Live shot of my energy levels each day pic.twitter.com/dyBZ8g9KJY
— Elizabeth Picciuto (@epicciuto) September 30, 2021
just feels like everybody is over everything including each other
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) October 7, 2021
There’s this, though…
Today marks nine months since the Capitol riots. Where the prosecution effort stands:
– 630 people federally charged (2 have died)
– 96 guilty pleas
– 12 sentenced
– 73 people in pretrial custody/awaiting a detention hearing (+5 where I haven't confirmed their status yet)— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) October 6, 2021
No, the history books will give a full accounting here.
Political historians have our flaws, but a narrow focus on the presidency to the exclusion of other key actors like Congress really isn't one of them. https://t.co/ZMeqkUgAUc
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) October 6, 2021
The idea that history will forget Congress is dangerous, not just because it lets Congress think it can do anything and escape blame in the long run, but because it encourages journalists — who should be holding them accountable *right now* — to shrug and say it won't matter.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) October 6, 2021
(Glenn Kessler isn’t a journalist, he’s the Washington Post ‘fact checker’, because anything more complicated than assigning ‘pinocchios’ is beyond his abilities.)
Matt McIrvin
Well, there are the books of serious history, and the books approved by Texas school boards.
Baud
I must be the only one left who’s still in a good mood.
Maybe it’s because I’m more normie now, or maybe it’s because I always understood this would be a decade long struggle, at best.
Baud
I also don’t remember this much hyperventilating about the debt ceiling when the Republicans were playing games with it in the past. Some, but not this level of hysteria.
Gvg
@Baud: i do. It actually seems like there is less hyperventilating than i remember in the past, like we have been numbed by repetition.
Baud
One of the structural problems we have is that Republicans are easily motivated by hate, while Democrats are easily depressed by life.
Not sure what to do about that.
Baud
@Gvg:
Fair enough. I’m not going to treat my imperfect impressions as historical fact.
Kay
Baud
@Kay:
?
A GOP convert is probably the best we can do in OK.
debbie
@Gvg:
Hyperventilation is magnified by social media which makes it feel like there’s more of it. To me, that’s even worse.
Baud
@debbie:
Yeah, social media does to democracy what rubbernecking does to the flow of traffic.
Spanky
@Kay:
I’m not sure what to make of that. Part of me says “Good! Somebody with name recognition and a decent chance.” The other part of me wonders about the sad unremembered OK Democratic Party.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m glad to hear other people are irritable too. I was afraid it was just me and I was turning into an old lady who was mad the world wasn’t conforming entirely to her desires.
Spanky
@Spanky: Plus, I don’t see much chance for riding coattails there.
Kay
@Baud:
I want state level Democrats to engage on the education culture wars. I think they could win that war.
Just go head-on- “these people don’t want heath and safety rules in schools- good idea?”
I feel like the video of Trumpsters screaming “sheep!” at 2nd graders are very positive for us.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: I’d lost track of who the governor of OK was. I thought it was still Mary Falin, who, according to a friend who interacted with her, was venal and crazy.
MagdaInBlack
We had 4 years of tfg chaos, going on 2 years of covid chaos, the Insurrection and the continued nonsense surrounding that, and now we watch Mitch play his usual obstructionist bs games.
I know all of this has made me just a wee bit edgy
OT but also too: on top of a parts shortage, the body shop biz now has a paint supply shortage. This means we have shops full of cars in various stages of repair, and we CAN’T PAINT THEM.
Kay
@Spanky:
She won’t really run as a Democrat. That’s not how it’s done. She’ll run as a practical, hard working person. She actually has a pretty good track record running state wide.
Baud
@Kay:
I trust you. I’m a little jaded on things that should work.
debbie
@Kay:
I agree. They should also be outed as crisis actors who have no children in that school district
ETA: And I am heartened that Alex Jones has finally had to face his own music. May he be the first of many.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am thankful for an administration that is not actively trying to kill me.
Baud
Honestly, we should jettison all the talk about Dems fighting more if we’re not prepared to accept casualties and even defeat. That’s what’s at risk with any fight.
Kay
@MagdaInBlack:
Banning abortion hit me hard. I knew they would do it, but I’m shocked at how little attention it got and how the general media reaction was “let’s cover Justice Barrett’s campaign speeches!” . Because we don’t hear enough from the far Right judges. Like they’re some tiny marginalized group who never get a hearing. Ludicrous.
NOT disappointed in the Democratic base- there were 600 marches last week. I’m not blaming our base.
Matt McIrvin
I think Erik Loomis recently said we shouldn’t trust in the judgment of history because he didn’t think there was going to BE a discipline of history in the future. He thought it was going to be wiped out by universities funding nothing but STEM.
Baud
@Kay:
Not that it’s over, but did you see the good opinion yesterday?
Barbara
Glen Kessler is a self-owning dupe. His so-called fact checking is not much more than a ludicrous exercise in overdetermined whataboutism. And the biggest untruth is the idea that he is checking actual facts at all, rather than evaluating opinion claims (like the one he’s making in that fact-free tweet). Stopped reading a long time ago.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Loomis is much better at explaining the past than predicting the future.
Kay
@debbie:
I think people – especially parents- are exhausted and the last thing they want are Trump rallies being held in schools. I also think the teachers and administrators who have been fired for (alleged) related-to CRT speech are on the whole admirable, earnest people who would engender sympathy.
It’s a good fight for us.
Baud
@Barbara:
That last tweet by Kruse is on point.
Kay
@Baud:
I did- for some reason I couldn’t load it so I read Angry Black Lady’s analysis which was solid and also very funny. She went line by line on Twitter :)
I think the deputized Right wing activists as state agents is interesting and will probably be pursued.
debbie
@Kay:
It is good, mainly because our opponents are out-and-out liars. I think what’s happening to Jones should also be happening to Glenn Beck and the other peddlers of this lie.
MagdaInBlack
@Kay: Oh that one got me pretty good too. The hits just keep on coming, don’t they
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: My worry is that we really need to be preparing to defend ourselves in a shooting war as a backup to all of this political fighting. And I don’t even see how we can do it. It would involve starting to think like an insurrectionist organization, and the other side are the ones that that comes naturally to. They’ve got nearly all the cops and a majority of the military too. Their chuds are starting to openly gloat about killing us all in the future. How do you deal with that?
Kay
@debbie:
That’s a good and true connection- the line leading from Alex Jones to adults screaming “sheep” at 2nd graders. That is a connection.
Baud
@Kay:
I miss her. Almost makes we want to use Twitter.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
You and I are probably not going to be in the trenches, but just because our side doesn’t bring guns to McDonald’s doesn’t mean we should buy into the right wing lie that we will be weak and passive if the times call for us to use force.
But given that we’ve won the last two national elections, I think obsessing over an armed defense now is a sign of mental weakness. YMMV.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gvg: Same here.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
If you want to do something productive, help out Virginia Dems. Pills indicate our voters there are getting a little passive.
Jeffro
@MagdaInBlack:
Same here. Â It’s like every time we clear a hurdle, something else comes along and drags things out.
The past 12-18 months have been the toughest because we keep getting glimmers of hope and then some soul-sucking virus (and also Covid, not just Ron DeSantis) comes along and gives us no respite from it all. Â trumpov’s 4 years were easy, comparatively, because it was just “keep your left up and keep swinging”
MomSense
@Baud:
We could always stop caring.
sigh.
debbie
@Kay:
Another Scott posted a section of the opinion last night. I don’t know where it falls within the full opinion, but at the end of his quote was this:
Am I correct to read this as a mic drop at the Supreme Court? If so, I love it!
MomSense
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
You are definitely not alone.
Baud
@MomSense:
Way ahead of you.
Baud
@debbie:
Yes, and the Fifth Circuit.
raven
I went for my 5 month check in with my neurosurgeon yesterday. Nothing has improved since my back surgery so he, like my neurologist , said “well, people would kill for your lumber spine so there isn’t really anything else I can do”! I’ve now started physical therapy with an osteopath’s shop so that’s the direction I’ll go. FIDO!
