Snark of God:
Good to see so many people back at church service today.
Many of them will be back for another church service in two to three weeks.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) May 17, 2020
I made a take-out run today at around the time the local wingnut churches let out, and there were unmasked crowds milling around the parking lots. Trump and Fox News gave the all-clear, so that’s that. It seems damned foolish to me, but I hope it works out for them.
On a more pleasant topic, this little hummingbird took a break from flitting around the firecracker bush and posed for a photo:
Such a darling little thing. They love the honeysuckle vines too. Yesterday, my husband saw a black-chinned hummingbird. I haven’t spotted it yet, but he always sees the birds first, even though I am the more avid birder. He’s just more observant than I am, in general.
Open thread!
rikyrah
???
rikyrah
Phylllis
We were given a firecracker plant last year–it’s trying to come back now. I hope so, because it really does draw the hummingbirds.
wvng
Azar quoted in the Post today saying he’s not concerned by all those scenes of people crowded into bars, unmasked. Most of the country is fine. We have more cases because we test more. We have more deaths because Americans are unhealthy. Time to open up.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
It is amazing that dumb government officials believe that fudging the data will change the underlying reality. The virus don’t care.
rikyrah
????
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1261845844015353856
West of the Rockies
@rikyrah:
But IS anyone saying they didn’t know how heinous Trump would be? Seems to me that we knew exactly what he was as did the enraged fools who voted for him and still like him.
He has not made any new voters, and his base has remained essentially solid. The status is quo.
Elizabelle
Love the little hummingbird photo. Beautiful.
Dragging my Prince comment into this thread, cuz it was a really good concert. You could spend time worse, on a quarantine Sunday.
Youtube has a free Prince and the Revolution concert from 1985 (Syracuse, NY) up. Cannot say for how much longer; maybe only today; maybe up for good. Part of a fundraiser for COVID and the WHO.
The Root:
Want to Party Like It’s 1985? Prince and the Revolution: Live Concert Will Stream on Youtube For a Limited Time
Watched this twice yesterday. While at first I thought the vast middle of the concert was kinda slow (albeit with some wicked Princeness — his dry humor), it was way better second time through.
Video is not great, but sound is better and the costumes and stage structure and lighting are first rate. Watch for all the costume changes. Prince dances and sings way more than he plays guitar. Knowing how it all ended, one watches all the floor moves and thinks about the impact on his hips. Prince was an incredible athlete, too.
It was really interesting to watch this in the wake of Little Richard’s death, because you can see his disciple up there. So many owe a debt.
trollhattan
I don’t see the black chins so much as hear them–the males sound like sci-fi SFX when flying. They’re seasonal here and wee things compared to our year-round Anna’s. Reminds me, time to fill the feeder, it’s drained and they get cranky.
They’re not yet I.D.’ing what church this was, but Easter did not bring out their decision-making hats.
MomSense
Washing machines are heavy.
senyordave
In the news today: President Donald Trump’s eldest son on Saturday posted a social media message suggesting Joe Biden was a pedophile, an incendiary and baseless charge that illustrates the tactics the president is turning to as he attempts to erase Biden’s early advantage in key state polls.
Just repeat to yourself – There is no bottom, there is no bottom
Brachiator
A reminder of the world before. From the BBC
ETA: Apologies if this has been posted before.
bbleh
And unless we get lucky, when those new deaths do start showing up in the statistics, the Republican response will be: (1) nuh-uh, data are fake! (2) ok maybe not fake, but nobody could possibly have predicted it! (3) ok maybe people were predicting it, but I wanna beer and a haircut, and besides I’m sure your grandma is happy to die for the stock market.
trollhattan
@wvng:
Wow, Always Wrong guy continues his string. Nice.
SFAW
As the saying goes: Think of it as evolution in action.
It would be great if those self-centered assholes only infected each other, instead of the blameless as well.
Soprano2
I read some comments on a FB post by one of my Trump-loving friends about Trump’s new press secretary ‘’owning the Fake News” and lobbing ‘Truth bombs” about the ‘criminality’ of the Obama administration. They really do live in a different reality where Obama and his whole administration is the most criminal one in the history of the U.S, over 100 indictments of people from his administration are coming out any day now, and they all hated Trump so much they tried to take him down before he assumed office – evidently by following the law on unmasking and similar nefarious things like that. It was eye-opening for sure. They will never admit that in their eyes the #1 crime Obama committed was being a popular black Democratic president.
