Item from Rolling Stone:
FLORIDA GOV. RON DeSantis (R-FL) signed a bill regarding spaceflight on Thursday just one day after he announced his presidential run in a glitch-filled interview with Elon Musk on Twitter Spaces.
DeSantis signed into law CS/SB 1318 – Spaceflight Entity Liability along with 27 other bills. The law exempts “spaceflight entity from liability for injury to or death of a crew resulting from spaceflight activities under certain circumstances.” The measure also requires “a spaceflight entity to have a crew sign a specified warning statement.”
Florida is a known launching point for SpaceX aircrafts, and the new law could potentially shield Musk and other space flight companies from being sued for accidents that injure or kill crew members.
Cynics might think it’s a quid pro quo arrangement. But if DeSantis wanted to give Musk something in return for the botched campaign rollout that is commensurate with its value, he would have signed a bill empowering lawyers to seek quadruple damages for space flight-related injuries.
Also, instead of compelling Floridians to return space junk that lands in their yards, the governor might consider compelling space flight companies to reimburse citizens for any rocket parts found — and require that payment be rendered in Krugerrands equal to the weight of the space junk.
For more on the DeSantis – Musk launch debacle, please see Alexandra Petri’s review in The Post — gift link here. An excerpt:
That is to say, THE IDEAL PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN LAUNCH! Peak performance! Nothing about this was bad. Objectively. I cannot think of a better way to launch any kind of campaign, short of crashing through a window wearing only a bathrobe (on fire) and immediately being swallowed by an alligator. Well, maybe you could also be suing Disney for unclear reasons.
She’s wrong about one thing — alligators don’t immediately swallow prey. They tend to drag it around in the water for a while and masticate it thoroughly before swallowing it. But other than that, Petri is spot on.
Open thread!
(Thanks to Mr. Bemused Senior in the thread downstairs for the heads up on the Petri column.)
Kay
It must be so embarrasing for the free speech warriors and anti woke crusaders that their hero is a just a standard issue, bitter, middle aged wingut who is aging badly.
Corrupt too! But of course he is.
Rupert Murdoch, but dumber and less competent.
Ohio Mom
I didn’t know that about alligators, I learn so much from this blog.
I guess I could goggle this, when does DeSantis’ term end and is he going to be re-elected? Does anyone keep a list of worst governors, and if so, is there anyone higher on the list?
Jerry
Desantis just won re-election last fall
Scout211
Ms. Petri has all the best words. Thanks for the gifty-linky.
twbrandt
Speaking of Musk, a huge leak of thousands of safety complaints to Tesla was published by a German publication. Inter alia, Tesla employees were told to respond verbally to customer complaints and not to write anything down. (Note that some of the complaints are hard to parse because they were machine translated from English to German and back to English.)
Old School
I’m enjoying picturing the debate that went into this revision:
Ohio Mom
@Jerry: Oh dear. I live in Ohio so I really can’t bad mouth other states.
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
His term ends in 2026, and he can’t run for reelection immediately because of term limits. That may be part of the reason he’s being so aggressive in pursuing national ambitions at the expense of his state. He can’t realistically run for senator- both Scott and Rubio have strong enough locks on their offices that a primary challenge doesn’t make sense- and anything less would be a big step down.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: Sure you can!
Leto
@Ohio Mom: Idk, all red state governors are giving it their best. He just happens to have an entire co-equal branch willing to do anything he says. He says jump, they’re already 10ft in the air and asking how high. But several other shithole states are right on their heels.
Old School
@Old School: Drat. Editing colors disappeared.
Scout211
Glitch-filled announcement aside, DeSantis’ campaign says he raised $8.2M in the first 24 hours.
So he can raise money. I think that shoots him all the way up to second place in the GOP sweepstakes. But the leader of the pack has already lapped him multiple times. LOL
Betty Cracker
@Ohio Mom: It’ll be interesting to see what the putz does next if he washes out of the 2024 presidential primary. He’ll be termed out as gov in 2026. Marco Rubio’s seat will be up for grabs in 2028; maybe he’ll primary Lil Marco or run for POTUS again.
@Roger Moore: There’s bad blood between DeSantis and Scott, but the timing isn’t right. I wouldn’t put it past him to primary Rubio, whom Repubs believe (rightly) is a squish.
Shalimar
@Roger Moore: Term limits can be changed, and DeSantis has a captive legislature.
Delk
Pus-cow got into a Twitter fight with a 16 year old trump fan.
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think Ron liked his time in the House, so I can’t see him wanting Rubio’s job. His preferred options are national dictator or state dictator.
Roger Moore
@Shalimar:
The term limits are in the state constitution, which the state legislature can’t amend on its own. It can propose amendments, but they have to be passed by a 60% popular vote. I don’t think DeSantis is going to manage that one.
Frankensteinbeck
I am impressed by the sheer blatancy of this corruption. Usually they try to hide it a little.
Betty Cracker
@Shalimar: Agreed, but his options will be limited if he doesn’t win the GOP nomination and (dog forbid!) presidency. He’s in his mid-40s, so he can keep running for president for the next four decades, but he needs a perch from which to stay relevant. The gubernatorial term limit is in the state constitution. I could see him being a senator in the mold of Ted Cruz — an asshole nobody likes, even in his own party — who grandstands all the time instead of working with others to pass legislation.
Citizen Alan
@Jerry: And if perennial loser Charlie Crist has a speck of decency, he will never leave his house again.
Ocotillo
@Ohio Mom:
Texas says, hold my beer.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Roger Moore:
That may also be why he has only weakly bashed Trump. If he loses the primary, he’s going to want a prestigious job in the Trump administration.
