Looks like we could use a new post. I spent the morning prepping (and duck proofing) the garden so I can plant my seedlings before I head out of town. I’m also planting a “duck garden” – packets of cilantro, lettuce, and spinach seeds that they can graze on over the summer, in theory, LOL.
Open thread
Gin & Tonic
Yo.
Yutsano
Maybe I am missing out on this no TV/no cable thing. I mean…Katie Porter totally eviscerating Bill Maher is worth its weight in ETFs.
EDIT: Oh Jeebus…
TaMara (HFG)
Olympia Dukakis has died and I may have to watch Moonstruck tonight in her honor.
Ken
Why the “in theory, LOL”? Past experience with the ducks ignoring the spinach in their garden, in favor of breaking into yours and eating the spinach there?
Yutsano
@TaMara (HFG): Steel Magnolias for me. She could beat Meryl at the accent game like no one’s business. All the best to Michael and the rest of her family.
TaMara (HFG)
@Ken: My intentions are good, but you have to keep reseeding it because they eat it down to the roots…and about the third reseeding I start slacking.
TaMara (HFG)
Works for me:
surfk9
I would like to cut the cable out of my life, largely to end my subsidy of Fox. I have looked into using the streaming services, but they all seem to carry Fox. I assume that they are paying for that content the same as the cable companies. Am I wrong about this? And if I am right, is there a streaming service that does not carry Fox.
Ken
@TaMara (HFG): Hmm, let me give that some thought and see if I can come up with one of my patented “simple, obvious, and wrong” solutions…. Ah, of course.
Do ducks eat kudzu?
trollhattan
@Yutsano:
That was our mall of choice for our teen hanging out. Shit.
Sure Lurkalot
So, do you have a duck sitter for when you leave town?
trollhattan
@TaMara (HFG):
{chef’s kiss}
TaMara (HFG)
@Ken: I have no weeds in my backyard. They devour dandelions and crabgrass. The only thing I can’t get them to eat is spurge.
TaMara (HFG)
@Sure Lurkalot: Yes. Duck, cat and dog. As you can imagine, they sleep here, LOL
trollhattan
@TaMara (HFG): @Yutsano:
Which one did she threaten to kick grandpa dead if he fed her food to the dog? That one. She was great.
mrmoshpotato
Winds 15MPH SSE
Time for a wave check on our local great lake.
Comrade Colette
@mrmoshpotato: The wind gusts are so strong here in San Francisco that they’re setting off car alarms.
Comrade Colette
So Monsieur Colette did his first volunteer delivery run for the food bank this morning. Deliveries are organized by neighborhood but you can’t tell which one you’ll get until you arrive to pick up the food bags. He was mildly concerned that he’d have a route where it’s a nightmare to find parking, or that is dangerous, or both. The assigned neighborhood?
Ours.
He didn’t deliver to anyone we know, but there were lots of stops in the streets surrounding our house. It was pretty sobering. Hunger is everywhere.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
10 years ago today
(photo #1)
(photo #2)
(Photo #3)
Martin
Both kids now vaccinated – including the needle-phobic one. Where others say ‘no we can’t’ we say, ‘why yes, we do have lots of Xanax’. He is comfortably home and finds everything anyone says hilarious.
Raven
@surfk9: no
Raven
@Martin: Two sweet 20 year old kids I know are out there for a big Global Citizen Vax Concert at SoFi. The are down a Venice beach right now and the show is tomorrow.
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/media/vaxlive/
VAX LIVE: The Concert to Reunite the World is celebrating the hope that COVID-19 vaccines are offering families and communities around the world. We are calling on world leaders to step up to make sure vaccines are accessible for all so we can end the pandemic for everyone, everywhere.
surfk9
@Raven: Thanks. I probably am going to get an HD antenna for local stuff and use Disney+, CBS +, Peacock and Paramount+ for other content
Ohio Mom
I don’t worry about cable, we stopped watching TV years ago.
But now, as I begin imagine downsizing, I am thinking our future listing agent will freak out that there is no easily identifiable spot for vegging out and watching a screen.
Raven
@surfk9: There is a big fight going on between YouTube TV and Roku right now and it’s a toss up which way it will go. With YouTube TV you can arrange the channels so you’d never see fox.
Baud
@surfk9:
CBS+ and Paramount+ are the same.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
10 years ago today
(photo 1)
(photo 2)
(photo 3)
SiubhanDuinne
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
It was a Big Fuckin Deal, as Photo #3 amply illustrates!
Rob
@Comrade Colette: Good for your husband. That’s pretty sobering.
surfk9
@Raven: I never see them now. I just don’t want my any of my fees to go to them
surfk9
@Baud:
Thanks, I didn’t know that.
