Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

When we show up, we win.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

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180Comments

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    Lawmakers, Facebook in standoff over lifting veil on Russian ads

    Facebook is refusing to let the public see 3,000 election-related ads the Kremlin placed on its network during the 2016 presidential race – including posts suspected to have been part of what many U.S. lawmakers and the American intelligence community now agree was a campaign to drive voters to choose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

    Despite increasing pressure from Democrats, the Silicon Valley giant is holding firm to its line that company policy allows Facebook to disclose “user content” only in response to a court-ordered warrant.

    Given the unprecedented nature of the Kremlin’s interference in the U.S. election – and the still-open investigations into whether Trump’s team colluded with Moscow – Democrats’ patience is running out.

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article177316546.html

  5. 5.

    Yutsano

    I’m in the mood for a nice Chianti and some fava beans now.

    Also: I knew my Czech bird loving friend would know.

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    @chopper:
    Seems likely, and they’re quite the vocalists.

    Hey everybody, remember making fun of Mr. Chunky Reese? He’s still at it in the NYT and had things to say about Hef’s recent passing. You can read the whole thing if curious, but I have to share this writing crime in particular.

    And his appreciation of male-female difference was rotten, too — the leering predatory sort of appreciation, the Cosby-Clinton-Trump sort, the sort that nicknames quaaludes “thigh openers” and expects the girls to laugh, the sort that prefers breast implants to female intellect and rents the charms of youth to escape the realities of age.

    Got that? President Bill Clinton is just like both Donny the Slut and Bill serial-rapist Cosby. Can somebody ask li’l Ross why, instead of Clinton he didn’t pick, say, Newt Gingrich who was busy banging his aide while married to wife #2 AND denigrating Clinton on the House floor. Any reason at all?

  9. 9.

    scott alloway

    @Japa21: I agree. We have many around our place. Pretty birds. Raised one that fell out of the nest and released it on Memorial Day one year. It hung around for months.

  10. 10.

    ljdramone

    It’s a juvenile European Starling that’s molting into its adult non-breeding plumage.

  11. 11.

    Shana

    I’m pulling Shabos dinner together while waiting for younger daughter to come home for a long weekend. Sumac chicken over chickpeas and baby carrots, salad, challah, homemade brownies and a nice Benziger chardonnay. Older daughter is also coming over for dinner So looking forward to this weekend.

  16. 16.

    jl

    I think common starling is best ID. So many subspecies all over the place can’t say more than that.
    Why is there only one?

    I enjoyed watching the clouds of those birds maneuvering over the farm when I was a kid. Sometimes were fun to listen to, sometimes irritating as hell.

  19. 19.

    patrick II

    @rikyrah:
    Good to know facebook.is protecting the ”user content ” of a Russian attack on the U.S. electoral process.. Privacy is important when running an electronic insurrection and Facebook has stood by such high principles.

  20. 20.

    Rihilsim

    The “IDing” is all well and good but what is the air-speed velocity of an unladen starling?…

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @jl:

    Sometimes were fun to listen to, sometimes irritating as hell.

    What’s really irritating is when they roost in a tree over/near your house. The noise is the least of it.

  23. 23.

    jl

    @OzarkHillbilly: When I was kid, for some reason they never roosted hear the buildings. Maybe more bugs for their kids in the trees far from the house. But, yes, I can imagine the mess and the noise would be a problem if they swarmed over your house.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Never saw starlings as a kid because they had yet to cross the western mountain ranges. They made up for it and now are a major ag pest in the area and we see virtual clouds of them in fall. It’s eerie, like a Speilberg sky, to watch the cloud twist and turn on itself, changing shape like a school of fish. We wouldn’t have them at all were it not for this putz.

  26. 26.

    dm

    Starlings are one of those bird species that was imported to North America by that person who thought we should have an instance of every bird species mentioned in Shakespeare, aren’t they?

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    @jl:

    Sometimes were fun to listen to, sometimes irritating as hell.

    Could be worse. We have Amazon parrots in my area, and a large flock of them can raise a real ruckus.

  29. 29.

    germy

    The writer Robert Benchley was not fond of birds.

    “They’re all right in profile,” he once said. “But did you ever see one of the sons of bitches head on?”

