Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Be a wild strawberry.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

Second rate reporter says what?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Remember When August Was the ‘No News Season’?

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Remember When August Was the ‘No News Season’?

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Saturday Morning Open Thread 12

(Jeff Danziger via GoComics.com)

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Remember When August Was the 'No News Season'?

(Clay Jones via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

216Comments

  5. 5.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Good morning.

    Along with some friends, we’ve been planning a day trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum, with lunch to follow, but have decided to cancel, given the heavy spread of COVID in our area. Everyone asking me to be nicer to anti-vaxxers can take their niceness and shove it.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    With my luck, it’ll erupt when I’m president and the media will blame me for not evacuating everyone out of the country fast enough.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    Liverpool are leading visitors Burnley 2-0 in the Premier League’s early game. This has been a hard-fought match: Burnley won this fixture last season, and clearly fabcied their chances again.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    My favorite tech pioneer is flapping his gums again:

    Elon Musk said he would probably launch a humanoid robot prototype next year dubbed the “Tesla Bot”, which is designed to do “boring, repetitious and dangerous” work.

    The billionaire chief executive of the electric carmaker Tesla said the robot, which would be about 5ft 8in (1.7m) tall and weigh 125 pounds (56kg), would be able to handle tasks such as attaching bolts to cars with a spanner or picking up groceries at stores.

    Because grocery shopping is the 3rd leading cause of death in America.*

    Speaking at Tesla’s AI Day event, Musk said the robot could have “profound implications for the economy” by plugging gaps in the workforce created by labour shortages. He said it was important that the new machine was not “super expensive”.

    Not near as expensive as workmen’s comp, unemployment insurance, paid vacations, health insurance, family medical leave, etc etc etc.

    But Musk gave no indication of having made concrete progress on actually building such a machine. At the point when a normal tech launch might feature a demonstration of a prototype model, the South African entrepreneur instead brought out an actor in a bodysuit, who proceeded to breakdance to a soundtrack of electronic dance music.

    Eat your heart out, Boston Dynamics.

     

    *SARCASM

  25. 25.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: Elon Musk said he would probably launch a humanoid robot prototype next year dubbed the “Tesla Bot”, which is designed to do “boring, repetitious and dangerous” work.

    Like working on a Tesla assembly line? And were are the Replicants Musk, you promised us Repulicants.   It won’t be the future until people are terrified of roving bands of robot kick boxing hooker death squads.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Rain falls on peak of Greenland ice cap for first time on record

    Rain has fallen on the summit of Greenland’s huge ice cap for the first time on record. Temperatures are normally well below freezing on the 3,216-metre (10,551ft) peak, and the precipitation is a stark sign of the climate crisis.

    Scientists at the US National Science Foundation’s summit station saw rain falling throughout 14 August but had no gauges to measure the fall because the precipitation was so unexpected. Across Greenland, an estimated 7bn tonnes of water was released from the clouds.

    The rain fell during an exceptionally hot three days in Greenland when temperatures were 18C higher than average in places. As a result, melting was seen in most of Greenland, across an area about four times the size of the UK.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    And Liverpool hold off a hardworking Burnley side to start the season with two wins and two clean sheets.

  29. 29.

    frosty

    @Ken: ​
      We went with our kids in 2005 and my sister-in-law freaked out about the chance of the caldera erupting. My response was that I’d rather be launched 50 miles in the air to certain death than deal with the lingering death from chaos and crop failures from 10 feet of ashfall.

    Hmm … kinda grim. Happy Saturday!

  31. 31.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Sounds like the former Trump admin members are blaming the whole mess on Stephen Miller. Quite the reversal from two weeks ago when the Withdraw was Trump’s most awesome of the awesome things.

  33. 33.

    sab

    Akron’s Highland Square is having its PorchRockr Music Festival this weekend. It is exactly what it sounds like. A neighborhood music festival with musicicians playing on about thirty front porches around the neighborhood. Also more spontaneous arts and crafts sales. Plus a big boon to the local business district.

    They cancelled it last year. This year a few months ago starting it back up seemed like a good idea. Today not so much. Sigh. It is usually so much fun. My stepdaughter and her kid moved into the neighborhood last month. They’ll be sitting it out at home this year.

  34. 34.

    rikyrah

    Funny how the MSM leaves this out as they try and hurt 46 and his Administration??

     

    The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) tweeted at 9:42 PM on Fri, Aug 20, 2021:
    RAP Dir. @OliviaTroye on the Trump admin’s gutting of our refugee processing systems: “For four years, this administration under Trump, they did nothing. And they decimated the process. They destroyed it.” t.co/Fl9Paa8l1G
    (twitter.com/AccountableGOP/status/1428910253584883716?s=02)

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Having a human-looking robot work an assembly line or do stuff around the house might look cool, but Elon ever stop to consider what it costs compared to just hiring a real human?

