Pozzible

I assume you clean deep. How long does cleaning your ass take? I’ve seen lots of different answers, but I’m sure I can count on yours.

What did they like about it? National Guard can’t do law enforcement. They were reportedly picking up trash. It is. Have you ever lived in a town of 1000? Two murders would be an astonishing event. That’s not DOE’s fault. Each state sets its own curriculum and standards. DOE programs have made substantial contributions to students and schools. It ensures that public schools don’t discriminate against children with disabilities and sets standards for schools to meet when educating these kids, including Individualized Education Programs (IEP) for each of these children. (As a classroom teacher, these add a lot of work to adapt curriculum for each of these students. Not fun at all, but important. I do wonder if there’s a better way though.) In addition to providing for children with disabilities, DOE enforces civil rights laws to ensure that schools don’t discriminate against race, national origin, gender, age. There’s much, much more the DOE does, including providing money for schools and programs. But unfairly, DOE gets a bad rap. There are TONS of issues that contribute to our schools’ weaknesses. I’ve not been a classroom teacher for 25 years and things are much worse for teachers now. Nowadays classroom management is a nightmare. Cell phones, computers in classrooms (important, but nearly impossible to ensure all students are on task), overcrowded classrooms mostly due to decreases in state funding, increased focus on state-mandated testing, and distance learning. (I can’t imagine being a teacher trying to adapt to entirely new instruction methodologies to teach online.) If you look at the amount of each state’s funding per student, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s highly correlative to the states’ academic outcomes. And it also shouldn’t surprise you that red states provide significantly lower funding and have poorer academic outcomes. Massachusetts is #1. She’s a smart cookie. How about comparing her to Trump? It seems to me that Palin normalized the acceptance of incompetent candidates. You can draw a pretty straight line from Palin to MAGA. [Actually, @hntnhole wrote that.] I kinda disagree here. Seems to me that the racism went underground during Obama administration. I see a huge resurgence of public racism since then. How much have you watched her? For real, not on a Newsmax story or a Trump commercial. Did you watch the Trump/Harris debate? Personally, I’ve never heard word salad from her. But I tried to avoid Trump commercials and Fox News “reporting.” But Trump says that he’s deporting the worst of the worst. The criminals. That’s not who ICE is rounding up in these raids. They are among the ones who want work. Hard work. Low paying work. Vital-to our-economy work. [Again, @hntnhole wrote that.] I’ve assumed that was the case too. However, last night Harris insisted he was perfectly capable of governing, he just couldn’t manage the rigors of a national campaign. This actually makes a lot of sense to me. We saw Biden give a terrific State of the Union address. Yes, he was reading from a teleprompter, but he also went off script multiple times and bantered with the legislators. He looked and sounded sharp. It’s hard to reconcile that with what we saw in the debate. (And while we’re at it, compare Biden’s SOTU address to DJT’s speech at UN today. WOW. What an embarrassment. One commentator said it was reminiscent of Castros speeches there.) On Earth 2, is RFKjr loved by Democrats?!?! On Earth 1, few Democrats can do anything but roll our eyes at him. There’s no way in hell he would have been the nominee. Ever. He’s a very bad joke. Just reprehensible. it did bother some Democrats. I think it would have been a disaster. There were about two months to plan format, and then organize and conduct debates. Other candidates had no staff in place. Additionally, funding for running the convention and fall campaign was a huge barrier. As I understand it, campaign funds for Biden/Harris could be transferred to Harris who was already on the ticket. Other candidates couldn’t have access to that money. It just wasn’t a realistic option. Sure, in an ideal world, we would have preferred a process. She wouldn’t have been my choice, but I would have been wrong. And when Kamala was announced as nominee, the enthusiasm from me, my friends, and the party as a whole was remarkable. OMG, I really don’t want to know think about that <shuddering>. Anyway, Harris was on with Maddow last night to talk about her book. I’ve got it loaded in my Kindle and can’t wait to read it. Do I want her to run in ‘28? I don’t know. I don’t even know if we’ll have real elections. And the other night I heard someone (Garry Kasparov, maybe?) say that there’s one reason Hillary and Kamala didn’t win. America isn’t ready for a female president. I’m afraid that’s right even though Hillary won the popular vote by millions. Sadly, I think Dems should probably run a straight, white male. I’ll be voting by mail. Probably from Mexico.

Undeniable. But many of us want to do better.

I would’ve loved to be in that scenario with a generic brother. But not with my actual brother. Just something else I missed out on.

Lived and worked in Plano for over 20 years. We had our yearly convocation there, so I’ve been in the (impressive) facility for many, many hours. Was never there for a church service, but it always seemed mega creepy.

It’s just too early for me to allow myself to get emotionally bogged down in political prognostications about ‘28. But I will remark on a couple of things. My mention of Gabbard and Kennedy were totally tongue in cheek. I think they’re both just abominable, dangerous human beings. And you mention how horrible the crime situations are in Chicago, LA, and SF. While we’re at let’s throw DC into the mix. Note where each off those cities rank on the list of the 25 most dangerous cities in the US: [think before following links] https://realestate.usnews.com/places/rankings/most-dangerous-places Cheers!

