It occurred to me that all of my fellow Glibs could use some thoughts that were less dire than the constant media onslaught of the Kung Flu. As I was musing, I remembered something that happened to me some years ago, and which prompted a very rough draft of an article at that time. I dragged it out, completed it, polished it up some, and here it is: Enjoy.
It was a day much like this.
November almost always brings snow to the Colorado high country. This day it brought wet snow, almost a heavy, wet, snow-rain that soaked through my sweatshirts, through my heavy wool pants, and made moving through the cedars a truly miserable experience.
But moving through the cedars I was, with a cow elk tag in my pocket, a rifle in my hands, and a purpose – to fill my freezer with elk steaks.
About ten o’clock in the morning the wind picked up, from a gale to a hurricane. Since I was hunting into the wind, like any good, savvy pursuer of hoofed game, the ice-cold snow-rain was now blasting me in the face. Every step sent a cascade of wet, sticky snow down on me from the branches of the cedars.
I rounded a small bend on the sort-of trail and there in front of me was a larger than normal cedar. Overhanging branches and dense needles had left an almost dry, sheltered spot about four feet wide under the limbs. Enough is enough, I told myself, and crawled into the shelter to wait out the worst of the storm. Any elk in the area were no doubt doing the same thing.
The ground wasn’t too wet to sit on, especially since I was soaked through anyway. I sat down and started to shiver myself back to some semblance of warmth. It was a few minutes before I noticed that I had company in the shelter of the cedar.
The Dark-Eyed Junco.
Dark-eyed juncos are bright, cheery little birds, a little smaller than a sparrow, mostly gray with a splash of white on either side of the tail. Bright, charming mites, they add a note of cheer to tree-lines, flitting from tree to tree and punctuating the day with sparks of sound.
This junco wasn’t bouncing from tree to tree in search of seeds or insects. He was interested in the same thing I was – shelter from the howling wind and wet. As I sat down, he regarded me philosophically for a moment, and then went back to his half-doze, inside a coat of feathers puffed out against the cold.
We made an odd pair, the two of us sharing the shelter of a cedar.
He seemed to understand that I was no threat to him, even though I was a member of a species dangerous to many larger and more formidable animals than he: Man, a terminal predator, equipped with binoculars, compass and maps, knife, and a modern rifle capable of reaching three hundred yards to kill an 800-pound elk. The junco was an ounce, perhaps, of fluff, feathers, muscle and bone. And yet as I sat watching the junco doze, it struck me that perhaps my vaunted human “superiority” wasn’t all it seemed.
Think about that for a moment. For all humanity’s vaunted technology, for all my polypropylene long johns, wool clothing, Gore-tex boots, and all my modern equipment to aid me in my hiking and hunting, this bird – this tiny bird – was better suited to survival in this storm than I. He had no equipment, no tools for survival, just his wits, his instincts, and his feathers ruffled up against the cold.
While I was thinking about that, a gust of wind shook the tree, rattling all the branches. A few plops of wet snow sifted down through the branches. The junco opened his eyes, tilted his head to look up. A blink, and he resumed his dozing.
We weren’t so far apart at that moment, he and I. At least my wool outerwear had that wonderful, almost-magical property that only wool has, to stay warm after being soaked. As I sat there, reasonably comfortable on a soft mat of needles, I almost felt like dozing myself. I fought off the urge – dozing can be a dangerous thing for a displaced, hairless tropical ape on a frigid, wet Colorado mountainside in November, no matter how well equipped. So, I distracted myself by thinking about how the junco and I came to be there on that frigid, wet mountainside that November day.
The junco’s parents were juncos. Their parents were juncos. Go back a few thousand years, and the bird’s ancestors were birds, but not juncos – perhaps a small bird of similar size and habits, maybe a sort of proto-junco. Go back a hundred million years, and the proto-junco’s ancestors were some primitive bird, with a long bony tail and scaly jaws filled with teeth. A few million years earlier, and the junco’s ancestors were likely some small, arboreal theropod dinosaurs. Maybe another hundred million years before that, and the ancestor was a basal reptile, a four-legged, sprawling creature that spawned maybe a million, maybe a billion species.
My own parents were human beings. Their parents were human beings. A few hundred thousand years ago, our ancestors were human, but they were not quite like we modern humans – their brains were smaller, their bones heavier, their speech and technology rudimentary. Go back a hundred million years, and our ancestors were tiny, furry scurriers on the forest floor, burrowing into the soil or climbing into the trees to escape being crushed by the unimaginably huge monsters that ruled their world. A few million years before that, and our ancestors were squat, odd-looking reptiles with a few new physical innovations – differentiated teeth, a new instinct for parental care for the young. Maybe another hundred million years before that, and the ancestor was, again, a basal reptile, perhaps that same four-legged, sprawling creature.
And after those hundreds of millions of years, after that unimaginable stretch of what geologists and paleontologists call “deep time,” my brother the junco and I were brought together again to share the shelter of a cedar tree in a storm.
Of course, my tiny brother can only count on a few years of life, three or four perhaps, as opposed to the eighty or ninety I can expect to live. But what of that? His metabolism, running at a screaming, inconceivable pace compared to mine, balances that difference in many ways. Could it be that his perception of a lifespan in fact differed little from mine?
The tiny black eyes and expressionless face of the tiny bird offered no clues.
In the end, all my philosophical musings mattered little in the larger scheme of things. The wet snow tapered off to the occasional spit and the wind died down, and as the sky brightened slightly my brother the junco opened his eyes. He ruffled his feathers and, ignoring me, peeped contentedly once and flitted off to go about his business of survival. And I picked up my daypack, shouldered my rifle, and prepared to go about my own business of seeking the elk.
Now, as I write these words, I’m seated in a comfortable chair in a warm house, drink at my elbow, with music playing. And yet I can’t help thinking of my brother the junco, somewhere out there on the dark mountain, fluffed out against the cold on his roost, maybe even in that same cedar.
He doesn’t and can’t understand the bond we share.
But I do.
And now, so do you.
VA Covid updated. From 219 cases, 32 hospitalized, 3 deaths
to
254 cases, 38 hospitalized, 6 deaths.
#Apocalypse
Dude, Really? can’t you leave it alone, for 5 seconds?
Heh
Sup Tres,
Coffee Cups in the Air!
Fuck no…I decided to get drunk for breakfast.
SMALL CANS!
#ImpeachDeWine
Impeach wine drink beer? Or do you drink wine in a can?
Its been done….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6aHDsNZF4U
You don’t have ManCan over in Europe? It really must be a backwards place…
That was very cool Animal, thanks for sharing!
Agree. Standing ovation.
Yes that was a very cool story, wish I had the skill to write like that. I’ve had similar moments when crossing the paths of other critters out in the wild.
My daughter’s Montessori class is having a Zoom meeting. it is exactly as chaotic as you would expect. Exactly like most video business calls.
It can get you in a lot of trouble, musing, Errol. I shouldn’t do so much of it.
