Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

We won’t go back.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

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

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Not all heroes wear capes.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

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

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

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

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: What Is This “Spring” Weather BS

Open Thread: What Is This “Spring” Weather BS

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My eyes are swollen and my sinuses are leaking with slow, maddening persistence. So is the sky, right now. And yet, the ground is still frozen. Via Popehat’s twitter feed:



 
Now I’m never gonna lose the image of Cerberus as a sloppy, boisterous three-headed black Lab with one underpigmented nose…

Reader Interactions

105Comments

  1. 1.

    Frankensteinbeck

    And as the occasional other author has pointed out, of all the Greek gods, Hades seems to have been the least objectionable. Kidnapping/rape/forced marriage of Persephone, to take the legends at their most straightforward, is pretty bad, but the others do that on a daily basis and build up from that vile starting point.

  2. 2.

    Roger Moore

    I dunno, I can’t help but see Cerberus as a big, dopey, three-headed Labrador. Whoosa good boy, Cerb? You are! And you! So are you!

    Squirrel! Squirrel! Squirrel!

  4. 4.

    chris

    I took this picture two days ago on the backside of the hardwood hill. Today there were still little bits of snow in the shady spots even though it was 9C. 12C tomorrow and aback to 2C on Sunday with a chance of snow. Demeter, please!

  5. 5.

    Lapassionara

    So that explains our late spring. Good to know family disfunction underlies everything.

  6. 6.

    debbie

    It almost hit 80 here today for the first time. The wind has been gusty all day. Magnolias are just about to burst, and unlike the past few years, there shouldn’t be any danger of frost.

  7. 7.

    EBT

    I posted it very late last night, but I thought I would let the daytime folks see too. I made a new short demo of my interactive fiction project. A few of the backgrounds are from when I was stuck using a mouse to draw with and I will update them once I finish doing the ones that lack backgrounds at all.
    https://youtu.be/qiHhSVYf8tQ

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    Michael Cohen made tape recordings of himself and Trump?
    (Story breaking from WaPo) via MSNBC for me

  9. 9.

    FlyingToaster

    WarriorGirl and I are fleeing the helicopter buzzing on Sunday — right into a “wintry mix”. The e-mail from the hotel has the Sunday hi as “0.9C” and the low as “0.94C” which has us laughing. We changed our plans for driving over-the-range to Monday (after sun-up, so the road will have been treated) instead of driving in the ice. No worries, there’s plenty of glass-blowing, bowl-carving, and wild raptors within 10 miles of the hotel.

  11. 11.

    Roger Moore

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    And as the occasional other author has pointed out, of all the Greek gods, Hades seems to have been the least objectionable.

    I don’t remember Hephaestus doing anything particularly horrible, other than being the core of the Olympian MIC.

  12. 12.

    TenguPhule

    Did you know that “Cerberus” means “spotted” or “dappled?” So in modern English terms, HIS NAME IS SPOT

    Harry Dresden already discovered this.

  15. 15.

    TenguPhule

    PERSEPHONE: What’s this one? “Impale Rider “

    Too much Fate Stay Night.

    Immediately thought it was a doujinishi.

  17. 17.

    MomSense

    I went outside this afternoon without a coat. It was sheer stubbornness on my part. I was cold. Now I’m wearing about 10 layers and sitting as close to the fireplace as possible without bursting into flames.

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    Kinda relatedly – The Ascent of Woman – Episode 1 – Civilization:

    In Anatolia, Amanda visits Catalhöyük, one of the world’s earliest settlements, where archaeologists believe that men and women lived in relative equality. Moving on to the so-called Cradle of Civilization (Mesopotamia), she explores the history of women’s relationship with the written word, as well as the effect of the world’s first legal codes on their freedom and status. Subjects include divorce, adultery, abortion, and the first veiling law in 1350BC – two millennia before the advent of Islam. Across Europe and the Near East, she highlights some of the extraordinary women who left their mark in history.

