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17:04
@Cerberus Texas dumped more than 43,000 people showing up at its side of the international border on the streets of Denver. This hasn't t been going well due to the sudden costs. ref1, ref2. Our nominally Democratic governor has started to kiss the Orange One's ring.
Maybe Florida and Arizona also contributed to those busloads of the needy. I don't know.
That's so crazy.
They couldn't be taken back?
I struggle for words.
"Tragedy" barely encompasses just one of its manifold axes of evil.
@CowperKettle Good for you. Bad for Sunday.
Would a counter help?
A counter to what?
E.g. until the next elections?
17:15
Those are two years out. And he'll still be there afterwards.
Those could block some of his worst stuff.
Otherwise, until the next presidential elections?
The evils done in Florida and Texas are of their own doing, and they do them to both migrants and other states alike. Federal elections cannot get rid of locked-in state governors and legislatures, nor what they do.
And the Supreme Court has been just exactly as helpful in all this as you would imagine.
I thought maybe a count-down might give a little bit of perspective.
Oh, THAT kind of a counter!!!!!
I misunderstood.
I thought you meant some sort of countermeasure.
Progressives here are extremely disillusioned with Colorado's governor. He was originally my bluer-than-blue county's U.S. Representative before he became our governor. He lives down the road a few miles. As the first openly Jewish man elected governor, and the first openly gay man as well, married with children, you'd think he'd be more praised. But he's mostly just another rich businessman doing what he can to retain power.
Ugh.
Can't the people elect someone who isn't in business?
17:23
Right now he's doing what he can not to have all federal support to Colorado get cut off by the Orange One. He knows we need money like for all those immigrants.
So it's very frustrating to almost all of us.
I can see that.
Timothy James Walz ( ; born April 6, 1964) is an American politician, former educator, and retired United States Army non-commissioned officer who has served as the 41st governor of Minnesota since 2019. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019. Walz was born in West Point, Nebraska. After high school, he joined the Army National Guard and worked in a factory. He later graduated from Chadron State College in Nebraska and then moved to Minnesota in 1996. Before running for Congress...
It doesn't say he is a business man in that description...
That is because he is not.
And that is the very bizarre thing about him.
Oh, is he a different one.
I remember him now.
17:26
He had no huge investment portfolio and entanglements to declare when he was running for vice president with Harris. Everybody found that unthinkable. It's next to unheard of.
How about Sanders?
Also.
Does that help their popularity?
I don't know.
Hmm.
17:34
@Cerberus Not across the border because they have pending asylum cases. Not back to Texas because they'd, like most people, rather be in a decent city than a border town where the native-born despise them.
It's worth noting that a large percentage of people crossing the border now get a quasi-legal status and aren't eligible for deportation; they've requested asylum, but their cases won't be heard for years. Hence Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy, which he seems likely to reinstate.
@alphabet Oh, so the people voluntarily entered those buses from Texas to Colorado, and they wouldn't voluntarily go back?
@alphabet The climate is similar here.
People are strongly against immigration.
@Cerberus Yes. But the governors of Texas et al. commission the buses, not out of any genuine concern for the immigrants, but to force the problem of handling them onto Democratic-run cities whose residents they blame for supporting migration.
As I understand it, though, the migrants get on the buses voluntarily. Any rational immigrant would rather be in NYC or Denver than near the Texas border.
@alphabet I know.
So then I can understand how it would be difficult to ship those people back to Texas.
@Cerberus Yes. Biden decided to repeatedly swing back and forth on immigration policy, at first overturning much of Trump did and then rapidly reinstating or preserving it when migration surged and made him unpopular.
Closing the borders between states might help.
17:41
Either he was wrong to remove Trump's restrictions initially, or he was wrong to crack down later. Regardless of your view of immigration, Biden looked incompetent.
Do you think there is now a large majority favouring strong measures against immigration?
I think here it has been building up slowly but continuously since the 90s.
@Cerberus Unconstitutional and completely impractical. Those borders are marked on road signs only.
It is the same here with national borders.
But what they do is instate border control where big roads cross the border.
It gets some proportion of crossings.
A lot of people commute daily across state lines. There are tons and tons of minor roads going across them. There haven't been real borders between states since the late 1700s, and even then they were quite porous.
Otherwise I see no way to prevent them from doing this...
