Yeah, that one is only theoretically carbon neutral but in practice it usually isn't. Still, a step up since the biomass that gets burned otherwise would have rotten away over a decade or two instead of being burned, so it is less long-term harmful for the climate than burning fossil fuels. It releases that Carbon decades earlier instead of millions of years earlier, which is a difference of about millions of years.
Setting up a long term carbon sink is a related issue: If we can figure out how to put biomass into the ground in a way that it doesn't rot and escape as CO2 or CH4, then we can use basic farming techniques to capture CO2 and put it in the ground. Once we've stopped pumping CO2 into the air, this would be a way to very very slowly take the CO2 out again.
I think Walz embodies a nice combination of progressive positions and a more "moderate" sensibility and persona. I like "progressives" just fine, but it's clear that a lot of Americans are not so comfortable with them. (They've been conned by the Republicans into thinking the USA is full of "crazy left-wingers.") The thing is, so-called progressive policy positions have massive support in America, so long as you don't label them as such. Most of us think it's great for everyone to have affordable healthcare, etc. So Walz would seem to embody the American public pretty well. That's a good sign for November!
Have always said that progressives ... and especially climate progressives (but the "defund the police" folks and the "Occupy Wall Street" folks both fail at this as well)... are some of their own worst enemies with all their 100%, no holds barred, "Stop Oil Now" rhetoric.
It simply is not possible, even if the will to do it existed in every single American person, to wean America off of oil production "tomorrow". And not being able to articulate both a timeline and a series of steps to get from point A to point B (A being "today" and B being "a tomorrow with little to no oil production") makes it far too easy to dismiss them as "not grounded in reality".
They fall into the "vegan trap". Where they think that their way is the one true way and it's obvious, and you're stupid or a lying sellout if you don't fall into line with them and why can't you just see reason.
Reason is all well and good, but it doesn't put food on the table. Enthusiasm can't act as a 100% replacement for Messaging. Not if you want to convince the currently unconvinced. Walz appears to not suffer from that same wilful blindness.
Texas produces the most renewable energy in the US., because back in the 1990s, they created an encouraging environment for alternative energy producers. But now, oil and coal fatcats own Greg Abbott and his repub pals in the legislature, and they've been working relentlessly to overturn incentives and increase taxes on alternative energy providers, while giving huge tax breaks and govt. handouts to coal and oil companies. This is what happens when you don't have a Tim Walz and Democrats in charge.
back in the Perry days, that chump tried to fast track 15 coal plants. Still have my coal: bad t-shirt. But natural gas made that impossible. Economics of renewables are going to make it hard for fuckery to work.
After getting THAT email late last night and staying up most of the night crying, I have slept most of today away and woken up clear headed.
They've poked the bear,I have never responded well to being told I cannot do something, it males me determined to prove people wring and do it anyway.
I have decided to request the specifics as to how and why the decision was reached. I also intend to challenge there decision with the help of my diabetes team and as many other healthcare professionals as I can get on my side.
At the same time I intend to make tentative enquiries with another adoption agency and explain the full situation to them in order to avoid going through months of meetings, training, and having our lives examined under a microscope just to have our hopes crushed.
I am so sorry for THAT news. I too dig my heals in when someone says no. Just keep in mind each no is one step closer to yes. I hope it all works out for you. With the agencies you have mentioned they will put you through the wringer in every way possible. Fight the good fight!
I was forced to be in Texas for a few weeks during the OPEC oil embargo in '73, and I was treated to billboards that crowed "Let the Yankee bastards freeze to death in the dark!" The current Texas power grid is a rickety contraption not connected to any other region, but wingnut Texans would rather freeze to death in the dark than give up their "Freedum!"
Of course the Weird Party, had they been on the receiving end of that would have put up responding billboard with "Let the Longhorn Humpers Broil Without Air Conditioning!"
But were not the weird party, and with our victory, we will also liberate the good people of Texas from the weird clique that controls their state.
I wonder how many of them realize(d) that Texas oil doesn't go to Texas... it just goes to the "global market" wherever that might happen to be. Not sure if that was much different in 1973...
