Wednesday Morning

Get your morning on.

Tuesday Evening

enjoy

Sure Why Not

Just go nuts.

The Tennessee Department of Health will halt all adolescent vaccine outreach – not just for coronavirus, but all diseases – amid pressure from Republican state lawmakers, according to an internal report and agency emails obtained by the Tennessean. If the health department must issue any information about vaccines, staff are instructed to strip the agency logo off the documents.

Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah

Every moment talking about why Dems can't do something is a moment not spent talking about what they did or what they are doing. The bullshit DC reality show is not very entertaining for most people, even if it's how cable news gets its highest ratings from the weirdos who like that stuff!

It's very trendy to blame powerless activists for bad messaging - can't blame the people in power for anything! - but the Manchin-and-Sinema show steps on any possible good messaging!

Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.

Drought

Above my pay grade, mostly, but we do keep flirting with these severe drought situations. And, basically, they're such that the water keeps flowing until it doesn't. And when it doesn't...

Nothing is certain and predictions about the future are hard, and, again, above my pay grade, but "major US city with crippling drought" seems like a pretty likely event sometime in the near to medium future!

Long Covid

I have no deep insights or knowledge, but it is the thing "we've" all been pretending doesn't exist, to some extent, particularly in kids and teens, who we've largely been pretending covid doesn't exist for at all. It's obviously real and, as with most such long term conditions, will likely never be taken very seriously by doctors or haha your insurance company.

But I Thought The Robots Were Already Here

I see we're back in the early "robots are neato" phase of the robots/AI hype cycle.

They are neato! But we had years of the "supermarket checkout self-scanners and Elon Musk's bullshit promises mean that there won't even be shitty Amazon warehouse jobs soon!" discourse. The end of jobs!

And, uh, no.

Morning Thread

Tuesday again.

Monday Night

Rock on.

Sanctions

After the election, many lawyers On Twitter reacted in horror at the idea that lawyers could possibly face consequences for their nonsense (#notallawyers).

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday appeared likely to reprimand Sidney Powell, a former campaign lawyer for Donald Trump, and other attorneys over a lawsuit they filed in Michigan seeking to overturn Democratic President Joe Biden's election victory.

Not as if she'll get the death penalty.

Happy Hour Thread

Fix my air conditioner, air conditioner man (today's nuisance).

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Party Like It's 2003

Bringing back the hits!

With Republican-backed voting bills moving rapidly through a special session of the state Legislature, Texas Democrats are planning to make a break for it — again.

At least 58 Democratic members of the state House of Representatives are expected to bolt from Austin on Monday in an effort to block the measures from advancing, a source familiar with the plans told NBC News. The unusual move, akin to what Democrats did in 2003, would paralyze the chamber, stopping business until the lawmakers return to town or the session ends.

Herd Culling

I don't really understand this impulse, but it is surprisingly widespread and has been in evidence since Covid started. Some people really think it's precisely what the human race needs, and certainly don't imagine they wouldn't survive it.

Delta

Still puzzled that the self-styled data nerds couldn't look at the DATA from the UK and see what the delta variant could do even in a very vaccinated country.

Maybe hospitalization/death rates among vaccinated populations will remain low enough that there is no need to panic, but nothing wrong with a bit of extra mask wearing.

Marked

Some things depress me a bit too much so I'm scared to speak them into existence, but Trumpworld trying to put a target on whichever officer shot Ashli Babbitt is a bit frightening.

The ultimate cancel culture, amirite? AMIRITE??? Ah, well, welcome to Meet the Press, insurrectionists! Glad to have you back. Ho ho ho you didn't really mean it when you said I was the enemy of the people, did you?

Monday Morning

Monday again.

Sunday Night

Rock on.

Unreality

Often I see the latest bit of nonsense from the Trumpkins and just think, "Akshually, everybody in and around the Bush administration was that nuts, too, it's just that 95% people in the media thought it was their critics who were nuts."

The Bush administration really was as ridiculous, but nobody who mattered noticed at the time.

Afternoon Thread

So many afternoons.

Working Class

For a long time class in the US mostly, if not entirely, meant wealth/income. Sure there were some old money blue bloods running around, but not *a lot* of them. I've noticed that a more UK-ish concept of class creeping in, which is something like "unless your grandfather was a titled large landowner, you get to claim to be 'working class.'" Everybody but the multigenerational superrich are just humble folk.

Practically every UK politician (Labour, anyway) claims to have "working class roots" which generally means their grandfather owned a factory and was not the 7th Earl of whereever.

I think the US equivalent, in Congress anyway, is being the heir to the family car dealership empire and claiming your summer job "sweeping up" means you have deep hard work experience.