Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

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

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

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

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

The lights are all blinking red.

Alternative history is always a weak argument. Always.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Birdwatching / Judgy Birb (Open Thread)

Judgy Birb (Open Thread)

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Check out this gorgeous juvenile male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird:

Judgy Birb (Open Thread)

I think those vivid colored spots on his throat are the breeding feathers coming in. He’s going to be a handsome devil!

He’s a patient little chap. I took this from the landing on the stairs this morning, and he flew up and hovered about two feet from my face to check me out. I was frantically fiddling with my camera settings to get the shot but completely blew it. Tomorrow’s another day.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

186Comments

  5. 5.

    germy

    Beatriz Michelena was one of America's first Latina movie stars. All her films were feared lost until a print of Salomy Jane (1914) was discovered in Australia in 1996 pic.twitter.com/mVfczjXUbX— Silent Movie GIFs (@silentmoviegifs) July 16, 2020

    As well as being one of America's first Latina movie stars, Beatriz Michelena had her own production company and a newspaper column, Talks with Screen-struck Girls, where she offered advice on breaking into the film industry pic.twitter.com/AlSu4omldr— Silent Movie GIFs (@silentmoviegifs) July 16, 2020

  8. 8.

    Sab

    Many years ago I lived in Las Vegas NV for about 5 years. Dreaded moving there ( It’ so Hot!) My car wasn’t air-conditioned, so I learned to appreciate dry heat. A plant mister works wonders in dry heat. In humid heat it just leaves you more damp.

    I worried it would be too hot for birds. Nope.

    Hummingbird related. We had a mulberry tree in the yard outside the kitchen window, and every year a pair of hummingbirds would nest there, and I could see the tiny nest, about the size of a walnut, with mom’s sharp little beak sticking out of it. Then babies would hatch and be gone.
    Baby birds go from egg to flying in an amazingly short time.

  9. 9.

    John Revolta

    We’ve got this hanging birdhouse out back and there are these little birbs that I see going in and out. I think they’re wrens. I read that they make “dummy nests” to fake out predators and I think this may be one of those because I really can’t see or hear any action when I peek inside…………but they do spend a lot of time going in and out. Anyway, they’re great little singers and we don’t have many songbirbs around so it’s nice.

  10. 10.

    LuciaMia

    Hummingbird: Ready for my close-up.

    Betty: Damn camera!

    Hummer: Catch you on the flip side!

  11. 11.

    Brachiator

    I have been fascinated with the science story, reported in the NY Times and elsewhere about how ultrablack fish work.

    The Pacific blackdragon is particularly terrifying looking, like a combination of Predator, Venom and Alien. Fortunately it is only about two feet long.  But it is amazing.

    The Pacific blackdragon (Idiacanthus antrostomus)—the second-blackest fish studied—combines its ultra-black camouflage with a bioluminescent lure, which attracts prey. Without their ultra-black skin and transparent, anti-reflective teeth, the glowing lures would frighten prey away, according to the scientists.

    Turns out that only the female is a fearsome predator, feeding on crustaceans. The male lacks all the coloring, lives off its birth egg yolk, and exists mainly to fertilize the female, and then die. This is perhaps so that the species can maximize resources.

  13. 13.

    germy

    @JPL:

    Birb, also spelled as berb, is a deliberate misspelling of bird used in internet slang such as DoggoLingo. It’s used as a playful way to refer to cute birds, particularly pet birds

     

    (Like kitteh)

  14. 14.

    S. Cerevisiae

    I love watching hummingbirds but they are fierce little guys when they face off. There is one called a Violet Sabrewing in Costa Rica that is over 4 inches long and sounds like a helicopter going by your head.

  16. 16.

    frosty

    Nice pic and I sympathize with not getting the camera ready. They don’t pose long enough!  BTW what kind of camera and lens are you using?

  18. 18.

    dmsilev

    @S. Cerevisiae: They’re …not flock birds. I think they spend more time chasing one another away from feeders or flowers than they do actually eating from said food sources.

  21. 21.

    Betty Cracker

    @frosty: It’s a Nikon P900  with an 83x optical zoom (2000mm equivalent), which is an excellent camera for lazy amateurs like myself because it can do most of the work. I use the automatic focus for most shots, but I’ve been on a quest lately to get a decent hummingbird on the wing photo, and man, did I miss a great opportunity today! This guy was practically posing for me in mid-air, right after I took the still shot.

  23. 23.

    donnah

    We have feeders out and the level of sugar water keeps going down, but I only catch a glimpse of the hummingbird every now and then. I love seeing them hover around!  Ya done good, Betty. They are so speedy and they dart around capriciously that catching one perched is cool.

     

    I finished hooking a rug of and for my youngest son, btw. He’s a game nut, playing League of Legends online and a whole lot of tabletop board games with friends. At least before the virus, anyway. I incorporated game pieces and elements from some of his favorite games in the composition, including a card game he’s creating himself.

     

    https://imgur.com/gallery/pqIdUNU

  27. 27.

    raven

    @Betty Cracker: I did this online course for my Canon T3i and they said “if you are using auto mode you wasted your money on this camera”. Later it said “Auto mode is correct 95% of the time’!!!

