Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

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

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

White supremacy is terrorism.

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

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

“woke” is the new caravan.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

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

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

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Teatime Open Thread

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This post is in: 

It’s 4 p.m. here, 11 a.m. at Balloon-Juice HQ. An ideal time for a hot beverage:

mugs that go hard

A dear friend who’s a good step or five to my left, politically, made that mug for me as a one-off. She has others here; I may get the “Perhaps Today, Satan!” one.

I was going to vent about local politics (it’s not a spoiler to say that Labour’s newborn government is failing to thrive at 11 weeks old) but I’m on call to help with algebra homework. Talk amongst yourselves.

Reader Interactions

134Comments

  4. 4.

    Anonymous At Work

    I wouldn’t mind if Starmer called in Elmo about disinformation and providing material support to the Russian-backed Nazis that rioted in a coordinated fashion recently.  Maybe a juicy Show Wealth order related to Twitter as well.  Desperately and openly trying to change the subject?  Sure.  Without merit?  Nope, plenty of merit.  No jumping to conclusions; take a short step and there conclusions are.

  6. 6.

    Rose Judson

    @Anonymous At Work:

    I wouldn’t mind if Starmer called in Elmo about disinformation and providing material support to the Russian-backed Nazis that rioted in a coordinated fashion recently.

    I would be thrilled if he did that. My expectations are pretty low, tho.

    He gave a speech at the Labour conference today. I’ll read it later. 

  8. 8.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    It’s bullshit optics for Starmer to accept that kind of money (£100k) for gifts from donors. This is a perilous time, with a lot of people struggling financially. Why hand that kind of ammo to your enemies?

  11. 11.

    Kelly

    Just finished making coffee here on the left coast while 15 week old border collie Daisy gently licked my toes.

  13. 13.

    Steve LaBonne

    When people want to complain about the Democratic Party, I remind them how favorably it compares in both accomplishments and political strength to almost every other major center-left party in the world, including UK Labour.

  15. 15.

    SatanicPanic

    @Steve LaBonne: Yeah I like to say that the Democratic Party, especially the California Democratic Party is leading the world in actually implementing new progressive policy. Sure, the UK has national healthcare, but what has the left accomplished there lately? Nothing on the scale of what our party has.

  16. 16.

    Hildebrand

    I’m guessing even the crows would be like, ‘jeez, my standards aren’t that low, I’m not eating that…I know where it’s been.’

  17. 17.

    john b

    OP:

     I’m on call to help with algebra homework. Talk amongst yourselves.

    Man I love(d) algebra! Looking forward to my oldest getting to it in a year or two. He loves math, too, so he might not need the help. But I love the tidiness of an algebra solution.

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Steve LaBonne: I *still* hear people claiming “the Democrats would be a right-wing party in Europe” and I don’t think that’s been true for, oh, the past 15 years at least. It might have been true in 1996.

  20. 20.

    Rose Judson

    @john b: The Child is finally beginning to appreciate the tidiness. She was pretty annoyed when letters first started appearing in her homework, but I explained they are basically impostors, and you just have to use the clues to work out who they are.

  21. 21.

    Dangerman

    Not sure because crows don’t just eat. It seems to me there is a nonzero that the crows will shit on my car and having Elon shit on my car sounds wrong.

    Crows also like to fuck (Elon also likes  to… oh, nevermind). I think any combination of the two could be bad for the crow population, leading to more crow shit, and we’ve already covered that nightmare.

    Speaking of shit, after 2024, maybe we can have some sort of process where we don’t have piles of shit running for President; hell, even Republicans know he’s a piece of shit, but pissing off the libs is more important to them then whether or not their candidate is a POS.

    I don’t know the answer.

  22. 22.

    Matt McIrvin

    (If anything, the MAGA-era Republicans are more like the fascist-curious hard-right parties that have been growing like weeds in Europe for the past couple of decades, obsessed with banging the drum on the menace of dusky foreigners.)

  23. 23.

    Belafon

    @john b: Now that all of my kids are grown, I have decided to restart my attempt to learn math and physics. My first attempt at college I was a math and physics major, but burnt out and I have forgotten most of it. So I am currently working through a calculus book, and once I get through about half of it, I am going to start a college physics book. I have a whole spreadsheet of books that I want to get through, that will take me through a whole bunch of math and science.