17:47
Then there are (say) dead-end roads that start in one state and end across the border, so people can't even leave the street they live on without entering another state.
You'd also need to amend the Constitution to have any sort of control over state borders. And it'd inconvenience so many people that pretty much nobody would tolerate it.
Maybe it is time to end the union, then?
If those people just don't get along together.
Last time anyone tried that around 600,000 people died, so I'd recommend against it.
Unless Trump goes full Kim Jong-un.
@Cerberus if that's the final solution that comes to mind there's something seriously messed up going on
If the north and the south agreed to part ways, it need not be a war?
I think for the sake of my own mental health I should try to ignore US news for maybe a few months
17:52
@M.A.R. I don't know, that country's chronic problems seem hard to solve because different groups want very different solutions.
I mean sure the rage seeing the ragebait makes for good small talk
@M.A.R. Probably.
Lovely small talk, yes.
@Cerberus That would be summarily unconstitutional.
@Cerberus we mostly do it once we're tired of ranting about our own
"Haha heard about America? What were those people thinking electing him?"
@Cerberus Most people certainly want tougher restrictions on immigration. Trump won because of basically three issues: the border, policing, and inflation.
17:54
@Cerberus Abraham Lincoln would not approve.
By the way, I took bromhexine the day before yesterday, bad idea. It worsened coughing.
And then going on a tangent about hypocritical democrats and how being in the fence hurts them a lot when people are looking up to extremists
But now for the first time I feel a bit better than yesterday.
@alphabet Policing?
@tchrist Alas.
@Cerberus it's not very effective unless you drink like 30 mL a day.
@Cerberus The tincture of time.
17:56
Even then I'm not sure.
@M.A.R. It kinda mystifies me that people in other countries pay much attention to American politics.
@M.A.R. I seemed to notice that the slime I coughed up became much more fluid, but I also needed to cough a lot more, so it was a loss.
@alphabet told you. Small talk. And it's hard to ignore.
@tchrist Yup times cures all ills eventually, won't it?
@Cerberus bromhexine is an expectorant, so it's working precisely as intended
17:57
@Cerberus Well, crime, and the amount of power and resources given to police.
@alphabet You should see Dutch newspapers. They are CRAZY about it.
@M.A.R. Yeah, so I gathered.
@alphabet OK. What has Trump proposed?
@M.A.R. In the fence?
I mean it's true that if something goes wrong economically the whole world suffers for it, but given how dire Iran's situation already is I dunno if people here would notice much of a difference if there were a global financial crashdown tomorrow
@alphabet typo
O is besides i and my fingers are fat
@Cerberus Yes, exactly. Why?? The American media obviously takes little interest in internal Dutch politics. I mean, American foreign policy affects other countries, but it doesn't make sense to pay attention to elections you don't take part in.
@Cerberus It's difficult seeing any path that could lead to reconciliation between the culture-warring sides under the present system, although whether it's any harder to see now than it was during the final century of the Roman Republic with all the civil turmoil leading to the rise of Octavius under a new system is not for me to say.
18:02
@alphabet Because journalists are chronically online. And they can all read English websites and follow people in English on the network sites. And the biggest commercial content producers are American. So they are all Americanised. And...it is really easy to copy content from those sources.
Right now, laws are simply ignored, as they so often were then.
@alphabet When you come down to it how important do you think domestic policy was in this election?
Black men and Latinos voted for Trump from what I hear.
@M.A.R. Those three topics are about domestic policy, unless you feel that immigration is international?
@M.A.R. It was the only thing. Pretty much nobody's voting decisions are influenced by foreign policy. There were a small number of progressives who refused to vote at all over the Gaza issue, but they were mostly in states whose electoral votes were going to Harris anyway.
Biden and Kamala looked weak at times and hypocritical on other times.
18:06
@Cerberus Thus far he's just told the DoJ to pursue the death penalty more often. He'll probably try to roll back protections around police brutality etc.
@Cerberus I'm saying it's a soap opera and dems are playing their part poorly.
@alphabet OK so that won't change anything about crime.
Sure a lot of people vote for Trump because they hate immigrants. But they always do.
Orange Julius illegally fired all the Inspectors General. Because he was acting in his official capacity as President, no laws can apply to him thanks to the recent fiat of the Supreme Court that made him a dictator as invulnerable to the law as the Roman Senate once upon did for the Caesarian Julius.