  29. 29.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sab: Just got a peek into the nest that a Mama Hummie built in one of our outside lights – first time sans Mama Hummie. Tiny, tiny, tiny little black mites that must be the baby birbs!

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    @donnah: That’s wonderful!  What did he say when you gave it to him?  Did he know it was coming?  Had he seen it in progress

    edit: Did you Pooh rug get hung in the children’s library?  Do we have a photo of it hanging in place?

  34. 34.

    germy

    WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is refusing to publicly commit to accepting the results of the upcoming White House election, recalling a similar threat he made weeks before the 2016 vote, as he scoffs at polls showing him lagging behind Democrat Joe Biden. Trump says it’s too early to make such an ironclad guarantee.

    The Biden campaign responded: “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @germy: 

    The Biden campaign responded: “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

    “And straight to the Big House, if you know what I mean,” continued the Biden campaign.

  37. 37.

    donnah

    @WaterGirl: 
    The Christopher Robin rug was slated to go to the library in March, and we had the first big virus shutdown, so I still have it. I will take it to them as soon as things open up again.

    My son knew what I was doing because I needed a lot of input and source material for all of the different games and pieces. He really enjoyed seeing it come together and he knows that he won’t get it until it’s made the rounds of my teaching workshops. My two other sons have rugs made for them and they still don’t get them. They make excellent models for my students to see!

  38. 38.

    mrmoshpotato

    Put everything throwable out of reach and swallow whatever you’re drinking.

    "Beautiful world wars" is an immediate entry into the Trumpspeak hall of fame– the combination of an overreliance on too few words (beautiful, disgrace) and an inability to hear the sentence in his head before he says it.https://t.co/YdXO5TpU2t— Jacob T. Levy (@jtlevy) July 19, 2020

  39. 39.

    Redshift

    I’ve had a baby mockingbird in a nest somewhere in the holly tree outside my home office for the past couple of weeks. I can’t see it, but I hear peep! peep! all day long as it begs to be fed.

    A couple of days ago, we opened the front door and it was sitting on the front walk, with fledgling feathers but still plenty of fluff. Mouth wide open so we could see the bright “food goes here” markings inside. Parents showed up, too, but they weren’t having any of it, so they all flew off after a bit. So it’s going now, and I still hear the “feed me!” calls, sometimes from the nest, sometimes from other trees.

  43. 43.

    Emma from FL

    ok, open thread? I need some advice. After twenty years I’d like to dip my toe into blogging again.  Two questions: hosting service I could trust? and is it worth it to pay to set up? I am good at some technology and terrible at others and I really don’t want a steep learning curve.

    I hope some of you experts can give me some pointers.

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    @donnah: Yeah, I knew “Pooh” wasn’t exactly right, but I didn’t recall exactly what you had called it.

    The boys don’t get their rugs?  I must protest in their honor!  :-)

    I would love to see a photo of your Christopher Robin rung again, if you have one handy at some point.

  47. 47.

    Catherine D.

    @joel hanes:

    A baby eagle can be a birb, but not for long.

    My favorites are just-fledged barn swallows, packed 4 or 5 in a row, squawking at approaching parents.

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m actually happy he keeps doubling down on this, he just wrote half the questions for the next time McInane gets up in front of reporters

    Ryan Goodman @ rgoodlaw
    Painful to watch, but good job by Chris Wallace. Displays the psychological test that President Trump said he “aced” and claimed doctors were “very surprised” by his “unbelievable” results. Wallace: The test asks you to identify an elephant.

    “I bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions… they get very hard, the last five questions… I’d get you the test, I’d like to give it to you…”
    But he can’t because it’s under audit?

  57. 57.

    J R in WV

    I happened across some environmental news from Pasadena, with a rare birb note towards the bottom. They’re going to try to clean over a million Cubic yards of sediment out from behind a dam up there:

    Pasadena conservationist groups secured a major victory on Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a settlement agreement, ending a protracted legal battle centered on the removal of 1.7 million cubic yards of sediment from the Devil’s Gate Dam and its potential environmental impacts.

    Tim Brick, managing director of the Arroyo Seco Foundation, one of two groups behind the conservation effort, said the settlement “was a culmination of a long campaign in order to get more environmentally sensitive management of the Hahamongna area.”

    The agreement could benefit more than just the area immediately surrounding the Devil’s Gate Dam, Brick said Wednesday. It could aid the restoration of the Los Angeles River and lays the groundwork for the group’s next fight against another dam that’s just upstream.

    …

    Here are the key terms of the settlement:

    Instead of massive digging projects in which the county removes sediment buildup only when it rises to a potentially catastrophic level — which is what led to this fight in 2009 — the county agreed to do smaller digs annually.

    …
    Along with a plan to repopulate the area’s shrubbery with native plants, this could revitalize the immediate surroundings significantly, Brick said.

    For her part, Solomon hopes the terms of the settlement will help provide some shelter for a very rare endangered songbird, the least Bell’s vireo — a small bird native to Southern California. It’s been spotted in this area, but it hasn’t nested here until this year, Solomon said.