The Ijits don't realize that the US is a net exporter of oil, so increasing drilling in the US will have no effect on the price of gasoline. That extra oil will go to the global market and will have all the impact of a glass of water dumped in the ocean
You can try to also organize locally, get some people together and arrange good things for the community. If you like books, set up a neighbourhood bookshelf (this one you can do alone!). If you like gardening, set up a community garden. Lots of ways you can use cooperatives to improve the world without being directly involved in the voting kind of politics. The fun part is a couple years later when it is a solid community and you can point out how everyone involved is acting according to anarchist principles and watch heads explode.
I wish half of the country wasn't brainwashed into thinking tax cuts for billionaires, and drilling more oil, would solve all of this country's problems. As long as this is true, we will never have nice things in this country.
It's the same 30% it was when the Confederates were more officially named.
They're just REALLY LOUD, and that's one of the reasons people who aren't willing to really dig in and actually *count* are so sure there are more of them than there actually are even when actual facts don't support that.
Of course, if more people were willing to make sure that more disenfranchised people were eligible to vote ... we could have more people vote and they could yell all they want and NOBODY would have to listen to them.
But of course -- THAT would depend on some people "in the middle" making some sacrifices, or at least some efforts, on behalf of people who are Not Them.
Sure do hope more people are listening to Gov Walz and VP Harris remind everyone that "We take care of each other, and that's who we are."
Sort of OT (about Tim Walz but not climate)...Tim has a type of energy that I think of as "highly competent dad energy." He seems like the kind of guy that, if something breaks, he can figure out how to fix it, or if you need a thing, he can figure out how to make it. "Your breaks are squeaking? Bring your car by the house later, we'll take a look at it. You need a coffee table? Don't buy one. Come by the house later, we'll look through my lumber shed (because you know he has a fucking lumber shed), and I'll show you how to make one." It's practical problem solving energy. Identify the problem, solve the problem. It's the antithesis of everything the republican party is (which is: make up a problem, wet the bed). And they have no idea what to fucking do with it.
I didn't understand how frickin cool LEDs were until I saw a Verisatum video that broke down in deep animated detail what is happening at the molecular level, and the reason why the blue LED eluded us until the '80s until a super persistent Japanese materials scientist finally figured it out (almost getting fired in the process because his company thought it was a lost cause.)
It was the blue LED that finally let us achieve a proper white LED and paved the way for low cost, energy efficient lights bulbs and flat screen monitors. They waste almost none of their energy as heat.
Don't forget kick-ass grow lights! I've, uh, heard rumors, yeah, rumors, about how brutal temperatures could get in a room when using now-outmoded high-pressure sodium lights, at ten times the cost. And you can get a very good LED panel for the cost of a single (plant-optimal) thousand-watt HPS bulb. Plus they last ten times as long (and counting. Or so I hear).
The more I read about these guys on the public payroll who were also descended in their official capacity from slave patrols ... the more ABSOLUTELY USELESS it feels like they are
The not-so-subtle message woven throughout the prepared remarks in Philadelphia yesterday was clear: We're like you, you know, normal.
The power of this message is not to be underestimated. The word 'weird' is a social media (and news media) plaything. That's OK. But that word has power because of the broader, deeper truth that Harris, and now Walz too, represent a return to normality. Walz's big point with weird was not just that that word seemed apt -- he went on to say that he used the word to deny the leading Republicans of the power to make people afraid. Fear is indeed the mind-killer. It's a very coach-like way of thinking. If the squad is apprehensive of the forthcoming opponent because of its reputation for bonebreaking, shit talking and cheating, one solid coaching technique is to respect that fear, but channel it into a little safe minimization talk. Sure, there's something there to be afraid of, a coach might say, but why are we afraid? We've faced tough outfits before. This one is different because they are not honorable players. In our league, that's not just different, it's weird, right? Did you check out there latest taunt? It's at least equal parts evil and weird. Did you hear what they said about the QB they faced last week? What did that even mean?
Warren Gamaliel Harding was a pretty weird dude. Married a widow for her money. Called her 'duchess' and had her read to him while stroking his hair. He also knew at a flash who'd be into an assignation with him in a White House china closet while duchess was at lunch.
