Chit-Chat: The Feels

[bluegirl147]

2 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Have you ever noticed that a lot of the factual, verifiable and deeply researched news organizations all have pay walls, while garbage like Fox and News Max are free?

This pisses me off.  Colleges do it with research too.  Even the researcher will no longer have access to it. 

[supposebly]

2 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

This pisses me off.  Colleges do it with research too.  Even the researcher will no longer have access to it.

It's not the colleges. It's publishers increasing their subscription fees for libraries so colleges eventually can't afford the subscriptions anymore. All the while engorging themselves by publishing academics'work. Who write and review for free. And often have to pay to get access to their own published work.

[bluegirl147]

10 minutes ago, supposebly said:

It's not the colleges. It's publishers increasing their subscription fees for libraries so colleges eventually can't afford the subscriptions anymore. All the while engorging themselves by publishing academics'work. Who write and review for free. And often have to pay to get access to their own published work.

My mistake of who owns the research.  Still makes me mad.

[Milk-Eyed Mender]

1 hour ago, isalicat said:

"I don't approve of this sort of thing..." "What's good for the goose is good for the gander." So which is it - you either approve or you don't, and I presume from your last sentence you do approve. How does vandalizing a golf property help the Palestinians? Sincerely asking because "this sort of thing" is exactly what has turned the general public in a direction I'm not sure the protestors were intending.

(This is also true when the homes of several major university presidents were vandalized by pro-Palestinian operatives. Completely non-productive, in my estimation.

I don't approve of vandalism because, as you say, it's not productive. Palestinians, by design, are powerless and disenfranchised across the Middle East; they don't really have a lot of options to make themselves heard, and on October 7, 2023, they chose the worst option possible . (For the record I am not a supporter of Israel or Palestine; I'm a pacifist who supports housing, food, clean water, healthcare and dignity for all, regardless of borders). To me, vandalizing Turnberry (or college campuses) is the equivalent of those Palestinians kids throwing rocks at heavily armed Israeli soldiers in the West Bank; it makes the rock thrower feel good, but in reality it only increases their peril.

The goose/gander idiom is self-explanatory: if you trash or destroy another's livelihood/possessions/life, you can hardly be surprised when the other returns the favor. In this case our president has threatened to annhilate Gaza; in response a pro-Palestinian group defaced Turnberry. Obviously, the imbalance of power here is stratospheric, so while I don't approve defacing the property of the world's most powerful person, it doesn't bother me all that much. I hope that helps. 

[Ohiopirate02]

14 minutes ago, supposebly said:

Newspapers have always lived on subscriptions. Are you saying they should be free too? How?

 

But, most if not all local public libraries had subscriptions to the print newspapers. One could read the local paper, the state paper, and national papers like WaPo and NYT for "free" just by going there. They would also get them delivered in a timely fashion. Now, many of these papers update their websites before even thinking about the print edition, and paperboys are a thing of the past. Newspapers get mailed and show up when they show up. And, the ways libraries can now access online articles is unintuitive and expensive. Libraries don't get a library edition of the website, but access is through databases that require either a library card or being on site. 

[peacheslatour]

19 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

But, most if not all local public libraries had subscriptions to the print newspapers. One could read the local paper, the state paper, and national papers like WaPo and NYT for "free" just by going there. They would also get them delivered in a timely fashion. Now, many of these papers update their websites before even thinking about the print edition, and paperboys are a thing of the past. Newspapers get mailed and show up when they show up. And, the ways libraries can now access online articles is unintuitive and expensive. Libraries don't get a library edition of the website, but access is through databases that require either a library card or being on site. 

We still get the Seattle Times delivered. We think it's important to support local, physical media.

[tearknee]

3 hours ago, Anela said:

But it is, isn't it? Just like here, with the Native Americans, where our ancestors stole their land. 

A lot of the Republicans here, think this country belongs to white people. It doesn't. 

No it isn't. The "land theft" narrative needs to concede to reality. Whether it be Thorpe (IND-VIC_ or any of her equally toxic ilk. Mehreen Faruqui (GRN-NSW) also needs to remember how her home country treated what is now Bangladesh before she orates ever again about apartheid regimes and the self-determination of the majority. 

