TheVat

Thanks. I speak some German and understand the meaning of Goldberg. Was just joking on the similar sounds, one of them descriptive of the Sesame Street character depicted in iNow's posted meme. Was not suggesting that Goldberg means gold bird. Arnold Pretty Mountain was a groundbreaking composer who was forced to flee the Nazis. 🙂

Prof at Yale who studies fascism is leaving the US to work in Canada. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/yale-professor-fascism-canada I imagine we'll be seeing more of this kind of brain drain, in the wake of capitulations to the TP admin like that at Columbia.

Vein, is my guess. American politics has become mostly manufactured outrage and playing to the peanut gallery AFAICT. Hanlon's razor ("never attribute to malice that which may be explained by stupidity or incompetence...").

Guffaw! (Goldberg ~ gold bird)

Have heard a plethora of theories on the low fertility rate in the Roman ruling families, from lead pipes (overstated, I suspect) to extremely hot Roman baths reducing sperm counts. I've wondered if it was just the males spending too much time with concubines and vino, pretty much out of ammo by the time they got home.

Had several responses, all covered by able-bodied members already, so will just say I experienced an eerie flashback on TP's "Russia, if you're listening...." speech. Europeans, don't give up on us yet. Bernie, an 83 year old with more wit, smarts, and fire in the belly than anyone in the TP admin, is starting to rally Americans on his Fight Oligarchy tour...or at least rouse them from their slumbers. Anyway, riding a thin line between laughing and weeping at the sheer stupidity of it all, especially that Waltz fat-fingered Goldberg a Signal invite to the chat - which tips it towards laughing. While having your lapDoge keeping claiming to being the great watchdog of transparency and accountability. All very Orwellian. As @MigL said, I keep wanting to wake up.

Mindbendingly corrupt. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/25/doge-musk-spacex-starlink-contracts

Whenever someone ridicules or pokes fun at a religion, be it an artist showing Christ in a jar of piss, a Salman Rushdie novel, a Danish cartoonist mocking Mohammed, or a Monty Python bit about Catholics and sacred sperm, it is always people who were completely free to ignore it who go on a rampage to deprive the artist of their free speech rights. And forget that the symmetry of freedom of expression is that if you don't like a work of art that exercises that freedom you also have the same freedom to criticize it, call it garbage, etc.

Droll and satirical? There's a fine line between today's satire of TP and the next day's news. Really, I would say all TP satire is like a dog chasing a car, and the dog can never quite catch the car, as it wildly goes over curbs and yards and gardens and down storm culverts and through chicken coops and nursing homes and so on.

Adding to the question of the sentience of the TP admin, as in how would they handle the Mirror Test, they have been warning recently they will investigate unauthorized leaks to journalists, citing reporting in a number of publications. This is quite the self-own for them.

(rimshot) Apparently so. Well, that kind of ruins my use of 47 to reference him. I was trying not to give him more keystrokes than necessary or acknowledge his humanity, so...back to the drawing board. ETA: they could name the new fighter after Elon Musk. Call it....the F-elon.

There are toxins that can leach from plastic which would not be filtered. And submicron nanoparticles do come off plastic, which at that size may get through filters. Finally, open ponds can also get windborne particulates and also coming down in rain - a recent study in Colorado croplands found microplastic both in fields and also being absorbed into plant tissues. These were not from some ground source where it was flowing into the fields - they were deposited from the air. So I would say that you combining both physical filters and also chemical detoxing is a good idea, but you may want to look into how your filters handle submicron particles.

El Douche (who I generally prefer not to mention by his name anymore) is the 47th potus, and I often refer to him as 47, to stress his transitory nature. I am relieved to know that the 47 suffix for the jet fighter is just coincidental in that respect. Also, seems fitting a member named Mig would show some knowledge of jet fighters. 🙂 With 41 million population, that would be (if my calc is correct) 56 electoral votes. If they use the WTA system used in 48 states now, that would be some serious clout. Unlikely, but yes, fun to imagine.

The recalled products can contain Pseudomonas species bacteria, including Pseudomonas oleovorans, an environmental organism found widely in soil and water. People with weakened immune systems or external medical devices who are exposed to the bacteria face a risk of serious infection... Immunocompromised folk tend not to roll around in the dirt while they have a break in their skin. The danger is presumably them putting on an article of clothing that recently came from the washer and retained live bacteria. Very low probability but, as with many such threats, a weakened immune system can experience as lethal something most of us wouldn't be affected by. Corporations have an interest in avoiding the reputational harm (and punitive damages awarded by courts) that comes from customers suffering death or serious illness from their products. Many recalls are like this, where a recall is conducted in order to forestall a low probability harm.

