This isn’t a respite thread — please feel free to discuss whatever. But like a respite thread, this post includes lovely critters, like this Snowy Egret:
We see more Great Egrets than Snowys around here, so when I see a white bird with a black bill, I pay attention.
Also, here’s a short clip and a still shot of the juvenile male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird who jealously guards the feeders on the east side of the house as well as the firecracker bush. His iridescent throat feathers are coming in, as you can see when he turns his head and they catch the light.
Same bird… pic.twitter.com/xnJZxMvZRn
— Betty Cracker ? (@bettycrackerfl) August 25, 2020
Check out his little feet in this picture!
There’s one other hummingbird that he will willingly share a food source with, but anyone else gets chased off if he sees them. I have no idea what his relationship is with the tolerated bird. Maybe it’s his mom?
Anyhoo, open thread!
Eric NNY
So, until I moved to my current location in far, far Northern New York, I had no idea egrets migrated through here. It was a nice surprise.
senyordave
This is a headline from Yahoo news:
Terminating payroll tax could end Social Security benefits in 2023, chief actuary warns
For the past several weeks Trump has been advocating permanently terminating the payroll tax. The payroll tax is the funding mechanism for social security. The Democrats have to get this message out, it is political malpractice not to.
Donald Trump is a pushing a policy that would destroy social security.
Eunicecycle
The egret is beautiful! I didn’t know hummingbirds were so territorial until we put up our first feeder. So we put up another one, and they still fight! There’s always one that won’t let anyone come to either feeder while he is there.
R-Jud
I didn’t think I’d be this excited about The Child’s new pet snake.
Betty Cracker
So Trump nominated Acting DHS Secretary Hair Gel as permanent DHS secretary, I guess to get out of the jam created when Trump appointed the unqualified lobbyist in the first place? Or rather Trump announced that he would nominate Hair Gel. The confirmation hearings would be…interesting.
Yutsano
@senyordave: I’m going to ignore the fact that he can’t stop ordering the collection of a tax that everyone who works is required to pay (employer and employee) on his say so. This is absolutely a hammer to use against Dolt45 and an opportunity for the Democrats to get a few more 65+ voters. Because it would absolutely drive a ton of our most vulnerable populations into poverty.
dmsilev
@Eunicecycle: At least around here, sometimes the birds aren’t quite so territorial; I’ve seen half a dozen or more sharing the pair of feeders I have hanging from a single pole (i.e. right next to each other). Most of the time, however, yeah it’s “my tree! No, MY TREE!”.
MazeDancer
Have noticed a little movement toward people choosing Early Voting as their plan. Which is good if you feel safe. Gotta feel safe.
PostCardPatriots.com has lots of important info to help make your Voting Plan.
Post your plan here in the comments and we’ll illustrate it like these.
A while back, Betty had a great thread where people discussed their Voting Plans. If you’ll re-post – or update – your plan here, we’ll illustrate it. Really does help inspire others to make a plan.
Betty Cracker
@R-Jud: Awww, The Child looks so excited! It is a pretty snake. I am not a fan of snakes being in my immediate vicinity, but I can admire their beauty from afar!
oldster
The other day I was looking at our sunflowers — some towering over my head — when I heard a sound somewhere between a huge dog growling and a heavy helicopter passing low overhead.
I flinched and looked around, and four feet away from me was a hummingbird. I think I had disturbed it on one of the sunflowers, without seeing it, and it had passed me so close that it sounded like a Chinook.
This morning there was a pileated woodpecker on our thistle-seed feeder. Rather unusual — we get lots of the downies coming in, especially when the suet block is up, but don’t usually gets visits from their bigger cousins. This thing was bigger than the thistle-feeder itself — probably 15″ total length.
(I had to take down the suet block — too damned many grackles and starlings coming in. I know, I know, they are birds, too, and some people like them. But they are rude and disruptive and chase away the goldfinches.)
Geminid
People use “birdbrain” as an insult, but I’ve worked for and with people who are much less attentive and aware than your typical bird.
Ken
@senyordave: By all means spread the word that he wants to sabotage Social Security, but I’m pretty sure it’s not happening. I haven’t heard of any company that’s changed withholding as (supposedly) allowed by his executive order.
I suspect a combination of doubt that it’s legal, reluctance to waste time and money changing the payroll system, and awareness that they’d have to make a huge lump-sum payment a couple of months from now when the “postponement” expires.
NotMax
Birds of a feather. Strictly FYI, the announced all-
starbizarre roster for the remainder of the RNC.Hungry Joe
Egrets. I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention.
Ken
There’s a prairie near me, and on my morning walk today it was dense with goldfinches going after the aster seeds. Pretty little things, I wish I could get decent pictures of them but all I have is a phone camera and they won’t let me get within fifteen feet.
senyordave
@Ken: It doesn’t matter that it won’t happen. Make people aware that President Dumbass doesn’t even understand how social security works. People need to constantly be reminded what a complete idiot he is, among other things.
charluckles
Your hummingbird photography skills are excellent!
We’ve had more hummingbirds this summer than I can ever remember. The battles over territory have been epic and I have been loving every minute of it.
CaseyL
@R-Jud: Love the color! Is three months still considered young/juvenile in a corn snake? Baby reptiles are so exquisite: they have the scales and colors of an adult, but small and in mint condition. Jewel-like.
I just followed the RNC last night here and on Twitter. Wonder how many of tonight’s speakers will be stoned out of their minds! Also looking forward to peoples’ takes on Melania’s speech from the denuded Rose Garden. “Look upon my works, Ye Mighty, and Despair” would be on point.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I watched most of last night, I’ll probably skip the remainder.
geg6
I’m not much of a fan of birds (they are dirty and full of bugs, ick), but I appreciate that you always come through for the jackals who love them.
Wyatt Salamanca
Speaking of birds, I only recently discovered that blue bird feathers don’t actually exist, they’re simply an optical illusion. Blue Jays, Macaws, and Peacocks have been tricking me for all these years, but they’re still incredibly beautiful to observe!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LeNWrMu3zM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QADW6AgWxp4
SiubhanDuinne
@R-Jud:
Snek is pretty colour. I’m happy for the Child, and she is absolutely beaming! Lucky snek, lucky Child.