Spanky
I hope it works out better for us, iykwim,aityd.
Joe Falco
The family homestead is surrounded by honeysuckle so it’s been a joy on those days when the wind blows and carries the flower scent.
I noticed in the below garden thread a lot of talk about wisteria, but I’m not sure if readers are aware that there’s Chinese wisteria which is the invasive one people are familiar with and there’s the native American wisteria here.
Brachiator
@bbleh:
Also, too, “Dead grandma had lots of stock which we have now inherited. It’s a win-win for everybody!”
Chacal Charles Calthrop
re snark of God: let us hope out it works for all of us, if you get what I’m saying.
Mai naem mobile
They’re such big believers in opening up that Hannity/Fox+Friends/Judge Jeanine etc. are still broadcasting from home. And, I am betting Javanka aren’t going out stimulating the economy going to restaurants or Macys or wherever she shops.
SFAW
@senyordave:
Tapper tweeted about Junior’s bullshit. The replies to Tapper’s tweet were discouraging, to say the least. And by “discouraging,” I mean they focused on “Obamagate,” on the alleged smears of their Dear Leader, and so on.
I’m still hoping all those MAGAts get deported to Dumbfuckistan on 1/21/21.
West of the Rockies
@trollhattan:
My damn county, 25 minutes away. God botherers gotta God bother.
Quinerly
Close
Today in an interview with Fox News, the president doubled down on his accusations regarding the alleged “Obamagate” scandal, and talked about possible repercussions for Chinese companies in retaliation for Beijing’s handling of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. He also claimed in a tweet that the country is “doing REALLY well, medically”.
His son, Eric Trump, claimed that the Democrats were taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic response to handicap the Trump campaign and that it would “magically go away” after November’s election.
Former president Barack Obama has made a rare public attack on Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, warning the pandemic has shown that many high levels officials “aren’t even pretending to be in charge” as the US nears 90,000 virus deaths.
His criticism came just days after he referred to the Trump administration’s response to Covid-19 as “an absolute chaotic disaster” during a leaked conference call.
KEY POINTS
2 minutes ago
Footage of the aforementioned comments
EDIT to quote: “He was an incompetent president. That’s all I can say. Grossly incompetent.”
5 minutes ago
Trump on Obama: ‘He was an incompetent president – grossly incompetent’
Returning to the White House from his weekend in Camp David, President Trump was asked to respond to his predecessor’s criticism of him in last night’s commencement address.
After saying he had not seen Mr Obama’s remarks, he said: “He was an incompetent president – grossly incompetent. That’s all I can say.”
MSNBC REPORTING
JMG
If the death toll from the virus starts to accelerate again, I don’t believe that’ll be good for the stock market at all.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@West of the Rockies:
I was listening to NPR (I think it was– lots of ear content to drown out my neighbors’ adorable but constantly screaming kids) last week and they were talking about a poll that show while Biden was winning people who dislike both candidates handily (a group trump won big in ’16), trump has a comfortable lead among voters who have a favorable opinion of both. It brought me up short. Kind of hard for me to imagine someone who likes both candidates. I guess that’s my bubble.
Talking to my neighbor a few weeks ago, who I knew was an old-school conservative, said his father was driving him crazy cause he watches FoxNews all day and loves trump and loves to talk about trump. I figured he was a never-trump type, but then he said, “I mean, he’s got some good ideas, but…” Most of the trump supporters I know personally– cousins I’m not close to, a friend of my brother’s I can’t stand– are pretty solidly in the knuckle-dragger category.
debbie
@trollhattan:
I live next to a church and was pleasantly surprised to see no services were held today. Good for them!
germy
Someone is having fun sending the older MAGA crowd on google searches:
WaterGirl
I LOVE that hummingbird. I have never seen one like it!
sdhays
@Brachiator: I want everyone who’s saying we should be “warriors” to first voluntarily get infected with COVID-19 and show us how to be
sacrifices“warriors” forMammonthe economy.The first guy I want to see is the Lt. Governor of Texas.
HumboldtBlue
@rikyrah: Adidas hoodie definitely did this before in his bathroom
debbie
@senyordave:
Hopefully, this is in the Lincoln Project’s sights for their next ad (“What scares the Trump administration?…”)
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: That makes me want to scream and bang my head against the wall.