  31. 31.

    Patricia Kayden

    Trump at 32% approval rating. I guess attacking Black NFL players for peacefully protesting police brutality isn’t a winning cause after all. Ditto acting the fool in Puerto Rico.

    How low can he go? And how low before Republicans in Congress figure out that he’s an albatross around their necks.

  35. 35.

    kindness

    That isn’t a Starling. While they have mottled stomachs they have grey/black backs.

    A young one eh? And what is with this European Starling thingy? You know Starlings aren’t native the the Americas. Our forefathers brought them over with them from England because the missed them. Asshole forefathers.

  38. 38.

    A Ghost to Most

    @Roger Moore: If that is true, then my sympathies. Crows roosting near my house get me thinking about a shotgun, and I’m a real Corvid fan.

  39. 39.

    Mustang Bobby

    Starlings are feral, noisy, and extremely social (not in a good way). Down here in Miami they gather in mobs at dusk and make a racket that sets off car alarms… not to mention their ability to shit in unison.

    @dm:They used to live exclusively in Europe, but legend has it that some well-meaning but misguided naturalist wanted to populate Central Park with all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare, so a small flock was imported. Nature took over; they have no natural predators and they adapted.

  40. 40.

    ThresherK

    @Patricia Kayden: But his base is reaching new heights in the “fewer but purer” sweepstakes, and if listening to NPR has taught me anything, it’s that the RW base are the most undercovered prize in all punditdom.

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    @kindness:
    As a ten-minute internet starling expert I can add that’s non-breeding adult coloration. Ones with the oil-slick backs got lucky.

    Find them amusing when they stomp across the lawn poking around for seed and bugs, all while squabbling with the others.

  44. 44.

    Van Buren

    What kind of bird has a deep trilling call heard only in the fall and only in the real early AM – like 4 ish. I’m on Long Island. I hear it every year and have no idea what it is.

  46. 46.

    Patricia Kayden

    So now the FBI has identified a new terrorist threat to the U.S. which it calls “Black Identity Extremists” otherwise known as BLM and its ilk. We are drifting back into the Civil Rights era where the FBI harassed and monitored Dr. King and other Civil Rights activists while letting White Supremacists off the hook.

  47. 47.

    Patricia Kayden

    @ThresherK: You should put “undercovered” in quotes. I’m sick and tired of hearing about that precious White Working Class which decided to elect an ignoramus who can do nothing for them because he doesn’t give a dang about them. I suppose he’s making White Evangelicals deliriously happy with his restrictions on reproductive rights and LGBT rights this morning but those won’t help the WWC get better jobs or higher incomes.

  48. 48.

    dmsilev

    @A Ghost to Most: It’s true. I live in the same area as Roger, and the parrots are (a) common and (b) very very loud.

    It could be still worse, however. One town in the area has a large flock of feral peacocks wandering around. The males have a loud cry that sounds disturbingly similar to a small child shouting “help, help”.

  49. 49.

    Miss Bianca

    @trollhattan: Oh, I caught that one, too. I had friends approvingly linking to this article on FB and I was like, “sorry, it’s Ross Douchehat we’re talking about here – the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend. Just because he is a righteous moral scold about a male chauvinist pig doesn’t make him a feminist.”

  50. 50.

    bystander

    This summer I have witnessed three separate hawk-on-crow attacks. That’s three hundred percent more than in my previous 17 summers in Pa.

  51. 51.

    efgoldman

    @Patricia Kayden:

    We are drifting back into the Civil Rights era where the FBI harassed and monitored Dr. King and other Civil Rights activists while letting White Supremacists off the hook.

    You know it's damned near impossible to monitor all those lone wolfs [sic] right?

  53. 53.

    dmsilev

    @rikyrah: 67% approval among the GOP, while disturbingly high in any absolute sense, is the lowest number for in-party approval that I can remember seeing for him. It’s usually in the mid to upper 80s.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    @A Ghost to Most:

    I live next to a church, and there’s a murder hanging out most Saturdays in the large, empty parking lot. I figured they were Jewish spirits holding out for a minyan. They’re huge, lumbering, noisy things.

