Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

People are complicated. Love is not.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

The words do not have to be perfect.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: #LFGooooo!

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NEW: The Harris campaign just announced a major series of interviews and campaign stops this week.

MONDAY: Harris’s 60 Minutes interview airs.

TUESDAY: Harris speaks to The View, The Howard Stern Show, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY: Harris campaigns in Nevada and participates in a Univision Town Hall.

FRIDAY: Harris campaigns in Arizona.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – The long and winding road

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It’s Albatrossity Monday!

We have a great week ahead for On the Road.  But not a lot of submissions in the queue, not quite enough for two weeks.  So get those cards and letters in please submit those sets of pictures you have been thinking you might get to.

Also, after the series frosty did of amazing old banks, our Friday entry this week features a train station in Detroit.  frosty and I were talking, and like all the best ideas, I’m not sure who came up with it.  Might you guys be up for a series on classic train stations,  as a group effort?  That’s just a quick preview – I think frosty plans to say more in a write-up.

On The Road - Albatrossity - The long and winding road 10

Albatrossity

I was a tad late in getting this post put together, because I just got home after 2 weeks and 2 days on the road, about 4600 miles on the vehicle, and lots of quality time with friends and family in the west. Birds and scenery were a bonus, and I collected lots of images from this trip that I will be posting here in the future. I need to finish up the Arizona series before launching into these on a weekly basis, but here’s a quick overview of sights from this trip;

I know that everyone is different, but for me, a road trip is the ideal balm for the spirit. Long stretches of Blue Highway give me time to think, to ponder, to observe, and to plan. I try to keep the schedule flexible enough to allow for a side trip down some likely-looking canyon to pause, peek at some insects of birds or scenery, listen to the tumbling water, or just wonder what might be down the next dirt road. I needed some time with the natural world in places I had not seen before, and I got that, in large doses. Road trips in this beautiful country during early fall are indeed something special…

I also needed some time to see some old friends (50+ years of friendship and still counting), catch up, and swap stories. We all have a net, with connections old and new. Because we are (mostly) social animals, those connections are invaluable, both in our youth and in our dotage.

I got to catch up with friends and colleagues in Colorado, go birding on Monterey Bay with an old friend and photo-mentor, celebrate the joyous birthday of my excellent daughter-in-law, skritch and thump and attract fur from both feline and canine fur-babies, go to the beach and eat seafood with my youngest daughter, and savor exquisite cuisine at a fine restaurant with my son and daughter-in-law in Paso Robles. All of it was good, all of it was memorable, and my spirits were lifted by each and every moment. Now I’m back in Flyover Country, the car is plugged in and resting as well, and the love of my life returns from a conference tomorrow.

Carpe diem, all of ’em.

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On The Road - Albatrossity - The long and winding road 9
Monterey BaySeptember 22, 2024

Pelagic birding is a gamble always, involving luck with weather, birds seen, which part of the boat you perch on, and many other variables. But we had a good day (eBird checklist and many photos here), and here is one of the birds that made it good. Black-footed Albatross (Phoebastria nigripes), striding into a takeoff over water. Click here for larger image.

Late Night Open Thread: … the Prerogative of the Harlot…

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Former journalist Rudyard Kipling, during the First Gilded Age: “Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”

I suspect that many of the highest-paid ‘prestige’ journalists would indignantly defend their oh-so-subtle fluffing of #MealTicketDonald as a very serious and demanding professional endeavor; the NYTimes‘ Peter Baker, shall we guess, would much rather be sending tastefully filtered nudes to the Mar-A-Lago fax machines than burning through his subordinates’ brain cells composing verbal slop like this.

On the other hand, the Jon Turleys and Chris Cillizzas are only too happy to have an excuse to air their particular fetishes so publicly…

Late Night Open Thread: <em>... the Prerogative of the Harlot... </em>

(Nick Anderson via GoComics.com)

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War for Ukraine Day 956: Glide Bombs Over Kharkiv, Again

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Two quick housekeeping notes. First, all things considered, Rosie is doing well. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

Second is the all things considered. The house is prepped for Milton. I have it down to a science. Today it took 46 minutes, which is a new record time! Right now it is forecast, based on the 1900 CDT advisory, to make landfall in Siesta Key, Florida. If this forecast holds up, or it tracks even further south because the cold front moving into Florida pushes it farther south, then that is good for the Tampa Bay area. As long as Milton makes landfall south of Sarasota, the storm surge, or the really hard core storm surge, will all be south of the point of landfall. That means we’ll only be dealing with wind and rain. Regardless, I’ve got an evac plan in place and I’ll make the decision to stay or go tomorrow morning based on the overnight and tomorrow morning advisories.

As a result, and since I’m pooped from the day’s excitement, I’m going to just run through the basics tonight so I can rack out. Also, if I do have to evac, depending on how long it takes to get to the Balloon Juice Continuity of Operations (COOP) site based on traffic, tomorrow night’s update might be a bit late.

And yes, I am moving out of Florida before next hurricane season. I was supposed to move out of Florida last October, but got pulled off that assignment while I was actually relocating to do a favor for someone down here. One way or another, I’m out of here by next May.

The Russians opened up on Kharkiv again this evening with more glide bombs.

And here’s the Ukrainian air defense tally from last night:

Last night, Ukrainian air defense forces destroyed more than 50 “Shaheds” in the Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Zaporizhzhia, Zhytomyr, and Kharkiv regions.

Over the course of this week, the enemy has used about 20 missiles of various types, more than 800 guided aerial bombs, and nearly 400 strike UAVs of various types.

This daily aerial terror can be stopped. This requires unity among our partners and long-range capabilities, which will help save Ukrainian lives every day. At next week’s Ramstein meeting, we will continue working on this with our partners.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Medium Cool – Free for All!

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Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

Oh my gosh, the day got away from me – I just realized it was 7 o’clock and I have nothing planned for tonight.

Maybe this would be a good night to talk about what everybody’s watching or reading?

 

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Weegie Interlude Open Thread

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Popped up to Glasgow for the weekend to visit with some old weightlifting pals and some other pals who recently had a baby. Didn’t plan to be offline the whole time, but in my defense, the baby was very cute and the discourse was apparently very crazy. My brief glimpse at my feeds on Saturday night showed me the Trump/Musk dual act, so I decided to tap out, but not before grabbing this:


In happier news, I got to walk around Linn Park for several days running. Didn’t see any of the famous wildlife (badgers, deer, and so on), but I did form some brief, intense friendships with other people’s dogs. Couple of photos after the jump:

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It’s Ballot Initiatives & Amendments Time – Florida Edition

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It's Ballot Initiatives & Amendments Time – Florida Edition

Propositions, Amendments, Ballot Initiatives, Referendums… whatever your state calls them, it’s time to start sharing information.

We have this first set from commenter Anonymous At Work, who is tackling Arkansas, as well.  And we have someone hard at work for the California version.  Though CA seems to be slacking this year – there are fewer than 50!  :-)

FLORIDA

It’s that time of election season. I enjoy these and have to delve into the rough weeds where creepy things live to figure out whether Ballot Initiatives are annoying, harmful, stupid, or have some value.  I did this for a group of friends for a number of years and started for Balloon-Juice when I moved to Florida, where you/us Floridians write a lot of these.

I’m going to list the short title, the complete ballot title, and break down the pros and cons of each of Florida’s five Proposed Constitutional Amendments (which need 60% to pass), and then do the same for Arkansas’s three (which need 50% to pass).

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