Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Let’s finish the job.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

White supremacy is terrorism.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Not all heroes wear capes.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

You are here: Home / Open Threads / What a Difference a Day Makes

What a Difference a Day Makes

by | 126 Comments

This post is in: 

Yesterday, the 50’s and torrential downpours and flooding:

Today, 15 degrees and a fresh 6″-8″ of snow on top of ice:

I prefer the latter, by a wide margin. I’d take a foot of snow the entire winter until it is time for spring, tbh. I’m paying one of the kids to come shovel the walks and I figure I will dig out my car later. I’ve got all the fixings to make a good beef stew, the Penguins are on this afternoon, and everyone in my household is still in bed (here’s Rosie from last night):

BTW- am I the only one who is really looking forward to the diversion of the Olympics this year?

Reader Interactions

126Comments

  5. 5.

    Another Scott

    Glad to see Rosie. Hope her arthritis, etc., isn’t too bad.

    It was about 65F here in NoVA yesterday, and some of the buds on the trees were swelling like they wanted to start opening. We had a chance of snow overnight (nothing stuck). It’s 33F now. :-/

    Stay safe and warm, everyone.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    Ian G.

    A friend of mine is a professor at St Lawrence University way up on the northern tier of New York State (closest big city is either Ottawa or Montreal). It apparently got warmer up there than down here on Long Island yesterday. But now it’s getting colder. Much colder. Apparently the temperature is going to plunge 81 degrees from yesterday’s high to today’s low.

    A friend of my father’s is a retired meteorologist. He says a better term for what’s happening with all the CO2 in the atmosphere might be “climate instability” rather than “climate change”. Hard to argue with that given weather across the east the last few days. Also, as a lifelong NYC metro area resident, I swear blizzards are getting more common than they were when I was a kid.

  9. 9.

    donnah

    I like a nice, gentle, fluffy snow, followed by sunshine and temps in the high twenties to keep it all pretty. Last night we got freezing rain, followed by snow, and then overnight the blasting wind scoured the landscape, turning it into an icy, brittle mess. Some areas were blown clear of snow, leaving ice exposed, while other areas are half a foot deep with crisp snow.

    We get a day’s reprieve until the next front moves in, and with this cold day, little time to clear away the ice. Brrrrr!

    I just read about what Kentucky is doing with their Medicaid revisions. It’s horrifying. Talk about a brittle landscape. The Republicans will wipe out a lot of poor people with the new program.

  10. 10.

    cmorenc

    I’m especially looking forward to the Olympic Alpine skiing events – especially the men’s and women’s downhill race down an icy course at terrifying speeds. Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn are each superhuman marvels of graceful, precisely trained athleticism, with cat-like moves, both exemplars of how arduous, devoted, disciplined strength and balance training off the snow pays off on the snow. Vonn tends to dominate the downhill event, Shiffrin is the unquestioned world’s best slalom race, but Shiffrin is slowly expanding her dominance into the GS event as well.

  13. 13.

    Viva BrisVegas

    The Olympics is not until 2020.

    Oh, you mean the white people’s Olympics.

    As for weather, Spitsbergen is 650 miles from the North Pole and hasn’t seen the sun for almost 3 months.

    Temperature today, 41F.

  14. 14.

    HinTN

    Snowing here, but we missed the nastiness BNA and points west received.

    Totally OT but what’s the process on the BJ Calendar, Mr Blogmeister?

  18. 18.

    Jager

    @Mary G:

    I had a pal in college, who didn’t curl, but for some reason had a collection of curling sweaters and hats. We’d go to a party or out and hit the bars, he’d wear some awful curling sweater and one of his hats. I asked him once, “Do you enjoy looking like an asshole?” He answered, “Why, yes, I do.” They should have written him into “Animal House”.

  21. 21.

    AnneWith

    This Reuters story from yesterday has an appalling headline:

    Trump’s profanity delights supporters, horrifies etiquette experts

    Excuse me? An etiquette violation is when you use a soup spoon in your tea, or neglect to write a thank you note. Calling countries “shitholes” and their citizens undesirables is flat-out racism, which is a lot more serious than an “etiquette violation”.

    Jesus Fucking Christ.

  25. 25.

    Cathie from Canada

    @Mary G: Rules of curling in Canada: Everybody throws rocks down the ice and they measure which one is nearest the “button”. Its a big button, very big!
    Then everybody had a beer and does it again, this time from the other end.

  27. 27.