  58. 58.

    trollhattan

    @Miss Bianca:
    Do you suppose the reason he felt so free from using the usual NYT polite filters is figuring he’d get assent from conflicted liberals and feminists? I seldom read him but cannot ever recall his being this unhinged.

  64. 64.

    Mike in NC

    @dmsilev: Obviously tossing rolls of paper towels to moochers in Puerto Rico didn’t resonate with his Neanderthal base.

  69. 69.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Baud: Although the economy did lose 33,000 jobs — possibly because of all the hurricanes. First time in years that that has happened.

  70. 70.

    rikyrah

    Thank You, Massa Bernie: How Our Revolution’s Birmingham “Victory” Reeks of Racism and Sexism

    …………………………………………………….

    Despite the narrative clearly being false as demonstrated by Our
    Revolution’s abysmal track record, it also damages Randall Woodfin
    himself. It’s saying that Woodfin cannot win in the South without Bernie Sanders’ help. It’s saying that Woodfin cannot win without an Ohio State Senator like Nina Turner coming to stump for him. It’s saying that Woodfin would not have won had it not been for the “hundreds” of calls made by Our Revolution, an organization with a base largely made up of affluent, suburban White members. It’s saying that Woodfin cannot win on his own charisma and his own organizing in his very own backyard. It’s saying that a Black progressive like Woodfin cannot win based on his
    merits alone.

    Because his merits are not enough. It’s not enough
    to be a Black progressive in the South. It’s not enough to be an
    attorney and School Board member in the state’s largest city. It’s not
    enough to have worked 80+ hour weeks for half a year to serve as a state campaign director for Hillary Clinton. It’s not enough to have
    campaigned for over a year and assembled a dedicated and committed volunteer base on your own. No, you need help to be successful. You need Our Revolution and you need Bernie Sanders.

    Nowhere over the past two days has there been a single substantial article about Woodfin’s campaign experience. It’s as if being Hillary Clinton’s state director in no way prepared him for his mayoral bid. Nothing about identifying leaders. Nothing about finding organizers. Nothing about recruiting volunteers. Nothing about canvassing and Get Out The Vote efforts. Apparently, none of what he learned from his experience as a paid member of Hillary Clinton’s staff helped him in any way unseat a two-term incumbent Democratic Mayor who had been a staple in Birmingham politics over the past quarter-century. But Nina Turner showed up twice,
    Bernie Sanders recorded a single robo-call, and Our Revolution made a few hundred calls. Clearly, Woodfin would have lost had it not been for them.

    And that is why Our Revolution and our media cannot be
    trusted. They are looking for victories, real or imagined. Rather than
    delving into Woodfin’s experiences as a state director, the media and Our Revolution are instead proclaiming Bernie Sanders to be the White, male savior of the South.     Let’s be clear: Sanders had as much to do with Woodfin’s victory as you or I. He is not popular in Alabama. He lost the primary by a whopping 58%. There’s a reason he stayed up north rather than campaigning with Woodfin. Hillary Clinton actually did have something to do with Woodfin’s victory, but she knows this race wasn’t about her. It was about Randall Woodfin and Randall Woodfin alone.

  71. 71.

    Miss Bianca

    @trollhattan: Damned if I know. I never read him at all if I can help it, so I have no gauge to judge how spittle-flecked this particular rant was in regard to his usual fare. if I had to venture a guess, I’d say that it was the chance to paint Hefner as some sort of “liberal” that was getting him hard (in a completely metaphorical, godly, righteous, non-slutty way, of course).

  74. 74.

    A Ghost to Most

    @Cermet: It used to happen near our house in Maryland. Several hundred crows would take up residency behind our house near a stream.

    Haven’t seen it here. Not nearly as many crows here.

  76. 76.

    Jeffro

    @dmsilev: that’s correct – he is losing Republicans, bit by bit.

    On a cheerier note, private show w/ O.A.R. last night totally rawked…Seeing them again in Dec at that new Anthem club…woot!

  77. 77.

    Duane

    Did I see trump had nominated Sam Brownback to a “Defender of Religious Freedom” position in his administration? That would be wrong in so many ways, it can’t be true. I must have been dreaming, right?

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:

    One town in the area has a large flock of feral peacocks wandering around.

