Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I really should read my own blog.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“Alexa, change the president.”

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans do not trust women.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The words do not have to be perfect.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

You are here: Home / Immigration / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Salmagundi

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Salmagundi

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread 14

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)


I’m guessing that Republicans have so little power in Washington state, their caucus has fallen into the ever-tempting Fewer, but better fascists mode?

Small sparks of hope… From the Washington Post, “Push to restrict LGBTQ+ rights hits a snag in state legislatures”: [gift link]

Lawmakers have introduced a record number of bills targeting gay and transgender Americans this year, but hardly any have passed, raising questions about whether the push to restrict LGBTQ+ rights is losing momentum.

The bills have sought to regulate matters such as which bathrooms transgender people can use and whether Pride flags can be raised in public buildings. Similar bills sailed through state legislatures in recent years. This year, they have failed even in states where Republicans have supermajorities and governors demanded wins.

So far, just 20 bills have passed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, down from more than 75 last year.

Strategists on both sides say Republicans appear increasingly unwilling to stake their reelections on cultural issues. Though many Americans support policies such as banning trans girls and women from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity, polls have found that the issues aren’t especially important to voters. Few Republicans have parlayed the issues into electoral success, and as politicians in swing states ask for votes, some may be feeling risk averse…

All but one bill died in Florida, as did 20 in West Virginia. Georgia adjourned its session without having passed any of the two dozen proposals that Republicans introduced. And Iowa lawmakers adjourned recently having passed just one of the three dozen bills that Republicans introduced or carried over from last year.

LGBTQ+ activists are nonetheless reluctant to celebrate this session as a tide-turning win. Jeff Graham, the executive director of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Georgia, said he fears that what feels like relief now could turn out to be a pause.

“I’ve been doing this long enough that I see LGBTQ+ issues ebb and flow over time,” Graham said. “That doesn’t mean we are out of the woods. It doesn’t mean we aren’t going to see these attacks continue. But I do think we’re beginning to see people push back and say enough is enough. This is not what we elected you to do.”…



Only in America, land of opportunity… Per the Associated Press, “A massive Powerball win draws attention to a little-known immigrant culture in the US”:

Cheng “Charlie” Saephan wore a broad smile and a bright blue sash emblazoned with the words “Iu-Mien USA” as he hoisted an oversized check for $1.3 billion above his head.

The 46-year-old immigrant’s luck in winning an enormous Powerball jackpot in Oregon earlier this month — a lump sum payment of $422 million after taxes, which he and his wife will split with a friend — has changed his life. It also raised awareness about Iu Mien people, a southeast Asian ethnic group with origins in China, many of whose members fled from Laos to Thailand and then settled in the U.S. following the Vietnam War.

“I am born in Laos, but I am not Laotian,” Saephan told a news conference Monday at Oregon Lottery headquarters, where his identity as one of the jackpot’s winners was revealed. “I am Iu Mien.”

During the Vietnam War, the CIA and U.S. military recruited Iu Mien in neighboring Laos, many of them subsistence farmers, to engage in guerrilla warfare and to provide intelligence and surveillance to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail that the North Vietnamese used to send troops and weapons through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam.

After the conflict as well as the Laotian civil war, when the U.S.-backed government of Laos fell in 1975, they fled by the thousands to avoid reprisals from the new Communist government, escaping by foot through the jungle and then across the Mekong River into Thailand, according to a history posted on the website of Iu Mien Community Services in Sacramento, California. More than 70% of the Iu Mien population in Laos left and many wound up in refugee camps in Thailand…

There are now tens of thousands of Iu Mien — pronounced “yoo MEE’-en” — in the U.S., with many attending universities or starting businesses. Many have converted to Christianity from traditional animist religions. There is a sizeable Iu Mien community in Portland and its suburbs, with a Buddhist temple and Baptist church, active social organization, and businesses and restaurants…

Saephan, 46, said he was born in Laos and moved to Thailand in 1987, before immigrating to the U.S. in 1994. He graduated from high school in 1996 and has lived in Portland for 30 years. He worked as a machinist for an aerospace company.

He said Monday that he has had cancer for eight years and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week.

“I will be able to provide for my family and my health,” he said, adding that he’d “find a good doctor for myself.”

Saephan, who has two young children, said that as a cancer patient, he wondered, “How am I going to have time to spend all of this money? How long will I live?”

He said he and his 37-year-old wife, Duanpen, are taking half the money, and the rest is going to a friend, Laiza Chao, 55, of the Portland suburb of Milwaukie. Chao had chipped in $100 to buy a batch of tickets with them…

Reader Interactions

206Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    Doesn’t the WA GOP realize that they’re fully capable of winning majorities everywhere?  All you need is policies that a majority of Americans want!   =)

    wait…

  3. 3.

    Betty Cracker

    The wingnut supermajority FL statehouse has been quietly letting most culture war garbage bills languish since DeSantis washed out of the GOP primary. They’re still the same cruel fascists they were last year. I think they’re worried about blowback. It’s surely not an attack of conscience!

  4. 4.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s surely not an attack of conscience!

    Bwahahahahahahaha. They’d hafta have a soul to have a conscience.

    I’d think blowback but aren’t all of them in safe districts, thus, no realistic blowback?

  5. 5.

    TBone

    As a lover of languages and history (and herstory) that Maddow segment pissed me off so much.  So. Much.  The dumbing down of the nation proceeds apace if these fucking freaks keep procreating.  Which is the goal, minus critical thinking capabilities.  Gah! My ancestors roll over in their graves.

  7. 7.

    terraformer

    Re: Washington state Republicans. Oh boy…they’re saying we should stop using the word/wanting “democracy” ….. because it makes us like the Democrats.

    This is why we can’t have nice things.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    They’ve historically turned it down a notch in election years, I think.  It works for them to some degree. They’re natural opponents among the electorate have short and manipulable memories.

  9. 9.

    Soprano2

    I don’t think the MO legislature has passed any anti-LBGTQ bills this year because they’re too preoccupied with trying to put an amendment on the ballot to make it harder for the people to amend the constitution and fighting among themselves. The last I saw was they put the “ballot candy” back in so people will think they’re voting to keep non-citizens from voting in state elections (which is already illegal) rather than to restrict their own voice.