He also had a weird relationship with the English language. Asked what it campaign strategy was, he said he liked best to go into the country, visit general stores, where he could "bloviate." He used the word 50 percent correctly. It indeed means talking a lot, but it has a negative connotation.
Harding is also solely responsible for saying that what the United States needed after World War I was "normalcy." The word was, and is, "normality." Harding didn't mind. He added a barbarous word into regular usage, right up there with ginormous and "towards."
Point is, the message was a winning one. The Harris-Walz message isn't the same. Our time, like all present moments, are different. But the messages do rhyme historically --- the country has been through public health and political calamities. It's not only time for "the adults" to wrest back control but for a return to normality -- which in the aspirant culture of American life refers not to a time in the past (contra "maga") but to an ideal vision that has always seemed possible but has not yet been achieved. Aggressively weird people, ideas, movements, etc. can't get us there.
Good weird people and their *aggressively normal* friends can.
Harris and Walz are aggressively normal. It was not by accident that in her opening line in Philadelphia, Harris contrasted her resume with Trump's -- she noted without saying as much that she was a record of achievement that's more typical of American presidential candidates. (statewide elected office, service in Congress, etc.). Trump's the one who, compared to the best examples from history is "weird." Walz's record is a like the resumes of five VP candidates stacked -- soldier, teacher, congressman, governor. It's Vance's all of 18 months in public office (and most of that on Senate recess) that make him a weird choice for VP.
I wouldn't use the word "normal" in electioneering communications. It's a slur against anyone seen as different. But in internal strategic messaging, I would -- to drive home the point to speechwriters, etc. that campaign is about a vision of a nation in which "normal" means compassion, nonaggression, nonviolence, tolerance, acceptance, equitable relationships between otherwise kind and considerate people. In that kind of normal, it's supportive, enriching, and inspiring character traits -- not immutable personal ones -- that define the word "normal."
Trump and Vance, et al, are indeed weird -- in the sense that they purport to be in a profession intended to help people, to represent their interests and safeguard their rights, and they say and act in ways that are completely opposite. And they expect that to work, to get them elected. Weird.
There are things that the left wing has been saying we need to "normalize" for some time now. Like listing your pronouns, so that if someone has a gender neutral name or whose appearance is GNC, it's obvious what they want to be called. Statewide institutions adopted it not because the middle aged woman at the admissions thought someone was going to misgender her, but because she wanted to help normalize the very concept of it so that when someone did list their pronouns, it didn't look out of the ordinary any more.
There are things that the right wing wants to un-normalize, that we absolutely have to stop. Most of those things are regressive policies that take away hard fought rights, because they don't like the "new normal" that the left has been trying to build.
Agreed. I'd just say that in the widest possible frame "the left" so-called (to me, it's everybody *except* the right, so-called) has not been trying to build a new normal as much as expand people's conception of the very old normal of "Hey, don't be an asshole."
"Two things! Numero Uno: As we’ve discussed, grid expansion and permitting reform are now the biggest speed bumps in the energy transition. It can take years for new transmission lines to be built, mostly because the permitting process is slow and unwieldy. A bipartisan permitting reform bill is actually making progress in the US Senate right now, a near miracle in an election year"
A national smart grid is essential to making any progress in clean energy. It needs to be at a moonshot level of funding.
the difference between taking credit for just endlessly talking about infrastructure, and actually doing something about infrastructure could not be starker.
Driving around sunny Southern and Central California, I see vast new fields of solar being started and completed at a dizzying pace. Also more and more mountain passes with new and upgraded wind.
PG&E is a major problem and we've seen what happens when they are allowed to dictate energy policy with their deadly tactics. The GOP is no longer in control of the Public Utilities Commission in CA. That's good for regulations.
So, in the last 24 hours since he was nominated, the only dirt that’s come out on Walz in addition to the 28-year-old DUI is him admitting during vetting that he doesn’t use teleprompters.
There is going to be something. Because he's a human being, not a fictional construct, and human beings have flaws.
