Sunday Morning Linkation

by | Mar 20, 2022 | Daily Links | 159 comments

Happy Sunday, y’all. I was reading the garden talk yesterday. I got berries for the first time ever with the help of some bird netting. Peppers from last year. Maters and squash in a few weeks.

This happened right up the road. Sad.

Eddie Hall ran out of gas against Halfthor Imagine getting punched by one for those monsters.

This means fewer USDA subsidies, right?

Music link. Embed was weird.

About The Author

Brett L

Brett L

Brett set out to find America, the real America, the America of strip malls and serial killers, of butthole waxing and kelp smoothies, of cocaine and maggots. He sought it in the most American part of America—Florida: swamp gas and fever dreams, where love arrives on a rickety boat and leaves when it doesn't have the money for its fourth abortion. Oh, where has Brett gone? He’s drinking at the neck of America’s wang, chewing its foreskin and working its shaft. Brett is becoming legend. Brett can never die. Brett can never die. Brett is America, facedown in his own patriotic puke: the red his blood, the white his stomach lining, and the cold, cold blue his gas station slushie, spiked with coconut rum and tetracycline.

159 Comments

  1. TARDis

    War for Wheat! God Bless America.

    • TARDis

      Woot! I got firstie.

      *Holds “L” up to forehead*

  2. Not Adahn

    Good morning!

    Glorious sunshine, corned beef hash and eggs with good coffee! Now off to the park!

    • Ted S.

      Still cloudy down here.

  3. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Sunshine and covfefe! maybe hi 40S
      Sup Tres!

      • Fourscore

        Airport run last night was uneventful. Plane was 15 minutes early, that’s always nice.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        good to know you made it in the fricking dark,.

      • pistoffnick the refusnik

        Hope she didn’t come back to a sink full of dirty dishes, Fourscore.
        *shudders*
        I suspect Mrs. Fourscore has a collection of rusty tin can lids, too.

      • Fourscore

        No dirty dishes, PO, I learned a long time ago. I wash dishes every evening, use the same ones the next day.

      • Sean

        *makes whip cracking sounds*

  4. The Late P Brooks

    Cursed

    While some argue that crisis offers opportunity, consumers are feeling the pinch in the latest knotty problem for a US president who, after 14 months in office, seemingly cannot catch a break.

    “Biden has a cursed presidency,” observed Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “He’s gotten nailed by the continuation of Covid, by inflation being out of control, by a lunatic leader in Russia and now soaring energy prices that are hitting voters in the pocketbook. They want to be able to get gas for their cars and not spend a hundred bucks.”

    Prices at the pump, which hit a record high of $4.43 a gallon on average last weekend, were rising long before Russia invaded Ukraine as demand recovered from coronavirus lockdowns. But in announcing a ban on US imports of Russian oil, Biden sought to reframe it as “Putin’s price hike”.

    Republicans, however, saw a political cudgel with which to beat him. They argue that Biden campaigned on a promise to “wage war” on domestic energy production, signed an executive order to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and suspended or halted oil and gas leases on federal lands.

    Poor Joe. He’s a victim of circumstance. At least Doktor Grandma can revel in her queenly splendor.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Poor Joe, he got the short straw he cheated so hard to obtain.

    • Ted S.

      Republicans, however, saw a political cudgel with which to beat him.

      REPUBLICANS POUNCE!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Oh it gets better. The WaPo is worried that violent COVID extremists (it is left to the reader to figure out who those people are) will be taking advantage during the midterms and infiltrating conservative rallies.

      • juris imprudent

        And by infiltrating they mean the candidates.

      • Ted S.

        They should be thrilled that these people are going to infiltrate the rallies, give everyone covid, and kill them.

    • CPRM

      …they call this bad luck.

    • rhywun

      Even the Guardian can’t plausibly spin their way out of this.

      What’s next? The MSM admits the Hunter laptop was real?! … Oh.

    • Brawndo

      Didn’t he sign up to be president though? Even if you assign none of the blame to him, you’ve got to be a drooling moron to not realize you’d be facing enormous problems as president.

      Oh wait.

  5. Scruffy Nerfherder

    In regards to fighting ogres of unusual size like Halfthor, I subscribe to the Monty Python school of combat.

