— ??Gaia ?? (@GaiaSchaffner) February 12, 2022
NASA’s new space telescope has captured its first starlight and even taken a selfie of its giant, gold mirror. https://t.co/k7xOINikiA
— AP Health & Science (@APHealthScience) February 11, 2022
Become ungovernable. pic.twitter.com/i9UPHGYfN4
— TahrFantastico (@TahrFantastico) February 2, 2022
Just thinking of this sculpture of a dog which has a golden glow from thousands of people petting it over hundreds of years. pic.twitter.com/YqhTglXjs8
— Lord of Leisure (@FourFourths) February 11, 2022
Don’t be afraid to fly!
How Ouka the dog started flying on a paraglider https://t.co/Q69OHubGXG
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 12, 2022
(Video at the link.)
germy
Baud
I hope fame doesn’t change Webb.
germy
Baud
@germy:
Win.
Immanentize
Is “BLECH” less than average?
Because I B BLECH.
Immanentize
@Baud: Webb’s TikTok Fu is strong.
prostratedragon
Ouka! Must-see video.
OzarkHillbilly
Ouka looks just absolutely miserable in that video. s//
So yeah, if he didn’t want to go paragliding, he wouldn’t. Billie Jean probably would too. Percy? Fuhgeddaboudit.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Blech is that feeling of “Why did I bother getting up this morning?”
NotMax
Hoping my faculties are half as together at age 100 as this wise lady.
danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
I have that feeling every morning. Now that I know there’s a simple description….
SiubhanDuinne
Funny you should share that cat-on-a-cake photo. I saw it about a week ago, saved it, and sent it first thing this morning to a cat-loving friend who has a birthday today!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Any dog we ever had would have had a heart attack on a glider
NotMax
So old remember when we celebrated Lincoln’s birthday on the 12th of February.
AxelFoley
Ouka the real life Falcor!
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Billie loves to climb, the higher the better. The only thing she likes more is then leaping off. I swear she’s half goat.
p.a.
How many more “shit I knew about tRump in real time” books are in the pipeline? Because I’ll have to bank some outrage to not drain my supply on the current purveyors. Although gotta admit that since the W admin the only physical resource that hasn’t downgraded as I age is my outrage production ability.
Mimi Haha
@NotMax: Chicago Public Libraries were closed yesterday for the official state holiday and they’re closed again today. I hope it’s to give library workers a break, but I’m pretending they did it for Abe.
Baud
@NotMax:
I think Republicans got tired of being reminded of what they used to be.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
You should write a book.
NotMax
@Mimi Haha
No time like the present to repeat mention of Mary Todd Lincoln’s Baba Yaga-esque tea service.
And may as well throw in another repeat link to the many faces of Abe.
;P
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
And Washington’s on the 22nd! They were both very big deals in elementary school, with Valentine’s Day as a centrepiece.
#constructionpaperhearts #secretadmirercards
A Ghost to Most
Check. Anyone else?
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Next time, remember the trigger warning for us school age losers.
Now I’m blech.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: No thanx, that sounds like work.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Yup yup. Welcome pockets of sunshine to break up the winter doldrums.
dww44
@Baud: I didn’t like them then either.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
But you are greatly admired now!
NotMax
@Baud
Was there anything more irksome than receiving one of those cheap punch-out Valentine’s messages signed “Me?”
;)
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ve done an amazing job and and being recognized more and more.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW has somehow managed to record hours of curling, and that’s the only Olympic event that’s been on our TV
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
And then came St. Patrick’s Day, and after that we were all learning where to duck and when to dodge and who to pass in the upcoming Maypole Dance.
Spanky
@NotMax: Winter doldrums? You’re literally* on a tropical island.
(*- Hi Steve!)
Chief Oshkosh
Good morning jackals! I listened to Al Franken interviewing Jamie Raskin this morning during PT. Good interview, poignant and insightful, though at times maddening to be reminded about how truly awful Senate Republicans are. And so fucking cowardly. Anyway, it got the juices flowing. Here’s a link to it on YT:
https://youtu.be/ta76-ZFwkHg
Spanky
@SiubhanDuinne: You left out Opening Day, a day full of promise for all teams just before reality sets in.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@OzarkHillbilly: My lab walked up these see through metal grate steps to a deck at Stowe last summer. No problem. On the way down I walked all 7 steps or so and he just stood on the deck still staring straight down at the top step very confused. After a few seconds he leapt over every step like it was his job. I freaked out thinking he was going to have 4 broken legs. He was fine. Yogi the wonder dog.
