if got a women pregnant I’d suggest abortion. Never would happen. But not my choice. So that means if I care about this, I don’t know I need to talk to the lady I have sex with. We use protection. This isn’t rocket science.
dedc79
@chopper: secret safeway is now a super fancy/expensive supermarket. Genes garden market or something like that
Schlemazel
@Schlemazel: damn, forgot about naked links
@raven:
Love them. They also do one of my favorite bits on Prairie Home Companion.
Marvin and Mavis Smiley and the Manhattan Valley Boys
Broadway Bluegrass
Schlemazel
@Schlemazel: and apparently multiple links are an issue FYWP
@raven:
Love them. They also do one of my favorite bits on Prairie Home Companion.
Marvin and Mavis Smiley and the Manhattan Valley Boys
Down Home Divas
SiubhanDuinne
@jharp:
Yup. I lived in Flint, Michigan at the time. That was a brutal storm, and I lived only a block from work.
boatboy_srq
@Pogonip: @Germy:
1). Do you hate the pro-lifers so much because you think they are all Christians? They’re not. Or is there another reason and, if so, what is it? No. Frankly they’re among the most unChristian people I’ve ever met. Xtian, but hardly Christian. Please stop lumping us with those apostate heretics. I just fundamentally disagree with their insistence on subjugating women, on controlling others, and especially since they’re “pro-life” posturing is crap or they’d be doing a LOT more for expectant mothers (maternity leave? healthcare?) and for kids (SNAP, TANF, Head Start, etc).
2). Are there any circumstances under which you think abortion should NOT be legal? Sex selection, for example? Like Germy said: sex selection should be an inhibitor – but since AFAIK (and AFABJK) it hasn’t happened…
3). Is Thurston still wearing that bag on his head? Maybe. It IS Cole’s place.
4). How many chickens does Betty Cracker have? Five
debbie
@raven:
I went to the Sunset on the Commons a few times when they were free. Memory’s kind of foggy, but I know I saw Poco and I believe I saw CSNY. A different world.
Betty Cracker
@A Ghost To Most: My husband is from Buffalo and remembers that blizzard. He was a kid at the time, and his dad was a fireman. He said when the plows finally came, they dumped the collected snow in a nearby park, and it took until July for the resulting snow mountains to melt.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: Swim?… Can we watch? >:->
srv
It’s ok when Mother Nature shuts down government, but worse than Hitler when Congress does it.
God is just trying to help us out, limiting the damage poor leaders can do. We can rest better knowing that help is in the way.
boatboy_srq
@jharp: I wasn’t in the area for it, but my family have horror stories of what New England went through – including a macabrely amusing tale Dad used to tell about a certain police precinct getting a report from the officer at the scene about the floating beach house…
boatboy_srq
@Tommy: Where I was a young’un, the city stopped when we got six feet of snow. DC seems to stop at six flakes of snow…
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
I love that story. What a great way to meet a good friend.
My father met his lifetime best friend in 1940. He was waiting for a bus in Chicago (suburbs, I think) on one side of the street, and began whistling a somewhat complicated passage of a Mahler symphony. Mind you, this was years before the “Mahler boom” — hardly anyone in this country had even heard of Gustav Mahler, let alone knew his symphonies. Anyhow, Norm, waiting for his own bus across the street, recognised the tune and chimed in with his own whistle. One or other of them crossed the street, they introduced themselves, and were tight friends until my dad died in 1995. Norm was best man in my parents’ wedding; my dad returned the compliment some years later when Norm got married.
You never know what’s going to happen when you let a couple of musicians loose.
Germy
@srv: Have you heard anything about Trump’s poll numbers? Since the Palin endorsement, I mean.
Mike J
@SiubhanDuinne:
Fucking hipsters ruin everything.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: Last winter’s Boston snow piles were around until the summer. Not a blizzard, just one storm after another with no melting in between.
boatboy_srq
@JanieM: Welcome!