@M.A.R. What should they do?
@tchrist All of them?
18:08
@Cerberus No: 17 of them.
That he won even the popular vote this time means something else happened too
Including even ones he himself appointed!!!!
But you can't fire even one of them this way. It's illegal.
@tchrist We read that in the paper here.
Unless you're the dictator. Then they let you do it. You can do anything.
18:09
@Cerberus No it will not. Petty crime is handled at the state level so there's only so much Trump can do about it, unless he wants to send in the troops.
Right.
At least in Rome you got to try the untouchables following their reigns. We are no longer allowed to do that, no more than Russians can theirs.
Nov 7, 2024 at 2:49, by alphabet
@Cerberus I wouldn't put too much stock in popular vote counts. Currently a lot of Republicans in blue states and Democrats in red states don't vote because they know their votes won't affect the outcome. Removing the Electoral College might actually leave Democrats worse off, on balance.
@Cerberus stop being snotty, for one. They look like the establishment, the old white people controlling everything who will never be relatable for the majority of voters. The only people that buy the 'people of color' shtick are people who hate people of color.
@Cerberus Why? Why would anyone in the Netherlands care? Journalists are too online, but why does the whole Internet care?
18:12
They desperately need good PR, and they don't even seem to care, that's how miserably they're failing at it
@M.A.R. More concretely?
@alphabet I think that is the explanation. It is like why do people talk about celebrities.
@M.A.R. Because they're old, because they're white, or because they're both? Or for some other reason?
At any rate, tomorrow, eighty years ago, Auschwitz was liberated.
@M.A.R. Moreso, they look like the educated urban elites. Because they disproportionately are.
@tchrist somehow many voters think the democratic party is full of Rupert Murdochs, is what I'm saying
Even if rich libertines are mostly Republican-leaning
18:17
A large majority of Black and Latino voters supported Harris, of course, but enough switched sides that it helped Trump substantially.
@Cerberus there's nothing concrete about showmanship. Reagan had nothing concrete going for him.
@Cerberus But why do American politicians end up as celebrities? Or is it just a "famous for being famous" sort of thing?
The real reason is that the deeply moneyed plutocracy grips the reins of state power so tightly and for so long that the disenfranchised can never wrest those reins away from them to force the state to pay attention to the powerless's interests instead of those of the plutocrats. It takes decades to amass the financial resources needed to achieve that lock in, and no one will walk away from it on their own. For they have their own interests to serve.
@M.A.R. Ancient, foreign, or wealthy as Midas?
@M.A.R. It's mostly a difference in culture and education levels. Of course the Dems are far less white than the Republicans and pretty much everyone knows that.
And much more popular among young people and among women.
@M.A.R. I meant, what should Democrats do differently, according to you and concretely.
18:23
@tchrist of course. I'm just saying that the worst people around have been exceptionally successful at looking like the best options.
@alphabet Compare it to watching a soap opera, becoming addicted to it, and following the actors therein.
@tchrist There are some people who do. And they do get votes.
@M.A.R. Comes with the skillset of being the worst people, you know.
All the self-promoters do this. That's why you've heard of them.
> Georgii Elisavetskii, a Soviet soldier who entered one of the barracks, said in 1980 that he could hear other soldiers telling the inmates: "You are free, comrades!"

But they did not respond, so he tried in Russian, Polish, German, Ukrainian. Then he used some Yiddish: "They think that I am provoking them. They begin to hide. And only when I said to them: 'Do not be afraid, I am a colonel of Soviet Army and a Jew. We have come to liberate you' ...

Finally, as if the barrier collapsed ... they rushed toward us shouting, fell on their knees, kissed the flaps of our overcoats, and threw th
80 years ago minus a day.
@tchrist I don't think you can blame the plutocrats for Trump. He won because his policies were more popular for reasons that go beyond brainwashing.
@Cerberus the frontrunners, the faces of the party, need to be people that look like they're bringing something new to the table, and because of Obama skin color doesn't work anymore. Kamala didn't succeed because people didn't think she was serious. Even if you put the likes of Buttigieg on the shelf, the air around the whole party still feels stale. It still feels like the people that used to call the shots still do.
