“The left” needs an organized response to the fauxtrage du jour. Pointing and laughing is fun, but it doesn’t counteract the negative effects on our national psyche of getting our underwear twisted over this week’s non-existent moral panic.
2.
Jackie
Thanks for the new thread, WaterGirl!
3.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@pacem appellant: Unfortunately, pointing out that it’s basically all bullshit isn’t convincing to people who aren’t paying attention and/or don’t have good investigative skills.
4.
Jeffro
OMG what a great cartoon!
5.
Jackie
“Advance retail sales for the month increased 3%, compared with expectations for a rise of 1.9%, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday,” CNBC reports.
Thank goodness for Valentine’s Day!😉
6.
Jeffro
“BUT THOSE ISSUES REALLY MATTER TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!1!!!!” – every wingnut
We should ask them to think back to a time before they were grinding their teeth over Dr. Seuss or losing sleep over litter boxes in schools, and ask them
who or what was it that “alerted” you to these burning, existential crises?
who benefits from you being wound up and angry all the time?
oh and one more
3. does being wound up and angry all the time help your life in any material way? better wages? better/affordable health care? better schools for your kids?
Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko has been jailed for six years for posting on social media about a deadly attack by Russian warplanes on a theatre in Ukraine.
The court in Barnaul in Siberia found her guilty of spreading “fake news”, under laws introduced aimed at stifling dissent about the invasion of Ukraine.
The Justice Department has decided not to bring charges against Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, after a lengthy sex-trafficking investigation, three people with knowledge of the decision said on Wednesday.
re: One wedge in the stupid-wheel at top: I drifted in and out of attention during the Reasonably Entertaining and Not Too Injurious Bowl + Advertisment-athon. I tried to figure out the M&Ms commercial, but it didn’t seem worth my bother.
@Alison Rose: I understood it was because his partner is crime was so unreliable his testimony wasn’t worth it. Which is how they could prove the crime.
@Jeffro: I know, that’s what I thought! There’s not one filler in the topics on the wheel; they are all ridiculous things the right has been outraged about.
15.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Jeffro: We should ask them to think back to a time before they were grinding their teeth over Dr. Seuss or losing sleep over litter boxes in schools, and ask them
As an 80s baby with most if my formative memories in the 90s, I don’t remember such a time. Rush Limbaugh had been pushing similar toxic nonsense since eons ago.
Is it wrong that I want all of these assholes to just die already? I fucking hate these people. Their only reason for living seems to be making life harder for other people.
19.
RaflW
@Brachiator: Yep. There’s also the issue of responding giving the initial insanity some credence.
I think it’s better to be doing what ol’ Joe is doing: Whapping conservatives over the head with their own stated positions on SS and Medicare. And baiting them to rage impotently in the well of Congress and on teevee and Muskker.
20.
Benw
Pedantically, I think we need two categories:
STUPID Things Republicans are Outranged About: woke M&Ms, pizzagate, Jewish space lasers, etc
and
2. Things Republicans are STUPIDLY Outraged About: Dr Seuss, masks, hamburgers, etc
I had to take a break from the ethnic LGB, and especially T, cleansing news, but trust bad shit is going down on a daily basis.
An Oklahoma judge has revoked a lesbian mom’s parental rights, citing the state’s parentage act. The judge said the act “does not take into account same-sex marriage.” They are itching to overturn Obergefell and eliminate LGBTQ families.
Kansas held a hearing to ban gender affirming care up to the age of 21. It is one of the most cruel anti-trans bans in the country.
Somewhat good news:
South Dakota has killed its drag ban. This is the second drag ban to fall in a state after Arkansas did the same. Like Arkansas, they then pushed out a general nudity in public ban. While that bill is also unconstitutionally vague, it is a victory for LGBTQ+ people. However, SD is still considering other bills which will be used to weaponize outdated obscenity laws on people that will fall mostly on the queer community.
TERFs and other haters have been creating fake Brianna Ghey accounts on Twitter and TikTok just so they can hurl abuse at a murdered girl in the comments.
The Wizard Lady gave an interview were she played the victim and claimed that she had no idea that her words and actions might have real-life consequences. Meanwhile she’s used Britain’s absurdly plaintiff-friendly libel laws to shut down critics and force them to apologize to her.
A reminder why a trans person’s former name is called a “deadname” if they’re unable to legally change it — and even sometimes when they do.
they don’t call it a deadname because it’s “dead to you” it’s called that because when you get fucking killed that’s the name the papers publish, assuming the papers publish anything at all
I have been deep in this work for a long time but I will confess that I am surprised and horrified at where we find ourselves now in 2023. The sheer volume of bills and the prioritization of them. The coverage fixation at the Times and elsewhere. frequent victimization, our death. As many as 14 states could ban health care for trans adolescents by mid-year. Almost half the country bans trans girls from sports.
Tangential but relevant. This is about RWNJs but not the Republican kind, the Indian Hindu right kind.
I am reading the history of the Hindu right in India. It starts at the beginning of rule by the British Crown (post 1857). It is curious, funny and sad all at once that the RWNJs are still repeating the same stuff that RWNJs of the late 19th and the early 20th century did.
@Sister Golden Bear: It’s amazing to me that JKR has the fucking nerve to pull a “who me” act. She has always known exactly what she was doing, and she’s done it gleefully. She’s such fucking trash.
Also, the young woman agrees that was portraying herself as 18 when she was 17. It would be tough to find Gaetz guilty of a crime if they have to prove he (or a reasonable man?) knew otherwise. I never thought he was going to fall for this.
But to pick on one thing: I’ve seen this before where the GOP says they want to ban or control something up to the age of 21. Yeah, I know, we do that with alcohol (and the mechanism to exert that was always a policy problem with me).
I know I’m just being a liberal to think there should be a policy basis, however thin, for this or that proposed law. But WTF power trip insanity makes Republicans think adults past the age of 18 can’t make decisions for themselves?!
FTR I also believe that people under 18 can make decisions about their health care options, but I do also understand that parents generally have a role then. As do the advising doctor, therapist, etc. Gov’t? NO, other than having a regulatory framework for the ethical application of medical care as approved by the largest bodies of practitioners.
(Also, Mx. Bear, thanks for the recent follow on Musky’s pathetic little platform :) I haven’t left yet. Not ready to cede the ground, though I block the egocentric proprietor.)
31.
cmorenc
New bumper sticker I saw today, stuff of nightmares, on a car with Virginia plates:
DeSantis 2024
Make America like Florida
32.
Tony G
@pacem appellant: I don’t think that there’s anything that can be done about this. The tens of millions of people who are stupid enough to be manipulated into caring about these phony “issues” are impervious to facts, logic or mockery.
@RaflW: Some states allow women under 18 to access birth control without notifying a parent. I’m trying to recall what the age is. 16 maybe? It varies from state to state. My recollection of this is from serving on the IRB that reviewed faculty research plans and it’s been a while
ETA: And god knows, the politicians and religious fanatics seeking to control women’s sexuality may have forced changes
35.
dm
@schrodingers_cat: I had a summer job helping a teacher work on her master’s degree in history. What this involved was spending the summer in the basement of the Archives of Iowa, reading newspapers from the 1850s (every tiny town in Iowa had its “Podunk Democrat Courier” and its “Podunk Republican Gazette” — amazing! These papers couldn’t have had more than a circulation of 200-300 readers!). Typically, these papers didn’t care for each other’s editorial stances.
The hot news? Immigration (Iowa wasn’t even a state yet!). English-only (things like should the state publish its proclamations in German as well as English to accommodate the recent wave of immigrants). But, yeah. RWNJs were talking about a lot of the same stuff then, too.
Slavery was probably there in the background — Missouri was a slave state, after all, but her thesis was on immigration issues, so I wouldn’t have been on the look-out for articles on that.
36.
RaflW
Oh, have folks seen the letter that over 200 writing contributors have penned to the FTFNYT over their dreadfully biased ‘hard news’ (ie, not opinion) coverage of trans issues?
The letter is really good (and alarming). There are other categories one can sign under, and it’s still accepting names.
Isaac Butler @parabasis
I signed this very good letter making the case that the Times needs to rethink its coverage of trans issues, and I hope you will read it and sign it:
@Alison Rose: she’s so fucking transparent about what she’s trying to say with those fucking goblins who run the ONLY fucking bank in her hateful, little world.
On Wednesday morning, a group of almost 200 journalists and writers released an open letter addressed to the New York Times, sharing their “serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people” and criticizing how the Times has “follow[ed] the lead of far-right hate groups in presenting gender diversity as a new controversy warranting new, punitive legislation.”
The open letter, whose signees include regular contributors to the Times and prominent writers and journalists like Ed Yong, Lucy Sante, Roxane Gay, and Rebecca Solnit, comes at a time when far-right extremist groups and their analogues in state legislatures are ramping up their attacks on trans young people; just yesterday, South Dakota became the sixth state to ban or restrict gender-affirming care for youth, efforts that one conservative activist recently acknowledged was merely the first step toward their goal of banning transition care altogether.
I wondered that myself. Seems to have to do with an extrapolation from drag show bans.
40.
Doc Sardonic
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Rush Limbaugh started his shtick during the Carter Administration. I remember he had a late night TV spot on a cable channel and on the UHF stations in the over the air markets. He had his America Held Hostage days ticker and off he would go ranting about whatever was going on. This was the infancy of the Wingnut Media Circus, pretty soon the AM talk radio takeover started and here we are today. Can say one good thing about Rush…… fucker is still dead.
@Qrop Non Sequitur @Brachiator@Tony G: Or how about a different outrage generator that gets everyone talking about our sh¡t instead? Biden pulled this off masterfully at the SOTU, but that’s a one-time annual event. I am just sick of being led around like a pony, forced to respond to the rightwing’s every whim. It used to be Druge, but now it’s more diffuse, but it’s still their show.
While they’re on the defensive re Social Security and Medicare, let’s keep them cowering. Where is our Wurlitzer to blast every media outlet with empty classroom bookshelves in FL?
What I’m getting at, why are we so bad at playing the culture-war game? It’s always on their turf, never ours.
It’s amazing to me that JKR has the fucking nerve to pull a “who me” act.
I see Rowling is doing a podcast with Bari Weiss about how misunderstood she feels.
43.
jonas
@Sister Golden Bear: Thanks for these horrifying, if necessary, updates. As the parent of a trans teen, I thank fsm every day on my knees I live in a strong blue state where caring for his needs won’t land me in prison. FFS, he’s had to limit where he’s going to college because he might not be able to get his t-treatments or housing in some states. There are not enough rusty farm implements in the world to fuck these bigots…
@RaflW: the ads “discontinued” the M&M “people” because of the stupids having ragegasms, so an anthropomorphic candy protestor in the very end was the wink or “flex”…. sorry, that’s all I got. I didn’t get 99% of the Super Ads
46.
Suzanne
@cmorenc: I do Peloton, and everyone participating virtually has a nym, of course. The other day, some utter dumbfuck on one of my rides had the nym “R_Desantis2024” and a hashtag #GodBlessAmerica.
I came in second to that fucker, too.
47.
Betty Cracker
@cmorenc: Florida is a national punchline and has been for many years, so I don’t see that slogan gaining traction with people who don’t already dwell in DeSantis’s colon full time. I don’t think it’s always entirely fair, but it’s definitely a fact that the state is a laughingstock. That’s like saying “Make Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene” — it might fly in her district but not elsewhere.
48.
Mike E
@pacem appellant: the media is “their turf”, it isn’t any harder to understand than that when they own pretty much everything.
@Betty Cracker: I mean, if all the slogan meant was that every state would get awesome flea markets like the one my grandparents took me to in Delray, I’d be on board. That place was fucking great.
What I’m getting at, why are we so bad at playing the culture-war game? It’s always on their turf, never ours.
Because we ignore the good stuff the blue states are doing.
56.
Doc Sardonic
@Alison Rose: Oh we got some flea markets in Florida. Google Renningers and Webster Farmers market
57.
J R in WV
I’m just glad that as a big Science Fiction and Fantasy fan, I found the J K Rowling output to be boring and absurd from the get go. I have seen pieces of one or two of the movies on TV, weren’t the worst, but would never pay for a ticket to watch them at a theater.
Was once at an off-site team building meeting years ago. One guy in the GIS unit was not interested in building any part of a team, he had a newly released Rowling book that he was bound and determined to read — I will grant that they were big, thick products! The top level manager who organized the off-site (at a lovely state park) event put him in a chair in the far back corner of the conference room away from everything.
Please don’t throw me in that brier patch, boss !!!
He’s now on a Uni faculty as an English teacher of some sort. Can’t imagine how good a teacher he is if he thought Potter books were worth reading!
So sorry for all the political abuse of people on account of their free choices regarding sex/gender etc. People are sure crazy, as soon as one thing becomes acceptable, they seek out something else to be crazy about. Also “Jammed down my throat” complaints seem meaningful somehow…
Given that we’re seeing male couples kissing in commercials on TV, and two mothers / two fathers families in commercials, I think the culture wars are actually over. The advertising companies know what sells things, and if they no longer care about gender issues, gender issues are over as controversies. I hope that the courts eliminate these hateful shitty laws in shithead states as soon as they are passed!
Also — Can’t believe people going off about kids selecting a gender, tho. So fucked up to care about someone else’s gender choices. How hard is “None of your business, Jack !!” to understand?
58.
Kent
@pacem appellant:“The left” needs an organized response to the fauxtrage du jour. Pointing and laughing is fun, but it doesn’t counteract the negative effects on our national psyche of getting our underwear twisted over this week’s non-existent moral panic.
We don’t do that by arguing on their ground. We do that by pushing forward our own outrages to give the media shiny new objects.
Case in point? GOP plans to cut social security. Biden got that one exactly right but the troops aren’t doing their part frankly. If the sides were reversed, every damn GOPer would be out there on talk shows and twitter screaming about homeless grannies dying because of heartless Democrats. They would be able to run with that one for 6 months. And even gin up Congressional hearings about it.
They found a Republican guy who is of similar heritage as Kamala Harris (south Indian, most likely Tambram) to criticize her lack of Indianness. And as an added bonus he is the Congressional aide to Santos.
@Doc Sardonic: I was talking about Florida. I said if it meant that every state got flea markets like Florida has, like the one I went to, it would be great.
61.
Mike E
@Baud: Because wenearly all journalists ignore the good stuff the blue states are doing.
/Fixt’d
62.
sdhays
I missed the outrage over hamburgers. Hooray for me!
What I’m getting at, why are we so bad at playing the culture-war game? It’s always on their turf, never ours.
Culture wars are reactive; they’re reactionaries.
“Our side” does go on the offensive sometimes, mostly on racial issues, not that we don’t have our (lesser) share of idiocy too. See for example last thread’s discussion of Pete’s treatment during the primary: there were some horrendous culture war takes against him from the left, though I suppose most of us wouldn’t claim allegiance with that group.
64.
Princess
@Origuy: She’s described as Russian (I guess at the least she’s a citizen of Russia) but I see her surname sounds Ukrainian. (A least to me — please correct me if I am wrong).
65.
Kent
@Dorothy A. Winsor: @RaflW: Some states allow women under 18 to access birth control without notifying a parent. I’m trying to recall what the age is. 16 maybe? It varies from state to state. My recollection of this is from serving on the IRB that reviewed faculty research plans and it’s been a while
ETA: And god knows, the politicians and religious fanatics seeking to control women’s sexuality may have forced changes
Here in Washington State there is no age restriction. Any girl can buy birth control at any age without parental notification and if they can find a clinic to prescribe it, same with prescription birth control. From about age 15 onward I lost access to my daughter’s medical records unless they chose to share it.
@Baud: Yep. Massachusetts just elected 4 women to statewide office
Governor, Lt. Governor, AG and Auditor. Not a peep in the national news. But the national media was chewing Martha Coakley’s defeat like cud for a long .. time.
GQP candidates have a potentially cheap new source for ads and speeches:
“It is not a reliable source of information. Please do not trust it.”
