Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

The revolution will be supervised.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Evening Open Thread: Your Friendly Local Mail Truck

Friday Evening Open Thread: Your Friendly Local Mail Truck

by | 133 Comments

This post is in: ,

IMO it’s adorable, but much more important: Improved ergonomics for the mail handler, and state-of-the-art design to protect the squishy meatsacks (kids, dogs, old people, distracted cellphone readers) who are liable to run afoul of a bulky vehicle making frequent stops in otherwise pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.

Elsewhere, the Biden Administration is working on undoing the GOP’s attempts to destroy the Postal Service…

… Special points to Rep. Gerry Connolly:

His fists were pounding. His index fingers were pointing. And his arms, at least at one point, were outstretched as Rep. Gerald E. Connolly yelled, “I’m an admitted Democrat, and I’m damn proud of it!”

It was the start of Connolly’s latest impassioned monologue, during a crucial hearing on postal reforms. He accused Republican colleagues of “gaslighting” after they said Democratic outrage at Postmaster General Louis DeJoy — and attempts to remove him — were politically motivated.

Connolly’s retort: “I didn’t vote to overturn an election, and I will not be lectured by people who did, about partisanship!”…

At the hearing, Connolly oscillated between giving Republican colleagues a tongue-lashing and casting doubt on the ability of the U.S. Postal Service’s leader to address serious mail slowdowns amid a precarious financial situation.

He asked postal board chairman Ron Bloom if board members were still “tickled pink” with DeJoy’s performance, as one GOP board member had told senators in September.

And when Bloom replied that DeJoy and the board had a sound plan in progress, Connolly said: “Respectfully, I disagree, and I hope President Biden disagrees as well and that we take action to replace the Board of Governors with people who care about the Postal Service and can be committed to their job of oversight and accountability.”…

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  1. 1.

    Betsy

    Oh please!  Don’t give in to repeating the false anti-pedestrian meme about walking while distracted.  I’ll try to find a summary and post details about why this framing is so harmful.

  4. 4.

    Nelle

    Interesting that DeJoy did a perfect job getting mail delivered, according to the Rs.  But also that mail fraud is responsible for the need to overturn the election and for draconian changes by state legislatures on voting procedures.

  7. 7.

    Jerzy Russian

    I would drive one of those trucks around.

    I hope they can kick out DeJoy (as in remove him, although I wouldn’t mind a literal kicking also), and also remove that stupid requirement that the Post Office funds 75 years worth of pensions (or whatever it was).  I would then write them a thank you note that could arrive in a timely fashion.

  8. 8.

    Central Planning

    I’m not going to intentionally click on something that will force me to see Jim Jordan.

    Since it’s OT, I’m thinking about creating a fake life hack, just to see if it takes off. Here it is, feel free to share:

    Increase the flavor of your k-cup coffee with this one weird trick. Shake the k-cup for a few seconds to loosen up the coffee. The vibrations from shipping cause it to settle and become compacted. The shake lets the water flow through more of the coffee grounds and extract more of the flavor.

    Is an almost-top 10000 blog popular enough to launch this?

    Goddamn it. I just googled shake your k-cup and it’s a legit thing. Nevermind!

    ETA – I’ve been shaking my k-cups for the past few days. 4 or 5 different brands. It doesn’t make a difference.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    Nutwatch; long read for the weekend.

    A faction of local, county and state Republican officials is pushing lies, misinformation and conspiracy theories that echo those that helped inspire the violent U.S. Capitol siege, online messaging that is spreading quickly through GOP ranks fueled by algorithms that boost extreme content.

    The Associated Press reviewed public and private social media accounts of nearly 1,000 federal, state, and local elected and appointed Republican officials nationwide, many of whom have voiced support for the Jan. 6 insurrection or demanded that the 2020 presidential election be overturned, sometimes in deleted posts or now-removed online forums.
    [snip]
    “We still have people in this country talking about civil war. I’m talking about high-ranking officials in state governments and elsewhere, talking about civil war, talking about secession, talking about loading up with ammunition,” Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert and adviser at the RAND Corp. think tank, recently told Congress.
    [snip]
    More than a month after the insurrection, Beck told AP he believes the election was stolen, and that he might switch to Parler because he thinks his posts are being censored on Facebook.

