sturge, they still have trees that big down there?
so much of the old forests were sacrificed to “progress” and we’ve almost progressed not only the trees and animals but ourselves out of existence as well.
Renee, thank you for the sunday thread. you did good. once a threader always a threader, like riding a bike, ‘cepting you forgot to give it a title. I temporarily titled it “the ways we were” awaiting your approval.
You only have to look at the state flag to know South Carolinians have long had an appreciation for their native palmetto tree. Prominently displayed below a crescent moon on the rich blue banner, the sabal palm also inspired the nickname of “The Palmetto State” and has become an iconic image in South Carolina culture.
But the palmetto isn’t South Carolina’s only arboreal claim to fame. The state boasts several national champion trees-the largest of a species-along with a dozen one-of-a-kind marvels that will take your breath away. These masterworks of Mother Nature are must-see attractions worthy of a side trip in your travels through the state.
Here are 10 top tree destinations in South Carolina:
I guess I neglected to point out that the sawmill is in the Catskills.
And there is some debate as to whether the state flag has a “moon” or a “gorget”.
Robert Reich is off on a tear this morning in the guardian op ed
Welcome to Trump’s Corrupt State – the Star Wars cantina of world politics
The administration and the Republican party are nests of lobbyists and con artists who make Greedo look like a saint
[…]
Trump has installed a Star Wars cantina of former lobbyists and con artists, including several whose exploits have already forced them to resign, such as Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke, Tom Price and Michael Flynn. Many others remain.
When he was in Congress, the current White House acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from payday lenders, then proposed loosening regulations on them. Mulvaney was also acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, of all things.
When he was Trump’s special adviser on regulatory reform, the Wall Street billionaire Carl Icahn sought to gut the Environmental Protection Agency rule on ethanol credits, which was harming his oil refinery investments.
This week the Guardian reported that a real estate company partly owned by Trump son-in-law and foreign policy adviser Jared Kushner has raked in $90m from foreign investors since Kushner entered the White House, through a secret vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands. Kushner’s stake is some $50m.
All this takes conflict of interest to a new level of shamelessness.
What are Republicans doing about it? Participating in it.
The secretary of transportation, Elaine Chao, who also happens to be the wife of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has approved $78m in grants for her husband’s home state, Kentucky, including a highway improvement project twice rejected in the past. Chao has even appointed a special liaison to coordinate grants with McConnell’s office. Did I say McConnell is up for re-election next year?
Under normal circumstances, news that a cabinet secretary is streamlining federal funding for her husband’s pet projects would be a giant scandal. But in the age of Trump, ethics have gone out the window.
Since he was elected in November, congressman Greg Pence, who just happens to be the brother of Vice-President Mike Pence, has spent more than $7,600 of campaign funds on lodging at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Federal election law forbids politicians from using campaigns dollars to cover housing costs.
The Corrupt State starts with Trump himself, giving new meaning to the old adage about a fish rotting from the head down.
All the president’s lying ladies — Hicks, Sanders and Conway — make news
The Trump White House is a bit like Shakespeare summer camp: not enough substantial parts for the girls. The female roles at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. are for craven ladies-in-waiting who are allotted very little moral agency, let alone opportunities for heroics. They subvert their ambitions to their overlord’s; they lie, in short.
Yes, there’s a Lady Macbeth, portrayed in Trumpworld as a waxen blonde sleepwalker, a ghostly daughter-wife whose veins are certifiably free of the milk of human kindness. (Ivanka’s understudy, the creepy Melania, has skipped so many rehearsals she’s been written off.)
A shrewd, unholy trinity has settled for lesser roles: the liar-handmaidens Hope Hicks, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway. The president, according to Michael Wolff’s latest book, “Siege,” likes to see these three in a “cat fight,” in which each undermines the others as she competes to lie most robustly on his behalf.
The melancholic former White House Communications Director Hicks, choleric counselor Conway and splenetic Press Secretary Sanders aren’t just complicit in the president’s depravity. They have managed to advance it.
But the advantage this trio has over Lady Ivanka is that they can leave.
