The Watering Hole, Monday, January 28th, 2013: Glory and Wonder

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“First light at Daytona brought in heavy fog.” Thank you, houseofroberts, for inadvertently (and somewhat circuitously) inspiring this post. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the respite from the perpetual political perturbations in this refreshing pool of nature’s glory and wonder.

"Sunrise on Flowers" - source webmastergrade.com

“Sunrise on Flowers” – source webmastergrade.com

After I read house’s comment yesterday morning, I went to TheWeatherChannel.com to check our forecast. After finding that it was just a chilly 7 degrees out – brrrrr! – I found my inspiration.

Let’s start with, appropriately, Sunrises. The first photo in the group, “…taken by johndhard at Smith Rock State Park in central Oregon…”, brings to mind the style of artist Maxfield Parrish, i.e.:

"Arizona", Maxfield Parris

“Arizona”, Maxfield Parris

Winter Sunrise", Maxfield Parrish

Winter Sunrise”, Maxfield Parrish


Feeling more human now? Then let’s learn a little about clouds, including, but not limited to “Hole-Punch Clouds”, as seen here:
Hole Punch Cloud (source, picemony.com)

Hole Punch Cloud (source, picemony.com)


This is today’s open thread. Well, that was good for me, how about you?

124 thoughts on “The Watering Hole, Monday, January 28th, 2013: Glory and Wonder”

  1. Watching TV on Web is Disrupting Cable, Broadcast Worlds

    New technologies that give viewers more say in what they watch, where they watch and how much they pay for it are great for consumers. But they’re inducing a collective nervous breakdown among industry executives, who have to figure out new ways to make money in a business facing serious threats to its traditional sources of revenue — advertising and cable-TV subscriptions.

    The industry last year was blindsided by everything from a leap in the use of TiVo and other digital video-recording devices that pushed Nielsen ratings down as much as 50 percent to a new device called the Hopper that allows viewers to instantly zap by commercials.

    I already get a significant portion of my daily news online. Right now I’m watching Bill Press on Current TV, but we know that ends soon. Then, I’ll go back to listening to Bill and Stephanie online, like before, and follow them with Ed Schultz and Thom Hartmann. I also watch Thom on his RT show, which starts an hour after his radio show ends. Then it’s time for Ed again, with Rachel afterward on MSNBC. If the online streaming sources were a little more reliable, along with my internet speed, I’d probably cut the TV portion of my cable.

    Here’s a new source to try for TV shows: http://stream-tv.me/

    I notice the top listing under ‘D’ is Doctor Who.

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    • I haven’t subscribed to cable in years and my digital to analog converter crapped out nearly a year ago. I almost relented for football season but I rediscovered that I rather enjoy listening to the games on radio while doing other things and then I can watch the big plays on line. I have broken any trace of addiction to TV and, as a bonus, I don’t have to deal with all my negative emotions when Judy Woodruff from The Newshour says “we’ll have to leave it there” after she allows some jackass to lie for ten minutes.

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    • We gave up on cable at least ten years ago, haven’t had it since and never will again. Watched it one night a couple of years ago at my daughter’s house, and found the only thing we could stand to watch for more than ten minutes at a time was The Weather Channel — hardly worth fifty bucks a month.

      We do have a little gizmo called a Roku, a hockey puck-sized little black box hitched to the TV that allows streaming by Netflix, Amazon, NBC, CBS, and tons of other stuff. Netflix costs us about $8 per month, and for anyone who likes to watch old movies, TV shows (“old” means last year and earlier, generally speaking) at no additional charge, go for it (of course, you need an internet connection too, but that’s something we’re willing to pay for). There are no live sporting events (or dead ones, for that matter) but that’s of zero concern to either of us since the last game or event of any kind we watched was, if memory serves, a few minutes of the 1999 Fiesta Bowl. Why we watched it or who was playing I have no idea.

      Also have tons of movies on DVD (wild guess about 500-600, give or take a couple) so we’re NEVER at a loss for something to kill time watching.