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: The British left has this odd nostalgia for coal that is all bound up in Margaret Thatcher using the end of coal as a means of smashing organized labor. It made the partisan breakdown of the issue all strange there–and I think contributed to some leftists in the UK believing in global warming denialism they got from the American right. I haven’t heard any of that in a while though, so maybe it’s over.

  28. 28.

    Chris

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think to the extent that there’s any truth to it, it’s that the sort of technocratic center-right types who’d be running mainstream conservative parties in Europe, if they were in the United States, would be Democrats.  You couldn’t get Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron to succeed as Republicans; they’d never survive.  They’d have to run as Democrats.

    The reason the statement’s a lie is the assumption that, because these people would be Democrats in America, that’s somehow all there is to the Democratic Party.  Most Democrats are to the left of those guys.

    But the whole idea that the European right-wing is still defined by that old-fashioned center-right brand of Gaullist or Christian-Democrat politics is increasingly anachronistic in this day and age, too.  Most European countries took a turn into their own Southern Strategy territory a while ago.

  29. 29.

    john b

    @Belafon: do you have programming experience / interest?

    I have gone through periods of having fun with Project Euler

    It’s basically a ton of math problems that need some computing to be done well and some knowledge of different math and / or programming concepts to be done efficiently. One cool thing is that once you’ve solved a problem successfully you can see how others in the community solved it on a messageboard for each problem.

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris: Yeah, I could imagine Merkel or Macron as a never-Trumper conservative grudgingly voting for Democrats. But in the US, those people aren’t a party.

  33. 33.

    Betty Cracker

    Contrary to the reflexive snark expressed in earlier comments, I like your mug-making friend’s sentiment, corvids and all. When Musk hangs from a gibbet at his window for the sport of crows, I will have peace.

  34. 34.

    eclare

    Day two with William thanks to satby, he is such a love bug.  His second name is Pooh, because he is orange and stuffed with fluff.  He gets to meet my kitty Jacy today!  Meeting my dog is still a few days off.

  39. 39.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @princess leia:

    The mug choices are fantastic!!!!

    I agree! I’m partial to the praying mantis one (made you look, jackals?). Wish I drank more warm beverages besides the one cup of tea in the morning (with milk, grandpa was a proper Brit who passed on that tradition). Still, maybe I’ll place an order for Xmas gifts to my coffee loving family members and pick up one for my not so caffinated self.

  40. 40.

    HumboldtBlue

    @eclare: ​
    As a man with direct links to the formation of the Sinn Fein, a ginger Billy, William of Orange, despite being a love bug, is not my first choice for a play date with Noodles.​

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think the Democratic ones mostly purged themselves from the party sometime between 2016 and 2020, though certainly the party mainstream is more *cautious* about support for Ukraine than most people here would like.

    And that’s not so long ago really.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    As it’s a wide open thread –

    Forgot to mention the recent flight from JFK to Honolulu had an old school flavor.

    This geezer has no qualms taking advantage of “pre-boarding” (one leg is not all it could be). Which for this flight meant queuing at the gate, then walking outside to a full size all-electric bus with maybe a half dozen seats, meaning the rest of us, yours truly included, stood while holding on to poles or clutching hanging straps with one hand, luggage with the other. Said bus took us on a ride through and around the airport for like 8 or possibly 10 minutes to the plane, parked well away from any building, which we boarded on the tarmac. Not by staircase, rather by way of a telescoping mechanism raised to the door height, consisting of multiple levels of steep (open on the sides to the weather) ramps. Perspiring up a storm by the time I hobbled to the top in 85 degree heat, pulling a rolling suitcase behind.

  45. 45.

    Belafon

    @Dangerman: I’m going to use his lectures as introduction to topics.

    @john b: I will have to add that to my list of resources. I am a software engineer, so I have a little experience.

    My goal is to also make a website to show my progress and let others have access to what I have figured out; even though I like to read books, I am planning on using online resources as well. I suspect I’ll be lucky if I end up with a dozen people looking at it, but it also means I have to figure out some web development (why do things small).

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: I had to do something like that changing flights at London Heathrow, which seems chronically short on infrastructure for the traffic it gets.

