I think the chances of the senate taking the house bill as written are 0. How different is the question, yeah.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) May 22, 2025 at 11:04 AM
====
A bill is gonna happen because they have to do that – the GOP presiding over the largest combined tax increase in history would be an electoral nightmare (or so they believe) and they're going to get something over the line.
What it ends up being? No idea.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) May 22, 2025 at 10:53 AM
=====
When the ACA passed, many House Dems voted for it knowing it would likely tank their chances of reelection. They did it because expanding health care to millions was worth it.
Last night, GOP “moderates” likely ended their careers to take that health care away. Imagine doing that. Monsters.
====
Simple media message: they voted to throw millions of people into poverty so they could line their pockets.
More complex media message: and they are currently threatening to end the data collection policy analysts could use to show that.— Stephen Nuñez (@socio-steve.bsky.social) May 22, 2025 at 8:49 AM
=====
They’re taking food from poor people to give tax cuts to the rich.
— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) May 22, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Paul Krugman, “Attack of the Sadistic Zombies”:
Republicans in Congress, taking their marching orders from Donald Trump, are on track to enact a hugely regressive budget — big tax giveaways to the wealthy combined with cruel cuts in programs that serve lower-income Americans. True, the legislation suffered a setback last week, initially failing to make it out of committee. But that was largely because some right-wing Republicans didn’t think the benefit cuts were vicious enough.
OK, news at 11. Isn’t this what Republicans always do? But this reconciliation bill — that is, legislation structured in such a way that it can’t be filibustered and may well pass with no Democratic votes — is different in both degree and kind from what we’ve seen before: Its cruelty is exceptional even by recent right-wing standards. Furthermore, the way that cruelty will be implemented is notable for its reliance on claims we know aren’t true and policies we know won’t work — what some of us call zombie ideas.
And it’s hard to avoid the sense that the counterproductive viciousness is actually the point. Think of what we’re seeing as the attack of the sadistic zombies…
Medicaid, in case anyone needs reminding, is the national health insurance program for low-income Americans who probably don’t have any other way to pay for medical care. In 2023 Medicaid covered 69 million Americans, far more than Medicare (which covers seniors), including 39 percent of children.
Providing health care to children, by the way, isn’t just about social justice and basic decency. It’s also good economics: Children who receive adequate care grow up to be more productive adults. Among other things they end up paying more taxes, so Medicaid for children almost surely pays for itself…
Why, then, are Republicans doing this? Part of the answer is to save money: By making the poor even poorer they reduce the extent to which tax cuts for the rich explode the budget deficit.
But I’m actually skeptical that this is the whole story, or even most of it. If you pay attention to what right-wing Republicans do, as opposed to what they say, it becomes obvious that they don’t really care about budget deficits. Oh, they do a lot of posturing, issuing dire warnings about debt and pretending to be deficit hawks. But can you think of a single example in which the U.S. right has been willing to give up something it wants, such as tax cuts for the rich, in order to reduce the deficit?
And although Republican legislation apparently won’t explicitly target childrens’ care, it will impose paperwork requirements that will cause both children and their parents to lose coverage…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Feature, not a bug in Trump’s ‘Murka!
Next step will be making Soylent Green out of the dead poors although I’m not sure where the market is for that particular finished product.
Omnes Omnibus
Please explain to me why we aren’t supposed to call these people evil.
trollhattan
Thursday treat: photographing musical instruments from inside.
The how article.
A gallery.
So cool.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Do you want a lecture on Joe Biden’s age?
Baud
Are the SNAP cuts immediate? Some stuff is delayed so lot of people will tell themselves we’re lying about it.
NotMax
More rotten Easter eggs.
SpaceUnit
No worries. The media will provide them with cover.
Jay
@Baud:
Some of the cuts and changes, (work requirements, State top up, small Federal funding cuts) would start in October, 2025.
The really big cuts come in 2028, 2029.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Gah! Seriously, the word evil may be overused, but it is the word that fits these people. Not everyone who voted for Trump is actively evil, but they are at least indifferent to it if they aren’t changing their minds very quickly. I think I am being a lot more generous than many others would be.
Miller, Noem, Vance, Holman, Vought (sp? Not looking it up because fuck him), Musk, and the Trumps? Evil. It that simple.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: You spelled it right. Fuck him anyway.
Jackie
@NotMax: From your link:
Why do republicans hate red states?
NotMax
It says Open Thread, so —
TCM is mostly martial this weekend.
Saturday (9:45 p.m. Eastern?): one of the very best WW2 movies, A Walk in the Sun.
Check your local listings. TCM times are messed up for those accessing the schedule from Hawaii.
BlueGuitarist
Another piece of Republicans hating America: looks like millionaire gun shop owner Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09) got the tax on silencers cut as part of this evil, Republican package.