    RUN AWAY

  6. trshmnstr the terrible

    Hey all, I’m collecting can lids to make into a wind chime/mobile for SP.

    1) Take a lid, rusty or not (preferably a canning lid, but whatever you can get), write your glibs handle on it along with a message of appreciation for her immense contributions to this site.

    2) email me at trashy-glibs@disengage.co (and let me what your glibs handle is) to get the destination address for the lid.

    3) shove the lid in an envelope and get it in the mail by April 1st.

    Once I get all the lids, I’ll assemble them in a way that only a trash monster can, and I’ll send it up to SP to replenish her stock and keep OMWC in check.

    I’ll continue posting in the links threads this week. Athena has graciously offered to put messages on lids for those who, for whatever reason, can’t. (athenaofprogtown at the gmail)

    • Tonio

      OMG, that is so sweet of you. Let me see what I can do.

  7. Fourscore

    Made the airport run last night with no problems. Even the plane was 15 minutes early. Mrs F was happy to be home, relatives, fish, 7 days…

    Especially when one is the guest and dependent on the others for that week…

    • hayeksplosives

      Yay! Reunion time.

      I always heard it as “Fish, like visitors, stink after 3 days.”

      Seven days is generous.

      I planned my visit (from which I am attempting to return) with that adage in mind. Saw everyone, didn’t get on nerves, long enough to miss my husband, not too long to leave my siblings with regret.

      ?

    • MikeS

      ??

  8. The Late P Brooks

    Opinion polls suggest Biden’s handling of the war in Ukraine has broad public approval but, with hints of a fresh coronavirus wave, his list of problems never seems to shorten. Whatever the causes of inflation, history suggests that voters may punish him at the ballot box.

    The president’s legislative ambitions for the climate crisis and other priorities are about to collide with midterm elections in which all signs point to Republicans winning the House and possibly the Senate. Biden could find himself spending the second half of his presidency vetoing laws rather than signing them.

    Jamal Raad, co-founder and executive director of the campaign group Evergreen Action, said: “If there was ever a moment of need for moving to a 100% clean energy economy was more clear that now, I don’t know when would be with a fossil fueled enabled leader attacking another country and throwing the whole fossil fuel global market into chaos. I do believe this is a make-or-break moment.”

    You see, this is really a blessing in disguise. This gas price spike is just the slap in the face we need to shake off our addiction to the predictable, dependable energy we need to maintain the economy and lifestyle we have come to depend on.

    In a decade or two, hardly anybody will complain about rolling blackouts or gasoline rationing. And if they do…

  9. Sean

    This is why we have life jackets.

    Good ?.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    John Paul Mejia, national spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement, a youth movement to stop climate change, said: “The playbook of fossil fuel executives is clearer now than ever. They have used the crisis of war to surge prices at the expense of working people and the takeaway from this is that it is incredibly dangerous and anti-democratic to have an economy dependent on fossil fuels.

    “We need Biden to use the Defence Production Act to take decisive measures on the urgency, scope and scale of this crisis and transition to clean, renewable, reliable energy.”

    Fanaticism. It’s what’s for dinner.

    • hayeksplosives

      “We need Biden….”

      HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      (Deep breath)

      AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

    • robodruid

      Well, if they would use the DPA for nuclear power, i would be shocked.

      • juris imprudent

        Ha! Shut down the environmental lawsuits? What a beautiful thought.

    • rhywun

      Who doesn’t want to quadruple their energy bills? Let’s get on that, Joe.

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      We need Biden to exercise dictatorial powers to save Our Democracy.

  11. hayeksplosives

    Good morning, everyone! I’m at Will Rogers World airport in OKC waiting for my flight home (Vegas via Salt Lake). Sadly the OKC leg to SLC is delayed and that means I’ll miss my connection to Vegas, so they’ve given me a “contingent” sear on a later flight.

    Prolly gonna take tomorrow off to recuperate.

    Happy Sabbath, Gentiles!!

    • Fourscore

      I always hated that when it happened. While the world as I knew never ended it always required a change of plans. I was not a flexible flyer.

      • hayeksplosives

        Word.

