Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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

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

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Second rate reporter says what?

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

People are complicated. Love is not.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Salmagundi

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175Comments

  2. 2.

    SWMBO

    My Mom’s younger brother died of pneumonia/measles when he was a month old. My Dad’s younger sister died from the same. My sister was sick enough that they took turns staying up all night with her. Measles used to fill up cemeteries.

  4. 4.

    satby

    @SWMBO: don’t know how old your dad is, but I’m 64, and I knew kids my age who had been deafened by measles (maybe German measles) when I was in school. Most of the immunizations for childhood diseases developed during my lifetime, and I can’t imagine that parents would subject their children to the risks and discomfort of being ill from them. To us, the vaccines were a relief.

  5. 5.

    SWMBO

    @satby: my great aunt/great uncle died before vaccines were developed. Aunt Margaret died around 1941 or so. Uncle Glen died around 1945. There was at least 1 person in our extended family who had polio and survived. She’s in her 70s now. When they sent out some ridiculous number of sugar cubes to our local post office with the polio vaccine in them, the entire town of 400 or so lined up to take it. They dissolved it into sugar water and made babies drink it. There was no religious or contientious objectors. EVERYONE knew someone who had died from one of the newly preventable diseases. I’m 62 and we all lined up to get our smallpox vaccine when it came out. I nearly died from chicken pox. My kids had chicken pox before the vaccine came out. Those old folks didn’t object to any of it because they knew it was better than a funeral.

  7. 7.

    satby

    So, after weeks of harassment and encroachment from the old bag that bought the booth next to me at the same time, I was told yesterday that the market would remeasure the booths, remove the flooring she extended into my space, and guarantee that I would get the full 8 feet I had paid for.
    And I have to watch my potty mouth, because the witch had claimed I swore at her, though I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I probably said “I don’t fucking care” when she had her painter paint 4 feet into my area.
    So now that I’m known in the new space I moved to two weeks ago, I now have to move back, and “I” was told to be a good neighbor. Because I obviously was the problem, not the witch who’s made enemies of every neighbor she’s ever had at that market.

  9. 9.

    WereBear

    I find the most astonishing thing about the anti-vaxxers is how they somehow think that feeding their kids “organic food” and letting their immune system take all comers is somehow the right thing to do.

    When we have a history of incredible epidemics, 99.9% of which took place before pesticides AND vaccination. They were ALL eating organic food and breathing fresh air. Didn’t help them.

  11. 11.

    satby

    @WereBear: the farmer’s markets are filthy with incredibly ignorant well educated people believing all that. It’s hard to not just scream at them sometimes, they think I’m a fellow traveler just because I make soap and lotions myself, so obviously I’m against big pharma.
    I may as well say it here, I’m getting out of the biz next summer. Now that I’m going to have a full booth to sell, when the summer season picks up, I’ll sell and get my money back. Time to retire before I go postal on people.

  12. 12.

    Ruckus

    @SWMBO:
    Not in the same league of course but I got encephalitis from the measles at 7. Everyone I went to school with had measles and all the other childhood diseases that we now vaccinate against. Some even had polio. Woman I know now, had polio as a child. The entire family stood in line to get the first polio vaccination. It wasn’t a shot, it was a sugar cube with a drop on it. I think I was 4 or so and I knew what a vaccine was, we all did. Not being vaccinated because we might be sick? Hell you knew you’d be sick and possibly die if you didn’t. Because people had died. Infant mortality was considerably higher. Medicine knew almost nothing in comparison to today.

  14. 14.

    satby

    @WereBear: what the board of the market didn’t understand was that I walked away to keep from reaming her out in no uncertain terms. Because ripping her a new one verbally would have been inappropriate in a setting with customers.
    Normally I would have been allowed to move to a different booth, though what I would sell when it was time would have been the reduced by encroachment one, so I won the war. But my business at the market is off 40% and this will probably impact my holiday sales. It’s fine though, because I’m really ready to be done. It’s been a struggle to keep up both market and online for the last year. I turn 65 in May, and I’m ready to wind things down.