    Thoughtful David

    64 F here last evening, the 30 F this morning. That’s a 113% change.
    Oh, well it’s not. It’s a mere 6.9% change. Still, it feels like a lot.
    Oh, and Tweety has to go. Anyone who can express that kind of contempt for a woman he’s about to interview ain’t fit for decent company.

  29. 29.

    JudyinSD

    Open thread comment. Had the first good night sleep in a long time after watching Letterman’s interview with Obama on Netflix before bed. It was such a pleasant change from the usual insanity of the current occupant of the Oval Office.

  31. 31.

    rachel

    My husband and I saw the Olympic torch relay go by today when we were out walking our dog. Koreans do love to have the proper ceremony.

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    It’s supposed to go from 50s to negative temps today. This morning we have fog and slush and later today it is going to be treacherous.

  35. 35.

    Schlemazel

    @Mary G:
    That would be the Norwegian team, everyone else is boring. If you are interested in dressing like them they get their gear from loudmouthgolf.com. After I win the lotto I plan on buying all my suits from them.

  36. 36.

    Another Scott

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: If you’re good at dodging the fires, mud rivers, and boulders you should be fine!!1

    :-/

    Seriously, absolutely horrible what the people in Montecito went through. :-(

    Stay frosty, Billin! /Adam™

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jager: Hmmmm…. My brother from another mother? One needs to make an impression, good or bad. The worst sin in the world is to be forgettable.

  38. 38.

    Schlemazel

    Colder than a well diggers ankle out here on the tundra. We had a week of relief but yesterday and today the high temp will be just a couple degrees above zero.

  41. 41.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: Nah, Mt. San Antonio is over 10,000 feet, so even with the warm and very wet storm we had it still gets snow.

    @Another Scott: No problems here, there was a downed tree on the trail yesterday evening.

    Seriously, absolutely horrible what the people in Montecito went through.

    It’s awful, but I bet that a good number were told to “Get the Hell Out” and didn’t. Everytime they have a fire and then a storm there are folk on the TV that say they’ll ride it out.

  46. 46.

    JustRuss

    Re the Olympics, I’m not sure which I’m looking forward to more: Trump taking credit for all our wonderful gold medals, or Trump disparaging a silver medalist for being “first loser”.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @AnneWith:
    That story is a classic example of missing the point, isn’t it? It’s not about saying “shithole” or how people react to it; it’s about the contempt Trump showed to entire nations by calling them shithole countries, it’s about what this says about him and America. You don’t check with Miss Manners on this, you check with your conscience. That’s what people like Philip Mudd are saying. Trump’s words are worse than vulgar; they offend the conscience. That’s why Americans are ashamed and the world is angry.

  50. 50.

    Big Ole Hound

    Where I am in CA the weather is great no mud or fire, and one tiny quake in the past year…life is good, Oh and the GOP is a tiny underdog in my area.

  52. 52.

    Mike J

    @JMG:

    It does require regions with lots of snow and ice to produce many winter Olympians.

    Jamaica did famously field a bobsled team. I love the fact that Lewis Hamilton says Cool Runnings is his favorite movie. It’s a huge chunk of Disney cheese, but he talks about when he was a kid and just starting karting and how the reaction in the pits to his family’s janky kart was like that in the movie when the Jamaicans show up with their sled. And of course there was that other thing that made Hamilton and the Jamaicans stand out.

  54. 54.

    J R in WV

    I don’t like anything about NBC, they’ve ruined the Olympics with their USA USA boosterism, which is the antithesis of what the Olympics are about.

    Here we’ve shooting from 74 Thursday afternoon when the warm rain started down into the teens last night. Right now it’s 20ish and dropping back into the teens again tonight. The rain changed into sleet around 9 or10, and on top of the ice we’ve got around 3 inches of show, still falling.

    I COULD drive out, I got the snow tires on the AWD VW last week, felt funny wearing a tee shirt and getting snow tires remounted. Only took 20 minutes, they have their own wheels. Blizzak, real soft tread with lots of tiny slits. We planed to go to town for a memorial service, co-worker of wife for many years died last week, but we both have upper respiratory infections and are taking antibiotics after seeing the doc Thursday. So not going…. damm it.

    Old reporters, wake at the reporter’s bar, would be a great get together, not so hard at their age now. But still, the principle. Pablo was 72.

  55. 55.

    rikyrah

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 1/12/18
    Sen. Kamala Harris: Trump’s comments simply irresponsible
    Senator Kamala Harris talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump’s racist remarks about sources of U.S. immigration, and about the plight of DACA recipients to whom the United States made a promise that Trump intends to break

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 1/12/18
    Senator Harris: Robert Mueller’s authority must be preserved
    Senator Kamala Harris talks with Rachel Maddow about the Trump Russia investigation and why she can’t think about things like 2020 while the fate of DACA recipients hangs in the balance.

