Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

He really is that stupid.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Everybody saw this coming.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Let’s finish the job.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

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Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread 8

Found this pretty thing in the backyard today, a Great Spangled Fritillary. One of my favorite things about my backyard is seeing things doing what they are supposed to be doing, whether it is birds nesting or chomping on apples or eating worms or bees bouncing from flower to flower or maggots growing in the compost pail or, of course, butterflies flouncing around, etc. It’s just nice seeing order in the disorder, everything doing what they are sposed to be doing.

Reader Interactions

134Comments

  3. 3.

    Steeplejack

    We haven’t had a recent picture of Thurston inspecting some random piece of ground. Please rectify.

  12. 12.

    CaseyL

    Your backyard is such a lovely oasis.  Fine place to get away to when the world is just… too too.

  13. 13.

    HeartlandLiberal

    One of my favorite things to do when sitting on the deck out back, is when a golfer teeing off from the tee that parallels our house on the east side slices and whacks a ball into the narrow band of trees dividing us from the golf course, and when it hits a trunk, I holler OUCH.

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    It’s raining in central Virginia.  I love the sound.  Cannot take any rain for granted this late summer.

    Hope our California peeps are staying chill.

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    Nice butterfly! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that type. We have Gulf Fritillaries here. I think all fritillary butterfly species should be called [Great Spangled, Gulf, etc.] “flitirrary flutterbys” for obvious reasons.

  19. 19.

    Ken

    I was congratulating myself on recognizing the butterfly as a fritillary, then realized that what I’d really done was “hmm, not a monarch, and the only other kind I’ve heard of is fritillary…”

    Unfortunately that fails me for the flower. “Sort of like a lilac, but not a lilac, so…. DATA NOT FOUND.”

  21. 21.

    Betsy

    I saw an etymology blog post that analyzed the word for “butterfly” in many languages and it made the observation that an unusually high number of languages have light, multisyllabic, fluttery, whimsical, musical words for “butterfly.”  German “schmetterling”, French “papillon”.  “Fritillary” certainly fits the pattern.

    ETA: I found a chunk of the text that I was thinking of, but I don’t have the original source:

    … phonesthesia gives rise to a lovely puzzle for comparative linguistics: why languages seldom share a root for their word for butterfly.

    In Western Europe, for example, we find Schmetterling in German, vlinder in Dutch, somerfugl in Danish, papillon in French, mariposa in Spanish, farfalla in Italian, and borboleta in Portuguese.

    The puzzle is that with just about every other kind of word, these languages share roots promiscuously.

    The words for cat, for example, are Katze, kat, kat, chat, gato, gatto, and gato.

    A clue may be found in the fact that while the exact word for butterfly in many languages is proprietary, it often has a reduplicated sound, most often b, p, l, or f, as in Hebrew parpar, Italian farfalla, and Papuan fefe-fefe.

    It’s as if the words are supposed to act out the fluttering of the wings! Not all the names are phonesthetic; we also find allusions to the butterfly s properties, real or mythical. In English it s a fly with the color of butter, or that consumes butter, or whose droppings look like butter (the folk etymology that identifies butterfly as a spoonerism of flutter-by is appealing but untrue).

    Why the reluctance to share these metaphors and allusions? No one knows, but I am fond of a speculation by the linguist Haj Ross:

    The concept/image of butterfly is a uniquely powerful one in the group minds of the world’s cultures, with its somewhat unpromising start as a caterpillar followed by its dazzling finish of visual symmetry, coupled with the motional unforgettability of the butterfly’s flipzagging path through our consciousnesses. Butterflies are such perfect symbols of transformation that almost no culture is content to accept another’s poetry for this mythic creature. Each language finds its own verbal beauty to celebrate the stunning salience of the butterfly’s being.

  29. 29.

    Feathers

    Had a friend with a sweet marshmallow of a cat named Buffy. Asked in a humorous way if it was much of a vampire slayer. She laughed and told me they got the cat as a kitten and their toddler named it Butterfly. That turned out to be too long, so Buffy the chonk unit of a cat it was. Although Butterfly would be kinda funny.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    @Betsy:   Thank you for sharing that.  Very interesting.