Sister Golden Bear
Speaking of Musk and disasters, you’ll be shocked, shocked, to find out that DeSantis’ Twitter fiasco was due to lack of employees.
trollhattan
Failure to launch fatality count begins.
trollhattan
@Citizen Alan: Work on your tan, Charlie.
Florida Dems seem to have a bench so small, Barbie stole it for her dream house.
Citizen Alan
In other, more personal, news, I just got back from Fresno and so far I love the city. I have narrowed my apartment choices down to two options. They are both close to equal in my eyes. One has a slightly larger kitchen and an attached garage. The other has a slightly smaller kitchen but one better laid out and a gas stove! It also has a larger and more functional patio. (Though, weirdly, neither has a patio that connects to the kitchen–one connects to the living room and the other two both bedrooms–which complicates my plans for an herb garden.
trollhattan
@Citizen Alan: Sounds promising! I trust you like heat. :-)
My sole recommendation is to ascertain you’re not moving into the San Joaquin floodplain, Fresno has a history of floods in wet years.
Good luck!
Another Scott
@Citizen Alan: Thanks for the report.
Good luck!!
Cheers,
Scott.
oatler
DeSantis will flame out Mussolini-style if he relies on ‘roids and coke to incite Florida Man towards domestic terrorism.
Stuart Frasier
@Citizen Alan: Gas stoves are bad for your health. They’re worse in every way than induction at this point anyway. Slower and less precise. But more importantly, they spew combustion byproducts when running and slowly leak methane into the air you breathe when they’re not.
rikyrah
This tribute to Tina Turner for a grandmother’s birthday 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾They went ALL OUT🙌🏽
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRE7cLud/?t=1
trollhattan
@Stuart Frasier: A device called a range hood takes care of the combustion byproducts. Just not the kind that circulates the air back into the kitchen.
Stuart Frasier
@trollhattan: Yeah, if the hood is present and actually installed properly. And that doesn’t do anything for the slow leaks when it’s off.
trollhattan
@Stuart Frasier: Which slow leaks? Poorly made ranges? Does that apply to furnaces and water heaters as well?
trollhattan
Things that make your blood boil, Chapter the Infinity.
Kay
@Delk:
It’s filler not botox but one wouldn’t expect a 16 year old to know that.
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
Congratulations! So exciting moving to a new place.
GoBlueInOak
As long as the Berchtesgaden (but for Seniors) – AKA The Villages – keeps expanding and adding new bitter Fox News addicts to the voter rolls, De Santis is secure.
Brachiator
The space liability crap makes me wonder about the other bills.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: He seems like the type who will seek and get removal of the governor’s term limit if he doesn’t become President. Because if he stops being governor, he’s probably not going to be President later.
Scout211
@Citizen Alan: Congratulations! I have family in Fresno and have always liked it. But I did spend my whole adult life until retirement in Stockton so I am familiar with and have always been very okay with living in the Central Valley.
Welcome to California!
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore:
Florida seems like it’s moving toward the sort of regime where the leader wins with 99.97% of the vote.
James E Powell
Not one member of the political press feels the least bit bad about making this asshole DeSantis a national political star.
Almost Retired
Oh my. Now DeSantis is dangling pardons for January 6 insurrectionists.
Does this guy get up every morning and mutter his daily affirmation into the mirror “How can I be a bigger asshole today?”
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
It seems to me that the chances of the candidacy actually turning into anything decline pretty quickly after the first few tries. You can gain a national profile by running, but if you don’t turn it into a nomination fairly quickly you’re going to get loser stink all over yourself. Joe Biden managed to get the nomination after a bunch of tries, but he had the Vice Presidency as a springboard. Also, too, he was a Democrat, and I think the rules for Democrats are a bit different. In any case, if Ron doesn’t get the nomination in 2024 or 2028, I think he’s very unlikely to win from 2032 on.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Frankensteinbeck:
Not anymore. Every Republican is corrupt now.
The only way for to truly impress GOP donors and voters, nowadays, is if the Repubican is openly corrupt and can still get away with it.
In other words, they all want to be Trump now.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin: Trump is a Hitler-Mussolini fan while DeSantis seems more Putin-adjacent. I can easily see him making it a felony to criticize DeSantis or his initiatives, and handing out eight-year prison sentences to violators. Like, before the year is out.
e.g., Do not call the Special Military Operation versus the gheys a “War.” Anybody observing a violation is encouraged to call 1-800-RAT-M-OUT. $1,000 reward for each conviction.
Shalimar
@Roger Moore: It was only changed to 60% a few decades ago. They tried to change it to 2/3rds last year but failed. If Republicans really want DeSantis to stick around, they can try to lower the threshold before an amendment on term limits. Or they can obfuscate the language on the amendment so it sounds appealing to enough voters. Voters have the last say, but the amendment will be on the ballot next year if DeSantis flames out in the presidential primaries and wants to continue as governor.
Roger Moore
@Stuart Frasier:
Gas stoves still have one thing in their favor over induction, which is their flexibility in what kind of cookware you can use. If you really want to keep using aluminum or glass-ceramic cookware, or if you want to be able to use a traditional wok or waffle iron, induction won’t do the job. IMO it’s a small enough advantage that it really isn’t worth worrying about, but it is one way gas is better.
ETA: You’ll get my induction range when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Or if you manage to come up with something better, like an induction range that works with any metallic pot.
Betty Cracker
Today in FAFO, Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins gets 8.5 years in prison. Excerpt from CNN:
Kelly Meggs, the seditionist who lived in a town near me until he became a guest of the feds, got 12 years. His wife Connie was convicted of the same charges as Watkins and is due to be sentenced soon. Maybe she’ll get 8 years too. That’s a good long time to reflect upon one’s stupidity.
CaseyL
@Roger Moore: Depends on where we are as a country by 2028, 2032.
If the GOP ever gets unified rule, there may come a time when “competent” tyranny looks pretty good.