 

 

 

Failing to do so proved fatal for the Voice.

1 hour ago, supposebly said:

You don't need a degree to read a decent article. However if there's no decent journalism that aims for nonpartisan information, you have uninformed voters who vote emotionally and shortsightedly. Fascist regimes thrive on misinformation. Just ask Joseph Goebbels.

It's just now done by privatizing media, leaving it to private companies to control the flow of misinformation, something they have no interest in since it costs money, trapping people in echo chambers taking advantage of our lazy brain's tendency to go with our biases. Education helps but media literacy has to be learned. Especially today.

That's why "anti-intellectualism" in in the same category as "reverse racism" and is not bigotry.

Normal ordinary people think with emotion.

[anony.miss]

3 hours ago, isalicat said:

Many, many news sources I could quote in reply, but here is just one:

https://www.aol.com/joe-biden-577-vacation-days-123805105.html

The NY Post did no original reporting or publish any independent verification - they just repeated false data provided by the Republican National Committee  (as shown in the second paragraph at your link - "according to shocking new data compiled by the Republican National Committee.") Looks more like a politically motivated hatchet job than a news story.

3 hours ago, Makai said:

Breaking Down How Much Time Biden Spent on Vacation While President – It's Not 40%
 

Snopes is usually a pretty decent debunker of propaganda - thx for the link.

Edited 11 hours ago by anony.miss

[Dimity]

For heaven's sake, we're talking about a president barely two months into his administration dealing with big, make that mega big, issues - now granted most of HIS OWN MAKING but still - and what does Herr Trump do? Go golfing of course. 

[anony.miss]

Trump's America:

"An unvaccinated New Mexico adult who tested positive for measles has died, the second death in a growing measles outbreak centered along the West Texas-New Mexico border, officials said Thursday."

https://archive.ph/DZFkK#selection-519.0-519.118

Edited 11 hours ago by anony.miss

[Dimity]

10 minutes ago, anony.miss said:

Snopes is usually a pretty decent debunker of propaganda - thx for the link.

I got into Snopes after Sept 11/2001 when there were so many awful rumours being floated as fact and I was looking for what was real and what wasn't.   They used to have an awesome message board - and there was no way you could post something there without being damn sure you could back up what you were saying! 

[bluegirl147]

15 minutes ago, tearknee said:

Normal ordinary people think with emotion.

That is your opinion.  I am a normal ordinary person and I think with my brain.  To suggest otherwise sounds awfully elitist.

[tearknee]

6 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

That is your opinion.  I am a normal ordinary person and I think with my brain.  To suggest otherwise sounds awfully elitist.

It is commonplace to sneer at the "inner-city elite". I do it sometimes, as no doubt do you. It is the stock-in-trade of the rightist parties, the Murdoch media and the conservative commentariat. Yet they all belong to it, as do I, and as do you (or you wouldn't be reading this.) Please don't tell me that your mother was a boilermaker. Regardless of your class background, if you went to college or university, have a white-collar job and live in a "good" suburb, you are part of the elite. Much of the political discourse takes place between rival factions of the inner-city elite, while the non-elite majority are mowing their lawns or watching the football/soccer/whatever and thinking a particle accelerator is a type of hoover.

[Eri]

9 hours ago, Dimity said:

It's International Women's Day - too DEI for the Trump White House to acknowledge or will they at least be going through the motions?

Happy IWD! I meant to comment on this earlier and it probably is too DEI but to hell with Trump! 😄

Shining a light on gender equality is the name of the game before the day ends:

• A 19-year-old mechanic in Nigeria who maintains the water supply
• A ground-breaking jazz guitarist from Sudan
• Deep-sea diving women in their 60s from South Korea
• A watermelon vendor in Indonesia who at 82 is her family's main bread winner
• A Slovak astrobiologist and analog astronaut who simulates space issues on Earth
• A Filipino sweet sweeper turned environmentalist
• A Balinese divorcee turned women's support advocate

These are some examples of a neat photo exhibit "Iconic Women: From Everyday Life to Global Heroes," on display at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

The portrait shots are amazing! 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/03/08/g-s1-51921/international-womens-day-photos-muhammad-ali-center

Edited 11 hours ago by Eri

[Anduin]

So, news from the Western Australian election. You may think that blue and liberal is our version of the Dems, but you'd be entirely wrong! The Australian Labor Party, whose colour is red, is closer to the dems than the actually quite conservative libs are. And they just got back for their third term! Are they perfect? Hardly. But the glass is half full.