    She hopes they’ll be a more frequent sight once its habitat is restored.

    I think BillinGlendale has recently been up in this area…

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I’m not sure it’s a plus to be bragging that the questions on that test are really hard.  Is this the one where you have to draw a clock?  Draw the circle, put in the numbers, at make the hands of the clock match the time they ask you to draw.

  62. 62.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  @Baud:

    What about the most Canadian war ever: (per wiki)

    The Pig War was a confrontation in 1859 between the United States and the United Kingdom over the British–U.S. border in the San Juan Islands, between Vancouver Island (present-day Canada) and the State of Washington. The Pig War, so called because it was triggered by the shooting of a pig, is also called the Pig Episode, the Pig and Potato War, the San Juan Boundary Dispute and the Northwestern Boundary Dispute. Aside from the death of one pig, this dispute was a bloodless conflict.

    Yes, we fought a war over bacon

  67. 67.

    Salty Sam

    @Catherine D.: My favorites are just-fledged barn swallows,

    We are living in a house in town, while our boat is anchored in the harbor-  we go out and check on it occasionally to make sure all is well.  Just discovered that in our absence, a family of swallows has taken up residence inside our boom (the horizontal spar that controls the bottom edge of the mainsail).  I’m very familiar with cliff swallows, and barn swallows, but boom swallows!?!

  68. 68.

    Yutsano

    @mrmoshpotato: Oops. 20th. That’s a Wednesday.

    Actually it might take a bit more time for the Justice department to get set up. Once it is it’s all gangbusters. Because something tells me he won’t hand out any pardons except to himself or his family.

  70. 70.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

     Is this the one where you have to draw a clock?  Draw the circle, put in the numbers, at make the hands of the clock match the time they ask you to draw.

    Do I look like I have a PhD in Math?

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: they get very hard, the last five questions

    On the versions I’ve seen, the last questions are of the form “a few minutes ago I gave you a list of 5 words, please repeat them now”.  I assume that if those seem particularly hard, it means problems with short-term memory?

  77. 77.

    frosty

    @Emma from FL: I set up a travel blog to post pictures for friends. It’s in FYWP, which apparently is the platform of choice. Once I worked through everything it worked really well. I asked WG a couple of questions along the way and she was really helpful.

    The setup was easy enough you shouldn’t have to pay someone, unless you’re looking for something very professional looking with some more complicated content, (which I wasn’t). Good luck!

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    @donnah: I am asking about the email that goes with the nym each time you comment, wondering if that is a real email address that you check.  I wanted to get in touch with you by email, which is why I was asking.

  81. 81.

    Juju

    @MattF: I have red hair. When I put a fresh feeder out the hummies dive bomb my head or buzz around very close to my hair. I’ve often wondered if it was because I seem like a giant flower or if it’s because they are impatient for the fresh hummie juice. It could go either way.

  82. 82.

    Betty Cracker

    @WaterGirl: It’s amazing that no one has taken him aside and said dude, that’s not a test they give people when they want to classify them as a super-genius; it’s to predict the likelihood that you’ll start wearing your underwear outside your pants soon. I guess that’s what happens when no one loves you. They let you make a fool of yourself in public. I’d feel sorry for Trump if he wasn’t a detestable pustule.

  84. 84.

    Salty Sam

    @frosty: same here.  WordPress platform using BlueHost for… hosting.  A bit fiddly in the beginning, but once it’s set up, no more difficult to use than posting comments here.

  85. 85.

    Mary G

    @donnah: You are so talented! Thank you for sharing these. Do I remember one for another son, with a city skyline? It wasn’t finished then, can you put up another picture?

  88. 88.

    Jinchi

    @WaterGirl: Draw the circle, put in the numbers, at make the hands of the clock match the time they ask you to draw.

    Don’t laugh. That could be pretty tough for the Zoomer generation. “Hands on a clock? Is that a trick question?”

  90. 90.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    On the versions I’ve seen, the last questions are of the form “a few minutes ago I gave you a list of 5 words, please repeat them now”.

    The words were “beautiful,” “nasty,” “unfair,” “Goya,” and “sir,” so of course he aced it.

  91. 91.

    Ruckus

    @Emma from FL:

    I’ve used google Blogger and it’s not all that bad, I thought it was easy enough for a simple blog. I’ve also used wordpress and while it’s OK, you have to like what they have for templets and they are not as easy to adjust to your liking or even possible to adjust past setting them up just as they appear. But the cost is free until you want extras or your volume gets too big.

    So I recommend Blogger as best for a simple blog.

    BTW I really have let my blogs lie dormant for a while, I just don’t have the drive for them any longer. But they are still up and readable so that says a lot for the platforms.

  94. 94.

    Salty Sam

    @frosty: I was just following their prompts- they said, “ok, now you need a hosting service. Did a quick search, BlueHost was highly recommended, so that’s what I did.  Or at least, that’s the way I remember it.

    ETA- maybe it is superfluous, and I could’ve just stuck with WordPress for hosting. Maybe I got upsold? If so, I can afford $15/yr for it, and BlueHost’s anti-spam is supposed to be top-notch…

  95. 95.

