New extended definition of Remote Control @newyorker.com new issue
— Eric Topol (@erictopol.bsky.social) September 19, 2025 at 11:40 AM
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I'm not sure to what degree this is Trump physically or mentally declining versus the administration losing steam & pursuing diminishing returns to keep the show's ratings up. Frankly, I don't need to be. Whatever brings them low is in my interest, in Democrats' interest, & in America's interest.
— Chatham Harrison dba TRUMP DELENDUS EST (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 11:16 PM
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Adelita Grijalva wins CD7 election, becoming successor for late father Raúl Grijalva, AP projects
— Juan Escalante (@juansaaa.com) September 23, 2025 at 11:17 PM
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CNN: Breaking news tonight, Democrats securing the final push they need to force a vote on the release of the Epstein files as Democrat Adelita Grijalva wins the special election in Arizona's 7th congressional district
===
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, titled "Best Friends Forever," which appeared on the National Mall in Washington D.C. in front of the US Capitol today.
??????— Dorothee V. Plessis (@dorotheevplessis.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Per the Washington Post:
A spray-painted bronze statue titled “Best Friends Forever” that depicts President Trump and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein holding hands was placed on the National Mall in front of the U.S. Capitol early Tuesday morning. The work is the latest in a series of politically charged sculptures critical of the president that have been placed in Washington and elsewhere by an anonymous group.
A plaque at the base of the installation reads, “We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend,’ Jeffrey Epstein.”…
The National Park Service issued a permit for the sculpture that allows it to remain on the Mall until 8 p.m. Sunday. The purpose for the artwork stated on the permit application is “to demonstrate freedom of speech and artistic expression using political imagery.”
The new sculpture is similar in style and content to several previous installations by an anonymous group of artists such as one in June titled “Dictator Approved” that included statements of support for Trump from authoritarian leaders Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
The first piece of protest art by the group appeared last October when it installed a replica of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) desk that included a (fake) pile of poop on top of it. That work paid mock tribute to the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
The Washington Post was alerted to the Trump and Epstein statue early Tuesday morning by a text from someone claiming to be one of the artists responsible for its creation and its predecessors. His identity has not been confirmed by The Post but he has provided information about the artworks that would only be available to someone involved in their manufacture and placement…
Last week, a statue of Trump was temporarily placed on the Mall by a group apparently honoring him for his support of Bitcoin. The artist responsible for the statues placed Tuesday of Trump and Epstein said there was no connection between the Bitcoin statue and his group’s efforts…
For those of you who didn’t get to watch last night:
Twenty-one million subscribers, according to YouTube, and the number of views clicking steadily upwards from approximately 2,500,000 around 3am to over 5,000,000 now. They’ll be cleaning catsup off the fake-gilded walls of the White House!
On The Road – dmkingto – Death Valley 2006 Pt. 1 – The Racetrack
NotMax
Less expensive to have showings across the country of Piss Trump.
//
Baud
The second, third, and
fourthfifth Blue sky posts are not posting.Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Baud: For all of them, I’m getting messages saying “Post not found; it may have been deleted.”
Baud
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
They’re all loading slowly, but some come through for me.
ETA
Third post just came through.
Baud
Looks like Blue sky is fixing the problem. They’re all visible now
Loading is still slow.
Chief Oshkosh
I see 5 Bluesky posts. They do load slowly.
I think Kimmel did fine. Maybe a little too deferential to the fee-fees of the fascists, but he stuck the knife into Hair Furvor enough to get the desired response from the toddler. Hopefully Kimmel uses the additional attention to ask Trump what his good friend Charlie said about the Epstein files.
Baud
Congrats to Adelita Grijalva.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
There. Are. Four.
LightsPosts!Baud
Princess
@Baud: evidently she’s the 218th vote for the discharge petition on the Epstein files.
Princess
@Baud: That’s what happens when you hire for sycophancy not competence . I’m old enough to remember when it was bad for a president to even use a teleprompter.
Jeffro
@NotMax: you know what would really be less expensive for the country? ditching trump
let me count the ways…
Princess
There’s something wrong over at bluesky. I can’t see these posts and over there no new post has uploaded for an hour.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Weird. I see Bluesky posts from
Picard was confused.
Geminid
Turkish security analyst Levent Kemal on Trump’s U.N. speech:
A Turkish ex-pat replied from Chicago:
Chief Oshkosh
@Princess: Hopefully Trump will spend quality time in his next presser complaining about the UN’s lack of competent teleprompter operators and the broke-down escalator.
Next up? Strawberries and steel balls!
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: I beg pardon, it’s not a SIMULATION of madness.
Baud
tl;dr blame Biden
zhena gogolia
The New Yorker can go f themselves. Anyone remember Biden and Pelosi on walkers?
Geminid
The Boston Globe and other Massachusetts news sites report the Rep. Seth Moulton is seriously considering a primary run against Senator Ed Markey, who is up for reelction next year. Moulton is 46 years-old old, and Markey is 79.
MagdaInBlack
@Geminid: I’ve been saying we’re living in the “Twilight Zone.”
TS
@Baud:
of course, but trump will always blame anyone other than himself and his incompetent staff. The latter really are useless, no-one with an iota of skill/competence would work for him.
NotMax
Inquiring minds want to know how the simultaneous translation handled his use of ‘braggadocious’ in the “Your countries all suck” logorrhea.
Baud
@TS:
I had thought the escalator actually had a problem. So it was news to me.
Baud
@Geminid:
I think I’d prefer Markey to Moulton, but since Dems have decided that age a critical issue, I can’t fault Moulton for seizing the moment.
Geminid
@TS: Seems like the teleprompter SNAFU would be on Trump’s UN mission staff.
Jeffg166
@Chief Oshkosh:
The strawberry phase is getting very close. Sad.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Savviness is its own point of view.
MagdaInBlack
@Geminid: It was. They did BYO “technology”, and that worked out as one might expect with these idiots.
Plus, with trump at the wheel, well…..
Baud
Didn’t Bill Clinton face a broken teleprompter during a SOTU and he winged it exceptionally well?
CarolM
@Baud: I understood that reference!
Geminid
@Baud: I think some of the people complaining about the supposed Democratic “gerontacracy” use this issue as a “stalking horse.” Their real beef is with the moderate wing of the party. A Moulton run would test their principles.
NotMax
@MagdaInBlack
Operating like a well
oiledsoiled machine.rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: 😊
Baud
@Geminid:
IIRC, Markey’s last primary was against young Patrick Kennedy, and Markey’s age wasn’t an issue. If course, he’s going to be six years older this time.
Ramalama
Kimmel gets his show back but not Colbert? Did everyone discuss this already?
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: A lot of them are big Bernie Sanders fans. He’s 84.
Matt McIrvin
@Ramalama: Colbert certainly did.
NotMax
Kimmel’s band missed a bet by not playing “If I Could Turn Back Time.”
//
Baud
@Geminid:
Other people might throw their hat in the ring too.
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: “Time Is On My Side.”
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve seen some click bait posts on Reddit about AOC running for president, but thankfully nothing on Sanders doing so. Yet.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Ramalama: Well, Kimmel’s situation is a much more blatant First Amendment violation.
NotMax
@Baud
Dear FSM, can we get through the midterms first?
Marcopolo
Just dropping in to note the win for Adelita Grijalva in AZ-7 is another special election over performance for Ds. Looks to be +20. Not sure when the number crunchers will dig in to the final results but sure seems like R Hispanic support dropped off a lot.
Baud
@NotMax:
A large number of Reddit posts are about distracting people with squirrels and shiny objects.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
Posted this on Bluesky last night so I thought I’d share it here:
Totally non-political but very serious question – Do hummingbirds kill each other?
Reason I ask is I found a dead one on a feeder today & nearly all feathers on back of his head had been pecked off.
Ms. Biskits reported that earlier today, there were around 20 at that feeder.
So .. I’m wondering.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Maybe the hummingbirds are being framed by the armadillo.
Geminid
There has not been much reporting on the “Gaza summit” Trump held yesterday with leaders from seven Arab and Muslim nations. Turkish President Erdogan said afterwards that it was a good meeting, and Steve Witkoff gave reporters a thumbs-up when reporters asked about it.
The optics were interesting. The eight leaders sat at U-shaped table arangement, with three of them on either side. Uncharacteristically, Trump shared the head table with the Turkish president. I thought, “Yeah, it’s the Sultan and the Null-tan.”
Baud
@Marcopolo:
Thanks. I actually thought it was a bluer district than that.
Baud
@Geminid:
If Trump was there, that meeting was unproductive. I assume all the real work is occurring behind the scenes.
geg6
@Ramalama:
I think because Colbert isn’t set to end until, I think, May. Word is that CBS may be waiting and then perhaps decide they didn’t really mean to cancel him. Or they’ll forget. Or something.
NotMax
@Geminid
About as anodyne a statement as ever wert.
Ramalama
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve been recording Colbert’s show on dvr. A backlog to look forward to.
Ohio Mom
@Nukular Biskits: I just googled that question and the answer is yes. But I didn’t see anything specifically about attacks to the back of the head.
New Deal democrat
In the good news department, it appears that Ball State University and the State of Indiana are about to enter the “find out” portion of FAFO when it comes to retaliation for government employee free speech.
Via NPR,
ipm.org/news/2025-09-22/fired-over-post-about-charlie-kirk-ball-state-staff-member-sues-university-p…
Backed by the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Suzanne Swierc is alleging that the university violated her First Amendment rights when it fired her for a private Facebook post.
In a Sept. 17 statement, Ball State announced it had terminated the employment of Swierc, effective immediately, after it found her comments were “inconsistent with the distinctive nature and trust” of her role.
The lawsuit says Swierc’s privacy settings allowed the post to be seen only by people who were her friends on Facebook. It also said she listed only her name in her profile, not her city, employer, or other personal information.
Swierc’s lawsuit says someone obtained a screenshot of her post and made a graphic with it next to her entry in Ball State University’s staff directory. That graphic was distributed on social media and was submitted to the Secretary of State Todd Rokita’s “Eyes on Education Portal.”
Rokita eventually posted the graphic on multiple social media platforms.
On Sept. 15, she was asked to meet with employee relations at Ball State. Two days later, she was given a letter saying she was fired.
Here is the entirety of Swiec’s post. It appears perfectly reasonable to me:
“Let me be clear: if you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends.
His death is a tragedy, and I can and do feel for his wife and children.
“I believe in the Resurrection, and while it’s difficult, I can and do pray for is soul.
Charlie Kirk’s death is a reflection of the violence, tear, and hatred he sowed. It does not excuse his death, AND it’s a sad truth.
“The shooting is a tragedy, and I can and do feel for a college campus experiencing an active shooter situaton.
“The deaths of Melissa and Mark Hortman, the children shot and killed in Minneapolis last month, and the children shot in Colorado today are all tragedies that also deserve your attention.
“Charlie Kirk excused the deaths of children in the name of the second amendment.”
——-
P.S.: Bluesky is completely borked on both of my Apple devices.
narya
@Baud: Why? I was trying to remember if we liked Moulton but am too lazy to rummage around the intertubes to figure it out.
Baud
@narya:
If I remember correctly, Moulton is more centrist in his policies and Markey is more to the left. That’s all.
Matt McIrvin
@narya: He’s one of these guys who tried to curry centrist favor by saying trans girls in sports scared him. Not fond of him just for that.
I do like his advocacy for a Boston North-South Station rail link, though that’s a distant fantasy at best.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
Perfect case, sounds like.
narya
@Baud: Yeah, that was my vague thought. As long as he doesn’t Fetterman and isn’t anti-choice, I don’t care all that much. I have my own district to worry about right now.
@Matt McIrvin: Hmm. THAT bothers me. So, let’s add “isn’t trans-bashing” to my short list.
They Call Me Noni
@Nukular Biskits: Hummingbirds are very territorial and constantly run off interlopers when feeding. I have four feeders on our back deck and have witnessed them fighting and dive bombing each other numerous times so a casualty amongst the ranks would not surprise me.
Scout211
Trump’s reaction to Kimmel being reinstated, on his Truth Social:
This is a very weird response and not in all caps and mostly full sentences. His team seems to be trying to make his social posts less bonkers.
(bold added)
Betty Cracker
@Nukular Biskits: 20?!? Sounds like a gangland hit. Sad that there was a casualty. They are violent little buggers.
Matt McIrvin
@narya: Mind you, he’s been generally pro-trans-rights in votes and has critiqued Trump’s trans-bashing, but he does this split-the-difference thing.
snoey
@They Call Me Noni: One of my kids acquaintances got a long coveted grant to study Central American hummingbirds.
Came back hating the little assholes.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, to my knowledge, aside from has-been Rahm, the “debate” among the national party politicians is limited to trans girls in sports.
JML
@geg6: It seems like Colbert is in a different situation than Kimmel, for a variety of reasons. His show didn’t seem to be adjusting to the paradigm shift for how people increasingly consume late night comedy (i.e., via YouTube, etc) and wasn’t building out that audience to compensate. Kimmel, for instance, also does a lot more for ABC than Colbert does for CBS too. If cancelling Colbert was just about appeasing the fascists in the WH, Paramount would have had to dump South Park too, right?
It’s going to be interesting to see where things go with Kimmel after this initial burst. Are the local right-wing conglomerates (Sinclair & Nexstar) going to keep not airing him? Will people care? Will ABC worry about it so long as the YouTube clips keep popping? Will the Orange Idiot try to resume his vendetta, or will he get distracted by something shiny?
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Moulton was responding to a high school sports controversy in his district. As I recall, one or two teams refused to play another with a transgender player because they said she was injuring other players with excessively rough play. It sounded to me like it might have been a referee problem.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: And yet, he’s still just flat-out promising to punish Disney/ABC for airing dissent.
Matt McIrvin
@JML:
It’ll be interesting to see if NBC/Universal throws Seth Meyers under the bus, since Trump is openly calling for his head too–it seems to me that Meyers *has* done that.
narya
@Matt McIrvin: @Baud: Ah, okay, that’s good. I still think the sports thing is ridiculous for soooo many reasons and is being used as a way to monitor ALL girls’ participation in sports. Okay, now I can go back to worrying about my district.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
There’s no cost to him, so he’s going to do it.
Baud
@Baud:
Should have specified Dem politicians.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Its good that this is an AL thread because there are some FPers who call this relitigating the past and frown on it
Censorship is very fashionable these days
But yes fuck the NewYorker.
schrodingers_cat
OT is anyone here going to do the Inktober challenge?
JML
@Matt McIrvin: yes, Myers & Fallon have both done well in packaging their stuff for an online audience in ways that someone like Colbert hasn’t. Myers also has Lorne is his corner, who is still a significant player.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: But…but….but….I’ve been reliably told by conservatives I know that no people have been fired for saying things like that, it was only for celebrating his death! /s/s/s/s/s/s
schrodingers_cat
To everyone who helped reinstall a man who tried to stage a coup when he lost. A hearty fuck you. This includes all those late night comedians making unfunny and stale Biden is too old jokes. All the uncommitted folks and everyone supposedly on our side who don’t lose a single opportunity to shit on Ds even when their priorities/issues are addressed. You are the reason why we are here.
This includes Bernie Bro late night comedians. I am looking at you Colbert and Jon Stewart.
Baud
RFK Jr is sad.
Baud
narya
@Baud: I was just coming back to post that. Amazing. I can’t even imagine what those results were like for the patients and the docs.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
I KNEW IT!
Nukular Biskits
@Ohio Mom:
I know they’re very fierce and territorial … but I have never seen anything like that.
Nukular Biskits
@snoey:
LOL!
Nukular Biskits
@Betty Cracker:
I always considered them to be very aggressive with each other, particularly when it comes to food.
But “hummingbird violence” was not a phrase that had ever crossed my mind until yesterday.
Soprano2
@Baud: Wow, that’s a big deal. Huntington’s is a particularly devastating disease. It’s too bad we have a government now that’s bound and determined to destroy medical research in this country
ETA – this kind of thing is a great opportunity for Democrats to do that “us vs. them” stuff, by saying “We want to fund this kind of research to help you, Republicans want to defund it to give people like Jeff Bezos bigger tax cuts”. That would be an effective message. They have defunded all kinds of research that we could use that message on.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
I take it the treatment involved something other than sunlight and vitamins?
Jackie
@Princess:
Now we have to hope FFOTUS isn’t able to threaten Mace and/or Boebert badly enough to change their minds.
Jeffro
I see that Oklahoma is leading the way, if ‘the way’ = ‘complete cult insanity’
Every OK high school to have a Turning Point USA chapter
(this is on top of one of their state legislators pushing a bill to put a statue of CK on every OK college campus)
It’s tempting to joke and say, “so…statues at BOTH campuses, then?” but there’s actually 25(!). That’s a fair amount of bronze, y’all.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Cures are woke.
Belafon
@Ramalama: Kimmel’s nearing the end of his current contract, and there were rumors he wasn’t planning on extending it before all of this happened.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Science is woke, scientists are woke. BTW why is being woke bad. Is it better to be sleepwalking into the 19th century instead?
Baud
/r/democrats bring the Newsom vibe
Scout211
Gene therapy rather than supplements supplied by Dr. Oz’s companies.
From the BBC link Baud posted:
ETA: to emphasize that the treatment is a reduction in the progression of the disease and not a cure.
XeckyGilchrist
This is great, but I will believe that Trump’s losing support when I see it. Many thanks to WaterGirl et al. here for keeping the activism going.
Baud
Eyeroller
@Baud: According to the article it’s not yet a cure. It slows progression by 75% so victims can have a more normal lfe for a much longer time. That’s a huge win, of course.
The treatment sounds like it would require significant expertise and expense but fortunately Huntington’s is rare so many or most patients may be able to benefit. And we can hope the treatment will be refined.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am sure some of them were children of immigrants so not American enough for the nativist crew.
They Call Me Noni
@snoey: They are fierce little critters! But I do love watching mine and our outside space is eerily quiet when they fly south in the fall.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: click through (warning, they’re posing with Trump)
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I have seen that photo on Twitter. I did read an Indian sounding name IIRC. I see one white person and even he may be a child of immigrants.
The Other Bob
@Baud:
Awesome Star Trek reference. Very applicable to todays environment.
catclub
Yes. I read an interesting explanation of Trump’s behavior: In order to block any knowledge or new information that may enter his brain, he talks all the time.