    They’ve spread beyond Arcadia into East Pasadena and Monrovia. We even see them occasionally in Duarte, though not in flocks. Also, too, in addition to being very loud, peacocks are a traffic hazard and their poop is something else. I still think the parrots are worse, though.

  80. 80.

    Elizabelle

    Hello buds. Bearfree, so far. @ Skyline Drive, Shenandoah Natl Park. Got one of the 3 last sites. Chilling down here. Leaves rustling in the wind. We have a firepit not far from my tent. No rain expected til Sunday. Clouding in. Have seen one blase deer.

    Cheers.

  82. 82.

    Elizabelle

    Ps. In Virginia. Am sure Helen is in Eire. Was just riffing off it was drinks o clock where she is.

    What are you all up to this weekend?

  85. 85.

    A Ghost to Most

    According to The New Yorker, the bad blood between the head of the State Department and his top overseas emissary has to do with the latter’s success in Asian diplomacy.

    In spite of Tillerson infamous inability to fully staff the State Department and Trump’s tense relationship with China amid his threats to North Korea, Haley is “seen as the most effective diplomat in the crisis,” the New Yorker reported.

    “The most significant achievement of Trump’s foreign policy—the tightening of economic sanctions against North Korea—was accomplished largely by Haley,” the report continued.

    “Nikki’s getting it done,” a senior Trump administration official told the magazine of Haley’s United Nations wins.

    Tillerson, on the other hand, was angered by his subordinate’s propensity for “bringing home the bacon.”

    “Rex hates her,” the same official said. “He f*cking hates her.”

    Latest Hunger Games update.

  89. 89.

    Elizabelle

    Re starlings. Same screenwriter who won Oscar wrote Red Dragon (prequel that followed) too. I really like Dragon. Great cast. Never saw Manhunter or whatever.

    Screenwriter passed on the Hannibal novel, as did Demme. Too dark. I thought Hannibal ventured into p or no of a sort. Too ugly and gratuitous. Dont know if TV series tracks the novel or not.

  92. 92.

    Fair Economist

    @Roger Moore: We have lots of wild parrots around here (Orange County). They can be loud, but I don’t find them particularly annoying. Living next door to pet peacocks was worse, and that’s without dealing with peacock poop.

  93. 93.

    Davebo

    Anyone see this?

    Will Liberals Give Weinstein the O’Reilly Treatment?

    I have no idea what they were asking but this at the end referencing Camille Paglia was just amazing.

    In her interview, Ms. Paglia noted that, the case of Mr. Clinton, “Hypocrisy by partisan feminist leaders really destroyed feminism for a long time.” She might have added that it also helped Donald Trump get elected

    An editor with the FYNYT’s and a female at that had the balls to write that??

  95. 95.

    Yutsano

    @Davebo: Just what, pray tell, are they supposed to do with Weinstein? It’s my understanding he does his own fundraising/bundling himself. Are they supposed to give back his money? I haven’t heard what is supposed to be happening here.

    Also noted: no one mentioned in that column is defending Weinstein.

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    @Elizabelle:

    I got a weird feeling from Hannibal that novelist Thomas Harris got pissed off at Hollywood for making Anthony Hopkins’ Lecter too sympathetic, so he wrote the sequel as a dare for them to make it into a movie.

    I have absolutely no backup for this, it’s just a feeling I have.

  101. 101.

    efgoldman

    @Yutsano:

    Are they supposed to give back his money?

    Liz Warren and one other senator are sending all the campaign contributions they received from Weinstein to women’s non-profits.

  102. 102.

    Hungry Joe

    Until 10-20 years ago we rarely, if ever, saw crows in San Diego — you had to go inland and up, to the Cuyamacas or Palomar. Then there must’ve been a puff piece in “Crow Traveler” magazine saying that the eats were good in the city, because murder after murder got visas and moved in. I like crows, but the ones outside our window at daybreak make me contemplate buying a BB gun. (A BB would just bounce off a crow, but probably piss him off.)

  107. 107.

    SatanicPanic

    @trollhattan: I dunno, I lean towards Bill Clinton probably being some sort of rapist. The one good thing about Hillary losing is that I no longer feel compelled to talk around that. Dude had too many women accuse him of questionable behavior to think that he was on the up and up.

