Today, we officially broke ground on the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of Chicago. Michelle and I can’t imagine a better investment in the city we love, and generations of young leaders who will help create change. pic.twitter.com/cmyD0pD4jy
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 28, 2021
Michelle and I had fun surprising some of the hardworking women from the Chicago Women of Trades. We’re grateful for the work they're doing — not only to build the Obama Presidential Center, but also to make it easier for more people to follow their example. pic.twitter.com/pEc1qYDDdv
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 28, 2021
Former President Barack Obama along with former First Lady Michelle Obama held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago pic.twitter.com/6T7IaWmclq
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 29, 2021
Elsewhere — Big props to my junior senator, and also Sen. Tina Smith:
I am thrilled to have @SenTinaSmith’s partnership on expanding the Supreme Court. Republicans stole the majority and undermined the Court's legitimacy. The Judiciary Act will begin to repair the damage done—and we should abolish the filibuster to ensure we can pass it. https://t.co/ocpM0yqvgb
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) September 28, 2021
The Judiciary Act expands the Supreme Court by adding four seats to restore balance, integrity, and independence.https://t.co/PTpCBF8CzT
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) September 28, 2021
… “Republicans stole the Court’s majority, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation completing their crime spree,” said Senator Markey. “Of all the damage Donald Trump did to our Constitution, this stands as one of his greatest travesties. Senate Republicans have politicized the Supreme Court, undermined its legitimacy, and threatened the rights of millions of Americans, especially people of color, women, and our immigrant communities. This legislation will restore the Court’s balance and public standing and begin to repair the damage done to our judiciary and democracy, and we should abolish the filibuster to ensure we can pass it. I thank Chairman Nadler, and Reps. Johnson and Jones for their partnership on this legislation that will ensure the Supreme Court reflects the value of equal justice under law, not politics.”
“Nine justices may have made sense in the nineteenth century when there were only nine circuits, and many of our most important federal laws—covering everything from civil rights, to antitrust, the internet, financial regulation, health care, immigration, and white collar crime—simply did not exist, and did not require adjudication by the Supreme Court,” said Chairman Nadler. “But the logic behind having only nine justices is much weaker today, when there are 13 circuits. Thirteen justices for thirteen circuits is a sensible progression, and I am pleased to join my colleagues in introducing the Judiciary Act of 2021.”…
The number of justices that sit on the Supreme Court is set by a simple act of Congress, and it can be changed the same way, without requiring a constitutional amendment. Congress has adjusted the size of the court seven times throughout its history, ranging from six to ten justices and establishing a substantial historical precedent for the legislation…
debbie
The framing of the Supreme Court as a crime spree is…interesting. It’s not wrong, but it’s certainly jarring.
AxelFoley
Second!
(We still doing that?)
Baud
@AxelFoley:
Only if you’re vaccinated.
Matt McIrvin
This kind of thing is why I like my Senators.
Baud
People will say the GOP will just increase the size of the court when they’re in power. But we can just do the same when we’re back in power. There’s always a higher number.
debbie
Imagine looking up at the sky and seeing this. ?
Baud
@debbie:
The ubiquity of digital cameras and the ability of the internet to bring the pictures to us has given me a deeper understanding of how our ancestors developed them myths and beliefs about the natural and supernatural world.
debbie
@Baud:
And what a scary place the world was back then! Maybe if it had stayed so scary, the environment would be in a better place today.
Ken
@Baud: Um, right, our ancestors were superstitiously impressed by stuff like that jet lightning.
(Sheepishly puts away flaked-stone blade and starts scrubbing chalk off floor.)
Kay
I don’t think it’s going anywhere but I’m glad they’re proposing something. We need more proposals and ideas in the Democratic Party, not fewer.
Polling on the Supreme Court is genuinely terrible. As they continue to overeach it will get worse. Justices Barrett and Thomas are all but campaigning for the GOP now, appearing with Mitch McConnell like he’s a patron and they owe him a favor. I think Trump creating campaign videos with Barrett from the White House during her joke of a “confirmation” was another lurch downward for legitimacy.
Baud
@Kay:
This won’t help with public confidence.
