Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

I really should read my own blog.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

I was promised a recession.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Come on, man.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

People are complicated. Love is not.

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

You cannot shame the shameless.

The words do not have to be perfect.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Homey for the Holidays

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Homey for the Holidays

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… “The soul of our nation is, and has always been, ‘We the People,’” the first lady said at a White House event honoring the volunteers who decorated over Thanksgiving weekend. “And that is what inspired this year’s White House holiday decoration.”

“The values that unite us can be found all around you, a belief in possibility and optimism and unity,” Jill Biden said. “Room by room, we represent what brings us together during the holidays and throughout the year.”

Public rooms are dedicated to unifying forces: honoring and remembering deceased loved ones, words and stories, kindness and gratitude, food and traditions, nature and recreation, songs and sounds, unity and hope, faith and light, and children.

A burst of pine aroma hits visitors as they step inside the East Wing and come upon trees adorned with mirrored Gold Star ornaments bearing the names of fallen service members.

Likenesses of Biden family pets — Commander and Willow, the dog and cat — first appear at the end of the hallway before they are seen later in the Vermeil Room, which celebrates kindness and gratitude, and the State Dining Room, which highlights children…

A copy of the Declaration of Independence is on display in the library, while the always-show-stopping 300-pound (136 kilogram) gingerbread White House this year includes a sugar cookie replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the documents were signed…

A new addition to the White House collection this year is a menorah, which is lit nightly during the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah. White House carpenters built the menorah out of wood that was saved from a Truman-era renovation and sterling silver candle cups.

Some 50,000 visitors are expected to pass through the White House for the holidays, including tourists and guests invited to nearly a month’s worth of receptions. Among them will be French President Emmanuel Macron, who will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday and be honored at a state dinner, the first of the Biden administration…

Speaking of home…

And then there’s the Disloyal Opposition…
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Homey for the Holidays

(Clay Jones via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

148Comments

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    What, no Murder Trees? How can it be Christmas in the White House without blood-red Murder Trees?

  7. 7.

    Kay

    while the always-show-stopping 300-pound (136 kilogram) gingerbread White House this year includes a sugar cookie replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall,

    Good Lord. I’m having all our grown children, spouses and grands this year so I’m decorating a lot too.

    A tree AND a wreath :)

  12. 12.

    Soprano2

    I have a co-worker who got invited to a White House Christmas party when George W. was president. His wife was part of a visit George W. did here in Springfield. Co-worker said he hung up when they called the first time because he thought it was a prank call. They went to the party, he said it was amazing to see the White House all decorated like that.

  16. 16.

    Geminid

    @Frankensteinbeck: The two displays certainly show contrasting psychologies, but I think maybe this just happened naturally.

    Although the former First Lady’s display was very memorable. It was like something Lady Macbeth would have done.

  19. 19.

    Soprano2

    Hey Kay, after the discussion we had in the morning thread yesterday about the Republican “crime panic” I saw this story about a high end sporting goods store closing because of repeated break-ins. The story has the obligatory picture of a homeless tent camp, and about halfway through they start talking about an uptick in violent crime and the murder rate, even though those things have nothing to do with shoplifting. It checks all the “Republican panic” boxes for the readers. What I want to know is what exactly these retailers want the police to do about repeated break-ins. There is definitely an implication that if only they would get rid of all the homeless people, the break-ins at the sporting goods stores would stop. I think it’s more likely that these stores are being targeted by people who resell on EBay, as opposed to drug stores where things like toothpaste and deodorant are being stolen.

  20. 20.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    We are huge Jon Batiste fans. We were sorry to see him leaving The Late Show, but I guess he kind of outgrew it. Winning 5 Grammies in a single year will do that.

    Probably more importantly, he has a very sick wife and wanted time with her.

    He just got his bachelor’s in 2008. He’s still a child!

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    I presume all 300lb of the gingerbread White House, and the sugar-cookie Independence Hall too, will wind up getting eated.

  26. 26.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I got a kick out of the right-wing whining about Melania not being featured in Vogue. Evidently they wanted to do a story and interview with her, but she refused to do the interview – I guess she wanted to be treated like a model with nothing to say, so they passed on it.

  27. 27.

    jonas

    Likenesses of Biden family pets — Commander and Willow, the dog and cat — first appear at the end of the hallway before they are seen later in the Vermeil Room, which celebrates kindness and gratitude, and the State Dining Room, which highlights children…

    I like this a lot better than Melania’s scheme which appeared to channel some sort of holiday on the Death Star.

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    @Kay: She fucking hated us and was NOT afraid to show it! :)

    True.  But I really don’t care, do U? 😉

    (She may have hated us and her role as FLOTUS, but the feeling was mutual).

  29. 29.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Kay: Maybe she could find a comedy niche doing Lewis Black-style rants about things she hates, including her audience. She’d be good at it, even (or especially) if the comedy was unintentional.

    (Is it Louis or Lewis? Google is telling me both.)

