…mornin’ all…or…for many…mourning…because once again it’s basically a pick-your-own horror story…figuratively
…or analogously
…name your poison
Costly climate ‘solutions’ look like more pollution in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ [Guardian]
4 hottest days ever observed raise fears of a planet nearing ‘tipping points’ [WaPo]
Firefighters continue battle against more than 100 blazes burning in the US [Guardian]
Extreme heat is wilting and burning forests, making it harder to curb climate change [WaPo]
…or…if you want to go another round of apples to oranges compare & contrast…& thought the FT thing about how easy it turns out it’s been to buy property in russia on an average paycheck since the world started flirting with a global hot war to take its mind off the increasing ambient temperature until even the frog in the slowly-boiling pot is blushing with vicarious embarassment for humanity was worth a read…this is arguably a bit of a doozy
And they’re the new, unlikely face of homelessness: Working Americans with decent-paying jobs who simply can’t afford a place to live.
Homelessness, already at a record high last year, appears to be worsening among people with jobs, as housing becomes further out of reach for low-wage earners, according to shelter interviews and upticks in evictions and homelessness tallies around the country. The latest round of point-in-time counts — a tally of people without homes on one given night — show a discernible uptick in homelessness in many parts of the United States, including Southeast Texas (up 61 percent from a year ago), Rhode Island (up 35 percent) and northeast Tennessee (up 20 percent).
They have jobs, but no homes. Inside America’s unseen homelessness crisis. [WaPo]
…I dunno as “unseen” is necessarily the way I see that problem looking…based on the differences in some of the stuff I’ve seen stateside over the course of my life & the bits of it I’ve spent wandering around a fair few places you’d argue count among the ranks of US urban developments…still…if home is where the heart is…or…I guess…if you need a reminder that when nobody gets to use the sort of stuff to do it that you generally need to be trained to be able to get your hands on…it doesn’t necessarily feel better when pretty much the same shit happens in a different place
…short version…knife…not a gun or a bomb or a rocket or a missle or fire, famine or pestilence…in the old-fashioned sense anyway…might have to reappraise that one in light of the epidemiology of virally propagated ideology & it’s bosom-buddy propaganda…but…overriding-ly…kids…yoga/dance class with a taylor swift theme…2 dead…last I heard 6 “critical” per the BBC…17 year old male perpetrator…motive yet to be disclosed…or possibly determined…assuming there is one that’s intelligible
…among other things it’s fucking with me that if the language used to talk about the levels of tragedy involved were universally applicable to innocent children it would be just as crushing & affecting & requiring of assurance that they be better protected from it when it went on in all the other places
…not the least of which just recently being the one everyone is busy blaming on the other lot they’re homicidally hopping mad at
On the evening of Saturday 27 July, a blast hit a playing field in the town of Majdal Shams, killing 12 children and young people from the minority Druze community.
It was the deadliest incident in or around Israel’s border with Lebanon since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah escalated in October.
The strike, with its young victims, caused outrage and shock in Israel and around the world.
Israel says Hezbollah carried out the attack with an Iranian-made rocket, fired from a short distance away in Lebanon. The US also says Hezbollah was to blame.
Hezbollah has strongly denied involvement.
[…]
The Druze people are an Arabic-speaking ethnic and religious group who mostly live in Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Syria. Part of the community has lived on the Golan Heights for centuries.Those on the Golan Heights went from Syrian to Israeli rule in June 1967, when Israel occupied most of it. Majdal Shams is the largest of four Druze-majority towns there.
Israel offered citizenship to all of the Golan Height’s residents, though many chose to retain their allegiance to Syria.
About 20% of the approximately 21,000 Druze who live there today have accepted or inherited Israeli citizenship. Those who have kept Syrian citizenship also have Israeli residency status, with most of the same rights as Israeli nationals apart from the right to vote.
Beyond the occupied Golan Heights, there about about 110,000 Druze who are full Israeli citizens. They are the largest non-Jewish community which serves in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as part of the country’s mandatory national service.
There are about a million Druze in the world, though estimates vary. Their faith is an offshoot of a branch of Shia Islam but theirs is a distinct religion with its own set of practices and beliefs.