        The worst I dealt with was flying from DC to Minneapolis on a Friday following a Wednesday in which a tornado had ravaged the Atlanta airport (Delta hub). So they finally told us after delay+delay+delay that ALL flights from DC that Friday were cancelled and that everything on the weekend was fully rebooked so we’d be lucky to get out by Monday.

        They actually announced it as such, which I greatly appreciated.

        I looked at the two dudes next to me in line, business suits, white guys, stuck out my hand to shake and introduced myself. We ran to the rental car facility and drove from DC to Minneapolis. What a road trip of strangers! We turned out to have the exact same philosophy for gas station stops, music selections, speed limit excess (not toooo bad), etc .We are still Facebook friends!!

    • Sean

      ☕?

      • hayeksplosives

        I believe a bar has just opened across from me.

        After coffee. A Bloody Mary might be in order../

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I’ll at least wait til noon, the car wash likes a sober operator,
        /For now

      • Fourscore

        You’re probably busy right now. My truck looks bad but still too muddy to worry about it. I’ll wait a few more days, let more of the snow disappear and dry up a little.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Doom. Panic. Evacuate the lowlands!

    Earth’s poles are undergoing simultaneous freakish extreme heat with parts of Antarctica more than 70 degrees (40 degrees Celsius) warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 50 degrees (30 degrees Celsius) warmer than average.

    Weather stations in Antarctica shattered records Friday as the region neared autumn. The two-mile high (3,234 meters) Concordia station was at 10 degrees (-12.2 degrees Celsius),which is about 70 degrees warmer than average, while the even higher Vostok station hit a shade above 0 degrees (-17.7 degrees Celsius), beating its all-time record by about 27 degrees (15 degrees Celsius), according to a tweet from extreme weather record tracker Maximiliano Herrera.

    The coastal Terra Nova Base was far above freezing at 44.6 degrees (7 degrees Celsius).

    It caught officials at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, by surprise because they were paying attention to the Arctic where it was 50 degrees warmer than average and areas around the North Pole were nearing or at the melting point, which is really unusual for mid-March, said center ice scientist Walt Meier.

    If only we had listened to the pleas of those who know what’s best.

    • Fourscore

      The bumpkins in MN didn’t get the word and had to suffer through another bitter, cold, long, snowy winter.

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      Warmer than average, but what’s the standard deviation?

      • MikeS

        Hush, you!

  13. Fourscore

    I’ve been asleep for the last 20-30 years. Ethanol was going to be the solution to all our problems, extended gasoline, cured pollution, etc. Seems more like it subsidized farmers, raised the price of booze and created shortages in cattle feed.

    Too many “experts” in government that know what’s best for the economy/peasantry.

    • juris imprudent

      Soothsaying has always been a tough business.

      • Tonio

        Just ask Not Adahn.

    • Don escaped Texas

      You weren’t asleep.

      There is only one consistency: people who know nothing of economics (who must have slept through their entire lives and took no notice of the relationships of action and results) or of oil and gas in particular braying on about which president caused what. The government meddles in markets or it does not, but the party that claims to care does nothing about, for example, ethanol subsidies when they have the WH and both houses; instead, they impose tariffs because WE KNOW HOW ECONOMICS WORKS!Q!!!1! The key to an economy that fixes itself quickly is smaller government, but the SMALLER GOVERNMENT PARTY™ is really just a circle jerk of identity politicians sucking off truck drivers and plumbers and selling them hats and ties from China with cool bumper sticker bon mots printed on the front. Doing any of the things they claim they believe in that would AKSHUALLY FIX THE FUCKING PROBLEM just, well…..no one’s got time for that: here’s a video of me with my favorite Cuban foods and some twitter about my wanting to bang my daughter. And here’s the list of laws I proposed to reduce the number of federal executive departments: bupkis. OHH NOOOOSSSSSSSSS: our clownsavior got replaced by a career uberCatholic before he even had time to fix anything and NOW the everything sucks because HIM HIM not the reaction to the virus, the not the moral hazard of paying people not to work, not the cratering of the economy while Orangemanbad gave the bully pulpit to a trotskyite MD instead of forcefully auguring against over-reaction and central control, and guess what, two years’ delayed demand and trillions of fresh new printer go BRRRRcaused a tsunami of demand and the perfectly predictable inflation but

      The most bumbling president of all time created a fabulous string of dominoes that fell perfectly and caused exactly this……….he’s a savant!!!!!!!!!1!

