Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

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

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

This fight is for everything.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You are here: Home / Climate Change / How about that weather? / Monday Morning Open Thread: Vintage Year

Monday Morning Open Thread: Vintage Year

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On a more serious topic, keep our Left-Coast friends & associates in your thoughts…


***********

Apart from that, what’s on the agenda for the (holiday-for-some) day?

Reader Interactions

137Comments

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    For those who enjoy humor skewed a bit on the dark side, a pleasant low-key Mexican movie found on Netflix: Elivira, I’d Give You My Life But I’m Using It. Solid B+.

    Trailer

  5. 5.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: We ain’t gonna be dry out here, we’ve already had 16 3/4 inches of rain this year(2017); the average is 14.95″. The north is taking the hit for the next couple of days, we’re just getting the tail end down here in the Southland.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. So all that rain you left coasters get will taste like soy sauce.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Who knew a former Navy SEAL could be such a coward:

    But now, after offering minimal opportunities for the press to ask him questions in his first six weeks in charge, the Republican chief executive is beginning to complain about the coverage he is receiving from the news media.

    “Nobody [in the media] is going to write a story about how Sen. [Jamilah] Nasheed and I are working together, or how Sen. [Kiki] Curls has given my administration names and recommendations for positions. Nobody is writing about the work that we’re doing with the Black Legislative Caucus to advance issues that are important to all Missourians,” Greitens said at an NAACP-sponsored event in the Capitol on Feb. 14.

    After he vented, Greitens was surrounded by reporters asking for more information. The governor left without answering questions.

    The Post-Dispatch has since made multiple requests to the administration for details on the topics he said the media had ignored. There has been no response.

  17. 17.

    Quinerly

    Good Morning all! Thanks for all the well wishes and comments yesterday after I left the thread and it was dead when I got back to it. Special shout outs to dexwood and yarrow. Dexwood, I’ll email you a bit later this AM. Drove over from Albuquerque to Santa Fe to say good bye to friends. The 10 days divided between Albuquerque and Santa Fe have been too short. Out of here in the morning. Hopefully hit Gallop for breakfast, then on to Window Rock and to Ganado. From there I’ll drop back down on I 40 for a night in Holbrook (or depending on timing go a bit farther on 264 and drop down to Holbrook on 77) and the next morning in the Petrified Forest…I think it’s fitting to be in the Petrified Forest on Wed. It’s my 56th birthday! Open to any suggests as I make my way to Cameron and the Grand Canyon later in the week. Need a breakfast Gallup suggestion?. Thanks for all the interest. Almost 2000 miles and two weeks down, 1 month to go!

  18. 18.

    Hal

    While it has received relatively little attention in the US press, the White House has been pursuing an open policy of destabilizing the European Union and using the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU to pry the EU apart with a series of bilateral trade agreements with the US. Whether this is feasible is another question; this is the intent. Why the White House – specifically President Trump and Steve Bannon – would want to do this is an important question. The fact that this aim lines up perfectly with Russian foreign policy goals speaks for itself. But it can equally plausibly be explained by the desire to destroy internationalist, liberal and largely cosmopolitan institutions to pave the way for a new global order based on competing blood and soil nationalisms. The US government is now in the hands of a faction or party the rise of which much of our statecraft has spent almost seventy years trying to prevent from coming to power in the states of Europe.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-american-experiment-in-exile

  21. 21.

    Quinerly

    Can’t link very well on my Microsoft smarty pants phone and I apologize if someone has already thrown it out in a thread…Check out “A Big Shoe Just Dropped” over at Josh Marshall’s place. I’m a bit behind on heavy news, Ozarkhillbilly. Spent yesterday, eating perhaps some of the best calamari with fried jalapeno peppers, flash fried avocados, and braised brussel sprouts and bacon. Walked it off at the Wheelwright Museum and another long walk with Poco on Museum Hill. I may suck more and more each day, Ozarkhillbilly. ? If not, I’m truly trying…..

  23. 23.

    zhena gogolia

    So early this morning I got depressed. What’s our best-case scenario? We get rid of POTUS soonest. But what then? Don’t his snarling mobs riot?

  24. 24.

    Patricia Kayden

    @OzarkHillbilly: Fake news! All Conservatives are hugely brave. Bigly. Look at how brave Trump is — he only goes to rallies attended by his wildest supporters. Talk about courage!!

  30. 30.

    Patricia Kayden

    @zhena gogolia: ((zhena goglia)). How would we get rid of POTUS? I can’t see Republicans impeaching him since they are getting everything they want from him right now. I guess he’d leave if something really embarrassing was revealed about him. We’ll have to see. Hang in there. We’re going to keep resisting this idiot and keep the pressure on Republicans as a whole. I am very pleased with all the protests and town hall meeting confrontations.

  31. 31.

    frosty

    @zhena gogolia: yes, according to a FB post that a HS acquaintance liked, the deplorables riot if T is removed. Not sure about death in office. They’ll probably claim he was only mostly dead and riot anyway.

  32. 32.

    opiejeanne

    We’re getting more rain and snow in the PNW. Some of our roads are collapsing but nothing quite as dramatic as that photo of I-15 in the Cajon Pass where the fire truck and a semi fell off the road when the freeway collapsed.
    We’ve gotten nearly 8 inches of rain so far this month, and normal is just under 2 inches for the whole month.