Starfish
@surfk9: Our set up is like this one.
grandmaBear
Our ducksters make a run for the Swiss chard, even before the spinach, when they find their way into the garden, so that’s another duck garden possibility.
John Revolta
@SiubhanDuinne: Old Handsy Joe, at it again. I remember people trying to pass him off as some kind of deviate.
Martin
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: The thing I remember best about that night was the spontaneous turnout outside the WH. Not to protest, but to celebrate.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: Just remember, you have a shore, not a coast.
Martin
@Comrade Colette: Yep. I live in a relatively high rent zip code. Lots of professionals – lawyers, doctors, etc. It’s not a showy community, just a relatively high income one. I’ve had more than a few conversations with people here about policies like food stamps and the like where the other person was like ‘clearly people can make it work, look at us’ and I pointed out that despite appearances, 50% of kids at the local elementary school are on a free lunch program.
A lot more people are just barely holding on than we realize. They’re just really good at hiding it.
Mike in NC
Reading “American Carnage”, about the 2016 Republican primary campaign. This sentence jumped out at me: ‘Donald Trump had spent several decades building his own associations with the louche and depraved‘. Had to look up “louche” and it’s synonymous with underhanded or dishonest, so spot on.
Another revelation is that the Orange Clown was trying to decide whether Newt Gingrich or Mike Pence would be a better running mate. Pence would bring in the religious fanatics, whereas Newt was just another loudmouthed asshole, like Trump himself.
Baud
brendancalling
Busy day today. Made progress on my never-ending teaching portfolio, helped a bluegrass dude I want to play with write a business plan, and went for a run. Managed to get some groceries too.
Now I’m on my front porch listening to Waylon Jennings, drinking a Stone Arrogant Bastard, and enjoying some legal greens.
Brachiator
@Mike in NC:
Hell, Trump could do that just by looking in the mirror.
But yeah, a very interesting description. Are you finding the book to be a good read?
Martin
I meant to comment on a segment Rachel had last night regarding a Minnesota vaccination program. I think it’s exactly the right thing to do. And I think the WV program to give people a savings bond won’t be effective.
There’s infinite reporting on vaccine hesitancy. Most of it isn’t hesitancy. Having worked to provide services to a controllable population, getting 50% participation in almost anything that doesn’t carry a consequence – a fine, etc. is about as good as you can expect before you have to start putting in the hard work.
We think the decision is about getting a shot vs not getting a shot, but it’s also about making an appointment, and having the initiative to do that. And for a LOT of people, that’s the real problem. That’s why some of the voter laws being passed are what they are – if your ballot is mailed to you you’ll vote, but if you need to request it, you won’t. It’s not a moral referendum on voting, it’s whether or not you can slot those additional decisions into your life.
So generally good public policy is that if you want people to do something, you bring it to them, you remove as many decision points for the person as possible. Don’t make them stand in a line, make a request. Hell, don’t even ask. You come to their job and tell them ‘we’re going to come to every office and give you a shot, let us know if you don’t want it’. Make it so the person does NOTHING and they get the shot, and they have to do something to not get the shot. That’s how you get to 95% vaccination. This is how schools do it.
A great Ted talk on this. 17 minutes. Well worth it.
Ohio Mom
Baud@38:
We got one of those letters the other day.
Ohio Dad wondered if Biden would have sent it out had not Trump sent out a similar letter with the first $600. I’m fine with whatever horns Biden wants to toot.
John Revolta
@Mike in NC: Yeah, Trump never would’ve put up with Gingrich. He doesn’t want the competition. You could see him make up his mind about Palin, when she was introducing him at a rally early on. She kept talking after he thought she oughta get off, and you could see him getting progressively pissyer.
Baud
@Martin:
Alternatively, we use high powered dart guns like they use to immobilize big animals for transport.
Delk
@surfk9: see if you can get Locast in your area. I get all the Chicago stations on it. Not sure if it covers all cities.
Another Scott
@Martin: +1
People’s lives are full. Asking them to spend time for multiple steps over multiple days, for something that is important as crushing the vaccine, is guaranteeing that it won’t be as effective as it should.
Make it easy. Make it hard to say no.
It applies in many, many areas. [ Insert Atrios’ rant on making benefits universal and simply taxing the rich more. ]
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: My town is doing vaccination clinics that lately have been soliciting walk-ins… but they generally run from 10 to 2 on weekdays, and they don’t know they’ll be doing walk-ins until the day of, and all that, obviously, is really tough for a lot of people. You can say all you want that employers are required to give time off but it doesn’t mean that will happen.
Office clinics were how I initially got into getting a flu shot every year. Even that required going down to the room where they were doing it and signing in, and that was too much for a lot of people.
eclare
@trollhattan: That was Moonstruck, such great actors and dialogue.
eclare
@Baud: Got my letter today.
