Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

The willow is too close to the house.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

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

Battle won, war still ongoing.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Everybody saw this coming.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Genuinely Good Things Happen

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Genuinely Good Things Happen

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But seriously — one of my favorite movie memories is the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (I was there opening night, in 1977!) when the camera pans over the NASA workroom, and there are a bunch of female and non-White extras just strolling through, doing their jobs. That was not standard, back in those days. And now…

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    Does anyone know how far away Perseverance was from Ingenuity when the test took place?

  3. 3.

    Baud

    No telling what America could achieve if we didn’t have to so much of our national energy simultaneously trying to maintain and tear down racial privilege.

  8. 8.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    I was going to attempt a semi-joke about the “racial privilege” enjoyed by all Those People, what with all the special treatment they get, such as police “escorts” wherever they go.

    But, ya know, it’s just so effing depressing, and tiring, that Doing Anything While Black is still so much of a thing in 2021. Not to mention that cynical bullshit from McQarthy re: Rep. Waters.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    Oh, Angus King on MJ essentially threatening filibuster reform if the GOP doesn’t deal on infrastructure.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    @debbie: A few hundred feet, roughly. Far enough away that if something went catastrophically wrong with the helicopter, the rover would be safe. Close enough to take pictures and to serve as a radio link to the helicopter (which only has a very short range radio).

  11. 11.

    debbie

    @SFAW:

    Not to mention that cynical bullshit from McQarthy re: Rep. Waters.

    Would have thought he’d have proposed censuring T**** for his remarks before the insurrection (or for anything said since June 2015). //

  14. 14.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    That’s great; I just wish/hope Manchin and Sinema would get on board. Doesn’t seem likely (re: Manchin), but maybe he’s staking out a position, from which he can move “because the Other Party has violated their (implied) promise to America and the American people by obstructing everything.” Maybe.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Why is there any hesitation about the filibuster, court, etc.? You just know what McConnell will do the instant he returns to the majority.

  17. 17.

    SFAW

    @debbie:

    McQarthy’s still trying to get his statement (“there are two people I think are paid by Russia: Trump and Rohrabacher” [not verbatim, but close]) expunged from any/all public record.

    Yes, I know your comment was snark.

  20. 20.

    satby

    Hope Ozark has a safe and happy trip to meet his new granddaughter, and belated congrats to Just Some Fuckhead on the twin grandbabies! Good news to start a cold, dreary day here in SB, where 1-3 inches of snow, followed by two nights of hard freeze is expected.

    I took memorial pictures of my beautifully blooming spring bulbs last night; even if I cover the flower beds the weight of blankets plus snow would break their stems. I will cut a few bouquets for myself though.

  21. 21.

    Geminid

    There is a good article in Politico this morning, concerning tensions and hard feelings among Georgia Republicans. The report centers on the recent Cobb County Republican convention, where the race for County Chairman was easily won by the trumpiest candidate. (Cobb County is just northwest of Atlanta).

    The article had three interesting data points: in 2012, Mitt Romney carried Cobb County by almost 13%; in 2016, Hillary Clinton won Cobb by 2 points; and last year Joe Biden carried Cobb County by 14%, a swing of 27 points in only 8 years. Some of this is due to demographic change, some to an energized Democratic Party, but a lot probably can be debited to the hard right turn by the Republicans.

  22. 22.

    satby

    And after not commenting for over a day and from a different device my first one today is labelled a duplicate. What bullshit.

  23. 23.

    Matt McIrvin

    The one thing that bugs me a little about Biden’s tweet is that it’s not every American–it’s every adult American. (I could breathe a lot easier if it were every American. We need to be able to vaccinate kids–requiring the vaccine in schools would probably do a lot to smash this thing. I guess that’s likely coming pretty soon.)

  25. 25.

    rikyrah

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Hoping that the next age group approved before Fall will be 12-15 year olds. That would take care of high school aged children, and they could open back up without fears. Including extracurriculars.

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: My daughter is in that group and she wants so badly to get vaccinated. Teenagers are a big chunk of cases right now, though they’re certainly not the ones getting the sickest.

  32. 32.

    germy

    But the holy grail is a universal flu vaccine. This would protect against all strains of the virus (not just what the WHO predicts) and so wouldn’t need to be updated each year. The same researchers who pioneered mRNA vaccines are also working on a universal flu vaccine.

    I don’t understand this. We’ll need boosters for the COVID vaccine but not the mRNA vaccine for flu?

  34. 34.

    germy

    Cancer vaccines can be targeted to specific combinations of these antigens. BioNTech is developing one such mRNA vaccine that shows promise for people with advanced melanoma. CureVac has developed one for a specific type of lung cancer, with results from early clinical trials.

