JFC, now Trump is going to ruin that goddamn Blue Ridge Parkway area... From Indivisible Asheville/WNC...
"The National Park Service plans to conduct what it calls “hazardous fuel reduction” across nearly 1,000 acres of Parkway land for the first time in history. The work, which resembles salvage logging and could last for years, is set to begin in August.
Logging roads and landings would compact hillsides, increase erosion, and create severe gaps that invite invasive species to spread. In a landscape still destabilized from Helene’s landslides, bringing heavy equipment and creating more disturbance has real consequences in addition to driving tourism away.
If we allow them, the Trump Administration will continue to sell off our public lands for scraps.
Sign this petition by MountainTrue (@mtntrue) today urging the NPS to reconsider this reckless plan."
We've still got six cats from Puerto Rico (a Momma Cat: Lucy, & her five "kittens": Bun, Blaze, Runt-Runt/"Mustachia", Lana, & White-Face/"Cara Blanca"). We paid for all of them to be fixed, shipped up here & cat-hoteled when we moved, & a decade of care sice moving including routine + multiple Bun surgeries (he ate things he shouldn't x 2) + full Lucy tooth-extraction (massive infection & she's so much happier) + other random cat stuff. I'm allergic, so they occupy our three car garage and have cat tents for when there's a blizzard - otherwise, it's theirs.
Are they living their "best life"? I don't know. They'd arguably be happier in individual homes, but we couldn't find any for them in PR (where the state of animal welfare is abysmal), & they would for-sure be dead if we hadn't take them in after Lucy delivered her kittens in our shed in PR & then became deathly ill. They know our family and their names & love me best, even though I have to scrub myself after spending time with them. They have cat trees & food & treats & get to visit all the way inside our house sometimes if I close off bedrooms.
They're now 12-13 yo & are plugging along. They have garage windows they can reach from their cat trees & aren't allowed outdoors so they aren't eaten by coyotes (or wild dogs while in PR).
Anyway, I think I owe anyone who reads this some money for a therapy session. We've done our best but I feel like they deserved better? But they're alive & satisfied & healthy?
Sorry to be a downer, because Happy International Cat Day to all!
Comments have never been allowed here, and they're especially not allowed on the story about the upcoming Melania! tv show Jeff Bezos is burning money on to flatter Trump some more, not that Trump cares.
It occurs to me that the Security Guard I was just talking to here at the Minneapolis Convention Center is much smarter, more interesting, and leads a more interesting life than Melanie.
Where's Bezos and a creative team and a TV crew? They should be following Abdirachman around the convention center. They'd get a show worth watching out of that, in contrast to Melanie.
'Swindle' – is the last name of the President and CEO of one of these massive 'for profit' prison companies. How fucking on the nose is that, particularly considering the revolving door between these companies and the Trump regime?? Geez. "Hi, I'm Grift Swindle. Nice to meet you."
"America's two largest private prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, are reporting a combined $1.4 billion in quarterly revenue over the spring as immigration detention closes in on record levels.
Those revenues announced Thursday do not include net proceeds of $1.6 billion made by CoreCivic after the recent sale of four of their facilities to the Department of Homeland Security. Patrick Swindle, CoreCivic's President and CEO, told investors on an earnings call that that works out to an average rate of $307,000 per bed."
GEO Group's government ties run deep. Former GEO Group executive David Venturella is the acting director of ICE. In a recent letter . . [...] President Trump's border czar Tom Homan was also a paid consultant for GEO Group [...] and former Attorney General Pam Bondi lobbied for GEO Group before she was appointed. [...] President Trump also has financial stakes in the two companies, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics."
I didn't realize the BBC paywalls their shit. Trump admin paying 1.2 billion dollars to German company who was leasing areas offshore of the US for wind generating power. They took the payout to re-invest in fossil fuels.
Yep. And I loathe that MY FUCKING TAX MONEY is going to this pure bullshit bunch of lies that he always tells in EVERY FUCKING APPEARANCE about wind power and not a single drooling "journalist" will fucking call him on it.
Y'all, I've never done this before, although I've tried. Namely, my anxiety reading about Blanche, poor Biden, and various other horrors is so strong that I'm going to stay off of the internet all day. I don't know what else to do. I want to keep up with the news to be informed, but it's so horrible, and I am powerless to do anything about it, and I hate the existential feeling of dread and terror these people give me. I'm going to finish playing my daily Spelling Bee, then go clean something or make something. I've said it to others before, now for my own mental health I have to DOO EET: Don't let them destroy what they cannot steal. Laters, and I lurve you all! Thanks!
