Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Everybody saw this coming.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Doing the Peoples’ Work

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Vice President Kamala Harris last night at the Naval Observatory, her home for the last 4 years, reminding all of us of our strength, our blessings and why she is one of them.

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— Maya Wiley (@maya4rights.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 8:05 AM

?? BREAKING: Senate Democrats just confirmed their FOURTH judge of the week, marking 225 confirmations under President Biden!
LFG until the last day! ??

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— Chris D. Jackson (@chrisdjackson.bsky.social) December 3, 2024 at 6:26 PM

Pete Buttigieg just released this video about America's supply chains

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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) December 3, 2024 at 12:38 PM

BREAKING: Rep. Jerry Nadler will not seek to remain as ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and is endorsing Rep. Jamie Raskin to succeed him.

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— Axios (@axios.com) December 4, 2024 at 3:39 PM

Same, Ms. Jacobs…

I really have, quite honestly, loved having Joe Biden as President.

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— Magdi Jacobs (@magdi.bsky.social) December 3, 2024 at 9:41 PM

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Doing the Peoples' Work

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)

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On The Road – Athenaze and Ariobarzanes – In the Footsteps of the Marathonomachoi: Walking the Athens Marathon (Part 1 of 2)

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Athenaze and Ariobarzanes

In November, we visited Athens, Greece—a city we love, and to which we return as often as possible—to participate in the 41st Athens Marathon.

Neither of us was interested in running 26 miles (or rather 42 km, since the Athens Marathon measures distances in metric). For us, the main appeal of the Athens Marathon is the historical importance of the route. That route is, of course, more or less the same as that used in 1896 for the first marathon race in modern Olympic history (won by a Greek amateur named Spyridon Louis). But it is also more or less the route followed in 490 BCE by the Athenians, who—after fighting and winning an exhausting battle against the Persians at Marathon in the summer heat—forced themselves to march 25+ miles back to Athens as quickly as they could to prevent the Persians from sailing around Cape Sounion and taking the city while it was undefended.

Because we weren’t interested in running the route, we instead experienced it like the ancient Athenians: by walking it as quickly as we could (minus the post-battle exhaustion and with the benefit of modern gear and modern roads, of course). What we discovered was a route that charmed us in the same way as the rest of Greece—namely, by confronting us with the constant interplay of old and new, ancient and modern.

What follows are two posts displaying photos that we took “on the road” in the most literal sense. With one exception, we captured all of these photos ourselves an old iPhone X, and we snapped most while we were actually on the go, with no real time to fuss about framing or composition.

On The Road – Athenaze and Ariobarzanes – In the Footsteps of the Marathonomachoi: Walking the Athens Marathon (Part 1 of 2)Post + Comments (13)

On The Road - Athenaze and Ariobarzanes - In the Footsteps of the Marathonomachoi: Walking the Athens Marathon (Part 1 of 2) 6
The Nikē of Marathon (km 0)November 10, 2024

The Athens Marathon begins at the multi-use stadium on the outskirts of the modern town of Marathon. One of the first things participants see as they approach the stadium (but sadly not THE first—see below) is Nikos Georgiou’s 2014 statue of Nikē, goddess of victory. Holding a victor’s wreath of laurel leaves in her outstretched hand, Nikē stands on a plinth inscribed with a verse written by Simonides in the early 5th century BCE. The verse commemorates the Athenians who fought at Marathon (immortalized in Athenian popular consciousness as the marathonomachoi, “those who fought at Marathon”), praising them as the defenders of all of the Greeks. Nikē herself, these days, now constantly weathers the attentions of tourists who clamber all over her in search of the perfect selfie.

Placing the statue here was, to say the least, an interesting choice on the part of the municipality. The modern Athens Marathon is, formally, dedicated to Gregoris Lambrakis, an anti-war activist assassinated by far-right extremists in 1963. Yet almost every bit of popular lore concerning the race associates it in participants’ minds with the battle against the Persians.

(We would love to say that the Nikē statue was the first thing we saw after disembarking the bus—but, instead, we were greeted by the sight of dozens and dozens of men peeing on pretty much anything they could at the side of the road. An hour in a bus is apparently too much for the bladders of would-be modern-day marathonomachoi.)