Baud
@Jeffro:
debbie
@raven:
Sorry to read this. I thought you were feeling great after the surgery.
ETA: Take a look at the book Cracked. It’s an investigative journalist’s trek to back health. It wades through many of the discredited methods of back relief. I found it very enlightening.
OzarkHillbilly
Sounds just like the Confederacy.
Baud
@raven:
I hope PT works for you.
Baud
@Baud:
Pills = polls
MomSense
@raven:
Iâve had good results with osteopathic manipulation – which is more like assisted stretching. Â I hope it helps you, too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Totally OT, but this made me smile yesterday. A young woman I’m fond of posted this pic of her and me (lurking in the left corner) during the graduation ceremony where I was supposed to put her PhD hood (mistyped as “good”) on. She’s eight inches taller than I am and was wear heels.
raven
@debbie: The recovery from the surgery went swimmingly and he was very clear that it might not solve my issue and it didn’t. It’s all good, I just have to stick with it.
OzarkHillbilly
I have to ask: What is the expected life span of a wooden spine?
;-)
Hope the PT isn’t too painful for you.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am absolutely exhausted. And so full of resentment. The pandemic and the anti-vaxxers and the Trump dead-enders, but also thinking about how the middle class is just totally fucking overworked and in debt and stressed out, while we waged a meaningless war in Afghanistan for twenty fucking years. My God. Thank FSM Biden ended that insanity.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven: Ow. That’s too bad. I hope the therapy helps
raven
@MomSense: Cool, so far I’m just doing exercises with them. They suggested “dry needling” but I have some friends who are very opposed to that!
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Yours is the superior intellect.
Khan!!!!
Baud
@Suzanne:
It’s interesting watching the media trying to make Afghanistan a continuing story. Especially after ignoring the actual war for so long.
MomSense
@raven:
I donât even know what that is!
Chief Oshkosh
@raven: Been through similar; good luck and maintain an even strain. The good news is that PT can have lots of other benefits. The bad news (for me, anyway), is that gains are easily lost if you get out of your PT/exercise regimen.
Ken
@raven:Â @MomSense: “Dry needling” is what Dorothy Parker did most of her life.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I like Twitter, you have to mercilessly curate your feed but it gives you perspectives that are hard to find anywhere else. The mainstream media in general and most prominent political blogs center white people and their perspectives over all else. Other perspectives are either completely missing or an afterthought at best. This is true even though the Democratic coalition is not majority white.
Geminid
@Baud: Glenn Younkin is running a thematic, fairly bland campaign intended to put Virginia Democrats to sleep. Last week, though, trump used a local radio appearance to urge Youngkin to go “full MAGA” (trump lost Virginia by 10 points, the worst Republican showing since 1964). Now Youngkin has dipped his toes into the MAGA cesspool by calling for an audit of the November election. I’m hoping the orange churl gives Youngkin some more “help.”
Soprano2
I agree. I think to normal people who don’t follow politics that much they look crazy. Who wants people screaming at their second grader at school every day?
Immanentize
@raven: Drive on. I hope they did enough to get you back into the breakers with a rod?
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Iâve said to many of them on FB: âObviously youâre prepared to kill in the name of white supremacyâ but are you also prepared to die for your ideology?
âCause I promise you, some of yâall ainât gonna write your mamas again.â
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Soprano2: With the “sheep” screamers, you can really see how they live in a bubble where everyone agrees with them. Like the insurrectionists who posted their incriminating pictures online, they don’t fear looking bad at all.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I say Blech and Blech encore.
How is your leg situation?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I thought it was pretty well established that most journalist have utterly no interest in history except what they see on the History Channel by accident after an episode of Ancient Aliens.
JAFD
Gout attack in left foot yesterday, hobbling. (Gout won’t kill you, just hurts like hell. I don’t wish it on anybody.)
Couple I was planning to visit this weekend called last night, “we’ve both got some sort of bug, don’t want you to catch it, please don’t come.”
So, weekend plans cancelled.
I click on the ‘comment box’, nothing happens unless I click ‘text’ (not ‘visual’) first. Is minor annoyance.
Hope all you jackals have better day
Soprano2
Well, it only affects women in one state (so far) so of course there wasn’t that much coverage, plus unfortunately abortion is covered as “icky” and they don’t really want to talk about the reality of it. (For one thing, you would never know married women get abortions if you only read and listened to the mainstream press coverage of the issue!)Â I was disappointed that they didn’t talk about how much of a bullshit ruling the SCOTUS made on it, because you know that if a liberal state had done this around guns they wouldn’t have shrugged their shoulders and said “nothing we can do”, plus it would have been covered extensively as “state ‘x’ is trying to take away your guns”. They deliberately sent a signal to other states that this is a way they can ban abortion without having to actually have the court rule that it’s illegal. There also isn’t enough discussion about how they’re going after certain kinds of birth control if they can get the court to rule that abortion can be illegal in individual states.
Betty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That’s a sweet memory.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: A LOT of Black folks I know see Trump and Trumpism as a literal existential challenge.
I can only speak for myself when I say that Iâm determined to take as many of them with me as I possibly can.
(obviously, Iâd prefer things to not come to that; butâŠ)
Ksmiami
@Matt McIrvin: drones. Armed drones and lots of chemicals
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Jagged little poll?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So hypothetically, if a movie supervillain envisions and accomplishes an evil plan to steal the trillion dollar coin, where would he spend it?
I think you use the same material at the size and weight of a quarter while keeping it on public display, just for the lulzâŠ.
WereBear
@MomSense: Not an option :)
I LIVE here!
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Better than they’ve been since I got my first blood clot 15 years ago. The miracle of unimpeded blood flow, I had no idea the solution was so simple. Well, part of the solution anyway, a big part. I’ve still got the varicose veins.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty: I don’t miss my job at all, but I miss my students
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: My Dad used to call them “very close veins.”
I’m glad to hear it worked splendidly.
I am going to see my Mom for her 91st birthday this weekend. One of my tasks is to convince her to get cataract surgery. Long story, but she only has vision in one eye and the thought of total blindness frightens her so. Even though the surgery is pretty routine, could be done here at Tuft’s, and with a Doc who specializes in one-eyed people (yes, super sub specialty, it seems). Just too scary for her.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I learn a lot from the earnest @Sasha Beauloux and the thoughtful @Mangy Jay. And Ms. Rofer’s and Ms. Cracker’s feeds are pretty good too.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Where PT is involved, pain is good (up to a point). What helped me the most was myofascial release. Painful, but muscles eventually learned to behave.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I’m pretty sure the Democratic coalition is still majority white. It’s just not as overwhelmingly white as it once was and not anything close to as white as the Republican coalition is. ETA, not that this takes away from your main point, which is correct, IMO.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Soprano2:
I’ve said this before, but I still think that would be an outrageous overreach that conservatives would best avoid. Abortion is one thing, the morning after pill is another imo. I can see where anti-abortionists are coming from even if I don’t agree with them, but going after birth control would alienate broad swaths of Americans
The Dark Avenger
This was my response to Mr. Kessler:
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone who saw your Tweet is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Immanentize
@Geminid: I used to follow Sasha, but her anti-Fetterman stuff — which started as informative — was just so over the top that I had to silence her.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rikyrah:
Good morning!
Jean
@Geminid: How worried are you about the race?  I’ve been fairly confident that McAuliffe will win along with Herring and other Dems, but a recent poll puts the race very close, one point!  Wasserman, recently, wrote about Youngkin’s heavy lift, though. Early voting has been less than in the last election; however, I think more voters are planning to vote on Election Day  this time because of vaccine protection they didn’t have last time. The more Youngkin parrots Trumpian b.s., maybe the more voters see through his mild persona.
Soprano2
NPR is doing their best to keep it in the consciousness – I hear a story about it there every couple of days now. This was an interesting story I read yesterday at WaPo about how people in rural Afghanistan hated the Americans because all they brought was destruction and death, and very little of the aid money made it to those areas. It’s a lot like the urban/rural divide we have in this country. They have welcomed the Taliban because they’re conservative and don’t disagree with much of what they are doing, and it has stopped the drone bombings and raids they hated so much. Can’t say I blame them.