But moving through the cedars I was, with a cow elk tag in my pocket, a rifle in my hands, and a purpose – to fill my freezer with elk steaks. – there really should be a trigger warning for articles with cruelty to poor elk, even if it is implied cruelty. At least a microtriggerwarning.
It can get you in a lot of trouble, dozing , Errol. I shouldn’t do so much of it.
The tiny black eyes and expressionless face of the tiny bird offered no clues. – should have kissed it. Maybe it was a princess of unusual hotness under a spell.
Get us a cuppa tea, would you Errol?
Here is the movie referenced, if I am not mistaken.
Have any of you lot experienced the Darth Vader/Brick Top Youtube video?
Be advised: The latter link leads to foul language.
How disappointing.
Thanks, Animal! We just had some house finches move in to a tree next to my office window at home. I think they’re keeping an eye on me.
Very nice, and much appreciated.
Yes, thank you for this, Animal.
Thank you, Animal. I’ve mused some of the same things while sitting in the cold/wet/snow with only the companionship of whatever bird or reptile or snake or bug happened to come along to take a peep at me. I was never particularly into birds, but my wife comes from a family of avid birdwatchers and now I’m hooked. We have a small yard, but a plethora of feeders; as a consequence, we have bunches of house finches, lesser goldfinch, hummingbirds, doves, gila woodpeckers, pigeons (including an albino one we call “Whitey” whom we though we lost when a hawk hit something on our roof and carried it off, leaving a trail of blood across the driveway, my truck, the street, and the neighbor’s yard.)
The hummingbirds are a special treat. My own love of hovering may be the reason, but I can just sit and watch them watch me. Connected, we are – all of us, down to the last atom of our being.
at a distance of six feet… 😀
*snicker*
lol
The whole thing is insane. Laughably, inarguably stupid.
The populace is just starting to come to grips with the feeling of helplessness in the face of germs/bio agents. I guess 27 years in the Marine Corps inured me to this; I’m long past the point of caring. They gassed us enough times, briefed us, indoctrinated us, told us we’d face germ warfare, and eventually you can’t take it any more – you just throw up your hands (figuratively), shrug, and do what you need to do.
I was working on an article about this, but I can’t even get myself to care enough to try to convince other people to relax and have some perspective. They either will or won’t and my words are unlikely to matter.
+ Front Towards Enemy
+ Front towards everyone else (and away from me and my pos)
I guess the River is on a Migration route(who knew?) so we get to see, Snow Geese, Mallard ducks, Cranes! and many others birds pass through, and Roadrunners! in my front yard, that’s so cool…
A friend of mine told me that Arizona is a big corridor for bird migrations, YDAK. You know anything about that? Would make sense and seems to track what I see down here in the south. There’s so much bird life it’s really amazing. We awaken to chittering and chirping back and forth across the greenspace/park behind our yard. We’re siphoning the overflow from the park’s trees into our feeders. We have three regular hummingbirds that have staked out each of our feeders – at last one male and female. The colors are amazing! Sometimes they buzz us so close along walkway on the side of the house that I’ve involuntarily ducked from the air disturbance as the bird goes by on its way to the feeder.
they are mean little devils and aggressive as hell. I have had them attack me when they are worked up and I get too close to the feeders. It was like someone threw a cotton ball at my chest.
If you really want to get a close look at them buy yourself a Hawaiian style shirt with red flowers printed on it and stand still near the feeder. They cant resist closely investigating anything red.
My wife allows two drops of red food coloring in the nectar we make for that exact reason. They also seem to love one specie of agave that has “trumpet” shaped flowers – evidently that’s their jam – and we have three along the side of our house. I can stand there and watch them hover and feed for as long as they’ll let me.
I’ve also watched them fight before – they’re territorial as hell! I think it’s cute as shit – they spiral up into the sky in this incredible left-hand turn 1 v1 dogfight. It never ceases to amaze me because that’s one of the principal engagement setups you learn in “dogfighting” (air-to-air combat): 1 v 1, left-to-left pass, and it inevitably turns into a climbing fight because altitude = energy. And there it is in nature – no one taught those hummingbirds any of that shit, but they go left to left and up into that spiral and start beating each other down.
It is a bit different here because it is so heavily wooded. There is a ceiling of about 40-50 feet. They cant go up so much so they try to maneuver horizontally themselves into a position to drive their rival into a tree trunk.
Damn! I’d love to see that, Suthen. That would be fun to watch.
Hope spring has sprung up your way. I can’t get enough of it out here in the Sonoran Desert.
“aggressive as hell”
Have you met the red-winged blackbird ?
Hate Bird, Jr.
Jr? I used to get dive bombed by the little fuckers while running. I think they can safely be called pretty little hate birds.
This always makes me laugh.
“I shall call you…Mini-Hate Bird.”
agreed, the Bird life in AZ is already amazing and diverse, then add in all the Hatebirds and such, and the Park turns into Bird Central.
and where did all the Pigeons come from?
NYC? LA? More goddamn CA transplants!?!
HEH, I met several over the Weekend who bailed as soon as CA locked down, came to visit Mom, all of a sudden AZ isn’t so bad…..
and where did all the Pigeons come from?
Could be white doves, which are like doves but bigger. Kinda like how the blue quail here are much bigger than the bobwhites in TX.
pigeons – the goddamn rats are everywhere.
I don’t get that any birds at my place (pigeons sparrows swallows blackbirds seagulls various crows and a few mystery birds. ) but my mom’s place being on a lake there is sundry water fowls, a bunch of fat pheasants, skylarks nightingales a mystery bird and to many damn magpies. And the usual crows sparrows swallows
We’ve got most of that, too, Pie. There are two lakes in our community and so we also get to see coots. They’re some funny lookin’ water birds.
I don’t mind the pigeons – I grew up in a city hating them, but somehow they’re far less offensive to me out here in the desert; I can’t quite say why.
We get larks at night and the occasional bat, too, Pie. My wife hates grackles and crows – and I’ve just learned the joke about the difference between a crow and a raven being a matter of ‘a pinion’ – so we’re working our way through that.
The gambles quail here are funny and so are the roadrunners. They go scurrying across the road, all flibberty-jibberty. They’re on the ground so much that I forgot they can fly whenever they want, too.
I’m not sure I call what the pheasants do flying, but it is funny,
cheers Ozy! any rain over there?
Last week we got a shit-ton. It seems to have subsided a couple of days ago and we’re starting the sun phase. Everything is blooming, the desert critters are all a-humpin’, and spring is in the air. It’s beautiful, Yusef.
Yes it is, it’s also raining again, 5 on, 5 off, nice and warm,
Enjoy the Day
We have the same birding background Ozy.
I always like it when the hawk comes in a lands on top of a bird feeder.
I have it’s thought running through my head… “I thought this was a bird feeder?! Am I not a bird that needs to be fed?”
A few hundred thousand years ago, our ancestors were human, but they were not quite like we modern humans – their brains were smaller, their bones heavier, their speech and technology rudimentary.
Ah, yes, Homo deblasio.
proto-junco : quite nice
Homo deblasio : excellent
With the usual caveat.
*golf clap*
Best laugh I had in a month, cs!
