The signing ceremony for the bipartisan infrastructure bill has started on the White House South Lawn. pic.twitter.com/wttszfdW32
— Jenny Leonard (@jendeben) November 15, 2021
Pelosi praises Biden’s “glorious vision” at the infrastructure signing and calls the bill a “great achievement.”
She then briefly summarizes the history of US infrastructure policy dating back to Thomas Jefferson.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 15, 2021
.@SpeakerPelosi speaking at the WH: “And hopefully this week we will be passing Build Back Better.”
— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) November 15, 2021
.@POTUS has signed the infrastructure bill into law. pic.twitter.com/Ni40lUNw7u
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 15, 2021
Don Young, on the hot mic, to Biden: “We were wondering when you were gonna stop. We damn near froze to death"
— Sam Stein (@samstein) November 15, 2021
Rep. Young was just standing too close to his Republican fellows…
President Biden gives a shout out to Sen. Capito and GOP Leader Mitch McConnell for their work to get the bipartisan infrastructure bill through Congress
— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) November 15, 2021
this is true, the infrastructure week joke was a go-to pantry staple for years of content https://t.co/ytUqgsQaBW
— kilgore trout, uatx professor of turnip studies (@KT_So_It_Goes) November 15, 2021
UncleEbeneezer
First?
Spanky
@UncleEbeneezer: And only.
Ken
Way to paint targets on their backs. Though I guess he showed some mercy, by not adding “which former President Trump never accomplished”.
slybrarian
I missed the Bond discussion in the previous thread, so let me recommend the podcast Kill James Bond. (killjamesbond.com/) They’ve been reviewing each film and while often scathing about the terrible parts they also recognize where the films get something right with the story or acting, and it’s always hilarious. They just reached the third Brosnan film and will soon be starting with Craig. It’s been particularly interesting to see how their scientifically measured SCUM rating (Smarm, Cultural insensitivity, Unprovoked violence, and Misogyny) has varied over the series – the misogyny has dropped a lot, for example, while the violence went through the roof with Goldeneye.
debbie
Was McConnell there? A few days ago, he was saying he wouldn’t attend the signing ceremony.
Betty
@Ken: He slyly referenced it the other day and chuckled. Twitter is making fun of Alaskan Don Young for complaining about the cold.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Did you know The Monkees were having a farewell concert?
I thought Mike Nesmith famously and rather pointedly wanted nothing to do with the Monkees for the last fifty years. I know I saw the Nesmith-less Monkees live, but for the life of me I can’t remember where it was, or who I was with
debbie
Jesus, Portman is a whore. Begone!
Kristine
@slybrarian: Goldeneye is my favorite non-Craig Bond movie. I did find the Russian programmer much less annoying than the average.
Betty
@debbie: Isn’t it sad that he couldn’t retain a shred of dignity on his way out?
debbie
@Betty:
He had me thinking he had maybe a shred when he attended the ceremony, but then he opens his stupid yap and proves I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
I’m so glad he’s leaving. He’s been a crappy Senator.
Mike in Pasadena
What are the chances BBB passes now that Sinamanch have their infrastructure bill?
Ruckus
@Betty:
Dignity? I’m pretty sure he had none to retain.
hells littlest angel
What, no racism? To me, that’s always been the most repulsive thing about the James Bond franchise.
dmsilev
I mean, Charles Manson “furthered discussion” of family relationships in Los Angeles.
Etc.
Sure Lurkalot
While it wasn’t hard to imagine how horrible of a president Trump would be, I actually thought he’d do something on infrastructure, if only to insert his ugly maw at ribbon cutting ceremonies and slap his name on bridges. Thank goodness he was a lazy SOB because Jared would have screwed it up royally. Mitch Landrieu seems like a good pick to oversee the programs. I hope people notice when long ignored problems get fixed.
prostratedragon
Barenboim with the CSO:
Happy birthday, maestro!
different-church-lady
He just didn’t further the… you know… the actual infrastructure funding or anything.
Mike in NC
The Fat Orange Clown had squat to do with the infrastructure bill, just like he did nothing on health care. Tax cuts for the rich was his signature ‘deal’.
NotMax
Now that’s exercising executive privilege!
;)
Dan B
@prostratedragon: My cousin was Solti’s administrative assistant at CSO. She arranged their European tour. She lapped the desk a number of times, if you get my drift.