    The telescoping ramps were used by some of the “mobile lounges” that used to be the main way to get to the plane at Dulles. (Others would actually jackscrew themselves up to the height of the plane and dock with it that way.) Very futuristic for the late 1960s, but they only do that with a few flights these days–however, some still exist as one of the means of transport to the midfield terminals that actually have the jet bridges.

  49. 49.

    zhena gogolia

    @eclare: I had a beloved orange cat we called William of Orange (Willy most of the time) because he showed up on Orange St. in New Haven. Congratulations on William!

  53. 53.

    rikyrah

    FrontPagers:

     

    Please please please

    Find this reply and post it. I have been crying for the past 5 minutes over it.

    MS Democratic Party

    @msdemocrats

    With permission from Catherine, we’re sharing this about the last vote of her lifetime. She knows her time is limited, but she showed up to vote on day one for
    @KamalaHarris
    and
    @Tim_Walz
    . What an amazing and heartfelt story. May God bless and comfort Catherine and her family.

    https://x.com/msdemocrats/status/1838574928691343548/photo/1

    https://x.com/msdemocrats/status/1838574928691343548/photo/2

  54. 54.

    SatanicPanic

    @Chris: Stein was in the news recently for paying $100K to a Republican consulting firm, which shouldn’t be surprising to anyone paying attention.

  55. 55.

    SatanicPanic

    I generally ignore I/P news because the situation there is hopeless, but JFC is Israel going to war with Lebanon now too?

  57. 57.

    JAFD

    If I may join in giving Ms. Judson a warm welcome, and wishes for many years of happy blogging.

    Now, a couple of questions related to this past weekend’s Bluesky kerfluffle:

    1 – Where is ‘Stoke Newington’ and whatyehell doth you Brits mean, by references to it ?  I had never heard of that locality before, thot of virtual wandering thru it in Google Streetview, decided ‘twould be waste of time.  Still bewildered.

    2 – Who ye heck would name a daughter ‘Jemima’ ?  Did her folks have no friends who’d been across the Atlantic ?

    Thanks very much for whatever enlightenment you can provide me.  Good luck, good writing, and mayhaps ’twill see you at a meetup, east or west of the Atlantic.

  58. 58.

    dmsilev

    @Belafon: One thing to be aware of with Feynman’s Lectures. They’re absolutely wonderful works for getting an understanding and appreciation for the underpinnings of physics, but if you want to learn the tools for quantitatively solving problems, they’re …not optimal. Unless you have a Feynman-level intuition for how to go from the abstract to the concrete. Absolutely go through them for the beauty and elegance of his approach, but consider pairing with a more conventional text as well.

  61. 61.

    BR

    Anyone know what Harris and Walz are up to these days? Seems like they haven’t done many rallies recently. I wonder if they’re recording podcasts or interviews or something.

  62. 62.

    TBone

    @JAFD: just an f.y.i. Jemima is a biblical name (Job’s daughter).  I understand the now not so nice meaning it connotates.  Wikipedia says it means “dove.”

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    @JAFD

    Think I may have left your card in New York in the last minute packing rush. Sent a message to WaterGirl requesting providing you with my e-mail.

  66. 66.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Matt McIrvin:

    @Chris:

    They brought up their dissatisfaction with the US’ efforts to support Ukraine, so I think that’s the root of it, saying the US is blocking the use of even EU weapons for Ukraine. They also claimed that Taiwan was going to be “so fucked”.

    This all stemmed from me saying that far-right parties were springing up into power around the world, and I used Italy as an example. They defended the Brothers of Italy (and other similar parties in Germany, France, Britain, etc) as being like the Republicans of the 1990s, that they changed to support NATO and oppose Russia by supporting Ukraine, moderated their social stances, and that only the US had a Project 2025 hanging over people’s heads

  67. 67.

    Anyway

    @Matt McIrvin:I had to do something like that changing flights at London Heathrow, which seems chronically short on infrastructure for the traffic it gets.

    Same. I’ve encountered it  often at LHR when changing flights within Europe. Doesn’t seem to happen on flights to Asia or returning to the US. Never had to use the bus/stairway for flights within the US.

  68. 68.

    BellyCat

    @Rose Judson: She was pretty annoyed when letters first started appearing in her homework, but I explained they are basically impostors, and you just have to use the clues to work out who they are.