Scout211
I know this is petty but The Guardian posted a Don, jr gaffe that made me laugh. At him, not with him, to be clear. (Bold added)
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@trollhattan: It can apply to both water heaters and furnaces/boilers. I just had an energy audit and the guy who performed it had a methane sniffer and found a leak in my water heater. It wasn’t a big enough leak to be a safety hazard and I’d already scheduled to have the water heater replaced with a hybrid electric (heat pump) water heater as it was 15 years old an on borrowed time. We replaced our gas stove with an electric induction one and I can’t say enough good things about induction cooktops. They are fantastic.
FelonyGovt
@Citizen Alan: Welcome to California! Fresno is a lovely little town.
ETA the new Florida law is so clearly a gift from Puddin’ Boots to his new BFF it would be embarrassing if he had any capacity for embarrassment.
BC in Illinois
@Scout211:
Yes! Ms. Petri has all the best words.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: You just need an RF Induction Cooktop.
Which doesn’t exist, AFAIK. Probably some cost or safety issues involved.
Let’s see… Wikipedia:
As higher-frequency power electronics gets cheaper, one might expect to see these things revisited. Maybe!
Cheers,
Scott.
patrick II
@trollhattan:
Viktor Orban, president of Hungary, is DeSantis’ role model — turning a democracy into a dictatorship by slowly strangling its democratic institutions and subverting its educational system but leaving a democratic carpace in place for show.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Rupert Murdoch, but much dumber and much less competent.
And I don’t think at all highly of rupert. I’ll have to borrow a bucket crane to dig down deep enough to find the level of how high I think of dear old rupert. I wonder if a bucket crane can dig that deep….
trollhattan
@Scout211: Don Jr. or Kendall Roy? I literally cannot tell here.
Hungry Joe
@Roger Moore: Recommendation for induction stove? We’re committed, but can’t decide.
OverTwistWillie
He never had the makings of a varsity athlete…
trollhattan
@Another Scott: As more than half of our cookware is invisible to a magnet, it will take something like this to consider an induction range. (Give up copper? Fightin’ words!)
No reason one can’t have a standalone induction plate, however, to learn whether it’s for them. They’re cheap.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-cooktop-1-zone-white-10493520/
Stuart Frasier
@trollhattan: Not just poorly made stoves.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707
“We also tested potential relationships among emissions and age, purchase price, and average income levels of where the stoves were located. For the stoves in our dataset with a known manufacturing date, we found no evidence of a relationship between either the age of the stove or purchase price of the stove with methane emissions nor with NOx emissions normalized by burner energy (Figures S8 and S9; p values all >0.5).”
trollhattan
@BC in Illinois: Lovely! The Musk-DeSantis Fyrefest.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
How is anything concerning death santa not a big step down? From any height. Or depth.
Another Scott
@Hungry Joe: I was looking a year or two ago. The reviews are crazy. People saying they’re the best things ever!!; people saying they broke in a week and it’s impossible to get parts and service and it’s the worst thing they’ve ever experienced in their entire lives!!1
:-/
Dunno.
Maybe don’t read the reviews. ;-)
Presumably things are better now that the pandemic and supply chain issues are winding down.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
I assume there are some issues with the frequency of the induction range and radio. The induction range is designed to radiate at least into the pot, and it’s putting out a lot of power. If you have even minor leakage, you could cause some serious interference on the same frequencies, so you’d want to be careful to select a band that isn’t used for anything important.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
When is Batboy up for
reelectioncontinuing to fuck up Florida at the national level?Shalimar
@mrmoshpotato: next year
Betty Cracker
@mrmoshpotato: Next year! Maybe Charlie Crist will be ready for another go… (I keed!) Seriously, we gotta find someone to take out Navy-Hat Nosferatu. But like Trollhattan accurately and hilariously noted, our damn bench is so small someone made off with it for their Barbie Dream House
@trollhattan: Mattson was right: a tribute band!
trollhattan
@Roger Moore: Hadn’t considered it but you’d need FCC certification to sell such a device, meaning shielding or filtering RFI/EMI.
Once bought a touch dimmer to use with standard lights, and it made a.m. and shortwave unlistenable throughout the house. You never know.
Roger Moore
@Hungry Joe:
I got mine more than a decade ago, so I don’t know what’s current. I got a GE Profile, but it looks like they no longer sell free-standing induction ranges, only slide-in models. I would probably look at Samsung and LG, who generally seem to have the cost/function tradeoff that’s right for me.
Ruckus
@FelonyGovt:
if he had any capacity for embarrassment he would have exploded into a mass of smelly goo by now.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Hooray for Lady Justice landing a right hook to the fucking fascist faces of Trump trash!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Do it, Betty C!
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Maybe former Representative Stephanie Murphy will take a shot at Scott.
Hungry Joe
@Another Scott: Exactly. We see one that looks good — and then we come across the Horror Reviews. It’s driving us mad, I tell you, MAD! We upgraded our wiring, doubled our solar panels, replaced a gas water heater with electric, will replace our gas furnace with a heat-pump furnace in the fall, and made the painful decision to ditch our magnificent 1936 Gaffers & Sattler gas range. But all the induction ranges seem to have asterisks attached. In the end we’ll probably just roll the dice.
Jackie
@Citizen Alan: I’d choose the garage! Extra storage and protection from car prowlers.
Citizen Alan
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I should clarify that the apartment with the electric cooktop is not induction. My choice is between a gas stove and a traditional 4-element coil top. If that matters. I’m to the point of trying to measure the rooms on the floorplans they’ve each sent me to determine which one works best with my weirdly shaped bedroom suite and whether it’s worth it to bring the treadmill I never use but can’t seem to sell (both apartments have 24-hour workout centers anyway).