      Meanwhile, Deb works for the local phone/internet/cable-supplier, and yep, they don’t much like the falloff in cable subscriptions. Hurts their revenue stream.

      Me, I remember when all you had to do to watch TV was turn it on and pick one of the channels. We had three or four choices back then, five after “Educational TV” showed up. There was no charge other than the electricity it took to make the TV work.

      Those were far better times, in all but a small handful of ways, than these are. What happened? Progress? Uh huh.

      Reply ↓

      • Great minds (of course we share a birthday)… I was posting about my Roku at about the same time you were. Love mine. Haven’t cancelled cable; and probably won’t cancel it entirely, but I’m about to cut it way down to the minimum.

        Reply ↓

    • I too get most of my news online. I bought a little device called a Roku that allows me to stream online services direct to my TV (I used Netflix and Amazon mostly, which I pay for, but at a fraction of my cable bill). And I watch most of my TV via this streaming device.

      Just about ready to bite the bullet and go ahead and trim my cable to the bear bones of what I want (but can’t stream).

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      • I may look into Roku, to see if it helps me much. Usually, when I have something online to watch, I’ve got the TV on something else at the same time. The Comcast DVR lets me ‘park’ a tuner on the channel of a program that isn’t on yet, in case I forget to turn over to it as it starts. I can rewind to the beginning and not miss anything.

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    • I always like to pass along TV-over-internet sources. In the days before my Comcast added MSNBC I would have liked to be able to watch Countdown live online, but I didn’t have the processor or RAM to be able to do it, and there weren’t really any sources. Now it’s much more available.

      I am looking for the software, or hardware to allow DVR control of the shows I watch live online. The Nascar Racebuddy features a DVR option, allowing you to pause the race, or go back to rehear Danica cussing at another driver (Did she really say what I thought I heard? 😀 ) so the tech is out there somewhere. I would like to be able to pause Thom Hartmann or Cenk Uygur when interrupted, and not miss anything, or go back and rehear any part of a debate, right afterward.

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    • Excerpted from the silliness:

      Simply put, self defense is a biblical and natural right of man . . . throughout time God has mandated the ultimate penalty for unlawful killing. Among God’s first words to Noah after the Flood subsided was this declaration of the importance of human life and the price paid for spilling human blood: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:6) This statement is not made to a nation-state or to a police force but instead to a small band of people who are rebuilding human society from the ground up. . . .

      I won’t waste the time or space quoting the nonsense any further. Suffice to say that, if indeed there should happen to be even the barest shred of truth in the thesis (which I doubt), then the Second Amendment is probably in violation of the First Amendment, the clause that reads:

      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . .

      To establish a religion via the barrel of a gun . . . how very “Republican” can they get?!

      Reminds me of an old Dagwood cartoon from a few decades back. Dagwood’s boss, Mr. Dithers, said to Dagwood, “Bumstead, if you had any brains you’d realize just how stupid you really are.”

      Touche. I do hereby and herein offer that tidbit of wisdom to all GOoPers everywhere. The shoe fits them. Perfectly.

      Reply ↓

    • On a side note:

      An Oil Boom Takes a Toll on Health Care...

      WATFORD CITY, N.D. — The patients come with burns from hot water, with hands and fingers crushed by steel tongs, with injuries from chains that have whipsawed them off their feet. Ambulances carry mangled, bloodied bodies from accidents on roads packed with trucks and heavy-footed drivers.

      Swamped by uninsured laborers flocking to dangerous jobs, medical facilities in the area are sinking under skyrocketing debt, a flood of gruesome injuries and bloated business costs from the inflated economy.

      Reply ↓

  8. GOP Congressman Offers Plan To Impeach President Over Budget Deficits

    Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) on Monday offered up a constitutional amendment which would make failure to balance the nation’s budget an impeachable offense.

    Since all spending/budgeting bills must start in the House of Representatives, maybe they are more to blame than the President? He can only ask them to approve any budget he submits.

    BTW, Brooks is from my district, the Alabama 5th.

    Reply ↓

    • House, can you impeach Brooks?

