Theme of my day ...

Same as yesterday:

Elton John - Empty Garden

The Beatles - The Walrus

Lyric:

...

Sitting in an English garden
Waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come
You get a tan from
Standing in the English rain

...

The reason I was turning the garden yesterday is because today I have 16 shrubs in pots (that I picked up at 0600 this morning) that I have to plant plus 20 lilac bushes coming via UPS later in the morning that all have to get into the ground before I close my eyes tonight.

The Mrs. always wanted an English garden and now that I have the time (sorta) and our friends Chris and Terry from Wales are staying with us for a week over July 4th, I figured better now than never.

Tahoe's winter: 'The snowiest March we've ever seen'

Good. I thought it was just me...

Sierra Sun

Ski resorts are reporting either record or near-record snow accumulations, causing many to extend the ski season into mid- to late- May, and boaters are preparing for a summer season that figures to feature high water levels for Lake Tahoe, Donner Lake, the Truckee River and other regional waterbodies.

Squaw Valley USA is reporting its best season ever from a snow accumulation standpoint, reporting 691 inches as of Tuesday, March 29. Thus, the resort announced it will extend its ski season to May 30.

“With this much snow, Squaw Valley will have great coverage through May 30 and possibly even longer,” said Andy Wirth, Squaw's chief executive officer. “We will certainly be examining the possibility of opening for July 4, conditions permitting.” (my em)

According to the Associated Press, California Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to declare on Wednesday an end to the state's 3-year-old drought, an announcement expected after completion of the state's final snow survey.

Heavy snow and drenching rains have left California reservoirs at high levels. The Sierra Nevada snowpack was 159 percent of normal as of Friday.

Damn good thing there's no 'climate change'. I'd hate for this past winter to become the norm.

Breakin' trail to the dryer vent

It looks like Fixer 'n me are both doing shovel work today. He's turning his garden (two posts down), I'm tryin' fer warm underwear. Let's just say we is both ho-ing...

This was my recon job yesterday. At one point Mrs. G saw the dogs going by outside the office window and hollered hello and I hollered 'hi' back.

Also, with one day of sunshine and mid-40s temp my snow pile went down almost a foot. It was like summer! More, more...! If I wait a coupla weeks for clean skivvies maybe the dryer vent will clear naturally...no, no, there must be something in the Geneva Convention about that.



Update:

I got the dryer vent dug out. I sat on the snow under my dripping eaves wearing a hooded rain jacket. I now understand the full meaning of "colder'n a well digger's ass". My jeans are in the dryer, the venting of which is melting that pile of snow at a prodigious rate. I wish.

I had to dig straight down about three feet. I used both long and short handled shovels. I broke a short handled one the other day and when I went to replace it I found the cutest little shovel I've ever seen. I'da bought it if I hadn't needed it. Its use is limited but it worked well for this close-clearance job until the hole got so deep I couldn't reach any farther. It's called a Razorback Little Hog and I got it at our Ace Hardware store. Under 20 bucks, but I had a $5 coupon.

Thar she blows!

Worst of Durst

Sarah Palin visited Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, and was very excited because whaling is a big industry around Alaska.

Don't we get an attorney?

No.



Turning out the garden this morning and, for utmost efficiency (I got no fucking time), my little "helpers" were confined to the kennel while I was working.

"Drunk" food all the rage in Shakytown

For us Krautophiles. Brand X via the LATimes:

Eating: L.A. bars and eateries sprechen Deutsch

But lately a new breed of late-night destinations is sweeping into Los Angeles, catering to a younger crowd that associates late-night cool, clubbing and great food with cities such as Berlin.

Last month, Angelenos saw the debut of nighttime hang Steingarten LA, and in the coming months at least two more spots serving up German-themed late-night thrills — Kai Loebach’s Currywurst on Fairfax and Würstkuche Venice — are rushing to meet the demand for “drunk” food and imported craft beers.

“People are already going to be drunk when they come in here,” says Kai Loebach, the Westphalia-born owner of the forthcoming Currywurst on Fairfax. It is not related to the Berlin Currywurst in Silver Lake.

“I was born and raised on currywurst and I’ve always craved the quick fix satisfaction of eating it after midnight in L.A.,” he said.

Currywurst and beer after midnight, blow the blankets right off the bed by morning. Sounds good to me!

Ya think?

Maybe, if you're having a meeting about the fate of Libya, you might want to have a Libyan or two among the attendees?

(CBS/AP) LONDON — World powers were meeting in London on Tuesday seeking to plot out an endgame for Muammar Qaddafi's tottering regime and to strike agreement on plans for Libya's future.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Arab League and as many as 40 global foreign ministers were joining the talks — seeking to ratchet up pressure on Qaddafi to quit.

...

Just sayin' ...

Addendum: And, again, just sayin', maybe we should send our own war criminals to The Hague before we demand the Libyans turn Gadhafy over.

Accidental Priceless Video

I went and broke trail to check on the dryer vent a little while ago. Video of that later, but this is a quickie and it's priceless!