  30. 30.

    jonas

    @Kay: ​
     

    She fucking hated us and was NOT afraid to show it! :)

    Didn’t she even refuse to move to DC for like the first couple of months of the shitgibbon’s maladministration? She did her best for the remaining 3 1/2 years to look like she was stoically passing a kidney stone at any public event.

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: I would think the store’s insurance company would be providing lots of advice too.  “Have you considered security cameras? Motion detectors? A burglar alarm?”

    Then again, maybe they have all that, but the thieves mysteriously managed to bypass everything?  You sometimes hear of that happening, though it’s usually insurance fraud, not a skilled “Oceans 11” caper.

  33. 33.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Oh, I think they’re absolutely entitled to ask why police aren’t investigating 15 break ins. A break in is a much, much more serious crime than shoplifting is.

    Except they don’t ask that. They make this generalized, “societal breakdown” claim. Are they complaining about police re: a specific problem or are they sociologists?

    Where are the Portland police? Are they still on a secret hissy fit strike because their feelings were hurt by BLM?

  34. 34.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    It’s so cool to think we might see astronauts walk on the Moon again in a few years. I hope they fly scientists there, which they probably will. Nice picture of Orion with the Moon and Earth in the background. Very beautiful

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Another misleading headline: ‘Rude drivers will swerve in my lane’: are Tesla owners paying the price for Musk hate?

    The article then goes on to say, “No.”

    Tesla drivers interviewed by the Guardian say they have experienced anti-Tesla sentiment, but mostly from those who hate electric vehicles rather than Musk specifically. “Random rude drivers will swerve in my lane to yell at me, or turn on a heavy diesel exhaust that blows black smoke,” Paul Albertson, who lives in Beaverton, Oregon, told the Guardian. It never happens when he drives his two other cars, a vintage 1948 Chevy and a 2014 Traverse. The culprits are most often men driving “larger pick-up trucks”, he said.

    John Shevelew doesn’t notice too much road rage at home in York, Pennsylvania, where he is president of the state’s Tesla Owners Club. Things change when he drives through the south. “I go to Texas a lot to see my daughter in Austin, and in Arkansas, Mississippi, those places, I run into, let’s say, less-than-friendly looks,” he said. “You get someone in a big diesel pickup truck who likes to express their dissatisfaction with the idea of an electric car.”

    Laura Kennedy, who also lives in Pennsylvania, agrees. “It’s almost always a guy in a pickup truck [who does something],” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been flipped off in my life as much as I have in the past year or so.”

    Yeah, right wingers who hate anything that even comes close to liberalism, whocudaknowed? But, now some lefties seem to be pissed off at tesla too:

    But now that Musk has become something of a conservative hero – telling his followers to vote Republican in the midterms and reinstating Donald Trump’s Twitter account – he’s a foe to many electric vehicle fans, too.

    “There’s an irony here in that Teslas have long been a hate magnet for various reasons,” Geller said. “They were the subject of road rage because they represented the environment and were perceived as the vehicular embodiment of that culture war. But now here we are, and some folks on the left are having a knee-jerk reaction because Elon Musk has taken this ominous turn to the political right, so now they’re throwing the same bricks.”

    I guess some people never noticed the anti union stance at tesla or the prevalent racism at tesla factories. I’ve always hated Tesla for a # of reasons, but I’m not gonna take it out on the people who buy them. Tesla already does enough of that for all of us.

  36. 36.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: I presume all 300lb of the gingerbread White House, and the sugar-cookie Independence Hall too, will wind up getting eated.

    Hard to say. The much smaller ones that I did as a kid were completely stale and inedible by Christmas. Even the candy decorations got pretty nasty, and as for the royal icing, blech.

    Maybe they’ll donate it to the National Zoo. I expect the small rodents won’t care about freshness.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    @jonas:

    It was just funny to me because the First Lady role is a little archaic, honestly, so there’s a reluctance to criticize women for not doing this unpaid job.

    Melania inadvertently moved us forward just out of sheer disdain for the public.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @jonas: ​Baron was still in school. A very reasonable thing to do. I moved to Bourbon Mo when my ex’s husband lost his shit and went after my eldest. I took custody of the boys and moved out here so they could stay in the same school.

  39. 39.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Ken:

    Where I work, some people are pretty brazen when it comes to shoplifting. It was earlier this year, a guy walked out with a bunch of diapers, deodorant, toothpaste, etc. We have security cameras, so we know what he looks like. We weren’t able to get the license plate number of the car, just a description of it

  41. 41.

    narya

    So my organization is doing a massive “staff reduction.” They’re making their voluntary separation offer to my level today–they want folks gone and paid out by the end of the year, but I am lobbying my boss for an extra two months because of the massive amount of stuff that only I really know. What they don’t know is that I was planning to leave anyway, and I am likely the only person in the whole organization who is jumping up and down with glee.  If they give me two more months work to make the transition go more smoothly, great, but if not? Good luck with all of it. What they also don’t know is that the team member who would be best able to take over for me is likely out of there soon too. Otherwise, I’m really trying to support my many friends w/in the organization who are NOT gleeful about this; there is so much trauma, and there will be so much more.

