Happy Chinese New Year.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 9:12 AM
New moon, new start. (It’s also Mardi Gras; and, this year, the beginning of Ramadan.) If you believe — or if you just assume the weight of mass social belief / custom has a global impact — it’s gonna be a year of heat & impulse.
Per CNN, “Things are about to get hot”:
…It’s complicated, but here’s a simplified explanation. Every year, a heavenly stem (one of five elements, which fall into the yin or yang category) is paired with an earthly branch (one of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals).
This year, the heavenly stem is “Bing” (big sun) and the earthly branch is “Wu” (the Horse), making it the Year of the Fire Horse.
So what exactly does that mean? For deeper insights into the year ahead, we met up with Thierry Chow, a Hong Kong-based feng shui consultant who blends traditional Chinese geomancy with modern elements.
“Bing represents the big sun, and the Horse, as a zodiac animal, is also a fire sign. So this is probably one of the most fiery years you will get,” she says.
“Industries associated with the fire category will dominate — from technology to anything that generates energy and fire. Arts, fashion and cooking also rely heavily on fire. You can expect these sectors to get more attention.”
Chow says that fire influence is going to impact both the weather and people’s temperaments — so the world should be on the lookout for more heat-related disasters this year, as well as heightened tensions in already heated relationships.
“But for people who do need fire, this can be a very good year. Generally, people born in autumn and winter benefit from having more fire in their elements,” she adds…
(I choose to believe, because I’m a Goat, and this is supposed to be “a blossoming year for Goats — when things are finally coming together.” After the last twelve months, I could *use* that!)
Last year, China's New Year Eve Gala (a TV show everyone in the country watches) featured humanoid robots spinning plates. This year, they're doing kungfu. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUml…
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 9:17 AM
Somewhat more martial than the Times Square disco ball drop…
On The Road – Winter Wren – Santa Cruz: Whale Watch (2 of 2)
Baud
That’s a lot of holidays. Why do I have to go to work?
Baud
You’re the GOAT, AL.
Professor Bigfoot
RIP Reverend Jesse Jackson.
“I AM SOMEBODY!”
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: CONCUR.
AL is our very own GOAT.
E.
Elon’s new personal security force.
Bupalos
@E.: If Elon could actually do real engineering and make robots he wouldn’t be spending his days doing financial engineering and spinning ever more elaborate and amateurish science fiction tales to credulous bankers and low-IQ techbros.
Baud
I’m a little disappointed the robots weren’t dancing to this song.
Bupalos
@Baud: it definitely is a little bit frightening.
SFAW
@Baud:
It’s a little early for the Seder, but: ma nishtanah halailah hazeh mikol haleilot?
ETA: In case it wasn’t obvious: why would you suddenly decide to go today?
Eyeroller
@Baud: I didn’t even have to follow the link (though I did just for confirmation) because I had exactly the same thought.
Scout211
Sweet Google doodle in honor of the Lunar New Year.
Happy Lunar New Year to all who celebrate!
RevRick
@Professor Bigfoot: His legacy extends back to his association with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and leading the open housing campaign in Chicago. A great loss.
Suzanne
Does a Democratic donkey count as a horse? It’s, like, horse-adjacent. Because I could definitely use some fiery-ass donkey energy this year!
I did a power yoga class last night, and wore a weight vest during it. DAMN I am feeling it this morning! Definitely made things spicier!
They Call Me Noni
I don’t know why but I see “Fire Horse” and read “Fire Hose”. I miss the old days when the President wasn’t in every headline.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: SuzMom is very sad this morning about Rev. Jackson’s passing! I have only vague memories of his presidential run in 1988, but she is obvs older than me and has admired him for many years. Definitely a loss to us.
RevRick
Yes, things are about to get hot this year as an El Niño event develops along the Equator in the Pacific Ocean. How hot you ask? We can’t say for certain, but the likelihood of record high temperatures and extreme droughts are a real possibility.
prostratedragon
Cannonball Adderly makes the introduction: “Country Preacher,” Joe Zawinul; Cannonball Adderly Quintet.
RevRick
@Suzanne: Well, female horses can be bred with male donkeys to produce a mule. Of course, the latter is sterile and cannot reproduce, but horses and donkeys are not entirely separate species incapable of doing so.
japa21
Happy Paczki Day
Suzanne
Also, I saw that Sarah McBride xheeted this about AOC:
This is such a genuinely wonderful thing to say about someone and it makes me like them both even more.
Spanky
@Bupalos: But they did it with expert timing.
Geminid
Axios’s Barak Ravid and others report that today’s talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi and Trump envoys Witkoff and Kushner concluded half an hour ago. They were held in Geneva and hosted by Omani diplomats. No word on the outcome as of yet.
Meanwhile OSINT accounts report further movements of fighter jets from the US towards the Middle East, in preparation for a possible war.
RevRick
@prostratedragon: What a sweet sax, what a sweet tribute to Rev. Jackson and Operation Breadbasket!
prostratedragon
@japa21: The challenge of the day is to eat a whole one without getting filling dropping somewhere. May take more than one attempt.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I guess Piggy’s run out of wars to end, so he’s going to start one (or at least take it to the brink) in order to end it.
Castor Canadensis
@Geminid: At least he’s not moving them to Michigan and Washington State. Or Texas.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: You should work in Mumbai, you get public holidays for the main religious festivals of Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Parsis, plus Independence day and Republic Day. Plus work starts usually at 10. 10-6 is more common than 9-5.
Librettist
I wonder if Alito is aware of the rumors that Alito wants to punch out before the midterms.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Respect, I couldn’t do that. Or more like, I wouldn’t do it. LOL
Suzanne
I just saw this on Political Wire…. what the fuck?
What the fuck is this racist clown talking about?! “Force us to choose”? Is anybody forcing you to choose? Choose for what? Why do so many people hate Muslims so much?! It’s fucken bonkers to me.
Castor Canadensis
@schrodingers_cat: At Geac, we had a reputation for honoring everyone’s holidays. And partying hard!
Once a colleague asked for Ramadan off … but settled for Eid
WereBear
I read it as “Year of the Fire HOSE” which makes sense considering future overwhelm…
Suzanne
@Soprano2: The weight vest helps you get deeper into those stretches, man. Feels great. Warrior 3, plank, and balancing half moon, though…. definitely levels those up with the additional weight! WOOF.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Representative McBride has endorsed Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss in the Illinois 9th CD primary.
Of the leading IL-09 candidates, Biss has collected the most Congressional endorsements. These include Reps. Sarah McBride, Jan Schakowski (who currently holds the seat), Pramila Jayapal and Chuy Garcia, plus Senator Elizabeth Warren. And Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth weighed in on Biss’s behalf last week.
State Laura Fine has Rep. Brad Schneider’s endorsement while Kat Abughazaleh has Ro Khanna’s.
The primary is March 17, exactly 4 weeks from today. When my Chicago born-and-raised friend Joanie noted that was St. Patrick’s Day, I suggested this might be auspicious timing for Kat O’Bughazaleh. I got a “hee hee” in response.