    “Parler is honest,” he said. “They don’t try to do this fact check bullcrap.”
    [snip]
    Two days after he joined the Capitol attack, Sacramento, California, Republican Assembly President Jorge Riley, posted on Facebook: “I won’t say I stood by. Come take my life. I’m right here.” Then he posted his home address, according to court documents, followed by “You all will die.”

    Riley was subsequently forced to resign and arrested for his involvement in the insurrection. Riley and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

    Experts warn that if left unchecked, this type of rhetoric could again incite violence.

    “What I care about is the potential loss of life, and preventing what appears to be a pretty massive extremist movement that is growing right now,” said Elizabeth Neumann, who was a DHS assistant secretary under Trump. “The only way to stop this, aside from law enforcement, is to get the GOP to acknowledge how they have contributed to its growth and get them to speak out about it. Things cannot continue this way.” Source

  10. 10.

    Stuart Frasier

    While there will be an electric version, the initial order is planned to be 90% gas-powered.  I wonder if Biden will intervene, given his intention to electrify the federal fleet.  The ICE version is supposed to be designed to be retrofit-able to BEV in the future, though.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    One bad but fixable issue with the new vehicles is that while they will come in both electric and ICE versions, current plans are for only ten percent to be electric. Should be much higher; mail delivery is a perfect use case for electric vehicles. Relatively short routes (mostly a few tens of miles, only a small fraction above 100 miles) with lots of stop-and-go, nightly parking at central depots where they can be charged, intent of long service life so initial cost is less important than operational and maintenance expenses.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    Was going to mention something about the new trucks earlier in the week but… forgot.

    The United States Postal Service (USPS) has revealed its new mail truck after a years-long competition. The new truck will be built by Wisconsin-based defense contractor Oshkosh and can be fitted with both gasoline and electric drivetrains. But it won’t hit the road until 2023.
    [snip]
    The switchover was supposed to start happening in 2018, but the program experienced multiple setbacks. The USPS repeatedly extended deadlines in the early going at the request of the bidding manufacturers, and then when they finally delivered the first prototypes, many of them were faulty, according to an Inspector-General report released last August. The program was hit with further delays once the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
    [snip]
    The USPS and Oshkosh don’t say exactly how many of the trucks will be gas-powered and how many will be electric, just that the plan is to make both and that the vehicles will be designed in a way so that the powertrains can be switched to electric over time. The USPS says the gas engines will be “fuel efficient low-emission” but did not specify what it means by those terms. Source

    The square footage of that windshield suggests a rolling greenhouse.

  15. 15.

    RaflW

    One impact that I think hasn’t gotten much traction: FedEx has been screwing the pooch for at least 10 days now, and yet they are invoking the ‘bad weather’ to refuse refunds.

    On Feb 13, a friend FedEx’d her forgotten wallet from Minneapolis to Summit Co,, Colorado, and it took five days. “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”

    Our Blue Apron box left a Denver suburb at 3:30 this morning, and after 14 hours we were notified that it was not coming today (total distance ~75 miles). I went for a gorgeous hike today. It was sunny. Yes, wind gusts over Loveland Pass were in excess of 45 mph, but uhh, so what.

    I guess my point is, now that the USPS can take 5-15 days to deliver mail, FedEx has decided that ‘overnight’ can be 2-4 nights. Huh. And no refunds.

  16. 16.

    Betsy

    @Betsy:

    Here we go:

    https://pricetags.ca/2020/07/08/the-truth-about-suvs-the-myth-about-pedestrian-distraction/

    http://www.kostelecplanning.com/the-fars-side-distracted-pedestrians/

    https://archive.curbed.com/2018/6/21/17477026/distracted-walking-pedestrian-deaths-crosswalk

    And, on framing:  pedestrians and kids and dogs and old people don’t “run afoul of bulky vehicles” any more than women “run afoul of” rapists.  It’s the vehicles that do the killing — always.  There are entire countries where pedestrian deaths by vehicle are a tiny percentage of what they are in the U.S. and Canada — and people in those countries walk while elderly, young, or talking with a friend, or looking at the weather — the difference is in those countries’ (1) safe infrastructure design and (2) vehicle driver laws  that ensure pedestrian safety.  Meanwhile the US sees 50,000 deaths a year due to traffic violence, and the automotive lobby does its best to pin the blame on its pedestrian victims, as it has since the 1920s using framing and directed language.

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    Here in central VA we very recently went to weeks without any mail delivery whatsoever. The occasional package, sure, but no mail at all..

