Possible friend of the blog Brad Paisley:
I’ve got friends that I can’t talk to
And a doctor I don’t trust
I got a ’68 Camaro
And just like me, it has the rust…There’s a drought in California
There’s hard times up ahead
I can fill those reservoirs up
With half of what’s inside my headNow I don’t even need a reason
No one’s sick and no one died
No one’s left and no one’s leavingBut it’s raining inside…
Set your clocks an hour forward, and your social expectations to 1963.
Baud
Some good news. There was talk a while ago of CBS settling this frivolous lawsuit.
eclare
@Baud:
Pay walled. But I love the headline!
prostratedragon
@Baud:
That’s much better.
“Flora’s Game,” Piazzolla; Galliano, acc
Baud
@eclare:
eclare
@Baud:
Ronny Jackson, of course.
NotMax
Obligatory? #1 —— #2
Baud
Baud
Is Alberta the Texas of Canada?
Baud
Don’t forget to blame the Republicans in Congress for joining in the treason in service of Russia.
Betty Cracker
Don’t want to read too much into it, but CBS telling Trump to fuck off sounds like a good sign to me. Companies that settled those bogus lawsuits were essentially buying into a protection racket. If they’ve decided it’s not worth doing, maybe they’ve sensed weakness in the mob boss and are therefore unwilling to participate in the shakedown.
Do y’all remember which companies already bribed Trump to leave them alone? I think Zuckerberg and Musk paid millions on behalf of Meta and Twitter, respectively. Maybe Google too? Seems like there were others, but the corruption is so vast it’s hard to remember all the details.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Not aware about Google
ABC settled in December.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Thanks — forgot about the $15M ABC/Disney bribe. Could be misremembering about Google.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I googled and didn’t see anything about Google. :-)
WereBear
@Baud: Every kid in a tiny town with brains and ambition longs to get out.
Now they have made the entire state their Tiny Town. Red states are intent on functional economies. Interferes with the Confederate heritage of loot, steal, and exploit.
Over time, they keep the lazy and the privileged and the fearful. And we see how that works out.
MagdaInBlack
My body clock woke me at it’s 3 am, which is now the clocks 4 am…and now the clock says 5 and my body disagrees and this sucks.
Good morning?
The Thin Black Duke
My Beloved and I (re) watched Footloose recently and one aspect of the movie that holds up pretty well when seen through a contemporary lens is the joyless, narrow-minded and mean-spirited mindset that characterizes “small towns”. Although there’s the obligatory Hollywood Happy Ending, it’s not difficult to imagine Kevin Bacon getting the hell outta there the first chance he gets.
Baud
WaPo paywall
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: As satisfying as it may be to do that, it sure is dumb.
Baud
More corporations standing up?
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
Most satisfying things are dumb.
MagdaInBlack
@MagdaInBlack: …and the posting time says 6…so I have decided to just live outside time today.
Baud
Via reddit
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: i dunno about that. I bought a bunch of chocolate yesterday and it sure is satisfying =-)
MOST satisfying even.
WereBear
@Baud: Yes, a Canadian told me.
But they didn’t allow Fox News in.
WereBear
I’ll never get over Macho Grande.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: CBS seemed to have more actual journalist sentiment, while ABC/Disney is lately an exercise in arrested development.
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: Even worse in Confederate small towns. Where Southern Protestantism is the only “real” religion.
As we’ve seen, snake handling is never far behind…
WereBear
@Baud: Or the informed realizing the long long preliminary RICO prosecution has turned up some stuff that will get out?
WereBear
I’ve come to hope that the sheer stupid arrogance of our Ant Overlords will prove their undoing. We already know how Fox News can get people upset about lesbian gangs with pink guns, and then drop it and pivot to the plot against the nearest holiday.
That’s fantasy. It’s mental moonbeams.
In reality, when something big and ugly enough moves fast enough, it can rouse the buried self-defense reflexes in the common MAGA credulus heartlandias.
