Answer: Zealots, grifters, and lazy lifers who don’t want the hard work of doing — or even thinking — anything that can’t be read off a flash card.
if mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy want biden to stop speculating about social security and medicare cuts, they should submit a proposed federal budget to negotiate over. until then, the speculation will continue.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) February 14, 2023
The Biden administration is doing a fine job of spotlighting the long GOP history of trying to ‘unlock’ Social Security funds (for the only permanent Republican constituency, namely its rich donor class), and the Repubs just can’t stop being flabbergasted about it. It certainly helps that Mitch McConnell wants to flense Rick ‘Voldemort’ Scott alive, and not without reasons both political and personal, so…
It's increasingly clear how smart it was for Biden to remain respectful with McConnell, freeing McConnell to focus on how much he hates McCarthy and Rick Scott. https://t.co/vxQdNsoRIA
— cai (@AnneNotation) February 14, 2023
again, i understand that senators like ron johnson and rick scott make the job of GOP consultants much harder, but this is absolutely not dark brandon’s problem to solve for them. https://t.co/JN1wWgo69K
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) February 14, 2023
one thing that i think is true is that the average republican basically doesn’t give a shit about anything at all, which cedes the floor to people like rick scott or MTG or jim jordan, who do. this is also not dark brandon’s problem to solve for them.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) February 14, 2023
my grand theory of GOP politics in the year 2023 is that the average republican member of congress is basically quiet quitting https://t.co/8hE53B3RHf
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) February 14, 2023
if you’re in the senate, right now, rick scott and dark brandon are basically forcing you to answer very dangerous questions about where you stand on social security and medicare that your donors do not want you to answer.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) February 14, 2023
for 95% of them, it’s downside in every direction, and the 5% who are excited about it are the most extreme and insane
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) February 14, 2023
On The Road – arrieve – San José, Costa Rica
NotMax
Blog hasn’t seen some G&S for far too long.
A curtain call that’s an entire production in and of itself. Simply marvelous.
Baud
Up to an early start. Good morning, AL.
p.a.
They’re like moths to a flame, and (so far) the always get burned. 1936 and counting… But they never fucking quit!
2liberal
I’m seeing a few recognizable usernames over on Spoutible, namely Ruckus, Watergirl and Steve Ewing who has this description: “Computer Network Engineer; USN Submarine Vet; BJ Jackal”. Can we do some kind of tag on Spoutible so we can find each other? I’ve added “BJ Jackal” to my description, maybe that works ….
Aussie Sheila
Go get them Dems. Ramp it up. What about the failure to extend Medicaid in the States where the people need it? Like Florida for example? How about raising the income threshold for paying SS, making sure the rich pay their fair share. Biden has done a sterling job. It’s up to rank and file Dems to raise the noise and the pitch to such an extent, that Biden looks like a ‘reasonable moderate’ in comparison.
Dont let your leader carry the burden by him or herself.
Pick it up and throw it over the arseholes’ walls.
Baud
@Aussie Sheila:
Agree with most your comment but this
Never works.
NotMax
@2liberal
May want to consider B-J Jackal instead in order to avoid perplexity.
What a difference a hyphen makes. ;)
Baud
How’s the spoutible vs. mastodon transition going?
gkoutnik
“flense”
You have the best words, AL!
oldster
Props for the use of “flense,” a lovely word for a horrible thing done to a bunch of marine mammals who never deserved it.
Senator Rick Voldemort Scott, on the other hand, deserves that and worse.
RevRick
Republicans have wanted to gut Social Security since FDR signed the law. They decried SS and Medicare and Medicaid and the ACA as socialism from their inception. Their denials in such matters ring hollow.
GOP economic paradise consists of three things:
1). Reduced taxes on the wealthy;
2). Eliminated regulations on business;
3). Opposed to redistribution of income downward.
They worship Mammon and want to drag the rest of us into its hellscape.
Benw
Sometimes Rick jolts awake in his coffin with the realization that if he wanted to keep thieving from Medicare/Medicaid he should’ve stayed in the private sector and he lets out a quiet hiss of regret.
oldster
@NotMax:
Sullivan wrote amazingly catchy tunes, and kept coming up with (mostly) new ones for several decades.
There was a young Irish lad recently who became famous for penning some singable ditties in the popular vein — McCartney I think his name was — but his total melodic corpus pales in comparison to his older countryman’s achievement. Global hit after global hit for 25 years.
OzarkHillbilly
@RevRick:
1).
ReducedNO taxes on the wealthy;2).
EliminatedNO regulations on business;3). Opposed to redistribution of income downward.
FTFY, tho tbh I think in their shriveled little hearts they are opposed to the serfs having any income at all.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
They should be thankful to have work. Instead, they demand to be paid. Ingrates.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I turned off my TV last night after watching Lawrence O’Donnell, so naturally when I turn it back on it picks up on the channel I left, MSNBC, where currently some idiot is on morning blow telling me “the economy is fragile and the market is terrible”, when just 10 days ago was that greatest Job growth in 50 years. And how the real people being hurt by deSantas are not teachers or students but the billionaireS who invested in education products who will now be denied a major market.
That’s some shit.
Jeffro
In fairness, the Rs are used to Ds negotiating with themselves in public – facilitated by the snooze media – well before any *actual* negotiations begin.
This time around, things are…different. =)
BruceFromOhio
Keep throwing anvils at ‘em, Joe. It is SO great to see Dems on offense, and the squealing is a delicious bonus sound effect.
Aussie Sheila
BTW, I hope Biden and the DoT is keeping tabs on the railroad toxic spill disaster in Ohio. That issue needs to be ramped up big time and the railway company needs to be chased down at every level. The EPA needs to make a big example of those A holes, and Mayor Pete needs to find his father’s politics and start making these transport and logistics companies pay their employees, award them decent sick leave and safety entitlements and effing pay the townspeople compensation. This is the proper thing to do. It is also politically smart.
And if young Mr Buttegeig has higher political ambitions, he had better get on that horse and ride. The whole thing is a disgrace. It is also an opportunity for the Dems to practically demonstrate some anti corporate spine.
Jeffro
In other good news of the unforced error/show-us-your-true-colors kind, Gov Fleece Vest aka Glenn Youngkin is out to remind Virginia (and America) just who he really is – the new Pence. (The ‘Fresh Pence’?). Just another smooth talkin’ far-right evangelical culture warrior:
I WILL NOT BE DENIED YOUR DAUGHTERS’ MENSTRUAL TRACKING APP DATA!
When even half of Republicans are telling you, “It’s actually ok to draw a line here and restrict subpoena powers – some things just aren’t the state’s business”, Glenn, maybe you should listen.
But hey…please proceed.
Baud
@Jeffro:
That’s the point!
ETA
Ten Bears
LOL ~ Just yesterday I suggested (to) Disney just leave. Pack it up, go back to Cali.
The downstream ~ couple hundred thousand unemployed, lost tax and tourist revenues, infrastructure failures, rioting in the streets ~ are Meatball’s problem, not Disney’s.
Meatball broke the contract …
Narya
@Aussie Sheila: my sense is that there are some limits to what the feds can do unless/until the OH gov asks for an emergency declaration, but yes, do whatever they can.
RedDirtGirl
@2liberal: good idea. Following ballon juice is also a tell.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Youngkin and his House of Delegates henchmen keep handing Democrats issues for this fall’s General Assembly elections. Youngkin ran without a record in 2021, but even though he will not be on the ballot in November his record will be.
brantl
@RevRick:Republicans have wanted to gut Social Security since FDR signed the law. They decried SS and Medicare and Medicaid and the ACA as socialism from their inception.
They are socialism. You got a problem with that?
bbleh
Answer: Zealots, grifters, and lazy lifers
Don’t forget bigots. It’s the dirty, not-so-little, not-at-all-secret of the Republican Party.
p.a.
TPM:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/biden-fires-architect-of-capitol-after-he-is-condemned-by-house-gop-everyone-else
tRump appointee. tRump’s so corrupt he couldn’t contract out a soft serve ice cream machine contract without sliming it up.😂
Aussie Sheila
@Baud: Well if the ‘land of the free’ puts up with that unbelievable, absolutely unheard of intrusion into women’s and girl’s medical and personal business, I don’t know what to say. I must say, this stuff is simply gobsmacking, even to me, accustomed as I am to some of the social and political idiosyncrasies of the US.
What are people thinking? Is this really acceptable to the US middle class? I know the US working class’s opinion is worth diddly, but for gods sake. Have people lost both their minds and their decency?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
RedDirtGirl
@2liberal: good idea. Following balloon juice is also a tell.
Tony Jay
Meanwhile, on the Island of Broken Things –
Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon announces her resignation. To say this is unexpected is like saying Mitt Romney is a little bit stiff around the hoi-polloi. No idea what the reasons behind her decision are, but the usual misogynistic shitbags online are crowing and the Nu-Lab troll-army are deluding themselves that, somehow, this signals an opportunity for them to claw back Parliamentary seats in Scotland. It doesn’t. Labour in Scotland died under Blair and Brown, was buried under Milliband and simply didn’t exist under Corbyn (since the Left had decamped to the SNP). It’s not coming back, especially not when Nu-Lab’s one policy North of the Border is to work with Scottish Tories to keep the SNP out of as many local and city councils as they possibly can.
Meanwhile, the EHRC has announced that the Labour Party is no longer a hotbed of anti-Semitism thanks to Sir Plastic Placeholder’s blitzkrieg against members and organisations who, uh, have the audacity to think that Palestinians are human beings and Israel is an apartheid state, especially if they’re Jewish. Fair enough, can’t have monsters like that thinking they have a right to hold an opinion shared by most of the world’s human rights organisations, can we? What next? Votes for women? Civil-Rights for Negroes? Perish the thought, not in Sir Plastic’s Nu-Lab Party.
Along the same lines, Sir Plastic Placeholder has shown his irrefutable grasp of all matters political by announcing that Labour’s previous leader will definitely not be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate in the next election, regardless of what the Party’s rulebook or his own constituency party might say, and anyone who has a problem with this display of manly ball-swinging, or indeed has any issue at all with any of the Tory-lite diktats Sir Plastic has presented as Nu-Lab policy, can just fuck off and leave the Party, especially if they’re a dirty Lefty trot like (checks notes) the hundreds of thousands of members and activists who voted for the previous leader but believed Transparent Fuckwit when he promised to Unite the Party.
Needless to say, the FTFGuardian has outdone itself covering all of these issues this morning, producing two articles on the EHRC and Corbyn that contain so many examples of misinformation, backside-covering and outright lies that they should be up for some kind of award, while delaying the opening of comments to ensure that they have enough ZHC monitors in place to banhammer anyone pointing out their egregious failures in basic journalism and absolutely rock-bottom credibility. Their defence will be they didn’t want the comment pages filled with hateful bile directed at Sturgeon until after she’d held her Press conference, but they’re full of shit as per usual.
And tonight I’m supposed to attend the first in-person local Labour Party meeting since Covid with the entire CLP executive full of ‘centrist’ fuckwits who are systematically barring anyone to their Left from standing as local candidates.
Honestly, I think I’ll go the pub instead. Its better for my mental health.
brantl
Baud
@Aussie Sheila:
We won’t know until the next election. It’s not as if Glenn ran on creating a period police.
bbleh
@Aussie Sheila: Have people lost both their minds and their decency?
Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence.
There’s a big chunk of the American electorate, concentrated in but not contained to evangelical Christianists, who have a positively medieval outlook on things.
BretH
@Baud: … for Democrats, yet. But it sure has worked swimmingly for Rs over the last 30 years or so. The “moderate Republican“ platform is about 50 football fields to the right of where it was after decades of goalpost moving.
And I agree it will NEVER stop until the Valhalla of no taxes and no regulations has been reached. Doubt that? Just look at how the fascist religious Right has changed the abortion issue.
trnc
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
It’s irritating, but I wonder if there’s a silver lining here. There’s no major election for almost 2 years. If the economy continues to improve, maybe the howling now makes it look that much better by then.
Of course, I realize repubs will try to take credit by blocking every bill dems introduce until then.
Baud
@BretH:
Our platform has also moved left, particularly on social issues. But when it comes to winning specific political battles, GOP rank and file historically have rarely opposed their leaders from the right in order to make their leaders look more moderate.