An enjoyable read. *thumbs up*
Nice – I enjoy looking out the window on those days. Going out in them, not so much. Although coming back in makes the fire and beverages that much better.
First hummingbird sighting today.
The sugar in the grocery store was completely wiped out. WTF?
I was wise enough to buy 25 lbs last week, so the first feeder is out. As more arrive I will put out more feeders.
Should you not encourage self sufficiency in the hummingbirds? I heard you should not feed bears, I would assume the same goes for hummingbirds
Hummingbirds won’t rip off your kitchen door and eat you if you forget to put out food.
Then what was that thing that tried?
I am guilty of both. I feed the bears by planting some fig trees. I have yet to get a single fig. A bear shows up here five seconds after the figs are ripe every year.
The pet food aisle was nearly emptied out when I went on Friday. WTF?
People are nervous that their idiot governor/mayor will declare they are confined to their houses for a month and don’t want to get caught short.
^^
@Animal-
Your name gets used in vain tonight if my “article” drops on the schedule I infer: I promise everyone you’ll solve my latest crossword in three minutes.
Is one of the words “junco?”
v-i-r-u-s
Thanks, Animal, for keeping us in perspective. I think about those things, although not while sitting wet under a tree. Maybe while waiting out a storm while fishing, I’ll hide under a tree. We see the juncos in the fall, passing through. The swans have come back, they are the first migrating birds to arrive, the last to leave.
The squirrels will be at the bird feeders at a -20 or in a snow storm. They are interested in a full belly and happy that there are sunflowers seeds for free. Welfare works. Did you get your elk that day? That year? Great reminiscence.
Nicely done, Animal.
Now this is really interesting: https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/03/23/the-corps-is-axing-all-of-its-tank-battalions-and-cutting-grunt-units/
Kinda weird that going with long range precision fires means that they’re cutting back on some HIMARS units but that may change. Also wondering how this will affect the Reserve units – maybe they’ll take the gear being moved off active duty.
I guess this makes sense if they keep pushing the LHA America class – since it has no well deck and no way to get heavy equipment to the beach.
They’re just going to outsource to the Army.
That usually means stealing the Army equipment off the dock or from their base, not that I ever did anything like that.
The Osprey was a stupid move in the first place. It made no sense doctrinally, to say nothing of all of the lives it cost because it wasn’t ready when they foisted it on the troops. Getting rid of tanks and arty is a bad idea. They’re always trying to fight the next war, but the next war is never what we think it will be. All of my training was focused on the FARC and Latin America because “there’s no way we’re going to get into another big shooting war!” right after Gulf War I. Go figure.
This will bite them in the ass and then they’ll be screaming for a shit-ton of money to spool back up the capabilities they slashed. Watch.
Yes – re-arranging the whole Corps to fight a guerilla war in Afghanistan as we are getting out of Afghanistan…
Tanks maybe, but Engineers? that’s just stupid
I am not so sure China is rising anymore. It looks like they shot themselves in the dick.
Stuff like this sure makes you wondre…
According to interviews, the reason there have been 0 new Wuhan cases in Wuhan is that China simply stopped testing.
*caveat these were chinese interviewed by japanese media, so the degree of accuracy is unknown.
It’s also pretty certain that they stopped reporting. They threw out the Western journalists and anyone in China says something the CCP doesn’t like, we know what happens.
The media believing the Chicoms are being even stupider than they typically are.
If they were just naive idiots, I might feel some level of emphatic sadness, but these cuntes know damned well they are peddling dangerous propaganda for the CCP but care not a bit because their first and foremost agenda is to help team blue take back power from orange-mean-man (for the crime of making them all look like the fucking partisan hack dunces they were when they told us all crooked Hillary was our destiny) so they can hide the corruption and criminality (which they were part & parcel of) during the Obama years. They are protecting chocolate Nixon on steroids, and care little what it takes to do that. Fuck America and the American people.
Holy shit, they just lost a budget battle in a big way. In ’91 all 4 tank battalions were there. Not sure how the MEF could have done much without them.
If they’re standing down hardware, they should auction it off to the general public to arm the militia.
My kingdom for a Mk-19 (for home defense, of course).
And if I could ever get an old Whiskey Cobra….
well, there is a list of people that would need to worry if I ever found out I had a terminal illness.
Oh, you mean police departments?
No, those sub-civillians can piss right off.
I was @ Jugsy’s office a couple weeks ago over lunch. Since it’s a HUD/Section 8 property, its essentially staffed with sheriff’s deputies. Someone had asked about HUD policy for concealed carry, and she said “only for non-civilians”. There was a deputy in the room and I said (while pointing) “pssst- he’s a civilian, too since he currently isnt serving in the military”.
I doubt a made a friend.
A Marine Corps without tanks is a weird thing. Seems like a bad move to me, but what do I know?
And few, crappier strike aircraft to make up the difference.
I think the emphasis is that opposed landings would simply not be viable anymore, and the best way to put the Marine Corps to use is this new island hopping strategy in the Pacific that would allow a few Marines with missiles to deny China uncontested navigation should a conflict happen. In that scenario, tanks are all but useless targets for Chicomm military retaliation. I am curious to see what missile systems the Marines would deploy (and how) to meet this new sea denial role (both offensive & defensive).
They are less viable now because we assumed they were less viable… The Navy scrapped every decent shore-bombardment system and every decent ground-attack aircraft. We did an excellent landing in ’91 on a beach prepped by 3 battleships and flights of Harries, A-6s, and A-7s.
May as well scrap the 82nd Airborne too if we are giving up the idea of being able to kick-in doors.
Oh noes! No Peeps for you.
I really want to ski that first picture.
I’ll pull you up with my sled.
Blacks aren’t automatically racism victims: 9th overturned
Allen . . .argued that it would be an “insurmountable burden” to meet if plaintiffs have to prove that at the outset of the case, as they would not have the benefit of conducting depositions and discovery.
I have no proof of what I assert, but, if I file suit that allows me to go on a fishing expedition to see if I can waste a million dollars of respondent’s money while I sift through every email his firm and agents have ever written hoping for a whiff of corroboration, maybe you’ll believe me!
It is so tiresome this race crap.
In business there is only one color that matters: Green.
absofuckinglutely
Amazing that something so ridiculous winds up in front of SCOTUS.
He thinks he can get billions.
He’s going to appeal until he’s too broke to continue and the “charities” won’t fund him anymore.
You can thank the ninth circuit for that.
Damn….
Does the 9th circuit feel any amount of shame when they are unanimously rebuked like this?
No. Think of all the crap that they do that doesn’t get overturned or even reviewed (*cough* Boise homeless bullshit *cough*).
Libertarian-In-Chief @ToddHagopian I would rather see the entire population have a 96.6% chance of surviving #COVID19 than see the entire population have a 100% chance of losing their constitutional rights
Thats along the lines of “Id rather hunt with Dick than ride with Ted” ?
Oh shit. Go fuck yourself Todd.
*facepalm*
Haven’t we been over this before? Something about trading liberty for security?
What the hell is wrong with people?