Ken
That sounds more like a ransom-it-back situation, as when major artworks are stolen. Though normally there’s a threat of destroying the art, and would anyone care if the coin were destroyed?
Maybe there’s a threat that the coin kabuki might make people realize that, as Terry Pratchett said, the financial system is largely based on the idea that there really is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, provided no one ever looks. I’ve pondered whether global warming will do that to some small degree, as the Cayman Islands go underwater — “My non-taxable money is in a non-physical bank that’s in a country that doesn’t exist any more….”
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Of all the people I follow for political/cultural content, Mangy Jay makes me think more than anyone else. Even when I don’t 100% agree, she makes points I hadn’t considered, and that’s pretty rare (not because I’m smart but because Twitter can be so dumb). ;-)
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Good luck. Stumbling around in the dark is no way to go thru life if it can be avoided.
Sure Lurkalot
I read today is the day we learn what the consequences will be for the 4 refusing to respond to the 1/6 commissionâs subpoenas. That has me a bit anxious.
Immanentize
This one goes out to Suibhan and NotMax particularly:
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Now you tell me.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: I agree about Mangy Jay. She was the person who also led me to THE Editorial Board.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Republicans seem less concerned about overreach than they used to. Their pragmatic business elites have ceded the driver’s seat to radicals whose motto is “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” I think their evangelical Dominionist component helps drive this dynamic. These people think that the world is but a stage, and the prospect of political setbacks is secondary to the fulfillment of their deity’s plan.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ken:
Ahh, but that’s what cyrptocurrencies are for ; )
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Geminid: That’s what I think about the Supreme Court
There go two miscreants
I hope you are persuasive! One of the biggest regrets I have about my mother’s life (she died three years ago) is that we did not persuade her to have her cataracts fixed so she could see her great-grandchildren, as well as other things, clearly. Unfortunately, she had had one operation on one eye that was much less than satsfactory, so she had the same fear of losing everything, but her remaining vision was so poor that she was effectively blind anyway.
Soprano2
Have you noticed them in the past caring about this at all? They are on a crusade to make “those sluts” pay a price for having sex they don’t approve of. They want things back the way they were before the Pill, when every act of sex could result in conception. To me the “tell” on this is that no anti-choice group has ever advocated for preventing abortion by promoting safe, effective methods of birth control. They’re all about abstinence before marriage, period, as the ONLY WAY to keep from getting pregnant. We’re talking about fanatics here. The Trump administration had an official in HHS who was one of these people – she talked about how most methods of birth control were bad for women and shouldn’t be allowed.
rikyrah
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Âź (@apa1906NETwork) tweeted at 6:03 PM on Wed, Oct 06, 2021:
National Pan-Hellenic Council’s Council of Presidents held a meeting today with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss issues impacting our communities and ways that the Divine 9 can partner with the Biden Harris Administration.
#apa1906network #nphchq #divine9 #vpkamalaharris https://t.co/RNIl5OkKbY
(https://twitter.com/apa1906NETwork/status/1445887385162629120?t=FRCJqlh97oKurKlPQMMASg&s=03)
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: I love the mute feature on Twitter so much because people who are otherwise an enjoyable follow can go off the rails on a timely subject in an annoying way, and if you unfollow them to stop the irritation, you might miss good stuff in the future. But mute lets you reevaluate before taking such a drastic step. I muted a ton of people during the 2020 primary and then unmuted them when silly season was over. Worked like a charm! :)
rikyrah
Really ??
The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) tweeted at 5:02 AM on Thu, Oct 07, 2021:
A Connecticut school board campaign manager told a virtual education forum that âhelping kids of color to feel they belong has a negative effect on white, Christian, or conservative kidsâ
https://t.co/mWlEQAUem4
(https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1446053195638362114?t=aww7t-XkcqaEbjnreaxwVQ&s=03)
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I just knew I had to hit that link to see a picture. How happy they look. Determined, but happy.
Amanda in the South Bay
I guess I’ve sorta tuned out January 6 and its aftermath in court, simply because we all know, deep down, no one even remotely high up will ever be punished. All we’re getting is minor jail sentences for randos and weirdos.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I will say, it was interesting some of the justices, like Barrett and Thomas, felt the need to defend their records
@Geminid:
Yeah, that’s definitely been a thing. Recently in Ohio, there was a bill that was in the state leg that would have allowed vaccine mandates, but allowed extensive loopholes like natural immunity and religious exemptions IIRC. It was opposed by several business interests as well as medical organizations and was shot down without receiving a vote. The business elites can get involved when they want to and the crazies begin to directly infringe on their interests
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: It is a really good feature to help maintain one’s somewhat even keel.
Ken
The “hiding money from the government” part, or the “convincing everyone that finance is just a big shell game” part?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@raven: I’ve had dry needling with electrical stimulation done on my shoulder. It’s fine. They use acupuncture needles so if you’ve ever had acupuncture, it’s basically the same thing plus a low level electric current to relax the affected muscles. I don’t know what your friends’ objections to it are but it didn’t cause me any issues. I’m not entirely convinced it did me all that much good but it didn’t do me any harm.
Geminid
@Immanentize: Ms. Beauloux is kind of Ahab-y about Fetterman. He is now her Great White Whale. But I have my own doubts about the Lt. Governor, so she doesn’t bother me. And I don’t think negative attacks by twitter polemicists provide ammunition for Republicans in general elections. Attacks by other Democratic candidates are a different story.
This will be a hard fought primary on the hustings as well as twitter. The result is important, as the Pennsylvania seat is maybe our most promising pickup opportunity.
Immanentize
@Ken: I tell my Int’l Criminal Law students almost every class that Bitcoin exists for criming
rikyrah
Yessss ??????
NBC News (@NBCNews) tweeted at 7:31 AM on Thu, Oct 07, 2021:
JUST IN: Pfizer has submitted a request to the FDA for emergency authorization of its Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11. https://t.co/KvyKDxOzid
(https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1446090718842347520?t=1PcP1IGXEzzvVC4nElpJjw&s=03)
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: You may be right. I find Twitter even more useful in following the news about India.
Geminid
@Jean: I think McAuliffe will win by five points or better. But that is just my gut feeling, based on Democratic performance since 2017. My Democrat friends are pretty motivated, but they always are.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I have this theory, some may find it controversial but it works for me: Pain is the body’s way of saying, “STOP!”
I’ve been thru PT before, once it even helped. Some anyway. The other 2 times… Well, the misdiagnoses didn’t help any. (4 months of pain manipulating and exercising a broken wrist, thanx Doc!) Yes, some discomfort with PT is to be expected, especially if one has scar tissue to work out. BUT…
A buddy of mine who tore his rotator cuff and bicep tendon on the job, (5 feet away and even I heard it go) (with a nightmare of workman’s comp shenanigans by the contractor, but that’s a different story) Had surgery on it. The physical therapist, in the very first session!!! retore the repaired bicep tendon. Kept telling Vince, “Pain is normal.”
Vince’s arm is now all but useless for anything more than holding a cup of coffee. There was no fixing it again.
On Nov 3rd I get my 2nd rotator cuff and bicep tendon repair on my right shoulder, my 3rd shoulder surgery over all. Afterwards I have at least 6 weeks of PT to look forward to. If I get a therapist who won’t stop when I say to, I’ve still got one hell of a left hook.
J.
@Baud: That is so true. If it could fit on a bumper sticker, I’d stick it on my car.
Immanentize
@Geminid: I have doubts about Fetterman too, and Kenyatta as well (they seem to be the front runners — Pitt base and Philly base respectively). I am just worried it will end up being a huge race-tinged boxing match that ends up with Dems really hurting themselves. Right now that is all in surrogates, like Sasha, losing their shit.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: You can even mute specific words. I have muted
T**p
OzarkHillbilly
Actually, it’s all the same damn thing: Bodily autonomy for the woman.