  36. 36.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Been amused by the travails of the Minnesota GOP, but genuinely puzzled as to why TFG only lost by 7 points there.

    Wondering, though, why any adult would think “hey, let’s facilitate sex work among 16-17 year old young women. They are sort of almost adults, look great, can drive, enjoy sex, like nice things, and some of them can REALLY party. That’s worth risking being on the registry for life and taking a felony conviction along with confinement.”

  38. 38.

    dmsilev

    @OzarkHillbilly: This is the same Tesla AI division whose “autopilot” seems to have a penchant for ramming into parked firetrucks and the like. Musk at one point promised that “a Tesla will be able to drive itself from LA to NYC”, with the initial delivery date of a few years ago. He actually *sold* that package to a bunch of his customers, a several thousand dollar surcharge.

    So, appropriately large box of grains of salt would be indicated.

  39. 39.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’ve seen a number of warning flags from economists, futurists and sociologists about how enhanced-AI machine labor will create the need for massive economic restructuring and support for the masses of humanity that will be jobless. The alternative to that is extremely bloody revolution as the tipping point is reached, my guess somewhere around 2080. My kids may be here for it, but if I have grandchildren, they’ll be in the thick of it.

  43. 43.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    There might have been some zoom dockets where I was not only pantless, but also nood from waist down.

    Just sayin’……

  46. 46.

    sab

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I heard dire warnings about replacing humans with scanning machines for tax prep. We tried it in my office, and the results were hilariously awful, so I am safe for a while.

    My machinist step-son has been dealing with robots for a while and finds supervising them to be incredibly boring. But he doesn’t think Elon Musk’s crew will be the ones to pull this off.

  49. 49.

    Citizen_X

    @Baud: I’d rather be consumed by volcano ash.

    It’s my RIGHT as an American to be consumed by volcanic ash! Just because you sheeple are scared of breathing 1000-degree gasses and being buried by hot pumice is no reason I should live in fear! Defend are freedoms!!!

  50. 50.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: Musk at one point promised that “a Tesla will be able to drive itself from LA to NYC”,

    I think that depended on the hyperloop tunnel being built first, and he got bored with that project.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: But he doesn’t think Elon Musk’s crew will be the ones to pull this off.

    Aww c’mon, you mean the break dancing actor in a bodysuit didn’t convince him???

  58. 58.

    Anyway

    One of my favorite vacations was to Yellowstone in February. Never tire of geysers and moose against a snowy backdrop. Snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in the park was magical. Didn’t care for the loud snowmobilers…

  62. 62.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    “Disruptive paradigms and reordering the supply of human capital which maximize shareholder value, something something, PROFIT! It will lower labor costs and save even more downstream because those left can be paid less because of the surplus of human capital supply. Those shut out will work things out on their own.”

    – Some MBA Operations Consultant, over the howling objections of HR

  64. 64.

    WereBear

    @sab: Thing is, work itself is becoming more complicated and demanding. It’s one thing to have robots paint cars, which is boring and repetitive and unvarying. It’s another to ask them to make constant decisions.

    I think we’ve already picked the low-hanging fruit there.

  68. 68.

    Gin & Tonic

    The Weather Channel is in full-on panic mode about the oncoming Henri. I guess I’ll spend the afternoon making sure stuff outside is tied down or put away, but right now it’s sunny and calm, so it’s hard to get motivated.

    My daughter, on the other hand, will probably have several feet of water in her building’s garage, so some planning there is in order.

  72. 72.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @sab: He has been looking like he is auditioning to play the part of Goebbels in a stage production of Downfall lately.

  74. 74.

    Ken

    @Gin & Tonic: The Weather Channel is in full-on panic mode about the oncoming Henri.

    Psychic flash: The Weather Channel has a lot more executives in the New York area than in the Yucatan, the Caribbean, or the Gulf Coast.

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @zhena gogolia: There were some instructions for that yesterday and the day before.  Basically open the browser controls, clear all twitter cookies, and block twitter from using cookies.

  79. 79.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Amir Khalid: Robotics only work were the cost of labor is high and the product being manufactured is legacy.  So the Tesla plant in Silicon valley for example.

  80. 80.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud:  BAUD! Great to see you again.
    And do make it to Yellowstone, but also plan to visit Grand Teton National Park, which is right next door and gorgeous. We visited both 3 years ago and didn’t see a single buffalo for several days. The 4th day we spotted a herd a long distance from the road, and after that they were everywhere and tourists were acting like idiots around them.

