I have been in a bear of a mood all day- lots of stuff to deal with, dogs acting like dicks, the country is a cluster fuck. I told Joelle I am going into the spare bedroom to work some shit out and will come out when I am ready for public.
The plumbers came today and Thurston was an uncontrollable jackass the entire time, but they got the whole cut in the wall and the “thing” they had to replace is replaced and the shower is no longer leaking continuously. Jack was a very good boy and slept by my feet, but his medicine is making him flatulent, so I spent the entire day being gassed by him. He lies under the desk by my feet, so every couple of minutes a bunch of eyelash curling fumes waft up from under the desk to say hi. I just suffer in silence because he is a good boy.
In other news, the replacement batter for the ebike came. The first battery had a bad contact so it was hard to charge, this one has a different input on it, so it will be more stable. The problem is they did not send a charger, so now we have to wait two days for that to show up. But the new battery is in and has a full charge, so that is good. Just a couple more tasks to complete before I leave next week. Gotta move and remount the security camera for outdoors to cover the bike shed, and get a couple other minor things done.
In other news, as WG noted below, a brief moment of sanity from the Supreme Court. I have no idea what this man’s rights are as far as punishing those who did this to him, but the government damned sure better be compensating him (they won’t). Let’s just cross our fingers and hope the admin follows through on the courts decision and brings Mr. Garcia home without incident.
In other news of our impending descent into full-fledged fascism, Rubio and company are now admitting they are just trying to deport people for thought crimes. Pre-crime can not be far away- thanks a lot, Philip K. Dick.
I’ll be back later to check in on you all.
I Hope They Don’t Dawdle in Returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia Open Thread
John Revolta
“Thing”? The “thing” got replaced?
Some of us are home repair fanatics, you know! Make with the details!!
WaterGirl
@John Revolta: He meant to say “thingamabob”, which would have been much more clear.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
I bet it was really a whatchamadoogie.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: We didn’t have those when I was growing up. We had whatchamacallits. Perhaps it’s a regional thing?
edit: Very excited to know that I spelled that correctly. I had never typed that before.
narya
My brother refers to such parts as “mergatmecaters” and “goomzions” (or “goomzie/s” for short.
scav
@lowtechcyclist: whatchamadoogies get wiggled (or at most thwacked) not replaced. whatits get power-surged.
Central Planning
@WaterGirl: I’m a doohickey guy.
WaterGirl
@Central Planning: Yep, we had a lot of those in Chicago!
Timill
Keep an eye open for pingfuckits, or you’ll never see them again…
WaterGirl
The first 8 comments on this thread are providing a data point re: my theory that the first comment on a thread often determines what gets discussed. More so than the content of the post itself.
edit: Make that “the first 9 comments”, thereby providing yet another data point for my theory.
Baud
El coso ese.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
There are posts?
MagdaInBlack
@lowtechcyclist: Maybe the thing-a-ma-hoosey.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You thought it was just a collection of random words up there? Sheesh!
scav
@WaterGirl: I woulda swung at those few comments anywhere they popped up. (ok, not a Ukraine post.)
WaterGirl
@MagdaInBlack: I believe the proper spelling of that is “whatsit”.
Timill
Presumably the original was flat as a pancake…
A Ghost to Most
It could be worse. You could be doing your taxes with Thurston.
lowtechcyclist
@MagdaInBlack: Or a doogamawhitchie.
Scout211
It’s a thingamajig people! It’s right there in the Merriam-Webster.
Although there are some synonyms that several jackals have noted.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Just assumed it was all “Lorem ipsum” etc.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
I think Mrs Whatsit would agree with you.
Jay
So Palm Springs and area, are spending millions of dollars to try to get Canadian’s to come back, and stop selling off their housing.
It’s not working.
The key response is “America is no longer safe for Canadians”.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Used exclusively by the initiates of our close-knit group way back when was “bondura.”
Its origin lost to the roiling fog of time.
Baud
@Jay:
They should spend the money bribing Trump.
Jackie
@WaterGirl:
Whatchamacallits, doohickies and thingamajigs were/are our go tos. My sister says thingy.
WaterGirl
@Baud: hahaha
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Just “thingy”? Sorry, but that’s just wrong.
NotMax
“It’s a whozis. … It’s a whatzis.”
:)
Chris T.
@Jay:
I want the entire west coast (along with any other states that are up for it) to break away from Jesusland and petition to join Canada.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Judges say that either of those is acceptable.
prostratedragon
@Scout211:
Finally!
Jackie
CNN is reporting that Xi hasn’t called FFOTUS .
I never thought I’d be cheering for China against the USA.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: I know. She’s been teased about that her entire life, but… I think it’s her shorthand for thingamajig.
zeecube
@WaterGirl: that’s what she said.
frosty
@Timill: And it’s a slow hanging curve … the batter waits, then takes a swing and KNOCKS IT OUT OF THE PARK!!!
frosty
@WaterGirl: It’s a good theory, I like it. I wonder if the phenomenon occurs most often when the post is an open thread without a lot of sturm and drang and more or less “this is how my day is going.”