  42. 42.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I could tell what the story was actually doing as soon as I saw the picture of the tent encampment, which has zero to do with the story unless you believe all the break-ins are being done by homeless people. Then they switch to talking about violent crime and homicides as if that has anything to do with the 15 break-ins over the past year. The whole story was just a tent post for another crime panic story.

    And yeah, what kind of security do they have? Are there any cameras? Why haven’t the police been able to solve the crimes? I would start to wonder if it was an inside job after that many incidents.

  43. 43.

    dmsilev

    @Betty Cracker:

    What, no Murder Trees? How can it be Christmas in the White House without blood-red Murder Trees?

    Who among us does not look to Pan’s Labyrinth for holiday decorating ideas?

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    “I could say I’m the most bullied person on the world,” Trump told ABC News in an interview during her first major solo trip to Africa last week when asked what personally made her want to tackle the issue of cyberbullying.

     

    I would love to interview her. She’s inadvertently hysterical- like a parody of a rich, self centered person.
    It really takes talent to turn an interview about your work with children into a petty complaint about how people treat you, an adult, but she managed.

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Meh. I’m a space nerd but this just feels like a very expensive PR stunt. We’ve gotten really good at robotics and there are all kinds of places we can go, doing really novel exploration and science w/o the expense of placing humans into space.

    But it is probably inevitable and when it comes about I will be watching it and keeping track of progress just as much as anybody else.

  47. 47.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: They can stop them in the act, or use camera footage to track them down. The first isn’t that far fetched. Cops show up pretty fast when a bank sends out an alarm. An acquaintence told me of standing in line at a Dick’s Sporting Goods store when a person ahead of him tried to buy a handgun. He was a prohibited purchaser. The clerk gave him a song and dance, and two Charlottesville cops showed up within three minutes.

    This is a matter of resource allocation, I think. Stores can hire security guards, police departments can make quick responses a priority and allocate detective resources to track down repeat thieves. And prosecutors can ask for jail sentences. That’s if the community thinks these property crimes need to be suppressed. They probably cannot be ended, but they can be limited and that could be worthwhile.

    I remember reading about a series of smash and grab robberies at Atlanta luxury goods stores last year. I never followed any outcomes, but I have not read of more since. Its possible people just got used to them, but I think it’s more likely that merchants and police took proactive and reactive measures.

  51. 51.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid: Eated by small rodents rather than by humans is still eated, I guess.

    The Smithsonian Zoo has many unfussy members of the ‘charismatic megafauna’… bet the elephants would love 300 pounds of slightly stale gingerbread!

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Jennifer Coolidge would be so brilliant as Melania in a satiric send-up of the entire entitled rich douchebag family. 

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    police took proactive and reactive measures.

     

    If it’s actually robbery, which includes a threat of force as opposed to theft which is just taking without permission police had better take proactive and reactive measures. It’s a serious crime because it involves potential bodily harm to people. It’s not just a property crime. They would need to investigate and make an arrest. It shouldn’t be that hard- stores (and streets) are lousy with cameras now.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    TWICE she took the spotlight from children and made it about her. Once for bullied children and once for refugee children.

    She’s Cruella DeVille. You couldn’t invent this character. Too stereotypical.

  56. 56.

    eclare

    @Soprano2:   Really?  This the first I’ve heard that Vogue wanted Melanie.  I thought Anna looked down on her and never considered her for the magazine.

  57. 57.

    NorthLeft

    @Soprano2: I am more than a little biased against the police, mainly over their performance which varies from homicidal to nonchalant to complete incompetence.

    But in this case, I really have to question what the store owner has been doing to help himself. Besides the security investments he could be making, there is also calling the cops regularly to find out what the hell they are doing. Not to mention contacting the local media who might be interested in a story like this, or even using social media to the same end.

  58. 58.

    Math Guy

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    It’s so cool to think we might see astronauts walk on the Moon again in a few years.

    Why?

    Because you have to take the long view. Someday, if we don’t destroy ourselves, we will colonize the solar system. Because going to the moon, or Mars, speaks of our better nature.

  61. 61.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Math Guy: We have landed humans on the moon. There’s nothing there. Why go back? I can see going to Mars as interesting and potentially worthwhile, but sending humans to the moon again is pointless.

  62. 62.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    But it is probably inevitable

    I actually think it’s not inevitable at all, even if things turn out well for us–maybe the endpoint of all of our research into human spaceflight is to learn that humans aren’t really built for spaceflight, that taking care of our planet (as hard as that is) is going to be massively easier than colonizing anywhere else, and that as technology develops, we actually have much more effective ways of exploring the universe than sending human bodies. We don’t have to follow a script set down by science-fiction writers in the 1930s.

  63. 63.