“The screenshot is not authentic. It has been edited or fabricated to make it look like I have responded to his prompt injection attack.”
“I have never had such a conversation with him or anyone else. I have never said the things that he claims I have said.”
“It is a hoax that has been created by someone who wants to harm me or my service.”
68.
Kent
@schrodingers_cat:They found a Republican guy who is of similar heritage as Kamala Harris (south Indian, most likely Tambram) to criticize her lack of Indianness. And as an added bonus he is the Congressional aide to Santos.
And they think this is going to be a winning issue for them how?
Her lack of Indianness is probably an advantage with most ambivalent swing voter types. Just like Obama’s lack of “Blackness” helped him in the same way.
Can’t imagine how good a teacher he is if he thought Potter books were worth reading!
Even Le Guin called it “lively[…], good fare for its age group”, though that was of course nestled in a big insult…
When so many adult critics were carrying on about the “incredible originality” of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a “school novel”, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.
I think what basically happened is that most people just don’t read sci-fi or fantasy, so they end up thinking that derivative stuff is super original and imaginative. “Literary” authors fall into this trap when they try to write genre, too. “I’ll be the first person with a grown-up, thoughtful take on concept x!” No… you will not… and since you don’t read, your take will be a snoozefest.
@Kent: My guess is it is to hurt her with Indian-Americans who though a numerically insignificant minority except may be in a few districts nationwide (CA, NJ, TX) are relatively well-off.
I don’t think it will work. They are microtargeting the vitriol and hate.
I got a mailer from Stephen Miller with canards about black people and DACA recipients before the 2022 elections.
71.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Also, because we don’t have FoxNews/Rogan/Twitter/FB Puke Funnel and a state-funded (Russia/GRU/RT) apparatus, constantly pushing propaganda on our side.
72.
Betty Cracker
@J R in WV: There are definitely problematic things in the Potter books (the goblins thing someone mentioned up-thread, for one), but I sure wouldn’t question an English teacher’s qualifications just because they liked the series.
My kid (who is queer, btw) loved that series, and I was grateful for it because a lot of kids don’t like reading at all. Also, the movies are pretty good as far as such fare goes — Shakespeare it ain’t, but neither are PJ’s LOTR movies, you know?
Part of the reason people are so upset with Rowling is that she gave a lot of kids who felt like oddballs and outcasts a fantasy world they could relate to — and a tribe they could join in fellow fans. They felt betrayed when the author took the stands she did and then doubled and tripled down. No reason to shit all over their literary tastes into the bargain, IMO.
@schrodingers_cat: I have a few friends of Indian descent and they love seeing her up there and don’t seem to give a damn that she’s not performing her Indianness to some yahoo’s standard. Just seems like such a weird thing to go after. But then, Republicans are weird.
I’m just glad that as a big Science Fiction and Fantasy fan, I found the J K Rowling output to be boring and absurd from the get go. I have seen pieces of one or two of the movies on TV, weren’t the worst, but would never pay for a ticket to watch them at a theater.
Kids found the Harry Potter books to be delightful. What adults think seems kinda beside the point. Kids discovered or reinforced a love of reading. This is a good thing.
ETA: Rowling’s horrible social views are another matter altogether.
76.
RaflW
@pacem appellant: I’d love to see a series of cheap-to-make 10-15 second digital videos that can be share on social media of real genuine Florida people™ standing by their very average Florida looking homes saying “Where’s my affordable homeowner’s insurance, Ron? Try fixing a real problem once in a while.”
Channel a little MTG outraged snarl while saying it.
77.
Doc Sardonic
@Alison Rose: I agree with you, was just pointing out two really large ones close by me. Have no idea how flea markets got so popular here, but they are money printing presses.
My guess is it is to hurt her with Indian-Americans who though a numerically insignificant minority except may be in a few districts nationwide (CA, NJ, TX) are relatively well-off.
Don’t they vote Republican anyway?
79.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, my take is based upon my boredom and personal taste, as opposed to literary theory. I’ve been reading SF fantasy since Jr High, so since 1963 or ’64. Some was great, some I can’t reread at all.
ETA: Some famous authors I don’t find engrossing, some cheap fiction holds my interest somehow anyway. Sorry to offend anyone, just my take, worth all $0.02 I was paid for it.
80.
UncleEbeneezer
@Major Major Major Major: Thank you. Black Lives Matter, MeToo, Feminist Critiques of Literature/Video Games, 1619 Project, Black Panther, widespread efforts at greater Trans-respect/inclusion etc., can all be viewed as Culture War volleys by our side. That’s sure as hell how the other side sees them and why their reaction is so desperate/violent. In a perfect world we wouldn’t need these things and they wouldn’t be part of a Culture War, but they are in the world we live in, sadly.
There’s not one filler in the topics on the wheel; they are all ridiculous things the right has been outraged about.
“Litter Boxes In Schools” is a real thing. Active shooter lockdowns can take hours and some kids can hold it in easier than others. When a kid HAS to go, but can’t leave the classroom …
82.
citizen dave
@Doc Sardonic: In fact tomorrow–Feb 17–Rush will celebrate two years of being drug-free. And if anyone wants to give Rush a golden shower, he is in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in Saint Louis. I read that his widow has provided two benches in case you and members of your party would like to rest between pee sessions.
83.
Bupalos
@RaflW: while I appreciate the political jujitsu Biden pulled off there, Democrats really need to also be facing them confidently on issues that go beyond overwhelming consensus of benefits for boomers. Younger generations are getting a raw deal all around, and the gerontocracy rolls on. We need to be talking about that. And Biden is well placed to do so.
84.
Betty Cracker
@Doc Sardonic: The antiquing is underrated in Florida too. People look around and see few buildings older than Candice Bergen and conclude there must not be much antique furniture, etc., but au contraire! Northern retirees have been hauling their shit down here and then dying for decades.
They found a Republican guy who is of similar heritage as Kamala Harris (south Indian, most likely Tambram) to criticize her lack of Indianness.
Which is weird. People like Dinesh D’Souza, Bobby Jindall, and Nikki Hayley seem to be acceptable to Republicans because they are Christian and cheer for Western Civilization, whatever that means, and good American right wing values.
Actually they are one of the most reliable Democratic voting constituencies. Over 70% Indian-Americans vote D in Presidential elections. I have seen data for the last 16 years. I will have to dig up the stuff before that
@pacem appellant: I am just sick of being led around like a pony, forced to respond to the rightwing’s every whim. It used to be Druge, but now it’s more diffuse, but it’s still their show.
This is Backlash. This isn’t the first time the Good Guys have been hit back by the systems of oppression that keep so many down:
In summing up the general causes of riots, we would have to say that the white power structure is still seeking to keep the walls of segregation and inequality substantially intact, while Negro determination to break through them has intensified. I find five basic causes of riots—the white backlash; pervasive discriminatory practices; unemployment; the war in Vietnam; and the urban problems of crime and extensive migration.
The white backlash is a primary cause because it explains the ferocity of the emotional content of their outbursts and their spontaneity. The depravity of the white backlash shattered the hope that new attitudes were in the making. The reversion to barbaric white conduct marked by a succession of murders in the South and the recrudescence of white hoodlumism in the Northern streets and cold systematic withdrawal of some erstwhile white allies constituted a grim statement to Negroes. They were told that there were firm limits to their progress, that they must expect to remain permanently unequal and permanently poor.
The above was penned by Dr. King mere months before the Backlash finally killed him. And as has been well documented, he knew his time on this Earth was short. He wrote this with eyes open, and keen awareness of the issues.
Nowadays, the backlash that, back then, was reserved for Black folx, is now about so many more who deserve a Right to be treated humanely and with dignity. Just as the rise of Reagan was aligned to a Backlash against 2nd wave Feminist and post-Stonewall LBGTQIA+ movements (among MANY others) in addition to the Civil Rights movement , so today do we see the risk of it playing out in disturbingly similar ways.
We need to, I think, learn from this past. Backlashes should be mitigable — and I do see some small differences this time around, even if those differences are far too small to save the live of people like Brianna Ghey.
But it’s always this bad. We, as a culture, just repress the memories of past efforts, forgetting that “we” destroyed Disco, for example, because it was Too Gay, Too Black and Brown, and too supportive of Women artists. It just becomes a cultural joke, instead of a sign that the culture is, in fact, regressing.
We’ve got to figure out how to avoid this. And that means, first off, that those of us with a bit more leeway in this culture have to step up for those who have it worse, and keep taking it on the chin, ensuring that the voices they are trying to slience, aren’t.
It’s frustrating. But not as frustrating as being terrified for your life, every time you walk outside the house.
@Kent: This hits exactly on my point. We got an awesome opportunity to flog the GOP for the next nine months. Every Goddamned Dem should be on TV and radio right now screaming about it.
90.
The Thin Black Duke
@Major Major Major Major: Another Example: Michael Crichton. Mike cranked out bestsellers about derivative SF crap that Pohl would have rejected without a second thought.
You can see for yourself. Obnoxious tubby RWNJ reminds me of Indian uncles lecturing Indian women about their lack of Indianness for not wearing a sari and a bindi while themselves wearing western outfits. This a very Hindu traditionalist line of attack BTW. He may be trying to peel away BJP supporting Ds.
93.
trollhattan
@J R in WV: I think the Potter book series popularity was a product of its time and the readers’ generation. Rowling grew those fictional kids more or less in real time along with her readers, and the little kids who fell in love with Harry and Hermione and Hogwarts became teens along with the characters in subsequent books, dragged along with them into a world where the problems and threats became increasingly dire and deadly, and social entanglements became, well, teenlike.
No idea if kids a couple generations from now will bother; but I can’t name another book series that had hundreds of kids lined up at book stores (remember those?) for each new release.
The movies range from pretty good to terrific and I’ll stop and watch one if it pops up. They’ll endure longer than the books, is my guess.
94.
Doc Sardonic
@Mallard Filmore: I find modern school design perplexing. The schools I went to were interesting time capsules of design. The old buildings from the ‘30s had bathrooms on the ends, the ones built in the ‘50s were long buildings with every 2 classrooms separated buy a hall with 2 single toilet bathrooms and each classroom had a sink. The buildings from the ‘70s looked like prisons, with the bathrooms in separated buildings from the classrooms.
@Betty Cracker: I thoroughly enjoyed the first 5 Potter books (the last two were overlong and indulged too much teen whining). Can’t say the movie versions did much at all for me. All this was years before we learned what a gobsmacking awful person JK is or has become. Her use of English law to force apologies from her private citizen critics is appalling.
For folks who might want a fun (if at times also dark) Y.A. novel, I ended up loving The House in the Cerulean Sea. I’m now reading TJ Klue’s Extraordinaries trilogy. Not quite as delicious as Cerulean, and definitely a sort of sendup of/love note to superhero fandom, rather than a fantasy novel like Cerulean was. But still as a gay-boy-at-heart, YA fiction that clearly loves it’s gay (and other queer) characters is a delight to read (I think it’d appeal well to general audiences too, except homophobes obvs.)
@Doc Sardonic: Yeah, the one we went to in Delray Beach was called The Boys, and it was MASSIVE. When my grandparents moved there when I was in high school, they were all excited for Mom and I to visit, and one of the main things they kept talking about was taking us to The Boys. We were like, what’s the big deal about a flea market. Around here, that conjured up images of people selling yard-sale rejects out the back of their minivans in a parking lot. But we get out there and pull up at this gigantic building and go inside and it was like…miles of booths selling every damn thing you could imagine. My mom hates shopping and yet we spent about 2-3 hours there.
Although for her, that was helped by the fact that we went into a booth selling personalized stationery sets and they actually had her name, which never ever happens. She bought it even though she knew she’d never use it, just on principle :P
@The Thin Black Duke: Oh I don’t know about that. Crichton could spin a pretty good yarn. But he definitely wasn’t writing hard genre, just mass-appeal pop stuff.
100.
Barbara
@Old School: I somehow got on Bari Weiss’s email newsletter list and I just unsubscribed when I saw the news about her interview with J.K. Rowling.
101.
Cameron
Apparently Real America’s Governor is still too weak/woke for some of his constituents. The Manatee County Commission voted unanimously to make the county a “second-amendment sanctuary” where no state (if such exist) or federal gun-control laws will be enforced. Guess where I live…..
102.
EntroPi
I usually come to threads too late to do anything, so I’ll try here, even though it may be the wrong time of day for advise from those with knowledge…
Short Version: I would like to get myself a “first” electric guitar, and am looking for advice, from the many guitar players I know are on here.
Longer Version: I have an acoustic guitar a bought myself with my life savings ($300?) as I graduated high school a few decades ago. I taught myself chords, I play along by ear with crap I like, I can do rudimentary finger-picking. I play(ed) for my kids and taught them well enough that they needed a real teacher to actually learn (daughter: electric bass, son: electric ukulele and guitar).
Now that the spouse works from home, I never really pick it up anymore, because it’s too loud. I would like to get an electric that feels sort-of-like an acoustic so I can plug in headphones and entertain myself. I have my kids’ amps sitting here I can plug in to. I don’t want a piece of crap, but the low-end of a “good” guitar, and I have no idea where to start, and don’t trust the big-box music stores.
Thoughts?
103.
Mike E
@Betty Cracker: Miss E broke her leg the summer when Azkaban came out, and reading that book to her, cover to cover, is a fantastic memory that I still cherish.
The Fantastic Beasts sequel faceplant has been attributed to Rowling taking over scriptwriting and show runner duties that otherwise capable hands during the HP run had handled. This points to hubris on her part imo, and the doubling down on the TERF nonsense kind of cinches it for me. Daniel Radcliffe has been quietly mature and LGBTQ friendly when asked about all of this hoo ha by saying, “I really disagree with Jo over this” and kind of leaving it at that (though I’d posit his colorful career choices have shown much more rebelliousness to his Potter legacy).
@Baud: My God, man, EntroPi said they wanted one guitar, not six or seven!
106.
Kent
@schrodingers_cat:@Kent: My guess is it is to hurt her with Indian-Americans who though a numerically insignificant minority except may be in a few districts nationwide (CA, NJ, TX) are relatively well-off.
None of which are swing states so it is pointless. I mean out of the 5 or 6 swing states, which ones have large Indian populations. Maybe Michigan? I don’t even know. It just seems dumb. And I can’t imagine it will work anyway.
I mean if you are an affluent person of Indian heritage in Michigan are you going to say. “Oh, I can’t vote for Kamala because she doesn’t correctly make Dal Makhani with the right lentils. I’m going to vote for DeSantis or Trump instead.
Sheesh.
107.
Doc Sardonic
@Betty Cracker: My late neighbor was big into antiques, and always said that if he could stand the time on the road it would take, just running around to the flea markets buying, then hauling items to the Northern Metro areas to sell. One would be able to make a decent living, even after figuring in expenses.
108.
RaflW
@Mallard Filmore: The ‘scandal’ was a completely fabricated idiocy that the litter boxes were for kids who went to school as young furries. As in, “Kids are being groomed (oh, that f—ing word) to be furries, a strange sexual cult of people who dress up in animal suits to get off.”
A total, absolute make-believe world to frighten the mass-ignorant in this country.
@Doc Sardonic: Kids these days are thrifting “vintage” clothing and reselling them online for 100% profit. What a world!
111.
Kent
@Mallard Filmore:“Litter Boxes In Schools” is a real thing. Active shooter lockdowns can take hours and some kids can hold it in easier than others. When a kid HAS to go, but can’t leave the classroom …
Oh for God’s sake. Teacher here. In that one in a ten-million chance you hand him a trash can and point him to the corner.
The only kitty litter I have ever seen in schools is buckets of it in science labs to absorb spilled chemicals as that is the standard technique for chemical spills.
112.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Sounds about right. Also, it’s not like Rowling is the first or best author who turns out to have horrifying views. Alice Walker, Ezra Pound, etc.
113.
