Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Consistently wrong since 2002

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

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

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Agonize - Organize / Monday Morning Open Thread: First in A New Series

Monday Morning Open Thread: First in A New Series

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.

Photo by from the inimitable Jeffrey W. As an animist, I’m allowed to hope it’s an augury for a mob of smart, aggressive Blue Dems retaking their seats at the table, leaving the Red Repubs sulking on the periphery.

What’s on the agenda as we flip the calendar and prepare to start afresh?

Reader Interactions

148Comments

  1. 1.

    SFBayAreaGal

    Good morning Anne, Happy New Year. I’m off to bed. It’s 2:30 am PST here.

    Thank you and all the other FPers for all that you did in 2017.

  2. 2.

    Arclite

    As a life long Dem, I’m not sure I want to be associated with Blue Jays. They are, after all, the assholes of the bird world.

    I feel how Mark Hamill looks.

  5. 5.

    Sab

    You will never convince me that cardinals are Republicans, or that blue jays are Democrats. I agree with Arclite that blue jays are the assholes of the bird world.

    However, blue jays are in the crow/corvid family, which is very susceptible to West Nile disease, so blue jays being around is a healthy sign for humans.

  6. 6.

    Silent no more

    Woke up after having fallen asleep during the Mythbusters marathon. Watched TWO late-night advertisements for something called the “Trumpy Bear” that holds an American flag blanket, and was so disgusted I had to turn off the TV. Not pleased to see this on the Science channel.
    Based on their ads, the audience for Mythbusters skews right wing and in need of subsidized medical products. Who knew?

  7. 7.

    Major Major Major Major

    As an animist, I’m allowed to hope it’s an augury for a mob of smart, aggressive Blue Dems retaking their seats at the table, leaving the Red Repubs sulking on the periphery.

    BOTH PARTIES ARE CORVIDS AVIAN
    VOTE DR. JILL SQUIRREL
    FREE BIRDSEED FOR ALL ANIMALS

    eta or is the red guy not a corvid? tired.

  9. 9.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Jeff: my prepaid SIM card decided to stop serving my purchased data at 1:30am, across London from where we’re staying, and customer service was closed; this morning I called again, and they charge £0.25 for a service call. My account has zero, since I only bought data, and the minimum top-up is £5. Meanwhile the Airbnb WiFi is apparently metered and we ran out because previous tenants used it all up.

    Hopefully this is not augury for American telcos in 2018.

  11. 11.

    Original Lee

    We’re getting the last of the college applications out the door and hosting the traditional neighborhood New Year’s Day dessert party this evening. I haven’t chosen our dessert yet, but I’m leaning towards apple strudel. That should keep us busy, I think.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    New Year’s Eve marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most remarkable American football matches in history. A game that almost certainly should not have been played on New Year’s Eve 1967, it remains as renowned for the hideously bitter conditions in which it was contested as its thrilling denouement.

    The Green Bay Packers, managed by the legendary Vince Lombardi, were aiming to make history by becoming the first team in the history of the play-off era to win three consecutive NFL titles. Similarly venerated Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry and his men had the difficult job of stopping them. Up for grabs: the NFL Championship and a place against the AFL champions in the second Super Bowl. Still in its infancy and nothing resembling the spectacle that stops a nation it has since become, that particular decider would prove little more than a footnote to what has gone down in football folklore as the “Ice Bowl”.
    ………………
    At the risk of labouring the point, it was a day so bitterly cold that the Green Bay wide receiver Carroll Dale’s toenails froze, turned black and would later fall off. The Dallas running back Dan Reeves took a hit and walloped his head so hard on the icy turf that one of his own teeth punctured his upper lip leaving a scar that remains to this day. Upon realising his whistle had frozen after an attempt to blow for kick-off, match referee Norm Schachter and his assistants were forced to officiate by shouting and gesticulating to signal the beginning and end of each play. There was no end of pre-match shouting and gesticulating from umpire Joe Connell, who pulled off a sizeable chunk of one of his own lips while trying to separate it from the metal whistle to which it had become firmly frozen. The blood that poured from the wound quickly solidified on Connell’s chin and remained visible throughout the game.

    “We got extra socks, thermal underwear and things like that,” Schachter would later recall. “I had regular underwear on and three pairs of stockings and then I put plastic bags over my feet. I had a sweatshirt from one of the teams, a turtleneck sweater and then we had on those plastic bags you get from the cleaners. I knew my cheeks were frostbitten. If we hadn’t had ear muffs and mittens, I think we would have had a tremendous problem.”