    Right now I’m waiting for my husband to change clothes so I can take him to his doctor’s appointment. You have no idea how much patience this takes. It’s like having a small child who is actually an adult, so you can’t actually make them do anything. It’s one reason I need help, so I don’t melt down from frustration.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    @Baud:

    They haven’t shut down the government in a while, but they always did so in non-election years when they did it.

  11. 11.

    RevRick

    @TBone: I’ve been reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, and there was an extended narrative about a revolt against Henry 8’s rule that began as a peasant uprising against the changes in religious practices in England that was being pushed by Thomas Cromwell. Behind the scenes, old Plantagenet families were backing the revolt, because they were appalled that Henry had allowed vile blood to take positions of authority.
    This accusation was, of course, directed at Cromwell and his associates, who rose from the masses and lacked the supposed superiority of aristocratic birth. The speech of that GOP woman is a direct descendant of the accusation of vile blood, because it is based in the belief that there are natural hierarchies, where certain groups are better than others.

  13. 13.

    gene108

    Repealing the 17th Amendment and going back to state legislatures appointing Senators has been around for a longtime, but had been limited to a very small fringe of conservatives.

    Interesting all these fringe conservative ideas are now becoming mainstream Republican positions.

  14. 14.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @RevRick:

    it is based in the belief that there are natural hierarchies, where certain groups are better than others.

    And, as it turns out, her group is the best of all.

  18. 18.

    Gin & Tonic

    Critical moments in Georgia (the country) as the leadership takes a hard pro-russian  turn, a la 2013 Yanukovych. Will we have a Maidan/Revolution of Dignity reaction, or is this more like Belarus?

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    If they don’t want to live in a Democracy they can always move. Russia is accepting people with money to steal.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Total abortion ban goes in May 1st. As I have said many times, Florida still has (real) local newspapers – not owned by some Right wing corporation –  I’m hoping they cover the consequences. I think they will. It’s huge – will limit access to healthcare for women in the whole southeast.

    Maybe they’re hoping they can hide.

  24. 24.

    TBone

    @RevRick: my family tree reaches all the way back to those days of yore on mom’s WASP side.  Lord Strange’s Men, Lady Jane.  My ancestors weep.

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    Jamelle Bouie: we get the state legislatures that we (barely) pay for.

    One way to understand this fight to roll back labor laws is as a function of conservative ideology and a reflection of the views of the social base of Republican politics. It’s almost axiomatic that a party dominated by reactionary business owners is going to support, as much as possible, the interests of reactionary business owners.

    But this analysis can take us only so far. We also have to explain why it is, on a practical level, that this agenda has advanced so far and so fast. There is partisan control, of course — Republicans are leading the assault on labor laws — but there is also the class composition of our state legislatures.

    What explains the almost total absence of working-class people from elected positions in state government? It may have something to do with how we structure our legislatures. Let’s look at Congress as a baseline. Both the House and Senate are full-time legislatures with considerable staff and resources at their disposal. Members work through the year and are paid accordingly: $174,000 per annum with pay increases for those in leadership positions.

    Now there is a case to make that Congress needs more staff and higher pay — that to attract the best candidates for federal office, compensation should be competitive with salaries in private-sector fields of similar power, prestige and responsibility. The main point, however, is that Congress is at least structured in a way that would make it possible for a working-class person to do the job without jeopardizing his or her financial security (although this still leaves us with the problem of actually winning a seat).

    You cannot say the same for most of our state legislatures. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only 10 states have full-time state legislatures, in which lawmakers spent at least 84 percent of their time engaged in the position, from time spent on the legislative floor to time spent in hearings, committee meetings and on constituent service. They are paid full-time salaries as well, with average compensation of about $82,000. On the other end, there are 14 states where the job is essentially part-time and lawmakers are paid accordingly, earning an average salary of just over $18,000.

    …Setting aside the difficulty of getting elected — the necessity of raising money from wealthy friends, family and acquaintances that most Americans simply do not have — if a working-class person of modest means somehow won a state legislative position, she would almost certainly have to sacrifice a large part of her income to do so. Our legislatures are not built to allow working people to participate as members. Neither, for that matter, is our political system writ large.

    It is not too difficult to imagine the changes that might make our elected institutions, including Congress, more inclusive of working people. We would need, for example, a stronger and more robust system of campaign finance. We would need resources to move more legislatures to full-time status, including funds for more staff and higher salaries. And we would need the kinds of accommodations that, frankly, all Americans deserve: child care, housing and good health insurance.

    The problem is that all of this runs counter to our ingrained hostility to politics and politicians — our cynical distrust, even contempt, for people who choose to make a career of elected office. We don’t want to raise their pay or give them more of what they need to do their jobs well; we want to cut as much as we can and impose term limits while we’re at it.

    In this way, we get the legislatures — and legislators — that we pay for: a whole lot of wealthy people interested in pursuing their own goals and not much else.

    Related, somewhat: after last week’s latest NYT debacle (with Sulzberger feeling like it was the NYT’s job to ‘vet’ President Biden, followed up with their ridiculous statement defending the indefensible) I was going to cancel my subscription.  Then I realized, I like quite a bit of the rest of the paper, and there might be another way to solve this…so I set up a recurring monthly donation to Biden/Harris of $50/month, which is more than twice what I pay for the NYT.  And then I told the NYT a) their political coverage sucks and b) Sulzberger is the reason I set up the recurring donation.  =)

    Probably more than y’all wanted to know, but this is BJ after all…

  36. 36.

    sab

    Anti gay is still a winning issue in Ohio, as we learned to our loss in our last school board elections in my little city. The two most qualified (and also gay) candidates lost when we are facing a 15 million dollar deficit.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @gene108

    Next: Repeal the repeal of the 18th amendment.

    ‘Our grandparents could flout the law in speakeasies, why can’t we?”
    //

  40. 40.

    Spanky

    @prostratedragon: Yay! On the one hand, Democratic primary voters in Maryland can choose an accomplished lawyer who has been States Attorney and county executive, or we can vote for a guy who sells booze for a living.