    SO stealing this!

    If your kid is into Among Us (as mine is) this description is doubly brilliant.

  69. 69.

    TBone

    @NotMax: I almost used the words “nightmare scenario” in my comment – lovely trip to Europe almost overshadowed by airport experiences but the good memories outweigh that short but memorable SNAFU.  Glad to see it will be improved!

  71. 71.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Just finished listening to the Audible of Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime. It’s a tough read / listen, because apartheid and the damage it caused to multiple generations, even years after the reforms, runs all through every aspect of Trevor’s life.

    I kept reflecting about Elon and his life of rich South African white privilege all through my listen, and that added an extra layer of rage and reasons to hate Elon.

    Edit to add: It appears there were some talks to do a movie adaptation of the book, starring Lupita Nyong’o as Trevor’s scary, beautiful, amazing mother. I can’t find any recent mention of that project which makes me think that he might have lost clout with the Hollywood idiots after giving up The Daily Show.

  72. 72.

    scav

    @JAFD: Oh yes, all parents welcoming children internationally must take care to take into consideration and avoid one possible connotation of a name to the American public.   Karens have utterly and universally ceased to be born in the last few years.  The delicate American sensibility is so very critical to everything that happens anywhere everywhere, always.

  73. 73.

    Matt McIrvin

    @dmsilev: What I eventually found the Feynman Lectures were good for was a review pass at undergrad physics when you’re a first-year graduate student. They’re absolutely top-notch at that! They provide all sorts of quirky wrong-way-around insights, after you’ve been taught the subject the normal way.

    I wouldn’t ever use them as my first introduction. Feynman himself thought the undergrad course they were based on was a failure.

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Have you ever lived where a lot of crows hang out?

    One or two isn’t usually all that loud, except the other day there was one in the tree in my front yard and he was making more noise than anything near normal. But a crow reunion can be just a tad LOUDER. I can’t tell if their hearing is limited or they are just loud beaks.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t think it’s vatnik infiltration, I think it’s Joe Biden’s stated reluctance to avoid “World War III.” Of course Adam has argued at length that he’s mistaken about that, but I don’t think it means he’s under influence from Putin mouthpieces.

  76. 76.

    Gin & Tonic

    @HumboldtBlue: Lev has *all* the receipts, and seems to have run out of fucks to give a long time ago.

    But if you dig back in the B-J archives (boy, it’s too bad Steep is no longer among us) you’ll find plenty of real-time bashing of Vogel, by Adam and other interested and informed parties.

  77. 77.

    narya

    Since it’s an open thread: I HATE CICADA MITES. I am concluding that that’s what has been biting me. It’s not mosquitos, because I never see any mosquitos, and, frankly, the bites don’t act like mosquito bites. They don’t show up immediately but they itch like fuck when they do show up, they take forever to heal, and they leave a mark that lasts for weeks. I currently have about a dozen of them. The only thing I’ve found that works on them is a Benadryl gel (which seems to speed the process of moving from big/itchy/annoying to lingering red welt). What is especially annoying is that they have prevented me from sitting on my back porch, which is one of the great joys of summer, because I know I’ll end up with another half-dozen welts. /now leaving the rant zone/

  80. 80.

    TBone

    @Ruckus: crows are also famous for their intelligence.  We’ve got a very loud murder of crows here where I live, and they frequently scream to alert all the smaller birds when a large bird of prey is lurking.

  82. 82.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Matt McIrvin: Funny, a good friend of mine, PhD in physics and retired from a long, long career in cutting-edge applied research (winning a ton of awards on the way) has now, in retirement, embarked on re-reading the Feynman lectures.

  83. 83.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The West European far-rightists are probably more liberal than ours on the cultural hot-button issues like abortion and LGBT rights, but they use it mostly as a hammer to whack immigrants, saying that they’re a threat to all that. Trump was posing at being that kind of far-rightist in 2016, but of course he dances with those who brung him.

    But go to Eastern Europe and Russia… they’re not like that. Hardcore theocratic, gender-reactionary, natalist and anti-gay, etc.

  84. 84.

    tam1MI

    Just read that Mark Zuckerberg is about to claim the title of Richest Man in the World and my first reaction was, “SUCK IT, ELON MUSK!!!”

  85. 85.