Hezbollah, Israel and the Golan Heights: What is happening and why? [BBC]
…now…I don’t know…the above is a BBC news thing…but…the case for “not us” from hezbollah as I heard, rather than read, yesterday…also courtesy of the BBC…runs approximately thus…some years back they did kill a bunch of palestinians…not on purpose…& they immediately apologized & admitted it had indeed been them…so some view them as having form for ‘fessing up about that kind of thing…& they say they didn’t do it…then there’s the part where eye-witnesses…at least one of which was described as being both a medic of some sort & israeli…though that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been immediate family of one of those killed or “just a local”…either way…they say they saw an israeli missle try to intercept a rocket, fail to destroy it & end up hitting the place…& israel…while saying it was a specific sort of rocket used by hezbollah what killed that specific bunch of defenseless children…hasn’t produced, say, fragments of one as evidence…while people who claim to be able to interpret such things…say the damage to the impact site don’t match what you’d expect from that brand of payload
On a visit Monday to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the site of Saturday’s deadly strike, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will not, and cannot, ignore this,” before vowing to retaliate. “Our response will come, and it will be severe.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Monday that “there is no way to restore security for the residents of the North without a war that will destroy Hezbollah, recapture Southern Lebanon, and return the security zone currently within our territory back to Lebanon.”
The remarks came after Israel’s security cabinet authorized Netanyahu and his defense minister late Sunday to decide on the “manner and timing” of Israel’s response to Saturday’s rocket strike. The Israel Defense Forces released a list Sunday of victims who were 10 to 16 years old.
Region braces for Netanyahu to decide Israeli response to Golan Heights strike [WaPo]
…still…to hear them tell it in the UK…when it’s dead kids you’re talking about…nothing else comes close to that level of tragedy & heaven & earth should be moved by the spontaneous acts of love, kindness & generosity such events provoke through the unifying power of mutal grief and horror…well…let’s just say they don’t mean to imply anything about the relative value of lives taken that’s inversely proportional to how closely it strikes home…the same way that members of a certain generation…however earnest & decent they may in fact be…can sometimes couch what they’re saying in a way that to a different generation’s ears sounds like they condemn themselves…don’t mean to do that, either…mostly…most of them
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/25/us-officials-israel-bonds-ethics
…bad example maybe
Iran seeks to undermine Trump ahead of election, officials signal [WaPo]
…the enemy of my enemy very possibly ain’t no friend of thine…but…”c’est la vie”
Thousands mourn children killed in Golan Heights strike [BBC]
…’cept when it’s the other thing…tant pis or ta gueule?
An investigation by the Israeli military into the alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee at a notorious military detention camp for prisoners captured in Gaza has sparked protests from members of Israel’s far right.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/29/israeli-inquest-into-alleged-abuse-of-palestinian-detainees-sparks-far-right-fury
…either way…you “make terms with it”
…& since I think I’d probably prefer to think about just about anything else…why not that?
Old English macian “to give being to, give form or character to, bring into existence; construct, do, be the author of, produce; prepare, arrange, cause; behave, fare, transform,” from West Germanic *makōjanan “to fashion, fit” (source also of Old Saxon makon, Old Frisian makia “to build, make,” Middle Dutch and Dutch maken, Old High German mahhon “to construct, make,” German machen “to make”), from PIE root *mag- “to knead, fashion, fit.” If so, sense evolution perhaps is via prehistoric houses built of mud. It gradually replaced the main Old English word, gewyrcan (see work (v.)).
https://www.etymonline.com/word/make
[…]
To make friends is from late 14c.; to make good “make right” is from early 15c. To make do “manage with what is available” is attested by 1867; to make for “direct one’s course to, proceed toward” is from 1580s, but “Not frequent before the 19th c.” [OED]. To make of “think, judge” is from c. 1300. To make off “run away, depart suddenly” is from 1709; to make off with “run away with (something) in one’s possession” is by 1820. To make way is from c. 1200 as “cut a path,” early 14c. as “proceed, go.”
1530s, “an agreement on specified terms;” 1570s, “articles of agreement;” from French capitulation, noun of action from capituler “agree on specified terms,” from Medieval Latin capitulare “to draw up in heads or chapters,” hence “arrange conditions,” from capitulum “chapter,” in classical Latin “heading,” literally “a little head,” diminutive of caput (genitive capitis) “head” (from PIE root *kaput- “head”). From 1640s in narrowed sense “the making of terms of surrender; a yielding to an enemy upon stipulated terms.”