Edmund Dantes
This was well done.
For context, Dwight Schrute needed to give an acceptance speech for an award. Jim helped him out by providing some translated Mussolini speeches as a prank (Dwight was always very fascist adjacent if you watched the show).
https://twitter.com/rexchapman/status/1298285841232650241?s=21
Another Scott
@Wyatt Salamanca: Supposedly no human could see blue until modern times.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2
True? Dunno. Maybe!
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
Unduly excited over a package USPS lists as out for delivery today (different than the package I happened to mention the other day). Was getting real close to depletion of the in-house stock of vital wheat gluten used for some breads.
Small pleasures.
Odd thing was that I checked the USPS tracking shortly after 6:30 a.m. and the listing read “departed facility at 7:10 a.m., out for delivery.” DeJoy also apparently mucking with the space-time continuum.
Wyatt Salamanca
@NotMax:
I was thinking more along the lines of a “confederacy of dunces” or a “rogue’s gallery of stupidity”, but any way you label them they represent the worst of the worst that humanity has to offer.
geg6
@NotMax:
I honestly have no clue who more than half of those people are.
And I don’t think I want to.
Phylllis
We have a firecracker plant in the little patch outside our dining area window. We were treated to an epic 3 hummingbird brawl during dinner the other night.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Another Scott:
Had not heard that before, thanks for sharing it.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
That’s funny. I was just going through the list and not recognising the majority of the names, and thinking I’d write a comment saying that.
geg6
@R-Jud:
Good thing I never had kids because I would be the mean, evil mother who would never allow such a creature in her house under any circumstances. Crying, pouting, stomping of feet would not move me at all. I’d tell my kid that when she can afford her own home, she can have all the snakes she wants. But not in mine. Ever.
namekarB
Love the hummingbird pics. Ruby Throated Hummingbirds will chase all other Hummingbirds (any species) out of their feeding territory EXCEPT a female they have mated with gets free passes to the feeder. Anna Hummingbirds are different in territory. Both males and females are territorial and often have overlapping territories between the males and females. The males chase away only other males in their circle while the females chase away only other females in their circle. Thus a male and female could have an overlapping territory (like a ven diagram).
J.
The hummingbird video is great!
Love snowy egrets. We see a lot of them on Sanibel; great egrets, too.
Barbara
@MazeDancer: I signed up to work at a county polling location on Election Day, so I am going to avail myself of the in-person absentee (early) voting that my county has, which starts on September 18. I will do that and I will make sure I go with my husband.
raven
We saw tons of them way inland crossing the panhandle on back roads yesterday.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Eunicecycle: You have to put one up around a corner from the first one, so a hummingbird guarding the first one can’t see the action at the second. Or put up so many, or such large ones, that guarding of resources is no longer a thing. Good luck!
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
Great minds and all that!
artem1s
@Ken:
not if you’ve gone bankrupt or left the country. is someone anticipating having to file chapter 11 again?
NotMax
@Wyatt Salamanca
Of the names I recognize, reads like the ingredients label on the world’s most powerful emetic.
;)
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@R-Jud: It’s got beautiful colors, and The Child looks SO happy. Good work.
Ken
@geg6: @SiubhanDuinne: Clearly you do not subscribe to the correct twitter channels and facebook pages.
SiubhanDuinne
Earlier I was poking around various online stores looking for Dem swag, and came upon a very attractive t-shirt with the following emblazoned across the chest:
I am sorely tempted.
Just One More Canuck
@Eric NNY: Egrets, you’ve had a few?
CaseyL
@Another Scott: I heard something about this a while back, and IIRC it wasn’t that they couldn’t see those colors; it was that they tried to/had to refer to the colors in terms common to their time period.
Since artificial dyes for those colors were not very good, parts of the color pallet weren’t familiar to most people. Though you would think “blue” would be commonplace – just look up, dammit!
I don’t see how it would be possible to literally not see blues, reds, etc. that are commonplace now, since SFAIK the human retina had the same rods and cones then as it does now. I can sort of see how the culture and language wouldn’t be able to conceptualize colors, though.
TaMara (HFG)
@Wyatt Salamanca: That was fascinating.
Barbara
@NotMax: I wonder about Ernst and Reynolds from Iowa. It’s hard to gauge these things from afar, but there seems to be a lot of continuing distress in Iowa over the Derecho.
Ken
@artem1s: Good point, I hadn’t considered that corporations could avoid having to pay their part of the payroll tax by bankruptcy.
Would that be an option for the employees, I wonder? Ah well, they can always go to a payday lender when they have to come up with 8% of five months of salary in January. I assume the usual scolds will remind them that they should have saved that money for the repayment, instead of spending it on food and rent.
Wyatt Salamanca
@TaMara (HFG):
I agree and still can’t believe I never learned this information decades ago.
@NotMax:
You hit the nail on the head.
My only question for today is
Who will Melania plagiarize from?
Gin & Tonic
Finally got the paperwork on the “temporary” dog, and it turns out the primary breed is blue heeler, AKA Australian Cattle Dog. I knew the Australian Shepherd story was fictional, as she has almost no similar characteristics. But there’s some kind of hound in the mix, too, since she’s leaner, and the way she picks up a scent and runs with it is not like a herding dog. Also turns out she’s chipped, although that’s not that much of a worry, as she has a tendency to stay sort of around the house.
geg6
@MazeDancer:
We do not have early voting here in PA. Hell, this is the first general election we’ve had no excuse mail-in voting.
I put myself and my John on the list for permanent mail-in ballots early this spring and we had no trouble with our primary ballots being mailed in. However, we are now recalculating. We were thinking that we also would have problems with the drop off box since Trump filed that lawsuit against having them here in PA. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to lose that one since, after the judge required them to provide evidence for their claims of fraud during the primary, the “proof” they produced had nothing to do with the PA primary, drop boxes or mail in ballots. So now the main option will be the drop box. If the judge loses his mind and agrees with Trump, we’re going to march into the county courthouse to the Clerk of Elections Office and hand them over directly. Last choice is we will take them to the polling place and hand them in.