Glory b
@Omnes Omnibus: But Bernie Sanders tells us that Democrats are the biggest threat to democracy…
suzanne
I went to a presentation about upcoming changes to the IECC (Energy Conservation). One major improvement in the last 40 years has been that building envelopes have become far better — much more robust and they use far less energy. But…. man. The industry wants to get to net zero, and we might get there….. but buildings are going to look so different.
Jay
@BlueGuitarist:
And here I thought that ‘Merkins love the whole bang, bang thing,
Instead they love the psst, psst.
Well at least the School librarian won’t call the shooter out at the next school shooting.
Baud
@suzanne:
Will they be round? I bet round is more efficient than rectangular.
lollipopguild
@Jackie: Windmills cause cancer and solar power is witchcraft(really!) Case closed.
Ohio Mom
There already are complicated paperwork requirements for Medicaid. For that reason, our county board for developmental disabilities has several staff members whose job is to walk clients through the Medicaid sign-up and annual renewal processes.
I dread the annual review, I am always sure something is going to go wrong, mostly because Ohio Son has more than $2,000 in assets, though it is all properly sheltered.
I can just imagine the chaos that will result from the sort of employment pattern many low-income people have, with seasonal, temporary and part-time jobs. They will be constantly on and off Medicaid, depending if they can prove they are working enough (and if they are working under the table, they have no proof they are working).
And the “shrink government” Republicans will forget that bumper sticker phrase when they expand each county’s bureaucracy to monitor who is and isn’t eligible for Medicaid and processing their newest application.
prostratedragon
@NotMax:
American mythology leading into it, with some Westerns tonight, then Noirs during the day tomorrow, starting with Mystery Street feat. Montalban, and including The Big Combo with Richard Conte and some familiar imagery.
Jay
https://peterfrankopan.substack.com/p/a-bead-too-far-rethinking-global?r=6izf4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
NotMax
@suzanne
Speaking of buildings, medium length watch.
The Most Dangerous Building in Manhattan.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: I’ve never seen that. Great cast.
Why did I think it was Monty Clift? I guess that’s A Place in the Sun.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
I understand that Bathroom Stall Monitors and Pubic Inspectors is going to be the next hot Industry.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus:
We aren’t?
zhena gogolia
@Glory b: Fuck Bernie.
I saw a weird car today. Pale-blue Prius. Bumper stickers: Harris for President. Democrats Democrats Democrats. (something ecological). BERNIE
WTF???
In other local news, we have seen two Cybertrucks (one black, one silver with graffiti painted on the bumper — or is that part of the car?) in our mid-size town in the last two days, after never having seen any before. The only one I had seen before was back in September in Maine.
ETA: I guess that graffiti is real graffiti. More power to them.
Baud
@Jay:
Probably birds.
Geminid
@Jay: I wonder if Basque traders carried those beads to North America.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Is that like Marsha, Marsha, Marsha?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Hahaha, you could read it in that voice, I guess.
Ohio Mom
@Omnes Omnibus: They are evil but somehow the use of that word gets relegated to talking about cartoon villains.
I once heard a Protestant minister declare that the only people not regularly surprised by the news are clergy because they are the only ones left who still believe evil exists. I didn’t totally agree with that, I think it is too broadly complimentary of clergy, but it did strike me as accurate that most people don’t believe in evil. It’s something only found in fiction.
Cue “Gee, Officer Krupke.”
suzanne
@Baud: Round is more energy efficient but far less spatially efficient. Also much more difficult to expand.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
When went to town earlier this month to (among other things) pay the ISP bill (I always do it in person, want that receipt in my hand), strolled past a car in the parking lot displaying two Obama/Biden bumper stickers.
;)
suzanne
Biggest change is likely to be less glass and more of the heavily insulated building materials that most normies think are ugly.
ETA: They are kind of ugly, yeah.
Ruviana
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Prisons.
Baud
@suzanne:
Brutalism is back, baby.
Jay
@Geminid:
The path appears to be, based on similar dated finds, Byzantium, to Europe, Europe to Siberia, Siberia to Alaska, 17,000 km trade routes in the 8th Century.
Citizen Alan
Agree to disagree.
NotMax
@suzanne
Recently viewed a short documentary on the design and construction of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Challenging is an understatement.
suzanne
@Baud: I wish Brutalism was back!
I don’t work on building exteriors, so I don’t get a say! LOL!
Citizen Alan
@zhena gogolia: i saw a red wankpanzer at the gym the other day. That means there’s at least two in fresno. Possibly more though, I’ve only ever seen the silver one in the area where my apartment used to be so I had no reason to think there was more than one before now.
Baud
@Jay:
The tariffs must have been insane.
suzanne
@NotMax: Yeah, having seen some of Gehry’s buildings in person, up close….. the ideas exceed the construction capability.
But…. that’s how the avant-garde pushes forward.
Jay
@Geminid:
The Basques came for the cod on the East Coast, not for trade. While they would set up drying and salting stations, they would go back to their boats, because their “relations” with the Beothuk and the MiqMac were not good.
We do know that the Siberian Indigenous had trade routes with the Alaskan and Pacific Indigenous well into contact.