    The players had no such luxuries. Ernie Stautner, coach of the Cowboys’ celebrated Doomsday Defence, forbade his charges from wearing gloves on the grounds that they were “for sissies”. In a bid to keep his hands warm, the Cowboys wide receiver Bob Hayes, the 1964 Olympic 100m gold medallist, kept them wedged down the front of his pants during huddles. The Packers quickly twigged that unless he removed them it meant he would not be involved in subsequent plays. Many of the players on Lambeau Field that day suffered frostbitten fingers, as well as lung damage sustained by greedily gulping down great mouthfuls of cold air as they went about their brutal business.

  19. 19.

    geg6

    Looks like Mark Hamill had the same kind of year I did. How one year can age me a couple of decades is a puzzle.

    2018 must be better.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    I’ve never understood all the blue jay hate. They’re beautiful birds! They’re also smart and bold as brass. Sure, they pilfer the occasional nest (this is rare behavior, from what I’ve read) and monopolize feeders by running smaller birds off. But all birds are assholes if you apply human standards to them — they’re little dinosaurs, after all.

  25. 25.

    bystander

    @Major Major Major Major: In my wandering around Europe days, London was famous for metered heat and metered hot water. Glad to see they’ve branched out into metering new technologies. Paris is comparatively a visit to Mom. Not only is the food better and cheaper, Mom doesn’t try to freeze you to death in the night.

    Happy New Year, Jackals. We made it through Leonard Bernstein concert at NYPhil and conked out.

  27. 27.

    debbie

    @Betty Cracker:

    I agree with you. I think blue jays with their periwinkle feathers are beautiful! I wish they had more pleasant voices, but then I could say that same thing about myself.

  28. 28.

    Raven

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: The plan worked like a charm so far. There was zero traffic coming in and we were in the first row of parking. It’s pretty chilly but we are dressed for it. We’re just pondering when to take off for the parade .

  29. 29.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    I don’t know anything about blue jays buy they’re pretty birds. That’s a beautiful blue color.

  30. 30.

    glaukopis

    I’ve been in and out recently so may have missed news about it. Is there no 2018 balloon juice pet calendar? My pooches want to see their glamour shot.

  32. 32.

    satby

    Happy New Year again to all. It’s a toasty 6° out, looking ahead our first day back into the 20s will be next Saturday. It’s hunker down weather.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    @Raven:

    The plan worked like a charm so far. There was zero traffic coming in and we were in the first row of parking. 

    I hope you don’t find yourself in a Wally World situation.

  34. 34.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    I was flipping channels last night and ended up watching CNN even though I had planned in boycotting it because of Kathy Griffin. Anyhow, Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper were a freaking train wreck. They also had one of the correspondent at a pot and paint party in Colorado. Maybe I am a prude but,honestly, I don’t think that is apprpriate. Whatevs. Happy New Year!

  35. 35.

    Sab

    @Betty Cracker: Blue jays, when they aren’t cawing, have some beautiful songs. Still mean as shit. One if them killed a baby sparrow I was fostering in 1965. The baby sparrow was just sitting there doing nothing and the blue jay killed it for no reason whatsoever. I have had an issue with them ever since. Also we have several one eyed squirrels blinded by blue jays . I don’t see a lot of cardinals or sparrows pecking out squirrel eyes around here.

    Damn near impossible to type anything coherent what with autocorrect. My new years resolution is to figure out how to disable it.

  37. 37.

    Anne Laurie

    @Arclite:

    As a life long Dem, I’m not sure I want to be associated with Blue Jays. They are, after all, the assholes of the bird world.

    All birds are assholes, except the ones who are too fekkin’ stupid to qualify. At least blue jays are COMPLETELY UP FRONT about their character flaws, unlike cardinals, where the males & females dress differently but both sexes harass all the smaller birds away from the feeders.

    Blue jays are under the protection of Murphy the Trickster God. Lots of American legends, going back to pre-Invasion times, about Blue Jay being a little too smart for his own good. One of the earliest stories I remember was Thornton Burgess’ explanation the blue jays’ call: All the birds were having their nests robbed, and Blue Jay (a silver-tongued orator) kept persuading the others that one or another of the victims must’ve been responsible. So Mother Nature called all the birds together, asked which one was the Real Killer, and Blue Jay opened his big beak only to discover that all he could say was Thief! THIEF!

