Recent Comments

1. 28 days ago on Doonesbury

   I suspect the term might be more social media related than AI related, rather like influencer or provocateur, perhaps. In both cases, sadly, there are many who shout loudly for attention despite not having learned much at all about the topic, and others who somehow think that hours of on-line reading are a replacement for years of education and actual critically analyzed research. (Yes, people can and do learn in those scant hours, but the gaps and erroneous presumptions really take their tolls on conclusions and with poorly considered options/actions. Got to worry about hypotheses, too, especially when a reasonable alternative is right there, like possibly confusing a presumed phenotypic alteration with what might instead be increased proportion within a population of a previously rare genotype that is simply more survivable due to the hypothesizer never studying population genetics well.)

2. about 1 month ago on Heart of the City

   Heart needs to do what I did as a kid: self defense by learning to cook. In my case I got my first cookbook from an aunt (Maria LoPinto’s The Art of Italian Cooking, Bantam Books, 35 cents, with its first edition being two years older than I am). I began helping people cook when I was a preschooler and was cooking on my own at 8. Since she has not had an early background Heart needs to learn from her friends’ parents who can cook, learning safety, nutrition, techniques, and some starter recipes.

   Personally, my two favorites that work for savoy cabbage or for green cabbage — either of which this head might be — are coleslaw with homemade dressing, or cabbage curry (big YUM), but there is a lot a person can do with cabbage, both as a background veggie or as strong component in a dish.

   There are so many good brassicas. Did you know they are related to the mustards which also have some very tasty greens? Okay, now I am craving strong favorites: mizuna, collard greens, and bok choy dishes… Ohhhhh: collard greens parboiled then mixed with already sauted minced garlic and a bit of minced ginger in a good olive oil and all sauted together until just tender and emerald green… Soooo wanting that now.

3. 2 months ago on Bloom County

   Excellent swan song pun.

4. 5 months ago on Clay Jones

   Mourdac, I like that you obviously spend time trying to see multiple perspectives, logically weighing things, and using creative lateral thinking. Those are the kinds of lights which hopefully can eventually get us all through the current tunnel. Too many are still stuck in either/or.

5. 5 months ago on Clay Jones

   Some of the Democrats were reported to be talking with Bacon of Nevada who has that sort of record of working with members of both parties. Sadly, Bacon said he would rather that his name not be put forward unless McCarthy dropped out, but that if McCarthy dropped out he was happy to be nominated. He could have carried enough combined votes and that would have been good for everyone. If the numbers are not high enough to win then for gosh sakes band with someone who can get enough on a combined party vote rather than letting a total lose for the nation win, as happened. No one gets everything that way, but most on both sides of the aisle get enough to have progress.

   Too many people forget that historically our nation has a long history of more moderates in both parties and more elected politicians working together for the national good. That is why our national government has persisted for so long. Currently, the Democratic Party is similar in stance to much of Europe (not the reactionary parts, obviously) while the Republican party has been dragged more and more into Reactionary territory until is it unrecognizable from where it stood decades ago. This is what happened in German in the 1930s with the Nazis as their reactionary parasites. Now it is happening in the U.S.

   To put the nation first, and to heal the nation and our government we at this point need either more than two major parties OR we need the Republicans to once again shed the reactionaries. Otherwise, we are on a precipice. Having a moderate Speaker of the House instead of who the nation is stuck with would have been a great move toward placing the nation before parties, and given the numbers the only way to do that would have been if the moderate had been a Republican moderate. It is just logical.

6. 5 months ago on Gary Markstein

   From an independent’s viewpoint: There WAS an option to help heal the House and show the nation how it has been done in the past to make things work. It was the honorable option which put nation before party but it was sacrificed in favor of having a spectacle. So, BOTH parties screwed up and got us to the mess that currently exists. It would have been so easy morally to have members of both parties rally around a moderate who has a history of working with both parties. To have the best healing for the nation it should have been a Republican moderate because they do have the majority and because that party needs much more healing given the level of damage that the reactionaries have done to it and to the nation. (Reactionary parasites who supported Hitler were mostly in the Republican party during early WWII, after WWII reactionaries mostly moved to the Democratic Party but thanks to the moral choice of backing Civil Rights they left then began infesting the Republican party again. Basically, reactionaries parasitize a political party using pretty much the same playbook that the Nazis used in 1930s German, right down to trying to pass themselves off as some other flavor of conservative when they are much more extreme than that.)