  82. 82.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken:

    It just makes sense, like getting an extended warranty for your car. 

    Especially if you don’t have a car.

  83. 83.

    Kirk Spencer

    @WereBear: yes and no, I think.

    The reason (imo) work has gotten so complex is driven by penny pinchers having one person do multiple tasks that used to be done by others. This there are a lot of tasks for which we can make tech. The inevitable result is one person minding even more tasks, but overall it’s a reduction workforce.

    Two examples. I used to live in Dalton, Georgia. They make carpets there. (Yeah, and along that series of towns, but bear with). About a decade ago a couple of plants spent the money to automate a lot of processes. They cut 2/3 of their floor labor if not more, with what was left being there to fix machines, catch and fix the oopses, and do the few complex tasks for which tech either did not exist or was too expensive. Bottom line there was a lot of unemployment in the area for a while, and I got to see a lot of secondary consequences of tech advanced.

    Second example. I can recall being told that certain labor would never be replaced as the job had too many variables, and the specific example was picking strawberries. Alas, there is now and had been for a few years a strawberry picker, only gets the ripe fruit and leaves the plant in place so the remainder can ripen.

    Bottom line, I no longer think jobs are irreplaceable and the consequences of tech advancement are something about which I’m concerned.

    (Edited to fix some autocorrect wonders)

  84. 84.

    CaseyL

    @Ken: I had a friend who emailed me a half-panicky warning that Yellowstone was about to erupt – this was about 15 years ago, before FB metastasized into an conspiracy crank buffet, but still had a fair number of, shall we say, questionable items.  I said yeah, Yellowstone is a supercaldera, but nowhere near erupting again.  No, she emailed back, it’s erupting again pretty soon!

    I called her and asked what the hell was she on about.  She pointed me to a website (where a thing on FB had directed her) and it turned out to be one of those End Times/Apocalypse shilling places.

    Sweetie, I said, you need to be more careful of what you read.

    She has since moved to New Zealand and we dropped out of touch, but I do wonder if she is still that credulous.

  85. 85.

    FlyingToaster

    @Professor Bigfoot:  I worry that the next time New Madrid lets loose, it’ll fire Yellowstone up.

    *Grew up in Missouri, lived off a branch of the New Madrid Fault in southern Indiana for a century eight years. Even in Boston, all of my open shelves are fronted with bungee cords.

  89. 89.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @FlyingToaster:

    If I’m at work when New Madrid pops, I’m smooshed in a collapsed building – downtown Louisville is built on a bed of silt, and mine is a five story 1891 brick build around a large atrium with a wet basement.

  90. 90.

    zhena gogolia

    I just did all this:

    You can do the same in Firefox by going to Tools | Settings | Privacy & Security | Cookies and Site Data | Manage Exceptions. Enter “https://www.twitter.com” and specify no cookies.

    You’ll have to restart Firefox for the change to take effect.

    But it didn’t work.

  91. 91.

    zhena gogolia

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Peter Fucking Baker:

    For most of the last week, in the fires of the worst foreign policy crisis of his young administration, the president who won the White House on a promise of competence and compassion has had trouble demonstrating much of either.

  93. 93.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    Biden didn’t win the White House by trying to appeal to the likes of Peter Baker or the NYT.

    As you know, when it comes to Dems, the media treats any imperfection as a fundamental character flaw.

  95. 95.

    Just Chuck

    Looks like Musk is going to end up completely cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs insane before he takes us to Mars.  Sigh.

  96. 96.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    Here’s how he framed it when Trump was giving away the store to the Taliban:

    WASHINGTON — On the Friday before Labor Day, President Trump gathered top advisers in the Situation Room to consider what could be among the profound decisions of his presidency — a peace plan with the Taliban after 18 years of grinding, bloody war in Afghanistan.

    The meeting brought to a head a bristling conflict dividing his foreign policy team for months, pitting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo against John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, in a battle for the competing instincts of a president who relishes tough talk but promised to wind down America’s endless wars.

  98. 98.

    debbie

    @sab:

    My town’s having its annual Food Truck Festival this weekend. More than 50 food trucks, a bunch of bands, and plenty of lurking virus.

    Meanwhile, OSU now has robots delivering pizza anywhere on campus. They’re shaped like large breadboxes and are a great hit with the students. No vandalism reported yet, surprisingly.

    Wish they could be loaned to the festival. Some of the offerings look pretty good to me.

  99. 99.

    zhena gogolia

    For Mr. Trump, ending the war in Afghanistan has been a focus since taking office, a signature accomplishment that could help him win re-election next year.