Martin
So, I expect the Harvard international student ban to be struck down by the courts.
The administration isn’t making any claim regarding the students themselves, just Harvards ability to host them, which is laughable. It’s obviously an effort to single Harvard out for special punishment. The administrations argument that international students need to transfer is also nonsensical. In an emergency, other universities would take most of those students (as we did following Katrina when Tulane was inoperable, universities opened up to take some of their students on an emergency basis, provide visitor professorships for their faculty, etc.) So if push comes to shove this will happen, but there’s no need for it because there is no emergency here. The normal timetable for students to transfer is long past and in the case of their PhD/medical students, transfer isn’t even a thing. Like, once you advance to candidacy you’re usually tied to the hip of your advisor. If they move schools, you often move with them, or there are all kinds of case by case accommodations made. Lots of PhD students are tied to specific equipment availability, access to research groups/institutes, and so on. Transferring without your advisor is usually a matter of starting over on your research.
The courts will understand this, will look at the contract between Harvard and their students and tell the feds they can’t just arbitrarily break that because they are having a tantrum.
Ohio Mom
@suzanne: Less glass? I hope that means fewer of those greenhouse-style atriums but still windows for the poor souls who are inside. I guess it’s too much to hope for windows that open.
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: There is a commenter here who spent paragraphs explaining why we shouldn’t do so.
I get the reluctance to use the word. In criminal law, I approach things from a defense perspective. Our system is generally too harsh. A lot of people who do “bad” things have been badly served by our society. Poverty, untreated mental illness, etc., are so often mitigating factors.
But these fuckers don’t have those excuses. They decided that they wanted to be the people they are. Fuck ‘em, they’re evil.
Steve LaBonne
It’s like the “Aristocrats” joke except the punchline is “Populism!”.
suzanne
@Ohio Mom: Buildings that are pressurized (most high-rises) cannot have windows that open. Most other buildings can have operable windows.
Glory b
@Baud: I find well done brutalism to be compelling.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed.
mrmoshpotato
@suzanne:
How are they pressurized?
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: There is a point where actively evil and indifference to it makes no practical difference.
NotMax
@Ohio Mom
NYC building code mandates that even in the tallest cloud-tickling residential towers, some windows must be able to open (obviously not open wide in normal operation).
@suzanne
See you edited the comment. The original was funny, if puzzling.
:)
Jay
@suzanne:
Lot’s are generally square or rectangular, so a round building also wastes a lot of land use.
Solar windows, solar cladding, green roofs does not mean that Brutalism is back.
It just means that Building Architects and Builders haven’t gotten around yet to grasping the improvements in materials.
When I built the place, 20 years ago, I had “arctic” doors and windows. Triple pane, some designed to minimize heat loss via special glass, some designed to maximize passive heat gain from the sun via special glass. Eaves overhang and angles to shade in summer, full sun in winter. Built in mass in the walls and floors to keep the house warm in winter, and cool in summer.
Here, where we live now standard minimum code double panes. And the building is not “old”.
Baud
@Glory b:
I haven’t liked the few examples I’ve seen.
Ohio Mom
@Omnes Omnibus: Then I wasn’t clear. I think most Republicans are evil, certainly most of the ones in leadership positions currently.
It’s just that for some weird sociological or psychological reason, people don’t take that word seriously. It sounds like the speaker is exaggerating.
People accept other adjectives though — for example, corrupt, dishonest, mean-spirited, cruel.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Someone will be here shortly to enlighten us as to why we cannot call them evil.
Geminid
@Jay: I read that Basques were already fishing the Grand Banks when the Vikings showed up; also, that they descended from the Phoenicians/Carthaginians and carried on their seafaring and trading traditions. What do you think?
NotMax
@NotMax
Amended for clarity.
some windows = some windows in every apartment
suzanne
@mrmoshpotato: The HVAC system is designed to keep the building positively pressured relative to the exterior. You can feel it when you open a door and it feels like it wants to blow open a bit.
eclare
@suzanne:
What is a building envelope? Is that like that stuff that caused the horrible Grenfell fire to spread so quickly, cladding?
JGreen
@Jackie: Because they hate everybody, no matter where they are.
mrmoshpotato
@suzanne: I see.
Geminid
@Jay: Yeah, Alaska’s a long way from the East coast of North America. Seems more likely the beads went east from Venice, overland
Martin
@suzanne: Some old buildings were pretty good about it though. Brownstones, with shared walls and a lot of thermal mass from stone facades were both big improvement over single family homes made of plastic.
suzanne
@Jay: I work on large-scale commercial buildings, we don’t really use those materials you listed. We have to comply with requirements for continuous insulation, so the materials used on houses don’t really get used in my projects.
suzanne
@eclare: Building envelope is the roof and exterior walls. They have gotten much more sophisticated in recent years as we have put dramatically increasing demand on their performance.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
Where T works, an Arthur Erickson Building, some genius added skylights for the atrium feel. As an Arthur Erickson building, well it leaks prodigiously, they all do.
