Getting ready to head over to the Great Dane for the meet-up.
Been a beautiful day today, and when I got back from the convention there was a bucket of local brews on ice and an apology note from the hotel, because my ac did not work and I had to switch rooms at 12 am last night. I don’t drink beer, so I took them all down to the guys from Veterans for Peace and gave it to them. They are having their annual convention here, and I thought they could use a drink, plus, I really like the notion of a bunch of long hairs with peace symbols and military gear (mind you, they aren’t all DFH’s outwardly- most of them look like your average guy at a conference) sitting in the lobby of a nice hotel drinking beer and making rich folks who never think about any of this stuff uncomfortable enough that maybe they think about who all these guys with purple hearts are and that maybe we should be listening to them instead of the warmongers who fill our tv screens every day.
Because that is how I roll.
kdaug
“Class Act Cole
Expect Nothing Less”
BGinCHI
Expecting visual documentation of this meet. Wish I was up there but apparently it’s illegal to leave a toddler alone with just cookies and milk.
Thanks Obama.
Maybe Scott Walker will show up after he’s done oppressing people for the day.
MikeInSewickely
That’s one for the good guys. Thank you Mr. Cole.
dance around in your bones
You are a damn decent guy, JGC. I wish I could be there tonight with all the loco BJers on this momentous occasion but I’m stuck in SoCal making a peach cobbler out of all the peaches falling off our tree in the back yard.
Hoist one for me! (Of whatever iteration).
LanceThruster
Great gesture. I’ve never served but have always appreciated how the thoughtful vets look out for each other by helping to make sure the citizenry understands exactly what putting others in harm’s way entails. There’s no sugarcoating what that does to a person. Violence should always be the option of *last* resort.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
What have you done with John Cole, you fucking monster?
Gen108
Bad day at work. I hate everything right now. Fuck off and die is about my view of humanity.
Mandalay
Sorry to pollute this thread with an ugly story, but this is so sad…
Man accused of blowing up dog will likely face animal cruelty charges after all.
I cannot understand how anyone who is not insane could even think of this, let alone do it.
raven
I used to know some VVAW guys from Madison.
Keith G
@Mandalay: Apparently not that sorry. Thanks for nothing, #@@ %&!$
? Martin
@BGinCHI:
Just leave the AR-15 in the other room and you should be fine. What could go wrong?
raven
@Keith G: no shit
furlyfly
Has that newsmax headlines section on the right always been there. Is that a friggin joke or what?
BGinCHI
@? Martin: There is no telling how many banks he would rob if we did that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Liberal jihadists NBC refused to run an anti-Keystone ad because it might hurt the feelings of the CEO of Transcanda, who in the meantime are sponsoring Mike Allen’s gossip column at TBOTP.
(FTR I think it’s a pretty clumsy ad, I think it would have worked better with a lighter touch– can we post two links in one post? I guess I’ll find out)
lojasmo
Wish I could be there. Wife’s vermont organizing drive got moved back, then cancelled.
Shit…Wife’s africa contingent is at the ALEC convention in Chicago, and she wanted to visit, but I thought a 12 hour drive for a single overnight in Chi would suck. Could have had her drop me in Mad.
Oh well. Two days off, then a seven day stretch, then off to the left coast for dinner with Yutz and a mad dash home on back roads in a dicey high mileage subaru.
kindness
What if the hotel had left you a bottle of good scotch?
Violet
So envious. It’s a million degrees here and we’re under a heat advisory. Plus poor air quality. No desire to go outside whatsoever.
I’m on some antibiotics that are fucking with my mental health. I can feel myself getting seriously depressed and I know it’s not situational or anything else. It’s something neurochemical. I’ve still got ten days on them. Not sure how I’m going to handle that.
lamh36
DAMN RIGHT EBONY MAG! Love this. So the usual racist tea party are made cause of Ebony Mag’s Trayvon Martin covers They are threatening to boycott. I love Ebony Mag’s Twitter answer:
Anoniminous
If this:
is true and
the Dems don’t screw it upholds we’re looking at the House flipping back to the Dems and a Dem hold of the Senate. For the simple reasons:1. The GOP House seats are gerrymandered to the max
2. Based on statistical analysis of previous elections
3. Dropping 16 points of support makes the 2014 election an “outlier” compared to the statistical history.
Thus,
4. The GOP is going to lose a lot of seats
QED
Our Job: work our tails off to grab this opportunity.
(h/t to Horace Boothroyd III at the GOS.)
Villago Delenda Est
Uh, John, don’t forget, you were “the help” when you served. Purple Heart or not.
The rich people will only take notice of someone with brass on their hat.
Then again, considering how John Kerry was treated, Purple Heart or not, commissioned officer or not, perhaps I’m mistaken.
zombie rotten mcdonald
Don’t make me like you, Cole.
Mandalay
@? Martin: OT, but since you seem to know more about this stuff than anyone else…
Greenwald said this today (about Snowden)….
“I speak with him a lot since he left the airport, almost every day. We use very strong encryption to communicate,” Greenwald told the Brazilian legislators.
So my question is: how easy/hard is it for our security services to know what they are saying? A piece of cake? Completely impossible? Somewhere in between?
(In the past Greenwald had seemed pretty clueless about security technology, but I am guessing that he is getting better advice now.)
JPL
@Mandalay: Since animal cruelty charges do not result in lengthy prison stays, they went after the other charges first. When the story first broke, it sounded like they were not going to press animal cruelty charges, but in reality they were looking at charges with stiffer penalties. It’s unfortunate that he can’t get life in prison.
BGinCHI
@lojasmo: You need to lay off the coffee before you post.
Mandalay
@Keith G: Well the amazing part of the story is that he has not necessarily committed a crime by doing that. TBD apparently.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: IIRC he killed the dog because he thought it was possessed by a demon?