Princess
@p.a.: TBH I feel like there has to be more to the story than joyrides and petty corruption for a party that ignores major corruption. This doesn’t seem like stuff the GOP would care about enough to fire the guy. And it’s not like he’s the only one who failed to do his duty on Jan. 6th.
Aussie Sheila
@Tony Jay: I am so sorry. Starmer is awful and the nasally Shadow Treasurer is even worse imo. God the UK labour right is bad. Thank heavens for the Irish downunder. Right wing sometimes, but always hating and fighting Tories.
SteveinPHX
@Jeffro:
Glenn Youngkin – Nazi in sheep’s clothing. It’s that fleece vest.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: I seem to have joined both, but I find I don’t have the energy to carry through. I am old.
SFAW
@BretH:
Fixed, because they’re RWMFs who want to own/enslave/hurt everyone who is not one of them, and no taxes/no regulations is merely a way-station.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@p.a.: I saw that the architect was fired. He stayed away from the capitol on Jan 6 too. I wondered if they suspected him of giving maps of the place to the insurrectionists
Princess
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That seems a more plausible reason to fire him than joyrides.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Good job, blaming Buttigieg. These spills have been happening forever. So of course lets blame the guy who has been in the job for less than two years. With friends like you painting targets on backs at random we really don’t need enemies.
Kay
@sab:
Ugh – the whole thing has turned into this garbage stew of conspiracy theory and misinformation. It isn’t helping.
I think we’re seeing some of the effects of Ohio’s loss of local, independent news outlets. A former client sent me a link to a “citizen reporter” on youtube who has apparently set up shop in East Palestine – “what’s going on with this?” – his dispatches are all insane bullshit about a New World Order plan to poison people.
Baud
@Kay:
My take too. The internet has used the awful images from the crash to try to … do something with it. I don’t think it’ll end well.
Tony Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
They’re genuinely appalling people, but I already knew that. The thing that really sticks in my craw is (and I’m sure this will astonish many people here /s) the cynical hypocrisy of the political media that is supposed to cover them.
If Corbyn so much as raised an eyebrow at the venomous bile some Labour MPs threw his way the Guardian ran endless Breaking News headlines about “Labour’s Bullying Scandal” and “No Room In Labour For Moderates”, loudly demanding that the Leader of the Party publicly apologise to the people who hated everything about him for the way his landslide leadership victories them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in a Party they had every right to assume was theirs and theirs alone.
Now there’s shithead Starmer, a man who has broken every single one of his leadership pledges and violated the Party rulebook to bully his predecessor, openly telling MPs and members alike that they have no place in his Nu-Lab Franchise, and not a single political journalist is calling him out on it. Not one. The entire narrative has been turned on its head and what was once beyond the pale is now perfectly acceptable, even something to admire. Such strength. Such conviction.
I’m like, this close to melting down my membership card and walking. I’m only hanging on because I don’t want to abandon the decent people still within Labour (like my MP and his staff) but it’s now absolutely clear what Sir Plastic’s shitgobblers are going to do. Before the next Election, they’ll officially pick a centre-Right candidate for Corbyn’s seat, maybe even a former Tory to really piss people off, and anyone who so much as blinks will get suspended, deselected and booted quicker than you can say Progressive Pogrom.
And the British Establishment will applaud applaud Herr Starmer’s firm response to Bolshevik extremism and declare him a suitable candidate for the highest offices of state.
Aussie Sheila
@sab: Who’s blaming Mayor Pete? Not me. But he needs to show some mettle now this has happened. Maybe start by restoring the braking rule that the Trump admin abolished. Maybe bring in the Railroad Unions and take some advice on the cluster…k that permits three miles of wagons carrying dangerous chemicals through populated areas with crews cut to the bone. Mayor Pete didn’t cause the atrocity, but his job is to ensure that those who did pay compensation to all who are owed, operate under new and better rules, and that everyone hears about it. Particularly in Ohio and surrounding States. You know, like a politician and a conscientious Cabinet member.
Jeffro
@Geminid: they do indeed. It’ll be important for the press to actually ask him a question or two this time…maybe even…dare I say it…a follow-up? None of this “I can’t talk about restricting abortion access until after I’m elected” this time around.
@SteveinPHX: he really is a nut. Having Sears and Miyares for contrast, unfortunately, works in his favor as they are NUTS.
VA progressives would do well to highlight all the ways in which Youngkin is on the exact same page as the both of them, and Amanda “trump in heels” Chase too.
Josie
@sab: It’s always interesting to have people who have never lived here explain all our problems to us and give us advice on how to fix everything.
danielx
Put themselves out on the end of a limb and all Dark Brandon has to hand them is a saw.
What a predicament.
Aussie Sheila
@Tony Jay: What a pox the Guardian is. I can hardly bear to read it anymore. I get your angst. It looks terrible even from here. The only thing that might assist in the long term is winning PR. Would the Lib Dems support it? It would be funny if Starmer had to deal with them after a close election, and the price was PR.
You really need to get rid of FTP. It is bad for internal party democracy, as well as actual wider democracy.
Kay
@Baud:
What I object to is the claim by both the far Left and the far Right that the disaster is being ignored because of where it occurred. By claiming that without any proof they are plugging into white working class resentment and grievance that already exists in places like New Palestine, resentment and grievance that I believe leads to a real vulnerability as far as conspiracy theories.
Here’s what I know- the Ohio EPA is a joke- completely captured by industry interests. The people of New Palestine are lucky there is a federal EPA.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Please spell out PR and FTP. I am starting to get SAD.
Baud
@Geminid:
I think FTP should be FPTP — first past the post.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Mayor Pete was a mayor with these toxic trains running through his town every night, much as they do through mine, a quarter of a mile from my house. I am sure he is doing whatever he can. Your implication that he just doesn’t care is not helpful.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@2liberal: I have joined as well!
Tony Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
The very best hope for the country – would – be proper PR, but as we saw with the deliberately mismanaged referendum on some mangled and piss poor version of a reformed voting system after the 2010 Coalition victory over New Labour, they people who benefit most from the all-or-nothing nature of FPTP won’t allow it to change.
And so we sink deeper into the shit, with the usual morons demanding that everyone sing about how great everything is.
Baud
@Kay:
Yes.
I also don’t like that I can’t trust any of the information I see about this because the propaganda layer is so thick right now.
catclub
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
the liberal MSNBC. Just like Fox but on the left…. right. Show me the equivalent of morning Joe on Fox.
sdhays
@Tony Jay: With “Nu-Lab” shitting on most of its core constituency, is there any appetite for moving to a new party (the Greens?) or founding a new one? If Starmer doesn’t want you, is there nowhere else to go?
Baud
@Tony Jay:
Everything is awesome.
Qrop Non Sequitur
So holding government business hostage for unspecified demands?
The whole Republican party is Kyrsten Sinema.
sab
@sab: Currently the railroad does not even have to notify authorities of what is in these trains so that firemen know what they are dealing with. There have been complaints about that for as long as I can remember (and I am old so I remember a long way back.) Just fixing that would help a lot
ETA I live so close that the train whistling at a crossing wakes me up at 3 am almost every night. I always hope no drunk driver bashes into the train.
Tony Jay
@sdhays:
Not while First Past The Post is in effect. Not really. And while I agree with a lot of what the Greens campaign on, I have a lot of problems with their outright dismissal of many of the structural political, economic and social changes that would have to be made to give their environmental policies a chance of working, on the grounds that they’re a bit Lefty Socialisty.
I’ll stay on to vote for my MP at the next election (the one the Nu-Lab lot recently tried to have deselected through blatantly undemocratic fraud) and to vote against the Nu-Lab candidates in the local elections, but I’m half expecting that I (or my MP) will be booted out before then.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
Is it true that you come out to that song at all of your underground ‘stealth candidacy’ rallies and astonish the crowd by pulling your head off and replacing it with a grinning bull? Because that’s what I heard and that really is awesome.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: I guess you, like me, are not exactly fluent in Acronym.
satby
@Baud: for me, no contest. spoutible easier to set up and navigate with the added benefit of a more diverse user base, as a lot of black twitter migrated there. I bailed on mastodon about 10 minutes after I set up an account there.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best
And
Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the light side of life
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid: FPP =First Past the post. ie, simple majority, such that 50% plus 1 wins an election. Where there are more than two parties contesting elections such as in the UK and Oz, such a system means millions of ‘wasted’ votes, as a majority may have voted for parties that are unable to overtake the one party that can win a plurality while not representing the majority opinion in an electorate.
PR = proportional representation, where seats are accorded in proportion to the actual votes cast. In Oz we have preferential voting, where ballots have to numbered with the electors preferences 1….n. At a federal level every candidate in an electorate must receive a number, from 1, meaning most preferred, to the next and so on to the last on the ballot, meaning least preferred. The candidate with the least number 1 votes has their preferences distributed, until all preferences are distributed up to the final tally. A candidate either wins overwhelmingly on first preferences, or wins because people, on balance, prefer him/her, to all the others, as shown by the distribution of preferences.
It produces better outcomes because it permits a wider scope of political opinion, and ensures, as far as possible, that people get to choose which party best represents their views.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: Heh… For 3 years I lived right next to the tracks. The first night my future wife slept there she shot straight up and out of the bed when the 02:30 freight went by blowing it’s horn. I rolled over and mumbled something like, “It’s just a train.” and went back to sleep. I’m not sure she ever did that night.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Thanks for the acronym dictionary.
I was rude before because the train issue is one I care about a lot. Also too Mayor Pete. Please don’t think I don’t want to hear/see/read your perspective.
Kay
Anti choice lobbying groups oppose an abortion exception for the life of the mother:
I wonder how many Americans agree with these misogynist religious fanatics re: the mother must die (hemoraging) in a medical emergency in order to comply with religious dictates. Not more than 20%, I’d wager.
The anti-choice Right doesn’t trust women on womens health and reproductive decisions (women are all liars) but they also don’t trust physicians and medical providers- all medical decisions re: women will now be made by Right wing clerics.
artem1s
@RevRick: Republicans have wanted to gut
Social SecurityRoe sinceFDRBlackmun signed thelawdecision. They decriedSS and Medicare and Medicaid and the ACAcontraception associalismabortifacts from their inception. Their denials in such matters ring hollow.Anyone, including pundits, who argues the GOP doesn’t really mean they don’t want to end SS is full of sh*t. They will absolutely use any means they have to sunset or outright demolish SS, Medicare, Medicaid and any other social safety/public welfare policy they can. Capitalism and Profit Uber Alles.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I knew the loss of independent local news sources was a gigantic problem nationwide, but I’ve had an opportunity to see the effects firsthand since we moved to our rural swampy abode five years ago. What a difference!
We’re technically in the Tampa Bay media market, but the daily paper there, which is pretty good, doesn’t cover what goes on in our county unless there’s a shoot-out or big meth bust.
We have a local paper, but it’s so horrible it’s almost comical and is now fully captured by developers and religious fanatics. Conspiracy theories abound. I’ve been toying with the idea of starting my own “citizen journalist” outlet.
I guess I have time since I quit Twitter! ;-)
Kay
First they got rid of the “health of the mother” exception and now they are lobbying against the life of the mother exception.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone. Anti-choice misogynists have this whole folklore built up about women dying in childbirth- they celebrate it. This Martyrs of Motherhood concept is a big part of the “movement”. Now they want to create forced sacrifice of all womens lives to their religion.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
You know what you have to do, Betty.
People did this in the olden days. I don’t know why it’s so hard to do now. I think people think if you’re not on par with the big boys, it’s not worth it.
matt
@trnc: I see that stock futures are down this morning because consumer spending came in strong.
In the topsy-turvy world of the Federal Reserve that means it’s time to attack the economy again.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, you should. I bet it’s hard to make it break even though. You’d have to sell ads.
James E Powell
@Aussie Sheila:
A portion of the population that is large enough to determine election outcomes do not think, have no empathy, and are ruled by right-wing propaganda. Decency was lost many years ago.