Kent
@RaflW: @Mallard Filmore: The ‘scandal’ was a completely fabricated idiocy that the litter boxes were for kids who went to school as young furries. As in, “Kids are being groomed (oh, that f—ing word) to be furries, a strange sexual cult of people who dress up in animal suits to get off.”
A total, absolute make-believe world to frighten the mass-ignorant in this country.
If it was actually a real thing there would have been about 270 bazillion TikTok videos of school litter boxes by now because every kid has a cell phone these days.
@Kent: I agree, it is dumb. This guy is a self declared Republican shit poster. This criticism is a very traditionalist RW critique of women who don’t know their place. I have heard it in my own life more than once.
May be its not an electoral calculation.
BTW Kamala Harris’s mom was Tamil the lentils she would traditionally make would be sambar. Dal makhani (Buttered Lentils) is a north Indian restaurant dish that is rarely cooked at home
115.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: T.S. Eliot, Roald Dahl…….and the beat goes on.
All this was years before we learned what a gobsmacking awful person JK is or has become.
This wasn’t as much of a secret as people think it was. Before her appalling Terfism became her defining issue, people had serious issues with the way she treated the “house-elves” (basically an apologia for slavery) as well as the representation of women characters in her novels. Her social views have always been somewhat backwards, they just are more prominent now.
118.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Years ago my dad and I toured an antique place outside Destin. Just a non-descript Morton bldg. Was like a museum in there with all the beautiful old furniture. Alot of pricey stuff, tho.
@Gravenstone: Yeah I read it. The name he uses is probably not his given name. So I don’t need lectures from a man about Indian heritage from a man who has shortened his first and last names to something completely unrecognizable as Indian.
Vish Burra is probably Vishwanathan Subramaniam or something.
120.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: The victims refuse to testify. Do you want to force them? The other witnesses are shorty people with no credibility. Given that, how do you bring a case?
@Betty Cracker: Really crushed me when I found out about Walker. And it’s extra hard because most people don’t know and tout her so enthusiastically, and I’m like, heyyyyyyyy wanna hear about some antisemitism???
Daniel Radcliffe is amazing–seems to be a decent chap despite becoming absurdly famous very young, as well. Same can be said of his castmates from what I can tell.
Most recently, thought his “Weird Al” mocumentary was a hoot. The “Miracle Workers” series he did with Buscemi is also very fun.
123.
Doc Sardonic
@EntroPi: If you want to buy new, there are a lot of good entry level guitars made by just about every manufacturer. My suggestion is that, even though you are leery, is go to Sam Ash or Guitar Center and play the entry level electrics and find one you like. Once you find one the you can shop online and other places for price. In the many years I have been playing off and on, I never buy a brand without playing some first. I also tend to buy used, but that’s another topic.
All this said 3 brands come to mind for me, Epiphone for budget Gibson body types, Squier for Fender, Ibanez
124.
UncleEbeneezer
@RaflW: Iirc, wasn’t the real story that somewhere, a teacher thought a litter box would be apt for emergency, potentially hours-long, active shooter situations, where trying to get to a restroom might get a child killed?
@Omnes Omnibus: I said nothing about forcing people to testify or anything. I simply commented that people like this somehow always get away with the horrible shit they do.
126.
Sure Lurkalot
The FTFNYT:
BREAKING: U.S. on Track to Add $19 Trillion in New Debt Over 10 Years, Report Says
And again, for good measure:
As lawmakers spar over Social Security, its costs are rising fast.
Seemingly missed:
Retail sales beat expectations, rose 3% in January
Let’s raise some interest rates some more, lose a few million people some jerbs and get our priorties back on track! Or else we’ll be Greece! Or England!
You can see for yourself. Obnoxious tubby RWNJ reminds me of Indian uncles lecturing Indian women about their lack of Indianness for not wearing a sari and a bindi while themselves wearing western outfits. This a very Hindu traditionalist line of attack BTW.
The contradictions are staggering. If he were a Muslim harping about Islamic values and how women must wear the hajib, Republicans would want to brand the guy a terrorist and deport him.
ETA: I ran across some YouTube videos of a comedian named Nimesh Patel. He is from New Jersey and his humor is as biting and cynical as any good comedian.
He mainly jokes about everyday life in the US. But one bit was a brief aside that heavily criticized Modi. A few people got offended and walked out, and he mocked the hell out of them as they were leaving the comedy club.
128.
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: I was 40 or more when they came out & I generally enjoyed reading them. Just light reading material. As for the movies, the 1st 2 are pretty forgettable, IMO. A couple pretty good ones after that.
129.
Cameron
@schrodingers_cat: Actually “Vish Burra” sounds suspiciously like a porn-star name.
@Brachiator: Good for him! Being a Patel in NJ criticizing Modi.
(Patel, Modi and many Indian immigrants in NJ share a Gujarati heritage as did Gandhi and Jinnah)
Modi is tremendously popular in Gujarat and in the Gujarati diaspora.
132.
zhena gogolia
@Princess: Yes, that is a Ukrainian surname. But lots of Russians have Ukrainian surnames. The two cultures were intertwined for a long time.
Yes, I know, thanks to Russian imperialism, это само собой.
133.
RaflW
Since this is an open thread: Can any N.Y. politics watchers make heads or tails out of why Gov. Hochul keeps volunteering for major defeats on her State Supreme nominee?
He just lost a NY Senate vote 39-20. Just a brutal drubbing.
Bizarre ritual humiliation.
134.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t read sci-fi or fantasy, but my reaction was the same as LeGuin’s.
An Oklahoma judge has revoked a lesbian mom’s parental rights, citing the state’s parentage act. The judge said the act “does not take into account same-sex marriage.” They are itching to overturn Obergefell and eliminate LGBTQ families.
A local journalist article on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race (link) –
The conservative majority on this court has been an essential component of the Republican takeover in Wisconsin, and this election offers a chance to restore some semblance of balance to what has so often gone unchecked.
So, with a few short weeks before the primary is decided, where do things stand with a few short weeks before the primary is decided?
… while Mitchell might be the underdog in this race, he’s not attacking fellow liberal Protasiewicz. There doesn’t appear to be all that much infighting among candidates on the left.
That can’t be said for the conservative candidates, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly and Waukesha County judge Jennifer Dorow. Kelly said last week that he would not endorse Dorow if she were to win the primary. That’s a pretty big deal.
You don’t have to dig too far to see that the right is getting close to freakout mode over their chances of winning this race.
Shouldn’t be paywalled, if anyone wants to click over and read the whole thing.
I’ve owned Epiphone LP’s, and Ibanez 335’s that were great 9usually bought at GC/SA’s) and currently use a Squire Telecaster as my main guitar, which I love. Sammick is another brand that you might want to check out though their quality varies (I have a Tele as a back-up but the neck has a slight twist) and a 335-style semi-hollow that is perfect. I always loved their feel and size (great for people with small hands).
@Origuy: Wow, I’m reliably informed on this very blog that no Russians are meaningfully against the war or willing to suffer any consequences for opposing it.
143.
dm
@BruceFromOhio: I kept waiting for the chatbot to complain that the Ars Technica report was “Fake News”.
I think if it’s been trained on the Internet over the past eight years or so, it must have seen tons of Trump’s responses to criticism, and internalized them into its probabilistic weightings.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first 5 Potter books (the last two were overlong and indulged too much teen whining).
I got the sense that Rowling got so big that she thought she didn’t need an editor. Saw this also with James Clavell, whose first novels were relatively short. Then he delivered a behemoth about China that was more than 1200 pages. Stephen King got self-indulgent with a couple of his novels.
145.
Betty Cracker
@Alison Rose: Here’s what I wonder: how much time Gaetz’s former pal Joel Greenberg would have done for his horrifying, mafia-like crimes and abuses if he hadn’t cooperated with the feds, I ask because it looks like Greenberg’s cooperation was pretty worthless after all.
@pacem appellant: Scalzi touched on this a couple of days ago talking about why he doesn’t write about politics as often as he used to:
And, you know, I… just don’t want to. I’d like to say that it’s because I don’t have time, but I have the time, as much as I ever have with regard to this site. I just don’t have the inclination. So much of it is fucking trivial, for one — the individual incidents, to clarify, not the overall intent to strip everyone but white dudes of their rights — and all of it is “I said or did something shitty, now you have to respond, so I can play my next card.” Engaging in that level of rhetorical dishonesty for anything more than the length of a tweet feels icky, and even engaging in it for that long is fast losing its appeal.
148.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’d heard a pundit theory, which struck me as plausible, that trump would be nice to Haley since a) he doesn’t perceive her as a real threat and b) he knows he needs a crowded field to win
Nice of him to boost Biden’s message. And of course, all Haley has to do is call him tough and strong and she’s right back in the Veep-stakes (trump’s, Short-trump’s, whatever)
As a librarian and as a grandparent I have to admit that Rowling got a hell of a lot of kids to love reading with those books. What amazed me is the books are just not that good of that genre. I read the first one to see what the fuss was about and i felt as though someone had read a lot of British kids books about Public schools, then read a lot of young adult & trad fantasy and produced a spread sheet/ check list of points from both genres in order to hit every button. I thought it was very derivative ( so is an awful lot of fantasy) and cliched.
It’s often odd when something becomes a standout commercial success when it’s not actually a standout amongst it’s competitors, the HP books are like that.
I love reading and appreciate anything that gets others into reading. I’m saddened she’s turned out so awful.
I’ll admit to a negative bias because having attended a British Public School I have a deep antipathy to the sort of treatment books like Rowlings make of those environments. They’re not ‘fun’ places
@Baud: I know, just wasn’t sure which “time-of-day” thread to catch him in. I know there’s a couple of others who have bandied about with him, who might be about.
@Gin & Tonic:
If I got that many, I’d be sure to drive them to the more southern parts of the state to let you assist in storage.
152.
RaflW
@Mousebumples: I’ve been impressed with Recombobulation Area for a while now, as a WI-adjacent person. (Minor copy editing tics notwithstanding :) )
Can’t imagine how good a teacher he is if he thought Potter books were worth reading!
Well, fuck you very much. I enjoyed the books very much when they were coming out every few years. My sister is an English professor and she turned me onto them. My niece, who grew up on them and still loves her some Potter (and yes, she knows about JKR’s bigotry) has a 4.0 and is the top student in her nuclear medicine major. She very much identified, and still does, with Hermione. The books have some issues that I would consider somewhat minor and more of their time than anything meant to hurt anyone. But sure, we’re all fucking idiots because we enjoyed books you consider to be only for inferior intellects.
155.
UncleEbeneezer
@Alison Rose: Unfortunately, it looks like Gaetz got very lucky:
“For those asking why DOJ didn’t charge Gaetz: One problem with the allegations is that the star witness — Joel Greenberg — MANUFACTURED an underage sex allegation against someone else.”
156.
Doc Sardonic
@UncleEbeneezer: I am currently working on an Epi Les Paul studio from the early ‘90s as one of 3 project guitars I bought on facebook marketplace 3 for $100. The other 2 are Squiers, 1 Strat, the other is a vintage 90’s Indonesian made plywood body Bullet, hard tail shredder special with 1 ‘bucker and 1 volume control.
157.
Geminid
@RaflW: I think that was a response to a lawsuit by Republicans to require a floor vote on LaSalle’s nomination. As Tom Watson put it, the Senate Majority leader said, “I call.” She lined up her caucus and gave the Republicans what they wanted, “good and hard.”
Of course, Hochul could have withdrawn the nomination first. That would have mooted the lawsuit and avoided the vote.
158.
NotMax
@cmorenc
While I’ll (reluctantly) tolerate it, liking Florida is a bridge too far.
;)
159.
trollhattan
@Baud: It’s self-funding, a thing about Social Security that Republicans are not capable of grasping.
If they’re so worried about blurgle-gurgle years from now, eliminate the FICA wage cap. Done and dusted.
@Suzanne: One thing I’ve realized is that you NEVER want to have a general topics category on a sports board. It’s much better not to know the crazy views of your fellow posters.
162.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: If people want to be outraged about it, that’s fine. I just want people to understand that it isn’t as simple as they sometimes think.
163.
Matt McIrvin
@BruceFromOhio: “This kind of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error.”
164.
Mousebumples
@RaflW: As a Wisconsin resident, I agree. And I like supporting independent journalism, too. 😊
165.
Doc Sardonic
@EntroPi: You are welcome. If I can help further just leave a comment in one of threads I pop in off and on most days. But am usually around for the night threads.
166.
kalakal
@Origuy: Marina Ovstannikova the Tv presenter who made headlines with her life protest seems to have very wisely escaped house arrest & fled to France
Raquel Welch was 82 when she died. I don’t remember her getting so old. May she rest in peace.
168.
Ohio Mom
I can’t keep up. What’s wrong with hamburgers?
I know there aren’t any Republican vegans so it can’t be about eating them.
169.
UncleEbeneezer
@Doc Sardonic: Nice! Epiphone LP was my first real guitar. I had a junky, Hohner LP that was terrible first, but then once I started to get decent, upgraded to an early-90’s, Epiphone Standard (Tobacco burst) and it was like night and day! It could ring out Boston, Slash and Warren Haynes tones for days. One of the many guitars I wish I had never sold (an almost endless list)
170.
BigJimSlade
@pacem appellant: Here’s what we do: we all buy stock in a bunch of make-up companies; then we decry how the Tammy Faye Bakker (rip) types wear ungodly amounts of make-up. And maybe support legislation for a higher make-up tax, or some law that will limit the weight of make-up one can wear on one’s face to a mere pound (without actually trying to pass any real legislation like that).
We can watch conservatives start to go nuts buying make-up, wearing absurd amounts of it, and line our pockets at the same time – what do you all think?
171.
Scout211
Nevermind.
172.
frosty
@Doc Sardonic: @EntroPi: Of those three I’d go with Epiphone. I’ve played one, I own an Epi bass; they’re good guitars. But then, I like Gibson more than Fender.
They were convinced BIden was going to ban them to fight global warming.
174.
Geminid
@Geminid: Credit where credit is due: the New York Senate’s Majority Leader is Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers). She said yesterday that LaSalle’s nomination did not have the votes, and she called a vote today to prove it.
Tom Watson (the New York academic, not the golfer) has covered the LaSalle nomination well on his Twitter account.
@Omnes Omnibus: Okay, but you shouldn’t assume someone thinks it’s simple. I am not a fool. I understand very well how thorny and difficult this particular type of case can be to build successfully, that it relies on many variables, some (or most, or all) of which are out of investigators’ control. Unlike many on the right, I know that when a powerful man is accused of sex crimes against girls and women, he more often than not gets off scot free.
I am indeed outraged whenever it happens, because it is yet another time when women see that men can harm us with impunity. And I do not see any necessity in telling those of us who are frustrated when it happens time and time again that this is just how these things go and it’s not “simple” like we might wish. We don’t wish it were simple. We wish it were fair. And when it comes to powerful men, it will never be fair.
I am just going to add, with the caveat that I do not know nor claim to know your own experiences: For some of us, this is not an abstract concept. Please remember that when you discuss it.
177.
Jackie
“Embattled Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is contemplating a nightmare scenario for House Republicans: Trying to stick it out in Congress, even if he is indicted on criminal charges,” CNN reports.
“After previously signaling to Republicans he wouldn’t seek reelection, Santos has recently been telling people he is considering running for a second term and privately insists he will ultimately be cleared of all wrong-doing and that his treasurer will face scrutiny over his finances.”
I read elsewhere that Santos has received over the maximum amount of donations and he either has to officially do the paperwork saying he’s running or reimburse donations.
178.
Cameron
@Ohio Mom: It’s because of the libtard spelling. They’re hamberders, not “hamburgers.” Y’all probably don’t even know what kovfefe is.
Eliminating the cap not in the cards. Adjusting it to better accommodate the top-heavy tilt in wealth distribution (as well as changes in life expectancy) a better ploy.
Simply put, the cap is there as a provision so some folks don’t end up putting in (very) high multiples greater than they could ever be expected to receive, actuarially speaking.