Scout211
A big sigh of relief for the doctor in Indiana who was charged with violating privacy laws and other charges after she revealed she performed an abortion on the 10 year old from Ohio. Link
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan: Oh, you got the job! Congratulations!
Citizen Alan
@Jackie: Lol. They both have enclosed garages! It’s just a question of whether I want to walk straight out of my car through a door into the utility room or whether I’m okay to walk out of my garage and 20 feet across the lot to my front door just to get a slightly larger porch and a slightly more conveniently laid-out master bedroom!
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I’d make an excellent absolute monarch if someone appointed me to the job, but I’d be a terrible candidate for office.
@Geminid: Murphy might be a good fit if the state is willing to consider a sane person. She has a record as a moderate, a Central FL power base, comes across as smart and personable, has a strong anti-commie immigrant story that might resonate here.
Have you heard anything recently that makes you think she’s still interested in politics? Sometimes people just get fed up. I hope that’s not her.
Citizen Alan
@zhena gogolia: Yep. On my trip out there earlier this week, I also got to have dinner with the guy I’m replacing. Apparently, my boss is mildly conservative, but his secretary is hard right bordering on MAGA, so I’ll have to watch out for that. My predecessor jokingly confessed that in college he was a Randian, but then, he had a moment of clarity and is now a liberal Democrat! We had a great discussion over Ethiopian food, which he’d never had but now loves.
Jackie
@Citizen Alan: Put the treadmill on the sidewalk. It’ll stop being your PITA immediately! Why lug something along that’s bulky and you don’t use?
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Congrats. California will be a welcome change from Mississippi, I’m sure.
Citizen Alan
@Jackie: Honestly, I only kept it out of stubbornness. I impulsively bought it on sale for $1700 during Covid because I couldn’t get to the gym I didn’t go to anyway. And now, I can’t bring myself to sell it for less than $1000. :)
Jackie
@Citizen Alan: Lugging groceries straight into the house would be my choice😉
But, I’m not you, and just happy you’re getting out of MS!
eta correct state soon to be ditched.
narya
@Citizen Alan: Smaller kitchen, gas stove, better layout. Also, congrats!
Citizen Alan
@narya: It’s not even that much smaller, just a foot or so. but it makes up for it with a pantry! And the smaller kitchen may have a better layout over all. Gah! I can’t believe I’m obsessing over minute differences in apartments when (if all works out with the job) I’ll be buying a house in a year
(They have Craftsman homes in the Tower district going for $350k!)
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I haven’t heard anything about Murphy and the Senate race. I remember reports that she considered running for Governor in the last cycle. Murphy is young, and I expect she still wants a career in politics. She may look at polling to see if she has a chance against Scott next year.
MrKite
@Betty Cracker: If you just wait until DeSantis successfully installs the dictatorship the fascists desire in Florida, a simple coup can install you as Florida’s first benevolent dictator. I’d be for it, if only because the decrees would be so well-written and fun to read.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
What follows is entirely IMHO.
So far as a kitchen is concerned, gas vs. electric really oughtn’t be much a concern for a single dude unless you’re in the habit of preparing multi-course meals regularly and/or plan on doing a lot of entertaining . I’d be looking at size and placement of refrigerator and even more at how much counter space there is and how many cabinets there are. Also whether there’s a dishwasher.
Too, in these days of electronics, number and placement of wall outlets throughout the apartment. Also, if there is a substantial difference between them in closet space, award many extra points for the unit with more.
Both places come equipped with washer and dryer? Both have broadband connectivity?
Probably not coming into play but will mention scoping out what’s across the street/in the immediate neighborhood. If something like a bustling nightclub, consider traffic and noise.
(Speaking as an old, in full agreement with Jackie above when it comes to anticipating hauling groceries.)
narya
@Citizen Alan: Kitchen layout is everydamnthing if you like to cook. And a pantry! Damn. $350k for a Craftsman? WTAF; that’s awesome. But if you end up not being ready/able to buy in a year, you’ll be happier in an interim place that is functional for you. Also, you’re obsessing over these details because that’s way easier than obsessing over Big Things. :-)
Roger Moore
@Citizen Alan:
The less time you plan on spending there, the less you should stress about minor details. The only other thing you might want to think about is any difference in the environment. Is one in a neighborhood that appeals to you more for some reason, or is it closer to amenities you’ll like to use? In general, though, not being able to pick between two nice places you can easily afford is a good problem to have.
cain
@Shalimar: I’m sure he’s enjoying being a totalitarian play dictator of Florida – he’s got a legislature and the judicial branch under his sway. He can sign into law whatever he want – the legislature seems to be willing to do whatever he asks.
I’m not sure what the value prop is for the legislature other than owning the libs. I mean, the GOP is all about grifting so I’m trying to figure out what the money angle is for the florida legislature.
In any case, it will eventually come to a head because he’s pretty much politicizing everything.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Could be interesting! Scott is a fascinating case because he’s an oddball with zero charisma who is absolutely terrible at public speaking — the worst I’ve seen of any politician, ever. He makes Ron DeSantis look like Cicero!
Despite hating Scott’s guts, I find myself so embarrassed for him when he’s on a debate stage or delivering a speech because he’s awful. It’s a strange feeling because of course I want him to fail, but I am also a human being, so the suffering pains me, LOL!
Every time he runs, I’m hopeful that he’ll draw a strong opponent because I think he’s vulnerable, but no luck so far. Bill Nelson was stronger than the previous two opponents, but Nelson was so past his sell-by date, which Scott exploited ably. I don’t see any glaring deficits in Murphy that Scott could exploit, though I haven’t followed her career all that closely.
Sure Lurkalot
@Citizen Alan: Best of luck to you, hope you enjoy your new home and job.