    The whole neighborhood went berserk contacting our senators and worthless representative, but we started getting mail the past couple of days.  One of those pieces of mail was our bill for our car that was due two weeks ago(!)

    DeJoy can’t get DeJerked out of his job fast enough for what he tried to do during the election.

  19. 19.

    RaflW

    @Betsy: Even the framing that a vehicle killed a pedestrian or bicyclist makes the person behind the wheel somehow just an ‘involved witness’ rather than the person in control (or not in control, as is too often the case).

  20. 20.

    chopper

    thing looks like it needs some big fluffy dog ears hanging off it.

    but man, if it’s tall enough inside for a mail worker to legit stand in that’s amazing. i can’t imagine having to crouch all the damn time just to grab packages out of the back. UPS and fedex use tall trucks, why can’t the post office.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    The square footage of that windshield suggests a rolling greenhouse.

    Defroster may end up with more horsepower than the engine.

    ;)

  25. 25.

    Tim in SF

    Well, they’re not all electric, which sucks, and it doesn’t have a bathroom in it. Given the fact that the mail carriers in my neighborhood often have to go to the bathroom in bottles in their vehicle because of rules about leaving their route, this seems like an oversight.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Just checked. USPS Priority mail package accepted at a P.O. in Florida on February 19th made it to Honolulu today, one week later. Yet to traverse the hop from there to Maui.

  28. 28.

    smith

    Whatever happened to that little spot of legal trouble DeJoy got into over straw donations he made to Republicans before he went to the PO?

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    @The Thin Black Duke: 
    This is standard practice. The Republicans don’t want to raise the minimum wage, but they know it’s extremely popular. So they have to come up with a counter-proposal to make it look like they’re doing something. They’ve been following this same basic strategy forever. They never do anything when they have the power, but as soon as the Democrats try to do something, they come up with their own plan. In the best (for them) case, they manage to talk the whole thing to death. They get to deny the Democrats a victory while simultaneously claiming to be just as dedicated to making progress as the Democrats are. If that fails, they can try to water the Democrats’ proposals down.

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    @chopper:

    Because the right hand drive trucks they had worked fine……

    Had a friend with a lot of China connections a number of years ago who was working on a project to supply engines to the USPS for the small, right hand drive delivery trucks because the manufacturer was no longer in business and the only thing wrong with the trucks was the engines were wearing out.

    But that was over 20 yrs ago and I’d bet that most of those trucks are now just used up. Considering the distance they go per day, that they park all night and last a long time, electric would be a far better vehicle.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    @Roger Moore:

    That’s what they did with the Covid relief bill, but it didn’t work because they’re proposal was so lame.  Unfortunately, we currently can’t get anything without them unless some of our Senators have a change of heart.

  34. 34.

    Betsy

    @RaflW: You got it!  It’s amazing how almost 100% of news articles state that a person was “struck by a car,” as if there were no driver involved.

  35. 35.

    RaflW

    @Ken: Saw the detail today that the victim’s head broke Ravensborg’s windshield. And that the AG was watching some rightwing crap on his phone screen while (ahem) driving.

    He needs to be in the slammer. Now.

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    @Betsy:

    I think the biggest contributor danger to pedestrians is drivers who assume they only need to think about and look for other cars.  I’ve never been hit by a car, but I’ve had a lot of calls close enough that I’ve literally been able to reach out and touch the car that almost hit me.  In every case, the driver was completely oblivious to the possibility there might be pedestrians around.

  40. 40.

    Poe Larity

    idk, the “air conditioning” label points to that 1000 sqft windshield. Perhaps if they wear minions outfits.

  46. 46.

    MagdaInBlack

    I’m watching Hal Sparks watch Ted Cruz at CPAC.

    WTF is wrong with Ted?  Along with smarmy, he’s really kind of scary weird.  And shouty.  Has he been in Don Jrs coke supply?

  47. 47.

    Sebastian

    @NotMax:

    Except it’s continuing this way and getting worse.

    These people are idiots, stupid, shameless, and dangerous.

    They cannot be reasoned with and see themselves as victims which gives them the justification for violence.

    Calling for sponsor to boycott is not enough. We either pressure companies to sell services to these folks (banks, ISP, cellphone networks, credit card companies, etc) or we start a shooting war. This is not going away.

  48. 48.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Poe Larity: Oh no.

    Stephen King tells the story about how he called the number of a friend who died, and when his dead friend’s voice on the answering machine answered back, he dropped the phone. To this day King still regrets making that phone call, he was so creeped out by the experience.

