Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

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

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

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

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

No one could have predicted…

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

The lights are all blinking red.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

T R E 4 5 O N

You are here: Home / Open Threads / In Case You Missed It

In Case You Missed It

by | 100 Comments

This post is in: 

A few things, in case you missed it:

Pets of Balloon Juice calendar deadlines:

If you missed last night’s deadline, you can still get your pets in!   Just send me email with your nym and pet names to start the process.

And the deadline for actually getting pics in is Friday at MIDNIGHT.  By which I mean that as long as they are in my mailbox when I get up on Saturday, you’re good.

Balloon Juice has decided to go ad-free, as long as we can get the donations to cover the money the ads were bringing in.  Details in the threads linked below.

My post.

John’s rant.

So many peeps setting up recurring donations and/or contributing to the safety net is much appreciated!

One of our Balloon Juice peeps has offered $10 matching donations toward the monthly or “safety net” fund, up to a total of $500.  So if you’re up for that, let us know in the comments here so we’ll know when it hits $500.  Angels everywhere, it seems!  Thank you lowtechcyclist!

Just to be crystal clear, though, in case it isn’t already…

No one has to donate in order to continue reading/commenting as you have always done.  Just give if you are inclined to give and if you can afford it.

No one is expected to give or will be looked at askance if you don’t.

Finally, no one should be eating ramen noodles just so they can contribute to Balloon Juice.  (Unless you love ramen noodles!)

What’s going on with you guys today?

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  1. 1.

    frosty

    What’s going on? It’s sunny and cold, so I guess I’ll mow the lawn one last time. I wanted to put down Weed and Feed so I’m not the one spreading weeds into the neighbors’ yards, but I think it might be too late in the season. We’ve had one night at 30 degrees but it goes back up to the 60s next week. I read conflicting advice whether it’s a waste of money or it might work.

  3. 3.

    frosty

    I left this in a dead thread for Betty Cracker, but in the spirit of “in case you missed it” here it is again:

    …dreaming about starting an ecotourism enterprise in my yard by building a yurt for birdwatchers who are into “glamping.

    Where do I sign up???!!!

  5. 5.

    frosty

    @WaterGirl: Surface water, mostly, is the issue. I spent almost 35 years as a stormwater / watershed planner so I’m aware of it: Don’t put it down just before it rains and washes off downstream. Don’t use too much. And especially, don’t put it near Ms F’s pond with the goldfish.

    Runoff from our yard goes to the street, down an alley, to a small infiltration area in a recreation field at the head of a creek/river that flows to the Susquehanna. Nitrates will dissolve and be mobile, phosphorus binds to sediment and won’t get to the creek. I suspect the 2-4-D will also dissolve but I don’t know if it’s mobile. I’ll have to research that.

  8. 8.

    Wolvesvalley

    I just sent a more-than-$10-contribution to the safety net fund.

    And guess what, I have the visual tab for this comment! For the first time since I don’t know when.

  9. 9.

    HeleninEire

    I just scheduled my Shingles vaccine for tomorrow after work. Hoping that if I have any side effects they will be gone by the time I go to work on Monday. It’s not like I have a life, so I can spend the weekend in bed if I need to. I may do that anyway!

  14. 14.

    CaseyL

    What up today?

    Seattle weather has reverted to normal: today is very rainy, as the past few days were, and because it is rainy with a heavy cloud cover, the temperatures are mild.  Mild enough to have the sliding glass door to the balcony open, which the kitties appreciate.  They can at least sit by the door and scowl at the rain, while still getting fresh air!

    Heavy rain is an excellent excuse to do what I’ve gotten very good at doing over the past 18 months:  Nothing.

    (Not quite true.  I am WFH today, and it’s been a lively morning with a lot of emails.)

  15. 15.

    Kent

    I just paid about $35 for two orders of chicken ramen takeout from our local ramen shop so I”m not sure eating ramen is necessarily a money saver!   My kids don’t get the reference to ramen being cheap food.  For them it is take-out food like sushi or pizza.

  16. 16.

    Wolvesvalley

    @WaterGirl:  But I didn’t get the visual tab when I tried to reply to HeleninEire, and I didn’t get it when I opened my previous comment to edit it. But I now have it again in this reply to you.¯\_(ツ)_/¯​  ETA And when I edit a comment in text mode, it won’t update (unless it works this time).​ ETA again — well, it did work this time.

  17. 17.

    KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))

    My son gave me anOTHER $60 he owed me, so I’m gonna donate $30. And I think I’ll make homemade ramen for dinner, since you suggested it.  B~)

  19. 19.

