Some quick housekeeping- Steve Benen, who many of you have known for decades now from the Washington Monthly and Rachel Maddow and other various places, has a new book. As a long time fan of his and his work- he’s always been a good read and gives a fair shake and accurately reporting facts while also having a progressive outlook without descending into the meanness I find so attractive when dealing with the fuckers. He is a straight shooter and a better person than me, which, admittedly, can at times be a low bar. Having said that, here is the book:
I have asked him if he would like to do a book club zoom with us, and he said yes, so that will be coming up in a bit, so you should have plenty of time ordering a copy and reading. I would like to do something the first week of October to give us all a break from the election and something to think about when we talk to people prior to the election.
Had a very good day today, and did all my favorite things. Got my work done, made a solid latte, went and rode the tractor and cut some grass, went to the gym and walked a couple miles and swam, and I came home and had a nice tomato sandwich for dinner. Waiting for the canteloupe to chill and I am going to cut that up and eat it while watching Dark Winds on Netflix (which is a great show about a cop on a Navajo reservation in the 60’s with the most amazing GMC K20).
And I got paid yesterday for the first time in 10 weeks, so that was cool although it’s all gone to pay off the things I needed to buy on credit. Whatever. Nice seeing incoming coming in.
Joelle is also having a great day, having luxuriated at the ASU pool for a while and then pedaling off to a pub to have a cocktail. So good days all around.
I simply can not overstate how much the competence of the Harris/Walz ticket is improving my mental health.
Talk to you all later!
Ivan X
Carpetbagger Report!
I used to really like reading him, but when he went to Maddow Blog, I found sifting his pieces out from that hideous site (maybe no longer so) to be no fun and I stopped reading him. But I’ll read his book!
It would be awesome to have him on a book club Zoom!
dlwchico
Dark Winds is a good show.
Baud
@Ivan X:
Same (except I haven’t read his book). He’s good people.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
I read Benen’s blog regularly. He’s good at marshalling facts to rebut Republican talking points, not that they take any notice of the fact that their talking points are proven to be bullshit these days. Or ever did.
Elizabelle
Happy to hear that Cole is happy. Def up for a Benen book Zoom. Heck, I would love if that guy who is all Einstein (and now Oppenheimer too!) would come back. He was fascinating.
geg6
I am five weeks out from retirement. Celebrated my last orientation (for people who couldn’t make it over the summer) and move in. Everything will be a last from now on. Getting excited!
Elizabelle
@geg6: Happy for you, geg.
Baud
@geg6:
👍
Jeffro
@geg6: congrats!
JPL
@geg6: Congrats
zhena gogolia
@geg6: I envy you!
Jeffro
OT and hope to get back to this later but…this is easily one of the more offensive, both-sides things I’ve seen in recent memory: Can the GOP Really Become the Party of Workers?
(subhead: A New Generation of Republicans is Learning to Love Labor. It’s Not Clear Labor Will Love Them Back)
such. fucking. bullshit.
(eye roll, Eye Roll, HARD EYE ROLL)
eff you, eff you, eff you – there is NO conservative ‘version’ of Liz Warren, jagoff
They’re just going to say the same words as Democratic politicians, and hope that – with assistance from the snooze media – no one bothers to note the difference in actual actions that help workers.
Phylllis
@geg6: Welcome to the retirement club! I’m still helping out at work once a week or so, and folks ask ‘what do you do all day?’. Nothing makes me happier than to respond ‘as little as possible’.
Hungry Joe
POSTCARD UPDATE
Batch #2 — 200 Postcards to Swing States — has arrived! So …
Yesterday — 16
Running total — 16
raven
Zahn McClarnon is great in season 2 of Fargo. Very understated role until his cup runneth over.
Suzanne
@Jeffro:
I will note that the “workingman” is just as likely to be the working woman, but I’m hearing crickets out of Josh Hawley about their interests. Not an accident.
CaseyL
@geg6:
Go, you! Do you have any particular post-retirement plans?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@geg6:
Retired at the end of last year. You’ll love it. Congrats.
MattF
Hawley supports whatever might preserve him in power. Just like TFG now claims to be an advocate for reproductive rights. They can’t run on their true plans. Also puts the lie to any claim of having beliefs.
Ken
Indeed
(I can’t remember where I saw that — might have been here, in which case my apologies for the re-post.)
frosty
@geg6: Congratulations! I recommend retirement; so glad you can do it.
hells littlest angel
@Jeffro: So obviously the NYT without checking the link. They must monitor @dougjballoon to look for story ideas.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
When exactly did the GOP support labor over capital?