Aussie Sheila
@sab: No offence taken at all. The situation is terrible. I feel bad for the townspeople, and bad for the rail workers. Everyone’s’ lives in jeopardy, now and who knows how far into the future. My point is, without being a ghoul, this is a political teaching moment about a lot of things. And the Dems need to do the teaching. After all otherwise the new Blue collar repubs might do it. 😽
sab
@artem1s: Both of my grandmothers hated Social Security because FDR did it (even though FDR didn’t do medicare.) One grandmother was very rich so it didn’t matter. The other grandmother married into lower middle management, so she wasn’t rich and lived on Social Security with Medicare for the last twenty years of her life.
She didn’t care. It must have been some sort of tribal or class thing that steered her thinking. We never figured it out.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@sab: The Railroads most certainly DO have to notify first responders of what is in the rail cars, but only after an accident occurs. Railroad crews are required to keep an accurate train manifest that shows the position in the train and contents of every car containing hazardous materials. That train manifest must be handed over to first responders by the train crew in the event of an accident. They also have an app that the Class I railroads use to transmit that same information electronically to first responders. These are federal regulations.
thruppence
On a more trivial note, it seems our new dog/puppy has discovered the joys of taking everyone’s shoes outside through the dog door and playing with them in the snow. Always new surprises
eclare
@thruppence: Awwww…how cute!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@thruppence: From where I sit (with my toes all dry and shod), that’s cute!
sab
@Kay: BJ funding! Save Florida!
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: I’d go to the pub too, Tony! Thank you though for the update.
Aussie Sheila
@Tony Jay: Sounds like you need a working class Party!
I agree re Oz Greens as well. I vote for them sometimes tactically in the Senate, because the ALP often needs a nip on its left heel. But I would never vote 1 for the Greens in the House of Reps. They always get my second preference.
sab
@thruppence:Be thankful for small favors. They could have eaten them. My pups ate one shoe out of almost every pair.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
“Less than zero.” – Elvis Costello
rikyrah
@Tony Jay:
That you for the context. It’s always appreciated.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
UH HUH
UH HUH
satby
@James E Powell: None of the proposals for menstrual tracking app availability to LE have been passed by any state legislatures or gone into effect. We already know from experience that most people ignore vaporware laws or proposals until it’s too late (see Dobbs decision) because they incorrectly assume they won’t pass. But if they do, watch out. Blowback will be immediate.
Unfortunate that each generation needs to relearn past lessons.
Frankensteinbeck
Rick Scott is a useful tool because he won’t shut up, but McConnell himself is on the record repeatedly saying he plans to or trying to gut SS/Medicare/Medicaid. And he’s not alone. Biden could have launched this plan without Scott, so the GOP assholes are screwed on this point. He can keep quoting them and pick his favorite examples, now that he’s found a way to make the media bite.
I think that’s the genius part. He did it in one of the few events the media covers, and got the GOP to react so theatrically that the news will keep covering the controversy and people will hear Biden laying out the receipts.
@Aussie Sheila:
When people jump on you here, there’s something to keep in mind: Individual leaders have vastly less power in the US than you are used to. It’s a system where the only thing you can easily do without a solid majority is obstruct. Even Trump found that out. He poured on his asshole unilateral declarations, and even a radically conservative Supreme Court struck them down again and again, because our system doesn’t work that way.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Fiona Hill, miner’s daughter from County Durham, wrote that Tony Blair, academic’s son from County Durham, was shocked by her accent when Bill Clinton introduced them. I cannot even wrap my head around Blair’s thought process.
ETA And as you know, Tony Blair was Labour MP. Labour MP shocked by working class accent.
SFAW
@sab:
Ayn Rand was your grandmother?
ETA: Sorry, couldn’t resist.
cliosfanboy
@Baud:
Cheap Tricks less popular song, The period police. They live inside my womb, the period police they live inside my room.
oldgold
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I used to watch Morning Joe, I was always less than enthusiastic about Joe, but what finally caused me to switch to CNN was Mika.
sab
@SFAW: Just a pretentious wife from Wisconsin. Her mother was from Canadian furtraders who became bankers. Her father was the son of Irish laborers who homesteaded a farm in Wisconsin. Apparently the Canadians phucked up her thinking.
ETA Not all Canadians are lefties.
Paul in KY
@sdhays: The Liberal Party!
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: ‘The Cracker Chronicle’. You may have that one.
andy
cowardice has ever been the hallmark of the republican. their “strength” has always been to finagle a way into making somebody else make the tough choices while they reap the rewards of chaos.
so, the day of disappointment is past us, and Half-Price Chocolate Day is finally here!
sab
@sab: I cannot imagine any politician from any party shocked by a constituent’s accent anywhere in America.
UK is a very weird place.
Another Scott
@Kay: The RWNJs have argued themselves into a box canyon, and it was easy to see that was the inevitable result. When status and power goes to the most vehement, that’s the result.
I’m reminded of a (probably apocryphal) story about an SDS meeting in the late ’60s. (Roughly) “Should children of the rich be killed before they grow up and inevitably expand and perpetuate the oppression of the rest of us…??”. If you yell for decades that abortion is “murder” and “evil” and all the rest, then accept the political consequences of that “reasoning”.
My multi-part mantra is: Purity Kills. Life is Complicated. Stay in your lane. Leave people alone. We’re all in this together. Almost everyone is one disaster away from having their life and future turned upside down – don’t make things worse for them. Don’t punch down. Political words matter – a lot. People in positions of political power have responsibilities to the people and the office – they didn’t build that and they have no right to break it. Logic in politics is a human construct and can be a trap – beware the feel -good conclusions that stroke the lizard brain. Beware tribalism.
The RWNJs violate nearly all of those things every day…
All of us are being hurt by Dobbs and the rest of the horrible decisions by the RWNJ courts. Fight for 15!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Regnad Kcin
@Tony Jay: SNP is awaiting you (and apparently there’s an opening for First Minister)
Paul in KY
@cliosfanboy: Should get a whole song lyric rewrite!
Aussie Sheila
@sab: I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t surprise me at all.
Blair was an insufferable popinjay imo. Typical of such types to be surprised by working class accents in places of knowledge and prestige. Nu Labour was a complete wash imo. Nothing they achieved, (and they did restore public services and introduce a minimum wage ) has outlasted a decade of destructive right wing Tory government. Their support for the Iraq war was a disgrace.
Unless centre left governments manage some decent structural change in the next few years I shudder to think what will happen in the next recession, or even in the next mild downturn.
UK Labour is terrible at the moment. I feel for Tony Jay.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Wise words
sab
@Regnad Kcin: SNP is in Scotland. Tony Jay is in England. That might not work.
frosty
@Tony Jay:
I’m bummed that the Grauniad is a FTF newspaper. I’ve been subscribing for years to get a non-US view of the world. Do you have any alternatives to recommend?
Ohio Mom
@Kay: It’s taken until now, almost two weeks, before the Cincinnati Enquirer started running in-depth stories on the derailment — maybe they had a little article somewhere last week? I don’t remember, I just know I’ve been gobsmacked by the lack of coverage.
Finally on the front page, along with a small article tucked away on the bottom of page 4 “Is Cincinnati Water Safe to Drink?” I sometimes say, you know less about things after reading this paper.
Betty Cracker
As y’all may recall, there was briefly a controversy in Florida about schools monitoring data on student athletes’ menstrual cycles. It proved to be such a hot potato that the organization (Florida High School Athletics Assoc.) that proposed making it mandatory to fill that portion of the online form out backed right the fuck off.
I don’t think the proposal was directly related to DeSantis’s interference in how women’s and girls’ sports are administered in the state and his vows to further erode reproductive health rights, but people quickly made that connection.
Now Youngkin has got himself involved in a question about tracking periods too? Again, I know it’s not directly related to what just happened in Florida, but if Repubs brand themselves as the Period Police, it doesn’t seem like that would redound to their electoral advantage.
sab
@Ohio Mom: In NE Ohio we have had minimal newspaper coverage but pretty good coverage from public radio. (NPR haters: donations you make go to the locals. They decide what national coverage to buy.
ETA Of course this derailment was in our coverage area. Columbiana County is the county just south of Mahoning, which is Youngstown
ETA If you look on a map of Ohio, the border is straight along the Pennsylvania border until the Ohio River becomes the border. Columbiana is the last county north of Ohio River as the border. Last county with Pennsylvania as the border.
Bill Arnold
Bless his heart.
tobie
@satby: I like Mastodon. I don’t find it complicated. But you do have to put in the work of following hashtags and accounts aggressively to have a full timeline. And you have to “rt” (“boost”) toots you like for others to see them.
I follow a lot of French and German news sources on Mastodon and appreciate the international composition of the fediverse.
Layer8Problem
@Dorothy A. Winsor: “But that’s so . . . complicated. And makes my brain hurt from all the thinking. I’ll just stick to solutions that are ‘simple, glib, and wrong’.”
Matt McIrvin
@tobie:
I consider that a feature–when I realized that Facebook and, later, Google+ were sporadically sharing your likes, it made me wonder what the distinction between shares and likes was even for, if they weren’t going to respect it.
You could argue that there’s no need at all for likes if they don’t functionally do anything except increment a number… and I might not even disagree (we don’t have them here, after all). But they definitely shouldn’t be the equivalent of sharing a post, and they especially shouldn’t mean “roll a die and share the post if a big number comes up”.
The absence of a “quote tweet” equivalent is a bigger controversy there. The designer of Mastodon felt that quote tweets lead to toxic behavior and the Mastodon old hands mostly bought that justification for not having them, but the more recent Twitter refugees do not necessarily agree. I find myself missing them sometimes.
satby
All of which was much easier on Spoutible. I’m still on twitter too, but Spoutible is ramping up with more bird refugees every day. I didn’t find mastotdon complicated so much as annoying. Spoutible just works better for me, obviously YMV and that’s ok.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: I know you have a parliamentary system so candidates not so closely tied to constituents, but would any of your politicians be shocked by a constituent’s accent?
Also too, UK MPs seem to have minimal ties to their constituents. It’s all Party. American congresscritters’ ties to their constituents is all they have. We like the guy, or this cycle we don’t.
ETA Compare and contrast UK v USA v Australia
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Cheryl Christy-Bowman is an impressive citizen journalist, I think. As a public education advocate living in Moore County, North Carolina, Ms. Christy-Bowman started moorevoices.net in 2018 to publicize the radical assault on her county’s public schools and other civic institutions. She believes her county’s experiences mirror those of many other rural/exurban counties across the country.
Last December’s attacks on two Moore County electric substations prompted Christy-Bowman to start a series on Moore County politics titled, “Timeline of Terror.” She has published the first 3 parts which give a tersely written timeline for the radicalization of her county’s civic life from 2013 to 2021. She intends to treat the substation attacks and their aftermath in parts 4 and 5.
Ms. Christy-Bowman tweets @moorevoicesnc, Moore and Sandhills Voices Twitter. She and local activist Alexa Roberts have also founded PSA (Public Schools Advocates) to support Moore County public education.
gene108
There’s no downside to 95% of Republicans I’m Congress. Maybe 10% in swing districts may feel some heat.
The rest are in relatively safe districts. They don’t have to do much in terms of actual work, other than keep their heads down, meet with donors, do an occasional constituent event (if they feel like it), and enjoy a good salary, benefits, and other perks of the job.
mrmoshpotato
@oldster: Batboy doesn’t seem particularly blubbery though.
JML
@sab: there’s at least a 30% chance that this one of those stories that Fiona Hill (like many others) has altered a bit/blown up for the cocktail party circuit, you know? not that Blair needs/deserves defending, but this is the kind of “not quite a lie, but definitely not exactly true” story I used to hear all the time in my political days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I see that retail sales were up 3% in January, which is shattering expectations (I myself had none). I’m not sure if this is good news, or good news for people who love bad news. Glad I let go and let Vanguard before interest rates replaced goat entrails and chicken droppings as the leading market indicator.
I understood the old ways.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott:
I spend a lot of mental energy on trying to apply rigid logic to political/moral issues and pushing things to horrifying logical conclusions. I think it’s the instinct of someone with a scientific/software engineering background to do that, but it’s often poorly applicable to anything involving human beings.
tobie
@Matt McIrvin: I get that about quote tweets, tho’ I can also see how it leads to piling on someone. It’s a tough call.
