Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Not all heroes wear capes.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Another Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

Another Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

by | 96 Comments

This post is in: 

Several of you guys have written to me, so I want to let you know that I talked with our friends at Four Directions today.

There are two tribes / locations that were hit by the 30 inches of snow in South Dakota:  Rosebud and Pine Ridge.

Several of you have asked how to help, and Four Directions has identified one on-line option for Rosebud, and they will be getting back to me with an option for Pine Ridge.  What helpers are basically doing is getting propane out to as many folks as possible.

Cole said no active fundraising in December / January, so we are not organizing a push to help.  That said, for those of you who are looking for a way to help, you can click on my nym in the comments.  It’s my understanding that funds go directly to the tribal council so no one has to worry about some other group getting their grubby little paws on money that’s intended to help the tribe.

It’s super quiet around here.  What’s everybody up to?

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  4. 4.

    JML

    Still really fighting with the COVID. I shudder to think how bad it would be if I wasn’t vaxx’d & boosted to the max.

  5. 5.

    MattF

    At long last- a legal way of making money with crypto. A website that offers to buy your worthless NFTs for $0.01 + fee, so you can write off the loss on your taxes. I suppose it could be a scam.

    ETA: Got phone calls from two people I hadn’t heard from in a while. Good to hear from them. So, call that person you’ve been thinking of but haven’t called.

  7. 7.

    Kelly

    Our power has been out since 3:00 p.m. day before yesterday. In town having a warm meal and a warm restaurant. Would have made different arrangements except the utility company kept leaving messages that the power would be fixed in about 4 hours. Current estimate is 2:00 p.m. today which seems likely to work out since we saw a crew working a couple miles from our downed lines.

  9. 9.

    Layer8Problem

    I just successfully made a presentable Swiss cheese omelette for lunch.  It was gorgeous.  This rarely happens.  I’m kicking myself for only using two eggs.

  10. 10.

    RepubAnon

    @Kelly: There was an infamous ice storm on Portland, Oregon 20+ years back where the problem was ash trees near the power lines.  A branch would break due to the ice burden, taking out the electric cable.  The crew would repair the line and restore power.  Then, another branch would break and take out the electric cable – again.  This kept repeating over several days.

    The moral is for the power company to trim the freaking trees…

  11. 11.

    Ann Marie

    I just got an email from Twitter suggesting I find friends on Twitter by syncing my address book with Twitter.  I promptly deleted the email, but who would do that under the present circumstances?  I wouldn’t under any circumstance, but still.

  13. 13.

    mali muso

    I feel a bit guilty for having spent the entire day pampering myself at a Korean spa. Not only am I vegged out and relaxed, I sprang for an exfoliation treatment and am missing an entire layer of skin.

  17. 17.

    Ruckus

    @RepubAnon:

    The moral is for the power company to trim the freaking trees…

    The easy way? Are you kidding?

    Besides if they did the best/easiest way they couldn’t get paid to keep coming back to put up new wires and what sort of employees would they be if they did the sensible thing?

  19. 19.

    eclare

    @Kelly:   Fingers crossed you get power soon!  Mine was just out for 45 minutes.  That on top of still being under a boil water advisory has me cranky.

  20. 20.

    mali muso

    @Anyway: It was a little surreal as I’d never been to one of these places before. Kind of a cross cultural experience. Definitely never been casually nekkid in a room full of other nekkid women all just chilling out and going in and out of various pools. Once you get over yourself, it’s amazingly freeing to just be..idk, a person. Bodies – everyone has them.

  23. 23.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @RepubAnon:  Where I live, PG&E was very proactive on tree trimming in our neighborhood this spring and summer. Several step process: 1) surveyors to ID trees to be trimmed and tie tape to them 2) crews with chain saws and lift baskets as necessary to trim the trees 3) crews with an industrial but portable chipper to clean up all the branches 4) auditor to check on what and how well it was done.  We kept getting phone calls from the contractors to get permission to be on our property, which is why I know all the steps LOL.  MUCH prefer trimmed trees to wildfires (or power outages)!

    Also just had our dead land line phone repaired.  Rat’s nest in a line box (as usual).

  24. 24.

    JoyceH

    Of course the best solution is to bury the power lines. We seldom lose power where I live, the lines are underground.

  27. 27.

    Anoniminous

    “Naked Korean tree trimming. A coming Trend?

