Fresh ice! Talk about whatever it is you want to talk about 🙂
Off-Topic Open Thread
Photo courtesy of Washington Capitals
Fresh ice! Talk about whatever it is you want to talk about 🙂
I see getting to this page via the front page is a video game where you have to scroll and click quickly before the screen adjusts and you can’t click on this any more. Took me a full minute to get here.
Yeah, it required me to click another open thread, click the Open Threads category and then find us.
I’ve tagged our fearless leaders on Twitter, so maybe we’ll get some fresh ice.
Good morning. I went on a kayaking tour with REI on Saturday. We started at National Harbor by the Awakening statue, and paddled under the Wilson Bridge and 295. A pair of ospreys yelled at us when we paddled by their nest, and a bald eagle let us paddle near its nest without much commentary.
It was a great experience, considering that it has been fifty years since I’d been in a kayak.
In the realm of “free chicken” and “don’t interrupt your adversary when he is making a mistake. South Africa is really getting cozy with Russia and China’s alliance.
I can’t imagine it was overlooked that Trump referred to African nations as [*] hole countries.
In other uses of the word [*] today, it seems some of our favorite republiKooks all were talking about eating a [*] sandwich in accepting the debt ceiling bill. I did see the ones I checked on did in fact vote for the bill. Not sure what sort of payoff they got in return, because they certainly would not have seen wisdom in voting for it otherwise.
Good morning to all. Looks like the Rink has had an upgrade overnight. Lookin’ good.
I’m… shocked about what appears to be the debt ceiling resolution.
I was going to bet that the House Republicans were going to demand some insane thing because otherwise they couldn’t deliver the votes or Speaker McCarthy would lose his job, especially given the bill that the Republicans passed to prove they could do it.
Instead, it’s not terrible (some small cuts here and there), and even seems to avert a possible government shutdown later in the year by automatically passing a continuing resolution if the appropriations bills aren’t passed.
Still, not a great precedent to keep setting where someone is willing to take hostage the full faith and credit of the government to try to force a deal where they wouldn’t have the votes otherwise. I am annoyed that Biden had promised no negotiations and then negotiated because he wasn’t willing to threaten one of the unilateral actions.
It’s still better than the one under Obama, defuses it until after the next election, and we can finally move on.. at least for a little while.
P.S. Man, Tim Kaine is really pissed about the handout to Manchin, although I could have sworn that pipeline was already approved somewhere…
I’ve tried to not pay much attention to the process. I think Pres. Biden is a better negotiator than people give him credit for. Sure, he did do some negotiating after he said he wouldn’t, but I think the result is the GOP tried to take the economy hostage, and they didn’t get a whole lot of their demands met. If coming to the table after he said he wouldn’t is the biggest concession Pres. Biden made, I’m not sure that’s a bad bargain.
I guess my perspective after working for a labor union for thirty years is there’s usually a difference between what’s said in the press and what goes on at the bargaining table.
I remember reading how Boehner was negotiating with Obama or somebody on something and compromise/progress was being made behind closed doors, but when they let reporters in for an update Boehner felt forced to say something like “this is a very dangerous bill for the American people” and the take was he stood firmly against the whole thing. More recently there was the time Pelosi or somebody wanted to collect phones during closed-door negotiations because somebody kept passing updates to Trump and getting disruptive direction back.
I just read something that it appears Kaine is pissed about the land being taken from Virginia landowners. It’s a poor area, so I imagine the land isn’t terribly valuable, except for running a pipeline through it, so people get paid nothing and have nowhere to go.
And it passed the Senate in record time without any idiot delaying it. Wow, I’m actually shocked by how easy it was.
All the drama happened before it came to the Senate floor for a vote.
I can’t recommend my county’s office of consumer protection any more highly, wow that was a fast resolution.
I was booking a hotel room at the last minute when I saw a Hilton ad saying that they’d price match any 3rd party booking. I had the Expedia site open, Hilton was $450 more, seemed easy enough, so I booked it on Hilton. Thanks to the fact that I booked the very last hotel room and so late, I couldn’t meet the terms of price match (which I didn’t find out until after I booked) and I couldn’t cancel without a penalty.
