Friday, June 27, 2014

Tiny Toads Have Tiny Toes and Other Summer Tales

This is my 2nd contribution to Carmi's Thematic Photographic 298.




Mr. B^4 reported on tiny toads the other day. As it happens, there was a plethora hopping around the house in Berkeley Springs this week**.


** No tiny toads were harmed in the taking of these photos.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Monday, June 23, 2014

Chicory and Great Blue Heron

Carmi's Thematic Photographic 298 is Summer.

Cichorium intybus - Chicory:






Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Friday, June 20, 2014

Ashburn Cardinal, Fence Post

Here are some fence posts: Good Fences #13


And now for the critters:





Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Wednesday, June 18, 2014

What's Up, Tiger Swallowtail?

Tiger Lily, that's what.

And now for...Happy Dogs on Couches!


Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Monday, June 16, 2014

Ruth Marcus vs. The Onion

First up: Ruth Marcus, concerned troll:

The real-life consequence of Cantor’s loss will be to further diminish the already slim prospects for serious legislating, not only dooming immigration reform, at least in the short term, but also raising the prospect of dangerous showdowns on the budget and debt ceiling.
Cue The Onion:

Flawless victory for the Onion.

Further cud-chewing from Marcus:
As it happens, Cantor’s loss came just before the Pew Research Center released a depressing new report on that very topic: the increasingly polarized state of American politics. The findings are hair-pulling.

More Americans have moved to the ideological edges. “The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%,” Pew reported.

To read the report is to be struck by the pragmatic attitude of the majority of Americans and by their simultaneous abdication of responsibility to the extremes — and, with it, power. This sensible center is willing to compromise; half said they’d be willing to split the difference 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats.
That's quality Broderism, Ruth.

Broderism 1) Actual examples of right-wingers doing stupid things (e.g. threatening to kill police officers, blowing up the Olympics, claiming that "Atlas Shrugged" is history rather than a crappy novel by a nutjob) serve as proof that The Left is equally bad. For obvious reasons, specific mention of the offenses of The Left must be avoided (they care about the environment, don't want to cut Social Security, or even blow up foreigners for corporate profits...THOSE CRAZY ANIMALS!!!).

Broderism 2) The greatest thing in the universe is sweet bipartisanship, aka when right-wing Democrats agree with Republicans on whatever short-sighted, vicious, and ultimately disastrous scheme the GOP has cooked up lately.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Sunday, June 15, 2014

Ashburn Bunny







Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Tears of a Clown



P.S. Teaper David A. Brat will be faced by Jack Trammell on Tuesday, November 4, 2014. His Act Blue page has tripled since this morning. And there is more schadenfreude here.

Update: Courtesy of Vixen Strangely, The Dark Money Machine That Beat Eric Cantor. And DDay has some thoughts.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Sunday, June 8, 2014

Sidewalk Closed

Carmi's Thematic Photographic 297 is I saw the sign. I hope these signs are gone, soon.

I like this sign:

Here are some German Village flowers (and fences):



BONUS: Schiller Park duckling

Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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Saturday, June 7, 2014

Jumping the Sharknado with Jenghazi Rubin


Sure, Jengahzi. What the world needs now is Governor Goodhair.
Jan. 12, 2006

The governor of Texas is despicable. Of all the crass pandering, of all the gross political kowtowing to ignorance, we haven't seen anything this rank from Gov. Goodhair since … gee, last fall.

Then he was trying to draw attention away from his spectacular failure on public schools by convincing Texans that gay marriage was a horrible threat to us all. Now he's trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in free-fall by proposing that we teach creationism in biology classes.

- Molly Ivins


May Fred Hiatt be infested by the fleas of a thousand camels for hiring this whackjob. Jenghazi's approach to any politician is simple: Is this person more or less likely to get America to bomb the Likud's enemies? By October of 2011, she'd become convinced that Mitt Romney was the man, so she relentlessly attacked Rick Perry. The GOP bench is looking thin for 2016, so now she's warming up to him.

I have a theory that Brian Kilmeade's purpose on "FAUX and Fiends" is to make Steve Doocy seem slightly less moronic by comparison. I suppose Rubin serves the same function at the WaPo for Fred Hiatt and Jackson Diehl.

P.S. Relief from the hackitude:

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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