    Steeplejack

    @Emma from FL:

    @frosty: “It’s in FYWP, which apparently is the platform of choice.”

    By which frosty means WordPress, in case you don’t know the acronym (“Fuck you, WordPress”).

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: No kidding.  It’s like they let him walk around all day every day with toilet paper hanging out of his pants, x1000.  Because it’s about stuff that matters.

    You’re right, if anyone actually loved him, they wouldn’t let it be like this.  It’s just like Mary Trump says.

  97. 97.

    Elizabelle

    @ donnah:  you are such an artist.  Those rugs are superb.

    WRT the Christopher Robin rug for the library:  I think that one will be around 100 years from now.  Actually, all of them will.  And more.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    @donnah:   Nick @ Night is amazing.

    I think you should do book covers.  As in, your art on book covers.

    Or just hook up some of your favorite covers.

  100. 100.

    Jinchi

    @WaterGirl: I just remember my 5 year old pre-schooler being given an eye test by his pediatrician. “Which of these looks like a telephone?” she asks, pointing to a chart with a silhouette of a rotary dial phone, circa 1960. He was dumbfounded.

    Turned out he actually did need glasses, but there was no way he was going to pass that test.

  101. 101.

    PST

    @Baud:

    I always found the Russo-Japanese war sexy, but I have a thing for lesser known conflicts.

    I would like to put in a good word for the Great Toledo War. The only blood shed in this armed conflict between Ohio and Michigan was inflicted by a pen knife. Ohio got Toledo, but Congress awarded Michigan most of the Upper Peninsula as a consolation.

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:

    I guess that’s what happens when no one loves you. They let you make a fool of yourself in public. I’d feel sorry for Trump …

    Do you think Trump has enough self-awareness to realize that is happening?  And I guess it might be easier to blame your staff for your looking like a fool than …

    Hearing about that Chris Wallace interview: I guess Trump should do one weekly.  Sounds like it was a shit show on steroids.  I might even break my “no watching Trump” rule and check it out.

    Look at how the FTF NY Times bent over backwards and into a pretzel shape to headline their story about it:

    Trump Leans Into False Virus Claims in Combative Fox News Interview

    The president grew agitated as he was fact-checked on polling, race relations and the coronavirus response by Chris Wallace of Fox News.

    Leans into?  WTF?  Like it was a car window there waiting for him? Or someone is making him lean, and he’s not just lying because it’s what he does?

    Although, headline does have the bonus of making us all think about Sheryl Sandberg for a moment and “Lean In” and what a liar and sociopath she has turned out to be. So there is that.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Ken:

    Five words? Damn that is hard. The three word version can be difficult depending on the tester because they choose the words. I’ve had this a number of times, all with the same three simple, short every day words, it’s a snap. Then I got a smart ass doc who used different words, words you don’t hear every day. Five words done by that doc would stump most people not used to memorizing the spoken word.

    Also this getting older crap, which is nice and all, but doesn’t always align with one’s view of their actual abilities. Especially if one were to suffer from say, overwhelming narcissism.

  104. 104.

    donnah

    Since I posted two of three sons, I must post the Middle Child. He’s every bit a middle child. He got the Steampunk treatment because he showed up at the annual family reunion with muttonchops. .what else could I do?

    https://imgur.com/gallery/yrl8W8K

     

    You’ve all been so kind with your comments. Thank  you very much!

  105. 105.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’d feel sorry for Trump if he wasn’t a detestable pustule.

    Me thinks you give him just a bit too much credit. And detestable pustules of the world might take offense.

  106. 106.

    donnah

    @Elizabelle: Funny you should say that. The game son has designed his own card game, and I’ve done the illustrations! In colored pencil, mind you, not wool. He is going to pursue having them produced and packaged for sale. It’s very exciting!

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: Speaking of Trump humiliating himself (at least in the eyes of others)…

    How is it possible that there is NO ONE ANYWHERE who will tell Ivanka how mind-blowingly inappropriate it was to stand there and hawk the Goya beans like Vanna White ?????

    Or to tell Trump that it’s unseemly (and surely illegal) to hawk Goya products from the desk of the Fucking Oval Office.

  108. 108.

    Elizabelle

    The FTF NY Times story is by Katie Rogers.  Except for Maggie Haberman, they are catching on to Trump these days.  3 years plus in:

    WASHINGTON — An agitated President Trump offered a string of combative and often dubious assertions in an interview aired Sunday, defending his handling of the coronavirus with misleading evidence, attacking his own health experts, disputing polls showing him trailing in his re-election race and defending people who display the Confederate flag as victims of “cancel culture.”
    The president’s remarks, delivered in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” amounted to a contentious potpourri more commonly found on his Twitter feed and at his political rallies.
    The difference this time was a vigorous attempt by the host, Chris Wallace, to fact-check him [cuz he is no Maggie Haberman, no sirree] …
    The president made a litany of false claims about his administration’s handling of the virus, despite evidence that key officials and public health experts advising the president made crucial missteps and played down the spread of the disease this spring. In the interview, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that the United States had “one of the lowest mortality rates in the world” from the virus.
    “That’s not true, sir,” Mr. Wallace said.
    “Do you have the numbers, please?” Mr. Trump said. “Because I heard we had the best mortality rate.”