Starfish
@Matt McIrvin: You are conflating K-12 education with higher education.
rikyrah
Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) tweeted at 10:41 AM on Wed, Oct 06, 2021:
The biggest threat to US democracy is election subversion in GOP-controlled swing states, where legislators are vowing to contest results.
Good article by @ThePlumLineGS, pushing back on the bad argument that Trump failed in 2020 so US democracy is fine
https://t.co/fmqNttZEfj
(https://twitter.com/NGrossman81/status/1445776141030084614?t=e2D7gL9RXO82kXG0D8e2gw&s=03)
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You will get a good look at the Republican traditional vs. radical dynamic in next year’s primaries. Renacci’s challenge to DeWine fits this pattern. And now State Senator Matt Dolan has entered the Senate race. A scion of a family that owns a major Cleveland sports franchise, Dolan seems to be carrying the traditional/establishment banner.
MomSense
@Soprano2:
Iâm convinced they donât actually understand how conception works. If they had comprehensive sex education they would know but that ainât ever going to happen with the crusade crowd.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: You should’ve asked me sooner.
Starfish
@Baud: We are still in a pandemic so if we default on the debt ceiling, we are going to mess with the economy that was on shaky ground to begin with because of the pandemic.
During the pandemic, there have been a lot of fights over evictions because some of the things that we did to support homeless folks did not mesh well with a pandemic. For example, how many people were able to get overnight shelter before the pandemic? Was that number decreased to reduce spread of COVID?
The way that we do not want the homeless to have access to bathrooms is not doing much for basic sanitation, and that is not great during a pandemic. The plan where I live has been “Oh, the homeless can walk a mile or two to wash their hands.”
When the libraries were closed to the public, another place that provides shelter to homeless people was closed.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat:
That involves being willing to unfollow people you would otherwise like because they keep exposing you to obnoxious tweets by other people. It can be tough.
MattF
Now started reading The Blade Itself, the first novel in what looks to be a quite lengthy swords-and-sorcery trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. Pretty good, so far, with a wide variety of good guys and bad guys. Reading it is a form of self-care for me, and I recommend that for everyone.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Too many people don’t realize they’re even different things. I see a LOT of confusion between Plan B and RU-486.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: You’re right — if you curate your feed, you can get perspectives that aren’t readily available elsewhere. I also love the word mute function! I don’t use it often, but it sure comes in handy when the topic du jour is getting on your last nerve! ;-)
Barbara
@Geminid: In 2017, the buzz was all about Gillespie closing the gap. I have stopped being able to tell what is real and what is more or less intentional manipulation of numbers. I decided to just write GOTV postcards while I watch post-season MLB games. Can’t go wrong doing that.
Jean
@Geminid: Same is true for Dems I know! Â This is the first local election I have not been involved in, and when I have, I always had some real sense of how things were going on the ground.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Agree. I recently discovered mutingâ itâs an excellent feature.
WaterGirl
@raven: I have a friend who swears by dry needling but just the thought of that gives me the willies.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly:Â â My PT told me to stop any exercise if it was acutely uncomfortable or worsened my mobility. It was clear that he was using trial and error to identify moves that strengthened the muscle without aggravating the underlying injury.
Geminid
@Immanentize: I have noticed that for some strange reason Montgomery County Supervisor Chairman Val Arkoosh gets little attention compared to her male counterparts in the Senate race.
Arkoosh is getting support, though, from Emily’s List and a PAC that supports candidates with STEM backgrounds (she is an M.D.)
senyordave
@Baud: I think there is a very legitimate story there. Afghanistan under the taliban will be a terrible country, but it will be a nightmare for women. As bad as it was before it will be worse. And that is something that should merit more than an occasional mention.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: You can mute their retweets.
WaterGirl
@Sure Lurkalot: It makes me hopeful. Â I guess we’ll know soon enough.
WaterGirl
@Amanda in the South Bay:
I don’t know that. Â Why do you think everyone feels that way?
Kay
@Soprano2:
I felt as if it was constrained. Deliberately so. Really deferential coverage. The hyper-legalistic analysis, as if there are no practical effects, was exactly the analysis the Right wanted and they got it. Barrett said as much. You MAY NOT evaluate her work on the practical effects. You must evaluate her work only through her professed legal philosophy. It’s nonsense. I’m not constrained or limited by her preferred evaluation of her own work. It’s completely legitimate to look at how her work operates real world. I know she insists real world doesn’t matter and I’m instead directed to approach it as “originalism” or “textualism”. I don’t agree. I don’t accept her demand. No one should. You’re not under any obligation to take her crash law school course and sign on to originalism. You’re allowed to not care about her legal dogma at all.
Kattails
@Kay: the thing that boggles me is that most of those screamers calling little children âsheepâ would profess to being good Christians. Yet from my nominal Lutheran upbringing I remember Jesus as being called the lamb of God, and also the Good Shepherd. He is often pictured with a shepherdâs crook.
Some men with the right look out to dress up as such and âleadâ their flock of kiddies safely to school. Let the screamers yell at that.
Tom Levenson
@raven: you can get all the dry needling you need here.
Raoul Paste
@raven: I thought my back surgery was a failure, but nine months after the procedure within the course of a week, things got amazingly better
I hope you experience something similar
Amanda in the South Bay
@WaterGirl: do you have some secret charism that enables you to have reserve of optimism about this?
WaterGirl
@Kattails: That’s exactly what I thought of when I heard about then shouting “sheep” at children.
The original christian â Jesus Christ â who they ostensibly believe in â most assuredly would not claim these people as his followers.
WaterGirl
@Amanda in the South Bay: Nope. Â I just do. Â Democrats in congress are pissed about Jan 6. Â We have the House and the Senate, and they are literally fighting for our democratic republic, and they are not going to let this go.
And we have the DOJ that can enforce subpoenas. I am desperately hoping that they will. Â No one is above the law.
That’s the source of my optimism.
JoyceH
@WaterGirl: it honestly amazes me how the right has managed to nullify literally two millennia of Christian imagery and framing. And these are people who grew up hearing church congregations referred to as the flock.
Amanda in the South Bay
@WaterGirl: I don’t think any of the previous administration higher ups are scared at all about congressional subopenas. Certainly Trump DGAF about them.
Over the past several months I’ve become progressively less optimistic that Trump himself will ever face federal criminal charges for anything. In January I felt more like you do now.â
â
â
Steve in the ATL
@Tom Levenson: well played
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara: A good therapist.
raven
@Immanentize: They opened Red Snapper Oct 15-Nov 6 for the first fall season in over ten years so I’m hoping to get down there.
JoyceH
As for burnout, Iâll admit to being tired of being enraged but thereâs no help for it. One partyâs base is descending into clinical madness and their alleged leaders are doing nothing to stop it. Story in the news today about an anti-vaxxer who shot and killed his BROTHER Â because the brother was a pharmacist giving people vaccines.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s a thin line. . .
Ksmiami
@Amanda in the South Bay: Garland has been absolutely obsequious and lackluster. Oh and partly we are here in the doldrums because Sinema and Manchin have undermined Biden. I will never forget or forgive them
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl:Â âBecause 97% of the time it’s true.
mrmoshpotato
B-U-R-N!
Amanda in the South Bay
@Ksmiami: My worst fear is that Trump himself faces absolutely no federal or state criminal charges prior to 2024. Just an absolute failure of a constitution, society and rule of supposed law we have going on here.
WaterGirl
@Amanda in the South Bay: I think they got lulled into complacency during the T**** administration when they ignored subpoenas right and left.
But now we have a DOJ that believes in the rule of law, and we have Democratic congress people who have to serve every single day beside some Republicans who were clearly party to what happened on Jan 6. Â So they are not going to forget and they are not going to back down.
OzarkHillbilly
x 1,000,000
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: &Â @Amanda in the South Bay: Sir Lurkalot said at #94 we’ll find out today if there are any consequences to ignoring the 1/6 committee’s subpoenas. That may give us a clue as to which of y’all is right. Personally, I hope WaterGirl is, but my gut tells me Amanda is probably correct.
snoey
@Immanentize: The criming part shows that Bitcoin isn’t money.