K…. One of us is reading this wrong. Cause i took it to mean he doesn’t want to trade liberty for security.
Was about to say the same. He got something right for a change.
Robc’s right about Leon being right about the twitterer being right.
I’m glad one of us got something right.
OK, how about this one: “You can never put too much beer down your throat.”
You can.
Poor Billy Bubba drowned in the keg.
I think it is me. It is poorly written and I missed it.
What the hell, it is 1 o’clock and I am already three sheets….
People today either don’t understand or don’t agree with the principles of the founding.
The latter is a result of the former.
We now live in a society where we have the internet, but very little common sense among the population. The current generation have been indoctrinated to believe that everything is some sort of game we play online and politics is everything.
I remember the time when people would get passionate about politics and arguments would break out. There might even be a first fight break out. But after the election was over, everyone just sort of went back to normal life. All of that is gone. Now people just go completely insane over every political difference, best friends no longer talking to each other, families split apart, marriages ended, people wishing death on their political foes by pandemic or whatever else it takes. We’ve gone completely insane.
Why does he hate people?
Great read, Animal. Juncos have always been one of my favorite birds. It can be mesmerizing watching a small flock flitter around the ground under the feeders picking up whatever leftovers they can find.
Great story Animal. You’re quite the writer. I’m on vacation this week. Had I been working instead, I very likely wouldn’t have taken the time to read this. It’s nice how life slows down when you take a step outside of the rat race.
That was beautiful. I put some suet out last night for the feathered ones. Sometimes they tolerate me while I work outside and I’m humbled and grateful for the company.
This reminds me, I saw a lot of house sparrows in TX, including right in busy center of Dallas. I know they’re an invasive/introduced species there, but by contrast, they’ve disappeared from cities here, and are rare even in the suburbs now. Out here in the country we’ve still got them but that contrast was stark to me.
I need to put out suet and seed. We get 4 or 5 varieties of woodpecker, Eastern bluebirds, ravens, and doves on the regular.
Again with the birds….words cant really describe it but the bayou less than 100 yards from my back door is possibly the best bird watching location on the planet. Ibis’s blue and white, herons both blue, white and greater and lesser, kingfishers, ducks, geese, grebes, exotic anhingas…..the list is endless. On a good day you can see nearly every bird that lives in louisiana in a one hour boat ride. It is a bird watcher’s paradise.
If you have time to kill you can skim over this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_Louisiana
Maybe Florida has more species of bird but I doubt it.
Our lagoon is pretty nice that way.
I’ve seen hooded mergansers in the local wooded oxbows but never on open water.
Hey Suthen!
Back when my FIL was alive, he used to refer to the herons around Pitt Meadows as “shag-pokes.” Any idea where that nickname comes from? It was never used with affection, I can tell you that much.
No, I don’t. There are a zillion names for different birds here and most are local slang but I have never heard that one.
There are a lot of fish farms here…crawfish, minnow and catfish mostly….and the farmers are not very fond of fish eating birds.
We called them shypokes , they weren’t herons but a short legged bird that hunted frogs/tadpoles in shallow water or lake reeds.
Lovely read, Animal – thank you. Everything seems to be coming-up elk these days!
An elk bit my sister.
You’re supposed to cook the elk before you try to eat it.
Elk bites can be pretty nasti.
Jör suppøsed të cök ter ëlk bëför Jö ët it.
FTFY
ALOL
I returned to work after 7 days of vacation. Got told two hours later that we all must work from home. So I tore down my system at work, hauled it home, and got it set back up again.
It’s a wonderful life.
I’m sorry you had to do that.
We were explicitly reminded not to remove state owned hardware from our cubes.
Yeah, I’m really going to take a ten year old desktop home with me if I can avoid it.
Desktops and mass storage are forbidden fruit.
Laptops have always been allowed to leave the premises. The new rules for this “crises” allow docking stations, monitors, keyboards, and mice to be taken home for the duration of the crises.
At least the system is usuable.
“It occurred to me that all of my fellow Glibs could use some thoughts that were less dire than the constant media onslaught of the Kung Flu.”
The current articles being cranked out by the NYT, Atlantic, the Guardian, etc, makes me think that there’s something there more than their typical ‘Anything to get rid of Trump’. It’s like they’ve collectively lost their minds and all ability to think rationally at all.
For them to think that somehow they profit from this if only it gets rid of Trump is sheer insanity. No one can profit from this. So you get rid of Trump and half your friends and relatives are dead and the economy is crippled? Is that desirable to anyone? Who could even think that way except a person gone completely mad?
We could have hoped that the left might have snapped out of their TDS and gotten a little more reflective about things. But it appears any hope for that is long gone.
Something something King of Ashes.
Rather be ruler of hell than just a peon in heaven, right?
It’s not about getting Trump or TDS (although it certainly afflicts their stories and knee jerk reaction to what he does). They are in fear of this virus and setting aside any remaining reasoning ability in the hopes that they will get passed over.
Shit like this is getting passed by newspapers:
https://covidactnow.org/
And no one is looking at those charts (never mind the assumptions behind the numbers) and saying what happens at the end of that 3 month period? It’ll all be for nothing and be right where we were before. Maybe it would be better to rip the bandaid off and get beyond it, even if it costs more lives initially because it will cost even more long term. Then there’s the economic damage which will have further damages to health outcomes for a long time to come, along with the other problems of decreasing prosperity.
The experts pushing this, which I generally think are trying to do their best, are myopic to the consequences and have a deep deep misunderstanding of how economies work. They think they can just turn things on and off without any lag or knock on effects.
Then there’s the hypemen making pretty looking info graphics (like the just so flatten the curve) and pushing the narrative.
And finally there’s the true believers, as with climate change, who believe we must act or we’ll all be dead! If you don’t join in too, you’re an unbeliever and must be expelled from the body.
Then there’s the hard science. Like this:
YOU MAKE MAMA GAIA MAD, SHE GET YOU!
We freaking love science!
Shut up and read the lines other people wrote for you.
A few of the sets we investigated a couple weeks ago are for an Idris Elba movie. Last week, the engineer I helped took me aside to reassure me that nobody in the front office who met with Elba had had any contact with the field personnel who escorted us around the sites. It hadn’t occurred to me until then even to wonder. That’s probably the closest anyone in my office has knowingly come in contact with a confirmed case: a sick actor might have passed germs to people who might have passed it to other people who might have come in contact with us long enough ago that we’d know by now whether we were sick. And despite this being the closest brush anyone has (knowingly) come with the virus, we’ve shut down the office and are working from home. Because the state said to limit our numbers to fewer than ten people in the office at a time.
I like where I work and most everyone here is level-headed, but come on, this is all a bit much.
never mind the assumptions behind the numbers
Hmm, Montana’s chart looks just like New Jersey’s. Garbage in/garbage out.
Wait, you mean I can’t visit Newark, Montana?
The experts pushing this, which I generally think are trying to do their best
I think they are, too. No problem with trying to spread out the cases. It just has to be done the right way by taking into account the virus, the economy, civil liberties etc. It seems like people are only willing to focus on one of them.