    Our panel of experts discuss after these messages from our sponsors.”

  29. 29.

    AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team

    Donated after I saw the tweet last night. Overall been doing well but maybe poor sleep is the cause of today’s malaise.

  30. 30.

    Kelly

    Back home no power no crew at our down line. At least the temps have been above freezing. Spotted a crew a couple miles down the road so maybe we’re next

  32. 32.

    Kelly

    Kinda surprised how many lines are down around here. Beachie fire clean up took out thousands of trees near power lines, roads and homes. The big windstorm that hit the pnw appears to have torn off branches from across the road and onto our power lines

  35. 35.

    JoyceH

    @Kelly:  Yeah, we sometimes lose power when there’s a widespread outage and the issue is beyond where the lines are buried. But we sure lose it less than other places in the county with the strung power lines. My neighborhood prides itself on being “wooded”, so the buried lines are really a necessity.

  38. 38.

    RaflW

    @Danielx: Random tidbit: Have folks around this website driven I-70 between Denver and the ski areas west? Our household loves the “Truckers, Don’t Be Fooled!” signs that warn that the steep grades are not over

    (And, semi-relatedly, we were fooled by C-DOT opening I-70 east up towards the Eisenhower tunnel on Dec. 22nd. Our normal 1.5-2 hour drive to the Denver airport became a seven hour ordeal. It took 4.5 hours to travel 4 miles in the early part of the journey. Thankfully Delta got us on a later flight out, and we left super early just on general principals during cold, snowy, holiday travel season).

  39. 39.

    Kelly

    Took 2 weeks to repair power after the Beachie fire. Other than that our power hasn’t been out more than a day for 10 or 15 years

  41. 41.

    Layer8Problem

    @RaflW:  Yup, I know it well from driving down from Summit County.  The first time I saw it, it was “Hah?  Wait a minnit, they’re serious.”

  42. 42.

    HinTN

    @eclare: Yeah, I accept the need when it comes to large trees but when they indiscriminately top ornamentals that are NEVER going to cause trouble that gets my goat.

  44. 44.

    Kelly

    Home remains a tolerable 56f. Fat sweater, flannel lined pants, stocking hat and a warm cat on my lap

  47. 47.

    rikyrah

    Goodable (@Goodable) tweeted at 1:32 PM on Thu, Dec 29, 2022:
    As a child in Brasil, Pele couldn’t pronounce the name of his favorite player, a goalkeeper named Bilé. He kept saying “Pilé” instead.

    To make fun of him, kids in school would call him Pele.

    His went on to become a football legend with one of the most famous names in the world. https://t.co/sfyNh731gA
    (https://twitter.com/Goodable/status/1608546492033421312?t=Ff0w6nmExOzzxpAIkFWdfA&s=03)

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @Kelly: Just as with swimming, there’s just a couple of degrees difference between brisk, but fine, and it’s too fucking cold to swim…

    For me, when I have lost heat in the house, down to 55 degrees is tolerable, but 54 degrees is not.  For 3 or 4 years, my heat would often go out right around Christmas, sometimes on Christmas day.  I pressed the heating folks and it turned out that something or other wasn’t right and they fixed it, and that stopped happening.

    I hope you get fixed soon.

  49. 49.

    CarolPW

    @WaterGirl: ​
     I suspect your Christmas loss of heating events were easier to take than our series of Thanksgiving sewage backups (backsup) into the basement events.

  50. 50.

    mvr

    Here at home I’m drilling and reaming a 3/4 inch hole through a piece of brass to get an old band saw up and running again. Needed a new flat pulley to get the speeds right and of course the pulley has a larger hole than the axle on the saw. This is day 2 of manufacturing the part.  Yesterday I was turning it to size.

    I know this is not exciting but you asked what we were up to and this is my answer.

    Also, FWIW, in LIncoln the utility will bury your power line to the house if you upgrade your breaker box.  We did it when we moved in.  Back in the last century a bunch of neighbors lost power when trees in their yards took out the last bit of powerline to the house. Now most everyone has buried their lines.

  51. 51.

    Kelly

    After the Beachie fire our phone co-op replaced all the copper lines with fiber. Mom still has an old fashioned dial phone the kind that used to work when the power is out. It now depends on a battery which only lasted 36 hours. She has a cell so she can still call.

  53. 53.