I got a bunch of run-around from both in-hotel and customer service reps on phone / email, so I almost gave up.
As a final try, I entered the info into my county’s complaint and they sent a formal letter to Hilton a day later. 2 days later I got a direct call from their executive customer relations and got my refund.
Is Expedia a good deal? I fly with them a ton and never build any useful point buildup.Ever.
Using hotels.com I seem to always get a couple of free hotel nights per year and when I compare, the prices are always competitive if not better than other sites for the same places.
Whenever I see Hilton as a hotel option, I picture Paris getting a ping on her bedazzled pink phone indicating how much money has just been added to her bank account while she lounges by the pool. Sometimes if she’s bored she might look at it.
No clue, I don’t travel enough to have a preferred vendor. I tend to sign up for whatever hotel, airfare, Airbnb looks great and then rarely collect enough points for anything until it expires.
For hotels, since I travel with my family, I tend to like Airbnbs. They have more rooms for us to spread out (compared to equivalently priced hotel rooms) and for long trips, the laundry makes everything a lot easier, especially for anything that involves beaches.
I use Expedia to find options but I will almost never book through them again. Their customer service and reliability sucks big time. I am sure I have a price where I would consider dealing them worth the effort but for now, nope, never again. I have had more problems with Expedia bookings than any other service.
I’ve peeked at Expedia from time to time, but since we have a Marriott timeshare, we stay at Marriotts nearly all the time.
I’m amused that Hilton and Marriott are both headquartered here locally.
Well, Marriott started here, but I don’t remember why Hilton moved here.
I forgot, that’s been my experience too.
The gf needed a partial refund for a hotel booked thru Expedia and contacted them. Many weeks later after no word she called back and was told when they called to work things out with the hotel that nobody answered so they didn’t do anything. And it happened a second time. She couldn’t deal with the hotel directly, was told it had to come from Expedia, so she ended up bugging them daily until it was finally resolved.
Ha, Russia has issued an arrest warrant for Lindsey Graham.
Among his edited comments were “Russians are dying” and “the best money we’ve ever spent.”
Heartwarming story about golf.
There was a small school that was on the verge of losing eligibility because they didn’t have the minimum 4 players on their women’s golf team, so they sent out an email asking for anyone to join… and they got two more women who had never played golf. For the conference to qualify, the women had to complete three tournaments. They played their hearts out and were terrible (first round score for one of them was 276), but they persevered and managed to complete all the tournaments and save their program and the conference slot.
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/meredith-college-saving-golf-team-sarah-marshall-maycee-kay-aycock-shooting-434-combined
Tina Turner died.
I remember at Bishop Ireton HS we had a bookstore where you could buy pens, pencils, paper, etc…For some reason you could also buy records there. And for some other reason they had a Tina Turner record displayed high on the shelf and centered, and she was there with her legs splayed on the cover staring at everybody.
Not sure what that was about. Seemed like a statement of some kind.
Sounds like the “What’s Love Got To Do With It” album cover.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Love_Got_to_Do_with_It_%28song%29
Yep that’s the one
Overlooking everyone passing by at the all boys, blazers with seal patches on them uniform suits, catholic high school. Like some kind of anti-virgin proud Mary
Can we give Florida back to the Spanish? Disney? Or better still, the Seminoles?
Apparently all it took was a single complaint for Miami-Dade County to remove Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb from elementary school libraries (Ms. Gorman wrote and delivered this poem at Joe Biden’s swearing-in).
The complaint says that the function of the work is to “cause confusion and indoctrinate students” and lists as its author Oprah Winfrey.
Oprah Winfrey.
Ms. Winfrey did write the forward. So it’s clear that the snowflake who got so badly triggered did at least open the book, but lacks the functional literacy skills needed to distinguish a book’s author from a person a who wrote a forward.
I do wonder why these parents even bother to teach their kids how to read.
I don’t think THEY learned how to read.
There’s a reason I refer to Florida as Tsvetochny. (I translated Florida to its Russian equivalent. Given that Florida is the Spanish word for flowery, I translated it into Russian.) I swear that DeSantis operates that state like a Soviet Socialist Republic. Disagreeing with him is not allowed.