    Long story short, that’s what one of those photographs in my house would feel like to me.

    No thanks.

  49. 49.

    Bill Arnold

    In case people missed it, the shape of the CPAC 2021 stage is a rune used by Nazis; this version with the feet was invented by the Nazis (it is said; I haven’t researched it yet).

    Having worked with Norse and Elder Futhark iconography for years, I’m quite alert to the glyph shapes and their associations in the modern world and history.So, why is the #CPAC2021 stage an Odal rune, and specifically one with serifs (or wings) that was used by the SS? pic.twitter.com/gc4HhtGA3n— Hami (@hami) February 26, 2021

    Here’s wikipedia from a few days ago to protect against edits:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Odal_(rune)&oldid=1001892861
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odal_(rune)#/media/File:7th_SS_Division_Logo.svg

    United States
    In November 2016, the leadership of the National Socialist Movement announced their intention to replace the Nazi-pattern swastika with the Odal rune on their uniforms and party regalia in an attempt to enter mainstream politics.

  52. 52.

    TS (the original)

    @NotMax:

    “What I care about is the potential loss of life, and preventing what appears to be a pretty massive extremist movement that is growing right now,” said Elizabeth Neumann, who was a DHS assistant secretary under Trump.

    And the media keeps getting quotes from trump officials. if they worked for trump they are not part of the solution.

  57. 57.

    Dan B

    @dmsilev: Electric vehicles are fantastic for the Post Office because the stop and go doesn’t create wear like it does  on ICE vehicles.  Instant high torque means quick and very easy starts and regenerative braking eliminates wear on brakes.  This was abundantly apparent with our first Nissan Leaf.  Fewer moving parts dramatically reduces maintenance.  Dealerships are trying to figure out what to do with their maintenance and repair departments in the future.

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    via Twitter I just saw the vid of Guilfoyle twerking her way to the podium….yikes!  As one wit put it, “looks like an aging stripper who’s now only allowed to work the day shift”.

    I need to see some commentary from the national snooze media, asking, “Where is the panel examining how and why donald trumpov got his ass kicked last November?”

    Um, also indictments, I need to see some indictments for Jan 6th.  CPAC would be an ideal place to look for some of those perps, eh FBI?

  60. 60.

    Kelly

     

    @Roger Moore:the driver was completely oblivious to the possibility there might be pedestrians around.

    When I worked in downtown Portland I developed a habit of making eye contact with drivers. Especially when they might be making a right turn across my crosswalk.

  62. 62.

    Bill Arnold

    @Betsy:

    and the automotive lobby does its best to pin the blame on its pedestrian victims, as it has since the 1920s using framing and directed language.

    As a pedestrian in the US, I treat all cars as big metal  beasts controlled by homicidal maniacs, particularly at night in more rural areas.
    Once had a van try to kill me; at about 40-45 miles per hour the van with two loud guys; I was on the right side of the road (slightly better shoulder) and they were in the right lane coming my direction, and crossed the yellow line, left tires off the road, missed the ditch on the left side of the road by about a foot (van would have flipped). I jumped into the woods when I saw them start the maneuver, and hid. They freaked out and drove up and down the road for a while while I continued to hide. There would have been no consequences if they had killed me and been caught; pedestrian deaths are treated as the pedestrians fault in my area without any witnesses or evidence to the contrary. Dead pedestrians tell no tales.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    My mechanic’s shop has long been able to keep prices for us lay people reasonable because they have the local contract to repair mail trucks. Always anywhere from a couple to a half dozen in his parking lot. Dunno whether or how the transition to electric will affect his operation.

  70. 70.

    zhena gogolia

    @MagdaInBlack:

    I can confidently state that Donald Trump will accomplish more from his desk at Mar-a-Lago than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will ever dream of!

  73. 73.

    lowtechcyclist

    Ron Bloom is supposedly a Democrat, but the Republican majority on the USPS Board of Governors chose him to be chairman.  And he sure doesn’t talk like someone who’ll can DeJoy.

    He’s a holdover – that is, his term is done, but he’s still serving because his successor hasn’t been appointed yet.  Seems like Biden should do that.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    @Stuart Frasier: Two things:

    1. They can all be retrofit to be electric
    2. The problem is that you need to fairly dramatically improve infrastructure at USPS sites to allow electrification to expand.