    Then there’s the promise of personalized anti-cancer mRNA vaccines. If we could design an individualized vaccine specific to each patient’s tumor then we could train their immune system to fight their own individual cancer. Several research groups and companies are working on this.

    This is very exciting.  I’m really hoping for this.

  35. 35.

    WereBear

    @Baud: No telling what America could achieve if we didn’t have to so much of our national energy simultaneously trying to maintain and tear down racial privilege.

    Restricting ourselves to the well-off white man pool has… not gone well.

  38. 38.

    Michael Cain

    The Mars helicopter runs Linux! Also Python and the OpenCV computer vision software. GitHub is working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to put a special symbol on the profile page of everyone who committed code changes to the specific version of the various packages used by the ‘copter.

  41. 41.

    Catherine D.

    Since this is an open thread, has anyone seen “road recycling” in action? It’s going on in front of my house right now. Three huge semis are very slowly going along the road shooting flames out from underneath whatever gizmo they’re towing. The last one seems to be spraying an asphalt-like top, and a roller brings up the rear. Guys walk alongside the semis hitting any fiery pine cones with water. Bizarre!

  42. 42.

    Kathleen

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  Do they serve meals in your condo community? If so, is there breakfast at least coffee option until you can get a new one? I would totally freak out about no coffee because that is the only thing that gets me going first thing in the morning. It would be disaster for me.

  43. 43.

    germy

    I see this weird thing happening where people are like “everyone is vaccinated so now you’re a virtuous performer or a coward if you haven’t gone back to normal life” and it’s like they forgot that only fifty percent of the country is vaccinated, including NONE OF OUR CHILDREN

    — Amber Sparks (@ambernoelle) April 19, 2021

  46. 46.

    Karen S.

    @Baud: This Toni Morrison quote seems apt here:

    “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

  48. 48.

    Michael Cain

    @Catherine D.: ​
      I’ve seen it being done to an asphalt parking lot. As you say, very strange looking. And stinks! Worse than fresh asphalt being put down.

  50. 50.

    germy

    Birds of a Feather:

    I believe this is a historic first: a candidate driven from office by sexual assault charges teams up with a campaign chair who was driven from her job by sexual harassment charges. https://t.co/nclXMo5OsC— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) April 20, 2021

  52. 52.

    germy

    The Grant Cottage State Historic Site on Mount McGregor is getting all its power from an array of solar panels and is off the commercial power grid, state officials announced Monday.

    The state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation announced the conversion took place in partnership with the state Energy Research and Development Authority. It is the first State Parks facility to go entirely off the grid, though there has been a concerted effort to add solar power to park facilities across the state.

    The cottage and 43 surrounding acres are the preserved 19th-Century mountaintop residence where U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant completed his highly respected memoirs — which focus on his Army career and leadership of Union forces during the Civil War, not his presidency — shortly before his death in the summer of 1885. A new solar-powered micro-grid is now providing 100% of the electricity needed by the two-story residence and its nearby visitors’ center.

    https://dailygazette.com/2021/04/19/historic-grant-cottage-being-powered-by-solar-panels/

  54. 54.

    Fair Economist

    @germy:

    I don’t understand this. We’ll need boosters for the COVID vaccine but not the mRNA vaccine for flu?

    The idea would be to use mRNA targets based on highly conserved sequences rather than the exposed outer proteins, which mutate a lot. The same basic idea could be used against coronaviruses as well.

    Generally speaking, the vaccines from this approach are expected to be less effective against the target strain because they’re not going to be able to blanket a virion in neutralizing antibodies but perhaps it’ll be effective enough. Inferior results against the target strain would be compensated for by superior results against related strains.

  55. 55.

    germy

    @Fair Economist:  The same basic idea could be used against coronaviruses as well.

    Then maybe there’ll be a time when we won’t need yearly COVID vaccine boosters…

  56. 56.

    germy

    @Spanky:

    When we visited the cottage a few years ago we noticed some historical markers pockmarked with bullet holes.  A guide said he suspected the shooting had come from guards from a nearby prison who were pissed their jail was shutting down.

  59. 59.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    I got my second pfizer shot yesterday, so in two weeks I’ll be “fully vaccinated” but I’m not comfortable with throwing my mask away and strutting around unprotected.

    And I fully expect to be harassed in public for wearing a mask in a few months.  It’s happened already.  I was walking from the bank to a store, and kept my mask on (I didn’t want to touch it) and some young guy made a comment.

    Where I live, guys in pickup trucks like to yell stuff at pedestrians.  And I’m sure they’ll be triggered by the sight people insisting on masks at the end of this summer.

    It is what it is.

  60. 60.

    hueyplong

    @germy: I hit shot 2 + 2 weeks in 27 minutes.  I’ll keep wearing a mask too.

