Mlle. Zabzie

If you want to do fall, I think you can do cruciferous veggies, spinach, turnips, carrots, things like that. It's also the time to plant garlic if that's something you are into. I don't usually do fall veggies - too busy to really pay attention and it never works out for me. I do put in bulbs and prune heavily where appropriate.

At least in NY for most varietals, I think you are too late on pumpkins. Don’t know about where you are. I have a pretty decent size jackolantern going, but I planted the vine in June. I expect it to be ripe in early October. 90-120 days is the usual.

I mean, in a world where a South African billionaire named his child something unpronounceable I guess that’s right because you never HEARD that name ? But still, Apple Martin, Moon Unit Zappa and all of Jamie Oliver’s children would like to have a word….

Well, my cantaloupe are coming in, which is fun though the watermelon appear to be a lost cause. I also have so many butternut squash (again). The tomatoes are off the hook. Already made one batch of the jam which is SO GOOD. Also plenty of green beans, which is nice. On the pepper front, my yellow bells refuse to yellow. My lunchbox are nicely oranging up though. The shishitos are ok ish. My okra is really not happy where I put them. Oh well. Next year. Separately, my dahlias are blooming and OMG I love them so so very much.

If you are in Georgia, you KNOW. I would be suspicious in Iowa. Also, I will say, I feel like the penchant to deep fry everything might be a borrowing from the Scots....

I loved it, but I hear you. I think "The Anarchy" is a very good title, and it is just the words after the colon that are misleading. Maybe "The Indian Subcontinent at the End of the Early Modern Era" or something would have been more accurate. I recently finished: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin. Highly recommend. Remarkably Bright Creatures - Shelby Van Pelt. Do your self a favor and slither into this book. It is fabulous. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus. It's very entertaining, though a little heavy handed and lighter than it has pretenses of. The Good Wife of Bath - Karen Brooks. A retelling of Chaucer's Wife of Bath prologue from the point of view of the titular wife. Starts off strong, drags towards the end. Thorn Hedge - T. Kingfisher. Absolutely delightful.

I just do cherry tomatoes at this point, and only indeterminate types to avoid this. Made a delicious ratatouille with garden eggplant, tomatoes, bell pepper, basil, oregano, squash, plus a shallot and some garlic.

I mean, I think I’m about to have the tomatoing. I could probably send you sauce or jelly cross state lines? Have you tried the banana skin water trick? I think it just makes people feel better, but maybe it’s real? Also my husband is the softee. I would be calling in the neighbor’s terrier, but my husband won’t hear of it and says that we should sacrifice for the greater cute good. I’m going to get the pest people in to trap and release, but the problem is there are always more rabbits. The real answer is to fix my fence…

Y’all, a family of rabbits have moved in under my cucumber frame. I guess some of the netting (which was at one point properly buried in the ground around the fence) has degraded over time. I now identify strongly with Mr. McGregor. I will say the cats were freaked out last night at the window, so I turned on the outside light and saw something distinctly feline, so either there is a stray cat in the neighborhood, or the bobcat in the woods beside us will take care of the issue….Also, I was lazy and didn’t protect the stems of my squash this year and am suffering the consequences (though the butternuts seem to be ok). My carrots failed. The shishito peppers are miserable this year. BUT, my tomatoes are doing awesome (spent a bunch of time pruning them over the weekend), the okra and peas are so-so, the eggplant is going gangbusters (anyone have any good recipes? I don’t love eggplant in the ordinary course - I bought these as rescue plants on sale because I had an empty bed). My green beans are their usual productive selves, and my melons (watermelon and cantaloupe) are doing great. Bell peppers also very happy - they are yellow bells, so just waiting for them to turn.

Oh yeah. For sure. Like I said, if I were a creditor that had a pledge over the birdie, I would be pissed.

I feel like this is a “new Coke” moment… But if he wants to take an instantaneously recognizable trademark and light it on fire because he can? Well, I guess he can? If I were dumb enough to have collateralized my debt in part with twitter’s IP, I would be PISSED OFF.

Judges aren’t robots. They are people. And to say that a judge cannot keep up with people he or she spent a TON of time with (and mentored) is like dumb. Also, why would anyone take the clerk jobs (which are essential) if they knew they could never socialize with their judge ever again? I mean really? I think you have an unrealistic set of expectations regarding judges.

Honestly, I’m not overly troubled by this and I would imagine that if you looked at other justices you would find similar. Judicial clerks are like little families. They have reunions and stay in touch, which, you know, makes sense? What it looks like to me is that they pooled resources for a reunion Christmas party. There is a LOT of troubling stuff around CT, but I think this is probably shoddy reporting and off base. The article mentions this possibility at the end of the article but sort of dismisses it for no good reason other than it doesn’t fit the narrative. Look, am dealing with this real time on the other side (having super conservative news outlets coming inbound on something) and the coms advice you get is not even to engage because you are going to be quoted out of context/ignored.

I think there is a decent chance they also gut the Internal Revenue Code (going back basically to principles established in the 1954 Code, and possibly the 1939 Code). Mind you, I don’t think the wealth tax is constitutional, and I have severe doubts about the book minimum tax as currently enacted, but next term’s Moore would be far, far more expansive.

