As a singer turns 80, the Christmas song she sang as a teen is a holiday staple https://t.co/BDovHE384W
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 15, 2024
The Senate is pushing toward a vote on legislation that would provide full Social Security benefits to millions of people, setting up potential passage in the final days of the lame-duck Congress. https://t.co/G8dOaE2qXI
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 15, 2024
The Senate is pushing toward a vote on legislation that would provide full Social Security benefits to millions of people, setting up potential passage in the final days of the lame-duck Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday he would begin the process for a final vote on the bill, known as the Social Security Fairness Act, which would eliminate policies that currently limit Social Security payouts for roughly 2.8 million people.
Schumer said the bill would “ensure Americans are not erroneously denied their well-earned Social Security benefits simply because they chose at some point to work in their careers in public service.”
The legislation passed the House on a bipartisan vote, and a Senate version of the bill introduced last year gained 62 cosponsors. But the bill still needs support from at least 60 senators to pass Congress. It would then head to President Biden…
Decades in the making, the bill would repeal two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that broadly reduce payments to two groups of Social Security recipients: people who also receive a pension from a job that is not covered by Social Security and surviving spouses of Social Security recipients who receive a government pension of their own…
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said last month that the current federal limitations “penalize families across the country who worked a public service job for part of their career with a separate pension. We’re talking about police officers, firefighters, teachers, and other public employees who are punished for serving their communities.”
He predicted the bill would pass.
Members of the House authored a letter urging President Joe Biden to take action to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, protecting rights for all regardless of sex, before he leaves office early next year.
Story: https://t.co/cSmDL6CFUM pic.twitter.com/4qvfLVmhdJ
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) December 15, 2024
Update on those ‘UFOs’…
The worse news is that many of these are manned drones full of foreign nationals. https://t.co/jpS9Rb5MDr
— Pinboard (@Pinboard) December 15, 2024
Holidays When We Were Little – Albatrossity – Christmas (cards) from when we were little
Jeffro
Good morning, Jackals!
Mrs. Fro and I have decided that instead of watching DIE HARD on Christmas Day this year, we’re going to watch A MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL and DIE HARD. Double feature!! Double popcorn!! Woot!
No decision yet on Chinese takeout vs Thai takeout though…that might have to be a game-time decision…
Have a great week!
LeftCoastYankee
I did not have “confused by planes” on my 2024 bingo card.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
I have watched both this Christmas Season.
My double feature next weekend will be
The Bishop’s Wife
The Preacher’s Wife
🤗🤗🤗
Spanky
@LeftCoastYankee:
My jeenius former governor, Larry Hogan:
The response:
No One You Know
How appropriate that the only Social Security action being reported is to help government employees. The income cap is still in place. My advisor warned me to budget for an 8% cut scheduled right around the time I qualify for full benefit. I hope I can wait that long. SS itself is still taxed.
Medicare at risk. Student loan forgiveness at risk. I assume no news is bad news on judicial confirmations.
But they took care of themselves. Meanwhile the flood of blame-and-shame emails about Democratic fundraising failures continues while the ability to make contributions will be very much affected in future. I can’t unsubscribe fast enough.
I really hope Schumer’s career– and Merrick Garlsnd’s–is over.
lowtechcyclist
@LeftCoastYankee:
Well, former MD Gov Larry Hogan has that one beat. As reported in mistermix’ UFO thread yesterday, he confused stars in the constellation Orion for a UFO.
Good thing he didn’t get elected to the Senate, although there are Senators even dumber than that.
ETA: Props to Spanky for being quicker on the draw!
frosty
@Jeffro: Chinese vs. Thai takeout? Both! Another double feature!!
Soprano2
@Spanky: Why are they suddenly obsessed with the idea of a bunch of unidentified drones flying over the U.S.?
narya
@Soprano2: “Squirrel!”
satby
@Soprano2: So that when their god-king is ensconced they can claim he scared them away?
It seems Republican punching bag Adam Kinzinger went on TV to debunk the sightings as planes and other normal things and has outraged the MAGAites again.
Spanky
@narya: Can’t get more succinct than that
Eta, they also seem to be going all on in duping the rubes. And it’s absolutely clear how much respect they have for the average citizen.
Frankly, I happen to share that opinion at this point.
artem1s
I’m surprised they haven’t already claimed they are alien drones and Biden has been covering it up. As if any being who had the capability to travel light years couldn’t figure out how to disable the lights on their drones (ditto for the Chinese or whoever they think are driving the caravan of drones in their imaginations).
satby
WSJ is reporting (no link, saw it on the sky place) that business leaders are getting concerned that the convict isn’t giving up his intent to impose tariffs on everything. They better start sucking up hard to co-president Musk.
Soprano2
This bill helps people like teachers and firefighters who worked at other jobs but can’t collect SS on those earnings. I don’t think it has anything to do with members of Congress. They’ve been trying to fix this for years, I’m glad it’s going to pass because I guarantee you the next Congress would never pass it.
As for judicial confirmations, Google is your friend. They continue to confirm judges. Not only that, but three judges have rescinded their retirement to “senior status” since the election because Biden’s choice for them didn’t get a confirmation vote. LOL It’s pissing the R’s off something fierce. They also aren’t going to create 63 new judgeships for TCFG to fill, which is a shame in a way because they need those seats, but not if they’re going to be filled with Federalist Society picks.
As for Medicare and student loan forgiveness, I doubt there’s anything this Congress could do about those problems. The American people decided the fantasy of traveling back in time before Covid was more important than anything else, so they voted for the person who promised him he could do that for them.
Spanky
@artem1s: Ah. About that:
LeftCoastYankee
@Spanky:
“Paranoid about stars” also not on the card.
Oy.
Jeffro
@frosty: my guess is that it’ll be Chinese for Fro Jr and Thai for the rest of us. But yeah, we might over-order a bit from each place…a happy ‘accident’. =)
“…oh NO…look at all this extra food that we SOMEhow ordered…WHATEVER shall we do?”
Soprano2
@satby: I wonder how long it will be until Kinzinger becomes a Democrat. The sudden obsession with drones makes me think Fox News or another of those channels suddenly started talking about it.
LeftCoastYankee
@lowtechcyclist:
stars “move” in the sky but those would be some really slow drones.
I’m definitely glad Maryland passed on him.
Soprano2
Part of me gets this, because he lies about everything so they had some justification for thinking he was lying about this too. However, he did a lot with tariffs in his first term; you’d think they would have noticed that. Just wait until farm workers and slaughterhouse workers start being rounded up and deported.
satby
@Jeffro: somewhat jealous as the only decent Chinese food place I found here closed, and the one everyone here raved about was borderline inedible to someone raised in a city with a large and active Chinatown. But for people who consider Cheese Wiz cheese it wasn’t surprising.
