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The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

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One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Morning Open Thread: To the Moon!

Friday Morning Open Thread: To the Moon!

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  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Chiewelthap Mariar, a 26-year-old refugee from Sudan, was killed by police officers while working at the Seaboard Foods meatpacking plant in Guymon on 9 January.

    A worker who filmed parts of the incident on his cellphone, and was later fired for doing so, requested to remain anonymous for fear of further retaliation. The worker claimed Mariar was fired from his job by a supervisor but was told by human resources to finish his shift.

    The worker said the supervisor who fired him confronted Mariar on the shop floor after he was fired, and police arrived soon after to escort Mariar from the site. Seaboard Foods did not comment on but did not refute this characterization of the situation.

    “I witnessed the entire thing, from when they started arguing with him until he was shot,” said the worker. “He had a company-issued band-cutter in his hand. When the police got to the plant, the guy was already working, minding his own business.”

    The worker provided cellphone footage leading up to and following the incident, where Mariar can be seen with the band-cutter in his hand working around other employees and being confronted by officers on the shop floor.

    “They made him out to be a danger when they said he had a knife in his hand, when it wasn’t. And that’s wrong on so many levels,” the worker said.
    ………………………..
    The worker also claimed they were asked to sign an incident report, despite not agreeing with what was pre-filled out on the report.

    The company says,

    A spokesperson for Seaboard Corporation, the parent company of Seaboard Foods, said: “Following the incident, operations were ceased for the remainder of the evening and the following day, and we provided in-person counseling services for employees throughout the week, in addition to ongoing phone counseling services available 24 hours, seven days a week.”

    The spokesperson added: “We express our heartfelt sorrow to Chiewelthap Mariar’s family, co-workers, friends and those affected by his death following an incident at our Guymon processing plant involving the Guymon police department on 9 January.

    “Providing our employees with a safe work environment and their wellbeing is extremely important to us. Following repeated attempts to bring calm to the situation, we requested assistance from the Guymon police as we felt it was in the best interest for everyone’s safety.”

    Yes… “heartfelt sorrow” and they are sooo concerned about their employees. FTR, these employees are represented by UFCW local 2. I can only imagine the restrictions they are subject to in Oklahoma.

  4. 4.

    Jeffg166

    In “The Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson he had the atmospheric river storm hit Los Angeles flooding it severely. He only got the location wrong.

  5. 5.

    gene108

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I wonder how much food they decided to scrap, because of the risk of contamination from a guy being shot on the processing floor and maybe having bits of blood and gore get in the food?

  8. 8.

    Soprano2

    Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about background checks a couple of days ago, I appreciate the information. Now to do it…..I’m kind of afraid of what I’ll find out, but I’m also afraid to apply for that estate management thing without knowing if there are things we should know first. All decisions are fraught.

  14. 14.

    mrmoshpotato

    Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin is 93 today.

    May he punch a moon landing denier in celebration today.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WereBear: My wife and I rarely, very rarely, buy beef at the store. I raise my own chickens and take them to a (Fed inspector every day) Mennonite operation for processing. When I pick up the birds at the end of the day, the place is spotless. Hard to believe 2 or 3 thousand birds went thru the place that day. I get my pork (and sometimes lamb) from a buddy who has a Bosnian butcher for that work. I’ve been there and his place is similar at the end of the day.

    I would think the big operations have to be cleaned at least once a day too, but of course I can’t say for sure.

    My main reason for avoiding meat at the store is the prevalence of CAFOs. There is very little good about them.

  18. 18.

    Math Guy

    The Apollo 11 moon landing was the day after my birthday (I was still a kid). I was so excited I could barely sleep until the end of the moonwalk and I believed that by the time I was an adult it would be possible to buy a ticket for a trip to the moon. I’m disappointed that I’ll never get to space, but watching the Mars missions, comet rendezvous, Webb telescope, et al, are the rare occasions when I actually feel pride and a touch of optimism about what humans can do.

  21. 21.

    narya

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m fortunate in that there’s a local producer (Mint Creek Farm, for IL juicers) that seems to do a great job. I’ve never been to the farm, but I’ve had many products. I have so much venison and wild turkey from my friend, and fish from my fish share, that I don’t need a lot of other meat, but anything I get is from Mint Creek. Their heritage breed turkeys are a million dollars but SOOOO good. I also use their bulk ground beef to mix with the ground venison for meatloaf and meatballs and bolognese sauce.