Who told you that? Gravel is water-permeable, easily spread, and tends to stay in place. Plastic is a shedder of nanoparticles - oil companies are trying to downplay this because they know plastic products will be their main profit source when the planets vehicle fleet is all EVs. Green minded people are avoiding plastic. Recycling plastic is promoted by the oil companies because it "greenwashes" the toxic brew of leachates and microparticles that a robust plastic economy creates. It's all petroleum wolves in sheep's clothing. Other folks are saying nice things about recycling, and it would all be lovely if plastic was not a uniquely persistent material. Tiny bits of it will stick around, getting into our water and food and tissues for thousands of years. https://oceanliteracy.unesco.org/plastic-pollution-ocean/

And the termites aren't what? Forming a labor union?

All the angles are deducible from the basic geometry of a triangle, if you start with B angle.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/columbia-academic-freedom/682088/?gift=43H6YzEv1tnFbOn4MRsWYvzeCXmbxeZaOYTzbcGazb0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share (free link) Expresses better than I can how profound is the threat to America's universities. (am traveling this week, so screen time is ltd.)

" However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. " - G Washington Farewell Address | Saturday, September 17, 1796 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington's_Farewell_Address#:~:text=He acknowledges the fact that,among groups and regions%2C raise

[clutches head, groans, arrrhhhhhgg too many interesting thread topics for me to doomscroll through....] Will try to engage more tomorrow. For now, will just say that fascist takeovers seem to follow a standard set of procedures and that muzzling the press and free speech is usually top of the list. My one hope is that there is something rather oppositional and mistrustful of government in the American psyche, and this is going to ratchet up some real resistance (across party lines and cultures) in the coming months. One enjoyable example, for me, has been reading the comments section which follows articles in the Washington Post, and becoming aware how many readers are angry at Bezos capitulation to pressure from the new regime and/or announcing their cancellation of their subscription.

Never was much doubt 47 & Co. was going to amp up the white nationalist narratives in order to build support for such policies. Just recently he was attacking South Africa, accusing the black majority of discriminating against and killing white people, and warning that it could happen in the US. Scanning the news this morning I saw he has kicked out the SA ambassador and (as usual in the past few weeks) shredding our relationship with a country we were on friendly terms with. Here's a snip from the NYT a couple days ago... Shameless lies, race-baiting, and stoking fears of race war. Just another Monday. The 47 administration has abandoned all pretense of caring about all Americans or wanting a genuine meritocracy.

Not good. Please seek out a mental health professional. Word salad can be a symptom of severe psychiatric disorders or brain trauma. If you can get treatment, you will find your communication with others less frustrating, and it will be easier to pursue your dreams as you can order your thoughts better and focus on what's real.

And that nastiness with Giordano Bruno. And Vesalius got a lot of flack. But yes, that supportive stance seems mostly true of modern mainstream sects. (fundies excepted, as you note) I'm always happy to see the car decals we have in the US that show "Darwin" printed inside a stylized fish outline (for those not familiar, the fish is a common Christian symbol - so the decal is saying "our Christian belief and the science of evolution are compatible") Many noted scientists have expressed that their science and their spiritual beliefs occupy different domains of knowing - those domains don't tend to intersect, so they don't conflict. I don't point a PET scanner or fMRI at my head to meditate, or otherwise tap into whatever intuitions I have on the metaphysical. It would like writing a poem by pushing around alphabet blocks.

Been trying to keep Tr-, erm, 47, out of my head at least one day per week. But here i am, saying at least this: in cultural/digital conflicts, defeat seems to me to be a result of belief, i.e. self-fulfilling only when decent people become passive and escapist (iow, do nothing). I'm leaning optimistic that online restrictions will not succeed too well, but also trying to brush up on my code talk (as Russians and others in dictatorships learn to do) in case it becomes useful to evade gubmint keyword monitoring and such. And as @exchemist notes, Americans are pretty good at getting oppositional on the battlefield of culture, and refusing to toe any given party line. Har! Happening as we speak, but of course there's the whole silo problem with SM, so art and wit are going to need packing into armour-piercing shells.

Tired of shelling out money for nutty roadside attractions. And Marzipan ain't no place to take a kid. Though I am not without almond joy.