Alison Rose
Lindsey Graham showed up in Kyiv. Maybe he can come home and talk some sense into the shitheads in his party. (Impossible task, I know.)
Betty Cracker
@MrKite: Good point — a coup could be my ticket to power! ;-)
@cain: Some statehouse grifters have secured huge paydays from DeSantis (he made it rain this year for edu-grifters in particular), but the motives for others are less clear. I am confident there’s massive corruption we don’t know about. Yet. Republicans have been in power since the 1990s.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
Lindsey Graham is one of the shitheads in his party.
Alison Rose
@Baud: 99% of the time, yes. Apparently on this one issue, he’s a smidge above the rest.
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: What is Graham babbling about? “There was a time in America when we were — ???” Is he talking about the American revolution? Or whut?
Baud
@Alison Rose:
Graham likes war. In this particular case, he is the stopped clock.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: If she ran, Stephanie Murphy would probably raise decent money nationally. Her stint on the January 6 Committee put her on the Democratic map.
One of Speaker Pelosi’s key roles was selecting members for the two Impeachment manager teams and the J6 Committee. Impeachment Managers Val Demings, Joe Neguse, Jaime Raskin, Stacy Plaskett and others got to show their stuff before a national audience. A lot of people also got to see Hakeem Jeffries in action for the first time.
Raskin was back for the J6 Committee, where Stephanie Murphy, Pete Aguilar and Elaine Luria also got good exposure in hearings watched by a lot of Democrats.
Betty Cracker
@Alison Rose: I got mesmerized by the video below the one with Graham, which featured a woman making nachos with approximately 15 lbs. of cheese. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, though I object to canned cheese in general.)
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Who makes nachos for one?
:)
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: LOL at first I was so confused, I was like “why did Zelenskyy post that???” Then I realized you meant the suggested random videos FB shows.
I too object to canned cheese. I also object to 15 pounds of any kind of cheese, being someone who can only take dairy in small amounts.
Ohio Mom
Off topic announcement: I just came back after running errands and can report all Pride Month merch is still prominently displayed at the front of the Blue Ash, Cincinnati store.
Looks no different than it did earlier in the week, before Target said they would move/remove the displays to protect their staff.
Some of it is quite cute. It includes clothing and party supplies (disposable table cloths, paper plates, etc.)
I did not see any “tuck-able” bathing suits, the bathing suits were across the aisle in a crowded jumble, had no interest in pawing through it. I already have one bathing suit and that’s all I need.
Everyone can chill out and go back to spending too much money at Target.
Juju
@Citizen Alan: imagine that walk on a day when you do your grocery shopping, especially if it’s raining.
rikyrah
I love her channel. She is so funny. I don’t even garden, but I love her videos. She just got a show on PBS.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTREv35cX/
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ohio Mom:
Uh oh! Moms For Censorship is going to get the vapors.
NotMax
@Alison Rose
Cheese trivia:
Both Velveeta and Liederkranz were originally concocted in the same small village in upstate New York.
Omnes Omnibus
More bad news for Trump.
rikyrah
Follow the dots with Mexico and the lithium question😒😒
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTREv7jVM/
Ohio Mom
@Citizen Alan: I think it is silly to move a treadmill, it’s not like it has deep sentimental value or is irreplaceable.
You can always get another one with the money you will be saving by not paying movers to lug it across the country.
Give it to a thrift store (hopefully one that does pick-ups) — I see treadmills at most of my local ones — and don’t look back. Not worth the effort.
MomSense
Fuck DeSantis.
Betty Cracker
Poor dog looks so betrayed!
zhena gogolia
This clip is unfuckingbelievable.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: lololol
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Ohio Mom: no sentimental value in a treadmill??
Ohio Mom
@Citizen Alan: Ohio Dad spent the last decades of his engineering career surrounded by right-wing nut jobs and they never suspected he wasn’t one of them, so it can be done.
It wasnt easy and it was a source of continual stress, but he got the last laugh — how stupid were they, very!
db11
@Citizen Alan: I would also pay attention to fenestration / orientation: how much natural light streams into each room and from what direction .
If there is a significant difference between the two options in that respect, it would be enough to sway my choice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: Pick the one that is closest food and drink spots. You are a single guy.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: Boo-fucking-hoo.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Not enough straight white guys are voting for Democrats.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Catchy.
;)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@zhena gogolia: I wonder if Grothman can tell us what percentage of current federal judges are “white guys.” Somehow, I doubt that figure would be smaller than their percentage of the population.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That is irrelevant to guys like Grothman. They think there are more men as federal judges because straight white men are superior, not because everyone else has been systematically discriminated against. They also think everyone else knows this, but is too ‘woke’ to admit it. So if the number of straight white men declines, its because they are unjustly being discriminated against. It would never occur to them to think that if they faced fair competition, there would be much fewer straight white men on the bench.
Chris T.
@Jackie:
I would too. Garages are not as important in most of California as they are in places that get snow etc., but a garage-kept car stays in so much better shape, and if it’s got an entrance to/from the dwelling, you don’t have to be out in the rain. The storage space is great for stashing Costco toilet paper and other items bought in bulk. (The Spousal Unit here used to eye me suspiciously for my TP-and-paper-towel bulk buy methods, but after the great TP shortage of the Covid Years, is now a believer. 😀)
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Sensible advice!
Chris T.
@Citizen Alan:
Ah, well, then it’s much more of a toss-up… however, old style electric coil range is terrible. On the third (gripping?) hand, ranges can be upgraded.
Scout211
@Omnes Omnibus: Good!
But I had no idea that defamation was part of the job of POTUS. Huh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Scout211: The idea is that the President is alway working and is entitled to a presumption that what they say is protected. Until, like here, it isn’t. DOJ defended the institutional principle until it was obviously no longer viable.