The skylights are supposed to open, when the space get’s to hot from the sun. They do not open, because they are electro-mechanical tied to a sensor, tied to a computer, and one of the components is always on the fritz. They also do not account for wind and weather patterns and in the Wet Coast, well, more water entry where you don’t want it.
When I built the greenhouse at the place, I also had skylights that were supposed to open. And they did, every time. 2 gas filled cartridges, one outside, one inside. If they both got hot, the gas would expand and open the skylight. If only one got hot, the skylight stayed closed.
Matt McIrvin
@suzanne: Geodesic domes, right? They’re DYMAXION!
(I kid, I kid)
suzanne
@Martin: Agree. We really struggle with masonry facades now, because we can’t have any thermal bridges to the interior.
Matt McIrvin
@suzanne: In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
eclare
@Ohio Mom:
I despise those greenhouse style atriums that are all the rage, at least they are here in Memphis. I also have severe man made ledge issues which are in all the atriums (I’ve hiked the Grand Canyon, was fine), and I can no longer browse the library closest to me because of the layout.
mappy!
@Omnes Omnibus: How about malignant sociopaths? Or just: haters.
NotMax
@suzanne
Musing about hospital designs — no such thing as too many electrical outlets.
;)
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
It is known: best RADAR is dome RADAR.
Another Scott
@Jay: I blame crows and ravens.
;-)
Seriously, I hope they checked for things like that.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soapdish
Republicans should have the courage of their convictions and demand the changes be enacted immediately.
Gvg
@Baud: not for people to USE. I have been inside several dome houses and other unique modern homes. They are really awkward to use, nothing fits and there is a bunch of wasted space combined with a bunch of wasted space. Furniture doesn’t fit. Nothing standard does. Kitchens are the worst. Watch your head too.
trollhattan
It happened again, was in the vet’s waiting room at the same time as two dogs named Chewbacca. One wee, corgi-size, the other enormous, and he was a perfect gentleman.
Kidding, was first time.
Jay
@Geminid:
The Basques were fishing the banks first, before the Vikings, before Cabot, but they kept it secret. Dried, salted cod was like gold. While they have some links, mostly in boat design to the Phoenicians/Carthaginians, their language has roots in the Indus. They were not big traders, but excellent sailors and fishermen. Their boats were for the day, small for an Atlantic crossing, often open. (Shortage of suitable wood), but very well made and designed.
trollhattan
@Gvg:
We stayed in an insulated yurt at Fallen Leaf Lake and it was swell. Not a dome but no corners to hide in, either.
Jay
@trollhattan:
The best RADAR is Radar O’Rielly.
Fight me.
NotMax
Here’s the linky to the Bilbao museum story mentioned above.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan:
Did you check under the beds for monsters? :)
Nukular Biskits
Good evenin’, y’all.
My problem isn’t that this legislation and those who voted for it are evil (which it is and they are, IMHO) … but that the sociopathic liars refuse to make themselves available to their constituents to be held accountable.
They brag about their reasons for voting in favor while refusing to admit the actual consequences. For example, here’s Rep. Mike Ezell, MS CD-4, completely lying about what this bill does:
This is nothing about absolute, unadulterated bullshit.
Suzanne
@NotMax: You’re joking, but the quantity of electrical outlets is always a fight. Literally a topic of discussion today.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Who the hell said that?
OK maybe the person that said it’s not evil, IT’S FUCKING EVIL.
Selfish bastards. Do they have zero concept of history and what has happened to people that did this in history? At some point the people get mad enough to fix this in any possible way. Which usually then involves more than a few laws that will be immediately ignored. Which is why this always leads to a time not enjoyed by anyone. And which is one of the oldest stories in history.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: I had to give mine up (also my Kerry-Edwards and Clinton-Kaine) along with my 1999 Honda Civic last summer.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
Forgot that, after counting kids (“let’s see one…okay, still just the one”).
zhena gogolia
@suzanne: Yeah, there’s one in Princeton that is not impressive on the inside.
Gloria DryGarden
@Omnes Omnibus: thanks for your attention and awareness to the under resourced and impoverished situations of the people you help. People already not served by society..
many people of privilege don’t see it, don’t get it.
@Geminid: with that question you have opened the door to layers of rich archeological and historical wonder. I’m imagining it now. Oh, those basques..
Suzanne
@Ruckus: I’m going to steelman the argument here, because the larger point is solid, IMO. The point is that declaring people “evil” is essentially saying that that person is irredeemably bad, beyond persuasion. I’d submit that that’s not a great mindset for winning anyone over to our side in the next election.
Howev…. This is BJ, and IMO, it’s good for us to blow off steam here so that, hopefully, we can be good citizens in the rest of our lives.
Gloria DryGarden
mm. Darn it.
Mutaman
Thomas Sowell Quotes
@ThomasSowell
May 21
“Just a friendly reminder that the media did their very best to discredit Robert Hur’s 2024 report on Biden’s health.”