Salutations to Barenboim!
dmsilev
@different-church-lady: In the eyes of horse-race obsessed political reporters, that matters less than it really should.
gene108
Doesn’t Don Young represent Alaska? Clearly he spends very little time in his home state, if he finds a blustery mid-40’s degree Fahrenheit day deathly cold.
trollhattan
Since NotMax is in the house, sharing that I learned today Hawaii has a ninth island! In case that sounds exciting, I regret to inform…
Wonder how they broke it to the basketball team?
Dan B
Infrastructure will be appreciated in Seattle. We had a drawbridge near the UW stuck open for two days when there was a Huskies football game and a hockey tournament, fortunately several miles away. And then there is the big bridge to West Seattle that’s been closed for over a year dye to a shifting pylon and major cracking. We have fewer potholes than many cities but more bridge trouble, lots more. It’s not just Galloping Gertie.
The Dangerman
Fuck you, Portman!
Just furthering the discussion.
Geminid
All Aboard!
The infrastructure bill includes $69 billion for improving passenger rail service. The Northeast corridor will get a big chunk, but passenger rail nationwide will be expanded from a service map that has been static even as the nation grew by 120 million people.
A different part of the bill directs funds to local mass transit, including over $10 billion for New York City’s subway and bus lines.
trollhattan
@gene108:
“Lookin’ pretty tan for November there Don, been traveling?”
SpaceUnit
How quaint . . . an administration that does something other than wage all-out war on democracy and half of the country’s population. These Democrats are clearly out of touch with real Americans.
Dan B
@Dan B: The West Seattle high rise bridge carried over 100,000 vehicles a day. West Seattle has 1/4 of the city’s population. Another “bridge”, actually a trestle, to Magnolia is failing. And I could go on.
trollhattan
@Dan B: Heh, mom and dad lived in Magnolia their last twenty or so years and that sorry oft-closed bridge thing is the source of a hundred stories.
I also remember before the current West Seattle bridge even existed. Dirt was, in fact, young then.
JustRuss
Sure, TRG “furthered the discussion” on infrastructure, just like I furthered the discussion on bedtime every evening at 8:00 when I was 5 years old.
Cermet
This will be trimmed to death if Rump gets back as president. Hope they can commit to a lot of big projects before that possible coming destruction of the US.
gwangung
@SpaceUnit: Unfortunately, I believe Americans will unjustly punish Democrats for this.
Dan B
@trollhattan: Were you around for the ship hitting and wrecking the lower level draw bridge? And then a few months later the captain was murdered by his wife and cut up and disposed in their yard as I recall. Seattle has much bridge drama. Sometimes it’s about the bridge.
Peale
@Cermet: they need to hand it over to the port authority stat, because getting 1/2 a tunnel built is not going to prevent the old one from caving in.
Wvng
@Cermet: Not certain it would be trimmed if TFG gets in office again. All that money laying around would probably be redirected to friends and family grifts.
SpaceUnit
@gwangung:
Yeah. I was sort of joking but it was one of those laugh / cry things.
Wvng
@Sure Lurkalot: The bill being run by Landrieu professionally and without scandal will be ignored by the media and the public won’t understand where it came from, just as Obama’s stimulus bill was remarkably scandal free and ignored by major media.
Old Man Shadow
This is a big fucking deal.
I just hope that passing this first doesn’t mean the Triple-B bill is going to die. I guess we’ll find out when Senators Coal and MLM vote.
Roger Moore
@hells littlest angel:
It’s repulsive, but a lot of it is sadly realistic. At the very least, the racism I noticed the most was the way Bond casually ignores the sovereignty of developing countries. When he goes to the US or Russia, he almost always connects with a local and does things in concert with them. When he goes to some developing country, he’s perfectly happy to blow shit up without reference to the locals.
ETA: And, of course, this is quite realistic. The whole point of
spiescovert operatives like Bond is that they ignore other countries’ sovereignty. But they can’t do it quite so brazenly in other powerful countries that can retaliate as they can in less powerful countries that have to suck it up and take it. Bond is definitely still a colonialist.trollhattan
@Dan B:
Part the first, yes, part the second, holy hell! The movies shoot themselves sometimes.
When Anthony Bourdain shot his Seattle episode he meditated a lot on the region’s dank climate and how it seems to spawn serial killers. Can’t say I necessarily disagree. (The episode features a childhood friend I’d completely lost track of.)
