The stupidity is out in full force today. First off, the state of Utah, home of the Church of Fatter Day Saints where they literally guzzle soda by the gallon and you can find mile long drive through lines when a new Swig soda fast food joints opens up, has done this:
Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, over opposition from dentists and national health organizations who warn the move will lead to medical problems and disproportionately affect low-income communities.
Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation Thursday that bars cities and communities from deciding whether to add the mineral to their water systems.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Utah lawmakers who pushed for a ban said putting fluoride in water was too expensive. Cox, who grew up and raised his own children in a community without fluoridated water, compared it recently to being “medicated” by the government.
I suppose since the state’s #1 economy provider is influencer mommy bloggers and blonde mormon faced instagram models, they’ll all have veneers by the age 18 anyway.
Second, this spot of genius from our idiot in chief:
The article is paywalled and I am out of gift links, but honestly, the headline says it all. Granted, I am no google scholar business genius, nor am I a super business guy who has bankrupted casinos, but selling vehicles at a loss does not seem like something most car companies will embrace. I mean, Tesla can, because it is a meme stock, but I just don’t think this is going to work for everyone else.
Do not check your meager retirement accounts:
US stocks were sharply lower Friday as investors digested souring consumer sentiment and inflation data that showed an uptick in one of the Federal Reserve’s key gauges, underscoring the delicate state of the economy as businesses brace for President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The Dow tumbled 720 points, or 1.7%, on Friday. The broader S&P 500 fell 1.96% and the Nasdaq Composite slid 2.65%.
The S&P 500 is down 5% since this year and on track for its first losing quarter since September 2023.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures index rose 2.5% year-over-year in February, unchanged from January and matching expectations. Yet the core PCE index, which strips out volatile categories like food and energy, ticked up to 2.8% year-over-year from 2.7% in January. That hotter-than-expected rise signals that inflation, while broadly cooling, remains above the Fed’s target of 2%.
Are we great again, yet?
Finally, a blog announcement. I will let DougJ/NYT Pitchbot do the honors:
Fairly soon, we are going to release our first podcast, hosted by @johngcole.bsky.social (I'm like the executive producer and @heymistermix.com is the director). The early focus will be narcissistic personality disorder (Trump's).
Who can guess what 70s deepish cut will be our theme music?
— New York Times Pitchbot (@nytpitchbot.bsky.social) March 28, 2025 at 9:09 AM
For whatever reason, those two dipshits have decided that this is a good idea, and I didn’t have any real argument for why not, so I agreed. I am not sure of the overall wisdom of having a guy with a face for radio broadcasting from his bedroom at 7 am in the morning giving the guest my patented pre-coffee gen x lead paint stare was a good idea, but whatever. We’re doing it live.
Obligatory:
trollhattan
Oh goodie! [rubs hands in anticipation]
MobiusKlein
So the leader of a country gets to dictate prices? Sounds like communism to me, but what do I know.
Elizabelle
Podcast, hmm?
And saw that re Utah and fluoride. News broke within days of news that the Sundance Festival is moving to Boulder, CO.
Those two stories may not be that unrelated.
We all have a choice on where to spend our money, and why do it in a red state going backwards?
Professor Bigfoot
“Another white boy with a podcast” kinda slaps.
Jackie
How fairly soon will we know date/time? I don’t do podcasts, but I’ll try to make an exception for this! :D
Citizen Dave
I imagine it is only a matter of time before Mr. Brainworm has the CDC making the opposite recommendation on fluoride.
As for Orangeface, I’d love to a media person ask him how much a vehicle costs. Also, for shits and giggles, “What analysis did you and your team undertake in reaching the auto tariff decision?”
UncleEbeneezer
In before dozens of “I don’t like podcasts” comments.
brendancalling
Good luck, and if you ever want to drop by the Progress Pondcast, we don’t have video.
Jackie
Utahns will become recognizable by their Deliverance-looking teeth.
Lovely.
WTFGhost
Technically, no one has to watch Podcasts, so, you could hang the USB-camera from your left nostril hole, for all it matters, though it *will* create nightmares for the sound technician.
Um. Gen x lead paint stare is actually sounding pretty good. Good luck.
Elizabelle
Listening to “Personality Crisis” this very moment. David Johansen had authenticity.
Baud
Thanks for clarifying it’s not about me.
schrodingers_cat
Is it going to be another Bernie Bro podcast?
I can't recall, only commented a couple of times but wanted to supply the link
Gift link
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/trump-tariffs-automaker-prices-warning-928bc7a9?st=ZrCSwk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Just Some Fuckhead
How exciting. I was just telling the spouse how everyone nowadays has a podcast except for you.
WTFGhost
@Jackie: Probably not – bad teeth out in the boonies is usually due to poor infant/childhood nutrition. For LDS folks, the equivalent will be full replacement implants, probably in a very precise shade of white. Acid-proof, which means some will sue after tripping from a few squares of blotter paper.
WTFGhost
@Baud: Well… they didn’t promise it wouldn’t *include* you, just that the focus would be on Trump’s. Don’t give up hope!
John S.
@schrodingers_cat:
Of course not. It’s going to be all about YOU and how everyone is mean to you all the time.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: Well… it IS another “white boy with a podcast,” after all. ;)
But seriously, I’m not a podcast person but I’m ready to give this one a good honest listen.
One thing about the Blogfather is that man operates in good faith, and therefore there’s a real strong chance they won’t be as… culturally blind, let us say, as could certainly be.
RaflW
I’m still kind of relishing that the big airlines, who wanted Trumpublicans because the junk fees rules under Biden pissed them off, are facing:
US consumers who are freaked about their retirement savings & seeing inflation not abate, so of course discretionary spending like an airplane-based vacation is high on the cut-it list, and
Not just Canadian travel demand is plummeting, I’m pretty sure we’ll start seeing news that high season bookings ex-Europe (and even to Europe by Americans) will be taking a hit.
I’ve seen (anecdata, obvs) what looks like a rather weak spring break at the CO ski areas I frequent. The Denver Post ran a piece today saying that despite very good snow conditions – and storms coming the next 7-9 days – ski areas are sticking to their planned closure dates. I think this reflects what they see as weak bookings into April, so why bother spending on labor, utilities and added wear and tear for us passholders. We don’t earn them much in late season.
sentient ai from the future
Yoga and sex stuff get all the western interest, but i’d like to hear more about the tantric philosophy as it pertains to, say, HVAC repair. Looking for references, if anyone can offer suggestions.
ETA: this is an open thread, right?
WaterGirl
So disappointed in you, John!
“We’re doing it live.”
Missed opportunity!
Professor Bigfoot
@RaflW: A particular form of enshittification, brought to us by Poorly Regulated Capitalism.
Mike E
@John S.: heh
trollhattan
@Jackie:
I’m guessing this opens the doors for a Mormon-owned MLM fluoride-free toothpaste brand to dovetail with this exciting public health initiative. “Please come to this exciting opportunity to improve your family’s and neighbors’ health, while earning thousands per week!”
Fun fact: the John Birch Society was vociferously anti fluoridation back in the 1950s. Nothing is ever new, it would seem.
