Approximate Mood:
Just so I am clear.
This post is in: Open Threads
by Sarah, Proud and Tall| 164 Comments
This post is in: Election 2018, Open Threads, Both Sides Do It!
TS says:
November 12, 2016 at 8:28 am (Edit)2008 – Republicans lost the house, the senate and the presidency – they then proceed to impede in any way possible (with the help of a few dems) anything that the President tried to do. They stated it was their goal and they voted 100% in unison. The Media helped them with their non stop attacks on the new President – and the support of the birthers.
Democrats now need to stop talking about why and how & who won the vote and what is wrong with the electoral college & who should lead the party & how they can attract the undesirables. Democrats should be working as a united group to impede each and every thing this government wants to do. Don’t assume they can just “do it” – didn’t work that way in 2009/10.
This lot have NO idea what the President does – nor how he does it. Time to work non stop to show them up every hour of every day.
WereBear says:
November 12, 2016 at 9:46 am (Edit)@Enhanced Voting Techniques: What are Republicans? CUT TAXES AND SERVICES.
What are Democrats? TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE.
There. Done. You’re welcome.
New tag: Election 2018. Should get a lot of use, I suspect.
by Adam L Silverman| 293 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Media, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Our Failed Media Experiment
Geniuses!
This is dead on https://t.co/s47kWp7VCY pic.twitter.com/HCHiFjTgf4
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) November 11, 2016
This post is in: Bleg
Hey, all. Here’s a post that substitutes fecklessness for anything even remotely resembling politics.
The sprout, a gamer, just came in to ask if we could upgrade to 330 mbps internet from RCN, from our current 155 mbps.
We got the latter on a 12 month intro price that has just expired, and we’d get the new service on a renewed promotional price, so the all-in price is only about eight bucks more per month.
What I’m wondering is if the increase in download/upload speed will make any noticeable difference to our actual web life. We use our home connection to do very conventional things: email and the kind of online work that grown ups do (I spend a lot of time mousing around digital archives, for example, and a lot looking at online art galleries); gaming (my son) and streaming TV: Netflix and Amazon Prime right now.
We’re getting artifacts and annoying skips and resolution loss in the latter, and it would probably be worth a few bucks a month to smooth that out. But I have no real idea if our bottleneck lies with the download speed or if there are other bottlenecks to blame.
Any thoughts, oh more technically capable folks?
Also, any reason I shouldn’t by a DOCSIS 3.0 modem instead of renting one from RCN? Any insight on how malicious the cable companies are about obsolete-ing home gear?
Thanks to any and all.
Image: J.W.M. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed — The Great Western Railroad, 1844.
by Sarah, Proud and Tall| 137 Comments
This post is in: Artists In Our Midst
As promised, herewith your Artists In Our Midst thread.
If you are any kind of creator – artist, writer, blogger, photographer, musician, inventor, designer, sex toy entrepreneur, gardener, whatever – professional or otherwise, and you want to give yourself or your stuff a plug, please do so.
If you’re not and you know someone who is, get in a plug for them, or ask one of our talented creators to make you something you never thought you wanted, but which would bring a bit of joy into your life.
Don’t forget our Balloon Jobs thread. There are all sorts of clever people who might be perfect for your business, and all sorts of job opportunities and suggestions on offer.
My plug is for the Etsy shop of linocutboy, whose work is just lovely, and includes the magnificent big bunny above.
This post is in: Science & Technology, Rare Sincerity
I’ve got some brewing thoughts about what comes next, in line with and in some cases following what the other front-pagers, made of stronger stuff and able to drag words out rage and despair more quickly than I, have already written.
But Balloon-Juicers do not live by politics alone, however much we may have to over the next months and years. So here’s advance warning of a little bit of wonder, ours for the having:
But this month’s Supermoon is special. The eccentricity above is calculated based upon the Earth-Moon system, but other celestial bodies also influence the Moon’s orbit through gravity. The Sun plays the largest role, but so too does Jupiter and even some of the smaller planets. When factoring in these other influences, the eccentricity of the Moon’s orbit can actually vary by as little as 0.026 and as much as 0.077.