Now it’s people just like them getting shot on Fifth Avenue. Now they care. Because they don’t believe in liberal things like “can we project these actions forward and see the most likely outcome?”
NOT doing that is what their whole life is about, or they wouldn’t have any dreams at all…
Liminal Owl
@Baud: So I’ve heard for years, from lots of Canadian musicians. (Some add Saskatchewan.)
sab
Almost 7:30 am and no sign of dawn yet. I generally don’t mind Daylight Saving, but do we really need it in March? Is it really necessary to have the kids walking to school or waiting for the bus in the dark?
MagdaInBlack
@sab: Sky is just starting to turn pink to the east, here in chicagoland.
prostratedragon
@WereBear: Not to mention that the T word is getting harder to work around.
Geminid .
Hakan Fidan news, from Turkish news network TRT World:
Amman is 6-7 hours ahead of Eastern US time, so I expect this meeting has been going on a while now.
These officials have a lot to talk about. This sounds like a working meeting that’s been several days in preperation. where the intelligence and military chiefs coordinate a common plan to address regional security problems.
Noticeably absent: any representative from a certain North American power that remains militarily involved right in the middle of the same region whose security is being planned out in Amman.
p.a
@WereBear: I was on a cruise back in the 1990’s, and a Canadian woman told me back then that Alberta especially, but the other central provinces too, were small-c conservative in the same terms as US conservatism. Oil, livestock, wheat… “salt o’ the earth”//
Baud
@Geminid .:
So you’re saying it’ll be a productive meeting.
Baud
Apparently, some good polling out of Hungary.
Also this comment.
TBone
Hubby sneaked past me & Noah both fast asleep and into the master bathroom (I don’t have a clock in my bedroom because insomnia) to change my wall clock so I wouldn’t be disoriented when I woke up. It almost worked! I must live with the sweetest man in existence I think.
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EcXT1clXc04
Also too was unaware of that fascinating blog history, thanks for the enlightenment.
A Ghost to Most
Given the Dobbs ruling, I would put the year at 1163.
Geminid .
@Baud: This will be a serious meeting for sure. Those people have some serious common problems to deal with, and they know they can’t rely on the Yankees to be much help if any solving them.
TBone
@Baud: none of your links have stymied me with a paywall yet this morning and all are fascinating, thank you.
TBone
@A Ghost to Most:
Someone mentioned the Witchfinder General on Rose’s post yesterday. I concur with your thought.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Hopkins
Pricks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricking
NotMax
@TBone
Then there’s the Witchsmeller Pursuivant.
:)
TBone
@Baud:
Capital One (I am rooting for injuries to Donold and the Dignity Wraiths)
Matt McIrvin
Almost everyone hates the DST changeover, but we do not agree on what it should be replaced with: year-round DST or year-round Standard Time.
Nothing about the seasons gets me more depressed than how it gets dark in the mid-afternoon in winter, so I’d probably personally prefer year-round DST, as in the bill that passed the Senate a couple of years ago (but went nowhere in the House). But there are workers and students for whom early morning darkness is more of a problem, and that would be bad for them.
I kind of like the “split the difference and put the whole US on half-hour time zones” proposal, honestly, but mostly because I have to do a lot of video conferences with India, which is on a half-hour time zone. That’s probably not a good reason.
prostratedragon
“Well, now, whose little yacht are you?”
TBone
@NotMax: thanks for the giggles ☺️
narya
I’m glad that a bunch of work fell in my lap…I was supposed to get my first SocSec payment next month, and it’s been approved, but all hell could still break loose. I won’t have to drain my meager retirement funds just yet. I think there’s a good chance they’ll break that system. In other reporting, my mother is cheering the “finding out,” including when her holdings take a hit.
TBone
@prostratedragon: bwahahahahaha!