[Annber03]

37 minutes ago, Dimity said:

For heaven's sake, we're talking about a president barely two months into his administration dealing with big, make that mega big, issues - now granted most of HIS OWN MAKING but still - and what does Herr Trump do? Go golfing of course. 

This. That's the big difference right there. BIden went on vacations, too, for sure, but I also trusted that he was still aware of the big issues going on in the world and kept abreast of any breaking developments, and I know he would cut his vacations short if an emergency situation happened or something. 

Trump, on the other hand, causes all thsi chaos and then just goes off golfing, and it's so beyond clear he does not give a shit about the fallout of any of what's happening and would have no plan in place to address it when he came back because hey, he's not affected, so what does he care? 

Though, as I've said before, honestly, I'd prefer he stay on his golf course if it means less opportunity for him to further destroy things in Washington. Certainly not like he's getting anything of actual value done when he is there, after all. 

[PRgal]

But South Korean deep sea diving 60somethings sounds like a bucket list club thing than a “look!  Boomer ladies from a very traditional country doing a very non-traditional thing!”  Because if the women were 35 year olds from South Korea, then it really wouldn’t have been too special 

[supposebly]

1 hour ago, PRgal said:

But South Korean deep sea diving 60somethings sounds like a bucket list club thing than a “look!  Boomer ladies from a very traditional country doing a very non-traditional thing!”

Apparently it's a tradition reaching back to the 17th century.

"The women are known as the Haenyeo — "women of the sea." Starting in the 17th century,  the island's women took over the breadwinning task of deep-diving to the ocean floor."

[LexieLily]

1 hour ago, Annber03 said:

Though, as I've said before, honestly, I'd prefer he stay on his golf course if it means less opportunity for him to further destroy things in Washington. Certainly not like he's getting anything of actual value done when he is there, after all. 

That's what I first thought, too, but Musk and his DOGE interns are more than happy to pick up the slack and do enough damage in their own right, so... 😟

[ProudMary]

59 minutes ago, PRgal said:

But South Korean deep sea diving 60somethings sounds like a bucket list club thing than a “look!  Boomer ladies from a very traditional country doing a very non-traditional thing!”  Because if the women were 35 year olds from South Korea, then it really wouldn’t have been too special 

I may be reading your tone incorrectly, which is easy to do online, but for the women divers of Jeju Island, deep sea diving is a very traditional thing. I learned about the divers through a gem of historical fiction, The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. I was excited to see one of them highlighted in the NPR article that @Eri shared with us. I definitely recommend the book if you haven't read it.

[Calvada]

2 hours ago, anony.miss said:

Trump's America:

"An unvaccinated New Mexico adult who tested positive for measles has died, the second death in a growing measles outbreak centered along the West Texas-New Mexico border, officials said Thursday."

https://archive.ph/DZFkK#selection-519.0-519.118

Marjorie Taylor Greene is encouraging families from this area to have "measles parties" so that all the kids get the disease and develop immunity.  I realize that for many children, measles is a few days of feverish discomfort, but there's a chance (all numbers per the CDC) of hospitalization (1 out of 5), pneumonia (1 out of every 20 children), encephalitis (1 child out of 1,000), and as shown above, death (1 to 3 out of 1,000).  Who are the parents who think, hmm, I'll roll the dice on my kid?  

[Bastet]

50 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

That's what I first thought, too, but Musk and his DOGE interns are more than happy to pick up the slack and do enough damage in their own right, so... 😟

Exactly; Trump being off golfing may have granted a temporary reprieve in his first term, but this time he has Elon doing the job in his absence (and often in his presence).  And, as I said the last time this came up, by job I mean coup.