  15. 15.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WereBear: But WereBear, why do we need vaccines for diseases that no longer exist? Check and mate. /s

    And autoincorrect wants to call you We’re near.

  17. 17.

    WereBear

    @satby: Assholes rely on people following the rules they scorn. Once again, it’s really intimidation, but so many people are willing to be treated like that it perpetuates to ridiculous distortions.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    Looking at cute animals online is literally good for your brain:

    That’s why universal animal videos are the cornerstone of Baud! 2020! mental health plan.

  21. 21.

    satby

    @JPL: ?, oh, not about all that silly stuff. What they say about fighting in academia applies here: so vicious because the stakes are so small.

    I’ve had an idea kicking around about doing a “grown up gap year”, but it’s very undefined at the moment. Plus, the latest critter is curled up in my lap, reminding me of my duties here. Billy Bud has decided that warm beds and laps beat the heck out of being outside though. Small victories!

  24. 24.

    Baud

    @satby:

    What they say about fighting in academia applies here: so vicious because the stakes are so small.

    And blogs.

    grown up gap year”,

    I would love to take a gap decade.

  26. 26.

    satby

    @Baud: Good morning ?!
    No real biggie, just annoying while it lasted. And it’s a good lesson in not getting stagnant.

    Someone could do a dissertation on dysfunctional aging in that place. Several of them have told me that they’re selling up at the market because they “don’t want to just sit at home waiting to die”. Like it’s a binary choice. It’s been a clarifying experience.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    @satby

    If you don’t mind providing the information, what does she sell from the offending booth? Purely nosiness on my part.

    Also, haven’t looked but did you put a map with your new location on your store site?

  30. 30.

    satby

    @NotMax: Keflies, basically a glorified cookie. They’re very much a South Bend thing. Four vendors there sell them now, and more will turn up around the holidays. She needed to exceed her 12 feet of space to sell two flavors of cookie.

    Not on my website, but did note the new location on my shop FB page as well as a sign at my old booth. People don’t read.

  32. 32.

    snoey

    @mrmoshpotato: Measles still exists. It started about 1300 when a livestock disease called rinderpest moved to humans. It can’t happen again because rinderpest has joined smallpox in being eliminated by a successful vaccination campaign. Nomadic African herdsmen figured it out, why can’t western snowflakes?

  33. 33.

    Barbara

    @WereBear: Logic isn’t their strong suit. Finding a way to distinguish themselves from other people that takes no talent or effort is what they are usually after. When you make living with unvaccinated kids inconvenient, most of them give it up.

  34. 34.

    Rusty

    @Baud: Academic fights, and behavior at colleges in general, is often so bad because overall academic institutions are poor at managing bad behavior. They lack food supervisory structure ( no one really in charge, the department head is a rotating position no one wants and so who ever has it doesn’t want to make waves and will be on the other side soon), and “academic freedom” is easy to abuse to avoid accountability. Don’t ask me how I know all this and have strong feelings on the subject.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @Barbara:

    Finding a way to distinguish themselves from other people that takes no talent or effort is what they are usually after.

    This can be generalized to explain most of the problems we see in the world today.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @NotMax:

    I added a new item to my platform yesterday. I will make it illegal for color printers to refuse to print black and white documents simply because they are out of color ink. It will be a felony.

  38. 38.

    Baud

    @Rusty:

    Again, like blogs. :-)

    Sometimes I think of going into academics, then reality sets in. I have difficulty fighting small fights.

  40. 40.

    Keith P.

    Can someone familiar with cat behavior tell me what I’m seeing – I’ve got a brother/sister that are 18 months old and a 10 year old female (that I adopted a month after I got them) who either keeps to herself her sleeps on the sofa in my office if I’m working. Anyway, the brother/sister will periodically (maybe 5 times/day) just walk up to the old lady and shove their foreheads to her so she’ll lick them. The male particularly will lounge around her and try to get his whole head licked. It often gets to the point where the old lady hisses and swats them away. But she’ll go right back to doing it if they come up to her again and butt their heads to her.
    I just don’t quite understand what it is that they’re doing. Showing deference to the “mama” cat or trying to annoy her enough that she’ll leave so they can take her spot or something else?