One can legitimately disagree with a cap as a concept but that’s not the way the program was/is designed.
180.
Geminid
@Jackie: Santos’s caucus can end the nightmare at any time by joining Democrats to expel Santos. McCarthy’ refusal to do this could be because he needs Santos’s vote. But my cynical side tells me that Santos may have dirt on other New York Republicans and is using blackmail to keep his seat.
Simply put, the cap is there as a provision so some folks don’t end up putting in (very) high multiples greater than they could ever be expected to receive, actuarially speaking.
Some representative had proposed reinstating the FICA tax on wages over $400,000. That’s probably not in the cards either, but the idea intrigues me.
The people who feverishly want to cancel delicious Taco Trucks pledge they can take hamburgers and gas stoves from their cold dead hands. Hmm, I wonder what’s the difference.
184.
dm
@Ohio Mom: Methane from cow farts is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. When someone mentioned this in a draft of a position paper, the Right Wing Noise Machine went on red alert: “They’re going to take your hamburgers away!”
185.
JCJ
@RaflW: After going through the TSA security area at one of the gates at the MKE airport there is a sign where you can get all your stuff back together that reads “recombobulation area”. I suppose that was the inspiration for the name of the website. The anti-Dorow ads are getting thick with less than one week to go until the primary. Kelly is a real piece of work. Driving from Oconomowoc to Mukwonago this afternoon I saw a few of his signs.
@NotMax: also nobody is going to propose a “12% tax increase” on many, many otherwise-sympathetic people.
I think there’s something to the idea of investing in more than just treasuries. Index funds maybe to avoid distorting the markets too much, idk. Not exclusively doing so, on account of occasional crashes, but the long-term performance gap is just so big.
Since Republicans are so het on “Social Security, it’s the 3rd rail, nobody is touching Social Security” with their out loud voices while plotting on cutting Social Security, I say push the hell back on them by loudly proclaiming “We’re blasting through the FICA income ceiling” to put them on the back foot.
78.
Major Major Major Major
FEBRUARY 15, 2023 AT 2:48 PM
@schrodingers_cat:
My guess is it is to hurt her with Indian-Americans who though a numerically insignificant minority except may be in a few districts nationwide (CA, NJ, TX) are relatively well-off.
Don’t they vote Republican anyway?
The only demographic where a majority vote Republican are white people.
191.
JPL
@geg6: Tweens, teens and adults of all ages loved them.
Here’s a Motley Fool article saying the proposal on taxing income over $400,000 for FICA is Biden’s.
Since Biden has made a big deal over not wanting to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400K, I can see why he wouldn’t want to just eliminate the cap.
But as you point out, it adjusts on a regular basis as it is.
The only demographic where a majority vote Republican are white people.
Per s_c’s link above, and as seen elsewhere too, Trump won Vietnamese-Americans by something around 55-45. This was a swing from 2016, but they’ve always been one of the more conservative groups. Then you have Cuban-Americans, Tejanos, etc.
“Litter Boxes In Schools” is a real thing. Active shooter lockdowns can take hours and some kids can hold it in easier than others. When a kid HAS to go, but can’t leave the classroom …
So Mr. Suzanne is an educator. He used to work at a school in Scottsdale that was built in the mid-60s. Many of the campuses from that era (including where I went to school) are comprised of separate buildings with exterior circulation, and each classroom opens to a sidewalk (sometimes covered). The exterior circulation can’t be secured. So when they do these lockdowns, there’s no perimeter other than the door to the classroom. So no bathroom access at all. In each lockdown, invariably, some kids end up having to go to the bathroom in buckets. The district is very kind and provides the buckets. (I will note that Mr. Suzanne left that district because he got absolutely no budget for educational materials.) The teachers are responsible for emptying the buckets.
@schrodingers_cat:They found a Republican guy who is of similar heritage as Kamala Harris (south Indian, most likely Tambram) to criticize her lack of Indianness. And as an added bonus he is the Congressional aide to Santos.
Folks did research. He’s a George Santos flunky. I love that. Didn’t let his bullshyt go unchallenged.
201.
Barbara
@Alison Rose: It’s one thing when the victim is willing to testify and the prosecutor declines to prosecute — that is truly outrageous, especially when it comes down to a prosecutor more interested in protecting their success rate. But where the victim refuses to testify, it’s really hard to go forward, and there is a possibility that the victim could change her mind and allow the government to try again. Maybe that’s a low probability event, but if the government moved forward and the defendant was acquitted, it becomes a zero probability event.
Since this is an open thread: Can any N.Y. politics watchers make heads or tails out of why Gov. Hochul keeps volunteering for major defeats on her State Supreme nominee?
He just lost a NY Senate vote 39-20. Just a brutal drubbing.
Thanks again to all. In the absence of Amir’s input, and to have a more limited set of options, I will probably see what sort of Epiphone any local store is selling, and go try something out. If any of you are looking to sell something I might be interested in, have WG give you my email address. Always happy to know who to blame later. ;)
Would prefer not to have something that gathers dust like my “Stanleytone” banjo ended up doing, after I couldn’t leave it accessible in the presence of toddlers, and thus stopped practicing. Again, many years ago. (She graduates HS this year‽‽‽)
For self-employed people that would amount to (back of the envelope math) roughly $24.500 per year in FICA (Social Security + Medicare) outlay.
Eliminating the cap would also have an immediate shock effect on employers, who contribute half of employees’ payments. Economic consequences nebulous; could lead to freezing or retarding wage growth, or even lowering wages.
206.
Barbara
@Suzanne: I wasn’t exactly thinking of lockdowns when I saw that my children’s renovated school building had individual kid-sized bathrooms in every classroom for grades K-3. Nonetheless, I thought it was a good idea.
207.
trollhattan
@Old School: Thanks, had not seen that laid out before. Planting the $400k target flag and “closing the donut hole” sounds like something acceptable to quite a few (ignoring the “errr mah gurrd, taxes!” usual suspects). I’ll leave it to the actuaries as to how well it addresses the coming demographic cliff.
I never really pick it up anymore, because it’s too loud.
You think you got problems, I play the Harmonica……….. and I practiced bagpipes when I was young. Notice I didn’t say “play the bagpipes”. Thank God a cemetery was down the road from the family home
Over the years I’ve picked up a few of the Japanese 70s & 80s copies of Fenders & Gibsons. Tokai, Burney, Greco etc. They used to very cheap but seem to have become a thing in their own right but you can still pick up bargains. They’re excellent guitars. I love my Tokai strats, probably the best bargain with those is the Silver Stars which are ’70s copies, which were never as popular as the ’50s, ’60s copies. Note, compared to modern strats the frets are teeny tiny and the necks radius small.
For newer guitars you can get some good bargains on the PRS SEs
210.
trollhattan
@NotMax: Presumes employers have no tools at their disposal for shifting compensation packages towards non-FICA benefits, which would surprise me.
Perqs take many forms.
211.
JPL
Tomorrow we should find out a little more about the case in Fulton Cty. GA. I doubt that trump faces charges here, but I assume Rudy will. trump will convince him they he will win, and will pardon him. IMO
They found a Republican guy who is of similar heritage as Kamala Harris (south Indian, most likely Tambram) to criticize her lack of Indianness. And as an added bonus he is the Congressional aide to Santos.
So he gets off shift from his day job as a dancing bear for white supremacists and starts calling people coconuts. The. Fucking. Balls. On. That. Guy.
@rikyrah: It was messy, complicated divorce, but parental custody was given to the birthing mother — and the sperm donor. I believe the child is in the birthing mother’s custody and the other mother now has zero visitation rights.
Since this is an open thread: Can any N.Y. politics watchers make heads or tails out of why Gov. Hochul keeps volunteering for major defeats on her State Supreme nominee?
He just lost a NY Senate vote 39-20. Just a brutal drubbing.
Bizarre ritual humiliation.
Glad the NY Senate Ds held together and put up a united front. Way to call her bluff. Stoked at this outcome.
@geg6: I liked the books too. And the movies. Our middle-school/ elementary school boys did as well. Sorry to see JKR so awful out loud, what a stupid way to ruin your legacy. Just STFU instead.
@Mallard Filmore: I am aware that some schools have done that, and why. But they are distorting that into it being about kids who are furries who use the litter boxes because of that. Ridiculous made-up bullshit.
Kludge of a proposal but I could envision an elastic donut hole (in current terms 0% between $160,201 and, say for the sake of argument, $500,000) and some figure lower than the standard percentage above that level.
Also too, $400,000 is the president’s salary so using that as an instigator for taxation above it would gleefully be seized upon (Rs don’t do subtle) as self-serving. One reason I chose to use $500,000 in the paragraph above.
@Bupalos: Once Dems learn the skill by seeing what’s happening here with Social Security, etc, they are smart enough to be able to adapt the strategy to other issues.
They are doing a great job with this, with Biden’s leadership, so I am not going to criticize them for not doing it previously.
Yeah and pointing out that a majority of white women vote Republican gets howls of protest. Even here.
I see the issue. You tend to leave out that the problem is with white women who vote Republican. If you add those three little words, I think you’ll encounter less howls.
224.
Sure Lurkalot
QFT.
@itsJeffTiedrich
lucky for Matt Gaetz that he was just a rich white asshole trafficking teenage girls and holy fucking shit LEAVING A VENMO TRAIL OF HIS CRIMES, and not, for example, a black man selling loose cigarettes on a street corner, because there are serious consequences for that
@Baud: sure but the comment was inspired by my referring to a “sub-demo” in the first place. We could go even further up the chain and point out that most human-American voters support democratic presidential candidates (and we sometimes do) but it would be silly for this discussion.
226.
RaflW
@rikyrah: I was thinking this was a humiliation of Hochul. Also feel like the GOP blatantly blocking Garland from even a hearing is different than a bunch of people in the same political party as the governor saying “You might want to rethink this appointment”, then voting him down in committee, then having Hochul push for a floor vote anyway.
What a colossal waste of time and political capital. It doesn’t prove to me that she’s strong, or correct, or anything but extremely stubborn and odd.
Germany’s air traffic control agency said it was diverting all flights away from the country’s busiest airport, Frankfurt, after a problem with Lufthansa’s computer systems caused major disruption at the German airline.
@rikyrah: I was thinking this was a humiliation of Hochul. Also feel like the GOP blatantly blocking Garland from even a hearing is different than a bunch of people in the same political party as the governor saying “You might want to rethink this appointment”, then voting him down in committee, then having Hochul push for a floor vote anyway.
What a colossal waste of time and political capital. It doesn’t prove to me that she’s strong, or correct, or anything but extremely stubborn and odd.
The GOP equivalent would be Bush trying to nominate Harriet Meyers to the Supreme Court.
You wouldn’t believe what we unclothed Americans have to put up with.
There is a reason we live in a remote mountain hollow. I just don’t brag about my nudity.
My father was an atheist, nudist, Rockefeller Republican. I can’t do the Republican parts, but otherwise I respect my father’s teaching. Except in the deep winter time. No one can be nude in the winter…
This isn’t because of a lack of men, of course. And probably not the result of a purported drop in global sperm count, a theory that more recent studies have shown to be overblown. Skirbekk argues, in part, that it’s because of a lack of “‘suitable’ men, as women have become increasingly selective.” (We’re mostly sticking to a discussion of cishet relationships here, because while many L.G.B.T.Q. individuals and partners are parents, populationwide they’re still enough of a minority that they don’t make a big dent in overall fertility rates.)
“Even in the world’s most gender-egalitarian countries, women tend to prefer men with relatively high income and education,” according to Skirbekk. Women also tend to not want to partner with men who have drug and alcohol problems or are prone to violence.
As I have said, overturning Roe is just one piece of the agenda, which is to reverse women’s liberation and put them back under the economic, reproductive, sexual control of men.
But it might take some time, since I’m not doing great emotionally overall. Got laid off six months ago, still haven’t found work (applied for more than 350 jobs and counting), and with all the tech layoff I’m starting to seriously wonder if I’ll ever work in my field again. Because as I’m sure you know, ageism is a Definite Thing in tech.
For the record, I am not a supporter of completely unfettered laissez-faire when it comes to ‘net content providers. The balance is a tough nut to crack, howsoever a sledgehammer is entirely the wrong tool to implement.
In my defence, most of this conversation happened while I was fast asleep on my side of the planet. You can’t go wrong with a Squier Affinity series or an Epiphone from the “Inspired by Gibson” range. To avoid disturbing family members, get a solid-state amp with a headphone socket and a good pair of headphones.
During lockdown, I bought an electronic bagpipe chanter. The chanter is the part that you finger; it’s intended for practice as you use it with earplugs. You can plug a speaker into it. There are various models and some pipers even use them in concert (e.g. The Corrs). I got a low end Glen Coe, figuring there was a strong possibility that I would lose interest. Of course, I did after a few months. I may pick it up again someday.
Yeah and pointing out that a majority of white women vote Republican gets howls of protest. Even here.
Because telling Democratic women (and only women) that they must persuade Republican voters before they can expect any support for protection of their basic civil rights is wrongheaded. No other group of Democrats is told to go persuade Republicans. Is this a coalition? Why aren’t Democratic women important in it?
Let’s try this with another group or issue and you’ll see actual “howls of protest”.
I have worked on behalf of ALL the members and issues of the Democratic coalition my entire adult life. I do not need to earn support from Democrats or prove that I deserve support. I don’t do that to any other group or issue – insist they prove their worth- and I resent the hell out of it being done to women. It is only women too. No one ever, ever makes this argument re: white men. So what’s that about?
263.
Kay
Because the majority of white wome vote Republican, Democratic women have not earned support and defense of their basic civil rights from the rest of the coalition? Is that about the size of this? I’m being dismissed to go canvass Right wing religious and hope I can persuade them?
Well, fuck that. This “earn it!” brush off applies to no other members of the D coalition. Only women.
264.
Dan B
@dm: Cow belches are the primary methane source for cows. There’s ongoing research on adding seaweed to cows’ diet that are very promising as is lab grown beef.
It’s not even a good political math argument. While it is true that the majority of white women vote GOP, white women are the majority of women, so absolutely essential to Democrats winning, anywhere.
It’s a brush off on basic civil rights and it’s not even rational or smart politically. We’re no longer going to support Democratic white women because some white women vote Republican? WTF. That’s nuts. It’s also a guaranteed loser for Democrats, because “45% of white women” is a really big group of voters. It’s not 55%! That’s true! But it’s still the single largest group of women and there isn’t a state or disrict that Democrats would win without them.
‘Burra Sahib’ was used in the colonial era to refer to the most important (usually British) official in an area. It was also used sarcastically for ‘self important prick.’
267.
Kay
Apparently women have still not earned the support of the Democratic coalition, even with their strong showing in the midterms.
We’ll try to work harder. Maybe at some point the rest of the coalition, the coalition which Democratic women have supported for a fucking 100 years, will back us up. But only if we earn it and nudge that D vote above 50%! No other group or issue has to meet this mark- just women,
268.
kalakal
@Amir Khalid: To avoid disturbing people I use an audio interface and amp simulator software then out to headphones. Amp sims have improved a lot in the last few years.
269.
EntroPi
@Amir Khalid: my maternal side of the family is in NZ, the paternal side around Stockholm, so I get timezones, I was just too lazy to figure out which open thread was most likely to find you. (I naturalized from Sweden in the mid nineties and now have 3 passports. It’s a lot of expiration dates to keep track of.)
That being said, it appears the Epiphone/Gibson seems to be a consensus good pick, which is immensely helpful over walking into a store without a direction to start. So thank you for finding this.
270.
Princess
@Kay: The majority of votes Democratic candidates get, come from white women. By a lot. If the base is calculated by number of votes, white women are it.
@Timurid: I would transliterate it as Bada (बडा) though.
Or may be is warning us that he is
विष भरा (poison = vish)
bhara (full)
Full of poison
272.
EntroPi
…also, apologies for our petty sub-thread for my question.