    Caterpillar varies across languages.  (As does squirrel — a friend had me look that up a few summers ago.). With some surprises:

    Caterpillar is

    die Raupe in German

    la chenille (!) in French

    lagarta in Portuguese

    larv in Swedish

    la oruga in Spanish.  (A worm is masculine:  el gusano)

  32. 32.

    Origuy

    This fits better in Adam’s Ukraine update, but I might not be around when that goes up.

    Celtic punk rock band Flogging Molly has released a song and video to raise money for Ukraine.

    A Song of Liberty

    Flogging Molly have joined forces with renowned Ukrainian animators/filmmakers, The Mad Twins, for the band’s “A Song of Liberty” video. The clip highlights humanity’s ongoing struggle against oppression, from Ireland’s Easter Uprising through several 20th century moments including both World Wars, to the current occupation of Ukraine.

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    Just saw an article about the QE II’s increasingly fragile health — for the first time ever she did the new PM appointment ceremony in Scotland rather than traveling back to London for it, and she cancelled a virtual follow-up ceremony with cabinet members on medical advice to rest. I mean, maybe she’s just pulling the age card to avoid those ghastly Tory twits, but probably not! She showed up for that asshole Trump!

    Monarchies are ridiculous nonsense, IMO, and lord knows the British empire perpetrated numerous atrocities over the centuries. But I am fond of the present Queen for some reason — she’s been an institution all my life and seems to have fulfilled an absurd role with as much grace and dignity as a person of her time and place could be expected to muster. It will truly be the end of an era when she passes. The futuristic “Years and Years” series predicted 2022 would be the year.

    Anyhoo, I was wondering what the effects of a 70-years-and-counting reign will be. Suppose the Queen outlives her son or he is quickly succeeded by William and Kate. Would everyone assume Kate is in charge since she would be Queen, and they’re all used to the Queen being the monarch, not a king? Maybe it would be best to just go with that — lots of signs and stationery will have to be changed otherwise.

    If I ran things, I’d say that QE II’s passing would be a good time to fold up that tent, but it’s not my circus, not my monkeys. I’m kind of embarrassed to even feel wistful about it, but weirdly, I do.

  38. 38.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @Betty Cracker: I’m very fond of her, too. And boy howdy, will it be a whole to-do when she does pass. And then Charles becomes King even though no one really wants him to, LOL. Or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Some years back, some group did a poll asking if people wanted Charles to be King or wanted him to abdicate and pass it to William, and the latter option won. Poor schmuck.

    Also: This is an absolutely lovely little book about the Queen’s amazing colorful wardrobe. I got one for my mom and one for me :

    Oh and Kate wouldn’t become Queen, but rather Queen Consort, I believe.

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:  I know.  I am concerned for QE2.  Was thinking yesterday that I hope she lives long enough to see Trump in prison.

    That would be something to toast with a Dubonnet and gin!

    We won’t have another queen in our lifetime, although she’s been the only monarch for most of us.

    I wonder if the monarchy provides some cultural stability, but they do seem vastly overfunded.

    I wish QE2 were allowed to speak out a bit more.  I doubt she supported Brexit; suspect she may have been horrified about the Tories breaking up the kingdom.

  41. 41.

    The Golux

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s raining in central Virginia. I love the sound.

    It rained all day yesterday here (started Monday evening).  First time that’s happened since May or June.  What a relief.

  44. 44.

    Pete Downunder

    @Betty Cracker: ​
      . Here in the land downunder we have a republican movement that is pretty much waiting until Her Majesty passes. We tried back in about 1996 but our PM at the time was a monarchist and rigged the referendum to split the republican vote. We shall see.

  45. 45.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Betty Cracker:

    Kiz is the only British monarch I have known, and I agree with you on disliking the monarchy but liking and respecting the monarch, in this case, QE2. It’s also because she has played a role in so much of what I read and enjoy about modern British history.

