Oh, one of my favorite things. Security on Amtrak is I walk on board with my Swiss Army knife.
Masked introvert with an offbeat sense of humor. Often wears a “Just Shy, Not Antisocial” t shirt. Very curious.
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Oh, one of my favorite things. Security on Amtrak is I walk on board with my Swiss Army knife.
If you've got the money, the Grounded Travel folks suggest the hack of two roomettes, on opposite sides. Then each of two people gets a practical bed and there's always access to the scenery.
I've seen extraordinary service and people I would cross the street to avoid. Odd that it's not more standardized.
Want a deep rabbit hole? This has been to the Supreme Court. www.marp.org?p=5877
Amtrak has priority de jure but not de facto. The freight lines prefer to break contracts and pay penalty clauses. Lots of long stops result.
There's a story about someone from Montana asking a Rhode Islander in a tone of wonder "Is it true? You can drive across the whole state in less than a day?!"
Amtrak sleeper passengers get three meals a day from an actual kitchen. At least on the last route I took. "Inclusive" starts falling apart for special dietary needs.
One rail enthusiast I met on board said "Better a rolling hotel than a flying bus".
Lots of time, but not dead time like on a plane. You can get seated next to some interesting people at meals, potentially useful for an author. The Grounded Travel YouTube channel has the Chicago to Seattle run in the top 10 for scenery.
Could they take a non US voice like @zoebrain.bsky.social ?
Memorably put in cartoon form at xkcd.com/1357/
She greeted me with spinning around and kisses. I think she's feeling her age but the patrolling must have felt good.
Isn't that the number given in the Talmud?
Walking a neighbor's dog, just for the company and the mutual exercise.
I figured some of your readers might not yet have discovered Granny Weatherwax.
Treating people as things, dynamite quote: brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/gran...
The problems come to mind instantly. On the other hand, there's a way it could help. My reading makes it clear, understaffing kills. More labor could hypothetically improve conditions.
Exactly. Believing the government should protect labor unions is a political view. Supporting sending random people to concentration camps is evidence of poor character.
I ran a discussion forum and searched long for a smart civil conservative voice to balance a magnificent left-wing debater. Never did find one.
Organized citizen pushback to the D.C. deployment. www.thenation.com/article/acti...
Unless there's clearly established case law like this: supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...
I read a history book about Creighton Abrams in Vietnam. He opened every meeting by demanding that people tell him the bad news.
Indeed. Look up how the first Nazis started.
I love posting this comic about a potential link between vaccines and autism. www.smbc-comics.com/comic/autism...
Which is the point. IRB says no, study is not done, vaccine is not approved, antivaxx agenda wins.
Heinlein said that book got him more mail than any other, and not one correspondent questioned the premise.
Heinlein tried to show how bad the Crazy Years were with some newspaper headlines from the era. None would raise an eyebrow today.
"In Trump v. United States, on July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents were entitled to absolute immunity from exercising core powers enumerated by the constitution, presumption of immunity for "outer perimeter" actions, and no immunity for unofficial actions. " Wikipedia
Or what you do with a problem executive who has an employment contract -- give him money to go away. But the current bribe-givers could outbid anything we could offer.
@juliaserano.bsky.social is also a terrific resource.
Just the thing, for someone smart enough to play golf, let the experts run a Covid response, and take credit for the success.
It would take 20 of them to get to 2/3 even if the House impeaches.
Nonsense, because estrogen is not known for making people violent.
What correlation?
Serious but ignorant question. What does it take to get declared a vexatious litigant?
I love whoever came up with "assault with a deli weapon".
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
BREAKING: Big moment as CDC staff stage a mass walkout. They have lined the street outside its HQ to greet and salute the four top officials who have resigned in protest at RFK Jr’s attack on the agency’s science base. (🎥 AP)
[Joe Friday voice]It's my job. I'm a nerd.
I remember driving well out of town, leaving so early that I could have dealt with a flat tire and still made my appointment, taking a selfie of the shot, and singing a hymn in the car driving back.
Someone named Gareth had a quip to the effect that maybe you can indict a ham sandwich, but you can't indict a hero.
Useful knowledge for most people. I have a surgical implant which is guaranteed to set off metal detectors.
Write to your state's Insurance Commissioner and ask that the insurance companies be given no choice.
My paranoid side says it's to get people to self-report so the government will have a list of people to send to "wellness farms".
Worse, can they plan for the risk of losing their no-fault insurance coverage?
Yep. Blatantly missing from that list is being around vulnerable people. And it's not hypothetical, it's happened: www.kentucky.com/news/coronav...
Different things, yes. I have an example in mind. The Louisiana National Guard is in D.C. during hurricane season.
Some New England states are starting. archive.ph/JRX6g
Where 3 is an ethics violation and 2 is a lie. I'm under 65. My pharmacy will not give me a Covid shot.
From the decision in US v. Moylan: "If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, ... the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision."
Just a heads up. I was able to schedule my COVID vaccine appointment. Online it will ask “do you have a condition that puts you at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19 virus.” Click yes and it will allow you to schedule an appointment. No questions asked. No proof required. Pass it on.
