Here’s a live feed:
Bonus: Cheesy muzak
by TaMara| 101 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
This post is in: Open Threads, Readership Capture, #notintendedtobeafactualstatement, Assholes, Clown Shoes
So this showed up on one of my favorite Twitter feeds…
'why can't my kid destroy his brain and peak in high school like I did' https://t.co/wynKlfcLOU
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) January 20, 2019
Jesse Kelly, apparently a Houston radio shock-jock, flexes & struts for his presumed audience of fellow idiots…
They just announced the champion and this place is rocking like it’s the Super Bowl. I don’t belong here.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) January 19, 2019
… and (to use the kind of metaphor of which he would approve) gets his arse kicked six ways from Sunday…
I, too, hate the idea of my children one day having valuable career skills
— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) January 20, 2019
Despite his father
— Kim Foye (@alpinenascar) January 20, 2019
"Dad, you really don't have to come to my competition today"
— lmb21 (@lmb6453) January 20, 2019
If you wanted to care for something but still keep it all about you why didn’t you just get a dog? https://t.co/E2172tGcal
— Andy Richter (@AndyRichter) January 20, 2019
So, naturally, falls back on the Why can’t you people take a joke!?! defense…
3 hours apart pic.twitter.com/xV9ILIqwob
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 20, 2019
AMERICA IS ALREADY GREAT, MY DUDE!
Open Thread: Good News – Toxic Masculinity Not (Necessarily) Hereditary!Post + Comments (122)
This post is in: Climate Change, How about that weather?, Open Threads, Science & Technology
The tiny handed shitgibbon infesting the White House seems to “think” that folks can’t tell the difference between weather and climate:*
“Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!”
Don’t know about you but I can hear the “hurr, hurr, hurr” quite clearly.
Meanwhile, in the reality-based cosmos, new and increasingly horrific dimensions of the climate crisis are making themselves apparent with every passing week:
Applying IUCN Red List of Threatened Species criteria to all (124) wild coffee species, we undertook a gap analysis for germplasm collections and protected areas and devised a crop wild relative (CWR) priority system. We found that at least 60% of all coffee species are threatened with extinction, 45% are not held in any germplasm collection, and 28% are not known to occur in any protected area. Existing conservation measures, including those for key coffee CWRs, are inadequate. We propose that wild coffee species are extinction sensitive, especially in an era of accelerated climatic change.
Domesticated coffee cultivation in a context of changing climate, drought, changes in pest patterns etc. requires the kind of genetic variety and range of traits that the ~125 wild coffee species offer. Those wild plants are subject to the same pressures that have created what many see as the sixth Great Extinction in the history of life on earth: loss of habitat, over exploitation, and, now, human-driven climate change. As the abstract above notes, much of the genetic heritage of wild coffee is simply unknown: unpreserved, unstudied, and under dire threat.
Which means that while Trump smears faeces on the wall (on the faces of his supporters?) the one thing that makes facing a morning with his tweets in it seem even remotely possible is being put at risk by his and his party’s willed ignorance, stupidity, and greed.
Happy Sunday, all….
(Open Thread)
*He might not be wrong for much of his base, but more and more, it appears, this particular squib doesn’t have much impact beyond the I’ll-enjoy-the-drought-to-pwn-the-libs crowd.
Image: J.W.M. Turner, Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth, c. 1842.
by TaMara| 22 Comments
This post is in: Cooking, Open Threads, Recipes
I’m taking a hiatus from politics for a while. Here’s a recipe I played with this week. Love the people in my life who look forward to me experimenting with new recipes and are willing taste-testers.
I have a bunch of Food in Fiction recipes on the cooking blog, I love finding or recreating recipes in novels I’ve read. One of my very favorites was the Lane Cake from To Kill A Mockingbird. So when I started writing, I wanted to include foods in my books that match recipes on my blog.
In my newest endeavor, I have included a little Turkish Cafe as a part of the local color and I wanted to try out a few pastry recipes to use in the book. This was one of the simpler (and not deep fried) that I decided to give a try.
This is not the definitive recipe – if you Google Tahini Rolls you’ll find dozens of variations. Everyone’s grandma must make her own version. This one seemed the easiest to replicate.
These are much different than I expected. Light, crisp, flaky and not too sweet, they go great with coffee. I really liked them. This recipe makes about 2 dozen:
Tahini Walnut Rolls
Warm milk, butter, oil and sugar to 90 degrees (F). Add packet of yeast and mix gently.
Mix together flour and salt and add, 1 cup at a time, to the milk mixture. Blend thoroughly and mix until it forms a soft ball. Knead gently for 2 minutes.
Remove to a lightly oiled bowl and let rise until doubled.
Meanwhile, mix tahini and sugar together until smooth. Chop walnuts.
Divide dough into two balls. Roll one of the balls out until very thin (but not thin enough to tear).
Spread ½ of the tahini mixture over the rolled dough. Sprinkle half the walnuts and 1 tbsp of sesame seeds over the dough. Roll up into a jelly roll. Slice into one inch thick pieces. Lay flat onto a baking sheet. Gently flatten.