SiubhanDuinne
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had two or three minor but annoying episodes of accidentally allowing a pan to boil over. This makes a mess, can be a nuisance to clean thoroughly, and is generally a smallish PITA. But it’s insignificant enough that I haven’t mentioned it at all, either orally or in writing. This BJ comment is literally the first time I’ve said a word about it. Yet a few minutes ago, the very first thing that showed up for me on FB was an ad for 100 disposable burner bibs. Now honestly, that sounds like something I might buy (I never knew such a thing even existed), but yet again I am kind of freaked out at how the algorithm not only knows I’m old — I know that, and expect it — but that it knows exactly what’s happening in my world and what I need to deal with it.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Are your pans connected to the Internet?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay: kind of ironic that the Republican party was founded as a reaction to a court packing scheme. Then again the modern GOP are nothing more than Dixecrats.
Ken
@SiubhanDuinne: Ah, you must have had the Pfizer shot. The BJ advertising plugin is incompatible with the Moderna chip Which is probably why it’s showing me an ad for what appears to be a bitcoin ATM. Neil Patrick Harris, I am so disappointed in you.
Regarding the stove, I have gotten into the habit of setting the kitchen timer any time I put something on. One reason is that I’m working from home, and after I start heating lunch, I sometimes get distracted by a job-related problem.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: When I worked at the Center for Rehabilitation Technology we had a client with narcolepsy. He loved to cook but would fall asleep and he was afraid he’s burn his house down. Our engineers rigged timers to each burner and he continued on. Not the same but your situation jogged my memory.
Baud
@Ken:
Too late. He has been released.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s a great story and good for the WSJ for doing it, but I did read it and I do believe most of them didn’t know they had a conflict. To me, it goes more to their kind of isolated cluelessness – the rigidity of people who can’t make the leap from “my 401k” to “my husband’s 401k” – than it does to their dishonesty, but we’re coddling the isolated cluelessness and it has to stop.
I think they should all have to do an annual visiting judge stint in a busy municipal court every year. That can be their continuing legal education requirement. A week should do it. That’s the US justice system. They need to see it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne: OK, that freaks me out
Mary G
@SiubhanDuinne: My housemate took me to a doctor’s appointment in her car. On the way home she suggested we stop at Quizno’s for a bite. I looked up their menu, told her which sandwich I wanted, and waited in the car while she bought them with cash. The next day Google asked me how my Quizno’s sandwich was. It totally freaked me out. I look at menus all the time and it doesn’t ask me about them. We weren’t even parked in front of Quizno’s!
Baud
@Kay:
Probably cluelessness, but there should be a system in place to make it idiot proof. I don’t think a government worker would have gotten away with cluelessness.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: The link took me to LGM but with a note that the page couldn’t be found.
Mary G
I’m trying to decide if I want to spend money on this or save it for Hillary and Louise Penny’s novel next month:
Probably not. Still haven’t figured out zoom.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Did you Google for anything related, as in asking a question how to remember to watch boiling pots?
Kay
@Baud:
I agree. Especially now with all the great tech organizing tools, which I love. Embedded search tools in conflicts checks and bookkeeping have changed my life. Love all of it. Physical files still mysteriously disappear and then reappear right under my nose though, but that’s magic so can’t be handled.
The Exxon conflict that went undetected because of a subsidiary with an extra word attached to Exxon? I have questions.
Ken
Every Elder God’s preferred pronouns are We, Us, and Our.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s funny too because busy lawyers are GREAT searchers – you get really good at word combos. But then they don’t do their own research, so they didn’t develop the skill.
Spanky
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It did the same for me, but then asked me if that damn Baud had sent me there. These internet algorithms!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
@Spanky:
The post seems to be deleted.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Ah, that must be it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ken:
Ah, that must be it.
As a matter of fact, after the last episode I began doing exactly that.
Baud
@Kay:
They place the burden on lawyers to disclose corporate interests and then they ignore them. It’s irritating.