WaterGirl
@I can’t recall, only commented a couple of times but wanted to supply the link: Thanks for that!
trollhattan
@sentient ai from the future:
“Summer is coming.”
—Game of
ThronesDesert RatsJackie
Regarding JC’s cryptic Wall Street announcement:
*As they continue to vote against their constituents by voting for billionaire tax cuts for fear of being primaried…
tam1MI
Now I’m wondering what “deepish cut” the theme song will be…
I vote for MOVING IN STEREO.
Doug R
@Professor Bigfoot:
WHEN WILL OLD WHITE GUYS GET A VOICE!!!
JML
This is so dumb. what’s next, bringing back polio?
The Death of Expertise strikes again.
Gotta love the cowardice from the auto industry, who rather than stab the Current Occupant in the face, the corporate masters seem ready to cower in the corner. Hells bells, democrats saved the goddamn auto industry and they’d still rather beg and scrape before a republican. Are their no business leaders who are anything other than greedy sh!tbags who only care about how much cash they can scrape into the C-suite?
Seanly
LOL, I am sure that the cost of cars in the US won’t go up since Big Daddy Twump said not to do so. It’s only Congress that grovels like beaten stepchildren at his every whim.
Mr. Bemused Senior
They have a voice. Listen carefully, they [ we 😁 ] are yelling at clouds.
Old Man Shadow
Jesus suffering fuck…
Half of this country is about a week away from burning museums and libraries to the ground for witchcraft.
opiejeanne
Trump warns automakers… or what? What will he do to them?
CaseyL
I’ll give a podcast a listen if I know the hosts or the subject matter are of interest to me. so I will definitely tune in on this one – do please give us a heads up when it… airs? streams? whatever.
Not sure if you have a Wardrobe Consultant, but I’d be tickled if you wore your tie dye overalls.
sentient ai from the future
@JML: you’re thinking small. We still have vials of smallpox in storage at the nih somewhere, don’t we?
Chetan Murthy
A couple years ago I had to get -three teeth- replaced with implants. Holey moley that shit is pricey! Since then, haha, I go to my dentist religiously when they tell me to. B/c …. cheaper than implants, damn! Maybe all LDS folks are rich? B/c I don’t see how middle-class people pay for these things, I really don’t. I actually debated whether it was really necessary to get these suckers, b/c wow, sticker shock.
Mr. Bemused Senior
He will take all their eggs.
Professor Bigfoot
@Doug R: When you do, it won’t be hip-hop.
(personally, I really love electro-swing; it’s like the big band jazz of the 30s and 40s done with electric and electronic instruments and modern recording technology. Don’t talk! Dance!)
RaflW
@Jackie: Elected Republicans – Grovelers in the streets, grumblers in the sheets.
Old School
You should tell DougJ that he can blog here. He doesn’t need to go to Substack.
sentient ai from the future
I’m putting down a marker.
Title song
jonas
I hadn’t taken in some good Pitchbot headlines in a while, so I headed over to Bluesky. There are some gems:
Heh.
sentient ai from the future
@Old School: he don’t need to go to substack
RaflW
@Mr. Bemused Senior: “What will he do to them?”
He’ll issue another batshit E.O. and Pam Bondi will investigate them for ‘price gouging.’ None of it really needs to pass muster, it just has to look really mean, and be a p.i.t.a. to get waived off.
I’m glad (from the prev. thread) to see some firm pushing back on the E.O. garbage. Trump clearly acts like these ‘orders’ are royal decrees, but unless the gormless Supremes let it become that, a lot of it is nonsense-bluster. Annoying to fend off, but bluster.
suzanne
Oh good, a podcast! Balloon Juice + a run will result in Suzanne at Peak Snark.
dr. luba
When I was young, the suburb I lived in was still a largely vacant township, and many residents were without sewers or city water. I remember that parents could sign their kids up for fluoride treatments at school–this was grade school, no idea if it was free or paid for. We never signed up, we had city water by then.
The schools/towns once looked after their kids. I didn’t realize I was living in a communist hellhole.
Elizabelle
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Trump take eggs. Trump take cars.
Elon take jobs.
Old School
@sentient ai from the future:
Their theme song will be the New York Dolls – Personality Crisis. It was guessed on Bluesky.
Ramalama
@schrodingers_cat: I giggled.
Also can John Cole can you please use “Shut fuck mountain” as a tagline for your bro-cast? See Betty Cracker’s video from the Hillary thread for reference.
suzanne
@Chetan Murthy:
Uh yeah NO, they are not all rich. Lots of single-breadwinner families of 8-10 kids, stacked 3-4 to a bedroom.
Betty Cracker
Excellent news — I need another podcast for my road trips.
John S.
@Professor Bigfoot:
I hope John has you on as a guest.
Someone has to get the message out there that the Irish and Italians are the most racist of all the white people.
John S.
@Old School:
DougJ used to blog here. He ain’t coming back.
JML
@sentient ai from the future: gah. I’m sure we do. I’m kind of hoping the people at the NIH/CDC managed to isolate those systems from DOGE and “lose” the paperwork before the “run in and break stuff” get ideas from playing The Last of Us
opiejeanne
@suzanne: About 40 years ago I read that Utah had the largest number of families that the wives/mothers had deserted them.
My cousin whose parents were “Jack Mormons” and were therefore not allowed to attend her wedding, cried for days when the doctor told her “no more babies” after the 9th one was born. My parents visited them in the 90s and half of the kids well into their 30s and 40s were living with them.
JoyceH
@Citizen Dave: I can absolutely see RFK jr coming out against fluoride. We already have kids showing up with liver damage thanks to his touting of cod liver oil as a miracle measles treatment.
And BTW, cod liver oil? I get so tired of this article of faith that an older treatment is necessarily better than the modern one. Ooh cod liver oil, like the pioneer women dosed their children. Yeah, well, that pioneer woman was lucky if she saw five of her twelve children live to adulthood and par for the course would be six of them dying before the age of five. And if she was lucky enough not to die in childbirth, she died an elderly woman in her forties.
tam1MI
@sentient ai from the future: Well if we are going to go 80s and 90s, then I vote for this.
suzanne
@opiejeanne: Doesn’t surprise me. Utah has the highest rate of antidepressant use and porno consumption, too.
BuT wHy Is ThE bIrThRaTe FaLlInG.
cain
ohhh.. nice!
gonna need a black woman as a counter point – maybe ABL is available! We’d have it all covered then!
WTFGhost
@Chetan Murthy: I could be wrong, but I’d bet a lot of it would be passed around the important parts of the community – they wouldn’t want their missionaries making occasionally suck/whistle through dentures.
Of course, not all missionaries are knocking on doors, so….
I’m kidding, a bit – I’ve heard that professional services are often incestuous in LDS communities, and if appearances are an important part of a group (which I gather it is, for the LDS folks), there will be corrections made within the communities with some favors paid forward or back.
Mostly, I was in the mode of “oh, let’s mock the powerful, who won’t have a hard time dealing, while they damage the ordinary, who struggle to keep up even now.”
trollhattan
Rolllll another one
Just like the other one
Donny wets beak, film at eleven.
Old School
@John S.: Apparently not.