Fave reply so far
Matt McIrvin
(Paul Campos wrote a rant a while back on which he used the persistence of the clock change as an example of the unresponsiveness of the political system, but he completely missed this issue of people disagreeing on what time zone to switch to, which seems relevant to the example. It fascinates me in that, as far as I can tell, advocacy for year-round Standard Time vs. year-round DST is a passionate political split in the US that is completely non-partisan: there is no right-wing position and left-wing position here.)
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@Baud: Thank you for this link and the CBS one. I will take them as good signs.
TBone
A tribute to all you Jackals who make this world a better place
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CaCSuzR4DwM
I couldn’t do it without you
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eTzM6yn8hQg
NotMax
@TBone
Also too, Vincent Price.
:)
p.a
I’m agnostic about which time system, but I would prefer just one. To be utilitarian about it, I suppose a study of vehicular & pedestrian accidents, adjusted for the seasonality of winter’s Standard Time, would make sense. A study of human productivity, if the results are statistically different, could be another way to decide. I assume it would be a much more complex ask than just looking at accidents DSvT/StT, and taking StT is winter, into account.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
When I’m president, I’ll issue an executive order directing the sun to provide more daylight year round.
NotMax
@TBone
Following up on Satchmo, Nilsson.
;)
TBone
@NotMax: hahahaha! “You schmuck! I’m on fire!”
So mote it be!
Princess
@Baud: Right down to the oil. That being said, the premier before her was from a centre left party. I cannot see Texas voting state-wide for a centre-left party any time soon. Or at all.
TBone
@NotMax: excellent!
First comment is apropos
“Who else gargles in their song?”
(ball gargling thunder twats do)
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
@p.a: I’ve lived in Japan for quite some time. No DST here. In my very small city in the wintertime the city announces at 4:30pm that it’s 4:30 pm and children should go home. When the days get longer it switches to 5 pm. I am sure there is an exact date when the switch happens because Japan is very good about things like that. I have never felt the loss of DST. Does that one hour make a difference?
WereBear
@p.a: I once had a business trip in a Town Without Amenities, and called my farm-born mother ranting about the lack of movies, bookstores, or culture because these folks spend at home, not in town.
“Why are they like this, Mom?”
“Well, see dear, they never get out and it makes them strange.”
Maybe we have urban crime thrillers OR rural horror in the US on purpose, for deep and illuminating reasons. Or maybe I just read a lot of Stephen King.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
Agreed. I’m all for Daylight Savings Time in general, but the ‘spring forward’ needs to be moved back into actual spring, IOW end of March or beginning of April. Second weekend in March is way too early, there just isn’t enough early morning light yet to jump the clocks forward.
TBone
Alas and alack, cats do not recognize any DST and will not forgive my lateness to the litter boxes. Pew pew pew goes my laser gun!
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Trump may have thought he was doing that when he mused about eliminating DST shortly before taking office.
Regardless, I think it was one of those ideas he tosses out to get even his political opponents thinking it might be nice for a strongman to just snap his fingers and force a change, regardless of whether the Constitution says he has the power (he does not, and the tendency to ignore that is a bigger problem than changing the clocks).
TBone
@WereBear: deep and illuminating reasons FTW
Scout211
I know SNL isn’t everybody’s favorite but last night’s cold open was good, IMHO. I do like a good parody to find a laugh or two.
Trump, Musk and Rubio Meeting Cold Open – SNL
The Thin Black Duke
@WereBear: By eleven o’clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.
“Are they not fresh and beautiful?” I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.
But Holmes shook his head gravely.
“Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.
“Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?”
“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
“You horrify me!”
“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on.”
Matt McIrvin
@p.a: My impression is that the switchover twice a year causes more accidents, heart attacks, general social trouble, etc. than either year-round standard would produce.
The trouble with daylight in temperate regions is that there’s not enough of it in winter, and no clock change can fix that–it can just shuffle around where on the clock the darkness hits us harder. DST is just a well-intentioned but probably not very useful attempt to optimize the use of the daylight bonus we get in the not-winter months, which is not really a burning issue.