Jeffro
@Spanky: I have to admit, “Iranian mothership off the coast launching drones that spy on the U.S. at night” was not on my list of made-up shit that the Repubs were gonna use to keep their base fearful and in line.
But it’s important to keep the rubes in a near-constant state of panic, I guess.
I’m currently racking my brain for what they’ll do this coming spring. Maybe something like “sentient zucchini in your garden” or “a cloud of migrating vampire butterflies”? It’s clearly not possible to underestimate the stupidity.
Kay
Luigi has a very good lawyer. Trial should be interesting.
Harrison Wesley
@Spanky: Poor New Jersey. First Martians, now Iranians.
satby
@Soprano2: He publicly supported Harris for President, but at the same time reiterated he is a conservative and hoped his party would get back to principled conservatism once the trump fever breaks. Poor guy. Who wants to tell him?
Trivia Man
@artem1s: I have seen both explanations- biden administration is either in cahoots with the aliens and planning a coup with their help
or
he is mystified and has no clue. The aliens are coming in support of trump because they, idk, fear his power or think he will be a worthy ally.
artem1s
if the GOP is so concerned about SS or the debt they can fix that too. Just make everyone pay taxes on the first $500K of income and capital gains combined ($1M filing jointly). easy peasy and I’ll bet we’re good thru the end of the century with COLA’s to boot.
#KeepthegovernmentoutofmySS
Kay
I had a deputy sheriff try show me UFO’s over NJ on his phone. I said “I’m not looking at that”. Ten years ago I would have politely listened – I just no longer care about their feelings.
I wonder if they latched onto this because Trump won so media/Republican discussion of voter fraud disappeared. They needed a new threat.
karensky
@narya: Perfect. I live in Philly and I can’t wait until this imaginary drone business ends!
Trivia Man
@satby: clearly they missed the asterisk: exemptions may be granted after a small courtesy filing fee and my personal review
Quinerly
Very impressed with pretty much everything about Tucson so far. Love rental casita in one of the old barrios. Nice rehab of an old unit part of a 3 casita compound. Met the owner on a fluke. Had a nice political discussion that fit right into my questions about the area and the rehab of his property. He actually went to undergrad in Santa Fe. I had forgotten that he is a wildlife biologist who works with reptiles in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts. Lots of personal touches in the casita. He and his wife really put a lot of care into this. Top quality bed linens, towels, cutlery, soaps, lotions, candles, teas and coffees. Great art. And my first experience with a “Frame Smart TV.” I just love itvwhen an AirBnB host “gets it” and sees to set up his/her place the correct way. I’ll definitely come back to this neighborhood and his place. Maybe for a month in Jan 2026. Little yard for JoJo. Nice front porch for porch sitting to see people on the side walk. Urban noises….traffic, sirens, sound of children. Have kinda missed that since moving from St. Louis city. Very friendly locals. Mostly Hispanic. But also a young non Hispanic crowd. And great Christmas decorations on the street. Sheriff’s deputy lives across the streer. Mixed neighborhood food wise. Walked to a lovely Ethiopian restaurant for a late lunch. Love me some injera.
Bot Garden today and a JoJo hike. Exploring the neighborhood to check out food and markets also today. Did the driving loop of Saguaro NP (Rincon side) yesterday AM. Those Saguaros were so majestic that I found myself tearing up. Just gorgeous.
Have a great day BJers.
LeftCoastYankee
Just thinking about what the numnuts are screaming about this week is killing my brain cells.
It’s like a shitty tasting cocktail that skips straight to hangover.
Jeffro
@artem1s: It’s amazing that most Americans don’t know that Social Security taxes are capped – you only pay them on the first $169K or so in income, everything after that is SS-tax-free.
Lift the cap and voila! Instant solvency for as far as the eye can see.
Trivia Man
@Spanky: there is a good point to make. How can the official position be 1) we have no idea what they are and who is behind them
and simultaneously 2) there is absolutely no security risk or public danger
TBone
@satby: hahahaha! I feel your pain.
Trivia Man
@Jeffro: there is a short sci fi story from about 1950 called The Silly Season. Big scares of possible alien invasion. Each one debunked as something completely silly and harmless. Those were to lull us, when the REAL invasion started nobody believed it until too late.
BritinChicago
@Soprano2: “This bill helps people like teachers and firefighters who worked at other jobs but can’t collect SS on those earnings. I don’t think it has anything to do with members of Congress.”
—Thanks for putting the record straight. It’s an important matter for those who have been unfairly penalized, most of whom are former employees of state and local governments. Whether some legislators, Federal or state, benefit, I don’t know, but if so they are a tiny fraction of the total number of beneficiaries.
TBone
@Kay: that’s a good thing in some respects as it will allow us court observers a break from from *waves hand at all of the current MSM narrative
Spanky
@Harrison Wesley: Persian restaurants! What’s not to love?
ColoradoGuy
Tucson is great. Amazing food, a diverse college town, a nearby observatory with tours, and the seriously scary Missile Museum about 20 miles to the south. And … the University has the Ansel Adams library.
artem1s
@Jeffro:
Whatever it is, you can bet they will completely ignore the real threat right in front of their noses. See Condi Rice, August 8 memo.
TBone
@Jeffro: one weird trick will never work (Marvin the Martian voice: “We’ll all be killed!”).
Kay
I saw this “consensus reality” concept – the idea that there are sets of facts that society generally agrees upon and those form a kind of bedrock one can build both “A society” around and also individual social relationships.
That’s my biggest fear with what’s happening – its like swimming and trying over and over to touch bottom. So when the deputy sheriff tells me he’s in this kind of optional reality I see that conversation as hopeless. We would have to go back to “what a plane looks like” or “stars exist” to have any real exchange and it just isn’t worth it.
Geminid
I gotta repost this story. It’s about the foremost leader of the Syrian revolution, Mohammed al-Jolani. There is a picture circulating on social media of al-Jolani– who happens to be tall, handsome and single– cooking in a small simple kitchen, ladle in hand.
“Nathalie” from Lebanon posted the picture with the comment:
A Syrian woman responded:
Much good-natured banter ensued.
Apparently Al-Jolani prefers to go by Ahmed Al-Sharaa now. “Mohammed Al-Jolani” was the nom de guerre he adopted almost 20 years ago when he set off for Iraq to fight the American invaders, or so the story goes.
artem1s
@Jeffro: It used to only be the first $55K. Dems/Obama set it up to $400K I believe? That was one of the cuts in TCF’s tax bill taking back under $200K.
TBone
@Kay: I too expend such energy elsewhere, where it may have an actual effect. Don’t play chess with pigeons is a good rule of thumb. (They just knock over the pieces, shit on the board, and declare victory.)