  56. 56.

    Schlemazel

    I was in Canada years ago during an Olympics (Torino, I think) and enjoyed the CBC coverage a whole lot better. One funny thing was that they would break into coverage to show any Canadian finishing. I was watching some event & they cut away to show a Canadian finishing 32nd in a biathlon event. But it was a lot less jingoistic and more relaxed.

    If you are an Olympic game fan the USA U18 ice hockey team plays Sweden for the world gold medal in 10 minutes
    http://u18worldwomen2018.iihf.hockey/en/stream-game-22-usa-sweden/

  58. 58.

    laura

    @Mary G: MaryG, I love curling too! It’s the most domestic of sports, combining the tedium of swiffering with the tea kettle of ironing. And then there’s the outfits. ZOWEE!
    Here’s hoping for some serious coverage of a sport less dangerous than the GS, luge, or biathalon, but so, very thrilling.

  59. 59.

    aimai

    @AnneWith: Utter failure of imagination. When the president describes fellow citizens in this way its not a failure of etiquette any more than shitting in the national soup pot is.

  61. 61.

    rikyrah

    Trump responds to ‘s***hole’ outcry with ‘America First!’ tweet

    Source: The Hill

    BY JOHN BOWDEN – 01/13/18 08:24 AM EST

    President Trump is responding to the widespread condemnation of his remarks about immigrants from “shithole countries” with a two-word tweet: “America First!”

    Trump offered the tweet at 8:14 a.m. with little other comment. And while the tweet didn’t cite the criticism of his reported comments at a meeting with lawmakers in the White House, it was hard to see the words as anything but a response to that controversy.

    America First is one of the hallmarks of Trump’s presidency, and reflects his stance on immigration.

    Trump wants to change the rules for entering the United States, and stepped into controversy when he said the nation should be seeking immigrants from countries such as Norway instead of countries such as Haiti.

  62. 62.

    kindness

    re – the olympics. It’s good to see South and North Korea make nice gestures to each other. As much as I’d like to see the two Koreas unify to one country, I don’t think the owners of either are willing to share with the other guy. Still, nothing wrong with trying.

  63. 63.

    gene108

    @Mary G:

    I love curling too. I remember when I was a kid in Ann Arbor, we’d get the CBC station from Windsor and they’d have curling on sometimes. I was fascinated with what they were doing with the brooms.

    I am still fascinated and still confused as to the point of it all.

    I also like luge and skeleton. Hurtling down a shute at high speeds is the sort of thing I would’ve enjoyed in my youth.

  65. 65.

    Doug R

    Yeah, wait until you work through the snow and hit the layer of ice underneath and fall on your ass. Hope the local hardware store has plenty of grit for the path. Old school (non clumping) cat litter works well. Tiny folding shovel for the car as well.

  66. 66.

    Another Scott

    @gene108: SA – They Physics of Curling:

    As with any sport, there’s a good amount of physics involved in curling, and there is tons of online information about the basic mechanics. There’s inertia, for starters: curling stones are pretty heavy (around 45 pounds each), so once a stone is thrown and gets some momentum, it can slide quite a long ways before the friction builds up enough to slow it to a stop.

    The better players can control the friction, the better they can control the curl of the stone as it travels down the ice and position it right where they want it in the house. The ice itself is special: the surface is sprayed with droplets that then freeze, forming a pebbled surface that reduces friction. as does a circular “running band” along the bottom of the stone — the only part of the stone that actually touches the pebbled ice, because the stone’s weight is concentrated on a very small area compared to regular flat ice.

    The frenzied sweeping with the little brooms helps reduce friction even further, slightly heating that segment of the ice very briefly before it refreezes. The stone curls more if you leave it alone. The point of the sweeping is to make the stone curl less and travel further. How much or how little you sweep depends on where you want to the stone to end up. There’s a lot more skill involved than you think, which is why the sport is sometimes dubbed “chess on ice.”

    Neat stuff.

    I heard a story on the radio that there’s an effort to get Ice Climbing Racing in the 2022 games. What could go wrong among kids who get inspired to try it at home??! :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    Dropped from 55 to 35 in an hour, here in Central MA, but I guess that’s better than what MomSense will be going through later.