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    You know what’s better than looking at cute animals on the internets? Petting them in your lap.

  42. 42.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @satby: If you call it a “sabbatical” instead of a “grown up gap year” suddenly it will seem to be defined even if it’s not.

  47. 47.

    satby

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I have a grid (spite) wall that I can move into the correct position as soon as they redraw the line. And I will take great joy in unplugging her space heater and refrigerator from my electric outlets. Which is I suspect part of what she was trying to do, put me on the hook for paying for her appliances.
    Just a ridiculous situation, and I prevailed because they knew I’d keep fighting over it and they didn’t want to get sued. I won, and I’m already over it. She’s going to fume ?. Fuck’er.

  48. 48.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: Not around here. The beagle will happily hop into a lap but likes to stand up with his feet on your chest, and gets restless after a minute and hops down again. The cat won’t even do that much, she’s not a snuggler . Prefers sitting on your table to sitting in your lap.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Percy and Woof compete for lap time with me. Percy won’t give up until he gets it. Jumps on poor Woof’s head sometimes. Miss Kitty couldn’t care less about me. My most meaningful interaction with her consists of my giving her wet food and her flipping me off because I took so damn long doing it. My wife on the other hand, Miss Kitty absolutely adores, and will do anything for lap time with her. The boys both adore her also but if Percy has a choice, it’s me.

  54. 54.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @satby: Didn’t catch that you’re retired. So what is the “gap” in the “gap year”?

    Maybe you should do the Australian thing and “go walkabout”. Australians seem to have the right idea about leisure, whenever I run into Australian travelers they seem to be in the middle of 6 month vacations.

  55. 55.

    satby

    It was just last Sunday we were talking about wrapping up all the garden winterizing chores. Seems like forever ago. But I’m proud to say I got it all done, and then helped my friends finish theirs. Plus scored some lily of the valley rhizomes that I hope will grow next spring.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Mine are nowhere near “finished”.

    Some years back we found and surveyed a cave we named Walkabout Cave because one can walk it from beginning to end. It’s the same cave my wife and I got married in.

  58. 58.

    Immanentize

    @Baud:
    If you are going to support color printing, what are you going to do about bowling???.

    ETA My Epson will print black and white when out of color. Choose black and white or grayscale option in WORD?

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: Our Canon won’t print when we run out of a color no matter what I tell WORD. I managed to make one print anyway (can’t remember if it was the previous printer or which) and everything came out greenish. Go figure.

  60. 60.

    Immanentize

    So here is a possible final exam question for my class:

    Single father doesn’t believe in vaccinations. Sends his kid to a measles party to get infected. Doesn’t seem to have worked on his 7 year old kid who he then sends to public school. At the beginning of the year the school sent a letter reminding parents that un-vaccinated children could not come to school, in particular because there were two immune suppressed kids in that class (he had a friend submit a false vaccination report). Of course, three kids get measles — including the two immuno-suppressed kids. One dies. What should the father be charged with?

  62. 62.

    debbie

    @SWMBO:

    I’m a bit older than you so I remember yearly polio shots and every-other-year booster shots. Hated them and hate needles to this day. But I can’t imagine not getting them.

  66. 66.

    cliosfanboy

    @Immanentize: McCoy would go for Murder in the 2d Degree at least.

    Sitting here, recovering from Bilaterial Iguana Hernia surgery (not spell check, i like calling it that) with two little eldery mini dachshunds asleep and snoring softly by my sides. Our elderly Tweenie weiner dog is on the other seat within petting reach. Sore and hurting a little but life feels good.

  67. 67.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    Measles still kills tens of thousands of people worldwide every year in place without adequate vaccination. The WHO estimates 158,000 people died of measles in 2011 which is down from the 630,000 who died from measles in 1990. Fun fact you can survive measles and it can kill you years later, by a brain inflammation called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis. Also please get your flu shot if you can my friends 34 yr old daughter just died of pneumonia/flu.