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    @CaseyL: There was a made-for-TV movie about about a volcanologist trying to get authorities to believe Yellowstone was about to blow (Spoiler alert: they don’t believe him!). The second half of the movie centers on the volcanologist and his mixed demographic crew fleeing the eruption in a vehicle. It was an exciting, bumpy ride. There was an accompanying panel discussion where “experts” agreed yes, this could happen soon. A credulous friend of mine swallowed the story whole.

  103. 103.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @zhena gogolia:

    Edge is working to open it for me, for now. Safari is fucked, prolly Chrome, too.

    Dorsey REALLY wants people to have accounts.

  106. 106.

    trollhattan

    @zhena gogolia: ​
     Adam posted the cure yesterday: Dig into FF (or other browser) cookies and delete all twitter cookies. Worked for me after a week of stupid Twitter behavior.

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:   Welcome back.

    Did you see how Mrs. Peter Baker (Susan Glasser of The New Yorker) got pilloried/ratioed yesterday for her tweet?  Susan seems not to realize she (and hubby) have been wholly captured by the military-media industrial complex.  The Serious People.  You know.  Not Democrats. The other ones. Not the Trumpsters. The Real Republicans.

    Her tweet:

    President Biden pivots to empathy. After days oddly without expressing it for the Afghans and Americans undergoing this crisis.

    Yeah, right Sus. Biden is notable for his lack of empathy.

  109. 109.

    trollhattan

    @CaseyL: ​
     In geologic time it may be “pretty soon” but we sure as hell won’t be around to witness, or play run-around-like-chickens.

  110. 110.

    trollhattan

    @Miss Bianca:

    A friend was raised in coastal northern California because dad was convinced they’d survive the forthcoming nuclear war and he took the time to study probable radiation maps.

    Better than Nebraska, I guess.

  111. 111.

    Starfish

    @zhena gogolia: My sister noticed this recently.

    It appears that Twitter is not letting people who are not logged in read stuff there anymore, which is very unfortunate and Facebook-like walled-garden behavior.

  112. 112.

    Baud

    @Elizabelle:

    Saw it.  Twitter is definitely a good thing when it comes to push back against the anti-Dem media consensus.  I wonder how Bush II would have fared if he had to deal with it.

  113. 113.

    Nelle

    @CaseyL: I hope she is enjoying New Zealand, with all of its earthquakes and volcanoes.  I used to watch Tongariro steaming away while I washed the dishes.  We actually lived in Taupo, which is in the caldera of one of the six super volcanoes.  I told my kids that, if it exploded, just go to the bank and tell them there won’t be a death certificate.  Take the money.

  114. 114.

    Geminid

    @Starfish: I can still read twitter accounts for people like @Sasha Beauloux, @Xeni [Jardin] and others. I just can’t follow the commenting threads, which is half the fun.

  118. 118.

    germy

    Biden says US in constant contact with Taliban to get safe passage to airport. So, US asking former enemy, the Taliban, to please allow us to get our people out while they take the country.— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) August 20, 2021

    Why is NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent doing unabashed, rightwing political commentary? And what point does he think he is making, exactly – should the president not be in contact with the ruling regime of a country he wishes to evacuate U.S. citizens from? t.co/WptBafff5A— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) August 20, 2021

  121. 121.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    I can read replies, too.  That’s the fun part, when the original tweet is from someone wrong, stupid and/or evil.

    I know twitter has lots of garbage, but it’s fun seeing the little people talk back to their “betters” sometimes.

  122. 122.

    Scout211

    @opiejeanne:

    We were in Yellowstone in the mid 90s and camped the whole time. On July 7th, we went to sleep in our tent with light rain, then heavy rain, then sleet, then hail and then it was quiet so we slept. Well, we found out it was quiet because it was snowing! We woke up to freezing temps and a few inches of snow on the ground. It was quite the range of weather for a 12 hour period.

    We also had a herd of bison walk through the campground and scared the @#@$ out of everyone. It was impressive

  125. 125.

    brendancalling

    @rikyrah: I don’t think I could despise and hate anti-vaxxers anymore than I already do, but this pushes the needle everytime. I didn’t read the article fully, but I have no doubt some of these parents have their own children’s blood on their hands—they will have to live with that forever.

    As for open thread stuff, I’m back in Montreal for the second weekend in a row, visiting my kid. Last night we had dinner in the Gay Village—great free “Disney Princess” themed drag show up and down Rue Saint-Catherine—then we went to see my pal Pete play a swing dance outside. I met his singer, an American ex-pat, and it turned out we knew all the same people!

  126. 126.

    Baud

    @germy:

    Why is NBC’s Chief Foreign Correspondent doing unabashed, rightwing political commentary?

    There are people who are proudly right wing, and then there are others who keep right-wing rhetoric in their back pocket to pull out when they don’t like what a Democrat is doing.