But when he said he was going to start writing at Substack, I couldn’t help but think, “Wait a minute. I’m pretty sure he still has keys here.”
trollhattan
@JoyceH: Cod’s mostly fished out compared to historical catches so whatever is being sold as that, probably isn’t.
“We haven’t discovered antibiotics so in the meantime, take this nasty stuff because placebo.”
rikyrah
The Sundance Film Festival is leaving Utah for Colorado
Harrison Wesley
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m an Old. For me it will be trip-flop.
Chetan Murthy
@Professor Bigfoot: Oh la, I didn’t realize it had a name! I found this list https://www.reddit.com/r/electroswing/comments/14jpdmh/what_are_some_iconic_electro_swing_songs/ and yeah, I love that shit! I got Waldeck, Alice Francis, Caro Emerald, Parov Stelar all on heavy rotation. I esp. love love love Caro Emerald.
Kelly
General Ripper talks about water
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uonYyotd3TQ&ab_channel=CineStream
Chetan Murthy
@dr. luba: -I- remember lining up in elementary school (in Commie Delaware) for the polio vaccine! Administered by the school nurse!
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Shot or sugar cube?
Kelly
@Chetan Murthy: Same in Oregon
ETA: shot
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: sugar cube. I’m gonna ask my doc if I should get a booster when I see him in a week-and-change. Along with asking about getting other boosters too.
gratuitous
A podcast of Cole saying his two favorite words in all their various combinations* for a solid half hour. Yeah, we’re all in for that.
*Stolen from an anecdote in Jim Boutin’s book Ball Four about Seattle Pilots’ Manager Joe Schultz.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: I remember when that noted Commie President Jerry Ford instituted a crash national vaccination program against the swine flu.
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Sounds likely.
cain
@Old School:
DougJ was a big troll here. He wouldn’t be welcome in this iteration of balloon-juice.
Juju
@Citizen Dave: I’d ask him to define exactly, the term tariff. He doesn’t actually know what it means. That is something that needs to be pointed out daily, or at least every time he brings up the term.
brendancalling
@Professor Bigfoot:
@Chetan Murthy:
Don’t know why the spacing is so dumb and unfixable, but just wanted to say, as someone who plays and listens to a lot of swing, this is fucking great stuff. Thanks!
Martin
John Cole podcast feels like it’ll have big Well There’s Your Problem energy, and I’m here for it.
Nature did a survey of US academics and 75% of respondents indicated they are looking to leave the US, biased toward those early in their careers (you know, the folks whose groundbreaking work likely hasn’t yet happened).
In surveys, aspirations tend to outstrip action, so I don’t expect we’ll really see 75% of academics leave the US, that it’s even remotely that high is hair on fire bad.
ExPatExDem
I saw that the giant piece of chewed orange bubblegum pardoned some grifting fraud that had been represented by Pam Bondi’s brother.
WaterGirl
@tam1MI: The first cut is the deepest?
suzanne
I have to note….. it takes a truly staggering attitude of entitlement to show up to a community that is totally free, the writers are unpaid….. and then to preemptively complain that the content produced isn’t to your liking. Like, all the huevos.
Martin
@Jackie: Republican men love being dominated by other men more than any other category of human I can classify.
divF
@schrodingers_cat: Think more like Howard Beale from the movie Network.
cain
@suzanne:
Oh, you haven’t seen how it is with the open source crowd. Engineering time worth billions, given away for free and they complain endlessly.
Snarki, child of Loki
Will Utah communities that have naturally occurring fluoride in their water be required to remove it? Someone should poke those morons to see what they say.
(note: natural fluoride in water was how its tooth-decay-prevention properties were *discovered*)
Kelly
@suzanne: Well said.
Gloria DryGarden
@Professor Bigfoot: I laughed so hard. It was so funny. Oh, goddess! Imma look for more of theirs. Weird but hilarious..
jonas
Naturally when Biden and Harris talked about going after price gouging (that was, tbh, actually happening in some instances), Fox and the rest of the Wingnut Wurlitzer went into overdrive calling them out-of-control communist dictators trying to kill us all. This is completely different, though, I’m sure we’ll be told.
Leto
@Professor Bigfoot: it does; I was telling Avalune that as well. Catchy, good lyrics.
Kelly
@Snarki, child of Loki: I have a friend with slightly discolored teeth that grew up with too much naturally occurring fluoride. She said the look bothered her when she was a teen. As an adult she is satisfied to have never had a cavity.
dr. luba
@Chetan Murthy: If you haven’t had any of those vaccines since childhood, you probably should get a booster. I’ve travelled a lot, and got boosters of all those the first time I visited my travel medicine clinic.
My mom, who’s 92, was given an MMR a few years ago by her PCP. She probably had a few of those diseases, but can’t remember, and never had the vaccines. With all the crazy out there, better to be safe.
John S.
@suzanne:
Welcome to Balloon Juice.
trollhattan
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Heh GMTA.
We decamped Iowa for Seattle when I was wee and my bro would have been about 10. Iowa well water is like liquid rock and fluorides are part of the stew.
My bro never, as in ever got cavities while I got at least one on every dentist visit. That Seattle water from the western Cascades was soft as a pillow e.g., mom would use maybe 1/5 as much detergent for a load of wash.
I fucking hate having my teeth drilled. Hate.
dr. luba
@Chetan Murthy: I was too young when the mass polio vaccinations happened to get it at school. Instead our whole family went to the Troy Drive In theater and were given the sugar cubes as we drove through.
suzanne
@cain: Entitled assholes on the internet: many such cases.
lowtechcyclist
@WTFGhost:
Speaking as one who had to have one tooth replaced by an implant, I wouldn’t want to have a whole mouthful of them. You really have to floss regularly and thoroughly around each one, all the way back to that little post that holds the fake tooth you see in place, to keep the gums underneath from turning gross on you. It’s much easier just to keep the teeth you’ve got in good shape.
RaflW
Hey, ho! A.G. Josh Kaul is going to court against Musk!
MADISON (NBC 26/AP) — Wisconsin’s attorney general will take legal action against Elon Musk’s $2 million giveaway to a pair of Wisconsin voters who signed a petition against “activist judges.”
State AG Josh Kaul released the following statement Friday afternoon.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Maybe the theme music will be something by Average White Band. :D
lowtechcyclist
@trollhattan:
That would have been about the last conservative idea from that period that I’d have expected to make a comeback. I’d add something like “we truly are in strange times” except that’s blindingly obvious already.
ETA:
@JML:
They’ve already brought back measles, so who knows.
JCJ
@suzanne: Thank you. That is exactly what I have thought.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Sundance coming to Boulder was announced earlier in the week to much fanfare.
I know the former head of the non-profit that runs a well-recognized documentary film festival where we chatted last month.
I told him that Boulder doesn’t know what it’s getting itself in for and to an extent, neither does Sundance. It won’t be a consolidated place to see movies, in fact, they’re talking about doing some showings at Estes Park which will be the height of stupidity.
Park City’s Sundance map shows it’s not terribly walkable either in the later years, lots of shuttles so in that regard, Boulder won’t be different. They’ve indicated they’ll be doing a lot of this on the CU-Boulder campus and that’ll definitely be shuttled.