Thats right, never.
Note Hawley doesn’t define “prioritize”. In GOP speak that could mean don’t let them starve and nothing more.
cmorenc
The competence of Harris began showing very quickly after Biden stepped aside, and has only grown more solid with every move she has made since. Five weeks ago the existential gloom of an increasingly likely Trump 2nd term filled with hard-right minions was suffocating all the joy out of the future. Harris and waltz have returned the possibility of a joyful, productive future to this country. She has so far turned out to massively exceed the best we could have hoped for. And Biden has been superlatively graceful and supportive in the quick consolidation of the party around Harris.
i know- ain’t a done deal yet, work to be done to help push her across the finish line in November in clear 2st place. But I really like our chances now.
Almost Retired
@geg6: Wonderful. Looking forward to it myself. Although as you can probably surmise by the durability of my nym, I’m not very good at completely pulling the plug.
Goal is to go “inactive” with the California Bar in 2025, and then work on my golf and pickleball swings, and maybe sharpen my trolling skills on Balloon Juice. Congratulations!
HumboldtBlue
@geg6:
Congratulations!
Frankensteinbeck
@cmorenc:
I disagree with almost everyone in that I think Harris getting the nomination was inevitable after Biden stepped aside, a natural process of people doing what gave the Democratic Party its best chances. After that, though, God damn. The woman is good. She organized fast, she has wrung every advantage to its fullest, her judgment with Walz was fantastic, and her messaging both in person and as a campaign has been brilliant. Cameth the hour, cameth the woman, and Harris stepped up to meet this challenge like a superhero.
geg6
@CaseyL:
Nothing concrete at the moment. They’re giving me a year’s salary plus my accumulated vacation and sick time (about four months salary), so I have some time to figure it out. I’ll probably get something part-time just to keep busy and be around people because, given the option, I’d be a hermit, but no rush on that. Can’t travel because my partner’s cognitive issues, so I plan to do some things around our new house as I’ve not had time to nest since we moved at the end of May, so that should keep me busy up until about Thanksgiving. Our basement is literally filled almost to the ceiling with boxes we haven’t touched since we moved. It’s a much smaller house and, in the frenzy and confusion of moving, my partner would not prioritize any thing and so we moved almost everything and just piled it up in the basement to be sorted later.
Sure Lurkalot
@geg6: Now that’s something to celebrate. Congratulations!
Auntie Anne
That’s awesome that Steve Benen is willing to do a Book Club Zoom with us. I am a long-time fan. Going to buy the book now . . .
Starfish
@Jeffro: Can the party of child labor and heat deaths become the party of workers?
Let me think on it.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: And it’s notable that their quote calling bullshit was from Sara Nelson, the (awesome) flight attendants’ union leader. Lots of working women in that one.
Trollhattan
@geg6: Living the dream!
Greg
Historically, when have the members of the Democratic party _all_ done what gave it its best chances?
I don’t really disagree that Harris was mostly inevitable, but she or other parts of the party could’ve screwed up so many possible ways to damage her momentum. She (and they) managed the transition wonderfully.
lowtechcyclist
@geg6:
There’s nothing like getting up in the morning and knowing that even if you have things to do, you can deal with them at your own pace: there’s nobody anymore who’s expecting you to be at your desk by a given time.
One of the fun parts is just watching all that stuff that you had to know for work gradually drift out of your mind. I retired in December, and in April I was still able to answer a couple of questions that my former colleagues had who had taken over my responsibilities. If they asked me anything now, I’d be totally useless, and I’m perfectly good with that. I’m sailing into a new ocean, and that continent is receding in the distance.
SpaceUnit
Is that the same ASU pool where Leon Marchand and Reagan Smith train? That’s holy water.
Leto
@geg6: I did my orientation at my school yesterday, though I’m not moving in. I’d read his book but I’m looking at 8 for my courses and can’t manage any more. I have seen his interviews across the MSNBC shows, so hopefully I remember this is going on so I can do it
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: I can’t help but notice that, as the GOP and MAGA pretend to celebrate work, they really only want to raise the status of traditional men’s work. Manufacturing and construction and farming, No one is giving a shit about the women who clean every hotel and hospital room, who provide most haircuts and braiding services, childcare and elder care, who work as salespeople in department stores. No one’s talking about raising their status.