I also recognize it’s easy to say I don’t want an algorithm choosing my feed, but in a world of billions of posts that may be a tad idealistic. On the other hand, I don’t trust Facebook and Twitter choosing what I read.
What Mastodon has made me aware of is just how America-centric Twitter was. I get much more news about global affairs on Mastodon…that’s in large part because of the news sources and hashtags I’ve chosen to follow. But it’s also because the software isn’t plugging domestic stories as something likely to pique my interest.
geg6
@sab:
Even worse, when John Cole brought me Lovey, she ate three pairs of my subscription glasses within a month. Three pairs! I’d rather buy a dozen pairs of shoes than three pairs of glasses, that’s for sure!
It’s my mistake that she ate the first pair. And a small mistake on leaving a chair sticking out from under the dining table that allowed her to jump up to the table that led to the second pair. But I have no idea how she got to the third pair. They were up on the top shelf of a bookshelf. She couldn’t do that now as a fully grown adult dog of 28 pounds and I am at a loss as to how she did it as a puppy of about 8 pounds. She’s a sly one, that Lovey.
Tony Jay
@Paul in KY: I may have to. After reading today’s Statement of Unity (Mirror Universe Edition) from the Law-School Sunak I’m entirely too likely to strangle some melonfarmer.
@Aussie Sheila: By Christ’s Defoliated Lovebag, yes we do. It was the existential dread felt by the British Establishment that 2015 allowed the possibility of the Labour Party becoming just that that triggered the mass episode of national self-harm that resulted in Brexit, Clown Prince Flobalob and the current Parliamentary majority for the Catastrofuckerisation Caucus.
Ladyraxterinok
@oldster:
Or maybe “flay”?
Princess
@sab: It’s also a frame beloved by right wingers and the dead-end Berners who have conceived a bizarre and passionate hate for Pete out of proportion with anything he has done or not done, only equal to their Hillary hate. It’s interesting to see the dead-end Corbynites picking it up but I guess not surprising.
sab
Yesterday I woke up at 3 am to my husband barfing his brains out in the bathroom.
Today he is still asleep. Has been for hours. Good times. He feels much better ( not sick.)
Valentines cake sitting on the counter. Think I will take a chunk to Dad in the nursing home tomorrow.
Getting old is complicated. I thought the comlications were for the young.
Jackie
@sab: I saw DeWine on the news last night saying “everything was under control,” and he hasn’t asked Biden for any federal assistance. This after reporters suggested the federal government was slow in reacting.
Aussie Sheila
@sab: Absolutely not. Such a remark would be political death for any pol or candidate. In Oz there there was strong candidate voting in the last federal election. Independents won a shit ton of seats all at the expense of the Liberal Party (that means conservative here). They won in ‘blue ribbon’ seats, meaning wealthier, hitherto rusted on Liberal Party seats. The upshot was that the base of the Liberal Party defected to independents, the Greens won three seats and the ALP won 77 seats, two more than a majority in their own right.
Party id has weakened here as elsewhere, but our structural democracy means when people are fed up its a tidal wave, and the trade unions are always plugging away, providing money and foot soldiers as well as decent policies when the ALP is in govt.
I won’t bore you with our Senate arrangements. They are better than the US, but are modelled on similar lines. Each state has equal numbers of Senators. 12 each, elected by preferential voting per the HoR. Parties and individuals may be treated as one preference.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: What cake did you make? I hope your husband’s health continues to improve.
Miss Bianca
@sab:
Just different sets of complications, near as I can tell.
sab
@Princess: Some (not all) of them fear he has a future.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab:
Look, the man worked for McKinsey at one point. That is the one fact about him that anyone needs to know. You should know that.
Matt McIrvin
@tobie:
That’s interesting–one of the more unusual things I fell into on Twitter was that for reasons I no longer precisely remember I ended up following a bunch of people in Nigeria and Zambia, and it was like peeking into these whole other worlds, with attitudes, issues and controversies I didn’t hear about any other way.
But the trending stuff was very US-determined.
The Mastodon crowds I run in aren’t necessarily American but do run heavily North America and Europe.
Tony Jay
@rikyrah: It’s good to vent. The sad thing is that I only feel safe doing it here. Back home this kind of talk gets you suspended from the Nu-Lab franchise with zero hope of appeal.
@sab: Blair’s entire self-image was of the Durham boy from juuuuust too low in the societal pecking order to be handed the opportunities he thought he deserved who had to work his way up to a position where he could prove to the VIPs that he was worthy of their respect.
Someone who had made it to Hill’s level without wanting or needing to shed any signs of embarrassing working class oikishness, he simply couldn’t conceive of such a thing. How could she possibly hope to be taken seriously when she sounded like one of ‘them’? She wasn’t even rich!!
schrodingers_cat
Did you guys see Haley’s gross announcement. I think she is running to be the VP of one of the bloated Florida Republicans who will get the nomination.
Princess
@Kay: My guess is that while they wouldn’t support it, they don’t really think they’ll ever be in that position and/or they wishfully think when it comes right down to it, no one else will be either. There’s a real refusal to acknowledge how woman-hating this country is becoming, on a par and parallel to the refusal to acknowledge its racist history and present conditions.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Chocolate sauerkraut. Sounds awful but was delicious. Next time I will make it as cupcakes.
Baud
@Jackie:
I blame Biden.
Matt McIrvin
@tobie: …like I mentioned in the other thread, I first heard about the Ohio train derailment from a Mastodon poster in the Bronx (but someone who cared about such things).
Aussie Sheila
@Princess: Who hates Mayor Pete? He is a well spoken and respectful young man. Who also needs a shed load of more substantial political experience if he aspires to anything more than Cabinet Secretary. A young Biden he ain’t.
sab
@Tony Jay: I love your country but your polity is fucked up beyond belief, to the extent I cannot believe you even function. I guess people do whatever they need to do even if their government doesn’t.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Is there cabbage in it?
geg6
@Jackie: Yes, I saw that. Right after I saw my governor on tv with his hair on fire and a nasty letter from him to Norfolk-Southern being waved around by media. I live about 10 or 12 miles away from it all (but southeast) and my sister and BIL live just about 3 or 4 miles away, directly east. People are reporting nasty smells and weird clouds and fogs as far as 20 to 30 miles into PA, according to the local news.
Hard to tell around here though. This is because the newly opened Shell cracker plant has been having huge fireballs with huge plumes of black smoke coming from it’s stacks the past week or two also. We are less than 2 miles from the cracker plant and can see the stacks from the top floor of our house.
Just a total environmental disaster around here lately.
Tony Jay
@frosty:
It’s a sad truth of the world we live in that, no, I don’t. In the UK, for all the fact that it’s a studiously ‘centrist’ newspaper that masquerades as a crusading centre-left outlet to woo its target demographic, and that it’s full to the brim of ‘savvy’ bullshitters and outright hypocrites, the FTF Guardian (in competition with the KGB-scion/Pal of Flobalob owned Independent) is still probably the ‘best’ source of news in the UK.
But the floor represented by – ‘best’ source of news in the UK – is low, like, ‘best Mexican food in northern Wisconsin’ low.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: My twitter feed is not America centric at all and has never been. The algorithm shows more of what you are already liking and retweeting.
J R in WV
Today is a sunny warm nearly 70 degrees spring day here in SW West Virginia. We have a tiny pond next to our front door, technically its purpose is to catch a wet weather spring’s output and pour it away from the house’s foundation. But really, it is for the Appalachian woods frogs to reproduce in.
Today for the first time this year we hear the frogs frolicking in the tiny pond, making that squeaky croaking noise that this species of frog makes. So joyous and free sounding, as if spring is really here, which it isn’t. The frogs will get numb and sink to the bottom of the pond again and yet again before spring really comes, but in the meantime, we love that joyful sound, they are so happy.
There’s at least a dozen singing together and swimming with each other. Tree Frogs this early I think. I’ll ask the biologist next door, he’ll know. I really need to get in there with a rake and clean out some of the leaves, if I felt better… Happy spring day, everyone. And Screw the Republicans, just to get back on topic!
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I agree — thanks for the link! I believe I followed a link or two you provided earlier on the substations attacks but had not looked at the video. A resource like that is just what this county needs, and for the same reasons CCB outlines on her site. I just wish someone else would create it here. ;-)
sab
@Tony Jay: As an American who did junior year overseas in Durham. I had some French when I landed. I struggled a bit and hoped for England. Then I landed and could not understand a word.
Durham and Newcastle may be incomprehensible to southern Brits, but Americans can understand them just fine.
Omnes Omnibus
@Aussie Sheila:
The fact that you asked that question shows that you are not as familiar with US politics as you purport to be. The level of vitriol aimed at him by some was remarkable. [Note: I say this as someone who had him near the bottom of my list.]
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Yes. Sauerkraut is pickled cabbage. John Cole pickles his own. I buy my own from the grocery. I prefer German. Polish is too wet and very highly seasoned.
Tony Jay
@sab:
Who says I function? The country certainly doesn’t. It’s like one of those cars in the Wacky Races that trundles along on flat wheels with parts dropping off until it comes to a crashing halt leaving just Daffy Duck sitting on a spring and holding an unattached steering wheel.
And the sad thing is, we were tricked into doing it to ourselves at the ballot box
ETA – Come on now, Durham is a lovely sing-song accent, but proper Geordie might as well be ancient Quenya to the ears of anyone from more than a mile away/
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony Jay:
This is what you are looking for.
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: for about two years straight out of school? Yeah, that should always be the most important thing to remember about him, and certainly all anyone needs to know*
*Seriously?!?! I mean, I worked at Ken Starr’s law firm for a while as a (contract) paralegal; so obviously I’m unfit for civilized company and higher office too.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
One day, one frigging day, I’ll get an analogy past the ‘Well, actually’ taskforce. /s
Aussie Sheila
@Omnes Omnibus: Really? I had no idea the McKinsey thingy got peoples knickers in a twist. It certainly caught my side eye.
J R in WV
@brantl:
Actually, none of these programs are socialism. Socialism is the state ownership of the means of production. If chemicals were produced and used by the EPA, that would be socialism. Just regulating industry is not.
Nor is government providing a floor for the people of the nation, food stamps, medical care, retirement benefits, etc.
Not socialism, no matter how the RWNJs squeal about it. They are willfully ignorant, and hate the government helping average citizens, whom they believe should shut up and starve quietly.
Kristine
@2liberal: I’m at Spoutible as KristineSmith
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Red roses hate him because he defeated St. Bernard in Iowa more than anything else.
Denali5
@Tony Jay,
Please explain the acronym FTF in relation to The Guardian. I usually google acronyms, but this one has a number of meanings.
sab
@Tony Jay: Did I ever say you function?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: Nina Turner has been attacking PB in a desperate quest for relevance
Baud
@J R in WV: Agree 100%.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Denali5: It’s a variant on “FTFNYT”, in which the “FTF” stands for “Fuck the fucking”. So, “Fuck the fucking New York Times”, or in Tony Jay’s case, “Fuck the fucking Guardian”.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bernie attracts the weirdest people.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Also this guy.
sab
@sab: The sauerkraut cake I made was amazing. Next time I will do cupcakes. The cake was BIG and we are just two old people
ETA taking the remains of the cake to Dad age 98 at nursing home.
Betty Cracker
The political make-up of Secretary Pete’s detractors has evolved significantly since he first threw his hat in the ring. Mentioning his name on this very blog used to trigger avalanches of derision about how many languages he did or did not speak blah blah blah. Whatever. He seems like an incredibly talented and capable dude to me and a truly exceptional Fox-splainer, though I disapprove of the latter activity in general.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Denali5: I’m guessing it’s the same as the common reference here to FTFNYT for the NY Times.
FTF = f*** the f***ing
(I see someone else helpful got there first)
UncleEbeneezer
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
People here are open to new info. This site wasn’t Biden friendly during the primaries either.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: This is the kind of pressure that might actually get through to The Times. Maybe.
sab
@Tony Jay: American here. I understand Geordie.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: A bunch of people who DGAF about this sort of stuff or Ohio, are suddenly screeching endlessly about Biden/Buttigieg’s sins and how Nobody Is Reporting!!1! Seems awfully fishy.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That’s one way of looking at it. Here’s another: people have their favorites, and when they perceive a threat to their favorite’s prospects, they attack it like a horde of methed-up spider monkeys. That goes for the Berniacs, and it goes for other candidates’ super-fans, including the ones who comment and post here.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Nominated!