Barbara
@Another Scott: Once upon a time I was close friends with a native Chinese who told me that green and blue are represented by the same word in Chinese, part of the same color family. If I had to guess, however, color references in antiquity were perhaps not as common because if you referred to a thing in nature — like the sky — you didn’t need to call it by a color. Same with fruits and vegetables. Even now, no one says “I want green broccoli.” To see color as a thing that stands apart from the object imbued with the color is perhaps more common when you have a multiplicity of kinds of things — like hybridized flowers or dyed garments. One color reference I can recall from the Iliad is the rosy finger of dawn, or something like that.
An interesting thing to think about.
Fair Economist
@Another Scott: We share our color vision system with all African monkeys. The ancient Greeks could definitely see blue. Most likely they didn’t have a word for it, or maybe words we interpret as other colors might have actually meant “blue”.
Bill Arnold
Seen recently, of interest to this thread. Hummingbirds are super fast.
Flight mechanics and control of escape manoeuvres in hummingbirds. I. Flight kinematics (5 Sep 2016?)
That is, hummingbirds are faster than some/most insects.
Human simple reaction time to visual stimuli is around 200 ms, maybe 150ms (or a little less) with a zen-ish no-mind mind-state.[1] Cats are a bit quicker; mostly they cheat including with predictive prey modeling IMO.
[1] The tome: Clocking the Mind: Mental Chronometry and Individual Differences (AR Jenson). An illegal pdf can be found, and the mental chronometry wikipedia article isn’t bad.
NotMax
@Wyatt Salamanca
Or paraphrase.
“Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can do for the Trumps.”
//
Wyatt Salamanca
@SiubhanDuinne:
That sums it up quite well.
Hopefully, this Election Day will bring an end to Trump’s putrid noxious doucheocracy and we can once again have a competent, lawful executive branch.
Bostondreams
If you are looking for some fun quality programming opposite the RNC, check out Teenage Bounty Hunters on Netflix.
It is funny, sweet, and sibling focused, touching on issues of race, wealth, power, Evangelical Christianity (some of it’s set in a wealthy conservative Christian private school), high school, family, friendship, sexuality and the stifling confines of the family and religion imposed closet (Amazing how a Kacey Musgraves song can do so much in one scene). Kadeem Hardison is fantastic as the grizzled bounty hunter mentoring the twin girls, and Method Man steals every scene he is in. My wife especially liked his seeming ‘no shirt’ policy. :p
And the ongoing mystery that takes up the back half of the season is done pretty well too!
It’s a great way to lose the taste of the RNC…
karen marie
@dmsilev: For a brief time I had a hummingbird feeder hanging in my patio but the continuous air battles made sitting out there too unnerving.
Wyatt Salamanca
@NotMax:
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a teleprompter malfunction sometime during this 4 day marathon of Trump Butthurt.
LuciaMia
Giuliani gets to speak on the last night. Guess that was worth crawling out of his coffin for.
Betty Cracker
@CaseyL: I was reading something about “Maya blue” the other day, a color found on ancient Mesoamerican artifacts that it took modern chemists decades to replicate. So blue seems to have been a thing, at least in the Americas! :)
Cameron
@geg6: That was a big surprise I had when I moved from PA to FL: how much easier it is to vote here. They’ve got both early and mail-in voting, and (at least in the county I live in) public transit is free on election day.
NotMax
@Fair Economist
Yup. It’s a deficiency in language rather than in perception. Blue is evident in the mosaics and other artworks, powdered lapis lazuli was employed as make-up, etc.
The word orange to identify a separate color didn’t come into common usage until the Middle Ages in English, prior to that it was lumped under “red.” Doesn’t mean people couldn’t see orange prior to that.
VeniceRiley
Who was it that challenged me over my frustrations of countries doing over trials that have already progressed further elsewhere? I mean, I see a sh*tton of news like this all the time. In here, Idia doing phase 2 trials of the Oxford vax, which, I seem to recall, in in phase 3 in other countries.https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/phase-2-human-trial-of-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-may-begin-tomorrow-2285171
UncleEbeneezer
Heading up to camp at El Capitan State Beach Thurs-Sunday because damn we need a break. In addition to everything in the world, we are also dealing with a 14-year old dog who only seems to have about 20% of her strength/mobility in her hind quarters (a combo of arthritis and nerve issues). So we have bought numerous harnesses for walking but none are a perfect solution. She’s just OLD, and it’s 90+ degrees. Anyways, looking very much forward to the cooler, coastal weather after all this damn heat. Even looks like the air quality is much better than it was a few days ago. We are going to pack-in almost all of our stuff, only breaking the rule to get some beer from local breweries in Goleta (a tradition in our travel/camping trips). Is it Thursday yet?
karen marie
@Another Scott: Several years ago I read an article about a tribe (South American, I believe, but I find nothing with teh google) that had no word for blue. It was a while ago, so my memory is dim, but it stuck with me because they had no word to describe the color of the sky. I wish I could find the article!
sdhays
@Barbara: I wonder what your friend was getting at because there are definitely different words for green (綠) and blue (藍) in Chinese.
Betty Cracker
@J.: We saw a Mangrove Cuckoo at Ding Darling refuge on Sanibel several years ago — a bird some folks search out for years and never find. We just got lucky — it practically flew past our noses in the parking lot!
NotMax
@karen marie
No particular need for another word when the word for sky covers it?
Another Scott
@CaseyL: Yup.
That BI story is interesting. It mentions a tribe in Namibia that “cannot see blue” but has more subtle ability to see green than the rest of us. Included is a picture of 12 green squares with one that is slightly different. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
Linguists have studied color terms across cultures. There are as you might expect different numbers of color terms, and different understandings of color relations. Having only one color term for blue and green is common.
Berlin and Kay thought they had found a definite progression; e.g. all languages have terms for black and white, those that have three terms include red, and so on. Their conclusions have been disputed. See this wikipedia article.
Randall Munroe did a survey of color names, but the results may not be terribly accurate since it was done online. For example many men apparently think “penis” is a color. Discarding such responses, he was able to create a map of color terms.
Of course all of this is irrelevant, now that we have pantone.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
There is considerable argument about words for blue; the wikipedia page seems up to date (but look at the refs, since there is argument):
Blue–green distinction in language
IMO it’s purely an artifact of the relative rareness of blues in the ancient world and so less practice distinguishing the color blue, and an unfortunate bias from people who cannot imagine that there are thoughtful humans who do not have a regular running internal monologue with which they somehow “think”. Rainbows always have blue in them, though it’s a perceived to be a little dimmer than the green.