…you’d think that was from something similar about terms until it goes kaput…but…in fact that’s from this one: https://www.etymonline.com/word/capitulation
…when we…if it’s not too coy to put it that way…come to terms
c. 1200, terme, “a limit in time, set or appointed period; the duration of life, lifespan;” from Old French terme “limit of time or place, date, appointed time, duration” (11c.), from Latin terminus “end, boundary line,” in Medieval Latin “expression, definition,” related to termen “boundary, end” (see terminus). Old English had termen “term, end,” from Latin.
The sense of “period of time during which something happens” is by c. 1300, especially in reference to a stated period during which a court of justice may hold sessions (early 15c.) or during which instruction is offered at a school or university (mid-15c.). Term-paper in U.S. educational sense is recorded from 1931.
The meaning “word or phrase used in a limited or precise sense” is recorded from late 14c., from Medieval Latin use (Boethius) of terminus to render Greek horos “boundary” as it was employed in logic and mathematics (the terms of a line are its points). Hence in terms of “in the language or phraseology peculiar to” (1743, originally in reference to mathematics).
As “end of one’s life,” early 14c.; as “end of a medical process or operation,” early 15c. The meaning “completion of the period of pregnancy” is attested from 1844.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/terms
…anyway…you maybe know a saying that involves the term opinions…& assholes?
Opinion | Term limits for Supreme Court justices are an unconstitutional pander [WaPo]
…but even if everybody & their dog’s got one…some might be worth more than others
Opinion | Joe Biden: My plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no president is above the law [WaPo]
…& mine…well…probably wasn’t up to the gold standard even before I wore away yet more of your patience with every turn of the scroll-wheel…so…this maybe isn’t worth the not-paper it’s printed on…being as it’s my opinion…& almost certainly beside the point…still…among the other headlines sculling about threatening to reintroduce you to your breakfast
Inside the powerful Peter Thiel network that anointed JD Vance [WaPo]
The world’s richest man favored Biden in 2020, but he has since become a vocal Trump supporter. [WaPo]
…&…I know it’s annoying when I repeat myself…but…if you read the one about the maduro thing you might have found yourself considering that a certain teleologically-challenged tangerine toddler of a would-be tyrant who probably wishes he could demostrate how a few pages out of that playbook his boy madders was using would be just what doctor ronny ordered when it came to making good on those promises about the faithful not even needing to vote next time…&…well…funny how that works
Trump White House was warned sanctions on Venezuela could fuel migration [WaPo]
…&…what he claims…& maybe even believes…even if thinks seems a bit of an overly-charitable stretch
Trump Ignores the Ruinous History of Tariffs [NYT]
…anyway…there’s a few ways to interpret “take your mind off it” these days…& even a few where the emphasis is on the “your”…one of ’em was this
Hackers race to win millions in contest to thwart cyberattacks with AI [WaPo]
…& it had me off on a whole freewheeling bit of attempted mental displacement activity about one of the ways I’m almost certainly an ambulatory anachronism…or…”AI” ain’t just “ain’t it” but is coming at “it” backwards in more ways than not…I mean…for the love of all that’s holy don’t take my word for it…but at least some of what’s between here & the tunes is at least some sorts of true…for whatever that’s worth?