NotMax
On beyond
zebrafixer-upper.Housing market so hot, burned house in Massachusetts going for almost $400K
Kay
We had good news last week- a new grandchild. My son and his wife had a little girl. They’re remaining in Denmark for now – he just signed another contract- so the child has to learn that impossible language. We go to see her in December, covid willing. I’ve had to cancel two prior trips so fingers crossed.
Baud
@NotMax:
The market is hot, but about half the value of real estate is the land.
Baud
@Kay:
?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: Congrats!
Spanky
@Baud: Depending on where you are, the land can be worth a lot more than the improvements. Especially waterfront or -view.
Torrey
Could someone please explain what Baud’s link was? Like Dorothy Winsor and Spanky, I got sent to a LGM Page Not Found link, but the URL that it looked like it was trying to get to had the description “about time for a blogger ethics panel.” Based on the conversation, I don’t think that was the post Baud was talking about.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
No, nothing like that. Literally nothing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Sometimes, all the value. When we sold my parents house, the first thing the buyer did was knock it down.
Lapassionara
@SiubhanDuinne: I am generally a slender person, but have added some pandemic pounds. Not a lot, but noticeable. I haven’t mentioned it anywhere, even to my spouse, but I started getting “miracle weight loss” product ads, especially on FB. I’ve explained it by the fact that pandemic weight gain is kind of a thing, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that there is another, more nefarious explanation. Maybe my car seat has a weight monitor in it, or something like that. Another thing to worry about.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Oh, Granny Kay! That’s great! I’m smiling ear-to-ear just thinking about it. Congratulations!!
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Smiles all around Grandma. It’s hard when they are distant, but oh so sweet when you finally get to hold them.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: We just had a perfectly serviceable bungalow knocked down after a sale. Still waiting to see what tickytack goes up in its place.
Waterfront.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
The ubiquity of digital cameras and the ability of the Internet to bring the pictures to us has given me a false confidence that I understand things that I do not, in fact, understand, as well as a galloping credulity about faked and Photoshopped pictures.
Spanky
@Lapassionara: Don’t worry about it Maybe half the ads that come to me are for miracle fat melting pills. I’m almost 6 foot and 150 lbs.
Geminid
@Kay: The proposed expansion of the Supreme Court may well not go anywhere, at least in this Congress. I am hoping though, that an expansion of the number of lower court judges might happen. But that will be a heavy lift given Republican intransigence.
SiubhanDuinne
@Lapassionara:
I get those ads too, not on FB but on the various word games and logic puzzles I do each morning to kick my brain into gear. But they’ve been showing up since long before the pandemic poundage, so for me it doesn’t feel like the same kind of thing.
Ken
@Torrey: I can never find these things again, but yesterday I saw a report (well, saw a tweet of a headline of a report) that somewhere around 130 federal judges are under investigation for conflict of interest; as in, they ruled on cases involving companies in which they held stocks.
(And, though I didn’t find that, I did find this tweet of an adorable baby goat eating berries. Be sure to watch it all the way through!)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Torrey:
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yeah. Just a little too knowing.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thanks. She’s really cute- I was hoping they were moving back- my son calls Denmark “the Ohio of Europe” – but he just signed on to another 2 year stint so he must be happy there. His wife rides- she’s a horseback riding enthusiast- so I send them rural property listings. 7 acres for 40K! No takers in the Denmark contingent.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Oh congrats — how wonderful! I’m guessing Denmark will be pretty cold in December! :)
Soprano2
Will there be a thread about the panel yesterday where the generals answered questions? I heard an interview on NPR this morning with a Republican Congresscritter from FL, and he babbled something about how Biden ignored everything the military advisers told him to do, and how we should have kept Bagram (why are all the conservatives so obsessed with that base anyway?). That doesn’t sound right to me, not at all.