Wow
I am learning from this, thank you. The dialogue tactics I mentioned are from Zoe, and I did see someone once call it "respectability politics", but come to think of it that was from a person IMO out to pick fights.
That had been my mental picture of it.
I have a friend who keeps her temper around vicious people and offers reasoned arguments to people who will never listen, all for the sake of having bystanders place her in the "good" slot. She says it works often enough to be worth it. Some dramatic failures of course.
The standard of care for transgender people.
Ahh. That definition describes something I could never agree with.
A grand jury refused to indict Sandwich Man. The old saying is that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Elsewhere on social media, someone named Gareth said "Maybe you can indict a ham sandwich but you can’t indict a hero."
I'm thinking of a former prison guard I know. She would start all inmate interactions in a decent, respectful way. When it worked, it worked well, and she wasn't stuck doing it when it didn't.
It annoys me that they could look up the tests in seconds on the magic information machine in their pocket.
And she is being more cautious than the doctors who spent over fifty years refining the current standard of care for gender dysphoria /s
Wonder why this came to mind. m.youtube.com/shorts/8vkNZ...
Devil's advocate here. Not arguing with "fucking insane", but what if the voters are so fucking insane that they will respond better to messaging about tariffs than to the country turning into a military dictatorship?
Not much exaggerated. ourworldindata.org/child-mortal...
Unmistakably, not working now. It did work in Montgomery. The Black leadership waited for someone Respectable to get arrested for not giving up a bus seat, and the rest is history. @zoebrain.bsky.social can tell you about the time she got an entire moderation team to reverse themselves that way.
Would 222 nm UV be an option? Were the initial safety reports accurate?
The Governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, turns to address "members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country." (Via @hcrichardson.bsky.social ) heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-25-...
And charged perjurer.
Wired listed ways to combat government surveillance. www.wired.com/story/the-wi...
If memory serves, the CNN poll said only 31% considered crime a serious problem and an overwhelming majority feel less safe now.
I asked that question of a relative over 80. He said "Before computers".
Nazi are everywhere these days. My bathroom scale this morning said 148.8.
I’ve heard military law experts advise, if you are given an illegal command as a soldier, do not blindly obey. Call your attorney. Obeying an illegal command can result in a court martial.
Experimental proof: hub.jhu.edu/2020/07/22/r...
And if it's treatable with antibiotics that proves it's caused by a microorganism.
Vaccines _are_ exercise. They put your immune system in the ring with a sparring partner who strengthens it and teaches it how to recognize the threat.
Always on point: www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_d...
Which seems to be a fairly high end bit of cognition if a longtime friend is right. His family has been ravaged by dementia and his observation is that the bullshit detector is the very first thing to go.
Meanwhile in Russia: military expert Igor Korotchenko said it was his idea for the FBI to go after Bolton, which he voiced months ago on Russian state television. He also praised Trump, Vance & Hegseth for not criticizing Russia's strikes against Ukraine. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htah...
Actually all I know is where to look for things.
GOOD NEWS! Researchers have revealed a synthetic glycosystem -a sugar-coated polymer nanoparticle- that can BLOCK SARS-CoV-2 from infecting human cells, REDUCING infection rates by NEARLY 99%. Acting as a decoy, the molecule BINDS to the spike protein, PREVENTING it from attaching to real cells.
One researcher put in that it turned his skin green and caused him to develop so much muscle that his clothes split.
For being completely informed, you can search for the results of the Phase III trials of whatever vaccine. Adverse effects and effectiveness will have been carefully measured.
So, your expertise not mine, but is the sparring partner/personal trainer analogy something that could work?
What Wakefield did was worse than that.
Yep. The vaccine is a sparring partner for your immune system. It's tiring while it happens but builds strength. And the immune system learns what to expect if the same thing attacks for real.
There's a meme somewhere very close to "Childhood vaccinations cause adults".
Within my LinkedIn connections, first degree in fact, is someone who advanced the state of the art in their research field and says it was only possible because of their autism.
When did you get it? They tried a killed-virus vaccine in the 60s which did not give me lifetime immunity.
Which was also in a cartoon, which I have a framed print of. www.smbc-comics.com/comic/autism...
Yes, but he said he was quoting Josh Billings.
And more than one voice can work for the same subject material. Consider the sonorous "They came in peace for all mankind" and the Onion's demotic "Holy shit, man walks on fucking moon!". Each expresses a real emotion and does it clearly.
Came here to post about that. The history of that saying is interesting. quoteinvestigator.com/2019/09/02/l...
Beshear can get reelected in KENTUCKY. Its past time to just say that democrats who do transphobic things aren't being strategic, theyre just transphobes.
I wouldn't mind his looks if he weren't diametrically opposite to the facts. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37352878/
When the ingredient lists are in the patents and online.
In the old days you could ask your library to get you a copy, but mine just gives me blank stares like they've never heard of research papers. I believe the standard workaround is to email an author for a copy.
This has actual pharmacokinetics but it's paywalled. pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1...