I try checking in late morning or early afternoon, where the news can't ruin my start of the day or my sleep. I fail at this most times, but it's my goal & when I manage to do it, it does help.
(I do excuse the momentary check of "is he dead yet?" that randomly happens 24/7.)
I have 1,104 Queen Bees in a row 🤓. But now and then I have to use the clues. I don't want to spend all day on it.
At least Spelling Bee gives you positive affirmations, unlike Wordle (which I TRULY detest but play from time to time), which punishes you for knowing too many words--black, clack, flack, slack, etc.
I commend to your attention the John Scalzi novel Starter Villain in which cats are management. (The security dolphins are socialist labor organizers.)
"Republican senators set the stage for a fight against President Donald Trump's agenda as they left for a five-week recess, Politico reported."
Evidently, it's going to be a "brawl." Sure, right, you just confirmed his personal lawyer as AG, you've held him accountable for NOTHING. But, you do you, feckless fucks!
I can't even keep track of the one I'm in — 1965 is right between two of them. I'd rather be counted in the later one, since I do actually understand tech.
Can we blame the Boomers for this? They started it.
That whole thing about naming generations is such lame, bullshit, ad-agency crap. They named my generation "Generation X" because they couldn't think of a better name. So then of course "Generation Y" and "Generation Z."
What's wrong with "1964-1976" or whatever, or "2016-2024," so we all know what we're talking about?
It's all a fallacy anyway. People being of roughly the same age cohort doesn't tell you much about them.
The "Boomer generation" was originally from 1946 - 1964, some eighteen years. Too wide a range for marketing, so they created "Generation Jones", from 1954 - 1964.
But I always thought a generation was like 30 years? I guess marketing geniuses win again.
Kids in Gen Alpha know pretty much nothing about the real world or living or working. And it's 100% because of how they have been raised since toddlerhood with a device shoved at them.
That has never happened in the history of this country and no other technologies are even close.
The 2 coming up generations (Alpha and Z) score significantly lower on *all* cognitive measures compared to the older generations and it's 100% due to social media, "smartphones," and having these devices shoved at them from young ages.
That affects these 2 generations but not the others so much. Not to this deep extent.
I think we haven't seen the bottom of stupidity yet, sadly. And people are HAPPILY AND VOLUNTARILY OUTSOURCING THEIR COGNITION.
With all respect, if kids in so-called Gen Alpha "know pretty much nothing about the real world or living or working," it's probably because they're kids. I sure as fuck didn't know any of that stuff when I was 16 (the outer age limit specified here). Maybe I was coddled or whatever -- although I wouldn't have thought so at the time -- but few people at that age and below have fully formed worldviews.
I'm not talking "worldviews." I'm talking basic cognition and reading.
They can't and won't do it.
If you think that whole generations can be handed devices at a young age and have that not affect their cognition, I suggest you read some of these articles that are out there.
When I was teaching research, my students would say, “What do I need this for? I can use Google.” Now they can use Claude to do their thinking I guess?
Yep. I'm glad I'm not teaching and I stopped teaching the year before ChatGPT came out.
They were already incurious and lazy and wanted to do the bare minimum. I noticed this attitude in the 2010s when smartphones became the norm.
I started teaching in 2000 at ASU. Then, my "party school" ASU students could read 18-20 page articles.
At the end of my teaching (2021) my "elite" UCD students could barely read a 5 page article. Pathetic. Shameful. Gross.
Sorry. This is not "normal" and it's not "just becuase they are young." I find that atittude dangerously naive considering the evidence that is all around us.
The correlation? Smartphone. That seems to be when things started going really dodgy with the youngest generations scoring significantly lower. Carrying around a device to which you can outsource your cognition turns out to not be good for reasoning/thinking/congitive abilities.
Can someone let them know that people who don't subscribe via Substack are unable to comment on the new post?
Is there some sort of time lag, maybe ?
JFC, now Trump is going to ruin that goddamn Blue Ridge Parkway area... From Indivisible Asheville/WNC...
"The National Park Service plans to conduct what it calls “hazardous fuel reduction” across nearly 1,000 acres of Parkway land for the first time in history. The work, which resembles salvage logging and could last for years, is set to begin in August.
Logging roads and landings would compact hillsides, increase erosion, and create severe gaps that invite invasive species to spread. In a landscape still destabilized from Helene’s landslides, bringing heavy equipment and creating more disturbance has real consequences in addition to driving tourism away.
