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March 15, 2018
Right outside my window, watching me blog...
... it's Meade's avatar.
Talk about anything you like in the comments. This is an open thread.
And remember The Althouse Portal to Amazon.
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114 comments:
WE have a bright red cardinal who comes to our bird block in Tucson. Maybe he'll go home in summer.
The female is less glamourous.
The cardinals are back looking for food. Birds have even starting going for the smooth sumac berries, which are the last thing they'll touch when everything else is gone.
Which is how they're there for them in March and not devoured in October.
After two solid days of snow, where it looked like the windows were covered by kitchen bin liners, it has finally stopped! I kind of let myself be snowed in as an experiment, but no thanks to next time.
Male cardinals are interested in female cardinals, but mostly in other male cardinals and driving them off.
Do you suspect that the Russian poisonings are a false flag?
No, Russians do that under Putin. Make it obvious to deter future turncoats.
Who's a pretty bird!
I drink to the health of Cardinal Puff.
Contemplating her excommunication no doubt.
Not often, but occasionally I have hawks in my backyard.
Makes me happy.
Adults going on about the righteousness of the "student protests" got me thinking about guns. So I re-joined the NRA.
We have a big flock, including a covey of quail and two rabbits in our yard every day.
One day the yard was empty and there was a beautiful hawk sitting on he wall.
About a month ago, a big bobcat strolled through about 8:30 AM. He was gone by the time I got my camera.
Cardinals!!! Dal Maxville?
I doubt it’s a false flag, TBH, but it’s not a slam dunk just because they used that chemical agent, is all I am saying.
We are presently feeding our birds at about a 10 lbs per week rate. The first 5 lbs goes to our oak tree dwelling squirrel family, but they push off about 2 lbs onto the ground for the doves and chipmunks. The final 3 lbs is feeding a maited for life, pair of Cardinals along with several dozen finches and sparrows. We call the male Cardinal Fred and his wife Fredrica. The other birds are Darrell and my other brothers Darrell.
Looks like a very lovely and spring-like day.
-sw
I guess I am not a free speech absolutist after all, so I deleted those posts about the nerve agent.
The Cardinals are 22:1 odds to win the World Series.
I think it’s a sign that we should all pool some money and put some on the Cards.
Anyone here live in or near Vegas?
"Michigan Medicine expects spike in vasectomies during March Madness"
from the Ann Arbor News.
We have a cardinal that sees its reflection in window glass and attacks what it thinks is its competitor. It's a stupid bird and does this dozens of times each day. We got a plastic owl decoy that we positioned near the window--this is presently working. But we need more decoys because the bird simply attacks another window. He presently uses 4 windows of our house for this exercise. Beautiful red bird, but I hate it!
Professor-
Did you catch yesterday's NSFW xkcd? The hover-over text made me think of you.
March is when I miss The Great Robin Feast in the really, really big holly tree in the backyard of my former house. In one day, a large flock of robins and a couple of finches completely denude the tree of berries. I always loved when it happened on a weekend and I could watch.
Anybody watch (I hang my head in shame) Criminal Minds? Over the last couple of weeks they've had an arc that served no dramatic purpose but did emphasize the integrity and commitment of the FBI rank and file while demonizing upper level management. Very interesting.
At my new hone there are cardinals everywhere. They are thick like pigeons in St Marks Square...
A Pileated Woodpecker has been investigating an old Oak in the backyard too.
Sessions should fire McCabe today and put his pension in jeopardy. Fuck him.
"Since 1999, Althouse and Meade has conducted resource surveys and conservation planning on over 120,000 acres throughout California, primarily in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and Kern Counties."
Christy said...
Anybody watch (I hang my head in shame) Criminal Minds?
We, and I use that term loosely, did a binge of that a while ago - I had to view it as a variant of "X-Files" to not get disgusted.
"Uh, well, judge, we kicked down his door because it was the 20th anniversary of his sister's murder! What do you mean that's not probable cause?"
My fave was Garcia, who, with a few quick button presses, could download film dental x-rays right out of their filing cabinets over the internet while breaking dozens of federal "hacking" laws.
If there is a 10% tariff against US cars imported into the EU, and a 2% tariff against EU cars imported into the US, and this is a general thing, why is it Trump who is threatening to sink the world economy with a "trade war"?