    My sister and I regularly text about her and the history of the monarchy, andrecently  we had a whole-day thread about “London Bridge Is Down” and what happens when she dies.

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Betty Cracker:  When Victoria died after a long reign, they moved on to her son with no trouble.  Given that it is a largely ceremonial head of state role, there is no reason to assume anything substantive would change.

  50. 50.

    Feathers

    @Betty Cracker: I follow the gossip on this. Charles has been caught accepting suitcases full of cash from shady Saudis. The impetus to kick out Harry and Meghan undoubtedly came from William, who doesn’t want to do any work, but seem to think articles about how everything Harry makes him incandescent with rage.

    There is a sense that once Elizabeth dies, all the terrible things about the rest of the family that the press has been holding back out of deference to the monarchy’s reputation will come flooding out.

    Her Majesty does seem to be the best of the lot. The best story I heard about her is that at a tea, one of her corgis was acting up, so she snapped at it “Stop that Patricia!” causing a woman named Patricia standing nearby to nearly faint out of shock. No idea if it’s true, but she did give her dogs people names, so it’s too good not to repeat.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Almost everything I know about the present day British monarchy comes from watching The Crown, so grain assault, etc. But I thought that while George VI was alive, he was called “the King,” and his wife Elizabeth was called “the Queen,” not “Queen Consort,” though maybe that was her official title?

    Anyhoo, when George VI died, his wife became “the Queen Mother,” and the present Queen was called, well, “the Queen.” I thought the only royal spouse in the last couple of centuries who got stuck with the “Consort” tag was Albert, husband of Victoria because no one wanted a German prince to get ideas about running the joint.

  53. 53.

    Spanky

    @Elizabelle: Sitting on our side porch here in Southern MD, watching a light rain drip off the oaks, a semi-feral cat on my lap, and sipping a g&t while I wait for the missus to get back from the store.  Then on to dinner.

    A little taste of fall, and I’m liking it.

  54. 54.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    It’s just nice seeing order in the disorder, everything doing what they are sposed to be doing.

    I love that observation. Tao is truly great.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @Pete Downunder: Should be fascinating to see how that plays out. I assume it’s the conservatives who are monarchists. Is that right?

    @Baud: Yes, thank dog for that small mercy! Will Biden bother to go? I get the impression he’s the type of old-school Irish-American who has lasting contempt for the Brits. Maybe he’ll send VP Harris and she can give Harry and Meghan a ride on Airforce 2!

    @HumboldtBlue: It sounds like you and your sister have text convos that are almost as arcane as my sister and I do. We have a decade-plus category called “weird store combinations,” e.g., Bill’s Bible and Tire, etc.

  57. 57.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    Great to see a pic of Great Spangled Fritillary They are one of my favorite butterflies, but their population has crashed here in SE Pennsylvania. It used to be one of the butterflies I saw every single day in my yard, but I have only seen one this year! and I saw two last year. There are just as many violets (the larval host plant) around my yard as there used to e. Is it the winter weather? They over winter as 1st instar caterpillars and are very vulnerable then as they hatch in the fall and over winter having eaten their egg shell as their first and only meal until spring. Or is it neonicitinoid pesticide contamination as I suspect. y butterfly tracking friends have noted this decline all over our area. Are people besides John seeing fritillaries in their gardens?

  58. 58.

    twbrandt (formerly tom)

    @Betty Cracker: I have no use for the monarchy either, but my favorite story about Liz the Deuce is when the king of Saudi Arabia came to visit. She asked him if he would like a tour of one of her estates. He said of course, so a couple of Land Rovers were procured. At the time Saudi women weren’t allowed to drive, so Abdullah was shocked when Elizabeth, who trained as an ambulance driver during WWII (!!), hopped into the driver’s seat and drove him around at such a brisk pace that he implored her to slow down!

    I’m sure she very much enjoyed that.

