I hope so. But my experience with people who have moved to smaller municipalities is that they tend to be pretty conservative - granted, most of those interactions were before the pandemic.

Snuck in these cute air plants into the deliberation room. Let’s get some life in here as we contemplate death. What are other mindful ways y’all deal with the burden of proof?

Love me some hbomberguy. Stuff like this reminds me to take a beat and think about whether I feel something because it's a genuine reaction, or because I've been tricked into feeling this way by someone clever; and I'm guessing we underestimate the number of times it was a trick by someone clever.

True, I think otherwise there's potential for abuse in there to disenfranchise people even further.

This is an interesting take, although it does raise a question about what else Visa could block and what kind of activism we'd be okay with them dabbling in. But good lord it grinds my gears whenever someone uses the term "assault weapon" and I know that's the wrong thing to focus on but please at least have some familiarity with the subject you are writing about. "AR-15 style semiautomatic firearm" is better, but later the author uses the term again and even references "assault rifles" in a later paragraph. Pedantic, perhaps, but Wal-Mart definitely never sold those.

I like that a conversation is happening. It needs to happen. There are solutions out there. I don't think the solution in this article is the answer, but it's an angle I hadn't considered.

I'd also suggest that this may be one effect of an increase in suicide awareness and attempts at prevention, at least from my experience. I don't know what it was like 30 years ago but it certainly seems to be more of an issue that's okay to talk about now among young people, which makes it a more available target for memetic humor.

In a 2007 email, with the subject “Possible Opportunity in DEA—READ AND DELETE,” Prado sought to pitch the network to the Drug Enforcement Administration, bragging that Blackwater had developed “a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations.” He added, “These are all foreign nationals (except for a few cases where US persons are the conduit but no longer ‘play’ on the street), so deniability is built in and should be a big plus.”

Jeeeeeezus.

And the Amyntor Group named in the article is based out of Whitefish, Montana. The same small town that is home to Whitefish Energy, who was the one awarded the fishy contract for rebuilding Puerto Rico's power grid. What the hell is going on in that town? Why does this feel like a Tom Clancy novel?

grandson - Kiss Bang

Not sure how to categorize this type of music, except that it's some sort of rock.

With this whole no-bid Puerto Rico contract being awarded to his buddies in Whitefish from Montana, who have never generated a revenue of even $1M before, I agree that he's a scumbag. This situation as described in the article is distressing. PERC is a terrible organization and their arguments are self-fulfilling.

Herein lies the big challenge for the landowners and their defenders: Survey after survey has shown that the public hates the idea that someone can lock taxpayers out of public land, and that they’re suspicious of transferring control of such tracts to private enterprise. Nevertheless, Anderson and PERC deny that their position is out of step with public opinion, even casting it as pro-access. Their rationale is oblique: If the Forest Service insists the public has a right to use the trails, they say, private landowners will naturally rebel; numerous court battles will ensue, tying up the trails in years of litigation and costing the government millions of dollars. And as the cases proceed, the landowners will take steps to secure their property rights, blocking traffic on the trails until the mess is sorted out.

What a transparent pile of crap for an argument. They're gonna block the trails regardless of whether or not the Forest Service fights them. Some folks should make a trip to Montana with a pair of bolt cutters and go big fence hunting.

Oh there's also this:

PERC’s affiliation with politically connected outfitters that stand to profit if trails are closed bolsters the sense, to Wilson and others confronting locked gates, that a void in coherent policy about public land management is being filled by cronyism that rewards wealth and connections above all else. Another co-owner of the Wonder Ranch, Frank-Paul King, a friend and former student of Anderson’s, served on PERC’s board. Hudson, the man who got Representative Sessions involved, is King’s brother-in-law, and he’s also a board member and the former president of the Dallas Safari Club, a group that made national headlines in 2014 when it auctioned off a trip to Africa to hunt an endangered rhinoceros. (The winning bidder, who paid $350,000, traveled to Namibia and shot a black rhino bull, an animal the club said had threatened the rest of the herd.) The Dallas Safari Club has granted PERC funding for, among other things, a “Montana project to help ranchers preserve private land so that hunters and fishermen can have access to public lands,” according to its newsletter.

Garbage and hypocrisy. Paying lip service to conservation while killing endangered animals.

This is great news, I always prefer my passenger jets to be locally sourced.

Phantogram - You Don't Get Me High Anymore

If we're putting robots in authority roles, let's at least make them cool and terrifying.

oh wait

I always feel bad for the researchers that discover these. On one end of the spectrum of possibilities, you have a boring glitch that's explainable by some sort of new solar flare. At the other end you have signals from the alien empire of ZZYYKK proclaiming themselves as our supreme overlords. There's just no way to win here.

Edit: To be fair I guess it is cool to be able to peer into the vast unknown and discover new phenomena. It's just not a job that I think I'd want.

If the reporting is accurate, we're reverting back to the "king holding court" model of government. Someone is gonna have to start drafting honorifics and titles for everyone to recite when they address Trump. "President of the Americans, Protector of the Atlantic, He of the Huge Hands..."

It's deeply troubling and every day brings more concerning news.

This article seems to switch between attacking the owners of gun companies and the companies themselves when accusations cannot be leveled against the owners. There are some valid arguments that the article makes, but I have a hard time seeing the comparison to Bond villians. Except for Glock and Lüke. That's some crazy stuff.

And honestly, most of these individuals and corporations believe that firearms ownership is an inherent right. Mother Jones definitely disagrees, and it shows. But I'd be more surprised if the people named in the article acted against their personal beliefs and economic incentives.

I know space is incredibly empty and these new small planets and planetoids don't even register on the scale, so to speak, but it seems to me that every new discovery here makes the prospect of leaving the solar system more difficult. Am i just being defeatist about this?

1 football field of land per hour. That's insane and I don't know if the options being pursued will actually stem the erosion. Visit New Orleans while you can, I guess.

How does the official spokesman of the Executive Branch manage to put his foot in his mouth worse than Jerry Smith at a wedding? This entire exchange sounded like it came straight out of a comedy.