"I'd rather be dead than red on the head," tweeted this guy.
I am still having trouble wrapping my head around the idea that the internet dating service from your earlier post has identified 37+ genders. I can't begin to imagine what they all are.
No birdsplaining please.
Mueller's gone fishing, another indication that this investigation is truly interminable until something... anything remotely damning is found.
The only bird call I know with certainty
There are three genders: Masculine, feminine, and neuter.
Sexes can be more complicated, reproduction being such a Rube Goldberg process, but fundamentally there are two, male and female, as necessary for the survival of the species.
Why would he worry?
http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/14/source-d-from-dossier-sought-immunity-from-house-intel-committee
He’d worry because in this witch hunt atmosphere, anyone with a brain would worry.
"Michael said...
The only bird call I know with certainty"
Crow? Owl? Dove?
We have two cardinal couples who are regulars at our bird feeder. Their interaction with the doves and various smaller birds is endlessly amusing.
I drink to the health of Cardinal Puff.
Now that brings back memories.
Got blasted more than once playing that game.
Now that brings back memories.
Got blasted more than once playing that game.
A piece of advice purchased with the bitter coin of experience: never play drinking games with Brits. Trust me.
A piece of advice purchased with the bitter coin of experience: never play drinking games with Brits. Trust me.
Well, I'm pretty close to a full-blooded Scot so it's a draw.
Cardinal Puff games were with USAF buddies back in the mid-80s. We didn't know any better.
Did y'all see the pedestrian overpass failure in Florida? It looks like the north pylon failed, but I can't imagine why.
Here's the link....pedestrian overpass fails.
Well, I'm pretty close to a full-blooded Scot so it's a draw.
Genes only take you so far. Then it's years of hard training.
more on the collapse here
FIU touted the bridge to be a first of its kind, tweeting that it swung into place on Saturday.
According to an FIU press release, the 174-foot, 950-ton bridge was just installed "in a few hours" using "accelerated bridge construction" methods, which the university said "reduces potential risks to workers, commuters, and pedestrians and minimizes traffic interruptions."
Seems like those "accelerated bridge construction methods" didn't work out so well.
So now can we expect that the FIU students will hold protests and demand that concrete structures over roadways be removed?
We used to have cardinals flocking onto our sunflower seed feeder. It's a spring loaded squirrel proof* feeder and when we first moved here there were two pairs who often showed up to help themselves. These days both the thistle feeder and the sunflower feeder host numerous finches, but no cardinals. I suspect we're a bit too far from the woods, and that they can get fed from a feeder closer to trees.
__________________________
* Strictly speaking and based on past observations, I'm convinced that there's no such thing. There are only feeders that are not worth bother with as far as a squirrel is concerned.
DYING of jealousy. Cardinals don't come to my house, and I LOVE them. I'm thinking on painting a few blue jays red. Just a few.
Madashell: "It looks like the north pylon failed, but I can't imagine why."
According to LLR Chuck's lefty allies, Trump is responsible.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/15/doj-fbi-fugitives-background-check-database/
Odd that Obama didn't use an expansive interpretation of a statute to enforce him laws.
Theories?
Turkeys, quail, Canada geese, white-fronted geese, woodpeckers (acorn & Pileated), coyotes, deer, western bluebirds, peregrine falcons...and lots more that I regularly see on my Sierra Nevada ranch.
But I do miss seeing cardinals. Saw them all the time as a kid in Nebraska.
I miss seeing ring-necked pheasants, too.
Been talking to the German Wife about going pheasant hunting in Nebraska. Beautiful birds, lots of fun to hunt, and delicious, to boot!
And I miss all those nice Nebraskans. Best folk I've ever lived among.
That should read "enforce gun laws" above.
According to LLR Chuck's lefty allies, Trump is responsible.
Don't joke.
Leftists are already blaming Trump's infrastructure package. Seriously.
It is the bridge span that failed. Looks like it was designed to be temporarily a simply supported span (no ties into the end supports) to be tied into some secure end abutments not yet constructed before being loaded with traffic.
So, the design may have been faulty, the design may be fine, but the concrete supplied was not, both may have been OK, but the construction manager did not allow sufficient cure time, or something else not so obvious went wrong - unexpectedly.