    Mimi haha

    @rikyrah: I don’t know if I will ever stop masking under certain circumstances.  I haven’t had a cold since we started masking up. Plus this time of the year the mask keeps my nose warm.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Mimi haha: Me neither. I have compromised–I do sometimes go to restaurants, eat on planes, etc. But I don’t see the point in NOT masking in public situations where it’s easy and costs me practically nothing.

  59. 59.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    What’s everybody up to?

    The wife is away at a retreat most of the next few days, so I’m just kind of hanging out with the dog.

    Start the morning with what I call “going to the pub for a pint” (go to the cafe and get a 16 ounce coffee). Waste a lot of time on the internet. Do something I can reasonable call productive for an hour or so. Indulge myself with a meal out. Last night was burger and onion rings. Tonight will be the take-out Indian food I bought earlier.

    Yep, life is rough.​

    Tomorrow I’m going to go into town (Philly) and do some touristy stuff I never get around to doing.

  60. 60.

    mvr

    @raven: Thanks!

    I actually find it kind of exciting too — not the actual drillng and reaming, but fixing the machine. I wish I knew a bit more about reaming brass.

  62. 62.

    Redshift

    We have our honorary “niece” visiting this week; she was supposed to come for Thanksgiving but got covid. So that’s nice. I’m also back at work after being off last week, but it’s mercifully quiet, so I’m both getting more done than usual, and spending fewer hours while I take time out to socialize.

  63. 63.

    CaseyL

    Props to WaterGirl for getting the word out!  I can’t contribute, but am very happy to see Balloon Juice carrying on our relationship with the communities we’ve been working with.

    As for me… I had an exciting morning.

    Got a text from my Aunt that Mom had gone to the ER.  Mom’s in her late 80s, when no emergency is assumed to be “not serious.” So, I started a jolly round of “call the hospital, contact relatives, see who is available for potential emergency pet sitting if I need to hurry off to Florida.”

    And that’s the other thing: None of us live anywhere near one another.  Mom’s in Pompano Beach; Aunt is in Philadelphia, I’m in Seattle, and Brother is in Norway.

    Long story short:  Mom is OK.  I spoke to her.  She wasn’t feeling well all night and when she still wasn’t feeling well this morning, she did the smart thing (a thousand blessings upon her!) and called 911.

    Another blessing: the hospital she went to is a good one, never a sure bet in the US and certainly not in Florida.

    They’re keeping her overnight for observation, and she will call me tomorrow morning to give me an update.

    I then went back and let everyone else know that the Red Alert had been cancelled.

    Then I booked a trip to Norway to see my brother (and, oh yeah, to see Norway), which has been in the planning stages for the past 3 years, constantly postponed due to Covid.  I’m taking a tour, then hanging with my bro for a few days afterwards.

    Busy morning, oh lordy.

  66. 66.

    Almost Retired

    @Mimi haha:  I was just bragging on Christmas Eve that I haven ‘t had a cold since before the Pandemic.  And then the kids came over on Christmas Day and sneezed all over me.  So now I have a cold.  Ungrateful little bastards.

    Fortunately, I haven’t lost my finely honed whining-and-complaining-while-sick skills.

  67. 67.

    cckids

    @rikyrah: That’s so damn true. I’m still masking at #2 job (grocery store); I may do it forever – people are really just gross. Also it hides my RBF, which is needed when I’m on the last few hours of a 12-14 hour day. Anytime someone gives me grief for it, I ask “why do you care?”

    I’ve never gotten an answer.

  68. 68.

    catclub

    @CaseyL: (and, oh yeah, to see Norway), which has been in the planning stages for the past 3 years,

     

    I bet Norway took a lot longer than three years.

  69. 69.

    mvr

    @raven: Thanks!

    I’m definitely going slow. I’ve been turning the lathe by hand since I’ve had trouble keeping the tapers in place in the tailstock. It is tiring to do it this way, but nothing much too disastrous can happen. Wish I knew my feeds and speeds and also the ins and outs of the lathe I inherited from my dad.

  70. 70.

    Matt McIrvin

    I’ve been on the job (WFH) today and will be tomorrow. It is very quiet, except that for my colleagues in India it’s a normal work week.

  71. 71.

    catclub

    @CarolPW: I suspect your Christmas loss of heating events were easier to take than our series of Thanksgiving sewage backups (backsup) into the basement events.