      Your choices are commies or morons.

      • Tonio

        “people who know nothing of economics (who must have slept through their entire lives and took no notice of the relationships of action and results)”

        Which is, unfortunately, a solid majority of the population. And many of those people vote. Ane we are trapped here with them.

      • Fourscore

        The irony of the whole screwed up vote buying trick. Us old people get SS, for better or worse. We learn to live on our income. A couple years ago some mysterious (political) virus attacks. The sky is falling, spend money. Trump sends us all a check. Why would someone that has not lost their job need more money?. So us old folks get extra free money that we don’t need. It didn’t buy quite enough votes and Trump lost.

        The idea didn’t disappear though, Biden washes, repeats. Somehow Fauci and the new big V doesn’t care about money and life goes on.

        “Cheer up” some one said “things could be worse” So I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse.

      • DrOtto

        I choose both *pulls lever for pol who promises price controls*

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Well, if they would use the DPA for nuclear power, i would be shocked.

    That would be crazy.

  15. Sean

    6 4
    8 5

    • Ted S.

      87
      56

    • Grumbletarian

      6 4
      7 3

    • TARDis

      3 6
      8 5

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      4 6
      0 2

      • TARDis

        You cheated! ?

    • blackjack

      9 5
      7 4

      Worldle took two guesses to get right next to it and all the rest to realize that I had no idea what Christmas island looked like.

    • MikeS

      6 7
      8 3

  16. robodruid

    Another adventure in Not Knowing What The Hell Am I Doing Farming…..

    So we decided to try to plant some corn for the sheep as a supplemental feed.
    Go to the local feed store, and seed corn is selling $3/oz. It has this special coating on it. A 5 lb. bag was $200.
    Meanwhile, I have dry field corn in 50lb sacks for $12. I am going to try growing that.
    Will report later.

    • Brett L

      I’m not a farmer, but I figure if you try growing the $12/sack corn first and it fails you’ll feel better about buying $200 for 1/10th the size corn sacks

    • Fourscore

      Ah, the feed corn is a hybrid, planting it, you will get results but will not look like the offspring you planted. I’m a seed saver, especially watermelons and squash. I get a lot of different off spring , it’s all good but not the same as the Mom and Pop.

      In 2020 I planted some low cost generic sweet corn. It was edible but it wasn’t good. Last year I went back to the high priced seed catalog corn, well worth the extra big bucks. Then I didn’t have a garden last year but my seed corn is still good this year.

      • robodruid

        Its for the sheep/cow(s). I also have some fancy seed corn from Baker Creek that i will try in another area.

    • Mustang

      Do you happen to know a good Farming for Dummies reference? We want to get started with vegetables and chickens but the amount of information out there is overwhelming.

      Who would have thought that having too much information would make things more difficult?

      • Fourscore

        There are a lot of basic books plus the online videos. I don’t know much about chickens, except to eat them when they are put on my plate.

        Choose the vegetables you like. Save the exotics for later. I’m going to plant less variety this year and less of the slow movers. We don’t eat a lot of potatoes so I’ll cut back on them.

      • Fourscore

        3 things. Sun, water, fertilizer. In the right amounts, more is not always better

  17. hayeksplosives

    The airport “elevator music” is the theme from Doctor Zhivago.

    Pretty sure I am the only person in the airport who knows that. It’s not a cheerful tune in the best of times. Now…

    • Ted S.

      I hate the movie. The music is cloying, and the movie starts with the book’s epilogue (technically the first epilogue, as there’s a second epilogue of Zhivago’s poetry), giving the story away. Never mind the socialist realism ending.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Good news, everyone!

    It’s increasingly expensive to buy a home: Not only are housing prices increasing by double-digits annually, but mortgage rates have been on the rise and this week topped 4% for the first time since May 2019. That’s pushing more buyers to take out adjustable-rate mortgages — one of the financial products blamed for the 2006 housing crisis.