    (Prediction: You will never hear a blue jay call again without hearing thief! thief!)

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Anne Laurie:

    unlike cardinals, where the males & females dress differently but both sexes harass all the smaller birds away from the feeders.

    I have never seen that kind of behavior from cardinals at any of my feeders.

  39. 39.

    cain

    I missed the whole picture part for the balloon-juice calendar. This is the second year in a row I missed it. :( Of course, now I have no pets. The last one died this past year. :(

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    @Sab: iOS or Android? My iPhone’s autocorrect used to be reasonably helpful, but a while back, it started randomly capitalizing nouns — almost as if it were possessed by a malevolent orange gremlin. I’ve done every update I’m notified about, so I don’t think it’s a glitch. Other users have reported similar troubles. I waste so much time going back and uncapitalizing words that had no business being capitalized by an English speaker. It’s annoying AF.

  43. 43.

    satby

    Since we keep talking about the horrible weather, remember to keep those bird feeders full. Suet cakes help too, with extra fat for all the energy the birds expend trying to stay warm.

    As far as the ferals, I see tracks and food being eaten, but haven’t found anyone enjoying the heated cat house in the shed yet. It looks like a cat or other critters went in though. I’m just hoping that wherever they’re hiding it’s warm enough for them not to be suffering.

  45. 45.

    HeleninEire

    Happy New Year everyone. Cold and rainy here I’m Dublin (yeah not a big surprise). Sitting in a pub drinking a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and eating a delicious mushroom soup. Savoring one of my last pissing around all day days. Back to work a week from today.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @Betty Cracker:
    Can you turn off the autocorrect? I leave it turned off on my own phone, because I don’t care to be second-guessed by some %&#! machine.

  51. 51.

    ProudGradofCatLadyAcademy

    Happy New Year!

    A moment to thank you all for the great conversations, interesting ideas and support in 2017. You really have been lifesavers for my mind in so many ways. Thank you for being a welcoming, wonderful online community!

    Freezing here, my car won’t stay running in the cold despite getting a very nice battery warmer for it. The battery checked out when I ran it to auto zone, but it really just does not want to start if left more than two hours without a start, and I am exhausted during the night to not get up and start it.

    I hate calling roadside assistance for the 3rd time in so many days.. I am going to wait a few days and talk to the neighbors, they all are handy with keeping old cars running so we will see what they say.

    It’s good to see everyone posting had a goodish? New Year. Major, sorry about the phone issue and metered WIFI. Here is hoping it is not a harbinger of things to come, but Americans seem to be docile customers for the most part, mostly because there aren’t any other options in a lot of places for internet and in some cases, even phones. Things like internet and cell phone deserts exist indeed, especially in smaller and rural towns.

    I spent my New Year’s Eve sharing a glass of wine with my 1st favorite neighbor, While a really good authentic Paella was on the table, going to the store was not due to aforementioned car issues so I made us bastardized fried rice paella with leftover Chinese diner rice and mussels I found in my freezer. Instead of using the cheaper and less flavorful option of turmeric, I actually found my saffron thread stash, so it tasted more like Paella and less like curry so there was that. First favorite neighbor consumed 3 helpings and kept a plate for his working wife for later, so it must have turned out really well. Then I returned to EQ2, where the evening was spent decorating my virtual dollhouse started earlier in the day. It’s engrossing, fun and tedious as it mostly using a 3rd party excel sheet type layout file and manipulating data in that to load into the game. The floor is in, and am working on the walls and windows now. I forgot how doing one of those virtual dollhouses is my flow activity, I started at 8:00 pm and my sister texted at midnight. My first thought was it can’t be almost 4 hours gone, I just started this!

    Stay warm, and layer up if you are in the New North Pole areas!

    Kind regards,
    PGoCLA

  53. 53.

    Cermet

    The Secretary General of the United Nations issued a Red Alert for all Nations in his News Year address; interesting that it is more a reflection of what the small handed orange fart cloud is either causing – danger of nuclear war, not doing anything for AGW or rigging our economic system creating vastly greater wealth inequality (while a world wide issue it is far worse here and growing even faster.) Of course, intolerance to immigrants (many are fleeing civil wars that are being directly or indirectly caused by AGW) is a primary part of the fart clouds appeal and so many right wing people through out the world are following this ideology, as well.