    These include Enheduanna, the world’s first recorded author; the nomadic priestess, the Ukok Ice Maiden, one of the great archaeological discoveries of the 20th century; and Hatshepsut, one of ancient Egypt’s most successful, but most maligned ruling Queens. Crucially, she also explores the darker legacy of gender inequality in ancient Greece, whose ideas on female inferiority have cast such a long and baleful shadow over women’s lives. Amanda argues that it is time to eject the old idea of equating civilization with patriarchy; one doesn’t have to mean the other.

    Highlights include Amanda holding the 3,000 year-old Assyrian law tablet that was responsible for introducing the long and problematic history of the veil.

    Episode on YouTube (58:56)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    japa21

    70s here in Chicagoland today. Sunday? High 41 with snow. I can’t take this any more.

  22. 22.

    AnotherBruce

    Hmm, a quick trip over to TPM made me happy. Apparently Steve Stockman (R,TX) has been convicted of 23 felony counts of misusing campaign funds. Also the Governor of Missouri, Eric Greitens, is being pressured to quit his office because of sexual abuse allegations.(Which does not make me happy) Arc of justice, bending slowly.

  26. 26.

    Schlemazel

    @AnotherBruce:
    Given as many GOPers there are on the wrong side & how far out to the end they are I am amazed the damn arc is not bending a lot further a lot faster!

  28. 28.

    Jay

    The Coq, which you guy’s might know from “The Highway Through Hell” on Discovery, supposed to get another 15cm/6 inches of snow tonight.

    Runs about 10k away from here, so should be good tomorrow AM, no rigs grinding down the hill with their engine brakes on,

  29. 29.

    TenguPhule

    What is this “snow” thing Anne keeps complaining about?

    Isn’t everyone enjoying this fine 80 degree weather today?

  32. 32.

    satby

    @japa21: South Bend says “hold my beer” with a Sunday high expected to be 37° and overnight low of 26°.*
    I’m going to have to attempt to cover my entire yard with blankets. All the plants are sprouting, including the newly planted shrubs.
    * Whoops, nope, Sunday 45°, it’s Monday that will be even colder. Shit.

  33. 33.

    rylen

    [knock knock]
    HADES: This is a bad time, Minos.
    MINOS: What’s wrong bro? I brought the beer and the case file.
    HADES: The missus is angry and I’ve no idea why.
    MINOS: Think she’ll play Poetic Punishments with us? That always cheers you up.
    HADES: Go away, Minos.

  34. 34.

    Corner Stone

    We’re supposed to have a low of 42F in the Greater Houston Metro Area on Sat night. That is almost unheard of in the last decade for this time of year. It may have happened at one point but I can’t recall.

  41. 41.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Another Scott:

    In Anatolia, Amanda visits Catalhöyük, one of the world’s earliest settlements, where archaeologists believe that men and women lived in relative equality.

    Bear in mind that the main archeologist at Catalhöyük was recently found to have faked a shitload of his findings.

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    @TenguPhule:

    On top of the tallest mountain in the world.

    It’s tallest when measured from its underwater base; it isn’t exceptionally tall if you measure above sea level, which is what matters when determining if it will snow at the top.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, we went from hot weather to cooler and super windy within 24 hours, so my sinuses are trying to start up a migraine. Ugh.

  52. 52.

    Steeplejack

    @rikyrah:

    Audio recordings Michael Cohen made of some of his phone calls, presumably snagged by the FBI. Not specified of whom.

  53. 53.

    marcopolo

    @AnotherBruce: Yeah, Greitens has finally lost the support of his constituent:

    He gave Eric Greitens $2 million. Now he wants the governor to resign

    A day after a bombshell report detailed allegations of sexual coercion and blackmail against Gov. Eric Greitens, one of his biggest donors pulled away, while Democrats pushed for impeachment proceedings to begin immediately.

    The latest call for resignation came from mega donor David Humphreys, a Joplin businessman who gave Greitens more than $2 million in 2016. Humphreys and his family have donated tens of millions more to various Republican candidates and campaigns in recent years.

    Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers threatened to derail the remaining weeks of the 2018 legislative session if Republican leaders don’t immediately begin the process of impeaching Greitens.

    Not sure how he stays in office at this point. Dems are out for blood along with a lot of the Reps, who have been pissed at him for any number of reasons like when he set up a dark money PAC to run nasty ads against R state legislators that didn’t fall in lockstep with his agenda.

  55. 55.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s tallest when measured from its underwater base

    Ix-nay on mentioning the underwater laboratory, that’s supposed to be secret.

  56. 56.

    marcopolo

    @Steeplejack: Well, the article says Cohen liked to make recordings of conversations (generally, not just Trump) then play them for his friends. I am gathering from the reporting that there are folks out there who have confirmed that Cohen has played recordings for them of conversations he had with Trump. Gotta admit it does sound like a very Trumpian kind of thing to do–remember those stories about how Trump would be with a woman he was attracted to, call her husband, then get the husband to fess up to being unfaithful on speakerphone so he could hit up the woman.

  58. 58.

    geg6

    Wow, did everyone know that Netflix was doing a remake of Lost in Space? And it doesn’t look to be as jokey as the original so much as it looks ominous. Hmmmm, could be very interesting. Or suck donkey balls.

  59. 59.

    Corner Stone

    @marcopolo: Is there any doubt some convo about hush money payouts to a few ladies is on those tapes? During election season? I say no. No doubt they are there.

  64. 64.

    marcopolo

    @Corner Stone: Hell, there is bound to be all kinds of interesting stuff depending on which conversations were taped. Cohen was Trump’s primary bag man for laundering money out of Russia and the former soviet states. He was also the guy who traveled around (with Ivanka, Eric, & Don Jr.) doing deals with folks of all kinds of shady. I’d have to imagine there is just as much damning stuff in his records around the kids as about the old man. The real question is did Cohen actually do any business deals that weren’t tainted in some way shape or form. The latest on le affair Stormy has Cohen telling the presiding judge that he plans on pleading the 5th if the trial goes forward.

  65. 65.

    efgoldman

    @FlyingToaster:

    Puffy coats you wear to the Sierras.

    We went to Disneyland in Anahein week before xmas, 1982-ish. Mrs efg and I wore shorts/light slacks and polo shirts. Pretzel cart vendors were all bundled in ski parkas.
    We mocked them.

  66. 66.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    You can always tell the tourists because they’re the ones wearing shorts in 60-degree weather.

    Their first winter living out here full-time, people still walk around in shirtsleeves. By their second winter, they’ve acclimated and they’re just as bundled up as everyone else.

  68. 68.

    marcopolo

    @geg6: Apparently the robot is an alien who identifies as female. And Dr. Smith is being played by Parker Posey. While I grew up watching the original, I just don’t have the time in the day to watch new shows that are remakes of old shows or new shows that pre-imagine the universe of some other iconic story (i.e. Krypton).

  69. 69.

    marv

    Really enjoyed this post – unless I missed something, it was kind of strange – about the late spring. Which happens to be true right where I live, along about the 45th parallel. Very little snow this winter (devastating for the local economy), but the real first sign of spring is when the peepers come out (the frogs in the little pond/swampy spot behind the garden). This often happens, even in the coldest of winters, in March. Had our only real snowstorm of the year a couple days ago. No frogs yet. Go figure

  71. 71.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne:

    You can always tell the tourists because they’re the ones wearing shorts in 60-degree weather.

    To be fair, locals here wear shorts too.

  77. 77.

    Jay

    @efgoldman:

    San Francisco in the late ’70’s. Bicycle Messenger, T shirt and shorts, even in winter.

    People looked at me like I was cray- cray talking about -40.

  80. 80.

    FlyingToaster

    @efgoldman: I did that, in Fort Lauderdale one February. I was wearing a tank top and shorts, and the chick collecting carts at the supermarket had on a parka and parachute pants. I couldn’t control my laughter.

  83. 83.

    Jay

    @marv:

    In my walk about yesterday, found a bunch of salamanders that had broken hibernation, only to be trapped by snow.