    CaseyL

    @Kent: Heh.  Take them to a supermarket and show them the Cheap Ramen aisle.

    (I need to get some proper ramen some time.  For me, it has always been stigmatized as “starving student food” and I’ve never had the real thing.)

  20. 20.

    Wolvesvalley

    @HeleninEire: ​
      I had a mild reaction to the first Shingrix shot, but a much stronger reaction to the second one (tooth-chattering chills, for example). But both were short (24 hours max), and greatly preferable to having shingles.

  23. 23.

    brendancalling

    I’ll try to pony up some cash. As for what’s going on…

    Today I’m a Spanish and French teacher. Good thing I can speak both languages (the former quite well, the latter not as much). I love working with high school kids, even when they’re annoying.

    I’m fucking tired of the media viz-a-viz Biden, and wrote about my wish they’d fuck off.

    We had our first real frost here:I woke up to 29 degree weather this morning. Yuk.

    Teaching a bass lesson tonight, which will probably go badly. But, I taught 3 young women how to do the Texas two-step Tuesday night, and that went very well. I told them to bring their boyfriends next week, because men should learn how to dance.

    And that’s about it.

  26. 26.

    lowtechcyclist

    If I’ve gotten under the skin of anyone here, this is your chance to make me (literally) pay!

  28. 28.

    frosty

    @WaterGirl: ​No visual tab for me, but I occasionally get it at random. Who knows?​
    ETA: This is what I wanted to say but I don’t know how to make it. Instead I copied it from WolvesValley above.
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯​​

  29. 29.

    ALurkSupreme

    Wet, gloomy day here in the land of Raven.   Trying to get all my project work done so I can clear my desk before heading to NYC and Boston next week.

  30. 30.

    WaterGirl

    @glc: Looks like you can do recurring payments with Google Pay and Apple Pay.

    I’ll check with Cole and see if he’s willing to add those now that we are ad-free.

    Rule #1: Never make it hard for someone to send you money!  :-)

  31. 31.

    brendancalling

    @WaterGirl: You simply take the ramen noodle and soup base, but you add all the other stuff. Vegetables, meat, tofu, fungus, etc etc.

    So much better than just noodles sitting in salty water.

  32. 32.

    Hydro

    @WaterGirl: Venmo requires the last four digits of John’s phone number to complete a first-time transaction. I know I have the right John because there’s a great picture of Lily in a shopping cart, but Venmo needs the reassurance.

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    @Hydro: @Anyway:

    5483‬

    I thought you only needed the last 4 digits of the phone number if you searched for “John Cole” and had to pick him out of a list.

    If you use  @john-cole-94  then I thought you didn’t need the last 4 digits.  Would one of you be wiling to test that out for me and let me know?

    If everyone needs the last 4, then I can add it to the file in the sidebar.

  36. 36.

    Wolvesvalley

    @frosty:

    I copied it from WolvesValley above.
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯​​

    I found it somewhere and copied it to a Word file saved as “Shrug” and that’s where I copy it from when I need it.

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    What’s going on with you guys today?

    I had an early morning medical appointment. Later today I have an appointment for my Moderna booster. The nurse said it’s lucky I am scheduled for today. Tomorrow a ton of parents are signed up to get the shot for their kids here in the Los Angeles county area.

  38. 38.

    raven

    I’m was at a sawmill up in the Georgia mountains picking out lumber for a countertop. The place is owned by friends of our builder/friend and he assured us this was a great thing to do. It took us 30 minutes of driving around to find it, the combo on the first gate wouldn’t work so we unscrewed the ibolt and horsed the gate so we could drive through. These folks have longhorn steer as pets so we had to make sure to lock the second and third gates. The combo on the 4th gate didn’t work but we were able to pick it up from the hinges and drive through. Then we got to the place and looked at the steep, wet road and decided we couldn’t drive it even with a 4 wheel drive truck. Our friend and my wife decided we could hike it so we lit out down and then up a huge hill and across a meadow. We got to the mill and it has amazing lumber cut and stacked. While the princess was picking the pieces she wanted the owner called and told us “oh, the road to the mill is OUTSIDE of the first gate!!! I’m waiting here while the others go get the truck so we can load up. Our buddy was going to carry and 8 ft 2 inch piece of white oak back and I thought that was nuts!! And adventure for sure.

    flic.kr/p/2mGARkX

  39. 39.