I am not a kook
Greetings to our comrades in People’s Republic of Madison from the working classes of Berkeley.
I’m too busy with rolling battles against ants to fly in and offer brotherly reinforcements over there. The little fuckers keep attacking from different fronts. I’ve routed them in the living room, but the kitchen is a near-genocidal battleground. They laugh at my attempts at chemical warfare and just walk around three brands of ant poison. The fact that they are far more interested in protein than sugar has me worried enough to sleep with a flame thrower close at hand.
I blame E. O. Wilson. And Obama.
Mike G
Meet the Flintstones:
Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals —
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/public-education/texans-dinosaurs-humans-walked-the-earth-at-same/
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Running an ad that criticizes the enterprise of a Galtian fellow of Jack Welch is contrary to corporate policy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It was possessed by a Kenyan Muslim Socialist Atheist.
Or, in short, a demon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If I win that big lottery, I guess first I’d have to buy a ticket, I’m going to personally bankroll Rick Santorum’s 2016 run
This is in a speech about abortion. Pro-choice voters have something to do with young men showering. THere was no apparent transtion. I want that crazy back on the stage. I want Chris Christie to have to deal with that.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike G: It’s Texas, Jake.
realbtl
@I am not a kook:
Go to a Chinese grocery and get the ant chalk. Draw a line at the door, circles around any holes they are coming through, whatever it takes. I know this sounds a bit woo but it worked like magic when I lived in the east bay.
SiubhanDuinne
You are a good man, John Cole. Some of us have always said that. Happy to be anecdotally vindicated.
Yesterday was tough. My cousin (actually, if we’re being picky, my third-cousin-once-removed-in-law), a man I adored, had a massive stroke on Monday, and yesterday his wife and daughter made the very hard decision to pull the plug. The only rational decision, I might add, but just a sucky thing to have to do.
I was at the hospital most of the day and spent about the last three hours of my cousin’s life just sitting by his bedside holding his hand. I doubt very much that he knew I (or anyone) was there, but it helped me to make that gentle physical connection. The passing was graceful, and sad, and inevitable, and irreversible. This is the third person in my life that I’ve been present for their final transition. The hospital staff were fantastic.
The really sad thing (I possibly mentioned this yesterday) is that this family lost their son last November, so the grieving and all the mess of paperwork is still very much part of their lives. It seems very cruel to the surviving women to be faced with widowhood and orphanage while they are still actively mourning their son/brother. But so it is.
gbear
BJ commentor kideni posted some video of the flag bearer for Vetereans For Peace having his flag yanked away and being arrested, cuffed, and led away by six of Wisconsin’s finest.
The Pale Scot
Broadchurch starts Weds on BBC ‘murika
Keith G
@Mandalay: One of the reasons that I have stopped watching local TV news is that they have expanded their “If it bleeds it leads” style of coverage to anytime the humane society gets called out on a case that might involve criminal charges or situations of animal hoarding.
While I do what I can to aid in prevention, I do not need, nor can tolerate, to see the consequences of bad actors, regardless of the novelty of the story line.
Scout211
@Violet:
This is not good.
Can you call your doctor’s office and ask for a different antibiotic?
Josie
@Violet:
Remember to eat your yogurt.
ETA:FYWP for making it super difficult to edit.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet: Violet, darling, please call your physician or your pharmacy and discuss it with them. Try to get something that will do its job but not fuck with your head. Seriously. Big love and {{{hugs}}} and remember, this community can do some amazing supportive things for people who are hurting or confused.
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh36:
That.is.EPIC
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet:
Obligatory FYWP.
@Violet: Violet, darling, please call your physician or your [email protected] and discuss it with them. Try to get something that will do its job but not fuck with your head. Seriously. Big love and {{{hugs}}} and remember, this community can do some amazing supportive things for people who are hurting or confused.
Yatsuno
@BGinCHI: He’s a nurse. Coffee is his lifeblood.
Took me an hour and a half to get into work today. Apparently some jerk threw a suspicious package into the building and ran off. At least I got to see the DHS sweep puppeh. He’s let me give him scritches before, but he was on duty today.
lamh36
Of course in response to the Tea Party tweeters threatening to “boycott” Ebony, Black Twitter has created a hastag…enjoy:
fuckwit
Great Dane…. jar. Great Dane…. jar.
Keith G
@Mike G: @BillinGlendaleCA: Wait just a freekin minute.
I clicked the link and checked the cross tabs. If I am reading correctly, 800 registered voters were polled and on some of these questions, less than 400 responses were recorded.
I am not a kook
@Mandalay: Not Martin, but I’ll try to speculate.
There are ways to encrypt VOIP traffic (reliably, as far as is known), for example something like http://zfoneproject.com. I would probably use that inside a VPN connection or something just to make it a bit harder. But the data in transit isn’t the only thing to protect. Can they trust the endpoints, meaning their own devices?
The biggest risk is the so-called analog hole, meaning that at some point you have to turn the encrypted digital traffic into analog sound to reach your ears (& vice versa). Snowden’s apartment probably has a metric buttload of microphones and I’m sure FSB kindly routes his traffic through some special processing. Not to mention keyloggers – he can’t trust any device that hasn’t been physically attached to him every moment since he left Hawaii. NSA or their friends most likely do the same for Greenwald. They also need to think about long range mikes being pointed at their faces at all times too.
Putin doesn’t have to observe many legal niceties in keeping Snowden under surveillance. I suspect Brazil has some convenient ways to keep tabs on Greenwald as well.
Origuy
@realbtl:
Wikipedia says this about ant chalk.
dance around in your bones
@SiubhanDuinne: I am so sorry for your pain. It’s a kind of mixed blessing being at someone’s passing, no?