    This contract was out for quite a few years before Biden’s goal, so it was kind of stuck. If the Democrats can successfully push an infrastructure bill, look for funding for electrifying the fleet faster by funding USPS charging capacity.

  77. 77.

    debbie

    @debbie:

    She’s actually trending on Twitter!

    So is the CPAC stage, which looks uncomfortably similar to a swastika (sorry, can’t embed on this iPad).

  78. 78.

    MagdaInBlack

    @debbie: There is some chatter that it resembles a Norse symbol that the SS used and that the National Socialists recently adopted as their new symbol.

  82. 82.

    RSA

    I’ve paid a monthly in-town bill with my online checking account for the past few years; it goes by mail because the organization hasn’t gotten its act together with online payments. My last three payments have been delivered, on average, four weeks late. It’s ridiculous.

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    @Bill Arnold:

    As a pedestrian in the US, I treat all cars as big metal beasts controlled by homicidal maniacs, particularly at night in more rural areas.

    I treat any moving vehicle as a potential hazard. I have had more near misses involving people on bicycles than with automobiles.

    And here in Southern California, there are always a number of fatalities involving cars and pedestrians trying to outrun or out-maneuver trains. The car or person always loses.

  84. 84.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Trump, cancel culture and big tech bashing on the menu

    Biden and a $2T bill moving thru Congress not so much

    w @elainaplott from Mickeylandhttps://t.co/cJa9cxU0kX

    — Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) February 27, 2021​

    I remember 2009 when the republicans and media went all out after Obama’s $787 billion stimulus. Biden’s stimulus is nearly 3 times bigger and not a peep.​

    I guess you get a lot more leeway when you’re white.​​​​

  85. 85.

    Mary G

    Report on days after #2 shot of Moderna vaccine:

    1. housemate’s quadriplegic client: nothing
    2. housemate’s quadriplegic client’s healthy husband: fever 102.3, severe chills, shaking, pain and swelling in arm at injection site, coughing, runny nose. Better today (their shots were Wed.)
    3. housemate: pain and swelling at site injection, minor fever 99.9, severe chills, so much she went to work wearing sweatpants over long underwear over tights and four top layers, extremely fatigued, joint pain
    4. me: arm at site has very minor soreness alternating with strong itchiness, fatigue, joint pain different from usual joint pain, and a dry cough

    So we know we’ve been boosted, which is good. Also glad to report county has gotten its act together and crowds yesterday were much more representative of our diversity. When we got to the table with the big laminated sheets of medical history questions to answer, instead of them only being in English, there was English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, and Arabic. Maybe one more I couldn’t see.

    It was very disorienting to see the area like a ghost town. The Disneyland vaccination site was closed while they wait for more Pfizer shots, and all the giant parking lots were empty, and all the hotels and their parking lots closed and empty too. We went east on Katella or Harbor and just after the cheap motels peter out, there was a whole block just boarded up, fenced, and shut down – a laundromat, gas station, tire store, McDonald’s and another fast food place, and some small retail stores, buildings in nice condition, just closed. It was creepy and spooky. The strip mall in the area of single family homes we went to to get champurrado, pan dulce, and other things not as available in the south county was busy and everyone had on a mask. Even the toddlers.

  86. 86.

    laura

    I’m a crank and an old and am the only person I know that still pays their bills by snail mail because I damn well feel like having the experience of reviewing the cost of living AND stamps are beautiful. I look forward to our letter carriers (Go Postal Unions!) having better working conditions via the new vehicles. I specifically want to call out letter carriers for being a consistent presence in our neighborhoods. Letter carriers are an important part of the eyes and ears of your community. They deserve our support and gratitude

    I have some Ruth Asawa stamps that are so beautiful I can hardly stand it.

  90. 90.

    laura

    John Prine was a mailman. He and Raven share some characteristics that I find admirable. They are both irascibadorable.

  91. 91.

    Ken

    @zhena gogolia: Guilfoyle: I can confidently state that Donald Trump will accomplish more from his desk at Mar-a-Lago

    She’s still hoping to get in the will, isn’t she?

  92. 92.

    raven

    @laura: He was from Maywood about 10 miles from where I’m from. I was a mail handler, total suck ass gig loading and uploading trucks for hours. We were the receiving point for the Columbia Records returns and that was extra sucky.

  94. 94.

    Gravenstone

    @zhena gogolia: I’m reminded of Anne Laurie’s vivid description of him as the product of a “Christianist veal pen”. Sounds like he is of the opinion that “his” women should be of the meekly compliant and submissive sort too.