And if you say “the economy”, they just accuse you of being crass, greedy, and insensitive to human suffering. They don’t understand that “the economy” isn’t just some scam run by rich people, it’s the engine that allows us to live the lives of comfort and prosperity that we do. And shutting down the majority of the economy for months on end WILL lead to actual human suffering and huge opportunity costs.
“Insensitive to human suffering”…..just wait until almost half the population is unemployed and penniless, then we’ll see REAL human suffering.
But that doesn’t really matter to the kind of people who would be fine if the masses (not themselves, of course, but all of the hoi polloi) were forced to regress to a primitive lifestyle.
About human suffering
Yeah, someone forwarded me an e-mail (since deleted so approximating from memory) where an expert was saying that the expected cases to “double” every 72 hours (or 48 or 24 I don’t remember). And they concluded with something along the lines of, “Can you imagine where we’ll be if that doubling continues for a month?”
I managed to shame a friend into removing a post from Facebook on the number of infections doubling every 4 days.
if (not flattening) costs more lives initially because it will cost even more long term
I have no data. The unanswered question is whether the flattened curve will be above or below the expanding capacity for treatment. I cannot reject the hypothesis that the flattened course will not ultimately be better, especially since my operations experience tells me we can probably grow treatment resources (an order of magnitude) in just a few months, the more rules broken the faster. If the load outgrows the treatment capacity, we would be better off to take the deaths early and restore ICU to saving normal cases as soon as possible. But we don’t have that data yet.
None of this affects my view that the government, as always, over-reaches. My personal conduct has been to distance as much as possible, but I have never ceded responsibility for such decisions to any jurisdiction. It costs me nothing to contribute this little thing; others would have different situations, and I wish them well with their decisions.
Kudos, IMHO your post represents exactly the correct attitude for any lay person in this.
I think part of it is that the center of gravity of the MSM is still NYC, which has 1/3 of the cases in the whole US. These are deeply provincial people who have a hard time comprehending anything other than “How does this affect NYC and my social circle”. Its not surprising that, because NYC is getting hit and has been botching its response, they assume everyone has been hit and has been botching their response.
According to this map, as of 11AM today NYC has about 60% of the states cases. Westchester County south (so Long Island and the City, too) have about 19K out of the 21K in the state.
Er, “state’s” with an apostrophe.
If government can curb our rights to fight a virus, then why not to fight gun violence?
Seemingly overnight, Americans are being denied the right to assembly, to travel, to attend church and school and to entertain themselves in an effort to save lives.
Similarly drastic measures could be used to curb the gun epidemic that claims lives every day.
Don’t take this wrong.
I am taking precautions and following the CDC guidelines, and you should, too. I’m also praying I make it back to my own home before domestic air travel is canceled.
But I am more afraid of walking the dog early in the morning or late at night in a neighborhood plagued by guns.
I’m more afraid someone will fire a gun on the expressway just for the heck of it and take a life.
And I’m more afraid that a gun will fall into the wrong hands.
If we can fight a war against an enemy we can’t see or touch, we certainly could use draconian measures to fight the gun violence in our schools, in our workplaces and on our streets.
We’ve proven they can lock down the economy out of an overabundance of concern for mere human lives. Why can’t they lock us out of harmful industrial activities to mitigate climate change?
There it is.
Plagued it is. Plagued.
What she wont say is that crime has nothing to do with guns and everything to do with culture.
I thought it was the Bee, until I saw Chicago.
Yeah, so predictable.
They want to turn us into the USSR so bad they can taste it. It was so close and Donny Twoscoops yanked the rug out from under them.
The gun grabbers are nothing if not mendacious. I don’t have all day so I wont list everything in there that is deceptive. Besides, that reads like a list of every tiresome old lie they have ever told.
“If government can curb our rights to fight a virus, then why not to fight gun violence?”
Why not everything? Just ban everything and lock people up in solitary confinement. Just give the person access to enough daily gruel to survive and only safe plastic sporks to eat it with. That way nothing bad will ever happen. It’s worth it if we can save just one paper cut.
Ixnay on the asticplay.
This logic is how we fall into the most wretched authoritarianism – if we did X, we can also do Y.
The “slippery slope” is not a logical fallacy at all. They’re just stating it outright here.
Slippery Slope is only a fallacy if you can’t actually show how one thing leads to another. This person is a perfect example why it is a slippery slope.
Most Logical Fallacies people claim you are using, it is because they are arguing in bad faith and learned about something once in high school and so they think it is a one word argument destroyer.
We aren’t fighting a war against a germ. From that fallacy, the rest of the fallacies follow.
But, yes, this is normalizing an extreme degree of authoritarianism that was unthinkable even a few months ago. As we have seen, everything can be called a “public health crisis”, definitely including guns, so extreme authoritarianism to address public health crises is absolutely well within the Overton window now.
Should every panic-mongering wannabe Mussolini be voted right the fuck out of office, or fired from their pubsec position? Absolutely, but I bet exactly none of them are.
Great essay, Animal!
I’m particularly fond of Juncos, myself.
Nice read, I particularly fond of them myself.
Ah oooh!
/looks for Penn & Teller reference saying that all plural nouns in English refer to breasts
You like junkies? Time to get out of the Metro area, T.
I liked this. Thanks Animal!
The Jacket
https://reason.com/2020/03/23/we-will-regret-not-taking-the-economic-effects-of-mass-quarantine-more-seriously/
I have to agree with the jacket on this. There’s been serious over-reaction. Even if the virus kills 1% of the entire population, while that would be horrific, if we don’t get things back to normal soon, the economic impact will be more disastrous.
Publications spreading horror stories that this will last 18 months or years must really have a death wish for society in general. No society can survive 18 months of lock down, let alone years. Yet the Atlantic and the Guardian are spreading that sort of fear mongering. What do they think happens to their cushy jobs in the media when the economy is trashed? They’re not exactly essential in a world that’s wrecked beyond all recognition. People will be too busy worrying about their next meal of dying from the elements to be sitting in front on the TV watching CNN all day.
How long do they think we can keep going on just “essential” work? If it hasn’t happened already, someone is going to shut down something as non-essential that’s needed somewhere up the supply chain.
DeWine’s orders are until 4/6. If everything, and I mean everything opens that week, I think we can recover from this economically. I believe most people are going to be extremely generous with their tipping when restaurants and bars reopen. If it gets extended past that, I can only hope the sheep finally revolt and put an end to this nonsense. If not, we’re fucked and they will be no doubt that the cure was 1000 times worse than the disease.
If things get stood back up on 4/6, and the rest of the restrictions start to go away. I’m pretty sure we’ll bounce back. I’m going to be very interested in seeing how many bars/restaurants close permanently (or are sold) in the next couple of months.
Michigan just closed down until 4/13 so don’t expect Ohio to be open before then.
I think a lot of established places that have long term relationships with their landlords and vendors should be able to work through this. Anyone already struggling or was on a cash only basis with vendors may not. It’s in the interest of everyone to work together. Sure a landlord could evict a bar but how confident are they of finding a replacement tenant is this environment. Same with vendors and their customers.