This morning I get to call our dental insurance, because when my husband went to have his 6-month checkup and cleaning yesterday they informed him that our insurance will only pay for cleaning half of the teeth in his mouth! So, that sounds insane to me and cannot be right. I found an explanation of benefits from April where they paid everything just fine. I think someone in my dentist’s office has misunderstood something, or else they raised their prices a whole bunch since April! I’ve been making a lot of calls for my mom’s stuff, and I am SO TIRED of hearing how much companies are sorry about my wait, and how I can take care of so many things at their Web site (morons, if I could do this on the Web site I would!). What I especially hate is how they interrupt the hold music every 30 seconds to tell you that all their operators are assisting other customers (really, I didn’t know that even though you’ve told me 20 times since I started holding!) and to please stay on the line for the next available operator. They must have done research saying this was the best way to do it, because most of them do, but it drives me nuts! Luckily for me I can call on my work phone and then put it on speaker while I wait for someone to answer.
frosty
@Mary G: @SiubhanDuinne:
Have you seen this? I was pleased that I’d done more than they recommended for both Google and FB. One other thing is to guard your privacy by not entering anything. On FB the only thing I entered was my name. They required a birthday – I gave them 01/01/1905.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2021/privacy-settings-guide/
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
As the old saying goes, a watched pot never boils. It also never boils over.
jeffreyw
@SiubhanDuinne:
Google sends me my location history every month to remind me that I don’t go anywhere but if I do they will know.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
So you want them to move from “the Ohio of Europe” to “the Ohio of Ohio.” Well, I don’t blame you. I hope you get to hold your granddaughter soon and often.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw: LOL, every now and then I get an alert that my car is parked exactly where I last parked it. Which I know because I periodically look out the window. They have also informed me that I am currently 0.0 miles from home, traffic is light, and I am just 0 minutes from my destination.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Not as cold as here. They sent me a pix of taking her on a bus and she’s swathed in woolens. It’s like 50 degrees. She’s broiling :)
My son is an engineer and extraordinarily careful. His whole childhood was him looking disapprovingly at me for my recklessness- allowing him to go down a slide, etc.
I wanted to go in summer because they have those crazy long days but covid kept cancelling my plans. They found us a rental in their building so I’ll be right upstairs to consult on why they are burying her in sweaters.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: My husband is super-paranoid about laptop cameras and microphones. He only uses his laptop to read newspapers and research fishing, science and gardening topics, but he insists on disabling the camera and microphone functions unless they’re in use and putting electrical tape over the webcam. (He wouldn’t have a clue how to do that himself, except for the tape, of course.)
He also won’t have an Alexa or similar device in the house. I’ve always thought that was extremely paranoid — I tell him we’re too boring and not nearly wealthy enough to be worth anyone’s time to spy on, but stories like yours and similar experiences I’ve had myself make me think maybe he’s onto something…
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Congratulations, granny!
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That’s perfect — same building! Since they’ll be there for a couple of years, maybe you’ll get to visit in the summer too. I’ve never been to a Nordic country but always wanted to go. I’ve got some of that in my ethnic heritage, plus I’d like to see what a country with a sane government looks like. :)
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
When Balloon Juice isn’t spilling out the snarkage (out the snarkage)
Or reporting on the latest daily news (daily news)
Its capacity for pushing advertising (advertising)
Can drive you into reaching for the booze (for the booze)
Though your privacy you may zealously covet (-lously covet)
The algorithms have their own sly plan (own sly plan)
Ah, no matter if you mutter to them “shove it” (to them shove it)
A com-men-ter’s lot is not a stealthy one
.
:)
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: In my parents neighborhood, they started knocking them down 20-25 years ago and putting up McMansions. It had to do with the fact that the Zip Code their very modest middle class neighborhood was in became the wealthiest ZC in the state of Misery. I hated watching it happen, my childhood being erased, but it’s just the way things are.
I haven’t been back since the old man died, no reason to.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: You mean one with a far right immigration policy. Where the “wrong kind of immigrants” are penalized and ghettoized.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: I’m right with your husband on the electrical tape over the camera. Also with Alexa, Nest, Internet of Things, etc. I don’t need Google, Apple, or Amazon monitoring my door locks. I also have yet to use The Cloud (aka someone else’s server).
I use the laptop for a little more than he does, though … like for everything.
Steeplejack
@Torrey:
What the others have said, plus maybe also this:
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not paranoid, but I’m also not stupid.* Although I have had a FB account for years, I haven’t posted or commented or clicked through or even given a thumbs up or any kind of reaction emoji in more than a year. I check it once every few days just to see what my friends are up to, but increasingly it’s all ads and videos of people doing stupid things to cakes and picture frames and each other. I have no other social media accounts, and don’t use Siri or Alexa or any of those things.