My folks were north of you. Damage was NASTY. I think there were a couple entire communities washed out, and Kennebunk Beach lost a landmark hotel.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
“Fetusbats.”
:-)
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
My brother was at Knox in late ’65-early ’66.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
That was the Jane Byrne blizzard, yes? I was long gone from Chicago by then, but remember reading about it.
ETA: Missed Raven at #30 and GregB at #32.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
It was Bilandic’s blizzard. Byrne got elected thanks to it.
Pogonip
@Germy: If politicians answered questions as you do–succinct and logical–the nation would be better off.
2). Yes, China, for one, has a huge shortage of women because of sex-selection abortion.
3). I fear that the bag came off and Cole fell over it.
Pogonip
@Mnemosyne: I am pretty sure the mayor of DC will not be re-elected.
dr dave chemist
@jharp: That was my first year in college in northwest Ohio. The worst part was that there was no running water–imagine living in a guys’ dorm with toilets that wouldn’t flush for three or four days. At least beer was legal for 18-year-olds back then.
The year before, during my senior year in high school, we had a prolonged sub-zero cold snap, and because of the “energy crisis” they closed the schools for at least a week so they wouldn’t have to heat them (and maybe so kids wouldn’t be out waiting for school buses in the deep freeze?).
When I moved to the East Coast and heard the locals talk about the Blizzard of ’78, I initially assumed it was the same storm as the one in Ohio–it took me many years of living here and thrashing through the memories to figure out that the timing wasn’t right and that they were two separate incidents.
Brachiator
@Pogonip:
Why would I hate pro-lifers?
Why should I care what their religions might be?
RE: Are there any circumstances under which you think abortion should NOT be legal? Sex selection, for example?
Why would it be my business?
Also, I might consider a sex selection abortion to be unethical, but still not illegal. Can you understand the distinction?
Thurston and chickens: others have answered the question.
JMG
In the winter of 2013-2014, my daughter worked at a liquor store in our suburban Boston town. A big storm of nearly two feet of snow was forecast and did in fact occur. She reported that the day before the storm, the store’s dollar volume in sales was higher than for the day before Thanksgiving, topped only by Christmas Eve.
In emergencies, people prioritize.
PS: Winter was so horrible here last year that even though all forecasts say Boston will have minimal snow totals, three inches max, people don’t trust the good news at all.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
I believe it was at least mid-June in Boston last year for the last of the snow to melt (AL or Tom Levenson or someone can probably confirm or correct).
Pogonip
@Brachiator: Yes, thank you, I know the difference between illegal and unethical.
Schlemazel
@Pogonip: well then maybe China should outlaw abortion for sex selection, it is not a problem here
And, if you think about it, it won’t be a problem in CHina for long either, it will correct itself.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike J:
It was Lenny’s fault.
Except my dad and his friend Norm met even before Bernstein took the Philharmonic by storm. Mahler was really very obscure in 1940 (in this country) and it’s one of the niftier coincidences of history — personal history, at any rate — that you would even find two people who were familiar enough with his music to whistle it on the street, and almost astronomical odds against both of them being in the same place at the same time. Even today, with Mahler much better known, it would be unlikely. Three-quarters of a century ago? Staggering odds.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks. I knew Byrne was involved some way but didn’t remember the chronology.
Mike J
@SiubhanDuinne: July 14
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle:
What if the District doesn’t deploy those personnel, and advise the protesters that their little snowflakefest is AYOR? That’s not preventing them from marching…
A Ghost To Most
@Betty Cracker:
Yea, I missed it, but the pictures are amazing. My step brother was driving a main road (route 104) in blinding snow, and t-boned a sheriff that was stopped across the road to close it. The sheriff cars were white in those days; my step brother swears he never saw it until he hit it.