(Would be nice to be a tetrachromat though.)
R-Jud
@CaseyL: Yup, I don’t think he’s fully mature until six months or so. Although he may never fully mature, as the Child is reading her Pokémon encyclopedia aloud to him right now ?
raven
Its not easy being green
karen marie
@NotMax: That’s why I wish I could find the article. I don’t think they had a word for sky. It was a tribe in the Amazon (again, I believe) and saw very little of the sky.
Wyatt Salamanca
Does anyone here remember the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OMiVruHMPA
patrick II
@Fair Economist:
@karen marie:
In the article Scott refers to, there is an exercise that they tested the Himba tribe of Nambibia with. They found it difficult to pick out a blue square from a group of green — so there seems to be a definite pattern between “seeing” blue and having a word for it. They have a reverse test in the article to see if you can pick out the green square (I couldn’t) from other green squares that the Himba tribe could easily identify because they did have a word for it.
I think it goes beyond clorors though. In “1984” Wells makes the point that part of what Big Brother did was limit the vocabulary of the proles so they had no concepts except for the ones described in the vocabulary controlled by Big Brother.
Republicans, particulary Luntz, have taken that point seriously and teach their RWNJ version of proles a vocabulary we don’t know, and sometimes recognize as dog whistles, but leave out or twist some concepts that are important to the rest of us.
karen marie
@raven: I raise your Kermit and give you Ray Charles.
SiubhanDuinne
@LuciaMia:
Is it wrong of me to hope that he’ll be very, very drunk and very, very unhinged that night?
NotMax
@Ken
While surely not a vision thing, remember reading long ago that anthropologists left both red and green plastic buckets on the beach for the Sentinelese and they consistently took the buckets of one color (red, if memory serves) and left the ones of the other color alone.
Yutsano
@Ken:
This is incorrect. Bankruptcy does not (in most circumstances) relieve you of your tax obligations. Instead, it will actually lengthen the amount of time the IRS has to collect any overdue taxes. It’s why the Mercers haven’t taken this route to alleviate their business tax obligations. Especially under a Chapter 11, which is businesses are required to pay a certain amount. So no, that won’t work.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@raven: Even humans can feel the greenness.
Haydnseek
@Wyatt Salamanca: I do, and I found it fascinating and very charming. I remembered it when I started seeing flocks of screeching Mexican Green parrots here in my neighborhood not far from Los Angeles. They’re loud so I know to go outside and try to spot them when they fly over. Seeing a few hundred of them in a leafless tree right across the street from my house was great.
karen marie
@patrick II: Maybe it was Namibia – it was quite a while ago. But it is fascinating to learn things like this. It’s an eye-opener to understanding that things we think are universal are not necessarily so, that other cultures have their own universals.
I think about this with language translations. Translation programs often fail because the meaning of individual words provide an inaccurate translation of a multi-word phrase.
catclub
@Ken: I will let people know if I see any movement in the federal payroll system that i experience. I think at worst the system will allow us to choose whether or not to to take the forced loan. at best they will ignore it, say they will be ready by jan 1.
but so far nothing on it, and it is supposed to apply as of sept 1..
tokyokie
The spousal unit and I have always voted in person, usually on Election Day. But Texas only allows early mail voting for voters who expect to be out of town on Election Day or qualify for other exceptions. As I am 65+, I can get an absentee ballot, but the spousal unit, being much younger, cannot. And because we’re suspicious of Trump’s ratfucking with the Postal Service, our plan is for both of us to vote early in person. For this election, Texas allows for in-person early voting from Tuesday, Oct. 20 through Saturday, Oct. 31, and we plan to vote during the first week of early voting, but not on the first day, probably around 1000, figuring it won’t be crowded then. And I checked earlier today, and we’re both on the active voters’ roll.
karen marie
@SiubhanDuinne:
FIFY:
catclub
I always think of the Gospel passage where Jesus says “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Out of the crowd, a rock flies and hits the harlot. Jesus says: “Ma!”
NotMax
@karen marie
So there aren’t eels in my hovercraft?
Phew, what a relief.
:)
trollhattan
@Edmund Dantes:
Hoo boy, she’s utterly hinge-free. And WTF was she wearing?
Appreciate the Schrute comparo. There’s always room for Schrute.
MazeDancer
@Barbara:
Good for you for poll working. That’s truly helping.
@geg6:
Sounds like you’re thinking it through.
Just to add to the mix for you and others in PA, apparently you can go to your County Election Board during early voting, request an Absentee right there, fill it out, hand it back. https://twitter.com/elastigirlvotes/status/1297540561050783749?s=21
(Illustrations for you both, and tokyokie, coming soon)
Gin & Tonic
Academic linguistics is full of debunking all the “no words for X” or “50 words for X” stuff. Highly recommend Geoffrey Pullum’s The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.
Origuy
YouTube explainer Tom Scott did a video on color words in languages. He has a background in linguistics, so he has done some research. Several languages do not have distinct names for blue and green. Russian, on the other hand, has distinct works for light blue and dark blue, but no word that includes both. English used to call what we now call orange “yellow red” until the fruit was introduced from Spain.
patrick II
@patrick II:
In a related matter, Brian Stelter, the author of “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth” is being interviewed by Teri Gross on Fresh Air today.
Sister Golden Bear
So it turns out the “real people” montage last night was made of up stock footage.
This is my totally unshocked face. Receipts at the link.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: R-Jud will have to post a snake-free photo in order for me to see the beaming child!
Ken
@NotMax: That could be from the cultural associations of the colors, e.g. green might be considered unlucky. There is of course huge variation in color associations, in fact I’d be surprised to learn that there was any universal color meaning*. I remember reading of one culture where red was considered a calming color, for example.
* Obviously there is such a universal spectrum, with red for rage, orange for greed, yellow for fear, green for will, blue for hope, indigo for compassion, and violet for love.
Josie
@tokyokie:
For this election, the governor has moved early voting to start on October 13, giving us an extra week.
NotMax
@Sister Golden Bear
Fake who’s!