And given that Russians travel to Florida to have their babies so they can get American citizenship, as well. Has Florida become a de facto Russian oblast.
And to think people escape from Cuba to move to Florida which is now a dictatorship in its own right. Is DeSantisstan really an improvement over Castrocommunism?
Looking at new vehicles.
Electric/hybrids (greatly foreign makers) are expensive and hard to get your hands on right now. Well-rated gas-powered cars (greatly American makers) are a lot more affordable. It’s really hard to put money where your mouth is when looking at options right now. The electric Mustang, the upcoming EV Chevy Silverado (something like 200,000 people on the wait list) appear to be great.
But otherwise I don’t see American cars keeping up with the competition at all. The economy in May 2023 appears to be telling me to buy a cheap well-rated American petroleum car vs an expensive eco-conscious well-rated foreign car. And I am wondering if that is a coincidence where we are helping American car makers while they attempt to catch up to the rest of the world
I think the notion that “American” car companies are made in “America” and are primarily petrol-engined is simplistic now. Quick search shows that everything Tesla makes is almost totally America made, for example. Stellantis is next – and they are a multinational headquartered in the Netherlands made from a merger of the Fiat (Italian, including Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, etc.) group (which also includes Chrysler, Dodge, etc.) and PSA (which is French and includes Peugot). Honda is something like 70% American made. Then you’ve got another group that is a merger of Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi. Finally GM comes in at ~50% made in America – but GM itself is half-owned by SAIC, a Chinese company. Ford is American, but I couldn’t find (quickly) the percentage of its production that is US-based versus worldwide.
So basically, Tesla is at least a truly American company, and they are 100% electric.
And just I don’t come across as an Elon Musk fanbois: he’s an egotistical asshat.
Yeah, I was thinking Tesla, although I’ve heard that they have some quality control issues and their premium version cars aren’t on the level of actual premium cars. I also don’t trust El*n to not upload some insane AI driving thing into the car and have it drive into a ditch.
Our next car is going to be electric; my wife HATES the gas station and just being able to plug in at home is going to be a game changer for her. Sadly, we may inherit her parents’ Tesla 3 because her father is getting to the point that he’s not comfortable driving and he has an almost barely used Tesla.
I should also clarify I’m tired of driving suv’s i want a sporty vehicle… that tows. The Ioniq and kia can do it.
The 2023 dodge charger in black also does it quite nicely
You couldn’t pay me enough to drive a Tesla. And I now define an American car as made in America, not by an American company. What is an American company now, anyway?
I think the push to electric vehicles is fine, but if you need one now, you’re probably better off with something gas powered to get you through the next three to five years while domestic production of electric vehicles catches up to the demand. Whether than means buying something softly used (three years old maybe), or biting the bullet and buying something new is a decision.
I’m just happy my car is fully paid for. It’s seven years old and has about 67,000 miles on it. One thing about the pandemic is how much less mileage I put on the car by being able to work from home most of the time.
My wife just got a used Honda C-RV (CR-V?) with less than 2k miles on it. For me, my commute is probably less than 3 miles and I only put miles on it to drive to ice rinks, it’s going to be a while yet before I need a replacement…
…which could be a Mustang 🙂
My car coming out of college was a (slightly used) Camaro. Kind of a dream car, and being an only child I was slightly spoiled, so that was my graduation gift.
I cannot imagine driving one (or a Mustang or similar) as an old geezer – getting in and out of the car would probably kill me. 🙂
(I know you’re referring to the electric Mustang, but your comment brought back memories.)
I’m referring to the 4-cylinder ecoboost, actually. The V-8 is kind of overkill for me, especially when the 4 still makes over 300 hp.
The seat is a super-comfy long recliner, but you’re right that getting in/out in a suave and graceful way is going to be a challenge. I’m 50 this year (in a couple of weeks, actually) and still spry…pretty much.
My first car was a brand spanking new Fiero. I knew that if I was going to ever own a “sporty” car, I had to buy it early in life because it was unlikely to happen as I got older.
I did get a Mustang convertible as an unexpected upgrade at a car rental last year and it was like you said. I basically had to roll out onto the ground whenever I wanted to get out. Not very dignified but it was a fun ride.