Shalimar
@geg6: All CBS has to do with Colbert is negotiate a new contract and announce it when it’s done. The reason the show is cancelled is because they told him they don’t want to, and he announced they are ending the show when this contract is over. Seems like an easy situation to undo any time before May if they’re willing.
catclub
@schrodingers_cat: Of course, isn’t Trump the child of an immigrant?
That case doesn’t count. Also his own youngest son.
Baud
/r/Massachusetts: Markey too old but Moulton not preferred.
Scout211
Thanks, ICE Barbie. Fomenting violence and taking zero responsibility for it.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: One point in Moulton’s favor, he serves good breakfasts at the Dem Convention in MA. Other than that he is a pompous ass.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: I’m sure, in Trump’s brain, Physics Olympiad just means throwing things, and he really doesn’t mind gladiators.
schrodingers_cat
@catclub: If you are white it is alright.
ETA: Not just his youngest son but also Ivanka and Don Jr and Eric.
Vance’s children better be careful.
Geminid
@Jackie: Mace is running for governor, so Trump may have leversge there. And Boebert is a bonehead and could be pressured also. I think Greene won’t be moved.
catclub
@NotMax: I would not say the statement was anodyne. But that is the whole point of free speech rights.
Once it was not linked in any way to her employer, the employer cannot use it as an excuse to fire her.
catclub
@schrodingers_cat: yes, Ivana also an immigrant.
Eyeroller
@snoey: They are doing what they have to do to survive. They have very high metabolic demands so a steady food supply is critical.
Other birds also kill one another occasionally, particularly if one wants to take over another’s nesting site. though that’s usually interspecies violence.
A food source that concentrates hummers, like a feeder, is especially prone to attacks. Nukular lives where ruby-throats are migrating now (most would probably be heading back to Mexico and Central America for the winter).
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: It’s the single most effective wedge issue to split people against trans rights, since the facts in the matter are mildly counterintuitive, so naturally it’s always going to be dangled out there as bait.
YY_Sima Qian
At the UN meeting, the PRC making a move to seize the high ground in global trade regimes (gift ink to FT article below):
Additional commentary from Richard Baldwin:
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: If I had to guess, I’d predict Mace will cave and hypocritically frame doing so as an act to protect Epstein’s victims, invoking her own alleged victimhood as always. That’s her shtick.
Nukular Biskits
@Eyeroller:
Never seen this before but, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Sounds like I need to spread the horde out a little by adding feeders.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
This would be the most high profile use of that schtick.
bluefoot
@Baud: Yep. I voted for Markey in that primary. Kennedy didn’t really have anything going for him except the name. IMO Markey has been excellent. Plus his office has always responded when I’ve called or emailed, so that’s a plus for me.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: The white supremacist fringe definitely vocally disapproves of JD Vance’s marriage already.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: True, and if she goes that route, I hope it blows up in her face.
@Nukular Biskits: We’ve got multiple feeders and still see hummies fighting over a single one when all they need to do is fly 15 feet to an unoccupied one. This is how I learned hummingbirds are Democrats. ;-)
Betty Cracker
@YY_Sima Qian: PRC leadership must be ecstatic about Trump discrediting the U.S. so thoroughly.
Paul in KY
@Nukular Biskits: I think they can.
YY_Sima Qian
A pretty hardheaded look at the geopolitical dilemma that Europe faces, caught between a maliciously threatening Russia, a wantonly coercive US, & a relentlessly competitive PRC, all haughtily dismissive, & the European leaders still lost at sea in how to navigate the geopolitical vice (link to opinion piece from the Guardian below, the last paragraphs exerted sums it up):
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Some upper caste Indians, many of whom are also rabid Sanghis (Modi supporters) think that they are honorary white people. They are soon going to find out how misguided that notion is.
Sangh is short for the RSS. Indian version of fascism wearing saffron clothes, Modi is a life long member. The assassin of Gandhi was also a Sanghi
Betty Cracker
Rupar on the current topic.
bluefoot
@Baud: That is awesome. I worked on Huntington’s disease earlier in my career. It’s been a very difficult nut to crack.
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot: I’m sure he’d be fine, but Joe Kennedy was never able to articulate a substantive reason to prefer him over Markey beyond “it’s my turn now”.
(these days, his biggest problem is probably people confusing him with his insane uncle. Hell, I still sometimes get him mixed up with his dad.)
Nukular Biskits
@Betty Cracker:
LOL!
Spring of 2024, when I had probably 20 – 30 buzzing the backyard, I had 4 feeders out … and the little bastards would indeed fight over one.
Roughly the same for fall of 2024.
This past spring, I had zero hummingbirds and was worried bird flu had wiped them out. Neighbors reported seeing only 1 or 2 but I remember you and other Jackals reporting seeing them en masse. I guess their migration path had shifted a little.