Dank Grey Dawn Open Thread: Crunching Numbers

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Repubs netted 58 state lege seats. 54 were in NH/VT/ME, which have the 1st, 2nd, & 4th smallest house districts by population; those 54 seats have a population of 517,162. (715,688 live in 2 state Sen seats Dems gained in OH.)
The rest of the US had 5,200 seats on the ballot.
Repubs netted 4.

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— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 1:32 PM

We’re going to be fighting to defend every inch of our national territory over the next two / four / six years, but we need to keep reminding ourselves that it’s not a question of overcoming an implacable revanchist ‘mandate’…

Dems faced a difficult election cycle, but we should be proud!
Felon is under 50% of the popular vote, not a mandate ranking 44th out of 51 elections since 1824!
In 2016, Ds had majorities in 29 state legislatures & 6 Dem trifectas. Going into 2025, Ds have 40+ state leg majorities & 15 trifectas!

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— Analisa Swan (she/her) (@analisaswan.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 10:59 AM


 
Important:

Trump and the GOP will have a historically tiny House majority. What that means.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202…

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— 🏳️‍🌈Scott Kelley Ernest 🏳️‍⚧️ (@mxscottkernest.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 10:11 PM

[Gift link]

On Tuesday night came perhaps the final data point proving that Republicans’ victory in the 2024 election was hardly the mandate-bestowing “landslide” it’s been cracked up (by certain people) to be.

Rep. John Duarte’s (R) concession to Rep.-elect Adam Gray (D) in California’s razor-close 13th congressional district race means all 435 House races are now decided, and Republicans have actually lost ground. It’s a loss of only one seat, but still a net-negative, leaving them with 220 seats to the Democrats’ 215.

That the Republicans held their majority, is no small thing given they’ll now hold the House, the Senate and the presidency.

But the narrowness of the party’s House majority has already given them fits over the past two years, and now it’ll be even narrower. That could have major implications for what happens over the next two years and how much of President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda actually gets passed…

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War for Ukraine Day 1,015: A Brief Wednesday Night Update

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A painting by Ukrainian artist NEIVANMADE. The words "NEVER AGAIN" are repeated over and over, from left to right and top to bottom, in a faded, washed out black against a white background. Red, the color of blood, runs and drips down across 2/3rds of the painting. "WHILE YOU TOLERATE TYRANTS" is written/painted in the bottom white corner below the three rows of "NEVER AGAIN".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

It was another long day, so I’m just going to run through the basics tonight.

Here’s the Russian butcher’s bill from the last month’s worth of Shahed drone attacks.

For the third month in a row, the number of Shahed-type kamikaze drones launched by Russia at Ukraine surged to record levels.

According to figures from Ukraine’s Air Force, Moscow deployed a total of 2,576 drones during November, up from 2,023 the month before.

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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) December 4, 2024 at 2:16 PM

From The Kyiv Independent:

For the third month in a row, the number of Shahed-type kamikaze drones launched by Russia at Ukraine surged to record levels.

According to figures from Ukraine’s Air Force, Moscow deployed a total of 2,576 drones during November, up from 2,023 the month before.

And the Kremlin clearly doesn’t intend to let up on the relentless nightly assaults — speaking in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is planning to increase drone production “almost ten times” this year.

In 2023, the Russian army received about 140,000 drones of different types, according to Putin. This year, Putin said, Moscow wants to produce 1.4 million.

This begs the question: How bad could it get for Ukraine?

Ukraine’s air defenses, bolstered by Western-supplied systems such as Patriot and NASAMS, have become highly effective at defending cities from Russian mass missile attacks.

But due to the high price of missiles for such systems, which makes using them against relatively cheap drones highly inefficient, Ukraine developed, and relied on different methods to combat them.

“They have established an approach using mobile fire groups and a huge network of sensors of different types to detect and track these drones,” Federico Borsari, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told the Kyiv Independent.

“They are using anti-aircraft guns and machine guns, even cheaper rockets, and these kinds of interception techniques are much more cost-efficient compared to Patriot and other types of air defenses.”

Ukraine has also become more adept at using electronic warfare (EW) techniques to confuse and steer Russian drones in the wrong direction during attacks.