I just went to visit my dad who had a stroke a year or so ago, and part of me wished that he had just passed on. It’s so awful to see a man who has lost the ability to communicate except by crying or laughing – and you don’t even know why they are doing either thing.
It’s nice that you were there to hold your cousin’s hand as he crossed over.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yatsuno: Last time we came back from Korea, the dogs in Customs were Cocker Spaniels.
jenn
@SiubhanDuinne: I am so very sorry. Best wishes to you and your family.
scav
@Mike G: Texas is competing for business based on the looseness of its regulations and cheapness of taxes, not the intelligence of its resident workforce. In fact, that last might in theory interfere with attaining the first two, so it may very well be a point of pride.
Villago Delenda Est
Newsmax sez: CNN: Obama Shares Blame in Benghazi Circus
Yes, For being blah, and presidentin’ while blah, he shares the blame.
The circus, OTOH, is purely a result of wingtard fantasy.
Gin & Tonic
@Mandalay: I’m not Martin, but I know a few things. Strong encryption is strong. It is at least possible that the NSA has means of decrypting that they haven’t told anyone about, and won’t, but in general, strong encryption is mathematically provable to be strong, and decrypting becomes computationally difficult. Even if you are the NSA. The more money and hardware you can throw at a problem, the less the computational difficulty becomes a factor. And they have more money and hardware than anyone else. But most often, they take advantage of people fucking up and thinking something is more secure than it is. If you are careful and knowledgeable and careful and careful, there is a very good chance you can communicate without them knowing the conetnts of your messages.
gbear
@I am not a kook: It’s Russia. Can’t they just knock on Snowden’s door and tell him that if he sends one more encrypted message, it will be his last?
SiubhanDuinne
@dance around in your bones:
I actually felt very privileged to be there. The hardest for me was that his wife kept asking me what she should do (i.e., which decision she should make) and as a very distant relative I didn’t feel it was my call. But in retrospect I think she was using me as a sounding board to confirm her own instincts, so it’s okay.
I’m very sorry about your dad. That’s so hard to watch. {{{Hugs}}} and bless.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Villago Delenda Est:
Every circus has clowns.
I am not a kook
@Origuy:
Thanks for the info. We’re fighting them over here so you don’t have to fight them over there! Or something.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: CNN has a “special investigation” coming up on Benghazi! that confuses Republican talking points with evidence.
SiubhanDuinne
@jenn: Thank you, Jenn.
Last night I put up my cousin’s photo and a brief RIP with dates on my FB page, and had probably 20 comments of sympathy within a few minutes. I said to his wife and daughter, “There are people on three continents who never met Edmund but who are sending messages of love and support.”
? Martin
@Mandalay:
Depends on the encryption. Strong encryption is pretty fucking easy to come by. AES-128 is pretty standard out there and there’s effectively no way to brute force it by mortals.
That said, there are other avenues:
1) If you’re using a conventional service like Facetime or Skype, your encryption is dependent on a key that is automatically provided by the tools (as opposed to a key you procure yourself). Presumably that key is unique for each device and calculated via some algorithm. If the NSA is looking for YOUR phone, they could either ask Apple/Microsoft/whoever manages that service or that device to give them the key, provided they can recover it (almost certainly they can), or the NSA could figure out the algorithm that was used to generate the key off of the device ID, or your IP or whatever it’s based on. That’s probably not that difficult (in NSA terms), though damn near impossible for almost anyone else.
I would expect Snowden to use a key of his own acquisition, if the service they’re using permits that (most don’t, though, but I’m not entirely sure all of what’s out there, plus they could use tor, ssh tunnel, or other things and use their own keys), which makes it effectively like a 1-time pad at that layer. The NSA wouldn’t be able to use the technique above. Greenwald has admitted that this is above his ability, but Snowden could have pointed him to how to do this. It’s not hard at all. I’d assume the NSA would hit a brick wall here.
2) All encryption algorithms have weaknesses that make them easier to break. AES is pretty well proven, but the unquestioned experts on breaking them through algorithm weaknesses IS the NSA. So it’s possible AES-128 has a weakness that nobody knows about which the NSA can exploit. This isn’t the sort of thing that doesn’t render it useless, rather it makes it a bit easier to break. We know that AES has some weaknesses, but the ones we know of are pretty minor. They knock the brute force attack time from 10 trillion years to 2 trillion years, that kind of thing. So, this is possible, and it would depend on what kind of encryption those guys are using. But encryption is cheap as hell, and you might as well go all out. So again, unless Snowden/Greenwald are making poor choices or being lazy, this is extremely likely a dead-end as well – but we don’t really know for certain.
3) Encryption is also vulnerable to ‘man in the middle’ attacks. This is another area where the NSA would excel. Snowden would initiate a connection with GG and send the keys needed to decrypt the connection, but the NSA would intercept that message, use the key themselves to decrypt the message and replace the original key with their own key, which they would re-encode the message using. To GG, he’d never notice – he gets the key, it unlocks the encrypted stream, all is good. Timing is extremely critical on something like this and you have to have quite a bit of control over the mechanism you are communicating by, because you need to be able to completely rewrite the transaction. With things like email that’s pretty easy to do. With real-time communication like chat, it’s much harder. None of these things are outside of the NSAs ability, particularly if they are focused on a target. It’s not hard to detect, though, if you have an independent way to compare the keys. Not everyone would bother to do this. I would think Snowden is smart enough to do this.
Web browsers do this automatically using a certificate authority. You register the keys associated with your website with an authority which the browser can automatically compare to. If the key doesn’t match what’s in the database, it refuses to load the page, assuming that someone has hijacked the security key.