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Ms. Christy-Bowman does pretty well for an amateur reporter. She has some good characters to work with like the cryptic Captain Rainey, who applies her Army psywar skills to civilian politics, and the well-rounded County Sheriff who might not get his man but always gets his biscuit.
I’m guessing you could do even better as a citizen journalist, even without these characters. The problem is that you might be too good, at the expense of a quieter life.
Alison Rose
@Baud: I’ve barely used Spoutible yet but I like it a million times more than Mastodon already. The UI is cleaner, and I hated the stupid multi-instance thing on Mastodon. It made no sense to me and made it so much harder to find and follow people. Spoutible does still have some bugs to work out, but once they do, I think it’ll be a good experience.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In fairness, so did his politics. He went from “They’re gonna call us socialists anyway, so fuck it, let’s be legends!” to “I can see cornfields of bipartisanship from my porch!”
UncleEbeneezer
@satby: But he also ran a city with a problematic police department!
Spoiler- That’s the case for every PD and every city in America…
Jackie
@geg6: It’s horrible. DeWine was on MJ this morning, reiterating that everything “is fine” out of one side of his mouth, and blaming the railroad for everything out of the other. When pressed about his statement re not calling Biden, he said the government was already involved via the EPA and he would call Biden if ADDITIONAL federal assistance was needed.😡
Tony Jay
@sab:
Fair point.
And if you understand pure, unadulterated Geordie then I salute you and think a career in Starfleet Communications is yours for the asking. 8-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: well, he was very proactive in distancing himself from (former) Sanders Institute Fellow Tulsi Gabbard just a few months after she called for the US to abandon Ukraine and became a regular sub for Sean Hannity
kalakal
@Aussie Sheila:
Blair, like most UK politicians, was public/grammer school educated middle class ( Corbyn arguably has a ‘posher’ background*). The problem with many UK middle class socialists is they don’t actually like/have contempt for/ have experience of working class life people. Ever since the heyday of the Webbs in the early 1900s the British Labour has taken an incredibly paternalistic attitude towards the lower orders. The only British PM since WW2 who came from a poor working class background was Callaghan. Blair was probably surprised by Hill’s accent because it is very unusual for senior British Civil Servants to be working class/ retain their working class accents. I’ve known a few and believe me the top tiers are very posh .Yes Minister was very accurate.
Blair was incredibly popular ( I always thought him a bit smarmy & superficial myself) and up until the Iraq war nu Labour did have considerable social achievements, reversing a lot of the damage wrought by Thatcher. He left a lot of hostages to fortune ( the massive expansion of Major’s PPI** schemes being the most egregious) .
True, but that’s the nature of the British system. Thanks to FPTP (which, as you say stinks) a UK govt with around 40% of the votes ends up with a huge rubber stamp majority in the commons. If they’re Tory they have a very powerful mass media propaganda machine on their side and can basically do what the hell they like.
I’m not a Corbyn fanboi, He ran a fucking awful election campaign & he was an idiot over Europe. but I’d vote for him anytime over Starmer.
Starmer is like all the bad bits of Blair. Blair was a very effective political operator, a believer in Wilson’s “Politics is the art of the possible” and stiffened by Brown delivered considerable social & economic improvements. I think he made too many concessions to the right myself but I can’t deny he did a lot to allieviate poverty and boost the NHS.
I think he was despicable over Iraq
Starmer is just a giant preemptive cringe. His entire policy seems to be if I don’t scare the horses, then the media & business will see just how nice I am and I’ll be elected and then I’ll… do fuck all. It’s been a besetting sin of Labour politicians of all hues since forever, “if only people understood”, “It’s not the message it’s the medium”.
Corbyn, to his credit, stated what he believed, I have no idea what Starmer believe’s in other than everything should be beige
* Blair’s father was illegitimate and adopted by a Glasgow shipyard worker and was secretary of the Scottish Young Communist League
**PPI Public Private Initiative – method of financing govt projects via private companys rather than direct public borrowing. Like buying a house on a credit card rather than a mortgage.
Tony Jay
@Denali5:
Yes, it’s the same as in the FTFNYT anacronym. For the same reasons. ‘Liberal Media’ paper of record that just luuuurrrvvvvves them some fascist fucktards and their enablers.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fair point — he did kind of swerve into a different lane.
Baud
@Jackie:
At the outset, I’ll be clear: the people in that area do not deserve what happened to their community.
With that aside, as far as I understand it, the vast majority of people involved in this mess–the state, the localities, the railroad, and railroad workers–are heavily Republican. And I do not put it past any Republican to be opportunistic in the face of tragedy.
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: He also had the audacity to be publicly skeptical of M4A, GND, Defund/Abolish the Police litmus-test positions of the 2019 Progressive Primary Left.
satby
And this is why I’m still on Twitter (also blocked muskrat months ago so my feed is basically the same as it ever was):
Jack E. Smith @7Veritas4 12h
Millions in fines, disbarment proceedings, false affidavit charges, contempt of court charges, obstruction of justice, crime-fraud exceptions… This is merely what we’re doing to your lawyers. Imagine what we’re going to do to you, Donald. Happy Valentine’s Day. See you soon.
sab
@Tony Jay: You all revel in your different accents and dialects. You think it is amazing that you cannot understand each other . As an American I think what the fuck? Y’all pretend you speak the same language, but you don’t..
J R in WV
@Tony Jay:
Wow, Tony, big news from Scotland! I would ask for some explanation of some of your political terms if you get a chance to edumacate us colonials about the Island of Broken Things.
Nu-Lab — what it that exactly? A new and improved old Labour Party? With new RWNJ leadership? I know there was a debate about whether Israel is allowed to dominate their Palestinian residents with bullwhips and rifle butts — evidently that’s OK now?
EHRC has announced — what or who is the EHRC? must be some kind of political committee, that would be the C at the end… Environmental Human Relations? I dunno, let me know. Oh, I know, Google !!
Equality and Human Rights Commission — has apparently determined that Palestinian people of Israel do not have nor need Human Rights!!! I guess because they aren’t human? Right? Wow, Isle of broken things indeed.
And Sir Plastic Placeholder — leader of the NU-Lab party, and who can determine whether a given British citizen can belong to his special Nu Labour party? am I close? Wow, I knew politics in Blighty was different and strange compared to an actual democracy, but Wow !!! Former party leader not allowed to play with Demoracy [as in can’t even run for office ?] at all~?!?!?~ And here I thought anyone who joined a party and paid dues and fees etc, and was a British citizen and all that, could partake of Democracy. Here you might have to collect nominating petitions if you hadn’t been elected before…
I guess I was wrong?! Not so much Democracy in Ole Blighty anymore? Can Russian financiers run for UK Parliament, like from the City of London, which I think isn’t the same as the Actual city named London, but a financial district within London, right? They need representation in Parliament, just like our RWNJs need to own both the House and the Senate, right?
Nos I’m getting more confused, I had better stop now. But thanks for the news from the land of the Scotts~!!~ . . . . ;~)
Baud
@satby:
Twitter is still the big dog, but Musk can’t be trusted over the long term.
satby
@Betty Cracker: As a blue mayor in a red state, no, he really didn’t. He had to work with the governor (Pence) and the legislature (R- mostly nutbags) to get funding and other civic stuff accomplished. And now has to work with obstructionist Rs again, and just like the president he serves, makes noises about bipartisanship while knowing that some of them would cheerfully exterminate him and his spouse.
satby
@Baud: I’m skeptical of everyone, so it’s all good.
geg6
@Jackie:
You guys over the state line truly have my sympathies. PA was a little slow to get to the scene, but according to reporters and hinted at by Shapiro, Norfolk Southern was not forthcoming about the extent and nature of what had happened at first and didn’t get any better once PA had realized the danger to our residents. He was as pissed as I’ve ever seen him in the news report I saw yesterday. DeWine should be acting the same. But then, he wouldn’t be DeWine, would he?
Grumpy Old Railroader
Move to Puerto Rico because a whole lot of reasons
tobie
@Alison Rose: im genuinely curious how the multi instance affected your experience. I picked an instance at random and haven’t thought about it since. Your timeline is what you follow. That’s it.
Aussie Sheila
@kalakal: Agree re UK Labour Party. Very middle class, in a very bad and patronising way. The thing I hate more than anything else is the kind of snobbery that patronises people by speaking down and about them. The Starmer Party is very bad at that, shamefully aping reactionary attitudes regarding immigration, pretending they are defending ‘traditional working class values’. Simply appalling.
I agree Blair was a much smarter and assured leader than Starmer is, I wonder if that isn’t because of Starmer’s relative political inexperience?
schrodingers_cat
I know next to nothing about UK politics but I have a prediction to make, that Sunak’s ‘umble but filthy rich in-laws are going to become a headache for him.
BTW Day2 of the raids on BBC offices in India. Modi is making sure that the BBC documentary on Modi remains in the news
Is this diabolical or stupid. I am going with thin skinned and stupid.
kalakal
@Tony Jay: Heh, I love the way “Geordie” accents mean one thing to anyone from outside Tyne & Wearside to those from there. I have friends from Newcastle and others from Bolden Colliery and as far as they’re concerned one’s Geordie the other is not. If I want to piss them off I call them Mackems or Sandancers.
scribbler
@Tony Jay: As someone who occasionally spends a bit of time at a cabin “up North,” let me just say you are not wrong.
schrodingers_cat
@UncleEbeneezer: Yeah I was not the biggest fan of the he can speak 13 languages schtick but he has acquitted himself well. Bonus points for being the bete-noire of the BS-EW populist nonsense.
By those standards I can speak 7 languages. Where is my cookie?
Burnspbesq
@Aussie Sheila:
I hate to burst your righteous balloon, but SecTrans has about the same legal authority to do the things you’re suggesting as Ricky Ponting.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am hoping that he gets bored and finds a new chew toy.
sab
@kalakal: Basically your system is fucked.
I am an American and I am shocked by my system, but then I see yours and I am appalled.
schrodingers_cat
@Burnspbesq: It is funny how everyone in the world is an expert on our politics!
J R in WV
@Aussie Sheila:
Thanks for pitching in on United Kingdom politics, Sheila.
I’m going to have to ask a couple of questions about the alphabet soup. In my rural world “PR” means “Public Relations” — sometime related to commercial products like butt-crack deodorant but more often related to politics. But I don’t get a feeling that this is your current usage/
Also “FTP” which you seem to urge to be done away with. As a former software developer and systems analyst, FTP has always meant “File Transfer Protocol” which is one of many bits and pieces that make up the Innertubes we’re using to converse. Here again, I’m certain that isn’t your current usage … please help — and Thanx!
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m not even an expert on our politics. Too confusing.
sab
Sheila hasn’t told me a damn thing about Australia’s constituent service in their wonderful economy.
Aussie Sheila
@Burnspbesq: Really? There are no Transport Regs that the Sec of Transport could rejig? No questions or answers he can demand from Railroad companies? I know he isn’t responsible for the EPA, but someone in the federal government must be. This is making the news here. It must be pretty bad for a rail derailment in Ohio to make Australian news.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yesterday I was listening to a Twitter Space on Modi’s BBC raids and guess what one of the speakers was sagely explaining the Electoral College to the the listeners. Making some funny boo-boos along the way. It was not even relevant to the topic under discussion.
We are the 800 pound gorilla in global politics and everyone loves to hate us! With good reason I might add.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
How did that come up?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Modi’s stupid stadium events during the Orange Error’s admin.
Donatellonerd
@J R in WV: I live in Paris and my daughter was in school in English. proportional representation and first past the post (no runoffs, first of however many candidates wins).
Baud
@Aussie Sheila:
Honestly, it’s because of the pictures. I don’t think there were even any fatalities. As industrial accidents go, it’s not really up there.
kalakal
@Aussie Sheila: I think you’re right, Starmer spent many years acting as lawyer, he was very successful, he rose to head the Crown Prosecution Service and didn’t become an MP until 2015.
Blair was a political animal from the getgo. As personalities go Blair is very good with people, very smart and has charm & charisma (There’s a very ruthless streak beneath that charm, I’ve met a few Blairs). Starmer is very smart, bad with people, dull and has the charisma of oatmeal.