Ken
@Yutsano: Good to learn that even corporate people can’t use death to escape taxes.
Winston
The Convention of Lies. Day 1
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/08/republican-convention-opening-night/
Elizabelle
You guys, during the RNC convention, could we have an open thread — non respite — up at all times too?
Personally, I have no interest in following any of it. But would be nice to chat about other news of the day. Because there always is some.
Thank you.
Ken
@Sister Golden Bear: I wonder if they paid the licensing fees to Getty Images?
Just kidding, I’m sure they didn’t.
Sister Golden Bear
@karen marie: I don’t have the citation handing, but I recall an experiment a linguist did when their child was born. They were careful to never use the word “blue” around the infant/toddler.
When the child was old enough to be reasonably verbal, and knew other colors, they asked the child what color the sky was, and like the tribe members, the child couldn’t say. IIRC, at best, the child replied that it was sky colored.
NotMax
@Ken
Dollars to donuts they typed “man woman person” into the search bar there.
catclub
@R-Jud: i had a corn snake when I was a youth. Neato
Sister Golden Bear
@Ken: Always Be Criming.
tokyokie
@Haydnseek: In the town of Everman (which is basically southeastern Fort Worth), there is a large colony of monk parakeets in and around the municipal building. The electric utility wants to get rid of them because they build ginormous nests of sticks, often between transformers and utility poles. But the locals seem to like having them around, so they still are, and occasionally seeing a flash of green whizzing by is a treat. (Unfortunately, the small prairie dog village in Everman wasn’t as popular and now is no more.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Sister Golden Bear:
That’s both hilarious and completely not surprising.
catclub
@Josie: in Louisiana the SOS (and GOP legislature) is trying to roll back all the ways they made voting easier in the primaries. Since Governor (a Democrat) has to approve – he isn’t approving at all.
and it will be settled (maybe?) by the courts.
Ken
The Language Log discussion of the HImba color experiments is here and here.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Heh.
Ken
With the legislature making the argument that although they weren’t able to pass a bill to change the law using the processes in the Louisiana constitution, the court should ignore that and make the change themselves?
tokyokie
@Josie: The site I checked today has it starting Oct. 20. Think we’ll still vote that week though.
Another Scott
@Sister Golden Bear: The BI story above mentions that, and I think it was mentioned on the Radio Lab episode as well.
Fascinating stuff. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
The snake is small and in a covered plastic box. Not scary or icky at all.
(However, I admit that this is a very personal thing. My needle phobia is sufficiently debilitating that I can’t look at a photo of someone getting an injection. Ugh. I’m freaking out just typing the word.)
ETA: In case anyone thinks I’m an anti-vaxxer, I decidedly am not. This is just a personal thing that I deal with when I must, and try never to think about the rest of the time.
Josie
@tokyokie:
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/27/texas-greg-abbott-early-voting-november/
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Which leads me to ask if you do/have done any sewing or embroidery.
Sister Golden Bear
@Ken: At work I did training on internationalization of websites, and it boils down to: there’s no universal set of color associations (albeit there can be ones across similar cultures, e.g. U.S. and England). So any localization had to be tailored for that location.
Eric NNY
@Just One More Canuck: two to be exact.
Winston
We let our daughter have a baby boa or python, I don’t remember which until my wife found it curled up in one of her shoes.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Actually, yes. Not sewing, but I’ve done lots of Bargello (straight-stitch needlepoint) and have pricked my fingers (accidentally) plenty of times. Phobias are irrational.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I wonder if MomSense is hooked and will be subjecting herself to Shitshow – Night 2 this evening.
The Golux
@Wyatt Salamanca:
It would certainly be a hoot if she simply read Michele’s speech.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
A lot of people on this blog would be massively effected by losing SS.
Like me.
Also as a person who was an employer I’ve paid a lot of money into SS and I’d like it to go to the people it was intended to. Because they often have to rely on it and any one who works is supposed to pay into it. I’ve been told it’s one of the least costly government programs to operate, it has been in existence for 85 yrs and while it’s monthly payout may be smallish it’s not an insignificant amount for most people who get it.
It’s also bullshit to stop it. It doesn’t affect any particular employer more than any other, everyone pays the same percentage. There is no different net cost to anyone.
Another Scott
@Ken: You’re no fun.
[pout]
Seriously, thanks for the correction. I should have learned by now not to be so credulous…
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Picturing a sampler:
God Bless Our Mob Enforcer
:)
Wyatt Salamanca
@Haydnseek:
I saw the film years ago and can’t wait to re-watch it. It was a wonderful story.
@Elizabelle:
I second your suggestion.
MazeDancer
@Sister Golden Bear:
Screamed “NO!!”, out loud, when I read about the stock footage this morning. Didn’t see vid, don’t want to see.
But imagine being one of the models.
So cheap.
The production values last night were chintzy.
More money in Trump’s pocket.
Ken
@Another Scott: Actually I didn’t intend it as a correction, I just remembered Language Log had covered it and posted the links. I didn’t recall their stance, I take it they’re skeptical of the original claims – I’ll go take a look.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@UncleEbeneezer: Sounds like fun, I’ve shot night stuff a little further up the highway.
Ruckus
@Geminid:
Birds do pretty good with a small brain. A human with a brain bigger than a lot of birds who can’t exist as easily as a bird does with far less physical effort/skill required should not be compared to a bird, far better would be some inanimate object, like a decomposed log, or a brick, or even djshitforbrains.
Roger Moore
@Fair Economist:
The latter one is the one that I thought of first. Maybe the words shifted meanings over time, so the word that later meant “green” had earlier meant “yellow”, which is why they talked about green honey. Or maybe the words for color were fuzzier than what we have now, so something honey colored could be referred to as either green or yellow, and Homer was picking the one that scanned better.
mrmoshpotato
@Sister Golden Bear: I’m genuinely shocked by this. Why lie about something this inconsequential? (Yes, yes, I know.)
They couldn’t cobble together everyone’s family photos? “Yes, my great-great-grandmother loves the Dear Leader.”
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Also too, Homer was supposedly blind.