Quiltingfool
@No One You Know: Well, I’m one of those big-wig government employees who might get a bit more social security. See, when I was in my 30s, I started my teaching career, after I paid in social security for more than 10 years.
In 1990, I made the princely sum of $18,000 a year as a teacher in a rural school. 26 years later, I was making close to 40 grand. I paid in 14 percent of that salary to teachers retirement, and 3 percent to Medicare.
Missouri teacher retirement is pretty good, no complaints. I get enough Social Security to cover Medicare Part B, prescription plan and $5 shy of paying for a supplement. This was a 75% cut because I had another government pension. I got cut because I went into public service. If I worked for a private entity where I got a pension (and still paid into social security) I’d get my full payment.
Before you start screaming about enriching these entitled government workers, you might want to step back and think a minute. Many of us chose the low paying jobs requiring college degrees because we believed what we were doing was a valid contribution to our society.
Starfish (she/her)
@No One You Know: A lot of judicial confirmations got done! I have been collecting these in real time. They may have horse traded with Republicans on a few, leaving like three seats open or something like that. But I was impressed that as soon as Elizabeth Warren told Indivisible that they were getting things done, it went down like this. So they had to do a cloture vote and then the confirmation vote. (I may be missing some people because I am just looking at things that I wrote down in the past for some other folks.)
Nov 12, 2024 5:31 p.m. — Vote
On the Nomination PN1960: April M. Perry, of Illinois, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois
Nomination Confirmed 51/44
On the Nomination PN1903: Jonathan E. Hawley, of Illinois, to be United States District Judge for the Central District of Illinois
Nomination Confirmed 50/46
Nov 14, 2024 11:38 a.m. — Vote
On the Nomination PN1744: Cathy Fung, of California, to be a Judge of the United States Tax Court for a term of fifteen years
Nomination Confirmed 59/37
On the Nomination PN923: David Huitema, of Maryland, to be Director of the Office of Government Ethics for a term of five years
Nomination Confirmed 50/46
On the Nomination PN1244: Mustafa Taher Kasubhai, of Oregon, to be United States District Judge for the District of Oregon
Nomination Confirmed 51/44
On the Nomination PN1749: Embry J. Kidd, of Florida, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit Nomination Confirmed 49/45
On the Nomination PN1463: Sparkle L. Sooknanan, of the District of Columbia, to be United States District Judge for the District of Columbia
Nomination Confirmed 50/48
On the Nomination PN1806: Catherine Henry, of Pennsylvania, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Nomination Confirmed 50/48
On the Nomination PN1905: Gail A. Weilheimer, of Pennsylvania, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Nomination Confirmed 50/48
On the Nomination PN2041: Sharad Harshad Desai, of Arizona, to be United States District Judge for the District of Arizona
Nomination Confirmed 82/12
Kay
@TBone:
I was glad to see he got such competent counsel. I want that for all defendants. Of course, he got it because he can afford it.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: My husband remembers when SS taxes stopped sometime in the year because you’d paid in the maximum for the year. That was a long time ago.
randy khan
@Soprano2:
The business leaders might have noticed that Trump thinks tariffs are a Swiss Army Knife of foreign policy and can be deployed for any purpose at all. He loves them, partly because he doesn’t need authorization from Congress to impose them.
Jeffro
Since “Iranian drones” is not technically a political subject, I am looking forward to roundly mocking the stupidity and fearfulness of drone obsessives when I see my MAGAt relatives over the next couple of weeks.
That and the possibility of polio coming back around. So much good material to work with!
Soprano2
@BritinChicago: I’ve got a friend who was a teacher who’s been on a hobby horse about this for quite a while, that’s why I know about it. She’ll be happy that they’re finally fixing it.
TBone
@Kay: bingo! Everyone deserves competency but only the few actually gets it. My hubby had incompetent legal counsel once and it was an utter horror. We didn’t know each other at the time. I received a pleading phone call from said whackjob attorney while working for attorney who was on oversight at the Bar Assn. (before I ever met hubby) and he was waaaay out there. When hubby later told me his story and I asked who his attorney was…it was a real WTF moment of what a small world.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think they’re so used to being angry and afraid all the time that they have to make up things to be angry and afraid about. TCFG got elected, which is supposed to fix everything as far as they’re concerned, so they need something else to give them that familiar feeling.
Quinerly
@ColoradoGuy:
You must be peeking at my spiral bound travel notebook that I keep for every destination. I was very disappointed to learn months ago when planning that because of security they have stopped the tours/visits for the “Boneyard.” I passed it yesterday. Wow, just wow.
Thanks for piping in. Have a great week.
Spanky
@Starfish (she/her):
Oh, I’ll just bet she’s just waiting for a defendant to smirk at her name.
catclub
well, once you pay IN to SS you are also owed payments back OUT. So those millionaires might be receiving more SS payments after they retire.
Usually higher income folks get a smaller fraction back than lower income folks, but that could be changed.
Also SS payments are taxable if your income in retirement is high enough.
BritinChicago
@Jeffro: Yes, SS taxes are capped but then benefits are correspondingly capped. I never know whether people advocating lifting the first cap also advocate lifting the second. That would make the math much trickier, though it will still be a considerable improvement in the system’s finances for several decades.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of lifting the cap in either version. Lifting it only on how much is taxed is a much more radical proposal, which undermines the idea that you get what you pay for in SS. I do think the tax system as a whole needs to be MUCH more progressive. I’m not sure that’s the way go about it, though it depends what is politically most feasible. (Probably no change in a progressive direction for at least four years. Why exactly is TCFG called a populist?)
ETtheLibrarian
As someone who lives and works in the Hill area, if this was the 13th, those drones were announced by the USCP though I don’t know how widely the news got out.
Jeffro
Yes. Anything he can do unilaterally = good (and come Jan 20th, I’m sure his definition of ‘unilaterally’ will overlap almost perfectly with ‘everything I want to do’)
trump also thinks tariffs produce Magic Money out of nowhere…money that punishes other countries, money that can be used to cut taxes (well, rich peoples’ taxes, anyway)
some reporter ought to frame it like that and see what he says. I guarantee he’ll be thrilled that the media finally ‘gets it’, recognizes his genius re: tariffs, etc
reporter: “so mr. trump…these tariffs that you keep coming back to…they’re kind of like Magic Money, aren’t they? other countries pay them, and we benefit?”
trump: “YES! See?”
reporter: “I was kidding, you dumb f**k”
Jeffro
EXACTLY THIS
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: I think my friend is the opposite, she took a job after she quit teaching but she will get only an extremely small SS benefit because of the pension from teaching.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I agree. There is also a kind of “low trust” that goes along with political conservatism. My husband and I talk about it in the local legal profession – how they deeply distrust even the members of their own community. They assume the worst about people and systems.