    TBone

    @narya: I too have had a go with awful, itchy bites recently by invisible insect.  We call them chiggers where I live.  And the bites DO last for weeks. A good spray with DEET on anything that might be infested (outdoor furniture, etc.) keeps them at bay.  Those little bastards are the WORST and hubby never even gets a bite while I am covered in itchy red bites for weeks 🤬

  86. 86.

    raven

    @Ruckus: We used to drive up to Mt Baldy when I was kid. On the way back we’d stop by the field near Ontario. The crows would;d sit on the fence and as soon as my dad would pull the 22 out of the trunk they were gone!

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @narya:

    Wow. Never heard of cicada mites, but now I wonder if that’s what’s been biting me all summer. Your description matches my experience in every detail.

    Have added Benadryl gel to my shopping list. Thanks for that tip.

  88. 88.

    rikyrah

    Jazz the Professor
    @Jazzieeiswhoiam
    #OTD Sept 24, 1957: Prez Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the 327th Airborne Battle Group of the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, AR, to escort 9 Black students, AKA the “Little Rock 9”, to Central HS, as part of an effort to enforce school integration following a Supreme Court ruling and against the resistance of Arkansas Gov Orval Faubus; this action was called “Operation Arkansas”.
    #History
    https://eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/civil-rights-little-rock-school-integration-crisis
    https://x.com/Jazzieeiswhoiam/status/1838532959139152114

  89. 89.

    Gin & Tonic

    Incidentally, the first batch of autumn olive jam came out quite tasty. I went with a low-sugar formulation, so it’s tart, but very fruity, really unlike anything I’m familiar with.

  90. 90.

    HumboldtBlue

    Email communications from individuals associated with the Trump campaign have been hacked by malign actors within the last ten days, Popular Information has confirmed.

    On September 18, I was sent a message from “Robert,” which contained the cover page of a dossier on Senator JD Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice presidential nominee, dated February 23, 2024. Robert refused to identify himself except to suggest it was the same “Robert” who provided stolen internal Trump campaign materials to Politico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post in July and August. “I thought you must have heard Robert’s story,” he said.

    Robert eventually sent me a 271-page Vance dossier, along with similar dossiers on two other potential Donald Trump running mates —  a 382-page document on North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R), dated March 2, 2024, and a 550-page document on Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), dated April 1, 2024. All of the dossiers were marked “Privileged & Confidential.”

    Robert boasted that he had “a lot” of other Trump campaign materials. He sent me a dozen purported emails to and from top Trump campaign staff, including senior advisor Susie Wiles, senior advisor Dan Scavino, and pollster John McLaughlin. The emails covered an 11-month period, from October 2023 to August 2024.

  92. 92.

    PAM Dirac

    @TBone:

    they frequently scream to alert all the smaller birds when a large bird of prey is lurking.

    Where I live the crows don’t seem to be screaming to alert others, but they are taking on the hawks, etc. directly. They don’t give the bigger birds the slightest deference. They don’t seem to be particularly kind to the smaller birds, but I guess the smaller birds don’t stick around to challenge them. Which works out well for my little vineyard as the crows don’t eat the grapes, but chase away the birds that would eat the grapes.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:

    As an old fart who worked on democratic elections nearly 60 yrs ago and have been in Europe a number of times decades ago, it really isn’t true. Sure we may have differing details, we are different people under different governing systems with different customs and countries, and it sure is possible but I seriously doubt that the range of humans is wider anywhere on this planet, or much less unless under a very restrictive government. Humans do human after all, good/bad/indifferent.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Gin & Tonic: The most famous bit is Volume III, where he does quantum mechanics, and he introduces it absolutely the reverse way around from the conventional treatment–starting with spin, which is usually an advanced second-semester kind of topic, then going to other kinds of discrete systems and getting to the Schrödinger equation last. I think the idea is to hit the audience with the most bizarre and counterintuitive principles of QM first, but in a way that is mathematically simple. But it makes it quite otherworldly.

    Sakurai’s graduate-level text was inspired by it. But that’s a graduate-level text.

    A lot of the physical subjects Feynman treats are like that–he comes at it from a direction that is not the one you usually start with, and works sort of in reverse. On exception is his treatment of special relativity, which seems surprisingly old-hat to me. I don’t think his heart was in it.