MikefromArlington
Was always part of my daily read. Was upset to see him leave to go to Maddow
Chet Murthy
@Suzanne: Also not included: farm work. B/c wypipo don’t do that in our country, not anymore.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@geg6: Congratulations!
Frankensteinbeck
@Greg:
Actually, until this debate bullshit, the Democratic Party has been really pleasantly unified since Trump was elected. Even its most conservative and liberal fringes haven’t made much more than token whines before working together. Manchin and Sinema have been the only real problem children.
In this case, who else was going to become the leader? Only pundits were stupid enough to think anybody but Harris had a chance. The Biden/Harris delegates weren’t going to vote for anybody but Harris. The endorsements weren’t going to go to anyone but her as soon as Biden gave her the nod, and in what world wouldn’t he have done so? Harris would have had to screw up badly to not get the party’s united support.
But that took, what, one day to become clear? And she hit the ground running. This incredible convention didn’t make itself, and it must be murder to switch it to a new nominee. She didn’t wait, she organized instantly, and took over from Biden without a bump. It’s been awe inspiring.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: I agree. That was ridiculous. As the reader comments pointed out.
Fuck the Fucking Vichy Times and Putz Sulzberger.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I retire at the end of every June and start back up again at the end of August. I’ve slept in all my life except for when i NEED to wake. I am certain it’s genetic. My hours for this year have changed so I need to wake up at 5:45 a.m. each school day. Booooooooooo!
different-church-lady
@Jeffro: They’ve been asking the same fuckin’ question in the headline for at least 20 years. When are they going to admit the answer is no?
HumboldtBlue
deleted
CaseyL
@geg6:
They’re giving you a year’s salary?? That’s nice. Is it a severance package?
Hah! I have the same fear. I am very good at doing nothing. Frighteningly good. Give me a pile of books and I may not leave the house for a week. (I discovered this during the first months of pandemic lockdown, when so many people were going insane and I was happy as a clam.)
I’m so sorry your partner’s cognitive issues preclude traveling. But there’s so much to do around a new house! Are you into gardening at all?
Leto
@Suzanne: well, actually they are talking about their status. It’s in Project 2025. They won’t have status anymore! Or freedoms, or rights, or legal protections, or anything like that! Back to way Raptor Ridin’ Jesus wanted it!
BR
My 1000 postcards just arrived (Postcards to Swing States) — we’re going to start writing them tomorrow. All to Arizona. I remember some of you had some tips of slight modifications to the message — what were those modifications?
lowtechcyclist
@hells littlest angel:
Well, he IS the Pitchbot! ;-)
Not gonna take the trouble to go around the FTFNYT paywall, but I’m betting Hawley didn’t mention any meaningful policies he’d support as part of his newfound devotion to workers. And I’d also bet that the FTFNYT reporter didn’t press him at all on that.
zhena gogolia
@BR: I took the message about making a plan to vote, but I took out the question “When are you going to vote?” So my message ended up being, “Hi [FIRST NAME], Thank you for being a voter! Please plan ahead to vote in the Tues. Nov. 5 election! — [MY FIRST NAME]”
I thought asking them when they were going to vote was a little Big Brother-ish and would give me the creeps if I was on the receiving end.
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The Civil War, maybe?
Another Scott
I liked Benen before he moved to Maddow’s show – I didn’t find it easy to read his stuff there. I’ll grab his book and put it on The List. I probably won’t be able to do the Zoom thing, but it’s great you snagged him JGC!
Meanwhile, … NASA.gov:
It’s important that they kept to their safety protocolos.
Yeah, this space stuff is difficult. But Boeing really needs to get its act together. They’ve had too many failures in their space stuff and in their commercial planes stuff that aren’t due to difficulty but rather due to crappy procedures and crappy management of assembly processes…
Grr…,
Scott.
sdhays
@dlwchico: I watched the first season, and while I enjoyed it, I don’t think I can watch anymore. Having read the books it’s based on, some things bug me too much. I can handle the reimagining of the characters and the different storylines, but when they have a Navajo move into their dead relative’s old hogan, I find it disrespectful since that’s seriously taboo in Navajo culture.
Leto
@lowtechcyclist:
If they’re not going to ask Trumpov for his priorities, who’s running for president, you think they’re going to ask some backwater Senator?
BR
I remember Benen was responsible for Pass The Damn Bill during Obamacare, something that we all played our part in, and I honestly feel (or want to believe) that we made a difference with our organized calling of congress.