  60. 60.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @Timill:

    Though she’ll likely go by Queen Catherine/Queen Kate to keep things simple. If you aren’t familiar with what a Queen Consort is, we have a whole explainer on the different types of queens over here (there are a bunch), but basically it’s the spouse of a ruling king. In other words, Kate will be called queen, but the addition of “consort” makes it clear she has no constitutional power and is a queen in title only.

    also: “Queen consort is a wife of a King. Simply that. She is not the head of state, not the Crown, and doesn’t sit on the Throne of her kingdom. Example: Her Majesty Queen Letitzia of Spain.”

  61. 61.

    Pete Downunder

    Betty – Absolutely. The terribly misnamed Liberal Party are a center right party (with a few very right wing members) and are generally monarchists. Our current government (as of May) is the Labor (not Labour for some reason) Party with is slightly left of center. By the way there is apparently a lot of questionable dealings by the current Queen and her son. They have a hidden veto over legislation and have used it to make sure that their property rights are protected from any legislation that might, for example, protect their tenants.

  63. 63.

    Scout211

    Some good news out of Michigan.  Link

    DETROIT — A judge on Wednesday struck down Michigan’s 1931 anti-abortion law, months after suspending it, the latest development over abortion rights in a state where the issue is being argued in courtrooms and, possibly, at the ballot box.

    The law, which was long dormant before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, violates the Michigan Constitution, said Judge Elizabeth Gleicher.

    “A law denying safe, routine medical care not only denies women of their ability to control their bodies and their lives — it denies them of their dignity,” Gleicher of the Court of Claims wrote. “Michigan’s Constitution forbids this violation of due process.”

    .  . .
    The judge said the law “compels motherhood” and prevents a woman from determining the “shape of her present and future life.”

    The law “forces a pregnant woman to forgo her reproductive choices and to instead serve as `an involuntary vessel entitled to no more respect than other forms of collectively owned property,’” Gleicher wrote, quoting constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe.

  67. 67.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Betty Cracker:

    Falmouth, England (CNN). When Joe Biden was preparing for his first audience with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as a young senator, his mother — an Irish American born with the surname Finnegan — had a piece of advice.

    “Don’t you bow down to her,” she told him in 1982, according to a memoir Biden published several years ago.
    On Sunday, Biden met the Queen again. He did not bow.

  69. 69.

    Percysowner

    @Betty Cracker: ​
    I follow a couple of podcasts one is Queens of England Podcast and The Rex Factor It seems that a woman married to the King is called the Queen, although her official title is Queen. Consort. Once the King dies, she becomes the Queen Mother, if they had a child who assumed the throne. So Kate will be a Queen Consort but will be called the Queen.

    In March of this year Queen Elizabeth announced that Camilla will be a Queen Consort when Charles ascends to the throne. Before then, there seemed to be barriers, although I don’t know enough to know what they were.

    Or what @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: said far more succinctly.

  70. 70.

    Betty Cracker

    @Pete Downunder: Thank you — I always have to stop and think about what the party names Downunder mean.

    @kalakal: LOL! That reminds me of a joke they used to tell in Miami about Fidel Castro outliving a series of pet Galápagos tortoises…

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    I fear that, once you hit your mid-90s, each year is like dog years again.  Rapid aging, for almost everyone.

  75. 75.

    Scout211

    What does it mean that Trump didn’t spew out long diatribes on his social media platform after the leak about his hoarding another country’s nuclear secrets?

    This complete silence for almost 24 hours (that I am aware of) seems out of character for him.  Might that mean that he knows he is in deep trouble? Curious.

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    @trollhattan:  Yeah re the brother.  We will find out.

    Terrible tragedy, and thank dog they didn’t have assault weapons.

    I wonder if they did it just to be notorious?

  78. 78.

    Betty Cracker

    @Percysowner: I think I saw the news about Camilla becoming queen on the cover of a supermarket tabloid while in the checkout line, so I assumed it wasn’t true. But it is! Huh. I don’t know much about her except that Tracey Ullman does a hilarious impression.