Indeed, Trump has often treated Sanders as if she were the possession of her father, Mike Huckabee, on loan to him as a scullery maid. Scullery for Trump includes, above all, mendacity.
[…]
Why Conway doesn’t make the leap on her own is something of a mystery. According to Wolff’s book, she and her Trump-critic husband, George T. Conway III, “are of one mind about Trump … they hate him.” George’s open contempt for the president, according to Wolff, lets Kellyanne survive in their well-to-do anti-Trump neighborhood in Washington, where she is seen, despite her pronouncements on the White House lawn, as more an administration mole than a loyalist. An unconventionally cast Iago?
Certainly the female part that most needs a star turn in Washington also comes from “Othello” — Emilia, Desdemona’s maid, because she has this line: “You told a lie, an odious, damned lie!/Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!”
For heaven’s sake, NancyPelosi, this is your cue.
Decades ago I was a park ranger in Michigan. In the 1800’s almost all of Michigan’s old forest was logged, with only a patch or two left. The park I worked at Interlochen State Park was in one of the old forest areas, or as we called it the “virgin forest”.
Fire update: Total acreage burned has more than doubled to over 25k acres. Looks like there was a weather event called a “dryline”. This means hot and cold air masses came together to result in hot, high winds. Add temps over 100 and you get the conditions to keep the fire going. Firefighters continue to protect structures, but so far there are still no threats to property in Gold Canyon and Apache Junction. There has been increased air tanker and helicopter activity in support of ground efforts.
Containment is still considered to be 0%, mainly due to the terrain. But firefighters are keeping a close eye on the southern boundary, which remains cool at this time. Can’t see much smoke anymore, so that’s a good thing.
travis, that must cause a great deal of anxiety for folks already burdened with the affairs of the day.
“Can’t see much smoke anymore, so that’s a good thing” sounds right to me. guess when you do see it it’s bad news in such windy conditions and equivalent to when you hear the bullet or the tornado or the crack of lightning it’s too late.
The New York Times’s decision to drop all editorial cartoons after publishing a controversial cartoon is another body blow to the profession of editorial cartooning. While several of my colleagues from around the world have been imprisoned by autocratic leaders over their work, American editorial cartoonists are protected by our First Amendment from governments looking to silence uncomfortable truths. Unfortunately, that protection doesn’t extend to publications that don’t understand the historical significance of editorial cartoons and their essential role in a free press.
It’s easy to casually dismiss these “cartoons.” After all, just the word cartoon brings up images of reading the comics pages or watching Saturday morning television. But an editorial cartoon is much more than a humorous image. Cartoonists have been threatened, imprisoned and even killed for drawing cartoons criticizing powerful people and institutions. Daumier, Gillray, Nast, Herblock, Mauldin, Conrad and Oliphant all created powerful visuals that were part of the political debate of their times.
(Ann Telnaes)
This graphic essay was originally published on the Bertelsmann Foundation website.
Patd – Agreed about being anxious. Not so much for right now, but for what could happen in a month or so with monsoon season. Last year was super wet, and that extended through winter. Now all that beautiful growth we saw in the spring is drying out. It’s basically going to be a bunch of kindling for lightening strikes.
So we just try to be prepared for whatever.
Here’s what I would say if I were in the Democratic debates
My name is Katherine Graham Cracker and I am running for the president of the United States. 23 other folks are running so far too. Every single one of them would be a better president than the one we have now. According to a number of polls — all most all of them would beat the current president.
This should be a primary of ideas, inspiration and leadership. My priorities would be to restore the institutions that have been so badly damaged by current president such as the State dept. Change the priorites at agencies like the EPA to reflect goals that protect Americans. And make sure that public education and public housing are priorities finally medicare for all.
Donald Trump and Fox News are said to have one of the strongest marriages in political showbusiness. But there is a young rival hoping to outfox Fox and catch the US president’s wandering media eye.
The obscure One America News Network (OAN) makes up for its lack of clout or viewers by covering every Trump utterance, recycling conspiracy theories, downplaying Russian threats, bashing the mainstream media and championing the “Make America Great Again” agenda.