  128. 128.

    Scout211

    Update on local fire news. The Caldor fire is now over 82,000 acres with ZERO containment. It is moving up the hill and has closed Highway 50, the main road from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe. ☹️

  129. 129.

    germy

    Gaetz took a selfie with his sleeping fiance?

    This relationship is not going to end well for Ginger Luckey. Just my guess. Not sure why I think that. Hopefully, for the sake of the other people on the plane (besides Gaetz) she doesn’t have covid. pic.twitter.com/h27zrLPNmQ
    — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 20, 2021

  135. 135.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    I believe that you can right-click a link and then select “open in private/​incognito mode.”

    I am a bit late to this part of the thread, so I apologize if I am muddying the waters.

  136. 136.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yeah I haven’t been to Yellowstone since I was a kid but I met the family in the Tetons a few summers back. We flew there but they drove and hit Yellowstone on the way. If you’re looking for megafauna Yellowstone can’t be beat but my dad said the scenery in Grant Teton was much more spectacular. We did see several bears, moose and elk in the Tetons but no Bison.

  137. 137.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack:

    Yeah, that’s what I’m doing for the moment. Hubby really doesn’t want me to open an account.

    But we’re all going to be swept away by Henri tomorrow anyway, so what does it all matter?

  139. 139.

    They Call Me Blue

    @NotMax: ​
     

    Mel lived down the street from our house when I was a kid. He’d walk by our place frequently on his way into town and was never in too much of a hurry to stop and give is a little Bugs or Sylvester.

  142. 142.

    Starfish

    @germy: I think the change is what @Geminid mentioned above— that people not logged in can no longer follow comment threads.

    I have not been logged out of Twitter in a long time, so I don’t know how the experience changed. I just know that it is less fun for people who are not logged in now.

  143. 143.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    But we’re all going to be swept away by Henri tomorrow anyway

    I’m glad to hear you’ll avoid being caught up in the upcoming  supervolcano eruption.

     

    @oatler: That is never OT.

  144. 144.

    Spanky

    Third or fourth in prefering the Tetons over Yellowstone, which you definitely should visit.

    A low-key gem for bison in the “neighborhood” is Custer State Park, south of Rapid City, SD. The loop road takes you up close and personal with them.

  145. 145.

    Elizabelle

    @germy:   NBC Corporate.  Friend to military contractors everywhere.

    Don’t believe us?  Get a load of our Sunday “public interest” shows.  And the ads.

  146. 146.

    opiejeanne

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: It was slightly less crowded than Yellowstone, but neither was bad. We were there in July, peak vacation time. It was part of a trip to attend Longmire Days in Buffalo Wyoming. Since we drove from Seattle area, we planned to hit the parks and see more of the state.

  150. 150.

    mrmoshpotato

    @oatler:

    OT maybe ,but fuck Chuck Todd.

    No.  That’s never off topic.  Fuck Chuck Todd.

    ETA – concurring with Baud apparently

  152. 152.

    pat

    @germy: ​
     
    So I click on the link and a box comes up asking me to log in or join twitter.
    At the top left corner of that box is an X and when I click on that, I am in. See the tweet that was referenced and the answers.

  160. 160.

    JPL

    @zhena gogolia: When you sign up, you can follow favorites,  which is pretty handy.   I mentioned before that I don’t comment, because that is what can cause angst.

  161. 161.

    Steeplejack

    @pat:

    At the top left corner of that box is an X and when I click on that, I am in.

    Yes, you’re in, but you can read only that page. If you try to go to another page you get the log-in notice again and (after clicking the X) get bounced back to the page you were on.

  164. 164.

    Richard

    I liked that photo of the stupid fucking wall being removed by flash floods. That’s what I’m talking about.

    Each day goes by and i realize more and more how much i disagree with the people who thought that was a good idea.

  166. 166.

    Yarrow

    @zhena gogolia:  When you did this, were you on a Twitter page or something else? Make sure you’re on some other site when you delete all your Twitter cookies, otherwise the one for the page you’re on will remain. Close down the browser, restart – again being on a non-Twitter page and enter twitter.com for no cookies allowed. Restart again and try it then.

  167. 167.