Phylllis
@rikyrah: We’ve already watched The Bishop’s Wife and the Alistair Sim version of Scrooge. Next up, Stalag 17, A Christmas Story, and The Apartment.
Soprano2
@randy khan: That’s what I mean, you would think they noticed how much he used tariffs in his first term and learned from that, but evidently they didn’t.
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
Wherever the GOP goes after Trumpism fades, it’ll make Trumpism look sane by comparison, just like Trumpism made the Teabaggers look quaint by comparison.
It’s
turtlesstupid all the way down.eclare
@satby:
He also put a clip on Bluesky that was good.
catclub
I agree. But someone pointed out that even a regressive tax system which does progressive things is a good thing. Perfection is the enemy of the good.
Phylllis
@Kay: I think mental illness will be raised as a defense. He’s at the sweet spot age for Schizophrenia to emerge.
TBone
Two seasonal faves:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Who_Came_for_Christmas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Memory
Starfish (she/her)
Should I be in the comments of some morning threads with the nominations I am seeing done the day before? I have found that to be comforting. It’s usually a few a day. It really is amazing what they can get done when Sinema and Manchin are no longer showboating.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Given that the vast majority of Americans never come anywhere near the cap, it’s not too surprising they’re unaware of it.
catclub
All the cat hair in the food.
Suzanne
@Quinerly: Where in Tucson are you? Sam Hughes? Armory Park?
Ex-Mr. Suzanne used to live in Iron Horse. There’s a bar there called the Buffet that opens at 5 AM and a man was killed in front of I was a 2×4 back in the 70s.
Donatellonerd
the social security affects expats too. if it passes the US won’t cut my pretty meager social security payments (but I barely worked paid in for 10 years before moving to France, so i never expected much) to be half of my even more meager French pension (which i just started collecting this year). Semi-retired means i have some income, but i’m still required to pay retirement as long as I work, though it won’t raise my retirement). i hope Cassidy’s payment means it will pass.
Starfish (she/her)
@catclub: My people are professionals. There is no cat hair in that food. There is saffron though. And possibly yogurt.
TBone
@catclub: hahaha, no meal is complete without it
Scout211
Some of the drones are really drones.
Phylllis
@TBone: Oh my, I haven’t thought of the Cleveland Amory book in forever. I worked at a B. Dalton Bookseller when it came out and it sold like hotcakes.
TBone
@Scout211: I said so recently but what do I know, and even if I do, I’m not telling. So there!
TBone
@Phylllis: he’s such a wonderful storyteller! I’m glad you have the memory of it!
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Wouldn’t mind one of those in Calvert County! We’re such a culinary desert. Thank goodness for EZ Thai and Pinky’s.
I don’t know if you remember that Indian restaurant about 20 years ago that was in an old house in Prince Frederick. The house burned down, and they didn’t try to reopen somewhere else. I still miss that place.
Kay
@Soprano2:
One of my younger sisters has gone Right. She got there by way of woo woo alternative medicine/RFK Jr.
But she’s always been vulnerable to narratives where large systems/powerful people are victimizing her. It makes no sense – she has an extremely secure job and is comfortable financially but this is the way she prefers to approach the world – its a dark and scary place.
The last time we talked she was going on and on about big pharma and I told her the “wellness industry” is a bigger market than pharmaceuticals. It’s true – its INSANELY profitable and almost completely unregulated and bigger dollar wise than big pharma. She was briefly stunned into silence.
Quinerly
@Suzanne:
I am 2 blocks from 5 Points.
BritinChicago
@Soprano2: Not yet clear it will really happen, I think, but I hope it does.
Kay
@Phylllis:
Agree. The social media posts from his friends looking for him broke my heart. I deal with a lot of that issue in my practice.
TBone
@Kay: have you sent her the John Oliver episode on supplements?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0wKeokWUU
BritinChicago
@artem1s: I don’t think it’s been affected by any recent changes. SSA (not yet staffed by Trump loyalists, so still reliable) says:
lowtechcyclist
@artem1s:
And that Presidential daily briefing was the culmination of a sequence of five or six increasingly hair-on-fire PDBs where the intel people were warning about the threat from bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The Bushies ignored the whole lot of them.
eclare
@TBone:
A Christmas Memory is the best short story that I have ever read. It’s damn near perfect.
Kay
@TBone:
As I said, I’m done engaging in unpaid educational work but thank you. I speak to her because I remember when she was funny and smart (if a little eccentric) and also I may be her only friend left. But I’m done trying to explain. It isn’t rational. She didn’t get there thru facts and so facts won’t bring her back.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist:
I remember it well because it was a regular takeout of ours. Still mourn it. I used to bring Indian home from a place on Dobbin Rd that isn’t there any more. Used to be a place in Adelphi (Tiffin) that was a favorite as well.
Matt McIrvin
Last night I saw They Might Be Giants perform at the Orpheum! And John Linnell at one point made a wisecrack about Larry Hogan posting a video of the mystery drones buzzing his house and how some of them were clearly the constellation Orion. “So now we know the constellation Orion is a government cover-up! Better get RFK on it!”
The drone phenomenon, of course, fascinates me because it’s a classic UFO panic of the type that goes back at least to the 19th century, except that now we have consumer technology such that a “UFO” may in fact be some joker snooping around your house, so there’s a whole other type of paranoia involved. But the people identifying them still have as poor identification skills as ever.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
The way I avoided that is TRUCKLOADS OF LIBERAL GUILT! It just turns into “large systems and powerful people are victimizing somebody else, and IT’S MY FAULT!!”
Donatellonerd
@Donatellonerd: Cassidy’s comment. (probably obvious but)
Donatellonerd
@BritinChicago: fingers crossed
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Keep Saturn in Saturnalia!
Also too:
https://flic.kr/p/2qA6K3t
TONYG
Millions of people are in the mood to freak out, so this is something new to freak out about. That’s about it, I think. Having said that … drones for hobbyists have been on sale for almost ten years now. When I first saw that back in 2015, my reaction was “how can this possibly be legal?”.
Miss Bianca
@Jeffro: That sounds like an awesome Christmas double feature! I may just have to copy it!
schrodingers_cat
With all the stupidity ascendant everywhere I am beginning to think that we are entering the new Dark Ages.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kay:
More accurate.
If he’d been half as aware as OJ was when committing the crime, he’d walk.
Gin & Tonic
I got an e-mail this morning with the subject line “Unique and Thoughtful Gift Ideas.” From the Government Publishing Office – yes, the Federal one. I guess I hadn’t thought of NOAA’s 2024 Fishery Bulletin as a stocking-stuffer, but I suppose that’s just a lack of imagination on my part.