  69. 69.

    bemused

    I usually refrain from telling people that I have no interest in watching any Olympics because most folks think I’m peculiar. I will make an exception if I know something of a particular person competing with MN or friends connections but that has been rare since the 1980 Minnesota Miracle hockey team.

  72. 72.

    Baud

    @bemused:

    I usually refrain from telling people that I have no interest in watching any Olympics because most folks think I’m peculiar.

    For the love of God, don’t tell them you’re a Juicer.

  74. 74.

    chris

    It’s 20C/68F here right now. The previous record was 7.2C/45F in 1972. A few years ago a scientist proposed the term “global weirding.” Fits.

    I’ve been out in a T-shirt raking up the junk around the woodpile and throwing a ball for Bert. He’s flaked out on the floor panting because his winter coat was never meant for this.

  76. 76.

    Fair Economist

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    As for weather, Spitsbergen is 650 miles from the North Pole and hasn’t seen the sun for almost 3 months.

    Temperature today, 41F.

    There’s an global seed bank built into the permafrost to serve in case of climactic/biological/nuclear/etc. catastrophe.

    It’s on Spitsbergen. Whoops!

  78. 78.

    Fair Economist

    @HinTN:

    Copy that, and as Ian G said at 6 “climate instability” is the best description I’ve heard yet.

    The climate becomes more variable with global warming, but “warming” is still the key part of the problem. Crazy weather we can live with. We can’t live with a third of India becoming uninhabitable in a century, and that’s possible with current trends (not the median estimate, but possible). We can’t live with Greenland and West Antarctica melting either.

  80. 80.

    mai naem mobile

    Not sure they’ll be a total distraction being that it’s in SKorea and Putty Put probably has some disruptive shit planned because his most of his country’s athletes were told to go fuck themselves.

  81. 81.

    chris

    @Sebastian: There’s a small arrow in the top right corner of every tweet. Click there. That said, only front pagers can embed a whole tweet, yours will look like this:

    Monday: President OprahTuesday: Fusion GPS Wednesday: I forgot Wednesday Thursday: "Shithole countries"Friday: Porn starThat's it, right? This was all one week?— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) 13 January 2018

  83. 83.

    Fair Economist

    @J R in WV:

    I don’t like anything about NBC, they’ve ruined the Olympics with their USA USA boosterism, which is the antithesis of what the Olympics are about.

    Yeah. You’ll get great contests or record-setting results from other countries’ athletes but NBC won’t show it because all they show is Americans.

  84. 84.

    NotMax

    The total number of minutes spent over a lifetime watching the Olympics can be counted on one hand, with enough digits left over to flick my Bic.

    Y’all who are into that sort of thing, enjoy it.

  85. 85.

    Fair Economist

    I’m looking forward to figure skater Nathan Chen, who is the best jumper ever and by a large margin. 5 different quads in one program, OMG!

  87. 87.

    bemused

    @Baud:

    LOL
    Come to think of it, I rarely tell people about this place. They’d have to be issue/news/politics addicts to begin with.

  88. 88.

    No Drought No More

    Even in winter it’s obvious how beautiful West Virginia is just by looking at those photos. I was there once long ago on my own tour of Civil War battlefields. Harpers Ferry in particular will always rank among of the most gorgeous spots on earth I’ve ever laid eyes on. The houses and surrounding lots are fantastic, too, Cole. Looking at your them reminds me how easy it was on that tour to squint sideways into the past, by imaging a troop of Union or Confederate forces on horseback in towns like yours, loping down main street on their way to work circa 1863..

  92. 92.

    Jinchi

    BTW- am I the only one who is really looking forward to the diversion of the Olympics this year?

    You mean the Olympics in South Korea? Sure.
    It’s not like we have to worry that a tweet will set off WW3 on the penisula.

  94. 94.

    eclare

    @Mike J: Nigeria (shithole) has a women’s bobsled team in the Olympics. The kicker, they’re of Nigerian descent and live in Houston!

  95. 95.

    bemused

    @bystander:

    I used to think we should be a bit grateful that trump and wh are so incompetent and stupid but now I dunno. I can’t decide which would be more devastating, smart mobsters who know what they’re doing, how to work together and keep their mouths shut or woefully inept, arrogant, Dunning-Kruger thugs.

  100. 100.

    gene108

    @Another Scott:

    Yeah, there is a lot of skill involved. It is just such a different sort of skill, because you are trying to be precise rather than have part of your skill as being stronger, faster, etc. than your opponent.

