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Happy Thanksgiving and/or Thursday! Open Thread

Happy Thanksgiving, to everyone who celebrates it! And a very merry Thursday to everyone who doesn’t.

Because I haven’t provided a health update in a while (outside of the comments) I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am still here, and still trying to sort through a bunch of medical issues with the help of assorted doctors, some very competent and others not so much.

The issues I’m facing aren’t lifethreatening, but they are still debilitating enough to keep me from regular posting here. Sorry to be so vague; I’ll offer more details once some of these issues are sorted out a bit more. I’ll return to posting as soon as I am able but I cannot predict when that will be.

I appreciate everyone’s patience and continued support. Thanks!

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Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
6 years ago

Watch out — the GOP is trying to kill all the elderly Americans on Social Security and Medicare again:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/us/politics/tax-overhaul-senate-debate.html?smid=fb-share

Jules
Jules
6 years ago

Tax Plan passed by 1 vote. I’m not really sure how to explain my anger. I feel like driving the two hours out to my senator’s office to slap him (I’m not a violent person and wouldn’t, but he needs to “snap out of it!”).

I’m the one who’s going to be paying for this disingenuous burning garbage pile. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to lose citizenship after all (I hear Uruguay is nice). I’m seriously torn between my sense of patriotic duty and just leaving for the hope of a better life elsewhere.

Now this jerk is claiming there were tons of proper process and debate, and “as open a process as I’ve seen in many years.” Yeah, well, not for THIS final bill as passed.

The GOP are constantly rewarded for doing the wrong thing. I have no faith in my country anymore.

Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
6 years ago

To slap him? That seems like a disproportionate response. Far too mild for someone who may well have just deliberately, and premeditatedly, initiated the slow-motion deaths of thousands or more of American citizens.

Meanwhile, how long until a major political issue in Canada is illegal immigrants pouring in from our southern border because we have a way higher standard of living, I wonder?

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago

Thanks for the history lookup about Icke. I checked the rationalwiki page about him. Apparently he believes *every* conspiracy theory out there, and then adds that “the truth” is that the bad guys in *all* previous conspiracy theories are “really” reptilians – from the Jews (and the nazis…) to the astronauts to Queen Elizabeth II.

It seems hard to find any group of people Icke does *not* think are part of the all-powerful conspiracy – which makes it indistinguishable from having no conspiracy at all. It gradually dawns on you, reading Icke, that the reptilians must include the entire human race.

Shadowplay
6 years ago

@Anonymous

He’s a strange one. Pity, he wasn’t a bad footie player, and was one of the few who were actually good at commentating once he retired. Gave some insight into the game and the plays, not the usual vapid filler most do.
But yeah – he’s never found a conspiracy theory he doesn’t like and build into his own – except flat earth, I think. He’s more a Pellucidar kind of chap. (Oddly enough, Icke ripped off a good chunk of his reptilians ideas from Conan the Barbarian. If you’ve read the books you can spot it straight off) 😛

Shadowplay
6 years ago

@Brony

Got a nit to pick with you – update your blog once in a while, eh? Your take on things is fascinating to me. Completely different worldview. 🙂

Here is one of my big ethical conflicts that contributes to my writer’s and it has to do with fear and my chosen community. The creating of a plan for a group of to people to enter hostile social territory on the internet for social activist purposes.

Not too sure where the ethics part comes in here.
If you are referring to the people in your planned group, you’re not blackmailing or coercing people to join your activist group, right? So they’re going in with their eyes open, and if they can’t cope or they overload you’d (group) back them and extract them.

As far as the ethics of carrying out your plan to invade hostile spaces – it is neither ethical nor unethical of itself. You’d have to look on a case by case basis.
What’s the target? Are they doing harm to others? Are they armoured and dug in? What’s the potential for collateral damage? What sort of approach do you need? How rigid is the plan?

The last question is the most important. You, my friend, have a tendancy to think things out to the last detail. It’s admirable. It also doesn’t work well in a combat situation.
You’ve no doubt heard the aphorism “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” That’s bullshit. No bad plan survives contact with the enemy. A good plan is like a jazz performance – you have a basic theme and trust your people to improvise around the theme.

That’s all I got 😀

Buttercup Q. Skullpants

I feel sick this morning. Sick, and hopeless. That bill was a travesty. It was legislative malpractice. They literally rewrote the tax code at 1 am. They wouldn’t allow debate. Dems were entirely shut out of the process from start to finish. There were hastily scribbled amendments and pork in the margins. Nobody knows what’s in that bill except for a few dozen DC lobbyists.

Even if by some miracle we took back the House and Senate in 2018 and repealed this bill, we still face a Presidential veto (assuming the orange nightmare is still in office…I’ve taken to holding up a fork in front of the TV whenever he appears, so he looks like he’s behind bars). And forget about challenging it in court. The GOP-controlled Congress held up virtually all of Obama’s appointees, and now they’re rushing to pack the 1800 vacancies with right-wing extremists.

The right-wing coup of America is complete. This tax bill is the ultra-wealthy climbing into the lifeboats, and smashing at our fingers with the paddles.

I’ve thought about emigrating, but so many other countries are in the grip of the same sickness, or will soon be.

Sorry to be a downer. I’m just not looking forward to spending my remaining years working till I’m 75, not sending my kids to college, and suffering a painful and undignified death without access to medical care, all so the fascist oligarchy can buy more gold-plated bathroom fixtures.

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago

@Hu’s On First –

Thanks for the very interesting read about Anglin. Excellent research by the reporter. To nobody’s surprise, I’m sure, Anglin is yet another white supremacist who has very little in his life to feel superior about. Incidentally, how common is his obvious inability to distinguish real life from the internet? He never seems to have learned that just because it is on the internet it is not necessarily true, and conversely, that just because trolling and flame wars are common online it does not mean you can call up and threaten people in real life.

weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee

Remember it still has to through reconciliation. So it’s not a done deal.

Remember also that older people are more likely to turn out to vote for every election. Remind everyone you know over 50 that this bill contains cuts to Medicare and cancer research. Don’t be afraid to use emotional language. It’s a cheap tactic, but unfortunately, it works much better than sticking to facts alone. Tell them the Republicans are trying to kill old people. Ask older Republicans that you know why they would continue to vote for a party that repays them for their loyalty by trying to kill them. Let’s not wait for the next inevitable economic crash to sweep Democrats into office a handful of years from now. We need to start making gains next year.

Sniper Kitty, She-Tornado
Sniper Kitty, She-Tornado
6 years ago

Completely OT because I can’t deal with any more bullshiztnel

Jim Sterling sporks incel/gamergator comments deliciously.

*fingers crossed*

ETA Erm, nope that didn’t work – try again?

Shadowplay
6 years ago

What’s a spork please? Urban dictionary ain’t helping and since I write reviews of survival gear, google really ain’t helping.

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago

@shadowplay –

Isn’t a “spork” is a combination of a spoon and a fork? Though that meaning makes no sense as a verb.

Also, Here is an interesting read about Icke and science fiction:

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/david-icke-the-reptilian-infiltration-and-the-limits-of-science-fiction/

@Hu’s on first –

Unintentionally hilarious quote from Anglin in the article in The Atlantic: he is fighting, like Hitler, to “remove the yolk of the Jew” from society.

Rhuu - apparently an illiterati
Rhuu - apparently an illiterati
6 years ago

@Shadowplay: A spork is a spoon/fork.

‘Sporking’… I’m going with urban dictionary’s second definition

“Sporking
A line by line critical analysis of fanfiction, typically of the Utterly Horrible or occasionally So Bad It’s Good variety. Derived from the term “Sporking one’s eyes out”, implying that the fic is so bad that most people would prefer to attack their own eyes with sporks rather than read it. Also the verb for performing such an analysis.”

Ellesar
Ellesar
6 years ago

I’m just not looking forward to spending my remaining years working till I’m 75, not sending my kids to college, and suffering a painful and undignified death without access to medical care, all so the fascist oligarchy can buy more gold-plated bathroom fixtures.

Tell me about it. We are better off in the UK (NHS have cured my cancer once already) but the NHS is constantly under threat. I am planning on not getting to 75 – see my kids to proper adulthood, see both my dogs to their end and then I am off. Growing old is bad enough without destitution.

Seeing Paul Elam in the sidebar just made me remember that I had a dream about him! Not a weird one, just rather unpleasant and a bit hostile. He must be representing someone else as I never think of Paulie unless he is mentioned here.