This fall, I put 2 feeders out after sighting a solo hummer. For about a week, we had only 2 or 3 show up. I was surprised when Ms. Biskits reported seeing that many yesterday, but that was before I got home from work. And now I wonder if it was indeed a “gangland hit”.
Shalimar
@YY_Sima Qian: I think the bold move for China would be to take the opportunity to build closer ties with Europe and separate them from America. Most European leaders have no reason left to be loyal to Trump, and Europe is a more valuable ally than Russia.
YY_Sima Qian
@Betty Cracker: The “Developing Country” status (& in association being part of the “Third World”, the “Global South”, the “Non-Aligned Movement etc.) is such a strong part of the PRC’s self identity on the international stage ever since the Sino-Soviet split, I am a bit surprised the PRC is willing to give it up now.
Of course, even Global South countries see the modern PRC as a superpower & no longer a developing economy whose interests are largely aligned w/ theirs. They still find in Beijing a more pragmatic, productive & empathetic partner than DC/Brussels/London/Paris/Berlin, albeit one that is also relentlessly self-interested & not necessarily benign.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe? I mean, it’s more power for them, but on the other hand, a generally unstable and chaotic world order can be a problem for everyone trying to run a huge and important country.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: It’s the same as Stephen Miller believing they see him as a white man.
I listened to Kimmel’s whole monologue, and I think he did a great job. I hadn’t listened to him much before, so I don’t know if that was typical, but I thought it was good and even laughed a few times.
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: They would be utter fools not to capitalize on the Americans’ failure.
Them guys ain’t stupid.
Paul in KY
@Nukular Biskits: And walking barefoot in poo, surprisingly…
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: They could double my salary and I’d never move to OK. Now if they quadrupled it….
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: I figure that what’s going to happen is that over the next 3 1/2 years the rest of the world is going to make deals among themselves and learn to get along without us as much as possible. I don’t know if we can ever come back from that.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Agree. Think Mace will fold and give BS reasons, etc. etc.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: reminds me of Sarah Taber’s recent video about the guy who killed Charlie Kirk and the bit of anti-Mormon backlash on the right (there was one) that happened as a result of it: speaking as a person of LDS background, she explained to Mormon conservatives, who have been foot soldiers for the political right for decades, that “we are never going to be good enough for these people”.
OGliberal
@Scout211: Outside of the shooter offing himself, the two folks who were killed were detainees, not ICE people. So, we’ll see…
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: Good point. A nuclear-armed clown car is alarming for everyone.
Kirklin
@Scout211: As of the moment, it /appears/ that all the shooting victims were detainees. The shooter (in some reports barely more than rumor it’s a white male) is dead of an allegedly self-inflicted wound.
So lots of allegedly/appears, but the first impression is that someone wanted to shoot some immigrants that were already in ICE control. And that’s weird.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I could have told them that.
Those people hang out with Mormons because they share a hatred of us.
Without us, they’re screwed.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: I agree.
As a continental power, the US has the ability to go alone as well… but only after a decade or more of pain.
This is Brexit, only bigger because we’re walking away from the entire global economy; and the gods themselves don’t know how much turmoil and suffering this will engender.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: If they managed to get rid of the rest of us— everyone who isn’t straight white and Christian… they’d start looking around and asking, “just what kind of Christian are YOU?”
Pastor Niemöller, etc. etc…
Baud
Rapture insurers made bank yet again.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: We are creating a situation similar to the one that lead to the Great Depression.
catclub
I think Poland blocking the border to trains full of Chinese goods for Europe will be a problem.
I think Russia may turn out to be more of a dead weight in the China Russia relationship.
catclub
You could telecommute?
iKropoclast
@Baud: Right, I don’t see myself voting for Moulton. Also, I don’t see myself voting in general for anyone whose primary argument is about the incumbent’s age.
YY_Sima Qian
@Shalimar: That is the logical move for both Beijing & Brussels, & yet things have not played out that way so far, see the opinion piece from the Guardian that I posted above.
The EU vacillates across rapprochement w/ the PRC to counterbalance Trumpian US, coordinating (yet doing so partially & hesitantly) w/ said Trumpian US on economic/trade/tech. containment policies toward the PRC as price paid to “keep the US onside” guaranteeing European security, & demanding the PRC to cease providing economic support to Russia (via export of dual use goods & import of commodities) w/o presenting the carrots to incentivize Beijing to do so (or w/o equally hardline stances toward other key trading partners of Russia such as India, Türkiye, the UAE, Central Asia, etc.), all the while failing to commit to any of the aforementioned courses of action.
In the mean time, PRC leaders do not treat any of the leaders of the EU as credible interlocutors worthy of investment in developing ties w/, because they do not believe the EU leaders can actually deliver the European capitals or is actually willing & able to achieve strategic independence from the US, & they do not care to hide their contempt, either. Beijing prefers to deal w/ the European capitals individually & employ divide & conquer.