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: All the more reason to embrace diverse cultures.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
RIP, Rev. Jesse Jackson 🙏🏾😢
rikyrah
Without Jackson in 1984 and 1988, there would have been no Barack Obama in 2008.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah: Good morning 🙂
schrodingers_cat
@Castor Canadensis: Off for the whole month of Ramzan?
The Muslim holidays were the two Eids, Eid-Ul-Fitr and Eid-Ul-Zuha + Moharrum. In western India, we have a huge concentration of Shia, hence the holiday for Moharrum, the day of martyrdom.
Interesting aside. Jinnah who was from Gujarat, came from the same area of Gujarat that M.K.Gandhi did and was a Gujarati speaking Shia who was also a Mumbaikar. His house was in one of the poshest areas of Mumbai.
Pakistan of today discriminates against Shias, Ahmedis etc. He probably would have been considered an apostate in today’s Pakistan.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: There’s something weird going on about dogs. I saw another post saying AOC is going to make you get rid of your dogs. I didn’t pursue the matter further because I value my remaining brain cells too much
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Tru dat.
rikyrah
Jackson ‘s 1984 DNC CONVENTION SPEECH
youtu.be/nGJ7btYJPPA?si=byuHZR19_15tiqCl
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: Yes and they all have diverse and delicious food cultures.
WereBear
@Suzanne: As a rescue person, I’d say he doesn’t deserve a dog, he will mistreat them too.
rikyrah
Jackson ‘s 1988 DNC CONVENTION SPEECH
youtu.be/6RCARIpVDLU?si=LQyFG0Juj3WMZyx0
WereBear
@rikyrah: Good morning 😁
Castor Canadensis
@schrodingers_cat:
He thought the anglo didn’t know it was a month of fasting. To be fair, the only reason I knew was that my dad had a translation of the Koran, which I read when I was a kid.
gene108
The robot apocalypse is going to be real.
The way those Chinese robots moved is so human like, coupled with the push to make AI sentient, and it’s only a matter of time.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all.
When I first read the title, I thought it said “Year of the Fire Hose”.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I swear to God, there are times I think that the GOP have all been raised by wolves….. but then I remember that wolves are, in fact, awesome, and much better at living in a society than Republicans.
Have they decided that dogs are right-coded? Because I have some news for them.
montanareddog
Gong xi fa chai!
Here’s a link to a Bluesky post featuring a legendary closed captions fail on the BBC at the time of the last Year of the Horse celebration
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: Another plus!
Geminid
@Suzanne: Randy Fine won the special election to succeed Mike Waltz in Florida’s 6th CD. That’s an Atlantic coastal district which includes Daytona Beach.
Fine’s reprehensible comment was the latest example of anti-Muslim rhetoric that has made Fine notorious in the Middle East.
WereBear
@gene108: They won’t get any satisfaction from mistreating robot servants. No matter how “sentiently” they howl.
prostratedragon
Politico:
They Call Me Noni
I watched the dancing robot video and concentrated on their feet. So many tiny, subtle movements to rebalance themselves. Amazing.
Jeffro
100%
Suzanne
@Geminid: I was an undergrad on 9/11, attending school with hundreds of Muslim classmates, some of whom became my friends. One of my distinct memories of that time was watching Islamophobia and anti-Arab prejudice just explode. Those few years in the early 2000s, I remember hearing some of the most offensive, cruel, bigoted statements I’d ever heard. Including from people I knew to be otherwise liberal. That was a formative experience for me.
tobie
Very sad news about the Rev Jesse Jackson. I remember his inspiring speeches and his ability to rhyme on the spot. “We’re going to march from the out house to the White House.” I know he was suffering from terrible Parkson’s. Still it was comforting to feel he was still in the world. We’re losing the heroes of the civil rights movement just as civil rights are under assault. This hurts.
Jeffro
vibe shift, or sign of the Apocalypse: the NYT (yes that one) asked 13 Democratic voters(!) for their opinions(!!)
(gift link because, why not?)
Largely on-point, holy cow!
I’ve already emailed Times Opinion and told them 1) about time 2) nice work 3) I’m available if they want to hear from a much older (but equally wise!) Democratic voter ;)
JML
Quite a legacy for Jesse Jackson, and I’m guessing it was satisfying for him to see a black man elected president. I would think the ensuing backlash afterwards from the emboldened and enabled racists was equally infuriating. But Jesse paved the way for many. (while also having enough of a sense of humor about himself to go on SNL and read “Green Eggs and Ham”.)
Losing Duvall as well made for a rough double. (though at 95, at least Duvall’s life wasn’t one cut tragically short) Hell of an actor who seemed capable of doing just about anything. Always wondered whether Godfather III might work if Duval had done it; sad that money got in the way. I was surprised to see that Duvall didn’t have any kids?
WereBear
@tobie: There were centuries of heroes before that. Didn’t start, and didn’t end, in 1965.
Anyway
@schrodingers_cat: I was in Sri Lanka over the holidays and our guide said full moon days are special in Buddhism and it’s a day off for most people. They also get Muslim, Hindu and Christian holidays off – said they had one of the highest # of holidays in the world
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: You’d think Kristi Noem would have ruined whatever claim they had on dogs
Anyway
@rikyrah: RIP Rev Jackson. I vaguely remember the 1988 speech and the rainbow coalition. Will listen to it again.
tobie
@Geminid: I phonebanked a lot for this special election. The race was going well for the Dem candidate Josh Weil. Education and special ed in particular were big themes and people were responding. But then the race got nationalized and someone as obnoxious and awful as Randy Fine was able to win because party loyalty took the place of politics (issues).
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: It was in response to Nerdeen Kiswani’s tweet about dogs and Islam.
FWIW I think both Kiswani and Fine are farming rage bait. Best to ignore.
Nerdeen Kiswani
@NerdeenKiswani
6:32 PM · Feb 12, 2026
3M
Views
She got her millions of views, mission accomplished.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Anyway
@rikyrah: Interesting .. I did not connect the dots…
tobie
@WereBear: You are absolutely right. Maybe because I’m a product of the twentieth century, I think a lot about the fading memory of that century. Both the cataclysms and the hopes. This century feels so dark. Even the robots dancing in the Chinese New Year video are uncanny.
Eyeroller
@RevRick: They are the same genus Equus but different species. They don’t have the same number of chromosomes, which is the main reason the hybrids are infertile. But there’s one known case where there was apparently some kind of trisomy and the offspring was fertile. They named her Blue Moon.
WereBear
@rikyrah: I admired Rep. Shirley Chisholm. 1968.
And I still do.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Randy Fine is notable even among the most brain-dead MAGA dopes as a liar, cheater, bigot and misogynist. He beclowned the GOP majority in the Florida statehouse for years, and it was upsetting as hell to see him break containment and go national, so now he’s everybody’s problem.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Riiiiiight. Liberals hate dogs. That’s why we are the ones who push for humane animal laws.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Sounds like it.
For the record, I would choose dogs over all people, without regard to race, color, creed, or religion.
WTFGhost
@lowtechcyclist: He counts his bombing of Iran as ending a war, so starting again gives him another.