Boulder proper can’t even come close to the hotel space. There’s tons if you count everything between there and here in Denver but it’ll put even more pressure on everything come festival time.
They guy I know was blunt about the move: it was being driven by Utah politics. Not anything directed right at Sundance but the general climate. The 3 places that put in “bids” were SLC, Cincy and Boulder. Given OH is now officially batshit insane, my contact said Boulder was really the only choice given the politics of the state that Sundance wanted. He felt that SLC would have been the more logical and better choice simply from a festival standpoint.
Another issue is how festivals, even biggies like Sundance, are dealing with the post-Covid world. It’s every different than in 2019 and many are struggling to regain attendance and the entire “festival circuit” modus operation is coming into question.
One thing everybody local will not do during Sundance 2027: go anywhere near Boulder.
Gloria DryGarden
More bum bag Ice Bath
more funny lyrics, 3 min video. I never knew them, but I like.
JoyceH
OMG you guys. I’d thought that the Vance Greenland trip had changed to add JD and just go to the military base because it would be less embarrassing than to cancel the second lady’s trip because nobody wanted to meet with her. But there he is on the base, with uniformed military behind him, talking about how America “has to” have Greenland, and Trump is saying the same thing to reporters back home. Dammit, the Republicans in Congress had better do something fast before these crazy people get us into a war!
Ksmiami
@suzanne: cojones mi Amiga…
NaijaGal
@JoyceH: War with NATO (Denmark is a member)! How would that work? Does the US have to defend Greenland against the US?
trollhattan
Profile in courage from “anonymous senator” has be all spun up on a Friday.
Cool story bro.
trollhattan
@NaijaGal: I just remind myself that Hitler did shoot the guy who shot Hitler.
I hope our Strategic Leggo Reserve is topped up.
Ksmiami
@dr. luba: I did Mmr and Tdap in February. These raging idiots are going to kill a lot of Americans
Trivia Man
@Elizabelle: another likely factor for sundance is the brand new bill prohibiting pride flags on any building that accepts any government money
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I don’t know what the attendance usually is for Sundance, but I imagine they’ll need shuttles to all the hotels in north Denver suburbs, and to that ugly-as-sin eyesore hotel that ruins what used to be a very pretty drive through prairie along there.
LeftCoastYankee
This dovetails nicely with my new podcast: “Learn How to Stop Starting Podcasts: A Self Help guide in 800 parts”.
I actually stole that from a very funny series of fliers in the 90’s: Learn to Stop Starting Bands. It was posted all around my neighborhood in Portland one spring. I wish I saved one.
JoyceH
@NaijaGal: I just left voicemail with Mike Johnson, telling them that both Trump and Vance are talking on camera about how we have to have Greenland and the GOP in Congress is going to have to go public about how the US is not taking Greenland “because you know this is crazy and they’re turning the whole world against us because Trump is acting like Putin and we’re going to regret it pretty soon.”
Gloria DryGarden
@JoyceH: the only thing they “has to” do is go masturbate in private.
That would be a much better use of their time, than “having” Greenland,or destroying international relationships.
Free up the news cycle for anything positive anywhere.
Im just happy the rest of the world is gearing up to not let us/US start a bunch of useless wars against allies. This approach to take what you want to dominate and steal resources has gone too far.
Sure, European and western countries have been doing it for a long time. And now, against each other. It’s such a waste of years of diplomatic alliances.
(grr)
All this to turn USA into an AI-driven country and drive us to a landfill run by other dictators, so they can mine us? What kind of actual “more” is there? It seems like a sum that adds up to less, and then less again.
Rape culture meets international relations…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Gloria DryGarden:
72K in 2024 which was down from 116K in 2020.
Boulder’s population is 105K.
Gloria DryGarden
livid, yes. Furious.
would really rather he had a good couch to f himself on. I’ll donate one.
All the trained and experienced diplomats around the world, not just USian diplomats, are undoubtedly cringing and highly displeased.
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: yikes!
like preparing for the Olympics, kind of. Oh dear. Locals will need to do all their shopping in advance.
Hungry Joe
Steven Novella, M.D., host of “The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” podcast, explained that cod liver oil is rich in vitamin A, and a vitamin A deficiency can exacerbate measles symptoms. HOWEVER, he said, Vitamin A deficiency is extremely rare in all but the poorest countries, so pretty much everyone in the U.S. is just fine, vitamin A-wise. Furthermore, an excess of vitamin A not only doesn’t help with anything, but can be toxic. He added that liver has so much vitamin A that people have died from eating the livers of predators, because THEY eat the livers of their prey, which multiplies the vitamin A in the predators’ livers.
Novella said that polar explorers have died from vitamin A toxicity after consuming the livers of polar bears, so if you’re ever in that situation …
Dorothy A. Winsor
Have we gotten any details on the 4 soldiers who died in Lithuania? Trump seems to know nothing about it. Literally said he hadn’t heard of it.
Gloria DryGarden
Usa, Russia’s 86th oblast?
ok, now I have to go find some positive outcomes to imagine.
Or go look at all the pretty flowering trees and bushes that have burst open in Denver this week. Forsythia! Magnolia, pink, and white flowering trees, orange red quince bushes. I just have crocus, and a few early tulips. So dry here, and the crocus are way late this year.
There!
trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
“I prefer guys who don’t sink” most probably.
Clearly, Biden’s fault.
Professor Bigfoot
@John S.: Why don’t YOU do it, and leave me alone?
Quaker in a Basement
@tam1MI: “Up, Up, and Away in My Beautiful Balloon”
Scuffletuffle
I can’t wait for the podcast…now to read the comments to see what I should have said about it…s/
Quaker in a Basement
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Drove into a peat bog and sank.
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: so , nearly doubling the capacity of the city. Oh wow.
locals can open up air bnb’s in their spare rooms, and charge eclipse prices.
speaking of eclipses, is anyone going to see the solar eclipse in Greenland/Iceland/ Europe, Egypt? Is it later today, or is it tomorrow? If anyone is there, I long to see video/ photos.
i read the longest eclipse time was if you were on a cruise near Greenland/ Iceland. Or sunset in Portugal…
Quaker in a Basement
@JoyceH:
Meanwhile, Vlad Putin is telling the world: “Believe him! He really means it!” The crazy people aren’t going to just get us into a war, they’re going to get us into a war against our own allies.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chetan Murthy:
Thats the stuff!
This makes me chuckle every time I hear it, but the musicianship on the track– especially the drummer– whoo hoo and then there’s those horn arrangements.
Matt McIrvin
Mandrake, have you ever seen a commie drink tap water?
Professor Bigfoot
@Chetan Murthy: I asked mine during my regular two weeks ago– she said there’s no evidence that those of us who were vaccinated (sugar cube!) back when have lost our immunities.
She’s rather the careful sort, though, and with HHS and NIH and all the rest being crushed, we may never see that evidence until it’s too frickin’ late.
Gloria DryGarden
@Quaker in a Basement: um
“i have this sinking feeling…”
my poor thesaurus. Crestfallen. All the words are being used up, too much need for superlatives about horror and disappointment. Word play used to be fun. And now laughter is becoming a necessary condiment, if one can induce it..
zhena gogolia
@Quaker in a Basement: Oh, but they had the MAGAts screaming this past summer about how Joe Biden was going to send their boys to Ukraine.