Last year in California we ended up with a Dodge Charger for a rental. Doesn’t have the low to the ground feature, but it sure felt weird driving this noisy muscle car.
I believe I read that Dodge is going to discontinue it?
Challenger is going away. It’s a pretty good looking car. I’m sure it’ll be back in 3 years as an EV
Thought about one once. But I need storage for remodel and other supplies. Wasn’t considering that a sporty sedan might be able to tow back then
The rental car company classified it as a full size car. I think. It was a replacement because the first one they tried to give us had the dashboard light on for some kind of service (I don’t remember, maybe oil change), so we never even left the lot with it.
Maybe lease? My fear with buying a new gas powered car now is that you’re locked in for awhile (cars last a long time!).
My wife is really excited about never going to a gas station again.
My unqualified opinion is that leasing is almost never a good idea unless you just really want a new car every 2-3 years. I feel like the lease option is mostly for people that are trying to get more car than they can actually afford and fool themselves into thinking that a low monthly payment is a good deal.
Maybe for some people it is, but I just know that for me it would never make sense.
Mine’s 9 years old with 79,000 miles, added a light bar, tow package, oversized tires (just an inch meatier than standard). Some fancy brand roof rack… The dash is lit up like a Christmas tree of warning lights, and I’ve paid a lot of money to try to make that go away – they say the computer needs to be replaced vs all the exams and parts I’ve paid for to try to make it happy.
I can wave my wand and make those lights disappear for a brief period of time if I so desire.
A used car is probably smarter yes. I’ll look into it, sometimes used and new are not that far apart in price tho.
Isn’t it supposedly not a great time to buy a car? Car manufacturing still hasn’t recovered, so prices are high. Also, it feels like electric cars have just become mainstream with more models coming online, so the best time to buy electric is probably in 2-3 years with more models and choices.
For me, I’d probably buy something like an Ioniq 5 because I view cars as kind of an appliance and I’m “enjoying” driving around my Fit / wife’s Prius.
It’s also not a good time to buy a house but I did that because I smelled opportunity and found where it can work in your favor – a new build where the builder is having trouble unloading inventory and the bank won’t give them money to build more houses until they unload places and they have workers to keep paying so they’re motivated in price and concessions and all sorts of things.
The opportunity I’ve found here is my decade old beater is worth stupid money right now in this market and it and that value will not last forever. We’ll see if I find the right match tho.
I was looking at the Ioniq and the Kia, all the “top rated” lists for PHEV, and hybrids etc that are typically not American (Tesla would be included in the cars not typically seen on these lists). The MSRP is 5-10k below what dealers in Austin are asking for, and that extends the gap that exists with what is being asked by dealers for new internal combustion options.
Wow–Maple Leafs have fired Kyle Dubas (or decided not to re-sign him). https://theathletic.com/4534992/2023/05/19/maple-leafs-fire-kyle-dubas/
Round up the usual suspects, I guess…
The drunk vehicular homicide party girl who killed the bride leaving the wedding reception – still in her wedding dress – once dressed up for Halloween as a dead bride with fake blood on her forehead. It’s out there.
Woot. Disney is canning their campus expansion in Florida due to “changing business conditions.” Nothing quite like ratcheting up the pressure on DeSantis.
Reading up on it Iger didn’t like it anyway, because it separated out the Imagineering from the rest of the creative Disney industry over in California. It’s helpful when someone gives you an excuse to make a change. I’m also sure the economics aren’t working out now vs. when it was planned 3-4 years ago.
And wow, Disney is just taking a hatchet to a bunch of new content on Disney+ and Hulu to avoid paying royalties. Really new stuff like the Willow series and MPower (their Marvel Women’s History Month special). Oof. Pirating never felt so moral.
Yeah I saw that. Making sure I watch Howard before it disappears. HBO Max, soon to be just Max (which I think is a massive mistake since it’s HBO I prefer, not all those weird reality TV shows), has been doing the same thing. And Netflix is giving up on its DVD rental business (where it made its start in the mid 90s).
There’s a real archival problem developing now where movies and TV series will become unavailable.