To my mind, that's not a problem. I am a little worried that some of the people who are falling all over themselves adoring him right now won't be able to handle the reality that he's human, when something less than perfect comes out.
I can happily think someone will do a good job, support that person, and vote for that person, without elevating them to paragon status. Let's all aim for that.
Sounds like he screwed up about the same time in life that I did.
I am not proud of it at all but I got a DUI when I was 25, the night my friends took me out to celebrate my starting college. And the judge thought I was nuts when I didn't make any effort to plead it down to a negligent driving.
I was in the middle of a very ugly divorce from a violent alcoholic. I could have never looked either of my daughters in the eye again if I'd attempted to wheedle out of trouble when I knew damned good and well that I had fucked UP and in a major way.
A lot of us fuck up in our 20s. I never got a DUI, but I did throw up at a party after drinking too heavily, and my best friend at the time had to clean up after me.
I cleaned the kitchen in our shared apartment for three months after that as an apology.
I don't think a single DUI should be held against anyone. (I don't mean zero consequences, just that it's not something we should still be bothered by years later.) Our culture has a broken relationship with alcohol, so someone getting drunk and making a stupid decision isn't really unique.
It's people who keep making that same mistake that are the problem.
It's been off of my record for quite a while now but I will never forget how thoroughly humbling the entire experience was. I was SO ashamed of myself.
Past you being ashamed: Good. That said, I hope you stopped being ashamed a long time ago. You've had your consequences and learned from them. It's over.
From all that I've seen of you here on Wonkette you're a good person. This story just cements my high opinion of you.
I always said that Kerry should have stood up on stage during the debates and in his angriest voice declared "I KILLED PEOPLE in the service of my country while George was larking around in the Texas Air Guard!"
I never understood just why he was so passive around that attack.
I’m not so sure that biomass is carbon free.
Other than that, it’s all good.
Yeah, that one is only theoretically carbon neutral but in practice it usually isn't. Still, a step up since the biomass that gets burned otherwise would have rotten away over a decade or two instead of being burned, so it is less long-term harmful for the climate than burning fossil fuels. It releases that Carbon decades earlier instead of millions of years earlier, which is a difference of about millions of years.
Setting up a long term carbon sink is a related issue: If we can figure out how to put biomass into the ground in a way that it doesn't rot and escape as CO2 or CH4, then we can use basic farming techniques to capture CO2 and put it in the ground. Once we've stopped pumping CO2 into the air, this would be a way to very very slowly take the CO2 out again.
Oi! The Humanity! Trump Force One has just collided with a Windmill...
Ta, Dok. The more I learn about Walz, the better I like him. Now it's on us to GET OUT THE VOTE!. Remember, kids, there is no Planet B.
I think Walz embodies a nice combination of progressive positions and a more "moderate" sensibility and persona. I like "progressives" just fine, but it's clear that a lot of Americans are not so comfortable with them. (They've been conned by the Republicans into thinking the USA is full of "crazy left-wingers.") The thing is, so-called progressive policy positions have massive support in America, so long as you don't label them as such. Most of us think it's great for everyone to have affordable healthcare, etc. So Walz would seem to embody the American public pretty well. That's a good sign for November!
Have always said that progressives ... and especially climate progressives (but the "defund the police" folks and the "Occupy Wall Street" folks both fail at this as well)... are some of their own worst enemies with all their 100%, no holds barred, "Stop Oil Now" rhetoric.
It simply is not possible, even if the will to do it existed in every single American person, to wean America off of oil production "tomorrow". And not being able to articulate both a timeline and a series of steps to get from point A to point B (A being "today" and B being "a tomorrow with little to no oil production") makes it far too easy to dismiss them as "not grounded in reality".
They fall into the "vegan trap". Where they think that their way is the one true way and it's obvious, and you're stupid or a lying sellout if you don't fall into line with them and why can't you just see reason.
Reason is all well and good, but it doesn't put food on the table. Enthusiasm can't act as a 100% replacement for Messaging. Not if you want to convince the currently unconvinced. Walz appears to not suffer from that same wilful blindness.
Texas produces the most renewable energy in the US., because back in the 1990s, they created an encouraging environment for alternative energy producers. But now, oil and coal fatcats own Greg Abbott and his repub pals in the legislature, and they've been working relentlessly to overturn incentives and increase taxes on alternative energy providers, while giving huge tax breaks and govt. handouts to coal and oil companies. This is what happens when you don't have a Tim Walz and Democrats in charge.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-republican-war-on-renewable-energy/
back in the Perry days, that chump tried to fast track 15 coal plants. Still have my coal: bad t-shirt. But natural gas made that impossible. Economics of renewables are going to make it hard for fuckery to work.
Also, Texas "coal" is lignite, the lowest-grade, most polluting form of coal--or any fossil fuel.
OT (sorry, Dok)
After getting THAT email late last night and staying up most of the night crying, I have slept most of today away and woken up clear headed.
They've poked the bear,I have never responded well to being told I cannot do something, it males me determined to prove people wring and do it anyway.
I have decided to request the specifics as to how and why the decision was reached. I also intend to challenge there decision with the help of my diabetes team and as many other healthcare professionals as I can get on my side.
At the same time I intend to make tentative enquiries with another adoption agency and explain the full situation to them in order to avoid going through months of meetings, training, and having our lives examined under a microscope just to have our hopes crushed.
Your hopes are not crushed. This is a detour toward your destination. BIG hugs, if welcome.
I missed your first mention of this. I'm so sorry they're putting you through this bullshit.
It's OK. It's my own fault for getting my hopes up even though it was pretty obvious they were going to nit pick on these particular issues.
I am so sorry for THAT news. I too dig my heals in when someone says no. Just keep in mind each no is one step closer to yes. I hope it all works out for you. With the agencies you have mentioned they will put you through the wringer in every way possible. Fight the good fight!
Willing you strength, tenacity, and absolute, unmitigated love and support.
Thank you, Skepti. That means a lot to me.
:(
hugs, cakes
Thanks.
They've hot my back up and I'm in fight moode now. I've just hot to be careful to fight using science and facts rather than emotion.
I was forced to be in Texas for a few weeks during the OPEC oil embargo in '73, and I was treated to billboards that crowed "Let the Yankee bastards freeze to death in the dark!" The current Texas power grid is a rickety contraption not connected to any other region, but wingnut Texans would rather freeze to death in the dark than give up their "Freedum!"
Years ago I heard a "funny" song called "Freeze a Yankee." It ended with the line, "Save your Confederate credit cards. The south will rise again!"
Ugh
Of course the Weird Party, had they been on the receiving end of that would have put up responding billboard with "Let the Longhorn Humpers Broil Without Air Conditioning!"
But were not the weird party, and with our victory, we will also liberate the good people of Texas from the weird clique that controls their state.
I wonder how many of them realize(d) that Texas oil doesn't go to Texas... it just goes to the "global market" wherever that might happen to be. Not sure if that was much different in 1973...
The Ijits don't realize that the US is a net exporter of oil, so increasing drilling in the US will have no effect on the price of gasoline. That extra oil will go to the global market and will have all the impact of a glass of water dumped in the ocean
Build a windmill, freeze a Texan!
When Democrats control the executive and legislative branches we can have nice things. Vote accordingly.
I do vote Dem, but I live in South Carolina. Sigh,
You can try to also organize locally, get some people together and arrange good things for the community. If you like books, set up a neighbourhood bookshelf (this one you can do alone!). If you like gardening, set up a community garden. Lots of ways you can use cooperatives to improve the world without being directly involved in the voting kind of politics. The fun part is a couple years later when it is a solid community and you can point out how everyone involved is acting according to anarchist principles and watch heads explode.
Congressman Cliburn's state.
#EveryVoteCounts
❤🤍💙
True. I’m not in his district, however.
I wish half of the country wasn't brainwashed into thinking tax cuts for billionaires, and drilling more oil, would solve all of this country's problems. As long as this is true, we will never have nice things in this country.
It's nowhere near half, V&P.
It's the same 30% it was when the Confederates were more officially named.
They're just REALLY LOUD, and that's one of the reasons people who aren't willing to really dig in and actually *count* are so sure there are more of them than there actually are even when actual facts don't support that.