In fact The Times had 5 front page articles on the Hur report when it came out on 2/9/24. Here s one of them
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/us/politics/biden-memory-age-democrats.html
Jackie
@JGreen:
But but but Them states are their VOTERS!
*Do republicans expect red state voters to continually vote against their own interests?
*Why, yes they do, as red states continue to do so election after election after election.
frosty
I got that same stupid line from Lloyd Smucker PA-11. WTF dude????
frosty
@Suzanne: Outlets: the Code is OK for residential but … I’ve got an electrician coming in a week to add a couple of outlets to this 102-year old house along with a bunch of other upgrades and fixes. I used to do most of the electrical work myself but apparently when I retired I retired from home improvement too!
(When we bought our second travel trailer we were at the Hershey show and Ms F said “Where are the outlets?” I said “Outlets?” Response: “It matters!!” She’d just spent 10 weeks on the road (by herself to California) and it was on her mind LOL.)
Matt McIrvin
@frosty: Is it the mean taxpayer or the median taxpayer? Usually this kind of mischief involves eliding that distinction, and then counting only federal income tax as “tax”.
Jay
@suzanne:
The Safeway attached to my building has a “green roof” for water management and insulation.
“Arctic” doors and windows are used in Residential and Commercial buildings, but only in the far North where they are required by code, despite being 2 to 3 times more efficient than standard code.
Specialty glass is available from pretty much every window and door MFGR, but it’s pretty much only a thing in Passive House/Buildings designs.
As I have mentioned before, here stuff get’s built to “code”. The minimum. And so a brand new house/building already qualifies for “Energy Star” upgrades and grants from the Province or BC Hydro, the minute the builder closes the door and leaves.
Suzanne
@frosty: If I ever build my own house, I’m doing it with a steel structure and using DIRTT or Falkbilt demountable interior walls. No framing, removable panels so getting into the wall cavities is easy-peasy!
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay: Suppressors don’t work in real life like they do in the movies.
Even a suppressed gun is pretty darn loud.
(suppressors, not silencers, because they just don’t silence)
frosty
@Matt McIrvin: I dunno and he didn’t explain. As far as which tax, people in Maryland say PA taxes are lower. Right. State income tax. County income tax. Borough income tax. Property tax. School tax.
At least they got rid of the $10 per capita tax for the people living in the house. Fortunately, they seem to have survived without my 40 bucks.
Suzanne
@Jay: I’ll try to get the slide deck from the presentation today, and if I’m allowed to share it, I will. I think you’d find it interesting.
Current project is getting much of the facade with exterior glazing, with two layers of double-pane (so a total of four layers), as well as a radiant panel system on the ceiling and side walls around every window. Not allowed to say more, but….. it’s an incredibly high-performance shell, and within ten years, it’ll be standard.
frosty
Yeah, that’s why I would prefer conduit and piping to be built outside the walls where I can see it.
Nukular Biskits
@frosty:
Part of the reason i posted that quote was I wanted to see how many others got that same bullshit talking point.
Jay
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yeah, while they knock the noise down to prevent hearing damage, they require regular disassembly and cleaning, their 2 main advantages are that a combat soldier does not have to wear ear protection, and so, stays in communication, the second, is they almost completely eliminate muzzle flash.
Suzanne
@frosty: Yeah, studs and drywall are dumb. Prefab is better.
frosty
@Suzanne: Not to mention lath and plaster. Ugh. When you mess with one of these walls they’re like popcorn. They expand to what, 10x the original volume?
Jay
@Suzanne:
Passive solar?
They Call Me Noni
@Omnes Omnibus: Couldn’t tell you. I call them evil bastards, but I’m not a polite bitch.
Jim Appleton
One really narrow piece of this:
I know several people dependent on federal housing, food, and health care assistance who are in the crosshairs.
None of them have any agency, and they don’t know what’s coming for them if the Senate bends over.
All of them voted for the slate gunning for their demise.
Baud
@Jim Appleton:
They’ll always have the libs they owned.
NaijaGal
@Omnes Omnibus:
Because the nice voters who don’t pay attention to much of anything will think your rhetoric is over the top and just unseemly.
Anyway, the only thing the media will actually deem evil is the effects that kick in after Democrats win the presidency in 2028. The media can help voters get really mad at Democrats for those evil consequences and show them by voting in a Republican president in 2032.
I do believe they are evil. I also notice that many people are adjusting to the consequences of that evil, slowly, and accepting it as the new way things should be. Not a lot of questioning among those who aren’t political junkies.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
And as it’s an open thread…
I’ll be bingestreaming Beethoven symphonies this weekend. You can, too!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C9qxdn1v6/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Baud
@NaijaGal:
Natural serfs.
Suzanne
@Jay: Not passive. Designed for extreme cold.
Suzanne
@frosty: Yeah, it’s ludicrous.