Sure Lurkalot
@TaMara (HFG): Lucky you to find a sitter who can handle Danes and ducks! It seems that would not be common.
Sure Lurkalot
@Martin:
Shit, I didn’t get that side effect.
Brachiator
@Baud:
I guess I should be outraged because Biden’s name is on the letter.
Let me check.
Nope. Oh, well.
People who will have their tax returns adjusted because of the new exclusion for unemployment compensation may also get a letter. You should file these away; they may be useful for next year’s tax filing season.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
What’s that? I couldn’t hear you over all the salt!
HumboldtBlue
Well, I got my second shot today, feeling good.
They ran the Kentucky Derby today and horse racing is a sport I noticed three times a year when I was younger, but I never pay attention to currently.
Here’s the greatest race horse of all time winning the Derby in 1973.
JPL
@eclare: I want a Biden letter. ?
eclare
@JPL: English on one side, Spanish on the other.
JoyceH
Thursday I had an actual recreational outing, rather than something fun tacked onto a doctor’s appointment. Friend up in Arlington was fully vaccinated and wanted to celebrate. So we met halfway, in Fredericksburg, toured Belmont (the Gari Melchers estate and studio), and then had a Fancy Meal at Olde Towne Steak and Seafood.
It was a lot of fun, and didn’t seem particularly strenuous at the time, but when I got home I collapsed into the recliner and stayed there until bedtime. So this is motivating my exercise program – I’d like to reach the point where ambling gently around a historic site is not an aerobic workout.
debbie
@HumboldtBlue:
I remember watching that race. So smooth and seemingly effortless!
Uncle Cosmo
Man, I need a cigarette after that. Pro tip, Bill: You put the volleyball lazily above the net like that, Ms Porter will spike it right off your forehead Every. God. Damned. Time.
Haydnseek
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: In a much more amusing world Abbottabad would be the capitol of a country called Costellostan.
HumboldtBlue
@debbie:
Yes, what an extraordinary animal. He had a heart far larger than normal.
mrmoshpotato
@Haydnseek:
You know that person you said there’s no such person? I think he’s in there… in person.
Ken
There will be websites with instructions on forging one.
Steeplejack
@Mike in NC:
I don’t know where you got “underhanded or dishonest.” Louche is more like “disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way,” e.g., “the louche world of the theater.” Not automatically bad.
James E Powell
@Uncle Cosmo:
Maher is used to guests who enjoy playing along with his snarky game of “both sides” bullshit and above-it-all posturing. He is one of the leading assholes in the nation.
HumboldtBlue
Here’s the second-best mascot in sports, Gritty from the Philadelphia Flyers (No.1 of course is the Philly Phanatic). And he’s dancing.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
My understanding as well. Also, a bit dissipated and deviant, i.e. Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited.
Haydnseek
@debbie: The poster boy would be Keith Richards in the 70’s.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
from the video, it sounds like the applause was stronger, if less sustained, than the boos. And he still led with a lame-ass joke about socialism.
I’m a bit surprised the vote was that close
Mike in NC
@Brachiator: Very good book
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue:
Damn straight. God bless the Galapagos Islands (and the Phanatic’s pantslessness.)
karen marie
@Mike in NC: Manafort made the decision for him.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m grateful that the Democratic Party don’t have a treason wing.
debbie
@Haydnseek:
And a survivor!
raven
There is NO better mascot than UGA, none.
prostratedragon
Missed Mingus’s birthday on April 22:
Urban Suburbanite
Got my first vaccine dose yesterday. Does anyone know when the microchip kicks in?
Also got back from this year’s May Day fuckery. The Antifas marched out while the police used their expensive LRAD to make pissy excuses, jump protesters and rack up OT. (It’s one of the few things they actually show up for, along with fucking up homeless people) I guess there was some minor criming, so the local propagandists will be shrieking about that for the rest of the year.
JoyceH
How about this weird story?
“Kansas Rep. Mark Samsel arrested for battery after physical altercation with student
“On Wednesday, Samsel, R-Wellsville, was substitute teaching at the Wellsville school district’s secondary school. Throughout the day, high school students began recording videos of the lawmaker talking about suicide, sex, masturbation, God and the Bible.” – And then it went on from there, and this jackass wound up deliberately kicking a student in the balls.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article251069219.html
What I found frustrating, though, is that nowhere in this rather lengthy article, did they say what class he was subbing for, what subject matter he was supposed to be teaching.
But geezo-peezo – are they ALL crazy?
mrmoshpotato
@JoyceH:
Yes.
Another Scott
@HumboldtBlue: Relatedly…
Yes, that’s him with him.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
Since he was talking about “suicide, sex, masturbation, God and the Bible”, I’ll guess… geometry?