  95. 95.

    TBone

    @SiubhanDuinne: the good news is, once you feel the itch, they’re already gone.

    They do not actually “bite”, but instead form a hole in the skin called a stylostome and chew up tiny parts of the inner skin, thus causing irritation and swelling. The itching is accompanied by red, pimple-like bumps (papules) or hives and skin rash or lesions on a sun-exposed area. For humans, itching usually occurs after the larvae detach from the skin.[15]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombiculidae

  96. 96.

    Scout211

    @narya: Oh no!  That sounds awful.  I hope you find some relief or some way to eradicate them.  Is there any insect spray that can kill them or at least deter them?  Pest control?

    I have developed a similar insect issue and I just learned there is an actual name for it: Skeeter Syndrome.   It’s an allergic reaction to mosquito saliva. Eww!

    Once I have a bite, it develops into an allergic reaction, getting red and swollen and itching worse than I ever remember experiencing.  Reading about it, the symptoms last up to 10 days or more.  I had one on my face that was there for a month.  Topical cortisone and benedryl helps with the itching and rash but it still takes weeks to resolve.

  98. 98.

    TBone

    @PAM Dirac: 👍 I have seen them harassing hawks in midair also, it’s quite entertaining.  Sometimes they team up. I’m glad to hear your perspective on the natural hierarchy pecking order. 😊

  100. 100.

    bbleh

    Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said Tuesday that he has “no plans to call a special session” to change the way the state allocates electoral votes to a winner-take-all system, ending an effort led by Donald Trump.

    CNN “breaking”

  101. 101.

    KrackenJack

    @Belafon: Good for you! I’d like to brush up on my math, but there are so many other things I’d like to do. Plus, I find myself gravitating to the novellas in in the new book section of the library, so maybe I don’t have have the attention span that I used to have.

  102. 102.

    eclare

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Oral Benadryl stops the itch immediately.  Mosquitos love me, I have tried all preventives, up to 95% DEET from the Bass Pro store, and all topicals to stop the itch.  The only cure for the itch is a pill.

  105. 105.

    narya

    @Scout211: I haven’t tried Off yet, but I’m thinking of spraying the backs of my porch chairs (rather than the front–I don’t relish sitting in/on the spray residue) before I sit outside again. Skeeter Syndrome sounds awful, too! I do find that the aforementioned Benadryl gel works pretty well, both in reducing the itch and in helping the bite shrink/heal. The red welt lasts longer than the itch does, but it’s the itch that is the most annoying. Given that I also run or walk nearly every day (today it’s been raining on and off, so probably not today), it may not even be the back porch that’s the culprit, but it’s the only environment I can control, so . . .

  107. 107.

    Ruckus

    @TBone:

    Most airports are a pain in the whatever. Or is it the everywhere? I worked in professional sports full time for a decade, traveling all around the country 8 months a year. Fly out on Wednesday or Thursday, fly home on Monday, work in the office Tuesday and if there on Wednesday, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat……. I have slept on the floor of Hartsfield airport in Atlanta on more than one occasion. And was NEVER the only one.

    I have no favorite airport, just some I liked even less than normal.

  108. 108.

    WaterGirl

    I keep pretty towels on my furniture on the screened-in porch when I’m not out there.  Which I wash regularly, of course!

    Anything that would be on (or in) the chair is on the towels, which we don’t sit on!

  109. 109.

    Belafon

    @KrackenJack: Thanks. My problem is that there are so many other things I want to do as well, but the need to eat, sleep, keep a roof over my head, and occasionally go to the doctor requires me to spend a third of my day earning a paycheck.

  110. 110.

    Scout211

    Drew Magary at SFGate has a righteous rant opinion piece excoriating the FNYT.

    The New York Times is Washed 

    A few snippets:

    We’re just over a month away from the presidential election and, if you ask the New York Times, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president/Keystone kriminal Donald Trump remains “deadlocked.” Despite the fact that Trump is losing in Pennsylvania, a state he needs to win, by four points. Despite the fact that polls in North Carolina just turned in Harris’ favor. Despite the fact that a grassroots campaign for Harris, one that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, sprung up the instant her boss ceded his spot in the race to her. Despite the fact that Trump got his ass beat in a nationally televised debate with Harris after repeating, with supreme gusto, the lie that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating people’s pets. The lie that his own running mate openly said was a lie.