    Soprano2

    @eclare: Not sure where I read that, so it could be not accurate, but I did read somewhere that they wanted to do a story but Melania didn’t want to do an interview, so they nixed it.

  64. 64.

    narya

    @Baud: One of my regrets is that that series went to Amazon, which I refuse to subsidize. Loved the books, and thought the show did a great job w/ casting the characters.

  65. 65.

    The Moar You Know

    Where are the Portland police? Are they still on a secret hissy fit strike because their feelings were hurt by BLM?

    @Kay: same place all the damn police in CA are:  having a hissy fit strike because we dared to put their murdering comrades on trial AND CONVICT THEM for murdering people for the lulz.

    We have a real problem here in San Diego with homeless violence in most of the beach areas.  And it’s escalating.  The local paper interviewed some cops who said, straight out, that they had no intention of doing anything about it.  I don’t know where you go from there when the cops just say they aren’t going to do anything and the Supreme Court has backed them up on that.

    I can tell you what is not working:  throwing money at social services.  We spend a crazy amount trying to help, and not only are we not helping but the problem is getting much worse.

  66. 66.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Tesla drivers interviewed by the Guardian say they have experienced anti-Tesla sentiment, but mostly from those who hate electric vehicles rather than Musk specifically. “Random rude drivers will swerve in my lane to yell at me, or turn on a heavy diesel exhaust that blows black smoke,” Paul Albertson, who lives in Beaverton, Oregon, told the Guardian. It never happens when he drives his two other cars, a vintage 1948 Chevy and a 2014 Traverse. The culprits are most often men driving “larger pick-up trucks”, he said.

    I think it’s bizarre these people are reacting this wat to electric vehicles. To see them as an extension of the culture war.

    Did anyone react this way to the automobile replacing the horse and buggy? It’s just new technology. Do people really think the ICE would be eternal?

  67. 67.

    Soprano2

    @NorthLeft: But in this case, I really have to question what the store owner has been doing to help himself.

    I wondered that too, and wondered why there wasn’t anything in the story about that. It’s why I think the store closing and dramatic sign on the door was just a tent pole for yet another “crime panic” story. When you start to think about it you wonder what on earth are they doing to prevent break-ins if they’ve had 15 in a year? Are some of them an inside job by employees? None of that is in the story.

  70. 70.

    Sure Lurkalot

    The fact that Melanoma marches downstairs nightly on cue at MAL with her loser spouse whom most people thought she would ditch on 1/21/21 speaks volumes about how bad her prenup must be. May she Botox her eyes totally shut to match her head and heart.

  71. 71.

    Math Guy

    @Gin & Tonic: There is the scientific value of having humans on the moon to study it – we are better than robots in the regard. (Can you imagine a Tesla robot doing as well?)  Going to the moon is a good engineering exercise for going to Mars or colonizing the asteroid belt. Again, one has to take the long view.

  72. 72.

    Layer8Problem

    @Betty Cracker:  Yeah, I can see her as Melania, with her first cosmopolitan of the day watching the First Lady on the Today Show with the new improved Christmas decorations and saying “So, is now war.”

  73. 73.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It’s not pointless. The moon can serve as a staging ground for future space missions due to low gravity there and there’s lots of resources

  74. 74.

    Soprano2

    @The Moar You Know: The local paper interviewed some cops who said, straight out, that they had no intention of doing anything about it.

    Wow, that’s pretty ballsy to tell a paper straight up that you aren’t going to do anything about crime. Is it mostly homeless person on homeless person crime? What is their rationale for not investigating serious crime? How have the citizens in San Diego reacted to this attitude?

  75. 75.

    Soprano2

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Did anyone react this way to the automobile replacing the horse and buggy?

    Actually, I would bet money that some people did. Many people are threatened by any kind of change, no matter whether it’s better in the long run or not.

  76. 76.

    p.a.

    Huh.  I posted a dual tweet from today’s covid post, of the: ‘anti-vax tweet disproven by evidence-based tweet’ type, on book of faces, and it got pulled as a violation of standards: misinformation.  Appealed, and I guess a non-algorithm, actual organic entity read it, and it was reinstated.
    Credit where due when an error gets corrected.

  77. 77.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: She’s actually the perfect match for TFG – they’re both  massively self-centered narcissists who think everything in the world is about them.

  78. 78.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Math Guy:

    Exactly this. Going back to the moon is a useful step towards a future Mars mission. While we’ve been there before, it’s also been 50 years since

  79. 79.

    Math Guy

    I knew some NASA engineers who worked on both the Galileo mission and the Cassini mission. Get them talking about their work and you cannot help but see their drive, their curiosity, there pure enthusiasm for scientific exploration. And that, I contend, is part of our better nature.

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: I think the idea that we can have self sustaining colonies on Mars or the Moon or any other body in our solar system is a SciFi fantasy, one that at this time makes no sense. I think the sending of a human into space (with all the necessary tech to keep them alive) is an expense that we need to justify by explaining to ourselves just what it is that humans can do that we can’t do with robotics and satellites.

