To be clear, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back is just not as good as The Cat in the Hat.

@Robusto This room is a sausage fest.

Albeit a nice one.

This room is the wurst

Nice

@Færd It doesn't have to be that way. If we all clap our hands, Tinkerbell will appear. Or come back to life or something. I don't remember.

claps hard

Should we do it in unison?

I believe so.

That takes a lot of organization.

Did something happen to Tom, btw? I was absent for quite a while.

@Færd A young fairy's life depends on it. So I, for one, am clapping.

Yeah that made me think there had been bad news before.

I had wondered the same thing, so I emailed him.

Ah, okay then. I wonder why you didn't email me.

We clapped our hands and here comes @Xanne.

Yay!

I wanna join the clap too

Well hello

Well, welcome.

@M.A.R. Sorry, target achieved. It's over.

q_q

@Færd Who says we have to stop at one? We can always use more women in our chat.

@Robusto That guy is the closest we've ever gotten to a foreteller

For example, I miss @cornbreadninja. I wish she would come back to us.

Yeah, and I miss Snails.

Me too

@M.A.R. I loved reading his books when I was a kid.

And Damkerng, but he's a guy

@M.A.R. Whatever happened to him? He completely vanished.

Strange for such an active user.

> Last seen Apr 22 '17 at 4:24

@Færd I have no idea. He just suddenly vanished, and @Cowp managed to reach him (or was it Snail?) two years later and he said he has some problem (or a medical condition) but otherwise he's fine

So that was a bit mystical and I kinda still have no idea

Okay that's a bit reassuring. I was expecting worse..

I mean, my medical condition didn't stop me from chatting. Why would it

Maybe he'd had enough of SE.

@Robusto funny thing, that was right about when I finally had to pay a doctor a visit and find out I essentially have no kidneys

He was around a lot. He made a lot of contribution.

@Færd I guess. But there were quite a few big dramas and they didn't stop him from contributing, while those months were very quiet

@Færd He did. I never saw a learner as enthusiastic as him

He looked like a guy that would donate a ton to a cancer charity anonymously

Well, I guess this is his legacy at least. People don't have anything bad to say about him

Yes.

Very pleasant by temperament.

So . . . moving on,

It's not the same as before, but politically it's been kinda quiet, compared to a couple of months ago

And I'm grateful for it

A lot of the trash politics went out with the last US administration.

Maybe it's because I took a break and things calmed down politically.

The hot-headed bitch that I am.

I've started finally giving Chomsky's books a read, and I found out that just a handful of democrats managed to shift the majority in favor of not raising the minimum wage? Or did I get that wrong

@Færd So all that shit was your fault just by showing up?

If I did get it right, the cynical Chomsky in me says it was all just a masquerade

But damn is reading his stuff depressing. I've never had the urge to put any book down because of how bleak it is

@Robusto I promise to do that again soon.

If you miss it.

Well, 2022 is not far ahead

@Færd Nah, I enjoy not getting worked up.

Several scumbags are looking for a comeback then or so I've heard

@M.A.R. Umm I think that's recent news?

You don't need a book for that.

Yeah, the "and" isn't connecting the two events together

Yeah Biden promised to raise the minimum wage in his deal with the left (Sanders, etc). But he's fallen short so far.

@M.A.R. Ah

I'm just saying I'm torn about how much democratic PR I should believe.

I mean, on the one hand, as Mitch says, not everyone is supposed to be so Machiavellian

And I'm inclined to believe that.

@Færd Well, give him time. He's been in office less than two months. The wheels of legislation turn mighty slowly around here.

OTOH, the republicans have already set the bar too low so democrats don't have to be saints to have the support of everyone who's not a nutjob

@Robusto Das ist mir egal, to be honest.

It's mir aguy

Plus to make everyone breathe a sigh of relief all he had to do was show up and not be He Who Must Not Be Named.

But the situation in the Senate doesn't look rosy at all.

@Robusto Yeah, which is kinda concerning

@M.A.R. People don't work like that.

They don't? All evidence seems to indicate otherwise, but folks on the interwebz are not representative of real life

Well, I feel a mite better, even if others don't. I don't feel like the country could suddenly go down the toilet in the very next second.

I mean, it's a result of polarization.

@M.A.R. That has gotten to be a smaller number lately, more's the pity.

@M.A.R. People don't give up on the system because they're "nut jobs". At least not everyone. Many do that because the system stops working for them. And also because their hopes have been sapped and exhausted before, when they were promised hope and change.

Say, you voted Biden because you really needed your pay to rise in order to take care of medical expenses or send your child to school or whatever. And then Biden comes along and despite having promised to do what you wanted and having both houses in his favor, fails to do that. You may well give up on voting ever again because of that.

@Færd Oh, well, I was trying to avoid the term "Trumpster" not to bring up the guy's name again. Well, all joking aside, I don't think people have given up or not given up. They're just been fooled by propaganda systems.

Try to put some of the blame on the system too.

@Mitch Let me end the boring discussion with a saying, the moon will eventually come out from behind the rain clouds, or so I've heard.

@Færd Hey, give him a chance. That story's not over yet.

They've been told by fat rich assholes that if the undesirables go away, they'd be fuller when they sleep at night.

@Robusto I do hope he delivers. But this is a familiar situation.

I don't think it's a matter of giving up on democrats, although it's true that the party often seemed in shambles compared to the republican party

@Færd Same. It would be good for the country, not just the min-wage earners.

The thing is, we can't expect any president to be Superman (or -woman). The real enemy is the (somewhat) hidden plutocracy that has been relentlessly brainwashing the less intelligent of our brethren to vote against their own interests.

Exacting revenge for throwing him out of the planets club

They can't feel good because their lives are good, but they can feel hate because their lives are bad.

In fact, doesn't most of what a president does involve securing their interests?

The better presidents just manage to sneak in some social reform while not pissing them off too much

Biden wasn't my first choice for president. I would have liked Amy Klobuchar. But you take what you get and hope it will do the job.

Democrats have been bringing pocket knives to bazooka battles with Republicans for a long ass time. Trump made them start to show a bit of courage (like Obama openly criticizing the existence of filibuster and talking about the need to make fundamental changes). But who knows if they're not going to falter. He didn't have the same attitude in his first two years.

And I can't wait for AOC to be of age, because she seems like one politician who actually has the interests of the people at heart. She's a Bernie Sanders who hasn't fallen in love with the sound of his own voice.

.

Reagan, Bush, the DINO Clinton, Bush II and Trump? Yeah, Obama looks great by comparison.

The problem with Obama, and generally with Democrats, is that they think you can reason with Republicans. You can't. To paraphrase Churchill, "The GOP is either under your heel or at your throat."

As Tartakower said, "Moral victories do not count."

@Gigili You're blaming the victim. It's the clouds that gotta move.

@M.A.R. Yes, depressing.

@M.A.R. Exactly. Just because you're a Nazi doesn't mean you're in it for the money.

@Robusto There have been enough moral victories that were passed up so you wouldn't have to resort to winning immoral ones and risk becoming the mirror image of your opponent.

Democrats have been too lenient and nice in matters that they had every right to fight to the bitter end and win.

@Mitch It's for the Walthers

Since we were clapping

@Færd True.

@Færd On the other hand, it is worth something to keep the peace with reasonable (as far as that goes) Republicans, to keep the country governable.

@M.A.R. Jim Reynolds managed to contact him then. Sadly, Damkerng never personally peeked in into the chatroom again

Somewhy I woke up at 04:45 am.