18:29
@Cerberus Ah. There is quite a lot of pageantry. We get about six months before campaigning for the midterms starts.
@M.A.R. Hmm could you give a concrete example?
Auschwitzch, 1945.
Ultimately, Democrats just need to either (a) convince people that their policies are good ideas, (b) change their positions when they're unpopular, or (c) make the Republicans look even worse.
@alphabet America still feels like a hub. People don't just care about their own local news, they assume that, with some approximation, what's really happening in the world revolves around the people that govern America.
Pete would make a fine elf on the shelf.
@Cerberus oh I dunno, the usual things. Being a family man, a vet, crusading about some issue and convincing people it's important and will solve their problems . . . What your average joe would consider the qualities of a "leader". Trump is a crusader in his own way, and he's convinced people that if only immigrants go away Americans would realize their American dream.
18:38
Pete is someone who anyone who's never met somebody from rural Pennsylvania assumes people from rural Pennsylvania would support.
Need to look like they're swimming against the flow even if they're not. You know, everything Republicans are doing without the whole turning America into Bulgaria thing
@Cerberus Slaves who heard the Emancipation Declaration didn't believe in its promise to deliver them from bondage either. Sure, because they were not educated (nor allowed to be) they also didn't know that Leonora dressed as Fidelio had freed Florestan from the black dungeon whence none return, but would not have believed it even if they had known it of it, for even the uneducated know that eucatastrophes happen only in fairytales not in reality.
@M.A.R. Strange.
@alphabet why? Simplified Chinese remains a difficult second language to learn.
Or uh, writing system. You know what I mean
@M.A.R. Granted, I don't think China is going to intervene in Iranian politics.
The alleged Iranian conspiracy to assassinate Trump probably won't help US-Iran relations much.
18:54
@M.A.R. Hmm a vet is concrete. The rest is still a bit abstract to me.
So do you mean Democrats should focus on one issue more?
@tchrist And I also suspect that the Nazis used to tease the Jews in the camps. So they would never believe what some stranger, possibly Nazi, would tell them.
So under which circumstances would they hear this Emancipation Declaration?
Would it be read to them?
19:25
> When single ladies get to the age of 50, they tend to get lots of cats.
This phenomenon is known as many paws
19:47
Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. The holiday's name is a portmanteau of the words "June" and "nineteenth", as it was on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War. In the Civil War period, slavery came to an end in various areas of the United States at different times. Many enslaved Southerners escaped, demanded wages...
20:06
The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the effect of changing the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as slaves escaped the control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. In addition, the Proclamation allowed for former slaves...
> General Order No. 3 was an American legal decree issued in 1865 enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation to the residents of the U.S. state of Texas and freeing all remaining slaves in the state. The general order was issued by Union General Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, upon arriving at Galveston, Texas, at the end of the American Civil War and two and a half years after the original issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.
> The order was not read aloud by the Union Army, but it was posted around town, and communicated to most African Americans by slavemasters.[1] News of the Emancipation Proclamation had reached Texas and been covered in Texas newspapers, but due to the lack of Union military presence, it had not been enforced.
General Order No. 3 was an American legal decree issued in 1865 enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation to the residents of the U.S. state of Texas and freeing all remaining slaves in the state. The general order was issued by Union General Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, upon arriving at Galveston, Texas, at the end of the American Civil War and two and a half years after the original issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. The order, and Granger's enforcement of it, is the central event commemorated by the holiday of Juneteenth, which originally celebrated the end of slavery in Texas. The...
Right, so one wonder how they would hear it.
I guess "hear" was not used literally. But "heard of".
@Cerberus The news would spread fairly fast when all the slaves nearby started running towards the advancing Union troops. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in part because nobody could figure out what to do about what was becoming a massive refugee crisis.
That makes sense.
And it didn't really work without soldiers backing it — just like every single other dishonor which the evil Yankee federales sought to impose upon freedom-lovers south of Mason–Dixon line but especially in Texas. Think about Desegregation for goodness' sake. Ug.
20:17
I seem to recall that there was fairly little consistency in what actually happened when Union troops showed up in various places, beyond general chaos. Those areas were essentially run by the military until Congress could figure out what to do next.
"No Negros Allowed" and all that jazz.
Forced bussing.
Alas poor Kamala.
Since the slaves were freed but it wasn't clear what land they controlled. Of course some enlisted in the Union army, generally after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Vagrancy laws.