    Seattle has a ridiculous problem that should have been fixed 50 years ago, but hey, they’ve got 13 years left before they have to route storm drain water separately from sewage. As a result of the extra rain we’ve been getting, the West Point Sewer treatment plant has been overwhelmed and has been running at half capacity for weeks, dumping raw sewage into the sound. Fun times.

  33. 33.

    efgoldman

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Possible Trump Tweet: “What rain? It’s all in your lefty heads. What sad weak people!”

    I just hope that California has the resources (people and $$) to deal with whatever happens. Are we sure there’s even a functional FEMA now? Is there an agency head?

  34. 34.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    How was my neighborhood’s dog parade? I saw some great pictures posted on the Book of Faces. Weather looked fantastic in Soulard. If you makes you feel any better, it rained in Albuquerque and was cold and overcast in Santa Fe. In related news, I got a sweet deal on a beautiful vintage Fred Harvey bracelet.?

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    @Immanentize:

    Hoping for a successful surgery and speedy recovery. Your comment made me think of the Ramones song I Wanna Be Sedated.
    @zhena gogolia:

    And even if we go get rid of 45 we still have multiple layers of horrible to deal with. Looking at Dworkin’s twitter feed gave me a bit of hope as it seems many Republicans took campaign contributions from Russians.

    But if the corruption is that wide who will take it on? At this point I want the whole stinking GOP to ho down.

  39. 39.

    laura

    @rikyrah: Good morning Rikyrah.
    Not much sleep this night with the wind and rains. Fingers crossed for a storm that keeps moving east and not settling over Sacramento and the Valley.
    Martin has put the fear in me but good with the weather updating.

  40. 40.

    efgoldman

    @opiejeanne:

    FEMA was involved with the evacuation of Oroville, so it’s still functioning.

    Good. Means that some Obama people are still in place. I’m at least marginally surprised. I guess president Bannonazi hasn’t got around to them yet.

  41. 41.

    Lapassionara

    Good morning, everyone. Frosty, so what if the Trmpsters riot? I would prefer that to the result we will see if Bannon gets the world he wants.

    Going to Blunt’s office tomorrow with what I hope are a few thousand of my new best friends.

    And Rock on,Quinerly. What a great trip.

  42. 42.

    efgoldman

    @Amir Khalid:

    For everyone’s ponderation, an important philosophical question.

    Hey Amir! Welcome back to the new American nuthouse!
    Intro paragraph of the story says the light bulb is a British invention. Does that mean the Edisonian invention goes down the same history hole as George Washington and the cherry tree?

  44. 44.

    Shalimar

    @Patricia Kayden: They aren’t really getting everything they want from Trump right now, though most of that is because Congress is bogged down with nominees and making failed attempts to compromise on how much healthcare to destroy. There have been a handful of executive orders and lots of drama, but this has been the least productive first 100 days ever.

    We assume Republicans will get everything they want, because they control Congress and the presidency, but it has not started happening yet. With Democrats and the Freedom Caucus jamming things up from both ends, it might never happen.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Best t-shirt at the Krewe of Barkus Parade yesterday:

    “In dog beers I’ve only had one.”

  48. 48.

    Immanentize

    @MomSense: thanks! This is the surgeon’s third chance to cut out a persnickety polyp. Three’s the charm they say!

    I saw the Ramones twice when I was younger. They were really bad live. Nobody played with anyone else. It that was part of their charm, I guess. “I Just Wanna have Something to Do” is still a favorite

  49. 49.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    @45….sweet! Sarah Jane and Sam’s pictures were great. It was the first parade for almost year old Khan…beautiful Chow. He did great she said. My Poco (and Leo before him) doesn’t parade. Even the thought of trying makes me cringe.

  50. 50.

    Chet Murthy

    @Lapassionara: I’m with you on that. B/c if Bannonazi gets what he wants, eventually there’ll be civil war. I can’t see California giving up its Latino and Asian immigrant populations without a fight. So if they send in the deportation force, it’ll start with civil disobedience, and if they don’t back off (and let’s assume they don’t) it’ll spiral into violent insurrection.

    I still have enough faith in our country, that I expect the owners to send Dampnut packing, before he can wreak that kind of damage.

  52. 52.

    Eric S.

    My friend a coworker is working remotely this week. From Los Angeles. It was warmer and drier here than there this weekend. Stay safe left coasters.

  53. 53.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quinerly: It was fine. A lot more people than I remember the last time I went to one, but much more low key and child friendly than THE parade. Lots of dogs everywhere, one cat, one pony, one chicken, 2 goldfish. Editing pics to send to Anne now for a morning thread.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    Kansas’ Republican-led Legislature approved a big increase in personal income taxes on Friday to help balance the state budget, defying Republican Gov. Sam Brownback by seeking to roll back his signature tax cuts.
    The state Senate passed a bill that would generate more than $1 billion over two years. The 22-18 vote came a day after the state House passed the measure, which sends the bill to Brownback. He has strongly criticized the bill as harmful to working-class families and small businesses, and he said he wouldn’t sign it. But he has stopped short of saying he would veto it, and he could allow the bill to become law without his signature.
    The Legislature’s action sets up an unusual confrontation between the Republican-controlled Legislature and term-limited governor from the same party. Neither chamber gave the bill the two-thirds majority vote it would need to overcome a veto.
    Kansas has struggled to balance its budget since Republican lawmakers slashed income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback’s urging. Even some GOP voters concluded last year that the tax-cutting experiment had been a bust as an economic stimulus, and two dozen of the governor’s conservative allies lost their seats, giving Democrats and moderate Republicans more power.
    The state faces projected budget shortfalls totaling nearly $1.1 billion through June 2019. Even with a tax increase, lawmakers would need to pass some stop-gap measures, such as internal government borrowing, to allow the state to pay its bills through June 30, because new revenue can’t be raised that quickly.