If we allow them, the Trump Administration will continue to sell off our public lands for scraps.
Sign this petition by MountainTrue (@mtntrue) today urging the NPS to reconsider this reckless plan."
https://mountaintrue.org/take-action-say-no-to-nps-blue.../
Raking the forests, on a grand scale.
Nothing will burn once it's all dust...
Cuba regime overthrow would turn out like Iran, Trump warned
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/08/08/trump-warned-cuba-regime-change-would-give-him-another-iran/
Full speed ahead, then.
He's only going to listen to the fucking mobsters that want to open up casinos and resorts and money laundering operations in the place.
Expect them to do the stupidest thing.
It's really amazing isnt it? "Whatever could be the worst choice - THAT'S the one they'll do"
That Pishi Naz is one strikingly beautiful kitty! I love calicos.
Wait, Phish are Nazis?!
j/k
We've still got six cats from Puerto Rico (a Momma Cat: Lucy, & her five "kittens": Bun, Blaze, Runt-Runt/"Mustachia", Lana, & White-Face/"Cara Blanca"). We paid for all of them to be fixed, shipped up here & cat-hoteled when we moved, & a decade of care sice moving including routine + multiple Bun surgeries (he ate things he shouldn't x 2) + full Lucy tooth-extraction (massive infection & she's so much happier) + other random cat stuff. I'm allergic, so they occupy our three car garage and have cat tents for when there's a blizzard - otherwise, it's theirs.
Are they living their "best life"? I don't know. They'd arguably be happier in individual homes, but we couldn't find any for them in PR (where the state of animal welfare is abysmal), & they would for-sure be dead if we hadn't take them in after Lucy delivered her kittens in our shed in PR & then became deathly ill. They know our family and their names & love me best, even though I have to scrub myself after spending time with them. They have cat trees & food & treats & get to visit all the way inside our house sometimes if I close off bedrooms.
They're now 12-13 yo & are plugging along. They have garage windows they can reach from their cat trees & aren't allowed outdoors so they aren't eaten by coyotes (or wild dogs while in PR).
Anyway, I think I owe anyone who reads this some money for a therapy session. We've done our best but I feel like they deserved better? But they're alive & satisfied & healthy?
Sorry to be a downer, because Happy International Cat Day to all!
Moar baby elephant
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cjtADpH-3Hw
The only thing I like better than a baby elephant video is a rogue elephant video, especially if there are screaming children on its back.
https://youtu.be/Cw0mVCo86Fk?si=JXnwMp6btKpgRVYi
El-Sayed Won And The Pundits Only Want To Talk About Hasan Piker
Finally, news you can use from NYT:
Tacky, Rude and Beloved: Is an I-95 Landmark Worth Saving?
South of the Border harks back to a different time in the South, before the region diversified and exploded in growth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/us/south-of-the-border-carolina.html?unlocked_article_code=1.31A.gm92.FSOzr-rIL9_c&smid=url-share
"Pedro Sez!" in a huge sombrero. It is not worth saving. Those signs went on FOR MILES.
And then after you passed the thing there would STILL be more signs.
"You just missed [the tourist trap]. Turn around!"
You never sausage a place!
Up next: “Should They Bring Back Sambo’s?”
LOL
Are they, like, prepping the American mind so that when they put data centers down on the Slave Burial Grounds, that nobody White raises an objection?
Because that is what this is starting to feel like
Another Attempted Lynching, Data Center Built on Slave Burial Ground, Talarico v Paxton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Pt4EgyiFw
Comments have never been allowed here, and they're especially not allowed on the story about the upcoming Melania! tv show Jeff Bezos is burning money on to flatter Trump some more, not that Trump cares.
It occurs to me that the Security Guard I was just talking to here at the Minneapolis Convention Center is much smarter, more interesting, and leads a more interesting life than Melanie.
Where's Bezos and a creative team and a TV crew? They should be following Abdirachman around the convention center. They'd get a show worth watching out of that, in contrast to Melanie.
What can the security guard do for FOTUS? Nothing, that's what.
Nobody in this administration cares about the little people, what are you, nuts?
oh noooooo
the movie bombed so badly the flatulence still hangs in the air
why do we also have to be subjected to a tv show
Because infantile man child strong man Dear Leader must be pleased!
Because that always works out so well
even for the sycophants
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
And normalization.
money laundering
Shit, that too.
"And normalization."
Underrated point
I refuse to be normalized to crap art
Doing my morning pages
WORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's not even "art." It's crass commercialism. Nothing about that woman constitutes art in any way, shape, or form.