Denver winters are delightful in comparison
MomSense
@boatboy_srq:
We lived very close to that hotel. The ocean was in our garage. As a kid, I thought it was great. The ocean flooded our street and froze! We had 2 weeks of no school and I could ice skate to my best friend’s house. I’m pretty sure my parents were terrified thinking we would all be killed in the storm but I had no idea how bad it was.
Steeplejack
I’m picking up my friend at the East Falls Church Metro station at 9:30 tonight to finish the boxes-from-storage run that got snowed out last night. I have checked the radar to make sure there’s not a cloud in a hundred-mile radius, otherwise I would not leave the bunker. Once this is done, I am cocooning for the weekend.
slag
@Mnemosyne:
If someone wants to abort a fetus based on its sex, I’m pretty ok with not making that person having a baby of that sex. In fact, I’d prefer if they didn’t. If I can’t trust a woman to manage a pregnancy, I really can’t trust her to manage a child.
boatboy_srq
@MomSense:
It was on our front lawn. I remember neighborhoods up and down the coast where the beachfront homes lost their ground floors. You’re very lucky that a flooded garage was all you experienced, as we were that a salted lawn was all we had to deal with.
My Google-fu isn’t what it should be: I can’t find the name of the hotel. I just remember it was big.
gelfling545
@Randy P: 1977 in Buffalo. Somewhat more than 5 feet & a useless mayor. Quite a mess. Then last year south Buffalo & towns south thereof got about 7 feet. I live in the northeast section of the city. We got about an inch. Pictures of the divide were interesting. No gradual increase. Just no snow/all the snow.
MomSense
@boatboy_srq:
They kept M&Ms in a jar in the lobby. I was a frequent visitor. All I can think of is the Seaside but that could be an inn that is there now.
eemom
@chopper:
omg, I do believe I know that Safeway! I too lived in deecee in my 20’s, in an apartment building at the top of the hill from the Washington Hilton and the elementary school beside it…intersection of 19th Street and Columbia Road. Many, many were the times that I hauled groceries from that Safeway up that hill, on my way home from work.
eemom
wtf did I say to get in moderation?? I was responding to chopper about living in DC. [sulk]
eta: maybe it was the reference to being in my 20’s….maybe the very concept of such a thing blew some internet gasket.
Pogonip
@Schlemazel: The last I saw on the problem, they were trying to train people to want daughters as much as they want sons, with, as you may imagine, limited success. The two-child policy may help. I don’t know if the Chinese government ever decided what to do with all those extra guys or not. The traditional way of dealing with a surplus of restless, rootless, woman-less young men is to ship them off to war somewhere, but that won’t work for China. They can’t even go to war with Taiwan these days without unwanted side effects. I am very glad it’s not my problem.
Pogonip
@eemom: I don’t know, I can’t see it. It’s in moderation.
JMG
@SiubhanDuinne: ..This is not strictly correct. The areas down by the docks where they piled the snow had one mountain of snow/debris that didn’t all melt until July. But the real snow was gone by late March-early April.
A Ghost To Most
@gelfling545:
the wind was coming across Lake Erie. You must be in the snow (west wind) shadow of the Canadian side.
I grew up along Lake Ontario; our big snows came with the north wind.
Cermet
@Pogonip: The research says that isn’t the main cause of China’s small difference in female/male births – the shorted is real but due to nature – a parasitic organism that causes more spontaneous abortions of female fetus’ in China. In India, however, selective abortions ARE the main cause of that effect and it is causing a major drop in female births compared to male. Still, is no reason to outlawing abortion; India outlaws (not all states follow this) only sonic imaging so the sex cannot be determined. If an abortion is then needed it is done but the sex is not known – the law is worked around by some illegal places but generally when enforced, removes this issue preventing typical idiots from trying to control woman’s bodies.
Mike in NC
Having previously lived in the MD and VA suburbs of DC for 20 years, I can verify that two inches of snow can paralyze the entire area for days.