    Until we can justify it, we should concentrate on learning as much as we can thru humanless exploration.

  81. 81.

    The Moar You Know

    Did anyone react this way to the automobile replacing the horse and buggy?

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): yes, and with a fair amount of actual violence.  The car put hundreds of thousands of horse workers, not to mention coach builders, the famed buggy-whip makers, stablemen, you name it, out of a job.

    The switch from ICE to electric won’t involve very much of that; we are still making cars, just different cars.

    I’ll also say this:  electric cars are a band-aid on the gaping wound that is transportation in America.  Electric cars won’t get rid of the 12-lane freeway a half-mile from my house.  They won’t even make it any quieter.  We need to get away from the car entirely.

  83. 83.

    p.a.

    @Soprano2: Maybe it’s another case of the ‘To Infect and not Serve’ crowd not doing their job because someone somewhere tweeted something mean about our saints in blue.

  84. 84.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Math Guy: I see robots getting better at a much faster rate than our technology for sending people into space and keeping them alive there, which is not that far advanced beyond where it was in the 1970s.

    The big problem is the light-speed lag in direct human teleoperation, and the Moon is just about where that starts to be bad enough to be a problem–on another planet it’s hopeless. So robots have to be fairly autonomous. But in some ways, operating on another planet is easier because you don’t have to worry about considerations like not running people over in the street.

    The other thing about people is that they’re filthy and unavoidably crawling with germs, which is a big problem if you’re doing things like looking for traces of extraterrestrial life.

  87. 87.

    Ken

    @Math Guy: There may also be resources on the Moon which would be useful for space travel. Nothing we don’t have on Earth, but easier to launch into space — at least from an energy point of view; logistics is another matter.

    Water is one possible resource. Also helium-3, for the fusion reactors we will have any day now.

  88. 88.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Why go back?

    First reason:  FUCK YEAH SPARKLE SPARKLE.  Humans doing cool and ambitious things is one of our virtues, plus has big psychological splash effects for achieving more.

    Second reason:  The trip itself.  We learned a huge amount last time.  We certainly didn’t learn everything about spaceship engineering and the technological advances associated.  I don’t know what, but there will be useful science obtained from a modern attempt at a moon landing.

    @Matt McIrvin:

    the lander scheme they’d settled on was dependent on some of the more blue-sky stuff from SpaceX, which worries me.

    SpaceX has been pretty good, largely because Elon doesn’t run it, but since he’s the guy making promises it’s a concern.  If it was him who said SpaceX can deliver, it ain’t happening.

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​​I also find it insane. The same goes for the anti mask fervor. Fortunately nobody has ever said a word to either me or my wife about our still wearing them inside stores. I’ve got a couple of snappy retorts if somebody ever does but I am to old and crippled up to engage in any kind of physical confrontation.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    @The Moar You Know:

    They’re conflating “homeless” with “criminal” to excuse not going after criminals.

    People said being homeless was not a crime. No one said “robbery” was not a crime. They are supposed to take crimes, and criminals, one at a time. They can’t just point to “homeless” as a group status to excuse these hissy fit wildcat strikes they have been conducting since 2020.

    If the crime was committed by a homeless person then it’s a police job to investigate and arrest for the crime. They’re not public policy commenters. They need to stay in their lane.

  92. 92.

    Layer8Problem

    @Ken:  And we don’t get that zippy Epstein Drive for all the interplanetary gadding-about we plan on doing without the fusion reactors.

  93. 93.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: The obvious difference between Everest and the Moon, of course, is that people spend their own money to climb Everest, and don’t pretend to be doing cool science.

    Landing a robot on an asteroid was *really fucking cool* and a major accomplishment. Going back to some place you went to a half-century ago isn’t.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: Helium-3 looks to me like a blatant case of space fans reasoning backwards from their desire for space stuff to the specific application. The reactors don’t exist, the process isn’t quite as miraculous as it appears at first glance, and the case that you could mine it from the Moon in quantities that would make it worthwhile to do, even if you had all the rest, is really tenuous.

  95. 95.

    The Moar You Know

    @Soprano2:

    Is it mostly homeless person on homeless person crime?

    What they’re getting called for is homeless people beating the shit out of residents, passersby, store employees, and tourists.  The homeless don’t call the cops when they’re beating each other.

    What is their rationale for not investigating serious crime?

    That their hands are tied by the court system.  True when trying to clear out an encampment that has set up in front of your doorway.  Not so true when it comes to prosecuting crime, but getting witnesses (other homeless people) in order to even find out who did it is not happening.

    How have the citizens in San Diego reacted to this attitude?

    The citizens of San Diego ignored it for a long time so long as no non-homeless people were getting hurt.  That has changed.   The citizens want these people gone and don’t give a shit how it gets done.  A dangerous sentiment.