Or maybe it’s just Cole. BC would be getting a lot of comments like this based on what some of her posts are about. Or maybe we’re too skeered she’ll set the gators and cranes on us.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: In my family, it was called “an eruncicator”.
Jay
@Jackie:
https://nitter.poast.org/ryanl_hass/status/1910148379440775639#m
Ohio Mom
@Jay: I wonder where they will go after extricating themselves from Palm Springs. I foresee a housing boom somewhere in Central America or wherever they end up.
Steve in the ATL
@Jay: so no Justin Bieber at Coachella?
I may not go this year.
Steve in the ATL
@Ohio Mom: I hear El Salvador is lovely this time of year.
NotMax
@Ohio Mom
Bahamas? Bermuda? Belize?
All are English-speaking locales.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
Hard to say, Europe, Cuba, Mexico,
Not a Snowbird.
It’s kinda an entitled Boomer thing, most of us are trying to figure out retirement when everything has been blown up.
I bought my second house, by selling my first, and remortgaging, for $236,000. That house is currently listed for $3,685,000.
So I rent what I can afford. My income has never matched realty.
WaterGirl
@frosty: as for wondering if this holds true only with open threads or more with open threads, I can say definitively that that is not the case. They’ve been about three post recently, and no one talks about it at all because of whatever was the first comment.
That may have been true forever – maybe it’s just that my frustration level is higher because of everything that’s going on, so I notice it more?
different-church-lady
@Jay: America is no longer safe for Americans.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: Well, we should just delete the first comment then.
Chris T.
@NotMax:
Cocomo.
Martin
@Jay: Yeah, that’s why my friend who works out there was saying. Starting mid-February the place started to clear out. Didn’t realize it had reached the housing market. Not surprised, mind you.
YY_Sima Qian
Oof. (Cartoon through the link)
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us-is-starting-look-like-an-emerging-market-after-tariff-shock-euronext-ceo-says-2025-04-08/
US is starting to look like an emerging market after tariff shock, Euronext CEO says
The United States is starting to resemble an emerging market more than a developed country, the head of pan-European stock exchange operator Euronext (ENX.PA), opens new tab said on Tuesday as financial markets remained volatile after the imposition of sweeping U.S. tariffs.
“Fear exists all over,” Euronext CEO Stephane Boujnah told France Inter radio. “The country (United States) is unrecognisable and we are living in a transition period. There is a certain form of mourning, because the United States that we had known for the most part as a dominant nation resembled the values and institutions of Europe and now resembles more an emerging market.”
geg6
@Jay:
I have a snowbird friend who goes to the Panama City area every winter for 3 months or so and the condo they rent is in a building with dozens of Canadians he’s made friends with over the years. I’ve talked to him a couple times since he’s been away and he’s really upset. All his friends told him that it’s going to be a permanent goodbye, unless he wants to visit them in Canada. They are not coming back.
Jay
@Martin:
Our friends, Bun and Bob have successfully transitioned from Phoenix, Arizona to Canmore, Alberta.
Bun is Canadian/American, Bob is a Vietnam vet, who has had his benefits gutted.
All Bun’s kids are Canadian. Bob doesn’t have kids, other than Bun’s, (not a diss, he has been a mench).
They have no plans to go back. Bob got a new heart pump, 2 days after they crossed the border, he was on a VA list that would get him a new one, after 8 months wait time.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Pretty much. Decades happening in weeks.
billcoop4
@geg6: Pity
BC
Jay
@geg6:
Cross border crossings are down 70%.
My wingnut Christo fascists brother had a P/O box in Blaine.
He would order IC’s et al, in the US, smuggle them back across the border, buy cheap Government Cheese, milk and gas, and come back.
He does not do that anymore.
Not because of “Canada”, but because he worked for years in the US on a visa, (Meta and Microsoft) and now, CBS says he is an enemy.
Ksmiami06
@Chris T.: same. Hugely beneficial to the west coast
Chief Oshkosh
@Central Planning: Thingymabobs and whatchamacallits are spread all over my garage and attic. Who put them there? Some fart-knocker, no doubt.
Ksmiami06
@YY_Sima Qian: To be honest, our political economy has been more akin to an emerging market for quite awhile. It doesn’t surprise me that the international financial world is starting to catch on. Essentially, Trump and the Republicans have been nuts for a long time and travel through America, the huge divides, lack of human infrastructure etc, poverty looks more like the second and third world.
Chetan Murthy
@Ksmiami06: As Brad Delong put it during Trump I:
“Once (Dubya) is bad luck; twice (Trump I) is coincidence; three times (Trump II) is enemy action”.
Of course, he wasn’t writing that recently, so he stuck with the first two. But basically, after Trump I, anybody with any sense had to be thinking “how can we possibly trust these fuckers?” And yet, many did (b/c Biden worked really damn hard at it). But now? Now? AAAAAAhahahahahahaha …..