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    How Far Trump Will Go – TIME Magazine

    The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable.
    The courts, the Constitution, and a Congress of unknown composition would all have a say in whether Trump’s objectives come to pass. The machinery of Washington has a range of defenses: leaks to a free press, whistle-blower protections, the oversight of inspectors general. The same deficiencies of temperament and judgment that hindered him in the past remain present.

    This is so dumb.  Trump, unhinged, vengeful at every moment, with nothing but loyalists eager to carry out maximum harm on his/their enemies?  (Much less with “presidential immunity”?)  Like courts, Congress, the Constitution, leaks, whistle-blower protections (LOL), or IGs are going to matter.

    If he wins, Trump would be a lame duck—contrary to the suggestions of some supporters, he tells TIME he would not seek to overturn or ignore the Constitution’s prohibition on a third term.

    oh OKAY

    Public opinion would also be a powerful check.

    OH SURE

    Amid a popular outcry, Trump was forced to scale back some of his most draconian first-term initiatives, including the policy of separating migrant families. As George Orwell wrote in 1945, the ability of governments to carry out their designs “depends on the general temper in the country.”
    Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could WILL bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”

    Complete failure of imagination here.  A complete failure to learn from history, whether recent history or the many, many times someone like this has been handed/taken power.

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    @Soprano2

    It’s one reason I need help, so I don’t melt down from frustration.

    As you’re a singer, a spot of vocalizing to pass some time. I can appreciate and admire her talented technique but not necessarily its application.
    ;)

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @Spanky:

    Eh, that’s misleading. You make Trone sound like he hasn’t held elected office.

    ETA: I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m sure they’d both be better than Hogan.

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    also TIME:

     

    In our Mar-a-Lago interview, Trump says he might fire U.S. Attorneys who refuse his orders to prosecute someone: “It would depend on the situation.” He’s told supporters he would seek retribution against his enemies in a second term. Would that include Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney who charged him with election interference, or Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA in the Stormy Daniels case, who Trump has previously said should be prosecuted? Trump demurs but offers no promises. “No, I don’t want to do that,” he says, before adding, “We’re gonna look at a lot of things. What they’ve done is a terrible thing.”
     
    Trump has also vowed to appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after Biden. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” he tells me. “I have too much respect for the office.” Seconds later, though, he suggests Biden’s fate may be tied to an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether Presidents can face criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. “If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity,” says Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.” (Biden has not been charged with any, and a House Republican effort to impeach him has failed to unearth evidence of any crimes or misdemeanors, high or low.)

  48. 48.

    MattF

    @prostratedragon: Yeah, I voted for Alsobrooks. Trone is OK, but just another rich white guy. I think Alsobrooks has a much better shot at beating Hogan— she’s likely to do very well in PG county. Also, my mailbox has been complaining about the very high volume of campaign mailings from Trone.

  50. 50.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Its implicit and not just in Trump fluffing articles. All of NYT coverage can be understood through that lens. All though NYT is not talking to all white people but an affluent subsection carrying totebags who listen to NPR and are under the mistaken impression that they are the most liberal people on the planet.

    Latest tankie take from a professor of marketing, Biden is definitely going to lose because the campus protests are just like 1968. Biden is totally the new LBJ.  And then Rs will win and attack Mexico. And Biden will be to blame because he can totally stop Netanyahu but cutting off US aid and giving him a stern talking to.

    I didn’t even know where to begin…..

    ETA: This is a relatively popular account with 45K followers

  51. 51.

    RevRick

    @sab: They came in two big waves. The first in the mid 1700s, settling in a 75-mile arc outside of Philadelphia (the PA Dutch), and the second in the 1830s and 1840s, settling in the Mid West.

  52. 52.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jeffro:

    I’m glad to see Bouie – or anyone with a platform like that, really – talk about this.  It’s been a bugaboo of mine for thirty years: back in the early to mid 1990s, I briefly considered running for the Virginia legislature.  Then I found out that if I won, I’d be making $10,000 per year.

    So much for that idea, but it made it clear to me that most people in most states couldn’t afford to be in their state legislature.  There are some professions like lawyer and realtor that one can set down during the legislative session and pick up again afterwards, but those are the exceptions.  Most people don’t have jobs that are compatible with service in a state legislature, so they’ve got to choose one or the other.

  54. 54.

    geg6

    I know this isn’t related to any topics being discussed here, but it might be something that makes me proud to be a Democrat.

    I saw some blurbs online about Nonna Pelosi schooling that idiot Katy Tur. Can anyone give me the deets? I’m at work and can’t watch the video, so very curious. I despise Katy Tur, so hoping for something juicy.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodingers_cat:

    In the famous Schrödinger’s cat hypothesis, a cat in a box is both alive and dead until someone looks inside – and in the case of one mischievous cat from Utah discovered inside an Amazon return package, it was very much alive.

    The cat, Galena, survived being shipped all the way from Lehi, Utah, across the US to California after sneaking into the package. Galena, six, an indoor-only cat, traveled more than 500 miles in a 3-by-3ft shipping container, according to NBC.

    Galena endured six days of travel with no food or water, but was discovered in relatively good shape by an Amazon employee.

    eta: So now we know.

  61. 61.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist: New Hampshire’s state legislators are essentially completely unpaid–I think there’s some tiny token stipend. And the lower house of the legislature is enormous, with every member representing only a few thousand people.

    The effect is that the legislators are usually either local businesspeople or retirees who are complete political outsiders and doing it as a hobby, and the latter particularly leads to some strange phenomena. For a while it seemed like there was a “New Hampshire state legislator gone wild” story in the news every few months.

  64. 64.

    RevRick

    @NotMax: Queen Jane (Seymour) died shortly after giving Henry his male heir. Lady Jane Grey had her nine-day reign shortened in the power politics of succession to Edward 6, who died before reaching majority.

  65. 65.

    TBone

    @RevRick: those fact-based fiction novels are right up my alley.  I will be looking for them at the library for summer reading ☺️

  66. 66.

    sab

    @schrodingers_cat: I just had a haircut this morning, and my hairdresser and I discussed the sad state of our furniture as owners of undeclawed cats.

