Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Republicans in disarray!

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Ominous Signs (Open Thread)

Ominous Signs (Open Thread)

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The wind is howling, and the sky is filled with pendulous, bruise-colored clouds. We keep getting ominous weather alerts like this:

Weather alert for severe storms

I’m keeping the feeders up as long as possible to serve hungry customers like this Yellow-Throated Warbler:

Ominous Signs (Open Thread)

But I’ll take them down within the hour so they won’t become missiles if the storm(s) are as bad as advertised.

Was just perusing the headlines, and I read that Trump’s lead in Iowa is growing — he’s ahead of DeSantis and Haley by 40 points, and the caucuses are next week. But there’s a late game-changer: Judge Judy endorsed Nikki Haley.

The article says Judge Judy made one endorsement before this one: She backed Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 Democratic primary, presumably before Senator Warren field-dressed and roasted the former NYC mayor at a debate. So maybe not such a game-changer.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

171Comments

  4. 4.

    Shalimar

    Not as ominous as storm warnings in the future.

    “Tornado Warning Alert!  AI has determined that your house will be leveled in 10 minutes!  It is too late to evacuate!  It sucks to be you!”

  5. 5.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    We’ve had squirrel proof suet feeders out back and the local Northern Flickers have finally, after months, figured out a) they’re there, and b) how to use them.

    We have a local urban squirrel population that we feed, many by hand, so it’s a balancing act between keeping them in peanuts and the urban bird population fed.

    One of the few things we miss from Misery, particularly where we were along the Osage River, is the incredible bird diversity we could get into the yard.  Or walk down to the mud flats on the river this time of year and see a dozen Bald Eagles cavorting.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Pretty much the entire Eastern Seaboard is affected! I wish my husband would leave work early so he doesn’t have to drive home in it, but he probably won’t.

  9. 9.

    Alison Rose

    Looks scary :( My cousin (well, first cousin once removed, to get technical) lives in Eustis and posted something about school closures in her county (she’s a teacher) and one of her friends was like “eh it won’t be that bad, I think we should stay open”. Florida Woman.

  10. 10.

    Bugboy

    Here in S. Florida, a spoonbill blew by earlier, followed by a small flock of wood storks.  Then, my dog goes nuts out front at medium sized softshell turtle, which proceeded to jam itself in between a wall and a big flower pot on the patio.  Strange days indeed!  I managed to prod the turtle back to within eyesight of water, and off it went!  Softshells are very nasty critters, do not mess with them if you don’t have to.

  11. 11.

    Bill Arnold

    What in your feeder is that Yellow Throat eating? The bill looks like mostly insectivore but might do seeds in winter. Or suet, or dried mealworms (if that’s a thing).

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    It’s a huge system. Please stay safe (yes, and your little bird, too).

    On a lighter note, remember that 70th birthday party that RFKJr was planning to throw for himself? The one where Martin Sheen and Dionne Warwick and Mike Tyson and Andrea Boccelli were all going to show up? And then it turned out that they all either had or had not even been invited, but had not confirmed, but in any case they were all hard nope?

    Well, now, RFKJr (according to Evan Hurst at Wonkette) has also noped out of his own birthday party celebration tribute fundraiser, and I am laughing and laughing  Well done, Bobby Junior! And happy birthday!!

  19. 19.

    Scout211

    This in my sister’s neck of the woods Orlando suburbs:

    THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED TORNADO WATCH 6 IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM EST THIS EVENING FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS IN FLORIDA THIS WATCH INCLUDES 6 COUNTIES IN EAST CENTRAL FLORIDA BREVARD LAKE ORANGE OSCEOLA SEMINOLE VOLUSIA

  22. 22.

    Butch

    As the day has progressed, we’ve gone from predictions of winter storm warning to minor snowstorm.  Frustrating because we changed a lot of plans based on the earlier forecast; the weather forecasts up here in the frozen north tend to be great works of fiction.

  23. 23.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Alison Rose:

    Heh, yeah. Apparently he was okay with it until he found out it was a grift event. Maybe his brain wasn’t completely damaged after all.

  24. 24.

    frosty

    @Baud: Really! We’re getting rain and wind (and a flood alert) on the Mason-Dixon Line but it’s not as bad as what Betty C will be getting. Look at that “squall line” from the Gulf to Charlotte NC!

  25. 25.

    brendancalling

    I was too tired to run yesterday, and I wish I had because it’s raining and cold today. I’m dropping off my car to get the brakes done, so I’m hoping the rain chills out tomorrow: I’m taking my bicycle to work. We’re at risk of flooding from the rivers and creeks that are saturated, but hopefully the Vine Street express way won’t become a canal again.