Oh this is not just limited to parents of legacies. Welcome to the entitled cohort. I don't know about that, again, distinguishing between private and public universities. On the one hand we expect elite private universities to pay living wages to staff (except adjuncts, who apparently aren't human - that's another issue), have buildings that are gold LEED certified, fund research, give back to their local communities and also apparently educate students. That is not cheap. And while there are certainly the clickbait headlines about schools installing lazy rivers or whatever else, most of the capex at schools is, in fact, necessary - physical plant does not improve or restore itself, and frankly a lot of the "omg this dorm is too nice" renovations are usually bringing dorms up to code. Students aren't going to camp - they are living in a place for four years. So yeah. That's expensive. Is there some "wasteful spending"? Sure. True with most big organizations. But "it's too expensive?" for a private school? I dunno. And again, based on the (pretty good as it turns out) information that I have, at elite institutions there are more than enough legacy children who are academically qualified, just like there are more than enough rich applicants period. They don't need to let in underachievers. I'm a big fan of public universities btw, and really think that democratic processes that have ended up gutting their funding in several states is a big public policy botch. But here we are. And I'm not personally a big proponent of "free college for all." (But I am a huge proponent of universal free preschool).

A few points on this: 1. Except for 3 or 4 universities/colleges, even very elite private institutions need a relatively high percentage of their student body to pay full freight in order to make the numbers work. These full tuitions cover the gap between endowment contribution, and public money (to the extent available), and contributions. I think most of the tier not named Princeton or Stanford (I exaggerate, but only a little, for effect) strive for a 40 (full pay)/60 mix but aren't quite there yet. 2. In that case, to the extent that you have this need for full freight students, I guess I don't see the harm in preferring legacies v. everyone else (put differently, why not admit a stinking rich kid who is already bought in to the culture and whose parents might give even more and who might give more in the future than a different stinking rich kid with no connection, at least at the margins). I will say that some schools have turned away from this knowing that there are more than enough stinking rich kids to fill the seats whether or not alums and they are ok taking the alum hit in exchange for the PR benefit that they have "ceased" legacy admissions. 3. It is my understanding that "legacy" alone is not enough at elite schools where legacy preference is still a thing. Usually it is qualified by the applicant independently meeting the standards of admission, and they look for the family's involvement in more than just donations - they want to see a legacy where the family has consistently contributed to the community in some other manner. 4. Affirmative action in its modern incarnation did an ok job at getting non-white middle class students seats at elite institutions. It did a sort of crappy job at getting poor students in. Conversely, programs that seek to increase socioeconomic diversity do a crappy job at getting diverse students into these seats because there are a lot of poor white children. 5. Public institutions should not have legacy preferences of any kind. I feel VERY strongly about this. I'm sad to see affirmative action type preferences go because the proxies do not reliably increase diversity at the flagship institutions. This has played out in CA, TX, FLA and other states that have abolished affirmative action preferences. I think at least in the medium term you are going to see less racial diversity in elite colleges. I think you might see more socio economic diversity.

You assume he is paying his counsel....

I assume the questions are rhetorical?

I'm not personally sure it is helpful to compare which of the humans savaged by the press had it worse (I mean Diana died arguably as a result of being hounded by the press, which is pretty final). It's all awful. I am going to continue to be amused and sheepishly grateful (I enjoy consuming the soap opera as much as anyone) that the UK still supports this nonsense?

I mean sounds like there are deeper issues? "(S)he doesn't want to have sex" can be code for all kinds of things, but it usually means there is something else there that is not being addressed. If their big issue is that he wants kids and she doesn't, then, well, maybe they should split because that won't reconcile itself.

And this conflict is cute and rather quaint.

The big news in my world is that the court took the Moore case regarding the constitutionality of the transition tax. This gets pretty technical pretty quickly, but the question is what is required for there to be “income” that is taxable under the constitution (tax nerds call this the “realization requirement”). There are wide implications, including for the Wyden/Warren wealth tax proposals, as well as the corporate book alternative minimum tax (both under current law and if we want to amend to be in line with Pillar 2).

OMG, I thought the IRS was the only institution that still used fax. And yes, agree on the system (and that it is not for the thread de romance).

I have a good friend who is a (competent) cardiologist. She would tell you the same about life or death. I made the point that even if it is a 1% risk, I live in a very different world. Also, I hear you a bit on basic shit but also I think some of that is just the way your hospital system has built teams and incentives and/or the way insurance has set up rules and practices. It doesn’t 100% mean they are incompetent.

I’m about to say something stupidly American, but I’ve decided to say it anyway. I don’t like this “you go into [FIELD X] because of a vocation [and not for money] argument. I have three reasons: 1. It is usually applied with respect to professions (like medicine and teaching) that are huge value add from a social perspective. The concept that the practitioner gets personal satisfaction out of the career is used to justify paying those practitioners less. We should be paying doctors, nurses, teachers, etc. MORE not less. 2. These professions are either historically or increasingly female. (BTW, emergency services, including police, work also is a big social value add if done correctly, but at least in the states I don’t hear the same malarkey about having a “calling” or a “vocation”). 3. I’m ok with doctors getting stupid rich. They take on a crap ton of schooling, work really hard, and in my profession, if I make a mistake, no one dies. They can’t say the same. That’s not to say medical care should not be available and affordable to all. That’s a different question.