On the Lake Nona project however, I disagree. The economics are fine. Plus there was a huge tax advantage which is why the former CEO decided to relocate part of that Imagineering business here. It’s the local politics that aren’t working. As well as a cultural employee one because so many of the Imagineering employees were worried about relocating here. The new CEO not liking the Imagineering department to be split makes his decision an easy one. But had the business angle remained positive I don’t think he would have pulled out. It’s expensive to stop a development project that’s this far along. Still before they broke ground, but far along.
Personally I hope it hurts DeSantis badly. Two years ago we relocated to this area of Florida, hoping to see some hockey in Tampa and enjoy going to Disney in our retirement. We didn’t realize that Florida under DeSantis was going to go completely cray cray. (People are nice around here; I just don’t talk politics). And not only pass some truly horrendous legislation, but decide to go after the biggest industry in the state. Disney is the reason Florida doesn’t have state tax. It gives over a billion in state tax. Disney is the engine of central Florida
Disney World (and Reedy Creek) is incredibly well run. Most of the land contained within Reedy Creek is owned by Disney, some 89% of it. And it contains or overlaps key wildlife corridors (key when crossing I-4) that Disney supports. Part of the overall development goal is to keep large portions of this land undeveloped and green including swampland. And Reedy Creek has managed it well. The local joke is that if Reedy Creek managed I-4 the constant construction work would have been finished years ago.
Other actual landowners are numbered around 24 or so and are folks who were or are affiliated with Disney, like past employees. The 24 square miles are stretched across two separate counties, neither of whom want the responsibility financial or otherwise of maintaining Disney World and the land and roads around it.
This pissing match DeSantis is on is silly. Disney (and Disney World) can afford to play the long game. DeSantis is out of office in two years.
What’s ironic is that the kerfuffle really began when the previous CEO Bob Chapek decided to move part of their Imagineering group to the Orlando area (the Lake Nona Town Center campus development) which would have included part of their movie making industry. Alone it would have a 1 billion investment. But many of the Imagineering group was upset about the Don’t Say Gay bill DeSantis had passed and were reluctant to move (some 2000 or so employees would have been relocated). Under pressure Chapek, who is pretty conservative, gave a fairly mild rebuke which led to DeSantis’s massive culture war overreaction. As a result Chapek ended up fired and Iger, a progressive, is brought back.
It’s an easy call for Iger, who didn’t really like the plan of separating the parts of the Imagineering group, to fire a salvo at DeSantis by shutting down this project. He has also begunn refocusing Disney on developing property around Disneyland in Anaheim. They own land there too even if it’s not contiguous like here in Disney World. Also DeSantis is wrong. The Lake Nona project was well underway if Covid delayed. Disney was still working on it just a month ago.
Disney as a corporation has some 17 billion over the next decade planned for future development here at Disney World. But all of that is on hold if the new Reedy Creek DeSantis picked board of far right nut jobs (called something stupidly banal) decides to try to develop Disney’s land for their own purposes. (For example, Disney just announced plans underway to build employee housing, but the new non-Disney friendly board announced that it wants to use other Disney land to build employee housing–they rejected where Disney has planned to build, wanting instead to take over an area dedicated to water reclamation because they don’t see a need for all of these land set asides for environmental purposes). From simply a property rights perspective I’m curious how far this handpicked board (of far right nut jobs) can go. Can they really force Disney to develop its own land in a way that’s contrary to how it’s been developed over the past 60 years.
Disney World will never leave. But Disney as a corporation sure can decide just to maintain what it has has here and not embark on future development plans in the greater Orlando area.
One of my favorite journalist reads is an Orlando local who is the best to read on this fracas–Sarah Rumpf (@rumpfshaker). She’s a contributing editor @Mediaite and a freelance writer.