    With all the bad weather, the School District of Philadelphia sent out a mass email, urging us to… drive safely on the way home.

  27. 27.

    Kelly

    A few big sloppy snowflakes mixed with the pouring rain here. I don’t think any will stick until nightfall. Power company linemen are earning every penny today.

  29. 29.

    Gin & Tonic

    Hey guys and gals, you excited for this?

    Aloha! We’re excited to announce a new partnership with @TulsiGabbard! The Army Reserve officer and veteran, 4-term congresswoman, and 2020 presidential candidate will be sharing her unique POV through an exclusive series of documentary style videos and broader content on X. X is…
    — Business (@XBusiness) January 9, 2024

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kelly: Saw five electrical-line trucks with Louisiana plates in the parking lot of my local market today. I’d think they’d have more potential work further south (I’m in RI) but I’m not the job scheduler.

  32. 32.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Kelly:

    Yeah, that was something we considered.  Instead, went with the over-engineered approach which much to my surprise, works really well.

    It’s just that the birds need to figure it out.  We now consistently get the Flickers and some Downies.  We have Blue Jays who would love the peanuts and I’ve even occasionally gotten them to come down onto the fence posts out front but that’s with peanuts sitting out and the squirrels apparently occupied elsewhere.

  33. 33.

    satby

    We had wet, heavy snow overnight, turning to sleet and now rain, but the line of snow has reached the border between IL-IN, so it’ll turn back into snow in a couple of hours. Then overnight the entire mess will freeze, and be covered with more snow. Just got back from the store so I don’t have to go anywhere for the next several days. I’m liking this retirement thing.

  34. 34.

    Jeffro

    Here’s an ominous sign: A Warning to America

    When’s the last time one of our major media outlets published an incredible NON-endorsement of a leading candidate before the primaries had even started??!?

     

    At the outset of this election year, with Donald Trump leading the race to be the Republican presidential nominee, Americans should pause to consider what a second Trump term would mean for our country and the world and to weigh the serious responsibility this election places on their shoulders.

    By now, most American voters should have no illusions about who Mr. Trump is. During his many years as a real estate developer and a television personality, then as president and as a dominant figure in the Republican Party, Mr. Trump demonstrated a character and temperament that render him utterly unfit for high office.

    As president, he wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever — encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law and the Constitution, applauding dictators — and are escalating as he tries to regain power. He plots retribution, intent on eluding the institutional, legal and bureaucratic restraints that put limits on him in his first term.

    Our purpose at the start of the new year, therefore, is to sound a warning.

    Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution.

    Mr. Trump was impeached twice as president and since leaving office has been charged in four criminal cases — two related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, one over hush money paid to a porn star and another for hoarding classified documents after he left office and impeding the government’s efforts to retrieve them. No other sitting or former president has ever been indicted on criminal charges. Not only has Mr. Trump shown no remorse for these actions, he has given no sign that he understands these indictments to be anything but a political crusade meant to undermine him. He continues to claim that the Jan. 6 insurrection has been misrepresented. “There was love and unity,” he said in an interview last August. And he has suggested that, if re-elected, he could use his presidential powers to pardon himself.

    Mr. Trump’s forays into foreign affairs remain dangerously misguided and incoherent. During his presidency, he displayed consistent admiration for autocratic leaders — including Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un — and contempt for our democratic allies. While in the White House, he repeatedly threatened to leave NATO, an alliance critical to the stability of Europe that he sees only as a drain on American resources; now his campaign website says, without elaborating, that he plans to “finish” the process of “fundamentally re-evaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.”

    He has announced his intention to abandon Ukraine, leaving it and its neighbors vulnerable to further Russian aggression. Encouraged by an American president, leaders who rule with an iron fist in Hungary, Israel, India and elsewhere would face far less moral or democratic pressure.

    Mr. Trump has made clear his conviction that only “losers” accept legal, institutional or even constitutional constraints. He has promised vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin” and threatened with execution. This is particularly disturbing at a time of heightened concern about political violence, with threats increasing against elected officials of both parties.

  41. 41.

    jimmiraybob

    For those that follow Digby’s Hullabaloo, there’s a great post from yesterday (8th) that I think should be a must read (along with two cited articles), “Trump is Bringing People to Christian Nationalism.”

    A taste from the cited New Yorker article (from an Iowa legislator and Evangelical Pastor): “People would say to me, ‘Forget the Constitution, it’s a dead document. You’re a Christian first.’”

  44. 44.

    Alison Rose

    @Baud: You know what I heard?