CaseyL
@Dan B: OMG!!
’78 was two years after I moved to Seattle. I didn’t drive, and lived in the U District, so West Seattle might as well have been on another planet. I think I very, very faintly remember hearing about the bridge being rammed. But I definitely don’t recall the captain being murdered four years later.
Wowza.
Sure Lurkalot
@JustRuss: Ha ha!
Dan B
@trollhattan: The Bourdain episode was shot at a Filipinx grocery near my office and my partner’s rental house. He’d get elbowed out of line by the grandmas. I’d buy weird seed filled sodas to scare my employees.
The restaurant with the sea vegetable salad and other great dishes is four blocks from our house. It was wild seeing all these places that have been part of our neighborhood for decades.
trollhattan
So last night at dark o’clock (4:30 to be more precise) the dog has an absolute barking frenzy. Deciding he wasn’t stopping, I followed the racket and found him at the glass breezeway door, yelling at the night. Squinted, thought I saw motion, got flashlight, three pairs of eyes reflect back at me, and the shapes, big shapes in the persimmon tree move to reveal a fuckton of raccoons in the thing, coincidentally about three feet from our bedroom window.
What to do? Rats, I’d go spray with the hose but as the hose is draped over a branch of that tree I am SO NOT going to give our marauders the treatment, so I just shined the light on them until they moseyed down and away to go…visit the neighbors?
Goddamnit, we live in the city to NOT deal with forest critters. Wonder if there’s a brace of mastiffs I can borrow for a couple of nights?
trollhattan
@Dan B:
So very cool. (I remember finding a can of “Glass jelly drink” as some kind of soda option at an SE Asian market. This was before the boba craze so I could not wrap my brain around soda with chunks. Still don’t know why it was spelled “glass.”)
Dan B
@trollhattan: Racoons can really mess up dogs, even big ones. A Mountain Lion would do the trick.
Is this helpful?
zhena gogolia
Leave it to BJ to turn the celebration of the infrastructure bill into a mournful dirge.
Guess I’ll go do my crossword puzzles.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Yeah the constant whining is getting tiresome.
Dan B
@trollhattan: My favorite employee terror drink was Basil Seed soda. There were little black seeds. There was some thickening of the liquid as well. The effect was like frog eggs.
The glass jelly was transparent bits. Not bad.
And my partner ordered some takeout from the hot table. The woman said, “Oh, you like Filipino food.” He changed his order.
I don’t recall what Bourdain ordered at this market, a firmer gas station turned into a maze of additions and durable tents. The entire intersection is wild stores with live fish and purple cakes, etc.
Faithful Lurker
Coyotes can deal with raccoons but then something has to deal with the coyotes. We’ve had several dogs seriously damaged in encounters with raccoons. The only dog we’ve ever had that could deal with them was when we lived on a river in Michigan. He would grab them, drag them in the river and hold them there until they drowned. It wasn’t pretty but when he died we were overrun by the forest creatures.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: But, Seattle bridges love infrastructure!
Urza
@trollhattan: 5 years of living here around Seattle. Literally 8 months of rain a year from Sept – May. Maybe not exactly daily, but near enough, and cloud covered even if its not raining. Tack on a 2017-2021. I can understand where they’re coming from.
Almost Retired
@trollhattan: I feel your pain. I live in a very densely populated part of Los Angeles, and I am on guard for follow-home burglars, midnight catalytic converter thieves and drug-addled public street poopers. But there’s none of that. I have skunks in the garage, raccoons destroying my deck and neighborhood opposums who have designated the crawl space under my house as a hospice where they can die and decompose in peace. It’s like living in Betty Cracker’s swamp town!
Barbara
@trollhattan: “Urban raccoons” are not forest critters. They are fully adapted to live in your backyard. It’s amazing to me how many critters must live underneath our feet and yet, we hardly ever see them. Squirrels are amazing creatures, in that they are among the few non-flying wildlife who seem impervious to our presence.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: Sometimes some people here definitely can be Party Animals. Pity Party Animals
But I like the racoon stuff.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
looks like more off-topic comments than doom-posters to me (and one of them is mine…)
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Sorry, but raccoons are part of the city meta. Just be glad you don’t live in my neighborhood, which while definitely in the city is close enough to the mountains that bears are a distinct problem.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
Squirrels aren’t impervious to our presence; they actually benefit substantially from it. At least here on the West Coast, trees are far more numerous when humans are around, which is great for squirrels. We also tend to chase away a lot of the predators that bother them the most, and a lot of the larger herbivores that might compete with them.
trollhattan
@Dan B:
We shall name it “Puma Squad, Critter Control” and believe me, the franchise opportunities will be lit.