Ohio Mom
@No One You Know: Most all of the people effected are retired teachers like my MIL and other retirees from local government.
Basically, if you were a teacher who was covered by a teachers’ pension who worked in the summers for a private entity and paid into Social Security then, you can’t collect any SS benefits based on your contributions because you are already receiving a public pension.
Or, if you worked in the private sector for the first half of your career and then went to work for a municipality, and are covered by a city pension, again, you can’t collect SS on all the contributions you made before you switched careers.
It’s a non-sensical rule. I’m betting it came out of Reagan’s attempt to “save” SS (read: screw over the little guy).
ETA: I am also pretty sure that taxes on Social Security benefits is another Reagan gift.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: See, that’s the personal touch. Shooting somebody is just so, so … boring, frankly. Murder/manslaughter should take effort, a commitment to task.
Suzanne
I have to say that, from what I have seen of others who fall into conspiracy thinking….. a good part of it is seems to be due to the fact that late capitalism is deeply, deeply boring. Grinding. Meaningless. Makes one long for a narrative arc, some dramatics, some motivation.
Kay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Well, I said “can afford” but thanks. I’m familiar with the US justice system.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne:
Like killing somebody with a 2×4.
jimmiraybob
I was in my back yard last night when I heard it approaching. Something was coming and the loud engine and chopping sound suggested a low flying drone. I froze, searching what sky I could see through the near naked branches of the trees. Then suddenly the flashing lights! OMG! [suspenseful music building to a crescendo] A drone attack!!!!!!!
Turns out it was a medical helicopter headed to one of the nearby hospitals that provide emergency care. I wondered how many people along its route, armed with an AR-15 and heeding the unrepentant 34x-convicted felon’s rambling about shooting them down, would actually open fire.
This whole thing reminds me of when I lived in Phoenix and deluded-UFOologists caused a hysteria claiming that “hovering” lights in the sky was the predicted alien invasion and it turned out to be commercial jets landing at Sky Harbor airport (when the observers were aligned with the aircraft and runway that they were approaching).
BritinChicago
@Ohio Mom: “I’m betting it came out of Reagan’s attempt to “save” SS (read: screw over the little guy).”
Good bet! It’s in an act passed in 1983.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Phylllis:
Bill Holden never thought his performance deserved Best Actor. His wife told him the Academy gave it to him because they screwed up by not giving it to him for ‘Sunset Blvd’.
‘The Apartment’ remains one of the best, if not the best, romantic comedies of all time. And it shows how Fred MacMurray could play awful, slimy characters–many of us grew up seeing him as the kindly father on ‘My Three Son’ so seeing him in roles prior that are so different is great.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
She used to do “contra dancing” – its like hippie square dancing. Its fun. I cannot imagine this dour, paranoid person dancing now. My sense is she spends most of her time watching you tube videos about bad things that are happening behind the scenes.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think some people have “victim” as part of their identity, so they have to find someone who is victimizing them. I wonder if they know that there is almost no proof that a lot of the things they believe in actually work or do anything.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: Tucson used to be much less civilized. I kind of miss it.
I went to college there 1998-2002, and I always kind of had this sense that I was, like, halfway in a foreign country at the time. Where laws didn’t quite apply. I don’t have that feeling about it anymore!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@BritinChicago:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/reagan-social-security-cuts
A good, if infuriating read, about yet another disaster policy that originated during the first Reagan Administration that’s “paying dividends” to this day.
Chief Oshkosh
@artem1s: Yeah, but I think Trump’s tax “cut” included doing away with the state tax exemption, which royally fucked more people, including those with income between $169k and $400k, along with (eventually) everyone with income below $169k. If I recall, there was nary a whimper in the press.
schrodingers_cat
Capitalism has been in its late stage since World War I according to Marxist intellectuals. Since we are past the 100 year mark tankie propagandists need a new term.
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat: Are there any tankies here? Or are you just also inventing narrative arcs and bad guys for yourself?
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: The urge to be part of an exciting, titanic struggle of good versus evil is a powerful one. It’s probably one of the things that keeps people coming to political blogs like this one. But effective political or policy activity is often itself boring and lacking in drama, which is a problem.
I was thinking about this in connection with an ongoing argument Rebecca “Skepchick” Watson has been having with her YouTube commenters about the effectiveness of various types of political action (nonviolence vs. violence). She cited a paper describing nonviolent movements as having a pretty good track record of effectiveness, and got a lot of angry pushback for this. All this was with her emphasizing that “nonviolence” doesn’t mean being polite or non-disruptive, nor is it safe– and she acknowledged situations where political violence is actually necessary.
But it seems like she has a lot of commenters who really, really want to be sadly forced by necessity into advocating violent revolution. (I don’t say actually doing a violent revolution, I suspect a lot of them would prefer somebody else’s ass to be on the line.) And I think this desire for big drama is part of it.
Fred Clark likes to talk about how important an element this is of pathological religious phenomena–“spiritual warfare” that seems like magical practice in all but name, Satanic panics.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I’m concerned about this, too. So many people want to believe in the One Weird Trick that will fix whatever their problem is, even in the face of better and better scientific understanding of things. Maybe people feel threatened by understanding more and more. It strips away their illusions.
BritinChicago
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yes, but Social Security is the least of it. The highest Federal income tax rate in 1980 was 70%. The huge cut in the first Reagan administration changed everything—not only the financing of the Federal government but the culture as a whole.
Jackie
@artem1s:
That’ll happen in a matter of seconds – if not already.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: People want simple answers to complex questions.
Starfish (she/her)
@Suzanne: She always rails against “tankies.” I am never sure if she is on Twitter intentionally reading people who piss her off, or if it is something else.
I mean, I will allow for “some people live in California and really know these folks,” but that is not most people. And it is not a viewpoint that has nearly as much power as the whining it draws.
I take the tankie world view as seriously as I take the street preacher world view seriously.
Kay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Also many public defenders are excellent. They do thousands of cases and they do it without the huge team of public employees the state has. They could make 10x what they make in the private sector but choose to defend indigents. They also lose 90% of the time – very difficult for intensely competitive people. Its genuinely noble work.
grubert
@Soprano2: I just heard AP network news (am 950, mpls MN ) report the sightings reports with no context.
Just ” drones have been reported over .. “
artem1s
@BritinChicago: I don’t know where you got that quote, but it’s wrong. The tax rate of 2.9% has been steady since 1980. But the max has changed every year since the 1990’s except 2015 & 16 and 2023/24. It didn’t go up above $100K until 2009 for the 2008 tax year (guess why). I was wrong about TCF repealing part of the Obama increase – it’s steadily increased thru 2022. In 1980 it was $25,900. Currently $147,000 for 2022-24. That may be part of TCF tax breaks for the middle class due to sunshine and phase out in 2025. So probably set to go up again Jan 1 unless they extend cap that with this new SS bill going thru now. That may be why GOPers are willing to sign it.
p.a.