      Yeah, let’s put this in the Constitution. Then, every time a war pops up, impeach the commander in chief.

      Reply ↓

      • I need about 16 more percent of the vote to impeach Brooks, in 2014. Not likely to happen here.

        I’d like to know the last time a Republican President wouldn’t have been impeached for this. Eisenhower?

        Reply ↓

        • Clinton in his second term? Oh, wait … balanced budget including surplus, but impeached anyway. It’d be simpler if Brooks would rephrase and simply say that if the President is a Democrat, impeachment is warranted. Save a lot of paper, a lot of fucking around, and make precisely the same point.

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  9. Not to brag…okay, it is to brag…but my tweet yesterday about Chuck Todd and David Gregory has gotten over 200 retweets and more than 50 Favorites (which should have gotten me a 50-star notice.) 🙂

    And if you’re logged on to the Twitter, you can retweet it from here.

    Reply ↓

  10. Possible Compromise on Immigration Reform Takes Shape

    Undocumented immigrants would be able to seek legal status without first going home under a compromise framework floated Monday by a bipartisan group of senators, according to a source familiar with the plan.

    I’m waiting to hear some of the details on this ‘comprehensive’ reform. I keep hearing how they will have to ‘pay back taxes’, which, if they worked under the table, they didn’t pay. If they worked on the table, with a false SS number, and paid withholding and FICA taxes, do they get to count that? I used to see a lot of Hispanics at the bank on Fridays, holding computer-printed paychecks with the earnings statements attached, showing their withholding totals. They were either legal or quasi-legal, as far as the employer was concerned. Once they are legal, and don’t have to worry about deportation, can they testify against the corrupt employers they worked for illegally? I’m betting the Republicans insist on amnesty for those employers in any ‘comprehensive’ deal.

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  11. Well, here’s a new one. For me, anyway.

    I want to get an appointment with a doctor to get my prescriptions refilled, so I call the doctor’s group that a friend uses and with whom she’s happy.

    When they find out that I’m a “private pay” (uninsured) patient, they won’t make an appointment, but take my name and number and will talk to the doctors taking new patients to get “approval” to make an appointment for me.

    Jesus fucking christ, don’t do me any favors!

    I guess I’ll have to find another walk-in clinic, cuz cash just ain’t good enough.

    Reply ↓

    • When they know they have to charge you directly, they can’t load up the bill with extras to gouge the insurance company.
      That’s how I ended up owing Qwest Diagnostics $800 for bloodwork, when the insurance declined the charges. The doctor charged me $140 after the fact also. I didn’t get the opportunity to approve or decline those tests because I thought I had coverage. Had I known, I could have opted for fewer, cheaper tests.

      Reply ↓

    • A couple years ago I ended up in the emergency room and a woman brought in a sick child but didn’t have insurance. Apparently, based on the overheard conversation, the child wasn’t in imminent danger of death so they sent him off to a “charity hospital” despite the mother informing the staff that she could afford to write out a check on the spot. Ever since then I have felt a strong desire to beat up anyone who says “no one can be turned away from the emergency room”. That only applies if someone is dying and those who can not afford to write a check on the spot are often financially ruined.

      Reply ↓

      • This kind of shit just pisses me off to no end, and there are undertones of humiliation as well. I will pay at the time of service, but that just isn’t good enough. No, they have to take my name and number, and they’ll call me within 24 hours if it’s okay to allow me a doctor visit.

        If I can’t get an appointment to get my prescriptions refilled — and they’ll only refill them for three months at a time — I will end up in an emergency room OR I will die before getting to the ER, and neither of them will ever be paid for.

        But yeah, go ahead and see if it’s okay to take my fucking $100.

        Reply ↓

  12. Raise a glass this evening to another progressive web site that has decided that hit counts are more important than ridding themselves of piss-soaked trolls. I knew that Media Matters was doomed the moment they went to Disqus so I guess we should just be thankful that it took this long for the infestation to get completely out of control. The head piss-soaked troll hasn’t figured out how to do the insanely large font trick, yet, but he spent the whole weekend namejacking and talking to his multiple sock puppets yet not a single post has been deleted.