    So fellow Jackals, lets hope for a good New Year assuming we take at least the House and hold mostly what we have of the Senate but critically, control enough legislator seats on the state level and governorships that we can gerrymander the hell out of the country and turn the country toward Blue.

  55. 55.

    HeleninEire

    @Gin & Tonic: Oh hai! I had my first Gin & Tonic last night. Went to a place called “The Gin Palace.” They boast 100 varieties of gin. I had Gunpowder Irish Gin and Elderflower tonic.

    OH MY GOD. It was delicious. I’m a beer and wine girl, don’t really drink hard liquor.
    I could not believe how good that G&T was.

  57. 57.

    Betty Cracker

    @Gin & Tonic: I know it can be turned off. But despite the annoying random capitalization, it does have useful, time-saving functions — e.g., auto-completing words as I type them, capitalizing the first word in a sentence, fixing simple typos, etc. — that have to be weighed against the time I waste fixing inappropriately capitalized words.

  58. 58.

    the Conster

    0 degrees to start the new year here in Boston. Looking forward to the blue wave that’s coming our way! Vote Dem for every office, every where local, state and federal, and ditch anyone not an ally. Happy New Year BJers!

  59. 59.

    Betty Cracker

    Kim Jong-Orange has already threatened Pakistan on Twitter this morning and done his best to give the mullahs in Iran a lifeline by associating himself with the protesters.

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    90-plus-plus per cent of the body voted for sleep, sinuses exercised their veto. Maybe in an hour or two after their tantrum has run its course.

  64. 64.

    satby

    @NotMax: looks like I’ll begin it later today or tomorrow. Was catching up on Brokenwood first, and I can only manage a couple hours of video watching per day generally before I get twitchy from sitting so long. Had to DVR the rest of the Thin Man marathon after the first two last night. Plus Holiday Inn this morning for later. Cold weather like this requires a stockpile of amusements ?

    Edited to add: feel better soon!

  68. 68.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    The twitter for Dr Eric Kaplan is a thing to behold. He’s a chiropractor, some celebrity quack who’s been on Dr Oz, and a total Trumper. He tried doing a number of tweets from the NYE Klavern at Mar-a-Lago to show what he thought a nice evening out, but found himself dragged to shit and back on literally every tweet.

  69. 69.

    ThresherK

    @OzarkHillbilly: I read that excerpt in the voice of God, a.k.a. John Facenda, and it took me twenty very entertaining minutes.

    Anyone else?

    Our NYE was First Night in Sandwich MA (but it was over at 9pm) so we also got back to see Boston’s on TV. Hope everyone isn’t too cold.

  70. 70.

    geg6

    Oh, and here’s to hoping the Ravens have fun today. It may be chilly out there but it’s not Pittsburgh cold. Two degrees with wind chills at -10. At least the sun is out.

  71. 71.

    zhena gogolia

    Off to the cat hospital with the one cat we thought was reasonably healthy but seems to have symptoms of kidney failure.

    Happy New Year!

  72. 72.

    Sab

    @debbie: My brother in law, originally from China, spends half his year in Columbus. Columbus has very high levels of reported West Nile bird deaths. We thought it was just a statistical anomaly due to the state u and an unusually high level of ornithologists reporting.

    But he was visiting us in Akron last summer and he was entranced by the blue jays . Thirty years in America, half of them in central Ohio, and he had never seen a blue jay before. Weird.

    Do you have many jays near you in Columbus?

  73. 73.

    Sab

    @Betty Cracker: It’s an Android. Samsung Galaxy E Chrome browser, Nook from Barnes and Noble.

    Annoying corrections example: blue jays is corrected to Blue Jay’s, and the only way to stop it is to put a space after the jay.

  74. 74.

    debbie

    @Sab:

    I’m not sure what counts as many. I always hear them whenever I’m out on a walk, but the sneaky devils generally stay hidden. I live in a neighborhood with tons of old, old trees, so that may be why there are so many.

    There used to be a pack of them on my block when I lived in NYC. A cat was always harassing them, and they’d dive bomb the cat whenever they thought it was too close to their nests. The balance of power changed when a tenant brought home a Weimaraner puppy. The cat became very skittish, even though the puppy only wanted to play, and I swear I heard the jays laughing at the cat.

    I don’t know why there’s West Nile around here, but it was back again this past summer.

