‘The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch’ [DOT 17/12/24]

17/12/24 bryanlsplinter 29

Filling in for RIP once more, and just so you get your daily British, I’m starting with Shakespeare. Let’s look at what’s happening.

‘Murrica.

Motive unknown in shooting that killed 2 and injured 6 at Christian school, police say

Moscow Mitch reaps what he sows.

McConnell gripes about Trump foreign policy after years of enabling it

I keep repeating myself, but we’re going to see a LOT of this.

ABC gives Trump what he wants—and he’s not going to stop

Gee, you’d think they’d lay low with this stuff for a little while. You’d be wrong.

UnitedHealth Is Strategically Limiting Access to Critical Treatment for Kids With Autism

Related.

“I Can’t Afford My Oxygen”: The Human Toll of For-Profit Insurance

Party of small government.

Texas wants to force red-state abortion bans into blue states

Bringing back polio, y’all. Guess that’s part of the “good old days” that MAGA misses so much.

Polio vax petition could preview more challenges

*Snork*

Trump asks Biden to ‘stop selling’ unused parts of border wall

What could go wrong?

James Comer: People can use their ‘Second Amendment capabilities’ to shoot down drones

TURTLE CONTENT

Save the turtles!

NC aquarium has treated more than 500 cold-stunned sea turtles this month

Don’t eat them!

Three dead and dozens sick after eating sea turtle stew

I’ve run on a bit long here, so I’ll stop. Watchugot, DeadSpinters?

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29 Comments

  1. Do you know how popular turtle soup was in the Gilded Age? One of my many strange hobbies is scouring vintage menus, and no menu is complete without turtle soup. I have a vintage Fannie Farmer cookbook, 1913, and there it is, turtle soup. Presumably you have to kill the turtles yourself, or get the turtle purveyor to do it for you, because nobody would want to eat two-week-old dead turtles, would they? Or would they?

    I wonder why turtle soup fell out of favor. I mean, we eat all kinds of marine life. I’ve never knowingly eaten turtle soup, although Better Half and I were once in San Francisco’s Chinatown and I suspect I was served it there. Menu in Chinese, server couldn’t speak English (or pretended he couldn’t; this was the 1990s, not the 1890s.)

    It’s my own pseudo-Anthony Bourdainish fault.

    • I’ve seen references in literature, and turtle was a staple for sailors because they’d catch them and haul them aboard. But I wouldn’t eat it. Reptile in general is nasty. I don’t care how you prepare it.

    • My guess is that there are just way better tasting soups! I don’t think I’ve had turtle soup so I can’t say for sure, but given how much better food has become just in my lifetime makes me think pretty strongly that even amazing sounding menus from the past probably would not knock your socks off today. An old Twitter joke, but one that rings true about giving someone from the past one single Dorito and it would be so much taste that it would probably kill them.

    • I had turtle soup in New Orleans a few years ago. It was a creamy soup and topped with a shot of sherry wine. I don’t think there was much, if any, actual turtle in it.

      It was delicious, I remember that.

    • It’s because so many wild turtles were caught that populations crashed. They’re wildly uneconomical to raise for food commercially too because they grow so much more slowly than chickens, pigs or cattle, and it’s much more labor intensive to get the meat from the carcass.

      And like others are saying here, the flavor isn’t impressive enough to drive much demand. The economics are tilted against turtle even more than squab, probably by multiple times.

  2. How many negative or wrong things can Nancy Pelosi continue to do? (Insider trading, railroading AOC, and more)

     

    She does not seem to have our best interests in mind.

    I’m no fan of MTG, but she threatened to out everyone and I am all for that.

    We need to audit Congress. Where, why, and how much, when it comes to their funding and wealth accumulation.

     

    Please, correct me if I’m wrong. She is the type of dem that lefties call “establishment.” 

    I recognize it’s hard to hold Dems accountable while reps just run wild, it’s like, why plug a dime size hole in the damn when the centers is blown out, but I still think it’s fucked up.

    • No, Auntie Nan is definitely establishment. And she’s way past her sell-by date. I respect many of the things she did to control Trump the first time around, but those days are gone. She’s slipping into obscurity and she’s fighting it, rather than gracefully exiting.

      I doubt she’ll be a factor much longer though. The fall and hip replacement is going to take a serious toll on her. I’ve seen other elderly women go through the same thing and it won’t end well. Even with top-notch government health care, I think she’ll be out relatively soon.

      And yeah, audits would be great except for the fact that Republicans wouldn’t do it and they’d definitely force them on Democrats.