Depending on the area, some of those liquor license are (or at least were) worth 6 figures. I can see some owners selling them to try to recoup their losses.
I was encouraged that the reliably lefty Tucson paper was wall-to-wall “this is an economic disaster” on Sunday.
That’s what we need, not more “modeling” by panic-mongers.
As I said on morning thread, the cure is worse than the disease.
Worse case scenario is the Black Death. Losing 1/3 to 1/2 of your population destroys a civilization. So no worse than destroying your civilization economically.
Precaution, self-quarantine, etc are good ideas. Flatten the curve to keep the worst peak from happening, but we can’t be shutting everything down for months on end.
Yeah…except killing all those people also killed the feudal system, introduced marginal capitalism, and ushered in the Renaissance.
It did not kill the economy for long. It was the equivalent of burning Yellowstone down so it can come back stronger and better.
That seems…questionable. Isnt it just as reasonable that it pushed off the renaissance by 200 years?
For parts of what became Prussia, the story is, roughly, as follows:
Following the plague, there were (relatively) vast areas of crop land that had no one to work it. Feudal lords pushed to overturn the system which kept serfs in place for life. They offered competitive “wages’ which often meant peasants negotiated to keep more of the crop. Over time, farmland consistently produced more food than was needed locally. Thus, more produce was sold for profit to merchants. Local farmers got small amounts of what today we would call “disposable income.” They began buying occasional consumer goods (e.g. hand mirror for the wife). The rise in such purchases meant an increase in the number of merchants and a return of substantial long-distance trade. Trade was no longer dependent on only the rich.
More trade meant more people at the nexus points (like Florence) with large amounts of money. Many of these people began to “sponsor” artists, etc.
It was a long-term process and there were other factors, but there is pretty widespread agreement that the Black Death was a significant contributing factor to the Renaissance. Would it have happened quicker otherwise? Impossible to say.
It didn’t kill the economy for long in Historical terms. In “I’m a human being and this stretch of years is all I get” it was devastating beyond any hope of modern comprehension.
Productivity was cut in 1/2, for a long period of time. You need people to expand productivity.
I guess I need to look at the Magnus (sp?) database.
Magnus was a misspelling of Angus Maddison.
his numbers are for 1000 and 1500. There is a huge GDP increase in Europe between them, but his data doesn’t have a black death effect.
Worse case scenario is the Black Death.
I can think of no reason to think this will be within an order of magnitude of the Black Death.
My numbers:
20% of the cruise ship passengers caught the CCP Virus. That’s very likely the worst case for infection, since the cruise ships were basically a CCP Virus petri dish.
Of those infected, it looks like the mortality rate will be around 1 in 1,000. Let’s say its higher than that, though. Say, 1.50 in 1,000, making it worse than any modern flu epidemic.
So, worst case, 65 million Americans get sick. Of those, 90,000 die. Or, 20,000 more than in the worst recent flu season (2017- 18, I believe).
This. Is. Fucking. Nuts.
I meant that is worst case for a generic pandemic, not this one.
Those flu numbers are also based on a vaccine (of varying degrees of efficacy) and previous immunity. Go to 40-80% infection rate and those numbers aren’t so good, even if the rate is around flu like. Similarly, with the hospitalization rate.
The Diamond Princess numbers should be categorized as minimum infected under those circumstances. There was very poor infection controls in place during the relatively short period of time and no systematic follow up tracking or testing of passengers after they were released to determine if it developed after they left (and some did; but counterpoint would be they could have picked it up from community transmission).
Go to 40-80% infection rate
Is there any precedent for that? My understanding is that most viruses pretty much cap out at a 20% infection rate.
CDC seems to think it could top out around 60% with no controls.
I think the issue is rate of infection and incubation period.
I’m not aware of a 20% cap out for virus transmission. The 1918 Spanish flu is estimated at 30-50% infection rate with some countries (Western Samoa) estimated as high as 90% infected.
60% is right about where herd immunity could control spread.
It’s a bunch of rich trust-fund assholes who have never had to face real hardship who are hand-waving away any concern about the dire repercussions of an extended shutdown of economic life.
I’m actauly starting to think that Hihn might be a liberatarian treasure:
Damn I love that guy. Nonstop hilarity.
Dems Worried Stimulus Bill Would Stimulate Economy
“This stimulus package is horrifying. It specifically includes funding to stimulate Trump’s economy, and we can’t have that.”
“We cannot pass it to find out what is in it — then we might accidentally increase Trump’s chance of reelection,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “We must move slowly and cautiously here.”
Upon reading part of the bill, Democratic leaders were confused to learn that it would give money back to taxpayers instead of taking it away. “Is that even legal?”
Yeah, that’s why they opposed it….
Link, Brooksed……
Try again.
The dickweeds are still more worried about losing another election than they are about the nation as a whole and it’s people.
One reason why the Bee’s stuff is so funny or not funny is that it’s closer to reality than CNN reporting, on a daily basis.
@l0b0t, I was wondering– If you’ve been the househusband for the last 9 years, is she going to pay you palimony? If not, get your lawyer on that pronto.
^^^THIS^^^
Both palimony and child support if you have joint custody…
He doesn’t. He’s looking to head to Louisiana, but has to (or because) leave the children behind.
Baker orders MA “non-essential” businesses to shutdown, no “shelter-in-place” bullshit order
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER is ordering all non-essential businesses in Massachusetts to shut their physical operations as of noon on Tuesday.
The order will remain in effect through April 7 at noon, although it could be extended beyond that depending on circumstances on the ground.
State officials are urging individuals to stay at home, but Baker stopped short of issuing a mandatory stay-at-home order.
“I do not believe I can or should order US citizens to be confined to their homes for days on end,” Baker said at a State House press conference on Monday. “It doesn’t make sense from a public health perspective and it’s not realistic, especially if people need to get to work at essential business or go to places like grocery stores, pharmacies, hospitals, and health care providers.”
I expect NH to follow tomorrow.
$@&#$#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Margaret Brennan does an okay job handling Face the Nation for CBS, but most of the time that’s just partisan bickering going back and forth, which is just verbal shenanigans that anyone with a foreign studies BA (and who can speak both English and Arabic as well) should weather well.
Just saw her interview Fred Smith, and she was totally flummoxed. Smith was clearheaded and unambiguous in that cool-under-fire way I’d hope most Marines are. In one answer, he clearly says China is at 90%, that NA shipping is generally up, and that other sister shipping channels like passenger jets were down, so FedEx is pretty busy, thank you. She follows up by asking about the risk of layoffs at FedEx * Suthen-worthy facepalm *
There’s more to television journalism than reading cue cards. But, actually, I forgive her: most people have no idea how to build anything or how anything gets done. If anything, we need this virus to fix the gene pool and re-assign priorities.
Deface the Nation is still on the air?
Such a nice relief from the gloom, doom and tentacles that normally pervade this place. Lovely photos.
Nice, Animal.
The Juncos are the one thing I miss about MA. They were so cute flitting around on our snow-covered bushes.