    He’s even older today than he was yesterday.

    And tomorrow he’ll be even older.

    It’s like he doesn’t even care about the country at all.

  45. 45.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Marmot: How was Bloomberg as NYC mayor?

    I still have a grudge against him for my daughter’s arrest-without-charges (2004, mass preventative arrests of protestors before they could protest). It taught her at the tender age of 17 how fragile the constitutional protections are.

  48. 48.

    PaulWartenberg

    Half of Polk County is closing early. City of Bartow closed services at 1PM today, library staff got sent home.

    I’m seeing TORNADO WATCH warnings from Collier County up along the whole Gulf Coast. Polk County is included. There’s already tornado sightings in Clermont.

  49. 49.

    MagdaInBlack

    Here in the nw Chicago burbs, my car was covered with ice this morning, and it was snowing. So I called in a snow day. I kinda feel like a chickensht over it but now its snowing pretty good. I was not so much concerned with getting TO work as I was with getting home. I’ll live with being a coward. It’s a 25 mile one way commute.

  50. 50.

    Baud

    Forgot to mention, I initially read the title of this post as Omnibus Signs and thought it was going to be about Omnes.

  51. 51.

    PaulWartenberg

    @smith:

    @Alison Rose: Speaking of lost causes, Dean Phillips held a campaign event in NH today, and nobody showed.

     

    I actually feel one percent sympathy for Dean Phillips. He got talked into this vanity by corrupt, unscrupulous “campaign managers” looking for a sucker to run against the incumbent: not only to make Biden “weaker” in the national polls, but to also use the challenger’s “campaign” to feed themselves on more six-figure salaries knowing full well they weren’t going to win a single primary.

    Of course, most of this is Phillips being an egomaniacal idiot to accept this faustian deal in the first place.

  52. 52.

    Harrison Wesley

    In southern Manatee County we’re under a tornado watch and wind advisory until 9 tonight.  Very dark outside, but no rain and the wind doesn’t look that bad (Accuweather says it’s 25-30 mph).  I don’t think I’m going out for a stroll, though.

  54. 54.

    geg6

    Weather here in Western PA has been a real shitshow today.  It started raining overnight and the temperature dipped to freezing just in time for morning rush.  As usual, PennDOT hadn’t touched any of the roads I take to work even though one of them is the main non-interstate artery through the county.  My driveway was a mix of rain, ice and sleet and so were the roads.  Thankfully, I only live a little over 3 miles from campus but it still took me 20 minutes to get here.  It has been pouring a very thick rain (not sleet or ice, but thick rain) all day and is expected to continue all day and night before turning to snow again in the morning.  My weather app tells me we’ve already had a half inch of rain and we’ll have another half inch before the rain stops and it will turn to snow.  And the wind!!!!!!!!!  We have a wind advisory due to 45 mph gusts.  I hate this shit.  Either just rain or snow, none of this halfway shit.

    I am working from home tomorrow, I just decided.  I’m having a root canal today at 4 pm, so I have an excuse.

  57. 57.

    Alison Rose

    @PaulWartenberg: Most of us grew out of the “get peer-pressured into doing dumb shit” stage by our early 20s

    (Being a very uncool teen who knew she would never be cool, I barely entered that stage to begin with.)

  59. 59.

    Phylllis

    We’re in the middle of a strong band coming through in the SC Midlands. Heavy rain bands and gusting wind. Looks like we’ll be through the worst of it in another hour or so.

  60. 60.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @geg6: Relatively mild weather (so far) on our side of PA. The rain is supposed to get a little heavier overnight and we’re expecting 30-40 mph gusts this evening, but nothing major and it’s way too warm (upper 40s) for snow. Total of 2″ rain predicted.

    We didn’t get any snow last weekend either.

  61. 61.

    MattF

    OT. Note that Greg Sargent, whose absence from the WaPo continues to irk me, has reappeared at The New Republic.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    On the Lloyd Austin story from the thread downstairs, he apparently had a UTI following on surgery for prostste cancer a few days earlier. He also had abdominal fluid that had to be drained.

    I’m not at all sure my life is enhanced, or indeed affected in any way, by knowing about the Secretary’s medical details. But the media are beside themselves.

  64. 64.

    geg6

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    The snow last weekend was barely a dusting here.  I don’t care about snow.  I’ve been driving in it for fifty years now.  But the ice terrifies me.  Lots of hills around here, including my driveway.

    I shouldn’t complain.  We haven’t had weather this nasty for several years.  I just wish we’d get it in December when I’m off for two weeks and can curl up with the kitty and dogs and binge watch something on tv or finish the book I’ve been trying to read since the beginning of December.