  95. 95.

    trollhattan

    @Mary G: ​
    Congratulations to you all; almost ready to emerge from the tunnel.
    Will get Pfizer jab#2 next week and am sooooo ready, side effects or no.

    Sac’s guest billionaire has pulled out of our NLS and NWSL expansion deal so we may have had our futbol dreams kicked in the balls/ovaries. Ugh.

  97. 97.

    James E Powell

    @NotMax:

    Good article. I disagree about it being a faction; it’s the whole lot.

    We need anti-voter suppression TV ads. Where did all our billionaires go? We can’t make Stacey Abrams do the whole country. C’mon people!

  99. 99.

    NotMax

    @CarolPW

    Somewhere hereabouts is a stack of about a dozen unused prepaid envelopes with the first (and only?) holographic stamp the USPS issued.

  100. 100.

    Winston

    @Mary G: Got my second shot on Tuesday. Saw my pcp on Wednesday, bought vodka on the way home. Had arm pain, abnormal joint pain. Thursday, was there a Thursday? Friday. is that today? It’s dark outside. I guess it’s night. Yep it’s Friday. My arm has stopped hurting. Just like my first jab. Still have vodka.

  101. 101.

    laura

    He’s an adult unloved child and I wish someone in Don Jr’s life would step in and get him the help he obviously desperately needs.

  103. 103.

    Jeffro

    @MagdaInBlack:

     

    @zhena gogolia: Oh good, it looks like we’re going to get Idiocracy-In-Exile

    I’m joking but not really: they think they’re going to run it as some sort of shadow/restoration government outta Mar-a-Bedbug, the better to keep the grift going.  Oh, my country…

  105. 105.

    Betsy

    @Bill Arnold: How horrible!  What a traumatic experience.  I’m glad you had such good instincts under there the circumstances.

    Yes, police reports of pedestrian deaths are full of “windshield bias.”

    Maybe Sec. Buttigieg will be a leader for good changes.

  106. 106.

    smike

    We (mrs and I) got the second Moderna poke yesterday. Today has not been pretty, but it should pass. I’ll take it over the alternative.​

  107. 107.

    Origuy

    @laura: Have you see the new stamp by Alaskan Native Rico Lanáat’ Worl of the Tlingit Nation? I love the artwork of the Pacific Northwest people and this one is a very important theme.

    Worl said he made Raven the central symbol because he plays an essential role in many traditional Tlingit stories. Worl also has personal ties to the Trickster. He is Raven moiety of the Sockeye Clan, the L’uknax.ádi, and he grew up with tales of the cagey creature.

  109. 109.

    Kayla Rudbek

    I got through the biopsy on Tuesday afternoon and I haven’t heard anything further from the doctors as of yet.  I would rather have them take their time and get it right.

  116. 116.

    Philbert

    @raven: Ex mail handler here too. Best day was when I quit. Come to think of it, several of my best days involved leaving sucky jobs.

  121. 121.

    Mary G

    If any front pagers are reading this late and needs a new post on modern colleges, since so many of the jackals seemed interested in geg6’s view from the real world, please put this jaw-droppingly gobsmacking Town and Country article with the view from the 1% up sometime over the weekend:

    In a normal year, college visits have their own distinctive choreography, from the awkward wait prior to the group information session to the backward walk of the ­trivia-­spouting tour guide.

    Then there is High Point University, in High Point, North Carolina, which does an altogether different dance. You do not show up on campus so much as arrive. The security guard at the double archway main entrance has been expecting you and checks you off a list. Each parking spot has its own LED sign, and yours has your child’s name and hometown.

    Out behind the admissions office check-in desk is a swimming pool, the first of five in the open air. Next, the tour, during which uniformed students drive you around in oversize covered golf carts that save you from sweating in the sun. You will visit the on-campus steakhouse. The student union has a concierge.

  122. 122.

    Betsy

     

    @Kelly: Sadly, the whole “make eye contact” campaign is another victim blaming me pushed by the automotive lobby.

    So many cars have windows that are tinted and you can’t see through.

    And how do you “make eye contact” with a driver who isn’t looking for you?

    It’s not possible for pedestrians to prevent deaths caused by reckless drivers and unsafe physical infrastructure design.