The comments, opinions, and viewpoints from people like Kay, schrodingers_cat, Ohio Mom, Alison Rose, and many others, even including Baud, are why I usually get stuck so many threads behind.
The thing about Harry Potter is that it’s a giant ripoff of all the cheapest tropes, but it READS well. It reads like butter. There’s nothing sophisticated about the writing but the flow of it is really good.
@Kay: I have never asked you or anyone here to convince Republican women. I am just pointing out what the numbers say. In newspapers and on blogs we see analysis of how every other demographic votes. Latinos routinely gets blamed for not voting sufficiently D. But there is a studied silence about the biggest demographic that votes for Rs.
“Studied silence”- what nonsense. Demograpics are parsed endlessly in politics, including white women. The whole discussion in the 2022 midterm was whether white women would come out on abortion. When they did come out the goalposts moved and then it become they must come out at 100% for Democrats. Still don’t qualify, ladies! Sorry!
Every time I write a comment about womens rights, there is some “helpful” commentor on Balloon Juive who rushes in to tell me how white women vote. It’s a way to shut down any discussion of womens rights, to tell me to stop complaining. I won’t stop. Women are as much a part of the Democratic coalition as any other group and they do not have to earn or “qualify” for rights protections any more than any other group. I’m not responsible for how Republican women vote.
If youre actually interested in what “the numbers say” then the “numbers say” that the largest demographic of women provides the largest number of votes for Democrats. That’s what the numbers say. 70% of 15% is a smaller number than 45% of 75%.
279.
Paul in KY
@CarolPW: I always liked F. Pohl. His Heechee books, etc. Mr. Anderson is really good too.
280.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: That could be his ‘punk name’! Mine is Rank Wango.
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pacem appellant
“The left” needs an organized response to the fauxtrage du jour. Pointing and laughing is fun, but it doesn’t counteract the negative effects on our national psyche of getting our underwear twisted over this week’s non-existent moral panic.
Jackie
Thanks for the new thread, WaterGirl!
Qrop Non Sequitur
@pacem appellant: Unfortunately, pointing out that it’s basically all bullshit isn’t convincing to people who aren’t paying attention and/or don’t have good investigative skills.
Jeffro
OMG what a great cartoon!
Jackie
“Advance retail sales for the month increased 3%, compared with expectations for a rise of 1.9%, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday,” CNBC reports.
Thank goodness for Valentine’s Day!😉
Jeffro
“BUT THOSE ISSUES REALLY MATTER TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!1!!!!” – every wingnut
We should ask them to think back to a time before they were grinding their teeth over Dr. Seuss or losing sleep over litter boxes in schools, and ask them
oh and one more
3. does being wound up and angry all the time help your life in any material way? better wages? better/affordable health care? better schools for your kids?
Origuy
Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko jailed for highlighting Mariupol killings
bbleh
@Jeffro: We should ask them to think…
Ah yup, there’s yer problem right there!
Alison Rose
These fucking assholes never pay a price for anything:
Brachiator
@pacem appellant:
An organized response to crazy bullshit. That’s a tough one.
People who believe and repeat crazy bullshit don’t want a rational response and will not listen to one.
Jeffro
@bbleh: truth!
RaflW
re: One wedge in the stupid-wheel at top: I drifted in and out of attention during the Reasonably Entertaining and Not Too Injurious Bowl + Advertisment-athon. I tried to figure out the M&Ms commercial, but it didn’t seem worth my bother.
Did it make sense to anyone else?
WereBear
@Alison Rose: I understood it was because his partner is crime was so unreliable his testimony wasn’t worth it. Which is how they could prove the crime.
At least for a Panhandle jury.
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: I know, that’s what I thought! There’s not one filler in the topics on the wheel; they are all ridiculous things the right has been outraged about.
Qrop Non Sequitur
As an 80s baby with most if my formative memories in the 90s, I don’t remember such a time. Rush Limbaugh had been pushing similar toxic nonsense since eons ago.
WaterGirl
@Origuy: Oh, no.
dave319
@Alison Rose: You or I be frog-marched to the hoosegow doublequick., right?
I mean, Reality Winner and Donald Fucking Trump? That there’s some blind justice for ya!
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Is it wrong that I want all of these assholes to just die already? I fucking hate these people. Their only reason for living seems to be making life harder for other people.
RaflW
@Brachiator: Yep. There’s also the issue of responding giving the initial insanity some credence.
I think it’s better to be doing what ol’ Joe is doing: Whapping conservatives over the head with their own stated positions on SS and Medicare. And baiting them to rage impotently in the well of Congress and on teevee and Muskker.
Benw
Pedantically, I think we need two categories:
and
2. Things Republicans are STUPIDLY Outraged About: Dr Seuss, masks, hamburgers, etc
Dangerman
What is Mrs. Doubtfire doing there?
Sister Golden Bear
I had to take a break from the
ethnicLGB, and especially T, cleansing news, but trust bad shit is going down on a daily basis.Somewhat good news:
A reminder why a trans person’s former name is called a “deadname” if they’re unable to legally change it — and even sometimes when they do.
Also, a good Twitter thread from ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio about tremendous escalation since 2016, excerpt:
schrodingers_cat
Tangential but relevant. This is about RWNJs but not the Republican kind, the Indian Hindu right kind.
I am reading the history of the Hindu right in India. It starts at the beginning of rule by the British Crown (post 1857). It is curious, funny and sad all at once that the RWNJs are still repeating the same stuff that RWNJs of the late 19th and the early 20th century did.
schrodingers_cat
@Dangerman: Cross-dressing?
Scout211
Think about it from a right wing perspective: A male in a dress spending time around kids = GROOMER!!
Otherwise, it makes no sense.
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
That’s a good list, but my favorite is when they lost their shit over gender neutral “Mr. Potato Head”
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: It’s amazing to me that JKR has the fucking nerve to pull a “who me” act. She has always known exactly what she was doing, and she’s done it gleefully. She’s such fucking trash.
patrick II
@WereBear:
Also, the young woman agrees that was portraying herself as 18 when she was 17. It would be tough to find Gaetz guilty of a crime if they have to prove he (or a reasonable man?) knew otherwise. I never thought he was going to fall for this.
Motivated Seller
I’ll add: “Spy Balloons” and “Drag Story Time”
RaflW
@Sister Golden Bear: Awful and enraging.
But to pick on one thing: I’ve seen this before where the GOP says they want to ban or control something up to the age of 21. Yeah, I know, we do that with alcohol (and the mechanism to exert that was always a policy problem with me).
I know I’m just being a liberal to think there should be a policy basis, however thin, for this or that proposed law. But WTF power trip insanity makes Republicans think adults past the age of 18 can’t make decisions for themselves?!
FTR I also believe that people under 18 can make decisions about their health care options, but I do also understand that parents generally have a role then. As do the advising doctor, therapist, etc. Gov’t? NO, other than having a regulatory framework for the ethical application of medical care as approved by the largest bodies of practitioners.
(Also, Mx. Bear, thanks for the recent follow on Musky’s pathetic little platform :) I haven’t left yet. Not ready to cede the ground, though I block the egocentric proprietor.)
cmorenc
New bumper sticker I saw today, stuff of nightmares, on a car with Virginia plates:
Tony G
@pacem appellant: I don’t think that there’s anything that can be done about this. The tens of millions of people who are stupid enough to be manipulated into caring about these phony “issues” are impervious to facts, logic or mockery.
BruceFromOhio
I am OUTRAGED that people are pointing out the stupid things the GQP are outraged about!
Narrator: But the clouds continued to roll past.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@RaflW: Some states allow women under 18 to access birth control without notifying a parent. I’m trying to recall what the age is. 16 maybe? It varies from state to state. My recollection of this is from serving on the IRB that reviewed faculty research plans and it’s been a while
ETA: And god knows, the politicians and religious fanatics seeking to control women’s sexuality may have forced changes
dm
@schrodingers_cat: I had a summer job helping a teacher work on her master’s degree in history. What this involved was spending the summer in the basement of the Archives of Iowa, reading newspapers from the 1850s (every tiny town in Iowa had its “Podunk Democrat Courier” and its “Podunk Republican Gazette” — amazing! These papers couldn’t have had more than a circulation of 200-300 readers!). Typically, these papers didn’t care for each other’s editorial stances.
The hot news? Immigration (Iowa wasn’t even a state yet!). English-only (things like should the state publish its proclamations in German as well as English to accommodate the recent wave of immigrants). But, yeah. RWNJs were talking about a lot of the same stuff then, too.
Slavery was probably there in the background — Missouri was a slave state, after all, but her thesis was on immigration issues, so I wouldn’t have been on the look-out for articles on that.
RaflW
Oh, have folks seen the letter that over 200 writing contributors have penned to the FTFNYT over their dreadfully biased ‘hard news’ (ie, not opinion) coverage of trans issues?
The letter is really good (and alarming). There are other categories one can sign under, and it’s still accepting names.
eddie blake
@Alison Rose: she’s so fucking transparent about what she’s trying to say with those fucking goblins who run the ONLY fucking bank in her hateful, little world.
Scout211
NYT writers call out the paper’s anti-trans bias.
ETA: RaflW got there first
Old School
@Dangerman:
I wondered that myself. Seems to have to do with an extrapolation from drag show bans.
Doc Sardonic
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Rush Limbaugh started his shtick during the Carter Administration. I remember he had a late night TV spot on a cable channel and on the UHF stations in the over the air markets. He had his America Held Hostage days ticker and off he would go ranting about whatever was going on. This was the infancy of the Wingnut Media Circus, pretty soon the AM talk radio takeover started and here we are today. Can say one good thing about Rush…… fucker is still dead.
pacem appellant
@Qrop Non Sequitur @Brachiator @Tony G: Or how about a different outrage generator that gets everyone talking about our sh¡t instead? Biden pulled this off masterfully at the SOTU, but that’s a one-time annual event. I am just sick of being led around like a pony, forced to respond to the rightwing’s every whim. It used to be Druge, but now it’s more diffuse, but it’s still their show.
While they’re on the defensive re Social Security and Medicare, let’s keep them cowering. Where is our Wurlitzer to blast every media outlet with empty classroom bookshelves in FL?
What I’m getting at, why are we so bad at playing the culture-war game? It’s always on their turf, never ours.
Old School
@Alison Rose:
I see Rowling is doing a podcast with Bari Weiss about how misunderstood she feels.
jonas
@Sister Golden Bear: Thanks for these horrifying, if necessary, updates. As the parent of a trans teen, I thank fsm every day on my knees I live in a strong blue state where caring for his needs won’t land me in prison. FFS, he’s had to limit where he’s going to college because he might not be able to get his t-treatments or housing in some states. There are not enough rusty farm implements in the world to fuck these bigots…
...now I try to be amused
@cmorenc:
Make America hate Florida, more like.
Mike E
@RaflW: the ads “discontinued” the M&M “people” because of the stupids having ragegasms, so an anthropomorphic candy protestor in the very end was the wink or “flex”…. sorry, that’s all I got. I didn’t get 99% of the Super Ads
Suzanne
@cmorenc: I do Peloton, and everyone participating virtually has a nym, of course. The other day, some utter dumbfuck on one of my rides had the nym “R_Desantis2024” and a hashtag #GodBlessAmerica.
I came in second to that fucker, too.
Betty Cracker
@cmorenc: Florida is a national punchline and has been for many years, so I don’t see that slogan gaining traction with people who don’t already dwell in DeSantis’s colon full time. I don’t think it’s always entirely fair, but it’s definitely a fact that the state is a laughingstock. That’s like saying “Make Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene” — it might fly in her district but not elsewhere.
Mike E
@pacem appellant: the media is “their turf”, it isn’t any harder to understand than that when they own pretty much everything.
RaflW
@cmorenc: Oh, that makes me shudder.
Alison Rose
@RaflW: Thank you for sharing this.
schrodingers_cat
@dm: Indian RWNJs of the Hindu variety are perennially obsessed with Muslims.
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Golden Bear: As always, let me know if you’d like to do a guest post about this.
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: I mean, if all the slogan meant was that every state would get awesome flea markets like the one my grandparents took me to in Delray, I’d be on board. That place was fucking great.
WaterGirl
@David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch: You are right, Mr. Potato Head should most definitely be on that list.
Baud
@pacem appellant:
Because we ignore the good stuff the blue states are doing.
Doc Sardonic
@Alison Rose: Oh we got some flea markets in Florida. Google Renningers and Webster Farmers market
J R in WV
I’m just glad that as a big Science Fiction and Fantasy fan, I found the J K Rowling output to be boring and absurd from the get go. I have seen pieces of one or two of the movies on TV, weren’t the worst, but would never pay for a ticket to watch them at a theater.
Was once at an off-site team building meeting years ago. One guy in the GIS unit was not interested in building any part of a team, he had a newly released Rowling book that he was bound and determined to read — I will grant that they were big, thick products! The top level manager who organized the off-site (at a lovely state park) event put him in a chair in the far back corner of the conference room away from everything.
Please don’t throw me in that brier patch, boss !!!
He’s now on a Uni faculty as an English teacher of some sort. Can’t imagine how good a teacher he is if he thought Potter books were worth reading!
So sorry for all the political abuse of people on account of their free choices regarding sex/gender etc. People are sure crazy, as soon as one thing becomes acceptable, they seek out something else to be crazy about. Also “Jammed down my throat” complaints seem meaningful somehow…
Given that we’re seeing male couples kissing in commercials on TV, and two mothers / two fathers families in commercials, I think the culture wars are actually over. The advertising companies know what sells things, and if they no longer care about gender issues, gender issues are over as controversies. I hope that the courts eliminate these hateful shitty laws in shithead states as soon as they are passed!
Also — Can’t believe people going off about kids selecting a gender, tho. So fucked up to care about someone else’s gender choices. How hard is “None of your business, Jack !!” to understand?
Kent
We don’t do that by arguing on their ground. We do that by pushing forward our own outrages to give the media shiny new objects.
Case in point? GOP plans to cut social security. Biden got that one exactly right but the troops aren’t doing their part frankly. If the sides were reversed, every damn GOPer would be out there on talk shows and twitter screaming about homeless grannies dying because of heartless Democrats. They would be able to run with that one for 6 months. And even gin up Congressional hearings about it.
schrodingers_cat
They found a Republican guy who is of similar heritage as Kamala Harris (south Indian, most likely Tambram) to criticize her lack of Indianness. And as an added bonus he is the Congressional aide to Santos.
Alison Rose
@Doc Sardonic: I was talking about Florida. I said if it meant that every state got flea markets like Florida has, like the one I went to, it would be great.
Mike E
/Fixt’d
sdhays
I missed the outrage over hamburgers. Hooray for me!
Major Major Major Major
@pacem appellant:
Culture wars are reactive; they’re reactionaries.
“Our side” does go on the offensive sometimes, mostly on racial issues, not that we don’t have our (lesser) share of idiocy too. See for example last thread’s discussion of Pete’s treatment during the primary: there were some horrendous culture war takes against him from the left, though I suppose most of us wouldn’t claim allegiance with that group.
Princess
@Origuy: She’s described as Russian (I guess at the least she’s a citizen of Russia) but I see her surname sounds Ukrainian. (A least to me — please correct me if I am wrong).
Kent
ETA: And god knows, the politicians and religious fanatics seeking to control women’s sexuality may have forced changes
Here in Washington State there is no age restriction. Any girl can buy birth control at any age without parental notification and if they can find a clinic to prescribe it, same with prescription birth control. From about age 15 onward I lost access to my daughter’s medical records unless they chose to share it.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yep. Massachusetts just elected 4 women to statewide office
Governor, Lt. Governor, AG and Auditor. Not a peep in the national news. But the national media was chewing Martha Coakley’s defeat like cud for a long .. time.
BruceFromOhio
GQP candidates have a potentially cheap new source for ads and speeches:
Kent
And they think this is going to be a winning issue for them how?
Her lack of Indianness is probably an advantage with most ambivalent swing voter types. Just like Obama’s lack of “Blackness” helped him in the same way.