;)
Yutsano
@Ruckus:
This is one of the reasons it’s really difficult to relieve payroll taxes in bankruptcy. Those taxes aren’t just for the government. They’re for people. It really is one of the most progressive pieces of legislation ever passed. Medicare even more so when you know that the original intention was for it to actually cover all Americans over time. But it originally had to be sold as for over 65.
Judy Bass
Here in Southern California, we often see Great and Snowy Egrets in the same area. Non-birders will usually say that they’re looking at adults and youngsters when they see the two together.
patrick II
@Ken:
Well, that certainly is a horse of a different color. Thank you.
Wyatt Salamanca
@The Golux:
Yet another book is due out in early September, Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with The First Lady, which will allegedly contain insulting remarks that Melania has made about Donald and Ivanka.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-melania-trump-donald-tape-memoir-20200824-vbaq4ryqmfcatefefzukw3heq4-story.html
I can’t wait to see this toxic, dysfunctional fucking family swept into the trash can of history where it belongs.
Aleta
Steeplejack (phone)
@Sister Golden Bear:
Guy Deutscher. It’s in the story linked at #24.
ETA. What Another Scott said.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
“We know this because we came across her Donildo in the nightstand drawer.”
//
/ewww
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
My next project.
:-)
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: And Levi Strauss was notorious for his pantslessness.
Highway Rob
I fear I am a bad person. WaPo reporter quotes Falwell Jr. as saying
and my first thought is “oh for cryin’ out loud, he’s a size queen too.”
(Link to tweet here.)
Immanentize
@R-Jud: Crawlin King Snake?
John Lee Hooker
Another Scott
@Ruckus: Obligatory Tull – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9bk2MrMGaA (6:43)
Cheers,
Scott.
catclub
from bloomberg:
Politics
Trump’s Payroll Tax Deferral on Hold Without IRS Guidance
Major employers like Walmart are being left in the lurch.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: I regret figuring out what word you meant. ?
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
“Jeans just isn’t enough. Wish I had another word to further describe them.”
:)
Ken
@Highway Rob: No, it’s a natural thought. My own reaction of “murder-suicide” is bad.
Uncle Cosmo
Post a yearbook-page worth of mugshots of NeverTrumpers & label it
Showy Regrets (Thuglicanus notrumpensis)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@LuciaMia: Remember he was going to reveal some dirt on Biden the last night of the DNC, maybe he forgot what week it was(or maybe there was nothing).
mrmoshpotato
Mmmmmmm
catclub
from wapo – paul waldman. The Gop will probably get to that line from The Manchurian Candidate before thursday.
Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life. … I said: ‘Raymond Shaw is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life,’ and even now I feel that way – this minute.
Ruckus
@artem1s:
Bankruptcy does not get you out of owing taxes. Creditors sure, taxes, not so much.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
“Credible eyewitness reports that Joe Biden picked up and ate a hot dog – without a bun!”
//
Jinchi
That’s Jerry Falwell Jr. drawing the obvious connection between the struggle for full rights as American citizens to ….. not having to be president of Liberty University anymore.
Rightwingers truly have the biggest persecution complex of any people on the planet.
mad citizen
The stock Getty people laziness of the Republicans (of course!) reminds me of how the Onion has used the same people for their “man on the street” opinions for what, two decades? https://www.theonion.com/c/american-voices
There should be ads pointing out how horribly bad the Republicans are at running the government and a convention (stock footage example); and, how they stand for nothing at all–no platform of positions at all. The Lincoln Party hits at it with “Trump or America”, but the Dems need to get on board with it. It is what it is
And yes, I remember that Telegraph Hill parrots doc–the clip with the yuppie is interesting. The yuppie is looking for some way to come down on the parrot dude, but just can’t quite get there. It just doesn’t compute for the yuppie why the parrot guy is doing what he is doing.
Anoniminous
@Another Scott:
This bullshit again.
Any organism with dichromatic vision can see blue. That includes mammals and thus our species, laughably named ‘Wise Man.’
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Obligatory, kind’a, sort’a.
germy
Winston
Trump Wanted To GAS Immigrants
Remind you of anything? This should be being screamed all over the airwaves
Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, joined Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal to share the eye-watering tales of what Trump is really like when the cameras are switched off.
“When it came to the border wall, Trump would dream up “sickening” medieval plots “to pierce the flesh” of migrants, rip all the families apart, “maim,” and gas them, Taylor claims. “This was a man with no humanity whatsoever,” Taylor says. “He says, we got to do this, this, this, and this, all of which are probably impossible, illegal unethical,” Taylor recalls, but he was writing them down as the president spoke. “And he looks over me and he goes, ‘you fucking taking notes?’”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-insider-president-wanted-to-maim-immigrants?ref=home
Ken
Have you ever seen The King’s Speech? Imagine Hannity sitting there in front of Trump, waving his hands and mouthing “fuck fuck fuck”.
germy
mad citizen
@Aleta: Can’t the networks (WH press correspondents) go live from their spots outside the WH pretty much anytime they want. It’s not like it is an entertainment or sporting event where rights money was paid for exclusive access.
Wait a minute, might need to retract that last sentence…
meander
@Another Scott: The Radiolab episode about color included a segment about the lack of the word blue in ancient texts. In that segment one of the interviewees describes the experiment with the toddler and color words.
germy
Jinchi
@Anoniminous:
mrmoshpotato
I got nothing to add.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@germy: Well, they were both mayors of cities in northern California at the same time.(Oakland and San Francisco) and had the same last name.
NotMax
@germy
“Once again the failing media ignores the millions more lined up outside.”
//
Ken
@germy: So Trump’s almost certainly screaming at people and demanding they do something to draw more viewers. I expect that schedule released earlier today will be thrown out.
Another Scott
That’s some first-class trolling!
(via notlarrysabato)
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Maybe he was a synæsthete and smelled the colours.
Lapassionara
@senyordave: Not to mention that destroying Social Security has been on the wish list of the far right since it was enacted into law. Anything that brings this to the old people’s attention is a plus for Democrats.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: “It was the bigliest attended convention ever! PERIOD!”
-Sean Spicer
Jinchi
A few years back a group of my son’s friends were solving a puzzle in a maze. They had to answer the question – what color is the sky? Options were A) gray B) blue C) brown. The three boys each picked a different answer.
We live in California, so all these answers are perfectly legitimate. (Red would be too, these days).