    Another Scott

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah, some things are too big to be able to do anything about…

    ScienceMag:

    The Younger Dryas (YD) event occurred from 12.9 to 11.7 thousand years (ka) in the Northern Hemisphere with abrupt cooling over a time interval of decades with temperatures possibly reaching 15°C colder than present (1, 2). This cooling part of succession of climate variability in the Late Pleistocene resulted in progressive megafauna extinction (3). There are currently four hypotheses for the origins of the YD event. The prevailing hypothesis is that the cooling and stratification of the North Atlantic Ocean were a consequence of massive ice sheet discharge of meltwater and icebergs and resulted in reduction or cessation of the North Atlantic Conveyor. This is thought to be augmented by climate forcing with expanded snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere (4). Another persistent hypothesis is that global cooling was trigged by a bolide impact or airbursts (1). Stratigraphic markers supporting the YD impact hypothesis include elevated concentrations of carbon spherules, magnetic grains, nanodiamonds, and Pt and Ir abundance anomalies (5). These markers are found singularly or more at various sites globally and appear to reach peak abundances near or at the YD basal boundary layer. A meteorite crater potentially associated with the YD was recently found in Greenland, although not well dated (6).

    A third hypothesis proposes that a supernova explosion in the Vela constellation could have depleted the ozone layer, resulting in greater ultraviolet exposure and atmospheric and surface changes that led to cooling (7). Last, a megaeruption of the Laacher See volcano ejected 6.3 km3 [dense rock equivalent (DRE)] of zoned sulfur-rich phonolite magma far into the stratosphere at the time of the onset of the YD event (8). Volcanic aerosols and cryptotephra were dispersed throughout the Northern Hemisphere over a period of 2 months and affected the atmospheric optical density for over 1 year (9). Laacher See released a minimum of 2 metric megatons (Mt) of sulfur (possibly ranging up to 150 Mt) and is suggested to have triggered the sudden lowering of temperature coincident with YD climate change in the Northern Hemisphere (10).

    Each of these four possible triggers for the YD event is complex, and there is not a clear consensus as to which mechanism or combination of these events initiated the YD cold period. Of these explanations, the impact hypothesis has received the most attention, but problems plague this hypothesis. […]

    Our measurements span ~4000 years of sediment deposition at Hall’s Cave. The HSE chondrite-normalized patterns combined with 187Os/188Os at different levels within this section at Hall’s Cave including the YD basal boundary layer show a repeating record of Os concentration enrichment. Multiple occurrences above and below the anticipated YD basal boundary layer bring into question the single impact theory for the YD climate event. Instead, we propose that the five layers containing HSE enrichments and Os isotopic signatures represent volcanic aerosols and cryptotephra contributed from distant volcanic eruptions over the ~4000 years.

    tl;dr – If a big enough volcano blows, it won’t really matter how close you are to it.

    … live for today … (3:00)

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  168. 168.

    Geminid

    @germy: I’ve encountered some outstanding polemicists on Twitter. @Sasha Beauloux is one. If I were a political ad writer, I would try to learn from Ms. Beauloux’s content and expression. She is very earnest and direct.

    Another Twitter account that impresses me is that of @Mangy Jay. Ms. Jay is not so partisan, but she makes some cogent analysis of political issues. I think Jay has a social science background, and I believe she worked on the 2016 Clinton campaign.

  171. 171.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Grand Teton NP, hell yes! Even though it was snowy and cold in mid-September(!), it was breathtaking. I hope to return with better weather for the hikes we missed.

    Deciding whether to go to an outdoor fair in a large park. It’s on one of our regular walking routes, about 2 miles away.  Music and a few food trucks. Can’t decide.

  174. 174.

    JPL

    @germy: I follow political scientists and news, but I find twitter useful for local health news.    The virus is really spreading among the children in GA..

    Home / Twitte

    The fourth chart shows the age group..

  175. 175.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @zhena gogolia: I do not want a Twitter account and frankly, I think this may be a good thing. I do think that blog posts that compile tweets will suffer but maybe we’ll spend less time tumbling down Twitter rat holes, getting ever more outraged by people’s bad takes and general idiocy.

    ETA I do (or used to before this change) follow a few peeps on Twitter so I do think there’s decent content.

  177. 177.

    Soprano2

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: They think that if New Madrid activates we’ll get a lot of refugees here in Springfield but won’t have much actual damage.

    As for people like Engel, I keep wishing someone would ask them what they’d do to make things better with this set of facts. He should quit “reporting” because he’s too emotional about what’s happening and can’t put that aside.

  178. 178.

    Anoniminous

    @Just Chuck: ​
     

    Until we figure out how to stop our brains turning to snot long term human space exploration is a non-starter.