    It went so well they’re rolling it out nationally:

    Presidential nominee Donald Trump has outlined a revised tax cut plan, and Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore — along with long-time tax-cut advocates Lawrence Kudlow and Arthur Laffer, among others — advised him on the changes to make to his original proposal.The Tax Policy Center estimated that Mr. Trump’s original plan would lose almost $10 trillion over ten years. In various interviews, Moore has stated that the revised plan will lose considerably less revenue, and he indicated that will come in part through “dynamic scoring” — estimating the extent to which a tax cut will boost economic growth and, in turn, reduce its revenue loss because individuals and businesses will have more taxable income than otherwise and thus pay more taxes.[ Moore, whom the Trump campaign identified on August 5th as one of its economic advisors, has claimed the Trump tax proposals will have very large economic effects.[6]
    But those who will evaluate the revised Trump tax cut proposal should keep something in mind: Moore and Laffer were principal architects of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s massive tax cuts, and their predictions that those tax cuts would spur an “immediate” Kansas economic boom have proved strikingly inaccurate.

  57. 57.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Cool. A friend posted one of the goldfish…on a leash. That was such a sweet little parade in the beginning when we got it started with Gary and Clementine’s. Doesn’t seem right not to have Clem’s on that corner anymore. Saw pics of Bob Case playing…he’s been playing since the very first one. Love my neighborhood! Just had to start taking a break from it during Mardi Gras season. A lot of us got really burned when the corporate powers that be got their fingers into it. I can carry a grudge. You might have heard that about me.

  59. 59.

    Eric S.

    @Immanentize: to paraphrase anot old basketball player (Oscar Robinson maybe?) The only minor surgery is the surgery they perform in someone else.

    Wishing you a speedy recovery and blissful couple ofrom days sleeping through the news. I have my own not very minor rotator cuff surgery next Tuesday.

  60. 60.

    frosty

    @opiejeanne: Seattle’s CSO isn’t a ridiculous problem, it’s how they built sewers at the time. They’re getting fixed nationwide but it’s a difficult expensive process with a lot of different approaches. Baltimore built a new parallel separate storm drain system in one neighborhood and focused on reducing infiltration. Chicago built a deep tunnel to store the overflow until it could be treated. Philly is working on retrofitting small Green Infrastructure citywide to reduce runoff. Heavy rainfall over the design capacity negates some of these.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    Republican Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz questioned Sunday whether Donald Trump’s business ties to a twice-convicted felon with prior mafia associations, described late last year in an ABC News investigation, could eventually undermine Trump’s chances in a general election contest.
    “The important point is, George, in the general election, Hillary Clinton is going to shine a light on all of this,” said Cruz, speaking on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos”. “And Republican primary voters deserve to know.”
    Cruz raised the questions about Trump’s real estate dealings with Felix Sater, a Russian émigré who appeared in photos with Trump when Sater was an executive of a real estate company in business with the Trump Organization and later carried a Trump Organization business card with the title “Senior Advisor to Donald Trump.” Cruz questioned whether Trump’s tax returns would reveal anything more about the relationship.
    “He’s clearly hiding something,” Cruz said.

    Hah! Cruz was right for once. We should have listened to Ted Cruz :)

  62. 62.

    Immanentize

    @opiejeanne: excellent! I’ve been cracking bad jokes to my surgeon who is rather mirthless. But he said, “With that attitude you’ll heal quicker.”

  63. 63.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Quinerly: Money talks and bullshit walks. Not that I’m speaking of you or anything. ;-) I began avoiding it long before I moved out here.

  64. 64.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Chet Murthy: I follow Sally Yates. It’s great. Example:

    SaIIy Yates ‏@SaIIyYates 10h
    10 hours ago
    More
    Someone suggested sending “You’re Fired!” tweets 2 Trump on President’s day tomorrow with a #PatriotsRising hashtag. I agree

  65. 65.

    Chet Murthy

    @Iowa Old Lady: Oh ha! Look at that! In her userid, there are two uppercase “I” characters instead of lowercase “L” characters. I found her feed via a comment on some blog; the commenter noted that it was probably a parody account. But reading it …. well, it sure seemed authentic. Down to the gentle trawling to gauge support for a gubernatorial run. So I assumed it was authentic. But now, I wonder …. not that it changes anything: the author is either former AG Yates, or somebody doing an imitation of which I am sure AG Yates is flattered.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    I love this. Slowly….the problem starts to dawn on them…

    Chicago (CNN)President Donald Trump has been hampered in his first month in office by an inexperienced staff that has failed to navigate Washington or prepare Trump adequately, says his former campaign manager.
    “I think you have a President who wants to move very quickly, who has a grand vision of what he wants to accomplish and is leaving the details to the staff to implement,” Corey Lewandowski told David Axelrod on “The Axe Files,” a podcast from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.
    “The staff has probably not prepared him as well as they could have or should have,” particularly on the immigration executive order, Lewandowski said, noting that not one member of Trump’s senior staff “ever worked inside the government.”