  75. 75.

    chris

    Blue jays! Years ago after some experimentation I made a $3 squirrel-proof and, so I thought, blue jay-proof bird feeder. It was too, for a while. Then one of them noticed, as he tried and failed to land on it, that some seeds fell to the ground. Now the flock shows up several times a week to take turns crashing into the feeder while the rest feast on the ground and keep a wary eye out for the cat and the dog.

    Sidenote: The feeder is squirrel-proof but not flying squirrel-proof. So that’s fun.

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack

    @Sab:

    On your device desktop, go to Settings | General Management | Language & Input | Virtual Keyboard | Samsung Keyboard | Smart Typing. Fiddle with the settings as desired.

    The menu tree might not be exactly the same on your device, but Settings | Language & Input | Keyboard is the general path for Android. (Might show up as Google Keyboard or Gboard.)

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    Huh. Psych marathon on Hallmark Movie Channel all day today. Just started with the pilot.

  80. 80.

    MomSense

    Happy New Year, Jackals. I’m drinking coffee and waiting for the banana bread to finish baking. All my birds made it back to their nests safely this morning. So far so good 2018.

  81. 81.

    Heidi Mom

    @debbie: I read not too long ago that blue jays imitate hawks to scare other birds away from a food source. This explains several instances in which I heard a hawk’s cry and looked around and up but was unable to find it.

  82. 82.

    Yarrow

    Happy New Year, everyone! I’m still feeling the effects of last night where I had several sips of champagne. Several! No wonder I’m hungover.

  86. 86.

    Betsy

    @debbie: They do have that wonderful pump-handle call (loodle-oot, loodle-oot) and then they make soft, varied, beautiful warbled notes at the nest.

  88. 88.

    mike in dc

    My theory about the relationship between Trump and his lawyers:
    1) They’re lying to him, to placate him and keep him from doing anything crazy or stupid like firing Mueller/someone in DOJ and/or pardoning people
    2) He’s lying to them about the extent of his involvement in every damn thing that went down between 2015 and 2017

    On this theory, if Trump were to be honest with them, they’d be urging him to do a bunch of different things, which would tend to reconfirm his guilt among other things, and when he refused to do most of it, they’d resign. If they were to be honest with Trump, he’d fire them and try to do a bunch of crazy stuff, which would alarm the Senate and the VSP and could lead to a more rapid downfall.

  90. 90.

    Miss Bianca

    @Silent no more: @Silent no more: my God, you mean I’m not the only one who witnessed this horror? And what the hell was it with the whole beginning bit? The trees, the storm, the bear saying “i am the storm” and then wtf, a teddy bear with an orange combover?!

  91. 91.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: I’ll see your 6 degrees and raise you, we are currently at -14. I put on my long down coat just to walk across the porch to let my dogs out.

  92. 92.

    debit

    @satby: I bought a heated cat shelter last year that, so far as I can tell, has never even been stepped in. I moved it this spring to a more concealed area hoping kitties would be more prone to use it if they could sneak in and out but no luck. It’s amazing to me that critters can survive this kind of weather.

  93. 93.

    Ian G.

    Mornin’, everyone.

    Since we’re talking birds, I’ll mention that Cardinals are dicks like Blue Jays. I’ve seen Cardinals bully sparrows and finches at my feeder just as much as the Blue Jays that show up on occasion.

    On another note, my wife doesn’t seem to be pushing back against my desire to head down to Jones Beach in negative wind chills to look for Snowy Owls. There’s been a nice big irruption of the majestic birds this year, and a lot of them are congregating along the south shore of Long Island, Jersey Shore, Connecticut coast, etc. Jones Beach is a short drive away and is practically a wilderness area at this time of year, with arctic birds showing up and nothing but crazy birders looking for them.

  95. 95.

    Timurid

    Spayd’s Razor is getting a workout this morning.

    Spayd’s Razor: If somebody acts to enable white supremacists, the logical conclusion is that the actor is a white supremacist.

  97. 97.

    Honus

    @OzarkHillbilly: and on top of all that, it was a hell of a game. Both teams scored in the final minutes, and it was decided in the last seconds. I was a sorely disappointed 12 year old Dallas fan (because Chuck Howley is from Warwood West Virginia and WVU)

  101. 101.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I was a huge Packer fan as a kid. Jerry Kramer was my idol after ‘Instant Reply’ came out.

    I have since paid attention to the film. Kramer was illegally in motion at the snap, should have been flagged. The Dallas CLownboys got that back a couple years later when not flagged for offensive pass interference in the NFC championship game,

  108. 108.