    Space–brain: The negative effects of space exposure on the central nervous system

    ….recent and compelling evidence, based largely on rodent models, has confirmed significant adverse effects of space-relevant influences of charged particles on cognition, and many of our studies, have linked functional behavioral decrements to the erosion of neuronal structure and synaptic integrity in specific regions of the brain. Importantly, and somewhat surprisingly, these changes were found to persist over the course of 1 year, highlighting that acute exposures to various types of cosmic radiation caused relatively permanent changes in the brain that showed little or no overt signs of recovery, regeneration, or repair. Specifically, mice subjected to space relevant fluences of charged particles have been shown to exhibit significant cortical and hippocampal-based cognitive deficits using a variety of spontaneous exploration tasks designed to discriminate the capability to recognize novelty. Deficits in recognition, episodic, and recency memory highlight some of the persistent behavioral impairments experienced by irradiated rodents. Additional tasks in mice have shown that elevated anxiety and depression are associated with impaired cognitive flexibility. Higher order deficits interrogated by more stringent tasks, such as a platform relocation task adapted from the traditional Morris water maze, or a fear extinction paradigm, point to problems in adaptive behavior or the capability to respond to a changing environment. In rats, elegant attention set-shifting paradigms have uncovered some fascinating effects pointing to marked interindividual variability in executive function, while exhibiting a range of deficits likely to parallel human behavioral deficits. Given that multiple investigators armed with an arsenal of behavioral tasks have routinely found short and long-term deficits in cognition, it becomes increasingly evident that the radiation problem in space is a significant concern and will require considerable innovation to adequately resolve.

    [emphasis added]

    There’s also serious questions regarding the extracellular transmission of neuro-active ligands, e.g. volume transmission of Dopamine and the co-transmission of GABA and Glutamate, RNA, and DNA in the fluid dynamics of zero and low-G. If it has been studied – which I doubt – I cannot find a publication.

  179. 179.

    Fleeting Expletive

    @pat: Yeah but it won’t let you do anything else.

    I don’t want a twitter account because I don’t want my real name/email/phone on it and it declines to accept my pseudonyms. Am I paranoid? I do so enjoy reading replies and keeping up with interesting people’s twitter accounts.

    I’m hoping the tweetlords will abandon and reverse this compulsory participation!

  180. 180.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid: You can write off costs for equipment, depreciation, etc., on taxes.  One can’t on humans.

    Of course, if one has no net profits because one pays high enough salaries that one just breaks even, then one doesn’t pay any taxes either, but the MotUs don’t like that version.

    :-/

    Musk likes robots and automation.

    IIRC, Musk’s brilliant plan to keep the costs on the Model 3 low enough was to have the assembly line be fully automated.  My recollection is that the teething issues with the automated assembly line were so severe he moved the actual assembly out to tents in the parking lots where humans put the cars together to actually be able to make deliveries.  (And that’s why one should be wary of buying an old Model 3 – the quality was highly variable (Musk himself has said the newer models are much, much better).)

    When I’m Benevolent Despot, the tax treatment of workers vs equipment is going to be substantially overhauled!!

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  181. 181.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: I won’t open an account on principle.  How else can the message be sent that we don’t like being extorted.

    On the other hand, someone wrote in another thread that this was just a twitter screwup and is not a permanent thing. ?‍♀️

    I haven’t had time to look into it, but it may pass in a day or two.

  183. 183.

    cmorenc

    @Baud:

    I still have not heard a good explanation for why the current advancements in technology will have a different effect than pay advancements in technology in terms of the labor market.

    You don’t have to pay worker’s comp or give any benefits or other compensation to robot workers as opposed to human workers.  True, you do have purchase and maintenance costs with robots, but OTOH they aren’t going to sue you for overtime compensation or wage theft.

  188. 188.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: Sorry to hear of your Twitter troubles returning.

    On a lark, I fired up Firefox here on Winders, went to twitter.com/iamhappytoast and clicked around and everything worked fine.  I haven’t blocked any cookies in FF (yet).

    Same on FF on my Android phone (Galaxy S20+) –  no issues, haven’t intentionally blocked any cookies.

    Maybe reinstall FF?  Or wait for whatever trickery Jack is doing to settle down?

    HTH a little.  Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  189. 189.

    Geminid

    @Sure Lurkalot: There are a lot of people on Twitter with good takes, and they are not hard to find. @Sasha Beauloux retweets many of them. These tend to be very committed Democrats, from all backgrounds.

  190. 190.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: Or garbagtivity. Ocho Cinco (Chad Johnson formerly with the Bengals coined the word “pissitivity” which I love.)  Welcome back!

  191. 191.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @frosty: Kinda like the old saw about where you’d want to be if an H-bomb went off in your city: Right at Ground Zero – you’d be a cloud of radioactive gas well​ before the pain signals could reach your brain.

  193. 193.

    Another Scott

    @Scout211: One fall we had a short vacation planned for Sedona then a couple of nights at the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  Woke up on our day to leave for the Grand Canyon, weather up there was in the ’60s and sunny.  Drive up there, get out of the car, I walk over to see the canyon in person for the first time for (literally!) about 10 seconds before it fills up with clouds.  It starts snowing.  We see a ranger who says that they’re probably going to close the park the next day.  I think we stayed less than an hour or so before heading back down to Sedona…

    Weather can change fast out there!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  195. 195.