BR
@zhena gogolia:
Ah, thanks. I do like the idea of encouraging folks to make a voting plan, but I agree that asking them when they’re going to vote is a bit weird. Maybe there’s some middle ground framing.
patrick II
For those of you who don’t know, Dark Winds is based on a series of mystery books about Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee written by the great Tony Hillerman. In the books, Joe Leaphorn was an intellectual who had a degree in anthropology which allowed the author to look at the same facts through the eyes of two different cultures. The books were good mysteries and enlightening as well. The series has been taught in Navajo tribal schools.
Princess
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The word “prioritize” stuck out to me too because Vance used the same word in one of his anti-woman pro-broodmare screeds, saying we should “prioritize parents.” It’s their favourite weasel word. Means nothing in itself and everyone can project what they want onto it.
lamh47
John you need this shirt 🤣
Balls to the Walz 2024
Leto
@Another Scott: Not the Gillian’s Island reboot we were expecting, or wanting, but here we are. I watched that interview they did today, and I just felt sorry for those two astronauts. Supposed to be a week, and it’ll be 8 months later. I’m glad they’re going to get home safely though.
Craig
@raven: very exceptional in that role. He’s good in anything I seen him in. Great in Echo.
SatanicPanic
@Frankensteinbeck: I thought it was inevitable too. To me that was the easiest question to answer.
Sure Lurkalot
@Starfish:
Like they were the party for the economically anxious and proceeded to cut taxes for the uber wealthy.
They all make mouth sounds, signifying nothing, often less than nothing.
KatKapCC
@Frankensteinbeck: I felt similarly — even if there had been a little mishegas, I felt like it would be her in the end, and I was perfectly happy with that. I knew she’d be incredible, and the best part is that she’s been even more incredible than I expected.
Jeffro
@Starfish:
right??!?
“well, they are saying the words, the right words, the ones that sound like the ones Democrats have been saying forever and a day…so…can the GOP become the…”
aw, screw it
Is there a word or phrase for “too dumb to be believed?”
raven
@sdhays: And, despite the conventional wisdom, the show just isn’t very good.
Di
@geg6:
In December I’ll have been retired for 5 years. Love it! So will you. Congrats!
Jeffro
@Elizabelle: “can the GOP…pivot…to
mouthing the wordsbeing the party of workers?”disgusting
We all knew they would do it – hell, trumpov is tweeting about being great on women’s reproductive rights!!!!1! – but it’s just offensive, ridiculous, and demeaning to see the snooze media playing along.
GOP: “Let’s just say the same things Democrats are saying, and let the media play along!”
sdhays
@raven: I found it ok. Enjoyable enough if they could just bother to try not fucking up the representation of the culture in the most obvious ways.
Hungry Joe
@BR: Although the postcard instructions say DON’T CHANGE A WORD, Ms. Joe and I are professional writers and we found the suggested messages WAY too long — a pain to write, and all that verbiage (necessarily written very small) makes it unlikely that people will read it. We opted for message #3 and shortened it to:
Hi (Blank),
Thank you for being a voter. Please remind your friends and family to vote in the TUES. NOV 5 election!
Thanks!
First name (volunteer)
We underline (in Sharpie) “Thank you” and “TUES. NOV 5.”
Ms. Joe uses a different color ink for the middle graf, but I can’t be bothered.
catclub
I would guess that a competition pool is much cooler than one for ordinary civilians.
Chet Murthy
@catclub:
I’ve heard they reserve the fast water for those pools.
Ken
@Another Scott: In other tech news, AI isn’t great at picking stocks. Those who are retiring soon might want to check where their money’s invested.
raven
@sdhays: Ok just about sums it up. Besides the cultural problems the storylines are just silly.
twbrandt
@geg6: I retired at the end of January of this year. I highly recommend it!
Renie
@BR: I changed the message to: “An important election is coming up. Please make plans to vote on Tuesday, November 5th. Ask your family and friends to also vote. Thank you.”
My instructions said to leave space at the bottom and I think the post office also stamps something at the top, so there is limited space to write.
I also drew a line down the center to distinguish between the message and address so it’s easier for the post office to see address.
I requested 200 for myself – I got North Carolina – and have down about 125 so far.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Unite Here, a big hotel worker union, had endorsed Biden/Harris. I assume they will endorse again.
Lets hope Harris continues to be ad pro-union as Biden had been.
stinger
@lowtechcyclist:
This. I had lunch with a former colleague the other day, and although I still care about him and want him to be happy and successful at his job, I just could not muster any actual caring about the office problems he shared. And I hardly understood anything he was complaining about! (Retired 3 years now.)