NotMax
Expecting a call from Sears repairperson about a scheduled visit today so picked up the phone on an unknown number.
Grr. Stupid “your car warranty is about to expire” robocall scam.
mrmoshpotato
@Lapassionara:
Yup. Quite an accomplishment hating a social welfare program for longer than most of its current beneficiaries have been alive!
“Russthuglicans, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
Baud
@germy:
Some cultures don’t have a word for brown.
Benw
@NotMax: awhile back I got a hilarious robocall that “there’s a warrant out for your arrest”!
Made me feel like a badass :)
snoey
@Highway Rob: Isn’t that a standard part of the whole cuck kink?
SiubhanDuinne
@Winston:
I always, always think he has reached the absolute nadir of the abyss of depravity, and every single goddamned time he proves me wrong.
Fucking monster. I’m seriously rethinking my opposition to the death penalty.
Ken
@Benw: Robocalls, like Nigerian prince e-mails and Republican fundraising letters, are designed to exploit the incredulous.
NotMax
@Baud
No Good Eats for them!
:)
Wyatt Salamanca
h/t https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/08/25/melania-trump-and-rose-garden-renovations-leave-dull-and-pale-column/3426365001/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
.
Another Scott
@Baud: Ack! You have killed me!!11
Cheers,
Scott.
Patricia Kayden
O-o. Trump is gonna be pissed.
mrmoshpotato
@Benw: Sheriff Yo Semite Sam is coming for you.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Patricia Kayden:
Total disaster!
Sad!
dww44
@senyordave: Here’s the thing, why should any President, no matter his or her party affiliation, be able to do this to legislated program such as SS and Medicare? It should be impossible for him to do this. I remember FDR saying that the way in which SS was being funded would keep the program out of the greedy hands of future politicians.
Ken
@Patricia Kayden: I’m having a psychic flash…. There’s been a pivot since last week, when the Republicans weren’t counting the online watchers for the Democratic convention. I see them emphasizing OANN’s streaming numbers, where nearly three billion Americans were watching.
FelonyGovt
Just reading how Michael Madrid, a Republican consultant in California who is part of the Lincoln Project, sees the national Repub party declining like the California party did. He says the national party is going to “repel more voters who are not in the tribe”.
And that’s true. While the Democratic convention was uplifting and inviting, the Repub shitshow is angry, repellent and insulting and doesn’t offer Dems or independents a single reason to consider changing.
Elizabelle
I got a call from Russia today. Country code 7. 604 area code, which is somewhere in Kazakhstan.
Thinking WTF?
They left a voicemail. Is it safe to check that, or just delete? Could be a wrong number, but wow …
Elizabelle
@FelonyGovt: From Spinal Tap:
their appeal is becoming more selective.
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
Trump, say what you will about his governance and intellect, has engendered a lot of really good humor — true, some of that is pretty black humor, but still. LOL funny stuff to be had in Trump’s wake.
Roger Moore
@Ken:
Nit: they’re designed to exploit the credulous (ready to believe especially on slight or uncertain evidence ) not the incredulous (unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true).
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I’ve never heard of voicemail being a security concern.
Maybe it’s a former BJ troll!
MomSense
Night 2 of the CONvention. We are going to need someone who can check melanoma’s speech for plagiarism.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Patricia Kayden: I saw those numbers in this article.
They’re undercounting the Dem watchers. They’re counting Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, C-SPAN, CNN. But
Which seems like kind of a serious oversight. I would have thought that livestreams would offer the campaigns a much more direct and immediate count than relying on Nielsen.
Ken
@Elizabelle: As far as I know, no audio version of the Langford basilisk has been developed (I dismiss reports from unreliable English sources). Of course anyone who had heard such an entity would not be able to report it.
dww44
@Elizabelle: check it and let us all know what the message is.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@FelonyGovt: Nicolle Walace was saying last night what she saw was an effort to “firm up the base” as opposed to expanding the base.
Ken
@Roger Moore: You are of course correct, and I can only plead that most of the Republican I know are unwilling to believe anything that isn’t Party dogma, so they are indeed pretty incredulous.
Sister Golden Bear
@germy: There will be
bloodtweets.@MomSense: “I stand here as a Black woman at the Republican convention….”
Winston
Incoming freshmen at Liberty U were asked what electives they would like pursue this year. Top answers were cuckolding 101, hotwifing 101 and mfming 101.
Jinchi
@Elizabelle: I don’t suppose you’ve ever watched the movie Telefon?
If they start reading Robert Frost to you, best to delete it.
Barbara
@MazeDancer: Early absentee voting Virginia also has this option, except you don’t even use a separate ballot. You go to the county courthouse and they have voting machines set up so after checking in, you vote just the way you would on election day.
mrmoshpotato
@FelonyGovt:
Is going? Like this will happen in the future? I have some bad news for them about what a shitpile the Rethuglican party has been for the past 40+ years.
But never fear! Tax cuts for the rich will make everything better! ?
Josie
@Jinchi:
I am amazed that someone besides me has watched that movie. Big Charles Bronson fan here (his early work – not the later Death Wish crap).
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: The voicemail is just audio. Check it and report back please. ?
MomSense
@Sister Golden Bear:
HA!
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: Also, I should empty my voicemail so I can see if any of these Potential Spam calls or robocalls with my prefix leave voicemail.
Sister Golden Bear
@Winston: Don’t forget pool maintenance 101.
A Ghost to Most
@UncleEbeneezer: Much of Cali’s smoke has drifted east, and mixed with the smoke of CO’s fires. It’s so thick, I can barely make out the first foothills a mile from here.
Another Scott
@MomSense:
Cheers,
Scott.
Morzer
@Roger Moore: The word for green in Ancient Greek (chloros) actually means pale as well as green, which is why it can be used to describe e.g. a pale skin caused by extreme emotion. Incidentally, the Greeks did have a word for blue – kuanos – which has a modern descendant in our word cyan. The Greeks seem to have got it from the Hittites, who used it to mean precious stone, copper or blue. They probably got it from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning shiny. As for where the Proto-Indo-Europeans got it from – I blame the aliens.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Josie: Never heard of it. But as for early Bronson, are you familiar with House of Wax? Bronson plays the assistant Igor. Has no lines.