The technology exists to build almost every part of a building as premade components in a factory and essentially snap it together. Could be much more customizable and maintainable over time. If we could get to large-scale standardization, it might be possible to get away from some of the problems inherent in the way we currently do things.
eclare
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah. The average salary for geography (IIRC) majors at UNC Chapel Hill is huge because that was Michael Jordan’s major.
Jay
@Suzanne:
When I was a kid in the Maritimes, Dad made some passive solar heaters. Went on the west wall. Glued together beer cans, spray painted black, inside an insulated box with a single pane cover. Sun heats the beer cans, convection moves the heat into the house. Mother Earth News life hack.
When we built the place, I did sort of the same thing. Aluminum gutters, flat black paint, triple pane glass, flap valves and solar panel powered used computer fans, connected to a thermostat.
Nukular Biskits
@Suzanne:
I don’t mind drywall per se. I HATE repairing it and floating joints, etc.
Jay
@Suzanne:
???
They Call Me Noni
@Nukular Biskits: I have done a lot of drywall in my day. I don’t mind applying the mud, sanding is the part I absolutely hate.
Eyeroller
@Geminid: The Basque language is unrelated to Phoenician (which was Semitic) which makes this extremely unlikely. Basque is a language isolate with no extant relatives. It is believed to be the last survivor of a language family that predated and was displaced by Indo-European. The Basques have always lived in Europe.
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits: But that’s why it’s dumb! It’s laborious to change it, and hard to repair it. We literally sent people to the moon, and yet we’re still doing this shit.
NaijaGal
For anyone who is interested in reading something different by African authors over the weekend, I recommend:
– Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi / Nigeria (Fantasy – A Nebula Award nominee)
I reviewed it on Bluesky previously – it’s a richly imagined page turner: local gods form corporations and gain or lose market share based on the number of followers who pray to them. Features a heist at the British Museum (of a stolen Yoruba relic). Not sure I care for the succubus angle, but otherwise it’s a great read.
Met the author at the Ake book festival in Lagos in 2023 and he’s cool people. That was the best audience I’d ever done a reading for – over a hundred people hooting and hollering and just actively engaged in every author’s work.
– A Broken People’s Playlist by Chimeka Garricks / Nigeria (Short stories)
It’s a collection of short stories based on popular songs – the first one left me in tears so I put the book aside for a bit, but I’m recommending it because it was so good.
– Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi / Uganda (Literary/Historical Fiction)
This is Uganda’s answer to Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart.” Very popular in Uganda but took years to get traction in the UK/US even though the author is a creative writing professor in the UK.
Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day weekend.
Jackie
@Baud:
I know you’re being tongue in cheek, but there’s more than a kernel of truth to your statement. It’s akin to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face… kinda leopardy.
Suzanne
@Jay: Design temp of -25 F. I don’t know what manufacturer we’re going with, but this gives a good explainer of the basics of the tech.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay: Yep. Been thinking about moving on one myself for the bullpup… but, nah.
Suzanne
@NaijaGal: Thanks for the recommends!
zhena gogolia
@NaijaGal: You too!
Raven
@Jay: we had ZERO ear protection in basic in 66. 30 some m14’s firing at once .
scav
@Jay: Wouldn’t having a patch of still air (by cutting the wind) act a bit as additional insulation?
Jay
@They Call Me Noni:
No Dust compounds, random orbit sander, 180 grit, connected to a shop vac with a HEPA filter, Piece of cake and fast.
Done tens of thousands of feet of drywall.
Maybe a couple of thousand of feet of lathe and plaster.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
“They tried to make me switch to prefab, I said no, no, no.” ;-)
They Call Me Noni
@Jay: No dust compounds just means the dust falls straight down but there is still dust. When I was finishing all the drywall in our basement I did get one of those hoses you attach to a shop vac with the sanding tool you put a screen on. Still made a mess, just not as big of a mess. The bathroom and my sewing room have drywall ceilings, every other one down there is scraped wood planks because if there’s anything worse than finishing drywall it’s finishing drywall on the ceiling.
Suzanne
@Jay: But you still have to cut the drywall up to get at anything inside the wall, an inherent limitation.
In some of my projects, when they want ease of maintenance and future customization, we spec these. Can get at pipes or conduit within minutes, and basically snap it back together with no downtime, no mess, no repair.
Jay
@Suzanne:
just hot water radiant heating in a configurable interlock panel design.
At the place, the floors were 3 layers of OSB, with channels routed into them, coated with contact cement, then foil covered. 1/2 PVC was then laid into the grooves with bamboo floors over top. Water/glycol was heated via a chain of solar water heaters, a copper
heat coil in the wood stove chimney,
Solar panel to a 12V pump, thermostatic valve.
Jay
@Suzanne:
Yup, access panels.
Mike S
We had Senator Schiff on our program today and he doesn’t know how republicans will vote.