  68. 68.

    Immanentize

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: good Q. Yes, the child is in fact carrying measles, and she herself comes down with them at the same time as the other kids.

    If, as debbie says, the father should be charged with depraved heart murder for the kid who dies, can he be charged with attempted murder for the kids who live?

    (A bit of the Mirror Cracked)

  69. 69.

    satby

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: he said charged, not convicted.
    My guess is involuntary manslaughter. Edit re: the kid who died.
    Depraved indifference charge re: the other two, including his own kid. He falsified the vaccine record, so culpability.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: Child abuse, neglect, manslaughter (not sure of the difference between involuntary /voluntary)

    On the ink thing, yes, I print damned near everything in gray scale, very rare for me to use color.

    My wife says the printers are so dirt cheap because they make their money on the ink. I suspect they use all the colors to make black printing for that exact purpose, hence when I ran out of whatever color it was, my black and white was green and white. I have NO idea why there are 2 separate black cartridges, 1 lg, 1 sm.

  71. 71.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I have NO idea why there are 2 separate black cartridges, 1 lg, 1 sm.

    My printer just has one black slot, but you can put in a thin or a double wide sized cartridge into it. The color slots are all thin. If you don’t do much or any color printing, you could put black in all of the slots….

  72. 72.

    JPL

    @satby: Yesterday I filled three trash cans and twelve bags with leaves, and today will be more of the same.
    My neighbors three maples that tend to come my way just started. This is the time of year that I threaten to have them chopped down. He’s not sure whether or not I’m serious.
    I do think a book about market life could be funny. Murder in the stall next door could be a possible title.

  73. 73.

    cliosfanboy

    @Immanentize: how about 30 minutes in a locked room with the family of the dead kid with an assortment of power tools?

    Ok, not really, but the anti vacxers really piss me off.

  74. 74.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:

    If you don’t do much or any color printing, you could put black in all of the slots….

    If I did that the wife would paint the walls blood red. Using real blood. Mine.

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    GARDEN NEWS!

    Just before our first solid frost, I took all the bigger tomatoes off my plants. About 40 all told were big enough to care about. One third had the smallest bits of blush. The rest I have put in a box with bananas per SATBY’S recommendation. I will report back in a couple of weeks

  78. 78.

    JPL

    @cliosfanboy: Infants are at risk because they are to young to be vaccinated and I hate anti=vaxxers. As much as I wish they could be in a locked room, can’t do it.
    @Immanentize: He could be charged with several misdemeanors having to do with his submission of forged material, unless there is a state law mandating vaccination for all it’s citizens. imo because I’m just making it up as I type.

  80. 80.

    Immanentize

    @JPL:
    I should have said, I would only be testing on the homicide charges, attempted homicide, and — as you mention it — whether the person who falsified the report is an accomplice.

    I’m starting to like this question.

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: The Market Murder Mystery. Murder in the Orient Market. M is for Market Murder. Gotta be a Sherlock Holmsian one too.

  86. 86.

    danielx

    Weather forecast sez 1-3 inches of snow tomorrow and 13 degrees tomorrow night. The which is seriously abnormal for these parts, like going from October to January and skipping over everything between.

    Not Ready.

  87. 87.

    Immanentize

    @satby:
    I think the father could be charged with murder (express malice which is depraved heart) at Common Law and Murder under the Model Penal Code (defined as recklessness plus extreme indifference to human life). Or, as a lesser, involuntary manslaughter at Common Law and Manslaughter under the MPC. But the Attempt charge is tricky because most jurisdictions don’t allow a charge of an attempt to a reckless crime (how can you purposefully be reckless?).

    The accomplice aspect of the falsified report writer I haven’t yet worked out…. More facts needed.

  88. 88.

    JPL

    This was just on the news

    COBB COUNTY, Ga. – State health officials have confirmed a case of the measles in metro Atlanta. The Georgia Department of Public Health said Saturday the case was an unvaccinated person in Cobb County.