    ETA Damaged furniture is worth the cost of healthy happy uncrippled cats. But declawing cats prevents cat euthanasia.

  68. 68.

    TBone

    @RevRick: my IRL middle name is Gray (spelling was a major hassle for me when I was little, I spelled it Grey on my all school papers until Mom corrected me).  At that age, I had no idea about any of the history.

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodingers_cat: My parents were on one of their summer long tours of the great American west. They noticed a cat at a gas station. When they stopped again for gas, several hundreds of miles away, they saw another cat with similar patterns in it’s coat. A couple more hundreds of miles down the road they saw still another cat that was very similar.

    That was when they figured out they had a hitchhiker.

  70. 70.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Spanky:

    Yay! On the one hand, Democratic primary voters in Maryland can choose an accomplished lawyer who has been States Attorney and county executive, or we can vote for a guy who sells booze for a living.

    But on the other hand, ex-Gov. Hogan is doing all too well in the polls.  I worry about white (especially white male) Dems and independents who might put Hogan over the top if our candidate is a woman of color.

    We can’t afford to lose this Senate seat, and I’m nervous.  I’d much rather have Alsobrook than Trone, but I’d much rather have Trone than Hogan.  My mail-in primary ballot is all filled in except for Senate.

  71. 71.

    SFAW

    @RevRick: ​
     
    Unrelated, but: belated condolences on the closing of your church. I’m sure it’s been painful.
    And, for what it’s worth: I always appreciate your comments here.

  73. 73.

    TBone

    @sab: I am also contemplating getting a super soaker to fill with cold water because of cat claw sharpening on furniture when multiple scratching posts ARE RIGHT THERE 🤣

  74. 74.

    Geminid

    @RevRick: A lot of the Germans who came to Pennsylvania in the 1730s and 40s moved on to settle the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. They and the Scotch-Irish beat the slow-moving English to all that good farm land.

    Some English came along. Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather grew up on a farm not far from Harrisonburg, and I think his family came from Pennsylvania.

  77. 77.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MattF:

    my mailbox has been complaining about the very high volume of campaign mailings from Trone.

    Seriously, 30% of my junk mail must be from this clown.

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @RevRick

    her nine-day reign

    All but redacted from the lineage.

    “Some stuff happened. Nothing to see here; move along smartly, please.”

  80. 80.

    Kosh III

    “Push to restrict LGBTQ+ rights hits a snag in state legislatures”

    Not a surprise that Tennessee was ignored by the media elite.  One bill that passed let’s regressive religionists refuse to adopt gay kids if it offends their religious opinion.
    One that failed would have banned rainbow/pride flags at school but would’ve still allowed the flag of Confederate treason.  The sponsor promised to try again next session.

  82. 82.

    bbleh

    MEANwhile, Trump fined 9 x $1000 for gag order violations.  [sad trombone]

    ETA: and threatened in the written order with incarceration for any future violations.

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    @sab:

    Last census found that 1/3 of Americans claim German ancestry. That is a lot.

    Vell, zat iss becauss ve echte Chermans haf said “You VILL claim ziss.”

  85. 85.

    sab

    @Melancholy Jaques: I acknowledge Scottish, Irish, Swiss and English ancestry. I am midwestern so I also have German. But never claimed it on the census.

    That is interesting. Apparently everyone who has no ethnic identity in the midwest is German. That makes sense.

  87. 87.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TBone:

    @RevRick: those fact-based fiction novels are right up my alley.  I will be looking for them at the library for summer reading ☺️

    I read the first two of them, back before it became a trilogy. They were quite good.

  92. 92.

    sab

    @NotMax: She was executed so there was stuff to see there. Her family made her be involved with the asshole king. She had wanted another actual life. Tragic story for those who care about teen girls.

  95. 95.

    schrodingers_cat

    @sab: I am 100% Indian, AFAIK. Some of my students used to insist that I must be biracial and I just didn’t know it. I guess I didn’t conform to whatever their mental image of an Indian person looked like

    I can trace my ancestry to great ^3 grandparents on my mother’s side and  great^5 on my father’s side.

  97. 97.

    SFAW

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Because of schrodinger’s cat’s cat? ;-)

    Well, (I think) she does call her husband “husband kitteh” from time to time, so maybe it’s the two-legged version?

  98. 98.

    Trivia Man

    @Betty Cracker: More proof the social stuff is just a way to drive their base turnout. Job #1 is driving  $$ to the fat cats. Cut taxes, end regulations, hamstring oversight, cut worker protection… that is the goal. Social stuff just provides cover

  99. 99.

    geg6

    @TBone: ​
     
    Gray is my last name. My paternal grandparents were immigrants from England. Lots of discussion about Lady Jane among the grandparents and aunt and uncles. My dad, however, preferred American history.

  100. 100.

    sab

    @SFAW: Jerks adopt cats and then have them put down when said cats shred stuff.

    Without claws those cats can’t shred stuff, so owners stay happy with their cats.

    ETA We love our five cats, but they have destroyed the living room furniture. Completely shredded it.

  103. 103.

    Jackie

    Re WA state GQP crazies… here’s the source from Rachel Maddow’s segment.

    seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/the-wa-gop-put-it-in-writing-that-theyre-not-into-democracy/

    As an eastern WA DEMOCRAT, these idiots are, thankfully, a minority of the Republican base – much like the noisy OR GQP in eastern OR.

    I wish they’d move to Idaho instead of trying to split both states and merge with ID.

    Ironically, in my Congressional District – Dan Newhouse’s district –  most MAGA signs and flags have all but disappeared after 2022’s elections.

  104. 104.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @RevRick:

    They came in two big waves. The first in the mid 1700s, settling in a 75-mile arc outside of Philadelphia (the PA Dutch), and the second in the 1830s and 1840s, settling in the Mid West.

    You beat me to it.  Those waves were massive too.  My wife’s German ancestors were part of the 1840s wave and settled in the Midwest.  Not all in that wave did.  One of my most recent lines hit in the late 1830s and settled in what is now Jefferson Co WV (eastern panhandle of WV).