The govt has other tricks too. Zero day exploits are bugs in software (usually operating systems) which are unknown and unpatched. The US government is the largest buyer of these (yes, there’s a market for them, and brokers of them) and it’d probably be easier for them to use one of these exploits to activate GGs microphone, or install a keylogger, or that kind of thing on his computer or phone rather than try and break a decent encryption effort. Bottom line, if they’re careful and thoughtful, they should be quite safe, but there’s a lot of ways around these tools if you slip up.
Gin & Tonic
@gbear: With communications that aren’t real-time like VoIP it’s pretty trivial to hide encrypted content in messages that don’t seem to be encrypted.
jenn
@Violet: Have you talked to your doctor about it? Your meds really shouldn’t do that! At the very least, your doctor needs to know that you’re having this side effect, because the drug companies need to know about it – incidence rates are really important. Hopefully, there’s something else they can put you on, too.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gbear: They could, but I’m sure they just rather see any transmissions he sends/receives.
mdblanche
PPP is showing Michelle Nunn with numbers that range from tied to landslide versus the Georgia klown kar kavalcade. Does the FSM love us enough to let Paul Broun win the nomination?
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh. My. I’m so very sorry. Please take good care of yourself and your family.
Gin & Tonic
@I am not a kook: They also need to think about long range mikes being pointed at their faces at all times too.
Not just mikes pointed at their faces.
I am not a kook
@gbear: Yeah, that too. The rubber hose is the strongest decryption technology.
Pretty sure FSB measures Snowden’s every fart and some first-year spy makes PowerPoints of the data.
? Martin
Here’s an article on the zero day exploit market.
This is a mixed thing. It would be noble if the govt bought these and then informed the companies to fix their software. That isn’t happening, though – at least, I’ve not heard of any case where that’s happened. OTOH, I’d rather the NSA have that information rather than eastern european cybercriminals, or the Chinese government for that matter.
beltane
@mdblanche: Considering the mental state of Georgia’s Republican primary voters, the answer could very well be “yes”.
jenn
@SiubhanDuinne: Technology is crazy isn’t it?! There’s actually a lot about my pre-web life I miss (yes, I am a Luddite), but I do love things like this, the ability to be there (in a way) at a distance. Sadly, my verbal communication skills in emotional circumstances rather suck, which doesn’t translate well via electrons, but still.
Gin & Tonic
@? Martin: Web browsers do this automatically using a certificate authority.
CA’s have been compromised.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan: Thank you. Indeed I will as best I am able.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: This is almost as funny as the Luap Nor revelations today.
I guess the three Black Tea Partiers have burned their EBONY registration renewal cards, right? How will they come back from this setback?
shelly
Under the heading of ‘Can Rick Santorum get any weirder?”
Santorum argued that the pro-choice movement infuses passion about abortion rights into “every aspect of their life.” He said that because of this, showering at a gym had become an “uncomfortable” prospect for students.
“They make it uncomfortable for students who come to Austin to shower at a Young Men’s Christian Association, YMCA, gym,” he said. “Because they live it. They’re passionate, they’re willing to do and say uncomfortable things in mixed company. They’re willing to make the sacrifice at their business because they care enough.”
*********************
There’s just so much WTF in that paragraph. Anti-abortion advocates are targeting YMCA showers? And what’s ‘mixed company?” Are they now co-ed? And it seems to me that Santorum is spending a little too much time thinking about those young men, soaped up and wet.
I am not a kook
@? Martin:
There are ways around SSL encryption in use in many/most large companies already. You can buy man-in-the-middle gear that automatically spoofs the certificate negotiation, injecting its own certificate so it can decrypt the traffic on the fly. You just need to add your cert into the client computer (in a corporate setting, Microsoft Active Directory does this automatically for you).
NSA has recently been requesting SSL private keys from major online corporations. This will basically open all SSL traffic with, say, Google to them. I have no doubt that FSB already has the same for all Russian online services.
If you really want to talk to somebody without eavesdroppers, you have to control the whole chain end-to-end without relying on certificate authorities etc. “They” will still be able to know when you had your chat.
? Martin
@Gin & Tonic:
Absolutely. But you also have the ability to control which CA you use. If there was one CA, NSA could own it. If there are hundreds, or thousands, that’s not possible.
The point being that the more options you employ across the widest range of channels, the less likely that the NSA can have controlling interest in each of them. This kind of stuff relies on bottlenecks to be feasible – you tap the central switch, you compromise the one server, you get access to the only 4 cellular companies, etc. Every time you can step away from that, you make it quite a lot harder to be intercepted, and statistically your odds of getting intercepted improve tremendously. Diversity is a good thing.
Elizabelle
for those of us not in Madison, WI, the chairbound:
1) Fred McMurray Day on Turner Classic Movies: at 8:00 p Eastern: Murder, He Says from 1945, with Fred as a pollster (!) who stumbles across a family of criminals on his rounds, then a short flick from 1944 about a dog,
with Double Indemnity to follow at ten Eastern.
I regret missing the earlier Fred McM flicks today, one with Raymond Burr as a “convincing” drug smuggler. Burr has been great in anything I have ever seen him in.
2) BBC America: Broadchurch, a British police procedural that’s highly praised, at ten Eastern and one a.m. Eastern.
Don’t miss Broadchurch, is the word.
Origuy
Eid Mubarak to Amir Khalid and anyone else who hasn’t eaten all day! I think it’s actually tomorrow, but since it’s already tomorrow where he is, I wanted to get it in in time.
TaMara (BHF)
Of course you did. Cause you rock. Can’t wait for the photos of Cole’s hand tonight.
SiubhanDuinne
@mdblanche: Wouldn’t that just be the bee’s pajamas?! I am very happy I signed on early for the Michelle Nunn campaign, can’t wait to see what they assign me to do!