    The share of mortgages that are adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) doubled to 10% in January, up from a 10-year low of 4% in January 2021, according to data from CoreLogic. ARMs offer an initial low rate for a period of years — typically anywhere from 3 to 10 years — and then the rate adjusts after that, usually annually, based on a fluctuating benchmark rate plus an additional margin, such as 2%.

    Whom will Joe blame for this?

    Never mind. He’ll most likely be dead and buried when the wave of foreclosures hits.

    • rhywun

      “Putin’s mortgage hikes”

    • The Gunslinger

      Interest rates are low and the Fed is starting to raise its rate. We need to hurry and get an ARM so we can buy this house with payments that are 50% of our income.

      Morons.

      And probably plenty of them are college “educated”.

      • TARDis

        Excellent. I hope to buy a foreclosure at a nice discount.

      • The Gunslinger

        #metoo

      • Spartacus

        You won’t have too much longer to wait. Maybe a year, if that.

      • Ghostpatzer

        “We need to hurry and get an ARM”

        Always a great strategy when interest rates are poised to jump.

      • Sean

        People r dumb.

      • TARDis

        *hangs head*

        It’s not my fault the election was fortified! I expected 2020 to be the best year of my life, and the Nazi-globalist-swamprat-shitbag-thieving-mendacious-assholes ruined it. I did cut my mortgage payment in half though.

    • Ghostpatzer

      He’ll most likely be dead and buried when the wave of foreclosures hits.

      He’s already dead.

    • pistoffnick the refusnik

      …when the wave of foreclosures hits.

      Pretty please?

      I had advance knowledge (friend of a friend of a friend) of a house going on the market. Twelve acres, view of Lake Superior, beautiful wood shop. It sold within hours of going on the market, and for $30k more than they were asking. I didn’t even have time to make an offer.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Derp

    • LCDR_Fish

      BTW…found out last night what the song/artist was on a bunch of the Ukrainian army videos that get posted on twitter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgNgTPTkSo – the musician posted too, sounds like it might be a new “theme song” for the army.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Who knew maintainence was important?
      /raises hand

      • LCDR_Fish

        Side note to that twitter guy’s reference to US maintenance habits and adjacent to some of what I’ve mentioned with respect to US Navy maintenance. Our “record keeping systems” do have some limitations/inflexibility. For instance – it’s limited to 8 hours/person/day for actual maintenance checks – so if you don’t have as many people available to work on something or the work goes long, it’s extremely difficult to log the maintenance correctly in the system without getting all kinds of errors – even though you need to take credit/validate the work.

        In other things, it’s improved – ie. if a pump is functioning normally, don’t do a “default” 1000 (or whatever) hour rebuild on it just because that was the original plan, but wait till it starts to have issues. (in a perfect environment, it may be better to keep up with some periodicity, but between man hours, available replacement parts and the chance that taking it apart unnecessarily causes more issues it’s a calculation).

        But yeah…emergent work – casualty correction rather than routine maintenance is the biggest personnel issue – at least for the teams I’ve run – not having enough people and needing to shut things down to work on them without having a good idea how soon you can restore them due to trouble-shooting – take credit for running the work packages after the fact, but all the routine stuff is still being conducted at the same time (hopefully you can pull in someone else to share the load).

      • Fourscore

        Many, many, many years ago, when I was a OneScore I was stationed at a remote radio station in France. SOP was to start the back up generator every morning to insure it would run, then weekly under load for two hours. Then we got a new commander (battalion? group?) and he asked rhetorically “Do you start your car every day, just to see if it will start?” We went to weekly starts and under load. Worked just as well.

    • Q Continuum

      I thought professionals studied logistics?

  19. Brawndo

    Off topic. I’m a low level manager at the retail level of a regional grocery chain. Yesterday, I noticed a pricing error in our system that seemingly effected every store in the company. It can be fixed locally but only if you caught it, and since most people that use the pricing scales are on auto pilot, it’s easy to slip through the cracks.

    This error, if not caught and fixed, would have cost the company roughly 3,000$ a day. I ran it up the flag pole as best I could, but nobody in the corporate pricing office works weekends (why would they? They only work for a retailer that operates 24/7), so best I could do was contact the rest of the stores in my division so they could fix it on their own until a fix was sent down.