GPS spoofing involves manipulating or deceiving a drone’s GPS receiver by transmitting fake signals, tricking it into thinking it’s in the wrong location and heading elsewhere.

Using both mobile fire groups and EW, Borsari says that only around 5% of the drones launched by Russia actually make it through Ukraine’s air defenses.

But he adds that just as Ukraine has adapted to defending against drone attacks, Russia is also adapting in turn.

When Russia first began deploying kamikaze drones to attack Ukraine in September 2022, Moscow used the imported Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.

Since then, Russia has begun manufacturing its own Shahed-type drones and developing new variations.

According to recent reports, Russia has been able to produce a variety of kamikaze drones, among them decoy drones to deplete Ukraine’s air defense, as well as thermobaric and shrapnel ones to inflict maximum damage.

The most significant, in terms of the size of attacks, is the number of decoy drones being employed by Russia.

Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) reported on Nov. 18 that Russian forces are using cheap decoy drones with foreign components to overload Ukraine’s air defense system.

These are reported to be a variation of the Gerbera drone. Made from materials such as plywood and foam, they are reportedly ten times cheaper than Iran’s Shahed drone.

While some versions carry explosives or reconnaissance equipment, some are equipped with neither and are launched alongside their deadly counterparts in order to distract Ukraine’s air defenses.

“Sometimes they’re decoys, sometimes they’re not — it’s all meant to create more problems for Ukrainian air defenses and to waste a lot of resources in tracking, detecting, and engaging,” Borsari said.

According to an investigation by the Associated Press (AP) on Nov.16, Russia has recently begun equipping some drones with thermobaric warheads, normally associated with missiles.

Thermobaric warheads create an intense wave of high pressure and heat that can lead to devastating injuries, including collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, and brain damage.

While controversial, thermobaric munitions are not prohibited under international law.

After a recent attack on the city of Sumy overnight on Nov. 22, Governor Volodymyr Artiukh said the drones used in the strike were equipped with shrapnel munitions.

In addition to the explosive power of the warhead, they blasted out ball bearings from the impact area. Two people were killed in the attack, and 12 others were injured.

“These weapons are used to kill people. Not to destroy structures, just to kill more people,” Artiukh said in a video uploaded to the regional government’s official Telegram channel.

Much more at the links including charts, graphs, and imagery.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Wednesday Night Open Thread

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Another beautiful day here in Arizona, with the temps hitting 81 with a slight breeze. Hit the gym this morning and had my first meeting with the trainer, who already thinks I am nuts because when they asked me my goals I growled “to outlive Donald fucking Trump.” Did a bunch of upper body stuff and they were also mortified by the crunchy sounds of the cartilage and labrum but said we can fix it. So there’s that.

The big news of the day is the assassination of the healthcare CEO:

A furious manhunt was underway in Manhattan after the head of one of the nation’s largest health insurers was gunned down on Wednesday morning in what the police called a “brazen targeted attack.” A gunman lay in wait for the executive outside a hotel in Midtown, the heart of the city’s business and tourist districts, and opened fire before fleeing into Central Park, according to investigators.

Surveillance video obtained by The New York Times shows the gunman walking up behind the executive, Brian Thompson, 50, as he approaches one of the entrances to the New York Hilton Midtown around 6:45 a.m. The gunman fires on Mr. Thompson, who stumbles and manages to turn toward his assailant. The video also shows what investigators said was the pistol jamming during the shooting and the assailant quickly clearing the jam and resuming fire. Mr. Thompson collapses on the sidewalk before the gunman flees.

We of course do not know why he was targeted- could be a disgruntled customer (UnitedHealthcare is one of the absolute worst in the nation), could be failure to make crypto payments for ransomware as someone mentioned to me, or hell, his wife or a jealous lover could have taken out a hit. Regardless, his death has not elicited a great deal of sympathy from people on social media:

“The bullets were out of network.”

“The gunshot wound was a pre-existing condition.”

“Your claim for thoughts and prayers has been denied.”

And so on. Obviously murder is murder, but after fifty years of being fucked by the Gordon Gekkoization of the country, the killing of a health insurance provider is not gonna spill a lot of tears around American dinner tables. Honestly, with the rich about to spend four years on a looting spree and the few remaining regulations and consumer protections gutted, I would not be surprised if there is a lot more of this. I obviously don’t condone the execution of these people, but I can understand it.