SiubhanDuinne
@Origuy: Hope all my Muslim friends have had a good fast.
Suffern ACE
@shelly: yeah. It’s like he started talking about anti-choicers and then confused them with anti-gay activists.
SiubhanDuinne
@jenn:
Not so. Came through loud, clear, and accurately.
Tone in DC
@lamh36:
I like it. Heh. Indeed.
dance around in your bones
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thanks for the hugs. It’s been a tough couple of years for me, what with my husband dying and my dad dying in all but his body and a few other things I could mention but won’t.
I really appreciated Betty Cracker’s thread “Why do you keep passing the open windows?” Made me feel so not alone.
ranchandsyrup
Saw this quote from Isaac Asimov today and it sums up recent frustrations:
Mandalay
@I am not a kook: @Gin & Tonic: @? Martin:
Wow! Thanks for all the info. I think I’ll invest an hour or two in better understanding your comments.
The bottom line seems to be that even if they can’t directly decrypt the phone conversation using brute force, they could probably find out what was said by other means if they really cared enough, right?
Another Holocene Human
@mdblanche: whoa
Violet
@Scout211: No, I can’t. This is a targeted antibiotic for the intestinal issue I’ve got and there isn’t a replacement. Cost me a ton of money too because it’s not yet got a generic.
@Josie: I can’t take yogurt or anything with probiotics in it because that’s the point of this particular antibiotic–to kill the bacteria that is in the wrong place in my small intestine. I can tell it’s working because of how I’m feeling (the condition is closely tied to depression so it doesn’t surprise me that killing it off is having this effect on me), and the fact that I’m craving sugary carbs (carbs feed the bacteria so they’re making me want them to avoid being killed off). I had a very small amount of kefir last night and my stomach put up such a fight that I am not going to risk it again.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for the support. I really wanted to reach out because it’s scaring me. I can tell it’s something sort of outside of me that’s manipulating me. Hormones and bacteria and all that stuff are so crazy in how they can affect your life.
Edit: Forgot to say that I’m so sorry for your loss. What a difficult situation for your family and it’s so good that you can be there for them.
beltane
@shelly: Rick Santorum was led to believe that it’s fun to stay at the YMCA, and now he’s mad that some passionate pro-choicers are forcing these lovely young men to have abortions.
Tone in DC
@I am not a kook: Kill `em ALL.
Citizen_X
To Madtown BJers going to the meetup: your mission tonight is to acquire an unobstructed picture of Cole. Do not fail us!
Yatsuno
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s selfish, but I want her opponent to be Handel just so Karen will finally have the spike drilled into herheart. But I’ll take Broun for the easy win too.
SiubhanDuinne
@dance around in your bones: I only had time yesterday to note that Betty’s thread was something I definitely wanted to go back and read carefully. No time yesterday, and today I have been kind of fatigued. But I had a sense from Jump Street that it would be a thread to savour, and I’ve flagged it accordingly.
Violet
@jenn: I haven’t talked to him yet. I haven’t seen this reaction listed as a side effect and I’ve dug around through the fine print. Doesn’t surprise me though–I had a reaction to another medication a few years ago that I never saw listed. It was a dermatologic medication and my Dermatologist swore it wasn’t the fault of the medication. Started two days after I started the medication and went away two days after I finished it. Hasn’t come back. It was definitely related. I am just one of those to get weird side effects.
Josie
@Violet:
I’m so sorry. This must be very difficult for you. Being miserable along with craving carbs is a double whammy. I will be sending you positive vibes for the next 10 days, and I hope you reach out to us for sympathy and understanding until it is done. Hang in there.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yatsuno: Handel would do nicely. When we get closer to the GA GOP primary, i’ll consult the BJ hive mind about whom I should vote for (open primaries in Jawja).
piratedan
@Elizabelle: I would second that, saw the free preview via cable and was very impressed, but then again, I loooved Mi-5/Spooks and Whitechapel and this has the same feel to it as a straight police procedural with sinister undercurrents and the lot.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yatsuno:
Heh. You accused Handel of having a heart. You funny man.
I am not a kook
@Violet: If you’re scared of the depression it is causing, set up an alarm and check in here periodically to air out the crazy thoughts. As Betty’s thread proved, there a lot of people here with experience recongnizing and dealing with that. And talk to somebody face to face. Don’t just brush it off.
Violet
@lamh36: When I was a kid my piano teacher moved to a small office building to teach her students. It had a general waiting area for all the offices. Every time I went for a piano lesson and waited to be called in, I’d read the magazines. The only magazines ever available were Ebony and Jet.
It was absolutely a window into a world I knew nothing about. I’d read them cover to cover, checking out all the ads and trying to understand what some of the articles were talking about (I was fairly young, so I imagine I was under the target age, not to mention being outside the targeted demographic in other ways.) I’ve had a fondness for those magazines ever since. I bet there weren’t too many young white kids reading Ebony and Jet on a weekly basis.
Violet
@Josie: Thank you very much! I do appreciate it. I have support and am recognizing it’s not “real” in the sense that it’s medication-induced (although it feels pretty real), so I hope that will help keep it in perspective. I will reach out if needed.
A known side effect is having trouble sleeping. I’ve got that too–going to sleep late, waking up early. And weirdly, I’m not tired. I know that isn’t helping at all, but again not sure what to do about it.
Violet
@I am not a kook: I am scared of it, but I hope that recognizing that it’s a side effect will help me keep it in perspective. I do have support and people do know what’s going on, so I hope that will be enough. I did want to reach out here because it’s also nice to have support here too.
MikeJ
@I am not a kook: I’ve seen people who use 1024 bit keys all the time and have a 4 letter passcode on the keyring.