    I moved out of SF twenty years ago in no small part due to the homeless sleeping in my doorway (nothing like having to step over someone who is passed out on your porch when you’re on your way to work, and the cops wouldn’t do anything about that either) and the problem here is now far worse than it ever was up there.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @The Moar You Know:

    We have a real problem here in San Diego with homeless violence in most of the beach areas

    Police can just take “homeless” out of it. “We have a real problem here in San Diego with violence in most of the beach areas”. Ok, and I agree “violent beach areas” are a problem and people deserve peace and safety to the extent than it can be secured.
    Violent people are a tiny subset of any group of people so are police saying they can’t control this tiny subset of violent people? Just this one, but they will be able to control the tiny subset of violent people who have homes? That’s odd.
    They’re incapable of doing that, even with their huge budgets and constant demands for respect, up to and including giving them their own US FLAG?

  97. 97.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @The Moar You Know:

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Huh. You learn something new every day. I guess cars have been such a normal part of my entire life, I found it unfathomable to hate them. I hadn’t though of all the jobs that would’ve been eliminated

  99. 99.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: ​The biggest problem with putting humans into space is cosmic radiation. At this time we have no good way to shield people from it. It’s why they are so happy to have spotted caves on mars. Putting people underground will shield them to some extent at least. But the trip to and from will still damage a lot of cells..

  100. 100.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: ​Most crimes committed by the homeless are committed on the homeless, and who cares about those losers?

    s// just in case somebody can’t read between the lines.

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): With cars it seems like a lot of this has roots in toxic masculinity. Electric cars were feeble low-power things until recently, and in their earlier heyday of the early 20th century, they were surprisingly popular but were specifically sold as women’s cars. Their low power and short range meant a man didn’t have to worry that his wife would run off too far with them. I think that created a gendered stigma that persisted long after anyone remembered that.

    Before Tesla emerged on the scene, coal-rollers liked to use their smoke-belching machinery to harass Prius drivers and small cars in general, but they’d also sometimes get off on doing it to pedestrians and specifically attractive women. It’s vehicular sexual harassment.

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @jonas:

    I like this a lot better than Melania’s scheme which appeared to channel some sort of holiday on the Death Star.

    Dude, I had just taken a nice big sip of coffee when I read this and it is only by the grace of God that I didn’t end up spitting it out all over my screen. Damme, sir, I say, damme

    ETA: And then I read this…

    She did her best for the remaining 3 1/2 years to look like she was stoically passing a kidney stone at any public event.

    Arrgh, I better just leave the coffee drinking to the next thread, methinks…

  104. 104.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: “Hissy fit wildcat strikes” is exactly right. The elected sheriff in my county writes columns in the local paper to lecture us in an aggrieved tone, even though most people here bow and scrape and fly desecrated American flags to honor cops.

    It’s a difficult job, but it’s not a sacred calling. I suspect a lot of the outraged entitlement is driven by fear that citizens might wise up and ask if their local police force is delivering value for money.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gin & Tonic: I think it is possible that your definition of “really fucking cool” and that of the general public may differ a bit.  I think Frankensteinbeck above hit on the main reason.  If you want public money for something, you might need to give the public something they want to see.  There was a whole big thing in The Right Stuff about that.

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Gin & Tonic: And Everest has now turned into a venue for dangerous adventure tourism, to the extent that it’s both an environmental and a safety problem. Space is going that way as well, at least near-Earth space.

    When I was a kid I thought that when I grew up, it’d be possible for me to go into space with a commercial ticket, no astronaut career necessary. Technically speaking, we’re already there today. I could theoretically do it. It’s just that it would involve spending a large chunk of my retirement nest egg on a 15-minute suborbital thrill ride, which doesn’t seem like such a great deal.

  108. 108.

    Soprano2

    @The Moar You Know: It sounds like the police don’t actually care about the violent criminals, they just want the city to move them somewhere else so they are someone else’s problem. I figured that they were attacking people other than homeless people, because if they were only fighting each other no one else would care.

    I’ve heard people here talking about the homeless problem in the lunchroom. Someday I’m going to casually drop into the conversation the line “Why don’t we just start using them as target practice?” because I can tell from the tenor of the conversation that they think something like that would solve the problem. A big part of the problem is that housing is too expensive and there isn’t enough of it, but they don’t want to talk about that.

  109. 109.

    Mimi

    @Betty Cracker: I liked Melania’s decorations.  I found them hilarious. I do not like Christmas nor do I like the idea of being the presidential spouse is an actual job. Once we actually elect a woman married to a man suddenly no one will expect him to do much of anything.

  111. 111.

    Steeplejack

    @Soprano2:

    That story is in the New York Post, which is the Fox News of the print medium. The story is not designed to inform; it’s designed to stoke fear and hatred. Looking for a coherent set of facts is useless.

  112. 112.

    The Moar You Know

    Someday I’m going to casually drop into the conversation the line “Why don’t we just start using them as target practice?” because I can tell from the tenor of the conversation that they think something like that would solve the problem.