Lyrical and perfect!
sdhays
@raven: True. They had a lot to work with, great cast, great source material, great scenery and they really frittered it away.
Although it’s a lot better than the movie by the same name. In the first 5 minutes, they have Joe Leaphorn reading about skinwalkers on a GeoCities website. So awful I just shut it down after that.
JoyceH
{blink} But of course Republicans are the party of workers! After all, which governors pose for photo ops proudly signing legislation giving younger children the freedom to work longer hours on construction sites and in slaughterhouses? Republicans, that’s who! Case closed.
Jay
@catclub:
If you are a municipality or and University, building a 50m pool, (“Olympic”) is the standard. When not used in swimming competitions, you can “rope”* off the shallow end, (10m) as a “children’s” pool, have a 25m “lap pool” in the middle and a 15m diving area in the deep end.
*Canada Games pool use a 1.5m wide barrier spanning the width of the pool at each end of the lap area, with starter blocks. There is a large hot tub for divers to keep warm, or the public to soak, a shallow, warm “kiddy” pool, which in competition is used to transition from the hot tub, to the pool temps, an area of the deck used for circuit training, the full array of diving boards and towers, and a full gym above the changerooms and lobby.
Redshift
@BR:
We have that in our canvassing script, and an nobody seems particularly bothered, but that’s a little different from asking it on a postcard. From what I’ve read of the psych research, getting them to think of an answer is what makes the technique work — mentally envisioning something makes people more likely to actually do it compared to just asking them to.
RevRick
Today was a very good day for us. This afternoon we trekked down to Ardmore to join in celebrating our granddaughter’s 12th birthday. Rich, our SIL, smoked a brisket and ribs — he’s good at it. They bought the meat at a market near the New Jersey Rodeo (stop laughing, because it’s the oldest rodeo in the country!)
For dessert we had chocolate swirl cheesecake ( granddaughter’s request).
We bought her a portable sewing machine. MrsRev taught her to sew on her 58 year old sewing machine when she stayed with us for a week in June and enjoyed it. She has an artistic flair and just finished several weeks of Art Camp where she worked with a variety of media from charcoal to oils to photography to ceramics. We got to ooh and aah over her work.
Tomorrow, after worship, I will lead our church’s Green Team. We will be putting together some recommendations of goals for our church to undertake in the upcoming years as well as suggestions for our members.
High on our list will be installing solar panels on our south facing roof. We will also recommend converting the 20×20 patch of grassy area into a community garden ( we’re downtown Allentown).
Wednesday, MrsRev and I will go to the Savory Grille to celebrate our 52nd anniversary. It’s the kind of restaurant where you plan to spend at least two hours enjoying all the courses. We will.
Redshift
@JoyceH: They’re creating more workers by putting children into the workforce, so they must be pro-worker!
RevRick
@cmorenc: I wonder where she learned such competence? Obviously, she brought skills with her. But I doubt she’s been twiddling her thumbs the past three and a half years. Joe has been mentoring her for the job this whole time, so she can hit the ground running.
The big if is Congress, specifically can we hold the Senate.
CaseyL
@Another Scott:
It’s appalling how our space program is now hostage to a late-stage-capitalism parasite and a feckless moron fascist.
How is it possible the space station can accommodate two extra people for 8 months? They must be making their own oxygen and water, and growing their own food up there!
Sure Lurkalot
@BR: I like to include “Early voting starts (date)!!” to nudge people to not procrastinate and get their votes banked.
Shalimar
Steve Benen: Rachel Maddow Blog | The Rachel Maddow Show – MSNBC
He’s pretty easy to find. All his stories plus adverts for Maddow’s various podcasts are there, don’t even have to go anywhere else on MSNBC’s website to find him.
sdhays
@RevRick: I think “mentoring” is the wrong word. He made her a coequal partner, someone who was already so involved with the major decision making that she could seamlessly replace him at a moment’s notice. That takes two, a President confident enough to allow that kind of relationship and a VP capable of really maximizing that situation.
It’s a major indictment of our media that none of them noticed. They kept finding new ways to report the fact that Biden is old without bothering to understand, or believe, Harris’s position in the administration or the campaign.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne: Breeding livestock don’t need any status. /s
SpaceUnit
@Jay:
I’d love to see long course pools (50M) become standard for NCAA collegiate swimming, but that’s going to be a big, big lift.