Professor Bigfoot
@cain: CONSTANTLY.
But still manage to add value while they’re bitchin’ an’ moanin’.
Which is extremely human in its way, innit?
Gloria DryGarden
@Quaker in a Basement: does Russia have allies? Are we becoming one? And then what? A war between us?
sorry, it’s where my mind went.
unthinkable. Like so much in the news these days.
______
ok, to balance the despair. My crocus are purple, lavender, white, and yellow.
the year long saga with my city yard inspector continues. My yard is all beds, mostly dry land stuff, no lawn.
But the crocus are lovely
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: I will never forget my dear sainted Pops, in his eighties, sighing and telling me that he really wished he’d taken better care of his teeth.
I’m trying- in fact have a cleaning appointment for next Tuesday.
(but I’m also the guy who literally went 20 years without seeing a dentist and the only problem found was two cavities, so I may have won the genetic lottery on that one)
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: I’D TAKE IT!
Them white boys were way above average when it came to “bringin’ the funk.” :D
Gloria DryGarden
@Martin: this is a new perspective for me. Yikes. An observation, Not a joke, right?
i thought dominance only belonged in private role play. Not otherwise safe for human interactions…
rikyrah
U.S. Naval Academy ends affirmative action in admissions
Ellie Wolfe and Sapna Bansil
3/28/2025 3:51 p.m. EDT
Despite a federal ruling in its favor, the academy will no longer consider race in admissions.
The U.S. Naval Academy will no longer consider race, ethnicity or sex as a factor in its admissions process, according to new court filings.
The move to end affirmative action at the Naval Academy comes despite a federal judge ruling last year that the practice was constitutional. Directives from the administration of President Donald Trump prompted the academy to reverse course, according to a court motion filed on Friday.
Trump in January issued an executive order noting that the armed forces, including military academies, should “operate free from any preference based on race or sex.” Days later, a memorandum from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth prohibited any Department of Defense component from establishing “sex-based, race-based or ethnicity-based goals for organization composition, academic admission or career fields.”
https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/education/higher-education/naval-academy-affirmative-action-I2J5BASQ7JDG3CJIX3RON3VLJ4/?schk=NO&rchk=YES&utm_source=The+Baltimore+Banner&utm_campaign=12471a45de-NL_ALRT_20250328_1602&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fed75856d2-12471a45de-617409210&mc_cid=12471a45de&mc_eid=56348d263d
Central Planning
@Elizabelle: Trump take teeth.
A Ghost to Most
@Old Man Shadow: That’s ok. Half this country is ready to burn all the churches.
Gloria DryGarden
@Professor Bigfoot: I went looking on YouTube for more of bum bag. Tricky to search them. Posted one I liked up above
”I lost my pe nis in an ice bath”
trollhattan
@Quaker in a Basement:
Policy generally referred to as Let’s you and him fight.
glc
@WaterGirl: I assume that’s what he meant.
In line with the xckd-10,000 principle (https://xkcd.com/1053/) I’ll add a source. Though the statistics are a bit skewed locally, so it’s maybe 1 rather than 10,000. Most of us have vivid memories of that I suppose. And many other things that seemed extremely odd but pale in comparison with any random news day, now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We%27ll_do_it_live
(And I thought at the time we had reached the nadir, overall. So much for my sense of the world.)
Steve LaBonne
@rikyrah: I mean, Pete Hegseth is just an unanswerable argument for the natural superiority of white men amirite.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
He would be if he were ever sober.
ArchTeryx
@A Ghost to Most: Don’t think all the churches should be burned, but starting with the nondemoninational megachurches would send a very potent message to the evangelicals.
Of course, it would be treated as terrorism and religious persecution of the likes the world hasn’t seen since Roman times. But hit dogs holler and all that.
Professor Bigfoot
@Gloria DryGarden: It’s so much easier for anyone to produce professional sounding recordings nowadays– I have everything I need on my Macbook but I don’t have the talent to take advantage of it (what I’ve done with it is embarrassing!) but those who DO have talent can do some amazing stuff.
Quaker in a Basement
@zhena gogolia: Yes. And remember the four consecutive years of hollering about the service members killed by combat enemies during the evacuation of Kabul? Trump lost soldiers to a literal swamp while they were doing soldier practice.
tam1MI
@WaterGirl: Ooooh, that comment Cut Like A Knife! 😉
Harrison Wesley
So Trump will invade Greenland using the same authority he did in striking Yemen? Except this time he might actually be aware of it.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: I will take a moment to remind everyone that supported Josh Paul was one of our fundraising candidates when he ran for State AG.
Gloria DryGarden
@rikyrah: my hope is that while not fill8ng any quotas re females, POC, that they admit people, with out letting skin color or gender be any deterrent. Take all qualified candidates. So, if you’re ethnically white, your color can’t be taken into consideration as a qualifier, not by itself. No, even white people will need to show intelligence and competence.
surely this is not malicious compliance, but only striving for excellence…
Trivia Man
@suzanne: the rich ones go to leadership roles. Fun fact: to be ACTIVE you must tithe 10%. Rumor is they try to butter up the rich ones by giving them leadership roles like a bishop (Mormon bishop = parish priest level, no cool mitered hats) or stake president (boss over several bishops).
Also lean into sunk cost fallacy… gee, how can i leave? I put so much into it already!
Trivia Man
@opiejeanne: looking for a source, but today i heard 60% of usa parents with kids age 20-40 provide some MONTHLY financial support.
SuzieC
I hate podcasts but can’t wait to listen to this one.
Elizabelle
@Central Planning: That too. Le sigh.
Gloria DryGarden
@dr. luba: polio vaccine on a sugar cube, in a paper cup. We lined up in a church community hall type of place. The whole family. Probably in Philly, early 60s, I think. 1950s architecture
now I have to look up when that was..
George
@Elizabelle:
Utah also just became the first state to ban pride flags in state offices. Earlier this month, the state banned public sector collective bargaining.
Spencer Cox, the governor, tried to be more moderate (for Utah) during his first term. However, he has shifted sharply to the right after being re-elected. In a letter supporting FFOTUS in last year’s campaign, Cox said he believes that god had a hand in saving FFOTUS during the assassination attempt.
Gloria DryGarden
@Professor Bigfoot: see #104 for link, lost my penis in an ice bath, by bum bag. Very funny.
you think they do it all with home equipment?
Gloria DryGarden
@George: oh, god?
JaneE
Why would Trump need to warn automakers about raising prices? Doesn’t he know that the tariffs will be paid by the exporting countries? /s
Any auto maker who can absorb a 25% tariff probably needs to be investigated for gouging.
The price of a car might go up because the tariff were passed on directly. The price of a car might go up because the cost of imported cars is so high that domestic manufacturers can raise theirs also and increase profits. Could even be some of both. Either way, it undercuts Trump’s claim that the exporting country pays the tariff.
Old School
@Steve LaBonne:
That’s why the government is trying to get as many of those genes as possible.