Just found out Starmer was a near contemporary/ overlap with me at university. We probably met a few times, if we did I don’t remember*
* see charisma above
Aussie Sheila
@sab: Constituent service here is very important. A good local member can hang on to a seat against a reasonable swing, if she/he is a good local member. A bad and neglectful local member can, and will lose even a safe ‘party ‘ seat if people feel neglected and badly served. As it should be. Elected members should serve their constituents and be attentive to their needs.
A good and attentive MP ensures that the Party that supported their election gets good and sensible political advice from the grassroots as it were.
ian
@bbleh:
Medieval has become a by-word for backwards and ignorance, but in reality the era was not nearly as bad in many ways as we assume. Most of the negative things we assume as medieval were inventions or exaggerations of writers in the renaissance and enlightenment, who were looking to create a distinction between the “evil/dark” past and the “good/light” present. One example might be witch burnings. Heretics would occasionally be burned in the Middle Ages, but it usually occurred after a trial that found suspects innocent more frequently than guilty. The height of the witch-burning era in Europe was in the 1600s, long after what we think of as medieval.
Gravenstone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Apparently he and his family were abusing the perks of his office to such a degree even Republicans were calling for his head due to embarrassment. Biden simply did them a solid by turfing him at McCarthy’s request.
Betty Cracker
@satby: I didn’t mean his tenure as mayor but his positions as a candidate. He started out talking about court reform, decriminalizing border crossings, expanding healthcare, etc., and moved to the center as the campaign heated up and he saw more room in the center lane. I wasn’t shocked or anything — that’s fairly standard stuff.
But I know you remember all the vitriol directed at Buttigieg around here, much of it unrelated to any policy position he ever held. It’s just funny to me how that’s gone down the memory hole.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Too true. I find the state level politics in MA impenetrable. And our town politics too. The town meeting is hilarious and entertaining for the first hour then I get bored.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
And at McKinsey, he was either a big wheel involved in big deals, or a powerless entry-level worker bee, depending on what he was campaigning for and who he needed to impress.
Not Santos-level stuff, but still pretty impressive.
WaterGirl
@2liberal: I made a Balloon Juice account, too. I am keeping an eye on that, as well as my WaterGirl account. So if folks follow me and/or Balloon Juice everyone can see who you are, and you can see who we are.
J R in WV
@Kay:
Christo-Fascist monsters?
Baud
@WaterGirl: Does Balloon Juice have its own Twitter account? I thought it was just Cole’s
ETA: You should add it to the website here. There’s only a list of front page twitters.
patrick II
@Jeffro:
I could not have imagined government intrusion into menstrual data before this happened. That is even though I wrote at the time that to get at Roe v Wade the real danger of Alito’s decision was that he cut the heart out of the right to privacy. The application of the government’s power of intrusion (and all of our lack of a basic right) happened faster and in a more personal manner than I had imagined in my pessimism.
kalakal
@J R in WV: Should be FPTP – First Past The Post. Uk elections are won by whoever achieves a plurality. As most elections have more than 2 candidates it’s very rare for a British MP to actually be elected on a majority of the votes cast. Multiply this on a national scale and govts can get huge majorities (100+) in the Commons despite only getting a little over 40% of votes cast. I think only once has a British govt gotten over 50% and it was something like 50.15
WaterGirl
@Baud: I am really liking Spoutible.
Baud
@WaterGirl: Hmm. I’d sign up but I’m worried that I’ll expand my horizons and end up hating you all.
Not that that’s something that’s ever happened to me.
patrick II
@OzarkHillbilly:
3). Opposed to any
redistributionfair distribution of income at all.downward.WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Try Spoutible, for real. I found it painless.
scav
@ian: Founded a lot of early universities too.
Another Scott
@kalakal: Thanks for this. It agrees with my impressions from this side of the pond.
Starmer is absolutely horrible as a leader of the opposition. The few times I’ve tried to listen to him on Prime Minister’s Questions on the BBC, he seems to often attack the Tories from the right. They’re incompetent at implementing their policies to destroy the country via Brexit, or gutting the NHS, or supporting the decimated economy, so make him leader instead. It’s mind-boggling.
Blair knew how to triangulate and how to fight in the House, but, yeah he was a disaster in Iraq. And Brown was seemingly in Blair’s shadow for far too long to develop any effective counter to the idea that it was the Tories’ turn.
Sturgeon’s success as a leader seemingly shows that people in the UK (or at least in Scotland) are willing to get enthusiastic and give large majorities to sensible leaders. Who will be that person next in England? Is there anyone on the horizon? Will there be 20 years of Labour muddling around? London Mayor Sadiq Khan seemed to be painted over here as a rising star but I haven’t heard much about him lately. Could he build a national movement to replace Starmer and the monsters who have destroyed Labour? Anyone else?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott/
Kay
Bad local coverage sucks, but what I object to is this sort of narrative that Biden (or the federal government more broadly) “ignores” white working class areas. It just isn’t true and it wasn’t true of Obama before him. I think liberals have sort of romantized white working class in a way that is both untrue as to the extent of government subsidies and assistance they receive and also patronizing so feed into this. I see it even on this site, where people continue to insist that it is impossible for people in the rustbelt w/out a college degree to earn a living wage. That just isn’t true. I don’t know why young white rural men are underemployed but it isn’t “low wages”. They really can live quite comfortably on 40k where I live. If they’re married, even better- one household, 80k.
An energy company just purchased 470 acres in the rural white working class county where i live- they’re putting in a solar field. Huge federal subsidies. This is the SECOND solar field we have built w/federal subsidies- the first went to a municipal untility out of Obama’s stimulus funds.
We get a lot of government subsidies. It’s a myth promoted by Donald Trump and media that we’re “ignored”.
Democrats need to discuss white working class in a real way that is not a Bruce Springsteen song :)
Aussie Sheila
@Aussie Sheila: Also parties here sometimes run ‘drop in’s’ that have no history of local political activity and service. It rarely goes well, and the ALP lost a capable MP in my state running her in a seat where the local community had their favourite. She lost. The decision was a bad one all round. I can’t stand MPs that don’t live in the seats they represent. They mostly do so here, with the Liberals being the worst offenders in not living in their electorates.
But usually everyone runs candidates that live in and are active, in their electorates.
Gravenstone
In other words, they felt no reason to care until the toxic effects ran downriver to them. Can’t say I’m surprised.
Tony Jay
@J R in WV:
I honestly have no idea why Sturgeon has resigned. Maybe there’s a scandal out there, maybe she’s just exhausted, maybe she actually thinks her Party have a better chance of getting Independence over the line without her, hell, maybe she thinks her Party are definitely going to get Independence over the line and she doesn’t want to be left holding that particular bag of salted dicks.
If memory serves, there’s a few Scots who lurk here. Chime on in!
Nu-Lab (or the Nu-Lab Franchise) is what I call the centre-right monstrosity that the election of Sir Starmer has turned the Labour Party into. A zombie revenant of the 1990s era Blair ‘New Labour’ Party, with none of the political skill, policy confidence or basic charisma old Smiling Shitbag brought to the job. It’s ‘solved’ the anti-Semitism problem it insisted Labour had by expelling more Jewish members than all other Labour leaderships combined, which somehow the British media seem to think isn’t worth discussing.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission agreed to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism in Corbyn’s Labour Party after a number of right-wing members of the Disciplinary Unit claimed they’d been bullied and the leadership was stopping them expelling people. Its report bent over backwards to pretend that the people who had actually blocked and held up anti-Semitism cases and the people who were complaining that the leadership had blocked and held up anti-Semitism cases weren’t the same people (they were), and did even more contortions to find that, even though the leadership had only got involved in cases unwillingly and at the direct request of the very people who were complaining of the leadership being involved, it was totally the leadership’s fault, sort of.
The Nu-Lab people and the British Media took this report and turned it into “ZOMG! Red Hitler was Guilty!!!” and that was that. The EHRC have now found that Nu-Lab is free of the taint of anti-Semitism because something, something, let’s never speak of this again.
Sir Plastic Placeholder – leader of the NU-Lab party = Sir Kier Starmer, the weak little paper-doll who the Labour Right use as their figurehead in the campaign to turn the Labour Party into a safe place for Islamophobic billionaires and the kind of people who buy their champagne with a flick of the finger and no concern for cost.
Not so much Democracy in Ole Blighty anymore? = Correct. It was getting in the way.
Can Russian financiers run for UK Parliament, like from the City of London, which I think isn’t the same as the Actual city named London, but a financial district within London, right? = No, but they don’t need to. They just buy the people who can, and they are cheap. And yes, that’s what the City of London is.
They need representation in Parliament, just like our RWNJs need to own both the House and the Senate, right? = Right. Very, very Far Right.
Well done, you know more about UK politics than most British people. 8-)
kalakal
@sab: I’m shocked by both but in different ways.
The biggest problem I see in the past decade ( predates that but now it’s being stress tested) is that both systems claim to be driven by laws, precedent, various documents etc. In practice they rely on a sufficient majority of participants to act in good faith & neither the GOP nor the Tories are doing so. Both Trump & Johnson just went “So what, are you going to stop me?” and no one did. The rules, forms & procedures only have teeth if enforced .eg the emoluments clause, the Hatch act
Alison Rose
@tobie: Right but finding and following people is tricky. If they aren’t on your instance, you have to open their profile in a separate tab to follow them, and do that whole thing of copying their URL and pasting it into your search. If you click on someone’s following/followers list, you can only see the people on your own instance, and again have to go to a separate tab to see the whole list. It just makes it extremely clunky with these extra steps, rather than just clicking a button like on Twitter or Spoutible.
Baud
@kalakal:
No system can function well when half the population supports bad faith actions.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
I am just seeing this news now. Wow. No idea what this means, except that anyone who thinks that either the Tories or Labour will ever thrive again in Scotland probably also bought souvenir classified documents from Donald Trump.
prostratedragon
@sab: The accents heard on shows like Vera, assuming they’re somewhat accurate, have given me a clue about where many American accents started. Among other things American.
Matt McIrvin
@tobie:
Part of what’s going on is a fundamental disagreement about aims. The Mastodon old hands tend to be very much into fostering civil discourse as a primary goal. So they eliminated QTs because you could easily use them to hate-retweet something–to repost it for some purpose other than “I like this, it is good”. And that, they figured, would make things less unpleasant.
But it seems to me that one of the values of many Twitter subcultures is that if an injustice is happening, or if someone is behaving egregiously badly, calling it out is more important than maintaining civil discourse. That can turn into a pile-on, but whether that is necessarily bad depends on the situation.
rikyrah
absolutely horrific
Bob south florida water man (@WaterDean) tweeted at 6:44 AM on Wed, Feb 15, 2023:
South Dakota Passes First Law That Will Force Trans Kids to Detransition https://t.co/arlf16ZvOx Look at them with those shit eating grins.
(https://twitter.com/WaterDean/status/1625838490905677824?t=ixCA9R2SdoKhJ9oEStWRVA&s=03)
WaterGirl
@sab: Chocolate sauerkraut cake is delicious. You have to soak and squeeze the sauerkraut, but it makes the cake very moist.
But you do need enough sugar!
Gravenstone
I initially flinched at the concept. Reading a recipe, it’s not far afield of say, zucchini or banana breads with a little lactic acid added for zest.
lowtechcyclist
@Aussie Sheila:
Well, that was the problem, at least for me. He unquestionably needs that “shed load of more substantial political experience if he aspires to anything more than Cabinet Secretary.” And there he was, running for President of the United States after a term as mayor of a largish town.
I don’t hate him – I’m not much of a hater, and he isn’t worth that much of my attention anyway. But I am somewhere between exceedingly skeptical and outright dismissive of him as a result.
WaterGirl
@satby: I am pretty sure that was snark from Omnes. Mocking the people who dismiss him for that.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah: Fucking bullies. Grown people upending kids’ lives, because they can. Absolutely despicable.
ETA: I swear, I’m gonna have to take a map of the U.S. and label all the states I’m planning to avoid if at all possible.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Agreed.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker:
That’s it in a nutshell.