Shadowplay
6 years ago

@Rhuu

Ah – thank you! So it’s definition in this sense is much ado about nothing, AKA the crossword effect. 😛

Brain glitched straight over that definition. I do know the spork as spork, though I prefer cutsticks as general purpose eating utensils.

Sniper Kitty, She-Tornado
Sniper Kitty, She-Tornado
6 years ago

@shadowplay

Sorry for not explaining, ‘Sporking’ is just a word I use so often I forget a lot of people don’t get it – I use it basically as taking the piss out of something. 🙂

@Rhuu thanks for helping to explain!

Shadowplay
6 years ago

@Sniper Kitty

No worries. 🙂 Usually get unfamiliar things through context – but that one had me stumped.

Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
6 years ago

Oops! I ran out of time to add the article excerpt to the photo of the Great Orange One. (Is it just me or does everyone notice that the guy puts foundation on his lips, not just his skin? Note the contrast in color between his whiter-shade-of-pale lips and his pink — er — inner lips. Is he trying to convince us he’s bloodless? Or just totally, definitely not a lipstick-wearing girl?)

Trump tweet sparks claims he admitted to obstruction of justice
BY Denis Slattery
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, December 2, 2017, 3:28 PMhttp:

Critics claimed on Saturday that President Trump inadvertently admitted to obstruction of justice as he tried to distance himself from his disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump spoke out for the first time a day after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with Russian officials.

“I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!” Trump tweeted Saturday afternoon.

Former Obama-era Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Trump appears to have fessed up to breaking the law in his post — by admitting he knew Flynn fibbed while talking to the feds.

“Oh my god, he just admitted to obstruction of justice,” former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller tweeted. “If Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to let it go, then there is your case.”

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) also said Trump’s tweet was proof of wrongdoing.

“THIS IS OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE. @POTUS now admits he KNEW Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. Yet Trump tried to influence or stop the FBI investigation on Flynn,” Lieu tweeted.

//www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-tweet-sparks-claims-admitted-obstruction-justice-article-1.3672750

Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
6 years ago

Why that pic of Trump look like he just realized the heat’s coming down on him after the Lufthansa heist?
‘Ever since I could remember, I wanted to be a gangster…’

Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
6 years ago

John Hockenberry!

Ex-NPR Host John Hockenberry Accused of Sexual Harassment By Multiple Former Employees

11:10 AM PST 12/2/2017 by Jackie Strause

Retired host John Hockenberry has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women he used to work with, including his former cohosts, on his public radio show The Takeaway.

In a New York Magazine exposé published late Friday night, award-winning novelist Suki Kim documents her own experiences with the former WNYC radio host and explains that her interactions with the 61-year-old award-winning broadcaster spurred her to investigate if other women employed at his radio station had similar, or potentially worse, experiences of alleged harassment.

Kim met Hockenberry after appearing as a guest to share her expertise on North Korea on The Takeaway, a national public radio news program, and after meeting him twice, which she says was at his request, he continued to pursue her over email. She stopped responding, and still eight more messages arrived in her inbox. The messages from the host — who is married with five children and also paralyzed from the chest down due to a car accident when he was 19 — ranged from “Need another dose of you” to asking for her home address so he could mail her letters. “I basically hate email, and when you are my age asking for coffee and lunch dates are always construed as preludes to a hotel room somewhere,” Kim says he wrote.

“While this is obviously mild stuff in a world of dropped pants, rape, and secret buttons to lock women in rooms, I live near WNYC’s Manhattan office, and each time I walked by the building, I imagined the young women working for Hockenberry,” Kim wrote, referencing disgraced Today host Matt Lauer and the many figures who have been accused of sexual harassment and assault post Harvey Weinstein. “Maybe I was the only one who he’d ever ‘creeped out,’ to use his phrase, but what if I wasn’t?”

Kim reached out to Takeaway employees and says the results could be divided into two broad categories; one of unwanted sexual advances, physical and verbal, to the younger staffers; and the second, from the women of color who were Hockenberry’s cohosts. The latter category, some who spoke to Kim on record, painted a picture of bullying behavior at the Takeaway, which Kim points out was founded in 2008 to bring more diverse voices to public radio.

Two of the cohosts told Kim they complained “repeatedly” to the station, a third former cohost reportedly also filed a report to WNYC. Farai Chideya filled the vacant seat left by Adaora Udoji but left after four months over her encounters with Hockenberry. Celeste Headlee then filled the seat, but also filed complaints that the host was professionally “sabotaging” her. By 2012 they were all gone and Hockenberry was hosting solo.

“That a white man, albeit a disabled one, ended up being alone at the top of the diversity show was definitely ironic, but for some of the women at the The Takeaway, it was more than that,” wrote Kim. “The message, according to Kristen Meinzer, a culture producer for eight years, was: ‘If you speak up, you’ll disappear.'” Meinzer claimed in the article that she felt sexually encroached upon by Hockenberry. She says he kissed her without consent, in the office, after she told him she had booked actress Marion Cottillard for the show, and harassed her on social media. On a picture of her and her husband, Meinzer said Hockenberry commented, “Doesn’t one of you have herpes at least?”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/npr-host-john-hockenberry-accused-sexual-harassment-1063771

Redsilkphoenix: Jetpack Vixen, Agent of the FemiNest Collective; Keeper of a Hell Toupee, and all-around Intergalactic Meanie
Redsilkphoenix: Jetpack Vixen, Agent of the FemiNest Collective; Keeper of a Hell Toupee, and all-around Intergalactic Meanie
6 years ago

Semi-OT for the current turn of this thread, but does anyone know of a site that’s kinda like an operating manual for a Fire 7? I’m trying to figure out how to get Flash to play on the Silk browser, and hitting a bit of a dead end with it. (The App Store refuses to download either Chrome or Firefox, so I can’t use those to play my browser games on. 🙁 )

My thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me with this problem.

Brony, Social Justice Cenobite

@Kat
Thank you. I’m satisfied with my time at ponychan only because of the resistance I put on bad ideas and behavior. At the time there was enjoyment too but my memories have not held on to that bit.

@Surplus to Requirements
That was not me, but I am not surprised that this is something considered by others.

@Shadowplay
I would like to update my blog but that part of my mind is not cooperating. My life underwent some changes and severe social anxiety clamped down right after I was accepted to FTB. There’s some kind of interference in my head that I’m trying to figure out and my priorities have made figuring out the writer’s block anxiety something I have not been able to emphasize.

I’ve been trying to put my mind back together following some bad experiences as a Texas substitute teacher that led to learned helplessness generated general anxiety and anhedonia. Some long term unemployment followed that and it was right when I got a job that I tried to blog. I keep trying to write but I end up with lots of unfinished projects. I’ve been needing to get other things finished first I guess. I can still argue with trolls, somehow that capacity stayed there.

It’s only in the last 4 months that I’ve had the therapy that I needed, and that my wife and I could get a couples counselor to fix the damage to our relationship that occurred with the trauma. It’s no ones fault, but it still happened. With that therapy we’ve been finding a bunch of places where two people raised traditionally can do better. We have more optimism than we have had for a while. I’m hoping that I can work on blogging with my therapist soon but I think I need to work on professional stuff first. I keep measuring myself by my failed research career.

It’s frustrating but I do stuff like this to try to get my brain jump started from time to time.

Brony, Social Justice Cenobite

@Shadowplay
Oh yeah, the ethical problems with planning group trips into hostile territory is that there will be people who treat it like they are being attacked. I need to plan for intense reactions to what look like reasonable criticism to us. We need to plan for acting our best and the worst occurring.

Let me give you an example of the sort of thing I mean.
When was at ponychan there were people that treated positive references to feminism as a thing to be openly attacked until you stopped doing it. Criticism of use of slurs and bigoted symbols is reacted to with aggressive outrage.
One confrontation involved someone who gave me links to videos that were supposedly “takedowns” of feminism. I had to voice extreme displeasure of being given videos of people talking over feminists and ranting in anger at feminists but who did not actually address any substance raised by the feminists. They were sold on the gossip and when I demanded they support their assertions with actual arguments about what the person said they had temper tantrums.

This has to be about managing aggressive responses and other intense responses to things they hate. That seems an ethical thing to do. Do the work of considering positive and negative approaches and preparing for deliberate and measured increases and decreases of intensity that can be justified. There will be a reaction to this sort of thing. From the 10% consciously terrible people and their dominance displays if nothing else. The enablers will be different in how they relate and behave too.

Brony, Social Justice Cenobite

@Shadowplay
I realize you had more in there. I’m thinking it over. Sometimes I have to do that for a while.

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