*This is probably debatable.
frosty
@OzarkHillbilly:
I lived in Huntington Beach CA a block and a half from the beach in the 70s, in a converted garage behind a bungalow on a street full of bungalows. I’ve been back periodically, The bungalows were gone a long time ago, Main Street got redeveloped (nicely, as it turned out) and now there is nothing left from when I lived there. Even the pier is different, the older one washed away in 1998 and was rebuilt.
Some of the sand on the upper part of the beach might be the same.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
You. Are. BRILLIANT!!
And now I know what today’s earworm will be :-)
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Well, that sucks. I didn’t know about that; I meant their generous social welfare policies. But honestly, sometimes it seems like the two go hand in hand more often than not…
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: My mother’s cousin lived in Santa Monica for decades – I think they bought their house in the 1950’s. We went to visit them in 2009. He said that when he died his son would probably sell it to a developer who would tear it down and build a much larger house on the lot. That was what had happened to most of the houses on their street. He said the lot alone would probably be worth over $2 million! Their house was a modest one, a 2-bedroom, 2-bath bungalow.
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne:
I post infrequently on FB (except for the same pictures you see in OTR) and I comment a couple of times a day. But like you, the feed is increasingly irrelevant. At least a third is ads or those awful clickbait password-fishing memes.
Worse, most of my friends that I signed up to stay in contact with don’t post or left and I’m left with former co-workers and the people from high school I don’t really care about. I expect I’ll pull the plug in a year or so.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: I don’t have a camera on my computer at home. I keep a Post-It over my camera at work when I’m not using it. I’ve heard that people can hack them and spy on you, maybe even turn the microphone on. I figure, better safe than sorry.
Just Chuck
Expanding the supreme court would mean changing something in this government and/or society. You’ll pardon me if I don’t hold my breath as if that were even the faintest fucking possibility in this country anymore.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: James Joyner was not impressed with their testimony:
I just went thru a month of voice mail hell with a sawbones’ office on scheduling my shoulder surgery: “Leave a message and we will call you right back.” It never seems to occur to them that they fucking can’t call me back. (i blame cell phones)(which don’t work where I live)
Finally had enough and went into the rural clinic for some face to face conversation with an actual honest to Dawg human being. Baddabing baddabong, I am now scheduled for this long overdue surgery on Nov 3rd. I have people from 3 different offices calling to get me what I need done done, writing scripts, setting up blood tests etc etc.
Still a month away but at least I now have a date.
Finall
SiubhanDuinne
Okay, it’s definitely time for coffee! Just got an email from the NY Public Library shop.
They were promoting Bookish Jewelry. Which my mind read as Jewish Bookery.
Where have you gone, Reverend Spooner? A nation learns its tonely eyes to you…
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ve tried to explain to people who want Scandinavian style Democratic Socialism that it works there because they are homogeneous countries. In Norway as well, they have not integrated immigrants, especially Muslims, well at all.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
My ThinkPad (T480) has a sliding tab to cover the webcam built in. Convenient! (Immediately deployed and not touched since.)
Torrey
@Ken:
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Thank you both for the summary, which told me what I needed to know. I didn’t realize I also needed to know about the goat and the berries, but I definitely did. That made what promises to be a hectic day much better.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Some limber-limbed Kevin Kline to brighten the mood.
;)
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: If the point is that we have to choose between having a generous social safety net or a diverse society, I disagree. It will most definitely be a heavier lift, but I think it’s something Americans can reasonably aspire to, assuming we survive the current fascist putsch as a democratic republic.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I get page not found when I click that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of nurses refusing to be vaccinated. My mother was pointing out one of her sisters was a nurse, smoked like a chimney, was regularly admonished by the doctors for doing that and she died from lung cancer, to no one’s surprise (my earliest memory of that aunt was watching her smoke on cigarette after another in horror) So, nurses are capable of stupid.