OzarkHillbilly
This is interesting:
They are doing the same with fire risk.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Chief Oshkosh: Thanks for the link.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Once directed a Maypole inspired version of “Mata Hari” from Little Mary Sunshine.
Principal singer on an elevated bed, chorines in various pastel colored bathrobes on which 6+ foot long contrasting sateen belts were wrapped. During the number the latter handed the ends of the belts to the principal and twirled in unison to unravel the belts, ending up simulating a Maypole dance.
Much rehearsal ensued. It was a children’s theater production and ended up working flawlessly.
;)
MagdaInBlack
@Chief Oshkosh: Thank you. I’ve been looking for something to listen to this morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Old Dan and Little Ann: A few years back we took a trip south with the Woofmeister and stopped at a motel in Vicksburg MS. They gave us a 2nd floor room and we had to walk up a steel and concrete exterior stairway with open kicks. The poor dog was terrified that somehow someway he was going to fall thru the kicks. I ended up carrying 100 lbs of squirming black lab up the stairs.
different-church-lady
@NotMax: I was a chubby kid, and would get exclusively only the punch out valentines that depicted elephants.
Geminid
There was a very good interview of Stacey Abrams published February 7, titled “Stacey Abrams’ vision for ‘One Georgia’.” The publisher is http://atlanta.capitalbnews.org
Abrams discusses with interviewer Jewel Wicker the challenges voters face in the Georgia Governor’s race and how she intends to help surmount them, the influence of Trump on her opposition, and policy in the area of crime and criminal justice. Good stuff from a shrewd political thinker and expert communicator.
different-church-lady
At MIT there’s s bronze relief of some professor on the wall of one of the hallways. His nose has the same golden glow.
HarlequinGnoll
@Immanentize: I’d guess you’d only get to BLECH every other day, to keep it average
Old Dan and Little Ann
@OzarkHillbilly: lol….Mine is only 55 pounds. I had to drag him onto the gondola going both up and down. Both times when the doors shut he just splayed on the floor and didn’t move.
Ohio Mom
Today would have been my mother’s 98th birthday. She was really born on the 13th but my immigrant grandmother thought it would be more patriotic to share Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. My mother was all grown up before she learned her real birthday.
By then, the 12th was an established tradition and she kept it. Or maybe it was the idea of having a day off for a birthday.
Dorothy A. Winsor
In Windsor, Ont, at the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit.
Kay
Mike E
Allie: Well, sh¡t, I can’t push this damned thing off the edge, might as well sit on it!
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
@Kay:
Good.
The Thin Black Duke
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Shit done got real.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike E:
Whoever put the cake and sign up obviously knows nothing about cats. Cats always go for the most elevated surface in the room. Always.
ALWAYS.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: I share a birthday with George Washington, and my mom said when I was born, the OBGyn said, “Let’s see if it’s a George or a Martha!” (Spoiler alert: I was a Martha.)
I guess schools had already mashed up Lincoln and Washington’s birthday into Presidents’ Day by the time I was in school, because I never remember getting my actual birthday off.
My dad usually calls me on Presidents’ Day to wish me a happy birthday because, even though I am his firstborn, he doesn’t know when my real birthday is. But I’m having lunch with him tomorrow, so maybe he’ll ask. ;)
Mike E
@SiubhanDuinne: Cake mgmt training at the office in desperate need of a refresher, also.
OzarkHillbilly
Short and sharp: Beyoncé launches ‘back to the office’ powerboob
That’s the way I read it, damned if I know why.
Kay
@Baud:
20% support tracks with the vaccination rate in Canada, which is about 80%.
debbie
@Kay:
Yep. And I bet they, watching us, never thought it could happen in their country.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the “trucker” protests, TPM’s coverage suggests it’s kind of a mashup between Bundy-esque anti-state agitators and garden-variety schoolboard screechers of the type we see in the U.S. An exerpt from a paywalled Josh Marshall post:
I share his hope that the U.S. authorities at every level are ready for this shit to go down here too. The anti-democracy party and their propaganda outlet are doing everything they can to encourage it. They must be defeated.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
That’s just down right hilarious. When in the fuck have they ever cared about cops beating in the heads of protestors?
Oh, that’s right, these protestors are white.