The original rationale for Daylight Saving Time was to minimize the amount of energy used for artificial lighting, by better synchronizing that bonus with the hours that people were out and about. But today, artificial lighting is far more efficient than it used to be, but we have air conditioning, and lighting is dwarfed by HVAC as a thing we spend energy on. Whether DST makes things better or worse is going to depend on the local climate. The studies I’ve seen on this suggest that in reality the energy impact of DST across the United States is pretty much a wash.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Almost everyone hates the changeover.
But nobody wants kids waiting for the bus in the dark in the winter, hence Standard Time in the winter.
And few people want an hour of summer daylight between 4am and 5am when that daylight can instead be in the hour between 8pm and 9pm, hence Daylight Savings Time.
Maybe people think they want to do away with the time change, but if you think people are pissed off by the time change, just wait until they do away with it.
satby
@Baud: I was in Calgary for work nearly 20(?) years ago and yes, they prided themselves on being the Texas of Canada, from what the folks I worked with told me.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Every possibility has problems, but the argument I dislike the most is the Argument from Nature: “what is this hubris, Man believing he can mess with a basic constant of the universe?”
Because as a person with a physics degree, I know that while time is a physical phenomenon, what time it is is totally a social construct, regardless. Definitely not a basic constant of the universe. We’re just arguing about the details of a coordinate system.
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: YES.
TBone
@The Thin Black Duke: thank you for giving voice to the curse of the rural suburb so brilliantly.
WereBear
@TBone: Is that what they call those gated communities in the middle of nowhere with a backyard the size of a kingsize bed?
TBone
@WereBear: 🎯 I’m surrounded here! They don’t even use gates for the most part, just tire spikes and surveillance cameras…
My little 1960s mid century modern rancher sits on the edge of affluence, bounded by a golf course and some McMansion communities, as well as a genuine castle or three. With helipads.
And an ivy league college campus.
One custom built to look old McMansion within walking distance just sold north of a million.
satby
@lowtechcyclist: Nixon did, I think, and it lasted about two years.
I feel bad for people who feel so discombobulated by an hour’s change. Jet lag must be hell for them if they go outside their own time zone.
WereBear
@TBone: I guess it makes some of them feel successful and important.
Ever since someone I know went to the Villages & decided not to buy there years ago, I’ve been hearing/finding stories about it ever since.
There, it’s like the concept, squared. Now, we call it The Stepford Villages.
TBone
@WereBear: a former empoyer attorney recently moved out of The Villages where he lived with his Black girlfriend slash live in housekeeper and nanny. They broke up and he wants to get together at his new home back in DelCo for tea. In deference to hubby, I made excuses …
The man saved my life financially more than once and he’s a very cool Italian gent. Had a Wilmington penthouse in a skyscraper for a while, where he had a reunion party for all of us from the old Firm across from the Court House steps, prime real estate. It was great to see everyone, but I was the only female invited.
He was like a father figure back in my heyday. Personal injury was his specialty and he used to joke about why didn’t I have a good wreck on his watch. I finally did after I’d moved on from his employ, and he made sure I got paid.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist:
But this benefit is… kind of de minimis, isn’t it? As a person of night-owl inclinations, I like the late sunlight, but sunlight is in copious supply during the summer; we don’t exactly have to carefully husband it then.
So despite my personal inclination toward favoring year-round DST, I can see an argument that year-round Standard Time is what we really should be doing.
I can see one very specific social benefit for having DST extend through October: it makes it possible for little kids to do their trick-or-treating during daylight on Halloween. Though, on the other hand, for the older kids, not having darkness through those hours doubtless detracts from the spooky ambiance.
moonbat
Personally I hate the changeover. It messes my sleep cycle up for months, not days. Ben Franklin proposed DST to save on candles. I think we’re past that now. We live in the northern hemisphere. Day light hours are fewer in winter. We should embrace the traditions of our forefathers and sacrifice the biggest asshole in every community to the sun on the shortest day of the year to ask that longer days return and be done with it.
Or move to the equator
Matt McIrvin
@satby: That was year-round DST, and, in fact, people didn’t like it.