She asked if she could pick the scene for me to show. I asked her if she had jumped up and down and waved her arms and hollered "That's the one! That's the one!" anytime in the last 45 minutes. When she replied in the negative I accused her of a lack of showmanship and told her I'd pick it. Heh.

My wife likes to look at houses we can't afford. Looks like she found a nice one.

This is what happened when I missed the 'off' button on the Active-i glasses/vidcam and set it on the desk whilst awaiting my turn on Hal. I could not have planned this and I have 45 minutes of it. Heh.

Willie Nelson’s prosecutor wants to see marijuana decriminalized

A 'must read' for all you heads, at Raw Story.

The Texas county attorney who's letting musician Willie Nelson plea his marijuana charge down to a fee and a song told Raw Story in an exclusive interview that he wishes authorities could just drop the criminal penalties for pot altogether and make getting busted more like getting a parking ticket.

Kudos to the DA!

County Judge Becky Dean Walker, he said, refused to allow Nelson a plea-by-mail, which is typical for misdemeanor marijuana possession cases in some Texas counties.

"She said to me: 'You ain't letting him plead by mail, 'cause I'm not accepting that,'"' Bramblett explained. "I said to her, 'Why?' And she said, ''Cause I want to meet Willie Nelson.'"

Fuckin' A! Shit, lady, if you'da asked, he'da let ya get high on his bus!

Note to prosecutors everywhere: If you bust me for weed, please just let me pay the fine. If you ask me to sing, it would be a case for The Hague as a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Oh please, please, please...

Richard Clarke Says U.S. Chamber May Have Committed A Felony With Hacking Plot

It's only a crime if someone looks into it. Fat chance.

Joe Bageant 1946-2011

Talk To Action

Our friend and occasional guest front pager Joe Bageant died yesterday after a four month bout with cancer. He was 64. Right now, I do not have the words to say much more than that I will miss him and that our country was a far better place with his distinct, original and I think, historically important populist voice in it. He was a great story teller who had great stories to tell. Unsurprisingly, his essays were among the most popular ever posted on this site.

His 2005 book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War is still a great, wise and humorous read. One friend said: "Bageant writes in the tradition of Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth." High praise, and right-on. His next book Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, will be published in the U.S. next week.

His essay, What the 'Left Behind' Series Really Means, originally published in December 2005 and posted here at Talk to Action in February 2006 is reposted (along with the comment thread) on the flip. -- FC

Go read an excerpt from "A Whore That Sitteth Upon Many Waters".

Joe Bageant is someone I like to read and haven't read enough. He will be missed.

(Un) American Thought Police

Paul Krugman on the Repug witch hunt of U. WI historian William Cronon after he published something they didn't like.

If this action strikes you as no big deal, you’re missing the point. The hard right — which these days is more or less synonymous with the Republican Party — has a modus operandi when it comes to scholars expressing views it dislikes: never mind the substance, go for the smear. And that demand for copies of e-mails is obviously motivated by no more than a hope that it will provide something, anything, that can be used to subject Mr. Cronon to the usual treatment.

The Cronon affair, then, is one more indicator of just how reflexively vindictive, how un-American, one of our two great political parties has become.

I will ass-yoom that Mr. Krugman is being sarcastic. Neither of our big political parties is exactly 'great', and one of them is criminally despicable.

After all, if you go through a large number of messages looking for lines that can be made to sound bad, you’re bound to find a few. In fact, it’s surprising how few such lines the critics managed to find in the “Climategate” trove: much of the smear has focused on just one e-mail, in which a researcher talks about using a “trick” to “hide the decline” in a particular series. In context, it’s clear that he’s talking about making an effective graphical presentation, not about suppressing evidence. But the right wants a scandal, and won’t take no for an answer.

Is there any doubt that Wisconsin Republicans are hoping for a similar “success” against Mr. Cronon?

Someone like Mr. Cronon can stand up to the pressure. But less eminent and established researchers won’t just become reluctant to act as concerned citizens, weighing in on current debates; they’ll be deterred from even doing research on topics that might get them in trouble.

What’s at stake here, in other words, is whether we’re going to have an open national discourse in which scholars feel free to go wherever the evidence takes them, and to contribute to public understanding. Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are trying to shut that kind of discourse down. It’s up to the rest of us to see that they don’t succeed.

Facts, especially when they're the truth about them, are anathema to Repugs of every stripe, and by 'stripe' I mean the hash mark residue on their lips from Big Corpora's skivvies. The last thing in the world they want is 'honest discourse' because they know it'll sink 'em. Crank up the RS3M* and make critics afraid. They're good at that.

If we don't fight back, we lose, and there are no rules. A Repug ballsack in yer teeth means you're doing it right.

*Repug Spin, Slime, and Smear Machine

My pet desire when it comes to the lyin' sacks a' shit is a creatively edited video of Breitbart pourin' the pork to his butt boy O'Keefe. A disturbing yet lovely visual.

Headline of the Day

Dutch bankers' bonuses axed by people power

Mama Don't Send Me to the Big-Box Store

Via BuzzFlash. I like this and I think I've found a Las Vegas that doesn't need to be a bombing and gunnery range impact zone.

Thanks to hymiehymie.

Related:

What Happens When We Become the United Nations of Walmart?