[Notabug]

10 minutes ago, Calvada said:

Marjorie Taylor Greene is encouraging families from this area to have "measles parties" so that all the kids get the disease and develop immunity.  I realize that for many children, measles is a few days of feverish discomfort, but there's a chance (all numbers per the CDC) of hospitalization (1 out of 5), pneumonia (1 out of every 20 children), encephalitis (1 child out of 1,000), and as shown above, death (1 to 3 out of 1,000).  Who are the parents who think, hmm, I'll roll the dice on my kid?  

It's important to know that there are two different viruses oolloquially known as measles and the current outbreak is the rubeola virus not rubella or what we used to call German measles.

Rubeola tends to be a more serious illness than rubella, often with high fevers and other systemic symptoms besides a rash. It is also usually a longer illness, lasting at least a week, even in uncomplicated cases.

One of the major complications is encephalitis, where the virus attacks the brain and there is a significant risk of permanent, often debilitating injury from it.

And, once again, Marjorie Taylor Greene demonstrates her ignorance.

https://www.cdc.gov/measles/hcp/clinical-overview/index.html

[Annber03]

I remember getting the rubella vaccine as a kid. 

And yeah, any politicians who are actively refusing to do anything to handle these kinds of public health emergencies should be held criminally responsible for putting people's lives at risk so recklessly. So should any parents who are activley exposing their children to these dangerous illnesses. 

[ProudMary]

The MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) should be given to children at 12-15 months and a second dose around the time they enter Kindergarten. All three are important. Measles is the most serious,especially in children, but it's important to vaccinate kids for all three because mumps and rubella (German Measles) are very serious in adults.

J.D. Vance is shooting off his mouth about wanting women to have more children, well they damn well better be getting kids vaccinated against rubella because the numbers aren't pretty for what happens to pregnant mothers without immunity; severe birth defects including deafness and blindness, stillbirth and miscarriages. Kids must be vaccinated. 

I can recall Chicken pox parties once being a thing before that vaccine went into distribution around 1995, but measles parties? Hell no. That should be criminal.

 

[isalicat]

6 hours ago, Anela said:

The winning side?? Trump was considering removing the birthright citizenship of Native Americans. What the actual fuck? https://www.juneauempire.com/news/birthright-citizenship-of-native-americans-questioned-by-trump-administration/

And this country still does not belong to white people. 

This country belongs to each and every citizen of this country, whether black, brown, yellow, polka-dotted OR white!! If you were born in the U.S. or naturalized, it doesn't matter: this country "belongs" to you...but that doesn't necessarily mean you own any particular bit of it. Ownership ebbs and flows - citizenship is once gained, pretty much forever retained. How you feel about it is up to you but as my grandparents arrived at the turn of the 20th century and were not involved in enslaving or subjugating anyone but were given the opportunity to build a lovely life for themselves and their children despite not speaking English initially or having "two peas in a pot". I think the United States of America is a miraculous place to be celebrated even as we mourn and learn from the errors of the past.

Trump does something to poke someone about every five minutes, so this "he is considering doing x" reaction is going to get exhausting, no?

[Salacious Kitty]

Chicken pox parties are still a big thing in the fundie anti-medicine, anti-vaxx, woo crowd. I'm sure these dolts will have measles parties soon enough.

[Yeah No]

8 hours ago, Absolom said:

You feel "penalized" because someone might not want to see your response to something they didn't want to see anyway?  You might be surprised how many of us "soft ignore" responses when we see the quote.  I don't usually read anything written by the selected group and I don't usually read anything responding to them unless something catches my eye skimming along.  I don't view that as penalizing you or any other poster.  I view it as protecting myself from arguments or discussions that I see as an irritant or a waste of my time.

As one who has responded to certain posters who disagree with the majority here, I think we need to remember that there are people writing these messages with feelings here. I don't care if you skip over my replies to certain posters, but saying that you find the discussion to be "an irritant" or a "waste of your time" is just not nice. I actually find everything that's said on this thread of value even if I don't happen to agree with it and I would never say that any of it is a "waste of my time" even if I skim over it. But I guess that's just me.

[peacheslatour]

16 minutes ago, Salacious Kitty said:

Chicken pox parties are still a big thing in the fundie anti-medicine, anti-vaxx, woo crowd. I'm sure these dolts will have measles parties soon enough.

Measles ain't chicken pox. From the CDC.

Chickenpox is less likely to be fatal than measles. In the United States, there were fewer than 30 deaths from chickenpox in 2022. In 2023, the World Health Organization estimated that 107,500 people died from measles globally. 

[Salacious Kitty]

4 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Measles ain't chicken pox. From the CDC.

Chickenpox is less likely to be fatal than measles. In the United States, there were fewer than 30 deaths from chickenpox in 2022. In 2023, the World Health Organization estimated that 107,500 people died from measles globally. 

Jesus will protect them. 🙄

[Yeah No]

7 hours ago, bluegirl147 said:

You know what the most scary thing is to a Republican politician?  An informed voter.  It's why Trump said he loved the uneducated. It's why they want to dismantle the Department of Education.  They hope if they leave it up to the states blue states will also become undereducated.  They are doing their best to make us a true idiocracy.

Best post I've seen today! 

6 hours ago, annzeepark914 said:

I know too many folks with advanced degrees who are Trumpers. Not sure what their excuse is, other than not wanting to pay any taxes.

My theory? Lack of emotional intelligence.

4 hours ago, bluegirl147 said:

That is your opinion.  I am a normal ordinary person and I think with my brain.  To suggest otherwise sounds awfully elitist.

I think the difference here is between factual intelligence and emotional intelligence. Just because you have one doesn't mean the other follows. I hate to say it but an awful lot of very fact-smart people don't have enough emotional intelligence and because of that make serious errors in judgment in situations where the primary issues don't involve facts but understanding and caring about people, their motivations and ethical issues. Because they have serious blind spots in this area their emotions can be easily manipulated which will also cause them to "rationalize" the facts away to suit their emotions.

Unfortunately there are also a lot of factually dumb people without much emotional intelligence either, and these are the uneducated people Trump loves because they are even more susceptible to emotional manipulation and acceptance of fake facts.

[Yeah No]

12 hours ago, ProudMary said:

US voters have already proven that they'll elect a person of color, not just once, but twice! Kamala Harris didn't lose because she's Black/Asian. She lost because she has a uterus.

I know I've pointed this out a few times already but let's not forget that Hillary Clinton technically won the popular vote in 2016 by almost 3 million votes so that may not be entirely true. I think Harris had multiple strikes against her including being a woman but that wasn't the only reason she lost. She was also a black woman, which I think is a double whammy in a class by itself and ultimately was more of a disadvantage than being a black man or a white woman. But there were other reasons too, like the timing of and way she entered the race, which did her no favors. And then not campaigning in certain areas enough and not putting enough emphasis on the economy. As usual it's a combination of things.

[tearknee]

HRC only had that majority because of her heavy win in CA.

[Yeah No]

2 hours ago, Notabug said:

It's important to know that there are two different viruses oolloquially known as measles and the current outbreak is the rubeola virus not rubella or what we used to call German measles.

Rubeola tends to be a more serious illness than rubella, often with high fevers and other systemic symptoms besides a rash. It is also usually a longer illness, lasting at least a week, even in uncomplicated cases.

I'm pretty sure I had the measles when I was a kid but I'm not sure when or which kind or if I was vaccinated against it. I think I was but I'm not 100% sure, that was a long time ago and my parents are gone so there's no one to ask. And I'm just about on the edge according to the CDC - They say that people born before 1957 are presumed to have had the measles and thus natural immunity. I was born in 1958. But if you never had the measles you might need to get another shot if you got yours before 1968. I don't remember and I don't think I still have any records on this. I found a form online I can send to New York City to see if they have any of my immunization records but I hate that I have to worry about this now too!

[Soapy Goddess]

20 hours ago, tres bien said:

There isn’t a MAGA in America that will accept the facts that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square (and plenty of “republicans “ too)

What's the point of bringing that up now? As it turns out, it helped rather than hurt.