The Thin Black Duke
I’m so tired of white assholes getting away with bullshit.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Dorothy A. Winsor
zhena gogolia
@The Thin Black Duke: I know. Why haven’t they been arrested? What is this shit?
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
What idiots:
ETA: I hope they’re freezing their keisters off.
The Thin Black Duke
@zhena gogolia: This is what White Supremacy is. It empowers mediocre white men. It’s not surprising they’re so terrified of losing that privilege.
Baud
@Kay:
If decent people would unite instead of complaining about how imperfect other decent people are, we could fix so many things.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think it might be that Illinois made a bigger deal of Lincoln’s Birthday than the rest of the world. It was a thing in school when I lived in Geneva but not once my family moved to Newtown, CT.
prostratedragon
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Wow. Snipers in Windsor is definitely a new day.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Tolstoy says that in War and Peace. Straight biz.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
Sounds like our 27% Crazification Factor still stands as a record, so…
USA! USA! USA!
Chief Oshkosh
@zhena gogolia:
Apparently the police are going to the homes of protestors who have returned home and are giving citations and possibly making arrests, much of the IDing based on social media posts of the dumbfucks. Perfect. And, that seems like pretty fast work.
ETA: Debbie beat me to it. :)
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I was more succinct.
kindness
Flying dogs. What will they think of next? If my boy dog ever had the steering wheel he’d go right off the road chasing things with the truck. As such I never let him drive.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Here’s what he says (in the words of Pierre):
“I only wanted to say that all ideas that have huge consequences are always simple. My whole idea is that if evil [vicious] people are tied together and constitute a force, then honorable people have only to do exactly the same. It’s as simple as that.”
narya
Add me to the list of folks who hated Valentine’s Day in grade school; as a social outcast, I never wanted any part of it. As an adult, I’ve been known to make heart-shaped sugar cookies, with the dough splattered w/ red food coloring, which is way more fun. Shingles/flu vax effects appear to be gone. Even though it’s very cold out, it’s also sunny, so a walk or run is on today’s to-do list.
Kay
Republican politicians are all going to have to be anti vaxx. One of the GOP candidates for governor in Michigan is already.
Baud
Probably too long for a rotating tag.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: “Vote Democratic” is short enough.
Kay
@narya:
My schools always did this rigorously fair Valentines where everyone had to bring one for everyone else. I approved of this, but I’m suprised more people didn’t have that experience in school. It was just a given that if you brought something in to school there had to be enough “for everyone”. I remember the focus on the number- “24” students or “31” students. You got a little sheet to bring home with ironclad rules.
MagdaInBlack
A friend just sent me a picture of one of the folks protesting masking/disrupting education at my home town high school. Shame he used a company truck for his protest signage. I forwarded it his company, asked if that was their truck mid-day on Thursday
Big suburban company.
The Thin Black Duke
@Omnes Omnibus: And Omnes drops the mic.
Kalakal
@narya: Good to hear you’re over the Shingrix, I seem to recall feeling a little rough, nothing to bad, for a couple of days and that was it
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yes, too bad.
Baud
@MagdaInBlack: Nice
ETA: On you.
opiejeanne
@MagdaInBlack: Good for you.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Check out the mixed Canadian/US flag you see at the top of the truck in the last few seconds.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MagdaInBlack: Well done
dexwood
Hang gliders often land at the park near my house. On one of my morning walks last year I watched as glider circled a bit, getting lower, preparing to land. I could see something white and fluffy hanging from the pilot’s chest. He landed about fifty feet from me and I still wasn’t sure what was attached to him until he unhooked the harness and let his Pomeranian loose. The guy told me the dog loves the experience and co-pilots frequently.
MagdaInBlack
@opiejeanne: & Baud & Ms Winsor:
These a-holes have been calling in threats and disrupting the schools all week. The Superintendent sent her kids home because they were being bullied. They called a special board meeting Thursday and held it in the gym. Lotta hot air blown, nothing solved, of course
Eta: Itty farm town HS, probably 400 students tops. Serena, IL
Sure Lurkalot
If a convoy gets going here, I hope there’s massive social media pressure for the inviters/inciters* to be in the middle of it 24/7. Show their solidarity for reals not just on teevee or the Twitter.