Marc
@Gloria DryGarden: I remember, sugar cube in a cup, 2nd grade, 1962, everyone lined up in the gym youngest first. It wasn’t a remote concept, either, one of my three closest friends in elementary school caught a mild case as a toddler and walked with a limp.
Steve LaBonne
@Old School: [headdesk]
Splitting Image
I’m guessing “Idiot Wind” will be the theme music for the podcast.
A Ghost to Most
@ArchTeryx: The blame shifting is well underway. Christians blaming “christians” has become cliché. Religion of personal responsibility, my ass. It’s all finger pointing now.
Antonius
THE CARMAKERS WILL MAKE IT UP IN VOLUME
Professor Bigfoot
@Gloria DryGarden: You can get professional equipment from Sweetwater, shipped direct to your door.
A couple of good mikes, a Mac with a copy of “Logic Pro” and you’re basically good to go. Many instruments are digitized and available in Logic Pro already. I run a guitar into a “guitar processor” (a big ol’ programmable stomp box, really) directly by USB to my Macbook to be digitally recorded by Logic Pro.
You really don’t need nearly as much as one once did.
Sound tech has gone soooo far- I have a li’l Sonos speaker in my living room that absolutely FILLS it with high quality musical sound; “back inna day” it woulda taken serious money for serious receivers, amps, and especially speakers to achieve that level of sound quality (not just volume).
I also have some powered studio monitors I can drive directly, wired, from my MacBook or by Bluetooth.
But what’s awesome is what “these kids today” are DOING with this new tech.
Marc
It’s simple, really, they admit any women or minorities, some butt-hurt mediocre white kid (and his family) will assume that the only reason they didn’t get in was because of all of them, even if “all” amounts to one person. The DOD/DOJ will be happy to assist in bringing the institution to heal. Talk of “quotas” always entertains me, white folks intentionally don’t remember that the only real “quotas” that existed in the military academies and other universities were prior to the 60s, when there were strict limits (often zero) on the numbers of black, Asian, and Jewish students admitted, no matter how qualified.
geg6
I’m in love with this idea.
JML
@Marc: my PE teacher in jr high had it as a kid, had to learn a new way to walk to compensate for his bad leg. (tough dude, huge arms and shoulders and a monster in the pool. used to divide the class into boys & girls for water polo and played with the girls team: crushed everyone)
Central Planning
@Splitting Image: “Idiot Wind” is also what people say when Trump farts.
John S.
@Professor Bigfoot:
I wouldn’t want to steal any of your thunder. You put those Irish and Italian folks in their place. Give them what for!
Sure Lurkalot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Folsom Field holds over 50,000 and hosts football games and concerts and somehow the entire Denver/Metro area doesn’t come to a screeching halt. The University of Colorado has hosted the Conference for World Affairs since the 50’s…attendance as many as 90,000, somehow, Boulder accommodates and survives.
Major events like Sundance require a lot of thoughtful planning, cooperation and yes, inconvenience. Like playoff sports ball games, ski resorts at Christmas time, sold out Red Rocks concerts and Hamilton…I’m betting there will be locals that will attend and more than a few establishments that will welcome the hassles for the business it will generate.
For a state that’s over a billion in the hole, it seems to me this is good news. Not sure why you want to go shitty on it.
Professor Bigfoot
@John S.: Must you be such an ass?
NotoriousJRT
@trollhattan: Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! Some elected bone head thinks Trump is capable of REMORSE? Aw, hell no. He will big-time gut Jimmy Vance if he feels threatened in some way but never feel remorse. If he ever “had” to do that, Pam Bondi would be eager to slide right in. These people all are execrable; I just wish they would simply feed on each other like they so richly deserve.
Professor Bigfoot
@NotoriousJRT: There is some honor among thieves; but none with this lot.
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: seems, evidently, yes.
NotoriousJRT
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He’s the effing Sgt Schultz of the new cycle every effing day. No one is calling him on it.
Jay
@JaneE:
It’s autos and auto parts. The average “North American Made” vehicle and the parts that make it, cross the border on average, 8 times, and then there is the metals tariff.
That lump of steel coming north, price +25%. That lump of steel now drop forged into a camshaft blank heading south, price +25%, that machined camshaft headed north, price +25%, the Windsor engine it’s installed in headed south, price +25%, that F-150 headed north, price +25%. Prices on North American made vehicles are going to skyrocket because the tariffs wind up being cumulative.
That Kia, solely made in South Korea, price plus a one time 25% tariff.
It’s going to be interesting.
trollhattan
@NotoriousJRT:
Well put. JD is de facto shine boy and designated message-sender for places Trump doesn’t want to go, himself.
Elmo is the one marking all over Trump’s territory by peeing on things, and until Donny wakes up to that fact he’s allowed to scamper anywhere he wants. If anybody’s going to wear out his welcome, it’s Elmo.
satby
Never had a broken bone though I fell out of my share of trees and off skates and bikes when I was a kid; never had a cavity. Thanks fluoride!
laura
Yes, I understand the plan is for a podcast, but is there any reason they shouldn’t have a set or soundstage that replicates Fernwood Tonight?
Also, I hope the Podfather will consider inviting Driftglass and Bluegal right out the gate and distinguish this pod from my Governor’s nothing but Shite-bags to impress my wayward teen pod.
Bupalos
@Professor Bigfoot: I admit I’m disappointed that you’re preannouncing you’re not going to bring your usual energy to this particular instantiation of white noise.
But, as you’ve adjudicated and declared, this is proceeding “in good faith.” As opposed, I suppose, to Mistermix’s prior bad faith efforts.
Origuy
If you’re going to open a high-concept restaurant in Santa Monica, this is not the concept I would pick.
Elon Musk opening L.A. diner with possible ties to Tartine co-owner
Jay
So Couchfucker McGee’s Excellent Adventure is going well, confined to a US airbase, where he gave a speech to the troops, opening with “Gee, it’s really cold up here, nobody told me that”, and then onto a rousing rendition of “Greenland Uber Allies”.
Bupalos
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I don’t get Sundance. The film festivals should (and do) travel to the people, not the other way around. It’s kinda a global warming nightmare to have 50,000 people flying 1800 miles to watch 30 films instead of 30 films coming to see them and building community where they are.
jonas
The whole point of a tariff, as we all know, is to protect a domestic industry by raising the price of competing imports. The entire idea is to *make stuff more expensive* so that US-made products can compete better. Trump seems to think that tariffs will somehow cause companies to reshore their manufacturing, but then also charge the same as they did when stuff was made in China or India. You just can’t even with this level of stupid.
trollhattan
@Origuy:
Timing: what the fuck even is it?
Lemme stop you right there, fellas.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Origuy:
If the things are ever built, they’re just going to be new targets for vandals
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@jonas:
He proposed a tariff on Swiss watches. When there hasn’t even been a domestic watchmaking industry of any note for 50 years now. American watch companies were struggling even pre-quartz crisis
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Here’s a scary thought. Will Republicans try to ban fluoride from toothpaste? Fluoride treatments themselves?
cain
@Old School:
Honestly? The theme from Sanford and Son or Welcome Back Kotter. ;)
cain
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Why not? If it isn’t safe in water, it won’ be safe in a tube.