I’ve always kind of liked Bronson but can’t think of too many titles off hand that I’ve seen. The Mechanic, Great Escape. Death Wish of course.
mrmoshpotato
@MomSense:
You recover remarkably quickly – or you have a jet black sense of humor – or a deep deep self loathing. :)
And can we not call her a cancer like Imma asked? I’m going with Gold-digging Birther Bitch, because she is.
Patricia Kayden
But Nikki Haley told us that racism doesn’t exist.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer:
Little know fact, Trump comes from the Proto-Indo-European word meaning shitty.
Josie
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I have seen the House of Wax movie. Super creepy. By far his best was Once Upon a Time in the West. He was also good in The Magnificent Seven and The Dirty Dozen.
opiejeanne
@Wyatt Salamanca: The guy asking the questions near the end just annoyed the shit out of me, he sounded like he wanted to accuse the guy of making the birds dependent on him, but couldn’t get there because the parrots are able to live in the wilds of Los Angeles County because there is food year-round for them.
Pasadena and a lot of the San Gabriel Valley had Amazons, green, and yellow-headed ones. They would raid my dad’s apricot tree when the fruit was ripe, a flock of about 30 noisy, screeching, parrots. That was in Arcadia and there were other flocks; you’d hear them sometimes when you were driving through an area with older houses if you had your windows open.
When I was 15 we lived in Temple City and a neighbor a few doors down had a big green parrot that was put out on a perch in the back yard in nice weather. One day, when I was lying on the grass in my backyard and looking up at the sky, that bird flew over me trailing his tether from one leg and squawking like mad. I couldn’t decide if it was terrified or delighted.
Another Scott
Why would Donnie care about Iowa anyway? What have they done for him?? They voted for Cruz in the Caucuses in 2016, amirite??!!
Grr…
[eta:] (via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Network-speak for “rile up the Trump trash”
Morzer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ironically, there is a British English word “to trump” meaning “to fart”.
mrmoshpotato
@Another Scott: A few mentions of Fearless Leader too!
The Moar You Know
@Elizabelle: Just delete it without listening. There is some concern that executable code can be placed in voicemails.
mrmoshpotato
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Haha! I need to watch House of Wax again! Price played such great villains.
Ken
@Another Scott: Gov. Kim Reynolds is speaking tonight. It’s probably recorded already, and she wouldn’t criticize the federal response anyway. In fact, I’m expecting she’ll be gushingly thanking Trump for all he’s done for Iowa after the disaster…
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know: Thank you. That is what I am concerned about.
Baud
Ruckus
@NotMax:
I’ve blocked about 10 numbers that have called me with that scam. I would, if I had the patience to listen to their crap, so I could get the number, call them back and use fuck every other word in my 5 minute diatribe. But my time, while not worth spit, is more valuable.
Ben Cisco
@Baud: Is that what they’re calling it now?
patrick Il
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
My favorite Bronson movie is easily “Hard Times ” with Bronson, James Coburn and Strother Martin.They were all great.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: Yes, but remember she is a former Republican.
prostratedragon
@Jinchi: That’s a good movie. Sometimes feels nowadays as if we’re trying to catch Donald Pleasance.
Josie
@patrick Il:
That was a good one. Some of the best fight scenes ever.
Yutsano
@catclub: Heh. My agency could slow walk this until after the election easily.
Elizabelle
So, Jerry Falwell Jr. has decided to stay resigned.
WaPost: Jerry Falwell Jr. confirms he has resigned as head of Liberty University
I like his style with the “bored” comment.
Bored. And “free at last.” LOL.
I feel for the Falwells; they should have privacy in their marriage BUT they are foisting the Christianist lifestyle and hypocrisy on others. Anyway, let’s wait for the financial audit.
And a comment from a writer who graduated from Liberty:
Again, no understanding of that proverb. It’s the barrel, people.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@patrick Il: “The Stone Killer” is really good. Procedural on cracking Viet Nam mercenaries.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
Could they get anything out before that even if they wanted to?
prostratedragon
My voting plan is already in the works. I’ve applied for a mail-in ballot and received a confirmation letter from the Chicago elections board. Chicago voters can apply on-line at Chicagoelections.gov. Ballots go out after Sept. 24. They say that return ballots will have a tracking code on them. However, I plan to drop my ballot off at either the elections board office or a drop-box at an early voting site.
prostratedragon
@Another Scott: Lapis lazuli was traded widely in the ancient world, presumably because of its color. It’s use as a pigment maybe only came later in the Medieval period though, so there might have been less reason to abstract that attribute from the thing itself before then.
J R in WV
Interesting Pro Publica piece about the Alaskan A G resigning. After sending nearly 600 texts or other electrinoc messages to a female state employee. After being ordered to leave his ex-wife alone.
Then Jerry Junior resigns, un-resigns, re-resigns from his father’s Very Religious University, because he was getting bored, what with the yacht, and the pool boy, and the exercise guy, and the hotwife. I would be bored, I know, with that recreational load to deal with, plus being a $100,000,000aire.
What a tough iife!
Wonder where he stole $99MM of that stash of money? I’ll give him earning the first couple of million $$~!!~
Winston
@Sister Golden Bear: yep.
thalarctosMaritimus
@sdhays: I can’t say for sure, of course, but possibly she meant that they don’t draw the distinctions in the same places we do.
For example, I was teaching a Cambodian friend to drive and her mother was backseat driving like you wouldn’t believe. We approached an intersection, and my friend was a little hesitant about what to do. Her mother urged, in English, “Hurry on through it while the light is still blue.”. She sees the green light just like we do, but that color, to her, falls into the blue category, rather than into the green category, even though Khmer has distinct terms for both colors.
My husband, who speaks Vietnamese (I don’t), tells me that Vietnamese people similarly use the color terms differently than we do. The word “xanh” covers both green and blue, and to be specific, they’ll say “xanh da trời” (“blue like the sky”) or “xanh lá cây” (“blue like the leaves”).
This used to be a big philological area of research, if I remember correctly, and is found in several otherwise unrelated Asian languages. So Cambodian and Chinese–otherwise not closely related at all–draw lines in similar places to classify colors.
Of course, I’m just guessing what she may have meant, but this is what I would expect.