Thank god for the 10 or so real journalists we have left.
germy
Azar: “Unfortunately the American population is very diverse”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SFAW: I’ve also been seeing a lot of people point out that everything with the trumps is projection, and retweeting those… odd… photos of an early-adolscent Ivanka sitting in daddy’s lap. And a story that’s never gotten enough attention (among so many others):
The Moar You Know
I just had to call the cops as about a hundred of our local dimmest youngsters (estimated ages 16-35) decided to have a muscle car meet in the shopping center parking lot directly across from the hospital. Good planning at least on the location. Not a mask on any of them.
On the one hand, I feel bad, they’re youngsters and the county cops are thugs of the first order, on the other hand, they are ideal vectors as well and they’re being willfully stupid to boot.
JMG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Did they say how large each group was as a share of the overall poll? Because if not the information is worthless. I can’t imagine the “I think Joe and Don are both swell” segment is much bigger than the Prohibition Party share.
germy
He looks like he’s wearing a gray v-neck sweater over a white shirt and red bow tie. Maybe he was on his way to an alumni mixer.
dimmsdale
@Brachiator: Unfortunately, the states where the governors and populace are mentally impaired enough to tra-la-la the virus won’t have robust contact tracing deployed either; the strategy clearly is to hide the statistics, hope that their constituents stick with tunnel-vision news media, and play the national news media with their fake statistics.
NY State, on the other hand, is actively hiring contact tracers, and I expect (er, HOPE) that the 2nd wave that will inevitably follow “opening” will be thoroughly documented.
Meanwhile, aware friends of mine in “open” states are faced with the dilemma of how to behave in public–especially how to keep distance from maskless nitwits without provoking an incident.
I fervently hope our majority in the next election is so mountainous that it’ll take some of the self-righteous belligerence out of these fools.
germy
@The Moar You Know:
If it’s anything like my town, the youngsters and thug cops are related. I wouldn’t expect any broken heads.
senyordave
@germy: Is the result of the google search as fucking as it seems?
WaterGirl
@germy: It is no longer a joke or an outrageous stretch to compare these people with nazi Germany.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@JMG:
I suspect that group is a small cohort of old white dudes who are pleased that they get a chance to choose between two white dudes for the first time since 2004. Expect that group more heavily toward Trump once Biden picks his female, possibly minority, Veep.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The ebook of The Wysman (the book I have coming out on June 27) is now available for $3.99. I linked to Amazon but it’s at other online retailers too. Here’s a short blurb:
As a former street kid, now training to be the king’s advisor, Jarka can’t stop hunting whoever’s grabbing street kids–even after the king orders him to back off. He also can’t stop wondering why the king ordered that.
HumboldtBlue
Russia is interfering in our elections again. And Trump supporters are emulating Russian tactics.
Brachiator
@dimmsdale:
Right winger government officials and their plutocrat paymasters are hoping that the vast majority of viral infections will be mild and not debilitating. And they are accepting increases in the number of deaths.
But they are also hoping that hospitals will be able to handle any surge in COVID-19 cases. This is a crisis point that cannot be easily hidden or faked. And this will also impact the idiots who think that the virus is no big deal.
JPL
@germy: Make America Great Again and punish those that had it coming. What a nightmare this administration has been.
The Moar You Know
@germy: Sadly, no. We have county-provided cops and they rotate in and out a lot. I’m exceptionally reluctant to ever call the cops here, especially on a group of youngsters that’s at least 60% Hispanic. This is San Diego, where the cops literally shoot people in front of cameras and we’ve still never even had one indicted for excessive use of force. So I’m hoping this goes off with no violence but that is not a guarantee.
In normal times I’d never have even considered calling the cops. But these are not normal times and this was one of the more stupid things I’ve seen this week.
JPL
@WaterGirl: Did you see that a state rep. in Alaska argued that Hitler wasn’t a white supremacist?
Ruckus
@senyordave:
There may not be a bottom but there is an all ass. trumpass.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: and spanky beat me to it…
joel hanes
@JMG:
IfWhen the death toll from the virus starts to accelerate againBrachiator
Meanwhile.