Some parts are art................ificial.
'Swindle' – is the last name of the President and CEO of one of these massive 'for profit' prison companies. How fucking on the nose is that, particularly considering the revolving door between these companies and the Trump regime?? Geez. "Hi, I'm Grift Swindle. Nice to meet you."
•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•
"Private prisons announce $1.4 billion in revenue as immigration detentions climb"–https://www.npr.org/2026/08/08/nx-s1-5923881/geo-group-corecivic-immigration-detention
"America's two largest private prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, are reporting a combined $1.4 billion in quarterly revenue over the spring as immigration detention closes in on record levels.
Those revenues announced Thursday do not include net proceeds of $1.6 billion made by CoreCivic after the recent sale of four of their facilities to the Department of Homeland Security. Patrick Swindle, CoreCivic's President and CEO, told investors on an earnings call that that works out to an average rate of $307,000 per bed."
GEO Group's government ties run deep. Former GEO Group executive David Venturella is the acting director of ICE. In a recent letter . . [...] President Trump's border czar Tom Homan was also a paid consultant for GEO Group [...] and former Attorney General Pam Bondi lobbied for GEO Group before she was appointed. [...] President Trump also has financial stakes in the two companies, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics."
Odds of Eric and Junior being on the board of directors...? Or is it just the Orange Orangutan that has financial ties?
Comments are messed up on the new post. Says subscribers only (and I do subscribe but I pay through Patreon).
OT: Also, fucked up beyond belief and we need to pound these motherfuckers. Fuck Germany, too, and fuck this company in particular.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e1vg0gjl5o
I didn't realize the BBC paywalls their shit. Trump admin paying 1.2 billion dollars to German company who was leasing areas offshore of the US for wind generating power. They took the payout to re-invest in fossil fuels.
And they apparently agreed.
All the "deals" Trump has made to get companies to abandon their off-shore windmills development add up to some $4 billion dollars of our tax money.
All this without ANY consideration by Congress.
Yep. And I loathe that MY FUCKING TAX MONEY is going to this pure bullshit bunch of lies that he always tells in EVERY FUCKING APPEARANCE about wind power and not a single drooling "journalist" will fucking call him on it.
Y'all, I've never done this before, although I've tried. Namely, my anxiety reading about Blanche, poor Biden, and various other horrors is so strong that I'm going to stay off of the internet all day. I don't know what else to do. I want to keep up with the news to be informed, but it's so horrible, and I am powerless to do anything about it, and I hate the existential feeling of dread and terror these people give me. I'm going to finish playing my daily Spelling Bee, then go clean something or make something. I've said it to others before, now for my own mental health I have to DOO EET: Don't let them destroy what they cannot steal. Laters, and I lurve you all! Thanks!
Wait! What happened to Blanche? Did Dorothy make a veiled 'mattress back' comment again?
Spelling Bee drives me crazy! What do you mean that there are that many English words left to find? I'll have you know I have a HUGE vocabulary!
The worst is giving up and then feeling like a total idiot when you see the words you failed to spot.
My friend describes his compulsion to complete Spelling Bee as an expression of mental illness (at the risk of trivializing actual mental illness).
Like, I looked at last Sunday's for HOURS before I saw "catacomb."
I can usually finish Squaredle, but I failed yesterday. Yes, the words I missed were easy ones.
I try checking in late morning or early afternoon, where the news can't ruin my start of the day or my sleep. I fail at this most times, but it's my goal & when I manage to do it, it does help.
(I do excuse the momentary check of "is he dead yet?" that randomly happens 24/7.)
"I'm going to finish playing my daily Spelling Bee"
That's the ticket.
I love/hate that puzzle.
I have 1,104 Queen Bees in a row 🤓. But now and then I have to use the clues. I don't want to spend all day on it.
At least Spelling Bee gives you positive affirmations, unlike Wordle (which I TRULY detest but play from time to time), which punishes you for knowing too many words--black, clack, flack, slack, etc.
"I have 1,104 Queen Bees in a row."
Dang, look at you, LOL.
My duo are patiently awaiting the start of the parade...
I commend to your attention the John Scalzi novel Starter Villain in which cats are management. (The security dolphins are socialist labor organizers.)
"Republican senators set the stage for a fight against President Donald Trump's agenda as they left for a five-week recess, Politico reported."
Evidently, it's going to be a "brawl." Sure, right, you just confirmed his personal lawyer as AG, you've held him accountable for NOTHING. But, you do you, feckless fucks!