The one thing certain is that this disaster will be a bonanza for a large number of law firms, each pointing their fingers at the other firms' clients.
I'm waiting for the two batteries in the basement on the solar panel to discharge to the voltage of the old third battery that I just desulfinated with a desulfinating charger, before I connect it back in in parallel. They go up to 14.6v in the daytime and settle back to 12.8v at night.
Just add batteries instead of replacing the old ones, if the old ones can be made to work.
Seems like those "accelerated bridge construction methods" didn't work out so well.
“We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad” --Barack Obama
Oh, how far we have sunk under Trump!
Get the pope involved. He's a bridge-builder.
I just walked into my home and heard CNN playing.
There are a lot of new leaks from Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller about what his gang of Trump-hating lawyers are doing.
It seems to me that Mueller spends half his time leaking information about his "investigation" to his favored Trump-hating journalists.
“We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad” --Barack Obama
I fear we'll never build another.
Cardinals are unnecessarily noisy.
You're better off with Robins. A pre-dawn, spotting ultraviolet chorus, and tuts for any remarkable event, and evening songs. No perpetual pointless daytime singing.
Found a couple of comments, one of which said they were conducting "stress tests" when the bridge segment failed - which they probably should not be doing with the street open for traffic below - and the other said a crane hook failed and dropped a piece of heavy equipment onto the span - though that may have been part of the "stress test - who knows.
I bailed out of Obsessed (2009) in five minutes. There were already two threatening plot cliches hanging over the viewer.
The eagles dwell in obscurity and across chasms fearless go the sons of the Alps, on bridges lightly built.
- Holderlin, "Patmos"
“We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad” --Barack Obama
Canada, Australia, and Russia are the others.
"And I miss all those nice Nebraskans. Best folk I've ever lived among."
True dat.
At My Window
"And I miss all those nice Nebraskans. Best folk I've ever lived among."
Hillary disagrees.
The news media are already gearing up to blame the bridge failure on Trump. I'd venture a guess that the bridge designer or the government employees who screwed it up are to blame.
Right now the Engineering professors are all logged into Facebook and Linkedin to get that thing f'n removed from their resumes.
It looks like the roof they put on that thing is supposed to carry the load.
Trouble is, it wasn't hooked-up yet.
Isn't gravity wonderful!
Vanessa Trump has been fired. She was let go two days after Secretary Tillerson.
Rumour is, that Trump is in negotiations with Stormy Daniels to run the Mar-a-Lago recreation rooms.
Canada, Australia, and Russia are the others.
Europe to Asia, I'll give you. The others? No. Transcontinental? Yes.
The one thing certain is that this disaster will be a bonanza for a large number of law firms, each pointing their fingers at the other firms' clients.
My older son is a construction defect trial lawyer. They're probably trying to figure out hw to open a Florida office.
I don't think there are enough Florida dead people to make a great cash pile.
Also the remaining expected earnings of Florida dead people are likely to be small.
A bridge designed by the people who brought you the strapless evening gown.
Etienne,
that "thing" is essentially a truss and the top member is probably designed to be post-stressed once the end sections taking the bridge back to the ground are constructed.
Yikes!! It was trying to be a cantilevered suspension bridge without suspension cables. That's why the trusses look so screwy.
The crane by the north pylon was stress testing the suspension cable attachment point.....apparently by lifting, and no one accounted for the test failing. The bridge was lifted, and then dropped during the stress test. I would not want my PE signature on ANY of those documents.
Judging from the pictures, they were a little light on the re-bar.
If you can find a picture of the finished project it shows a center tower with cable/stays holding up a deck on each side. It looks like they placed the deck on one side of where the center tower will be and then planned to complete the tower and add stays later. The deck that collapsed appeared to be only 1/2 of the bridge.
Apologies; we are all wrong.
The segment put in place is a reinforced concrete simply supported truss girder that will be further transformed into a portion of a cable stayed bridge design as shown in the architect's video.
Go to Sundance at The Last Refuge
madAsHell said...
Judging from the pictures, they were a little light on the re-bar.
From the point of view of the cars below, they were a little heavy on the concrete.