…you needs your mind-boggling-ly-massive data sets to aggregate the billions upon billions of parameters to train up a “frontier-level” LLM “AI”…& part of how those blur the lines of demarcation searle tried to sketch out with a chinese room has to do with being able to cross-reference that many precendents to accurately predict what is the “best fit” to be the next bit that follows on from the last bit if you want the whole thing to go down like it makes the sort of sense a human mind would make of it…& it does it in ways that a human mind struggles to follow on account of the might-as-well-be-infinite variables & arguments in that incomprehensible database…which…extrapolated along the lines some of the loftier rhetoric about them likes to claim are the tracks the whole thing is definitely in no danger of coming off…impute a hypothetical “understanding” derived from the synthesis of the whole of humanity’s knowledge-base to date
…thing is…before we had the internet…let alone learning algorithms…humanity had one of those already…even if it wasn’t always great about keeping backups in case of catastrophic systems failures like burning the library at alexandria…but…librarians are only mortals…despite which they were expected to be able to point you in the direction of anything from a specific edition of a specific book by a specific author…to generally books related to a poorly defined something someone would like to know enough about to know how to ask for what they were actually after…& for a long time…not entirely unlike the folks who wrote in machine code on punch cards to build the assemblers from which sprang the ways & means to do the sorts of programming we largely take for granted now…their chief bit of assistive technology was the card catalogue
…now we got boolean search parameters that can do wonders with an ISBN code if you happen to still be attached to things with actual pages…but if…say…you had a hankering to be shown a clickable list of all the times john crace said anything about any of the tories who’ve currently thrown their hat in the ring to be crowned the one true tory…you might think it’d be sort of handy to be handy with the prompt engineering & have access to a bit of AI that could be exploited…so the incomprehensibly-complicated thing could simplify the process
…but…& maybe it’s just my contrary nature coming to the fore…what I wound up doing was marveling at the audacity of the dewey decimal system?
The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) is structured around ten main classes covering the entire world of knowledge; each main class is further structured into ten hierarchical divisions, each having ten divisions of increasing specificity.[1] As a system of library classification the DDC is “arranged by discipline, not subject”, so a topic like clothing is classed based on its disciplinary treatment (psychological influence of clothing at 155.95, customs associated with clothing at 391, and fashion design of clothing at 746.92) within the conceptual framework.[2] The list below presents the ten main classes, hundred divisions, and thousand sections.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes
…seriously…dewey might have been more audacious in his project that dr johnson & his dictionary idea
Based on W.T. Harris’ classification for the St. Louis Public Library, the Dewey system was first formulated by the American librarian Melvil Dewey in 1873 for application in the Amherst College Library. It was first published in 1876, and the 20th edition of the system had been published by the late 20th century.
[…]
The Dewey system’s numerical classification provides a shorthand identification and location tool. The notation lends itself to memory through the constant repetition of a standard pattern (area arrangement, different numbers for particular languages), through parallel subject developments (each book of the Bible given the same development as the Bible as a whole), and through patterned repetition of standard subdivisions (theory, study and teaching, history, geography, etc.). To distinguish works within a group and to expedite retrieval, many libraries add a book number created from the Cutter, or Cutter-Sanborn, Tables, which provide further specifications for author and genre.Because an abridged as well as a full schedule (or classificatory guide) of the system has been developed, the Dewey Decimal Classification is adaptable to libraries of various sizes. The Index to the Dewey Decimal systems, a relative one (i.e., one having cross-references), arranges all topics expressed or implied, with every synonym in alphabetical order.
The names Dewey Decimal Classification and Dewey (when referring to the former) are trademarks of the OCLC Online Computer Library Center.
https://www.britannica.com/science/Dewey-Decimal-Classification
https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/dewey/resources/summaries/deweysummaries.pdf
…thing is…when faced with a new book to shelve…the ones who amended, anotated, assembled & in the first instance authored the cards that went into those catalogues had to make a call about which of the subdivisions that title belonged in…it’s a potentially “out-dated” skill…& arguably an art as much as a science…but…at least to me…sort of the opposite of what the LLMs do in search of the appearance of performing the same feat?
…like…I remember a guy in the library where I learned what the numbers on the sitckers on the spines meant…old guy…if you knew it you’d eventually realize that more of that place’s extensive card catalogue (I’ve seen whole public libraries that took up less space than the wooden blocks of little drawers full of file-cards in that one) was in his handwriting than any other kind…& maybe he went home every day & did nothing but memorise the tables of headings for dewey’s system…but his ability to put you within arm’s reach of what you were looking for even when you barely knew how to express what that was…more often than not without appearing to need to pause for thought before responding…dunno if that was magic or conjuring per pratchett’s distinction…but it seemed like he was performing mundane miracles to me
…& I don’t think those LLM’s are even playing the same sport…let alone in the same league as that man’s mind?
…also…if you don’t fancy listening to any of that but you might be prepared to listen to rappers off the beat…here’s a pair…low hand in poker but I wouldn’t necessarily bet against them being all in about the stakes?
I woke up crabby that I had seen spoilers about Simone Biles’s performance in the women’s team gymnastics finals and it took me a few minutes to realize nope, I’d dreamt them.
Anyways, if dream me is accurate, today should be good.
Maybe you have the gift of prophecy. You can be the Oracle of St. Louis.
Were that the case, the Oracle of St Louis would be a Powerball winner living on a tropical island somewhere.
Today will be *incredible*, Brighter!!!
GOAT, and the *greatest* Gymnast in History (Herstory here maybe?), competing and adding *another* self-named move on Bars?!?
It’s gonna be *awesome*, and we’ve been waiting since Tokyo–although I’m *still* incredibly proud of her and GLAD she did the smart thing and took care of her mental & physical health, by sitting out most of the events when she had the Twisties.
There was quite a bit of talk, back then, about the tragedy of what had happened to Elena Mukhina, when *she* was forced to push too far– and we all know how incredibly controlled, but honestly YES dangerous, Biles’ biggest moves are. They *can* kill, if someone *not* trained correctly and in the right frame of mind *and* correct physical shape & ability were to try them.
Some more stories on Mukhina
Biles is *incredible*, and I love that she’s also helped to change the narrative on “too old to compete” in Gymnastics–I mean, we were *all* talking about Chuso, too, over the last few Olympics😉😁🥰
Chuso *didn’t* make it this time…. buuuuut she may be back for another attempt when she’s 52, for The Uz, if she’s not injured!😁🥳
https://apnews.com/article/oksana-chusovitina-injury-paris-olympics-5db985260b35e47360f197280f46d2ac
https://olympics.com/en/news/the-legend-of-oksana-chusovitina
And although she got hurt this go-round?
Gabby’s gonna try for LA, too!😉
https://athlonsports.com/olympics/gabby-douglas-makes-huge-announcement-olympics
And a great old article on Simone, too, that I forgot to pop in there!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/simone-biles-is-the-best-gymnast-in-the-world
There is a constitutional amendment (NY) on the ballot in November. TIL:
So it needs to be written in emojis? Also, this isn’t always true. Like everything in NY government there’s always a thumb on the scale, and I’ve come across ballot questions that can have four or five negatives in the sentence, to sow maximum confusion.
Optimistic to pick an 8th grade level. I would expect 4th grade.
Setting a reading level always makes me suspicious. There’s not really any uniform standard there.
Yeah. I was at 8th when I was in 4th grade.
This was about as welcome as discovering you have a bedbug infestation:
https://archive.is/2024.07.29-194233/https://www.thedailybeast.com/andrew-cuomo-heres-how-kamala-harris-can-beat-donald-trump-and-his-stream-of-lies
Stream of lies, Handsy? Kamala Harris has many fine qualities and a past as the CA AG but Tish James she is not. Tish knew how to stem a stream of lies and send you packing to mooch off your brother in the Hamptons.
Oh, yeah, dude, stop helping. We’re all out here trying to brand these Republican couchfuckers as weird, and you are disruptive to that narrative. Sit down.
i mean…….american politics on the whole is fucking wierd…… im not sure why anyone expects normality on either side of the isle there….
but you know…we currently have wilders and the farmboy maffia running the show……
so you know….lets leave it at pot….kettle…
Thoughts and prayers, you orange sack of shit.
Trump’s awful week gets capped by a worse weekend
…you know…that one in particular really did make me feel better about today…so…if you’ll indulge me yet further…I think the bits that got the best bang for their buck were maybe these
…I mean…I don’t want to jinx nothin’…but in terms of pandemic preparedness…you might say I’ve been waiting what seems like forever for an outbreak of incipient sanity…might even be prepared to get a tad anti-vax on that one…guns to a knife fight & all that
…weird when beating up on an old guy someone took an actual shot at somehow seems to be on the same side of the line as the side of the angels…but nowt so strange as folk, they say?
Tom Friedman has solemnly intoned that Democrats should not be using the term weird about the GOP.
Of course he’s just a weird guy. Notably he went on TV to distill his reason for invading Iraq to the phrase “Suck on this.”