Pogonip
@Cermet: Pfft. I was thinking “Is it India, China, or both?”. And since I was too lazy to look it up, I picked the wrong one. Although I swear not too long ago I saw a news story about China encouraging the citizenry to accept daughters. When I’m not so tired I will research it; the parasite thing has me curious.
Pogonip
@Cermet: I guess India can always ship all those surplus guys off to war with Pakistan.
Mnemosyne
@slag:
Any tendency towards sex selection in the US can probably be handled with public education, if needed.
And I never understand the people who insist that someone who’s too irresponsible to use birth control shouldn’t be allowed to get an abortion. What makes them think that people who can’t handle contraception would be capable of caring for a completely dependent and helpless infant? It’s way harder to take care of an infant than it is to take a pill or use a condom.
Poopyman
@Mike in NC: We had about an inch yesterday, that while predicted, was underestimated. Result – hundreds of accidents and folks spending over 8 hours on their drive home.
The panic shopping was mostly done yesterday, and while restocking the stores was delayed by yesterday’s clusterfuck, everything should be back on the shelves tomorrow.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne:
That may be the truest sentence ever written.
Mike J
@Mnemosyne:
@Poopyman:
Don’t cross the streams, or you wind up with very different conversations.
SiubhanDuinne
@JMG:
I was thinking of the mountain where they piled all the snow. I arrived in Boston on about the 16th of July and it was a topic of conversation amongst my friends.
louc
So I was just watching Weather Underground, and they interviewed some college students in from Cedar Rapids, Iowa for the March for Life. They’re leaving at 4 p.m. on Friday instead of Saturday. I hope the blizzard bites them in the ass on their way home. I live on Capitol Hill and hate those forced birthers who come town.
First of all, the vast majority are bored high school kids who are obviously here because their Catholic schools rewarded them with a day off. Second, they are among the worst protesters as far as their treatment of the city. They litter indiscriminately and don’t spend any money in Washington, DC because they basically ride a bus in and out on the same day. And their buses ILLEGALLY park in my neighborhood and use residential streets that have clear signs saying no buses or heavy trucks allowed.
And DC has to spend $$ not reimbursed by Congress to take care of them.
In good news, the DC Abortion Fund has a fundraiser called #SnowvWade going where people can contribute money for every inch of snow that falls in DC!
Jeffro
I was thinking about picking up some supplies today, then realized, if we had to, we could live off of our pantry for two weeks easy. The kiddos might not be happy with some of my concoctions – Spam-balaya, anyone? – but we’d be fine.
Feathers
@louc: Talking with a guy who works for DC Metro, he says what terrifies their cops isn’t the criminals, druggies and gangbangers (his terms), it’s the Christian youth groups. “High on their own supply,” no sense for their own safety and completely beyond anyone being able to get their attention. He says someday a pile of them are going to take a tumble onto the third rail.
As to the snow, I moved to Boston, so I’m calling the folks and offering advice. Ha! It has been a joy watching the snow get downgraded from 11+ inches to “light” over the course of the week. And I am not in anyway going to feel bad about it.
Ramalama
@Tommy: I totally get the wanting to piss on carpet. I used to work on a college campus, a few buildings away from the new 1/2 billion dollar Koch brother building (forget which one). To fund cancer research. Because he’d had cancer. So, science for me but not for thee, I guess.
It took considerable energy to hold off on throwing eggs at the building.
TS
@Germy:
Why not? Every woman has the right to choose. Why she chooses is her decision. What is a valid reason to some may be an invalid reason to others. As soon as we reject even ONE reason for an abortion, we are playing at being god.
Shana
@Tommy: Haven’t read all through the thread yet, but there’s usually a huge snowball fight at Dupont Circle. I’m way to old for it, and live all the way out in Virginia, but it’s usually covered on the local news and it looks like a blast
.@MattF: And I thought I’d held off snow this year by buying an all wheel drive car.