Some local guys are about to do serious federal time. They were doing fine swapping MDMA etc. for Bitcoin, got caught when they talked to the wrong guy about turning the Bitcoin into dollars.
Kattails
@OzarkHillbilly: I have a therapist who is a PT, an ACT (athletic trainer certified) but also does something called integrated manual therapy. It is very low impact, deliberately so. Se spends an hour or two the first session just testing subtle reflexes and âtalkingâ to your body and then very slow adjustments. She works with all the body systems. Last time she diagnosed upper GI problems, gall bladder, I said I didnât have one anymore. She said my brain doesnât know that, itâs like a phantom limb, trying to send signals. She gave me some digestive enzymes that worked like a charm.
Next  she worked on the hip, told me to try lifting my right leg keeping knee straight (face down). I couldnât budge it. She did a tap tap tap here and there, try again, I could lift it a foot or more with ease.
Anyway, I can recommend the type of therapy, another friend has used her through two knee replacements and a bad tractor fall.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Betty Cracker: I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
I just have a feeling that sometime in 2025 or 2029 we’re gonna have the same rehashing of arguments we had back in 2009 about moving forward not back, and not prosecuting the previous administration when we had a chance. Instead of the ACA and what we’d trade off for a criminal probe, (since we obviously can’t do both at the same time) it’ll be BBB.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: Headline: Even Some Republicans Have Had Enough of Republicans’ Shit!
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Since this thread is about burnout, I am burnt out with talking people off the ledge.
OzarkHillbilly
From Joy Hofmeister:
With views like that, it’s no wonder she became a DEM. Probably DOA in OK tho.
patroclus
I’m not seeing the pessimism. Â McConnell blinked on the debt ceiling; a malaria vaccine was approved by the WHO, the Texas abortion ban was stayed and the 1/6 insurrectionists are about to disobey subpoenas and start the endgame which will uphold the rule of law. Â And it’s beginning to look a lot like the Dems are going to reach a compromise on the reconciliation bill which will do a lot of good things. Â After Biden’s W, Trudeau and Scholz also won and and liberalism seems ascendant again. Â And the pullout from Afghanistan was accomplished with a Berlin airlift-like precision with very few casualties. Â Glenn Kessler is a meaningless dweeb and doesn’t understand how history is actually written.
Ksmiami
@Amanda in the South Bay: Iâm not even upset anymore- just preparing for the split and decline.
raven
@Raoul Paste: Here’s hoping!
Kattails
Typing on the iPad, must have accidentally erased the âsâ at the end of my nym & am in moderation nowâŠ
OK, out, thanks!
Steeplejack (phone)
@MomSense, @raven:
Thai massage = “assisted stretching.” It was a lifesaver when I had a bad bout of sciatica.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So Josh over at TPM is saying McConnell caved on the debt ceiling. Not to sure about Semina, but that would explain Manchin – he wanted the GOP voting for the spending too so they couldn’t just turn around, attack him for being tax and spend while congratulating themselves on all the projects they brought to West Virginia.
germy
@patroclus:
(From a quick glance at wikipedia)
geg6
I cannot believe anyone thinks Twitter is a good thing. I can get different perspectives on Facebook, too. Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
I’m in the process of trying to wean myself off of social media. I have quit sharing most political posts and only posting about how shitty our media are and personal/family/friend news. I’m trying to only interact with friends and family, food and pet posts. I’ve also left several of the groups I had joined. It has made my life so much better to have fewer alerts and having the algorithm cut back on what shows up on my feed. I only ever had an account on FB and am so glad I never used Twitter. Everything I’ve ever seen there seems to be the worst possible stuff and the good is too hard to even follow due to the limitations. I’ll never understand what people like about it and have lost respect for a lot people I liked because they see it as some sort of effective way to communicate. I’m sure people will think I’m just shaking my fist at the clouds, but I don’t give a shit. These companies are hurting us as a country and as humans. They are as bad as, if not worse than, FOX, OAN and right wing talk radio.
Quiltingfool
@schrodingers_cat: I agree, important to curate your Twitter feed. Â Iâm an old white woman and I follow lots of folks on Black Twitter. Â Â I want to see things through their eyes. Â I already know how white folk see things, so nothing to learn there, lol!
I rarely comment, though. Â They donât need my two cents. Â I am so grateful to have the opportunity to listen to them and learn. Â We lose so much in our society by diminishing and marginalizing people because of their skin color, gender, religion or nationality.
Geeno
@Kay: A counterpoint to Covid-Barret: Warren Burger once commented that if something didn’t make good sense, it couldn’t make good law.
Raoul Paste
@patroclus: Well said
germy
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s an important job, and someone has to do it. Â On second thought, that should be the plural of someone.
WaterGirl
@Kattails: I imagine Betty freed you, and I added the “s” to Kattail.
germy
Betty Cracker
@geg6: By your own account, you’ve never used it, so you’re really not in a position to assess its value to others. I also have concerns about social media’s affect on society in general, particularly Facebook. But there are also people and/or organizations that use it to do great things, like rescue animals, organize community events, stay in touch with distant friends and relatives, etc.
Does that outweigh the fact that Facebook is a proven vector of disinformation that has been used to subvert elections and linked to violent incidents and civil disorder? To me it doesn’t, so I deleted my page several years back. Odd that you admit to still using that platform while slamming folks who are on Twitter, a platform you admit you have no direct experience with.
In conclusion: whatever.
lowtechcyclist
@geg6: The difference is that you can follow smart people on Twitter who are unconnected with your circle of friends and acquaintances.
Also, I recommend this approach: bookmark the Twitter feeds of the smart people whose tweets you’d like to read. And then just click on those bookmarks and read their feeds. Respond to the occasional tweet if the spirit moves you, but otherwise, just read, enjoy, and learn. You don’t have to even go to your own Twitter feed.
People talk all the time about how off-the-rails things can get on Twitter. I experience almost none of that, on account of using Twitter in the manner I’ve described.
Professor Bigfoot
@Immanentize: IÂ like Fetterman.
I just donât trust Fetterman.
The entire chase-someone-carrying-a-shotgun thing and his responses to it make me leery.
Other than that, whatâs really not to like?
THAT is what will make this a race-tinged boxing match, Iâm afraid.
arrieve
I’ve been feeling mentally and spiritually exhausted, combined with a new semester of grad school and classes that are simultaneously difficult and unengaging.
So I bought a car. I live in Manhattan so it’s not something I ever needed or wanted, but during the early days of COVID last year when things were so so bad here and my friends in other parts of the country would text about how hard it was to be locked down, so they all got in the car and drove to the beach or the mountains, I started to think of it as having a slightly smaller extra apartment on wheels.
I don’t want to fly, and I’m not ready to stay in a hotel, but last week I spent a couple of nights on the Jersey Shore in an AirBnB a block from the beach, and watched the sun rise, and ate breakfast on the boardwalk. My classes are still almost all on Zoom so I can attend from anywhere with wifi. The power of being Somewhere Else is unsurprisingly very good for my soul.
Steeplejack (phone)
Spanky
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, but the fuckers won’t jump.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: That’s why I push.
Betty Cracker
@Professor Bigfoot: Do you think that dynamic has the potential to sink the eventual nominee? That would suck.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, OO needs to try that approach.
UncleEbeneezer
I’ve been feeling the burnout pretty bad. Â But last weekends Women’s March really helped lift my spirits again. Â It was so nice to be around people who are on the right side of things and proud to say it in public. Â Plus as one of the organizers of the Caravan For Choice with Pasadena Planned Parenthood (we got seven HUNDRED cars to drive in the caravan!) I got a couple cool Rise Up tee shirts from PPSGV:)
We also went up to the Eastern Sierra and got lucky with one fairly smoke-free day of beautiful golden aspens in Little Lake Valley (just north of Bishop).