  65. 65.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Alison Rose: ​
    Biden is older than he’s ever been.
    And now he’s even older.
    And now he’s even older.
    And now he’s even older.
    He’s older than he’s ever been.
    And now he’s even older.
    And now he’s older still.

  68. 68.

    Geminid

    @SiubhanDuinne: It’s a slow news period, and journalists are hyping this story because that’s what they do. People are talking about all the bad things that could have happened from January 1st to the 5th, but they leave out an important point: these bad things did not in fact happen.

  69. 69.

    Soprano2

    That’s the front end of the storm that’s giving us the small amount of snow we’re getting today.

  70. 70.

    Soprano2

    @Butch: Here they’ve been hyping that storm for a week now as the forecasted snow totals got lower and lower. It turned out to be a big nothingburger here. This weekend, however, the temps are going to plunge and then we’re getting some snow, so to me that’s something to be more concerned about.

  72. 72.

    Redshift

    Here in NoVa, we’re supposed to have driving rain for like ten hours, and potentially winds of 50mph or more. Fun.

    But there shouldn’t be any tornadoes, and I don’t think I have any trees at risk of falling on my house, so it should be just another day indoors.

  73. 73.

    Harrison Wesley

    The guv announced a state of emergency for 49 FL counties due to today’s weather; neither Manatee nor Sarasota were among them.  Didn’t stop the local media from getting their bowels reversed over it.  Must be a very slow news day around here.

  74. 74.

    wjca

    @Baud:  I cannot support a candidate that puts linear time ahead of America’s interests.

    So you prefer one who is hyperbolic?  (TIFG for the win!)

    Or is elliptical sufficient?  (TIFG incapable of something so sophisticated.)

  75. 75.

    Jay

    Windy (90 kph) and coldish here. Had some flurries that did not stick yesterday, BC Ferries cancelled some sailings, Mountain Passes are in bad shape.

    And that’s about it.

  77. 77.

    jackmac

    Daughter is currently flying home from Orlando to Chicago on a thread-the-needle flight that skirted storms in Florida and Georgia before crossing through storm front over South Carolina. Flight is now entering Indiana and approaching Chicago’s separate storm system (snow, winter mix, rain). The Monday-Tuesday storm snowfall here wasn’t quite as heavy as predicted (2-4 inches or so with more in some areas).  It’s still snowing, with big puffy flakes descending at the moment. We’ll be happy to have her safe at home. More snow tonight and apparently a mammoth storm is brewing for Friday (8-12 inches predicted at this point).

  78. 78.

    Betty Cracker

    After I got the latest weather alert, I checked my wine stocks and deemed them insufficient if there’s really a big blow that washes out the road and strands us in the swamp. The closest store is a Dollar General, and they have a perfectly acceptable cabernet for about $4 a bottle (shut up, it’s not bad!), so I thought I’d just run up there and be done with it before the storm hits.

    Well, there was no wine at all to be had at the Dollar General except rosé and just NO! Plus there was a woman in a bathrobe pushing a cart up and down the aisles at an unsafe speed while ranting to imaginary people. So I said “fuck it” and drove into town. Looks like I made it back just in time, and so did the mister. Now we are storm ready!

  79. 79.

    Redshift

    @zhena gogolia: I’m convinced the op-ed page is a terrible thing that should never have been created. If only I could convince everyone else. Yeah, we’d still have people like Maggie Haberman, but we wouldn’t have the perpetual hunt for a “reasonable conservative” columnist who only serves to hide the fact that there are none in any position of power at any level, or amplifying people with truly awful views because “all viewpoints must be represented.”

  82. 82.

    lowtechcyclist

    We’ve been getting rain since 9am here in Calvert County, MD, and the wind has finally arrived in the last half-hour.  All the schools closed 2 hours early not just in this county, but in all the adjacent ones, in anticipation of the storm.  Glad I didn’t have to go anywhere today, that’s for damned sure.  Cold, wet, and miserable, even if there wasn’t any wind.

  84. 84.

    Alison Rose

    Well, since we’re all checking in with local weather reports, it’s clear and sunny in the mid 50s here in the North Bay. But we did have a pretty sizable rainstorm for a couple days over the weekend, and we’ve had a decent amount of rain overall so far this winter.

    It’s amusing because often once a rainstorm has passed through my area, within a couple of hours my FB friends down on the Central Coast start posting about rain starting up. My own little storm tracker.

  85. 85.

    Geoduck

    Also windy and wet out here in the far northwest. They’re threatening snow later in the week, but these things tend to shift.