  23. 23.

    WereBear

    @narya: We had dormant farms in the area revived with families or even communes, who then concentrate on goat cheese, or heirloom leafy greens, or potatoes; we have 70 varieties grown a half hour away.

    Local restaurants list local producers on the menus. It’s a great foodie thing.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    On this date 14 years ago, something extraordinary happened: Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th POTUS. I remember feeling proud and hopeful about America back then, sentiments that have been in short supply in the intervening years. Also, it feels like at least 20 years ago, if not 30.

    Le sigh.

  25. 25.

    Scout211

    AL, thank you for highlighting the damage in California caused by the 9? 10? 11? atmospheric river storms we have had over the past three weeks. The major disaster declaration will help many homeowners and businesses. Thank you, President Biden.

    It’s been a tough 3 weeks, even for those of us who don’t have major damage.  We lost power many times and three of our oak trees fell (no damage to structures) and two pine trees are ready to fall.  But in a nearby town, 20 homes are now red-tagged as uninhabitable and in the rest of the county, 60 more homes and businesses are damaged. And my county isn’t on the major disaster list.

    Today the sun is shining.  😊

  27. 27.

    narya

    @WereBear: Oh, that sounds wonderful! I have a CSA share, too, and they’ve changed their operations–rather than trying to grow everything themselves, they’ve partner with other organic or organic-adjacent family farms in WI and MI and IL, which has been great. And they deliver, which I LOVE–no more schlepping bags and bags of produce on the bus from the farmers’ market.

  28. 28.

    oatler

    In the spirit of “more ass than a toilet seat”, I used to say “more Tang than Buzz Aldrin”, but kids don’t know “Tang”.

  29. 29.

    PaulB

    @narya: Their heritage breed turkeys are a million dollars but SOOOO good.

    So, if I give up my retirement account, I can have something like a dozen meals, counting leftovers? Sounds like a bargain!

  30. 30.

    narya

    @Geminid: I subscribe to Sitka Salmon Shares. What I get is seasonal–this month’s box (I get a premium share) is sockeye salmon and halibut. The other types I’ve received include spot prawns, crab, black cod, cod, rockfish, albacore, and multiple types of salmon (coho, sockeye, king), including some smoked salmon. They’re online (and I can get you a little discount if you decided to sign up). Again, not cheap, but extremely good. It’s flash frozen, in roughly serving-size pieces, so it’s easy to always have some on hand. Check out their website!

  32. 32.

    Anyway

    @Betty Cracker:

    On this date 14 years ago, something extraordinary happened: Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th POTUS. I remember feeling proud and hopeful about America back then, sentiments that have been in short supply in the intervening years. Also, it feels like at least 20 years ago, if not 30.

    OMG, I was there! along with hundreds of thousands of my best friends… It was a bitterly cold January morning and we were so happy and had big smiles all day long …

    Le sigh is right.

  33. 33.

    Geminid

    @oatler: My family lived in Southern California a few year in the early 1060s. We’d travel back to Wisconsin every year, and I remember drinking Tang in the mornings at motel rooms along the way.

  34. 34.

    narya

    @PaulB: Okay, I maybe exaggerated . . . . More seriously, I try to warn people when I’m recommending the purveyors I use: small operations are expensive, and good quality is expensive, especially when people are used to the cheap meat they buy in bulk.

  36. 36.

    WereBear

    @narya: I think one of the detriments of the fast food explosion is how actual food became ridiculously expensive by comparison.

    We actually have overweight and undernourished people. Because they don’t understand they aren’t even getting $1 of nutrition from that dollar menu.

  37. 37.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Anyway:  I happened to be in New York City and gave a lift home to someone living in Harlem.  You can imagine the feeling.  It still gives me chills.

  43. 43.

    cmorenc

    If anybody doubts climate is changing then they must’ve been asleep last couple years,” Biden tells us in California

    There’s lots of people who stubbornly refuse to be at all a-“woke”.  So no surprise that lots of people are willfully asleep or oblivious with respect to climate change, rationalizing excuses why it ain’t so in the face of nature shouting: SO !