For anyone else who needs a pick-me-up, Tuesday’s PSAmerica had Rep. Jayapal on and she is fairly confident that the BIFF/BBBA will get passed in some form. Â As she noted, we are finally in the negotiating stage, and while Manchin and Sinema are frustrating as hell, at least each of them are joining in the process so there’s cause for hope. Â Jayapal is also really cool, funny and smart as hell.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: It does get exhausting. Â But when we have the time/energy, we should do it. Â But yeah, I don’t always have that.
Another Scott
@Jean: There are many more yard signs in my NoVA neighborhood than I recall seeing in the past. It started out with lots of red ones, but Team Blue is dominating now.
I hope that The Swifties help Team Blue… Youngkin’s campaign has been a disaster – it shouldn’t be close. But it goes to show that we have to fight them every single day.
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
From last nights Cards v Dodgers game: Well, would you look at that!
The look on the batter’s face.
MattF
Debt ceiling deal announced.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: II was lurker for years I only started posting on Twitter two years ago. When I found that pro-Modi voices were drowning out everything else. Twitter is a place where I have found like minded folks who worry about the direction India has taken under PM Modi and BJP.
A worry that most of family and friends IRL (both in India and here) don’t seem to share. They have drunk the Kool-Aid or are indifferent. There aren’t many Indian people (forget like minded ones who are conversant with Indian politics )where I live so its either Twitter or nothing.
In our own little way were are trying to change the conversation and counter the BJP propaganda and outright lies. A Twitter mutual who has a bigger following was attacked by these RW nut jobs recently so I know that some of what we are doing is working.
Also Twitter is important because it is the social media platform of choice for politicians and the reporters who cover them. It saves a lot of time by getting the news directly from the source.
Twitter and other internet platforms are a life line where the cable and print news has been cowed down completely. Yes it is not perfect, but it is a tool we have. What we make of it is up to us
Another thing I like about Twitter as opposed to Forcebook, it is that it is not a walled garden. You can read tweets like you can read blogs without signing onto the platform.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: It does worry me.
Itâs not so much what Fetterman didâ weâve all been fucking idiots at some point in our livesâ but how heâs not really acknowledged that as something stupid he did.
Which makes him suspect, right there.
Fetterman was my choice until I learned from Sasha (before I got permanently suspended from Twitter) about the shotgun chasing thing.
Kay
@geg6:
I like Twitter. It’s fancy, prestigious, or expert people mixed with ordinary people. I think they do a good job managing it without controlling speech or views, which is difficult to do.
But I don’t Tweet. I just lurk.
lowtechcyclist
Who wouldn’t have that look?
Impressive reflexes by the pitcher!
Barbara
@Steeplejack (phone): Have heard this joke before re: Starbucks. Assuming it is a joke.
Professor Bigfoot
I miss Twitter because with the right filtration, itâs both informative and entertaining.
But alas, one should never get into slap fights with white conservatives if youâre black, because well⊠here I am.
MomSense
@Ken:
You can lead a horticulture, buy you canât make her think.
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: The thing that really enrages me is that they refuse to talk about how they want abstinence AFTER marriage. A significant percentage of women who have abortions are married women who have children and can’t afford any more. And the Fundie response to their situation is that they should just stop having sex within the nmarriage rather than use evil birth control if they don’t want more kids than they can feed. They want to force every woman into a Quiverfull marriage
Kay
@geg6:
Part of the reason I don’t like Facebook is I don’t like how it looks. Its so cluttered and busy and ugly.
I genuinely think it’s toxic, too. I’m embroiled in this big stupid fight over a stolen van- I stupidly tried to mediate with my insane family members, where the alleged thief was to drop the van in question at my house and I would transfer it to the title owner, hoping I could avoid any of them getting arrested. So thief drops van (he did steal it, technically, whether he recognizes “law” or not) I’m away last weekend so didn’t take the fucking keys, thief came back and took the van AGAIN so I had to get it back AGAIN. I am not on Facebook so did not know there was some kind of “bounty” for the thief which made everyone madder. It’s poison.
Danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not on the ledge but I am very tired indeed after the last five years, the last year and a half in particular. The lunacy just goes on and on.
scav
Has Kessler been gently reminded that his blindingly obvious hope that the role of journalists in enabling tRumpists, Covid denialism and defaulting will also be overlooked by historians is also doomed to failure?
James E Powell
@senyordave:
Agree that the Taliban are terrible for women & other things we value, but the story being pounded isn’t the banal “Taliban bad!”
The story – expressed or implied – is that US military intervention would have made it all better if only Biden had done or not done some thing. That thing is never fully explained, nor is the 20 year shit show of fail accounted for.
raven
@Kay: Part of the reason I like it is because we probably save a lost pet a week on it.
J R in WV
@MagdaInBlack:Â â
Wife had a fender bender with our 2019 Mazda CZ30 or whatever number they gave it. It was driveable but really ugly, and as you say, no parts, custom paint.
When the bumper covers finally came in, the front where the headlights are had 4 plugs, one for each lamp fixture. But the auto chassis only had one plug — the wire between the lamps and the actual car was no where to be found!
We actually got it back on the road Monday or so. After several weeks. I’m sure it would have been the same if it was a Ford/Chevy.
Probably 140 giant freighters anchored off the southern CA coast right now with stuff that’s badly needed “just in time” and woefully late!
Redshift
@Citizen Alan:
That is exactly what they want. “Pro-life” is just marketing.
Kay
@raven:
Oh, that’s nice. Last night was funny because one of the people who were mad about the bounty had to come to my house and talk to me because I stopped answering the phone. Hah! Forced them to talk face to face.
The whole thing is weird, when internet world bleeds into real world. She’s showing me these Facebook posts on her phone and I wouldn’t take the phone. I believe her. She doesn’t have to prove it out. I got the gist. I don’t need to read 125 replies.
Another Scott
@J R in WV: Yup.
I’ve been thinking for a year or more about getting a Fuji X-T4 camera. Waiting for the price to come down a little, or for more news about a successor to think about waiting some more. Mainly just occasionally dreaming about it (as I have far too many chores to catch up on to start another hobby).
Last night I looked around for prices. It’s out of stock everywhere. Lots of other cameras are out of stock as well. Supply chains are still badly constrained, on lots and lots of stuff. It will take time to work through, but it makes me optimistic that the world and US economies are at the early parts of a sustained and large period of economic growth. We could even borrow a name for it – “The Roaring Twenties”.
Cheers,
Scott.
Redshift
@lowtechcyclist: I got on Twitter so I could sign up for NASA social media events. There’s lots of great science content on Twitter. I also read political people because I choose to, but I can drop them if they’re stressing me out. That’s what I never understand about people who declare “Twitter is a cesspool, I would never go there.” There isn’t a there. If you have an account, your feed is what’s posted by people you follow, and nothing else. You can just see stuff that’s good and useful, and the fact that there’s a cesspool out there is of no consequence, because you’re not obligated to swim in it.
raven
@Kay: Sounds whacky!
Barbara
@Kay:Â When I read things like this, I have to remind myself of how many people try to use law enforcement to settle personal vendettas. My brother and his girlfriend had an argument while they were on vacation in Colorado (they lived in Pennsylvania), and she got upset and ran away leaving him in her car. He went and got gas and came back and waited and waited and stuck around for a couple of days and looked for her in other places where they had been. He even asked the police if they could help him look for her and they told him that there really wasn’t anything they could do. It almost reminds me of this incident involving Gabby whatever her name is. After several days of camping in the same spot, and as he had finally given up and was driving home, he was pulled over by the state police. Wacky GF had reported her car as a stolen vehicle. My brother explained the situation and they released him, but this casual resort to trying to recruit the police to get back at someone shocked me then, but of course, now I see that there are a lot of people who seem to view the police as their personal protection racket.â
J R in WV
@Professor Bigfoot:
You really think those red neck haters can write? Really?
Eunicecycle
@JoyceH: and the brother’s wife!
Matt McIrvin
@J R in WV: My old Honda Fit died back during the harder quarantine period because I didn’t take it out and drive it around once a week–and, to be honest, it was getting to be Time for that car anyway (repairs were starting to cost more than the car was worth).