  90. 90.

    danielx

    @JPL:

    Worst part is how climate denialists will leap all over a cold blast to claim the world is actually going into a new ice age.

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @danielx: We have the same forecast here. BUT… Today we are looking at 66 and I have some serious baby girl time lined up. Speaking of which, I have to put the Seafood Enchiladas together for lunch. Have a good day all.

  92. 92.

    Amir Khalid

    @Immanentize:
    Manslaughter would be my guess. Submitting forged vaccination papers for his kids doesn’t sound very serious in itself, but somebody died because his kids were allowed to attend school on those papers.

  93. 93.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    If you print a page of text in black and white, that’s what you get. if you print pages with photos on them in black and white, the photos will be in grayscale (ie, a bit of the colors — magenta, cyan, and yellow — are added for depth). If you look very closely at the photo, you’ll see some color dots among the black dots.

  95. 95.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Immanentize:

    If you don’t do much or any color printing, you could put black in all of the slots….

    Quoth the Printer “Eat my shorts. I can sense that black ink in my color slots. I ain’t printing jack squat.”

  96. 96.

    JR

    @satby: Vaccines and antibiotics are the most significant biological discoveries ever. And probably will remain so for a very long time. Modern society cannot exist without them.

  101. 101.

    satby

    @Immanentize: would express malice as a factor work against a victim essentially unknown to the father? Murder could be charged, but involuntary manslaughter as a lessor included count would be harder to defend against, I (who am not a lawyer) would think. His actions seem to be practically the textbook definition of involuntary manslaughter.
    I would have liked law school I think.

  104. 104.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    It’s the 44th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. My grandfather and two uncles worked on freighters like the Fitzgerald, and my brother sailed in them in the summer. Anyone who lived around the Great Lakes remembers this.

  105. 105.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Morning, all.

    Watching the Sunday morning “news” programs and it sure is hitting home how desperate the corporate media are for an “establishment” political world. Among other things, ALL of the Veterans Day pieces are from a conservative perspective. Almost as though “the greatest generation” wasn’t actually pretty progressive compared to their modern counterparts, that the Vietnam protestors weren’t actually right, and that ALL of our Middle East adventures weren’t and aren’t disasters.

    And on the homefront stories, we get told that life is so, so hard for billionaires.

  110. 110.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Immanentize:

    The Red-Headed Market League.

    Hah! I was just about to type that and saw your comment. Great (or at least not entirely decrepit) minds, etc.

  111. 111.

    debit

    @Keith P.: They’re showing deference and asking for affection/attention. Grooming is a social interaction, but most often the one doing the grooming is showing dominance. By asking her to groom them, they are saying, yes, you are older and stronger than me, please be kind. The older cat’s ideal reaction to this behavior would be to invite them to cuddle up with her, but she may not be at that stage yet.

  112. 112.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @satby:

    To us, the vaccines were a relief.

    A godsend. When news broke that the Salk polio vaccine was safe & effective, an entire generation of parents fell to their knees & wept for joy.

    One of my dearest friends contracted polio as a baby a few years before the vaccine. He got along OK for most of his life on a withered leg, but post-polio muscle atrophy has now restricted his mobility to the use of a motorized chair. I would dearly love to sic him on some unsuspecting antivaxxer – by the time his British-inflected stentorian ridicule climbed back down from High Dudgeon there wouldn’t be enough left of the ignoramus to bury.

  115. 115.

    JPL

    @Omnes Omnibus: Maybe the father assumed she was immune to the measles, since she didn’t come down with it immediately. Isn’t it possible someone else had the measles first?

  116. 116.

    grandmaBear

    OT: got back recently from a trip to mainland China, where I could not see Facebook, Google, Twitter or YouTube (without a VPN) but could always see BalloonJuice. You kept me informed!

  117. 117.

    WaterGirl

    @satby:

    It was just last Sunday we were talking about wrapping up all the garden winterizing chores.

    Uh oh. Are we supposed to be one with that???