  46. 46.

    Ken

    @WereBear:

    MEALS™ was CHOW™ with added sugar and fat. The theory was that if you ate enough MEALS™ you would a) get very fat, and b) die of malnutrition. The paradox delighted Sable.

    — Good Omens, Gaiman and Pratchett.

    Dr. Raven Sable is Famine, one of the four horsemen, and has been getting involved in the food industry, nouvelle cuisine, diet books, and so forth.

  47. 47.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    My wife and I rarely, very rarely, buy beef at the store. I raise my own chickens and take them to a (Fed inspector every day) Mennonite operation for processing.

    Wow, beef from chickens? I never knew that.

  48. 48.

    kalakal

    @mrmoshpotato:

    May he punch a moon landing denier in celebration today.

    Brilliant!

    I couldn’t stop laughing at that video.

    As well as how obnoxious that creep was I admired Buzz’s restraint. I’d have cracked sooner.

    It was when he called Aldrin a coward, a man who’d ridden a Saturn V, and worked out how to spacewalk

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    @narya: ​
     

    And their wages are so low they have to go for the cheap calories. It’s such a vicious cycle.

    Fortunately, grocery store chains are making a concerted effort to bring neighborhood grocery stores to poverty-stricken areas, in order to try to fix the problem.
    I was actually able to type that with a straight face.

  50. 50.

    Ken

    @SFAW: It’s wonderful what they can do with the new 3D printers that use cultured animal cells and/or mechanically reclaimed animal tissue as feedstock.

    Feel free to substitute other adjectives for “wonderful”.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A small act of kindness:

    A small town in Alabama is honoring a man who paid off his neighbors’ pharmacy bills for years and kept his generosity a secret until shortly before his recent death by picking up exactly where he left off.

    Hody Childress, a farmer and US air force veteran, began his anonymous charitable campaign when he walked into a drug store in his home town of Geraldine in 2012 and learned from the owner that sometimes families can’t afford to pay for their medicines.

    Childress, moved, responded by handing the owner $100 and telling her to save it for “anyone who can’t afford their prescription”, the local news outlet WVTM reported this month.

    “Do not tell a soul that money came from me,” the owner of Geraldine Drugs, Brooke Walker, recalled Childress saying, according to a Washington Post report on Thursday. “If they ask, just tell them it’s a blessing from the Lord.”

    Childress went back to the pharmacy, which doubles as a meeting place for many of Geraldine’s 900 residents, monthly over the next decade or so, handing Walker a $100 bill each time for the same purpose and again imploring that she tell anyone who asked that it was simply “a blessing from God”.
    …………………….
    Late last year, as he struggled to move around while fighting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other health problems, Childress sensed that he was approaching the end of his life. The 80-year-old, who once worked for the aerospace company Lockheed Martin, needed someone to take his customary $100 bill to Geraldine Drugs, and he entrusted the task to his daughter, Tania Nix.
    …………………….
    Childress died on 1 January, leaving behind his second wife, Martha Jo, two children, three stepchildren and 15 grandchildren, among other survivors.

    Nix told those who gathered at his funeral last weekend about what her father would do at Geraldine Drugs. Word of Nix’s revelation spread around town, inspiring Childress’s family, friends and other admirers to start contributing to his fund to allow it to continue.

    Grows.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    @Betty Cracker:

    I remember feeling that way when the Berlin Wall fell. The Scorpions’ Wind of Change still makes me nostalgic for those hopeful times, and sad that the hope was not fulfilled.

  53. 53.

    CaseyL

    Regarding meat, I subscribe to Butcher Box.  It is indeed on the expensive side, but all of their food is certified as organic, raised humanely with sustainable agricultural methods, and clean butchering practices.  They have seafood, chicken, beef, pork; varying cuts; some processed foods like smoked salmon, bacon and sausage.  And they offer specials all the time for subscribers.

    You get a real avalanche of meat with each shipment, and the boxes they ship in are all recyclable (except for the dry ice).

    I’ve been very happy with them, and have not bought any kinds of meat from a supermarket since I signed up with them over a year ago.  (Might be even longer; not sure.)