    • She’s not even just establishment and rich and out of touch. I hate all of that but I can at least understand it. But her husband was attacked by a Qanon nut with a hammer in his home … and she STILL doesn’t have it in her to understand the threat? Is that really a better outcome for you than maybe annoying your billionaire friends?

  3. So, nobody wants to take over that mess? I can’t imagine why.

    Scoop: Top editors stiff the Washington Post

    The Post is scrambling to find a new executive editor, the chair once held by Ben Bradlee, amid shrinking paid readership and revenue. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis, handpicked by owner Jeff Bezos to save the Post, hasn’t impressed the candidates with his vision for the future, the sources tell us.

    • One person involved in the search told us Lewis’ pitch was foggy and uninspiring.

    • I think this is a great example of how the tilt to the right of outlets like the Washington Post and CNN were definitely not economically sound.

      It’s possible the motives were based on some kind of underpants gnome profit motive, but one of the big things about the underpants gnomes is they’re constantly being told how weak their plan is. They just choose not to listen.

  8. But back to Diamond Monroe. If she becomes Public Advocate, and stranger things have happened, one assumes she wouldn’t be wearing a G-string in the office, but if she did a favor for you (the Public Advocate is a made-up job with a tiny budget and a small staff) would a fiver stuffed in her bra suffice? So many questions.

      • It’s amazing to me how cliched thinking from the 1990s still lives today.

        The people who harp on this stuff think it’s witty when it was the endless theme of Jay Leno monologues 25 years ago.

        Who wants to be Jay Leno on the Tonight Show? Even Jay Leno doesn’t want that today! Imagine being even slower on the uptake than Jay Leno.

  9. The story that keeps getting undertold as far as things like Texas trying to spread enforcement of its abortion ban to other states is that this won’t stop with abortion.

    Drugs for treating AIDS and STDs are going to be attacked, and what makes it worse is that many drugs which are used to treat supposedly immoral behavior have other uses too.  It won’t matter if a hormone used in care for trans people is being used to treat a woman for something completely different. It’s going to be restricted universally

    All kinds of illnesses are treated with drugs that have theoretically “immoral” uses. If you have an autoimmune disorder, nerve disorder, cancer, you name it, you can find the drug you need blacklisted.

    Complicit people who gullibly swallow what they’re told by right wing sources believe when they need care, it will magically be provided by kind hearted doctors, or nuns in Catholic hospitals who look the other way. The reality is even in blue states Catholic hospitals are already refusing care to pregnant women with emergencies, and doctors with multistate licenses are rethinking what they do.

    Good luck trying to convince someone stewing in the right wing info swamp that this will happen. They’re always sure they’re just hearing from all sides. But it would help if the mainstream press stopped compartmentalizing antiabortion crusades. They’re coming for all of us.

    • Honestly, as doctors shift to blue states, the regular folk will figure it out. Need to see a doctor? Next available appointment is in six months. If this is an emergency, head to the nearest hospital and get in line. There are only 460 people ahead of you.

      Another problem is that the old people, who don’t need reproductive care, are going to be the last to feel the medical shortage. So they’ll keep voting in MAGAs because that’s what they do. The elites can travel for care, and will ultimately settle someplace else when they give up their careers, so they don’t care either. As always, it’s going to be the young and poor that suffer the most.

      • Old people will also decide to blame socialized medicine instead of understanding how their voting decisions have led to people actively fucking over the system.

        Like my dad had a 3 month wait to see a liver doctor when he was actively in liver failure. My mom and him were saying it was because he was on Medicare instead of private insurance, and I was like wow only a 3 month wait to see a specialist? That’s amazingly fast.

        They had no clue it was that bad since prior to that all they saw was the primary care doctor’s office a few times a year.

        • After my recent hospital stay and diagnosis, I need to consult a gastroenterologist. This was November 8. Next available appointment anywhere? Late January. My diagnosis is actually a potentially life-threatening disease (I’m in no danger) but that’s the soonest anybody could see me. If I have problems I have to go to the emergency room again. And, as you note, I’m actually fairly lucky and have insurance, so my wait is relatively short. God help anyone who’s trying to do this without any coverage. I was able to see my GP and just get generally checked out, but of course he wants me to consult a gastroenterologist.

          The worst part was that I got diagnosed but never really received any instructions about treatment. So I had to research it myself and figure out what I should be doing during the 90-day interval before I can actually see a specialist. My self-designed program seems to be working fine, but I’ve got no professional corroboration of anything I’m doing. I know doctors hate WebMD and whatnot, but I’m not sure what I’d be doing without the Internet.

        • You should also point out that with private insurance, it’s entirely possible they’ll decline to pay for anything. Liver failure? Hmm. That’s expensive … denied.

          See literally any coverage of the United Healthcare mess.

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