    Only the best for us.  We’re Americans.

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: I think they meant “leans into” as in “doubles down on”, or “goes all in on his crazy claims”.

    But they couldn’t bring themselves to quite say it out loud.

  113. 113.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

    I’m liking this from Biden. He knows how and when to be strong, and will not hesitate to do what is needed, as soon as possible.

    More power to him and his team!

    I too expect sealed indictments to be handed up very soon after Trump leaves the White House for Mar-a-Lago, or perhaps a less renowned establishment.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @Jinchi:

    I wonder if the majority of people alive might get that one. Even 1970 is 50 yrs ago. Sure we used those phones for a while after that but I know people who have a hard time remembering 20 yrs ago. And some of them were adults in 1970.

  115. 115.

    Ken

    @Jinchi: Then there’s the “save” icon for every computer program out there. When was the last time you saw a floppy disc?

  117. 117.

    Elizabelle

    More from Toilet Paper on His Shoe:

    Mr. Trump called Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, an “alarmist” who provided faulty information in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

    “I don’t know that he’s a leaker,” Mr. Trump said during the interview. “He’s a little bit of an alarmist. That’s OK. A little bit of an alarmist.”

    …. and one cannot blame Fauci for being alarmed, because Trump went on:

    He said public health experts and the World Health Organization “got a lot wrong” early on, including a theory that the virus would abate as the weather warmed — one that Mr. Trump himself had promoted repeatedly. Then the president reiterated his earlier claim, unsupported by science, that the virus would suddenly cease one day. “It’s going to disappear, and I’ll be right,” Mr. Trump said. “Because I’ve been right probably more than anybody else.”

    Mr. Trump insulted Fox News pollsters as “among the worst” when presented with data that showed him trailing former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, claiming that he had seen polls that showed him winning.

    …. When told that Mr. Biden was chosen in the Fox poll as the more mentally sound candidate, Mr. Trump disputed that finding and defended his cognitive test results to Mr. Wallace, who said he had taken the same test that the president had bragged about acing this month. Mr. Wallace pointed out that one of the questions asked to identify an elephant.

    “It’s all misrepresentation,” Mr. Trump said. “Because, yes, the first few questions are easy, but I’ll bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions. I’ll bet you couldn’t. They get very hard, the last five questions.”

  118. 118.

    Ken

    @J R in WV: Trump leaves the White House for Mar-a-Lago, or perhaps a less renowned establishment.

    Trump probably thinks no place is as renowned as Mar-a-Lago, but I have to think that most people would consider the Kremlin the more famous of the two.

  119. 119.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: He’s also learning…  Last time Biden said something like that about escorting Trump out of the white house if he refuses the peaceful transition of government, Biden said something too specific, like “the secret service will escort him out” and people jumped on it because it wasn’t the role of the secret service.  (or whatever it was he said the first time around)

  122. 122.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: Trump truly cannot grasp the concept that he does not control everything.  He simply cannot grasp that anyone can tell him the he can’t be president anymore.

    Sometimes I think it’s the US that is the emperor with no clothes.  We all thought our institutions would save us, but it’s our institutions that have no clothes.  So to speak.

  123. 123.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The last five “hard” questions are whether the testee knows the date and what city they are in.

    Taking “question” a little more broadly, it’s the date+location; recall 5 words given earlier; “what do a train and a bicycle have in common”; naming words beginning with F; and repeating back a simple declarative sentence.

    Wear it with pride, Mr. President.

  126. 126.

    Mike in NC

    @Elizabelle:  Fat Bastard aces all the very tough and nasty questions that are directed at him by burly men with tears in their eyes.

  127. 127.

    J R in WV

    @Yutsano:

    At 12:01 PM on Thursday January 21st I predict a sealed indictment gets unsealed. Or more than one. I’m not picky.

    I expect more than one.

    We should have one from every district of the DoJ / court system in which multiple felonies have been committed in broad daylight. Optimistic that prosecutors are working out of sight of A G Barr, who will lose all of his power rapidly after the election.

    NJ for the scam of billing the Secret Service for protecting Trump when he golfs there. NYC for tax fraud and money laundering, same in DC and Eastern Division of Va. FL for who knows what. Then there will be the acceptance of monies from foreign governments, emoluments but worse from Saudia kingdom, etc.

    So many felonies!

    Manslaughter / homicide for the tens of thousands of deaths preventable by requiring simple measures, which he couldn’t bear to do!

  128. 128.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    All the institutions that could control shitforbrains, he is in nominal charge of and has put his lackeys, well not in charge of but as the heads of. And he chose all of them based upon how much they sucked his……. As well, if he doesn’t like what they say he ignores them or fires them. He abides no opinions other than his own. His diseases are running and ruining the country, and his diseases and mental ability are massively debilitating and dangerous. Our country is set up with safeguards but they depend upon there being only one person without regard for the rules and suggestions and that person can not be the president with half of congress fully supporting him. We’ve never noticed the issue because we never had someone as diseased and likely never as debased as shitforbrains, but absolutely never at the same time.