Well we are talking about a party where >50% think the earth is 6,000 years old…
And the rest are too scared to say “wrong.”
tobie
@Soprano2: Thanks for the information on the proposed Soc Sec legislation as well as judicial confirmations. It’s easy to pile on elected Dems, especially at a time when we’re all enraged. But this also makes us like MAGAts, looking for an easy target for our rage.
Matt McIrvin
@Starfish (she/her): For some reason, I have a tendency to gravitate toward online social circles that include a lot of what you might call fringe-left types: vaguely far-left ideologies, of the type that fundamentally mistrust boring old liberalism, disbelieve that you can get anywhere good through electoral politics and yearn for some kind of radical reworking of society, are pretty common among artistic-creative types and comedians and some scientists and such. And, the thing is, I see a lot of truth in their frustrations so I can’t really ignore them. Many of these are very smart people who have fundamentally been screwed over by a market-capitalist society and don’t see much hope in tweaking it around the edges.
They sometimes say things that piss me off–but it’s coming from a fundamentally correct (to me) moral place where I can’t dismiss them like I can the right-wingers’ bullshit. I used to pay more attention to conservatives and fret about whether they might be right about some things, but I got that burned out of me sometime around the early 2000s for reasons you can guess. They’re not fucking right about anything. But some of the junior Marxists, I feel like I have to give them a hearing.
Almost Retired
@Quinerly: Tucson is awesome. My oldest went to college there (2010-2013). The kids called it UC Tucson – accurately enough, because all his friends in college were other Californians.
An obvious recommendation, but the hiking in Sabino Canyon is spectacular. We’re heading over on Wednesday for a short pre-holiday break.
BritinChicago
@artem1s: What I quoted has nothing to do with the tax rate (12.4%, half paid by the employer, half by the employee) but with the maximum amount subject to SS tax. That amount is indexed, which is why it increases just about every year. The increases are not a matter of annual legislation or tax breaks or anything of that sort, it’s just the indexing.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
I notice this a lot, too. From the people who very clearly fantasize about “standing their ground” and having a situation arise in which they can legally kill someone, to “taking up arms against an illegal government”. These freaks scare me.
But even learning about wars makes some people like this. I remember in high school history classes, getting this sense that there would be times of “not very much development” punctuated by wars. It wasn’t until I went to college and took history and philosophy — and specifically, art history — that I got more of a sense of how ideas grew and changed over time. It makes people see conflict as this heroic, wonderful, meaningful thing, and not as an incredibly destructive thing that should be really carefully weighed.
Matt McIrvin
@jimmiraybob: I grew up under the approach pattern for Dulles Airport and aside from being able to automatically ignore anything that sounds like jet noise, it gave me an automatic assumption about any kind of moving lights in the sky, that it’s clearly just an airplane because there are always airplanes everwhere. And this hasn’t generally steered me wrong.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Hell, I’ve absorbed enough of this from growing up in America that sometimes I get railroaded into dumb fantasies about how the death squads are coming and I should be prepared for some bloody last stand. And maybe they are, this does happen and Trump might be gearing up to do it right now, but come on, what am I really gonna do about it? I’m the last frickin’ person in the world who should be around a gun. I mistrust my own impulses on this score. But a lot of people don’t.
Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog
@Almost Retired:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63PjLkDrKjc : Youssou N’Dour – Old Tucson
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I remember hating The Apartment when I first tried to watch it, couldn’t even get through it, and couldn’t believe all my cinephile friends throwing bouquets around about it.
Well, some number of years later I tried it again and loved it. Maybe it was after Mad Men worked on me and I was able to withstand rampant displays of toxic masculinity, 1960s style.
Now the movie I’m scratching my head over is Notorious. I tried watching that one again recently – found it on a list of “100 Best Thrillers”, remembered liking it in the before times – and found it such a yawner I couldn’t finish it, despite the presence of Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Claude Rains.
Let the hate drones commence raining fire on my head for being such a Philistine.
HinTN
You give me hope, @Suzanne:.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: All of this is a big reason that I get annoyed by the “burn it down” crowd, even the kind of soft “burn it down” folks around here who think that the government needs a major reset.
Suzanne
@Starfish (she/her): Agreed. Tankies are fringe of fringe and they do not have any influence at all. A deeply weird thing to be annoyed by.
It’s just, hmmm, slightly curious that I would refer to “late capitalism” and then a commenter would chime in that “tankies” need to find a new term. A casual reader might conclude that that commenter was calling me a tankie. Which would be thoroughly incorrect. I have never supported, in word or deed, any nondemocratic governments.
p.a.
These things change as society changes, but IIRC most of the evidence over time from economics shows that income taxes disincentivize earnings a bit above 70% marginal rate. The “jerb createrz” (h/t atrios) have convinced Bubba Q. Public the number is much lower.
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: Princess Bride is a movie that I didn’t find as charming as many people do. Its not bad and has some memorable quotes. Its okay
Yeah it takes the trope of many fairy tales and turns into comedy fodder. But for some reason its just not as funny to me as it is to many others.
On the other hand I like Seinfeld that many here turn up their nose against. Maybe its because I am from a big city and it gets parts of living in a big city quite well.
catclub
… everyone has a high resolution camera/movie camera ready in their pocket and …..still, no photos of aliens.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
Agreed on ‘Notorious’. I’ve always gotten the sense that’s one of those films one’s supposed to go ga-ga over ala ‘Citizen Kane’ for a lot of technical, nuanced reasons.
@Matt McIrvin:
We must hang out in the same online circles and have the same general reactions to what we see said there and by whom.
eclare
@Miss Bianca:
I have watched Vertigo multiple times, and I’m still not sure what the plot is.
I tried The Apartment years ago, and all I remember was that it was sad, or maybe I didn’t get the humor.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s a lot of stuff in American government that obstructs any kind of really constructive change from happening, even the boring liberal type. It drives me up the wall. I feel like if it were even possible to pass a mainstream Democratic Party agenda on the federal level, things would be so much better, but it’s not. States can do it, but states are heavily restricted in what kinds of things they can do (generally can’t run big deficits or set monetary policy, etc., and wingnut federal judges are getting braver about nullifying their actions with reactionary bullshit).