Scout211
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry, I should have added a sarcasm tag. I got it.
NotMax
@Chris T.
Don’t single guys tend to do a lot of microwaving? (Also Instant Potting.)
Jackie
@Omnes Omnibus: Oooooh, but wonderful news for E Jean!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Jackie
@Baud: Eggzactly. Tit for tat, Biden says😉
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Velveeta is not cheese. It isn’t a pasteurized process cheese. It isn’t even a pasteurized process cheese food. All of those have legal standards defining what they’re supposed to be, and Velveeta doesn’t measure up. It’s called “pasteurized prepared cheese product”, which has no legal standard for identity. I’m actually surprised their macaroni products are even allowed to call themselves mac and cheese.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: I realized that Velveeta wasn’t cheese when I was at a Kroger’s about 30 years ago and there were about 100 bricks of it stacked up in the aisle on the floor away from the cooled dairy case.
“Wait a minute, …, Oh!”
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: @Another Scott: But mix it with some Rotel and microwave it….
ETA: Yeah, I am from Wisconsin, but I am not suggesting that cheese is involved in this process. Just convenience.
eversor
How is picking a fight with the largest, wealthiest, employer in your state, resulting in job and investment loss, which also happens to be one of, if not the most, beloved companies on the fucking planet, while giving liability cover to a guy who not only rains flaming wreckage from space onto people, but builds exploding self crashing death traps, “governing”.
Mickey Mouse, bad. Exploding rockets, good.
Pushing Disney World out while covering your air space in giant booms is a hell of a thing to do when your state is a tourist state.
Chris T.
Cheese is good. (Well, mostly.) Pasteurized processed cheese food product is … not good. Velveeta, I don’t have a word for, other than scatological.
Scout211
@Another Scott: I realized Velveeta wasn’t cheese when I was shamed by my college roommates, all those decades ago.
My mother didn’t know how to cook when she first married my father, so she taught herself to cook, the easy way. I had so much to unlearn. LOL.
eversor
@Roger Moore:
You know the dirty truth about how Philly eats their cheese steaks? The SO was horrified to learn they just slather cheese whiz on it.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: OMG! Funny! But poor pupper!
JMG
@eversor: That’s one option, but most every Philly cheese steak place also offers provolone.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
Interestingly enough, Velveeta was able to survive without refrigeration even back in the days when it was legally classified as a pasteurized process cheese food. I guess if it were pasteurized and then sealed in the right kind of packaging, it could survive without refrigeration, kind of like MREs.
Basically, pasteurized process cheese is actually more or less what it sounds like. You start with one or more kinds of cheese, then blend them together and heat them up to pasteurize them. It’s not particularly appetizing when you describe it, but it’s more or less recognizable as cheese. Pasteurized process cheese food is cheese that’s heated up with dairy products and an emulsifier, then cooled back down to become solid again. It’s perfect for applications where you want something cheesy that will melt really well, since it’s basically congealed cheese sauce.
Velveeta isn’t either of those things. It contains some additional ingredients the FDA doesn’t allow, most notably canola oil and modified food starch. The canola oil is probably added as a cheap alternative to including actual milk fat, and the modified food starch is there to provide body instead of more expensive milk proteins. IOW, they’re including some cheap ingredients as cheese extenders, which is not allowed if you want to call your product pasteurized process cheese food.
eversor
@JMG:
Only heretics eat that! Wit Whiz or bust.
Jay
@eversor:
Cheese Whiz in Canada is made from cheese.
In the US it’s an oil byproduct.
When we go south to visit T’s best friend, ( now in Arizona), we have to bring a case of Canadian Cheese Whiz every time, and the 900gram jars, not the little ones.
bbleh
@Ohio Mom: @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I haven’t yet figured out whether this whole Target kerfuffle is a win for the Right-Wing Noise Machine or a win for those of us who are more than fed up with the Right-Wing Noise Machine. Like, the Crazies did their usual mix of victim-wailing and threats of violence (which we made them do, of course), and some stores somewhere (reports were in the South) moved some merch out of what they said — possibly justifiably — were concerns for the physical safety of their staff — and then the whole thing went viral, and most of the reports I saw had a kind of “Jayzus why is this happening?” flavor. Like, what is wrong with some people? Hardly a significant sample or an unbiased observer, but if I’m right, it feels like a bewildered form of mild backlash to the Crazies.
bbleh
@Roger Moore: well that’s good, because “pasteurized processed cheese food” sounds extremely appetizing!
I mean, “cheese food”? Are there other kinds of cheeses? (At least originally, before they become doorstops.) What’s next “milk drink”? (And yes, McDonalds’s “shakes.”)
@Jay: In the US it’s an oil byproduct. So in an emergency, you can run a Diesel engine on it! One assumes, then, that the price is higher here.
Roger Moore
@eversor:
The last time I was in Philly, I went with a group of coworkers to Gino’s and Pat’s. For those who don’t know, they’re two famous cheesesteak places* that are catty corner from each other. We each got what sounded good to us and then traded tastes to see if we had gotten the right thing. I was surprised to discover I liked Cheez Whiz better than provolone.
*I’m sure snobby Philadelphians would come up with some better places to get a cheesesteak, but there seemed to be more locals than tourists there when we went.
raven
Angel Reese and Jill Biden hug at White House following invite debate
mrmoshpotato
@Alison Rose:
Why? Did he think his Daddy Vladdy was there?
mrmoshpotato
@Alison Rose:
I object to 15 pounds of any kind of cheese, and I like buying the 8oz bricks to melt on crackers or just cut a slice and chomp.
Delk
We had Cheesesteaks last night.