SiubhanDuinne
@I am not a kook:
Seconded. Whether it’s the daytime regulars, the night shift, or the occasionals, we are all here with advice and experience and good wishes. Don’t ever hesitate to vent.
gogol's wife
@Keith G:
Yes, and the Huffington Post drove me away for the same reason.
gogol's wife
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m sorry about your relatives. The thread is definitely worth reading.
jenn
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, but in person, I can listen, I can hold folks’ hand, give out hugs, supply shoulders to cry on, cook … I’m good at that bit. Verbally, I never know what to say beyond, “I’m so sorry” and “I’m thinking of you.” Both are true, they’re just a lot more limited than what I actually feel! I tend to envy/admire folks who are better able to verbalize their empathy.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m sorry to hear this news.
Bex
Hope there was some Spotted Cow among the brews and that the vets enjoyed it.
MikeJ
@Bex: I am against bovines in the military. Don’t ask, don’t moo.
dance around in your bones
This Fred MacMurray film “Murder, He Says” is pretty trippy.
Glow in the dark poisoned plates?
Wonder how the BJ meetup in Madison is going? No glowing plates, I hope :)
Poopyman
Who needs decryption when you’re capturing keystrokes?
SiubhanDuinne
@gogol’s wife:
@raven:
He had a very good run. Would have been 87 on his next birthday in September, so it’s not untimely, it’s just … well, untimely, I guess.
“Is life a boon?
If so, it must befall
That Death, whene’er he call,
Must call too soon.”
Cousin Edmund was born of immigrants from the old Austro-Hungarian empire, born and raised in New Bedford, Mass, joined the Navy in WWII, went to Oglethorpe on the GI Bill and there met my (blood related) cousin who was four years younger but two years ahead of him in classes. They married 61 years ago, bickered a lot, and adored each other. Edmund joined the US Foreign Service and was at embassies and consulates in Finland, Italy, Kuwait, Yugoslavia, and I can’t remember where else. We loved to talk history and foreign policy together. I’m really going to miss that.
Ted & Hellen
Never understood the idea that taking part in bogus, murderous wars of aggression and lies and mass death, as a hands-on facilitator of corrupt policies that benefit corporations and the MIC, somehow confers genius status on the puppets who sign up to do the killing.
SiubhanDuinne
@jenn: It’s all good, it’s all of value.
cathyx
@Ted & Hellen:I agree except what about those who were drafted?
joel hanes
@I am not a kook:
ants
My algorithm for surviving Bay Area ant invasions:
go to orchard supply, get a box of Grant’s ant “stakes”
take a few of the “stakes”, remove wrappers
rinse one thoroughly but very briefly to moisten the bait inside
lay directly in ant trail as close to source as possible
repeat with more “stakes”
[ keep away from children and pets ]
a day later, maybe one or two ants remain
a day later, that hill is all dead
? Martin
@Mandalay:
They might be able to find out. Not knowing what the NSA is hooked into, and not knowing how careful those guys are, it’s really a statistical game whether the GG/Snowden circle and the NSA circle overlap in any way. So, it might be easy for the NSA and it might be impossible. And that we don’t know what the NSA can and can’t do means that nobody can actually know if they are secure or not, shy of going the unabomber route and avoiding all technology.
Josie
@cathyx: This. Many of the veterans who now protest war were draftees from the Viet Nam war period. They did not choose to go and suffered greatly from it. I know because some were (and are) my friends.
PsiFighter37
At Hammerstein Ballroom getting a dose
PsiFighter37
At Hammerstein Ballroom getting a dose of metal. Hearing loss is around par for the course so far.
PF37 +4
NotMax
@? Martin
As there are sugar-eating ants and there are grease-eating ants, and it is often difficult to figure out which type one has scuttling about, have found that making little balls composed of 1/3 Nestle’s Quik powder (or similar), 1/3 peanut butter and 1/3 boric acid (powder is found at any hardware/home improvement store, usually where the mice/roach control items are) and placing them in corners or behind tabletop appliances, where ants have been seen, works quite nicely as a way to get rid of them, but takes a few days to do its magic.
gbear
@Bex: T’would be a shame if they’d lost their spotted cow.
Gin & Tonic
@? Martin: I think I remember a story about Whit Diffie having lunch with a Brit retired from GCHQ who with a wink and a nod indicated that they had invented public-key encryption before R, S & A.
ETA: that was supposed to quote your “what the NSA can and can’t do” part.
Narcissus
Anybody else afraid of Russia right now or is it just me
Yatsuno
@SiubhanDuinne: Or whatever organ exists in her torso keeping her alive that we can drive a piece of wood through. I’m not picky about the details, just the results.
Poopyman
@Narcissus: Just you.
Yatsuno
@Narcissus: I’m not making any plans to visit Sochi if that’s what you’re wondering.
The Moar You Know
@Mandalay: I read about that earlier today. Thought I’d spare this crowd that horror story. Oh well. Utterly horrifying. The man’s a psychopath.
The charge that’s going to put his ass on ice for a good long time will be use of an explosive device. That’s a felony, as well as a federal charge and it is a very, very serious one. The rest of them involve minimal jail time and, depending on where he is, may well be misdemeanors.
The Moar You Know
@? Martin: Damn, it’s taken you, what, two months? Finally you admit that you don’t know what’s been done, and what can be done.
Nobody does. And if you have anything you’d rather someone not know, you best act like old Ted did and avoid any tech, period. Because we don’t know what can be done.
MazeDancer
@Violet:
It could be serotonin related. Mentioned this last night, that 95% of body’s serotonin made in the gut. Digestive and mental states are connected.
This is not a prescription, consult your medical provider or Google, but 5HTP works for me. It is a form of tryptophan available in any health food store. Helps with seritonin in the gut. It is not going to affect any bug killing.