    If it’s not the mask, the butthurt RWNJs will find something else about which to make their unhappiness known.  I’m over spending any time contemplating their delicate fee-fees.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    This whole thing is interesting. Here’s Manchin in March:

    U.S. coal and auto industry laborers who have lost jobs as the economy moves to green energy should be put to work in those technologies, and new legislation can spark that transition, Senator Joe Manchin said on Friday.
    Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who heads the Senate Energy Committee, introduced bipartisan legislation this week to provide $8 billion in tax credits for manufacturers to retool, or build new plants in coal and auto manufacturing communities so they can make climate friendly products.

    Yesterday the largest coal workers union comes out in favor of green energy reforms (with conditions) and Manchin comes out as sponsor for the PRO Act- pro labor union legislation.

    Everybody knows the “green energy” economy is coming- now it’s just a matter of who designs it and Republicans are, once again, on the sidelines. It’s coming whether they like it or not, they’re just opting to pretend it isn’t.

  62. 62.

    germy

    @hueyplong:

    I don’t care about their feelings.  It’s my feelings…  I hate being harassed when I’m going about my business.

    I live in upstate NY.  There are entire counties up here where no one wants the vaccine.  They set up vaccination clinics and no one shows up.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @germy:

    It’s true here too. The Trumpy parts of the country are going to keep this virus on a low simmer for years. It’s such a shame. A lot of people will die of a preventable illness.

    I’m not ashamed that I’m glad that me and mine are vaccinated. I am. You can lead a horse to fucking water…

    I was all for equalizing opportunity for the shot but they’re going to have to do some of this themselves. I’m not their mom.

  64. 64.

    zhena gogolia

    @germy:

    As I discussed the other day, my dentist gave me a very hard time for being masked last week. And I’m in blue CT.

  65. 65.

    hueyplong

    @germy: Ha ha, I live in NC, the place to which upstate NYers relocate.  I know exactly what you’re talking about.

    I just go about my business and pretend to enjoy the triggering of their squawking.  After a while, you’ll shift from going through those motions to actually enjoying it.

    The key (and the mask helps) is not to let them know how much you’re enjoying it.  That further annoys the critters and makes them a little bit dangerous.

  66. 66.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: God damn isn’t that the sad truth. What might we be if fail sons like Dumf didn’t insist on polluting the national discourse with their childish antics?

  67. 67.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay: well infertility is a result of Covid so maybe our future will be better if right wingers can’t breed…

  69. 69.

    hueyplong

    @Ksmiami: Problem is, the worst of them are beyond breeding age.

    Of course, the year 2035 informs me that in some ways that’s not so much of a problem.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @Ksmiami:

    My daughter and son in law put off the baby’s christening until they could have one. A gf of one of her brother’s in law said “you can’t come unless you’re vaccinated?” She said “yes, that would be correct”

    The Constitutional Right to Attend Private Parties is again being violated. This is worse than when they stopped inviting Trumpsters to vacation homes on Martha’s Vineyard.

  71. 71.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    There’s some notion of a hybridized return to live court in the near future. If I’m not allowed to attend remotely, I have vowed not to wear pants, as a sop to my custom of the previous 13 months….

  72. 72.

    germy

    FIRST CIRCLE, HELL—Able to partake in many of the freedoms afforded to those who still walk the Earth, the soul of disgraced financier and convicted scam artist Bernie Madoff was assigned to a cushy circle of Hell reserved for white-collar sinners, sources from the afterlife confirmed Thursday. “It barely even counts as Hell, if you ask me,” said the eternally damned Robert Kalas, a heretic trapped in a flaming tomb, explaining how, outside of some light daily penance, the architect of the world’s largest Ponzi schemer would basically get to hang out and play cards by the river of blood while other evildoers were pecked at by harpies, whipped by demons, and torn apart by fiendish hounds. “He’s allowed to freely roam the upper circles, and he’s got security, so there’s not going to be anyone stabbing him with pitchforks or anything like that. It’s honestly nicer than some of the poorer parts of Heaven.” At press time, the rest of Hell’s occupants were reportedly tortured further for having committed the sin of envying Madoff.

    (Onion)

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    @hueyplong:

    I’m over spending any time contemplating their delicate fee-fees.

    This.

    It is the point for so many of them, getting any kind of approval of whatever it is that floats their boat. Don’t live your life trying to make an idiot smarter, it is a waste of time and effort. If they could be made smarter they wouldn’t be idiots in the first place.

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: I saw that too!  HUGE news that got buried in all the other usual crap of the day.

    If (mostly GQP) politicians can’t demagogue about “good-paying coal jobs” and “bringing back coal” anymore…if it actually WORKS to bring miners out into the sunlight and pay them (and their kids) well to install solar panels…that’s just a huge, huge game-changer.

    They’re already scrambling to try and re-position themselves, bless their shriveled little hearts.  I think I saw something by Kevin McQarthy about how “Republicans have always been for fighting climate change” or some other such bullshit.  Good luck with that, Kevin!