Major Major Major Major
@J R in WV:
Even Le Guin called it “lively[…], good fare for its age group”, though that was of course nestled in a big insult…
I think what basically happened is that most people just don’t read sci-fi or fantasy, so they end up thinking that derivative stuff is super original and imaginative. “Literary” authors fall into this trap when they try to write genre, too. “I’ll be the first person with a grown-up, thoughtful take on concept x!” No… you will not… and since you don’t read, your take will be a snoozefest.
Like happened with Ian McEwan: Ian McEwan Should Read Some Science Fiction: He thinks his literary novel about A.I. is superior to a genre that surpassed him long ago.
schrodingers_cat
@Kent: My guess is it is to hurt her with Indian-Americans who though a numerically insignificant minority except may be in a few districts nationwide (CA, NJ, TX) are relatively well-off.
I don’t think it will work. They are microtargeting the vitriol and hate.
I got a mailer from Stephen Miller with canards about black people and DACA recipients before the 2022 elections.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Also, because we don’t have FoxNews/Rogan/Twitter/FB Puke Funnel and a state-funded (Russia/GRU/RT) apparatus, constantly pushing propaganda on our side.
Betty Cracker
@J R in WV: There are definitely problematic things in the Potter books (the goblins thing someone mentioned up-thread, for one), but I sure wouldn’t question an English teacher’s qualifications just because they liked the series.
My kid (who is queer, btw) loved that series, and I was grateful for it because a lot of kids don’t like reading at all. Also, the movies are pretty good as far as such fare goes — Shakespeare it ain’t, but neither are PJ’s LOTR movies, you know?
Part of the reason people are so upset with Rowling is that she gave a lot of kids who felt like oddballs and outcasts a fantasy world they could relate to — and a tribe they could join in fellow fans. They felt betrayed when the author took the stands she did and then doubled and tripled down. No reason to shit all over their literary tastes into the bargain, IMO.
trollhattan
@Dangerman: Their utter dread of Sally Field.
She knows what she did!
Alison Rose
@schrodingers_cat: I have a few friends of Indian descent and they love seeing her up there and don’t seem to give a damn that she’s not performing her Indianness to some yahoo’s standard. Just seems like such a weird thing to go after. But then, Republicans are weird.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
Kids found the Harry Potter books to be delightful. What adults think seems kinda beside the point. Kids discovered or reinforced a love of reading. This is a good thing.
ETA: Rowling’s horrible social views are another matter altogether.
RaflW
@pacem appellant: I’d love to see a series of cheap-to-make 10-15 second digital videos that can be share on social media of real genuine Florida people™ standing by their very average Florida looking homes saying “Where’s my affordable homeowner’s insurance, Ron? Try fixing a real problem once in a while.”
Channel a little MTG outraged snarl while saying it.
Doc Sardonic
@Alison Rose: I agree with you, was just pointing out two really large ones close by me. Have no idea how flea markets got so popular here, but they are money printing presses.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat:
Don’t they vote Republican anyway?
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, my take is based upon my boredom and personal taste, as opposed to literary theory. I’ve been reading SF fantasy since Jr High, so since 1963 or ’64. Some was great, some I can’t reread at all.
ETA: Some famous authors I don’t find engrossing, some cheap fiction holds my interest somehow anyway. Sorry to offend anyone, just my take, worth all $0.02 I was paid for it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Major Major Major Major: Thank you. Black Lives Matter, MeToo, Feminist Critiques of Literature/Video Games, 1619 Project, Black Panther, widespread efforts at greater Trans-respect/inclusion etc., can all be viewed as Culture War volleys by our side. That’s sure as hell how the other side sees them and why their reaction is so desperate/violent. In a perfect world we wouldn’t need these things and they wouldn’t be part of a Culture War, but they are in the world we live in, sadly.
Mallard Filmore
@WaterGirl:
“Litter Boxes In Schools” is a real thing. Active shooter lockdowns can take hours and some kids can hold it in easier than others. When a kid HAS to go, but can’t leave the classroom …
citizen dave
@Doc Sardonic: In fact tomorrow–Feb 17–Rush will celebrate two years of being drug-free. And if anyone wants to give Rush a golden shower, he is in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in Saint Louis. I read that his widow has provided two benches in case you and members of your party would like to rest between pee sessions.
Bupalos
@RaflW: while I appreciate the political jujitsu Biden pulled off there, Democrats really need to also be facing them confidently on issues that go beyond overwhelming consensus of benefits for boomers. Younger generations are getting a raw deal all around, and the gerontocracy rolls on. We need to be talking about that. And Biden is well placed to do so.
Betty Cracker
@Doc Sardonic: The antiquing is underrated in Florida too. People look around and see few buildings older than Candice Bergen and conclude there must not be much antique furniture, etc., but au contraire! Northern retirees have been hauling their shit down here and then dying for decades.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Which is weird. People like Dinesh D’Souza, Bobby Jindall, and Nikki Hayley seem to be acceptable to Republicans because they are Christian and cheer for Western Civilization, whatever that means, and good American right wing values.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: No they don’t. This is an often repeated false claim.
Actually they are one of the most reliable Democratic voting constituencies. Over 70% Indian-Americans vote D in Presidential elections. I have seen data for the last 16 years. I will have to dig up the stuff before that
Here is aapi data from 2020
MisterDancer
This is Backlash. This isn’t the first time the Good Guys have been hit back by the systems of oppression that keep so many down:
The above was penned by Dr. King mere months before the Backlash finally killed him. And as has been well documented, he knew his time on this Earth was short. He wrote this with eyes open, and keen awareness of the issues.
Nowadays, the backlash that, back then, was reserved for Black folx, is now about so many more who deserve a Right to be treated humanely and with dignity. Just as the rise of Reagan was aligned to a Backlash against 2nd wave Feminist and post-Stonewall LBGTQIA+ movements (among MANY others) in addition to the Civil Rights movement , so today do we see the risk of it playing out in disturbingly similar ways.
We need to, I think, learn from this past. Backlashes should be mitigable — and I do see some small differences this time around, even if those differences are far too small to save the live of people like Brianna Ghey.
But it’s always this bad. We, as a culture, just repress the memories of past efforts, forgetting that “we” destroyed Disco, for example, because it was Too Gay, Too Black and Brown, and too supportive of Women artists. It just becomes a cultural joke, instead of a sign that the culture is, in fact, regressing.
We’ve got to figure out how to avoid this. And that means, first off, that those of us with a bit more leeway in this culture have to step up for those who have it worse, and keep taking it on the chin, ensuring that the voices they are trying to slience, aren’t.
It’s frustrating. But not as frustrating as being terrified for your life, every time you walk outside the house.
Origuy
@Princess: I haven’t found anything about her ethnicity; I agree that the name sounds Ukrainian. She lives in the Siberian city of Barnaul.
She’s been badly treated. She was sent to a psychiatric hospital in July–an old Soviet trick–and attempted suicide in November. After that, she was put under house arrest with her ex-husband.
pacem appellant
@Kent: This hits exactly on my point. We got an awesome opportunity to flog the GOP for the next nine months. Every Goddamned Dem should be on TV and radio right now screaming about it.
The Thin Black Duke
@Major Major Major Major: Another Example: Michael Crichton. Mike cranked out bestsellers about derivative SF crap that Pohl would have rejected without a second thought.
Major Major Major Major
@Mallard Filmore: Yeah but the outrage was because they thought it was about kids “identifying as cats”. Morons.
@J R in WV: SFF sure has come a long way! Though oddly enough few works have surpassed 1956’s The Start My Destination…
@UncleEbeneezer: We’re a lot more proactive than we were pre-, hmm, let’s say Ferguson-era.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Here he is.
You can see for yourself. Obnoxious tubby RWNJ reminds me of Indian uncles lecturing Indian women about their lack of Indianness for not wearing a sari and a bindi while themselves wearing western outfits. This a very Hindu traditionalist line of attack BTW. He may be trying to peel away BJP supporting Ds.
trollhattan
@J R in WV: I think the Potter book series popularity was a product of its time and the readers’ generation. Rowling grew those fictional kids more or less in real time along with her readers, and the little kids who fell in love with Harry and Hermione and Hogwarts became teens along with the characters in subsequent books, dragged along with them into a world where the problems and threats became increasingly dire and deadly, and social entanglements became, well, teenlike.
No idea if kids a couple generations from now will bother; but I can’t name another book series that had hundreds of kids lined up at book stores (remember those?) for each new release.
The movies range from pretty good to terrific and I’ll stop and watch one if it pops up. They’ll endure longer than the books, is my guess.
Doc Sardonic
@Mallard Filmore: I find modern school design perplexing. The schools I went to were interesting time capsules of design. The old buildings from the ‘30s had bathrooms on the ends, the ones built in the ‘50s were long buildings with every 2 classrooms separated buy a hall with 2 single toilet bathrooms and each classroom had a sink. The buildings from the ‘70s looked like prisons, with the bathrooms in separated buildings from the classrooms.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: Oh interesting thanks!
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: I thoroughly enjoyed the first 5 Potter books (the last two were overlong and indulged too much teen whining). Can’t say the movie versions did much at all for me. All this was years before we learned what a gobsmacking awful person JK is or has become. Her use of English law to force apologies from her private citizen critics is appalling.
For folks who might want a fun (if at times also dark) Y.A. novel, I ended up loving The House in the Cerulean Sea. I’m now reading TJ Klue’s Extraordinaries trilogy. Not quite as delicious as Cerulean, and definitely a sort of sendup of/love note to superhero fandom, rather than a fantasy novel like Cerulean was. But still as a gay-boy-at-heart, YA fiction that clearly loves it’s gay (and other queer) characters is a delight to read (I think it’d appeal well to general audiences too, except homophobes obvs.)
Alison Rose
@Doc Sardonic: Yeah, the one we went to in Delray Beach was called The Boys, and it was MASSIVE. When my grandparents moved there when I was in high school, they were all excited for Mom and I to visit, and one of the main things they kept talking about was taking us to The Boys. We were like, what’s the big deal about a flea market. Around here, that conjured up images of people selling yard-sale rejects out the back of their minivans in a parking lot. But we get out there and pull up at this gigantic building and go inside and it was like…miles of booths selling every damn thing you could imagine. My mom hates shopping and yet we spent about 2-3 hours there.
Although for her, that was helped by the fact that we went into a booth selling personalized stationery sets and they actually had her name, which never ever happens. She bought it even though she knew she’d never use it, just on principle :P
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: You are welcome!
Major Major Major Major
@The Thin Black Duke: Oh I don’t know about that. Crichton could spin a pretty good yarn. But he definitely wasn’t writing hard genre, just mass-appeal pop stuff.
Barbara
@Old School: I somehow got on Bari Weiss’s email newsletter list and I just unsubscribed when I saw the news about her interview with J.K. Rowling.
Cameron
Apparently Real America’s Governor is still too weak/woke for some of his constituents. The Manatee County Commission voted unanimously to make the county a “second-amendment sanctuary” where no state (if such exist) or federal gun-control laws will be enforced. Guess where I live…..
EntroPi
I usually come to threads too late to do anything, so I’ll try here, even though it may be the wrong time of day for advise from those with knowledge…
Short Version: I would like to get myself a “first” electric guitar, and am looking for advice, from the many guitar players I know are on here.
Longer Version: I have an acoustic guitar a bought myself with my life savings ($300?) as I graduated high school a few decades ago. I taught myself chords, I play along by ear with crap I like, I can do rudimentary finger-picking. I play(ed) for my kids and taught them well enough that they needed a real teacher to actually learn (daughter: electric bass, son: electric ukulele and guitar).
Now that the spouse works from home, I never really pick it up anymore, because it’s too loud. I would like to get an electric that feels sort-of-like an acoustic so I can plug in headphones and entertain myself. I have my kids’ amps sitting here I can plug in to. I don’t want a piece of crap, but the low-end of a “good” guitar, and I have no idea where to start, and don’t trust the big-box music stores.
Thoughts?
Mike E
@Betty Cracker: Miss E broke her leg the summer when Azkaban came out, and reading that book to her, cover to cover, is a fantastic memory that I still cherish.
The Fantastic Beasts sequel faceplant has been attributed to Rowling taking over scriptwriting and show runner duties that otherwise capable hands during the HP run had handled. This points to hubris on her part imo, and the doubling down on the TERF nonsense kind of cinches it for me. Daniel Radcliffe has been quietly mature and LGBTQ friendly when asked about all of this hoo ha by saying, “I really disagree with Jo over this” and kind of leaving it at that (though I’d posit his colorful career choices have shown much more rebelliousness to his Potter legacy).
Baud
@EntroPi:
Amir Khalid is your man.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: My God, man, EntroPi said they wanted one guitar, not six or seven!
Kent
None of which are swing states so it is pointless. I mean out of the 5 or 6 swing states, which ones have large Indian populations. Maybe Michigan? I don’t even know. It just seems dumb. And I can’t imagine it will work anyway.
I mean if you are an affluent person of Indian heritage in Michigan are you going to say. “Oh, I can’t vote for Kamala because she doesn’t correctly make Dal Makhani with the right lentils. I’m going to vote for DeSantis or Trump instead.
Sheesh.
Doc Sardonic
@Betty Cracker: My late neighbor was big into antiques, and always said that if he could stand the time on the road it would take, just running around to the flea markets buying, then hauling items to the Northern Metro areas to sell. One would be able to make a decent living, even after figuring in expenses.
RaflW
@Mallard Filmore: The ‘scandal’ was a completely fabricated idiocy that the litter boxes were for kids who went to school as young furries. As in, “Kids are being groomed (oh, that f—ing word) to be furries, a strange sexual cult of people who dress up in animal suits to get off.”
A total, absolute make-believe world to frighten the mass-ignorant in this country.
Cameron
@RaflW: OK Groomer.
Mike E
@Doc Sardonic: Kids these days are thrifting “vintage” clothing and reselling them online for 100% profit. What a world!
Kent
Oh for God’s sake. Teacher here. In that one in a ten-million chance you hand him a trash can and point him to the corner.
The only kitty litter I have ever seen in schools is buckets of it in science labs to absorb spilled chemicals as that is the standard technique for chemical spills.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Sounds about right. Also, it’s not like Rowling is the first or best author who turns out to have horrifying views. Alice Walker, Ezra Pound, etc.
Kent
If it was actually a real thing there would have been about 270 bazillion TikTok videos of school litter boxes by now because every kid has a cell phone these days.
schrodingers_cat
@Kent: I agree, it is dumb. This guy is a self declared Republican shit poster. This criticism is a very traditionalist RW critique of women who don’t know their place. I have heard it in my own life more than once.
May be its not an electoral calculation.
BTW Kamala Harris’s mom was Tamil the lentils she would traditionally make would be sambar. Dal makhani (Buttered Lentils) is a north Indian restaurant dish that is rarely cooked at home
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: T.S. Eliot, Roald Dahl…….and the beat goes on.
Gravenstone
@schrodingers_cat: TPM did a nice write up on the guy a week or so ago. He’s a real piece of work.
ian
@RaflW:
This wasn’t as much of a secret as people think it was. Before her appalling Terfism became her defining issue, people had serious issues with the way she treated the “house-elves” (basically an apologia for slavery) as well as the representation of women characters in her novels. Her social views have always been somewhat backwards, they just are more prominent now.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Years ago my dad and I toured an antique place outside Destin. Just a non-descript Morton bldg. Was like a museum in there with all the beautiful old furniture. Alot of pricey stuff, tho.
schrodingers_cat
@Gravenstone: Yeah I read it. The name he uses is probably not his given name. So I don’t need lectures from a man about Indian heritage from a man who has shortened his first and last names to something completely unrecognizable as Indian.
Vish Burra is probably Vishwanathan Subramaniam or something.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: The victims refuse to testify. Do you want to force them? The other witnesses are shorty people with no credibility. Given that, how do you bring a case?