  108. 108.

    debbie

    @efgoldman:

    Harvey has long been known as a pig. A friend worked for him before he was famous, and he hasn’t changed one bit, from the stories I’m hearing.

  110. 110.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yutsano:

    Weinstein and his brother used to own Miramax, but they sold it to Disney and went out on their own over a decade ago. The Weinstein Company has struggled, except for the horror movie Dimension Pictures brand.

    In light of the recent news, I wonder if Weinstein was sent to internal exile in Hollywood because of his actions, and the news is only now becoming widely known. John Landis was similarly blackballed after his negligence killed three people on the set of Twilight Zone: the Movie in the 1980s.

  111. 111.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hungry Joe:

    Don’t do it. If you hurt a crow, the rest of the flock will follow you around for months and harass you. They are scarily smart birds.

  112. 112.

    Mnemosyne

    @Baud:

    I don’t blame them at all. I suspect it was one of those open Hollywood “secrets” that people outside the industry didn’t know about, but women inside the industry were probably warned away from working with him and he ended up blackballed for his behavior.

  114. 114.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    If you hurt a crow, the rest of the flock will follow you around for months and harass you.

    This. Ornithologists say if you want to study nesting crows, you need to learn to disguise yourself, because they will recognize and harass anyone they see messing with their nests.

  115. 115.

    Miss Bianca

    @Elizabelle: I have no idea why I tried reading “Hannibal” one time…it was there? I was bored? I’d heard so many people rave about this author? I still have a bad taste in my brain.

  116. 116.

    debbie

    @Miss Bianca:

    I’ve read all three — the first two were far better than the third book. I can’t remember if it was Red Dragon or Silence of the Lambs, but at one point, I thought the author was really going too far and could be giving disturbed people ideas.

  117. 117.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: One of the stories I read (in the LA Times, I think) said that women working for him tended to set up a buddy system so that as much as possible they wouldn’t be alone with him. So, certainly people within his company knew, or at least suspected enough to take precautions.

  118. 118.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca:

    it was there? I was bored?

    I once read a Stephen King short story collection (Night Shift) because the only works of fiction where I was staying were the King book and the The Irish RM. Once I finished the horsy stories, I had no choice.

  122. 122.

    Citizen Alan

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I can top that. One time I was stuck at my parents house for a week with no internet, and eventually out of sheer boredom, I hate-read the first four Left Behind novels.

  123. 123.

    Spanky

    @Elizabelle: Well, you can’t be at Big Meadows, because you’d need to go up to the lodge to get the repeater down in Stanley. But there are plenty of other campgrounds.

    I has a jealous (though I’d rather be at Dolly Sods). Have fun!

  130. 130.

    Major Major Major Major

    So I have the week between Christmas and New Years off because my workplace is excellent. I decided to take advantage of it this year and today my husband and I snagged a cheap flight to London, leaves on Christmas and returns January 8. So two weeks in Europe for a cost of 4 vacation days and a few hundred in airfare. Yay! Super excited.

  139. 139.

    chris

    @debbie: Haha. There have been a couple of recent articles about Miller, what a nasty small man. The term “black identity extremist” sounds like something he would say while denying his own “white identity extremism.”

  142. 142.

    eclare

    @Major Major Major Major: Oh gosh…that was back in 1996, ended up living there for six months. If you go out, just plan on staying out til way past midnight, it was hard to get back. The streets were lovely, still lit up for Christmas. I remember eating at an amazing Lebanese place, I’ll look around on google and see if I can remember the name.

  143. 143.

    Hungry Joe

    @Mnemosyne: Oh, I wouldn’t actually ping a crow with a BB gun — I just said I was contemplating it. I do about 1/80th of the stuff I contemplate.

    I read somewhere (Konrad Lorenz?) that once crows peg you as dangerous they not only pass the info along to other crows by going batshit (crowshit?) whenever they see you, but their offspring pick up on it, and their offspring, forever. You have to absent yourself from the area long enough for a whole generation of crows to die off before you can come back and not be tagged as a bad guy. That’s probably an over-the-top story (Konrad Lorenz, after all), but I like it A LOT.