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    John Tester finds his hook for ’24 (I think he’s up?): Anti-tax, anti-Feds, anti-GOP

    Senator Jon Tester @SenatorTester
    Montana has no sales tax and we don’t need the federal government imposing one on us. House Republicans’ plan to tack a 30% national sales tax on every good from gas to groceries would skyrocket costs for Montana’s working families.
    I will defeat this awful plan.

  58. 58.

    Betty Cracker

    @Amir Khalid: My husband was in the US Air Force Band and stationed in Germany for part of the 1980s. He got out before the wall came down but not-so-fondly recalls playing a lot of the anti-war tunes of the era, including 99 Luftballoons!

  60. 60.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    US law enforcement killed at least 1,176 people in 2022, making it the deadliest year on record for police violence since 2013 when experts first started tracking the killings nationwide

    How many law enforcement officers die each year as the result of a violent assault?  Between 50 and 60, usually.  (I added up the lines for Shot, Stabbed, Strangled, Beaten, Bomb-Related Incident, and Terrorist Attack.  Before Covid, job-related police deaths had been divided roughly evenly between motor vehicle-related deaths, job-related illnesses, and violent deaths.  For the past three years, Covid’s been far and away the biggest cop-killer.)

    So LEOs kill 20 times as many people as succeed in killing them.

    Incidents like the one you link to especially piss me off.  Suppose he’d actually had a knife?  All you have to do to keep everyone safe is get everyone the hell away from him.  Once that’s done, there’s no urgency.  But so often, cops resort to violence when there’s no need to, when just pulling back and being patient suffices.

  61. 61.

    Cameron

    I’ve been looking at joining a CSA, but I can’t find anybody to go into it with me and even half a share is way too much food for one person.

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Amir Khalid: did you follow the Winds of Change podcast? it doesn’t take itself too seriously and it contains some great story telling

    It’s 1990. The Berlin Wall has just come down. The Soviet Union is on the verge of collapse. A heavy metal band from West Germany, the Scorpions, releases a power ballad, “Wind of Change.” The song becomes the soundtrack to the peaceful revolution sweeping Europe — and one of the biggest rock singles ever. According to some fans, it’s the song that ended the Cold War.
    Decades later, New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe hears a rumor from a source: the Scorpions didn’t actually write “Wind of Change.” The CIA did.
    This is Patrick’s journey to find the truth. Among former operatives and leather-clad rockers, from Moscow to Kyiv to a GI Joe convention in Ohio, it’s a story about spies doing the unthinkable, about propaganda hidden in pop music, and a maze of government secrets. “Wind of Change.” An offbeat eight part investigation

  65. 65.

    Ken

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have a couple of relatives in Montana, right-wing on most things, but they are still angry that after Citizens United the Supreme Court struck down Montana’s law prohibiting corporate expenditures in elections.

    (Admittedly this may be because, on the very few occasions I talk to them, I find a way to work it into the conversation.)

  70. 70.

    StringOnAStick

    @OzarkHillbilly: CAFO’s are hideous in every way and a prime reason for e. Coli. contamination of meat, especially beef.  We are lucky to have a grass fed and finished beef and lamb ranch 7 miles east of us.  The difference is noticeable and regenerative agriculture ranches are one solution to global warming.  We’re more than willing to pay more for all these reasons.

  73. 73.

    StringOnAStick

    @WereBear: I realised after we moved a bit over two years ago that I had eaten no fast food since we left Colorado.  Once I noticed it had been a year, the second year was easy and now I have a record to maintain so that keeps me away from it.  It took about a year to completely lose my taste for it, that stuff is engineered to be addictive.

  74. 74.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Via commentor daryl and his brother darryl over at OTB, comes this little tidbit:

    Aaron Laigaie co-founder of the Proud Boys, well-known figure in the American far-right, staunch Trump supporter, and well-known anti-vaxxer who insisted he had a “natural resistance” to the Covid virus, has died.
    Yup – of Covid.
    Aaron is now a poster child for Darwinism AND the Dunning Kruger Effect

  81. 81.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @narya: I subscribed to the Canadian Community Supported Fishery “Skipper Otto” out of Vancouver. You prepay a certain amount and then order per month. They offer what is in season, let you know which fisher caught the item, and use sustainable methods to do so. They flash freeze and deliver all the way to Ottawa.

    skipperotto.com

  82. 82.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @Anyway: I was there too. All the way back by the Washington Monument.