    I also have a line that came over in the first wave, an indentured servant of all things.  Did his 7 years outside Philly, then moved to the Hagerstown MD area.  He and his son both enlisted in Apr 1777 in the Continental Army.  His wife must have wanted to throttle him leaving her behind with 3 more kids.

    And then there’s the Schrecks, that’s about as German a surname as one can find.  One of the mystery lines that I can’t trace back in any detail prior to 1800 but they sure as hell probably came over in the that mid-18th Century wave as well.

  105. 105.

    Jeffro

    @lowtechcyclist: I hear you 110%

    I used to think (completely pie-in-the-sky, but bear with me) that in addition to being decently compensated, legislators ought to be initially selected just like jury duty for their first term.  They could run again and again if they liked the responsibilities (and voters would have their say); if not, another rep would be selected from the pool of registered voters for that district, etc etc.

    In theory, this would greatly increase investment in the state and local education systems…after all, if ANY nitwit in your district could be selected to be your rep down the road, you’d want them to be pretty sharp and knowledgeable, right?

    But it would be hard to justify pulling someone out of their chosen profession for 2/4/6 years at a time…and the excuses to get out of ‘jury legislative duty’ would no doubt be off. the. hook.  =)

    So…let those with the time and interest voluntarily run, then.  But yeah, let’s pay them well enough that they can take care of their families and come from a range of backgrounds.

  106. 106.

    SFAW

    @sab: ​

    That’s what I was guessing, but hoping I was wrong.
    I like cats, even the psycho ones (of which we’ve had one or two. OK, maybe one of those was better given to someone else.) If I ever win MegaMillions/Powerball, we’ll probably have a couple more at Chez SFAW.

    ETA: Saw your ETA. Our various cats, over the years, have done a fair amount of damage to our furniture. And at least one or two keep messing up Mrs. SFAW’s knitting. But except for the one — possibly feral, that “fell into our lap” — we’ve loved them all. [The possibly-feral one was given away to a co-worker of Mrs. SFAW, where she seems to be thriving. We attribute that to there being four other cats in our household, and none in the current home.]

  108. 108.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Trump contempt order.

    FWIW $1000 per violation is the maximum permitted by NY law.  And if you read to the end, you will see Judge Merchan hold jail over Trump’s head for his next violations.

  109. 109.

    TBone

    Historical fiction on TCM today, I will watch for Liz speaking to the court.  It’s a barn burner of a speech.

    Host Item
    Journal of Jewish Studies 70,2 (2019) 375-397

    Description
    Ivanhoe (USA, 1952) is one of only a handful of historical films set in medieval Europe, and by far the most significant one, to include Jewish characters. This high-grossing film, ultimately derived from Walter Scott’s 1819 sprawling historical novel, was produced by Pandro Berman, a Jew with explicitly political goals. The film put Jews on to the imagined map of medieval Europe, the bedrock of heritage and identity for North Americans and Europeans, when Jews were not necessarily perceived as ‘belonging’ either in Europe or in European-dominated North America. This article explores how the film countered the anti-Semitism of the era by using the interfaith romances of the Jewess Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor) to create desire for cross-cultural integration. The film stoked this desire over several decades through the star script of the extraordinarily desirable Taylor, whose conversion to Judaism in 1959 sutured her on- and off-screen bodies even closer together.

  113. 113.

    sab

    @geg6: My paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Bruner. Very germanic.

    My married name is Baughman. That goofy spelling identifies us as Swiss not German. My Swiss ancestors were francophone. My husband’s spoke German.

  118. 118.

    jackmac

    @Jeffro: I also keep my NYT subscription for the very same reasons. I want to encourage and support so much good (non-political)  journalism that the Times (and WaPo) still provide.

  120. 120.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat: ​
      That was never going to happen for the first contempt finding. If you read the order, you will see that Merchan notes that this penalty means little to Trump and that is why he is expressly talking about jail for the next violations.

  121. 121.

    NotMax

    @schrodingers_cat

    Assign him to detention Sit alone in the court on Wednesdays with only the company of a couple of burly bailiffs.

    For further infractions, include a nun with a ruler.
    :)

  122. 122.

    SFAW

    Maybe someone already commented on it, but: that Clay Bennett “comic” at the top kinda pisses me off (with its attempted Bothsiderism). TRUMP is the one who cannot string two (coherent) sentences together — except when he’s reading off a Teleprompter. That Bennett is pretending it’s a valid criticism of President Biden is laughable/contemptible.​

  125. 125.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    Maybe the Republicans will annex Cancun so Ted Cruz can fly domestic. 

    Maybe Texas voters will eventually dropkick Shithead Ted back to Canada.

  126. 126.

    SFAW

    @mrmoshpotato: ​

    Maybe Texas voters will eventually dropkick Shithead Ted back to Canada.

    And maybe I’ll be declared People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.

  127. 127.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    Assign him to detention Sit alone in the court on Wednesdays with only the company of a couple of burly bailiffs. 

    What’d those bailiffs ever do to deserve such a punishment?

  130. 130.

    TBone

    @geg6: howdy, distant relative!  Our clan is large (all my Great Grand Aunts were in the D.A.R. and maternal grandma related to Martha Ball Washington). Can even claim passage on the pilgrim ships.

  134. 134.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: Dawgdamned bump guns! There’s a reason they’re illegal now.

    I read of a guy who came into the ER with a splitting headache. X-rays revealed 2 or 3 finish nails embedded in his skull. The guy had tried to commit suicide with his nailgun. When the first nail didn’t do the job, he tried again and again(?). He should have used a framing gun. A 16 penny nail ought to do the trick.

  136. 136.

    sab

    @schrodingers_cat: We have what we thought were Indians up the street. Turns out they are Guyanans. Ethnic Indians who moved to Guyana a couple of generations ago. The Indians and Pakistanis up the street have bonded- soulmates. The Guyananas and the Indians cannot stand each other.

    Ethnicity is weird.

  137. 137.

