Zooms Today, Lilacs and Tree Peonies

We had a great time at the Balloon Juice zoom last night – okay, I had a great time.  I’ll let everyone else speak for themselves!

There are two zooms today.  One started at 10 am (only 2 takers so far) and goes until 4 pm Eastern.  Another one starts when that one ends, and it goes from 4-10pm Eastern.

The afternoon-evening zoom has started.

If you don’t have the zoom links, send me an email message.  If you signed up for the mailing list, you already have the zoom links, but be sure to click on the link for the correct zoom.  There’s one that works until 4 pm and there’s a different one that works for the zoom from 4-10 pm.

It’s cool and rainy here today, which is still better than HOT and HUMID.

Commenter Nancy sent a lovely photo from a Lilac Festival, and even though it’s cold and raining, I snapped a couple of happy flower photos to share this week, too.

Saturday Open Thread: F*@k Around, Find Out

Christen Bouchard was the town clerk in Passadumkeag, Maine, since 2020. She requested a two-week vacation about a month and a half ago. Her plea was denied by the board of selectmen. They claimed that no one was available to step in for her.

She left on April 7. The town has had no one to register vehicles, keep crucial records, or communicate with the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

The position of town clerk isn’t the only important opening in Passadumkeag. The town of 356 people also lacks a code enforcement officer, an assessor, an animal control officer, and a school administration official, according to The Bangor Daily News.

The town office shut down to in-person visitors until further notice, according to a statement sent out on April 19.

 

It’s Saturday! What’s everyone doing today?

This is an open thread

Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Repubs, Scrambling to Get Back on the ‘Popular’ Side

 

 

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

Another noteworthy event that we didn’t get to discuss last weekend…

 

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Friday Night Recipe Exchange: Orange, Orange, Orange

:::taps mike::: This thing on?

Boy, it’s good to be back. I thought since we are winging it, I’d throw us back to when we had actual recipes and shared recipes.

It’s snowing here. My garden is completely planted, my iris, peonies and poppies are blooming, so of course it is. The veggies are protected, the flowers are on their own. I did bring in enough lilacs to fill every vase in my house. I would have brought in irises, but I’m allergic.

Snow makes me want sweet and spicy. So tonight is all about oranges.  I’m not sure what the capabilities are here, so I’m providing links to the recipes, instead of posting them directly.

orange-chicken

First up is Stir Fry Orange Chicken and Broccoli: Recipes here

This recipe uses potato starch to make the chicken super crispy without using a ton of oil. I used breasts, but boneless thighs will work just as well.

And since it’s suddenly cold (we are probably going to break low temps records tonight…my poor plants) I’m craving sweets. And Orange Bread is the perfect combination of sweet and tart. Continue reading…

Monkeypox Scare: Don’t Worry (Yet)

 

TL, DR:  This is not, unlike covid, a new / unknown disease.  It’s a close relative of smallpox, which means stockpiled smallpox vaccines provide pretty good immunity, as does previous smallpox inoculation.  (Although those of us whose inoculation scars have faded probably shouldn’t rely entirely on our aging immune systems.)   Monkeypox is mostly spread, according to current science, by direct contact with infected material:  animal bites / scratches, touching an infected person’s lesions, contact with bedding or clothing that’s been soiled, and ‘prolonged’ respiratory exposure.  If you’re worried, keep masking up in public places — especially airplanes! — and remember to wash or sanitize your hands frequently.  Which, of course, we’re all pretty much doing anyway…

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Glibertarian Chewtoy Open Thread: McArgleBargle vs Roe v Wade

Look, if a major social issue doesn’t directly impact McMegan — or if she can’t see it impacting her, in the next six months or so — why should anyone care about stuff like ‘but people will die’?  It’s just another inning of inside baseball, amirite?

Off with her head, he said

Two items caught my attention on Twitter early this morning, and they’re sort of related. First, this truth bomb from Julia Ioffe:

There’s no excuse for how long most MSM outlets kept to the baseball/Broadway model. And I’ll believe they’re treating the ongoing threat to democracy as seriously as it warrants when the danger penetrates the skulls of more of their viewers.

But this NBC News story is a good start:

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s top election official, faced an onslaught of threats after the 2020 presidential election for refusing to overturn results that showed Joe Biden had won the state. In those hectic weeks, she says she also received an especially disturbing piece of information: President Donald Trump suggested in a White House meeting that she should be arrested for treason and executed.

Benson, a Democrat, revealed the alleged remark for the first time in an interview with NBC News. She said she learned of it from a source familiar with Trump’s White House meeting.

The article doesn’t say when Benson learned of Trump’s remarks. I wonder if maybe someone saved that tidbit for a book, and Benson found out about it recently when asked to comment? Just speculating, but it doesn’t seem like something you’d keep under your hat.

Anyhoo, Benson is running for secretary of state again this year. Her Republican opponent is a Trump-endorsed delusional liar named Kristina Karamo, who claims the 2020 election was stolen and that Benson should go to jail. Karamo also has the endorsement of the Michigan GOP, so they’re cool with threatening to jail state officials for not stealing elections.

To NBC’s credit, the reporters call Trump’s lies about the 2020 election what they are — lies:

Since leaving office, Trump has continued to spread lies about the 2020 election despite audits in 39 states and more than 60 courts confirming the results. The messaging appears to be having an effect on the American public. NBC News’ most recent polling suggests that about 38 percent of voters across the country still believe the election was stolen.

The article also notes that Big Lie promoters who are running for key election posts “are on the ballot in 14 states, including the key battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.”

More reporting like this, please.

Also, did y’all know that Madison Cawthorn lost his primary race? Bring on the “Dark MAGA!”

Open thread.

ETA: Breaking from The Post:

Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers after the 2020 election to set aside Joe Biden’s popular-vote victory and choose “a clean slate of Electors,” according to emails obtained by The Washington Post…

The messages show that Thomas, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, was more deeply involved in the effort to overturn Biden’s win than has been previously reported. In sending the emails, Thomas played a role in the extraordinary scheme to keep Trump in office by substituting the will of legislatures for the will of voters.

Thomas’s actions also underline concerns about potential conflicts of interest that her husband has already faced — and may face in the future — in deciding cases related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Those questions intensified in March, when The Post and CBS News obtained text messages that Thomas sent in late 2020 to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, pressing him to help reverse the election.

The coup-plotter’s husband should resign or be impeached.