    My favourite comment from the crowd was after Biden took the VP oath and Cheney was no longer VP – “Now watch for some fucking space ship to come down and pick him [Dick] up!”

  85. 85.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker:

    Also, it feels like at least 20 years ago, if not 30.

    I know what you mean.  Things like 9/11 and the Iraq war feel like they happened in some distant generation.  This business of democracy having been on the ropes for years now is emotionally exhausting.

  87. 87.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @lowtechcyclist: Yup.  And all you have to do is look at how police in other countries operate and the (much more sane) results they get.  All it takes is 1.) less guns and 2.) police having more of a public servant mindset and emphasis on safety and deescalation.  But of course, we can’t do either of those because we’re such an incredibly racist, shit-hole country where white voters are paranoid about Slave Revolts crime and insist that police be their proxy force for punishing Black People.

  88. 88.

    Ken

    @trollhattan: Seven imams condemned it to death, but it broke up before they could carry out the sentence.

    Oh, the cloud. For a minute I thought you were talking about the cow-chicken hybrid abomination.

  91. 91.

    Soprano2

    @Paul in KY: I know I took off work so I could watch it on TV. I cried a little bit, then enjoyed watching them be able to walk during the parade. One little bit of history that’s been disappeared is how George W. couldn’t walk any of the parade route because there were so many angry people lining the streets, they were throwing things at the limo and yelling things. The Secret Service was afraid to let George W. get out of the limo until they were past all of the people.

  93. 93.

    Brachiator

    @Betty Cracker:

    On this date 14 years ago, something extraordinary happened: Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th POTUS. I remember feeling proud and hopeful about America back then, sentiments that have been in short supply in the intervening years. Also, it feels like at least 20 years ago, if not 30.

    It was amazing to feel being part of history, and momentous change.

    We had pushback and craziness, but the Biden Administration brings echoes of those earlier warm feelings.

    ETA: For no particular reason, I was recently watching a couple of YouTube videos featuring the Obamas talking about settling into the White House. I was also looking at stories about the layout of the White House and the family accommodations. I didn’t realize that there were bedrooms and family areas on the third floor.

  95. 95.

    catclub

    @Soprano2: . I cried a little bit, then enjoyed watching them be able to walk during the parade.

     

    Pete Seeger singing “This Land is Your Land”… all the verses.

  98. 98.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Paul in KY:

    @Betty Cracker: I was partying that day! Pretty sure I took off from work.  God bless Barak & Michelle!

    My wife and I were frantically preparing for our first of three trips to Russia to adopt the kiddo, but I’m pretty sure I remember taking a break to watch it on TV.

  100. 100.

    arrieve

    @Thor Heyerdahl: I was by the Washington Monument too! Maybe you were one of the people I hugged after Obama took the oath of office. It was bitterly cold that day–I ended up standing on a newspaper to keep the cold from leaching into my feet–but so so worth it.

  102. 102.

    Paul in KY

    @OzarkHillbilly: A kind soul. RIP to him. A good USAF vet! There are many more, of course. You just seem to hear about the crackpots, like the  MAGAwhack that got herself shot on 01/06.

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Paul in KY: the memory-holing of Bush, especially by some of the more emo of the ex-Republicans and never-trumpers, is one of the under-discussed causes and effects of the trump era

  107. 107.

    Soprano2

    @opiejeanne: The press hardly talked about it, but it was talked about a lot on liberal blogs, how he couldn’t walk the route because everyone who was angry about how the Supreme Court appointed him lined the parade route so they could yell at him. You will never hear me say that George W. was elected in 2000 – he was appointed by the Supreme Court. I would never say that he “stole” it, but the court gave him the office.

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: In political terms, I can see at least two ways the Iraq war hurt the Republican party. I think it accelerated a shift away by middle and upper middle class, college educated Republicans and Independents. In 2004, Albemarle County, Virginia, surrounding Charlottesville was carried by the Democratic Presidential candidate for the first time in decades, and has voted Democratic ever since. This could have been a coincidence but I don’t think so.

    I think the war also discredited the Republican establishment as a class, and that made it easier for the tea-party radicals to shove them aside during the following decade.

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