ETA wife’s friend has a redbone coon hound, so I’m thinking of a training opportunity.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The last couple months of sausage making have tended to stigmatize the infrastructure bill as the bad bill we tolerate in order to get the good bill we want. And there has been an effort to mislead gullible people into believing that the infrastructure bill is a “climate arson bill,” “written by Exxon.”
Also, good infrastructure jobs have never meant much to some college educated people, the same way working class people don’t mean much to them.
Redshift
@Kristine:
That’s because it’s Alan Cumming, who is always brilliant.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
True fact: first coyote I ever saw was inside LA city limits. Apartment complex parking lot build at the base of an arroyo.
Few years ago they darted a cougar three miles from here. That was fun.
UncleEbeneezer
@Dan B: Have you all had cheese foam on your teas? It’s really great on fruity and milk teas and no, it doesn’t taste like cheese at all. Alot of the Taiwanese tea places have it now. I love the basil seed stuff too. Adds a neat texture and taste.
Mike in Pasadena
@Wvng: Redirected to the “wall” that Mexico was going to pay for. See DOD money that TFG used for his wall.
trollhattan
@Almost Retired:
“Betty Cracker’s swamp town” has a lovely ring to it.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: I meant that they don’t scurry away in the daytime everytime we come near. Most wild creatures do.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: When we had snow last winter our neighbor found Mountain Lion prints. We’re four blocks from the Light Rail but three of those blocks are a steep wooded greenbelt that runs for miles and links to more steep hillside greenbelts.
trollhattan
@Faithful Lurker:
That was one badass dog, all respect!
Ours, at age five, became a ratter this year and has killed several in the last month, but I want no part of him going up against raccoons or even squirrels (who can probably bite the bejezzus out of him). Should I mention skunks? Probably not.
Nelle
@CaseyL: Hey, historical neighbor. I moved to Capitol Hill in ’77, then U District in ’80, then Ravenna in ’81, then Ballard later in ’83 (with an interlude of living in the University Baptist Church with the Sanctuary Movement in ’83.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
I think that varies more on a creature by creature basis than anything. Some of it is how used to humans they are, but a lot of it is their judgment of us as a threat. Squirrels tend to be pretty bold, not just to humans but also to things like cats and dogs that are more direct threats. They seem to be very confident in their ability to escape predators, judgment that seems to be supported by anecdotal experience. My cat growing up caught a lot of mice and even the occasional rabbit, but never a squirrel, and it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Ruckus
@Sure Lurkalot:
He only wants his name on things he can in some way think he’s going to make money off of. Even if he never actually does. And then his name has to be predominate in 5 large, ugly, fake gold letters.
Dan B
@UncleEbeneezer: No cheese foam. I’m lactose intolerant so no milk tea either. I can eat some goat milk and sheep’s milk but haven’t seen those in milk tea. Sigh.
Another Scott
@gene108: Depends on the part of the state. Anchorage has higher average temperatures than DC, IIRC.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Dan B:
Depending on the rail, animals may see the route as a nice transit corridor.
sdhays
@gene108: I doubt he does spend much time in his home state, but, to be absolutely fair, isn’t he like 145 years old now? I thought he had retired/died a few years ago.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: I haven’t read any of the books, and have only seen a few of the movies, but wasn’t Fleming’s Bond intentionally drawn as a country-bumpkin and a cad? E.g. “shaken not stirred” which supposedly bruises the drink and ruins it.
Bond running amok outside the UK would be another aspect of that, apparently.
Cheers,
Scott.
sdhays
@Another Scott: According to Google, Anchorage is definitely warmer than I imagined, but it averages at least 20 degrees cooler than DC every month of the year.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Hollywood
Bollywood
Dollywood
Soggywood.