Most Americans have not noticed, but the most powerful one has. The president rewards OAN with shout-outs and access wildly out of sync with its reach, leading some observers to suspect that he is playing OAN and Fox News off one another to ensure their undying affection.
[…]
It claims to be the fourth-rated cable news network, trailing Fox News, MSNBC and CNN but ahead of CNN Headline News, Fox Business Channel, CNBC and BBC World News – though other networks dispute this. OAN says it has 35 million subscribers and its total viewers at any given time can range from about 150,000 to upwards of half a million.
[…]
media watchdogs detect something more sinister about the network. OAN’s Washington team includes Jack Posobiec, once described by the New York Times as “a pro-Trump activist notorious for his amateur sleuthing into red herrings like the ‘Pizzagate’ hoax and a conspiracy theory involving the murder of a Democratic aide”.
Dan Cassino, a political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said: “He is rightly regarded as someone who represents the worst of the far-right movement online. To describe him as a troll would be accurate. I think he has been thrown off some platforms which, in these circles, is regarded as a badge of honour.”
Cassino, author of Fox News and American Politics, added: “OAN are trying to reach people who feel they can’t trust the mainstream media, they can’t trust Fox News, they can’t trust social media. OAN believe Fox has become too centrist or too establishment.”
sturge, they still have trees that big down there?
so much of the old forests were sacrificed to “progress” and we’ve almost progressed not only the trees and animals but ourselves out of existence as well.
Renee, thank you for the sunday thread. you did good. once a threader always a threader, like riding a bike, ‘cepting you forgot to give it a title. I temporarily titled it “the ways we were” awaiting your approval.
it’s scheduled for 6 am tomorrow
sturge, my apologies grousing about the lack of old forests in s.c.
found this at
https://discoversouthcarolina.com/articles/big-bodacious-trees-are-a-sight-to-see-in-sc
You only have to look at the state flag to know South Carolinians have long had an appreciation for their native palmetto tree. Prominently displayed below a crescent moon on the rich blue banner, the sabal palm also inspired the nickname of “The Palmetto State” and has become an iconic image in South Carolina culture.
But the palmetto isn’t South Carolina’s only arboreal claim to fame. The state boasts several national champion trees-the largest of a species-along with a dozen one-of-a-kind marvels that will take your breath away. These masterworks of Mother Nature are must-see attractions worthy of a side trip in your travels through the state.
Here are 10 top tree destinations in South Carolina:
1. Congaree National Park
[continues]
and I forgot your very own neighbor, the
Angel Oak Tree
I guess I neglected to point out that the sawmill is in the Catskills.
And there is some debate as to whether the state flag has a “moon” or a “gorget”.
But the angel oak is still right down the street.
oh what a fun word, sturge, – everything from armor to pink pussy cat bows –
below at online dictionary
Robert Reich is off on a tear this morning in the guardian op ed
[…]
Trump has installed a Star Wars cantina of former lobbyists and con artists, including several whose exploits have already forced them to resign, such as Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke, Tom Price and Michael Flynn. Many others remain.
When he was in Congress, the current White House acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from payday lenders, then proposed loosening regulations on them. Mulvaney was also acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, of all things.
When he was Trump’s special adviser on regulatory reform, the Wall Street billionaire Carl Icahn sought to gut the Environmental Protection Agency rule on ethanol credits, which was harming his oil refinery investments.
This week the Guardian reported that a real estate company partly owned by Trump son-in-law and foreign policy adviser Jared Kushner has raked in $90m from foreign investors since Kushner entered the White House, through a secret vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands. Kushner’s stake is some $50m.
All this takes conflict of interest to a new level of shamelessness.
What are Republicans doing about it? Participating in it.
The secretary of transportation, Elaine Chao, who also happens to be the wife of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has approved $78m in grants for her husband’s home state, Kentucky, including a highway improvement project twice rejected in the past. Chao has even appointed a special liaison to coordinate grants with McConnell’s office. Did I say McConnell is up for re-election next year?
Under normal circumstances, news that a cabinet secretary is streamlining federal funding for her husband’s pet projects would be a giant scandal. But in the age of Trump, ethics have gone out the window.