    But that’s a plus! Donald Trump said it was better not to know anything. That’s why he hired them.

  67. 67.

    Quinerly

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I was out of the core of organizing it in 1999, when the city who had had nothing to do with it formally felt we needed a paid event planner. The next two years were brutal because people figured out the whole sponsorship grift. Kinda stopped going after 2007 and rented my house to friends of friends for a party and bathroom stop for a couple of years. Totally stopped on it in 2011…was turning 50 that year on Grand Parade Day and said no way can I be doing at 50 what I was doing at 25. Packed up the Subaru and dog Leo, drove to Taos by way of Raton. Knew nothing about NM. A flimsy outdated guide book. Now, the state is an every year pilgrimage this time of year.

  69. 69.

    raven

    @Quinerly: My wife dreamed up our local doggie parade when she learned about the New Orleans Barkus. Ours is in October, couple of weeks before Halloween. There were 125 dogs registered this year and they plane to keep it the same next year.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Good article on Malta’s secret tunnels: inside the newly discovered underworld of Valletta

    On the other side of the roots was a 12 metre-high chamber, illuminated by a beam of light from the grill of a manhole cover above, where we could hear conversations and the screeching sounds of terrace chairs scooting across paving stones. Before us was a rubbish-strewn underground beach, like something out of a JG Ballard novel, speckled with hundreds of red cookie wrappers. The scale of the space was crushing.

    Dimech grew impatient. “This is nothing. Come see the other side.” As we edged around a dividing wall, there was a collective inhale. Directly beneath Great Siege Square, with its swarms of tourists, was a 16th-century public cistern constructed by the Knights of Malta.

    The Knights of Malta, also known as the Order of St John, formed in 1048, making them one of the oldest Catholic religious orders in the world. The knights arrived here in 1530, at the bequest of Holy Roman emperor Charles V, who sought to extend Catholic control over the Mediterranean by seizing Malta. The Ottoman empire, unfortunately, had the same idea. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent moved to take the island, and war erupted.

    Many of the fierce battles between the Knights and the Turks during what became known as the Great Siege of Malta raged underground. The limestone here is soft but dense, making it ideal for carving fortifications – but also for tunnelling under them. Historian Ernle Bradford captures the drama in his book The Great Siege: Malta 1565, where he describes how Turkish sappers and Maltese counter miners, digging for their lives, often broke through into the enemy galleries, where “before either side could withdraw to fire their charges, Christian and Moslem came to grips with pick, shovel, and dagger”.
    …….
    Everywhere we went in the city, someone wanted to show us a warren, store or passageway. We were told of cellars, stables, crypts, granaries, bunkers, oil and ice pits, reservoirs, cisterns, sewers, sally ports and transport tunnels. In the densest neighbourhoods, it was unclear whether you were underground, above ground, or on the original surface of what was once Mount Sceberras.

    Of course, they are only newly discovered by the author. The Maltese have known about them all along.

  71. 71.

    Quinerly

    @raven:
    How fun! Ours started to provide a kid friendly event (weekend) in conjunction with my St. Louis neighborhood (Soulard) Mardi Gras, which is always the next weekend (Grand Parade…not so kid friendly, the Saturday before Fat Tuesday). Our Krewe of Barkus Parade was also lifted from NOLA..the main organizer owned the oldest Gay bar in St. Louis and had a second home in the French Quarter. He and his bar (Clementine’s) wanted a family friendly day for celebrations. Purina later came in for sponsorship, the casinos and other big wigs came in for sponsorships on the Grand Parade. Everything had been run by a core of us volunteers who lived in the neighborhood, and we built our Grand Parade Day up to the third (some say second?)largest Mardi Gras in the country…all from an original walking parade starting in the early 1980’s.

  73. 73.

    greennotGreen

    Not that anyone in this open thread is talking about the post up top, but the “50 shade of grey” tweet: What is it people don’t get about consent? Remember the pic of the Trump supporter wearing the tee shirt with a down arrow and the words, “Trump can grab this”? How do you think she would feel about some random guy coming up and grabbing her by the crotch?

  74. 74.

    BellyCat

    @Quinerly: Happy Birthday!

    Me, my wife, and one year old are headed out that way for a multi-month (spawn-willing!) odyssey in our ‘1957 Airstream in a few days. Your tips have been great.

    Keep up on Truckin’!

  75. 75.

    Amir Khalid

    @efgoldman:
    If I recall correctly, Edison never claimed he invented the light bulb. He was just the first to get it right, after a buttload of trial and error.

  78. 78.

    opiejeanne

    @frosty: It is a ridiculous problem because they built it 100 years ago, but have done little to fix it. That’s why it’s ridiculous. Yes, it takes money but it also takes the will to make it happen.
    I’m married to a Civil Engineer who has been involved in not just remedying that problem when we lived in SoCal, but also spotting building gutters that hook up to the sewers.
    Storm drains and rain gutters from buildings are not supposed to connect to the sewers and we’ve known that for a very long time. Like I said, it should have been fixed 50 years ago.

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    Dolly’s tweet wins.