    Apparently I did not get the memo, and neither did the weather around here. How am I supposed to do that when it’s so freaking cold?

  118. 118.

    laura

    @Uncle Cosmo: My mother’s youngest sibling Margaret contracted polio as a toddler. House was quarantined, family shunned. Margie’s teeth fell out, she had a shrunken leg and so many post-polio effects. She was mean as piss all her life unless you were one of the few she loved fiercely.
    I still have a very clear memory of my dad taking me to get the sugar cube and that is a memory of love and protection.
    Neither would have stood for this antivaxer nonsense, but you have an easier go of it with dad because Margie would’ve beaten you like a drum.

  122. 122.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @satby: hmm. Would you be willing to do a monthly or quarterly subscription box of soaps, etc.? I’m poking around Ravelry and Smart Bitches Trashy Books for Christmas present ideas, and I’m turning up book/bath or bath/beauty subscription boxes…see here for examples

    (I’m also trying to decide whether to sign up for my current sock yarn club again, or if I should change over to a shawl club from a different company. The current sock yarn club requires payment in full for the whole year up front, and the shawl club can be done in one-off, quarterly, or monthly installments)

  123. 123.

    WaterGirl

    Three comments and I have killed the thread. What makes it so special is that there isn’t even a thread after this one that people have moved on to. A personal best for me! (though clearly not in the right direction)

  124. 124.

    satby

    @WaterGirl: NOPE!
    I never even finished college (ran out of $$, had to work). I just like to analyze and debate things. I know too many people who liked law school, but don’t like the practice of law at all.
    Besides, I’m aspiring to emulate that cat in the first video.

  125. 125.

    Another Scott

    @satby: “I don’t want to be miserable at home, so I’ll go to the market and make my neighbors miserable instead!!1”

    :-/

    Mean people are so exhausting. I’m glad things are winding down with her and you have a path forward. Take it easy.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  126. 126.

    satby

    @Kayla Rudbek: kindle’s battery is dying, but MazeDancer and I talked about changing my business to some sort of seasonal email model, where I could notify customers I had xyz in stock and people could order of they wanted. Allowing me time to travel but keeping a business when I’m home.
    Not sure what I am thinking other than surviving Christmas at this point, but thanks for the idea!

  129. 129.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: I was totally kidding on the law school thing!

    My favorite thing about the cat video was the tail going back and forth. Toasty, happy kitty.

  130. 130.

    StringOnAStick

    Tomorrow I have to tell the boss that his retroactively deciding we would be open on Dec 30 and 31 is not going to work for me since we already bought tickets and paid for accommodations, you know, back when the schedule software we all use everyday said that we were closed from Dec24 through Jan1. I’m only scheduled for the 30th. My husband says tell him you won’t be there and if that’s a red line then go ahead and cross it. We’re a dental office that’s downtown and a lot of the pre-holiday traffic is well off kids home ffromcollege who tend to miss their appointments or show up late because 10 am is just too early, and this year we’d already blocked off a lot of space for just this reason so I don’t think these two days will be that popular. I just think it’s chicken shit to retroactively change the schedule and not tell everyone, just let the news leak out. Half the staff had already made plans based on the old schedule that was posted for several months. So ready to retire; only 1.75 years to go.

  131. 131.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Immanentize: Great scenario. Does your scenario involve a specific state? Michigan’s school vaccination law requires parents to meet with a public health official to get an exemption, which makes it super difficult, whereas it seems California is just a mess. Is the course weighted towards criminal law or family law or even civil law? I just finished watching “Unbelievable,” where a young woman was coerced into retracting her confession of rape. The young woman’s treatment by her foster parents has focused me on fraud and child abuse in your scenario. So child abuse because the parent denied his child appropriate medical care and will continue to deny his child appropriate medical care without additional vaccinations. Fraud/forgery as there have been cases in California where parents copied a legitimate signed form and then photoshopped it to include their children’s names – so the doctor who signed the original legitimate form has also been harmed.