  130. 130.

    scav

    Speaks a lot of the quality of his education if a cognitive assessment is a tough test in Trump’s eyes. Take a bow Wharton!

  131. 131.

    Zinsky

    Betty – I have found the pandemic has been conducive to bird-watching.  I have never been that interested before now but with hours of time on my hands, I have the opportunity and have really come to enjoy it!  We have cardinals, goldfinches, blue jays and even a pair of redtail hawks in my backyard!  I need to buy an Audubon book to identify the others.

    With regard to Trump, the Democrats need to be “inoculating” Biden by going on every radio and TV show and preparing the American people for the shitstorm of lies Trump and Barr will be hurling at them.  Count on an indictment of Biden, his son Hunter or Hillary before the election!

  132. 132.

    debbie

    @donnah:

    Wow! The amount of detail you’ve gotten in the sky is amazing!

    How thick is the rug when you’re finished?

  134. 134.

    debbie

    @Elizabelle:

    Maybe it’s just around here, but I’m hearing that more and more people are refusing to wear masks because they think it shows support for Trump. Would it be horrible of me to hope they come to regret that?

  135. 135.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @scav:

    We need The Adventures of Ernestine the Rotary Telephone.

    Only if Lily Tomlin, in character, narrates the audiobook.

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:

    Never mind. I reread your comment and saw that I believe I mis read it.

    Are you suggesting that people are saying they won’t wear a mask because wearing one shows support for shitforbrains?

    If that’s the case……

    I’m sorry, what?

    Shows support for trump? What the hell is in the water in this nation?

  137. 137.

    Kent

    @debbie:

    @Elizabelle:

    Maybe it’s just around here, but I’m hearing that more and more people are refusing to wear masks because they think it shows support for Trump. Would it be horrible of me to hope they come to regret that?

    It’s everywhere.  Mask refusal is the new MAGA hat.  It is deliberate.

  141. 141.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Jinchi: Cartoon in Playboy sometime in the 80s IIRC: Father & little boy in a room with several clockfaces visible, all digital. Caption: Daddy, what does “clockwise” mean?

  142. 142.

    frosty

    @Zinsky: I need to buy an Audubon book to identify the others.

    Same thing happened to me, although there isn’t much variation in my back yard. I went with the classic: Peterson’s Field Guide to North American Birds. I got the Eastern one, still torn on whether it’s better to get the two (East and West) or the one bigger combined one.

  144. 144.

    Redshift

    @debbie:

    Would it be horrible of me to hope they come to regret that? 

    I suspect his declining poll numbers are evidence that increasing numbers of them do, but as always, the problem is that refusing to wear a mask is more of a risk for others, so they’d have to connect it to the general spread of the pandemic in their area, which seems less likely.

  146. 146.

    Bill Arnold

    @mrmoshpotato:

    “Beautiful world wars” is an immediate entry into the Trumpspeak hall of fame

    Wouldn’t be hard to ruin “beautiful” for D.J.Trump, without harming it for the rest of us.
    We could start imagining beautiful trials of Donald J. Trump, with D.J.T. squirming in the witness chair under oath. Etc.
    Suggestions for a twitter hashtag?

  148. 148.

    Redshift

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: He’s just bullshitting, there’s no point to (easily) disproving any of it. “You know the questions are easy? Then I’ll claim there are secret questions that proved I’m a genius!”

    Seriously, what would be the point of a cognitive test that most people couldn’t pass? It’s all BS.

  150. 150.

    Elizabelle

    @debbie:   I wish the stupid only endangered themselves.

    It’s very sad.  1918 had these types too.  We were supposed to learn from that, and not have people acting like that again.

    But. They’re special.  (Actually, a better word is spiteful.)  And they believe in magic, apparently.

    But not in science.  Science gets one thing wrong (this is a NOVEL coronavirus) and — cannot believe a word science says.

    Masks.  They’re a a character test.

  157. 157.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ruckus:

    Shows support for trump? What the hell is in the water in this nation?

    Fluoride.
    To mix the memes a bit (OK a fucking lot :-), fluoride causes blockage of the third eye:
    Fluoride, Third Eye and the Conspiracy Against Humanity (Youtube, Jul 4, 2016, 8:00)
    There is a transcript there if you don’t want to watch.

    Paramahamsa Nithyananda explains how fluoride creates an energy blockage in our third eye, the ajna chakra, because of calcification of the pineal gland.
    …
    Please understand, fluoride is added in your water, in your food supply, in every possible way it is sent inside your body to make you dull. Fluoridated human beings can be slaves, can be ruled, can be abused, he will loose independent intelligence.

    (This is [said to be] repairable, over time, various sources.)

    General Ripper was not wrong.

  161. 161.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    In the interview, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that the United States had “one of the lowest mortality rates in the world” from the virus.
    “That’s not true, sir,” Mr. Wallace said.
    “Do you have the numbers, please?” Mr. Trump said. “Because I heard we had the best mortality rate.”

    This is the essence of everything wrong with Trump. He lies. He makes crap up to make himself look good.