    The frustrating part; I’m going to get, at best, an atta-boy and a $5 gift card to buy myself a couple slices of pizza from the kitchen. The smooth brain who made this error might get a talking to and then use it as an “opportunity for growth” when they fail upwards the corporate ladder to their next comfy 90k/year internet and email job. Corporate is filled with people who escaped retail operations, and about a quarter of my job is working around or fixing some top down solution to a “problem”, when what I’m *actually* paid to do is sell meat.

    I can’t wait to quit this fuckin job

    • LCDR_Fish

      May not matter at the moment, but worth keeping a detailed note for your eval as well as future job applications.

    • Ghostpatzer

      You’ll do fine, there are still employers who value responsible individuals.

      “$5 gift card to buy myself a couple slices of pizza from the kitchen.”

      What is this paradise where a couple of slices can be had for $5.00?

      • Ted S.

        When I was at the local Stewart’s a few days back to pick up one of the real half-gallon cartons of ice cream on sale, pizza was $4 for two slices.

      • Sean

        Now I want to join the moo club.

      • DrOtto

        Shenanigan shake sounds like a racial slur…

      • Brawndo

        I’d almost be doxxing myself if I named my employer, but I suppose it’s probably close to 1.75 slices of pizza for 5 bucks. A couple years ago, I noticed a billing discrepancy of around 12 grand that would have left us scrambling at the end of the month. Again, not my job to fix or notice, and they got me a 6 pack from the beer/wine shop.

        I’ve been denied a promotion a couple times in a few years, most recently, my interview was unintentionally sabotaged by HR and they refused to pass me along for a second interview after I called them out on it. Thanks for letting me know you don’t deserve me.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Keep a list of those details – pulling them out in detail during an interview is $$$.

      • Brawndo

        Thanks. Whenever I do something like that I put it in a word document that I review before interviews, because I get real nervous and forget detailed thinks like that.

        I’m getting a welding certification from the local trade school (they do night classes for adults), so hopefully I’ll be able to put the retail life in my rear view soon.

      • Fourscore

        Things always need fixin’

    • Q Continuum

      “what I’m *actually* paid to do is sell meat”

      Phrasing?

    • The Last American Hero

      You should work in tech. The $90k asshole that will fail upward is making $350k.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Corporate is filled with people who escaped retail operations, and about a quarter of my job is working around or fixing some top down solution to a “problem”, when what I’m *actually* paid to do is

      It’s the same all over. Although I think it’s gotten worse as B school grads have taken over.

    • Q Continuum

      Even a hooligan with a 25th percentile IQ isn’t going to buy that line of shit.

    • rhywun

      The top image is purportedly fake. I didn’t bother checking the other two.

      But images without links are a gigantic red flag, so I bet those are fake too.

  20. PieInTheSky

    It was expected for eddie to be tired throwing those telegraphed haymakers. Bad strategy. Should have tried more body shots. Thor had better moves and was in better shape. But neither looked like a boxer. Which makes sense since neither is. But there is a reason pros dont throw more haymakers than jabs.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    I’ve been denied a promotion a couple times in a few years, most recently, my interview was unintentionally sabotaged by HR and they refused to pass me along for a second interview after I called them out on it. Thanks for letting me know you don’t deserve me.

    Is that you, Lowry?

  22. The Late P Brooks

    I’m getting a welding certification from the local trade school (they do night classes for adults), so hopefully I’ll be able to put the retail life in my rear view soon.

    Excellent.

  23. Evan from Evansville

    Well, looks like I’m staying longer in my dormitory airbnb. This is perfectly fine. I am also filing for work in the US. I wish they wouldn’t be giving me so many teaching options, but I have also applied for MANY more editing/writing gigs. About a 20:1 editing/writing:teaching jobs applied to. I will teach and can, but I kinda want to move on from that aspect of my professional life.

    Almost assuredly staying past April 2. My visa expires April 15 but that very well be extended. Not sure yet. I am excited to return to the US. I plan on eating everything once I get there. Thanks to MJ for hooking me up with indeed.com. That was smart. I have lots of offers. It’s quite invigorating.