Soprano2
Well, I called the insurance and then the dentist’s office. The dentist’s office said that what he had was a scaling treatment where they have to numb your mouth, so they can only do half at a time, which makes sense. So now I have to tell hubby what I found out and ask him if they told him that. I’m starting to worry about him a little; last night he told me he had a dentist appointment tomorrow, when what he has tomorrow is a doctor’s appointment. Did he forget he went to the dentist yesterday? This is the last thing I need, to be worrying about him. I hope it’s just that he’s getting older.
The Moar You Know
Don’t know why y’all are so freaked out about Google and Facebook spying on every aspect of your lives when they have told you up front that they would do so.
Denali
@Kay,
Know you will have a wonderful time with your new granddaughter. We are trying to figure out when it will work out to visit our granddaughters in Hungary.
NotMax
@NotMax
And … manged to screw that up royally. It’s the delightful Tony Azito, not Kline.
(3:45 a.m. plus a couple of double martinis in action.)
Steeplejack
@Denali:
Maybe you could sign up for the CPAC conference next year and get a travel package discount.
Denali
I was all for keeping my location to myself until in a senior moment I lost my ipad and learned that if I had not turned off the location monitor, I could have found it with Google search.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: We have now watched three episodes of The Chair. It has somewhat improved, as the rom-com aspect is kind of charming. Holland Taylor is hilarious.
But EVERY SINGLE THING about life in the university is ABSOLUTELY WRONG
ETA: With the sole exception of the IT help desk. That looked spot-on.
Denali
@Steeplejack,
I thought of that, but I don’t want to be on the same plane with those people because they probably are not vaccinated.
Jeffro
Love the SCOTUS expansion bill – it’s well-justified, long overdue, and as a special bonus, the howling from the GQP will be ultrasonic.
Hey, y’all better do something with the power voters gave you, Dem Reps and Senators. (Actually, many somethings). Fight for us or get out of the way.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: As we are deep in the process of saving our 100+ year old rental!!!
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Shall again recommend Toc Toc on Netflix as an entertaining diversion.
First time Mom went out of her way to call me up immediately after to say thank you for alerting her to it. (Second time was when Captain Marleau was available a while back as an only for the month watch on Prime.)
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
No, we just have to be honest about it.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Glad you cleared that up! It’s a charming performance (great Keystone Kops khoreography!) but I kept questioning my own memory of Kevin Kline (”Wow, he’s really changed! I don’t remember his ever looking like that! And it’s not the voice I remember, and anyhow, he played the Pirate King, right? So what’s this production? Huh?”) Never occurred to me to question NotMax’s accuracy.
gvg
@Soprano2:
I just tried the post it note and discovered my work computer apparently uses the camera to know when to change the brightness. a sticky note caused the monitor to go greyer and dimmer and with my eyesight that is unacceptable. I suppose it is some kind of night time mode.
I recall my employers ergonomics/worker help unit told me that many people preferred dimming their office lights because the computer monitors today gave off so much light…I tried it and it was horrible. Must be nice to have young eyesight.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: For some reason, we only watch things that are in English. I get a million recommendations for shows in German, French, etc., and I just don’t feel like watching them.
Maybe because I do language for a living. It feels too much like work. I’ll constantly be analyzing the mistakes in the subtitles.
Baud
@Jeffro:
What’s going on in Virginia? I’m reading that polls have tightened.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t.
:)
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: The thoughtful @Mangy Jay has put up some interesting analysis of strategic and tactical aspects of the question of linking the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill with the Reconciliation bill. As she admits, she goes back and forth on the tactics. But Ms. Jay is certain that proponents of the reconciliation “human infrastructure bill can best frame it’s elements as investments that will be as productive as those of the physical infrastructure initiatives.
