Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

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

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

The revolution will be supervised.

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

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

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

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

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

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On The Road – Albatrossity – New Year in NC

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Happy Monday!

After this week, we have only 10 more OTR posts in the queue.  So if you’re thinking of putting something together, now would be a good time to get started!

Click on the image below for a bigger non-blurry image of the schedule for this week.

On The Road - Albatrossity - New Year in NC 10

Albatrossity

In between Christmas and the deep freeze that we are currently experiencing, we headed to Carrboro NC for a few days of visiting with my brother, sister-in-law, and their kids. Since airports still seem to be COVID incubators, we drove there and back, spending some time in Asheville on the return trip as well. A good time was had by all, and we got back before the truly wretched weather hit here in Flyover Country (I’m told it is always lovely in NC).

This was not a trip to see birds, but I did bring the camera, and spent an hour or so on a clear bright day, photographing birds in their lovely front yard. As a photographer, I probably think about light more than most folks do, and found myself working hard to get decent pictures of birds in the low slant light of a January afternoon. Lots of the birds were skulkers as well, and that means that the shadows of twigs and branches figured more prominently in the images than I generally preferred. But sometimes they made for some interesting compositions, so I include some of those here. Hope you enjoy this brief look at the winter birds of the NC Piedmont.

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On The Road - Albatrossity - New Year in NC 8
Carrboro NCJanuary 2, 2024

I had a picture of a Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) in last week’s OTR, and some commenters said that they had no idea that there was more than one kind of chickadee. Indeed there are, and they include not only the familiar Black-capped Chickadee that frequents backyards across the country, but also other North American species like Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Mountain Chickadee, Mexican Chickadee, Boreal Chickadee, and lots of Old World versions that go by the name of Tit. Most of these are very hardy birds, to whom winter is just another season. Carolina Chickadees like this one were abundant visitors to their feeder, but do not show up in my patch of Flyover Country, so I was happy to see them again. Click here for larger image.

Sunday Night Open Thread

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Closing in on the end of the day here, and it appears I have dragged the rain with me, as it rained all day. Still was a productive day. As promised, bread picks:

Sunday Night Open Thread 2

Sunday Night Open Thread 3

I got nothing else, although it really sucks about JR. WV needs good men like him.

*** Update ***

I saw this in the kitchen and would like to inform you that Joelle’s crimes against butter continue:

Sunday Night Open Thread 4

Is she an alien?

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Sunday Night Open Thread: Not So Swifties

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Commentor Scout211 shared this yesterday — from USAToday Sports, “The thin-skinned men triggered by Taylor Swift’s presence at NFL games need to get a grip”:

The multiple Grammy winner was all over social media ahead of Saturday’s game, the NFL’s main accounts included. Got prominent play during the game, too, with NBC’s crew panning to them in a suite, cheering big plays. When the musical superstar was shown on the Jumbotron, fans in the stadium went into a frenzy.

Yet Eminem’s presence at the Detroit Lions playoff game last weekend didn’t prompt the overheated vitriol that Taylor Swift’s appearances at Kansas City Chiefs games do…

It’s funny — and by funny I mean tiresome and lazy — how a high-profile female fan wrecks the game, while the prominent visibility of male celebrities or team owners at sporting events is accepted without complaint. Celebrated, even. Jerry Jones gets no shortage of airtime even when people aren’t trying to decipher his reactions to his team’s latest playoff meltdown. Matthew McConaughey’s presence at University of Texas games is considered kitschy and fun. Jack Nicholson was as central a figure in the Lakers’ Showtime era as Magic and Kareem.

But when Swift dares intrude on the NFL, a segment of people lose their ever-loving minds.

Swift has been called “Yoko Ono,” accused of having a negative impact on boyfriend Travis Kelce and, by extension, the Chiefs. She’s been dismissed as a bandwagon-hopper. And in the most ludicrous criticism of all, there are some who’ve suggested she’s using Kelce and the NFL to boost her own profile.

Yes, because the most famous woman on the planet, whose $1 billion-plus Eras Tour helped fuel U.S. consumer spending last year, needs the help.

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War for Ukraine Day 697: Ukraine Appears to Strike Into Russian Occupied Donetsk Oblast

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The crest of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. A wine colored cross on a silver shield with the gold Uktainian Tryzub in the center on a circular blue medallion. A pair of silver maces and an upright sword are between the blue medallion and the wine colored cross.

Just a brief housekeeping note before we get started. JR in WVA and I used to email on occasion. I knew he was ill, hadn’t heard from him in several months, and between things going weird for me in the Fall of 2023 and not wanting to bother him, I let the contact lapse. I should not have done so. I was very sorry to read Watergirl’s post earlier. I want to extend my condolences to his family. May his memory be a blessing.

The Ukrainians appear to have hit back at recent Russian bombardment of Ukrainian civilian targets in a reciprocal strike on Russian occupied Donetsk Oblast:

Reuters has the details.

Jan 21 (Reuters) – Twenty-seven people were killed and 25 injured when Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the Donetsk region, said on Sunday.