     

    @Scout211: Really! That is interesting. Hmm.

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    I have no problem with a relatively toothless Constitutional Monarchy as a form of government. In some ways it makes a lot more sense to have a Queen/King/Governor General do all the ceremonial ribbon-cutting and Horse Guards shit and let the Prime Minister and Parliament get on with governing the country, instead of making one person (POTUS) do it all. And I’ve been a huge fan of QEII since her wedding in 1947, when I was five years old and she was a real live Princess Bride!

    Those death-watch articles have been a feature of tabloid journalism for years. They started in on the Queen Mum around the time of her 70th birthday (she lived to 101). AFAIK Prince Charles is in good shape, but he’ll be 74 soon and it’s not entirely inconceivable that his mother might outlive him.

    Or that the Queen would die, Charles would inherit, Charles would die a few months later, and William would inherit. If that all took place within a calendar year, we would have another “Year of the Three Kings Sovereigns,” like 1483 (Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III) or 1936 (George V, Edward VIII, George VI).

  84. 84.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Betty Cracker: I thought the only royal spouse in the last couple of centuries who got stuck with the “Consort” tag was Albert, husband of Victoria–

    Ummm…Prince Philip, the Queen’s late husband, was “Prince Consort” – in fact the longest serving consort to the British throne in history . You could look it up…

  85. 85.

    Betty Cracker

    @Miss Bianca: It does, or at least it did! I think there was also a Gun & Guitar outfit we catalogued at some point. It’s usually the really tiny towns that have these hybrid businesses.

  86. 86.

    BC in Illinois

    @twbrandt (formerly tom):

    . . .Elizabeth, who trained as an ambulance driver during WWII . . .

    This is part of my great respect for the Queen. In 1945, 19-year-old Elizabeth Windsor enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service. She was three years younger than my Mother, who was a WAC assigned to the Allied Headquarters in London and then in Paris. The pictures of then-Princess Elizabeth in uniform (and in a 1940s hairdo) remind me very much of my mother.

  87. 87.

    trollhattan

    “Uh, hey listen, about that fire, you know the one that burned up part of the town? Our bad, but we’re a big employer so bygones, yes?”

    Roseburg Forest Products acknowledged Wednesday it is investigating whether a malfunctioning sprinkler system allowed smoldering ash from an on-site power plant to ignite Friday’s deadly Mill Fire in Weed. The company has a wood-fired “cogeneration power” plant at its Weed mill that produces electricity. Leftover ash from the power plant was stored in a concrete bin inside a giant wooden warehouse known as Shed 17 on Roseburg’s property. The ash was sprayed with water “using a third-party-supplied machine,” Roseburg officials said.

    Weed city officials and numerous residents have said the fatal wildfire began in or near Shed 17 before destroying at least 100 homes, most of them in Weed’s historically Black neighborhood of Lincoln Heights. The fire killed two women. Roseburg’s statement Wednesday marked the first time the company acknowledged its potential role in the deadly inferno, although the company said “the origin of the fire is still to be determined” and officials stopped short of admitting the company was at fault.

    “The process for handling the ash and removing it safely depends on the proper functioning of the third-party machinery, so it’s logical to investigate the potential failure of that machinery as the proximate cause of the fire,” Pete Hillan, a Roseburg spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday. “Roseburg is working closely with state and local investigators to determine if this is the case.”
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article265446966.html#storylink=cpy

    Pro tip: your subcontractors work for you, not vice versa.

    Poor Weed, never get an even break.

  95. 95.

    kalakal

    @HumboldtBlue: I was loved the story of Timothy the tortoise who served as a mascot on various Royal Navy ships between 1852 & 1892. While onboard HMS Queen she (in 1928 Timothy was discovered to be female) witnessed the bombardment of Sevastopol in the Crimean War ( she was the last survivor of this war). On retiring from the navy she lived in the Earl of Devon’s rose garden for the next 112 years before dying in 2004

    https://images.app.goo.gl/YsahaaSrzdgzkNy69

     

    The tag says “My name is Timothy – I am very old, please do not pick me up

  96. 96.