Steeplejack
@gvg:
Assuming you are on Windows (because work computer), you can turn night mode off. Go to Settings (or Windows key + I), click on System and, under Display, click to turn Night light on or off.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: For example, I was just watching a film of a Russian novel that I’ve given to my students. A character says, “They’ll take a frog, cover it with sugar, and eat it.” The subtitles say, “I just took a dump in the food and covered it with sugar.” I think somebody was having some fun.
topclimber
@Betty Cracker: Sounds like my son. He forbade me and/or the Miz from getting on facebook. Tis a good lad he is.
leeleeFL
This was a reply to Ken’s genius post about the chips in the vaccines BS! Holy shit, I laughed right out loud at this! Truly funny, sly and clever! You win the Internets this AM!
leeleeFL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The link also took me to LGM, and McAfee warned me they were blocking some stuff that they considered dangerous! Comments from anyone who might know why are appreciated.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: It all boils down to, people are kind to their kind. Wish it were not so but as a species that’s where most people are. And it makes question the people pushing Scandinavian countries as an ideal, conveniently overlooking their troublesome immigration policies while only focusing on economics.
By people, I mean political actors like senators and Congressional representatives and those who comment and report on politics for a living.
Geminid
@raven: How does the old framing look? Last year a friend renovated the half* of her house she rents out through a couple short term rental outfits. The framing was really strong. Sawyers had good trees to mill back in 1900.
* Joan’s house is actually two houses. One was moved and attached to the other in 1920. It’s in the Belmont neighborhood, a half mile Southeast of downtown Charlottesville. It was white working class back in the day. Now it’s white gentry.
Jeffro
@Baud: Nobody really knows for sure, but most of what I’ve seen has McAuliffe up by a few points.
I think Northam was up by 5 in 2017 and ended up winning by 10? Biden won VA by 10 as well.
trumpov’s constant endorsements of Youngkin, as well as Youngkin’s anti-vaccine-mandate stance probably aren’t helping ol’ Glenn out much. Last night at their debate, Chuck Todd of all people made Youngkin look like a fool by asking if Youngkin was also against measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination mandates (which of course are already in effect in public schools).
Anyway, Youngkin’s main point against McAuliffe is that he’ll end Virginia’s anti-union “right to work” laws…McAuliffe’s main point against Youngkin is that he’s trumpov lite.
trnc
Seems optimistic to think it’s complete.
raven
@Geminid: The framing is fine. The floors and the joists have been replaced and the kitchen/bath/pantry are being reconfigured. Our neighborhood is similar. It’s historic but many of the big houses were divided into apartments and they are now being reclaimed. There are a couple of huge mansion types but also, like our two, old mill houses that have stood the test of time except for the powder post beetles!!!
Fair Economist
@SiubhanDuinne: Also in the creepy department, I sometimes can tell that my son or husband has been interested in something because *I* get ads for it.
Old School
@Baud: It’s been covered with Watergirl’s next post, but Baud’s LGM link works now.
Geminid
@Baud: The Virginia polls seemed to be showing a consistent mid single digit lead for McAuliffe. I think Democratic complacency is the only way Youngkin can win. He is running a soft-right campaign that basically consists of so many platitudes, and not pushing policies like restricting women’s health rights or rolling back gun safety. These might rile up Democratic voters. The one issue I hear Youngkin pounding in radio ads is crime.
Just Chuck
One reason I’ve been moving into the Apple ecosystem is because they’ve gone all-in on privacy: with every app that does “sign in with Apple” (basically all apps that do a sign-in) you can opt to use either your real email or an anonymized one relayed through a randomized apple address. Apps that use your location can only do so at most while they’re actively running in the foreground, and it takes going into the settings to make it otherwise. Everything that does history tracking uses an anonymized ID, and they sell absolutely none of that to third parties. And texts between iDevices (the ones in blue bubbles) have always been end-to-end encrypted.
I still have some issues with Apple’s walled garden, but these days I’m willing to make the tradeoff for privacy.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
This is obtuse though. They aren’t pushing the exact and comprehensive policy of the countries as a goal- they are talking specifically about the social welfare programs. I don’t do it because I don’t think it’s all the same thing- Denmark has 6 million people- it’s tiny, so not really revelant to the US but conflating their position on health care with their position on immigration is just not accurate.
If I say I want the Canadian health care system I’m not endorsing everything Canadian, not requesting the United States become Canada. I’m talking about health care.
AxelFoley
@Baud:
*fist pump*
YES!!!!
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
This would apply to so many countries. Many, many countries have more restrictive immigration policies than the US and this is always put in context- an example of American exceptionalism in a good direction.