:)
Kayla Rudbek
@Roger Moore: the DC metro winds up hitting deer in the above ground sections. I was on the train during one hit. One of the other passengers was joking that they should let the driver mount the horns on the front of the train.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Was raised in the San Gabriel mountain foothills and saw deer in my friends back yard, had peacocks in our front yard, squirrels, all the time. My sister lived in Topanga Canyon and had packs of coyotes chasing other animals through out the nights. City life still has animals of many descriptions roaming around. Some of them with 4 legs.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
The Bond books were written at a time when Britain was still trying to hold onto the idea of itself as an imperial power. Bond’s attitude toward the developing world definitely reflects that.
Another Scott
@sdhays: Hmm… The numbers don’t lie. I don’t know if I mis-remembered a similar factoid, or if I repeated something that isn’t true.
(It doesn’t work for Juneau, either…)
Thanks for the correction.
Cheers,
Scott.
L85NJGT
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Nesmith toured with them a few times. They all had a complicated relationship with “The Monkees”.
prostratedragon
@Dan B: Umm … oh dear!
CaseyL
@Nelle:
Wow: a (residential) tour of the city!
Do you still live in Ballard? I am very deeply fond of that area, but have to confess my heart breaks when I think about how much it’s changed. (I could, and have, said the same about the entire city.)
Me, I was in the U District for 5 years, if you don’t mind counting about 8 months in Wallingford. Then Lake City for a year. Then a California odyssey for a year, then back to the District. (Then a 5-year hiatus, as the 1982 economy forced me to return to the family nest in Florida for a while.) Ecstatic return to Seattle in ’88: Greenwood for 6 years, then up to Edmonds for 2 years, and then my current (and probably forever) home in North Seattle.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: The light rail is in the middle of the street and 9 inches above grade. We’re in the poor (BIPOC) part of town. But the railroad is on the other side of our long skinny (lateral moraine) hill.
Mike in Pasadena
@zhena gogolia: Stick your head in the sand or face reality. Your choice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in Pasadena: Have you considered blowing goats?
Dan B
@prostratedragon: It was a good thing my cousin had a “spring” in her step. She went from CSO to work for Mr. “Wiggly”.
Dan B
@Omnes Omnibus: My feeling is if the GQP retakes the house and senate their attempts to torpedo infrastructure will meet fierce resistance from business who will love the, well, business.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: Are they like fainting goats?
Anyway, I thought this was supposed to be a racoon thread!
Omnes Omnibus
@Dan B: Every GOP rep will take credit for any spending in their district whether they voted for it or not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid:
Okay, on the raccoon theme…. A few years ago, the city was doing some street work and it was near a small nature preserve and also near my building. One night, I was going out to my car to go someplace and I saw a sign posted on the inside of the door. It said, in badly scrawled magic marker, “HELP!! GIANT SEWER RACCOONS!!! SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!” I really regret not getting a photo of that sign. Happy now?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: raccoons, monster-clowns, abandoned alligators… Ed Norton should’ve retired years ago
Gammyjill
@Almost Retired:
That’s funny.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, at least sewer racoons gets us back to infrastructure.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
First coyote I saw was at the movies. He was chasing a roadrunner.
But yeah, I have seen plenty of coyotes in the Los Angeles area.
Walking to work early one morning I saw a coyote sitting up and alert on a grassy area in front of an office building. He had a look on his face as if to say “Move along. Nothing to see here. “
Yutsano
Has there ever been a trash panda thread takeover on the blog before?
topclimber
@Geminid:
I think traditional infrastructure jobs are great. But in my blue state they seem to go like 90 percent to white guys. I thought the first rule of big bacon bills is to make sure your voters get a big chunk of it. These guys ain’t voting Dem, whatever their old line unions promise.
BIF falls way short as a climate change commitment. That’s the one part of BBB I don’t think we can do without. Hopefully Manchin has been mollified by Glasgow’s toned down message on killing coal and won’t knife us in back. He is a reasonable guy, right?
Geminid
@topclimber: My part of Virginia is 75% native born white, but when I look at the people working on bridges and roads they are 50% or more Black and Latino. I think this “red jobs for red people” framing is another facile canard that’s put out about this bill, to the detriment of truth.
Fake Irishman
@Geminid:
agreed. (From a state where 75 percent of construction workers probably speak Spanish as their first language)
Also, can we talk about how cool it is that there is a lot of money to replace lead pipes in the bill? Imagine if we’d had that in place in 2009. Flint never happens.
topclimber
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