According to Alexei Kulemzin, the city’s Russian-installed mayor, Ukrainian forces bombarded a busy area where shops and a market are located. Pushilin said the city was shelled by Ukrainian artillery.
Reuters photographs and video taken at the scene showed crying people, some of whom said they had lost relatives, and bodies lying on blood-soaked snow near one of the city’s markets.

Pushilin announced a day of mourning on Monday in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the name given to the part of the region Russia says it has annexed.

In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not address the attack but said that in a single day, Russia had shelled more than 100 cities, towns and villages in nine regions in Ukraine, and that the attacks in Donetsk region had been “particularly severe.”

Ukraine’s forces in the Tavria, or southern zone, said in a Facebook post that soldiers under its command were not responsible. “Donetsk is Ukraine!” it said. “Russia will have to answer for taking lives of Ukrainians.”

Pushilin said 18 of the injured were hospitalised and seven being treated as outpatients.
In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the attack “a barbaric act of terrorism” by Ukraine that was carried out “with the use of weapons supplied by the West”.

“The Russian side categorically condemns this treacherous strike against the civilian population,” a ministry statement said.

Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, has voiced outrage in the past when Ukrainian attacks have killed civilians in Donetsk and other areas. Russia’s own campaign of air strikes and heavy shelling, however, has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians.

The governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region, Vadym Filashkin, said Russian attacks killed at least two people at two locations west of the city of Donetsk on Sunday.

At Kurakhove, about 45 km (28 miles) from Donetsk, shelling killed a 31-year-old man and injured another person, while a 62-year-old man was killed and a 70-year-old man injured at Krasnohorivka between Donetsk and Kurakhove, he said.

“I call on everyone who remains in Donetsk: evacuate!” Filashkin said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Donetsk is one of four regions in Ukraine’s east and south that Russia claimed to have annexed in late 2022 in a move condemned as illegal by most countries at the U.N. General Assembly. Russia does not fully control any of the four regions.

Today’s strike, provided it is actually verified as an Ukrainian one, comes on the heels of the Ukrainian strikes deep into Russia over the past several days. Including, perhaps, today.

Leningrad Oblast, Russia:

More on those after the jump.

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

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Medium Cool – Treadmill Time!

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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.

Medium Cool – Time Travel!

I watched both seasons of the British Life on Mars and I am halfway through the third and final season of the follow-up series, Ashes to Ashes.  Both series are so great that I don’t want this final season to end.  There was talk recently of a third season for Life on Mars, after all these years, but that apparently fell through.  So I am bereft!

I will admit that for the first 3 or 4 episodes of Ashes to Ashes, I really missed Sam Tyler, but then my brain finally let it be a completely different show, and now I’m attached to all the characters and it feels like when you’re reading a really great book and you don’t want it to end.

Have enough people watched one or both of those series that we could have that as a topic on Medium Cool one of these days?

Also, I would love to have some feedback from folks who participate in the Medium Cool threads.  I have been trying to shake things up a little bit.  Would you like to see more book reviews from Dorothy Winsor?  Did you enjoy having an author introduce the cozy mysteries discussion?  Any other feedback you’d like to share?  If so, please send me an email message.

In the meantime, we’ve talked about books quite a bit in the past few weeks, so maybe it’s time for a good old what are you watching thread?  On the book review thread, I loved that folks were sharing the why and what they liked about the books they were talking about.  It would be great if we could do that tonight if you’re talking about what you’re watching.

For instance, I am watching Ashes to Ashes because of what kalakal wrote about it in a Medium Cool thread.  I haven’t heard a thing about the new season of True Detective – is anybody watching?  Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me there’s a new season of Luther!

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Sad News About J.R. in WV

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Medium Cool – Equilibrium!

Sad news to share.  I heard from J.R.’s neighbor today.  It was so kind of him to write.

I apologize for the delay in responding. I did a search on Balloon Juice shortly after he died, didn’t find any recent comments, and thought he’d been inactive while he was sick. I really didn’t want to go through his email, but today, when I had to check on some business issues, I saw this.

He talked about you guys a lot through the years, and you were important to him.

I told him that J.R. was important to us, too.  I love that J.R.’s two dogs made it into the obituary, even if they weren’t listed by name.  I hope the dogs are a comfort to his wife.

Rest in peace, J.R.  You are missed.

From  J.R.’s obituary.

JOHN RANDOLPH “J.R.” HODEL, 72, of Yawkey, W.Va., passed away Tuesday, September 19, 2023, at home.

J.R. received a Bachelor of Science degree from Marshall University and retired from the Department of Environmental Protection.

He was preceded in death by his parents Emile and Nancy Henrichs Hodel.

J.R. is survived by his wife of 51 years, Martha; brother Alan E. Hodel of Sun City, Texas; and his 2 WV Black Dogs.

There are no services scheduled at this time.

Condolences may be expressed to the family by visiting www.curryfuneralhome.org. Curry Funeral Home, 2097 Childress Road, Alum Creek, WV.

J.R., I hope you’re hanging out with efgoldman, Schlemazel, and all of the beloved friends we have lost.

Here us a link to posts where J R’s photos and stores were featured as part of On the Road or the Furry Friends series.

J R in WV

 

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