What I never, ever buy is the accelerationist “worse is better”, “shake things up” take, where you want things to get worse to bring the revolutionary reaction. This drives some of what you might call left-MAGA behavior (though I saw more of that in 2016 than in 2020 or 2024), and that really drives me up the wall.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: It took me a while to actually watch Princess Bride – I had tried reading the book when it came out, back when I was around 13 or so and had just come off Lord of the Rings, but found the snarky tone off-putting as a self-serious teen. So I was unprepared for the movie becoming such a cultural touchstone for Gen X.
That said, when I did watch it, I enjoyed it. Who knows, maybe I would enjoy the book now, too!
ETA: However, still mystified by the appeal of Seinfeld, although I caught a couple episodes recently and found myself thinking, “huh, this isn’t as loathsome as I remember.”
TBone
@eclare: agree 1,000%
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: The literal tankies, the “Stalin did nothing wrong!” types, those I haven’t seen much of since I left Twitter which was before Elon Musk took over. There’s the occasional “we must adopt Xi Jinping thought” type but I suspect they’re not independent agents, so to speak.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@eclare:
One of the best reviews that helps explain why the movie grabs so many of us:
https://www.cerealatmidnight.com/2022/04/review-apartment-1960.html
BritinChicago
@p.a.: Yes, I’m also not sure where I read it but I do remember some reasonably authoritative study suggesting that 70% was about as high as the tax rate could go without a negative effect. (Though it was significantly higher in the 1950s. Perhaps there were offsetting factors.) I’d actually settle for a negative effect on growth if along with it we got more equal distribution, making the vast majority better off. All of this is pie in the sky, of course. (Though we would have taken more steps towards a fairer system if Manchin and Sinema had been more like real Democrats. I’m a great admirer of what Biden has achieved, but he could have done so much more with just a slightly better Senate to work with.)
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
I see some of this out there, too. I’ll happily enter coalition with people like this (if they want to), because I think most of them are motivated by the right values and are fundamentally good people. I usually view them as hopelessly unstrategic, which hurts my pragmatism brain. Quite frankly, I also don’t think we will ever win elections ever again without getting at least some of these people on board.
It’s the conservatives who are not good people, who would destroy us all for a new Range Rover and want to restore white patriarchy. Remember who the real enemy is.
WereBear
Yes. They used to not have any of their assumptions challenged because their world was so small. Now, for some, I think it is too big to grasp.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: For me, Princess Bride manages to lovingly poke fun at its source material while also succeeding as the kind of story it is making fun of. The 80s teen comedy, Better Off Dead, also managed to pull off that trick.
rikyrah
@satby:
One of the many benefits of living in a diverse city.
If you find a good Chinese place..and a good Mexican place..loyal customers for forever until you move. I have two within a mile of my house. Been loyal customers for 15 years now.
eclare
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I’ll give it another shot when it comes on a service that I have.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I mean, my instincts are more fundamentally Hobbitish–I would love more than anything to live in a decent society where I could just stop paying attention to this shit, live in some baseline level of comfort, do my job and mess around with art and mathematics.
And one of the things that bothers me is that I kind of DO have that–I’ve won some of the lotteries in life and could basically rest easy, at least for the time being… as long as I ignore massive injustices happening around me and various looming crises. And I worry about that temptation pulling me in a bad direction. I don’t think I really want any of this conflict drama, I just have this inner voice telling me I can’t walk away from it. But there are people who really seem to want it.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: One of my best friends has a theory that Princess Bride influenced an entire generation’s thinking about romance. Not sure whether or not I buy it, but it always sounds persuasive when she starts giving me examples!
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Agreed. I am decidedly unfancy. I basically just want to get out of debt (getting there!) and be able to enjoy my other passions and endeavors.
But I worry that my kids will have a worse situation, and I worry about other people who are not my kids!
dnfree
@Soprano2: Social security tax still stops at some point in the year IF you make more than the social security maximum. Happened to me way back in the 1960s once, never again. So your husband made more than the social security maximum when that happened. That’s the limit they are trying to increase.
Kay
Ireland joined Spain In intervening in the IJC case against Israel re: war crimes in Gaza. Twitter is now full of anti – Irish hate by Right wingers.
Lol. The Irish are the new enemy.
tam1MI
My mother, who just turned 90 this year, worked as clerk in a government office. When my father died in February, they cut down her SS so severely she would have ended up homeless had my sister not stepped and took over the house payments. This bill will definitely help her. I hope it passes.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: And like I said, there’s always the liberal-guilt angle, the worry that the stuff I’ve done in my life somehow made the evil of this world and contributes to the badness. And it has and does, to varying degrees, because everything’s an interconnected system. But the only way to have completely clean hands is to either not exist or somehow not participate in society, which humans can’t really do, at least not at scale.
The extreme version of it is the rhetoric in terrorist manifestos where they talk about how they basically have to punish random citizens because there are no innocents, everyone is doing evil in the evil system. As much as I deplore the things these people do, that angle gets to me, it picks at some guilt machine in my brain.
Miss Bianca
@tam1MI: Wait, doesn’t she get survivor’s benefits with SS? I thought that was a thing.
oldgold
Why does labor have to pay for all of SS and Medicare? I think capital should contribute.
A good place to start would be a financial transaction tax, also known as a securities transaction tax
(STT). It would be a tax imposed on securities transfers, including purchases and
sales. The tax could apply to the value of trades in stocks, bonds,
derivative instruments and mutual mutual funds.
A STT levied at 0.5 percent on stocks, 0.1 percent on bonds, and .005 percent on derivatives, could raise as much as $400 billion annually.
Also, as we discuss this, I remember the 2000 debate as to what to do with the surplus. Al was right. George was wrong. And, like so many messes we now grapple with, we can thank the corrupt Supremes.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I liked the original “Rosanne” because it was pretty true to how blue collar people lived their lives, and their house looked like people actually lived in it. Plus, all problems weren’t solved in one episode.
Spanky
@Kay:
What’s old is new again. Irish need not apply.
Soprano2
@Miss Bianca: I think part of the appeal of “Seinfeld” is that the people are so shallow it gives you satisfaction to think you’re better than they are. LOL
Soprano2
@WereBear: I think this is part of why people are moving away from religion. We used to need religion to explain a bunch of things we didn’t understand. We’re understanding more and more of those things, so some people’s need for religious belief is less.
CaseyL
Lordy, lordy, we just get dumber and dumber. I swear the shit-stirring over increasingly stupid shit is an ongoing research project to see just how malleable and easily spooked USians can be.
Defector did an article on the drones fear-mongering, noting that – along with Hogan’s not recognizing the constellation Orion when he sees it – some of the other images are simply of the night sky, with a bunch of stars, which people don’t recognize as being stars because…. what, they’ve never seen stars before? They’ve never heard of stars before?
I know, deep in my bones, there are MAGAts who will claim they have no idea what stars are, and will be out, and loud, and proud to claim to be more ignorant than your average single-celled invertebrate.