    PST

    @sab:

    Akron’s Highland Square is having its PorchRockr Music Festival this weekend.

    Funny, but I have a Porsche Festival with loud music going on in the street outside my building. I skimmed over that line and briefly thought, Akron too? Cars mean almost nothing to me, but some people sure do enjoy showing off their old, lovingly maintained classics.

  199. 199.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: There was an accompanying panel discussion where “experts” agreed yes, this could happen soon.

    Why, yes, yes it could. How soon? How likely? Answer: Spend that cash burning a hole in your pocket on meteor insurance, you’re more likely to get a payout and to remain alive long enough to use it.

    The human race will go extinct because of its utter inability to understand on an emotional (or any other) level basic probability and statistics.

    Mark my words.

  202. 202.

    James E Powell

    @Elizabelle:

    NBC Corporate.  Friend to military contractors everywhere.

    Don’t believe us?  Get a load of our Sunday “public interest” shows.  And the ads.

    Or ask Phil Donahue.

  204. 204.

    Elizabelle

    @Kathleen:   You go, grrrrrl!  Proud of you.

    @James E Powell:  I would love to see Phil Donahue interviewed.

    All the people who got it wrong, and have blood on their hands:  most of them have stellar careers.

    Receipts!  Bring them on. Accountability.

  205. 205.

    LiminalOwl

    @trollhattan: A RWNJ I had an unfortunate crush on in college made similar claims about the Falkland Islands, where “nothing ever happens.”  This was in 1980. I thought of him in 1982, but we were no longer speaking so I couldn’t ask what he thought now.

  207. 207.

    J R in WV

    @Ken: ​
     

    @dmsilev: Musk at one point promised that “a Tesla will be able to drive itself from LA to NYC”,

    I think that depended on the hyperloop tunnel being built first, and he got bored with that project.

    Musk got bored with the boring project? Really? ;~)
    pretty good fun, guys!

  209. 209.

    J R in WV

    @CaseyL:

    I had a friend who emailed me a half-panicky warning that Yellowstone was about to erupt –

    …

    Sweetie, I said, you need to be more careful of what you read.

    She has since moved to New Zealand and we dropped out of touch, but I do wonder if she is still that credulous.

    Interesting that she moved to the other English-speaking nation with very active volcanology… Hope she got over her volcano phobia.

    When we visited Yellowstone V early one spring 30 odd years ago, I knelt on a board walk amongst the many bubbling  and boiling volcanic features, and reached down to the bare earth below the board walk. The soil was as hot as a griddle too hot for laying the bacon to fry! That very moment I felt so very perishable and fragile, compared to geologic forces right below us!

  210. 210.

    topclimber

    @Anoniminous: Hey this thread is totally dead but I still must say from a place1.3 billion miles away (i.e. 2 light hours), where it is still the latest news from Earth that we have: I will still boldly go where no one has gone before.

  214. 214.

    Bill Arnold

    @Fleeting Expletive:

    I don’t want a twitter account because I don’t want my real name/email/phone on it and it declines to accept my pseudonyms. Am I paranoid?

    Depends on your threat model. e.g. the Saudis had one or more operatives embedded at twitter who unmasked the identities behind dissident accounts. Twitter has whatever information you supply them, including IPs used to access twitter and device info.
    First, twitter does accept pseudonyms; perhaps your choices were already in use.
    If you don’t trust twitter or the local (e.g. USA) government, tt is possible to create an anonymous twitter account, though tedious. You need a burner phone, bought with cash, bought far away from your house as possible. You want the Tor Browser or equivalent (e.g. a few Linux distros). These instructions are OK (just vetted them), if followed line by line.
    fresconews.com/anonymous-twitter/
    100 percent discipline is required when using said twitter account. A single mistake and game over. Stylistic quirks, reused text (from elsewhere), location hints (e.g. weather), etc can be used to find you. With care, you can be resistant to large nation states.
    This is also good, by an actual infosec guy, though a few years old.
    medium.com/@thegrugq/twitter-activist-security-7c806bae9cb0
    Also consider a (paid) VPN. Without at least a VPN (Tor over VPN is better), web site logs will have your IP address (and get your approximate physical location with a simple lookup). With a VPN, a subpoena is required. And configure so that it is always active with no internet access without it.

  215. 215.

    Tony Gerace

    @rikyrah: I have no more patience with these f***s.  They are too stupid to learn, and too selfish to care about other people.  For some inexplicable reason, they are over-represented in the states of the old Confederacy, but they’re everywhere.

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