  86. 86.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Blizzard conditions in the Oregon Cascade Range.  Willamette Valley just getting really wet.  For now, anyways…

  87. 87.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Redshift:

    I’m convinced the op-ed page is a terrible thing that should never have been created. If only I could convince everyone else. Yeah, we’d still have people like Maggie Haberman, but we wouldn’t have the perpetual hunt for a “reasonable conservative” columnist who only serves to hide the fact that there are none in any position of power at any level, or amplifying people with truly awful views because “all viewpoints must be represented.”

    Yeah, when I was in Columbia, SC (waves to Phylllis), the Cola. newspaper added the execrable Cal Thomas to their op-ed page. And then when we moved to Bristol, VA, the local paper there added him too.  Both times in the name of representing a point of view.

    The worst thing about op-ed pages, though, is that they rarely get rid of anyone.  People get to write their columns for decade after decade, long after they’d had a single new idea to contribute, and long after anyone familiar with them could tell you in advance what they’d say about just about anything.  Newspapers really need some form of term limits on their op-ed columnists.

  88. 88.

    brendancalling

    @lowtechcyclist: most of them—left AND right—are rarely worth reading, although the conservatives are worse. I mean, with any given topic I know exactly what George Will (or EJ Dionne) is going to write. Hugh Hewitt and Ramesh Ponnoru are as reliable as a the sun rising in the east.

    And it’s not so much that I disagree with them as it is that they’re BORING.

  89. 89.

    Anoniminous

    @Betty Cracker:

    there was a woman in a bathrobe pushing a cart up and down the aisles at an unsafe speed while ranting to imaginary people.

    Sounds like a Monty Python routine.

  92. 92.

    Jackie

    I see Mike Pence’s brother Greg has joined a handful of republicans and decided to retire from congress.

    I’m hoping they see the writing on the wall and have had enough of the GQP chaos and House infighting/squabbling/temper tantrums. And also see that TIFG is going off the deep end faster and faster and are just “done.”

  93. 93.

    cain

    @Gin & Tonic: haha! We were just talking about her yesterday on a thread “what is Tulsi doing lately?” since she’s largely been ignored now. But looks like she’s moving on up from Joe Rogan’s show to this – go Elon!

  94. 94.

    Soprano2

    @PaulWartenberg: Here I’m so used to that “tornado watch” thing that I don’t even pay any attention to it. If there’s a warning of a sighted tornado on my side of town, then I’m paying attention. None of that “radar indicated” stuff, I mean a real tornado

    Some kind of weather is probably going to kill me someday because I ignored it. LOL

  95. 95.

    catclub

    @Shalimar: AI has determined that your house will be leveled in 10 minutes! It is too late to evacuate! It sucks to be you!”

     

    “the Tornado will suck you out of your house!”

    FTFY

  96. 96.

    Soprano2

    @MagdaInBlack: No that’s not being a coward, that is common sense. Snow isn’t a big deal unless there’s a lot of it. Ice, on the other hand, is of the devil and not to be messed with.

  97. 97.

    cain

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’m not at all sure my life is enhanced, or indeed affected in any way, by knowing about the Secretary’s medical details. But the media are beside themselves.

    But relatively unmoved by the holds on military promotions.

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The scum of the White House Press Corpse are flagellating Secretary Austin’s situation.

  100. 100.

    cain

    @Geminid:

    @SiubhanDuinne: It’s a slow news period, and journalists are hyping this story because that’s what they do. People are talking about all the bad things that could have happened from January 1st to the 5th, but they leave out an important point: these bad things did not in fact happen.

    Wait till they find out that there is likely no money to do anything anyways because the GOP hasn’t approved any budget.

    ETA #100!!!!!!!!

  101. 101.

    Soprano2

    @geg6: I wonder how the road maintenance is divided up there. We have roads running through our city that “belong” to MODot, so they maintain and plow them. Then outside the city, the roads are maintained by the county unless they’re a state road. It’s extremely confusing to the public, who only see snow plows and don’t understand why they aren’t on the road they want to drive on.

  105. 105.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: That’s what staff is for. What if he had been unconscious for that entire time? Staff would have handled it. That’s what deputies are for. They’re all acting as if there was no one else who could do anything.

  107. 107.

    trollhattan

    @Soprano2: ‘Tis very critical to distinguish “watch” from “warning” and mind the 2nd.

    A tornado has been sighted or indicated by weather radar. There is imminent danger to life and property. Move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Avoid windows. If in a mobile home, you are fucked, we’re afraid.

  110. 110.

    HumboldtBlue

    Fuck it, if its weather we’re doing let’s do the weather right!