Repeat with second ball of dough.
Mix egg yolk with a bit of water and brush over rolls. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes, or until golden brown.
===============================
Open thread.
A Sunday Night Recipe: Tahini Walnut RollsPost + Comments (22)
by TaMara| 73 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
As a few of you know, I’ve been struggling this past week. It was one of those weeks I could not get past everything. And the video John posted below was one of the first things I saw yesterday. Just awful.
So I’ve made a conscious effort to walk away for the coming week from obsession over the disaster-in-chief. And work to direct my attention to more positive endeavors. Me, broken down and in the fetal position in the corner will help no one.
Steve Hartman does very positive stories of ordinary people and I’ve been known to search them out here. Call them puff pieces, saccharine sweet, or whatever, I call them life preservers in an ocean of miserable news. I thought I’d share in case anyone else needs a break.
Open thread
Open Thread: There Are Good People Out TherePost + Comments (73)
This post is in: Because of wow., Excellent Links, Open Threads, Science & Technology, Space, Daydream Believers, Riveted By The Sociological Significance Of It All
"Imagine if cavemen had been shown the smartphone you’re using to record me. What would they have thought about this special rock? Now imagine that Oumuamua is the iPhone, and we are the cavemen"–Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb is worth hearing out https://t.co/hKJoL5mYu8
— Gady Epstein (@gadyepstein) January 11, 2019
It’s not the space rock, it’s the stories we tell each other about the space rock. As someone who’s been both an avid sf reader and a Cynic for pushing 60 years now, I found Professor Loeb’s whole argument charming:
“I don’t care what people say,” asserts Avi Loeb, chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department and author of one of the most controversial articles in the realm of science last year (and also one of the most popular in the general media). “It doesn’t matter to me,” he continues. “I say what I think, and if the broad public takes an interest in what I say, that’s a welcome result as far as I’m concerned, but an indirect result. Science isn’t like politics: It is not based on popularity polls.”
Prof. Abraham Loeb, 56, was born in Beit Hanan, a moshav in central Israel, and studied physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of the Israel Defense Forces’ Talpiot program for recruits who demonstrate outstanding academic ability. Freeman Dyson, the theoretical physicist, and the late astrophysicist John Bahcall admitted Loeb to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, whose past faculty members included Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer. In 2012, Time magazine named Loeb one of the 25 most influential people in the field of space. He has won prizes, written books and published 700 articles in the world’s leading scientific journals. Last October, Loeb and his postdoctoral student Shmuel Bialy, also an Israeli, published an article in the scientific outlet “The Astrophysical Journal Letters,” which seriously raised the possibility that an intelligent species of aliens had sent a spaceship to Earth.
The “spaceship” in question is called Oumuamua. For those who don’t keep up with space news, Oumuamua is the first object in history to pass through the solar system and be identified as definitely originating outside of it. The first interstellar guest came to us from the direction of Vega, the brightest star in the Lyra constellation, which is 26 light-years from us. In the 1997 film “Contact,” it’s the star from which the radio signal is sent to Jodie Foster.
Oumuamua was actually discovered by a Canadian astronomer, Robert Weryk, using the Pan-STARRS telescope at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii. “Oumuamua” is Hawaiian for “first distant messenger” – in a word, “scout.” It was discovered on October 19, 2017, suspiciously close to Earth (relatively speaking, of course: Oumuamua was 33 million kilometers away from us when it was sighted – 85 times farther than the moon is from Earth)…
What does it feel like to sit next to colleagues in a university lunchroom a day after publishing an article arguing that Oumuamua may actually be a reconnaissance spaceship?
Loeb: “The article I published was written, in part, on the basis of conversations I had with colleagues whom I respect scientifically. Scientists of senior status said themselves that this object was peculiar but were apprehensive about making their thoughts public. I don’t understand that. After all, academic tenure is intended to give scientists the freedom to take risks without having to worry about their jobs. Unfortunately, most scientists achieve tenure – and go on tending to their image. As children we ask ourselves about the world, we allow ourselves to err. Ego doesn’t play a part. We learn about the world with innocence and honesty. As a scientist, you’re supposed to enjoy the privilege of being able to continue your childhood. Not to worry about the ego, but about uncovering the truth. Especially after you get tenure.”
Without tenure you wouldn’t have published the article?
“I suppose not. It’s not just the tenure. I’m head of the astronomy department, and founding director of the Black Hole Initiative [an interdisciplinary center at Harvard dedicated to the study of black holes]. In addition, I’m director of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. So it could be that I’m committing image suicide, if this turns out to be incorrect. On the other hand, if it turns out to be correct, it’s one of the greatest discoveries in human history. For us to make progress in understanding the universe, we need to be credible, and the only way to be credible is to follow what you see, not yourself. Besides, what’s the worst thing that can happen to me? I’ll be relieved of my administrative duties? This will bring the benefit that I’ll have more time for science.”…
Was ‘Oumuamua a spaceship? Almost certainly not! Are we, this generation, the readers of this blog, ever likely to know whether ‘Oumuamua was a spaceship? Again — signs point to ‘No’. But the theory is enough, perhaps, to change how (if, when) we spot the next extrastellar object.