Sorry to be so longwinded. But I’ve been meaning to write something about it whenever I read about it here. I’m following it all quite closely being only 60 miles or so from Disney World.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/disney-ceo-wasnt-bluffing-robert-iger-cancels-plans-for-1-billion-office-complex-in-orlando/
Recent piece by Sarah Rumpf. She has other media sites, like at Mastadon. Because yes Twitter is no longer useful. I’m still there but it’s not my first stop for news anymore. The fucking algorithm has changed and my feed is a swampland. And not the good protected environmental kind, but more like a cesspool. Haha
Still a massive Caps fan of course but I love talking hockey with Bolts fans. It’s a huge hockey area. I even met a Leafs fan (wearing a teeshirt) at a neighborhood party. I had a great chat and complimented him on the Leafs series win. Fortunately it was before their massive fail against the Panthers, who are now my new rooting favorite. LOVED that they beat the stupid Canes last night. LOVED also that it took serious OT. Though we went to bed after the first OT.
I’m excited – ref’ing my first youth hockey on Saturday. Just one 10U game. Interesting they’ve (USAHockey) have already announced a “zero tolerance policy” for abuse of team officials, etc.
Have fun! I’m guessing that policy is the result of a lot of abuse…
I need to bone up on my signals. In calling adult league games, we rarely bother. With the grown-ups there are no coaches or parents that will ask what the call was. They do try to pair new refs like me with veteran refs – or so I’ve been told.
Interesting too are new rules for youth hockey. There is no delayed/tag-up on offsides anymore – you can’t just dump it into the zone while waiting for your players to clear the zone.
Also, teams that are shorthanded can no longer just ice the puck – icing is icing.
The two rules together to force players to learn to make smarter plays with the puck rather than dumping it away.
Yyyyeeeeeaaaahhhhh, about that icing rule change…I think what it will do is make the game go VERY long. Icing can still be an advantage. It still delays the game and allows players to get a breather. You may find yourself chasing down icing pucks a lot more.
Yeah we’ll see how it goes…that is a really good point. I guess in theory staying trapped in your zone is the punishment.
One other rule change for 8U only is that the games are played cross-ice.
The thinking is to get the kids to learn to make plays in tight spaces and in traffic. It probably punishes the speedier kids at first maybe? But it’s only that level. I guess they’re also thinking that if little kids playing is just a cluster of little dudes all whacking away at the puck, then do really need the whole ice for that?
The news about kids’ baseball umpires lately has probably prompted that.
So, how did the game go on Saturday?
It was a BLAST! The adult league games I ref now just so slow and quiet – having families and friends of two teams packed into the rink was amazing. There was just so much intensity than I’d gotten used to!
The biggest difference in play was faceoffs. With the adults only the centers really get involved and few try to do anything other than win it back. I learned (quicky) that kids are taught to interfere or tie up the other centermen, and the wings are much more active in jumping in.
The new rules are kind of tricky and apparently the veteran refs HATE the icing rule for penalty kill. It honestly didn’t really come into play though, at least at the level I was at.The new offsides rule is kind of tricky at first, but the kids are pretty well-coached so I didn’t feel like anything happened to take away the flow of the game.
Even the better the adult teams I play on, I (sadly) realized this:
The 10-year olds would probably give us a run for our money.
12-years would probably beat us.
14-year olds would just clobber us.
Hockey is awesome 🙂
I can’t help but feel like the Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine are somewhat reminiscent of the Blitz during WWII. All about controlling the skies. Quite the cat and mouse “game” and I also wonder if the sudden improvement in Ukraine’s defenses is not just Patriot missiles but related to intelligence gathering much like Britain making good use of the cracked Enigma machine.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/17/europe/ukraine-kyiv-air-defense-weapons-intl-hnk-ml/index.html
When the news first came out that an overwhelming coordinated attack window had occurred I knew they had gone after the patriot systems. Surprised they have since admitted the system was/were damaged (if not completely incapacitated).
Can’t recall if UA shooting down of the 2 jets and 2 support helicopters came in response or before. I want to say after.
Also surprised the Russian mercenary leader denied he offered info on Russian troop positions if UA would agree to withdraw their position. Whether we made it up or he really did, that doesn’t tell us what he actually would have done. That he feels he needs to address it publicly could indicate added instability in alignment with Putin.
He’s also helpfully telling the world “don’t believe what you read in the exposed documents.”
I think that’s the biggest surprise of the war. Russia should have a much larger, more capable air force and should have established air dominance in the opening salvo.
The fact that they didn’t and so the war has devolved into an artillery duel where whoever can lob the most shells at the enemy wins.