    Warmed them up in my hands, put them in exposed rockpiles, ( 2-3 feet of snow still in most places) for shelter.

    Spring for me means Bumblebees, staggering along the ground, out of hibernation. Bottle of simple syrup, spoon, bumblebee’s dislocating their wing roots and “buzzing”, free from flying, until thry warm up their core temps after winter.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @marcopolo:

    The latest on le affair Stormy has Cohen telling the presiding judge that he plans on pleading the 5th if the trial goes forward.

    IANAL, but I’m pretty sure they still hold the trial even if you do that. ?

  95. 95.

    Jay

    @marv:

    I’m a “weird” rancher/farmer.

    Grass growing under trees, has 73% more protien, so I have tree’s.

    In droughts, certain native perennials have 81% more nutrition than imported grasses.

    My wife makes and fires winter bumblebee cloches in raku,

    We are now “big” into Peruvian Pit Greenhouses, that let us grow tomato’s to -15 on passive solar and spinach and lettuce greens year round to -40.

  96. 96.

    sdhays

    @BruceFromOhio: What a lot of these remakes do is take what was a show based in the old episodic format and reimagine it with the overarching story arcs that are popular today. Babylon 5 was a pioneer of this kind of TV, so I would think they would have to create a completely different story. I think it might be harder to handle for fans than for other old shows.

  97. 97.

    marv

    @Jay:
    Well, wonderful things there, Jay. Not complaining about it, but isn’t it strange when you want to tell you someone who you really are, you often have to start out with: I’m a “weird”…

  98. 98.

    satby

    @Jay: had to look up Peruvian Pit Greenhouses and glad you told us about them. You should share some pictures on the Sunday gardening thread, fascinating!

  99. 99.

    Jay

    @marv:

    Yes, and no.

    I have tree’s, $1.9 million dollars worth of trees, ( gross), one time, every 100-150 years,

    But they support grass and perennials, that support $175k a year in cattle, sheep and goat income.

    We have some “history trees” here. Back in the day, they were major value, Douglas Fir’s, that were too close to Property lines, to be cut with out it going to court.

    In the modern day of GPS, title is more easily established.

    The one, at the end of the driveway is mine, ( 4 corner sitch), but even though I have been offered $274k, no fucking way.

  101. 101.

    Jay

    @satby:

    It’s all pretty generic and not photogenic,

    South slope, go below the frost line, add insulation on the sides, single pane or double pane on top, slanted to the sun,

    ’70’s Hippie Technology from the Saul Alinski Revolution Textbook.

  102. 102.

    StringOnAStick

    @marv: I’ve seen those Peruvian pit greenhouse s in action, what a great idea. I’m jealous, we don’t have the space or deep enough dirt on top of our sandstone bedrock.

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

    I wore a tee and shorts into town on errands today. It was over 80, traffic was horrible, people’s A/C was running and a transformer blew up, the traffic lights were out at a bottleneck into town.

    We have nothing but bottlenecks here because of the mountains. There’s usually only one way to get anywhere. When there’s a big truck wrecked on the Turnpike, the traffic backs up for miles, sometimes in both directions.

    We have balls of frog eggs right outside the front door, it isn’t pretty, lots of leaves and silt, with odd balls lying on the leaves. Soon there will be tadpoles and baby salamanders, and such like.

  104. 104.

    prostratedragon

    @Roger Moore:
    Squirrel! Squirrel! Squirrel!</em)

    Somehow all the three heads never seem to see the same squirrel, hence the bad temper.

  105. 105.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @sdhays: Ded thred, I know, but–

    What would “really be bitchin'” re B5 is to redo the last 2 seasons according to what Joe Straczynski had planned. The story arc was spozeta run for 5 seasons, but at the end of Season 3 the notwork told him he only had 1 more season , so he crammed 2 years’ worth of plot development into 1…& then midway through S4 they told him, Oh, we decided you get a fifth season after all, & Joe is like, WTF am I gonna do NOW?

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