It doesn’t mean I can’t admire the German labor/management arrangements. I do admire that. I think we should adopt parts of it.
Torrey
@Steeplejack:
Thank you! Right up there with baby goats as a day-brightener. Since the start of COVID, my watchword has been “some progress has been made,” usually adding “of a sort.” This definitely is at least “some progress.” I hope it has legs.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne:
@Baud:
man, I’ve heard of the Internet of Things, but that is just ridiculous.
That said, I am seriously freaked, like SD, about some of the ad choices that have showed up during my ‘net surfing, because yeah…they seem oddly apropos to stuff I have thought about but not talked about.
(tho’ why my BJ ads have suddenly showed up in German *may* be related to searches I’ve done with regard to Max Frisch, a German-speaking Swiss playwright.)
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
If it’s actually something else, if the issue is a belief that the US can’t have a robust social welfare system because people won’t pay for benefits that go to “out” groups then that’s a belief a lot of people have but the people pushing social welfare policy don’t buy it. They have a different theory. They think social welfare can co-exist with the American system and we DO have a lot of social welfare programs that co-exist with the US system and actual population (which is not like Denmark’s) so it’s not an outlandish belief. To them it’s just “progress”.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Please check Bernie Sanders, the self proclaimed Democratic Socialist’s record and rhetoric on immigration before he ran for President in 2016.
Crying at the southern border and then voting against giving visas to Afghan translators is what another Democratic Socialist in Congress did recently.
I judge people by what they do not just by what they say.
J R in WV
@leeleeFL:
A similar thing happened to Wife yesterday when she went to LGM…
When I set up Wife’s new laptop, I told it to warn her if she traveled on the ‘Net to a site that didn’t use “https” for it’s internet adddress — the s on the end there is for security, net data is encrypted, not so for http addresses. When she went to LGM yesterday she got that warning and asked me WTF.
I told her to just click on ignore this warning to see LGM, and when she got there, sure enough LGM was using https state of the art ‘net security mode. No explanation for how this came to be, though. IT’s so complex now no one can explain some of the F’kups.
planetjanet
@frosty:
I loved this article from the Post and consider it a public service. I went through the stuff for FB. With regards to ads, they pointed me to specific marketers who had me on a list. My feed has been infested with meme posing seemingly innocent questions which still add up to a profile on you. I painstakingly went through the list and deleted every marketer, must have been a couple hundred. My feed is much more quiet. Worth the time.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Congratulations on becoming a grandma and I hope you have a great trip to Denmark.
Jeffro
@Geminid:
Yup. He’s trying the Bob Good (and other VA GQPers’) strategy: “testimonials” from law enforcement about Youngkin = good, McAuliffe = Satan. Lots of ‘defund the police’ nonsense.
leeleeFL
@J R in WV: Many thanks! I was concerned about it. Feel less so now!
James E Powell
@Kay:
He is and they do. Without Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, Thomas is just a darkly comic footnote, a bitter old crank wailing and gnashing his teeth in dissents.
Instead, he is planning on writing the opinion that declares all the civil rights acts to be unconstitutional.
aaall
Four makes it 7 – 6. There’s only one bite on this apple so make it count. Add nine Justices and six Circuits with sufficient members to make each with a Dem majority. Oh, and set 18 year terms for Justices.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Baud:
There are higher numbers and then there are higher, reasonable, numbers.
In my opinion it would be smarter and more reasonable to raise number of justices by six – to 15. Create two more court circuits if you have to.
Raising the number to 13 would give Democrats just 1 more seat on SCOTUS.
Republicans will break that as soon as they have power again. Block a Democratic nominee. Wait for a GOP president. Give the Republican president the seat, then add two more. And now the GOP has a three seat lead again.
We should raise it to 15 seats and gives ourselves a 3 vote margin on the bench.
Yes, the GOP will try to break it as soon as they can, just as above – but it will take longer. And they’ll have a harder time justifying raising the seats to 21 – as they would have to if they wanted to overcome a 3 seat margin, instead of just a 1 seat margin.
13 seats just doesn’t cut it. We need to raise it to 15.