Baud
@cain:
Both excellent choices.
Eduardo
@MobiusKlein: Spent 7 years laser-focused on leaving Cuba, used to kill feelings of loneliness going to a Borders book store to read books about the fall of communism and now I have to see things like this. Having a very tough day. Next year I’ll be 62 .. thinking of retiring far away in some cheap country and be away from everything.
Jay
@jonas:
The tariffs are on autos, auto parts and metals. There are no “domestic automobile manufacturers”. There are plants in the US where final assembly takes place, but the average North American vehicle contains parts from Canada, Mexico, the US and Asia that will have crossed the border 8 times before final assembly. The North American Automotive industry is highly integrated.
glc
@Origuy: Good to know. It may be a good spot for a demonstration as well.
Also, from a few days ago:
https://boingboing.net/2025/03/23/elon-musk-to-open-tesla-themed-restaurant.html
It sounds like it’s moved along a bit.
Jay
@cain:
It’s perfectly safe in the tube, it only becomes dangerous when you squeeze it out.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Sure Lurkalot:
I didn’t think I was going shitty on it. I was attempting to point out some of the logistical hurdles associated with it given a couple of the people I know and the experiences they, and I, have had at festivals. Most of what I wanted to convey was the political background of the decision and the fact that the film festival model is still struggling in a post-Covid world. That’s not my statement, that’s the statement of the director guy I know.
The main point is again, it’s not gonna be uber-concentrated in terms of venues, lodging will also be spread out and at least for the duration of the fest, traffic flow will be, let’s be kind and say, problematic.
Every local bidness in Boulder is most assuredly salivating over this.
And I’ve been to Boulder with big-assed events over the years, and it’s a monumental hassle getting around, getting service, etc. Yeah, they’ll cope but the enormity of people getting around along with all the exclusionary VIP crap Sundance is now infamously known for, will make the entire thing challenging.
Also too, the state’s trying to push a $36m tax credit bill of some kind thru to support this. That hasn’t happened yet but it does raise a couple of eyebrows when looking at that deficit.
Hoodie
@Jay: This Greenland scam resembles the stupidity of building three money-losing casinos in Atlantic City. Makes you wonder what the underlying scam will be in the end. Trump seems to be fond of some stupid maximalist negotiating position that will somehow allow him to make a “great” deal that will end up being a pile of shit for most of the parties involved other than him. I suspect some sort of development deal that makes no sense but will shut him up. It will go bust because it makes no sense economically but allow Trump and/or his insipid family to make money as the thing craters.
Tim C
My prediction for the podcast is the three of you saying the f-word for about an hour with John finishing with “Hodor.”
am
Hell yes.
Paul W.
Will listen!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Tim C:
Or at the very least, use ‘fuck’ like a comma.
opiejeanne
@Professor Bigfoot: Your doctor can do a titer test to see if you have immunity. They draw blood from me about every 3 months to check my A1c, and just added the titer test to one of my blood draws a couple of years ago. I’ve had the diseases: measles and rubella, something my doctor called baby measles, and chickenpox, but never had mumps and the test confirmed that I had no immunity to that.
Baud
@Tim C:
Who is the “you”?
me
I just sold my house to myself for $1billion therefore it is worth $1billion. https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1905731750275510312
Professor Bigfoot
@Bupalos: “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression, in the denial of my humanity and my right to exist.”
Nigh on 20 years I’ve been lurking and commenting here tell me that Cole tries, really tries, to see from other perspectives.
My boy is, after all, a white boy from West Virginia, right?
So from that perspective, I kinda owe it to myself to give the mad bugger an even break.
Baud
Via reddit
Trivia Man
@opiejeanne: thanks! I would get a booster just in case, but i am in close contact with someone immunocompromised. Their doctor suggested i not get any live vaccines just in case. This test could give us both a little peace of mind.
Jay
@Hoodie:
Chris o Wiki says to hold to the DJTdiot Razor.
opiejeanne
@Marc: I got the Salk vaccine (shot) in 1956, kindergarten. It came too late for one girl in the class, and she came in a wheelchair for a visit when she was recovering. We never saw her again at school. When my parents were explaining that the vaccine was necessary (I hated shots) I asked my mother if it would work, and her answer was that they weren’t sure it worked for everyone, but I needed to get it.
Got the Sabin vaccine in a sugar cube in 1962 at a junior high on a Saturday. My dad took me and got it too. I don’t remember why my mom and sister didn’t go.
Sure Lurkalot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Any event like this will take a buy in, pay to play. I didn’t see Denver turning down the All-Star game years back or round one of the NCAA tournament this year because it cost money to host.
Yep, there will be hassles and crowds and inconveniences as well as people enjoying the shows, discussions and venues and there will be thanks every year for the tourism dollars and relief when it’s over like most of us feel about the Xmas holidays.
Urza
Couchfucker is talking about needing more troops in Greenland to protect American interests. I hope they tell him to GTFO and toss out the ones that were agreed to in the past.
WaterGirl
@Eduardo: It’s brutal to have the country changing beneath our feet. You came here because of what America stood for, and Trump is lighting it on fire.
It’s hard on all of us, but surely in a different way for people who came to the US because it was a beacon of democracy. I’m sorry for your loss.
opiejeanne
@Trivia Man: I just talked to a young(ish) woman, 31, whose family moved to the US as a teenager. She was telling me about a rash caused late in life by the vaccine they used in Russia for smallpox. Very weird. Her grandfather had it and it itched and never went away, but he wasn’t contagious.
I know there can be a bad reaction to a vaccine, but I’ve never heard of this before and it made me wonder wth Russia was using in their vaccines.
Baud
Gloria DryGarden
@Sure Lurkalot: good to know these numbers, that boulder is used to a 90k conference, that the stadium holds 50k. Probably fills up for the buffs games as well as for the hot concerts they host..
So it might work out fine.
I don’t understand the bill to create a huge tax credit for it, but I’m just not tracking everything yet.
I like Boulder, I think it might be great. 2027, a time to look forward to. If we’re having elections the next year, might be an interesting time.
sentient ai from the future
@opiejeanne: …is potato
different-church-lady
Dr. Strangelove: the first time as farce, the second as tragedy.
opiejeanne
@sentient ai from the future: That made me laugh.
Dan B
@opiejeanne: I had the same #1. Salk, #2. Sabin. There were plenty of people with 5″ thick heel and sole shoes for the shrunken leg and others with the brutal looking metal leg braces. It was deeply disturbing.
Gloria DryGarden
@Bupalos: maybe they could do both, extend their model. Pros and cons to each of them. A festival is fun.
sentient ai from the future
I think we aren’t allowed to have nice things right now, so it’s too much to ask to see musk fingerprinted and booked over this from this morning
https://bsky.app/profile/danshafer.bsky.social/post/3llhgpikfpc2c
but it absolutely rhymes with my contention that he has used his platform and reach in this way via gambling sites like polymarket or predictit.