It's interesting that they went for such a massive design. It's like they got a federal grant for millions or something. It looks wide enough to drive a car over.
We have walkways over freeways in Oklahoma, but mostly they are made of steel.
I wonder if steel is too expensive now?? Maybe concrete is the 21st century art deco??
The other thing, which is visible now, is that the bridge wasn't designed to aid in rescue after a disaster. They spent all day trying to figure out how to break it apart and lift the pieces. It's going to take a lot of jack hammers, or possibly some dynamite.
A piece of advice purchased with the bitter coin of experience: never play drinking games with Brits. Trust me.
When I was a teenager, I used to watch British teens drink a case of American beer, and that get up and walk away like it was nothing.
3 Snakebites and I was paralyzed. I had to pay the barmaid ten p to retrieve my darts every 5 minutes or so.
The Conservative Treehouse will also do for a google.
It sounds as the "stress test" consisted of lifting at the nearest future cable attachment point with the large crane and something gave way which sent a sudden shock wave through the top slab so that it failed and down came the whole works.
If so, that was a foreseeable risk, and the testing should not have been done with traffic under the bridge.
It was a "prestige project" for the architect, the University, the City, and everyone else connected with it, except perhaps us, the taxpayers.
Also a hint of why college tuitions are so high these days.
I can't see why you would stress test that portion after it was lifted into place. It seems that this test could have been done while the section was on the ground. ( maybe propped up on each end so that it was supporting its own weight, if that was part of the test. )
I wonder if the plan was to stress test it before it went up, but someone was running behind, so they put it up when they had the road closure scheduled, because what difference would the order make?
The "stress test" most likely was requirement to test the future cable attachment point rather than the whole structure.
I think you have a point though. If you watch the time lapse video of the bridge moving, it seems obvious the test could have been done before the section was moved.
Congressman warns: rise of child sex robots (Drudge)
(Searches imagination, comes up blank)
The bridge was environmentally responsible. "If only it would save on life."
Good grief. Hillary’s broken something else.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hillary-clinton-fractures-wrist-after-slipping-in-india-resort-bathtub-report-says/ar-BBKh96f?li=BBnb7Kz
@Orig Mike,
I think we might be reaching peak stupidity with Hillary - her delusional explanations of why she lost, her pratfalls down the stairs, and now her bathtub follies.
Memo to the Gang: No more attacks on Hillary! We don't want to sink her to soon!
Be nice to Hillary and keep her propped up.
Hillary needs to be put in a bubble enclosure.
At the very least Hillary needs to book a handicapped accessible room in the future, with lots of grab bars and a walk in shower. Also extra wide closets for her pants suits.
”Hillary needs to be put in a bubble enclosure.”
She’s already in a bubble.
“We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad” --Barack Obama
--
The power of all 57 states working in unison.
Correction: Trump’s Pick to Head CIA Did Not Oversee Waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah
by Raymond Bonner special to ProPublica
ProPublica erred when it reported in 2017 that Gina Haspel was in charge of a secret prison in Thailand during the infamous interrogation of an al-Qaida suspect.
<
The story said that Haspel, a career CIA officer who President Trump has nominated to be the next director of central intelligence, oversaw the clandestine base where Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods that are widely seen as torture. The story also said she mocked the prisoner’s suffering in a private conversation. Neither of these assertions is correct and we retract them. It is now clear that Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.
<
The New York Times, which also reported last year that Haspel oversaw the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and another detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, published a second story this week making the same point. It quoted an unnamed former senior CIA official who said Haspel did not become base chief until late October of 2002. According to the Times, she was in charge when al-Nashiri was waterboarded three times.
Heading home on BART after a long day in Sacramento, and the train is stuck because someone died of an apparent overdose on the train ahead. This is not the first time I've been delayed by dead people on BART.
And of course the company on late night BART trains is more than usually interesting.
BART!
"Don't have a cow!"
“Right outside my window,
Watching me blog”
He’s singing a song for me
Then he’ll be walking a dog
And I’m just like that bird
Ohhh
Blogging just for you
Ohhh
I can post a few
You can comment too
I wonder if steel is too expensive now? Not now. Now they wished they went with steel.
Maybe concrete is the 21st century art deco??