   Interestingly enough MOST Republican voters in polls did NOT support McCarthy in MANY polls. The numbers opposing him and just not paying attention enough to care were pretty equal, but most did not support him. Meanwhile, most Democrats want a functional House. So, neither party did what their own voters want.

   Just replace the names with Democrat and Republican, and in place of the Prince are we, the citizens:

   “Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!

   See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

   That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love;

   And I, for winking at your discords too,

   Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished."

7. 5 months ago on Jack Ohman

   From an independent’s viewpoint: There WAS an option to help heal the House and show the nation how it has been done in the past to make things work. It was the honorable option which put nation before party but it was sacrificed in favor of having a spectacle. So, BOTH parties screwed up and got us to the mess that currently exists. It would have been so easy morally to have members of both parties rally around a moderate who has a history of working with both parties. To have the best healing for the nation it should have been a Republican moderate because they do have the majority and because that party needs much more healing given the level of damage that the reactionaries have done to it and to the nation. (Reactionary parasites who supported Hitler were mostly in the Republican party during early WWII, after WWII reactionaries mostly moved to the Democratic Party but thanks to the moral choice of backing Civil Rights they left then began infesting the Republican party again. Basically, reactionaries parasitize a political party using pretty much the same playbook that the Nazis used in 1930s German, right down to trying to pass themselves off as some other flavor of conservative when they are much more extreme than that.)

   Interestingly enough MOST Republican voters in polls did NOT support McCarthy in MANY polls. The numbers opposing him and just not paying attention enough to care were pretty equal, but most did not support him. Meanwhile, most Democrats want a functional House. So, neither party did what their own voters want.

   Just replace the names with Democrat and Republican, and in place of the Prince are we, the citizens:

   “Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!

   See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

   That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love;

   And I, for winking at your discords too,

   Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished."

8. 5 months ago on Clay Jones

   YES! Reactionaries parasitizing a political party and calling themselves a different flavor of conservative is right from the 1930s Nazi playbook in Germany. Guess who were among the first groups destroyed once they were in power? They destroyed some groups very openly but more quietly they also destroyed actual conservatives who had power. I am not a conservative but I respect Constitutional conservatives. Reactionaries are trying to bring down the Constitution, though. Heck, we even had one (DT) try to impose an auto-coup on the U.S. Auto-coups (where a leader brings down a government to become a dictator) are usually third world occurrences, and for history with a lot of nearby examples people can study Haiti.

9. 5 months ago on Clay Jones

   From an independent’s viewpoint: There WAS an option to help heal the House and show the nation how it has been done in the past to make things work. It was the honorable option which put nation before party but it was sacrificed in favor of having a spectacle. So, BOTH parties screwed up and got us to the mess that currently exists. It would have been so easy morally to have members of both parties rally around a moderate who has a history of working with both parties. To have the best healing for the nation it should have been a Republican moderate because they do have the majority and because that party needs much more healing given the level of damage that the reactionaries have done to it and to the nation. (Reactionary parasites who supported Hitler were mostly in the Republican party during early WWII, after WWII reactionaries mostly moved to the Democratic Party but thanks to the moral choice of backing Civil Rights they left then began infesting the Republican party again. Basically, reactionaries parasitize a political party using pretty much the same playbook that the Nazis used in 1930s German, right down to trying to pass themselves off as some other flavor of conservative when they are much more extreme than that.)

   Interestingly enough MOST Republican voters in polls did NOT support McCarthy in MANY polls. The numbers opposing him and just not paying attention enough to care were pretty equal, but most did not support him. Meanwhile, most Democrats want a functional House. So, neither party did what their own voters want.

   Just replace the names with Democrat and Republican, and in place of the Prince are we, the citizens:

   “Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!

   See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

   That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love;

   And I, for winking at your discords too,

   Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished."

10. 5 months ago on John Deering

    Just replace the names with Democrat and Republican, and in place of the Prince are we, the citizens:

    “Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!

    See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

    That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love;

    And I, for winking at your discords too,

    Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished."