Yes, they are as awful as you think they are:
The Trump administration knew that the vast majority of the 238 Venezuelan immigrants it sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in mid-March had not been convicted of crimes in the United States before it labeled them as terrorists and deported them, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security data that has not been previously reported.
President Donald Trump and his aides have branded the Venezuelans as “rapists,” “savages,” “monsters” and “the worst of the worst.” When multiple news organizations disputed those assertions with reporting that showed many of the deportees did not have criminal records, the administration doubled down. It said that its assessment of the deportees was based on a thorough vetting process that included looking at crimes committed both inside and outside the United States. But the government’s own data, which was obtained by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and a team of journalists from Venezuela, showed that officials knew that only 32 of the deportees had been convicted of U.S. crimes and that most were nonviolent offenses, such as retail theft or traffic violations.
We are going to be international pariahs for a long time coming.
Also today I learned that a Glenn Greenwald sex tape has been leaked, and if I have to have that fucking information in my head, you are god damned right I think you need to know it, too. I’m a giver.
That local meme above is no joke- it rained all day and I am sort of in a funk. I really need some sunshine and dryness so I can get some outdoor stuff done. The rain is supposed to break.
I’m gonna finish off the Bosch series tonight.
War for Ukraine Day 1,191: Russia Strikes Ukrainian Agricultural and Food Infrastructure
Suzanne
That meme is inaccurate. It’s been sunny and beautiful most of the week.
Of all the people….. I honest-to-FSM never thought Glenn Greenwald would have a sex tape.
bbleh
Lying brazenly and even angrily is “strong,” and just because the particular details aren’t 100% exactly true, if you’re arguing for Greater Truths then you’re “telling it like it is.”
If they’re awful it’s because that’s what their followers want. The problem is Republicans, not just the current administration.
(ETA: Greenwald is a putz. Please to ignore.)
Scout211
Speaking of weather, it’s 100 degrees and the power just went out for over 4,000 customers. But our whole house backup generator turned on! Yay! Last week the power was out for almost four hours and the backup generator turned on!
One of the best purchases we ever made for the house last year
Sorry about all the rain in your area, though.
Baud
@Suzanne:
It’s always sunny in Pittsburgh.
frosty
I just sent that meme to my Pittsburgh son.
@Suzanne: Not steadily sunny and beautiful down on the Mason-Dixon Line. Woke up to a semi-warm sunny morning. Closed out the day with rain. Lots of variability. Two nights ago I lit a fire in the fireplace to fight off the dreariness. Second time I’ve done that this month!
frosty
@Baud: Or one of those PA towns that starts with a P, right? There’s no difference. //
NotMax
Some sunshiny tuneage for you.
;)
piratedan
well, we’ve cleared our tornado warning unscathed, so time for more Brokenwood (got the much batter half hooked)
NotMax
@frosty
Punxsutawney?
:)
caphilldcne
It’s pouring and we’re under a tornado watch in DC. I told my Alabama located family to take their weather back.
Spanky
@frosty: Pottsville? Pottstown? Punxatawny?
Heavy rain here atm, though we seem to have dodged the thunderstorms and tornado warnings. Could be rough again later tonight.
Suzanne
@frosty: It rained a bit on Wednesday, and it’s rained a lot today. But we’ve also had some gorgeous sunshine! No complaints!
Jay
Trump just let a ketamine addict spend the last three months plundering every American’s personal data, so I’m really glad Jake Tapper came out with a book about Biden. – Andy Borowitz
Chief Oshkosh
@Spanky: Perkasie, of course.
trollhattan
Hallmark of a good summer is the first three-digit day does not come before July 4.
Current temp: 101.
Shoot me now.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: Finally got his date with Bolsonaro. Squees of Glemjoy.
Josie
We had a norther just last week, in the last week of May, in Houston. Seriously?
ETA: A norther is what we call it when it rains and the wind is out of the north, causing temps to drop. They are usually confined to the months of December to February.
LeftCoastYankee
In eastern PA its been cloudy in April and May, with only a few days in May with deluges of rain.
Just like that old childhood poem: “April clouds bring May clouds and flooding, but not an end to the drought. Also a Tornado watch, but we totally haven’t broken the weather.” It rhymes better in Latin.
Oy.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: :::hurl:::
columbusqueen
Dear GOD, I need brain bleach. Between this & Katie Miller being impregnated with Musky’s sperm soon, the grossness seems never ending.
Ryan
Donald the Dipshit is tariffing again.
Trump says steel tariffs will rise to 50%, doubling the import tax – The Washington Post
NotMax
@Spanky
It’s always
sunnyrestful in Pillow.;)
trollhattan
@Ryan: It would seem The Donald has concerns about the whole TACO thing.
Jackie
Another defiant deportation after federal judges grant migrant permission to stay:
Echoes of what happened to Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
https://www.investigativepost.org/2025/05/30/another-ice-deportation-in-defiance-of-court-order/
rikyrah
Of course, they knew they were doing wrong. I am not surprised that they deported people with no due process.
rikyrah
@Jackie:
They are phucking evil
Mathguy
From Meidas Touch:
Stephen Miller’s wife Katie is leaving the Trump admin to work directly for Musk, which has prompted rumors that she may soon end up being Musk’s latest baby mama given his predilection for procreation. CNN: “She is reportedly helping Musk to set up media interviews unrelated to his govt work now that he has officially stepped down as head of DOGE. Musk has given interviews this week to Ars Technica, CBS News and WaPo, where he complained about WH betrayal and criticized the ‘big beautiful bill’ Trump was trying to push through Congress.”
… USA Today columnist Rex Huppke: “I read the words ‘Stephen Miller’ and ‘throuple‘ then passed out for like 20 minutes. Has it stopped yet or are all the worst things imaginable still happening all at once?”
… James Palmer, editor of Foreign Policy: “Congratulations to Katie Miller for being literally the only woman in the world for whom joining Elon Musk’s harem would be a step up.”
Nukular Biskits
Ref the meme:
Sorry, John, but it’s really hard to sympathize. According to weather.com, here in GPT, as of 8:38 Central, it’s 82 degrees but, with humidity, feels like 86.
Jay
Northern BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are all burning.
Suzanne
@columbusqueen: Why can’t any of these people be normal evil?! They all seem to have the grossest kinks imaginable.
rikyrah
Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) posted at 5:05 PM on Fri, May 30, 2025:
Trump and Marco Rubio fire the historians advisory committee that has been in place since Civil War era to give an account of America’s foreign relations that is unbiased and complete. Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
(https://x.com/NormOrnstein/status/1928573475901346071?t=4gwCKaiYfAg4IuYiPo0o6g&s=03)
rikyrah
Melanie D’Arrigo (@DarrigoMelanie) posted at 1:02 PM on Fri, May 30, 2025:
Plantir, owned by Peter Thiel, is collecting sensitive personal and financial data on American citizens to create detailed profiles for the government.
Thiel once wrote “freedom and democracy may not be compatible,” and “capitalism and authoritarianism” are.
Do you get it yet? https://t.co/zvJnlAqzzn
(https://x.com/DarrigoMelanie/status/1928512315760009469?t=qGuHWJEos1LCncBqxddHGg&s=03)
rikyrah
Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) posted at 8:00 PM on Fri, May 30, 2025:
Alabama GOP lawmakers said they won’t draw a new congressional map before 2030 to avoid federal oversight. A court ruled their 2023 map violated the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against Black voters.
https://t.co/Q3tdVbLku4
(https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1928617422665240874?t=jwgwy4gRSulsYPOw3QCFgA&s=03)
Elizabelle
@Mathguy: James Palmer! That is a 3rd degree burn.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: TACO Loco.
Kelly
Sunny 81° here in Oregon’s western Cascade Foothills. I just returned from my first swim of the year the river a brisk but comfy 67°.
Lapassionara
@rikyrah: You are the best! Thank you for the info you bring to BJ.
sorry, no emojis allowed.
frosty
@NotMax: Sure, Punxy. Where Ms F’s mother grew up.
Dangerman
@trollhattan: My car said 102. It lies. It wasn’t hotter than 101.
Kelly
@trollhattan: Twenty years ago my river swimming around here started in July. Exhilarating plunges in June but I rarely swam across the river until July. I had a pleasant swim all the way across the river this evening.
Pete Downunder
Late autumn here in SE Queensland, temp is 15 C (59F) and raining. We’ve had a very wet fall, with at most two or three sunny days between rainy ones. Given that part of the country (South Australia) is in drought and just south of us in New South Wales they have had record flooding, we can’t really complain. Reading about the US horror stories particularly at the border, my Aussie friends have decided they are not going to the US anytime soon. A Canadian friend says that Air Canada is re-routing its flights so passengers don’t have to transit through the US. For some reason, unlike most countries, the US does not allow transfers without clearing customs if you are only stopping in the US on the way to another country.
Mathguy
@Elizabelle: That one made me giggle.
Jay
@Dangerman:
@Kelly:
Keep in mind, this will be the hottest summer you will ever have experienced,………………………
So far.
The current wildfire situation in Canada is 3x larger than all of 2023, and it’s just May.
The Unmitigated Gaul
@Elizabelle: TACO loco cien por cien!
Marc
That would be Palantir, a company funded in large part by In-Q-Tel, the CIA venture capital office (yes, they have one, in Silicon Valley, of course). They’ve been collecting detailed profiles on everyone in the world for two decades, for sale to your favorite corporations and governments.
Kelly
@Jay: Last year’s Oregon wildfires burned record acreage. Most of it was sparely populated sagebrush steppe. Spread out over a couple months and burned less than 100 homes. Smoke mostly blew into Idaho. They drew much less attention the 2020 Labor Day fires.
My Dad pushed fire trails with a Cat in the 60’s and 70’s. 50,000 acres was a big fire. One year had 2 50,000 acre fires at the same time and it was big, big deal.
Jackie
A long, but very interesting article about the history of the jet JD Vance used to campaign for VP:
It’s a long read, but well worth it. Interesting snippet reveals this plane was also used to transport immigrants out of the country during FFOTUS’s FIRST term.
https://azmirror.com/2025/05/29/j-d-vances-campaign-plane-carried-anti-immigrant-rhetoric-now-it-carries-shackled-deportees/
Jay
@Kelly:
It’s May, and the Taiga is burning. all the way from Northern BC to Manitoba.
The areas burning are already 3x larger than “everything” that burned in 2023.
the snow in some of these area’s hasn’t even melted yet. It’s May.
In 2023, the US East Coast and even Western Europe was choking on the smoke from the Canadian fires.
Buckle up, get your N95 masks while you can, dig out or buy an air purifier, upgrade your HVAC filters, stock up on eye drops, because forest fire season in Canada hasn’t even hit yet. That arrives in late August.
Gloria DryGarden
@LeftCoastYankee: May flowers in Denver, where we have the opposite of too much rain. I don’t think we got April showers in April though. Maybe a few inches in may, almost just in time.
we get predictions of rain, 52% chance, predicting 0.1” All those 0.03” rainfalls that up to .3” for the day, is how we add up our annual total of hopefully a whole 14”
sorry for all the grey chilly too rainy weather so many are having. Great for the plants, hard on the mood.
you can’t imagine our near incessant sunshine, and we can’t imagine coping with so much grey sky rainy weather.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: oh my Word! Way too soon for fires, and that’s a huge swathe. Yikes.
Jackie
@Jay: That sucks😢 I guess you can be thankful Canada doesn’t depend on our good as dead FEMA for disaster assistance. I’m as prepared as I can be; living in WA, we sadly share wildfire smoke and ash with each other, depending on which way the winds blow.
Steve LaBonne
@Mathguy: In the best of all possible worlds Miller would now proceed to assassinate Elmo and then be executed himself. Sadly we don’t live in anything within a parsec of the best of all possible worlds.
Elizabelle
@The Unmitigated Gaul: You know it!
RevRick
@Baud: Actually it’s not. When I moved from Connecticut to the Pittsburgh area in 1975, the first year there I experienced a mild depression. Curiosity led me to my Almanac (remember those), and I discovered that the Pittsburgh area has almost 100 fewer sunny days than my Connecticut hometown. (BTW, Binghamton NY is the gloomiest).
mvr
@Jay: Yes, we are getting the smoke down here in Nebraska.
Tomorrow I go about 150 miles North to guide some breast cancer survivors fly fishing in the Northern part of the state Sunday morning. Always enjoy these trips. One doesn’t have to be all that good at fly fishing to do it. The great thing about fly fishing is that it takes all of your concentration so you don’t worry much. Same when helping someone else fish. You focus on helping them to enjoy it.
I don’t think the smoke will ruin anyone’s trip, but they are putting out health warnings for vulnerable people. Looking forward to it with fingers crossed.
Gloria DryGarden
Glenn greenwald’s statement on privacy and his continuing work
mvr
@rikyrah: I was once at a conference with their ethics officer. The schtick spouted was that they were ethicao because people were never forced to work on things they found too unethical to do. Not comforting. And it would not have been comforting had one thought the people who worked there actually had any compunction.
Steve in the ATL
@Kelly:
Good—screw those nazis!
Jay
@mvr:
What river are you fishing and what is the “hatch”? Is it Green Drake season yet? PMD’s? March Browns? Do you get Stonefly hatches in Nebraska?
In a few weeks it will be “Stonefly” season on the Thompson.
Bupalos
@Steve in the ATL: All the people in Idaho deserve whatever they get! That’s a red place full of red people with red babies that now get to enjoy red asthma!!! Suck it red babies!!!
mvr
@Jay: In Eastern Nebraska with relative beginners it is fishing a stocked pond in Ponca State Park (which is on the Missouri but we fish the pond). I fished Virdigre Creek a couple of weeks ago – our furthest East Trout Stream and got skunked. Maybe a few caddis flies but I spooked the fish.
In two weeks we’ll head out to the Sierra Madre Mountains of WY and then on to Teton and Yellowstone. Generally early season in Yellowstone is stoneflies and PMDs in the Western part of the park. If I get lucky the Green Drakes will still be hatching when I get back to the cabin in the Sierra Madres at the end of June. I only really caught that hatch once in early July, but it was amazing!
I’ve been seeing what look like Hex hatches (one or two at a time) on our local reservoir. But they’re sparse and the fish (panfish, bass & crappie) aren’t keyed onto them. Getting a bit better at not just focusing on trout which just don’t exist around here much and are mostly put and take fishing even if I release them. Smallmouth are a lot of fun ion a couple of the I-80 lakes that were once quarries for the highway.
Thompson is a nice river, I hear, but I have never fished it.
mvr
@Bupalos:
You all know this is BS, right? Even in the reddest places there are people who are unsympathetic to racism and Trump. And in any case this is no way to build a coalition. Democratic politics has to be coalition politics.
Tom
@Jay: You said it all.
Shalimar
@Gloria DryGarden: I absolutely regret getting out of the boat and learning about Glenn’s weird fetishes. Whoever doxed him should face criminal charges for letting that out into the public discourse.
Bupalos
@Suzanne: The aspects of this I find interesting are
Ohio Mom
@Marc: This is exactly why Ohio Dad has been completely unfazed by the thought that DOGE has been mining our data; he has always assumed it’s long been thoroughly mined by the NSA and CIA.
Shalimar
@mvr: They may have an unfortunate affinity for Trump, but even Idahoans don’t like Nazis in their communities and try to drive them out. Not their fault so many crazy assholes want to set up compounds there.
Jay
@mvr:
I’ve cut back on my gear, I have only a 1 2# weight, 3 4# weights, 2 6# weights, 1 8# weight and an 8#weight Spey rod, 1 10# weight and a custom 12# weight Spey.
A couple of years ago, bored with “regular” flyfishing, I set up one of my 4# weights, (11 feet) for Euro, (Czech) nymphing, and am still learning.
Here we have cutthroats, sea run cutthroats, FVS rainbows, steelhead, (summer and winter), all 6 species of salmon, Dolly Varden, Bulltrout, Northern Pike Minnows, Crappies, Sunfish, Smallmouth Bass, and that is just freshwater, all within a bus ride.
mvr
@Shalimar:
Exactly.
Jackie
@Bupalos:
I have Democratic relatives in Idaho. Quit with the painting of ALL people who live in Red states. I, myself live in Blue WA, but in one of the reddest counties. It’s uncool to paint everyone with a red brush just because of life circumstances.
Old Dan and Little Ann
It has rained all of May. I organized a field trip of 60 inner city kids to a summer camp spot for today. It sits by a lake and it was just for some outdoor green space and woods fun. It was 70 and sunny. Picture perfect. I swear a student of mine smiled for the 1st time all year.
Bupalos
@Ohio Mom: I think people badly underestimate the degree to which the non-reaction to Trump is because many people already basically gave America up for dead.
That we just tried rather desperately to ally will Liz Cheney is a real thing, and we wouldn’t have been able to miss the existential significance of it 10 years ago.
Bupalos
@Jackie: I’m trying to be sarcastic, but I mean I get it, there’s basically no bottom to the dumbass polarization in spaces like this, so I shouldn’t joke.
mvr
@Jay: I’m a self-taught complete amateur.
I sometimes travel for work and have figured out how to pack a rod in checked baggage.
Latest kick is trying to catch native salmonids in original waters. So far did all four native Cutthorats in WY last year and Westslope Cutts in MT. Possibly also a coastal rainbow in northern California earlier this Spring, but I need to make sure that it was a native coaster.
Your mention of the Thompson made me think you were in Colorado, but Coastal Cutts put you somewhere on the West Coast.
Gloria DryGarden
@Old Dan and Little Ann: that one smile must have been the worth the cost of admission…
Jackie
@Bupalos: Most of us follow a joke, snark, sarcasm with this: //
That way, even if “we” don’t get the humor, “we” know not to take whatever literally or seriously.
Bupalos
@Jackie: Nope. I’m not going to live in a world where I have to signify with slash marks that I don’t really wish asthma on babies because of their retrograde political views.
Nope nope nope.
There are some “me” things, I don’t deny this. But this is not one of them.
Jay
@mvr:
Burquitlam, BC. Burnaby/Coquitlam border.
Thompson/Chehalis river references, along with the Skagit just confuses some people if they don’t know where you live, as we each have one.
Self taught as well. Dad had a fly rod, (several, I have his old Fenwick and Peerless reel, fiberglass rod made like bamboo rods). He could not cast, and instead trolled in a canoe, with an electric motor and lawn chair.
One of our last outings was to the Lower Chehalis. I normally fished the canyons, but,………. had tied up a box of flies for him, left him to it in a good spot, came back half and hour later and had to cut all 18 flies out of the back of his fleece.
Here are the canyons of the Chehalis from a different viewpoint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x59PIX7HDWQ
Fished the East Coast, fresh and salt, moved to BC, (Coquitlam) in the 70’s, in the late 80’s made enough to make “expeditions”, chasing salmon, steelhead, tuna, arctic char, moved to the Interior in the late 90’s, to a place where a 10 minute walk took me to Edith Lake, brookies and 3 different strains of Kamloops trout. Now back on the Coast.
LeftCoastYankee
@Gloria DryGarden:
It theoretically should be good for the plants but it’s been cloudy with very little sunshine and no rain. Then it pours so hard and cold for a day that they wilt.
I’m sure in a few weeks I’ll be griping that the constant heat and sunshine are drying them out!
Jay
@mvr:
Oh, BTW, if it looks “sunbleached” or “washed out” it’s a sea run Cutt, if it looks like a “normal” cutt, (cutthroat slash, spots on top, mostly silver outside of spawning season), it’s either a Coastal Cutt or a CuttBow hybrid.
prostratedragon
@Steve in the ATL: We’re having it right now in Chicago.
Soprano2
We had a sunny day for the first time in over a week. We set a rainfall record in April, and had over 7″ of rain since a week ago Wednesday. We’re getting several dry sunny days, and we sure need them!
Jackie
@Bupalos: Understood.
It’s unfortunate the typed word doesn’t always translate tone of voice. So without signifying somehow that you’re joking, you’re bound to be taken literally – especially with sensitive subjects. 🤷🏼♀️
mvr
@Jay: Used to a a PNWer myself. Moved to Portland for college. Stayed on for several years working in Oregon City. Shop there sold rod blanks. Made myself a fiberglass flyrod form one of them and then whipped the water to a froth. Most often after work on the Clackamas River or the Sandy River in the Gorge and above. Didn’t catch much but it was still fun.
When I got tenure I decided to face the fact that i lived here and looked for the closest place with water or mountains and built a small cabin in an inholding in the National Forest 600 miles to the West. Also got involved with fisheries conservation as way to do politics in a red state.
mvr
@Jay: This was a rainbow. Perhaps I misposted? Smith river in Northern California. 47 years after my first time there hitch hiking 78 camping.
frosty
@Jay:
One climate change tipping point: The burning of the boreal forests. We’re there. I don’t remember the exact year and stats but the wildfires put more CO2 into the atmosphere than all of Canada’s man-made contributions.
Jay
@mvr:
When I was a kid, there were only “rainbows”, now much older, I have learned there are many sub species.
In local Indigenous lore, they are the fish that pushed the Glaciers back with their nose.
In the Interior of BC, we have 9 so far, sub species. They would swim up the rivers to a lake, the lake would later get cut off, geologically, and they would evolve in isolation.
Eg. when there is an Invasive Species, (f/n Bucket Brigade) sitch, the first try Fisheries make is to introduce Blackwater strain. They mostly eat fish.
All the other strains prefer bugs.
Nettoyeur
The 800 or so people of middle eastern descent that the W-Vice regime sent to Gitmo post 9/11 were also initially described as the worst of the worst. After they excluded the kids, old men and others scooped up by mistake or sold to gullible US forces, the number quickly dropped to less than a hundred and eventually about 30….the worst of whom can’t be tried because key evidence was extracted by torture and is inadmissible. The US spent billions on that shitshow. And of course it was the modern Republicans who did this…they are pretty much incompetent Nazis. The Trump version of SS ethnic cleansing will ruin thousands of lives until the financial and reputational costs rise to intolerable levels. Whether the US survives in something like its desired form remains to be seen.
eclare
Beautiful photo today.
Jay
@Nettoyeur:
Thank you for your post and reminder.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: love this
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: that was an exhilarating video.
I’ve never kayaked white water, only gone in a raft, with several people on board. The guide on the Salmon river was teaching us to read the river, took us up the hill to scout it, when she knew we were coming up on some fancy white water. But I couldn’t do it myself, I don’t think.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
I fished there for years.
There was rappelling down cliffs, to get to the water, that one run, that one pool.
In the 1920’s, there was a logging railroad. Some of the trestles still remain. The 1932 fires killed all that off. The wood, the tracks.
So, from the Forest Service Road, you go down to the the remains of the railroad.
Then another rappel, or Indigenous trails down to the canyons bottom.
In summer, for 2 years, back in the day, I swam the Chehalis from the dam, to the end of the canyons. Mapped it all out. Still have it. Pencil and pastel. 144 pages.
Did not have drones.
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: I have noticed. In the last 3-4 years I have noticed many of the places that hold memories are burning.
Lac LaRonge-Lake Nemeiben, Sask. Cranberry Portage, Manitoba, and now Flin Flon and Cranberry Portage.
Somewhere there is a picture of me in front of “Flintabaty Flonaton”
rikyrah
@Pete Downunder:
Don’t blame.them. Do not stop in the U S
rikyrah
@Bupalos:
How do you think there has been no reaction.
We have had millions around the country.
The MSM.has deliberately not covered the protests
Jay
@MagdaInBlack:
Sorry, that’s as Canadian as I can get. Everything is burning.
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: Both literally and figuratively.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: you swam that whitewater? Two years, the whole thing, no kayak? Wowie Zowie.
when will you publish your book of adventures and drawings? It must be amazing..
your descriptions…the places you’ve been in nature, it’s always so great to hear about.