Roger Moore
@bbleh:
The idea is that a “cheese food” is a food made with cheese, rather than a cheese. As I describe above, a pasteurized process cheese is a cheese (or a blend of cheeses) that has been blended and pasteurized. A pasteurized process cheese food is basically a cheese sauce (made from cheese, other dairy products, and emulsifier) that’s been cooled down to become a solid again. It sounds like some ultra-processed food that could only come from a factory, but you can actually make it in your kitchen with not terribly exotic or nasty ingredients. It’s maybe not the healthiest food, but that’s because cheese isn’t necessarily the healthiest food.
MattF
Story is that there was a contest in Wisconsin for a state license plate motto— favorite entry was ‘Eat Cheese Or Die’.
narya
@Ohio Mom: @Citizen Alan: Some cities have used-sports-equipment stores, too. No idea if they’d pay you for it, though.
mrmoshpotato
@Citizen Alan: Congrats on the job, and the two apartments you gotta pick from!
Jay
@bbleh: it’s a bit thick, clogs up the injectors and get’s thicker in cold weather, but yeah, it will burn.
Boy’s trip, 30 years ago or more, cold, wet, by a high altitude lake, no dry wood, even in the slash pile, we couldn’t get a fire started,
until we used the KFC bucket from the road food to start the fire. Man that thing burned bright.
mrmoshpotato
@Delk: Looks good! (And closer than Philly’s Best – also good!)
narya
@Roger Moore: Jim’s Steaks, on South Street, FTW, though it looks like they had a fire last summer and are still rebuilding. I lived about a block from there, on the little bit of Passyunk that ends at South Street, in 1986
ETA: at home I make venison cheese steaks with camembert. Don’t tell anyone.
ColoradoGuy
What astounds me is the Florida Legislature. The GOP has successful re-created the Soviet Communist Party, right down to the Party Line zig-zagging around completely imaginary issues, and the legislature voting in 100% lock-step with the daily whims and fantasies of the Party Leader.
All pretense of a representative government completely gone … just an unending stage performance. What’s equally remarkable is the collapse of the opposition party, with the fortunate exception of a few cities.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Hungry Joe: I got the Frigidaire one (retails for a little over $1,000) 4 burner rang with oven a little less than 2 years ago (back then it was a little under $1,000). It has worked out great. Everything else I could find on the US market with an induction cooktop was twice the price or more so I was a little worried there’d be a catch. But so far it’s been a quality appliance.
Baud
@raven:
👍
Math Guy
I started reading the most recent comments first, working back. Wow! From cheese to failed rocket launches – who could’ve guessed?
Baud
@Math Guy:
The benefits of unthreaded comments.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Citizen Alan: Yeah but the wiring for induction is done, though if you’re renting I guess replacing an appliance isn’t probably an option.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Nacho cheese Doritos will also hold a flame. If you drop some on the ground while camping, in the fire they go.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Citizen Alan: Also I wouldn’t worry too much about the health impact of gas if as I read down thread further it looks like you probably won’t be in this place that long.
eversor
@Roger Moore:
Not from Philly but been there a lot and those are not viewed as the best by locals (I like Delassandros personally). But that’s a mix of there simply being so many good places for a cheese steak there it’s always going to cause an argument and the locals (like locals in most cities) being actively hostile to anything that draws tourists due to being annoyed with them.
As someone from DC I get out. Our native (heart attack for cheap) dish is a half smoke. Which is a half pork half beef sausage that’s kinda hotdogish in the finishing of it. It’s served on a bun with chili and mustard, common to ask for onions and cheese as well. It’s exactly as tasty and gloriously unhealthy as it sounds. All the tourists here go to Ben’s Chili Bowl for it. Largely because the civil rights movement, riots, various presidents, various famous celeberties made it famous. But it’s not the originator of the dish, and plenty of places can be easily argued better. Still you get your monies worth there.
We also have mumbo sauce here which isn’t really a thing as a huge variety of concotions people whip up and call mumbo sauce. So plenty of people buy “DC mumbo sauce” online and then get really confused when they get here and ask for it.
KenK
Here’s hoping DeSantis’ next FL rally is at a SpaceX launch.
eversor
@KenK:
On a SpaceX launch.
louc
@Betty Cracker:
Speaking of grifting, did you see this gem? Like, they’re not .even pretending anymore
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I have also had this thought. The most common off-ramps for ex-politicians seem to be lobbying or a university presidency. He seems to not have built a strong network during his time in DC, so I don’t know how lobbying will go for him. And I can’t imagine any university anywhere having him be president. So he doesn’t seem to have great options.
Suzanne
@Citizen Alan: AHHHHH!!! I was hoping you would end up as a neighbor, but I’m sooooo happy that you’re getting out! Congrats!!!
Geminid
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Another reason why DeSantis only weakly bashes Trump is that if he beats Trump or Trump drops out, DeSantis will need Trump’s hard core supporters to to win the general election. I expect that is why he promises to pardon the January 6 convicts and Trump himself.
The last promise also throws some shade. There is an assumption that Trump will in fact be convicted on serious charges and will need a pardon.
Cameron
@Suzanne: If things don’t look so hot for his Presidential ambitions, he can get himself appointed president of one of Florida’s public universities. Look at how he torpedoed New College.
UncleEbeneezer
Alvin Bragg has a tape (that I assume connects Trump to the evidence or illustrates criminal intent):
kalakal
@bbleh:
The best sketch on honesty in food labelling
Yes Minister – the Euro Sausage
kalakal
@Suzanne: I’ve been wondering about this. I don’t think the lege will change the term limits, they’re an ambitious set of weasels and want their turn as Gov. One thing that I think will hit his employment prospects is that in 2 years time a lot of the chickens from his misrule will be coming home to roost. He’s so committed to red meat for the yahoos for his presidential bit that he’s seriously screwing up FL’s economy. It won’t be obvious next year to the normies but by 2026 it will be
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@UncleEbeneezer:
Lordy there are tapes 📼
Frankensteinbeck
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I don’t think so, because DeSantis is consistently bad at operating under pressure or dealing with anyone who pushes back against him. He does a lot of running away. His lack of people skills or enjoyment of socializing is now well established. He hasn’t bashed Trump because he’s too weak. There is no plan behind that weakness, it’s just who he is. He stumbled into a high profile job where he has no opposition because his legislature loves his culture war bullshit and are happy to nuke their state to own the libs, and he made the mistake of thinking it’s always that easy.