 

 

14 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

The creators of “Hamilton” refuse to let their hit musical be performed next year at the Kennedy Center, where a now-canceled 8-week run was slated to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence

LMM's loss. Just another spiteful boycott IMO.

[Yeah No]

11 minutes ago, tearknee said:

HRC only had that majority because of her heavy win in CA.

Sure, but so what? It doesn't matter where the votes were, they were there and she had a majority. The only reason she didn't become president was because of the Electoral College votes.

[Soapy Goddess]

10 hours ago, tres bien said:

If the democrats were to run a black man Wes Moore would be good choice.

They might also consider the most qualified.

9 hours ago, Eri said:

Think of all the minority or women candidates they've put forth in the last 15-20 years. The most clownish of clowns.

Yes, and we barely escaped the last one 🤣

9 hours ago, Anela said:

A lot of the Republicans here, think this country belongs to white people. It doesn't. 

You are soooo wrong.

[Absolom]

3 hours ago, Calvada said:

Marjorie Taylor Greene is encouraging families from this area to have "measles parties" so that all the kids get the disease and develop immunity.  I realize that for many children, measles is a few days of feverish discomfort, but there's a chance (all numbers per the CDC) of hospitalization (1 out of 5), pneumonia (1 out of every 20 children), encephalitis (1 child out of 1,000), and as shown above, death (1 to 3 out of 1,000).  Who are the parents who think, hmm, I'll roll the dice on my kid?  

Having had pneumonia and encephalitis both as measles complications, may I say these people are idiots?  No one with any shred of compassion or general reasoning ability would risk making their child suffer what I did or put themselves through the anxiety my parents endured.

[tearknee]

1 hour ago, Yeah No said:

Sure, but so what? It doesn't matter where the votes were, they were there and she had a majority. The only reason she didn't become president was because of the Electoral College votes.

It matters because it because winning because of a heavy victory in one state out of fifty would have hobbled her legitimacy even if she had become president.

Sort of Rutherford B. Hayes in a way.

[Absolom]

2 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I don't care if you skip over my replies to certain posters, but saying that you find the discussion to be "an irritant" or a "waste of your time" is just not nice. I actually find everything that's said on this thread of value even if I don't happen to agree with it and I would never say that any of it is a "waste of my time" even if I skim over it. But I guess that's just me.

That's great that you don't mind what I read, but I stand by my statements that a lot of this thread is irritating to me and it is a time sink that I don't need.  I don't read every post on every thread on the forum and I doubt anyone here has the time to do so.  That means that people make a judgment of what adds value to their lives.  If I don't read the threads about a certain TV show it has no bearing on their merit to other people.  That I don't feel the need to read posts that raise my blood pressure doesn't mean I'm being mean or unkind to anyone.  If I attacked the people making posts I disagree with, that would be unkind.  

[anony.miss]

4 hours ago, Soapy Goddess said:

What's the point of bringing that up now?

Because facts matter. Trump lost the 2020 election. He couldn't accept that irrefutable truth. He led an insurrection instead.  And later became the only insurrectionist - and convicted felon and rapist - to win the presidency. That's the point of bringing it up now; to refute lies, to draw a bright line between propaganda and historical evidence - over and over again, if necessary - because facts really do matter.

Edited 2 hours ago by anony.miss

[tres bien]

1 hour ago, anony.miss said:

Because facts matter. Trump lost the 2020 election. He couldn't accept that irrefutable truth. He led an insurrection instead.  And later became the only insurrectionist - and convicted felon and rapist - to win the presidency. That's the point of bringing it up now; to refute lies, to draw a bright line between propaganda and historical evidence - over and over again, if necessary - because facts really do matter.

That was in reply to a post I made yesterday. I said that MAGA and most republicans still believe the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden was an illegitimate president 

And why does it still matter? Because Trump has rewritten history with little if any push back from his party. People that committed crimes on January 6 were pardoned and if serving jail time were let out

So yeah thank you because if a post I make is litigated most likely I ignore it. My opinions are my own

Edited 1 hour ago by tres bien