And there’s no need to build guillotines when anyone can buy a gun.

So if this was the case that it was someone whose kid died because they were denied treatment for a curable disease, it would not be shocking, especially when you read shit like this:

In an unprecedented move, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plans representing Connecticut, New York and Missouri have unilaterally declared it will no longer pay for anesthesia care if the surgery or procedure goes beyond an arbitrary time limit, regardless of how long the surgical procedure takes. The American Society of Anesthesiologists calls on Anthem to reverse this proposal immediately.

Anesthesiologists provide individualized care to every patient, carefully assessing the patient’s health prior to the surgery, looking at existing diseases and medical conditions to determine the resources and medical expertise needed, attending to the patient during the entire procedure, resolving unexpected complications that may arise and/or extend the duration of the surgery, and working to ensure that the patient is comfortable during recovery.

The greed pigs killed the concept of enlightened self interest, and now it might come back to haunt them.

That’s sad.

I expect there to be a lot of things like this and the chaos we are seeing in the world in France and Korea and Syria and Georgia and everywhere else. We are in volatile times.

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Wednesday Evening Open Thread: ‘Community’ Cannot Be Ordered on DoorDash

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The rightwing politicization of church has ruined the experience for millions of Americans. MAGA mega-grifts are directly contributing to the crisis of loneliness many are feeling these days with the traditional types of community connection they could rely on taken away by bigots and conmen.

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— JLRay (@jlray.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 9:42 AM

As a Person of Religion, I would be the first to agree that institutional churches inevitably devolve into cesspits of corruption & abuse. On the other hand, human primates need something to organize a community around, and yes ‘church’ is a time-tested delivery system for mutual aid.

I have an impression that future historians, assuming such exist, will consider the Rise of the Media-Driven Megachurch as a political development quite as important as the nineteenth century Burnt-Over District (read the link: Spiritualism, Prohibition, Votes for Women, the invention of the Latter-Day Saints… )

Church is fun. Christmas plays and choir and summer camp are some of my fondest childhood memories. I loved our pastor who told good stories and had a lot of football jokes I didn't get. To make it this horrible place of darkness and merch tables is just such a loss to American culture.

— JLRay (@jlray.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 9:58 AM

if you are 45 years old and have no meaningful connections perhaps you are not making an effort to connect with people or are unpleasant. man go to church. go work a fucking soup kitchen.

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 6:08 PM

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2025 Pet Calendar – Last Call to Check the List for Hearts!

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Please check the lite below.

If your beloved pet gets a heart, they are on the list below.

Please check both ways:

– for your furry friend on the “heart” list when they shouldn’t be

– for your furry friend on the list when they should be

Barbara I Francesca

A
Fair Economist Xavier

A
John Cole Curtis

A
John Smallberries Keyoki

A
John Smallberries Tiger

A
Michigander Gail Jax

A
Michigander Gail Leeloo

A
Michigander Gail Malcolm

A
Miss Bianca Roxy

A
ScampDog Biscuit

A
Sherparick Vivian the Sweet

A
Steeplejack Chip of Sighthound Hall

A
xephyr SuiTopi

A
Auntie Anne Chai

B
BrettH Cody

B
Chuck Stormaggedon Dark Lord of All

B
beckya57 Chicago

B
Big R Titus

B
Cthulhu Fireball

B
Cthulhu Skipper

B
Curtis Tilou

B
Elma EEK!

B
Elma Rodney the rat

B
HinTN Lightning

B
Lord Fartdaddy Athelbert

B
Manyakitty Heisenberg

B
pat Pablo

B
TaMara Zander

B

Please let me know in the comments!

Status report: Next step once you verify heart status will be for me to put up the post that includes each page so you can make sure your pet is in the calendar and spelled correctly.

Cover Art: We are going to have two cover options for Calendar A and one cover option for Calendar B.

I’m pretty sure that Duby and Dobby (the two dogs) will be the cover option for Calendar A and that Marley (the cat) will be the only cover option for Calendar B.

Pet Calendar Update 3 Pet Calendar Update 4 Pet Calendar Update

 

2025 Pet Calendar – Last Call to Check the List for Hearts!Post + Comments (25)