    Dutch and Danish pedestrians never bother to “make eye contact” with drivers, yet they’re almost never injured or killed by drivers. That’s because those countries require traffic engineers to  do safe infrastructure design. And drivers are held responsible for pedestrian injuries, losing their license automatically in most cases if they hit someone with their vehicle.

  123. 123.

    Betsy

    @Brachiator:

    I have had more near misses involving people on bicycles than with automobiles.

    That’s because cars take up all the available space in the right of way, in this country, in most situations, and because the cars are given al the room, there’s not enough space  left for bike or pedestrian infrastructure, so then bikes and pedestrians are brought into near conflicts with each other constantly.But again, the original problem is giving the overwhelming majority of urban street space to such a geometrically inefficient mode of transportation as individual vehicles.

    By the way, “a bicycle almost hit me” is one of the spaces on the anti-bicycle bingo board.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/2aff7d/i_made_a_bingo_card_for_the_comments_section_of/

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    @Betsy: 

    That’s because cars take up all the available space in the right of way, in this country, in most situations, and because the cars are given al the room, there’s not enough space left for bike or pedestrian infrastructure, so then bikes and pedestrians are brought into near conflicts with each other constantly.

    In my Southern California community, there are dedicated bike lanes. I have a problem when assholes shoot down the sidewalk in violation of traffic laws and common courtesy.

    By the way, “a bicycle almost hit me” is one of the spaces on the anti-bicycle bingo board.

    So what? I am not remotely anti-bicycle.

  125. 125.

    raven

    @Philbert: They fired me because of “failure to disclose derogatory action” like getting a “special court martial” for some generators that fell of my truck in Korea.

  127. 127.

    evodevo

    @Nelle: ​
      Well, all the MAGAt customers I know are complaining non-stop at the top of their lungs about mail delivery lol – so THEY’RE not happy…and on the subject of those vehicles, I can just imagine the problems 5 years out after plowing through salty slush in Wisconsin or wherever how that “automatic parking brake” option is gonna act. half the stuff on our current vehicles doesn’t work, and most of them are only a few years old…

  128. 128.

    evodevo

    @RSA: ​
      Yeah…we rural carriers pick it up at the mailbox and take it back to the office where it goes into the outgoing tub and is trucked back to the main office in Lexington…and due to budget cuts, they don’t sort there anymore…so it’s put back on another truck and driven to Louisville where it’s sorted…that adds at least another day to first class delivery, and it if has to go out to another far away state for delivery, then it goes on a passenger jet, and since the airlines shut down this year, THAT’S screwed…we need the shuttered facilities re-opened, the equipment DeJoy destroyed replaced, hiring freezes ended, and additional personnel hired to handle the overwhelming Amazon load, etc. etc.

  129. 129.

    oatler.

    @MagdaInBlack:
    OH…thur’s…
    Nazis in the woodwork,
    Fascists in the walls,
    A-gonna grab yew bah th’ balls.
    Whin this war is over,
    How happy Ah will be,
    Gearin’ up fer thim Rooskies
    And Go-round Number Three..

    from “Gravity’s Rainbow”

  130. 130.

    J R in WV

    @MagdaInBlack: ​

    WTF is wrong with Ted? Along with smarmy, he’s really kind of scary weird. And shouty. Has he been in Don Jrs coke supply?

    Ted keeps trying to learn how to act like/be human — and failing miserably. He just can’t do it, can’t even ACT like a human being!

  131. 131.

    J R in WV

    @Kayla Rudbek:

    Wishing you the best of luck. Wife was there, know how stressful the wait to hear back is. Meditation and deep breathing helped her.

    Keep in touch!

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    Just want to make a different observation about mail delivery — it is totally different in the rural areas, where our mail is delivered by someone driving their own private vehicle. They sit in the right hand seat, with their left foot over on the other side to work the gas/brake pedals, and steer with their left hand.

    Tots not safe!

    They have little orange blinky lights on their roof, and warning decals about sudden stops, US MAIL etc. I’m not sure if they get mileage payments of any kind of reimbursement, but it’s a job in rural countryside, so they all appear to be glad to have the work. The little rural one-person post offices with the Myra Post Master (for example, not a real PO anymore, closed some time back as the population dropped below the level where a PO was required) all those people are very glad to have a job near their homes in the country.

    It may be different in other rural places, like AZ, where I think there are way fewer post offices, but the rural deliveries are still people driving their privately owned vehicles. Mail boxes are along the roadside, frequently a very long distance from the house the mail is intended for.

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