  132. 132.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @satby: No matter how well defended you have that outlet, I’d check it whenever I came to the booth. And stock a pair of shears & electrically-insulated gloves for cutting the cord off if she ever tries to sneak the plug into your receptacle. (Better yet, pull out the plug before you cut the wires. Safer.)

  133. 133.

    Amir Khalid

    The English Premier League Matcch Of The Season, Liverpool vs Manchester City, has just kicked off at Anfield Stadium.

  134. 134.

    Jay

    @JPL:

    Lucky you. Up here, with the conifers, I have to rake the forests under the aspens, to make a half garbage can of leaf mulch, for the garden. Leaf mulch is like gold.

    Had to switch to semi-composted hay, but it’s no where near the same or even a quarter as good as deciduous leaf mulch.

  135. 135.

    mad citizen

    @StringOnAStick: One good thing about getting older and closer to retirement age in not having to give a phuck about job crap. My wife once ran/worked a small coffee store in a hospital for a local coffee roaster/store owner, who had a contract with the hospital. My wife ran it solo, it was difficult for her even to take short breaks. After nearly a year or something my wife wanted to accompany me on a work trip. Her boss said if you do that, you’re fired. She did it, and found other employment.

  137. 137.

    Percysowner

    Born in 1953, Got the Salk vaccine as soon as my I could. A few years later, my entire family, including my grandmother stood in line for SOS Sabine Oral Sunday. The line was long, everyone who could show up did. People have forgotten how bad polio was. Measles too had terrible consequences. My daughter missed the chickenpox vaccine by 1 year, so in a couple of decades she’ll have to get the Shingles vaccine. The only people who shouldn’t vaccinate are those who can’t because of medical reasons.

  138. 138.

    Miss Bianca

    @satby: Goodness, I don’t think I could buy cookies from someone that crabby, I’d be afraid their baking would make me sick!

  139. 139.

    frosty

    @Jay: I gave up raking leaves years ago. I put a bag on the mower, hit the yard one last time; leaves are shredded and I dump the bag (s) in the compost bin. Easier and quicker to compost. I do the same with hedge trimmings.

  140. 140.

    Amir Khalid

    Mo Salah makes it Liverpool 2-0 Man City, with a simple header off an Andy Robertson cross. YNWA!

  141. 141.

    debbie

    @laura:

    Philip Roth’s “Nemesis” deals with the period when people were freaking out about polio. Intentionally or not, it was very similar to the Red Scare.

  143. 143.

    oldgold

    Satby: “I would have liked law school I think.”

    I would rank the experience as being close to a three year root canal.

  144. 144.

    frosty

    @Percysowner: I had chickenpox as a kid but got shingles anyway in February and again in July. Had to wait 3 months without an attack to get the vaccine. I got it last week, 6 days after I was clear. Go get it!

  146. 146.

    Tony Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    Going well, isn’t it?

    More goals in this game, though. And if we don’t tighten up our defence of set-pieces it’s going to be City scoring some of them. You simply can’t switch off when De Bruyne is over the ball.

  148. 148.

    Jay

    JUST IN – Schiff shuts down GOP request to make Hunter Biden testify:“This inquiry is not and will not serve, however, as a vehicle to undertake the same sham investigations into the Bidens or 2016 that the President pressed Ukraine to conduct for his personal political benefit”— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) November 9, 2019

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    … Of course, three kids get measles — including the two immuno-suppressed kids. One dies. What should the father be charged with?

    Voluntary manslaughter for the death, but what about bacterial warfare/terrorism, would that work? Dunno about the two illnesses, perhaps a wounding charge? Really hate anti-vaxxers.

    Still remember my first Smallpox vaccination, and my first Salk polio shot. The family company had an RN in the library, everyone and all their families had an appointment to be a polio shot that day. My younger brother was a babe in arms, it took 4 adults to hold him for his shot. I know he doesn’t remember it, so teasing him would be pointless.