RaflW
@Kay: Rather than actually talk about the Profit World Order that gives us cost-cutting, rule-skipping, union-busting and all the other ingredients that yield disasters.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Nope, no Balloon Juice account on Twitter.
That is a good idea about adding those to the sidebar.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You would just love us more. :-)
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: I rediscovered this gem of a Facebook thread, that I screenshoted in 2020, yesterday:
People just get insanely deranged about him, it’s so funny. I don’t usually go from anti-anti-something to pro-something, but for Pete I just can’t help it.
ETA The first guy also liked to call him Mary Pete (after that New Republic piece so bad they deleted it) and Mayo Pete.
tobie
@Alison Rose: i just searched by name. I did look into who was in the journalism instance but that was it. Maybe I’m using the site/app wrong.
kalakal
@Another Scott: Some friends of mine say good things about Andy Burnham the Mayor of Manchester, I’m a bit out of touch. Frankly I’d risk “Chaos with Miliband” as well. Tony Jays more up to date than me.
Gravenstone
@Baud: Saw a report earlier this morning that Musk hopes to have someone else take over Twitter by end of year. I mean, he could always elevate the previous folks to control and back away quietly. //
kalakal
@rikyrah: That is outrageous, beyond disgusting.
Baud
@Gravenstone:
Someone needs to take the blame for Twitter going tits up.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud:
That’s weird, I’m not on there. WaterGirl can you add me? @tynanpants
Gravenstone
That would be the Congress of the United States you’re looking for. Good luck getting a coherent response from them. The Republican side is too busy grandstanding to do anything useful.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I added the two Spoutible accounts in the sidebar, and changed the heading. Is that what you had in mind?
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Sure!
I added the ones I knew and then others would write, as you just have, and let me know to add theirs.
edit: done!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I’m not on either, but won’t people need to know whether the link goes to a Twitter or Spoutible account?
Baud
Balloon Juice has no spouts.
Gravenstone
Heh, my stepdad (retired farmer) has gone on a few rants about those. Claims they’re taking “valuable farmland”. Dude, even if they are (and most aren’t) the total area involved isn’t that significant.
jonas
It’s cheaper for the company to tie this up in litigation until the end of time than pay for what it would actually cost to remediate the damage they’ve done. They’ll pass out plastic windsocks for people to stick in their yards so they’ll know if the wind is coming from a certain direction, they can don gas masks or something, and claim they’ve done everything possible.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Help me come up with a good first spout for Balloon Juice?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud:
I like mastodon. If I want to use a big monolith I’ll just use twitter. On mastodon I can visit my local feed of writers and see/say/do writer stuff, then hop to my other feeds for a broader experience. I have no need for a twitter clone.
ETA also spoutible is super insecure and has lots of opsec problems https://www.reddit.com/r/SaintMeghanMarkle/comments/10t6xx0/has_anyone_joined_spoutible_this_is_worrying/
https://twitter.com/thatumbrella/status/1621955685327032327?s=46&t=klsMRwrImM-10lakH7OC7w
Baud
@WaterGirl:
That question would make a good open thread topic.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Is that better?
jonas
@Gravenstone: Plus, in a lot of places, it’s possible to grow crops in and around solar arrays as they provide partial shade in hot climates. Just not crops you can mechanically harvest and all that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Nikki Haley brings in John Hagee to bless the launch of her campaign. If, like me, that name rings a vague bell, here’s why:
WaterGirl
@Baud: That’s a good idea!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
👍
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: My daughter is trying to figure out where she wants to go to college. It feels like the map is much more constrained for her than it was for me because such large parts of the United States are no-go for her. Including, likely, the state where I grew up and attended college (Virginia)
(And you might argue that she wasn’t going to go to South Dakota anyway, and this is probably true… but my parents met at a college in South Dakota, so there’s a least a family connection there.)
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: thank you!!
tobie
@Matt McIrvin: I can see how quote tweeting leads to community formation. Too often on Twitter that community seemed to be based on finding common enemies. Maybe that’s inevitable. We live in outrageous times and rage is a legit response to abuses of power.
Still, I don’t like what Twitter made me, and while the fediverse requires more work on my part to curate my feed, and the absence of visually appealing quote tweets means you need to read long-form linked articles, I’d still like to stick it out for a while. I may well leave but will do so with an awareness of how private enterprises supply me with news and opinions that they think I’d find appealing. I believe that kind of media skepticism is healthy in this day and age.
artem1s
@Baud:
the ‘controlled’ explosion mostly made the news because of DeWine’s disaster of a press conference afterward where the blogging/journalist got arrested. That’s honestly the first I’d heard about the derailment. The messaging errors were at the state level. Then the twitter trolls got hold of it and have been using it to blame Dems, both Pete and Biden, and “THE FEDs” for…everything? The Ohio Green party scolds haven’t been helping either. They just keep hitting the gas on the conspiracies and blaming and amplifying the crazy tweets. At this point no one really knows what’s going on because the DeWine administration has done such a poor job of letting the residents or anyone else know what’s going on with the clean up and follow up investigation. And he’s frankly perfectly happy letting the fed EPA take all the blame if he can get away with it.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nikki Haley is such a sorry excuse for a human being.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: That’s from 11 days ago, and it was fixed the day it was discovered.
schrodingers_cat
@artem1s: There was a FP post by JGC here comparing it to Bhopal. Bhopal where thousands died compared to a disaster without a single death.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: I gather Matt Yglesias is not popular around here, but his retweet of Haley defending confederate nostalgia in 2010– including agreeing that Confederate History Month should be a thing– will mean that more media Bigfeet will see it
Baud
@artem1s:
That too.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: it speaks to their having absolutely no idea what they’re doing, which means it is guaranteed to be riddled with other holes, just like Parler. A botched and rushed release with no penetration testing is bad news that indicates further and ongoing bad news in the future.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: If Virginia seems insecure, I would wait to see the results of this year’s General Assembly elections to rule it out. They should give a good indication of the state’s true political direction.
Personally, I do not think Youngkin’s election in 2021 represented a trend. This next set of elections will tell the tale, though. A neutrally drawn district map should add clarity.
dww44
@matt: What other tools do they have to fight inflation? I do know that I know that the prices at my grocery store have not gone down at all. When a normal sized jar of Kraft Mayonnaise costs over 7 bucks, then we do have a problem. Heck went through the KFC drive through last week and paid $11.00 for a 3 piece meal.
At some point, to control inflation, we all have to refuse to pay some of these prices and I have reached that point. But millions of others need to reach that point along with me. But, then I’m on a fixed income, so maybe not a problem for others who aren’t.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s quite the extreme statement. We’ll have to disagree on that. Time will tell.
billcinsd
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I believe he gave tours of the Capitol Bldg to future insurrectionists
J R in WV
@Gravenstone:
Locally here in SW WVa there are two cities, Charleston and Huntington, which is on the Ohio River just this side of KY. Today we learned that the water provider in Huntington has closed their water intake from the Ohio and opened an intake on the Guyandotte River which flows into the Ohio just east of Huntington.
The Guyandotte River flows north through coal country and so picks up a lot of runoff from giant coal spoil dumps. Fish from the river are high in heavy metals like selenium, and often have distorted and mixed up sexual organs. I wouldn’t eat them unless it was a question of starving.
The fact that American Water believes water from the Guyandotte River is safer than water from the Ohio is shocking and amazing. I’m glad we have a drilled well here in the 1919 era oil and gas patch. At least our well water has been tested for safety by the USGS in the recent past…
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I like the pinned tweet by Actual Citizens United.
trollhattan
@Tony Jay: Maybe Sturgeon gazed across
the pondtwo ponds at Jacinda Ardern and thought “That’s for me, too.”I have paper-thin knowledge of Scottish politics but after they voted down independence only to then watch Brexit pass, and pass again I can well imagine the first minister must feel like she’s been in a blender too many years.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: if I’d released a system with such a gaping vulnerability I’d have been put on a performance improvement plan instead of being fired, but only because they’re contractually obligated to do that before firing me. That’s an intern-level mistake. Like it literally reminds me of something an intern did, only much worse.
it’s okay not to care, but this is not a place I would recommend parking sensitive data, as a web engineer with over a decade of experience.
brendancalling
“Who’d want to be a Republican at this point in time?”
That would depend on your motives. If I wanted to bilk a bunch of conservative morons out of their money, I would absolutely mount a [designed to fail] campaign for office. The money would roll right in as I made absurd promise after absurd promise. “I WILL STOP PRESIDENT BRANDON FROM FORCING YOU TO MARRY A GAY PERSON AGAINST YOUR WILL!” “I WILL BUILD A WALL ON YOUR PROPERTY TO KEEP THE ILLEGALS OUT OF YOUR YARD!” “I WILL BAN ALL BOOKS AND MAKE READING A CRIME!”
I mean if Little Benny can make money selling his branded survival foods, I can certainly bring in. a few shekels as a Republican candidate for office. You know, like George Santos!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@billcinsd: That makes sense to me. The leaders of the insurrectionists knew a lot about where offices were etc.
J R in WV
@Tony Jay:
Thanks for explaining so much. It’s kind of terrifying that rural hillbilly me knows much about UK politics at all, much less more than many British people… But glad I was in the ballpark anyway.
Thanks for your continuing education on British politics, I find it quite valuable.
And your invective, wonderful and inventive stuff, only Betty Cracker can do better ~!!~ She is a miracle of the language~!!!!~
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: I was considering it so thanks for the warning. Right now I am only on Twitter. I will let others test out the Twitter alternatives and then join the one that survives.
Major Major Major Major
I’ll also note that I don’t think any twitter clone is going to replace twitter. The “next twitter” will only resemble twitter as much as Facebook resembled MySpace
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: mastodon will survive obviously but I wouldn’t park sensitive data there either, since the owner of your home instance can see everything, and who are they, do you trust them more than Musk?
(Though they don’t ask for sensitive information, unlike spoutible, so the only vulnerabilities are things you post)
Of the twitter-like sites the most secure place is twitter.
ETA post.news is secure and trustworthy enough probably but I seem to recall unsavory management.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
What does spoutible ask for?
Scout211
Matt Gaetz will not be charged with sex trafficking.
Sorry if this has already been posted.
UncleEbeneezer
@brendancalling: You’d get at least 30% of GOP voters in deep red parts of the country.
Ishmael
@2liberal: I just tried to send a spout to WaterGirl on Spoutible and it required my mobile phone number to verify and send. I never give my mobile number. Have those of you who use Spoutible given them your mobile number?
kalakal
@sab:
Yes and no. In a lot of places a turnip would get elected as long as you pin the right coloured rosette on it but…
the individual candidate can make a difference .
I lived for many years in Leeds NW and it was split roughly 40/30/30 Tory/Labour/Libdem. For years we had a Tory MPs while the other 2 parties tried to cannibalise each others voters. Finally with Blairs first election we got a Labour MP, the excellent Harold Best. He quit over Iraq, the locals also pissed off switched from Labour ( and the labour candidate stank) to Libdem, and we got Greg Mulholland ( who I have to admit was also a good local mp) When the libdems threw in with the Tories, poor old Greg despite being a very good local mp also got the boot and we went back to labour
Paul in KY
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Problem would be: What do you do with the umpteen millions in infrastructure there in FL? You are still going to have to pay property tax on it.
satby
It has indeed.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Scout211: Well, boo.
kalakal
@UncleEbeneezer: Promise not to let things be rammed down their throats and you’d get 40%
ETA The throat thing is weirdly Transatlantic, British wingnuts and media obsess about it too. These people are twisted at some very deep level
satby
@Baud: no, Balloon Juice never had it’s own Twitter. And I would bet that Cole, who isn’t on spoutible yet, did not ask for that to be set up. WG makes a lot of executive decisions without the blog owner’s input, and sometimes contrary to it.
Paul in KY
@kalakal: Think! Remember that weird dude whose name was ‘Keir’? Just like the actor in 2001 A Space Odyssey?
Paul in KY
@ian: Being burned at the stake is a horrible way to go. Especially if you are not what you were accused/convicted of.
OzarkHillbilly
320?WhoooHoooo!
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Right now Twitter satisfies my need for credible on the ground news source from India. If and when that changes I will consider moving.