It was intended as an energy-saving measure, but, as I said, the efficacy of any of this for saving energy isn’t at all clear. It made a bit more sense in the days when artificial lighting was a larger part of our energy budget, but it’s not any more.
Matt McIrvin
@moonbat: When I was in Singapore I was slightly discombobulated by the fact that even though it was 90 degrees and steamy all the time, the days weren’t super long, like I subconsciously expected from summery weather. I kept having to tell myself “it’s not summer, there is no summer, you’re just in the tropics”.
Professor Bigfoot
Time change is actually handy: all the clocks that run on batteries get new ones; the smoke detectors get their new batteries for the half-year— life, lemons, lemonade, etc.
kalakal
When I lived in the far North of Scotland BST ( British Summer Time, roughly the sams as DST) made bugger all difference, it was basically dark for most of the time in Winter and light in Summer. Now in Fl I prefer DST because it gives me more time after work to garden
brendancalling
@TBone: you’re in Delco??
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
If you get home from work at 6pm, say, having 3 hours of daylight instead of 2 after work is a big difference. It’s nice to have the daylight at the time of day when you can enjoy it.
Having plenty of daylight while you’re at work or on your morning and evening commutes is nice, but that falls into the de minimis category. (Or not even that if your workspace isn’t close to a window. I had at least a decade’s worth of that along the way.) And daylight before I want or need to be awake is worthless. Gimme more daylight in my free time! That’s when it makes a difference.
(Yeah, I know – I’m retired now and I’ve got all the daylight I need, but I still remember what it was like during those decades when I was working.)
lowtechcyclist
Besides moving ‘spring forward’ back into spring, the only adjustment I’d like to see in the time change is a simple and (to me, anyway) obvious one:
Move ‘fall back’ to Sunday night, so everybody gets that extra hour of sleep going into Monday morning.
And maybe move ‘spring forward’ to Friday night, so most* people have the whole weekend to adjust to it before going to work Monday morning.
*Obviously people who work on Saturdays wouldn’t be helped by this, but you can’t help everyone.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: I would happily read an expanded version of your thoughts on that in a front page post. :-)
TBone
@brendancalling: I’m FROM DelCo since the age of 3! Moved out at age 50 or thereabouts.
Now in Union County.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: whatever people try, I want it to make him stop. Stop, and put it back…
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: did you get my recent short letter?
TBone
@Baud: oops almost missed it! Dang glad I came back again.
Image pirated!
Claudia is a badass.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: only just now. Reply sent.
ETA why does the blog page/ my tablet sometimes not auto fill, not know me? It’s so tiresome. Does this happen to others?
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: when I changed the permissions granted to my cell phone keyboard, all kinda hell broke loose. You are NOT alone.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: so uplifting. I want to smell the herbs they’re burning.
I want to hear the words they’re chanting; I’ll pray with them.
Yay, Claudia.
Thank goddess for sane leaders in other countries.
The fragrance function has never worked on these tablets…
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: i dont think I changed a thing. On again off again, like a troubling lover.
fuck me
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: you must be upset because I’ve NEVER seen you use your words like I do before hahahahaha!
Nevertheless, we persist!
You have inspired me to put down this crazy contraption for a while and listen to some Janis instead.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: yes, i have. Y’all must of blinked. But I only sometimes let the f word off it’s leash into print. In person though, fuckin open season.
Everyone has the thing that upsets them the most. For me this satellite intel company being told to not share intel w Ukraine has me worked up. Thinking about those people there. We’re only a few degrees of separation away from Ukraine. Europe taking their sweet time to notice it’s their front yard.
Outr US government not noticing that the huge ocean isn’t going to protect us from what they’ve arranged. It’s not hard to connect the dots to see.
Kayla Rudbek
@p.a: I think there are already studies and auto accidents and heart attacks go up after the spring forward due to the loss of sleep time.
dan
Great song. Getting 70s Eagles vibes.