    I have to do Take II with the dentist on Tuesday. I might need a root canal. That sounds like fun. I’m not even sure. It is certainly out-of-bounds and actively hurts. More research is needed. Meds now for a few days and the results of that will be vital for their decision on Tues. Yay. The fun challenges of life are always interesting, and I don’t mean that sarcastically. Boring moments lead to boring lives. I’m not thrilled with all my hardships, but they make me think and learn. I have confirmation that tomorrow will shine brighter than today. Focus on every light that you see within the tunnel. Don’t sink under; rise above. One day at a time.

    Soon, I shall have a deserved return that will be welcome to my Indiana Jones explorer mindset. Returning home is just the next adventure. I am excited to focus on the novelty of it all. It spurs this horse to gallop forward.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    It’s those damn whistles!

    A nation of fainting goats.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Oh, goody. It’s snowing.

  26. Not Adahn

    Beautiful day. All the doors and windows are open, and the reports of the shotgunners playing whatever game is today are drifting i. Lily is napping on the back steps.

    I learned today that while I can call her out of play/wrestling sessions with other dogs, I cannot call her off of chipmunks. She dug out one from its burrow on the walk this morning, and ripped open a hollow log containing two more — that last one was really quite impressive to see her taking chunks out with her teeth.

  27. Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

    St Lucia is locked down AF. If you want to go ashore on your own, you need to wear a mask (even outside), use an approved taxi, and you can only go to an approved list of destinations.

    Fuck that noise. I’m having a bloody mary and a cigar on the Lido Deck.

    • Ted S.

      Gotta love the fascist screwing over of unapproved taxis and destinations.

    • grrizzly

      That’s why I’ve been traveling only domestically in the last two years.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Many years ago I found St Lucia to be a little off in general. I had a better experience in the BVI.

  28. Tundra

    Good morning, peeps!

    Everyone good?

    • westernsloper

      Never better!

    • MikeS

      Doing pretty good, buddy. You?

      • Tundra

        Great! It’s a lovely morning here.

      • MikeS

        It’s beautiful here. Full sun and we will be flirting with 50 today!

      • Fourscore

        Wish I was flirting with a 50 but it would be to no avail, IYKWIM

    • pistoffnick the refusnik

      Sun’s out,

      *flexes arms*

      gunz out

      Listening to “The Acoustic Storm” radio show while I sew a phone pocket on my camo deer hunting shirt.

  29. westernsloper

    The opening pic made my heart hurt, as well as the first link. Fuck. Wheat is not good for you and shirley not something to………………never mind. Janes Addiction dudes are weird af and I have no idea what that song is about but I love it. Thanks for the links Brett!

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Sanctimonious cunt preens and struts

    But Koch Industries, which has contributed millions of dollars to the Republican Party and has other operations in Moscow, is hardly the only well-known firm bucking the tide of companies exiting Russia, according to a list compiled by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior professor at the Yale University School of Management.

    As of Friday, there were 26 other companies that Sonnenfeld has categorized as “digging in” and defying international calls to get out of Russia.

    “Most companies, as they are exposed in the daylight, curtail their Russian operations by withdrawing, suspending or trimming back and tossing piles of generic platitudes about the sympathy for the suffering of innocent Ukraine citizens,” Sonnenfeld told NBC News. “But a core group is brazenly digging in, burying themselves in complicity with the most bloody evil regime, as collaborators with tyranny thinking that they can tough out the criticism if they are not exposed to consumer backlash due to the industrial nature of their enterprises.”

    Good job, Jeffy. The cocktail party invites will come rolling in.

    • Fourscore

      He can round up all his like minded friends and boycott their American counterparts. That’s what I would do.

      Damn, now I have to go back and review all those mutual fund statements to see if any on those companies are being held by me as an investor).

    • rhywun

      Get back to me when companies start leaving China.

      This shit is getting so tedious.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Few American firms have been doing business with Moscow for as long as Koch Industries — or are as politically active in the U.S.

    Koch Industries gave at least $3.4 million to GOP groups and Republican candidates’ campaigns in 2020, according to records compiled by Open Secrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit that follows the money in U.S. politics.

    But the biggest recipient of Koch cash was Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian and conservative political advocacy group founded by Charles Koch, who runs the company, and his brother, David, who died in 2019.