    TBone

    @Indycat32: we have all kinds here.  They claw the furniture when they want to get my attention (when I’m watching movies or on here, for instance).  I haven’t yet gone beyond yelling or cajoling – that cold water is gonna be a shock 😆

  139. 139.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s so hard sometimes to keep from yelling at him in frustration. The only thing that prevents it is that I know it won’t help. I’m hoping I can get the helpers to take him for some things so I don’t have to spend an hour waiting for him to get ready.

  140. 140.

    Betty Cracker

    @geg6: Pelosi said Trump was the worst jobs president in history, which is true. Tur said something like, well, there was a pandemic. Pelosi said you can be an apologist for Trump if you think that’s your role, but it ain’t mine, and the fact is Trump was the worst jobs president ever, and Biden is the best.

    I’m a big Pelosi fan, but I don’t think the exchange rises to the level of legendary smackdown. Tur simply pointed out the fact that the pandemic began under Trump, which is important context. She didn’t defend his handling of it or anything like that. Shruggies.

  141. 141.

    schrodingers_cat

    @sab: India is huge. Its like it would be if Europe was one country. There is a similar multiplicity of languages and regional differences. If the Indians are from northern India, they will have more in common with people from Pakistan in language and culture. This is before any caste considerations enter the picture.

    Are the Guyanans more working class?

  144. 144.

    Central Planning

    @sab: My great-grandmother came over on the boat from Germany. We inherited a family tree from my grandmother that goes back to the 1300s in Germany. One of these days (ha!) I’ll deciper all that scratch and add it to my ancestry.com family tree.

  147. 147.

    Gvg

    Furniture style contributes to cats being able to damage furniture. So does material. Typically we upholster the whole outside of couches, which cats then regard as scratching posts. The outside does not have anything to do with how comfortable it is. I have been looking at case style couches which have a wood outside the back and side.

    You can also surround the couch with say low bookshelves. There are side tables that cover the arms so you can set drinks there. Which can also protect from claws. And there are arm covers that can be changed and washed. I have found that loose covers don’t seem to be good scratching to the cats, so they don’t bother. I am guessing it’s because they can’t actually pull hard and sharpen the claw.

    The sticky tape damages the furniture.

    Leather comes in different quality. Really thick full grain leather might help but the common super smooth thin (and comfortable) will not. Might. I can’t afford to test it.

  148. 148.

    sab

    @Gvg: We had an indestruckable couch upholsterd in a tough fabric that survived 50 years of dog abuse, and one week of cat abuse. Currently it sits in our living room leaking foam stuffing.

  149. 149.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Gvg: An office in my area is selling their leather furniture for a song. And I am tempted but it will be a hassle to transport. And the couch and the chairs look lovely, the leather has aged beautifully.

  152. 152.

    indycat32

    @TBone: I tried the water thing with my first cat (appropriately named The Devil-Cat).  He just looked at me and kept on scratching.

  157. 157.

    SFAW

    @Betty Cracker:

    To my mind, the response to Tur’s “but-but-but the PANDEMIC” is:

    “Yes, the COVID pandemic started during TFG’s term. But had he addressed it in a rational, non-RWNJ manner, it is highly likely the spread would have slowed significantly — look at South Korea, for example — thus keeping the economy (and potential job creation) going. BUT HE DIDN’T, and he allowed the ‘Oh noes, wearing a mask takes away MAH FREEDUMZ!!!!’ crowd to get away with their anti-science, anti-American BS. And that led into the anti-vaxxers allowing their nutty ideas to keep the country from being fully vaccinated. Despite the best/worst efforts of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, President Biden’s economy has done phenomenally well. So, yeah, Donald Trump bears substantial responsibility for HIS economy going in the toilet.”

  159. 159.

    SFAW

    @sab: ​

    Ohio is two Scotlands.

    Does that mean Scotland is half as nuts as Ohio?
    ETA: And are you forced to wear different tartans in different parts of Ohio?

  160. 160.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: it covers a lot of ground and is pretty accurate about what Project 2025 (which trump will certainly sign off on) would do.

    the thing that kills me is any sentence that starts, “trump says…”

    He’s completely full of shit.  He lies like he breathes (possibly more often than he breathes).  So there’s no point in repeating what he says…if it’s full of malice and vengeance, it’s true; if it soft-pedals the malice and vengeance, it’s a lie.

    It’s like these ridiculous interviews with GOP pols at any/every level: why do them live and let them spew their insane BS to your audience?  Tape it, and edit it, adding all of the background and contradictory info that your audience needs.

    Failure on the most basic level.

  162. 162.

    Marmot

    @Jeffro: Why ya reading Time magazine?

    But anyway, it’s funny the writer didn’t apparently mention any historical precedents where a head of state seized “emergency” powers.

  163. 163.

    Soprano2

    @sab: Where I grew up there is a “German Church”. I assume it’s Lutheran. It has a Bible verse in German in fancy script on the wall over the altar. Lots and lots of Germans there.

  165. 165.

    Juju

    @Soprano2: I never make an appointment for my mother that’s before 1:00 pm. It takes so long for her to get ready because she forgets where we’re going, wants to wear what she had on the day before, even though the clothes are food smeared and so on. It is like dealing with a child in adult skin. Sometimes I just stand and wait and say something along the line of, you don’t get any coffee until you get dressed in the clothes I put out for you. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t work. She does complain and call me mean, but then she forgets that I’m mean and we are eventually ready to go, and she’s had her coffee and whatever meal she needs, and on our way.  You’ll figure out what works for you. I wish you luck in getting to your husband’s appointment on time.

  166. 166.

    RaflW

    @Jeffro: Time saying “the machinery of Washington has a range of defenses: leaks to a free press” makes it obvious these people haven’t got a frunkin’ clue.

    He’s made it clear he wants to throw multiple reporters in jail. Heather Cox Richardson just pointed out the other day that on several occasions Trump told Barr he wanted to execute leakers in his admin (he was talked out of it, but those people are no where in sight in a potential new dictatorial regime).