    Sigh… Don’t these people realize that allowing the filth to remain provides ammunition for those who claim they are hateful? The likes of Bill0 and inSeannity won’t bother to tell their worshipers that the filth is coming from Reichwhiners. They will just rant about the “hate speech” the site allows.

    Reply ↓

    • I wondered yesterday if he was using the large fonts.

      Huffpost lost me when they went to all pre-moderated comments.

      I’ve noticed Raw Story is using Disqus, and some posts on TPM are Disqus, while others are some private system that you have to get a login to even read the comments.

      Reply ↓

      • I don’t think they have the font size activated but the POS is pretty easy to pick out of a crowd. I kind of liked the old system at MMfA. One had to earn the privilege to post without a moderator’s approval and very few trolls were able to control themselves for enough posts to get clearance. Those that did manage the trick were disposed of quickly once they became abusive.

        Reply ↓

  13. Here’s some great irony. Nebraska’s Republican River (Seriously. That’s what it’s called.) ran dry while GOoPers have thwarted debate, much less action, on climate change. The maddening part is that these freaks think “the richest nation in the world” is somehow immune to drought, water wars, and famine.

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/28/1503791/red-state-blues-in-2012-nebraska-saw-its-hottest-driest-year-on-record-and-the-republican-river-ran-dry/

    Reply ↓

    • That because once Noah took it in the shorts for humanity (and all the other land-based animals – the dolphins and the fish got off scott free eh?) … the Buybull says the Lord won’t do anything like that again, unless gay marriage becomes law everywhere, maybe.

      Reply ↓

  14. Jane, truly appreciate the posting this very fine day!
    Parrish is one of my favorite artists. Was privileged to have seen many of his paintings at a downtown gallery, before it moved on. I went to the gallery several times a week as it was close to work.
    The sky intrigues me (actually all of nature grabs my interest). We had a most gorgeous sky yesterday: nimbostratus, altocumulus, stratocumulus, cirrocumulus against the azure blue – striking, simply awe-inspiring!

    Reply ↓

  16. Immense beauty in those photographs. That cloud looks like it has a funnel coming down, that’s unusual/unique!
    HoR, I too was knocked on my keister with the fellowship being displayed on the immigration issue.
    Translation = Republican’ts are scared shitless they are becoming/already are irrelevant…

    Reply ↓

  17. Fundies Say the Darndest Things:

    Those who wrote about Jesus were there. Direct
    eye witnesses. Not to mention that Luke is considered one of the best and most accurate historians who ever lived….EVER. He didn’thave to make up the entirety of his story. Recorded history ends about 4400 years ago. Only the Bible records why that fact is true.

    Reply ↓

    • And I have this authentic Jesus creme, guaranteed to give you sainthood if you rub it onto your body! I have direct eye witnesses who know the Bible and that is a fact!

      Reply ↓

    • When will people point to something other than the Bible to back up its claims? And saying there’s evidence it could have happened does not prove it did. And, as Jane pointed out, Luke wasn’t “there,” so he couldn’t have been a direct eye witness to anything.

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  21. Under New York state law, rape is defined as forcible vaginal penetration. Forced oral and anal contact both go under the term “criminal sexual act.” If the same crimes had occurred elsewhere, they might not legally be considered rape at all. Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have stopped using the word “rape” in their criminal codes entirely and instead use terms such as “sexual abuse,” “sexual assault” and “criminal sexual conduct.” This variety of language exists in a country in which the word “rape” is becoming increasingly politicized and where politicians qualify rape as “forcible” or “legitimate,” intimating that other times it’s not. Because the laws — and many lawmakers — differ so wildly on the meaning of rape, it can be hard for us as a society to develop a shared understanding of what it actually is.

    http://www.alternet.org/gender/when-law-wont-call-it-rape

    Reply ↓

    • I understand your point. Add to that the overuse and hyperbole in saying things like, “Exxon and BP are raping the environment,” (not that you did it), and the word “rape” starts to lose its impact.