IMHO, recent comments by Finnish President Alexander Stubb wrt India is a prime exhibit of the European tendency to wish away a problem (in this instances via deus ex machina in the form of India):
Such wishful thinking ignores the fact that, like the PRC, India is not an ally of Europe or the US, is a fiercely independent & selfish actor, have durable motivations behind its long standing ties w/ Russia, & under Modi is increasingly illiberal & revisionist in its own way, & New Delhi views Brussels w/ as much contempt as does Beijing. By all means Europe should maintain productive & mutually beneficial relations w/ India, as it should w/ all parts of the world not named Russia, but engaging in self-delusion is self-harming.
Europe can’t decide whether it should play hard-nosed realpolitik, or be the principled defender of a defunct “liberal & rules based international order” (that was never nearly as liberal or rules based as its Western proponents claimed, & which most of Europe helped to bury by throw the last handfuls of dirty on the grave, w/ their feckless response to Israeli genocide in Gaza), or find a way to coherently combine the two.
Anyway, Von der Leyen is set to meet with/ PRC Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of the UN meeting, we’ll see if anything comes of it.
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot: Right-wing Protestants and Catholics and Orthodox have had a truce going on for a while in which they’re united against the liberals in their own churches. It can’t last forever because these guys care about incredibly arcane theological and ritual shit. Right-wing Mormons and Jews, and especially right-wing Muslims and Hindus, have an even more precarious status.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Did you know about this composer Zubeen Garg who died?
Geminid
Ukraine President Zelensky just finished his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, and now Iran President Pezeshkian is delivering his. An interesting juxtaposition; Iran has given Russia a lot of help in its war on Ukraine.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Nothing arcane about heretics who believe the head of a pin can fit four angels.
Why do they hate God so?
Baud
@Geminid:
I wonder if Iran will make an escalator joke.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I don’t know much about him. I have heard some of his compositions.
YY_Sima Qian
@catclub: Russia gives the PRC energy security, invulnerable to US interdiction or pressure, which is a top geopolitical consideration.
Poland just reopened the border crossings that facilitate the Sino-EU rail links, after a visit by PRC FM Wang Yi a few days ago. The rail links has been beneficial to both the EU & the PRC, not the least Poland. There is a reason parts of Europe still purchase Russian gas, or petroleum products refined from Russian oil, or sell dual use goods to Central Asia, the Caucasus & Türkiye, knowing much of it ends up in Russia.
While the Polish-Belarussian border was shut, Sino-EU rail-borne freight was diverted to (longer & more expensive) southern routes that go across the Caucasus & Türkiye/the Black Sea. Meanwhile, a Chinese cargo ship just inaugurated the 1st commercial shipping route through the Arctic, from Ninbgo in Eastern China to a port in the UK. The “Northern Route” is faster & vastly cheaper than the trans-continental rail links, albeit seasonal (& we should all hope it remains seasonal, or we are all screwed by AGW). The PRC never puts all of its eggs in any basket, including Russia. Hence Beijing dragging out the negotiations for the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, & the ongoing world historical investment into all forms of renewable energy, as well as every kind of nuclear power.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Ergo, “ain’t nobody free ‘til everybody is free.”
What fools these mortals be.
prostratedragon
@Professor Bigfoot:
Much bigger:
Clearly a set of policies carefully calibrated to — do what, exactly?
Eolirin
@YY_Sima Qian: Do they really give them energy security if Ukraine is able to keep up and escalate their campaign of blowing up all of their oil refineries and gas pipelines?
coin operated
@prostratedragon: between this and all the anti-DEI bias, I’m assuming it’s for the white boys claiming ‘all them foreigners is taking the jobs!’
Captain C
@Soprano2:
At some point Miller might find out that he’s nothing but a kapo to the white supremacists he wants so badly to be one of.
Captain C
@Kirklin:
A similar mentality to Dick Cheney and several right-leaning SCOTUS judges going on ‘hunts’ that involve shooting animals released right in front of them, perhaps.
YY_Sima Qian
@Eolirin: Ukraine has been selective in targeting Russia’s oil export infrastructure, I don’t think anything facing the PRC has been hit, & the associated infrastructure lie much farther away from Ukraine. Ukraine also wants to avoid turning the PRC into an openly hostile actor, one that is completely uninhibited in aiding Russia in not only dual use goods, but also advanced lethal weapons & munitions. The PRC’s defense industrial capacity is orders of magnitude larger than North Korea’s, & probably larger than all of the West combined.
In any case, the PRC’s medium to long term energy strategy is total independence, which is attainable w/ a combination of solar/wind/hydro/nuclear/domestic coal, w/ hydrocarbons from Russia (in addition to that from Central Asia, the Middle East & Australia, even Canada) filling in any gaps that might exist. Russia (& Central Asia) form key parts of the bridge to that future, though.
prostratedragon
@coin operated: Probably how it’s sold to some, though it entails a complete failure (unsurprising in these folks) in noticing what those job markets are about — there still are many white guys graduating from engineering and other technical schools, after all. But also, the ability to draw in that amount of talent is another form of the soft power that is being systematically dismantled.
prostratedragon
@Captain C: He won’t be able to process what a kapo is, though I’m sure some in his family have tried to explain it to him.
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: To get all the scary brown-skinned people to go back where they came from, obviously.
jonas
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I think canceling Colbert sort of chummed the water, though, giving MAGA the idea that if you put pressure on networks, maybe you could get them to go after these late night hosts.
jonas
@prostratedragon: Holy shit. This is *directly* aimed at drying up the pipeline of foreign students coming to study at US universities. Fuckers.
Well, I guess we’ll see what matters more to Silicon Valley — the ability to recruit talent from the widest pool possible or techbro libertarian dreams of low taxes and white supremacy.
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: This is supposed to convince white-collar professionals in tech jobs and such that the Trump Administration is looking out for them (and for their kids) by eliminating foreign competition for jobs.
Some will bite. But you still don’t have a job if the whole office closes down. These days, tech offshoring and layoffs supposedly enabled by AI are more important than H-1B hiring.
jonas
@coin operated: That’s some of it, no doubt. But most of the squawking about foreign H1-B visa holders taking all the tech jobs because they work for less, in my experience, tend to come from people not in the tech industry itself, but cranks who listen to Fox or saw something on Facebook telling them that’s what’s happening.
jonas
Same thing with the great contraction in manufacturing jobs beginning in the 60s and 70s — most of it was due to automation and technological/productivity advances, not offshoring. But that’s not what most of the people affected believed and look who they’re voting for now.
Eolirin
@jonas: If other parts of the world hoover up our displaced educators and scientists and build out a higher education system that rivals where we used to be we will never get that status back, no matter what we do to course correct after Trump. At best we’ll be a competitor in a field we used to dominate. And that’ll come with a bunch of knock on effects not just for silicon valley, but also biotech, engineering, IP design, etc.
coin operated
@Eolirin:
Already happening. China is big on nuclear energy, and 4 of the top 6 universities in the world teaching nuclear engineering are in China. They’re doing this for every industry…build out an education system that cranks out the engineers they need.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: hope we can get that lucky.
coin operated
@jonas:
No doubt. My BIL is a hard-core Trumper and has never worked in IT (because, honestly, he’s dumb as a rock) posts this kind of stuff all the time.
prostratedragon
@Eolirin:
Yeah! Why I think at bottom it’s about dismantling soft power, whatever other prejudices it might exploit or technologies it might activate in the process.
Kamala reminded us the other night in her interview that the P2025 people have devoted years, likely decades, to developing what they want to implement.
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: I don’t think Miller’s family have been talking to him for a while.
trnc
@Baud:
It was his 1993 health care speech to the joint session of congress.
Fair Economist
@YY_Sima Qian: Seems to me Europe has its heads on straight vis-a-vis the US. They’re flattering Trump and talking constantly about US-Europe partnerships, but at the same time doing a huge defense buildup, and dropping use of US military equipment. They’re also staying cozy with Ukraine and its amazing 21st century drone tech.
jonas
@Eolirin: They would rather be pure (white, Christian, male) than prosperous. As Orban’s Hungary how that’s working out. (Answer: economy on track for almost *zero* growth this year; inflation running 4-5%; rampant corruption; rapidly aging population; falling standard of living, etc., etc.)
Betty
I have to say regarding the second Bluesky post that I find it remarkable that people are so reluctant to flat out acknowledge Trump’s serious mental decline. What are they afraid of?
NotMax
@catclub
Say what now? My comment clearly referred to the statement following the Dolt/Arab meeting.
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist: On defense, perhaps, but not on trade. The EU felt they had to make humiliating concessions on the trade front to keep Trump “on side” on the security front, neglecting that the EU itself as enormous leverage over the US that it employ. Instead, Trump will likely pocket the economic concessions the EU has made while still not committing to European defense (which is what is happening), & all the EU Commission has managed to achieve has been undercutting its credibility w/ key European capitals as well as popular opinion for surrendering to MAGA.
Astute management of Trump has not been the perception among the masses & the elites in Europe.
Paul in KY
@catclub: I telecommute now. Hypothetical job would be offering that salary to physically move to OK.
Paul in KY
@jonas: Universities will hate hate hate this as they make bank off the outrageous tuitions they get foreign students to pay.