    Jay

    @Elizabelle:

    another one running around NorthWest Edmonton with a knife.

    Since the start of 2022 we, ( Canadians) have seen a big outbreak of violent acts, mostly by men.

    Right now, I suspect Covid’s impact on in person services on a variety of areas. EG, guy in an SRO, ( single resident occupancy, “welfare hotel”) sniping at buses and the homeless with a BB gun from the fire escape at 5am.

  97. 97.

    geg6

    I do not understand this love and great respect for a British monarch.  Especially one who brought up some pretty vile children.  And I probably have as much or more British blood as anyone here.  But I am not and never have been enamored with royals.  The only one I have an ounce of respect for is Harry.  And that is because he opened his eyes to what a toxic world that is.  And the one who allows that toxicity is the head of the House of Windsor.  She’s no sweet old lady.

  99. 99.

    kalakal

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    In some ways it makes a lot more sense to have a Queen/King/Governor General do all the ceremonial ribbon-cutting and Horse Guards shit and let the Prime Minister and Parliament get on with governing the country, instead of making one person (POTUS) do it all

    I’ve always thought it’s very useful diplomatically to have a seperate head of state from the head of government. The other argument is that who would then be the Head of State? Some superannuated political hack? Hail Boris the First! or do you have some PMs biggest backer?

    I used to be a very antimonarchical but then tried to imagine who someone like Thatcher would have appointed

  104. 104.

    kalakal

    @geg6: I actually have a fair amount of time for Anne. She’s actually achieved things in her own right, she was an Olympic athlete. Is tough, once fought off a guy armed with a gun who tried to kidnap her after shooting her bodyguard. She’s basically just got on with the ‘job’ for decades, charity work, civic events etc and tells the media to fuck off whenever they try to hassle her.

  105. 105.

    mrmoshpotato

    @BC in Illinois:

    This is part of my great respect for the Queen. In 1945, 19-year-old Elizabeth Windsor enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service.

    Yup.  She wasn’t going to let her lineage keep her from serving her country.  Good on ya, Liz!

  106. 106.

    Amir Khalid

    @zhena gogolia:

    Britain is, like Malaysia, a constitutional monarchy. Constitutional monarchs are ceremonial heads of state; they’re not really “in charge” of anything beyond certain duties like formally opening parliamentary sessions.

  107. 107.

    Roger Moore

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Ummm…Prince Philip, the Queen’s late husband, was “Prince Consort” – in fact the longest serving consort to the British throne in history

    Yup. Basically, the monarchy was exclusively male for about 500 years, and has been majority male since then.  That gave everyone plenty of time to get it into their heads that the King was the ruler and the Queen was his consort.  When the Queen has been ruler, her husband has normally kept whatever title he had beforehand.  So, for example, Mary I’s husband was King of Spain, and was properly referred to as King Phillip.  Mary II’s husband was co-monarch and properly called King William III.  Anne’s and Victoria’s husbands were princes and retained the title of Prince after marriage.  Elizabeth II’s husband was born a prince but relinquished his titles to become a British subject.  Elizabeth granted him titles, first as Duke of Edinburgh and later Prince, after which he was correctly referred to as Prince Phillip.

  108. 108.

    Roger Moore

    @kalakal: ​
     

    1066 : Harold Godwinson, Harald Hardrada, William the Conqueror

    That should be: Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson, William the Conqueror. Harald Hardrada invaded and claimed the title, but was killed in battle before he could be crowned king.

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @kalakal: Seconded. Anne is definitely the one I’d want to have the proverbial beer with (or shot of brandy during a cross-country event, better yet!).

  111. 111.

    Roger Moore

    @kalakal:

    I’ve always thought it’s very useful diplomatically to have a seperate head of state from the head of government. The other argument is that who would then be the Head of State? Some superannuated political hack? Hail Boris the First! or do you have some PMs biggest backer?