    He sounds like one of his supporters, an ignorant dope sitting in a bar, before the pandemic, spouting vague nonsense about stuff he knows nothing about.

    Worse, Trump takes refuge in ignorance. He prefers ignorance that he thinks makes him look good to facts that could be used to help the American people.

    Worst of all, he runs away from information he could easily obtain. What the hell does “I heard” even mean when you are president of the United States and can get the relevant data in a second from your own medical advisors?

    Every time he pulls this crap, he shows why he is unqualified to be president.

  163. 163.

    Jay

    On the bright side, in a coordinated action last night, activists burned down the Portland Police Association “clubhouse”.

    I am hearing conspiracy theories that the Portland Police lit their own union building on fire. This is untrue. I was there. The burning of the PPA was a deliberate and very intelligently executed action by disciplined activists. https://t.co/o0tx2cZkTe— Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) July 19, 2020

    I am hearing conspiracy theories that the Portland Police lit their own union building on fire. This is untrue. I was there. The burning of the PPA was a deliberate and very intelligently executed action by disciplined activists. https://t.co/o0tx2cZkTe— Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) July 19, 2020

  164. 164.

    Patricia Kayden

    And not just the sitting at kitchen table resenting and ridiculing people kind of racism, the kind of racism where you support hurting, terrorizing, jailing, killing people to maintain your status quo, the kind of racism it's always been whether you accept it or not. https://t.co/z1figW0n7l— Stacy Parker Le Melle (@StacyLeMelle) July 19, 2020

  165. 165.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl:

    How is it possible that there is NO ONE ANYWHERE who will tell Ivanka how mind-blowingly inappropriate it was to stand there and hawk the Goya beans like Vanna White ?????

    This is what Trump always does. This is the way that he sells Trump branded products like Trump steaks or Trump water.

    This is the way that he sells himself to the American people.

    Or to tell Trump that it’s unseemly (and surely illegal) to hawk Goya products from the desk of the Fucking Oval Office.

    Trump is a law into himself. Just ask him.

  167. 167.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Brachiator: And when Mark Meadows or whoever the hell schedules Trump puts him in front of Chris Wallace, they show how unqualified they are to manage him. Just malpractice. Another interviewer might throw the fat, slow pitches Trump needs, but Wallace throws high and inside when he wants to. Of course, I’d have liked to have seen Wallace throw a fast one behind trump’s head, or drill trump in the ass, but I’ll take what I get out of him.

  168. 168.

    Jay

    I am beginning to think the Feds may have made a tactical error in gassing the moms. https://t.co/fm6Ex8sMZ2— Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) July 19, 2020

    heyoooo!! I'm a fatass 39 year old mom and I got gassed for the first time tonight when this happened. I was wearing a fucking ann taylor loft blouse and everything (no like for real). how do you do, youths! I'll be back with all the neighborhood moms! LOVED IT. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐— melanie (@melaniiiieeeeee) July 19, 2020

  169. 169.

    Elizabelle

    @Brachiator:
    Yup.  Trump is wholly unqualified.  This is on Senate Republicans.  I hope they lose even more seats this year than is currently expected.  And all the other enablers.

    The FTF NY Times is snapping to.  From an article by Republican whisperers and Politico alumni (all 3 of them) Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin, and Alexander Burns:   As Trump Ignores Virus Crisis, Republicans Start to Break Ranks

    The lede:

    President Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis, with some concluding they must work around Mr. Trump and ignore or even contradict his pronouncements.

    In recent days, some of the most prominent figures in the G.O.P. outside the White House have broken with Mr. Trump over issues like the value of wearing a mask in public and heeding the advice of health experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, whom the president and other hard-right figures within the administration have subjected to caustic personal criticism.

    They appear to be spurred by several overlapping forces, including deteriorating conditions in their own states, Mr. Trump’s seeming indifference to the problem and the approach of a presidential election in which Mr. Trump is badly lagging his Democratic challenger, Joseph R. Biden Jr., in the polls. [ie. they want to save their own jobs]

    and then this beauty:

    …. Amid mounting alarm in a huge portion of the country, Mr. Trump has at times appeared to inhabit a different universe, incorrectly predicting the outbreak would quickly dissipate and falsely claiming the spread of the virus was simply a function of increased testing. With his impatient demands and decrees, Mr. Trump has  “disrupted efforts to mitigate the crisis”  [NYTimes just say it:  “sabotaged the response”]  while effectively sidelining himself from participating in those efforts.

    The brave Republicans breaking ranks are Mitch McConnell:

    [In] Kentucky last week, Senator Mitch McConnell … broke with Mr. Trump on nearly every major issue related to the virus.

    Mr. McConnell stressed the importance of mask-wearing, expressed “total” confidence in Dr. Fauci and urged Americans to follow guidelines from the [CDC] that Mr. Trump has ignored or dismissed.

    Also brave Ben Sasse and brave Roy Blunt, with brave cuz out of office Paul Ryan warning that Republicans might get slaughtered in the suburbs (and may that happen!):

    Mr. Ryan said Mr. Trump was losing key voting blocs across the Midwest and in Arizona, a Republican-leaning state that Mr. Ryan described as “presently trending against us.”