    Fro Jr. and I are off to go check out the IMAX and planetarium at Air & Space, and then I’m-a gonna come home and whip up some pad Thai for dinner. Looks like a beautiful day out. Be happy warriors everyone!

  81. 81.

    opiejeanne

    @raven: That’s about how many bassets show up for my town’s little parade, which used to be an April Fool’s Day Parade, but they’ve changed the date now and I only accidentally notice it if I try to go to the store when it’s in full swing.

  82. 82.

    Chet Murthy

    @greennotGreen: I’m assuming you’re female, and that’s why you’re asking. I’m cis-male, and grew up in the South. Here’s my take (and it reflects my own mindset — yes, I actually thought this way, to my shame):

    A lot of men (even ostensibly liberated men) don’t -really- think of women as fully human. What I mean is, sure they -tell- themselves that women are fully human. But at some level, when it comes to sex and topics around sex, many men think of women as (for want of a better word) “non player characters”. In games, there are these characters that are brough to life by AI code of various degrees of sophistication. These characters can act pretty human. But they fundamentally aren’t human. And I fear that more men think of women this way, than you might think. They may tell themselves that they’re liberated, and they may even -act- liberated. But at some point, there’s this belief that in an interaction with a woman, the woman lacks …. “agency”. That she merely reacts to the man’s actions. From this flows many things — ‘candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker’, ladies’ night, etc.

    To follow that reasoning just a bit …. what difference could there be, on that view, between “rough sex between consenting adults” and rape, eh? Yes, it’s a bit of a leap. But you can see that that same man would never think the same thing about himself or another male being forced to submit to some physical act against his will. Because all males have agency. All males have an inner life.

    Lemme tellya, I thought I was liberated man, down with the sisterhood, all that shit, for the longest time. Decades. It was only on the last ten years that I realized that, deep down inside, I also had this point-of-view about women.

    I’m not saying that such men will invariably assault women. Rather, that for a man who sees women as lacking agency, as NPCs, the gap to be bridged, to reach assault, is just a lot smaller than when a man sees a woman as fully human.

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Lapassionara: Yeah, it’s in lily white wealthy Clayton, on Forsythe IIRC. Can’t have the Honorable Senator Blunt being discomfitted or anything. Was thinking of canceling work and joining you but I’d better not, got too much to do this week. Give a report afterwards please.

  84. 84.

    MomSense

    @opiejeanne:

    We have the same problem in many of the former mill towns on rivers here in Maine. With heavy rains and snow melt the sewerage either backs up or they just let the storm drain and raw sewerage run into the rivers. It’s a huge problem for the estuaries.

  85. 85.

    Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)

    So, to give you an idea how much I’ve changed in just a month, I was actually bummed out that I didn’t realize there was a March for Science in Copley Square yesterday until it was too late for me to attend, & that I cannot find any of my representatives holding town halls in the area this week. Now I’m wondering if there’s anything coming up that’s meeting to organize this week.

    That’s huge. I’m an introvert actually contemplating finding a group to join, to attend & to assist on a regular basis! I know, I’m shocked too.

  88. 88.

    mai naem mobile

    @Quinerly: I’ve stopped at Gallup plenty of times for gas but nothing beyond that. Just be careful driving in the reservation because there are next to no road signs. I remember years ago (pre GPS)we drove the wrong direction for 45 minutes before figuring out we were going the wrong way. I think we were coming from Kayenta.

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    OK State Representative Justin Humphrey, who just proposed a bill requiring women seeking abortions to get written permission from their sexual partner, told a reporter at the Intercept that while he understands that women “feel like that is their body”, they are mistaken to think of themselves as autonomous human beings.

    “What I call them is, you’re a ‘host’ … I’m like, hey, your body is your body and be responsible with it. But after you’re irresponsible then don’t claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when you’re the host and you invited that in.”

  90. 90.

    Chet Murthy

    @greennotGreen: Ugh, I didn’t actually answer your question, about the woman wearing that t-shirt — but instead addressed the tweet itself. I’m a guy, so I don’t have a clue. It’s a mystery, isn’t it? But then, there’s Phyllis Schlafly and her anti-feminist army of women who killed ERA, right?

    I kinda think part of it is just tribal signaling. Those women -obviously- wouldn’t be down with Trump assaulting them. But then, they don’t -really- think it’ll ever happen. It only happens to those hussies over there on the left. And those hussies deserve it, don’t they? B/c they’re wanton, and hussies.

  91. 91.

    Quinerly

    @BellyCat:
    Wow! An Airstream! Lucky ducks. Don’t think I would adjust to pulling something and all the set up alone….but it’s been a thought. I am contemplating looking for a 10 year old Toyota 4 wheel drive smaller pick up and putting one of those funky over the cab shells on it. Have fun. Where you heading from and to? Maybe this sweet little blog needs a permanent separate open thread each morning dedicated for all of us to trip blog a bit…share stuff. If folks aren’t interested then they can move on to another open thread.

  92. 92.

    ThresherK

    @bystander: I saw it the last time linked but it bears repeating.

    Now I’m trying to imagine a right-winger doing that today. They’d have to leave the hothouse of their hand-picked audiences, and they’d end up crapping all over themselves.

  93. 93.

    opiejeanne

    @MomSense: It’s bad in Maine, it’s worse when it’s a largish city like Seattle.