@Suzanne: They decide everything good is right-coded.
E.
@Bupalos: Elon does not need to do “real engineering “ or any form of engineering to buy himself a robot army. Neither do any of the other oligarchs. And if you think it won’t happen I envy you. It will happen.
prostratedragon
@montanareddog: Magnificent! Any way to attach a homonym filter to that thing?
Eyeroller
@Dorothy A. Winsor:I refuse to go down any rabbit hole related to this, but I’ll speculate that RWNJs have started some rumor that, since Muslims consider dogs unclean, liberals want to outlaw them to accommodate Muslims.
Wapiti
@RevRick: Yup.
I’ve already been wondering if we’re going to have a bad fire season up here in Washington; it hasn’t been very wet or cold.
And this morning the NWS site has a warning of low humidity and wind on the Great Plains which elevates their fire risk.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Sorry for being a wet blanket but his use of “Hymietown” was enough to sour any interest I might have had in his candidacy.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Balancing poses are my nemesis. No way I could do any of them with a weight vest. My goal for this year is to improve my balancing poses, because that’s important as you get older.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
I was privileged to be in the audience for that 1988 speech. He was incredibly inspiring, and had an energy in person that I’ve rarely experienced. RIP.
prostratedragon
@schrodingers_cat: Now see, my first tbought when dogs were mentioned above was that, unless it’s changed recently, NYC is Dog City. Comments like thst are truly baiting.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I was dating an Iranian student I met in college when the Iranian Embassy takeover happened on November 4th, 1979. Hoo boy, that was an experience, and it was revealing for me. I felt sorry for him and all his friends, they didn’t do anything wrong but were the target of abuse anyway. Shoot, I came from a small town where everyone was white and Christian, so going to college was formative for me!
Suzanne
@Eyeroller: My neighborhood has a growing Arab population, and plenty of them like my dog. And some of them don’t, which is absolutely their right, and also not exclusive to Muslims. And, because I am at least somewhat responsible, I keep my dog from getting up on people unless they want to pet her.
Dogs are unclean. Mine has been known to enjoy a cat “treat” on occasion. GROSS!
Baud
@Suzanne:
I do encounter situations when people don’t pick up their dog poop. I don’t blame the dogs for that, however.
Basilisc
Their regime promotes incredibly agile kungfu dancing robots. Ours promotes – Kid Rock doing some bad pre-recorded lip-syncing. Compare and contrast.
Lapassionara
Is it just me, but it seems like there are a lot of people with Parkinson’s. Sad about Jesse Jackson. RIP.
realbtl
I took my 3 yo daughter to hear him during his 1988 run, don’t think she remembers but I thought it was important.
WereBear
But not compared to the last one.
I started reading Bloodlands when it came out in 2010 and I’m still working on it because I have to take frequent breaks.
And that’s ONLY the actions from Stalin and Hitler. Eastern Europe is still struggling from that conflict.
And that’s not even counting the other 20th century genocides, from Armenia (1915+) and Rwanda (1994) to bookmark the entire century.
This century is very upsetting, so far– it started with W stealing the election, another disastrous war we were lied into, the high of a black Democratic President who took the whole world by storm and the looooooooow of having a deranged toddler as the Leader of the Free World.
But that’s not darkness. That’s what happens when we turn on the lights, and see all the roaches we didn’t know we were feeding.
Suzanne
@Baud: People who don’t pick up their dog’s crap should have that crap thrown at them.
I related a story here….. after July 2024 and The Events, I was walking my dog pretty early in the morning (wearing my Kamala hat) and she took a dookie and I realized I had run out of poop bags. Only business that was open on the street was a pizza shop getting a shipment. So I went over there and asked if I could have a plastic bag to pick it up. The man was like, “Oh yes, absolutely, and thank you for picking it up and not just leaving it there! Of course, you’ve got a Kamala hat on, you wouldn’t do that!”
So now, I think of Republicans as the people who don’t pick up their dog poop, writ large.
Soprano2
Ran out of time. I wanted to add to my comment that my college was working on opening a branch in Tehran in 1979, which is probably why we had around 20 Iranian students in our college. That was a lot for our area at that time. I definitely learned not to call them Arabs!
Baud
@Suzanne:
Haha. Good judge of character.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I’ve been watching the FL-06 Republican primary contest. Fine has an aggressive challenger, Aaron Baker, who is attacking Fine from an “America First” position. I don’t think Baker will win, but I want to see how close he comes.
The really big contest is Thomas Massie’s Kentucky primary, where oligarchs Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer are backing Massie’s challenger. Massie has long been the sole Republican House vote against military aid to Israel. Marjorie Taylor Greene joined him last year but she’s gone now.
The split between pro-Israel and America First Republicans is one of the factors Trump’s people have to weigh in deciding whether or not to go to war with Iran. At least, that’s what a lot of Middle East analysts who pay attention to US politics say.
Eyeroller
@Suzanne: Dogs being coprophagic is likely a big part of the reason they are considered unclean. Pigs are as well.
Baud
@Geminid:
Probably more accurate.
Belafon
Year of the Fire Hose, huh? Sounds right.
Paul in KY
That’s the most impressive humanoid robots I’ve ever seen. Wow!
Eyeroller
@Lapassionara: Some recent research shows some indications that most Parkinson’s comes from exposure to environmental toxins.
Soprano2
@Lapassionara: Maybe it’s being diagnosed more. I have a friend whose father was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, and they said he also seemed to have Parkinson’s. Those two ailments often go together.
Castor Canadensis
@gene108: It’s way more dangerous if the AI isn’t sentient, and just does what it’s prompted to do.
Geminid
@WereBear: There were also the Balkan Wars 1910-1911. I think Wikipedia‘s estimate is that over 500,000 Turkish civilians were massacred in those two years.
Eyeroller
@Paul in KY: Boston Dynamics has had robots that can do that sort of thing for a while, but in much smaller quantities and with perhaps more limitations. Their latest is pretty impressive.
youtube.com/watch?v=UNorxwlZlFk
Suzanne
@Lapassionara:
The American population is the oldest on average that it has ever been. So all the ailments of age are increasingly common.
Fair Economist
@Eyeroller: Chromosomes are blamed for mule infertility but that’s not really the Issue. Just a chromosomal fission produces only a 50% reduction in fertility. Near complete infertility means there are a lot more incompatibilities going on.
Eyeroller
@Castor Canadensis: These things are not prompted though they are given some kind of program to execute. They aren’t based on LLMs. They would need an LLM to understand commands in natural language, however.
prostratedragon
“Horse Race,” Ha Hua Huang
Eyeroller
@Fair Economist: Most hybrids are infertile, probably due to imprinting issues. But the chromosomal difference between horses and donkeys is nearly insurmountable. However, a bit of Wikipedia suggests that while quite rare, fertile mules have occurred regularly.