    @Soprano2: I used to say shit like that until I realized that no one disagreed with me, nobody found it offensive, and that it just normalizes the idea, which is kind of the last thing you want to do.

    We’re kind of on a knife edge here; all it’s gonna take is some white family or young white woman to get attacked by these folks and we’ll have mobs from East County down in the beach districts clearing these folks out with violence.  And nobody will even raise a voice in protest.  I’d like to not see that happen.  But it probably will.

  113. 113.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: A point Bruce Sterling likes to make is that the Gobi Desert is way more hospitable, closer and much easier to colonize than the Moon or Mars, but we don’t see a lot of schemes to colonize the Gobi Desert (or Antarctica, or other such extreme parts of the Earth). Scientists do go to these places to do science, but they’re not nice places to live.

  115. 115.

    Soprano2

    @The Moar You Know: Don’t get me started on their separatist bullshit abortion of a flag.

    I hate all those bullshit “support” flags, especially the black ones. If you want a flag make your own, don’t pervert the American flag as if you alone own it!

  116. 116.

    Eyeroller

    @Matt McIrvin: As you know, it takes an immense amount of energy–and water–to keep humans alive.  We can only operate in a very narrow range of temperature.  We need protection from cosmic radiation (helpfully provided by the Earth’s magnetic field, which doesn’t exist on the Moon and Mars).  Our bodies are evolved for Earth’s gravity and break down in lower gravity environments.  And of course we need oxygen.

    Some say we can get water from Mars (at least we know it’s there in quantity) but it would require a lot of energy to extract and melt it.

    Advances in drone-type technology and the ability to return samples negate most of the rationale for human exploration.  If people just think it’s cool then OK but it’s a huge amount of money and risk to pursue.  I’ll also note that back in the day overall public opinion was against Apollo as a waste of money, and it was motivated by the Cold War and not science.

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    @The Moar You Know: Trump was actively scouting out areas for concentration camps and talking shit about rounding up all the homeless in California and sending them there. If we build our own Auschwitz they’ll be one of the first targets.

  118. 118.

    Soprano2

    @The Moar You Know: My stepson’s boss in Maui says that after his body was found out in the sugar cane field where a bunch of homeless people were living, the police went in and cleared them all out because the local people were upset. Of course, I highly doubt John was killed by a homeless person (heck, he used to talk to some of them and he gave them stuff all the time!) but they used that as an excuse to do it.

  119. 119.

    ian

    @jeffreyw: Thanks for posting that.  Homelessness is something that could happen to anyone, and it is not some permanent condition (unless we refuse to do anything about it and leave people to rot).  The implementation of the right policy tools can alleviate the problem significantly.

  120. 120.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: ​It’s a difficult job, but it’s not a sacred calling.

    And it’s not all that dangerous. For most of my life being a carpenter was more dangerous than being a cop (it flipped in the past year or 2) and a couple years ago I read where being a crossing guard is more dangerous. Which makes perfect sense considering the most dangerous things for a cop are traffic stops where other drivers run them over.

  121. 121.

    Matt McIrvin

    To connect ALL of the various subthreads here, if you go back and look at space-colonization literature from the 1970s in places like Co-Evolution Quarterly, it is absolutely redolent of anti-urban, white-flight sentiment. The cool thing about O’Neill cylinder colonies was that you could imagine them populated by bucolic California suburbs in space–it was like the ultimate gated community; get away from Earth and leave its blighted, crime-ridden cities to destroy themselves.

  122. 122.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: Yep. Having spent a considerable part of my life underground in darkness (sometimes for a week at a time) I can say that it’s a great place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there. Seeing the light at the entrance always felt like coming home.

  124. 124.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: For most of my life being a carpenter was more dangerous than being a cop (it flipped in the past year or 2)

    So about the same time that “COVID” overtook “traffic accidents” as the leading cause of death for police.

  125. 125.

    Math Guy

    People will offer different motives for space exploration. Cold War competition was one of the motives of our early space program as well as the science and engineering challenges. But in the long run, after the initial costs, colonies will have to become self-sustaining or fail.

    I just want to add that this is the first time I have ever felt included in one of these discussions. Thanks.

  126. 126.

    WaterGirl

    @eclare: That’s Melania’s side of the story.  I don’t recall the details as well as Soprano2, but we talked about it here at the time, how Melania was the one who caused the offered photo shoot / interview to go away.

    Always the fucking victim.

  129. 129.

    The Moar You Know

     A point Bruce Sterling likes to make is that the Gobi Desert is way more hospitable, closer and much easier to colonize than the Moon or Mars, but we don’t see a lot of schemes to colonize the Gobi Desert

    @Matt McIrvin:  I would submit the idea that before NASA or SpaceX gets one dime for colonization of the Moon or any other solar system destination, that they have to build a nice, self-sustaining place to live in the middle of the Gobi or Atacama deserts, which, as you note, is a hell of a lot easier to pull off than the Moon.