  144. 144.

    eclare

    @Mnemosyne: Go while you are young, foreign countries don’t have the ADA. I don’t understand how older people live in London. You can see the US when you are older.

  154. 154.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eclare: It was a great location. Less than a block to a stop on the Central Line and not too far to Paddington for the rest. Right by the park and several good pubs in the area.

  155. 155.

    efgoldman

    For pure entertainment value, there’s something to be said for a game between couple of mediocre unranked teams.

  156. 156.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @debbie:

    There is a Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode from 2008, “Contract,” which might as well have been called “The Harvey Weinstein Story.” Jeff Garlin in a spot-on bit of casting.

  161. 161.

    J R in WV

    @Fair Economist:

    When we visited my cousin in Kona, Hawaii some time back, there were giant trucks running around the island advertising that they could get rid of the coqui frogs, which are the size of a dime coin (1.1 cm long) and make a tiny chirp. They are a national symbol of Puerto Rico, and treasured there.

    In Hawaii they are declared an invasive terroristic assault because of the horrendous noise they make. As if the nearly extinct native wildlife wouldn’t make any noise, if they weren’t nearly extinct!!! They are loud, especially when you consider how tiny they are. But still, exterminators for frogs, it just turns my stomach to think of it.

  164. 164.

    NotMax

    @J R in WV

    Invasive species are of real concern in Hawaii. Not only for noise but for eating native species and/or destroying or commandeering native species habitat or even attacking crops. Snakes and almost any insect are especially unwelcome. The coqui frogs also breed like kudzu grows.

    We did learn a lesson from the purposeful and boneheaded importation of the mongoose.

  167. 167.

    J R in WV

    @SatanicPanic:

    Bill Clinton is obviously a rapist, he’s been indicted, arrested, convicted so so many times. And Hillary is still hanging around with him, too. She must be a rapist as well.

    Do you have any clue how stupid you sound? The Republicans spent $40,000,000 on investigating the Clintons, and came up with exactly one consensual blowjob. The cost/benefit ratio there is wonderful!

    The Clintons are the cleanest couple in politics, to have been accused of so many high crimes and still, no trials, no convictions, walking around free and loved by so many liberals. Anyone who accuses Bill or Hillary of criminal actions should be put on trial for slander or libel, depending on how they propagate their slurs. There is no there there!

    So fuq you, Satanic Panic, for lying about things you have no way of knowing any facts regarding them. You’re on my pie filter now.

  171. 171.

    NotMax

    @Major Major Major Major

    Used to be one got a marginally better exchange rate changing money here before leaving. Dunno if that still holds true.

    Flying into Heathrow or Gatwick?

    Oh, also might consider bringing a burner phone you can dump in the U.K. and leaving your regular one in SF.

  174. 174.

    J R in WV

    So far we’ve visited Spain, France and Italy. Not long in any of those places, but enjoyed all of them, except Florence in May was SO Crowded with tourists (like us!) you couldn’t stir them with a car. People walking in the middle of the street, with cars wanting to pass through.

    Rural Spain and France in October were wonderful. Paris was beautiful, but we were only there one day, my bad for not reserving a longer stay.

    I’m seeing the internet being really slow today, I don’t even get a chance to edit a post because it’s longer than 5 minutes for it to come back around. Seems like all the sites are a little slow, but B-J is worse than the others. Or maybe just my impatience?

  175. 175.

    Mohagan

    On the first Audubon bird walk I ever took, the leader pointed out a starling and added “stars on a starling”. I’ve never forgotten, and could ID a starling from Day 1 of my official birding :-)

  179. 179.

    LaNonna

    @MAJOR X4
    Yes, London is expensive, we ran around on the Oyster card for a week, including Underground from Heathrow into central city much cheaper than the Heathrow Express, an hour’s ride, but so what. Plan to spend at least a morning or afternoon at the Victoria & Albert museum, a treasure trove. Good prix-fixe restaurants near the Tate Modern. We traipsed from museum to museum, it was wonderful.

  180. 180.

    WhyKnot241

    Like a bird on a wire
    Like some drunk in a midnight choir
    I have tried
    In my way
    To be free

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