    It was so bad a couple of days ago that the plant failed and then filled up halfway with what had been going into the bay. I checked a while ago and it seems they got the plant running again, but the cleanup ? Oh yuck!
    I’ve toured some treatment plants, a hazard of being married to a CE, and the most recent was El Segundo’s in LA County. I’ve been there twice, once for a tour where the guide poured himself a glass of treated water and took a sip, and the other for a party honoring various people who were involved with the plant. It was pretty interesting.

  94. 94.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI: Scientific American on California Megaflood of 1861-62:

    Geologic evidence shows that truly massive floods, caused by rainfall alone, have occurred in California every 100 to 200 years. Such floods are likely caused by atmospheric rivers: narrow bands of water vapor about a mile above the ocean that extend for thousands of kilometers.

    The atmospheric river storms featured in a January 2013 article in Scientific American that I co-wrote with Michael Dettinger, The Coming Megafloods, are responsible for most of the largest historical floods in many western states. The only megaflood to strike the American West in recent history occurred during the winter of 1861-62. California bore the brunt of the damage. This disaster turned enormous regions of the state into inland seas for months, and took thousands of human lives. The costs were devastating: one quarter of California’s economy was destroyed, forcing the state into bankruptcy.

    Today, the same regions that were submerged in 1861-62 are home to California’s fastest-growing cities. Although this flood is all but forgotten, important lessons from this catastrophe can be learned. Much of the insight can be gleaned from harrowing accounts in diary entries, letters and newspaper articles, as well as the book Up and Down California in 1860-1864, written by William Brewer, who surveyed the new state’s natural resources with state geologist Josiah Whitney.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  95. 95.

    frosty

    @opiejeanne: Here in the east the will has come from consent decrees with EPA and nothing was done before that happened. I expect it’s the same for you. Of course the consent decrees can be weak and implementation schedules can be missed. We knew the problem in the 70s and you’re right, it shouldn’t have taken lawsuits to fix it.

    My Rule1 for water: don’t shit in your water supply.

  98. 98.

    ThresherK

    @opiejeanne: Married to a CE?

    My wife’s good friend is a health inspector, so we ask her where it’s safe to eat. I will not hesitate to ask you where it’s safe to drink.

  99. 99.

    opiejeanne

    @frosty: Absolutely, and don’t shit where your food supply lives. I don’t eat stuff from the Sound, but I know people who put out crab pots.

  100. 100.

    germy

    Guardian UK: Expect to see more emergencies like Oroville Dam in a hotter world – Scientists predicted decades ago that climate change would add stress to water management systems like Oroville Dam

    Northern California is in the midst of its wettest rainy season on record – twice as wet as the 20th century average, and 35% wetter than the previous record year. It proved to be almost too much for America’s tallest dam to handle. Water managers were forced to use Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway for the first time ever, which then began to erode, posing the threat of a failure and catastrophic flooding of nearby towns.

  101. 101.

    Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)

    @Kay:

    …Kansas economic boom have proved strikingly inaccurate.

    Bwahhahha! Very cute backhanded damning. I could wish whoever wrote it put that in the lede, but at least it’s there.

  104. 104.

    Quinerly

    @mai naem mobile:
    Thanks! Once I get anywhere near Native lands and off the interstate, I make sure I have a 1/2 tank of gas (and always bone up on pueblo rules about traveling dogs…generally follow the rule of NOT walking your dog). I’m a nerd who loves maps and taking weeks to map out my routes for long trips. Have an obnoxious GPS (Noreen Garmin?) but a detailed atlas for each state. Probably over prepared but a middle aged, single chick with a dog with some residual issues from being an inner city street dog for so many years. St. Louis friends shook their heads when I was buying AZ and Utah atlases and books on the areas in July.

  105. 105.

    frosty

    @Quinerly: My wife retired a few years back (I’m still working). Two years ago she hooked up our 18 ft trailer and did a lap of the US for 10 weeks. She told me “You’re welcome to come along.” I flew out and joined her for the leg from MS to NM via NOLA.

    She had a great time, learned to back into a campsite and managed everything solo with no problem. Airstreams are heavy, but other than that you should go for it!

  106. 106.

    Alain the site fixer

    Great idea! As someone who can add this, and one who’s loving your daily reports, I will try to make it so. I’m off today but I am looking into it right now. So should you see a 5 am post called “On The Road”, that’s what it is. I’ll try to have it setup for daily repeat. If you don’t see it, it was more work than I wanted to put in today! :) Travel well and have some green chile (in any and all forms!) for me; I so miss Southern Colorado and New Mexico, though I’ve still got 6 months’ worth frozen.

  108. 108.

    opiejeanne

    @ThresherK: I don’t presume to know any more, other than where we’ve lived in the past and where we live now. We drink tap water here, which is just as clean as anything bottled, but I know other places where testing is not done as regularly as it is here. *shudder* He was responsible for finding sites and digging a new wells in places where PCBs were encroaching on existing wells; Loma Linda, Hayward, and Torrance are among his greatest hits.
    I suspect my husband would like to be on the local water board if he didn’t have to deal with the nut-cases. In an election a few years ago two candidates were insisting that our local treatment plant was involved in some sort of totally insane conspiracy to sell us back the reclaimed water. Or something.
    Then there are the anti-fluoridation people, some of whom have a point that we are fluoridating our dishes and gardens and it’s overkill, but these are not those people.

  109. 109.