    Most countries with a primarily ceremonial Head of State elect them.  The idea is to pick someone who is calm, of good judgment, and largely above politics, since they will have to step in and do things like call for elections and decide who gets the first crack at forming a coalition.

  113. 113.

    Tenar Arha

    Got new bivalent vax (&the flu shot) this morning. It’s mostly good, my arm’s sore & I’m running a little fever. But I’m so happy  I managed to get it > 2 weeks before Rosh Hashanah starts I don’t really mind.

  114. 114.

    kalakal

    @Roger Moore: I think Hardrada had himself crowned in York shortly before Stamford Bridge. Not sure if that counts.

    I’d forgotten Edward, maybe ( and this is hopelessly pedantic :) ) because he died on Jan 6th and up untill 1155 the year changed on Lady day, March 25.

  115. 115.

    Scout211

    Hey California peeps, did you get that screaming alert last night on your phone telling us we had to conserve energy immediately? That emergency alert reduced usage immediately and prevented rotating outages last night.  Link

    With the state on the brink of outages, Gov. Gavin Newsom for the first time triggered a wireless emergency alert system at 5:45 p.m. that sent messages to 27 million cellphones urging them to turn off or reduce non-essential power.

    Within moments, there was a reduction of more than 2,000 megawatts, bringing the state “back from the edge,” Mainzer said.

  116. 116.

    Martin

    Hey Californians. We’re at EEA 2 again today (not yet 3) so conserve like yesterday. Turned out to be hotter than forecast in many places.

  117. 117.

    kalakal

    @Roger Moore: I have faith in the UK that they’ll make it like being appointed to the House of Lords, espescially if the Tories have anything to do with it

  118. 118.

    Geminid

    I was checking out journalist Marcy Wheeler’s Twitter account and saw she had retweeted a Mr. Hawkinson. Hawkinson noted that a motion to unseal more of the trump search warrant affidavit had been filed with Judge Beryl Howell’s court. Howell is the DC federal judge overseeing the grand jury, I think. This may be the prosecutors seeking to put more information on record to support an appeal of Judge Cannon’s Special Master order.

    A commenter asked if attorney @Teri_Kanefield would explain this, and then Kanefield jumped in and said she’d read the motion as soon as she could.

    Earlier today Kanefield tweeted an interesting observation about the source of last night’s bombshell foreign nuke story. She said that many have speculated that the Washington Post’s source was either from the prosecutors or the trump camp. Kanefield pointed out that the source could have been the original informant, or one of them.

  120. 120.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Geminid:

    One of the other legal beagles pointed out Garland’s DOJ does not leak, at all, and therefore suspected it was someone in the Trump camp IIRC.

  123. 123.

    pluky

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Kate would be a Queen Consort. Camilla is likely to remain Duchess of Cornwall unless things have changed since her marriage. Note she is NOT a Princess of Wales.

    Elizabeth is a Queen Regnant holding the throne in her own right.

    The late Queen Mary was both Queen Mother and Queen Dowager (widowed Queen Consort)

  126. 126.

    J R in WV

    @geg6: ​
     

    I do not understand this love and great respect for a British monarch.

    Me neither! They are thieves and ruthless despots who raped so many less powerful nations all over the world.

    The British Crown Jewels are all stolen from other nations — there are no gemstones found to speak of in England. Tin, to make bronze, sure. Lead for bullets, sure. Emeralds, not so much. Rubies, nope. Diamonds, nary a single one. Stolen, every one.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    @Scout211:

    Hey California peeps, did you get that screaming alert last night on your phone telling us we had to conserve energy immediately? That emergency alert reduced usage immediately and prevented rotating outages last night

    Yep. Some talk radio hosts initially thought that they had received an Amber Alert.

    It’s another scorcher. Out where I am you can feel the heat persisting and making for another warm evening.

    And I see that we are due for at least one more day with daytime temperatures of 100 or more and warm evenings.

    Friday will see a cool high of 96.

    Ugh!

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