If this is a Herkimer reaction, like as in yeast die off, not much you can do, except go slower. Less meds, less die off. You could discuss that with the doc, since you are reacting, should you take less? if is die off reaction, drink a lot of water.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh, I am so sorry and send my condolences to you and your family.
@Violet:
Please be very careful and don’t hesitate to reach out to us here so we can support you.
MomSense
@The Pale Scot:
I watched the teaser episode online the other night so I can’t wait to find out what happens!!
I am not a kook
These ants keep marching right by Grant’s stakes. I swear I hear them giggling as they go. Blackclad fascist little stormtrooper mf’ers.
Can’t burn the house down, because then I wouldn’t have a place to hold my clutter. Oh wait – good way to declutter! Anyway I rather prefer sleeping in my bed to People’s Park. The landlady and the duplex-neighbors might have an objection too.
Off to get some boric acid. Inspiration from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahBvI4pdh9U
? Martin
@The Moar You Know:
You’re talking about something else.
The ability to eavesdrop on a known target is one thing. The ability to filter EVERYONEs data is an entirely different matter. The former is not a problem of scale. It’s a problem of access and cleverness. And those things we aren’t clear about. The latter is ENTIRELY a problem of scale, and we can calculate that scale and determine which parts are even possible and which parts aren’t. Many of the things people were claiming were happening were simply impossible.
There is a significant difference between eavesdropping on one (or even thousands) of known individuals and eavesdropping on a 100 million or a billion people.
Sarah in Brooklyn
Hey, my dad is at that Veterans for Peace meeting!!
I am not a kook
@Narcissus:
A little too broad brush there, anything specific? As an existential threat, no. And I have family and friends sharing a long border with Russia. As in afraid for people who are working on building civil society there, yes.
Putin is an authoritarian asshole of the first order, but he’s not unhinged or delusional.
dance around in your bones
@I am not a kook:
I used to live on an old farm, and often woke up to 2-3″ wide and several room full of ants marching along the ceilings. What I would do is start at the end of the ant trail and spray them all with Windex or some kind of spray cleaner until I got to the entry point. Then I would sprinkle a half circle of boric acid powder at said point and would just kinda guess where the outside entry point was and sprinkle a bunch more there.
It seemed to work pretty good until the next ant invasion.
gbear
@Sarah in Brooklyn: Hopefully your dad wasn’t carrying their flag at the state capitol rotunda during the lunch hour. The cops cuffed the guy and took him away.
I am not a kook
@? Martin: This. The more data you have, the more likely your automatic pattern recognition programs flag false patterns that are just randomness.
Narcissus
@I am not a kook: Mostly the incipient anti-gay pogrom taking shape there. A.L. had a post about it yesterday, and there’s more stuff here.
Sarah in Brooklyn
@gbear: I’ll bet that was him. He’s always getting arrested.
NotMax
@Sarah in Brooklyn
One degree closer to Kevin Bacon…
Ah, foodie memories of Brooklyn. Steaks at Peter Luger’s. Fries at the original Nathan’s at Coney island. Ebinger’s and Entenmann’s cakes and bakery items. And cheesecake from Junior’s.
gnomedad
Speaking of arrests in Madison:
Wisconsin lawmaker threatened with arrest for observing progressive protest
schrodinger's cat
US citizen will make India’s monetary policy. Added bonus he is a fan of the Austerity Cat.
Angela
@SiubhanDuinne: Wow; that’s a lot of loss. I’m sorry. And I am glad you could be there with your cousin. And his family. Like the others have said, take care of yourself.
NotMax
@NotMax
Egregious omission:
Clams and oysters at Lundy’s.
Gin & Tonic
@? Martin: we don’t know what the NSA can and can’t do
FYWP, I posted this earlier, but editing a comment never, ever works. Anyway, there is a story that Whit Diffie was lunching with some retired Brit from GCHQ who, sort of wink-and-nod-ishly, confirmed that they’d invented public-key crypto first.
But the bottom line here is that if some nation-state’s intelligence agency, be it US, Russia, China has a hard-on for you, you have a serious problem. They can be more patient than you can be careful.
Sarah in Brooklyn
@NotMax: You can do some of those things, still. But only in the company of vapid NYU kids and incredibly irritating hipster wannabes.
Gin & Tonic
@Sarah in Brooklyn: Peter Luger is still cool.
KS in MA
@I am not a kook: Boric acid totally works on roaches, so it’s got to be worth a try for ants. When I lived in NYC, I sprinkled a solid line around all the baseboards in the kitchen– in the backs of drawers too, I think– and around all the places where pipes came through the floor. Never had a single roach after that.
NotMax
@Sarah in Brooklyn
Heh.
Just don’t puncture my nostalgia by telling me it is no longer bumper-to-bumper on the BQE.
Read somewhere a while back about plans to build a new Luna Park, though from the little I read, all that will be recreated is the name.
I am not a kook
@Narcissus: Yes, that is disgusting. I think they plan to use the anti-gay legislation as a convenient general cover to harass undesirables because it criminalizes not only certain sexual acts, but also being gay-friendly to the level of thoughtcrime.
I believe speaking against the law can also be prosecuted because obviously you are promoting a gay agenda.
I don’t intend to visit Russia anytime soon. Been planning to take Trans-Siberian to China for decades, but fuckit.
seaboogie
@jenn: You know, as much grief as I have been through (and it’s a lot!), I don’t remember anyone every saying something so magical that it ever took the grief away. And I still don’t know what to say other than I am so sorry for you loss and I am thinking of you. I will tell you though, that once the initial shock of loss wears off, small gestures from loved ones that reminded me that they were thinking of me were huge. In some ways, going to the mail box and finding a straggler of a condolence card weeks later was more meaningful on that day than the initial flurry was.