    FlyingToaster

    WarriorTeen is home sick with a headcold — and yes, an honest to god rhinovirus, though for school purposes we administered a Covid antigen test.  Since everywhere they’ve been indoors they’ve been masked, we suspect it was outdoors at school…

    The new guidelines are that if you can’t keep your mask on, you can’t come to school.  So despite no fever, no headache, and no Covid, the incessant river of snot is incompatible with keeping one’s mask on.  I just want them to be well enough to DayQuil their way through their HS tour tomorrow, and then they can come home and go back to bed.

  41. 41.

    WhatsMyNym

    Wow !    The visual editor actually works now.  I always used the Text editor because I couldn’t figure out how make the Visual work.

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    @WhatsMyNym: That is one of the ongoing issues that I think is at least partially related to ads.

    Wolvesvalley reported the same thing, but frosty is still having the “no visual tab” issue, so it may be browser dependent.

    It’s going to be interesting to see which technical issues lessen or go away with the ads gone.  Then we can finally get the rest of the issues addressed.

    it’s impossible to troubleshoot with a moving target – where the ads change day-to-day and some ads brought more problems with them than others.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @WhatsMyNym: Forgot to say that I’m happy for you.  I LOVE visual mode compared to text mode.

    We’ll see if the visual tag is consistently there for you now, or if it comes and goes.

    Let me know either way in a week or so?

  46. 46.

    Gin & Tonic

    I’m going to go see the James Bond movie tonight, in an actual movie theater. Don’t judge me.

  47. 47.

    JMG

    Greetings from Paris! We are staying at a hotel in the Latin Quarter. We’ve taken out jet lag naps and will be going to an old-style bistro, Chez Rene, for dinner. Then jet lag early bedtimes. Hemingway walking tour tomorrow.

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @raven: White oak is great material. It finishes out to a beautiful bronze color. It’s closed pores make it good for outdoor applications (although it sounds like this will be indoors).

  49. 49.

    lowtechcyclist

    @WaterGirl: Hmmm…let me think about that.

    <thinking>

    Oh sure, I guess I’ll match the donations of people I haven’t annoyed, as well as those I have.  I’m an equal-opportunity matcher.

  50. 50.

    Redshift

    I got boosted today! I did Moderna for a mix&match, no noticeable side effects yet. The tech said the dose is lower for the booster, so I may not get any.

  54. 54.

    Argiope

    $10 monthly donation set up through Patreon, which says I can now send John appreciation or other emails through their platform.  Tempting but I think he probably hears enough from us here.  They should let us send pet treats instead.

  58. 58.

    SkyBluePink

    $10 monthly through Zelle-1st payment should arrive tomorrow

    Thank you to all who matched funds!

  59. 59.

    sab

    I set up a $10 recurring thru Paypal.

    Our nextdoor neighbor’s roommate moved out and she was too lazy to move her car so the moving van blocked our driveway and our trash and recycling bins so we missed the weekly pickup of both. My husband went out to yell at them. The movers laughed and yelled boo-hoo at him, so he went berserk and  flapped his hands and yelled a whole bunch of obscenities at them for about five minutes. Then she came out and said he was overreacting, so that sent him off again. Then he whipped out his phone and ostentatiously photographed their license plate and the side of the truck, as if he was going to report them to management ( he wasn’t). So they backed up their truck and accidentally hit a tree on the devil’s strip.

    It was all Very exciting. Later I went out and pulled out the cardboard amd squashed the cans so we should be able to manage until next week. I almost wish they hadn’t backed up the truck, because I was looking forward to driving across her lawn to get out.

    We told the pitbull that she is now entitled to use her full 8 minute legal limit for barking at the neighbor’s dog, at least for a while. The neighbor was at home doing this, and neither of them thought to ask if they could block our driveway or warn us that our bins were blocked, so I am not feeling very friendly or neighborly, but it was a bit of excitement in our dull lives.

  61. 61.

    Fair Economist

    @FlyingToaster:

    WarriorTeen is home sick with a headcold — and yes, an honest to god rhinovirus, though for school purposes we administered a Covid antigen test. Since everywhere they’ve been indoors they’ve been masked, we suspect it was outdoors at school…

    Unlike COVID, rhinovirus spreads pretty well by touching surfaces so it’s relatively easy to get it from door handles and such things many of us are getting more casual about now.

  64. 64.

    Kent

    @WaterGirl: Well yes, *WE* all know exactly what you mean by “eating ramen” as that was about the cheapest possible way to get calories when your were poor and in college in the 1970s and 1980s.

    But I have found that kids today completely do not understand the ramen as cheap food reference anymore.  At least here on the west coast where there are ramen shops everywhere, ramen is a somewhat expensive sort of takeout food, or something you go to a sit-down restaurant for.  Not something you cook with a teakettle and package of noodles

    This is an example of what my kids think ramen is: https://www.kayosramen.com

    [added an “m” to make your link work ~ WG]

    They probably also don’t know what cheap instant ramen is because I never buy it or have it in the pantry.