Another thing that might make me move is if Musk takes away the ability to block and mute.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: phone number, as @Ishmael notes. And at launch (ten days ago), in addition to having a vulnerability that let anybody scrape every user’s full account information (just like Parler, which we all enjoyed mocking for staggering incompetence), they asked for a video of you holding your ID if you wanted full verification.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: She is the blog COO for all intents and purposes. That’s just my observation BTW. YMMV. She has kept it running like a well-oiled machine. The content on here is not as freewheeling as it used to be. But blogs change just like people do.
Qrop Non Sequitur
People keep telling me they’re on Spoutible, but I’m not able to find it for download.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Think Cali would have a good range of universities. Best of luck to her.
Paul in KY
@brendancalling: You could definitely make money off their deluded rubes.
scav
@Paul in KY: It’s not like hunting for a vein for a couple hours with dubiously sourced drugs to follow, likewise sometimes done to innocent people is necessarily that much of an improvement.
ian
@Paul in KY: It is most certainly a terrible way to go. Many of the “Heretics” were people who had different opinions about religion, which to us is a normal feature of free opinion but to the past was an unacceptable sin. I’m willing to bet that almost none of those burned for witchcraft were actually guilty. To people in the past, witchcraft wasn’t the whole broomstick and cat thing, but more akin to what we think of as Satanism. Much like the Satanic panic of the 1980s, I bet very, very few people actually subscribed to Satanism in the 1600s.
Paul in KY
@scav: If I had to choose, I would take lethal injection over being burned at the stake.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Scout211:
People reading between the lines (so, FWIW) when this news first cropped up suspected that the purported victim was either not cooperative or not actually under-age. I think the prosecutorial daemon of consciousness of guilt was also involved.
WaterGirl
@Baud: On Spoutible, your phone number is encrypted, even at rest, along with other sensitive information.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: you are an uninformed idiot
ETA Just today. I woke up very very cranky.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Don’t be sorry for posting it, just be sorry that it’s true.
Paul in KY
@ian: Forced religion. Blech! Have watched shows about T. Cromwell and read the Wolf Hall trilogy and the evil punishments meted out to poor souls just trying to worship in their way or people with mental problems was sick. Also, the gruesome crowds who enjoyed the horror.
sab
@Gravenstone: I just ate a piece. Luscious is the word. Also chocolate.
ETA Watergirl is right. You have to squish and drain it a lot.
WaterGirl
@satby:
That’s a pretty big statement, and it’s untrue that I have ever done something contrary to Cole’s input. Are you intending to be speaking for Cole?
Ken
To be clear, do you mean that you are retired (or otherwise not working), and are relying on income from Social Security, pensions, investments, etc.? That seems to be what is often meant by “fixed income”.
I am also on a fixed income, but mine is in the form of a paycheck from my employer, which has also not been increasing as fast as the rate of inflation.
WaterGirl
@Qrop Non Sequitur: I don’t believe there’s an app yet, though they say it’s coming. For now, it’s accessed through your browser on a computer, tablet or phone.
cain
@Jeffro: Even better, the younger Dem class is gunning for the older Dem class. That take over in NC is a thing of beauty – and I hope we see a more aggressive Dem party that is more saavy with the tools we have today. The media and the GOP are over represented by Gen Xers and Boomers – we can seize the advantage.
Also, we need a better Dem party in Florida.
Also.. cats. Moar cats.
RaflW
@schrodingers_cat: Haley had noted lunatic preacher John Hagee do the opening prayer for her announcement.
The guy was so bonkers into antisemitic ‘theories’ about the Holocaust that John McCain forcefully rejected Hagee’s unsolicited 2008 endorsement.
Did Nikki forget that moment? Or is she fine with having the stench of Holocaust-crazies wafting about her?
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: can confirm! (What WG said)
Mr. Bemused Senior
@WaterGirl: regarding sensitive information…
To paraphrase Bruce Schneier, what you store in the cloud is on someone else’s computer. My advice, I admit a lost cause, is do not store sensitive information in the cloud.
sab
@satby: I am constantly amazed by your resume. What haven’t you done? And I have a varied enough resume myself to know you are not faking it.
Keep on keeping us informed.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@WaterGirl: Ahhh, stands to reason.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: We all make mistakes when we are very young with huge school loans.
Paul in KY
@RaflW: She must be thinking he will help in the primaries. Since she must know she has no shot at being the nominee (and seems to be running for ‘Mouth of DeSatanis’ position), I guess she feels like there’s no downside for her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a bit early to tell, isn’t it? What do Roy Cooper and Josh Stein say about it. Stein is 56. Does that make him an “Older Dem” or a “Younger Dem”?
sab
@kalakal: That is very interesting. I thought they all just voted party ticket.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: I think Sec. Buttigieg is proving to be a pretty capable politician (his Fox hits seem to break through in ways few other Dems have mastered).
I hope he is as capable an administrator. The FAA has it’s work cut out for it, with a spate of near-disasters pointing to needed re-focusing. (The f**king Republicans are currently dragging out the confirmation of Biden’s pick to be FAA head. Acting admin heads generally have less power. Ugh)
This derailment/spill/least-bad-of-terrible-options burn that crosses multiple Cabinet depts as well as the GOP polyfecta state gov’t in Ohio is going to be a freaking slog for Pete.
I wish him well!
Origuy
Deleted since there’s a new open thread.
kalakal
@Paul in KY: The Spanish Inquisition very often would surreptitiously strangle those about to be burnt at the stake just before ignition. They considered it an act of mercy ( it was known as “relaxation”) . When the Spanish Inquisition considered something a horrible way to die…
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It is, and things could get worse. But NC Dems have been muddling at 49.5% for like a decade now. Something needs to change.
scav
@Paul in KY: If done well, quite possibly, but it’s not as though the zealots of today are that much worried about the quality exactly. There’s a fair bit of uncomfortable reading available. And it’s not as though we don’t have those actively attempting to enforce religious conformity — certainly in terms of legal decrees and medical practice, if not caring about asses on pews — on others not sharing their beliefs. At best, any laurels we’re resting on are a little worn & tatty and increasingly being shredded.
cain
It’s because American “culture” is all about independence and work. If you’re depending on the govt it’s some kind of shame – a lot of conservatives who have been on welfare – even though it helped them and their family – hate it. Precisely for this reason.
You have to change the culture and stop looking at this kind of thing as something shaming.
Although some have no shame at all – and will gladly steal from the govt because they think they deserve it – while at the same time fighting hard to not allow it for anyone else.
sab
@JML: Why would she do that? She is a nonpartisan diplomat. You say 30% she is lying or got it wrong. I say 70% she is not lying or did not get it wrong..
RaflW
@Paul in KY: If by some confluence of absurdity the ’24 R ticket is DeSantis-Haley, it is incumbent on people with even moderate google-fu to be throwing Hagee’s unhinged Holocaust freakishness right back at those two.
This whole thing where the press gives the GOP a pass when they “have to” run to the right in the primary but somehow didn’t really mean it come general election time has got to stop. And that only stops if we act up. The press sure ain’t gonna fix itself.
kalakal
@sab: Mostly they do but there are exceptions. If the local MP makes the news for good or bad reasons also can do it. There’s also tactical voting. As it’s first past the post I often voted for who was most likely to defeat the Tory candidate which was not always the same as the one I most preferred. This is a good article on how FPTP screws up UK parliamentary representation
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/voters-per-mp-why-first-past-post-failed/
cain
The controversy exposes an underlying issue and that is about safety vs exposure.
The LBGTQ+ community is focused on safety and that means having things like content warnings and not use your content against you. But if you are the black community, you’re focused on exposure – and that means being able to ramp up and point “this is racism, this is wrong” – the black community have successfully used twitter in this fashion.
The key difference is that an LBGTQ+ support systems are fragile. Your own family can be against you – and now the govt is as well. The difference between this and systemic racism that black community has suffered since forcibly bought here is what leads to these fights.
The Lodger
@Gravenstone: Weirdly enough, there’s a New Palestine just upstream from Cincinnati, close enough for a chemical spill to have some huge effects to the city. Took me a few minutes to realize it wasn’t the same place as East Palestine.
cain
@Major Major Major Major:
Wait what? Yeah, sounds like they can build a databases of faces while they are at it. There is a difference between volunteering to give an image on social media and having to submit one. I get to chose that.
I’ll stick to Mastodon which does support privacy and security and is built by a community.
Paul in KY
@kalakal: In jolly England, if you bribed the executioners or maybe they were sympathetic to you, they would use alot of green/wet wood & hopefully you would be asphyxiated prior to the flames getting to you.
Paul in KY
@RaflW: For sure! Will do my part if GQP vomits up those 2. Was just speculating on why she hitched him to her wagon. Maybe she didn’t know about the 2008 debacle or maybe she did & that’s why she chose him.
Think she should be asked.
Geminid
@RaflW: The question of press coverage aside, I’ve noticed in the last few years how Republicans are now often not running to the center after winning their primaries. One possible expaination is that these candidates are true believers, radical to the core. Another is that the more radical rank and file are no longer pragmatic enough to tolerate backsliders and will not vote for one.
Matt McIrvin
@cain:
This explains a lot of the back-and-forth I’ve seen on Mastodon about this lately.
RaflW
@cain: That’s a very helpful analysis.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think in their shriveled little hearts they are opposed to the serfs having any income at all.
Bingo! They want it all. Have zero understanding that without the people having money, there is no business, no economy, no government to control theft of what they have stolen, and their concept of being Scrooge McDuck sitting there counting all their money would be as real as the cartoons depicted him doing just that actually were. They are greedy simpletons. OK that’s being way too nice to them.
Kay
@Gravenstone:
“Taking”. Hmmm. Well, the landowners are selling it to them and they’re getting a very nice price per acre-farmground has gone up the last 10 years. It’s overvalued, IMO, which means they probably borrowed too much on it so might be relieved to get rid of it at a high.
Should we bar them from selling property they own? Just to own the libs? :)
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: I wish we could just completely defund them. I don’t want my tax dollars supporting hate.
Gravenstone
@Kay: Hey, I’m counting on that overvalued farmland to get some cash back from the family farm in a few years once stepdad has passed. Hoping to be able to provide my nephew (who would be sole surviving family at that point) a decent nest egg if at all possible.
2liberal
@Ishmael: try giving them a bogus number and see if they text you. it could be part of verification process for user protection.
Kay
@Gravenstone:
Oh, that’s nice. It’s held up a while now and I don’t see any signs it’s going down.
Geminid
@Kay: Some farmers are leasing their land to solar developers. The income will allow them to hold on to marginal land, typically hay fields.
Back when I lived in the Shenandoah Valley there was a project of this type in my neighborhood, involving several land owners. There was opposition, ostensibly based on issues like loss of farmland, scenic beauty etc. It was astroturfed by an organization supported by the power company, though.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
The press sure ain’t gonna fix itself.
The press would have to consider that it is even close to broken for them to even consider fixing anything whatsoever.
Today, the majority of the press is owned by people with MONEY. It’s not someone with a hundred yr old printing press out in their garage, turning out single sheet rants about freedom and liberty. (That’s us on our computers, on blogs like this one) When I was a kid I delivered the daily in our town of 25-30K, printed on a press in that town and a lot of towns had the same concept of a newspaper. Now that news paper, and it’s brethren is, at least in SoCal, long gone. And big papers are likely making as much money charging for their website access as newsprint, maybe/likely at a higher profit margin.
Ruckus
@satby:
I am on Spoutible and feel that it works very similarly to twitter but seems to be better managed – which means to me that spouts can’t be quite like you could make tweets and therefore a more consistent process. As it grows it may get/have more issues but how it’s structured currently seems to be better than the alternatives. It is growing on me.
WaterGirl
@Ishmael: @2liberal:
They use your number to text you a code before you send your first spout to verify that you’re a human and not a bot. You type in the code and then you’re good. They plan to have an alternative to a call phone, but that is not in place yet.
PBK
@WaterGirl: Thanks for everything you do around here WaterGirl!
WaterGirl
@PBK: Thank you!
dnfree
@sab: Our daughter spent her junior year of college in Durham! Her dorm room was decidedly not in the castle, but that was her mailing address. The post office used to ask “Is that the full address?” I’d say “Yes, just The Castle, Durham, UK. There’s only the one castle.”