    Schlemazel

    @Gin & Tonic:
    I love a good gin & tonic. It seems some places want to make is ‘special’ & do disgusting things to gin ( I have ne where the gin tasted like lawn).

  110. 110.

    Schlemazel

    IT a balmy -12 here at the moment & even the birds are in hiding.

    Had a very nice fire last night but of course that shuts the heat off so the pipes to the second floor froze. Had to futz with them till 3 to get water flowing. The good news is that no pipes burst

  114. 114.

    brendancalling

    @Arclite: i have a blue jay tattoo on my right arm. They’re assholes, but tough as nails. I once saw a jay win a fight with a squirrel.

    Pushing 11 am here in Philly. The teenager and I sat up til 2:00 am watching “The Tick”, and have had leftover pizza for breakfast. Skipping the Mummers because it’s too damn cold, but an early afternoon New Years Day open house awaits.

  116. 116.

    chris

    @Schlemazel: Heh, replay from last night. Has eclare checked in?

    Set the taps to drip and hang a cloth over the tap so you don’t hear the dripping. The colder the weather the more drip required.

  119. 119.

    Aleta

    @zhena gogolia: Sending good wishes to a good cat and you. (If it’s kidney we’ve had incredible luck with the hydration, one time did the IV (2-3 day, miraculous) and w/3 other cats the sub-cu + diet.

  124. 124.

    chris

    @Schlemazel: It’s been very cold for some time now and over time it seeps into every nook and cranny. I’m used to it here, the hovel wasn’t really built for long periods of -10 or colder.

    @eclare: Good to hear. Stay warm.

  127. 127.

    Aleta

    @Schlemazel: Very good news. Yikes I’d better run some hot water down in the kitchen.

    @chris: Once we had a drain pipe freeze because of a leaky slow drip in the kitchen. The drips began to freeze to each other on the way down, and after a while the pipe closed up. After that we set up a thermometer and a small cube heater-blower under the frost wall to plug in if it got too cold. Haven’t needed it for so long that we forgot to check on the wire safety this fall. Too much snow blocking things by now to check.

    Glad we have power for the hot water!

  131. 131.

    chris

    @Aleta:Heh, yup. Part 2, Winter Survival: always check the drain, sometimes water in the trap will freeze. If so, pour in a pot of boiling water. Yes, I speak from experience.

  135. 135.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack:

    Thanks. She’s in for observation now.

    ETA: Thanks to everyone for the good wishes. We’re hoping for the best. Her brother has a tumor and definitely has no more than another 6 months, so it’s tough.

  138. 138.

    Gravenstone

    @Silent no more: SciChan is part of the Discovery network of channels. If you look at their other channels, they do appear to target an older and probably more ‘conservative’ (read Reactionary) audience. I was unfortunate enough to hear one of those commercials yesterday as well (was on the computer so only listening to the TV in the background). Simply appalling that such a market is even presumed to exist. But, suckers appear to be plentiful.

  139. 139.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Schlemazel: Pasadena is NOT wingnut country. Their House member is a solid blue Dem. Schiff used to represent Pasadena, he may still represent part of Pasadena.

    ETA: That said, your characterization of the Grand Marshal is spot on.

  141. 141.

    scav

    @OGLiberal: You forgot 0) it’s apparently selling.

    eta

    … there’s nothing. like making you feel like a patriot. 0:15:29, 0:15:33. as you pull your country’s flag. out of a bear’s arse …

  142. 142.

    The Lodger

    @Sab: I miss blue jays myself. Here in the PNW we see mostly scrub jays and a few Steller jays, none of the ones with crests.

  143. 143.

    Aleta

    @The Lodger: I wonder, if blue jays and cardinals were rarely seen, or tropical, if we might treat the sight of them with as much awe as for parrots. (As it is, my family loves them for the color on the snow.)

    We have something in the yard — it’s one of the 2-3 scrubby bushes with forgotten berries–that attracts flocks of cardinals this time of year. Beautiful.

  145. 145.

    CaseyL

    @satby: @debit: I’ve read that cats don’t like going into cave-like objects that have only one opening, because they can too easily be trapped in it. That’s got to be particularly true of ferals.

    It would be a pain to build, but maybe put a door on the front and back sides – at opposite ends from each other – with a tunnel-like extension on each to hold the heat in?

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