    You don’t have to work terribly hard to sum up this race as it stands: Harris is destroying Trump, because Trump is a deranged old s—tbag. See how easy that was?

     

    But that’s too easy if you’re the Times, an institution that has never met a story it couldn’t water down. Rather than give it to you straight, the paper of record has opted, as ever, to give you its patented strain of prestige clickbait.

    . . .

    More importantly, shrewd operators (that’s you and me) long ago grasped that the Times’ coverage of politics is all but worthless. It has cried “both sides” far too many times for you and me to take such obfuscation seriously anymore. We know better.

     

    So do most voters. That’s why they’ve chosen to get their news from TikTok (no paywall required there), from straight-up investigative reporting or just by looking out the goddamn window. They understand that the Times has so thoroughly isolated itself from the zeitgeist that it’s written itself right out of it. We don’t need these fartsniffers anymore, if we ever did. We certainly don’t need to give them oxygen whenever they let Bret Stephens write op-eds like, “If Kamala Wants To Win, She’s Gonna Have To Fix My Car First.”

  112. 112.

    mali muso

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Hubby and I have been listening to the same audiobook while driving any distance in the car.  He does an amazing job of weaving the impacts of apartheid through his life story in a way that makes it shockingly current and real.  I read a headline for an article the other day (didn’t click through to get the full story) about how it’s not a coincidence that many of the big movers and shakers behind our current fascism push are white men who grew up in S. Africa (Thiel, Musk, etc.)

  113. 113.

    Chris

    @Scout211:

    I’ll always remember how the 2006 midterms just seemed to take the entire national discourse by surprise.  It really shouldn’t have; everyone hated George W. Bush at this point, and all the modern vote suppression mechanisms weren’t in place yet back then.  But they really really didn’t want to report anything that you might call good news for Democrats.  So we all just woke up one morning to “holy crap, the Democrats just took Bush to the cleaners.”

  114. 114.

    Alice

    Welcome news from Nevada – pretty sure that’s 2 for Harris/Walz!

    Nevadans have cast first votes

    Early voting isn’t scheduled to begin for another 25 days, but the first votes in Nevada’s 2024 election cycle have started to roll in through the state’s digital absentee voting system.

    As of Monday, in a historic first, two ballots have been cast via the digital application by Native American voters living on a reservation or colony.

    The secretary of state’s office kicked off the online voting option for this election cycle Saturday at the Walker River Paiute Tribe’s 93rd annual Pinenut Festival. The launch and digital voting option are part of an effort to increase voter turnout among the state’s Native American communities.

  115. 115.

    dr. luba

    I was listening to liberal talk radio while running errands today, and Greg Palast was on the Stephanie Miller show.  They were talking about vigilante “challengers” in Georgia, and how they can block anyone from voting. Georgia and other red states are throwing people off of voter rolls, shutting down precincts, and making it as difficult as possible to vote.

    Here, in Michigan:

    –absentee voting (i.e. vote by mail) begins 40 days before the election. Anyone can vote absentee, and you can sign up as a permanent absentee voter.

    –you can request an absentee ballot in person up to 4 pm the Monday before an election.

    –early in person voting begins 2.5 weeks before election day.

    –you can register to vote up until 8 pm on the day of election.

    This was all made possible by the voters of Michigan, who, in a referendum, got rid of gerrymandering and made voting easier (after a gerrymandered, GOP-controlled state government refused to act).

    WHEN WE VOTE, WE WIN.

  116. 116.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah:  I have been thinking about Jimmy Carter, and hoping he is set with someone to rush a voting machine to him the moment Georgia early voting opens.  (It’s October 15, 2024 for in person early voting.)

    A paper absentee ballot will not do it.  Registrar can check them against deaths in the county before they are counted.

    We should ALL get our votes in as early as possible.  Bank those votes, and it allows Democratic campaigns to concentrate their resources on more sporadic and new voters.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    As I’ve said up above, I traveled a lot for work for 10 years. Once had a Hertz rep tell me I was easily in the top 5% of renters. There are airports that made JFK look great. And no, I do not travel much at all any longer. Driving to the grocery store is about as far as I go. Any farther and I take the transit trains here in Los Angeles county.