  101. 101.

    bemused

    @JMG:

    Well, since the coach and most of the players were Minnesotans, I guess you can understand why Minnesotans were damn excited about the Miracle on Ice.

  107. 107.

    JMG

    @bemused: It got big play in Boston as well. Eruzione is my sports idol. After the Games, he quit the sport, knowing he could never top that, and has never worked at a real job in his life, serving as a “motivational speaker” for hire and all-around celebrity for hire in Boston. Good for him!

  108. 108.

    Suzanne

    I always enjoy the Winter Olympics. The snowboarders are always so fuckin’ charming. “Just won a gold medal, dude, like, totally SICK!” Plus, I get sick of all the fucking swimming in the Summer Games. Like, God. Watching people swim is almost as fuckin’ boring as watching people golf.

    IKEA is supposed to be here to pick up their damn shitty dressers and they are NOT and when I call the recall line, I hear, “All lines are currently busy. Please try your call again later. Goodbye.” SHITHOLES.

  109. 109.

    frosty

    @PJ: “… that shithouse of an Eastern Shore.” to be precise. He was pissed because they didn’t vote for him.

  110. 110.

    MomSense

    Took the dog for a walk. Temps dropped about 20 degrees in an hour. Now we have “flash freeze” warnings.

    Making pulled chicken, spicy slaw, jalapeño cornbread, and blackened fish for me. Also bought a couple growlers and stopped st the feed store for dog food and treats. We are ready to be stuck inside for awhile.

  111. 111.

    trollhattan

    @Suzanne:
    I do think golf could be interesting if they were golfing against the clock and also, too, if somehow tackling were involved. As it stands golf is a hobby, not a sport.

  115. 115.

    eclare

    @trollhattan: I concur. A friend once tried, unsuccessfully, to convince me to watch golf by saying “you can at least see the pretty landscaping.” Which is why I watch sports, to see the landscaping.

  118. 118.

    eclare

    @frosty: The men’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay in Beijing was thrilling, it was unprecedented to see a comeback like that, and enabled Phelps to continue his journey for 8 medals. We’ll see how swimming does now that he is gone.

  120. 120.

    Suzanne

    @trollhattan: Golf is boring AF to watch. If there was more risk of injury, it would be more exciting.

    I really don’t like watching any of the sports that consist of people doing things really fast, one after another, separated by fractions of seconds. All of those sports are fun to do, I’m sure, but not to watch. I love to ski, but there’s no way for a TV viewer to get a sense of what makes one person’s slide down the slope different from the next really fast person’s trip. If they all skied at once, it would be more exciting to watch.

  121. 121.

    Another Scott

    @Suzanne: Swimming is fine. At least it’s a race.

    Diving? Man, that’s a messed up “sport”. “OOooh. Look how small that splash is!!11″ . About 90% of the scoring (to hear the announcers) is the size of the splash. So, teams and coaches are now creating divers that are about 50% underweight so that they don’t make a splash. :-/ Real sensible use of incentives, there.

    Grr….

    YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    Suzanne

    @Another Scott: I like the diving because I think it’s lovely to watch. I’m not really interested in the scoring aspect, but I do enjoy watching it. Especially synchronized diving.

    Swimming bores me for the same reason I like the short track speed skating more than the long track: when the athletes don’t physically interact, unexpected things don’t happen often. At least in the sports where there are riskier elements like jumps, that can make up for the lack of interaction. But the swimming and skiing and long track speed skating are just not that exciting for me to watch.

    Though I will park my ass in front of the TV all night to watch curling. That shit is riveting.

  124. 124.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Suzanne:

    Oh, that would make it more interesting!

    “Woods, from six feet for the birdie… oh, my, he never saw that coming–Deacon Jones blindsides him for five yard loss!”

  125. 125.

    SWMBO

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): @Suzanne: How about Team A is lining up at the tee to drive to the hole. Team B gets out a putter and knocks the ball off the tee and then whacks Team A in the head with the putter. Team B tees up and Team A uses a wedge from behind to swing at Team B’s ankle. They could use teams of 10 per side so they could get through 9 holes. In open carry, stand your ground states, we could add pistols. Make it a sport that needs helmets, pads, bullet proof vests. You get the idea. Spice it up a little. Otherwise, it’s just like watching painted grass grow and dry.

  126. 126.

    Vhh

    @donnah: KY is sad, but they voted overwhelmingly for Trump and Bevin despite clear warnings about what would happen to their healthcare. And so now their herd will be thinned by disease, addiction and outward migration. Bring it on. I am sad for the suffering of the innocents, but I could not care less about the others.

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