Jeff Bezos has an estimated net worth of $144 billion. This is almost more than the combined net worth of the UK Top 10 Wealthiest People.
The richest Brit, Sir James Dyson, is really sucking it up at £16.2bn.
Money, money, money, money!
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, I know. And an additional fucked-up part of it is that, were someone to point out his quasi-pedophilia (as opposed to what his idiot spawn is projecting onto Biden), it might get traction for around 2 hours, then get overtaken either by (A) another outrageous, bullshit smear against Biden, or (B) another wag-the-dog effort from the Murderer-in-Chief, or (C) both.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah: Rachel devoted some time to this story near the beginning of her show Friday night. What an insane thing for GA officials to do.
***
I’m not normally one who prays or asks others to pray, but I’m making an exception right now. My younger sister, who has a pulmonary disorder and has been on oxygen nearly constantly for the last couple of years, was admitted to hospital last night with a high fever. Obviously they will have tested her for COVID-19, but when our brother (Joyce’s twin) called me last night, he hadn’t heard results. So I’m here 1,400 miles away trying not to let my imagination go berserk. Spare her a kind thought, please, if you are so inclined.
***
That little hummingbird is a beauty!
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
? for your sister.
Ruckus
@debbie:
I pass 3 churches on one of my normal walk routes and none of them are open. But I do live in LA county, with some pretty decent restrictions. One of the churches has on it’s sign out front that they do online services every Sunday. Around here even back when churches were open the most cars I’ve seen on a Sunday were maybe 10. They have huge lots with space for 50-70 cars but I doubt that they’ve come close to filling those in decades.
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Could someone suggest to PBS that they interview 74 people about this story?
pamelabrown53
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Okay, Dorothy! Just preordered your book ” The Wysman”. Can’t wait to read it!
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I pre-ordered it earlier this week — Tuesday, I think — and look forward to “download day.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne:
for her, and for you
gbbalto
@SiubhanDuinne: My best hopes for your sister and the best to you and the family.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud: Thank you, Baud.
joel hanes
@Brachiator:
Money, money, money, money!
Some people got to have it
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@gbbalto:
Many thanks.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: ? ?? Thinking of you also, because I know you how stressful that must be.
Sure Lurkalot
Which as the Secretary of Health and Human Services I have taken an oath not to consider addressing.
zhena gogolia
We didn’t get a church service today because Zoom failed.
patrick
@germy:
Perhaps if we in the U.S. made sure people had food and medical care before the pandemic started fewer people would start with one foot in the grave.
wvng
Good to see the Times get the headline and lede right:
Donald Trump Jr. Smears Biden With Baseless Instagram Post
Signaling the increasingly dark tactics of the Trump campaign, the president’s oldest son falsely accused Mr. Biden of preying on children.
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh, I’m so sorry. I hope she gets better soon. I’ll pray for her.
West of the Rockies
@SiubhanDuinne:
Sending good thoughts of health and healing. Turns out, we all kinda like you, Subaru Diane.
zhena gogolia
@SFAW:
The top tweet replies to any high-profile person are not worth reading. They’re always Russian bots.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL: Oh, thanks. I’m trying not to let it stress me unduly, but of course it’s worrying.
Joyce and Steve are three years younger than I am, so coming up on their 75th birthday. Our baby brother is a year younger than the twins — and our cousin, who was raised with us, is the same age as the twins. When we all ZOOMed a couple of weeks ago, we joked that statistically one of us was likely to get CV. (We’d do it again — our family doesn’t shy away from dark humour.)
cope
At the feeder hanging outside the window behind our computer, the black chinned are the most frequent visitors. My wife refer to them as “tuxedo guys”. I usually keep my camera on the computer desk for unexpected photo ops but I swear they hear my camera turn on and buzz away. I keep the shutter speed at 1/1000 or faster just in case but that doesn’t help me if they aren’t in frame.
WhatsMyNym
@Brachiator:
That’s almost all based on the value of his stock in Amazon, which only started making a profit. Amazon is in a low margin industry and the stock is ridiculously overpriced.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia: Thank you. Much appreciated.
@West of the Rockies: Thank you, and LOL.
patrick II
I just found out my forty-year-old son who lives in Providence has the virus. He had the symptoms, took a test, but it came back negative. The symptoms continued, they took a chest x-ray and there is clotting in one lung. He was so careful. He works at home, but had talked to some construction workers, just once. They wore no masks. He kept his distance, but evidently not enough.