As an aside, my husband is continuing his streak of being out of town on business whenever we get a big snow storm. We have a driveway that’s about 70+ feet long, with a big area at the top by the garage, so it takes a long time, and a lot of effort to shovel it. At least younger daughter and her boyfriend are planning to weather out the storm at our house instead of his apartment, so at least I’ll have help shoveling this one.
Heading out tomorrow morning to get a few things at the grocery that I missed, and then get some extra bottles of citrus vodka and bourbon. Just in case.
danielx
@Tommy:
Yep yep, that was it. The spousal unit and I were out there trying to find a house – corporate relocation horror story, too long to go into. We were staying at a Hyatt in Reston, which is not a bad place to be snowed in if you’re eating, drinking and sleeping on the company dime. We had a basic rental sedan, had to find a house, I called the Hertz office we had rented from (in Crystal City) and asked if we could trade for a four wheel drive vehicle, they had an all wheel drive van and I said I’d take it. We were out looking at houses and seeing the sky get darker all day long, and I called the office at 5 (from Manassas area) and said I’m coming for the van. They said no problem, but we just had a brand new Jeep Cherokee come in, would you like that instead? That would be a large fuckin’ YES…got there five minutes before closing, snag the Cherokee, head back to Reston to get dinner. It started snowing while we were in some Mexican place and kept snowing for the 36 hours. We were staying on the fifth floor, and looking out the window we could have been on first floor or fifteenth – just solid white going by. Sat in the bar and watched the snowdrifts moving up the window…there was a wedding party of Jerseyites there who were highly exercised about the whole deal, especially one poor couple with an infant who hadn’t packed a gross of Pampers. I overheard the conversation – this was after snow had stopped and roads were kinda/sorta cleared – and offered to take them to the closest open grocery to get more and the guy was absolutely shocked. Evidently offering help to desperate total strangers is not a very common practice in whatever area of New Jersey these folks were from….
Mnemosyne
@Jeffro:
If you have eggs, sausage, canned pineapple, and leftover plain rice, you can make a really good island-style stir fry with that Spam. I made it for a luau-themed potluck at work and people went nuts for it. Plus it makes a gigantic amount, so you can eat it for days if necessary.
NotMax
@Shana
Parental house had a long gravel driveway. Royal PITA to shovel that while attempting to not remove more than a little bit of gravel.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Cermet: Hey! Welcome to my life. It’s always funny when people don’t understand when I say we have to worry about having no water in these events, and then I explain why. The flood of 2008 here in eastern Iowa was something in that regard – had relatives from the city living with us because, thanks to our generator, we had water when they didn’t.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@louc: This made me laugh, since I live in same town for some 40 years now, and can even sort out which college they’re from – but I can say, they are so, so in the minority here in ultra-blue Cedar Rapids.
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne: See, this is what I mean (and thanks for the recipe btw!): just a few off-the shelf ingredients/boxes/cans and folks are like, omg, more please??!?
Spambalaya: a box of Zatarain’s jambalaya rice mix, a can of lite Spam, and a can of fire-roasted garlic tomatoes. Unbelievably awe-SOME!
PurpleGirl
Thread may be dead but I gotta say it: Did no New Yorkers read the thread… No mention of how a snow storm in NYC destroyed the political career of John V. Lindsay. Manhattan was cleaned but the roads of the outer boroughs, especially Queens weren’t. That storm was in February 1969.
I remember another storm (I think it was a different storm) when I was in high school and was an aide in Biology Dept. lab. It was a Friday and they sent us home early from school. I stayed behind to help get the books, models, and charts back to the lab room from the classrooms. One teacher who I knew lived in Rockland County tried to keep me from working and told to go home and I told her “you can’t leave till this stuff gets back and you don’t know where the stuff goes. I walk home no matter what time I leave. You have to drive, so let me just get stuff back and then you can leave too.” (The other aides who used buses to get home had left already.) One teacher who grew up a few blocks from me came in and he backed me up.
Bob In Portland
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/01/21/kerry-pressed-for-mh-17-evidence/