Currently we’re stuck with short course (25yards) competition, and the sport of swimming has simply outgrown it.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro: Oh NYT! Suck a dead horse’s ass.
Leto
@CaseyL: so you got me to look at this and I haven’t found a firm answer. Probably bad search parameters on my part, but here’s what I’ve found.
From a Reddit thread:
The person answers more questions about different things, which is neat.
Some other sites with good info, though not necessarily answering food reserves:
NASA – Space Station 20th: Food on ISS
NASA Fact Sheet – Space Food
How Space Works
mrmoshpotato
@Starfish:
Don’t dwell on it too long. You’ll hurt your brain.
Jay
@SpaceUnit:
Could be worse. When I was a kid, the Aquanaut’s Junior Team, trained through the winter in the old UNB Student Union pool, which was an unheated 25m pool, September to May, 5am to 7am, 12pm to 1pm, 4pm to 6pm, every day except Sunday or meet weekends. 4 years of that.
Needless to say, hot showers were often used between laps to stave off hypothermia.
Meanwhile, the Senior Team trained in the UNB Gym’s heated 50m pool with full gym facilities. Turning 12 was a really big deal.
SpaceUnit
@Jay:
I was lucky in that I grew up with an outdoor, 50M, ten lane pool practically in my back yard. Long course public pools were quite rare back then, at least in my neck of the woods. I loved racing in that pool.
But it wasn’t heated, and 7am practice required fortitude. I often found myself dreading that first plunge and wondering why I hadn’t gone out for little league baseball.
hitchhiker
When I learned that Kamala and Barack Obama are friends, I knew that there was a LOT more to her than anything written about her suggested. Imagine being in a room with the two of them and their spouses …
BR
This cartoon of Trump and Melania is something:
https://beige.party/@AaronDavid/113019696347202616
sab
Yikes.
I guess this old bat should probably learn how to work zoom. My much older husband has been doing it for years with his virtual coffee klatch. Last week he realized that he was the only guy still in the hometown they all went to high school in. Everyone else was phoning it in from somewhere else in the world.
Maxim
@geg6: Woot woot!
Joelle
@SpaceUnit: Yes and No. There’s a big competition style pool exclusively for competitive swimming. Today I was at the out door pool in the student fitness center. I’ve never seen Marchand here but supposedly he would swim in this pool for fun while he was an undergraduate. He recently graduated.
KatKapCC
@RevRick:
I know you didn’t mean it this way, but this phrasing is a bit condescending. She’s a grown woman with a long and strong resume in both law and politics. She’s not a child nor a neophyte.
SpaceUnit
@Joelle:
Very cool!
mrmoshpotato
@CaseyL: They do have CO2 scrubbers and water reclamation, ya know?
As for food, reports have been that there’s plenty to sustain 2 extra people.
Maxim
Just got an email from the Postcards to Swing States people that thanks to the surge of enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz campaign, they have signups for all of the 36 million postcards they planned to send out (over 265,000 volunteers). Very exciting!
They still have paid door-knocking gigs in some of the swing states.
Gloria DryGarden
I went straight to my library catalogue and reserved this book, so I can come to the book group zoom. It’s coming in 3 weeks, Denver library has 4 copies, and I’m #5 on the hold list; so excited. I hope I can stand to read it. I’m more of a fiction person, but this sounds like a useful read.
re mentoring MVP, it makes sense to me, that there are layers of complexity to a great many situations, both nationally and internationally, and that joe Biden will have been including Ms Harris in so much that will be valuable and helpful, as she takes the helm in January. No matter her experience and grown up stays, I think there is undoubtedly more to learn. I’m glad to think he’s been mentoring her.
thalarctosMaritimus
(deleted because comments apparently don’t support HTML spoiler tags)
thalarctosMaritimus
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL: The US space program has always been driven to some degree by people with terrible politics. It comes with the territory of space rockets basically being repurposed WMD technology.
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL: The space station gets regularly resupplied with uncrewed cargo rockets from Earth.
That’s a big difference between space-station stays and interplanetary travel. People have stayed up there for as long as a crewed Mars mission. But when you’re in low Earth orbit, you always have options for evacuation, means of resupply and ways of getting some help if something goes wrong. In interplanetary space, with a lag of minutes even in speed-of-light communication, you’re much more on your own. That’s without even considering the radiation hazards of being outside of Earth’s magnetosphere.
The Lodger
@zhena gogolia: “Plan for when you’ll vote” is my way of bringing up the topic without asking any potentially invasive questions.