Since he was elected in November, congressman Greg Pence, who just happens to be the brother of Vice-President Mike Pence, has spent more than $7,600 of campaign funds on lodging at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Federal election law forbids politicians from using campaigns dollars to cover housing costs.
The Corrupt State starts with Trump himself, giving new meaning to the old adage about a fish rotting from the head down.
[continues]
Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including increased tensions with Iran and a shocking admission from President Trump.
and more bill for tomorrow’s big daddy day
In a special Father’s Day New Rule, Bill argues that Republicans have abandoned their responsibilities and left Democrats to run the household.
Another reason to celebrate. Today’s Google salutes Jingle Dress Day and Dance
virginia hefferman op ed in latimes;
All the president’s lying ladies — Hicks, Sanders and Conway — make news
The Trump White House is a bit like Shakespeare summer camp: not enough substantial parts for the girls. The female roles at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. are for craven ladies-in-waiting who are allotted very little moral agency, let alone opportunities for heroics. They subvert their ambitions to their overlord’s; they lie, in short.
Yes, there’s a Lady Macbeth, portrayed in Trumpworld as a waxen blonde sleepwalker, a ghostly daughter-wife whose veins are certifiably free of the milk of human kindness. (Ivanka’s understudy, the creepy Melania, has skipped so many rehearsals she’s been written off.)
A shrewd, unholy trinity has settled for lesser roles: the liar-handmaidens Hope Hicks, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway. The president, according to Michael Wolff’s latest book, “Siege,” likes to see these three in a “cat fight,” in which each undermines the others as she competes to lie most robustly on his behalf.
The melancholic former White House Communications Director Hicks, choleric counselor Conway and splenetic Press Secretary Sanders aren’t just complicit in the president’s depravity. They have managed to advance it.
But the advantage this trio has over Lady Ivanka is that they can leave.
[…]
On Thursday, Sanders announced she was following Hicks out the door. Sanders is known for her never-ending mendacity and her near-religious devotion to Trump, who, according to Wolff, calls her the “Huckabee Girl.”
Indeed, Trump has often treated Sanders as if she were the possession of her father, Mike Huckabee, on loan to him as a scullery maid. Scullery for Trump includes, above all, mendacity.
[…]
Why Conway doesn’t make the leap on her own is something of a mystery. According to Wolff’s book, she and her Trump-critic husband, George T. Conway III, “are of one mind about Trump … they hate him.” George’s open contempt for the president, according to Wolff, lets Kellyanne survive in their well-to-do anti-Trump neighborhood in Washington, where she is seen, despite her pronouncements on the White House lawn, as more an administration mole than a loyalist. An unconventionally cast Iago?
Certainly the female part that most needs a star turn in Washington also comes from “Othello” — Emilia, Desdemona’s maid, because she has this line: “You told a lie, an odious, damned lie!/Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!”
For heaven’s sake, NancyPelosi, this is your cue.
Maybe more the twisted sisters
double double toil and trouble
fire burn and cauldron bubble
Fair is foul and foul is fair
http://www.sturgeonsmill.com
patd…. good…. glad to help. Call it whatever you want… and that’s a really good title.
Decades ago I was a park ranger in Michigan. In the 1800’s almost all of Michigan’s old forest was logged, with only a patch or two left. The park I worked at Interlochen State Park was in one of the old forest areas, or as we called it the “virgin forest”.
when will those three meet again
upon the heath – er- hill
there to meet with mcmurtle
or jerry as the case may be
Fire update: Total acreage burned has more than doubled to over 25k acres. Looks like there was a weather event called a “dryline”. This means hot and cold air masses came together to result in hot, high winds. Add temps over 100 and you get the conditions to keep the fire going. Firefighters continue to protect structures, but so far there are still no threats to property in Gold Canyon and Apache Junction. There has been increased air tanker and helicopter activity in support of ground efforts.
Containment is still considered to be 0%, mainly due to the terrain. But firefighters are keeping a close eye on the southern boundary, which remains cool at this time. Can’t see much smoke anymore, so that’s a good thing.
travis, that must cause a great deal of anxiety for folks already burdened with the affairs of the day.