I’ve done nothing like your adventures, just a few handfuls of solo backpacking trips, a zillion hikes, a few group river or camping trips, a trail ride w overnight. Some day canoeing on a lake. A tiny rock climb with others. I’m grateful for it all, and I miss it so. I’ve just nearly always been on a trail, or with guides, nothing so wild, but your stories fill me with longing. And it’s beautiful to go there , armchair traveling style, from your descriptions.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: it must be devastating to know how much is burning, places you’ve been, or meant to go sometime. I’m sorry. The Canadian taiga is important for the planet, if I’ve understood correctly.
one of the people I’ve not entirely cut off was just telling me climate change is not real, it’s just a political thing. I won’t argue, but said he must be getting different sources than I am, because the information is out there, and it’s clear, and scary. I tried snowballing him with stuff about the AMOC. At least he didn’t try arguing back, which I don’t have room for.
MagdaInBlack
@Gloria DryGarden: I’ve done many of the things you’ve done and remote as some of the places I’ve done them, it all seems quite “cushy” camping compared to his experiences. And I too enjoy the “armchair traveling.”
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: because you’re Canadian, here’s a thing I wrote to another Canadian, a poet in Vancouver, who inspires me.
”Your poem inspired me to write something. Your poems are uplifting for me.
No matter my level of skill, it’s sweet to be inspired to write anything.
Sometimes there is no more to say in the face of my country ceceding from the world, ripping out all trust, threatening all the international connections and richness that run like rivulets through the map of my world citizenship.
The despair makes things turn grey. Thoughts lie down, flattened. And we know people who voted for the guy, who didn’t see, still don’t see, that there’s any problem, who think it’s all reasonable. People we know who used to be friends, or family, and one can’t speak to them, the field of lies is too unpleasant. It’s perhaps a different anguish than the one Canadians feel, to have a neighboring country turn the way it has.”
The anguish, the despondency, at the things going on, at having come to this pass. And now these vast fires across Canada. I hope it rains.
Geminid
I ran across a good interview of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, by journalist Jonathan Bass for Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal. It’s titled,”A Conversation with Syrian Leader: Journey Beyond the Ruins.”
Al-Sharaa:
Journalist:
Al-Sharaa:
Ed.I will try to clean up a link. But it still doesn’t work. It does take to Jewish Journal’s home page. An interesting publicaton.
https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/a-conversation-with-president-ahmed-al-sharaa-journey-beyond-the-ruins/
Gloria DryGarden
@MagdaInBlack: yay. I wish I could still do it. it’s just car camping at this point, and even that’s become a stretch.
thank goddess for these late night nature vignettes Jay writes, that feed the soul. Deep breath.
did you ever have someone tell you you can’t go backpacking in there solo, a woman alone, you at least need a dog with you? Sheesh.
lowtechcyclist
@Mathguy:
James Palmer wins the Internet for yesterday.
Re the other ‘scandal,’ I’m trying to think of why it should matter that there’s a Glenn Greenwald sex tape, and I’m drawing a blank. Fortunately I have no recollection of what Glem looks like, so there’s no visualization popping into my head, hence no brain bleach needed. Ditto Katie Miller, for that matter.
MagdaInBlack
@Gloria DryGarden: LOL. I’ve done a lot of things a woman wasn’t supposed to do alone, so yes.
Altho these days, when all the horrors that happen are highlighted, it does make one have “omg what if” moments, doesn’t it
p.s. my late husband once said “if we thought about all the things that could happen, we’d never do anything.”
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: this is a big unwieldy country, the USA. Can we use a Syrian rebuilding as a role model, in some ways?
ok, so we’re not physically rubble. But stuff has been torn apart, or locked up in the hands of the very powerful, the very rich. And the idea that no one can safely come here, that any of us might be kidnapped and sent anyplace…
Gloria DryGarden
@MagdaInBlack: I worked a rape hotline, and used to know the numbers better: The chances of rape from acquaintances is as high as strangers. in home vs out somewhere, also, very similar numbers, within 10 points. So, camping alone is no less safe than being home alone. And so on.