Concrete can be very stable. If it's done right.
Pretty sure they didn'tdo it right.
Rusty said...
I wonder if steel is too expensive now? Not now. Now they wished they went with steel.
Rusty gets steel, but steel gets rusty.
This bridge was not intended as just a bridge to get the students from one side of the street to the other; it was to be a sculpture and a statement of the architect's vision.
The architect's video looks like even the future supporting cables were to be encased in concrete. Wonder how the engineers planned to manage that?
and the train is stuck because someone died of an apparent overdose on the train ahead.
Authority gets to assert their authority by stopping everything for hours.
So nowadays, if you arrive on an accident, traffic wends its way around severed heads and limbs until the authorities arrive and close down the freeway for ten hours.
It used to be they just pushed the cars to the side and opened everything up.
They don't figure the time cost of delay of everybody into the cost tradeoff. The higher the cost the better, in fact.
They should make like in that James Bond movie You Only Live Twice and move cars with helicopters if they're in the way. Even at $10,000 an hour or whatever the cost, all the commuters time on the West Side Highway is more than worth it. You can either fly the offending vehicle to a tow pound, a garage, a hospital, or just conveniently drop it in the river.
IiB
Diet rootbeer all over the screen.
Well played
Stump
“Is this not the great Babylon…?”
The farmland furrows under bluish air
At dawn – the scent of earthen sadness, dank
As heartbreak, loamy as childhood and loss.
The cropped out squares, as in a calendar,
Are counted frozen graves. How long before
The subsoil dulls the cutter mattock’s blade?
Through windows open to an endless acre
Of field, you draw your own conclusions, rank
By file, and organize them, face to face,
With unpaid bills and legal deeds. Next year
Will be a better season, so you think,
Though drought or flood can make a better case.
While missing tractor parts can freeze an hour
For days, the fishers in the henhouse slink
Away with Thanksgiving, and any crease
In almanac or bible only serves to store
Forgotten debit slips from fortune’s bank.
With thermos, mattock, sledge and spade, you flex
And bend your aches beneath the bending wire;
You walk the pastures, check the cattle tank,
And rescue there beneath a crust of ice
The sweeter summer water trapped like fire.
Your eyes, assuming distances in blank
Regard, now search the tree line for a trace
Of smoldering autumn. But the trees are bare
And flakes of snow are pushing leaves to thank
The sheltering bales of hay. Like rolls of lace
The hoary rows of stubble disappear
With distance, fade with tracks of fox and skunk
That blur to clumps of bloody fur from mice
Unstitched by quickened talons. Here and there
The evidence begins to mount, as frank
And unequivocal as doors that close
On darkness: living on the land, so spare
With splendor’s gifts, to stand your ground, you sank
Your stubborn roots to cling to loam and seize
The world. The morning settles in to dare
Your swinging limbs: you grab a stump by chunk
And hunk and haul each oaken slab and slice.
Methuselah’s metric, stump’s rings declare
And shape its age – irregular as blotted ink –
To smudge the things first formed in Genesis.
Intractable, such as now will serve to scar
The back of an immaculate field, this trunk
Contests your claim to things you still possess.
Drunk on your work, you feel November air
Invade your skin and clothing, dank
As shadows, filled as manhood with loss.
The morning sun has gathered cardinals’ prayers
Among the neighboring elms. Now chafed to pink
Your hands are holding out, but blisters bless
Your palms and splinters grace your joints. You hear
The strain of steel on wood. The shadows shrink
Toward noon. As things are giving way, you place
The balanced moment, poised between errors
Of judgment and certainty of instinct,
A deed that names what sins cannot confess:
Like yellow jackets worrying your ear,
A separate question echoes the final sink
Of blade through roots, through flesh, through time, through grass….
Who will inherit what the meek possess?
From DailyMail articles I now think that they checked the stress in the post-tension cables in one or both of the slabs, found them less than predicted, and someone ordered them tightened up to the design values. That is a reasonable thing to do. Then something happened to cause the collapse, and we still need to be told what that was.
The language in these media reports is much worse than even in the "assault rifle" and "ammunition magazine clip box" articles, so it is very confusing, but that is what I get out of it so far.
It is amazing how loud the cardinal chirp (more like a song) is.
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