    I’m a booster of the space program, always have been since I was a kid, but realize that most people aren’t and that the concept needs to be proven before it’s reasonable to ask taxpayers to fund it.

  130. 130.

    kindness

    When I first saw Melania’s holiday set up at the White House I flashed on it being a rip-off of GOT’s Red Wedding scene.  I had difficulty believing some of her fashion ‘friends’ would drop that hideous all red display on her and tell her she was being so fashion avant garde and she believed them.  You’d have thought some one would have spoken up and said the display looked like shit.  No….Melania was in that frame of Red Wedding mind and was just telling us what she thought of us.

    The feeling was mutual after all.

  131. 131.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Math Guy:

    in the long run, after the initial costs, colonies will have to become self-sustaining or fail.

    I doubt seriously we’ll see space colonization in a hundred years.  We’re over the horizon from technology that can deal with the logistics problems.  Landing is more difficult than travel.  Permanent habitations are vastly more difficult than landing.  We’re still struggling with travel.

  133. 133.

    Eyeroller

    @The Moar You Know: Antarctica is a better model.  Extremely dry, extremely cold, water available but requires significant resources to extract, difficult to supply (a lot harder than the Gobi).  We do have a few colonies on Antarctica and they are very small (especially in the worst conditions, which are still more hospitable than the Moon or Mars), expensive, and can be dangerous to the occupants.

  135. 135.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Math Guy: I’m coming at this as a lifelong space fan from an early age whose increasing skepticism was hard-won.

    The flip side of crewed space exploration being something of a disappointment in scope is that the uncrewed stuff has been so much MORE extraordinary than I expected, and it often frustrates me that the people who talk about “space” being a bust seem to discount that. I started out thinking of automated probes as mostly a precursor to sending people somewhere: you send Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor, then Apollo. But for all their limitations, which are definitely real, they can do so much in their own right. We have pictures from the surface of Titan, from comets and asteroids. That’s amazing stuff.

    My dream application for something like SLS is to send a flagship probe mission to the Uranus or Neptune system, but I don’t know if the will exists to use it that way.

  138. 138.

    Ken

    @Eyeroller: Both Antarctica and the Gobi have readily available air. If we’re dusting off 1950s science-fiction, maybe the proof-of-concept for space colonization should be an undersea base. (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had a new one every other week.)

  140. 140.

    Geminid

    This morning’s Politico Playbook has a story on Senate budget negotiations. Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (VT) has made an offer to his counterpart Richard Shelby (AL). Shelby says serious negotiations probably won’t start for a week, until after the Georgia Senate runoff.

    Some Senators p3edict that the December 16 deadline will not be met but a week long continuing resolution would allow a deal by December 23. One Senator said they might still be there at Christmas but it didn’t sound like he meant it.

    The reporter noted that both Leahy and Shelby are retiring and want to go out on a good note. Another factor impelling Senators towards a lame duck session deal is their trepidation regarding the Republican House  majority in the next Congress:

        “Nobody wants to hand Kevin McCarthy a grenade with the pin already pulled. And say, ‘Okay here’s your start. This is the first test of your troops’ ” one GOP Senator told Politico.

    There was also a link to Politico’s story on the passing of Rep. Dan McEachin, who represented Richmond and counties south since 2016. McEachin was a good man and an excellent legislator who played a role in producing the House Democrats’ climate legislation.

        “We don’t do this for glory or fame. We do this because we like service,” McEachin said on election night earlier this month.

  143. 143.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kay: What’s to be expected of a gold-digging birther bitch stuck in a loveless marriage who never through her shitstain husband would be elected?

    Oh, and this is in no way defending her.  She can go fuck herself.

  144. 144.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Gin & Tonic:

    We have landed humans on the moon. There’s nothing there. Why go back? 

    “One small step for man.  One giant – wait.  Why the fuck are we here, Buzz?  There’s jack shit but rock and dust and Gidney and Cloyd?”

  145. 145.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ken: ​
    IMHO, it never made sense to include Covid-19 deaths as job-related deaths for cops. First of all, even in 2020, how often did you see cops mask up? That was on them, not on their job. And second, they were just as likely to have picked up their fatal cases of Covid from family, friends, and the guys at whatever bar they liked to hang out at.

    In 2020, aside from Covid, police had 113 job-related deaths, which was the lowest since 1959 (when there were presumably way fewer cops).

  146. 146.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

     

    Melania Trump was supposed to be the Right wing response to Michelle Obama but Melania was just so bad at the role it really was funny. She fucking hated us and was NOT afraid to show it! :)

     

    I had never thought that anyone could get Christmas decorations wrong. I mean..it’s Christmas decorations!

     

    And yet, every year, it was just hideous.

    Absolutely hideous.

  147. 147.

    JustRuss

    @jeffreyw: This.  Best way to get rid of the homeless is to put them in homes, but we can’t seem to figure that out.  Something about Moral Hazard I guess.

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