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @raven:

    Crows can make a lot of noise but they do not seem to be dumb animals in the least. They seem to be very aware of their surroundings, if they fit in at all or should leave.

  123. 123.

    dr. luba

    @Omnes Omnibus: We had a large crow die-off a while back due to Western Nile virus.  That was bad enough; they are till recovering.

    Feeding them Elon Muskovite would finish them off, I suspect.

  124. 124.

    Ruckus

    @Belafon:

    I almost (remember I said almost!) hate to say this because, like everything else there are some minor negatives but when you get there -ENJOY RETIREMENT. I’m an old and I retired after the age most people do, by a fair number of years and it is nice not having to set an alarm, or work what begins to feel like way too many hours, even in a job that is rewarding or fun. (Yes I said that work can be fun. But remember that even if it is sometimes fun or entertaining, or rewarding, or all 3, it is still work. I’m well up there in years and only stoped working just under 3 yrs ago, still way past the age when most retire. Like most everything else it can be boring – but. It is nice to not have to set an alarm, or do something for money, or, or, or…..

  126. 126.

    Matt McIrvin

    @dr. luba: Sounds like Palast is focused on a legit target at this point.

    Massachusetts was shamefully late to the party on expanding voting access–we didn’t have early voting or universally-available mail voting until 2016, and the latter wasn’t expanded to *all* elections until 2020 as an emergency COVID measure.

    They don’t start until a couple of weeks from now. But I’m happy to see people itching to vote as soon as they can.

  127. 127.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ruckus: It seems like there are some people whose life revolves around their job to a degree that they just feel lost when they retire. And sometimes, they extrapolate that lost feeling to everyone, and tell people they shouldn’t retire, or some such thing.

    I don’t feel like it’s going to be hard to keep myself occupied. Just suddenly being an empty-nester has opened up some time and it fills up fast.

  129. 129.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ruckus:

     I’m an old and I retired after the age most people do, by a fair number of years and it is nice not having to set an alarm, or work what begins to feel like way too many hours, even in a job that is rewarding or fun. (Yes I said that work can be fun. But remember that even if it is sometimes fun or entertaining, or rewarding, or all 3, it is still work.

    This. I had a really good career at the Census Bureau, found the work interesting and challenging and fun – on the scale of work. Nine months into retirement, I’m still kinda finding my feet and figuring out what to do with myself, but there’s not a day that I’d want to go back.

    Like you, I worked a bit past normal retirement age – I was still working just 3 months before turning 70. I think you took it a bit further than that, though!

  131. 131.

    scav

    @JAFD: And?  He hasn’t gone to his parents and shouted “How could you have done this to me? What were you thinking!”  Which rather seemed the suggested approach to Jemima — how could the parents do this.

    If Randy’s married to Fanny, they’re having a right old time, no?

  133. 133.

    Gloria DryGarden

    On this no see um skeeter syndrome issue,

    my solutions
    might not work for everyone, and well, we do have less bugs here in Colorado, but here’s what I find helps.

    if I’m taking vitamin B, or keeping up with a decent multi vitamin, I’m definitely less attractive.

    I like Benadryl w calamine, usually sold as caladryl cream for children. Really helps w the red itchy mosquito bites. But I’ll go look for some Benadryl gel, too, sounds so useful.

    Some people swear by essential oil sprays w citronella, or skin so soft by Avon (citronella). That also seems to help to repel them.  I buy some essential oil blends w citronella, geranium oil, a few other things. It seems to help some. Sometimes I burn a citronella candle.

    These just lessen things, and I sometimes miss spots, and the skeeters find the places. There were some deet impregnated bug repellent coil bracelets being sold at ace, I’m not sure yet how effective they are.

    re the bugs coming out of your back porch cushions unless you spray w deet and use protective towels, Jeepers, that sounds downright heinous. I am so sorry.
    I wonder if clay paste, like you find for facial masks, might draw some of the poison out of the bites.

  134. 134.

    pabadger

    @SatanicPanic:

    The Blair Brown governments

    -raised 1 million pensioners out poverty

    -raised 600,000 children out if poverty

    -introduced the UKs first minimum wage (yes it was too low)

    Blair also lied the UK into the Iraq war, which I won’t forgive. His post PM money making activities are not good either.

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