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/five-years-ago-today-thomas-friedman-said-the-iraq-war-was-about-telling-the-middle-east-to-suck-on-5bca1b00d993/
He also made the oddball suggestion back in the early 2010s to rebrand climate change as “climate weirdness” because he’s incapable of talking in normal ways, everything has to go through his wonky filter.
The favorable/unfavorable polls sort of irk me in the sense that nobody in our current political age is gonna be January 2009 Obama without some sort of larger disaster in play — Reincarnated Jesus would probably be 54/46 with lots of negatives Frank Luntz would be bringing up in focus groups.
Trump, though, has never hit 50 favorable, ever. EVER. I don’t even think he’s cracked 45 — and certainly not in the last few years — which is to say: he’s never been popular or favorable! People have always known he’s weird and off-putting and so are his fans!
@SplinterRIP, thank you for the etymology amuse-bouche.
…always happy to oblige on that score…so I thank you for providing me at least a trace of an excuse
Gotta give a hearty LOL at us calling for election transparency and accuracy in any other country when we can’t do it here.
I think Democrats have a halfway decent record in recent years in terms of voting rights and democracy at home which gives them grounds to call out Maduro’s move to dictatorship.
My response to that is: Wake me up when they work to abolish the Electoral College and fix it so that the Supreme Court can’t decide elections on its own. They didn’t want to piss in anyone’s Corn Flakes after Jan. 6 and now guess what, the insurrectionists are back to finish the job by hook or by crook. Those are all election accuracy issues; and yes, it’s not quite the same as declaring victory with ~35% of the vote (which it seems like Maduro is doing) but it’s not NOT the same as declaring victory with 46% of the vote which we have seen … literally in the last election here.
They’re problems, they’re bad, but they just aren’t in the same league as what Maduro is doing. You’ll also see Hitchens style conservative try to write off pro-democracy organizers in Iran because they’re not calling for a purely secular state, but I think that kind of smearing of differences ends up being an impediment to reform.
My argument would still be: The only difference is Trump got 46% and not 35%. Maduro has stronger controls and a government that’s built to give the person in his position those controls but … that’s also exactly what Trump and the GOP want here so it’s really very much on the same sliding scale.
The Democrats have talked a good game about democracy, will surely accept the vote even if it fairly goes against them, and have introduced some things that would help secure that … but have made no real major structural adjustments to our election system and that leaves the door extremely open to the people who I repeat already tried to Maduro the 2020 election.
…I honestly do think that this part gives people no end of trouble…pretty sure that includes me most days…there are senses in which the gulf of difference between the venezualan election result & jan 6th…even if the latter went the way the…ant(i) hill mob were banking on…is wider than oceans…but before I get to “why the brackets?” part that is only at full-stretch on anything resembling a serious note…there’s also senses in which there are…call them “approximate parallels” where the motive/intent/desired result all marry up pretty much seamlessly & the bits left over are the costume that makes one a modern-day despot to be deposed & the other an evangelical messiah to be worshipfully annointed to the status of god among men
…there are…in a way that manages to pre-date even the dreaded rule #34…some people in, say, europe…or england…who think donald trump isn’t the single shittiest human being ever to be in nominal control of the country considered to be the big dog on the world stage…some have probably even bought MAGA merch non-ironically…with a big enough sample size the long tail will wag some strange-looking dogs…so the fear of how small a step it would take for someone that unblanced walking lines finer than the resolution of his vision to tip over into the worst parody tribute act in quite possibly the history of mankind
…it’s not healthy to bottle up those kinds of feelings…when the people doing that get hot under the collar & thinngs boil over it tends to make a positively historic mess of the immediate surroundings…& I dare say it’s beyond the likes of me to drag their minds around to a place from which they can see the light…I mean…that’s a journey of surely more than the proverbial thousand steps…& some people struggle with 12 of those…or 10 commandments…hell…even the basic two
…I figure on the one hand there’s got to be a way to meaningfully talk about it that isn’t a waste of time…but on the other…if the hostile-to-government politics of parisitism they appear to practice could be described in the american idiom as being “anti-hill” in a sense other than not liking a website…then if you put the i in brackets you can allude to the part where in these wacky races they resemble the ant hill mob…& I’ll take anything that raises a grin over a frown, these days?
There’s also SO MUCH American arrogance about other countries’ elections being not fair enough for our tastes. But we literally had an insurrection at the Capitol, an active and widespread scheme from the then-ruling party to falsify results, scores of lawsuits to also attempt a judicial reversal of the vote and since then the party’s plants on the Supreme Court have ruled the guy who did all that stuff had every right to do so.
One of the reasons people are so hot about this election is because there’s a real sense that if Trump wins there will be not necessarily be open elections in the future — a thing he sure as fuck hasn’t bothered to even lie about! — so those people are clearly not wrong. So who are we to cluck our tongues at other countries?! Or pretend that well, we’re doing a little better than Venezeula? Like, that’s the bar? Jay-sus. Meanwhile our Maduro is running again and not from a jail cell, so, yeah, no, to me, undemocratic elections are undemocratic elections, and I don’t think people have the slightest idea of how fucking fast it goes off the rails once it happens here.
Yeah, I’m all on board with ridiculing Republicans, but that shouldn’t blind us to the fact that Trump just told everyone he would get rid of elections. He’s not smart enough to come up with that on his own, which means he heard it in some of his strategy meetings with his fascist cadre of criminals. They said it in front of him and his dementia brain added it to his repertoire of shit to spew at his hate rallies.
They’re deadly serious, is what I’m saying.
Very much this. Fascists can be off-putting sick freaks but also extremely dangerous if they get power. (Let alone the idea that if you’re one bad election result away from losing democracy, then you probably don’t really have democracy!)
To be fair, we know that in 2000 and in 2016 the (Democratic) presidential candidate won the popular vote but lost the election. In Venezuela, exit polling had Maduro losing to his challenger 2:1, and yet he and whatever the sham elections board is, are saying he won. No sort of verification. All of Venezuela, even Maduro’s supporters, must know this is a bald-faced lie. So we’re a little more transparent than that.
As I noted above, I’d feel a little better about it if we didn’t have an open insurrectionist who tried that very move less than four years ago running for president again.
Well, yes, that makes us a little Bolivarian.
Yeah, it very much does! If there’s no punishment for attempting to rig an election then it’s not a crime and thus, why not go harder the next time?
JD Vance made no secret of who he was, the GOP was happy with it, but now that he’s being held accountable they’re moaning that it’s no fair.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/30/politics/kfile-jd-vance-history-disparaging-people-without-kids/index.html
He attacked Democrats by saying things elsewhere like:
For years the GOP got a pass on this stuff while the press clutched pearls about Clinton talking about deplorables making up half of Trump’s base. Much of his base genuinely believes the same stuff that Vance churned out for years, but how dare she say it?
It’s no different than when Janet Napolitano warned everyone about the rise of right wing extremism after Obama’s election and republicans and the press flipped out. So she had to fucking APOLOGIZE and look where we are now.
…still stepping on rakes, it’s nice to see
Vance tells donors Harris change was a ‘sucker punch,’ at odds with campaign [WaPo]
In JD’s mind… but all the women are Dolphins.
Adam Lambert wore that look *waaaaaay* better, though!
And he actually *sings*, he doesn’t just whine😉
https://people.com/music/adam-lambert-recalls-homophobic-backlash-after-american-idol/
https://images.app.goo.gl/CLGmdfevEBLtK9Tx7
I have been mulling over the childless cat lady cohort. I’ve known several. Eventually most married, had kids, kept the cats, but when we were in our 20s that didn’t seem like an unusual situation to be in. I have a friend who just turned 60. She never married, she’s childless, and she has FIVE cats. One of the funniest, smartest people I’ve ever known.
My friend should be on the VP shortlist, but I think Kam wants to balance the ticket, so a white man it is. She could pick Mayor Pete to throw a little gay in there but his tenure at Transportation has been underwhelming to say the least. Ah well, we shall see.
Since there have been all these Zoom calls segregated by race and sex (the irony) they should organize one for “Cat Ladies for Kamala!!!”
As a single childless woman, I’m also consistently annoyed at the misogyny of Janky Douchebag etc whining about cat ladies while not criticizing men who don’t have children.
Just saying the quiet part out loud that women have no value beyond incubators to them.