    The press still doesn’t believe he’s serious about destroying them. It’s recklessly blinkered

    eta: Your later Time item about Trump semi-threatening to prosecute Biden. Of course he will! These flabby journos relying on quaint notions like “the haven’t found any crimes” is so stupid. Did Pinochet need legit criminal charges to disappear his enemies? Are Putin’s courts dedicated to impartial, blindfolded justice?

    Tha fuck outta here, Time.

  168. 168.

    Soprano2

    @TBone: I got some slick plastic stuff to stick to my couch to keep it from being shredded. It’s worked pretty well so far. My sister bought a rattan chair. I have no idea what she was thinking with the cats she had. They ruined it, we had to throw it away.

  169. 169.

    Kosh III

    Ancestry:  On my father/grandfather side we can clearly trace ancestry to c. 1600 Cork county Ireland.  Then 1682 in Maryland, 1808 here in Warren County TN.
    My mother’s side(both) can be traced to early 18teens in Morgan county TN. (German/English)

  170. 170.

    TBone

    @Soprano2: I FORGOT about the double-sided tape gambit!  I actually have some clear plastic sticky tape – thank you for the reminder we can stay high and dry 😆

  171. 171.

    Jeffro

    @Marmot: I saw it posted on various social media sites!  ;)

    I think I mentioned quite a while back that I post stuff on my FB page from time to time for my Fox-loving relatives to be shocked out of their trump cult trance see.  It was nice to find a good piece about the many horrors trump will gleefully inflict on this country from a source that wasn’t the WaPo (and yet mainstream enough that it might register with said relatives.)

  172. 172.

    Jeffro

    OT and non-political for once: I think I know what this ancient Roman artifact was used for…

    LONDON — As the group of amateur archaeologists sifted through tiles, animal teeth and pottery fragments buried within an ancient Roman pit in eastern England last June, one of them encountered something unusual.  It was a cast bronze object, hollow in the middle, flat along 12 faces, about the size of a clenched fist. Only one of the diggers — all members of Norton Disney village’s archaeology society — recognized the discovery: It was a Roman dodecahedron, probably placed there 1,700 years earlier.

    “You’re looking at a very strange and bizarre object,” Richard Parker, secretary of the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group, said in a telephone interview.  At first glimpse, the dodecahedron looks more like a sci-fi illustration than it does an ancient Roman relic. Each of its pentagon-shaped faces is punctuated by a hole, varying in size, and each of its 20 corners is accented by a semi-spherical knob.

    …it’s a potpourri holder!!

  173. 173.

    TBone

    @TBone:

    Wayfaring warrior soul- still wild
    The archer stands
    Arrow measured to the goal- sing of
    Strong and living man
    In his mind there is a vision wand’ring
    Through the forest town
    Telling of riches only given if through the woods
    The way is found

    Crying ‘ah! beautiful dancers. wake up
    From your sleep!
    Ahh! gentle romancers. drink of love so sweet!’

    Treasure glowing in their eyes- forest deep ends
    Dark their dream
    ‘Keep to the pathways,’ he advised, ‘the woods are
    More than they might seem’
    ‘Heed you now the apparition bending never ending
    Sounds
    Calling you into her mystery- are your eyes
    Not sparkling now?’

    Sighing ‘ahh, take you no warning- make no
    Foolish fight
    Ahh, think not of morning- lie here
    Through the night’

    ‘Beauty take us!’ they call ‘in my arms!’
    They hear her say
    Silken web falls- mist illusion rips away
    ‘Helpless! helpless!’ now they scream
    Helpless on the path he stands
    And awakens from his dream singing string
    Beneath his hand

    Gentle archer ages old- release the aim
    Free the goal
    Roll your arrow to my soul- release the aim
    Free the goal

  174. 174.

    Jackie

    @Gvg: Wood never deterred my cats. They pick a spot and start carving. Overtime, grooved etchings appear. Patio posts and a wooden bench were two particular favorites.

  175. 175.

    Jeffro

    @RaflW: agreed

    I don’t think anyone realizes, if trump gets back into office, his #1 goal is this: “I’m going to make sure that no one questions, ridicules, contradicts, investigates, indicts, or even scares me ever again.”

    And then think about what that really means…what he’ll do

  177. 177.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @RevRick: My German ancestors came over in the 1840s from Prussia.  Got off the boat at Richmond, VA and never left — I still have cousins there.  I feel they were part of the liberal wave who found Prussia under Bismark stifling,  especially since they had enough cash to open a shop upon arrival.

  179. 179.

    Soprano2

    @Juju: I’ve started making mostly afternoon appointments because of this. If I show up at the house and say “It’s time to go to your appointment” he’s already dressed and will get up and come with me. Today took longer because I insisted that he change clothes because he’s been wearing the same clothes for over a week! I wasn’t able to get him to take a shower this weekend because I had to be places at a certain time so I didn’t have two hours to wait for him to be ready to do it. This is something else I may start getting help with.

  180. 180.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @sab: post-WWI a lot of people didn’t want to admit that they were German. However the culture still remained (I’ve had to explain to Mr. Rudbek that the Lutherans have no problem with drinking, it’s the Baptists who have made Virginia’s liquor laws weird by comparison)

  181. 181.

    Juju

    @Soprano2: My mother does the same thing, wearing the same outfit too long. I wish I knew how to handle that issue consistently, but sometimes she listens and sometimes she doesn’t listen. Go with whatever works for you and don’t worry, with dementia you get a lot of do overs.

  183. 183.

    Origuy

    About 30,000 German soldiers were hired by the British Army to fight in the American Revolution. We learned about them in history class as Hessian mercenaries, but not all came from Hesse and they technically were auxiliaries, loyal to their German princes, not mercenaries. About 6,000 stayed in America, including one of my ancestors. He was held as a POW, refused to be repatriated after the war, stayed and married a Pennsylvania woman.

  185. 185.

    Jackie

    @Manyakitty: Microfiber doesn’t tear, BUT does puncture – ending up resembling a well-used pincushion. The best defense I found was regularly blunt trimming kitty’s claws to prevent the needle sharp pointed tips – which causes all the damage to assorted materials.

  186. 186.

    Manyakitty

    @Jackie: sure. Maybe some microfiber wears better than others, because we’re on our second couch with it and it’s in perfect condition despite the efforts of 3 fully-clawed cats.