    This Afternoon
    A slight chance of showers between 1pm and 4pm, then a slight chance of rain after 4pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 53. West northwest wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

    Tonight
    Rain, mainly after 10pm. Low around 46. West southwest wind 8 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

    Wednesday
    Showers, with thunderstorms also possible after 10am. Some of the storms could produce small hail. High near 51. North northwest wind 11 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

    Wednesday Night
    Showers and possibly a thunderstorm before 10pm, then a chance of showers. Some of the storms could produce small hail. Low around 40. North northeast wind 5 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

    Thursday
    A 40 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 49. East wind around 6 mph becoming west northwest in the afternoon. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

    Thursday Night
    A chance of showers before 4am, then a chance of rain after 4am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 45. West wind around 7 mph becoming south after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

    Friday
    Rain likely, mainly after 10am. Cloudy, with a high near 53. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.

    Friday Night
    Rain. Cloudy, with a low around 49.

    Saturday
    Rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 53. Breezy.

    Saturday Night
    Rain likely, mainly before 10pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 46.

    Sunday
    A chance of rain. Partly sunny, with a high near 52.

    Sunday Night
    A slight chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 44.

    M.L.King Day
    A chance of rain. Partly sunny, with a high near 54.

  111. 111.

    Butch

    @Soprano2: Definitely going to be colder here, too, but it’s been unseasonably warm so far this winter, so I guess we’re due. I think it was the winter of 2013 when we had 65 days below zero.

  115. 115.

    Jackie

    @HumboldtBlue: Good grief, no wonder Austin wanted to keep his privacy private. Darned complications! The media gaggle is ridiculously nosey.

    It sounds like Biden has his back.

  117. 117.

    Soprano2

    @trollhattan: Yep, I live in “tornado alley”, thus completely ignoring a tornado watch. It means there might be a tornado later, stand by for further information. We have a TV station here that does what I call “weather porn” when we have tornado watches and warnings. They go full tilt weather, sometimes for hours. The ironic thing is that the people who need to see it the most probably can’t because they don’t have power.

  122. 122.

    Soprano2

    @Butch: I just looked at next week’s forecast, and it’s definitely time to get out my long down coat – lows at zero or below zero!

  125. 125.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: There is reporting that Austin’s staffers might not have not handled this matter well, so one or more of them may have to fall on their spork.

    But overall, military operations did not seem to be affected even though forces in Syria, Iraq and the Red Sea are operating in very problematic conditions. I’d say this is evidence that Secretary Austin has the Defense Department in good running order, with clear and sound directives for theatre commanders.

  126. 126.

    StringOnAStick

    @Kelly: I too buy suet with cayenne, and it works.  I watched a squirrel take a bite, freak out, then come back and try another.  By the second bite he was running away like he was being chased.

    Speaking of big weather, the Oregon Cascades and adjacent areas are currently in a significant blizzard.  I’m watching snow pile up here on the drier lee side of the mountains and we didn’t even attempt to go skiing given the roads and the winds.  Blizzard warning goes through 4 pm Wednesday.!

  128. 128.

    Baud

    @Geminid: Yeah, but what if Hamas had challenged Austin to settle the Gaza conflict in a battle of champions mano a mano? We would have been caught with our pants down!

  131. 131.

    dr. luba

    @Soprano2: Russia?  Old news.  And it’s boring and complicated.  They need a simply but shiny new object to obsess about…..

    This has been the wettest, grayest, dampest, foggiest winter in SE Michigan in my memory.  We finally got a bit of snow on Christmas morning (January 7), but it mostly melted away by evening.  Snow again this morning, then rain all day.

    We may get 8.6 inches of snow Friday, and temps are finally set to go into the teens over the weekend.  Hallelujah!  I can deal with real cold, it’s that damp cold that make me and my joints miserable.

  133. 133.

    Jackie

    Oh noes! From the WaPo:

    Republican polling leader Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened unrest if the criminal charges against him cause him to lose the 2024 election.

    Speaking to reporters after an appeals court hearing in which Trump’s lawyers said he should be immune from prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election, Trump claimed without evidence that he was being prosecuted because of polls showing him leading President Biden. He warned that if the charges succeed in damaging his candidacy, the result would be “bedlam.”
    gift link: https://wapo.st/4aMWTEh

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Or the Houthis might have sunk our naval task force cruising in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. One of their spokesman was warning American sailors that they’d better write goodbye letters to their families while they still could. Makes me think that Yemeni khat is some good stuff.