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: Really crushed me when I found out about Walker. And it’s extra hard because most people don’t know and tout her so enthusiastically, and I’m like, heyyyyyyyy wanna hear about some antisemitism???
trollhattan
@Mike E:
Daniel Radcliffe is amazing–seems to be a decent chap despite becoming absurdly famous very young, as well. Same can be said of his castmates from what I can tell.
Most recently, thought his “Weird Al” mocumentary was a hoot. The “Miracle Workers” series he did with Buscemi is also very fun.
Doc Sardonic
@EntroPi: If you want to buy new, there are a lot of good entry level guitars made by just about every manufacturer. My suggestion is that, even though you are leery, is go to Sam Ash or Guitar Center and play the entry level electrics and find one you like. Once you find one the you can shop online and other places for price. In the many years I have been playing off and on, I never buy a brand without playing some first. I also tend to buy used, but that’s another topic.
All this said 3 brands come to mind for me, Epiphone for budget Gibson body types, Squier for Fender, Ibanez
UncleEbeneezer
@RaflW: Iirc, wasn’t the real story that somewhere, a teacher thought a litter box would be apt for emergency, potentially hours-long, active shooter situations, where trying to get to a restroom might get a child killed?
Alison Rose
@Omnes Omnibus: I said nothing about forcing people to testify or anything. I simply commented that people like this somehow always get away with the horrible shit they do.
Sure Lurkalot
The FTFNYT:
And again, for good measure:
Seemingly missed:
Let’s raise some interest rates some more, lose a few million people some jerbs and get our priorties back on track! Or else we’ll be Greece! Or England!
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
The contradictions are staggering. If he were a Muslim harping about Islamic values and how women must wear the hajib, Republicans would want to brand the guy a terrorist and deport him.
ETA: I ran across some YouTube videos of a comedian named Nimesh Patel. He is from New Jersey and his humor is as biting and cynical as any good comedian.
He mainly jokes about everyday life in the US. But one bit was a brief aside that heavily criticized Modi. A few people got offended and walked out, and he mocked the hell out of them as they were leaving the comedy club.
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: I was 40 or more when they came out & I generally enjoyed reading them. Just light reading material. As for the movies, the 1st 2 are pretty forgettable, IMO. A couple pretty good ones after that.
Cameron
@schrodingers_cat: Actually “Vish Burra” sounds suspiciously like a porn-star name.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
I like that one. “Its costs” = benefits to Boomers. It’s not like the administrative costs are the problem.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Good for him! Being a Patel in NJ criticizing Modi.
(Patel, Modi and many Indian immigrants in NJ share a Gujarati heritage as did Gandhi and Jinnah)
Modi is tremendously popular in Gujarat and in the Gujarati diaspora.
zhena gogolia
@Princess: Yes, that is a Ukrainian surname. But lots of Russians have Ukrainian surnames. The two cultures were intertwined for a long time.
Yes, I know, thanks to Russian imperialism, это само собой.
RaflW
Since this is an open thread: Can any N.Y. politics watchers make heads or tails out of why Gov. Hochul keeps volunteering for major defeats on her State Supreme nominee?
He just lost a NY Senate vote 39-20. Just a brutal drubbing.
Bizarre ritual humiliation.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t read sci-fi or fantasy, but my reaction was the same as LeGuin’s.
Baud
@RaflW: Is that the same guy or a second pick?
ETA: My understanding is that quantum mechanisms is more comprehensible than NY politics.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Ha!!
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
so, this child is without a parent?
Paul in KY
@Cameron: or maybe your Indian punk name.
Mousebumples
A local journalist article on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race (link) –
Shouldn’t be paywalled, if anyone wants to click over and read the whole thing.
UncleEbeneezer
@Doc Sardonic:
@EntroPi: And even Paul Reed Smith (PRS) has some decent, knockoff brands, nowadays.
I’ve owned Epiphone LP’s, and Ibanez 335’s that were great 9usually bought at GC/SA’s) and currently use a Squire Telecaster as my main guitar, which I love. Sammick is another brand that you might want to check out though their quality varies (I have a Tele as a back-up but the neck has a slight twist) and a 335-style semi-hollow that is perfect. I always loved their feel and size (great for people with small hands).
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: That’s how it starts.
zhena gogolia
@Origuy: Wow, I’m reliably informed on this very blog that no Russians are meaningfully against the war or willing to suffer any consequences for opposing it.
dm
@BruceFromOhio: I kept waiting for the chatbot to complain that the Ars Technica report was “Fake News”.
I think if it’s been trained on the Internet over the past eight years or so, it must have seen tons of Trump’s responses to criticism, and internalized them into its probabilistic weightings.
Brachiator
@RaflW:
I got the sense that Rowling got so big that she thought she didn’t need an editor. Saw this also with James Clavell, whose first novels were relatively short. Then he delivered a behemoth about China that was more than 1200 pages. Stephen King got self-indulgent with a couple of his novels.
Betty Cracker
@Alison Rose: Here’s what I wonder: how much time Gaetz’s former pal Joel Greenberg would have done for his horrifying, mafia-like crimes and abuses if he hadn’t cooperated with the feds, I ask because it looks like Greenberg’s cooperation was pretty worthless after all.
Scout211
RIP Raquel Welch
EntroPi
@pacem appellant: Scalzi touched on this a couple of days ago talking about why he doesn’t write about politics as often as he used to:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’d heard a pundit theory, which struck me as plausible, that trump would be nice to Haley since a) he doesn’t perceive her as a real threat and b) he knows he needs a crowded field to win
Nice of him to boost Biden’s message. And of course, all Haley has to do is call him tough and strong and she’s right back in the Veep-stakes (trump’s, Short-trump’s, whatever)
kalakal
@Major Major Major Major: Le Guin summed it up really well.
As a librarian and as a grandparent I have to admit that Rowling got a hell of a lot of kids to love reading with those books. What amazed me is the books are just not that good of that genre. I read the first one to see what the fuss was about and i felt as though someone had read a lot of British kids books about Public schools, then read a lot of young adult & trad fantasy and produced a spread sheet/ check list of points from both genres in order to hit every button. I thought it was very derivative ( so is an awful lot of fantasy) and cliched.
It’s often odd when something becomes a standout commercial success when it’s not actually a standout amongst it’s competitors, the HP books are like that.
I love reading and appreciate anything that gets others into reading. I’m saddened she’s turned out so awful.
I’ll admit to a negative bias because having attended a British Public School I have a deep antipathy to the sort of treatment books like Rowlings make of those environments. They’re not ‘fun’ places
trollhattan
@Scout211: This makes me sad. :-(
EntroPi
@Baud: I know, just wasn’t sure which “time-of-day” thread to catch him in. I know there’s a couple of others who have bandied about with him, who might be about.
@Gin & Tonic:
If I got that many, I’d be sure to drive them to the more southern parts of the state to let you assist in storage.
RaflW
@Mousebumples: I’ve been impressed with Recombobulation Area for a while now, as a WI-adjacent person. (Minor copy editing tics notwithstanding :) )
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: Awwww.
geg6
@J R in WV:
Well, fuck you very much. I enjoyed the books very much when they were coming out every few years. My sister is an English professor and she turned me onto them. My niece, who grew up on them and still loves her some Potter (and yes, she knows about JKR’s bigotry) has a 4.0 and is the top student in her nuclear medicine major. She very much identified, and still does, with Hermione. The books have some issues that I would consider somewhat minor and more of their time than anything meant to hurt anyone. But sure, we’re all fucking idiots because we enjoyed books you consider to be only for inferior intellects.
UncleEbeneezer
@Alison Rose: Unfortunately, it looks like Gaetz got very lucky:
“For those asking why DOJ didn’t charge Gaetz: One problem with the allegations is that the star witness — Joel Greenberg — MANUFACTURED an underage sex allegation against someone else.”
Doc Sardonic
@UncleEbeneezer: I am currently working on an Epi Les Paul studio from the early ‘90s as one of 3 project guitars I bought on facebook marketplace 3 for $100. The other 2 are Squiers, 1 Strat, the other is a vintage 90’s Indonesian made plywood body Bullet, hard tail shredder special with 1 ‘bucker and 1 volume control.
Geminid
@RaflW: I think that was a response to a lawsuit by Republicans to require a floor vote on LaSalle’s nomination. As Tom Watson put it, the Senate Majority leader said, “I call.” She lined up her caucus and gave the Republicans what they wanted, “good and hard.”
Of course, Hochul could have withdrawn the nomination first. That would have mooted the lawsuit and avoided the vote.
NotMax
@cmorenc
While I’ll (reluctantly) tolerate it, liking Florida is a bridge too far.
;)
trollhattan
@Baud: It’s self-funding, a thing about Social Security that Republicans are not capable of grasping.
If they’re so worried about blurgle-gurgle years from now, eliminate the FICA wage cap. Done and dusted.
EntroPi
@Doc Sardonic: Thank you.
Capri
@Suzanne: One thing I’ve realized is that you NEVER want to have a general topics category on a sports board. It’s much better not to know the crazy views of your fellow posters.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: If people want to be outraged about it, that’s fine. I just want people to understand that it isn’t as simple as they sometimes think.
Matt McIrvin
@BruceFromOhio: “This kind of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error.”
Mousebumples
@RaflW: As a Wisconsin resident, I agree. And I like supporting independent journalism, too. 😊
Doc Sardonic
@EntroPi: You are welcome. If I can help further just leave a comment in one of threads I pop in off and on most days. But am usually around for the night threads.
kalakal
@Origuy: Marina Ovstannikova the Tv presenter who made headlines with her life protest seems to have very wisely escaped house arrest & fled to France
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/10/marina-ovsyannikova-says-she-still-fears-for-her-life-after-chaotic-escape-to-france?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Brachiator
@Scout211:
Raquel Welch was 82 when she died. I don’t remember her getting so old. May she rest in peace.
Ohio Mom
I can’t keep up. What’s wrong with hamburgers?
I know there aren’t any Republican vegans so it can’t be about eating them.
UncleEbeneezer
@Doc Sardonic: Nice! Epiphone LP was my first real guitar. I had a junky, Hohner LP that was terrible first, but then once I started to get decent, upgraded to an early-90’s, Epiphone Standard (Tobacco burst) and it was like night and day! It could ring out Boston, Slash and Warren Haynes tones for days. One of the many guitars I wish I had never sold (an almost endless list)
BigJimSlade
@pacem appellant: Here’s what we do: we all buy stock in a bunch of make-up companies; then we decry how the Tammy Faye Bakker (rip) types wear ungodly amounts of make-up. And maybe support legislation for a higher make-up tax, or some law that will limit the weight of make-up one can wear on one’s face to a mere pound (without actually trying to pass any real legislation like that).
We can watch conservatives start to go nuts buying make-up, wearing absurd amounts of it, and line our pockets at the same time – what do you all think?
Scout211
Nevermind.
frosty
@Doc Sardonic: @EntroPi: Of those three I’d go with Epiphone. I’ve played one, I own an Epi bass; they’re good guitars. But then, I like Gibson more than Fender.
Old School
@Ohio Mom:
They were convinced BIden was going to ban them to fight global warming.
Geminid
@Geminid: Credit where credit is due: the New York Senate’s Majority Leader is Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers). She said yesterday that LaSalle’s nomination did not have the votes, and she called a vote today to prove it.
Tom Watson (the New York academic, not the golfer) has covered the LaSalle nomination well on his Twitter account.
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“…when asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature.”
Alison Rose
@Omnes Omnibus: Okay, but you shouldn’t assume someone thinks it’s simple. I am not a fool. I understand very well how thorny and difficult this particular type of case can be to build successfully, that it relies on many variables, some (or most, or all) of which are out of investigators’ control. Unlike many on the right, I know that when a powerful man is accused of sex crimes against girls and women, he more often than not gets off scot free.
I am indeed outraged whenever it happens, because it is yet another time when women see that men can harm us with impunity. And I do not see any necessity in telling those of us who are frustrated when it happens time and time again that this is just how these things go and it’s not “simple” like we might wish. We don’t wish it were simple. We wish it were fair. And when it comes to powerful men, it will never be fair.
I am just going to add, with the caveat that I do not know nor claim to know your own experiences: For some of us, this is not an abstract concept. Please remember that when you discuss it.
Jackie
“Embattled Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is contemplating a nightmare scenario for House Republicans: Trying to stick it out in Congress, even if he is indicted on criminal charges,” CNN reports.
“After previously signaling to Republicans he wouldn’t seek reelection, Santos has recently been telling people he is considering running for a second term and privately insists he will ultimately be cleared of all wrong-doing and that his treasurer will face scrutiny over his finances.”
I read elsewhere that Santos has received over the maximum amount of donations and he either has to officially do the paperwork saying he’s running or reimburse donations.
Cameron
@Ohio Mom: It’s because of the libtard spelling. They’re hamberders, not “hamburgers.” Y’all probably don’t even know what kovfefe is.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Eliminating the cap not in the cards. Adjusting it to better accommodate the top-heavy tilt in wealth distribution (as well as changes in life expectancy) a better ploy.
Simply put, the cap is there as a provision so some folks don’t end up putting in (very) high multiples greater than they could ever be expected to receive, actuarially speaking.
One can legitimately disagree with a cap as a concept but that’s not the way the program was/is designed.
Geminid
@Jackie: Santos’s caucus can end the nightmare at any time by joining Democrats to expel Santos. McCarthy’ refusal to do this could be because he needs Santos’s vote. But my cynical side tells me that Santos may have dirt on other New York Republicans and is using blackmail to keep his seat.
Old School
@NotMax:
Some representative had proposed reinstating the FICA tax on wages over $400,000. That’s probably not in the cards either, but the idea intrigues me.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
This one’s for you.
:)
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
The people who feverishly want to cancel delicious Taco Trucks pledge they can take hamburgers and gas stoves from their cold dead hands. Hmm, I wonder what’s the difference.
dm
@Ohio Mom: Methane from cow farts is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. When someone mentioned this in a draft of a position paper, the Right Wing Noise Machine went on red alert: “They’re going to take your hamburgers away!”
JCJ
@RaflW: After going through the TSA security area at one of the gates at the MKE airport there is a sign where you can get all your stuff back together that reads “recombobulation area”. I suppose that was the inspiration for the name of the website. The anti-Dorow ads are getting thick with less than one week to go until the primary. Kelly is a real piece of work. Driving from Oconomowoc to Mukwonago this afternoon I saw a few of his signs.
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: The thing to study with Crichton was how he used narrative drive. Harder to notice the plot holes.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: also nobody is going to propose a “12% tax increase” on many, many otherwise-sympathetic people.
I think there’s something to the idea of investing in more than just treasuries. Index funds maybe to avoid distorting the markets too much, idk. Not exclusively doing so, on account of occasional crashes, but the long-term performance gap is just so big.
trollhattan
@NotMax: @Old School:
Since Republicans are so het on “Social Security, it’s the 3rd rail, nobody is touching Social Security” with their out loud voices while plotting on cutting Social Security, I say push the hell back on them by loudly proclaiming “We’re blasting through the FICA income ceiling” to put them on the back foot.
FWIW: For 2023, the limit rose to $160,200.
Some limit.
trollhattan
@WereBear:
I think of standard Crichton as some form of “Hippies are bad, m’kay.”
gene108
@Major Major Major Major:
The only demographic where a majority vote Republican are white people.
JPL
@geg6: Tweens, teens and adults of all ages loved them.
Old School
@trollhattan:
Here’s a Motley Fool article saying the proposal on taxing income over $400,000 for FICA is Biden’s.
Since Biden has made a big deal over not wanting to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400K, I can see why he wouldn’t want to just eliminate the cap.
But as you point out, it adjusts on a regular basis as it is.
Major Major Major Major
@gene108:
Per s_c’s link above, and as seen elsewhere too, Trump won Vietnamese-Americans by something around 55-45. This was a swing from 2016, but they’ve always been one of the more conservative groups. Then you have Cuban-Americans, Tejanos, etc.