The feeling of communion with wildlife may be onesided, but it still helps with perspective. There is a hawk that perches about 30 feet from my window, a couple of jays that nest nearby, a woodpecker in another tree, a smaller raptor my eyes cannot quite identify possibly a peregrine that hangs out occassionally, and 2 weeks ago a bald eagle stopped by (which surprised the hell out of me since I didn’t think there were any in southern Ohio). All this on 3 acres of lightly wooded land.
I absolutely adore the raptors and corvids.
My office (which I am going to miss) has a window overlooking the back yard, which backs up onto a woods. The jays fight with the squirrels. The cardinals get fed up with everybody and chase the jays off and dive bomb the squirrels. The squirrels fight with each other. The robins are over there minding their own business and occasionally a deer will walk through munching on my yard (which I do not mind).
The woodpecker gave up once we put Hardie board on our house. Sorry, Mr. Broke Beak. No more flimsy chipboard siding. Now it’s concrete and fiberglass. Enjoy ramming that pecker into the wall.
Oh, and the crows just laugh at everybody, the owls hoot and screech at the coyotes, and the coyotes yip and yap at 11:00 p.m., 2:00 a.m., and 5:30 a.m. almost like clockwork.
Now it’s concrete and fiberglass. Enjoy ramming that pecker into the wall.
This makes me think of that fake plastic surgeon who used concrete and fiberglass as fillers.
Welp, Virginia schools have just been closed for the rest of the school year, courtesy of the Coonman.
Teachers get to go on vacation early!
I expect that to happen here.
Just informed Walmart XX had my permission to work as many hours as she wanted to. They have a thing where if the kid’s in school, they don’t schedule them over X number of hours and virtual school counts.
Except…this is weird, so they said they’d waive that if I said it was okay.
I never saw a Junco until I moved here. Back home, if it was a sparrow-sized bird, it was a sparrow 95% of the time, and it was a chickadee the rest. So many more varieties of birds here, though not the numbers I would expect based on the amount of woodlands, though I blame that on the number of outdoor cats. Fewer Robins here, and Grackles, Mockingbirds and Scissortails are non-existent. Fewer woodpeckers too.
I see plenty of Robins. Maybe they’re urban birds… or maybe there was just a whole bunch in the land you left behind.
Glibs: As you know, I am culling keepsakes. Free to good home:
1 Buffalo Trace Old Fashioned glass
1 Buffalo Trace muddler
1 Buffalo Trace shot glass
I’m afraid I get a little too carried away with the souvenirs.
moriah at moriahjovan dot com
Great read Animal. through my heavy wool pants,….Were you sporting a pair of those old army surplus wool pants with more pockets than you had stuff for? That was my clans winter wear of choice when I was a Ute. Now I couldn’t walk a mile wearing them. They were heavy af, especially when wet.
Exactly so. Back then, I was wearing a lot of Army surplus, much of which I had worn in the Army.
I miss the old surplus stores. Not many around these days and what’s there is junk or way overpriced.
new Chinese product that fits, costs little, and lasts a long time makes more sense than rotten canvas
but I do miss the smell
Ya, that is what I mean. Creaky wood floor, the smell of mildew, camo everything. It was a teenage boys dream. Now the only things useful in them are ammo cans and those are even better when made with plastic. They still do get top dollar for the large ammo cans since the river rats use those for groovers.
14 year old me thought that army green wool jacket with the hole in it was Ramboriffic
50 year old me likes North Face, LL Bean, and Columbia
? Oh ya, I will take light and water proof over heavy and wet any day. We used to ski in those big baggy surplus wool pants. I am not sure I could get off the lift wearing them now.
I go with Duluth Trading these days for most things.
Bailout failed to pass procedural vote in the Senate – Dems attempted to add a pile of green new deal nonsense. Friday is new target for passage.
I’m rooting for no bailout (unlikely).
There is a surprising amount of snow coming down.
Yeah, raining hard all day long here.
Teachers get to go on vacation early!
At full pay, one hopes. We wouldn’t want them to suffer any inconvenience; would we?
Haven’t they suffered enough already?
Very nice, Animal. Some perspective is welcome in these parlous times.
Speaking of which, as other have noted, it is getting to be wildflower season in AZ. This is from yesterday’s rumble through the neighborhood with the Barbarian Horde. Not sure what it is. Also saw a decent mule deer buck, still with his antlers on (they keep them late here), but no pic, sadly.
Should be an excellent wildflower season. We’ve had pretty much ideal rainfall, at least around Tucson, through the winter, which usually sets up the wildflowers nicely. Rain in Tucson often means rainbows (and yes, that is plural for a reason).
May just be the resolution, or my eyes, but the first sight of the flowering bush made me go “why did someone stick a bunch of cotton balls used to remove nail polish on that bush?”
That’s about right. Shoulda got a close-up, but I didn’t.
Were you living in Arizona in the winter of 2004-05? There was a crazy amount of rain (for the area, anyway) then and the desert bloomed like crazy that spring. It was really something.
On the downside, the wet weather also spurred an explosion in the moth population. We used to drive up to Phoenix from Yuma pretty frequently (cause there isn’t shit to do in Yuma for the most part) and one time we drove through so many moths that they actually killed the engine by the radiator getting clogged with them. For a while, we’d stop in Gila Bend on the way to wash them off the windshield – it would get so smeared by them exploding into yellow goo as they got hit.
Nope. Moved here seven years ago.
Very nice pictures.
I don’t think I’d ever seen a double rainbow before moving here, but they aren’t that uncommon. Occasionally you will see full, end-to-end, double rainbows.
Is that a pornhub channel?
More like this. Looking east from the Casa Dean backyard at sunset after a rain.
Nice
I have always enjoyed the desert but my wife hates it. Her nose dries out badly because of a botched nose job when she was 18.
Casa Dean’s gorgeous. Totes jelly. (I’ve always been a sucker for deserts as well . . . )
I saw that in Las Cruces last Summer, Beautiful ,end to end
I’ve only seen one. It was on the Outer Banks just after a thunderstorm passed through.
Well, got enough beer and food that I shouldn’t have to pop my head out for at least a week if shit keeps getting crazier. Off until Thursday if we are still going to be working. Hopefully if something changes someone will contact me, it would suck to drive to work and show up to an empty building.
I’m good for a while as long as I refrain from stress eating.
I hope your supervisors are organized enough to notify their people with status updates like that.
I’ve noted a few comments here mentioning woodpeckers……you all actually like those sonsasbitches? Several times over the past few years, I’ve had to patch holes in the siding caused by those little fuckers. Not a fan.
Do you have an infestation of vinyl worms?
Not that I’m aware of. I have no idea why they’ve been pecking on the house, but I’m not crazy. I’ve seen them do it with my own eyes.
They are all around here and I’ve never seen one even land on the house, much less start pecking at it.
They perch on the gutterpipe down the corner of the house, near the roofline, and peck away. The redheaded ones that look like Woody Woodpecker.
And we’ve got trees out the ass in my yard! I don’t get it.
Pileated.