  136. 136.

    smith

    @Jackie: Yeah, the guy’s been arraigned four times in the past year, and most of the bedlam at the scenes came from people shouting, “Lock him up!” His Goobers may have violence in their hearts, but after seeing what happened to the J4 insurrectionists, most of them seem happy to do their bedlam via anonymous phone calls and emails.

  139. 139.

    Martin

    @Baud: I remember a forecast in Connecticut during a visit there that called for 0-12 inches of snow. I mean, that’s a perfectly accurate forecast for either Los Angeles or Chicago right now.

  140. 140.

    trollhattan

    @Geminid: Houthi already sounds like some clan from Star Wars and then they start shooting missiles at ships. I want to see the script.

  141. 141.

    Kelly

    @StringOnAStick: I’ve never been near a real avalanche but I got quite a scare once back in the 70’s. We’d climbed Mt Jefferson in May. Hadn’t snowed for a couple weeks up there good footing. Trip went well until clouds blew in creating a near white out on our descent. Wasn’t cold and we could follow our tracks so we weren’t worried. I was at the back of the party on about a 45 degree slope. A slab of snow maybe 10 feet on a side and a bit less than foot thick broke loose with me standing in the middle of it. I dropped into self arrest and was really confused by the circumstance that I was stopped on my slab but still sliding down the mountain on the natural sled. “OMG avalanche!!!” Well it was just a really small one. I busted the slab apart and got stopped just as I caught up with the rest of my party.

  142. 142.

    trollhattan

    @StringOnAStick: Nice to hear the PNW is getting snow. CA is way behind average and it’s already mid-January. We have two months to accumulate a year’s worth.

  144. 144.

    TBone

    @Jackie: A reporter on MSNBC noted that the only time dotard appeared to animate during today’s proceedings was when someone mentioned his poll.

  145. 145.

    Soprano2

    @Butch: Makes me really really really glad I have a gas furnace now. Having to go outside to go to the basement to stoke the wood furnace; in fact, even having to build a fire in the first place when it’s zero, is no fun at all. I’m too old for that shit.

  147. 147.

    japa21

    @Soprano2: ​
      Just looked at our extended forecast (Chicago area). Friday 8 inches of snow, by Monday a high of -3 and a low of -8. After Friday we won’t see the 20’s until around the 24th.

  148. 148.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Soprano2: ​
     

    Back in Osage County, we were at the dead end of a lettered state road nestled between two bluffs. Couldn’t get out until MoDOT plowed. I’ll give them credit, it might take them a couple of hours to get to us but they always did.

    The county would then come in and plow the streets of our tiny-assed, 60-person town, again, nothing fast but we always felt like we were taken care of.

    All our non-state administered roads were gravel and I can’t remember how much of them the county would get to.

    Of course that’s back when it snowed there. Over the course of our 22 years there, we definitely saw climate change.

  151. 151.

    Harrison Wesley

    Damn.  Manatee County just declared a weather state of emergency.  Guess I’d better start getting scared.  Maybe after dinner.

  152. 152.

    Scout211

    @Soprano2: None of that “radar indicated” stuff, I mean a real tornado.

    I grew up in the Midwest and we were used to tornado watches and warnings and the town emergency sirens back then.  But here in California, tornadoes used to be a rarity.  Not so much anymore.

    Last January, in the “Great Storms of 2023” here in California, we were awakened with our phones going off with that horrid alert sound at 3:00 am and a message, “A TORNADO HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN YOUR AREA! TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY, ” etc.  I got up to check the Doppler to see where the tornado was.  Then the house felt like it was blowing down and the power went out.  Then a few minutes later it was just wind and rain.  There was a small tornado but it touched down about 12 miles from here.  The winds were scary, though.

    This current overly dramatic “weather as crisis” news reporting is annoying.  But the alerts and warnings on our phones these days are actually a nice upgrade from the town emergency sirens from back in the day.

  153. 153.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jackie:

    He warned that if the charges succeed in damaging his candidacy, the result would be “bedlam.”

    I see he decided not to go with ‘wild’ this time.

    I suspect that the people who might have otherwise been tempted to get wild at TFG’s instigation continue to be a bit put off by the fact that well over a thousand participants in the 1/6 insurrection are having to deal with the legal system in less-than-pleasant ways for them, and (IIRC) over 700 have been sentenced to prison time.  Maybe he can get people to show up at a rally, but not too many are willing to risk a stay in Hotel Graybar on his behalf.

  155. 155.

    Geminid

    @trollhattan: It’s pretty sad, actually. For years Yemen was considered the world’s biggest humanitarian problem because of the civil war that began 12 years ago. They finally got a durable ceasefire last year because both sides basically were fought out.