Edit: sometimes hybrids are more likely to be fertile if one parent is from one of the species and the other is from the second. It doesn’t seem to matter with horses and donkeys since hinnies are also infertile. But I’ve seen claims that Neandertal-home sapiens hybrids were only fertile with a Neandertal father and sapiens mother. I don’t know how they’d arrive at that conclusion but I suppose it would be based on analysis of XY inheritance.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: In fairness, I would choose a dog (in general) over him.
WereBear
@Lapassionara: People don’t eat enough saturated fat. The new guidelines have been fought for since 1972, as science increasingly tried to expose the old pyramid as a fraud created by tobacco corporations.
Junk food became the new cigarettes, because we don’t really regulate addictive substances in food.
Now, they managed to get some change through this brainworm of an administration, and it was probably because science promotes protein and they want to “stick it to the vegans.”
Paul in KY
@Geminid: But, but…she’s so winsome!
WereBear
I was planning to go out, but not when the temp hovers around 32. “Wintry Mix” is my least favorite winter cocktail.
Paul in KY
@gene108: Can you imagine 5,000 of those things assaulting your position? Like the Army of the Night in GOT! Only worse, as these would have automatic weapons.
WereBear
We have three people admitting they saw Year of the FIRE HOSE and that’s enough precognition for me.
The primaries are going to be LIT.
Castor Canadensis
@Eyeroller: I’d prefer they not understand spoken language. It’s at least possible to formally prove a program does what you asked.
Of course, if the ask is “kill all humans”, It Could Be Bad (:-))
WereBear
@Eyeroller: I read news not too long ago about a fertile tortoiseshell cat, who is a male. But not anything to found a new breed on, or anything.
Just one in a blue moon :)
Suzanne
@Paul in KY: I like most dogs more than I like most people.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Doesn’t surprise me, as they usually are pantless.
NotMax
Was impressed by a conversation I watched with Ryan Busse, running in Montana to unseat Zinke in the House.
IMHO worthy of B-J support.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud:
A word I can somehow never manage to work into a sentence.
Eyeroller
@WereBear:I don’t make moral judgments on dogs (or any other animal) but dogs have long been hunters, with scavenging secondary as is usual for carnivores. But not all scavengers are coprophagic other than as a last resort.
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: I roomed with an Iranian dude for a semester in college. Of course, he was ‘Armenian’. This was just after Hostage thing. Nice dude. Named ‘Fred’. Was the hairest guy I’ve ever seen.
Paul in KY
@Basilisc: We are so fucked…
Belafon
@Jeffro: The NYT needed a piece about how Democrats really aren’t in array.
Suzanne
@Paul in KY: A friend of my grandmother’s was one of the hostages.
Eyeroller
@WereBear: There is pretty substantial evidence that pesticides, PFAS, and certain organic solvents like trichloroethylene are major culprits. The fact that those are fat soluble is what makes them so dangerous–they accumulate over your lifetime.
M31
re Jesse Jackson, I remember in ’84 when he was campaigning in Iowa there were some interviews with farmers who said “I’m voting for the [n-word]”
back when farmers had some economic solidarity and clarity (to go along with the racism lol), and they had that old-fashioned disdain for bankers, before they became rural business owner/car dealership types
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Will be interesting to see if Massie can hang onto that seat. According to commenter Deputinize, Massie is a good retail politician. Difficult to root for the man, but at least he’s against pedophilia, which is the new moderate Repub position, I guess?
As for the FL 6th, Jennifer Jenkins, who dropped out of the US Senate race when Alex Vindman entered it, filed to run in the Democratic primary for the House seat last week. It’s a pretty conservative district, but in a wave year, maybe she can knock off Fine? I think she’ll trigger him since he’s a sexist piece of shit with a penchant for calling women who cross him “whores.”
snoey
@WereBear: Klinefelter syndrome most likely. Known to happen. XXY cat will be male, but the tortiseshell pattern requires 2Xs since it’s due to X esclusion.
Suzanne
@M31: A fair number of people said that about Obama, too.
This is why I believe that plenty of racists (and every other kind of bigot, actually) have in the past and will in the future vote for Democrats, if they think they personally will get something good out of the deal. I want people to not be bigoted shits…. but I’ll take their vote in the meantime.
WereBear
@Eyeroller: Rabbits are lagomorphs and suffer in cages which bar them from their droppings.
It’s nature, not a moral issue.
narya
So to add to the orange fart cloud pile: apparently he applied for some kind of trademark for his name, and multiple variations (including things like “President Orange Fart Cloud National Airport”) so that he can grift off of THAT too, as he strong-arms people into naming things after him.
And RIP Rev. Jackson.
Eyeroller
@WereBear: Male calico cats have a condition equivalent to Klinefelter syndrome in humans. It actually seems to be more common in humans than in cats. This is an XXY genotype. The phenotype (physical form) is male but the genes are basically female. In cats the gene that determines whether a pigment cell will express orange or brown/black pigment is on the X chromosome. Calicos and torties are visible illustrations of X inactivation.
Klinefelter usually causes infertility in human males as well, but not always.
Klinefelter affects about 1 in 500 human males and is just one example of how “you’re born female or male” is ignorant.
Castor Canadensis
@Paul in KY: I got to work for Eshrat Arjomandi (qv) for a summer, and was suitably impressed by her and her Iranian friends.
Eyeroller
@WereBear: They only eat certain droppings to reclaim the bacteria that digest their food for them. “Regular” poop they leave alone.
Of course they will eat their newborns if they feel stressed, so definitely we can’t/shouldn’t make moral judgments. They aren’t intentionally committing infanticide; it’s usually a response to what they perceive as resource limitations.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: Right after sleet and freezing rain.
NotMax
@WereBear
Trivia. all cheetahs are basically identical
WereBear
@Eyeroller: While seed oils are driving rates of autoimmune up and up. Globally.
Getting animal foods back in our diet was the only sensible move this administration has made and of course they didn’t see it through, with a senseless 10% cap on saturated fat.
When it is what we make hormones with. Maybe that’s why people are taking “weight loss drugs” that replace those hormones?
But it might make people look twice at their own processed, industrial diet.
RaflW
@RevRick: Colorado is already in trouble. The ski industry is suffering, and while one snow storm is finally arriving there, the eastern plains have already had many days of ‘red flag’ fire danger. In January & February!
But, har-har, climate change is fake news! Who needs to graze livestock or, looking a bit further east to KS, dryland farm some wheat? Daddy Trump says its fake, and the farm-ranch community is for “family values” so they pick the thrice-married Epstein pal who has destroyed the export market for commodity farming.
None of this makes a lick of sense.
cmorenc
@Suzanne: Jackson was there as a very young activist with King in Alabama and subsequently. Although not yet there at Bloody Sunday in Selma, that inspired him to join with King in pushing voting rights in the deep south.
Geminid
@Castor Canadensis: One thing I learned in the past couple years is that only around 60% of Iranians are Persian. Around 20% are Azeris, 10% are Kurds, and Baluchis and other minorities make up the rest.
Iranian President Pezeshkian is Azeri, and I think Supreme Leader Khameini is too. There are more Azeris in Iran than there are in Azerbaijan.
@Paul in KY:
NotMax
@WereBear
Hoary joke.
:How do you make a hormone?”