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Poll: 29% Can't Name Vice President
Poll taken in West Wing of White House.

Maine's Governor Orders Removal of Mural on Dept. of Labor Depicting Rosie the Riveter, 1st Woman Cabinet Member Frances Perkins, Other Labor Heroes
New mural will show Koch brothers playing tennis.

Glenn Beck May Start Own Channel
For viewers fed up with Fox's liberal slant.

Prehistoric Texans May Have Been First Humans in U.S.
Many still there.

Tea Party Fundraiser Features Joe the Plumber, Sheriff Joe, Joe Miller
All to honor Joe McCarthy.

And you wonder ...

Why we're so fucked up?

...

Really? Am I the only one who is astonished that Market Gods are robots that can't tell the difference between Ann Hathaway and Berkshire Hathaway and obviously just buy and sell on "buzz" whether it's good or bad? That's not even remotely rational.

...

Stay classy, America ...

Since the Earthquake/Tsunami/Nuclear Meltdown began, the world governing body of real football soccer has mandated a minute of silence before every match out of respect for the Japanese. Now, I probably see more soccer matches in a week than most Americans see in their lifetimes and I've seen the "minute of silence" a hundred times since the catastrophe. In every match, in Europe, in Asia, in South America, the referee had to blow his whistle to end the silence. Caught the US - Argentina match the other night from Jersey's Meadowlands. Let's just say I was somewhat embarrassed.

Snakes in the Bronx!

I guess this ain't helping revenue at the Reptile House. Heh ...

NEW YORK -- A poisonous cobra has vanished from an enclosure outside public view at the Bronx Zoo, and its Reptile House remained closed Sunday as a precaution while zoo workers searched for the missing reptile.

...

Don't know why ...

But this has been going through my head since I woke up this morning:

Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks

Update:

Figured it out. I must have heard the soundtrack from the trailer of this stupid movie.

And, as I'm catching up here after running around all weekend, this popped into my head after reading Gordon's post:

The Police - Canary in a Coal Mine

The Meskins are on my roof!

Four guys showed up at 8AM. They put the ladder on my freshly shovelled (by me) deck and in about two minutes it looked like a blizzard out my front window and the snow on the deck is four feet deep. I have to wait for them to move to the sides to go shovel myself out because if I went out there now they'd have me buried up to my neck in a New York minute!

This deserves telling - one of the gents is wearing leather street shoes, probly the ones he walked into the U.S. with. He put plastic shopping bags over cotton socks and another pair of socks over that.

Don't anybody ever tell me Meskins don't wanna work. An Anglo woulda complained up one side and down the other that he couldn't do this work because he didn't have the proper footwear.

More as this develops. Photos later. This is kinda my day today.

Update:

The vatos are back up on the roof after comida at the Siete-Once. While they were gone, I was scoopin' dog poop off my driveway and the plastic D-handle on the shovel broke. Got all four knuckles, two of 'em big time. It's only a flesh wound, but I left a blood trail headin' for the band-aids.

The snow is off the front of my roof and they are working on the back side. I've got a pile of snow in my driveway I can't believe. Loader time.

Later.

Update II:

2PM. The snow's off the roof, the Meskins are gone. El jefe Jose said one more big storm and my house would have broken in two so it was money well spent.

I'm still tunnelling from my front door to the driveway. Making good time. I've got about six feet down at the deepest spot and twenty feet out to go, just one shovel width will do for now.

More when I have time.

Update III:

Here's some photos. No pics of the Meskins. When I pointed the camera at 'em, they all dove off the roof for some reason. They were on the clock and I couldn't afford the lost time to dig 'em out again. Heh.

Before:

Click photos to embiggen

After. You can see the access I dug on the left. I need to go down another foot or so but that's enough for today.



Another perspective of the snow that's now on the driveway. It's like that all the way around my house. All you can see out the windows is snow and the windows in back are six feet off the ground. Tomorrow I have to dig down and make sure the dryer vent is clear so Mrs. G can dry the laundry. No energy left today.

Yesterday I shovelled five feet of snow off my deck and I'm damn glad I did. It has five more feet of snow on it today and I'da had to shovel ten feet off it.

As you can see, I'm well and truly snowed out of my garage. I can climb over the pile and get in but I can't get anything out that I can't carry. Like my snowblower. I'm going to see if the Honda can take that pile down a little at a time by climbing and blowing and backing down and repeat. Hey, it might, who knows? Not the whole pile. I may be crazy but I'm not stupid. Just enough to get the snowblower out when it snows again. If it won't, I'll dig it a path. My other recourse is to get a loader in to haul it out. Problem is, the 'hood is pretty full and it might be hard to find a place to put it. Fuck it, it'll melt.



I know it looks like I bought myself a pain in the ass, but it's a pain in the ass I can deal with myself. From now 'til July if that's what it takes. The Meskins put the snow right where I told them to - off the roof. I'm not exactly thrilled with that pile of snow and the many future hours of communing with nature that it represents but it's harmless now and it's better than a broken house.

I are happy now. Well, relieved. Tired too. This is the 7th day in a row I've been workin' snow around here and I'm taking the rest of the day off.