    Then a very few years later, my whole family went to the grade school out the road for the Sabin vaccine, drops on a sugar cube, every got re-immunized against polio. Was a dreadful disease, now prevented. Would be extinct but for religious crackpots accusing the vaccination program of attempted genocide with poison on sugar cubes.

    I sign up for every vaccination I can get. My theory is that they will keep my immune system more nimble and alert!

    I will never forget the “shot line” in boot camp back in 1970. You walked slowly from station to station getting shots and pheumatic injections, with blood dripping down your arm to your elbow. Then the next day, very queasy. Over and over all thru boot camp. I suspect my immune system was crying and screaming back them!

  153. 153.

    Jay

    The President of the United States has been fined $2 million for misusing his charity to further his business and political interests…and within 48hrs it’s barely news. This is how far we’ve fallen.— Robert Reich (@RBReich) November 10, 2019

    The president was also accused of Raping someone and it barely made a ripple. https://t.co/2zvMQYU23z— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) November 10, 2019

  154. 154.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sdhays: Threaten Putin’s Mitch with some serious finger wagging from Wilmer.

    “Don’t make me bring Wilmer’s wagging finger into this!”

  155. 155.

    Kelly

    @Baud:

    I added a new item to my platform yesterday. I will make it illegal for color printers to refuse to print black and white documents simply because they are out of color ink. It will be a felony.

    I went with a simple, inexpensive, black toner only Brother laser printer. Toner is inexpensive and nothing gunks shut. I haven’t missed color.

  158. 158.

    Jay

    Puerto Ricans have told me over and over again what a distressing symbol ICE’s presence on the island has become. The colonial government can’t guarantee tap water, electricity or supplies of bottled water and insulin. But the president’s “gestapo” force is active and resourced. https://t.co/QWuLIc5k0y— Alexander Kaufman (@AlexCKaufman) November 10, 2019

  161. 161.

    Amir Khalid

    Sadio Mane scores a header off a Hendo cross: Liverpool 3-0 Man City. This is the biggest lead Liverpool have had in the league for quite a few weeks.

  165. 165.

    J R in WV

    @Jay:

    Thanks for these… I don’t belong to twitter nor FB so I depend on the Jackals to keep me up to date.

    ICE in Puerto Rico… but why? Oh, yeah, to keep those Puerto Ricoans in their place! Huge waste of resources.

    Molly Conger’s twitter thread link is hard to read, but oh so good. The posted tweets by Drumpf about Lowry are pretty funny, called him “clueless…foul language… Incompetent… dumbest… ” back in 2015, now he says “…Great Job… Very important book…” confused as to which is it, Mr president?

  166. 166.

    Tony Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    Listen has always been a lot better when he’s not the guy making the big decisions. VVD makes much more comfortable and capable of NOT panicking. He made the right decision to block that Sterling effort, and that’s all we can ask.

    City looking frustrated and desperate, now, which is as it should be.

  169. 169.

    Kelly

    @J R in WV:

    I don’t belong to twitter nor FB so I depend on the Jackals to keep me up to date.

    Same. There is such an avalanche of agiprop with news randomly hidden within. I read my local paper and the Washington Post. Thank you Jackals for pointing out other news gems.

  170. 170.

    Tony Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    Great game. That’ll be 3 points, a nice 9 point buffer and all the bragging rights to go, please. Don’t scrimp on the tasty, tasty sauce of victory.

  172. 172.

    Ruckus

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    And on the homefront stories, we get told that life is so, so hard for billionaires.

    Come on, life is tough for billionaires.
    Having to make do wiping with commoner $1,000 bills
    Not being able to purchase entire cities, including inhabitants
    Having visible neighbors, even though they are over 2 miles away
    Having to purchase a car company so that you never see anyone driving the same car.
    Oh and the best one.
    Looking in the mirror and seeing reality….

  173. 173.

    Amir Khalid

    Fulltime: Liverpool 3-1 Man City. Liverpool have 34 pointsp; they’re eight points clear of Leicester City and Chelsea. Man City are a point behind them in fourth place.
    Tomorrow all the football pundits will declare that Liverpool won the title today. Silly pundits.

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