Suzanne
@Jay: Yes, it’s not complicated tech. When they frame the glazing, it’s an efficient way of dealing with the thermal transfer (mostly heat loss) at the perimeter. Prediction is that we’ll be doing a lot more of that kind of thing in the colder climates moving forward….. not just turning up the heater.
I know everyone thought that we would raise ventilation standards post-pandemic, but nope. Not seeing any of that so far.
Sister Golden Bear
@Omnes Omnibus:
Explanation via Oingo Boingo:
Only a lad
He really couldn’t help it
Only a lad
He didn’t wanna do it
Only a lad
He’s
underoverprivileged and abusedPerhaps a little bit confused
Oh-oh-oh, oh-woah-woah
It’s not his fault that he can’t behave
Society’s made him go astray
Perhaps if we’re nice, he’ll go away
Perhaps he’ll go away, he’ll go away-ay
Suzanne
@Jay: Typical access panels are ugly and thus unsuitable. With these, basically the whole wall is access panel.
Gin & Tonic
@Jay: The chronicles of ibn Fadlan cover his travels from Baghdad up the Volga to the Vikings in the 9th C. This is well-documented. Not a stretch to imagine going west across Siberia.
randy khan
I know I’ve talked about this several times already, but I definitely get vibes of the meeting I was in with a moderate (in this case, an actual moderate) Republican Congressman in 2017. He said that the Republicans absolutely had to pass a tax cut, or there would be – his words – “a bloodbath.” I don’t know if he was right, and 2018 was bad enough for them even with it, but I am pretty certain that’s how they felt. So I think the tax cut really is the stake in the ground for them here, and other things will fall away if they become inconvenient.
The question, of course, is whether that will happen or not.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Forgive me, who says we can’t call them evil? They are evil. Incompetent and evil.
mrmoshpotato
@Mr. Bemused Senior: And racist, and sexist, and bastards, and Nazis.
Fair Economist
@Jay: There are also trade records of furs only found in North America, like the Martin, being sold in Europe pre-Columbus. The general guess is that the Greenland Norse traded with the Native Americans for them, as they aren’t in Greenland. Which would explain the beads.
Fair Economist
@Suzanne: I appreciate your updates on building technology.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: That was a batch*t insane order from Noem.
prostratedragon
Rupar:
Timill
@prostratedragon: I think she should follow the example of Admiral Byng…
Jackie
EXCEPT FFOTUS. This is a NYT link I wish wasn’t paywalled.
prostratedragon
@Jackie:
archive.ph link to the article. I use firefox, which has an extension called Surmount that (almost always) does it automatically when a paywall is detected.
prostratedragon
@Timill: Guilty of a hell of a lot more than dereliction.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Jim Appleton: Darwin awards
Jackie
@prostratedragon: for whatever reason, I can’t get archive.ph link to work for me.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Jackie: hmm, works for me. [the light bulb works fine in office 😁]
I think that word does not mean what you think [she thinks] it means.
frosty
For all you drywall guys, here’s the song I sing while patching walls:
You rock 16 rooms, and what do you get
A face full of plaster stuck together with sweat.
St. Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t come.
My wife can’t paint until the drywall’s done.
prostratedragon
@Jackie: Do you get a search box with the nytimes url in it? If so, press “search” and it should come up. Or put the url into the empty box and search.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: (people won’t know what hit them…)
eclare
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Kimmel played that clip tonight. Un-fucking-believable.
prostratedragon
Midnight on BlueSky?
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
Down report
Melancholy Jaques
@prostratedragon:
Just now went there & it was fine.
Gloria DryGarden
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I saw that clip.
in the face of such obstinate (obdurate?) denial and lies,
My needle moves into the red, with fury…
show me on the doll…….
eclare
I hope all of the front pagers are ok, the posts have been kind of sparse today. Hopefully they are getting ready for a long weekend.
prostratedragon
@Melancholy Jaques: Still out for me. I’m under the impression that tbe outages can be spotty.
Geminid
Only the best people.
Laura Rozen reposted this from John Jackson (@hissgoescobra), about Trump’s May 22 “memecoin” dinner at his Northern Virginia country club:
Jackson was referring to this post by Heather Thomas (@HeatherThomaAF), who cited a Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW) report:
CREW’s report has more details.
JWR
@Jackie: I don’t have any trouble getting the archive link to work. Maybe it’s because you kept the generated link in your search? (https://archive.ph/M976r) In any case, I always copy a NYT or WaPo or whatever link it is into the Save button (in the red bordered box) at: https://archive.ph/. It returned this: https://archive.ph/M876r#selection-521.0-531.75
Anyway, good luck! Back to the NYT story:
I wouldn’t say he was “mostly taking it in stride”, unless of course you’re an intrepid NYT reporter. I’d say it was more like he was just that slow in getting the dark humor of the situation. (And “a touch of insouciance”? Good Lord. He’s the fUcking president, you twits!)
Jay
@Suzanne:
That sucks. Air filtration is easy.
Gloria DryGarden
@prostratedragon: when I go directly to blue sky, it’s fine. However, a majority of adam’s links on the Ukraine page show item not found, may have been deleted. So something is up.. well, down.