    While Mr. Ryan did not criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the outbreak, he said the president could not win re-election this year if he continued losing badly to Mr. Biden among suburban voters who were wary of both candidates but currently favor Mr. Biden.

    “Biden is winning over Trump in this category of voters 70 to 30,” Mr. Ryan said, “and if that sticks, he cannot win states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.”

    Ah yes.  The skittish.  The cynical.  The low information voters.  But they’re deserting Trump too, over 2:1.

  170. 170.

    joel hanes

    @Catherine D.:

    I’ve watched the Decorah eagle cam for years.

    New-hatched eaglets are *ugly*, and stay ugly for a while.  Particularly when they lay sprawled in the nest.

    I suppose there’s a period of about two days when they’ve attained down and are still small enough to be birbs …

  172. 172.

    Another Scott

    "It's really a crisis moment at (Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital)…. 15 nurses in the ICU alone called in sick today, just at Jackson Main. They're exhausted. They've been doing this since March." #Covid19 https://t.co/IAOitHWsE3

    — Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) July 19, 2020

    That’s Ok. We’ll just import some nurses on H1Bs. After all, everyone wants to come to America.

    What? What’s that? …

    Grr….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  174. 174.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ken: I’m with you – I actually know what each of them means without looking them up! (although I thought it was deasil…)

    IIRC widdershins means “against-sense” in some German dialect (wider = against, as in Wider den Tod is kein Kräutlein gewachsen, a line [again IIRC] from Goethe’s Faust, which I foist encountered in James Blish’s SF novel They Shall Have Stars, volume 1 of the Cities in Flight tetralogy…) /tmi

  175. 175.

    PAM Dirac

    In a few threads people have wondered about the orange shitstain firing Anthony Fauci. He would have to do it by ordering Fauci’s boss, NIH Director Francis Collins to fire him. I have speculated that Collins would refuse. In a CNN interview, Collins makes it clear that would not fire Fauci. It may seem like Collins is leaving the door open a bit, but that is just Collins/scientist “reasonable speak”. Drumf will have to fire Collins and find a replacement that would fire Fauci, which I suspect will not be possible.

  176. 176.

    Elizabelle

    @Yutsano:   With multiple shooters!  It was an armed brawl.  Peoria!  Do better.  Good that no injuries are perceived as “life threatening”, but …

    Thirteen people were wounded early Sunday during a gunfight between groups that involved multiple shooters on the riverfront in Peoria, Illinois, police said.
    Police Department spokesperson Amy Dotson said none of the injuries was life-threatening. Seven of the wounded were women.
    Dotson said police found a crowd of nearly 200 when responding to a call at 4:41 a.m., and a large fight had broken out before the shooting.
    “This incident occurred as a result of a dispute among groups of people gathered at the riverfront,” police said in a statement posted on Facebook.

  180. 180.

    Geminid

    @Elizabelle: If suburban voters break 2:1 away from trump there is no way that Nick Freitas can beat Abigail Spanberger in the VA 7th, or that Karen Handelan beat Lucy McBath in the GA 8th. A lot of other very good Democrats flipped districts in 2018, including Sherrill (NJ), Houlihan (PA),  Underwood and Casten (IL), Davids (KS) and Torres Small (NM). Although there aren’t a whole lot of suburban voters in Torres Small’s district. These freshmen reps don’t  make much national news, nor do they try to, but they have a lot to offer, and I hope they can all be reelected. It is said that the first reelection is the toughest.

  182. 182.

    dnfree

    @Geminid: I am in Casten’s district and donating to him, Underwood, and Krishnamoorthi. They are all impressive. I follow all three on Facebook and you would be discouraged to see the number of nasty ethnic comments directed to Krishnamoorthi.

  183. 183.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    While Mr. Ryan did not criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the outbreak, he said the president could not win re-election this year if he continued losing badly to Mr. Biden among suburban voters who were wary of both candidates but currently favor Mr. Biden.

    Cowards. Ryan is out of office and has nothing to lose. And they cynically frame things in terms of politics, not Trump’s shameful betrayal of citizens he should be protecting.

    The GOP created a monster, and now fear their creation’s wrath more than they care about their fellow citizens.

  184. 184.

    Elizabelle

    @Brachiator:   Yeah.  Of the brave Republicans who are breaking with the president (wow), in the Senate: we have McConnell;  Ben Sasse — whose Democratic opponent has been disowned by the Democratic party for a crass sexual joke directed at a campaign staffer and was not supported by them during the primary, and Roy Blunt, up for re-election in 2022.  Nebraska is considered “solid Republican.”

    The rest were governors.  Our brave, brave GOP Senators.

  185. 185.

    Elizabelle

    @Geminid:   Yeah.  Although a lot of Abigail’s district is still rural.

    Not taking her race for granted, at all.

    But go, suburban Democrats!  All Democrats, really.

  186. 186.

    No One You Know

    @John Revolta: American bushtits will do that. The males collectively build hanging nests: tiny engineering marvels! As are the birbs themselves.

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