*Cruz, Carlson, Paul, Boebert to name just a few.
opiejeanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: What the hell? Why would they want to do that to their flag? (I expected the American flag to be the Confederate symbol rather than this)
Ohio Mom
@Kay: Yup, that is what Ohio Son’s elementary school did. And since he did not have um, strong enough fine motor skills, I was the one addressing the valentines; he scrawled his name. Which I guess was handwriting practice enough.
@Chief Oshkosh: Arresting the truck protesters after the fact is better than nothing I suppose. Does not send the message breaking up the protest itself would.
If you are going to stage an nonauthorized protest, getting arrested is a risk you’ve signed up for. There’s a reason the mug shot of Rosa Parks is famous.
Relatedly, and it rankles my old inner hippie to say this, the state needs to exercise its monopoly on violence or it loses it legitimacy.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
They are saying that they want to live apart from society, that they have no responsibility to the common. What they haven’t quite thought through is that a large part of society is the protections that come from the common, and in our case, the rule of law.
They are thus driving the breakdown of society, heedless that they will lose those protections. My response to these people is: Thank you for self-identifying. You have decided to no longer be a citizen of the United States of America. As a non-citizen, we can’t just let you wander around, so…Welcome to your new digs! Why yes, the building does look remarkably like an abandoned Walmart…
narya
@Chief Oshkosh: I’m looking forward to the massive increase in their health insurance costs. Don’t wanna get vaccinated? Okay, here’s a $X00/month increase in your premium. It’s unethical to restrict their care, but it’s surely NOT unethical to charge them more. And if you have follow-on effects years down the road? You are charged more of THAT cost, too.
Omnes Omnibus
@narya: Oh, that is coming. Insurers will get theirs. And so will karma*, because I bet that 95+% of them opposed any form of universal health care.
*Karma meant loosely and colloquially.
Baud
@narya:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Interestingly enough, if it’s an Obamacare plan, the only health related basis for price discrimination is smoking.
Anyway
HBD to Charles Darwin and Abe Lincoln. Two of my favorites.
Ksmiami
narya
@Baud: Yeah, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets added. Where’s that Mayhew guy when you need him (to tell us why I’m wrong).
MagdaInBlack
Oh boy. Rawstory tells me trump has disowned Maggie over the toilet problem. She doesn’t know him any better than any other writer. Tsk tsk.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Problem is it’s impossible to tie democrats together in a force.
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: Well, that’s always the problem, isn’t it?
different-church-lady
@Kay:
Considering how tight the margins are in all our elections now, this does not bode well for the GOP. The anti-vax embrace is like the marshmallow test writ large.
Kay
The bold contrarians only discuss what is currently on Fox News, and they always agree with Fox News.
It’s Fox News for a younger demographic. Fox News for people who would be embarrassed to watch Fox News, or I guess admit to watching it.
We’ll see, but I think going full bore anti-vaxx is a mistake.
Anon
It’s impossible for all x_i to be greater than (sum x_i)/n
Baud
@Kay:
Dems dodged a bullet there.
Another Scott
ObOpenThread – Biden vows decisive response if Russia attacks Ukraine – he spoke with VVP for an hour today from Camp David.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@zhena gogolia: Canada has slightly better sensibilities on this. If they committed crimes, convince them to disburse and then arrest them at home where there is no cameras, no backup, etc. I mean, consider Jan 6 where we’re steadily getting them arrested and convicted vs rolling in and trying to arrest them on the day which would certainly have resulted in more casualties, and turned them all into martyrs.
Jan 6 isn’t really a rallying event – rather it’s still around Trump and the election, with the GOP struggling to build sympathy for the Jan 6 folks, which even leaders of the GOP aren’t buying.
We’ll see if they arrest them later, but cameras just turn this into a symbolic act for both parties (why we will feel gratified to see them arrested on camera, and probably not notice if they are arrested off camera).
Martin
@The Thin Black Duke: Agreed. But it remains to be seen if they get away with it. Just because they’re allowed to leave doesn’t mean they’re home free.
That said, black suspects never get such courtesy. Gotta use these bullets up before they go bad.
J R in WV
@The Thin Black Duke:
You aren’t the only one, brother! We’re all fed up with the white asshole party!!!
Professor Bigfoot
@The Thin Black Duke: “They have fucked around, and they are about to find out.”
As one would expect of the USians funding this, they’re too stupid to know the laws in Canada are different.
They’re gonna squeeze these “truckers,” and they’re gonna find out where their money is coming from.
sab
@Kay: My granddaughter just had her first year of this. She is ecstatic.