Professor Bigfoot
Deleted, because maybe my own prejudices got away from me.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
The Constitution (Article I, Section 5) says each House of Congress is the judge of the qualifications of its members. Next time the Dems control the House (hopefully that’ll be January 3, 2027) they should refuse to seat the Alabama delegation until they have new elections with the new map.
Gloria DryGarden
@lowtechcyclist: not caring about other people’s private sex lives. Glad they’re getting some. Girlfriends tell each other when we have details to share on these matters. I can’t imagine private details going beyond ones inner circles of confidantes. Not complaining about people mini shares here, it’s not third person.
None of my business. I’m glad I’m not seeing these videos. Hilarious joke about ms miller, though.
remember when Ken Starr said dragging people through the details of others’ sexual escapades was a kind of public pornography. Before he dragged all those Clinton Lewinsky details out in the open, that we really didn’t need to know all about?
got bigger things to care about. Ymmv, if so, enjoy, I guess.
lowtechcyclist
@Elizabelle:
My wife tells me that in the corners of the Web where she hangs out, Karoline Leavitt is being referred to as “TACO Belle.”
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
The dark web is hilarious.
rikyrah
@lowtechcyclist:
Absolutely outrageous😠😠
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
satby
@lowtechcyclist: @rikyrah: that’s because after years of litigation, the AL Republicans lost in their last attempt to draw unequal maps, and a Federal court drew them. They’re just suspending their fight for the next election cycles.
Edit: don’t worry, they have lots of other voter suppression tactics to try.
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: Syria is a medium sized country, about the size of Florida and with a similar population of around 25 million people.
But the situation for Syrians is very different from ours. We fear we are slipping into a dictatorship. They just endured over six decades of rule by the repressive Assad regime, and in the years 2011-2024 they experienced a civil war that claimed as many as one million lives and wrecked most of the country.
Syria entered the post-WWII era as the most economically advanced nation in the region, but now ninety percent of Syrians live in poverty. Their nation is also awash in weapons of war, and there are sectarian tensions and grudges that spoilers– inside and outside the country– are trying to exploit with the intent of destabilizing Syria.
This is why the lifting of US sanctions was so important. With other Western nations following our lead, some of the biggest obstacles to Syria’s reconstruction have been removed. This was critical because Syrians need to see progress. They need both economic advancement and security, and they can’t have one without the other. And Syria’s success– or failure– will have far-reaching consequences for the region.
As for what we can learn from the Syrians, I think one thing is that we need both courage and patience, because we are in a real fight and one of the biggest challenges is not giving up. I guess another one is: we should not feel sorry for ourselves.
zhena gogolia
@Bupalos: Oh, fuck off. Yes, accepting the support of Liz Cheney was really a sign of the apocalypse. You are missing some more important ones.
Denali5
@Jay:
Thanks for the video. We took dories down the Salmon River in Idaho. It was glorious – not too much white water, but beautiful!
Geminid
@Geminid: Some follow-up, from Syria’s public news channel:
The Saudis are making a stable and prospering Syria one of their top political and diplomatic priorities.
Elizabelle
@lowtechcyclist: TACO Belle! Good one.
WTFGhost
I was aware that Glenn Greenwald was found, to a preponderance of the evidence, including an interview with his mom’s midwife, to be human, so I assumed it was (at least hypothetically) possible for him to engage in sexual behavior.
So, what, does he pretend he cares about real things, until he gets an opportunity to sell out, at which point you find a complete stranger with no visible principles? Because if it just involves sex, and not some monstrous transformation, it can hardly be autobiographical.
WTFGhost
Please note that this means we took some 200 people, kidnapped them, and put them in an El Salvador hellhole for the sole purpose of letting Trump make a statement. This is only an affront to freedom if you think it’s okay if people are beaten and killed for no good reason, so, there is that – Republicans can’t see any problem with it, obviously.
I know, I know, Trump doesn’t care, because a Republican Congress will bellow defenses and insist it’s all okay, and that these people are all rapists and criminals and vicious thugs, because Trump is an evil dictator with no concern for the law, the constitution, or human decency, so you might as well believe whatever lies he tells.