JAYWALKING laws!
Poll taxes and disqualification tests.
Before which the slaves fleeing towards Union troops had to be treated legally as confiscated property.
The thriving penal-slavery complex that exists there to this day.
20:22
Then Congress decided to give up on fixing things and let those states' governments get taken over by White terrorist organizations.
But do try to remember that it wasn't levelled 100.00000% at only colored people. Think about sharecroppers who were serfs by any other name, and all the "poor white trash". The singular issue before, during, and after the Civil War continues unto our own day: the ability of the few to control and reap the benefits of the work of the many, all without ever letting any of these get a toehold out of their dark dungeon of despair.
The Antebellum Ancien Régime is still the dominant one there. It probably always will be.
And that is not something that you can ever compromise with nor reconcile into a true democracy. Nor should you.
20:43
Right, severe inaequality can be like repression.
21:14
@Conrado ok. You have an international background. And moving when you're a kid is very different from moving when you're an adult
Have you guys all solved the TFG problem yet?
21:28
@Mitch They have not. They don’t know what went wrong that caused him to win or what he’s doing now, and swipe at every bright shiny object they see.
What is TFG?
Abbreviations...
Well, the TFG has become TCG. That’s part of the problem.
Why the secret codes?
@Cerberus I think it’s an attempt to lighten up the subject.
Why won't you tell me?
Since you seem to know?
21:43
@Cerberus TFG = that former guy. TCG = that current guy, which I made up, since he is in a certain significant respect no longer former.
Ah, OK, thanks.
21:56
@Mitch f U rly wnt 2 shrtn up wht U typ, thn thr R mny fr btr wyz v dng tht B4 U nd 2 ncrypt al cmnc8zhnz wth anyng acrnymz bnt on kpng ppl owt v yr cnvrs8zhnz
22:10
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported question (93): Etymology of Bully ✏️‭ by user552267‭ on english.SE
If your caterpillar is a green future butterfly, what color is your butterfly?
If your caterpillar is a future green butterfly, what color is your caterpillar?
Is Professor Moreno a future brown professor emeritus or a brown future professor emeritus?
And how does his tenure at Brown University change everything?
#WhenTaken #334 (26.01.2025)

I scored 789/1000🏅

1️⃣📍174 km - 🗓️2 yrs - 🥇191/200
2️⃣📍13.2 m - 🗓️2 yrs - 🥇198/200
3️⃣📍744 km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥈165/200
4️⃣📍5.8K km - 🗓️11 yrs - 🥉99/200
5️⃣📍2.0K km - 🗓️10 yrs - 🥈136/200

https://whentaken.com
Wordle 1,317 5/6

⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Daily Octordle #1098
4️⃣🔟
5️⃣6️⃣
8️⃣🕛
7️⃣🕚
Score: 63
22:32
@tchrist Oh, these are good examples.
Daily Sequence Octordle #1098
5️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣9️⃣
🔟🕚
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Score: 73
22:48
> We zealots, made up of stiff clay,
The sour-looking children of sorrow,
While not over-jolly today,
Resolve to be wretched tomorrow.
We can’t for a certainty tell
What mirth may molest us on Monday;
But, at least, to begin the week well,
Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.
(Charles Lord Neaves)
23:11
Connections
Puzzle #595
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟪🟦🟪
🟦🟪🟦🟦
🟦🟪🟦🟪
🟪🟦🟪🟦
I hated blue and purple.
Connections
Puzzle #596
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
OK I'll do tomorrow too.
Strands #330
“Viva Las Vegas”
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🟡🔵🔵
23:28
Daily Extreme Octordle #1098
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9️⃣4️⃣
8️⃣7️⃣
5️⃣6️⃣
Score: 62
Wordle 1,318 4/6

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⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
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OK I have yellow and blue.
Did you find it difficult?
No, exceot for purple, which was the left-overs.
except
OK.
Actually, green was easy too.
I somehow forgot to look at one word.
Time for paracetamol again.
I suspect purple must be some SPOILER?
OK I guess not.
Connections
Puzzle #596
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Purple sucks.
I can’t read spoilers on my device. But I don”t know anything about purple. It’s unfamiliar to me.
23:38
Yeah I only know some vague wisps of things about purple either.
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