A more eccentric lunar orbit brings the perigee [its closest approach] nearer the Earth, and when this perigee occurs during a full Moon, we get an extra-Supermoon. That is what will happen on Nov. 14, when the Moon will come to within just 356,509km of Earth, which is the Moon’s closest approach since Jan. 26, 1948. The Solar System won’t line up this well again for a lunar approach until Nov. 25, 2034.
That sucker is going to be big, really big. A “normal” Supermoon is 14 % larger and 30% brighter than a full moon at apogee, the point on an elliptical orbit farthest away from the focal body. It’s actually hard to perceive the effect as a casual observer, but it is naked-eye detectable. The absolute peak of the phenomenon comes at 8:25 a.m. ET this coming Monday, but if you’re up early and/or catch the rising moon Monday evening, you’ll get a fine approximation. As they say: check local listings.
One of the consolations/delights I take from nature is the sense of connection to something larger than myself. That’s the same feeling I get from the acts we take to make the world better, from the kindness we show to one person at a time to the actions we’re stumbling to figure out right now, here on this blog and at every turn.
I’m going to stare at that moon Monday (sky permitting) and think of the world I want the next time this particular geometry rolls around, eighteeen years from now. My son will be thirty four then. If I’m fortunate enough to be here with him, I’ll be seventy six. It will be a better world then, if we make it so.
And if it makes me a lunatic to think so, I’ll take that label gladly. Beats the alternative.
Image: Joseph Wright of Derby, A view of Vesuvius from Posillipo, Naples, between 1788 and 1790.
by Tim F| 251 Comments
This post is in: Don't Mourn, Organize
I had something I wanted to say, but this guy said it better.
Once again for emphasis: none of us are free unless all of us are free. You could call it the principle America was founded on. It took us a while to live up to the idea. It took a long while to be honest. But by the late Obama years we got pretty close. I think most 21st century Americans would be hard pressed to disagree with the point if you phrase it that way.
You know what this week looks like to me? All the specters that King banished from polite society have started coming out of the woodwork. White supremacy has always been part of the weft and weave of the American tapestry but it flew far out the Overton window even by the time Nixon met Atwater. Those spirits always hated the closet. Nobody likes hiding or feeling ashamed. Frankly we should meditate on the precipitous fall of the confederate flag after the Roof shootings in Charleston. The speed at which the flag became anathema even shocked me. Wal-Mart ejected it. South Carolina’s legislature (!) ran from it. The haters’ political support abandoned them practically overnight after Roof was arrested. The floor just fell out under them. Trump must feel like water in the desert.
If they want to attack King then maybe we should answer with King. Dust off the old SNCC playbook. Right now the protests I see look more like a haphazard cry of inchoate rage than activism. It seems counterproductive. Hillary had a point about those baskets. You want the decent half to feel embarrassed about the shitheads, not drive them together by tarring every Trump voter as a hater or a nazi. You probably recognize this as our current strategy for dealing with difficult Muslim populations. When possible you want to fight with the reasonable ones against the jihadis.
How to stand up effectively? I have two suggestions, and the first one is easy. As I said before just look out for each other. Don’t bury your grief or deny it, let it drive you to do something productive. If you have some cash Donate to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, SPLC, the ADL, whatever. Look for a chance to make someone’s life better. Wear a safety pin as a reminder to act if you see someone else in trouble. Volunteer for a group that needs it. Maybe just spend more time with your friends, family and neighbors. Ask for help if you need it. Listen to people. Hell, this is good life advice dressed up as a master plan. Growing an activist network that can be flexible, resilient and activate fast when needed is a happy externality.
The second thing I hope to see is smarter protesting. Folks, there is a difference between making change and cathartic release. Non-horrible Trump voters like modern civilization and the general idea of equal protection. Most of them are in denial about the rottens, but that does not mean they like white supremacy or bullying. Really, I am not crazy. The civil rights protests of the 60s would have been hopeless if most Americans were violent supremacists. It turns out that if you make the decision stark enough between equality and hateful, fearful violence, most people will choose equality. I get that leaderless, distributed, bottom-up activism is the thing now but I suggest we look back to some folks who left deep footprints in American history for tips. John Lewis is still around. We could do worse than check out how he did it, and maybe just ask him.