Ksmiami06
@Chetan Murthy: huge Delong fan. The only way we will emerge from this and recover sort of is to be completely honest about who, what and where this country is: we’ve allowed ignorance, racism, misinformation and greed to fester and our political system to rot.
YY_Sima Qian
This contradiction has been evident through Trump 45, Biden & now Trump 47 terms, & most parts of the industrialized West – economic nationalism for me, neoliberal orthodoxy for thee:
Biden & the rest of the industrialized West still operated w/ some technocratic competence in execution, despite the strategic incoherence. MAGA is straight up sh*t show & clown show in execution, but they operate w/o meaningful constraint.
cain
@WaterGirl:
And they were delicious.. loved whatchamacallit 😄
Kayla Rudbek
To sum up from downstairs:
1) lump in breast is likely a cyst
2) mammogram is scheduled for tomorrow morning, likely will have ultrasound as well (this is with my usual place and they read the results before I leave the building)
3) eyes are fine, no diabetic issues or real change in my prescription (they didn’t even try to sell me new glasses that’s how close it was to last time)
4) yarn store trip to celebrate, more yarn arrived in the mail when I got home, new pair of handknit socks finished tonight
I should go to bed now so I can get gas and to the appointment on time tomorrow morning
YY_Sima Qian
Pure speculation, but reasonable ones given the MAGA clown show:
Yutsano
I’m still alive!
I’ve been talking about every night with a friend in Florida. She was just diagnosed with leukæmia. Right now she’s dealing with a deep vein thrombosis in her left arm, & she has no immune system left.
Oh & she’s trans.
YY_Sima Qian
Something a lot of Americans, not just MAGA reactionaries, have lost sight of:
Trade only happens because it benefits both parties, neither party is trading w/ the other as a favor. How the benefits & values created by trade is distributed internally is primarily a domestic policy matter, where each party has overwhelming agency. Yet, the self-conception of the US as a victim of the very systems built by the US to primarily benefit the US, is pervasive.
Jackie
@Kayla Rudbek: I’ll be thinking good thoughts for you first thing in the morning! 🤞🏻🤞🏻
Old School
@Kayla Rudbek: Congrats on the likely good news! See if Cole will let you take Jack along. He’s a good boy and has plenty of gas.
Jackie
@YY_Sima Qian:
I sincerely hope the penguins WIN!
YY_Sima Qian
This is the kind of self-censorship that would be normal in the PRC & other authoritarian regimes (gift link to Bloomberg article below):
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@different-church-lady: that’s exactly what I was thinking
@Kayla Rudbek: great news!
@YY_Sima Qian: aren’t penguins famous for being gay?
https://sites.tufts.edu/museumstudents/2021/02/22/whats-with-all-the-gay-penguins
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@YY_Sima Qian: I only wish four years of memory-holing. These idiots are just getting started, and things will only get worse from here on in.
Aziz, light!
@Chris T.: Canada does not want to merge with the west coast states because they are not, in any sense, Canada, a nation that decidedly does not want to be like us or be dominated by California. There’s no real difference between this sentiment and Trump demanding that Canada become a state. Both express the insufferably American view that Canada is not real.
Give it a fucking rest.
NotMax
In other developments, is an absolutely vile attack on the 1st Amendment underway?
dnfree
@Central Planning: We had doomaflitchies west of Chicago.
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: Trump is completely incapable of understanding the concept of a transaction that benefits both parties. His universe contains only winners and losers, dominators and dominated.
bjacques
You’re all wrong. It’s a doodad.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: If the US wants to reindustrialize, it’s going to have to put a bullet in the head of about ⅔ of the financial industry – you know, the thing that make most of the rich people rich.
How many rich industrialists have we created in the last half century?
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: It’s all vibes, memes & abstractions, because TechBros & FinanceBros dominate the American elite, w/ a large percentage of technocrats being lawyers by training.
Below is relevant:
YY_Sima Qian
Continued closer engagement between the EU & the PRC:
Meanwhile, Xi will be visiting SE Asia in the coming week:
YY_Sima Qian
I said in a comment yesterday that the only “allies” the US might still have left are El Salvador & Argentina. Perhaps strike Argentina:
Argentina Extends China Debt Deal Despite U.S. Pressure
YY_Sima Qian
Just came across this in my BlueSky feed, the comments are… oof:
There is a way to message this, ridicule the Trump gang’s shambolic decision making until their hands were forced by the bond market, the nonsensical stated rationale of the “retaliatory tariff” proposal, while also criticizing Trump for making lives harder for average Americans w/ the tariffs he did impose.
Much better from Hakeem Jeffries:
YY_Sima Qian
Probably didn’t need to match the 125% tariffs, either, but does come off as being the adult relative to Trump, which is a nonexistent bar.
sab
@WaterGirl: My only dog and two of my cats are complete assholes much of the time. Fortunately one of the asshole cats enjoys slapping the asshole dog in the face with claws extended. Saves me having to control things.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Lot of US businesses who import will not survive this year.
WaterGirl
@bjacques: I can’t believe it took until comment #78 to get to doodad!