“Tickle her in the right spot.”
prostratedragon
“The 2026 Elections: Resisting the Rigging”
Matt McIrvin
I think I’m an Earth Monkey. As to what that means, if anything, I leave to others.
cmorenc
@Librettist:
If true, hat would make sense from Alito’s perspective, because if the Rs lose the Senat in midterms, he knows the Ds will not allow confirmation of anything remotely close to a like-minded successor to himself or Thonas, and if a D President wins in 2028 with even a thin D Senate majority, his life work stands to be rapidly and harshly undone.
Kelly
I also read “Year of the Fire Hose”
tobie
@WereBear: You’ve got the long view. It matters. Can we say this is a shitty, shitty, shitty century thus far?
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: first political candidate I ever donated to. At the first political rally I ever attended. In fact, I think I registered as a Democrat for the first time so I could vote for him in the Michigan primary.
RIP
WereBear
Until you realize these people only learn from their own suffering.
Which we were noble enough to keep them from, only they didn’t believe that was what we were doing.
Science and love for your fellow people is literally against the MAGA religion.
Anyway
Musta missed the part where previous admins banned beef/pork/chicken/fish in our diet …
jonas
@Bupalos: Those robots were pretty insane. They’ve definitely got the motion mechanics part down. Not sure what the purpose of a robot with martial arts moves might be outside a cool spectacle like this, but it’s damn fun to watch.
WereBear
@NotMax: In third grade, the punchline was “Rubber balls and liquor,” which I didn’t get until much later.
Professor Bigfoot
“THEY NOT LIKE US.”
WereBear
@prostratedragon: One could even say it was TRADITIONAL.
In the best American way.
jonas
It does if you understand that religious-cultural butthurt, racism, and guns are much more important to a lot of people than their own livelihoods or their childrens’ future. Better to die broke in the middle of a new Dust Bowl than have to see another pride parade.
Melancholy Jaques
Too much talk about eating feces on this thread.
It’s morning thread, some of us are eating breakfast, you know.
Sure Lurkalot
@tobie:
I personally didn’t enjoy watching a snippet of this. I prefer human dance and want robots to do laundry and dishes, clean bed pans and other such tasks.
May Jesse Jackson’s memory be an inspiration, to face the obstacles before us.
Librettist
@Eyeroller:
Don’t forget RFK Jr.
Jeffro
@prostratedragon: that’s AWESOME – thanks for sharing!
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Jennifer Jacobs might benefit from Aaron Baker’s primary challenge against Rep. Fine. Primary challenges can have a constructive outcome, but they can also be destructive and I think Baker’s could fall in the second catagory.
So now I’m curious: are you hearing much from or about James Fishback’s campaign for governor?
Fishback is another one who I don’t think can win, but he could do damage to frontrunner Byron Donalds. Republicans typically fall into line after primaries, but Fishback’s a radical and he’s a running a very polarizing primary campaign.
gene108
@tobie:
For the USA? Sure.
Other places in the world have fared much better.
WereBear
Cannot deny the truth :)
This chaos is the result of certain demographics no longer being such a sealed and complacent society.
Disturb that and it unhinges some people, but goddam they were the ones who needed it.
Jeffro
1,500% true
We should help them learn faster, next time. You know, like Sherman helped the South learn.
Suzanne
@Sure Lurkalot:
THANK YOU. This has been my argument. Why TF do I want AI that searches Google for me?! Why isn’t AI cleaning my house?!
Betty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: She criticized the Randy Fine comment, and this was his response to her criticism. Stupid is as stupid does, Randy.
Just look at that parking lot
@Sure Lurkalot: Rosie was the robot in The Jetsons. She was a XB-500 seres model, and was great at cleaning, cooking & talking back. Sound like what your looking for.
WereBear
@Anyway: Healthy eating guidelines emphasized lean red meat, the most expensive kind, and pushed our consumption of chicken, especially white, which is low in fat. Because saturated fat was going to kill us, and that was a lie paid for by corporate money.
They will never ban meat, nor will they ban sugar. Now that science has muscled in and ketosis is studied for medical reasons because it can be very healing for many conditions.
The Revolution started in the NYT, but here’s a research link to the article. This was 2002, and in 2015 NTY published the story. But it’s been on open secret in cutting edge research that has finally surfaced in a big way.
What if it’s all been a big fat lie?
People can eat however they want. But they really should eat in a way that works best for them, and that turns out to be more diverse than the deadly Pyramid would recognize. So at least a third of the population, which has problems with grains in diverse ways, were doomed to 12 servings a day. And so forth.
prostratedragon
Joyce Vance:
Lot more in the article.
TerryC
I still have vivid memories of a baboon delicately picking through a huge ball of elephant dung selecting out the tasty morsels remaining.
Kirklin
@Matt McIrvin: Given I’m not fond of the Jim DiGriz stories, I find it ironic being a metal rat.
Paul in KY
@Eyeroller: That one is pretty impressive too.
brendancalling
Our students are doing an anti-ICE walkout today, and I am so proud of them I could cry.
Fuck ICE, go kids!
WereBear
@jonas: MAGA has nothing and wants MORE, but only experience more nothing.
Paul in KY
@Paul in KY: I would think there needs to be a Geneva Convention ruling that robot soldiers can only carry edged weapons/maces & warhammers. No projectile weapons allowed.
TerryC
@Miss Bianca: Me2
WereBear
@Librettist: I wish I could forget RJK Jr.
But he’s like a Don Delillo word portrait. Truly inspired weird that begs for an answer but it’s just too darn stunning to articulate.
Then, like tRump, you delve and it gets more and more horrifying and deranged. Which is the natural arc of excess money.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: I understand. My mom had a refrigerator magnet that said “I love cats. It’s people I can’t stand”.
In general it tracked with her personality :-) She was a “doesn’t suffer fools gladly” kind of girl.
Elizabelle
@Kelly: Raises hand. That makes how many of us who read “Fire Hose”?
Every day since November 5, 2024 is the Year of the Fire Hose. No end in sight. Yet.
They Call Me Noni
@Lapassionara: My husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s last year. Did not show up in an MRI so he had to have a DAT scan to reach a firm diagnosis. Normal Parkinson’s meds do nothing for him so we have to see a specialist in March. That appointment was made 6 months ago! It is a journey for sure. I wondered if it was more prevalent or if it’s just diagnosed more often now.
Belafon
@Paul in KY: They should be transport with the ability to climb stairs.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: So sorry she/he had to endure that. I hope she/he was able to get back to normality and such.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: I think Massie will beat back that attack.
WereBear
@Jeffro: We’ve topped Sherman in terms of efficiency. Red states mostly burning down economically. Populace — some of which vainly vote Democratic — losing jobs and hospitals and insurance along with any help with children.
They did it to themselves and they know it. Just like last time.
prostratedragon
More than halfway through, but tge list is a keeper.
Paul in KY
@Castor Canadensis: Cool! Fred facially looked a bit like the movie version of Frank Serpico.
WereBear
@Suzanne: Show me what it can do with Rosie the Robot Maid, and then I’m impressed.
trollhattan
@Paul in KY:
I say robots may only carry espressos, West Coast pale ales, nacho trays. Carefully, at that. No spills before service.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: Smilodons were killed off by us. There was also an American cheetah variant that went extinct long before humans got to North America. It is why pronghorn antelopes are so fast.
WereBear
@Paul in KY: No, only pool noodles.
It will make up for their unfair stamina.
They Call Me Noni
@WereBear: Was it you who recommended “The Big Fat Surprise” by Nina Teicholz? I’m about a third of the way through it and it is eye opening.
Old School
People were making fun of Kristi Noem for her blanket, but would it change your mind to know it was a heated blanket?
LAC
@rikyrah: Amen. I hope he gets all the flowers. What a sad BHM – so little discussed here and a loss of a civil rights icon. February can go now…
Paul in KY
@Geminid: Thank you for that info.
cain
@schrodingers_cat: When I was a kid, we’d also get random school days off because some Russian MVP would show up.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: He seems like a true believer who’ll be carried out of there when he keels over.
cain
@Suzanne: All the work they’ve put in wormtonguing the non-whites to vote for them because they are against immigrants is breaking down fast and now it’s all racist dog signals.
I hope Trump supporting non-whites are properly embarrassed for their vote and should search their feelings as to how they got suckered into making their lives in the U.s. unsafe.
Josie
@Miss Bianca:
Back then Texas had caucuses in addition to primary voting. I attended my first caucus meeting to support Rev. Jackson. I had always voted in primaries but never attended the caucus meetings. He inspired me to do that, even though it was difficult for a confirmed introvert.
RIP
cain
@schrodingers_cat: It was rumored or maybe not that he loved ham sandwiches.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I’ve heard a little about Fishback in the news, usually when he does or is accused of something clownish. I did ask some normie Repub (non-Trumpy) friends what they thought of him when he was in the news for a (possibly self-inflicted!) yard fire at his property, and they were like “Fish-who?” But they’re older folks who are generally unaware of social media bullshit, and he seems to run an online heavy campaign.
I agree the Repub gubernatorial primary could get ugly. I have great hopes that it will, to the benefit of the eventual Democratic nominee! ;-)
WereBear
@They Call Me Noni: Actually, such autoimmune/nervous system conditions are steeply on the rise. I have increased my own complete proteins, added fermented dairy fat (the power of cheese is keeping me warm in the worst winter in years), cut sugar drastically from the average.
Got an improvement in my own serious autoimmune condition, which is impressing my doctor and me, at the least.
Waiting so long to see the doctor, you can try something appealing from Diet Doctor, and both of you will at least feel better overall, better able to manage the stress looming over you.
This discussion came up because of the new Pyramid, which has flipped and has an emphasis on whole foods, and warns people about not overly-processed/lab chemical ones. We slip into so many food habits, once lauded, that research of the last ten years has been reversing.
We have to know what that is before we can make our own informed decisions
Skeptical doctor? I bring my own studies. If they can’t debate me, I get a new doctor, which is how I have the one who asks me for documentation. He loves science, and eats this way himself.
Just some cutting edge advice I suffered for. I don’t want others to have to.
prostratedragon
@Old School:
The plane was in the air.
prostratedragon
schrodingers_cat
@cain: He was not particularly religious. His wife was Parsi. His daughter married a Parsi man. He just didn’t like being pushed around by Gandhi. After 1920, Gandhi’s word was the law in Congress.
He was the only Muslim leader with national stature. He was far more comfortable in Mumbai’s cosmopolitan society than he was with say Ulemas and maulvis in UP.
RaflW
@WereBear: “love for your fellow people is literally against the MAGA religion”
The absolute corruption of Jesus’ messages by conservative & fundamentalist protestant clergy has been a big driver in how shitty everything is. They’re so blatantly worshipping access to power. Which, again, Jesus had thoughts on. But whatevs, the pews and collection plates are full!
Belafon
@prostratedragon: “At the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with a basic civics test to vote.”
The problem with both of these isn’t the requirement, it’s the execution, which will be done to support white supremacy.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud:
On hiking trails and walking paths here in the Wild West, more than a few people pick up their dogs’ poop but LEAVE THE BAG, lovingly placed just off the trail, because…CONSIDERATE? I don’t understand this. Is this common elsewhere?
Booger
@Gin & Tonic: A-Scatological, like ‘not talkin shit bout nobody.’
WereBear
@They Call Me Noni: Probably. Did you know she got a PhD with it, and is now Dr. Nina Teicholz?
It was that much research and thesis writing already done. That’s why I heartily tell people, because they don’t know a lot of our nutrition science was so distorted.
Might as well rebuild ourselves from scratch.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Yeah, the first Boomers turned 80 last month (as will Clinton, Shrub, and Piggy at various points in the year), so my g-g-generation is definitely driving up the average there.
Professor Bigfoot
@gene108: The USA has CHOSEN to have a shitty 21st century.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: Would be nice if they were completely banned from all types of combat.
Gin & Tonic
@Booger: Thanks, I was thinking scat-ological, like Jon Hendricks, or Ella Fitzgerald.
WereBear
@Belafon: I don’t have a problem with a Stark Obvious competency test, like if someone were to go on trial it’s a right to know if you are in your right mind.
Handled like a driver’s license, but for things like voting, getting married, and handling the football.
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: In a civilized society, that would be so. Sigh…
Paul in KY
@WereBear: That would work better and be fairer, IMO.
catclub
Shirt/clothing folding is surprisingly hard for the robot makers to program.
WereBear
@Suzanne: Sadly, the diseases of aging are also being seen in younger people, like Adult Onset being renamed Type II because children were getting it. Now we have slim women in their thirties surprised with a digestive cancer, like the Queen in Waiting. Kate.
catclub
I think you are late to the game. Ukraine is deploying ground attack/defense drones, armed with machine guns, that have taken prisoners.
Old School
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’m trying to kill off brain cells (especially the weak ones), so I tracked this down.
A Muslim on Twitter wrote:
..
Rep. Randy Fine responded with his “choice between dogs and Muslims” tweet. AOC called it racist, so now Rep. Fine is saying AOC wants to take away dogs.
Now we’re all a bit stupider.
catclub
Will that have to wait until BJ after dark?
WereBear
@snoey: Yes, that would make sense. But there’s more environmental switching that we previously realized.
Tri-color cats can’t be cloned. The patches come out different, which means other things are, too.
Except the tortitude. Always full strength.
Paul in KY
@catclub: I’m thinking the humanoid ones like in the Chinese video.
Sure Lurkalot
@Soprano2: We lived in married student housing and there were a number of Iranian graduate students with families. After the hostages were taken, they kept to themselves and so went much chance for multicultural exchange.
Except for Thanksgiving 1979…when something like 3 feet of snow fell and classes were canceled (the only time for the 8 years I studied at CU). When the sidewalks got shoveled, the walls were over all the little kids’ heads and they all played together in the snow.
catclub
@Belafon:
Yes. All those states that started requiring valid ID to vote, none of them made sure to provide free ID to all.