I don’t know what to say. I sit here stupified.
Baud
@patrick II:
? to your son.
cintibud
@SiubhanDuinne: Sending prayers and healing thoughts
cckids
@SiubhanDuinne: Sending good thoughts for your sister, that has to be scary.
Here, my niece and her husband (mid 30’s) have both been diagnosed with pneumonia. But not COVID-19.
The test she took was self-administered. Which seems to me would have to have a really high false negative rate.
Two healthy young people (with 2 kids under 4) both come down with pneumonia. In May.
Not weird at all.
cckids
@patrick II: I’m so sorry, thinking of you and him. Sending healing thoughts.
WaterGirl
@Quinerly: Your comment went into spam because there were so many links. The limit is 7. :-)
Sab
@MomSense: Did you get it back in place?
My husband was washing bathroom runners this morning, and that machine was jumping all over the basement unbalanced. We had to rescue it three times.
Bex
@SiubhanDuinne: I will.
SiubhanDuinne
@patrick II: Oh, Patrick, I’m so sorry to hear it. Sending my best healing wishes to your son, and loving thoughts to you and the family.
Brachiator
@WhatsMyNym:
RE: Jeff Bezos has an estimated net worth of $144 billion
Bezos deftly used the tax law to pay zero tax in the years that he had profits. And he has diversified into very profitable areas such as Amazon Web Services.
Money, money, money, money!
zhena gogolia
@patrick II:
Oh, I hope he recovers swiftly.
WaterGirl
@Quinerly: Not sure if you wanted there to be links in what you pasted. If you don’t want all the links, you can “paste and match style” or whatever your browser calls it and then the links will paste as text instead of being clickable.
SiubhanDuinne
@cintibud: Thanks so much.
@cckids: Thank you. Pneumonia’s scary, too, and your niece and nephew have my best wishes for quick recovery.
JPL
@patrick II: That’s so sad. My sons are in their early forties and they both recognize now, that it could attack them also. They have been careful and both are working at home.
Brachiator
@patrick II:
My thoughts are with you, your son, and your family.
WaterGirl
@JPL: No, I did not see that. It’s not possible to be that stupid. These people have balls of steel, lie through their collective teeth, and count on it being too late even if you refute what they said.
Jackie
@senyordave: I read that last night? Now is a good time to post those photos of Daddy holding an adolescent Ivanka on his lap…
Sab
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The really catty side of me notices that in that photo Ivanks is so young that she hadn’t even had her nose job yet.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne:
Scary! I hope your sister gets good news.
It’s a sign of the times that hoping a high fever is from something else counts as wishing for good news.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: You must be beside yourself. Prayers, good thoughts, and crossed fingers.
Bex
@patrick II: He’s on my list with Joyce.
Josie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Pre-ordered it. I’m looking forward to reading it.
WaterGirl
@patrick:
Too long for a bumper sticker or a rotating tag, but still perfect.
Josie
@SiubhanDuinne:
I will be thinking of you and your sister in the coming days. It’s so hard to be helpless and far away.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@pamelabrown53: @SiubhanDuinne: Thank you. I hope you enjoy it. I love my characters and want other people to love them too.
@patrick II: OMG. What an awful moment for a parent. The odds are in his favor in the long run, but still.
patrick II
He has been ill, the doctor says the test may have come back negative because he is on the backside and the disease is receding. We all hope this is so. He took another test Friday and will hear Monday. His wife shows no symptoms, and he is isolating in their house.
Macho assholes with no facemasks. l live in Virginia Beach and restaurants with outside service have opened up as of Friday. You would have thought Saturday was the 4th of July, people everywhere by the beach (I live there) Few with facemasks. At least mostly outside.
Josie
@patrick II:
I know exactly how “stupified” feels. I hope things go well for him and will be thinking good thoughts for both of you.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Josie: I was just telling Mr DAW that it feels like I shut these characters up between some pages, and they only come to life when someone reads them. I hope they come to life for you
patrick II
Thank you all for your kind wishes. He works to stay healthy, eats right, does all the right things. That and prayer may work for him.
la caterina
@rikyrah: Love it! I had to watch 4 times.