Hoodie
@Jay: I’d say that’s part of it, i.e., the bigness of Greenland is what makes this such a great deal. What Trump wants, however, is to just make a “big” deal irrespective if whether it makes any sense. Greenland is a fucking ice sheet that may or may not have exploitable resources once the ice sheet melts and half of the US East Coast is underwater. We already have military installations there and trying to put additional stuff there just be a costly boondoggle. It’s stupid but Trump wants to make it seem like it’s a big deal.
different-church-lady
@Dan B:
That was my grandfather — one leg was about 8 inches shorter than the other. Needed to strap on this metal contraption to even them out.
Dan B
@Eduardo: I hope you find a great country. I hear great things about Uruguay and several other countries. Mexico looks good at the moment buy its got plenty of problems. I hear there are great houses in Puerto Vallarta for $200,000. That sounds like a bargain to my Seattle ears.
Gloria DryGarden
@NotoriousJRT: feeding on each other does sound efficient .
Im all for actual efficiency.
opiejeanne
@Dan B: My kids’ pediatrician used those aluminum braces on her legs and short crutches, until she got a scooter in the 80s. She was a wonderful doctor, said she decided to become one when she was a child being treated for polio.
sab
I do tax prep, and this year I am amazed at what a high percentage of our clients bought cars at the end of 2024.
Gloria DryGarden
@Dan B: I need to look into the Uruguay and Mexico angles. Not sure I have enough $ to do it, not at all sure my social security will be sufficient, either.
opiejeanne
@different-church-lady: There’s a woman at church with those, probably in her 80s. I’m 75 and got the Salk vaccine in kindergarten, so she got polio before it was available. I went to school with kids who wore those braces and used those aluminum crutches, and we all knew why they had them.
opiejeanne
@Gloria DryGarden: Take a look at Costa Rica too.
ColoradoGuy
Trump loves maps … remember him using a Sharpie drawn on the hurricane map? Yeah, like that.
Greenland looks big (on a Mercator projection) and is called “green” land. He probably thinks it’s like golf greens, ready for the biggest golf course in the world.
His understanding of geography is comparable to a not-very-bright third-grader. Unlike a third-grader, though, he reacts with screaming rage if anyone tries to teach him anything.
Gloria DryGarden
@opiejeanne: $$$$$.
I thought Costa Rica was expensive. Ok, I’ll investigate.
Gloria DryGarden
@ColoradoGuy: maybe he really doesn’t understand maps, and the different projections and distortions..
Trumps razor. Too bad it’s such a sharp, cutting experience for us, and not healed with a sharpie. Some people are just not the sharpest tools in the tool shed.
too many opportunities for word play
Geminid
@Dan B: Portugal sounds good. I read they’re trying to build the population back up after a lot of out-migration over the last century. Portugal is also a leader in renewable energy.
NutmegAgain
@NotMax: I remember lining up in Bethesda MD. Had a sugar cube. I had a smallpox inoculation, but you can’t see the scar anymore.
WTFGhost
@Urza: it’s like, what, does JD CF Vance think he can insult them into a Gulf Of Tonkin incident? Unless… wow, would Trump really blow up AF2, just to provoke a war with Greenland?
@Baud: “Ignorance of the law, which we make deliberately unknowable, is no excuse!”
@Hoodie: You have to understand, once Trump understood that as a corporation, he could pay himself big bonuses for shepherding the company through bankruptcy, the addition of other overleveraged casinos was sure to follow, and, when bankruptcy was good for Trump (which I’m sure he weighed carefully against the rights of the investors, shyeah right), well, it happened.
He doesn’t seem to get that the 14th amendment means he can’t declare corporate bankruptcy for the United States.
@Jay: Yeah, I thought he served, yet here he is, second in line to the CinC, and whining about the conditions folks are serving under. It’s like, dude, if you think it’s cold, ask how they cope – maybe they dress warmly, with thick socks to keep a cold floor from being a heat-suck, and are fine. Or, maybe they’re cold, and tired, and miserable, and you should be reporting back. No wonder the couch, uh, loving meme took off so easily – he doesn’t seem to have normal relations with… you know, people.
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: i have friends, distant acquaintances, who moved there. If I learn portugués, will it ruin my spanish? It’s very strange to me, so close to spanish, and so vastly different.
am
Also, I’ll never forgive you for making me aware of Swig Soda.
Gloria DryGarden
Baud, I checked out the Georgia Sun video / abortion law may criminalize miscarriage.
i get so mad about this! It’s a medical situation, and may require grief counseling, but it certainly does not merit legal interference.
Bunch of ill informed men, w no clue, wasting people’s time.
love what they said at the end, we need informed law created and enforced by informed people.
16 more swear words, 12 illegal anger emojis!
Tim in SF
Hey Cole, if you don’t like the way you look, you can go audio-only. Or, you can use one of those youthifying Instagram filters that are probably available on your podcast video app if you film through your iPhone’s camera.
Please keep us updated. I want to subscribe YESTERDAY.
Jay
There are still small towns and villages in the Italian hills, giving away houses for $1.
Dan B
@opiejeanne: We’ve been to Costa Rica three times. Conservative Catholics are gaining power and its more expensive in areas with expats than other countries. It’s great if you love heat – 90° – 100° – and gorgeous beaches on the Pacific or can find a place in the highlands near San Jose – 80° and sunny most days.
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: That’s an interesting question. I worked on a job site once where there was a Brazilian sheet rock crew. Tbey sounded very different from the Mexicans and Bolivians we were used to working with, and someone thought maybe they were Egyption. Then the job supervisor said no, they’re Brazilian.
Old School
@different-church-lady:
You’re thinking like the upcoming cover of the New Yorker.
Martin
@Tim in SF: If Cole hasn’t listened to Well There’s Your Problem, he really should. It’s a quite successful podcast that is audio with slides, and yet has less than zero production quality. I think it’s a great baseline for what can work in this space.
Timill
@Jay: Yes, but you have to restore them. And then there’s the whole Amateur Detective thing…
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: ive wondered. But isolated, expensive fixer uppers, not sure about libraries and community. Would need to move there with a partner and a few friends, to form an enclave. Maybe this is a good idea.
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: my mom overheard some people in a restaurant, and described it to me as sort of like spanish, but sounded like German. I told her it sounded like it was probably Portuguese.
written down, the cognates are quite similar to spanish or French. But the pronunciation is loose and full of diphthongs, like English. I had a trip into Brazil during my Uruguay year, and tried to pronounce their words. It was a bust. I had to pretend I was speaking English, and pronounce those spanish looking words as if I were a gringo; and I couldn’t.
It doesn’t sound like spanish at all
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: There are people who like getting together with other people with similar interests in interesting places.
Gloria DryGarden
@Omnes Omnibus: exactly!
plus, Boulder is really beautiful. Folks might stay on a few days, having flown out here, and take a trip to the mountains. Great for tourism.
Cpliebl
Apolitical Blues Little Feat 🔥
pluky
@Bupalos: It’s not about the films. It’s about the industry schmooze.
pluky
@Gloria DryGarden: Judging by the Brazilians, Azoreans, and Cape Verdeans I’ve met here in MA who seem quite comfortable in both languages, you should be fine.
John S.
@Professor Bigfoot:
It’s pretty ironic that YOU made the bigoted comment, never apologized for it, continue to toe the line of bigotry and think that I’m the ass.
LOL