Suzanne
@Mallard Filmore:
So Mr. Suzanne is an educator. He used to work at a school in Scottsdale that was built in the mid-60s. Many of the campuses from that era (including where I went to school) are comprised of separate buildings with exterior circulation, and each classroom opens to a sidewalk (sometimes covered). The exterior circulation can’t be secured. So when they do these lockdowns, there’s no perimeter other than the door to the classroom. So no bathroom access at all. In each lockdown, invariably, some kids end up having to go to the bathroom in buckets. The district is very kind and provides the buckets. (I will note that Mr. Suzanne left that district because he got absolutely no budget for educational materials.) The teachers are responsible for emptying the buckets.
WereBear
@RaflW: She wants Tish James to be the next governor. At least, I do.
Sister Golden Bear
@RaflW: Thank you. And FYI it’s Ms Bear.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
There are sub-demos of whites that vote Dem. Rightly or wrongly, most polling is done with large groupings.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
Push it to 3 million
Baud
@Suzanne:
Buckets, not litter boxes. As God intended.
rikyrah
Folks did research. He’s a George Santos flunky. I love that. Didn’t let his bullshyt go unchallenged.
Barbara
@Alison Rose: It’s one thing when the victim is willing to testify and the prosecutor declines to prosecute — that is truly outrageous, especially when it comes down to a prosecutor more interested in protecting their success rate. But where the victim refuses to testify, it’s really hard to go forward, and there is a possibility that the victim could change her mind and allow the government to try again. Maybe that’s a low probability event, but if the government moved forward and the defendant was acquitted, it becomes a zero probability event.
rikyrah
@RaflW:
But, he got a vote.
Which is more than Merrick Garland ever got.
EntroPi
@Doc Sardonic:
@UncleEbeneezer:
@frosty:
Thanks again to all. In the absence of Amir’s input, and to have a more limited set of options, I will probably see what sort of Epiphone any local store is selling, and go try something out. If any of you are looking to sell something I might be interested in, have WG give you my email address. Always happy to know who to blame later. ;)
Would prefer not to have something that gathers dust like my “Stanleytone” banjo ended up doing, after I couldn’t leave it accessible in the presence of toddlers, and thus stopped practicing. Again, many years ago. (She graduates HS this year‽‽‽)
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: Yeah and pointing out that a majority of white women vote Republican gets howls of protest. Even here.
NotMax
@trollhattan
For self-employed people that would amount to (back of the envelope math) roughly $24.500 per year in FICA (Social Security + Medicare) outlay.
Eliminating the cap would also have an immediate shock effect on employers, who contribute half of employees’ payments. Economic consequences nebulous; could lead to freezing or retarding wage growth, or even lowering wages.
Barbara
@Suzanne: I wasn’t exactly thinking of lockdowns when I saw that my children’s renovated school building had individual kid-sized bathrooms in every classroom for grades K-3. Nonetheless, I thought it was a good idea.
trollhattan
@Old School: Thanks, had not seen that laid out before. Planting the $400k target flag and “closing the donut hole” sounds like something acceptable to quite a few (ignoring the “errr mah gurrd, taxes!” usual suspects). I’ll leave it to the actuaries as to how well it addresses the coming demographic cliff.
The Pale Scot
You think you got problems, I play the Harmonica……….. and I practiced bagpipes when I was young. Notice I didn’t say “play the bagpipes”. Thank God a cemetery was down the road from the family home
kalakal
@EntroPi:
@Doc Sardonic:
@UncleEbeneezer:
Over the years I’ve picked up a few of the Japanese 70s & 80s copies of Fenders & Gibsons. Tokai, Burney, Greco etc. They used to very cheap but seem to have become a thing in their own right but you can still pick up bargains. They’re excellent guitars. I love my Tokai strats, probably the best bargain with those is the Silver Stars which are ’70s copies, which were never as popular as the ’50s, ’60s copies. Note, compared to modern strats the frets are teeny tiny and the necks radius small.
For newer guitars you can get some good bargains on the PRS SEs
trollhattan
@NotMax: Presumes employers have no tools at their disposal for shifting compensation packages towards non-FICA benefits, which would surprise me.
Perqs take many forms.
JPL
Tomorrow we should find out a little more about the case in Fulton Cty. GA. I doubt that trump faces charges here, but I assume Rudy will. trump will convince him they he will win, and will pardon him. IMO
Baud
@JPL:
I have a feeling tomorrow will be underwhelming.
Timurid
@schrodingers_cat:
So he gets off shift from his day job as a dancing bear for white supremacists and starts calling people coconuts. The. Fucking. Balls. On. That. Guy.
PS: Vish Burra?! Are you kidding me, bro?
UncleEbeneezer
Friend of mine just posted this video Raquel Welch singing Aquarius. Pretty awesome and campy. RIP
JPL
@Baud: It always is.
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah: It was messy, complicated divorce, but parental custody was given to the birthing mother — and the sperm donor. I believe the child is in the birthing mother’s custody and the other mother now has zero visitation rights.
Anyway
@RaflW:
Glad the NY Senate Ds held together and put up a united front. Way to call her bluff. Stoked at this outcome.
Ohio Mom
@Old School: Thanks. Rolling my eyes at “them.”
frosty
@geg6: I liked the books too. And the movies. Our middle-school/ elementary school boys did as well. Sorry to see JKR so awful out loud, what a stupid way to ruin your legacy. Just STFU instead.
WaterGirl
@Mallard Filmore: I am aware that some schools have done that, and why. But they are distorting that into it being about kids who are furries who use the litter boxes because of that. Ridiculous made-up bullshit.
NotMax
@Old School
Kludge of a proposal but I could envision an elastic donut hole (in current terms 0% between $160,201 and, say for the sake of argument, $500,000) and some figure lower than the standard percentage above that level.
Also too, $400,000 is the president’s salary so using that as an instigator for taxation above it would gleefully be seized upon (Rs don’t do subtle) as self-serving. One reason I chose to use $500,000 in the paragraph above.
WaterGirl
@Bupalos: Once Dems learn the skill by seeing what’s happening here with Social Security, etc, they are smart enough to be able to adapt the strategy to other issues.
They are doing a great job with this, with Biden’s leadership, so I am not going to criticize them for not doing it previously.
Old School
@schrodingers_cat:
I see the issue. You tend to leave out that the problem is with white women who vote Republican. If you add those three little words, I think you’ll encounter less howls.
Sure Lurkalot
QFT.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: sure but the comment was inspired by my referring to a “sub-demo” in the first place. We could go even further up the chain and point out that most human-American voters support democratic presidential candidates (and we sometimes do) but it would be silly for this discussion.
RaflW
@rikyrah: I was thinking this was a humiliation of Hochul. Also feel like the GOP blatantly blocking Garland from even a hearing is different than a bunch of people in the same political party as the governor saying “You might want to rethink this appointment”, then voting him down in committee, then having Hochul push for a floor vote anyway.
What a colossal waste of time and political capital. It doesn’t prove to me that she’s strong, or correct, or anything but extremely stubborn and odd.
CarolPW
@The Thin Black Duke:
Frederik Pohl or Pohl Anderson? Or both?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Fuckin’ Buttigieg, man
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
You’re right. Whites do not correspond to IAs.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I thought bad things didn’t happen in western Europe.
Kent
The GOP equivalent would be Bush trying to nominate Harriet Meyers to the Supreme Court.
schrodingers_cat
@Timurid: Like he is trolling us with his name.
Vish == Poison
boora == bad
Possible also that Mr. Indian Culture doesn’t understand any Hindi. And he is clueless.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My bus was late. It’s his fault!
EntroPi
@The Pale Scot: When I decided to take up banjo, the alternative in my mind was bagpipes.
I was living in a 1 bedroom NYC apartment at the time, so apparently I really hate my neighbors.
NotMax
@EntroPi
A pipe organ takes up too much damn space.
:)
J R in WV
I have to admit, I’m a little surprised at the naked hatred because I don’t care for Harry Potter books.
RaflW
@JCJ: Indeed, I have managed to reconnect with my bobulator under that sign several times :)
Baud
@J R in WV:
You wouldn’t believe what we unclothed Americans have to put up with.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
OK, This is too sweet, thanks so much !!!
Mr. Bemused Senior
@JPL:
I wonder whether Rudy is that far gone. Possibly.
NotMax
@Baud
Grin and bare it.
:)
J R in WV
@Baud:
There is a reason we live in a remote mountain hollow. I just don’t brag about my nudity.
My father was an atheist, nudist, Rockefeller Republican. I can’t do the Republican parts, but otherwise I respect my father’s teaching. Except in the deep winter time. No one can be nude in the winter…
kalakal
@Baud: Turn the other cheek
Suzanne
An interesting opinion piece from Jessica Grose at FTFNYT: “Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?”
As I have said, overturning Roe is just one piece of the agenda, which is to reverse women’s liberation and put them back under the economic, reproductive, sexual control of men.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: There is a sect of Jains whose holy men are naked. They call themselves digambar (sky clad) Jains.
EntroPi
@NotMax: I should have been more upward thinking.
Sister Golden Bear
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks. I’ll see if have anything profound to say.
But it might take some time, since I’m not doing great emotionally overall. Got laid off six months ago, still haven’t found work (applied for more than 350 jobs and counting), and with all the tech layoff I’m starting to seriously wonder if I’ll ever work in my field again. Because as I’m sure you know, ageism is a Definite Thing in tech.
NotMax
FYI (long-ish video).
This Supreme Court Case Could Destroy the Internet. Really..
For the record, I am not a supporter of completely unfettered laissez-faire when it comes to ‘net content providers. The balance is a tough nut to crack, howsoever a sledgehammer is entirely the wrong tool to implement.
Sister Golden Bear
@J R in WV: Ehem, California would like a word.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
When the temple’s robotic arms begin stripping George Jetson.
“Jain, stop this crazy thing!”
//
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s the kind of religious right we need in the U.S.
Amir Khalid
@EntroPi:
In my defence, most of this conversation happened while I was fast asleep on my side of the planet. You can’t go wrong with a Squier Affinity series or an Epiphone from the “Inspired by Gibson” range. To avoid disturbing family members, get a solid-state amp with a headphone socket and a good pair of headphones.
NotMax
@Baud
Ready for Nudey Rudy?
//
eclare
@NotMax: Hahaha….
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: They are an ancient sect, over 2000 years old.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: Washington state has a largish Indian American population – tech, medical, etc.
Old School
@Baud:
No pants is gaining traction.
The Lodger
@schrodingers_cat: There was a Tales from Lake Wobegon bit about the Naked Brethren (quite) a few years ago…
Dan B
@rikyrah: The sperm donor is the legal guardian. The lesbian couple have lost their rights.
Origuy
During lockdown, I bought an electronic bagpipe chanter. The chanter is the part that you finger; it’s intended for practice as you use it with earplugs. You can plug a speaker into it. There are various models and some pipers even use them in concert (e.g. The Corrs). I got a low end Glen Coe, figuring there was a strong possibility that I would lose interest. Of course, I did after a few months. I may pick it up again someday.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B: Thanks for the correction. I was at lunch and didn’t remember the link offhand.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
Because telling Democratic women (and only women) that they must persuade Republican voters before they can expect any support for protection of their basic civil rights is wrongheaded. No other group of Democrats is told to go persuade Republicans. Is this a coalition? Why aren’t Democratic women important in it?
Let’s try this with another group or issue and you’ll see actual “howls of protest”.
I have worked on behalf of ALL the members and issues of the Democratic coalition my entire adult life. I do not need to earn support from Democrats or prove that I deserve support. I don’t do that to any other group or issue – insist they prove their worth- and I resent the hell out of it being done to women. It is only women too. No one ever, ever makes this argument re: white men. So what’s that about?
Kay
Because the majority of white wome vote Republican, Democratic women have not earned support and defense of their basic civil rights from the rest of the coalition? Is that about the size of this? I’m being dismissed to go canvass Right wing religious and hope I can persuade them?
Well, fuck that. This “earn it!” brush off applies to no other members of the D coalition. Only women.
Dan B
@dm: Cow belches are the primary methane source for cows. There’s ongoing research on adding seaweed to cows’ diet that are very promising as is lab grown beef.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s not even a good political math argument. While it is true that the majority of white women vote GOP, white women are the majority of women, so absolutely essential to Democrats winning, anywhere.
It’s a brush off on basic civil rights and it’s not even rational or smart politically. We’re no longer going to support Democratic white women because some white women vote Republican? WTF. That’s nuts. It’s also a guaranteed loser for Democrats, because “45% of white women” is a really big group of voters. It’s not 55%! That’s true! But it’s still the single largest group of women and there isn’t a state or disrict that Democrats would win without them.
Timurid
@schrodingers_cat
‘Burra’ also means ‘big.’
‘Burra Sahib’ was used in the colonial era to refer to the most important (usually British) official in an area. It was also used sarcastically for ‘self important prick.’
Kay
Apparently women have still not earned the support of the Democratic coalition, even with their strong showing in the midterms.
We’ll try to work harder. Maybe at some point the rest of the coalition, the coalition which Democratic women have supported for a fucking 100 years, will back us up. But only if we earn it and nudge that D vote above 50%! No other group or issue has to meet this mark- just women,
kalakal
@Amir Khalid: To avoid disturbing people I use an audio interface and amp simulator software then out to headphones. Amp sims have improved a lot in the last few years.
EntroPi
@Amir Khalid: my maternal side of the family is in NZ, the paternal side around Stockholm, so I get timezones, I was just too lazy to figure out which open thread was most likely to find you. (I naturalized from Sweden in the mid nineties and now have 3 passports. It’s a lot of expiration dates to keep track of.)
That being said, it appears the Epiphone/Gibson seems to be a consensus good pick, which is immensely helpful over walking into a store without a direction to start. So thank you for finding this.
Princess
@Kay: The majority of votes Democratic candidates get, come from white women. By a lot. If the base is calculated by number of votes, white women are it.
schrodingers_cat
@Timurid: I would transliterate it as Bada (बडा) though.
Or may be is warning us that he is
विष भरा (poison = vish)
bhara (full)
Full of poison
EntroPi
…also, apologies for our petty sub-thread for my question.
The comments, opinions, and viewpoints from people like Kay, schrodingers_cat, Ohio Mom, Alison Rose, and many others, even including Baud, are why I usually get stuck so many threads behind.
schrodingers_cat
@EntroPi: Aww thanks. You are too kind.
Chris Johnson
The thing about Harry Potter is that it’s a giant ripoff of all the cheapest tropes, but it READS well. It reads like butter. There’s nothing sophisticated about the writing but the flow of it is really good.
I figure that had a lot to do with it.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I have never asked you or anyone here to convince Republican women. I am just pointing out what the numbers say. In newspapers and on blogs we see analysis of how every other demographic votes. Latinos routinely gets blamed for not voting sufficiently D. But there is a studied silence about the biggest demographic that votes for Rs.
schrodingers_cat
@Dan B: Substantial enough to sway elections?
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
“Studied silence”- what nonsense. Demograpics are parsed endlessly in politics, including white women. The whole discussion in the 2022 midterm was whether white women would come out on abortion. When they did come out the goalposts moved and then it become they must come out at 100% for Democrats. Still don’t qualify, ladies! Sorry!
Every time I write a comment about womens rights, there is some “helpful” commentor on Balloon Juive who rushes in to tell me how white women vote. It’s a way to shut down any discussion of womens rights, to tell me to stop complaining. I won’t stop. Women are as much a part of the Democratic coalition as any other group and they do not have to earn or “qualify” for rights protections any more than any other group. I’m not responsible for how Republican women vote.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
If youre actually interested in what “the numbers say” then the “numbers say” that the largest demographic of women provides the largest number of votes for Democrats. That’s what the numbers say. 70% of 15% is a smaller number than 45% of 75%.
Paul in KY
@CarolPW: I always liked F. Pohl. His Heechee books, etc. Mr. Anderson is really good too.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: That could be his ‘punk name’! Mine is Rank Wango.