Bookmarking it so I can watch again whenever I need a pick-me-up.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Betty, as I read comments, I keep forgetting to say I’m so impressed by your bird pictures. Other people’s too. Albatrossity of cours, but lots of you.
satby
@SiubhanDuinne: Done, all the strong healing thoughts heading her way.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ll be thinking of your sister (and you), and hoping for the best.
Sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yay. My YA books I ordered from your publisher arrived today.
I forgot to order the first book in a multi-book series, so I ordered that today. It has been years since I read an actual book with pages and two covers.
We used to visit my grandmother who lived a 1000 miles away for a couple of weeks every summer, and I used to read my mothers childhood books (entire Wizard of Oz series, not just book 1). Kids can’t do that anymore with everything on e-books.
Our Cub Scout Little Free Library had to yank the books for health reasons, so the replaced them with free food: canned soup, rice in a plastic bag, canned vegetables, and cookies and crackers, breakfast cereals. Only the cookies and crackers are gone.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
@WaterGirl:
@Josie:
Thank you all, so much.
satby
@patrick II: adding him to the healing thoughts. It’s got to be hard.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
re-listening to Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast to take my mind off of… everything, this passage just landed in my ears with extra impact:
O mighty Jupiter, make it so, again
satby
@cckids: oh, man. Hoping for a quick recovery for them too.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sab:
That made me laugh much too heartily!
gbbalto
@patrick II: MY thoughts and hopes with your son and you.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hopeful thoughts and ? sent. May the news be good.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Sab:
I hope you like them. I like some of their stuff much more than others, which I guess would be true of any publisher’s books.
HumboldtBlue
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
At what age should I start buying them for my grand-nieces and nephews? I have crop coming through but the oldest will only turn 10 this year
satby
@Sab: Aside from kids, it’s possible homeless people took the cookies and crackers, the rice and soup aren’t as easily cooked and used by them.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Sending good thoughts for your sister.
debbie
@Brachiator:
And may he continue spending lots of it on pissing off you know who.
debbie
@patrick II:
How horrible for a parent! I hope your son recovers quickly and completely.
Brachiator
Apparently, a NY Times article (hiding behind a pay wall) suggests that one of the ways that pandemics end is by people accepting the inevitability of death. This seems like an oversimplification. For example, see How 5 of History’s Worst Pandemics Finally Ended.
A gruesome tidbit
Dorothy A. Winsor
@HumboldtBlue:
I have one middle-grade book, Finders Keepers. Middle-grade means 10 and up. It depends on the kid of course. I’ve had a couple of people tell me they read it with their 9 year old and had a good shared experience.
Sab
@satby: We don’t have any homeless in my housing development. They are mostly a couple blockes away. I am pretty sure it was kids.
The Little Free Library is in our neighborhood park, which is closed to non-dogs, and named Korona Park.
SFAW
@patrick II:
Best wishes for your son, I’m hoping he’s seen the worst of it and will recover completely, and soon.
HumboldtBlue
@SiubhanDuinne: @patrick II:
I wish I could offer more than a cup of coffee, the best to both of you and your families.
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator: AWS is actually a business that makes sense. Amazon had to have computing capacity to handle the Christmas shopping season, so it was idle (well, not running at full capacity) the rest of the year. So why not sell that excess capacity? Otherwise you’re just paying for electricity and having to throw off heat. Once you’ve figured out an efficient way to sell computing capacity and people have gotten accustomed to buying compute cycles as opposed to building data centers, you’re golden. Here we are.
HumboldtBlue
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Thanks, the kids are all advanced readers (it’s almost a competition in our family who can read and report on the most books) and I’ve already texted my sister (their grandma) to check you out and see if you pass muster (I sugared the water quite a bit on your behalf).
Gin & Tonic
@patrick II: Best wishes to your son. Luckily there is excellent medical care available in PVD, and we’ve not been over-taxed with cases, so he should be in better shape than if he were in some other areas.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: You and your sister and your siblings are in my thoughts. Scary. Recall: people do survive this, and treatments are improving. How scary, though. Please keep us posted.
Elizabelle
@patrick II: All the best to your son.
Somehow, not a surprise about Virginia Beach. I hope people wise up.
That said, it would be beyond wonderful to walk along the waterline, well away from others; mask at the ready. The ocean is eternal.