    Humboldtblue

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    We are getting close to 60 inches since October, we normally do about 45-50. Ruth Lake (our primary regional water supply) was filled before Thanksgiving an that normally happens about now in the calendar. My sister just outside of LA said she needed a boat last week and the issue down south is that there is no infrastructure to deal with a lot of water such as we have.

    We’ve had normal or above normal rainfall every year a drought has been declared and along with roads and bridges water infrastructure needs immediate and rapid upgrades.

  110. 110.

    frosty

    @Quinerly: Back in the 70s I had a Datsun pickup with a cap and took it on a few trips. It’s good for sleeping but no headroom for anything else. Of course, with an Escape you’re probably used to that. We had 2 popups for years but after a Certain Number of Years walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night got old. Hence the upgrade to a small trailer.

  111. 111.

    BellyCat

    @Quinerly: Headed from Pittsburgh to parts warm, sunny, and with a little mountain biking sprinkled in along with the sights.

    A 4WD with camper top is likely the ideal solution for you and the pup. The only slight drawback is that if you can’t easily remove it, you’ll want some kind of independent canopy to mark your spot if you have to drive somewhere ( this tip from a road warrior with this type of set up).

    Our setup can be a bit time-intensive if we fully unpack and it’s looong, in terms of length (at 26′ + tow vehicle). Ah, family life! :-/

    My wife, an academic, is researching folks who live (and possibly work) on the road full time — largely due to mobile connectivity — so we will have some work (which I’m hoping loosely means drinking beer with interesting people!), mixed in with our play.

    Keep us abreast of the interesting stuff you stumble upon!

  112. 112.

    opiejeanne

    @Humboldtblue: Wow.
    We have had a lake masquerading as a lawn on and off for a couple of weeks, just the top of the grass is above the water; the decorative dry creek has had several inches of water standing in it.
    The house kitty-cornered from ours has a lake that sometimes forms at the corner of the lot, at the corner of the street, and it’s much bigger than I’ve ever seen it, and threatening to swamp the lane next to it. Ducks have taken up temporary residence. It was frozen solid two weeks ago, now we’re in the high 40s during the day but heading back into some colder weather and snow this week.

  113. 113.

    Humboldtblue

    @efgoldman:

    FEMA is up and running. Last week the Hoopa tribe received more than 5-million dollars in emergency relief funds to address serious infrastructure concerns, particularly roads and the electrical; grid. Brown has made a Federal request for like 11-quadrillion dollars and local emergencies have been declared, evaluated and are now being addressed. Humboldt county alone has seen nearly 20 million dollars in damage to roads (hit hard) and agricultural losses (dead cows and major flooding in Eel river valley, dairy center) and now both state and Federal relief dollars should be in the pipeline.

  114. 114.

    Mom Says I'm Handsome

    @Amir Khalid: Fascinating and vital, thanks for bringing it to our attention. I do have one quibble with the article, though:

    There is no characteristic that all games have in common.

    One defining characteristic of a game I have heard is: “‘Over here’ is better than ‘Over there.'” ‘The ball through the hoop’ is better than ‘The ball not through the hoop.’ ‘The ball in the cup’ is better than ‘The ball not in the cup.’ ‘More of our players on this side of the field’ is better than ‘More of their players’, etc.

  115. 115.

    Quinerly

    @Alain the site fixer:
    At 106! Let’s do it! That way Ozarkhillbilly can skip it and not be so grumpy about everyone sucking and blowing and he’s not.? Off to a hike with Poco by the Rio Grande and prickly pear cheesecake with an exotic coulis for a snack! Thanks for all the well wishes to this “Girl and Her Dog.” Catch you later!

  116. 116.

    frosty

    @BellyCat: You might want the independent canopy for other reasons too. In various places during various seasons we found out a screen room is a necessity for sitting outside and enjoying cooling beverages.

  117. 117.

    frosty

    @BellyCat: We’re into Week 3 of this year’s Snowbird Road Trip. Day trip to Key West tomorrow then turn around and point north instead of south. :-(

  118. 118.

    Humboldtblue

    @opiejeanne:

    Back-to-back-to-back-to-back atmospheric rivers have a major impact. Add to that astronomically high tides (love using astronomical in its first form) and we have seen regular flooding on the flood plains and low-lying properties. The local rivers passed flood stage two weeks ago but the overall impact was minimal and although a few hundred people to the east (Hoopa) were initially evacuated they returned home within a day.

    We are currently under a flood watch but areas to the south where rain is far less a regular occurrence is where the damage will be done. Mendocino county directly to our south has a few hundred miles of roads either under water or closed due to slides and slip-outs and it gets worse as you get further south. The poor folks in Lake county have seen two vicious fire seasons that have destroyed hundreds of homes and now the hillsides are coming down around their ears.

    Nature don’t fuck around.

  121. 121.

    Lyrebird

    Thanks so much – Poitier & Belafonte are sublime, and me trying to bowhunt would be ridiculous, but so great to read.

    Salaam Alaikum
    Shalom Alechem
    Pax Hominibus Bonae Voluntatis

  122. 122.

    Matt McIrvin

    Is that a recent photo of Poitier and Belafonte? If so, they’re looking really good for pushing 90.

  125. 125.