  65. 65.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kent: My daughter makes instant ramen but has taken to enhancing it with added ingredients to make it somewhat resemble a proper bowl of ramen.

  66. 66.

    frosty

    @JMG: I love the Left Bank. Last time we were there we had a AirBnB near the little Place de la Contrescarpe. Check it out – for me it was the quintessential Paris.

  67. 67.

    Redshift

    @lowtechcyclist: I put $10 in the contingency fund via PayPal. I can’t remember if you’ve ever annoyed me or not (not enough for the pie filter, certainly), so I’m glad it qualifies either way.

    Also $5/mo on Patreon.

  68. 68.

    Cephalus Max

    I just set up my monthly Patreon donation.

    Plus a one-time $50 Venmo for the $6K reserve fund.

    Long live Balloon Juice and the jackaltariat!

  71. 71.

    TheQuietOne

    Taking a second to send a general thank you to all who post, comment and contribute. I’m retired so I feel like I can’t add to the fund but believe me, coming here to read ( mostly ) sane people helps each and every day! Thank you all so much!!

    John

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Something bizarre is going on, ads or no ads. There was just a new thread up featuring some links to comments by a commenter. When I tried to click through to read them, the only thing that came up was tan empty nym/email fill-in box. Now the whole thing has disappeared. Gremlins?

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: that was my mistake.  I was putting something together and accidentally hit publish instead of SAVE DRAFT.

    Let’s just pretend that didn’t happen.

    edit: I took the liberty of removing a nym from your post because i hadn’t yet talked to that person about trying to put something together based on their comments.

  81. 81.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    Thanks for the explainer. My apologies to you and the commenter for my inadvertent doxx. And I hope you get the permission you seek and are able to publish the thread, b/c the whole thing looked very interesting.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: My fault, thanks for being so gracious.  Yeah, this person has a lot of really good things to say and I’d like to start a conversation with it.  Fingers crossed.

    All hail Betty Cracker ?for sending me an email message asking if that was an accidental publish!

  87. 87.

    Avalie

    Sent $50 to the safety net fund. I will set up a monthly donation as well. Thanks Watergirl and John for making this so easy

  89. 89.

    J R in WV

    @frosty: ​
     

    Runoff from our yard goes to the street, down an alley, to a small infiltration area in a recreation field at the head of a creek/river that flows to the Susquehanna.

    I do know that non-point source pollution is the biggest remaining problem in the Chesapeake Bay, just because it isn’t capabal of being regulated at individual outfalls which can be sampled tested and monitored.

    Timber jobs causing sediment to move downhill, commercial agriculture spraying and scattering chemicals and fertilizer pretty haphazardly, and lawn treatments, especially from commercial vendors who spray on their schedule regardless of the weather forecasts.

    Salt on roads and parking lots, building sites, concrete and asphalt paving jobs, I wasn’t a water quality regulator, just an IT systems builder, so I’m not going to be able to provide a definitive list off the top of my head, but those are a few of the Bay Water Quality people’s not so favorite things.

    And 2,4 D and similar herbicides are toxins to most waterlife.

    I also spray herbicides on invasive plants on the farm, I try to avoid doing it before wet weather as well. Not trying to be critical, just trying to share information.

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    Just to update, when I visited Patreon and put my email in, the site told me there was already an account with that email addr. So I reset my password and logged in to discover I’m contributing $15/monthly ever since the discussion of ads versus adblockers. I use ad blockers and privacy tools on all the browsers.

    Google sometimes thinks we’re on the west coast, Mississippi, upper Ohio, upstate NY, etc. So it appear to work OK.

    And the visual tab is working for me right now, it also usually does if I need to click on the “click here to refresh” link.

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    @Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):

    …how do I chip in?

    On most pages on the right hand column there are several participatory things, at the very top is the current Four Directions fund raiser. Below that is a short lost of “Do Something” options.

    Under that is “Ways to Support Our Site” with several ways to pitch in cash. Patreon appears to be the least commercial way to do that to me.

    Hope I beat Watergirl to the post!

  96. 96.

    randy khan

    I’m a sporadic contribution kind of guy, so I’ve made my sporadic contribution in response to this thread.

    I’m not bothered by the ads, but since others are, I’m happy to contribute.

  99. 99.

    Mike in Oly

    I just signed up for the Patreon sponsorship. Least I can do. I get more value out of this blog than most of the rest of the internet.

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