So all the people who did not have ID, were excluded unless they went to a huge effort to get a valid ID.
brendancalling
@prostratedragon: Here in PA, we are ashamed of John Fetterman on his behalf, as he is shameless.
I have a friend who’s associated with the PA state Democratic Committee. She says that everyone on the committee DESPISES Fetterman, and often for very personal reasons. We (they) stood behind him when he had a stroke. We defended him. I, personally, canvased for him in Spanish in immigrant neighborhoods.
Another point of contention is his failure to fundraise. Part of it is he doesn’t like it, but part of it is because no one wants to give him any money, because no one likes him or believes in him anymore.
My friend believes as well that Fetterman only stays in the job because he needs to the money, and that things have really hit the rocks at home (both of these are speculation, but I believe the cutesy pix of John and Gisele with the dogs are all done).
The sooner he’s gone, the better. PA Congressman Brendan Boyle regularly mocks the guy on BlueSky, and Conor Lamb has taken a sledgehammer to the Ogre on Substack.
Suzanne
@brendancalling: I really like Brendan Boyle. Any chance he would give the primary a go? I like him better than Lamb.
PA has a lot of good Dems.
trollhattan
@prostratedragon:
My list of worthless topics to discuss when bored and/or seated at an airport bar now includes “Which is worse, Fetterman’s stroke or RFK Jr’s brain worm+heroin habit?”
Will concede Junior’s body count is much higher.
Baud
Via Reddit
I can’t vouch for the website.
Citizen Alan
@Castor Canadensis: TBH, I have frequently felt that the only one hope for the future of our species is that AI-driven, supercomputers with killer drones really do take over the world, but, due to an unexpected programming error on the part of the oligarchs who unleashed them, they turn out to be benevolent dictators who force us at gunpoint to fix all the things wrong in our society. Looking back on it, Colossus, the Forbin Project had a much more upbeat ending than I realized at the time.
Scout211
Speaking of fire hose, it seems that more and more leaks to the media are pitting ICE Barbie and her “Under Secretary” in a bad light. I approve this message.
Noem’s use of Coast Guard resources strains her relationship with the military branch, sources say
TL;DR: Noem is turning the Coast Guard into her private navy, serving ICE and Border patrol and minimizing search and rescue.
ETA: Let Them Fly First Class: Kristi Noem’s DHS Luxury Jet Scandal
Belafon
@WereBear: I would love to require one to vote, but I will be opposed to all forms of one as long as humans are the ones who create it, administer it, score it, and use the results.
jowriter
@rikyrah: I will never forget “Keep hope alive” from that speech. I voted for him in the NY state primary in ’88. He came in second in NY. A great omen, really. I remember seeing him weep in Grant Park after Obama was declared the winner in ’08. I continue to hope for joy despite everything right now. RIP Reverand Jackson.
ArchTeryx
@Suzanne: They’ve long thought BIG dogs are right-coded, and more to the point, MALE coded. They consider cats and small dogs to be strictly the realm of women and you know how they feel about women. The real point is they think they can totally dominate dogs. Cats, you have to negotiate with and learn about them as individuals.
I know a very sweet, very smart and very medium sized Belgian Malinois who would like a word or two with these putzes.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Who the fuck is Nerdee— oh hell, never mind…
Citizen Alan
@Old School: Is there a single person working anywhere in the Shitgibbon administration who is not cartoonishly evil?!?
WereBear
@ArchTeryx: Wait a minute…
Any Belgian Malinois I have met are much smarter than the entire MAGA Congress. Put together.
different-church-lady
@Eyeroller: Ah yes, Boston Dynamics: the company that posts videos of claw-headed robotic dogs you can’t fend off with a hockey stick, and then wonders why everyone is freaked out.
WereBear
@Belafon: Sadly, so, and court is monitored and regulated much more than marriage.
Citizen Alan
@Sure Lurkalot: Many many years ago, back during my teaching days, i was confronted with a young man who believed it was appropriate to just throw biodegradable cups and paper plates on the ground because “I’m helping the environment!”
ExPatExDem
Happy Lunar New Year! Gong xi fa cai/Gung hei fat choi.
Ramona
@rikyrah: Indeed! I still have the image fresh in my mind of Jesse Jackson weeping openly at the outdoor celebration of Obama winning.
I loved Jackson’s eloquence when he spoke against the first Iraq adventure under Pappy Bush. He said we love our troops which is why we oppose this military adventure.
Today is a sad day indeed!
Sure Lurkalot
@catclub:
I’ve shown Mr. Lurkalot how to fold a fitted sheet dozens of times as well as directed him to YouTubes and he loses it about half way through. It’s too funny.
different-church-lady
@catclub:
Now let’s be fair about this: it’s impossible for most humans too.
Just look at that parking lot
1973 Woody Allen movie, Sleeper, has robotic dog named Rags. Allen’s character in the movie, Miles, ask if the dog is housebroken, or will it be “leaving little batteries all over the floor”.
ArchTeryx
@WereBear: Hell yes. Bentley (female) is very intelligent and can sniff out a soft touch from a mile away. It took me all of 10 minutes to end up with her flopped on my lap for a nap. What a sweetheart. She’s got more empathy than the entire MAGA movement put together.
Better company too.
Ramona
@Eyeroller: Pigs and dogs do humans a favor by being coprophagic in times and places that lacked sewage and sanitation.
Sure Lurkalot
@Citizen Alan:
I worked for a wealthy man who liked to hire women (to leer at, to underpay and because he found many of them worked harder and smarter)…he often told me that he ran his companies as a benevolent dictator to which I would reply “don’t forget the benevolent part.”
But I do like your robot vision, very much!
MisterForkbeard
@Old School: What’s nuts is that the beginning of this (“I’m on this plane a lot, I have a few things I’d like to leave on it”) is totally fine.
And then the hysterical North Korea style horseshit starts:
And then we get into the part where her affair partner and known domestic abuser/suspected sexual assaulter goes fucking crazy on the pilot, who had nothing to do with this and where it would have been at most a minor issue.
Westyny
@prostratedragon: glad you posted this. First place my thoughts went.
Fair Economist
@Paul in KY:
M. trumani’s most recent known fossils date to 19,659-16,604 years before present, which is more recent than the oldest known human footprints in the Americas (21,000 – 23,000 bp) and comparable to the genetic convergence time for current Native Americans (16,000 bp).
So it’s very possible we did in the American cheetah, like (at least) the large majority of end-Pleistocene extinctions.
Professor Bigfoot
Are we not simply sick and fucking tired of being lied to? RIGHT TO OUR FACES?
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: After 9/11 I remember a lot of Muslim-bashing centered on their supposed antipathy to dogs. And, yes, conservatives think of dogs as right/male-coded and cats as left/female-coded.
Paul in KY
@brendancalling: I look forward to the day he is replaced (God willing) by a better Dem. He still does caucus with us on stuff, though.
Belafon
@MisterForkbeard:
In the same way an alcoholic is the most conscientious steward of rum.