     

    I am a new homeowner in a new place, so the oil burner (new to me) randomly failing while I was trying to sweep water in the basement (also new to me) was somewhat traumatic. Sewage has behaved so far.

  76. 76.

    jnfr

    @JML:
    Very sorry to hear this. I hope you have all you need to rest and heal.​
     
    We also have our utilities all underground and rarely have outages.

  78. 78.

    stacib

    @CarolPW: OMG, I thought that only happened to me.  It seems like every Thanksgiving I have plumbing problems, and they never surface days before.  Nope, it is generally a couple hours before folks are supposed to arrive.  One year, I had so much water gather in the basement on Thanksgiving day, the drinkers in my family had to actually pick their feet up off the floor.  :-)

  81. 81.

    mvr

    @raven: Yeah, I love old machinery and old tools in general.  We had our basement replaced and crawlspace dug out so now I have a dedicated room for the metalworking tools. Hence the current project which is a 1930s or so Boise Crane bandsaw. Am also getting a Rhodes metal shaper that’s from the turn of the last century up and running. (Somehow I can’t work on one thing at a time.)

    I want to thank you for inspiring me to look into how to engage the back gear on the lathe. I knew I used to know how to do it, but I wasn’t sure I knew how to anymore and I was afraid to try until I had it figured out.  But then your go slow advice made me realize people did ream using their power train and I should just try to figure out how to engage the backgear to get the slow speed I needed.  A it turns out I was failing to remember how to disengage the pullies from the main gear, but eventually found the pin.  So thanks! Without your “go slow” comment I would not have tried to figure this out today.  The part is now at exactly .750 inches (thanks to the Boeing surplus store that was selling reamers by the pound a long time back) and it fits perfectly on the axle!

  82. 82.

    Lifeinthebonusround

    Over on the Twitter, @lakotaman1 was raising relief for Pine Ridge. I can’t find any links to how he did this..

  83. 83.

    mvr

    @raven: Also, just saw that there was a link in the message. That looks like a combination jointer/planer or perhaps a molding machine but those are just a guesses — there are so many more knobs than on any jointer or planer I’ve ever seen.

    Definitely very old though. And the sort of thing that warms my heart.

  84. 84.

    mvr

    @Lifeinthebonusround: What I saw wasn’t super clear and at least one person voiced some skepticism about his not linking a good publicly verifiable source. (I have no personal knowledge one way or the other.) So I’d use WaterGirl’s suggested places.

  85. 85.

    Another Scott

    OpenThread. ICYMI, Russians fighting to liberate Ukraine’s east.

    Short video with English subtitles.

    "We are doing one job. We are liberating Ukraine."

    Meet the Russians fighting on Ukraine's side as part of the secretive so-called 'Freedom of Russia Legion.' pic.twitter.com/cfiewJVj2L

    — DW News (@dwnews) December 28, 2022

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  86. 86.

    Gin & Tonic

    I am caring for three dogs, at least until tomorrow, when one goes home. The other is here until the end of next week, when my son and his wife return from Vail. She is a recently-adopted (presumably) stray, so she is very very skittish.

    This is all surprisingly time-consuming.

  87. 87.

    CarolPW

    @stacib: Fortunately the basements (happened in more than one house) with sewer backup problems were unfinished so no great damage, just unpleasant cleanup.

    I was able to solve regular rainwater/groundwater backup under my mother’s house by putting in a French drain and it has served for almost 45 years now. That and making sure the grade around your foundation is sloped correctly should take care of your problem unless the cause is your water pipes leaking. Good luck!

  88. 88.

    CarolPW

    @stacib: You might consider having the drain guys come out prophylactically before Thanksgiving. On two houses so far I have had them dig up the yard and fix the damned pipe. Going to have to do it again next spring.

  92. 92.

    mvr

    @raven: Those are some nice old tools!  Love to have a mortice machine like that (not that I need one).  And I love the wall of cutters for what turns out to have been a molding cutter by Hermance that Another Scott found the info for.

    Thanks for taking the time to show us this!

  96. 96.

    mvr

    @raven: Yes, a lot of that old equipment was built to run forever and to be fixed (my bandsaw is now running).  OTOH as the long unprotected belts on the molding machine attest, the safety features were not a priority for many years. So the market for that stuff in the US, where we have regulations to protect workers and the ability to depreciate old equipment rather than retrofit safety features like belt guards, is not large.

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