“Can’t see much smoke anymore, so that’s a good thing” sounds right to me. guess when you do see it it’s bad news in such windy conditions and equivalent to when you hear the bullet or the tornado or the crack of lightning it’s too late.
ann telnaes in wapo:
The New York Times’s decision to drop all editorial cartoons after publishing a controversial cartoon is another body blow to the profession of editorial cartooning. While several of my colleagues from around the world have been imprisoned by autocratic leaders over their work, American editorial cartoonists are protected by our First Amendment from governments looking to silence uncomfortable truths. Unfortunately, that protection doesn’t extend to publications that don’t understand the historical significance of editorial cartoons and their essential role in a free press.
It’s easy to casually dismiss these “cartoons.” After all, just the word cartoon brings up images of reading the comics pages or watching Saturday morning television. But an editorial cartoon is much more than a humorous image. Cartoonists have been threatened, imprisoned and even killed for drawing cartoons criticizing powerful people and institutions. Daumier, Gillray, Nast, Herblock, Mauldin, Conrad and Oliphant all created powerful visuals that were part of the political debate of their times.
(Ann Telnaes)
This graphic essay was originally published on the Bertelsmann Foundation website.
Patd – Agreed about being anxious. Not so much for right now, but for what could happen in a month or so with monsoon season. Last year was super wet, and that extended through winter. Now all that beautiful growth we saw in the spring is drying out. It’s basically going to be a bunch of kindling for lightening strikes.
So we just try to be prepared for whatever.
more samples of cartoonists reactions to NYT ban
The NYTImes is being poopy
We could use a national daily of nothing but editorial cartoons. I bet it’d outsell the NYT, WaPo, ChiT, and USAT combined.
x-r
that’s a good idea
I’d read it.
Here’s what I would say if I were in the Democratic debates
My name is Katherine Graham Cracker and I am running for the president of the United States. 23 other folks are running so far too. Every single one of them would be a better president than the one we have now. According to a number of polls — all most all of them would beat the current president.
This should be a primary of ideas, inspiration and leadership. My priorities would be to restore the institutions that have been so badly damaged by current president such as the State dept. Change the priorites at agencies like the EPA to reflect goals that protect Americans. And make sure that public education and public housing are priorities finally medicare for all.
well well well… twit getting a little on the side? poor foxy. dumped for a sweeter younger thing.
the guardian:
Donald Trump and Fox News are said to have one of the strongest marriages in political showbusiness. But there is a young rival hoping to outfox Fox and catch the US president’s wandering media eye.
The obscure One America News Network (OAN) makes up for its lack of clout or viewers by covering every Trump utterance, recycling conspiracy theories, downplaying Russian threats, bashing the mainstream media and championing the “Make America Great Again” agenda.
Most Americans have not noticed, but the most powerful one has. The president rewards OAN with shout-outs and access wildly out of sync with its reach, leading some observers to suspect that he is playing OAN and Fox News off one another to ensure their undying affection.
[…]
It claims to be the fourth-rated cable news network, trailing Fox News, MSNBC and CNN but ahead of CNN Headline News, Fox Business Channel, CNBC and BBC World News – though other networks dispute this. OAN says it has 35 million subscribers and its total viewers at any given time can range from about 150,000 to upwards of half a million.
[…]
media watchdogs detect something more sinister about the network. OAN’s Washington team includes Jack Posobiec, once described by the New York Times as “a pro-Trump activist notorious for his amateur sleuthing into red herrings like the ‘Pizzagate’ hoax and a conspiracy theory involving the murder of a Democratic aide”.
Dan Cassino, a political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said: “He is rightly regarded as someone who represents the worst of the far-right movement online. To describe him as a troll would be accurate. I think he has been thrown off some platforms which, in these circles, is regarded as a badge of honour.”
Cassino, author of Fox News and American Politics, added: “OAN are trying to reach people who feel they can’t trust the mainstream media, they can’t trust Fox News, they can’t trust social media. OAN believe Fox has become too centrist or too establishment.”
OAN sure sounds like a variation of onanism.
Those cowpokes always riding around hell bent for leather and not once do I ever see a hat blow off.
NEW THREAD