SiubhanDuinne
@satby:
@SFAW:
@Amir Khalid:
@debbie:
@HumboldtBlue:
Many thanks to you all, and to everyone else sending prayers and good thoughts. When I talk to Joyce, whenever that may be, I’ll let her know that lots of people she never even heard of were wishing her well.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle: I will indeed, as soon as I hear anything. Thank you.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: You know you can always have all the love and healing light I can muster for your family. It is freely given. May she recover well!
NotMax
One (teeny tiny) upside to what’s going on is that 92-year-old Mom has become comfortable with and adept at getting books on the Kindle.
Small victories still count as victories.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@HumboldtBlue:
You are a champ!
HumboldtBlue
@Brachiator:
You’re full of all kinds of god news today.
Calouste
@Brachiator: NYT math: 300 divided by 40 is 20…
satby
@Brachiator: Good to know we’re on track to surpass the record of the 1665 London plague. Maybe Trump can brag about that achievement at his next press conference.
Brachiator
@HumboldtBlue:
I think it very good that Rhianna is among the richest Brits. I respect her tenacity. And she did it with her side business, not her music.
I also was trying to find a way to include this fun little story.
The story includes some great photos of smiling kids doing the best they can to have a bit of fun and stay connected to their friends and classmates.
FelonyGovt
@SiubhanDuinne:
@patrick II:
@cckids:
Sending love and healing thoughts to you and your loved ones.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Off to preorder!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@FelonyGovt:
I love BJ
sdhays
At least part of that is that they’ve been driving profits back into the company, no? I was under the impression that Amazon could have started posting profits long ago (even in the 90’s) but invested more aggressively in the company itself.
I don’t have an opinion on whether it’s overpriced or not (I don’t even know, or really care, what the stock price is), but I think saying it only recently started posting a profit is a bit misleading. It’s in a very powerful position in many markets, and while it’s low-margin, it squeezes profit out of each transaction.
Tokyokie
@JPL:
Well, I’m a way, that’s true. Hitler wasn’t merely a white supremacist, he was a Northwestern European supremacist. Slavs, Pole, Greeks, Spaniards, and especially Jews weren’t sufficiently white. Neither were Italians, something the Nazis were willing to overlook before Il Duce was strung up at a Milanese Esso station. Hell, the French, who are Northwestern European, weren’t sufficiently white, either.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano: Thank you so much, Yuts. I’m grateful, and I know she will be.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax: Oh, that’s great! I remember your struggles getting her to try it. I hope she has years of e-reading ahead of her.
Sab
@NotMax: That is very cool.
My autistic 6 year old granddaughter has figured out how to order games and films online. We don’t know how she figured out her mother’s passwords. We are amused, horrified and proud of her.
Sab
@Tokyokie: My husband said that he read online that Peter Thiel is disillusioned with Trump and is looking for another conservative nationalist to support. HUH? Thiel was born in Germany, emigrated to the US and then sort of on to New Zealand. What on earth does natiomalism have to do with any of his life choices or beliefs?
WaterGirl
@patrick II: I imagine you may feel a bit shell-shocked. I hope your son is already through the worst of this!
This also puts the fear of god into me, because I am very careful also, but it’s impossible to avoid everyone all the time.
evodevo
@Brachiator: Another event that factored in was the Great Fire that may have destroyed one of the ground zeros for infection…the local rat population…but there are differing opinions on that…
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
My prayers, for all of you.@SiubhanDuinne:
Citizen Alan
I have no “Trump-loving friends” and certainly not on Facebook. Scrape ’em off.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: That grumpy little gus has an identical cousin up here in CO guarding our big feeder ! : )
BruceJ
@wvng: Shorter Azar :
“Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.”
BruceJ
@Sab: You misunderstand: he’s not considering the nations he’s a part of, he’s thinking of the ones he can control
MoCA Ace
@patrick II:
@SiubhanDuinne:
So hard to hear. I freaked out when my son called with his probable diagnosis (still never confirmed), and he is young and healthy. I will pray for both of your loved ones.
Albatrossity
If you do see a Black-chinned hummer there in the swamp, get a picture of it. That would be an exceedingly rare record for Florida, and very late in the year for that species anywhere in the east. They do occur there, but usually only in the winter months after they migrate from the west. Those migrants would be long gone by the end of March, so May would be an amazing record!