    Best known for fueling the tea party movement and whipping up climate change skepticism and opposition to the Affordable Care Act, Americans for Prosperity got $8 million from Koch Industries in 2020, the records show.

    Traitorous bastards.

    • rhywun

      Affordable Care Act

      Wonder how that turned out. Is everyone happy with their “affordable care”?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Oh how I loathe the ACA, let me count the ways…

    • MikeS

      Few American firms have been doing business with Moscow for as long as Koch Industries — or are as politically active in the U.S.

      There are plenty of firms as politically active as Koch. It’s just that Koch gives to the wrong team.

      • rhywun

        Imagine the utopia we could be enjoying without dirty Koch money tipping the scales.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Question for Robodruid and those of you with green thumbs: Can he plant a test batch of that corn he has on hand to see if it will germinate?

    • MikeS

      Don’t even need to plant it. Just put some seeds between two damp paper towels and sit back and watch.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Test batch as in- indoors, on the window sill.

    • robodruid

      It should still work on the windowsill

  34. MikeS

    Spring has sprung. Just saw a huge “V” of around 100 Hate Birds; The Birds That Hate flying north.

    • Tundra

      Bastards never left here.

    • Fourscore

      Swans have been back for a month. Canadas (no passport) are back in bunches, a few linger here now but most are transients

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Apparently he’s also nationalizing all the media as well.

    • rhywun

      Every country has neo-Nazis but none in Europe has anything close to what Ukraine has: a state-supported explicit neo-Nazi battalion, now more armed than ever. It doesn’t preclude support for Ukraine.

      I think at a minimum it supports the United States not sticking its dick in that hornet’s nest.

    • Fourscore

      Biden’s advisors eyes light up. “Say, do you suppose we….”

    • Sean

      ??

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Despite its capitalist credentials, Koch Industries founder Fred Koch began building his family’s fortune by helping a Communist, Josef Stalin, establish the Soviet Union’s oil refinery industry in the 1930s.

    “Over time, however, Stalin brutally purged several of Koch’s Soviet colleagues,” Jane Mayer of The New Yorker wrote in an August 2010 profile of Fred Koch’s sons and their attempts to undermine then-President Barack Obama’s agenda. “Koch was deeply affected by the experience, and regretted his collaboration.”

    Hey, ten bucks is ten bucks, right?

    And- the Kochs “attempted to undermine then-President Barack Obama’s agenda”? Oh, horror. Now do the NeverTrumpers.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of birds, I saw what looked like a couple of herons yesterday.

  37. Akira

    Question for those who are electrically inclined:
    I have a new garbage disposal that needs to go in. The under-sink area has a regular wall outlet (but it doesn’t have a switch that turns it on and off). I bought an air switch that can plug into the wall outlet, and then you plug the disposal into the air switch box. But the disposal is made to be hard wired into the wall; it only has black and white wires and a green screw for grounding. I gather that I need to buy a wall plug and connect it to the wires coming out of the disposal unit. A label on the side of the disposal says 120V, amps 5.6, hz 60, 1HP. I see a lot of wall plugs labeled 120V on Amazon – do I just buy one of those, connect it to the disposal with wire nuts, and plug it all in?

    I know it’s kind of a dunce question, but I’m totally new to wiring and I know it can be a hazard if you fuck it up.

    • MikeS

      Get a plug where the connections are internal. Like this.

      And I’d swap out that outlet with a GFCI outlet.

      • MikeS

        re: the GFCI. Won’t need one if that outlet is on a protected circuit. If there is a GFCI in the kitchen somewhere, plug something in to the outlet under the sink, then hit the test button on the GFCI. If the under sink outlet goes off, you’re good. If not, swap it out with a GFCI.

    • LCDR_Fish

      might want to repost in the new thread

    • The Hyperbole

      I’d buy a new cord like this and make sure to use the stain relief clamp it may be a pain rewiring it with the disposal installed but I wouldn’t trust wire nuts under the sink where you’ll be shoving paper towels and dish soap and bleach etc.. in and out, if you go with a heavy duty replacement plug like MikeS suggest try and find a way to firmly hold the cable, a wire clamp screwed to the back of the cabinet near the plug or similar.