All of Us Strangers <chef’s kiss!>

I’ll second Brokeback, of course. But Angels in America is at top of list. And Heaartstopper is sooo good.

This movie opens in limited release today. 9/19/25. Don’t know if it’ll open wide in theatres or go direct to streaming.

Plainclothes trailer looks sooo good! starring Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey Sundance Jury Award winner

I haven’t read any excerpts other than a brief bit about Tim and Pete. I’m agnostic on whether she should run again. I thought, all things considered, she was excellent. In fact, after her debate I thought she was sure to win. From the convention until the VP debate things were sailing along. But all of the air went out of the campaign when Tim stepped onto the stage. He had shown such promise. Perhaps he was over-coached in debate prep. Perhaps we had all been too pumped up and expectations were too high. Pete would have definitely done better in the debate. Between the VP debate and Election Day all the energy was lost. I don’t personally believe the candidates were the problem. Consultants and staff seemed to drag them down. Kamala’s comment about whether voters would accept a Black woman and a gay man was likely correct. I don’t see it as racist at all. Just a political calculation. And Buttigieg didn’t seem to connect with Black women in the primaries And they are the heart of the party. There are several good potential candidates. Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Buttigieg, Pritzker (he’s been on fire lately). Whitmer and Newsom both feel a bit packaged and polished (just a gut feeling). AOC would be a brilliant, exciting candidate. The primary debates should be terrific. (Oh, maybe Marianne Williamson, RFKjr, and Tulsi Gabbard will hop in the race, too.🙄) But all of this assumes we will actually still have real elections in ‘28. Scares me.

Megachurches Play AI Clips Of Kirk Discussing His Death September 18, 2025 Christianists, Idiocracy Religion News Service reports: Megachurch pastor Jack Graham was in the middle of his Sunday message to Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, this past weekend when he paused to cue up an unusual sermon illustration. After encouraging people to respond to the killing of conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk by turning to God, he instructed the congregation to listen to a roughly minute-long audio clip of what sounded like Kirk delivering a short speech. “Hear what Charlie is saying regarding what happened to him this past week,” Graham said. As the clip, which encouraged listeners to “pick up your cross, and get back in the fight,” ended, the congregation burst into applause. A few seconds later, they rose to their feet in a standing ovation. The clip, which has gone viral online, was a cloned version of Kirk’s voice delivering what appeared to be an AI-generated response from a chatbot asked what Kirk would say in the wake of his own death. [think before following links] https://www.joemygod.com/2025/09/megachurches-play-ai-clips-of-kirk-discussing-his-death/

I’m not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean how anonymous you are varies? I believe I understand what you’re saying here. But that first phrase is the key. If we’re not completely anonymous, then our multiple personas don’t seem to matter. Do your personas not have any connection to the others? I doubt it. Trust me I’ve thought about that a lot, but even if we’re messing with the algorithms, I think that’ll soon be irrelevant. If the amount of intelligence is even “almost exponential”, how long do you think that will be true? AI will isolate the bogeys soon enough. So you give CVS a fake phone number, are you giving them a unique, fake email address? A fake name? A fake birthday? A fake ID? Are you paying them in cash? Are you getting prescriptions filled there? The doctors’ information alone is enough to tie it all together. Do you use a VPN? Does your VPN provider have an audited, no logs policy? Is the provider based in the US or hosted on US servers?

CCTV is one thing, a matrix of all our data is quite another. After reading the NYT article, try reading the Wikipedia page on right to privacy. Kiss that goodbye. Everything we’ve ever done online is captured. Every hookup made, every story read, every movie watched, every post, every comment. And all of it instantly analyzed. I suspected we’d eventually live in a dystopian Huxley novel. Just came sooner than I expected.

I’m not surprised. It was inevitable. But it came faster than I expected. And I don’t think this is something you can hide from. Not even living in rural America. (Read the entire article.) At least for anyone online, this is all part of our “permanent record.” We’re already seeing it affect people entering or leaving the US.

The NYPD is Teaching is Teaching America How to Track Everyone Everday Forever NYT gift article…. [think before following links] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/15/opinion/nypd-surveillance.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mU8.A8K2.xjed9mR0gIOY&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Have we, though? I definitely would have agreed with you about a year ago. Now, not so sure.

Sorry, I just saw this response you left me. I use Scruff and barebackrt.com. But I don’t hook up a lot nowadays. Others may have better ideas.

Gift article from NYT [think before following links] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/opinion/charlie-kirk-assassination.html?unlocked_article_code=1.l08.e8j2.e7ncM3BMZPdO&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

You should seek out some of the things Kirk said. I absolutely agree that violence is never an appropriate response.

I think TACO was originally in response to his constant changing on tariffs. But it can apply to most anything he says/does.

Might be a good pilot project to house the homeless.

Terrific! Thanks

I don’t see a correct place for this topic. There’s a young, very hot, very hairy chested trans man who I think often wears wire frame glasses. I used to see him a lot on Twitter, but I deleted:my account there. He’s young and adorable. I’m not certain, but I think his name is Eddie and he’s from UK. Ring any bell? Anyone have links to any of his photos? What’s his full name? TIA

What are these cities where there’s only one bottom in a bathhouse? I need to go for a visit!