I just found out, via my dead-tree newspaper, that people born between 2016 and 2024 are now called "Gen Alpha."
You know you're old when you can't even keep track of the GENERATIONS after you.
I can't even keep track of the one I'm in — 1965 is right between two of them. I'd rather be counted in the later one, since I do actually understand tech.
Can we blame the Boomers for this? They started it.
So, expect marketing to "Gen Alpha" to target 2 -12 year olds.
AH, make that 2 -10 years old. I didn't math properly.
My niece is Gen Alpha and she's 17.
Sorry. She missed the age cutoff by one year, according to...whoever it is that keeps track of these things.
That whole thing about naming generations is such lame, bullshit, ad-agency crap. They named my generation "Generation X" because they couldn't think of a better name. So then of course "Generation Y" and "Generation Z."
What's wrong with "1964-1976" or whatever, or "2016-2024," so we all know what we're talking about?
It's all a fallacy anyway. People being of roughly the same age cohort doesn't tell you much about them.
I gave up on that shit as soon as I started hearing it.
How am I even supposed to remember that "Generation [whatever]" equates to some particular range of years?
I like to imagine I have better things to occupy my mind with.
So do I, but that never stops me from weird preoccupations anyway.
We Boomers sure fucked things up.
The "Boomer generation" was originally from 1946 - 1964, some eighteen years. Too wide a range for marketing, so they created "Generation Jones", from 1954 - 1964.
But I always thought a generation was like 30 years? I guess marketing geniuses win again.
I always thought of myself as a Boomer.
What kills me is, we were supposed to be the peace-and-love generation that would end war and racism.
HAH!
That's kind of the root of my skepticism about generational generalizing.
That makes sense. Yeah, the irony. :/
I'm with you.
"Generational targeting," or some such, has been a big thing in marketing (as well as politics) for a long time. And IMO it's almost total horseshit.
Oh, it does now.
Kids in Gen Alpha know pretty much nothing about the real world or living or working. And it's 100% because of how they have been raised since toddlerhood with a device shoved at them.
That has never happened in the history of this country and no other technologies are even close.
The 2 coming up generations (Alpha and Z) score significantly lower on *all* cognitive measures compared to the older generations and it's 100% due to social media, "smartphones," and having these devices shoved at them from young ages.
That affects these 2 generations but not the others so much. Not to this deep extent.
I think we haven't seen the bottom of stupidity yet, sadly. And people are HAPPILY AND VOLUNTARILY OUTSOURCING THEIR COGNITION.
They are talking AI parenting now. And Gen Alpha will suck it up gladly because hard things are BORING, don't you know? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/08/ai-optimized-parenting
With all respect, if kids in so-called Gen Alpha "know pretty much nothing about the real world or living or working," it's probably because they're kids. I sure as fuck didn't know any of that stuff when I was 16 (the outer age limit specified here). Maybe I was coddled or whatever -- although I wouldn't have thought so at the time -- but few people at that age and below have fully formed worldviews.
I'm not talking "worldviews." I'm talking basic cognition and reading.
They can't and won't do it.
If you think that whole generations can be handed devices at a young age and have that not affect their cognition, I suggest you read some of these articles that are out there.
When I was teaching research, my students would say, “What do I need this for? I can use Google.” Now they can use Claude to do their thinking I guess?
Yep. I'm glad I'm not teaching and I stopped teaching the year before ChatGPT came out.
They were already incurious and lazy and wanted to do the bare minimum. I noticed this attitude in the 2010s when smartphones became the norm.
I started teaching in 2000 at ASU. Then, my "party school" ASU students could read 18-20 page articles.
At the end of my teaching (2021) my "elite" UCD students could barely read a 5 page article. Pathetic. Shameful. Gross.
Sorry. This is not "normal" and it's not "just becuase they are young." I find that atittude dangerously naive considering the evidence that is all around us.
The correlation? Smartphone. That seems to be when things started going really dodgy with the youngest generations scoring significantly lower. Carrying around a device to which you can outsource your cognition turns out to not be good for reasoning/thinking/congitive abilities.
What kind are they developing via TikTok and ChatGPT, though?
This. Nothing like this has ever existed. We ignore it at our fucking peril.
This isn't like TV or just the garden-variety Internet and people need to stop thinking it is so.
People are offloading their cognition and this has NEVER happened before.
We’re creating the Eloi.
No.
Read some articles about this. This is serious.
People discount this at their own peril.
Great. So we'll have a whole generation thinking, "I'm number 1!"