KrackenJack
@Hungry Joe:
I scale the negative reviews based on the item in question. If you look at ice cream makers, for example, the Kitchen Aid is absolute garbage…well, maybe not. It actually requires people to follow the directions. Which they obviously can’t do. It works fine. I can easily imagine people using their aluminum cookware and being unhappy. Plus, they have a bit of a learning curve based on my experience with one in a rental.
kalakal
As it’s an open thread there’s been a really, really big blast either a month or 21 million years ago depending on how you look at
New Supernova
Nukular Biskits
@Ocotillo:
Mississippi says, “No, you hold MY beer! Hey, everybody, watch this!”
Jay
@KrackenJack:
316SS Saladmaster.
Thought it was all hype.
Avon like. Slick presentation. They do a thing where they just boil some water in a Saladmaster and a couple of “normal” pots, let it cool down and you get to taste the water.
Okay, slick.
We bought a basic set, and once I started cooking with them, love them, care for them like they are my babies, and my buddy Dave, autosearches the web constantly for used Saladmasters.
KrackenJack
@Jay:
I didn’t know that such a thing existed. Took me a minute to understand that it is actually no-added-water pressure cooking. Interesting concept. I like the idea of removable handles. Some of the online reviews make them sound eye-wateringly expensive, though. Maybe that’s another reason to treat them well.
oatler
@kalakal
Visible to us?
Uncle Jeffy
@Betty Cracker: “Ted Cruz – an asshole”
Further words are unnecessary.
UncleEbeneezer
@UncleEbeneezer: Actually, the tape is most likely a tape that has a conversation between Trump and Michael Cohen, so probably nothing we didn’t already know. But who knows…
Gvg
@Citizen Alan: do you have a sports equipment store near you? We have a chain that sells used ones and new. Not sure if they are consignment or not but it’s a national chain so I would think they could relocate a good piece of equipment to where there was demand. Something like “play it again” I think
justinb
Meanwhile, from news on the front of the War On Target ™ (right down the road from my house) :
Triggered Snowflakes
mrmoshpotato
@kalakal: 🎶But that’s totally feather pluckn insane!🎶
mrmoshpotato
@justinb: May Lady Justice WHAM this terrorist trash in their fucking fascist faces.
bbleh
@Jay: ya gotta modify the engine to burn vegetable oils, but of course that was the point of the Diesel engine in the first place: it doesn’t require petroleum products.
And oh yeah, toss a fast-food wrapper into a fire and watch the fun. Flash-paper burns cleaner and faster, but oh boy those oils.
Healthy stuff!
Ken
@kalakal: The press release says “a nearby star has exploded.” You have to love astronomers’ sense of “nearby”.
@oatler: Probably not. Its galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 7.9, below naked-eye visibility. A supernova will sometimes outshine its parent galaxy, but I don’t think by that much.
jonas
@Jay:
My parents bought a Saladmaster set 45 years ago. Paid a fortune for it at the time, they told me. Still cooks and looks beautiful to this day. Surgical stainless steel.
brantl
@Ohio Mom: Abbot’s in contention.
El Muneco
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: The funniest part is that systematic discrimination isn’t even necessarily part of the argument. Straight white dudes are at most 25% of the population. There should not be significantly more representation for _anyone_ – particularly in a job where depth of experience is as important as for a judge – than the general population.
They don’t see it that way, of course, because white superiority, upper body strength, make the hard decisions yadda yadda yadda, but it’s useful to acknowledge that other than their fee-fees they don’t have any legitimate arguments at all, at all.
MarkOneNoseKnows
@trollhattan: Just because a range is gas doesn’t mean the guy who installed it knew what he was doing. Or cared.
Some of these guys think there’s no difference between gas-rated ptfe tape and ordinary plumbing ptfe tape. Or they do know but…Not like no one’s gonna know what’s on there when it’s done…
That’s what you got installing gas ranges.
And some ranges can leak regardless of a quality conscientious by-the-book install.
Finally a number of jurisdictions allow internally vented range hoods.
Yes, it’s terrible for indoor air quality (to say nothing of grease buildup on the walls & ceiling, so easy to repaint) but external vents reduce a builder’s kitchen layout options and profits, and done cheap matches both the builders’ and buyers’ priorities. So you get all the combustion products when it’s on and all of the methane from any leaks on or off.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
Around me here in SoCal Target is about the best between cost and availability. Now they aren’t a lot cheaper than a number of places but cheaper is cheaper.
MarkOneNoseKnows
@Stuart Frasier: Actually installed properly, so true.
I have never seen anything but casually joined ductwork in any vent hood once it goes out of sight behind the wall or up in a cabinet or the ceiling, let alone sealed joints. Gaps and joints and misaligned duct sections you can fit a finger between is not really venting outside.
I also have seen more than a few that don’t actually vent to the outside. Into the attic or the wall cavity or sometimes it just dead ends in the vent hood on the other side of the fan where it never had the sheet metal opening for the duct punched out — typically it’s set up so one can go up from the hood or straight back depending on the best/nearest way to get “out” is. Hey it looks nice and moves air around, the homeowner will never know.
brantl
@trollhattan: It’s installed incorrectly, then.
brantl
@Scout211: She still got screwed. She did nothing wrong, they are persecuting her.