Even Just Dolphins knows he can’t alienate his Incels or Peter Thiel
I’ve noticed that whereas once it would have raised eyebrows for a man to be in is 30s or 40s and single and childless but now it’s almost like “Lucky you! You dodged a bullet!” (I had a friend who worked in a very old-school corporation and married men got paid more than single men, and the single men probably got paid more than the women, married or not. I cannot prove this but it was an open secret over there.)
Meanwhile, if you’re a single woman in your 30s or 40s you haven’t dodged a bullet, you are to be pitied. I don’t know why. I mean I do know why, and there’s 100 different cultural-norms reasons, but this used to come up in the Jezebel comments sections all the time. Just the freedom of it. You live alone, in your own space, you are beholden to no one, your time and schedule are your own. What is to criticize about that?
Well, this is all a little more like it.
…IKR?
…feels…unfamiliar…but like I could maybe get used to it?
I think the younger Dems — and admittedly Harris doesn’t qualify by age but does in other ways — understand that policy is important but it’s all vibes all the way down, and since Harris’s announcement, the vibes are 100% good for Team Blue.
Trump gets this naturally (he’s a carnival barker pure and simple) but also struggles/isn’t interested to do anything about the vibes that aren’t specifically his. Pence was not a vibes pick, and we know how that turned out; Vance is closer to the mark in a walkover election but a) his vibes are already rancid to normies and b) the idea that ’24 was going to be a walkover election is still insane to me and I don’t care how many “Biden’s unpopular” polls you shove in my face. Trump was/is/eternally will be getting 48% best case.
Anyway, I’ve thought about this a lot and it’s remarkable how fast this shit turned. The media has a few months to puncture things — and it’s gonna try — but they’re still throwing in with a guy that lots of people really do not like and … I dunno, man, that’s still a tough sell.
Dewey will forever hold a place in my heart. My first ever knowledge catalogue.
…I figure someone was keeping track at alexandria…& places like cordoba in its pomp…or whatever
…but he’d be my nomination for a patron saint of libraries
…assuming we’re not allowing fictional characters in which case the unseen university’s orangutan has to be a contender?
This is still my biggest fear in this election & is probably why Trump doesn’t think people need to vote…
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-swing-state-officials-election-deniers-1235069692/
I remember when this happened, it shocked & terrified everyone, especially those of us with jogging girlfriends. They jailed the wrong suspects, one died in jail!
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/07/29/32-years-3-wrongful-convictions-later-dna-identifies-man-who-brutally-killed-dana-ireland/
Says the man that is posting false AI videos of VP Harris…
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-google-election-interference-trump-autocomplete-results-rcna164112
Google has a point about Donald Duck.
One has an orange bill, the other an orange face.
They’re both pear shaped.
They’re both cartoon characters.
They both react badly to humiliation.
Both waddle.
Unlike Trump, Donald doesn’t wear pants, is more intelligent, is related to Scrooge McDuck an actual rich person, doesn’t commit crimes and doesn’t raw dog porn stars.
There are a lot of avenues for monkeywrenching the election, and it’s wild that the guy who already launched a violent mob at the Capitol is getting a mulligan in order to maintain horserace narratives.
A repeat or new twist on that attack is possible and the writers and editors who happily speculate on pure fantasy scenarios about Joe Manchin challenging Harris won’t offer 1% of the same bandwidth to a Trump coup.
and in local news…this asshole has been terrorizing Seattle for a long time. He drives around in the middle of the night w/ a super loud modified exhaust that sounds like gunshots and posts videos of him driving 100mph in downtown. He gives no fucks and I hope he will finally get the jail time he deserves!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/belltown-hellcat-arrested-at-seattle-court-hearing-banned-from-instagram/ar-BB1qQv8m
All this after telling the court to get fucked.
My response.
Good luck asshole.
of course…
Maybe it was because of the Dude?
could have sworn i saw a tweet from his muskiness specifically saying he wont remove leftist speech coz twitter is a platform for freedom of speech….
that didnt last long….
ooo pod….they’ve been out of my recs for a while…..but ill accept responsibility…even if it wasnt my doing….it wouldnt be a stretch
ive got a couple albums…..
if you are gonna give me pod you gotta give me hed p.e too tho