    Debbie1

    @Kay: Ted Cruz was right? The question is, which Ted Cruz? The one who raised questions about Trump’s undisclosed taxes, Russian and Mob ties, or the Ted Cruz who later endorsed Trump, and thanked him for mocking Cruz’s wife, and practically invited him to grope his daughter. Which Ted, that’s what I want to know.

  126. 126.

    frosty

    @MomSense: Ideally set up with 2 drainage systems – gray water with a cistern for irrigation and black water for sewage. I did informal gray water during a drought a few years back — a 5 gal spackle bucket in the shower. It got significantly full just while running it to get the water hot enough.

  127. 127.

    BellyCat

    @frosty: Nice!!

    I hear ya’ on the independent canopy — I’m no connoisseur of skeeters. One thing that has added immeasurably to our “glamping” experience is one of those large rolling fans (about 3 feet in diameter that contractors use). Mosquitoes cannot fly in high velocity winds, so you crank that sucker up and you’re pretty safe. Of course, the drawback is you have to like a gale force breeze on your face and shout at each other to be heard. :-)

    Good luck on your return travels. How far do you have to go to get home?

  128. 128.

    maya

    Greetings from liquid sunshine NorCal. So far, 182.70″ in my rain gauge. No shit! At 1400′ elevation flooding not a problem, but the local dirt road is like WWI trench lines. My road OK. Good large culverts – after learning some expensive repair lessons early on – and water bars. Reason my totals are always higher than the flatlands is because I’m on a south facing slope in a wide river valley. Last year’s total was 168″, so that’s gone by the boards. Looking to break 200.
    Worst part is waiting for breaks to get things done.

  129. 129.

    frosty

    @BellyCat: We’re heading back to South PA. Multi-night stops in state parks in FL and SC along the way. It’ll be about 10 days or so. 250 – 300 miles a day is our target when we’re towing.

  130. 130.

    opiejeanne

    @MomSense: I’m starting to eye rain barrels for watering the garden. The first three summers here we rarely watered because it would rain every 3rd or 4th day and it wasn’t too hot. We don’t water the lawn here, except for a little last summer leading up to the youngest’s wedding on our front lawn. It’s a big lawn.

    The past three summers we have used a lot of water in the garden and I’m watching the rain just run away and thinking I should be catching some of this. I need to read up on the subject, since the water would be coming off of a composition shingle roof.

  131. 131.

    J R in WV

    @Quinerly:

    Awww, so sweet! Gonna be 56, you know that for many of us that makes you a sweet young thang ~!!? I loved Petrified Forest, take some walks, there are places where the stone logs look like post-flood forest debris. There’s also a little shaman’s house built of ends and pieces, many translucent agatized wood, no roof, not sure of its historicity, but cool to see.

    On the ranches around the National Park, they strip mine petrified trees and use giant excavators to load flatbeds. You can get a 4 inch thick slab of agate for a dining room table, but you have to have a REALLY sturdy dining room floor and a forklift to spot the table. And a big pile of money, just the saw to make such a thing costs a fortune, and the wear on the diamond blade is directly charged out to the customer.

    Take care out there in the high desert, you sweet young thang, you!!

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    @opiejeanne:

    For watering the garden, your roof is no problem. If you needed to use it as potable water, you would want to filter particulates out, I don’t think you would need an osmosis type filter but others could comment to that.

    In some places it was (is still?) illegal to catch water from your own roof… that water belonged to a farmer in Kansas due to water rights ownership. I don’t think that’s still true in Colorado, but it was. Of course, holding it back for a few weeks and then putting it on your garden sends it on the same path it would have followed, just a little later on.

  133. 133.

    MomSense

    @opiejeanne:

    You may want to add BT Bacillus Thuringiensis to the rain barrel so you don’t end up with mosquitoes.

    I collect rain water for the garden. I also use it for my orchids because they seem to prefer it to tap water.

  135. 135.

    Lizzy L

    I’m across the Bay from San Francisco and we’re getting steady light to moderate rain. At this point there’s zero absorption, the ground is completely saturated, so all that water is running into the street and ultimately into the Bay. The rain is supposed to continue for the next 24 hours. There’s some wind, but it’s not too bad.

    Saturday sometime Theo, my sweet 13 and half year old Belgian shepherd mix, pulled his pectoral muscles so severely that he could not lift his head. Tramadol (which I have for his arthritis) barely touched it; he was a shitload of pain, so Sunday morning saw me lifting him into the car and heading to Berkeley to see the emergency vet. She sent us home with a two week course of a muscle relaxant, which seems to be helping; he still can’t lift his head, but he slept last night and is able to lie down without immediately rising again because Ma, it hurts!. He still has an appetite and is able to eliminate, both good signs. It’s hard to see a beloved companion in pain, and to be able to do so little. I am very grateful that I can afford to see a vet and pay for the drugs.

  136. 136.

    J R in WV

    @ThresherK:

    Our next door neighbor is a health dept inspector, we too ask about inspection scores, and the reality aside from the scores. She once shut down a St Jude’s charity auction for a new custom-built house with no septic permit, and because no permit was possible given the soil conditions where the house was built, without a permit. Stones, she has!

    They auctioned the hose off a year later, after spending a ton of money extending a sewer line way farther than made economic sense. That made the house legal to change hands. A house without either sewer service OR a septic permit is unsalable. Oops.

    I dunno what the charity organizers thought the occupants were going to do with their flush! Let it run down the hill? I dunno. Stupid all around.

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