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @hueyplong: I hit shot 2 + 2 weeks in 27 minutes.

    Congratulations, though I am again reminded that there are going to be hundreds if not thousands of doctoral theses in psychology and sociology about “these unprecedented and trying times”.

  78. 78.

    MomSense

    @germy:

    Republicans don’t care about children.  Someone should design some kind of poster with an almost to term fetus inside the womb, the pregnant mom wearing a mask asking everyone to mask up for her unborn baby – and then maybe the assholes will cooperate.

  79. 79.

    L85NJGT

    @Kay:

    There’s a large lignite fueled plant in North Dakota that feeds the Twin Cities. It is closing this year. The locals are adamant that the transmission infrastructure not be repurposed for green energy.

    For sure a new coal plant will drop from the sky some day.

  84. 84.

    VeniceRiley

    @germy: It does not say you won’t need boosters for that mRNA flu shot. One could be required, but it would be the same, and there would be no new formulation rush every year that has to guesstimate. That’s why flu shots vary in effectiveness every year…. More than one strain, or they guessed slightly wrong. Having a shot that works means not having to WAIT for the outbreak to get the version then rush production. Everyone can just get their shot or booster (if one is needed) already distributed to the front lines of healthcare before the season starts.

  85. 85.

    VOR

    @Kay:  The Trumpy parts of the country are going to keep this virus on a low simmer for years. It’s such a shame. A lot of people will die of a preventable illness.

    Some time ago the epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm predicted we would be dealing with COVID into 2024. Why? Because it is a big world and there will be pockets where people aren’t vaccinated so the disease will have a reservoir. At the time, I was thinking those pockets would be in 3rd world countries but perhaps they will be in US counties with a lot of Trump voters. I know several Trump voters who STILL think COVID is just a hoax and refuse to vaccinate.

  86. 86.

    VOR

    @L85NJGT: There is a small scale photovoltaic solar farm near my house. Some people complained about the noise – from a solar farm!

  87. 87.

    trollhattan

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Is it leaving to take a better position elsewhere?

    Sorry for your loss (truly, I get it). We have a fancypants espresso maker that has required repair several times over its (checks watch) two decades of service. We have an Aussie repairman who makes housecalls.

    #CoffeeSnob

    Good coffee begins with good water, sadly absent in many households. Hope you rectify your situation quickly, this is how civilization collapses.

  88. 88.

    trollhattan

    @VOR:

    Was out for a drive last weekend that took me into the Sacramento River Delta and past a hunk o’ land housing the region’s television broadcast towers. To my surprise, the land has sprouted a Very Large collection of PV panels. Dual-use like that is smart.

    Read an editorial recently from some ag newspaper from down valley (Devin Nunes country) that railed against the insidious progress of solar power and how if we weren’t careful, we’d find all of our ag land “papered with Chinese solar panels.”

    I wish I were making that up, but it’s an accurate quote.

  89. 89.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay:  quelle horror non fete! See with rightwingers we need to punch back harder and faster. They can’t handle themselves in a real fight…

  90. 90.

    J R in WV

    @trollhattan: 

    Read an editorial recently from some ag newspaper from down valley (Devin Nunes country) that railed against the insidious progress of solar power and how if we weren’t careful, we’d find all of our ag land “papered with Chinese solar panels.”

    Saw a piece, probably from public broadcasting, about land in southern GA being used for solar farms, while also being used for grazing by sheep/goats/etc. Evidently that far south shade is good for the grass in the heat of the summer.

    And of course in southern Arizona parking lots are being roofed with solar panels so that shoppers’ and employees’ cars won’t be baking hot after being in the Sonoran Desert sun for a few hours.

    People still buy black and other dark color autos out there! I can’t imagine… silver/white for me, if I have a choice, everywhere.

  91. 91.

    trollhattan

    @J R in WV: 
    Agreed. Costs more to elevate the panels but then you can use the land beneath. Our utility has several wind farms in the Carquinez Strait on grazing land, where cattle continue to graze as though nothing was different. Stupid cows.

  92. 92.

    Ken

    @trollhattan: Stupid cows.

    I’m sure they’d avoid the wind towers if they realized how easily they could be decapitated, were they to make an eighty-foot vertical leap

  94. 94.

    L85NJGT

    The anti PV talking point are all warmed over coal industry FUD from the 1970’s. Like there hasn’t been a massive change in scale and efficiency in forty years. Another favorite is old farts blathering on about “base load”.

    Rule of thumb in the PV industry is 30% overproduction – and still costing out less than coal or nuclear. I read an industry opinion piece on building a 50% overage and not bother with long haul grid ties. Probably not the way to go, but it gives some idea of the margins they have to hammer the competition.

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