  187. 187.

    Jackie

    @Manyakitty: I’m sure there’s levels of quality in microfibers.😊

    Another positive for blunt-trimming claws: it saves my thighs from kitty making biscuits when she’s affectionate! Those needle sharp tips drew blood even through my jeans! I don’t want to discourage her affection, thus the trimming. Side benefit is no more furniture damage to speak of – and she still has claws for defense, if needed.

  188. 188.

    RevRick

    @Soprano2: The odds are strong that It’s Lutheran if it’s a German church, but Eastern PA has a slew of different German churches. The church I served was originally a German Reformed Church (Calvinist), which in the 1930s merged with the German Evangelical Church (Fredrick of Prussia forced a merger of Lutherans and Reformeds in 1814) part of the later wave of immigrants, and became St. John’s UCC in 1957, following the merger with the New England based Congregational Christian Church. But the region also has Moravians, Mennonites, Brethren and Schwenkfelders, all German sects.

  190. 190.

    RevRick

    @SFAW:

    @OzarkHillbilly: I retired back in 2015, but I saw the handwriting on the wall. It was a poignant tribute, but I feel good about what the church accomplished. The United Church of Christ is only one third the size it was in 1960, partly due to all the controversial stands it took, partly because we’ve been on the leading edge of social change in matters of sex, and partly because we just don’t do evangelism, and partly because we refused to turn our worship services into entertainment.

  191. 191.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @prostratedragon: And in the general WaPo will endorse Hogan over whichever Democrat wins the primary, because wimmin parts blackity black divisive whatever….

  193. 193.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @TBone: We have scratching posts too, but one cat prefers to scratch on wooden railing of the stairs and lower  corner cabinets in the kitchen. Whoever buys our house is looking at either a total gut job or tear-down and build something new. Of course, it’s a pretty funky owner built house to start with, so I would expect that anyway.

  195. 195.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @schrodingers_cat: No, smooth leather couches show every scratch. Ones with suede fabric do a little better, I think. Of course, fur slides off smooth leather pretty well, so at least the couch isn’t covered with fur.

  196. 196.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @TBone: ​Speaking of the DAR, one of my friends (too long out of touch, alas) told me she qualified for membership through an ancestor who came to the colonies as a Hessian mercenary and later defected to the rebels. He spoke almost no English and had to carry with him at all times a document informing Continental commanders that he was in fact a good and loyal soldier fighting on their side.

  197. 197.

    Corvidarchism

    The WA Republican party denouncing the concept of democracy isn’t even the beginning of the brainworm infestation. The current party chair is a Florida import who was peddling election conspiracy theories in 2020, publicly compared himself to Holocaust victims because of the Covid closures, and has been busily pushing the party closer into the embrace  of white nationalists. He absolutely lost control of the party convention, and despite bellowing “decorum” a bunch of times, delegates pushed their clown car candidate, Semi Bird, an idiot with a history of fraud, threatening teenagers with a gun, more antivaccine idiocy, and being the focus of a school board recall, over Dave Reichert, a less emberassing but just as hard conservative candidate.

    And yeah, the Democrats aren’t all that much better – ESPECIALLY the current Seattle city council. The current council president, Sara Nelson, is currently trying to explain away her support of legislation literally written by Uber and Doordash, that would slash delivery driver wages. And she wants to send the National Guard in downtown. There’s also the massive police pay raise (while they get OT to play Candy Crush and sleep in their illegally parked cars) while the city is facing a budget crunch and services are getting cut.

  198. 198.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @schrodingers_cat: yes, I saw a segment on TV and his owners flew to CA to be reunited with him. It was at the end of the Stephanie Rule show on MSNBC last night. Apparently the shipping box split on one side so he had enough fresh air to survive. Cats, descended from desert animals can go a while without water, as this cat did. Six days, I think.

  199. 199.

    Jinchi

    @RaflW: ​
      Your later Time item about Trump semi-threatening to prosecute Biden. Of course he will!

    At that point, the rightwingers on the SC will forget their current legal arguments and declare that “of course” the president is subject to prosecution.

  202. 202.

    Nettoyeur

    @SFAW: I think the actual number is closer to 45% German. The largest documented percentage is in New Ulm, MN, which is over 60%.

  203. 203.

    Citizen Alan

    @Spanky:

    Idiocracy really was a documentary.

    I’ve been on this rant for many years now, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself. But I truly think that Idiocracy was about ten minutes away from being one of the most culturally important satires in the history of motion pictures. Unfortunately, those ten minutes ruin the movie. I’m talking about the six or so minutes at the beginning that blame the rise of the Idiocracy on eugenics, on dumb people simply outbreeding smart people, and the ending which is tacked on bullshit about how Joe gets elected president and starts to make things better.

    Because the truth that Mike Judge could not bear to utter was that the coming Idiocracy is not the result of genetics. It is the result of deliberate efforts by conservative elites in government, the media, and fundamentalist religions to make people stupid so they’re easier to control! The movie should have ended with Joe giving his speech about the benefits of intelligence and education on a tv screen, only for the camera to slowly pan away to show the real directors of Brawndo, all of whom are well-dressed, sophisticated-looking white men who are profoundly displeased. Cue sinister music.

  204. 204.

    Citizen Alan

    @sab: Technically, I claim German ancestry, but it goes back to the late 17th century. The ancestor who gave my mother her maiden name was German and only came to Colonial South Carolina because a storm blew his ship bound for Canada off course. And once he stepped off the ship, the British offered him 10 acres if he’d stay and swear loyalty to the Crown.

  205. 205.

    Geoduck

    Maybe this has already been stated, but speaking as a Washington state resident, our local GOP has been rabidly insane for years, even decades, now.

  206. 206.

    Chris T.

    @Jackie:

    Another positive for blunt-trimming claws: it saves my thighs from kitty making biscuits when she’s affectionate! Those needle sharp tips drew blood even through my jeans!

    The holes in your skin are to let the love in.

    (I trim all our cats’ claws pretty regularly because we don’t actually need the holes…)

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