Gloria DryGarden
@JWR: isn’t insouciance one of the flavors he acts out? He doesn’t GAF about anyone, at the minimum, except himself, and his image and money.
Also, isn’t a sense of humor a sign of intelligence? I don’t think he has one. Mocking others who don’t have his privileges doesn’t count as humor…
Geminid, that’s appalling, those names. So very hateful.
I may have to try harder to learn wtf are memecoins, crypto wallets, and crypto coin. It all seems like a house of cards to me, making something from nothing, a very weird form of gambling..
MagdaInBlack
@Gloria DryGarden: You know everything you need to know when you say it seems like a “house of cards.”
Gloria DryGarden
@MagdaInBlack: thank you.
The emperor has no clothes. Why don’t people see it?
where is the child who’ll call it out?
MagdaInBlack
@Gloria DryGarden: They don’t want to see it.
Princess
@Geminid: He held the dinner in a Hampton Inn ballroom outside Akron (well, that’s what it looked like) and helicoptered in for a fifteen minute speech. Who are the vile racist antisemitic marks? They are.
Geminid
@Princess: I don’t know enough about this “meme coin” phenomenon, or about the event at the Northern Virginia country, to have a very informed opinion. But it seems like Trump and these memecoiners could have a symbiotic relationship, with the marks downstream from the dinner attendees.
Stately Plump Buck
Letter to Tillis and Budd, written in the style of Ralph Waldo Emerson:
To the keepers of the public trust,
I write not in the voice of complaint alone, but in the spirit of truth, that we may gaze unflinching upon the course before us. There is no law of nature that ordains the swelling hoard of gold in the vaults of the mighty while the laborer toils, bowed and burdened, beneath a sky that grants him no favor. No hand of providence decrees that the wealth of our land should be drawn from the hands of the many to swell the coffers of the few. These are the makings of men, wrought by the will of those who craft our laws, and thus, by men, they may be undone.
Mark well the signs of the age. In a single year, the lords of capital have amassed a sum so vast that it beggars belief: five billion dollars each day, each hour a tide of gold flowing ceaselessly into their hands. And if the course is not altered, what then? Shall we see the rise of emperors of commerce, whose fortunes stretch beyond the reckoning of nations, while the honest worker, the farmer, the teacher, and the builder stand in want of their daily bread? Look about you, and you shall see the fruits of such injustice: wages that do not rise, homes that slip beyond reach, schools that crumble, roads that decay, and a people asked to sacrifice while those who reap the harvest of industry are asked for nothing.
It was not fate but folly that delivered to the wealthiest a trillion-dollar bounty under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a gift bestowed upon those who had no need, a debt laid upon the backs of those who could least afford it. The richest sliver of our citizenry, a mere whisper of the whole, received a fortune in relief hundreds of times greater than that granted to the worker who toils from dawn to dusk. And now, as this law nears its end, those who sit in high places seek not to let it pass into oblivion but to expand its reach, to widen the gulf that divides the prince from the peasant, to set in stone a hierarchy of privilege that has no place in a land that calls itself free.
Shall we stand idly by while this great swindle is renewed? Shall we allow the wealth of the republic to be hoarded, its blessings reserved for those who have already feasted beyond measure? I say no. North Carolina must not be a land where the plowman’s sweat is the fuel for another man’s leisure, where the teacher’s sacrifice funds another’s luxury, where the builder’s labor paves the road only to another’s palace. The time has come to demand justice, to restore the balance, to require of the mighty their due.
Let the wealth of this nation be a river, not a stagnant pool. Let it flow to nourish the many, not to deepen the vaults of the few. Let us turn from the path of greed and heed instead the call of wisdom: that the prosperity of one must be bound to the prosperity of all. If Congress heeds the will of the people, let them reject these gifts to the powerful and build instead a system that lifts the many rather than enthroning the few.
The choice is stark, and the hour demands action. Shall we be a nation where fortune serves only its masters, or shall we demand that it serve the people? The answer must be made plain in deed, not word, in law, not promise. Let those who wield power remember well: the strength of a nation is not in its gold but in its people, and when justice is denied, the spirit of the people shall rise, as unyielding as the tide.
Stand with the people of North Carolina. Stand for fairness. Let the wealth of this land be the inheritance of all, and not the birthright of a gilded few.
evodevo
@Jay:
Not at all surprised. Humans have been trading long distance for many many thousands of years, starting with obsidian several hundred thousand years ago. When you have access to a resource/skill that is plentiful locally, but prized and scarce elsewhere, trading springs up naturally. I can easily envision whale meat and walrus hides/ivory being exchanged across the Bering strait between Inuit and Siberian people, who would use beads from Asian traders to purchase Inuit products. Then those scarce and valuable beads traded inland, reaching their final destination. It’s in our blood…
https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/scientists-discover-evidence-early-human-innovation-pushing-back-evolutionary-timeline