Any kindness that you can hold in your hand that says “I am thinking of you” (and that’s all it needs to say) is of great comfort. So based on my own experience, I once sent a friend a really beautiful soft warm pair of socks with the message that “since I cannot be there, here are two little hugs for your feet”.
I have a friend who just lost her husband a few days ago. Today I messaged her (she is in Costa Rica) to remind her to just accept the outpouring of love and sentiment (on facebook) and gather it around her like a shawl of comfort. And to rest. Grief is such a physical experience of great emotion, and the tears that let out some of the pain make us sleepy, and it makes it easier to get the rest that we need to be able to bear the experience.
So I gave her what I could, which was empathy and a little guidance from experience. I had the same from a very wise and kind woman when I first went through such an experience after my husband passed away. And one thing that wise kind woman who guided me through my experience did 2 days after my husband passed away was to bring me a box of chocolates. She told me that the experience of loss is a bitter one, and a little sweetness in that experience can be good. And I still remember exactly where I was sitting 14 years ago when I opened that box, and the sweetness of that chocolate – which was probably the first thing that I had eaten in days. I thought she was crazy until I put that chocolate in my mouth, and the tears started to flow because I was doing something that was kind for myself, and life-affirming.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
And Entenmann’s is now owned by Bimbo Bakeries USA, part of the Mexican Grupo Bimbo.
That says something, though what, exactly, is left to the interpretation or imagination of the audience.
sharl
It’s time to bring back the Cold War Classics!
muddy
@Violet: Coincidentally at supper tonight my guests (medical peeps) were talking about people going psychotic from antibiotics. I think there was some minor dementia going on already in this group, and the antibiotics turned it up to 11. According to them the effects will go away if you stop taking it asap, but this one guy was permanently hallucinating hard because he kept on with it.
Not that you have dementia, and I see that you can’t use a substitute. I just offer this horror story that I was regaled with tonight. I guess if nothing else it confirms that these kind of drugs can really mess you mind up.
pkdz
Sorry that I wasn’t able to make the Madison Meet Up. Sitting at home with a gin and tonic, wishing that I was at the Great Dane drinking an Emerald Isle Stout (but also feeling introverted). I would have liked to have met John, ask about his journey to be a foster parent, and meet some local Balloon Juicers. Cheers!
catclub
@Poopyman: cryptonomicon had a guy entering letters by highlighting letters with the mouse. No keystrokes.
justinb
@Violet:
Not widely known, but most of your serotonin receptors are in your gut. There are as many SSRI prescriptions for GI problems as anything else.
Howard Beale IV
@Mandalay: The Russians during WW II trained dogs to run underneath German tanks and remotely detonated them.
Violet
@MazeDancer: Thanks for the comment. I’m sure it is serotonin related due to the gut issue. I have also wondered about the Herxheimer reaction. I am contemplating eating a lot of garlic to deal with any yeast issue. It’s a zillion degrees here so it’s hard to stay hydrated. I’m doing my best to drink lots of water.
Ruckus
@jenn:
Sometimes a story about yourself will strike a bell with someone in pain. It isn’t so much that you solve a problem it’s the comfort about knowing that all the stress and pressure has happened to others before and they came out the other side.
An example.
I was helped by a friend discussing my migraines. We talked about a particular episode and what hit me was my last ditch thing with migraines. They have an ending. The pain can be massive and almost overwhelming but I know that at some point it will go away (Or if it really is a brain tumor I’ll die). Things change, they get better, sometimes they get worse first, but they change. Sometimes we have to be reminded of that, sometimes we have to learn it.
Violet
@muddy: Interesting. Don’t think dementia is my problem. Probably much more related to the serotonin in the gut issue. I think it’ll probably settle down and I’ll be okay, but it sure is interesting at the moment.
Ruckus
@seaboogie:
That is a nice story.
When everything is overwhelming, a little normalcy, a little nicety works wonders.
ian
@mdblanche:
Those numbers do look super promising for Nunn. However looking at the crosstabs considerable numbers who would vote for Nunn either voted for Romney or had an unsure of opinion of Nunn. Her room for growth has a lower ceiling than her republican opponents. This makes sense given the electorate of Georgia however it means that whoever wins the Republican primary only needs to unify their base to get over 50%. Getting another 9% of the electorate looks challenging, based on my (completely unprofessional) analyses. We really do need Braun to win that primary or else Nunn to run one hell of a barnstorming campaign.
Dead Ernest
@Violet:
Violet, sounds rough. Sympathy here (FWIW).
I hope it resolves soon
If it isn’t too intrusive to ask, would you identify the antibiotic and/ or the particular bug it’s intended to combat?
While infectious Dz is not my specialty, my patients tend to have complex issues and are often, sad for them, ‘interesting cases,’ thus my interest is more professional than just ‘nosy.’
Best wishes,
DE
tesslibrarian
@Violet: I’m one of those weird side effect types, too. I had depression as a side effect of steroids, very deep and fast after I started to take them. The only good thing is the antidepressant kicked in within a couple if days, too. More pills is never my ideal solution, but I swear the antidepressant saved my life. See about a low dose (or an increase if you’re already on something) that you can taper down or off in a few weeks.
tesslibrarian
@Violet: I’m one of those weird side effect types, too. I had depression as a side effect of stero1ds, very deep and fast after I started to take them. The only good thing is the [email protected] kicked in within a couple if days, too. More pills is never my ideal solution, but I swear the [email protected] saved my life. See about a low dose (or an increase if you’re already on something) that you can taper down or off in a few weeks.
tesslibrarian
And FTWP.
tesslibrarian
And FTWP. (phone posting + horrible week == UGH)
Jenny
ftw