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  24. There’s a WHOLE lotta WTF?? in this story:

    The San Mateo Daily Journal reports: Former San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders offensive tackle Kwame Harris was charged with assaulting his ex-boyfriend at a Bay Area restaurant during an argument involving soy sauce and underwear.

    The alleged victim, Dimitri Geier, also filed a civil suit against Harris. The suit claims that Harris got upset when Geier poured soy sauce on a plate of rice and later pulled Geier’s pants down and accused him of stealing his underwear.

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  25. The Huffington Post with today’s highbrow headline:

    “Tampon Girl’ Giovanna Plowman Married On Facebook To Dino Bruscia, Guy Who Ate Human Poop”

    (Sorry kids, no linkage. I do have some standards.)

    Reply ↓

    • i’ve never watched Fixed News for more than 30 seconds, so i’m always amazed at the shear idiocy that oozes from their pores.

      staff writers must ask themselves each day “what’s the most fucked up insane statement we can make about today’s events”, then hire blond moronic bimbos to read from que cards.

      Reply ↓

    • I’m beginning to wonder if Fox & Friends is deliberately trying to make it harder for SNL to parody them by being even more outlandish that SNL would ever portray them to be, and they’ve gone pretty far in the past.

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  35. Gotta stockpile the guns in case Obama takes ’em all away. And in case the daughter gets too many Bs and is rude.

    The girl’s mother said she stepped between the two, and that Bartashevitch pushed her to the ground and pointed the gun at both of them. The daughter said she wasn’t scared because she didn’t think the gun was loaded.

    Bartashevitch admitted having a physical confrontation with his wife and daughter, and admitted to pointing the gun at both of them. He said the gun was not loaded and that he checked the chamber before pointing it at them.

    Said all those guys who shot themselves and others at recent gun shows…

    Reply ↓

  40. So, you think your life sucks?

    Two friends showed up at my door yesterday. They had driven all the way from Maryland without stopping. Greg is 55. He gave up work years ago and moved home to help mom with dad when dad had health problems. Greg ended up staying until mom died last year. Last November the the house was sold and he moved into an apartment in the next county. He ran into Sue at the grocery store in the old neighborhood.

    Sue and Greg went to school with my sister, the one staying with me. He lived directly across the street and she was about 8 houses up the street.

    Sue had visited me before when she worked nursing jobs in Florida when she needed a 2 to 6 month get away from her family. She had decided to leave Maryland and last November she rented an apartment in Tampa. Before she was able to move she had medical issues that delayed her relocation. Then, after an operation to remove a tumor from behind her ear, her estranged husband offered to help her move to Florida. He traveled 200 miles to help her load up the car and was going to drive with her to Florida and back. He died that night, sitting on the john. That was 2 weeks ago today.

    Sue wanted the company driving a car load of stuff to her apartment that she had never seen. She offered Greg the opportunity to accompany her on the trip including stopping to see me and mt sister. He jumped at the chance to travel south of Maryland to anywhere.

    Sue was visibally upset and pissed when they arrived last night because Greg evidently talked too much on the trip. Plus, he told her he has a credit card with a $10K limit but he hasn’t paid for anything yet.

    Sue has a “Fire Nancy Pelosi” bumper sticker on her car and Greg, who calls Obama a N-word, claims he’s not prejudiced because be has a black friend. I think its a match made in heaven.

    Other than the unexpected visitors, the most exciting thing that I’ve encountered recently was a case of chocolate snot… on my chin… after a mighty sneeze that exploded unannounced while eating chocolate ice cream. That’s how much my life sucks! 🙂

    Reply ↓

    • Pachy, pachy, pachy – that Greek tragedy is making me laugh uncontrollably…then the ice cream sneeze! Lordy, lordy, lordy still laughing.

      (I know it’s not polite to laugh at times like these..apologize).

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    • Wow. When you tell that story again pachy, change the ice cream to Rocky Road. The trifecta of drama, comedy, and pain is compelling, and an addictive sociologists/psycologists wet dream. Possibly a future in screenwriting is in the offing. 😉

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