Things came to a head and I got a new car. One thing that annoys me a bit about new cars is that for most models, even if the manufacturer offers all sorts of colors, it’s almost impossible to get any color except black, white or gray–those aren’t the colors that most people want, necessarily, but they’re the colors that they will all accept as second-best, so it’s safe for the dealers to put them on the lot.
And these days, you basically have to take what’s on the lot. If I’d insisted on getting some other color and I had to have them order one from the manufacturer… God knows how long that would take. It took half a year just to get a sofa and a chair delivered.
I’d had white cars and a black car already. So I got a gray car. It looks pretty good actually.
Redshift
@Baud:
I think the difference is that previously, McConnell or the occasional back-bench bozo had demands for what they wanted in return for the debt ceiling hostage (often stupid demands, but still.) This time they’ve become nihilistic enough that McConnell doesn’t want anything, he’s only trying to damage Democrats politically. He wants them to waste reconciliation (and the time it takes), and he wants Democrats alone to put a number on how much they’re raising the debt ceiling so they can use it in attack ads.
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: I always get a dirt-colored car.
artem1s
@Gvg:Â â
for me it’s a matter of listening to the GQP cry wolf one too many times. they always do this. pick something to flog to death until their base and/or the media just becomes numb to that particular message. until TFG and then there was a whole new level of anxiety to adjust to on everything. this is just one of the many ways that the GQP has completely broken their brand. they are getting a rise out of fewer and fewer people and running out of new issues to rile up the base. the attacks against mail in ballots is a perfect example of how few tricks they have left. they have a couple of decades to flog the Clenis, and a few after that to hammer on Obummer. By that time none of their base will remember their own names let alone be able to decipher whatever dogwhistle is making the rounds.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Soprano2:
Wondering if this is related to the weird incident obsession with virginity.
Speaking just for me, itâs a lot more fun when your partner knows their way around the tingly spots.
germy
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: I’ll still push back, but not because I think I will convince the pessimists to change their minds. That’s a lost cause. Reminding others that everyone doesn’t share that view is another thing though.
Sure Lurkalot
Iâm a Twitter lurker (big surprise) and there are some people I âfollowâ unsubscribed. There is good content to be sure.
But it certainly can be a cesspool. And it has addictive qualities. People who get put in Twitter jail or have an account suspended seem to go into anaphylactic shock when they canât shoot off pithy quips. And whineâŠhow can I be kicked off when fill in the blanks are still allowed?
I donât think the world would end if social media outlets were not so integrated into daily life. I think it would might a good thing if their place at the table was not so prominent.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I remember the 2011 debt-ceiling showdown being BAD. Lots of people wondering whether the United States was in imminent danger of breaking up, at least online.
Part of what made it so agonizing was that, at least in his public rhetoric, Obama insisted on treating the situation as if the Republicans were arguing in good faith and this was an opportunity to somehow solve the deficit, even though they obviously weren’t and it wasn’t. Obama was not a stupid man and I suspect he understood what was really going on but he may have thought he couldn’t get away with openly saying some things. Biden is more no-fucks-left-to-give, maybe because he knows he can personally afford it.
Geminid
@Professor Bigfoot: Fetterman’s carrying of a loaded shotgun in his truck was certainly a violation Pennsylvania law which the local prosecutor never charged. The same prosecutor made the news this Spring when he had to retract a memo directing his assistants to refuse plea deals for clients of a Black attorney who had accused the prosector of racism. That cast a harsh backlight on the prosecutor’s lenient treatment of the Braddock mayor.
The 2013 incident berween Fetterman and the jogger will be aired out this coming primary campaign. If Fetterman is the nominee, Pennsylvanians can count on a seeing a lot of Republican ads featuring the incident.
Personally, I favor Congressman Conor Lamb. Of the four major candidates, Lamb most resembles Senator Bob Casey Jr. in personal profile: white, male, Catholic, and moderate. Casey won reelection in 2018 by 600,000 votes. So were I a Pennsylvania Democrat, I would be inclined to vote for Lamb as the candidate surest to win that Senate seat. And Lamb has won three times in a purple Congressional District.
Professor Bigfoot
@J R in WV: well⊠I was riffing on Fannie Lou Hamer; but I must admit you do have a point, here.
âSome of âem wonât videos in ball caps and Oakleys in their trucks no more.â
Miss Bianca
@raven:
I’ll have you know that this has become my official motto. I don’t always adhere to it, but now I always invoke it when I realize I’m obsessing over petty shit that I just can’t change anyway. Cheers!
Eolirin
@Redshift: If we didn’t have Manchin and Sinema acting as spoilers the response to this would be obvious, carve out a filibuster exemption or tuck a measure into the reconciliation bill that pegs the debt limit at the total amount of spending, eliminating it as a going concern forever. If they’re not going to be involved, we can take away their leverage. This isn’t something that should be allowed to be weaponized.
Kelly
This is me
hitless
@Geminid:Â Lamb should be the Dem presidential nominee in 2024 IMO.
Old Man Shadow
Back when I worked retail, I would get super angry and annoyed and just generally snide and surly about stupid asshole customers.
That’s how I feel now.
That’s basically how I’ve felt since November of 2015.
I’m just pissed off at stupid assholes all the time now because they’re loud, stupid, obnoxious motherfuckers who have taken over half of the political establishment in this country and are fucking up everything for the rest of us.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sorry to hear about your shoulders. I’ve had both shoulder joints replaced, work done by an excellent surgeon, PT by my pet therapist, Dave. He’s a spinal specialist, but great working on any body part, knows muscles and nerves down pat.
Pushes carefully when stretching, knows which pain is normal and which means something. Taught me simple neck exercises to alleviate nerve pain and numbness in my hands, got my wife’s legs working after her knee replacements, etc. Once you find a good specialist, I stick with them as long as they still do the work.
Rotator cuff work is tricky, best of luck !!
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): I hope that was supposed to be funny â because I laughed out loud.
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: I figured gray might be closer to dirt-colored than the other alternatives on offer. Of course, in the winter around here you should get the road salt washed off frequently anyway.
James E Powell
@Matt McIrvin:
There was that, but I think also that Obama and his team were betting they could get a handful of Republicans to come their way. They lost that bet. Obama talked about the fever breaking. It never did, still hasn’t.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes! Â It can help stem the tide of panic and despair, which are contagious.
Kay
@Barbara:
That is true, they do, but for these people I was trying to avoid the self help personal vendetta resulting in a crime. In another crime. Besides the car theft, which we can handle.
My assistant is married to a cop and he joked this morning “why didn’t you tell me a truck was stolen from your house?” Law enforcement all read Facebook.
Duh, Jeremy. Why indeed. Tell him NOTHING :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Everyone at OCS kept a gold bar (Second Lieutenant rank insignia) pinned inside their patrol caps. It was their FIDO bar. The motivation to keep going through whatever shit was currently going on.
Omnes Omnibus
@hitless: Have you forgotten about Biden?
Soprano2
This is exactly what they wanted, for the affected women to be invisible and instead for the fight all be over the legal philosophy. Somehow when they think only women are affected (it’s not true though, men’s lives are also affected by this) the affects are seen as incidental and unimportant by most of the press.
Professor Bigfoot
@James E Powell:
And that fever wonât break. The disaffected segregationists who joined them after CRA64 and VRA65 and with âwelfare queensâ Reagan are now thinking Gilead sounds good to them.
Geminid
@hitless: Maybe Lamb and Stacey Abrams will fight it out in 2032. They are both young enough. But first Lamb has to get elected as Senator, and Abrams has to be elected and reelected as the best Governor in Georgia history.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I’m not on Facebook either, and my kid is always telling me horrible things my brother posts. I don’t want to know! That’s why I’m not on Facebook! :)
Kay
@Soprano2:
You’ve really been a comfort to me because we’re on the same page. Please. Like 500 gun nuts wouldn’t have been interviewed with a gun ban. They disappeared us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: The nuts will never come over. The people for whom racism and sexism isn’t a way of life could if there is enough of an incentive. The key on our side is to make it clear that they have to give up the shit in order to get the good stuff.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Ugh. I even hate the font.