Tom Scocca puts it nicely (in the original sense of that word):
… No one will ever track down ‘Oumuamua to settle the question, but the purpose of Loeb’s argument was to be unsettling—to demonstrate that being the chair of Harvard’s astronomy department no longer means rejecting the possibility of alien technology, that when ‘Oumuamua departed, it carried away with it a whole set of presumptions that had been operating under the guise of conclusions…
The more we know, the more we know we don’t know. ‘Oumuamua entered our solar system from a direction nothing else had entered it from, at a speed nothing else had arrived at, with a shape nothing else had ever had. It accelerated, by some means no one had ever previously observed, and went away. Whether it came from a technosphere built by aliens was almost beside the point, or too narrow a question: what is certain is that there is at least one thing of its kind in the universe, which is infinitely more things of that kind that we knew existed in the universe two years ago.
Who knows? Perhaps ‘Oumuamua is the extrastellar equivalent of a mousetrap set by careful householders around the perimeter of an as-yet-mouseless home. Have we triggered that trap? If so, are the original trap-setters even around to care? It’s the speculation that’s the fun part!
oumuamua came to the solar system looking for intelligent life and that’s why it left so fast
— chris hooks (@cd_hooks) January 14, 2019
Sunday Morning Open Thread: Take Us Away, ‘OumuamuaPost + Comments (161)
This post is in: Dolt 45, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Clown Shoes, Riveted By The Sociological Significance Of It All
Next week's New Yorker cover pic.twitter.com/agC5MJJtHP
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) January 17, 2019
I feel like this Art of the Deal quote should be getting more play lately. pic.twitter.com/roJCAeb7zO
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 19, 2019
‘Bipartisan’ horse-race promoters at the Cook Report, last Thursday:
The fight over the wall and shutdown has done more to unify Dems that it has to 'rally' the Trump base. https://t.co/rpqM4r7cKp
— amy walter (@amyewalter) January 17, 2019
… First, all the polling released in the last week shows that Trump, not Democrats are taking the blame for the shutdown. Moreover, Democratic voters are more united in the sentiment that it’s Trump fault than Republicans are united that the blame should fall on Democrats.
Trump’s decision to center the debate solely on the construction of a wall (or fence or barrier or steel slats), has also has helped to consolidate Democrats. By now, Republicans had warned us in numerous ads over the 2018 campaign, Democrats would be hosting anti-ICE protests and defending sanctuary cities. The ‘open borders’ liberals would be forcing suburban, swing seat members to choose between their moderate constituents and their liberal allies in Congress. But, what’s keeping the Democratic caucus from splitting in two (or three, or four) is that debate isn’t about immigration anymore. It’s about a wall. And, even his own base isn’t convinced that a wall is worth it.
A Pew Research Poll (Jan. 9-14) found that most Republicans, 76 percent, approve of the way Trump is handling the shutdown including 50 percent who strongly approve. But, that doesn’t match the intensity of disapproval by Democrats: 93 percent of Democrats disapprove of Trump’s handling of this shutdown situation, including 87 percent who disapprove strongly! Not surprisingly, how you feel about the president colors one’s opinion of who should take the blame for the shutdown. Among those who disapprove of the president, 88 percent put the blame on him. Those who approve of Trump as president blame Democrats. But, it’s not universal. About three-quarters (77 percent) of Trump approvers blame Democrats for the mess of the shutdown, but almost a quarter (23 percent) blame the president.
By this point, it’s pretty clear that the president and the GOP are in a very deep hole. The wall hasn’t become more popular. The majority of the public blames the shutdown on Trump. A CNN poll found that just 66 percent of Republicans agree that building the wall will help solve the crisis on the border — not exactly a ringing endorsement. But, what should worry Trump the most – and could be more problematic in the long run – was this finding in the Quinnipiac poll: When asked who they trusted more on border security, Democrats in Congress were ahead of Trump by 5 points (49 to 44 percent). In other words, not only is Trump losing the argument on the wall and the shutdown, but he’s also losing on the issue of safety and security. That’s losing the battle AND losing the war…
Quinnipiac, on the wall:
The wall would not make US safer: 55-43
Wall not necessary to protect border: 59-40
Not a good use of taxpayer dollars: 59-40
Oppose shutting down gov for wall: 63-32
That's a pretty big "left." You lost the debate. https://t.co/Z6hD88Z2qY
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) January 17, 2019
Honestly. This isn't going well for him. None of it. pic.twitter.com/xlgsW1VCzl
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) January 17, 2019
Just giving up and taking the loss might be his best move, politically. Or maybe not but I think you could make a pretty decent case for it. https://t.co/rcyBPBkauF
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 18, 2019
I'll admit that intuitively, it feels very, very weak, but it's just a bet that, in the long run, everyone will forget about it and the Hannity-ish part of the base won't abandon him, both of which seem like reasonably safe assumptions.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 18, 2019
Late Night Sad Trombones Open Thread: Viewers Grow Bored with Novelty ActPost + Comments (34)