I’m not crazy
I saw three woodpeckers on the ground morning of the 14th: never say one such before. Admittedly, they were of the flicker sort, not the red-tinged hammerheads most folk think about.
What does our horoscope say about that!?
I have holes from carpenter bees, but never from woodpeckers. We have downy woodpeckers, red headed woodpeckers, pileated woodpeckers and nuthatches here, and they stick to pecking trees and harassing the cats.
The woodpeckeres we’ve had pounding on the were going after carpenter bee larve.
Except for a really big pilleated woodpecker that ripped a coople feet of corner board off the house just for the fun of it.
I had one that thought an unused satellite dish might have some tasty food in it. Made a hell of an annoying noise.
Hate them. They pound on our chimney caps, and we have one now that is working the hummingbird feeder and constantly bangs on our windows, marking them up. He has shit all over the house, too.
Mrs. Dean reluctantly agreed yesterday to my Final Solution for the fucker, as long as she isn’t home. Will also need to crate the Dean Beasts – the Big Dumb One hates loud noises.
Back from Costco. The store was not deserted, but definitely fewer people than normal. I didn’t check the paper aisle, but everything I was looking for (which was the same stuff I would have bought two months ago) was there. The lines appeared longer, but only because the person behind was leaving some space, instead of having her (yes, I said HER) cart jammed into your Achilles tendons. My line was slow, but only because the stupid fat woman ahead of me was uninterruptedly blabbing on the phone, and made no attempt to streamline the process, not even unloading the stuff from her cart onto the belt. I was sorely tempted to cuff that goddam phone out of her hand.
I stopped at Jimmy John’s. Two employees instead of the usual mob behind the counter. One taking money, one making sammiches.
I think I saw a bluebird, the other day. They always get here in time to get snowed on a couple of times.
I realize I’m not living up to the spirit of the thread, but…..Coonman also ordered barber shops to be closed. This means fucking war, motherfucker. If there is one thing I will not abide, it’s my hair getting long. I’ll have to start shaving my head, which my wife despises, which means I’ll be getting laid a helluva lot less. So you’ve just made an enemy for life, Jolson wannabe.
Go long on Flowbee stock?
First he kills babies, then he steals your guns, and now our barbers!
I just got the Spousal Unit to cut my hair last night using electric trimmers and a comb.
Damned if she didn’t do a better job than most of the so-called “barbers” and “hairstylists” I’ve given my custom to over the last quarter-century. The only one that did a consistently better job was a gorgeous blonde named “Galyna” in Calgary who learned her craft in Ukraine (where she hails from).
All barbershops here are already closed. Tomorrow all non-essential businesses are supposed to be closed, so I tried to get a haircut today. Too late. And it looked like they closed days earlier.
Oh, and this is fun – one of the things Pelosi’s substitute stimulus bill shoehorns in is…….a section about corporate board diversity.
Truly, these are VERY serious people.
Next press conference, Trump needs to make clear that he will only sign a clean stimulus bill, and that the Dems need stop shitting all over it with their pet projects.
Yes, the bill will still suck. But its going to get passed, and it would be better if it wasn’t a vehicle for every cockamamie scheme can’t possibly pass any other way.
And here is where having Trump as president may actually pay off. Any other Pachyderm would drop trou, bend over and give the Dems whatever absurd pork they want. Not saying Trump won’t end up doing that, but he at least has the possibility of telling them to jam it where the sun never shines.
where the sun never shines.
Hillary’s cloaca?
the Dems need stop shitting all over it with their pet projects.
I want him to phrase it like this.
It’s another reason why i don’t think this is serious.
Politicians always gin up their base into a froth, and then act in complete contrast to their rhetoric.
one of the things Pelosi’s substitute stimulus bill shoehorns in is…….a section about corporate board diversity.
Truly, these are VERY serious people.
They maintain their laserlike focus on the goals of the People’s Republic.
Related:
https://twitter.com/guypbenson/status/1242094417428779011
Here is my shocked face ?.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/report-china-may-have-massively-underreported-coronavirus-deaths/
Need a chuckle?
Priorities man… priorities…
Need a chuckle?
“Why do you ask, Two Dogs Fucking?”
I thought it was funny. But I am really immature at heart.
Damn they move fast.
http://imgur.com/a/q0RXrN1
*chuckle*
Ditto
Mrs. Dean reluctantly agreed yesterday to my Final Solution for the fucker, as long as she isn’t home. Will also need to crate the Dean Beasts – the Big Dumb One hates loud noises.
I know several people who have high-powered pellet rifles. Quiet, and highly effective against small creatures, up to and including bunny rabbits, they say.
I have ahigh powered air rifle. I wouldn’t say it was quiet. I haven’t done a side by side but it sounds about as loud as a .22 ro me.
If the pellet’s breaking the speed of sound, it probably doesn’t matter how otherwise quiet the rifle is.
Over 13K Americans abroad have contacted the State Dept requesting assistance getting home.
Governor Grisham is announcing statewide stay-at-home instructions at three.
Shameful.
wonder how much nuclear fallout her mother breathed during pregnancy
Dallas had one announced that drops at midnight. I live in an unaffected suburb, but I had to drive into Dallas to drop off a truck for my mom.
It was hilarious.
Whole Foods and Kroger (grocery store) have lines OUT THE FREAKING DOOR of shoppers. Just throngs of people. Which is funny to me for 2 reasons.
1) The unattended consequence of this “rule” is mass gatherings of people.
2) The law says you can still just go shopping if you need to.
I just got back from shopping.
As I was running low on toilet paper, I made up my mind to find some.
Of course my usual sources are sold out, so I decided to try WalMart. I’m not a fan of the place so I end up walking 75% of the perimeter of the store to find the right aisle, and arrive just as they’re stocking the shelves – albeit mostly with paper towels. They did however have three 18 roll packages of Angel Soft (limit one per customer). So I now have 22.5 rolls, and should be good until this mess calms down.
You’d think it would serve as a warning of relying on feckless bureaucrats and worse-than-useless politicians… but people will come out the other side of this demanding a new king.
King Donald will bring the fight to Chiner!
/ FoxNews
/ truckdrivers
/ everyone I’m related to (but I repeat myself)
I have ahigh powered air rifle. I wouldn’t say it was quiet. I haven’t done a side by side but it sounds about as loud as a .22 ro me.
Thanks. I only have second hand reportage to go by.
Saw the first two robins today in the yard. Still lotsa snow so they were picking and choosing carefully as to where they were walking. Spring has sprung but its gonna take a few days to re-purpose all the snow/ice.
“repurpose” I like it….
We’ve had a lot of robins already. We had enough snow to cover the grass yesterday, but it didn’t stick to the roads. So there were tons of robins walking around on the street this morning as I headed into work.
Watching Gov. Reynold’s (Iowa) press conference. The media is rabid about forcing a “stay at home” order – the last five questions, same thing.
I bet the nationwide one is cancelled next week. Let NYC stew.
Thanks for sharing.
I love to see the little dark eyed juncos hopping over the snow for seed. Why they prefer to get it off the ground and not the feeder is beyond me.