I found myself saying last night “as a mother..” I wanted to show my sympathy to the collateral victim- I like her. The mother card. Jesus. I’m turning into one of them.
“As a mom” – that’s next for me.
frosty
@Matt McIrvin: Except in rare occasions, there are two other choices for car colors: blue and red. That’s it. Forget it if you’d like a green car. We’re back to Henry Ford and the Model T: you can have any color you want so long as it’s black.
I was a radical and went for blue. Too bad it’s such a dark midnight blue that it looks like black.
Aaron Rodgers Mustache
@SiubhanDuinne: would youngkins go down on trump in a theatre?
guachi
@Redshift: Exactly. If Twitter is a cesspool it’s because you want it to be.
I follow about 25 people on Twitter, three of whom are BJ front pagers – Cole, Betty Cracker, and DougJ’s NYT parody account. I sort chronologically so I see everything and my feed has Cole’s punctuation free posts (mostly news and Warcraft), Betty Cracker’s posts about Florida wildlife, and DougJ’s fake Maureen Dowd columns.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:Â â
I allow B-J users, the jackaltariat, to curate Twitter for me, I pretty much only see stuff posted here.
Don’t do Facebook. Back when it was just starting I started to sign up, and quit midway through the process, I just had a sinking feeling about the whole thing. Glad now!
Kelly
@J R in WV:Â @Matt McIrvin:
I live on a gravel road. Pale grey/silver cars don’t show gravel road dust.
Last week my 2001 4runner developed an intermittent electric fault after 20 years of completely reliable service. Electric system completely died twice then mysteriously restored itself. No bad connectors I could find. How do you know if an intermittent problem is fixed?
Fortunately we’d budgeted for a replacement and a silver 2018 Highlander was on a dealer lot with exactly the equipment I wanted. Bought it yesterday. New wheels!
Miss Bianca
@patroclus: I like your take on this!
Brantl
@Suzanne: If you think the middle class is screwed, think about the poorer people, that no one even talks about any more…..
Steeplejack
@lowtechcyclist:
This is pretty much how I use Twitter. I donât have a Twitter account, so I donât get bombarded by alerts or whatever. I have a short list of accounts that I check regularlyâe.g., @Popehat, @nycsouthpaw, @Rschooley, @Zeddaryâand I branch out from there. A lot of pages have âMore Tweetsâ at the bottom, and I find a lot of interesting people and posts there.
Matt McIrvin
@frosty: Other car colors seem to be available in two segments of the market: cheap subcompacts, and outrageous rich-boy-toy supercars that will rarely encounter the street anyway. And in the former category, again, what the manufacturer theoretically offers and what you can actually find on the lot might be different.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: Would that I were so optimistic.
These last few years have told me (perhaps no one else, but theyâve spoken to me) that, well, quietly, a majority (or a very large plurality) of white Americans just canât deal with the idea political power in black and brown hands.
I would like to believe Iâm wrong about that, but Iâve been horribly disappointed in too many white men that I knew personally, respected and liked.
Gravenstone
@Spanky: Gravity has a tendency to win, in the end.
NotMax
@frosty
Trivia:
The reason Henry went in that direction was because of the paints available then, black was (a) the least expensive color on the market and (b) also the quickest drying.
Matt McIrvin
@Kelly: I ended up getting a Hyundai Sonata hybrid. It was an indulgence, to some extent. And since my spouse had gone from a Subaru wagon to a little Nissan Juke, I figured it made sense for mine to occupy the “comfy family cruise vehicle” niche this time around, especially if it could get way better gas mileage than the old Fit.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: I remember hearing that the reason we think of barns as being red was just that when these images were being established in the culture, red house paint was the cheapest color.
Gravenstone
@Matt McIrvin: I got a used car this spring (former commercial fleet vehicle, only 5k miles at 3 model years old). I was shocked to be able to find a grey one, because basically every single other one I saw online when I was shopping was either black, or white.
Matt McIrvin
@Gravenstone: Gray is the up-and-coming color in the monochrome range. For some reason it is displacing silver and maybe white. Who can tell what drives these things?
I recall reading some speculation to the effect that fancier paint options like glossy clearcoats make these drab colors look classy rather than just boring, so people can feel they’re getting something good-looking even if the color isn’t exciting.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: That’s how I use Twitter. I have an account but I never use it. I never get fed anything. I just read a bunch of people who write tweets on Twitter.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: That was a heck of a play, but the ending of the game sucked big-time. Maybe next year. It would help if they could score with runners in scoring position!
gwangung
Yeah, use Twitter to understand the thought processes of people you might be allies with, but don’t really know. I recommend that white people just listen in on Black Twitter and Asian American Twitter, but don’t comment.
Facebook is a bit different for me than other people. I’m actually more of an influencer there, but I dabble in my specific specialty (Asian American representation), which has it’s own benefits. I stopped trying to influence folks by debating with them. It’s been weaponized by bad faith actors.
Soprano2
@Citizen Alan: I didn’t think they even acknowledged that married women have abortions. They only ever talk about the evil young sluts who want to have sex “without consequences”, and they seem to hate that more than anything. If they can’t have sex for fun, they think, neither should anyone else!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: Pay attention to what happened 1/6, these aren’t brave or even clever people. Go watch that video when that wack job was shot by the Capitol Police and ask yourself who were ready to fight; the four black cops who had their targets already selected or dozen or so pudgy fat white bois waving AR-15s around like paintball guns? It was sure curious those cops shot the woman going threw the door and not guys behind her with assault rifles, almost like those cops decided they were just buffoons and no threat.
Soprano2
@Kay: Right back at you, I really enjoy reading your posts because they’re on point and no nonsense. You know what it’s like to live in a conservative area too, how saying “I won’t have any friends who like TFG” is impossible here. It makes me crazy the way the press picks and chooses what to cover and what to ignore. After a couple of days they ignored the Eastman memo because they know more coverage of it would absolutely enrage conservatives. It’s unknowable, but try imagining if Barack Obama had lost in 2012 and a memo like that had come out – it would have been 24/7/365 coverage on all the conservative outlets as well as the mainstream ones. TFG has made them numb to bad things happening on the Republican side – now they just expect Republicans to lie all the time, and they mostly don’t even call them out for it.
Conservatives have decided that the Facebook whistleblower is actually part of a Democratic plot to make FB censor conservatives, without even acknowledging that the highest-engagement pages on FB almost all belong to conservatives! They think they are the ones being censored, when the truth is that they get in the mainstream press all the time while more far left liberals are completely ignored except for Bernie and AOC and the Squad. I constantly hear Republicans interviewed on NPR even though they don’t control any parts of the government except the Supreme Court, which used to be the excuse when TFG was president and Republicans controlled Congress for why you didn’t hear many Democrats interviewed. And don’t get me started on how they never seem to interview Democratic voters…..
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I still miss my hybrid. It was rear-ended in 2018, and even though all the damage was confined to behind the back seat it was totalled! When I bought my new Sonata they didn’t have any hybrids I wanted, so I got a regular one instead. I had to learn how to drive a “regular” car again.
JAFD
@Immanentize:Â â
Please tell your mother I wish her well, and that this youngster of 71 had his cataracts removed last November and December, and sees much better now.
Mike G
Today marks nine months since the Capitol riots. Where the prosecution effort stands:
Organizers of the coup attempt charged:Â 0
Charges against Trump or members of Congress who incited the riot:Â 0
Geminid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I have heard several times that 1/6 insurrectionists were waving AR-15 type weapons around. But I have yet to see a picture of this. Some definitely had handguns on their persons, or at least they say they did. But I’ve looked at a lot of photos, and have yet to see a long gun. Are you certain about this?
randal m sexton
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe a plank exercize3s are appropriate
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Oof! Yeah, I suppose behind the back seat is where hybrids generally keep their batteries, so take that area out and you’ve got trouble.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I wish you nothing but luck with that!
The Lodger
@Geminid: I don’t remember hearing that any insurrectionist had a weapon, or was charged with having a weapon. Seems to me weapons offenses are the least likely charges to be dropped or ignored, especially in Washington, D.C.