Wow. The days of claiming “I was never there” are coming to a close.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/health/human-dna-captured-from-air-scn/index.html
My understanding is that DNA as forensic evidence can only be used to rule out a suspect (i.e. “Dan couldn’t have done it because the DNA is not a match”) and is not used to rule in (i.e. “It was Dan because the DNA is a match”).
Matches may be unlikely but are statistically possible (sounds like something Dan would say if caught red-handed and trying desperately to implicate his sister…)
Shaggy defense won’t work anymore?
Skimmed quickly, saw this under a picture in the article and laughed.
“No human DNA was found in a sample taken from this hilltop in Wicklow, Ireland.”
Lets all go commit crimes there!
As a violinist (I’m not a “fiddle” player), I once asked a waitress from Ireland at an Irish pub here in the US where they had live music if they had a lot of violin acts.
She was startled at the question and we determined that she thought I asked her if they had a lot of violent acts at the pub
Papua New Guinea really outsized in recent newsworthiness.
Saw the article the other day that it has one of the few remaining places in the world to get nickel for electric vehicle batteries. China having contracts to get that nickel, Biden as the first President to visit, and now signing us to a mutual defense pact. They’re 90 miles from Australia where I read recently we are increasing Marine presence.
Learned the process of obtaining the nickel reserves we have left on the planet is like fracking, with millions of tons of toxic byproducts that in some cases – by design – are getting pumped into the ocean.
Side note, the letter left on Putin’s parents grave that got a Russian woman convicted in court:
“Parents of a maniac, take him to your place. He causes so much pain and trouble. The whole world prays for his death. Death to Putin. You raised a freak and a killer”.
Bravo to Russia for putting her on trial. Otherwise I probably would have never heard about it.
The Washington Post had a great article about Indonesia, which is going to be a huge nickel producer. They’ve mined all all the easy to process ore so now it’s very diffuse ore that they’re processing with High-Pressure Acid Leaching technology, which is environmentally destructive and energy intensive.
https://wapo.st/41Cuqeo
Look at this, a fresh new place to talk about old Disney movies!!
Up to 3x the strike distance for Ukraine thanks to the new British missiles. Incredibly helpful to their cause. I can’t imagine it’s a large arsenal, probably need to choose targets and timing carefully.
Aww, I enjoyed this essay.
Connie is not a common name, but it is pretty common among Asian-American Women. So, the writer linked up a bunch of people named after Connie Chung and got them to tell their stories and meet Connie. Their journey echoes the journey of my parents who came here in the 60’s as graduate students and raised a family here.
It’s also cool that she’s a local, went to Montgomery Blair High School and University of Maryland, double alum!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/11/opinion/connie-chung-named-after.html?unlocked_article_code=6RIIF8pPAEIrxhjtG5QGnJYyE8iutNDJDN-365qNIRY9TtsGWN6EvpB_poG2ei_OEWn8hhlohhPEglYr7vGfpcFNUIfTYBAQ1XobZuj1J62mDf7-DnP5l0qfLFomeAj4v4UHoS6L4HqgKvUu9RxjaT6p-vmAfcjhnIYrAsIObLQmFezyyDFJaBQ3qazZ2gB5_N-j_faAx4KlxSlCnUBBv4_R1O0a8zA5WPe7kbxMQAil3VCJIqOyiE5gmgDnL_5BuRmi3l7PiWD-ra1p5ebXQIKwcYXceUYr_pr4NlaMibCl26rJl5iVfKUDNcVCvigLqjeQrf_ME8Cw7flDCXW6k3tmhIFrdVRB1O1ViWInNUJlrls&smid=url-share
It also reminds me of the article that friend of the blog Alex Prewitt wrote about a lot of people who named their kids after Shaq.
https://www.si.com/nba/2017/07/05/shaquille-oneal-shaq-baby-name-popularity
Those of us who are white, males in particular, fail to fully appreciate the importance of public personalities that “look like us.” Great story.
I saw the tweet about it, but I generally don’t click through to the NYT . I know I can read for free, and I even signed up for a free account a while ago, I just can’t give then clicks until they clean up editorial and/or their headline writers. Not sure which it really is, and I really think it’s both.