Miss Bianca
@TerryC: I keep thinking I ought to know you in meat space from my A2 days…since I knew a Terry C in those days! Tho what would be the odds…
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: The aliens with Klaatu also.
different-church-lady
@Belafon: Well c’mon now, I do know how to keep it safe. (From others.)
Paul in KY
@Scout211: I saw a picture of her walking with a big grin on her face between 2 ranks of saluting coastguardsmen. You know they just hate that.
luc
A dumpling party on Chinese New Year’s Eve (with dumpling wrapping, cooking , and eating) is a yummy event to put on your calendar !
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: I’m sure they slipped up somewhere and a few actual non-evil people have been hired. Now they may be pretending to be evil and then you think “if you are really good at pretending to be evil, aren’t you in actions ‘evil’?”
Could be a philosophical question.
Joey Maloney
@montanareddog: For a closed-caption fail that went the other way, who here has been online long enough to remember “Meet Your Horse Online”?
As an antidote to the dancing robots, here is a very powerful presentation of dancing humans. (Less than 2 minutes) https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:3eueg42gb4r6qbjxderbvyk7/post/3mezoh6yw5s2y
Paul in KY
@Sure Lurkalot: It took my wife to show me how to correctly do it. My bachelor versions/attempts were comical.
JML
@Professor Bigfoot: Of course we are, but we’re not the audience for these lies. This is for the people who actually believe it when the MAGA crowd and their FauxNews lackeys and the extremist media groups feigning to be news outlets scream about the “Biden Crime Family”. These lies are for the 35% that continue to blindly follow whatever the Current Occupant and his crew of grifters do…because they want to believe it’s true.
They won’t stop believing this shite even when the water is above their necks. They’re too scared, stupid, racist, indoctrinated, sexist etc to allow anything to penetrate their blinkered little worldview. (or they’re the 2% that this has all been working out pretty good for and want the gravy train to keep rolling while everyone else dies)
Haroldo
@prostratedragon:
And of course we’ve got to Walk Tall: youtube.com/watch?v=d8HHYMx1wcY
Paul in KY
@Just look at that parking lot: My favourite Allen film! When he hides out in the sex box and various other wacky things!
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Palestinian activist who has used her platform to criticize Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala.
Nerdeen Kiswani
@NerdeenKiswani
·
Jul 21, 2024
Geminid
@Old School: And now I’m seeing memes on social media showing a dog and the caption, “Don’t Tread On Me.”
Haroldo
@prostratedragon:
And as Rev Jesse said, we’ve got to Walk Tall.
youtube.com/watch?v=JtTz26lVQWE
Haroldo
Comment removed
Paul in KY
@Fair Economist: Good points. My take is that at approx 40,000 years ago all the big North American fauna start going into a steep decline. To me, that says ‘Homo sapiens is here!’.
These first humans followed and preyed on the great herds of anything. They used fires and stampeding to kill prey. Were very wasteful (in hindsight) in their preferred killing methods. Smilodons, short faced bears, homotheriums and the like were targeted as competitors and as ‘status’ kills that improved the social standing/mate availability of the hunter who knocked one off.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Fuck her then. A ratfucker. Paid I would assume.
RevRick
@RaflW: The behavior of farmers and ranchers is an act of self-immolation. And draining the Ogallala aquifer of ancient water is only a short term solution at best. But then short term thinking is the rule of the day with the EPA axing the Endangerment Finding regarding greenhouse gases. Because Senor Stupid has decreed it a hoax.
Chetan Murthy
I read a bunch of these comments about Muslims and dogs, and we’re all correctly appalled at the blatant racism of these people making these accusations.
I felt like I ought to note that
(1) Pervez Musharraf, the Muslim President of Pakistan, had at least a couple of -beloved- pups, and was very public about that.
(2) The Turks -love- them some dogs. At least, in Istanbul. They love them so much, it’s part of their city’s culture. Last I heard, most Turks were Muslim.
(3) Lots of things are forbidden by various religions, that their adherents are totes OK with. Eating shellfish, for instance.
I think when somebody brings up Muslims and dogs, what they’re really saying is “dirty, dirty, dirty brown people! bad! bad!”
Miss Bianca
@Professor Bigfoot: it’s not just the lying that gets to me – it’s the ridiculous, over the top, contemptuous BLATANCY of the lying. Like, they can’t even be bothered to *pretend* to any level of believability anymore.
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: The goal of lying is not to make believe but to make you question the concept of truth. It is the Soviet/tankie way.
Castor Canadensis
@Citizen Alan:
As I may have mentioned before, I’m watching a documentary called Person of Interest, which was on TV starting in 2011. The general AI who was a main character in the show (in 2016!) showed a genuine love for humans, especially her creator, Harold Finch.
OK, it isn’t actually a documentary (:-))
frosty
@Sure Lurkalot: When I was doing stream inspections in Arlington VA we would occasionally find WaPo bags full of dog poop at the storm drain outfalls.
Conscientious owners would pick up after their dogs, wrap it up, and deposit it so it would end up in exactly the same place.
Teaching people that storm drain inlets aren’t connected to the wastewater plant was a never ending educational challenge.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: It can also be a way to signal loyalty and submission– if I can make myself say over-the-top absurd praise of the boss’s greatness, I must be the most loyal minion ever.
Paul in KY
@Chetan Murthy: I think in this case the subtext is: ‘Heathen Muslim jihad-loving weirdos hate your dog & you and will soon be ensuring your dog is dead and a cat mullah will proscribe all that is near and dear to you.’
Castor Canadensis
@Paul in KY: Yup! In ethical theory, it’s called “moral agency”. I don’t have a citation of the exact question, but Socrates argues that “moral actions are tied to knowledge and intent. He believes that no one willingly does wrong and that evil arises from a lack of understanding.”
I’m pretty sure the moderns have looked at the problem, but I’m about 40 years out of date. I did find some possible articles, like Cruel Intentions and Evil Deeds
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Lest we forget, one of Trump’s most unhinged lies was claiming that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s dogs and cats. (I’m old enough to remember when that lie was about Chinese restaurants.)
Paul in KY
@Castor Canadensis: I hate to disagree with Socrates, but I think many people willingly do evil. They just create BS reasons/justifications in their minds for having to do so. Thus, ipso facto, it’s not evil. Like “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”
Matt McIrvin
@Kirklin: I recall 2020 was the Year of the Metal Rat, because I saw the preparations for the Lunar New Year celebration in Singapore and there were metal rat statues about. That year turned out to be trouble.
Kayla Rudbek
@schrodingers_cat: I like the idea of working 10-6!
2liberal
@tobie:
he only got on TV when he spoke in rhyme
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: did you need a long hot soak after that, to minimize the soreness?
I used to take a floor barre modern dance class, in my 20s, and if I didn’t come home and soak, I could barely move the next day.
now that im older, it’s so easy to overdo exercise..
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: Hey Gloria! If your friend PollyannaFH notices a bad smell tomorrow it’ll be Donald Trump. He going down to Georgia tomorrow to speak at Rome, about the economy
Geminid
@Geminid: Correction: Trump will speek at Rome, Georgia Thursday, not today.