I can sort of understand the evil venality of the ghouls making money on rendering people this ignorant, mistrustful, and paranoid. What I cannot understand is why the marks are lining up to buy that cartful of horseshit.
Another Scott
@TONYG: ??
When I was a kid in the ’60s, my dad made “drones” as a hobby – they were called RC (radio controlled) model planes, boats, cars, and helicopters back then. (The difference now is that the flying ones have all electric motors and fancier cameras.)
Otherwise, it’s the same stuff.
Best wishes,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: The first couple of seasons are not that great. Especially the first season.
opiejeanne
@Soprano2: I’m having some pie right now. Mmm, pie.
tam1MI
To the best of my knowledge, her survivors benefits were cut down as well. It was terrible.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: That’s not why I watched it. Its pretty funny. Well written and had an ensemble cast that had perfect comedic timing.
Ruckus
@No One You Know:
I’m an old. I worked and paid into SS for 60 yrs. I live on SS. It is scheduled to go up 2.5% in January. Take 13% of my income away and I am going to be just a bit past pissed off.
OK way the hell past pissed off.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: They haven’t thought it through. The people advocating it on social media from the left are usually the ones, who find it too onerous to vote. Its sounds cool. though.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: I found Roseanne to be quite grating. The actor. I mean.
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL: Light pollution makes it harder and harder for most people to get a good look at the night sky, and when they do, it can be surprising.
Over Thanksgiving, I was visiting my folks in Virginia and my family was there with me–we were near the Potomac River south of DC and had a decent unobstructed view of most of the night sky, such that you could see all the bright stars of the winter constellations and a few planets. I was pointing out the major constellations and Mars and Jupiter. And my daughter kept exclaiming how amazing that view was, with all the stars you could see.
The thing is, it wasn’t even that dark a sky. You couldn’t see any of the dimmer stars that you can see from way out in the country, just the bright ones. It was the kind of view I’d had growing up in the suburbs. But it occurs to me that you have a hard time even seeing that from the tree-heavy, often hazy, even more light-polluted place where I live now.
That said, I know from the great previous waves of UFO sightings that many people were mistaking stars and planets and airplanes for alien spaceships even back in the 1970s.
LeftCoastYankee
I’d be curious as to how many of those sightings happened when different runways were in use due to crosswinds on the primary runway (typically a plane’s landing path is into the current wind).
So using a different runway means the flightpath goes over different areas who aren’t used to the traffic.
Where I used to live would get flight activity when the wind was from the North, which was rare. Also they had 2 E-W runways and 1 N-S so it added to holding traffic.
It was very windy in parts of the NE in the last week. Maybe?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
This has to be a right wing media operation to distract from Trump’s Project 2025, compromised, and/or rapist cabinet picks.
satby
@rikyrah: I will credit the area with lots of great and varied Mexican and South American food; and because of a good sized immigrant community really good Indian food and grocery stores too. So not a total food desert. Certainly not the foodie heaven that Chicago is though!
the pollyanna from hell
What Fam Unpent and Allowed to Live
Mark 7:24
5 7 8 7 5 4 5 7 0 2 4 5
Son of man brother Jesus was talkin’ that smack
4 2 0 x_ 8_ 7_8_ x_ 0 x_ 8_ 5_
with that Phoenician lady down Tyre and Sidon.
5 7 8 7 5 k k k 0 2 4 5 3
Then he called her a bitch, pushed away from the table
0 0 x_ 8_ 7_ 7_ 7_ 0 x_ 8_ 7_ 5_
’cause dog-food not fit at the table for to sit.
5 5 7 8 7 4 4 5 7
That’s when the fem was moved to object.
5 5 7 8 5 4
That’s when she found the way.
4 5 5 5 4 5 4 5
And that’s when she began to grin,
5 ^0 ^0 x x 8 x ^0
you know that she would grin like sin.
5 7 8 7 5 4 5 7 0 2 4 5
She was hip, she was slick, and she gave him the slip,
3 1 0 x_ 8_ 7_ 8_ x_ 0 x_8_ 5_
and she tossed him that line at the comical time.
5 7 8 7 5 ^0 ^0 ^0 0 2 4 5
Talkin’ smack in the hood, but she used it for good,
5 5 ^0 ^0 x x 8 x ^0
and I hope that I would do the same.
0 ^0 ^0 x x 8 x ^0
I wish that I will be the same.
5 7 8 7 5 4 7 0 4 5
On the day that the alpha clown went down,
4 5 3 1 0 x_ 0 x_ 8_7_ 5_
transfigured by joy, he plays his evil twin.
5 7 8 7 5 ^0 ^0 0 2 4 5
He’s abusive and foul and rightly smacked down,
4 5 3 1 0 7_ 8_ 0x_8_ 5_
so that’s how they say in morality play.
5 5 5 7 8 5 5 4 44 5 7
Nothing that is human is alien to me.
5 5 7 8 5 4 4 5 5 4 5 4 5 5_
See how he plays the clown. And he doesn’t care who judged it.
5 ^0 x 8 x ^0 5 7 8 7 5 4
The man don’t care who knows. There’s a joke in the book,
5 7 0 2 4 5 3 1 0 x_ 8_ 7_
there’s a smile in the book. There’s a crack in the book
8_ x_ 0 x_ 8_ 5_ 5 7 8 7 5 k
like the crack of a smile. There’s a crack in the book
k k 0 2 4 5 5 ^0 ^0 x x 8 x ^0
if you take a good look, it never was the crack of doom.
5 ^0 ^0 x x 8 x ^0
No, never was the crack of doom.
5 7 8 7 5 4 5 7 0 2 4 5
She was hip, she was slick, and she gave him the slip,
3 1 0 x_ 8_ 7_ 8_ x_ 0 x_8_ 5_
and she tossed him that line at the comical time.
5 5 7 8 5 4 4 5 7
Smack-down this always smile on my face.
5 5 7 8 5 4 4 5 7
Always and always learning for grace.
5 7 8 5 4 5 7
Don’t forget and don’t forget.
x_ x_x_ 8_ 8_ 6_ 6_ 8_ x_
You member how she passed you that line.
x_x_x_ 8_ 8_ 6_ 6_ 8_ x_
Remember how she passed you that line.
6 6 4 4 2 2 4 6
Don’t forget she passed you that line.
x x 8 8 6 6 8 x
Grinning as she passed you that line.
x x 8 8 6 6 8 5
Tossed it at the comical time.
gvg
@Matt McIrvin: Pollution was a lot worse back then.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Soprano2:
The refrain from these people now is, “You just wait and see.” wrt to Trump and fixing everything.
It’s the new “Just give him a chance!”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
Glad to see you back. People were wondering if you were OK