    Now the Houthis have decided to take part in a war being fought 600 miles away. Maybe their neighbors can talk them down. I sure hope they can.

  156. 156.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Harrison Wesley:

    Damn.  Manatee County just declared a weather state of emergency.  Guess I’d better start getting scared.  Maybe after dinner.

    So that’s Manatee County, and half of Polk County is supposedly closing down.  My in-laws are in Hillsborough County, so I’m thinking they might be having some weather as well.

  157. 157.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    The opinion piece gets much of the background right, but still comes across as limp and unfocused.

    Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small.

    This is how Trump has succeeded with his base. They don’t care about the Establishment or tradition or norms. They pretend to disdain convention. They like this guy who is as stupid as they are, who promises simple answers to complex issues, who hates the same groups and elites that they hate.

    Of course, he’s not going to deliver on his promises. But he will be gone before the suckers notice.

  158. 158.

    StringOnAStick

    @Kelly: Slab avalanche can be quite deadly.  We dug up a dead guy once at the former ski area at Berthoud pass in CO; the snow was only a foot deep but the winds overnight had turned it into slab.  We got roped into the rescue by his buddy who found us on the parking lot. We made it a point to never go down the runs they had gone down because they were too steep for CO’s always dangerous snowpack and those runs were classic terrain traps; wide at the top, narrow at the bottom.  Thanks to being on a snowboard he was buried head down under 8′ of cemented snow since those things act like sails.  The rescue effort never had a chance, his neck was very clearly broken.

    Snowboards in avalanche terrain are scary since their bindings don’t release like AT bindings or regular alpine bindings do.  It also one of the reasons we stopped telemark skiing: bindings that don’t release.  We really appreciate the safer, more stable Cascade snowpack and we are older, safety oriented skiers, not out looking for steep runs.

  159. 159.

    bluefoot

    @Jackie: “Nice country you’ve got there, be shame if anything happened to it…”

    TFG can’t help but think like a penny-ante mob boss.  Someday we will no longer have to hear what comes out of his piehole, but alas, it is not that day.

  162. 162.

    EarthWindFire

    @Jackie: He warned that if the charges succeed in damaging his candidacy, the result would be “bedlam”

    So Donny’s threatening us with a good time again, huh? I doubt the courts will be amused.

  163. 163.

    Dan B

    @StringOnAStick: When I first moved to Seattle there was a bad winter for avalanches especially the North Cascades.  I backpacked into a valley surrounded by 9,000 foot peaks.  The valley floor was 3,500 feet with big Doug Firs that had been mowed off at 15 feet in some places and 30 feet in other swaths.  Some were undoubtedly been hit by airborne avalanches.  In August there were massive mounds of snow and tree trunks one hundred feet up the slopes opposite.  I was impressed.

  164. 164.

    Spurwing Plover

    We     got  Snow  on Saturday    that  White  Stuff    they  said we   would  never  see  again.   Someone  needs  to applogise

  165. 165.

    Jackie

    @lowtechcyclist: Not to mention those willing to create bedlam are ALREADY behind bars.

    When TIFG is handcuffed and led away to his own jail cell, he’ll be screaming threats of retaliation from his very fine MAGAts.

  168. 168.

    kalakal

    @lowtechcyclist: Interesting, here in Pinellas we were under the Tornado watches etc. Clearwater didn’t shut anything down, down on the coast in the library with the self destructing sprinkler system* it was a bit breezy, rained hard for about 20 minutes, some thunder and lightning and that really was it. At kalakal towers about 5 miles inland mrs kalakal said it was quite scary, lots of wind rain. Still getting spatterings of rain and there’s a bit of tree debris. From the weather radars here it was a thin, fast moving strip and that’s what we got, It looked a lot worse further north so I’m surprised at Manatee.

    *The library is hardened to stand up to a cat 4 or 5 hurricane, the floors between stories alone are 4ft thick reinforced concrete. We get great views of storms. Of course getting to and from work is a different story.

  169. 169.

    MomSense

    We are also expecting another big storm with 5-6 inches of rain and 50+ mph winds.  We have a lot of snow so the combination of heavy rain and rapid snow melt will mean more terrible flooding.  We lost a lot of trees in the last storm and expect more with this one.  Ugh. I think people are finally realizing how vulnerable communities along the rivers are because of climate change.

  171. 171.

    PaulWartenberg

    Seeing video clips on Twitter about water spout hitting Panama City’s shore earlier this morning and ye Gods the followup clips are showing half the houses knocked over or pulverized. I dread how many people are hurt or killed. :(

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