Of course, if more people were willing to make sure that more disenfranchised people were eligible to vote ... we could have more people vote and they could yell all they want and NOBODY would have to listen to them.
But of course -- THAT would depend on some people "in the middle" making some sacrifices, or at least some efforts, on behalf of people who are Not Them.
Sure do hope more people are listening to Gov Walz and VP Harris remind everyone that "We take care of each other, and that's who we are."
I guess we'll see.
❤🤍💙
They ate loud because the media covers them better and more sympathetically than people with a little common sense.
And that’s because the media is big business, not just Fox but NBC and The NY Times.
"Nice things?" What are you, a fucking communist?
Also, if Democrats control the state legislatures, then even more of this bullshit goes away.
THIS ^^^^^^^
Sort of OT (about Tim Walz but not climate)...Tim has a type of energy that I think of as "highly competent dad energy." He seems like the kind of guy that, if something breaks, he can figure out how to fix it, or if you need a thing, he can figure out how to make it. "Your breaks are squeaking? Bring your car by the house later, we'll take a look at it. You need a coffee table? Don't buy one. Come by the house later, we'll look through my lumber shed (because you know he has a fucking lumber shed), and I'll show you how to make one." It's practical problem solving energy. Identify the problem, solve the problem. It's the antithesis of everything the republican party is (which is: make up a problem, wet the bed). And they have no idea what to fucking do with it.
That's a very good analysis! He is a reassuring type of guy.
There's no imaginary dragon that Republicans can't figure out how to slay.
Questionable if trump has one practical skill. I doubt he could open a can with a can opener.
He's a huckster. A con man. If we were going to use business-speak, a "marketer".
No business runs without them, but he wants ALL the roles w/o doing the work it would take to legitimately fill as many as he wants.
He's never handled a can opener. His entire life, there's always been "help" to deal with all that.
He's also probably never changed a toilet paper roll either, but that just makes him a Republican man.
Mickey D’s just requires removing paper wrapper.
Probably not. But, then again, he doesn't need a can opener. He can open cans with his mind! The best cans!
Well, PAB prefers to leave opening cans to the coffee boys
*cofeve
The first time a light bulb burns out in the Oval Office, he's going to be the one to go to the closet and pull out a nice LED replacement.
"Only uses 10% of the energy but produces the same amount of light! Can you believe it?"
I didn't understand how frickin cool LEDs were until I saw a Verisatum video that broke down in deep animated detail what is happening at the molecular level, and the reason why the blue LED eluded us until the '80s until a super persistent Japanese materials scientist finally figured it out (almost getting fired in the process because his company thought it was a lost cause.)
It was the blue LED that finally let us achieve a proper white LED and paved the way for low cost, energy efficient lights bulbs and flat screen monitors. They waste almost none of their energy as heat.
Don't forget kick-ass grow lights! I've, uh, heard rumors, yeah, rumors, about how brutal temperatures could get in a room when using now-outmoded high-pressure sodium lights, at ten times the cost. And you can get a very good LED panel for the cost of a single (plant-optimal) thousand-watt HPS bulb. Plus they last ten times as long (and counting. Or so I hear).
Do you have a link to a recommendation for those?
Also before growing your own was legal, that is how the police would track down operations. By using an infrared gun to measure the heat.
The more I read about these guys on the public payroll who were also descended in their official capacity from slave patrols ... the more ABSOLUTELY USELESS it feels like they are
Up here we just use power consumption. You using 25% more power than every other house on your street? Cops will come hard knockin'
The not-so-subtle message woven throughout the prepared remarks in Philadelphia yesterday was clear: We're like you, you know, normal.
The power of this message is not to be underestimated. The word 'weird' is a social media (and news media) plaything. That's OK. But that word has power because of the broader, deeper truth that Harris, and now Walz too, represent a return to normality. Walz's big point with weird was not just that that word seemed apt -- he went on to say that he used the word to deny the leading Republicans of the power to make people afraid. Fear is indeed the mind-killer. It's a very coach-like way of thinking. If the squad is apprehensive of the forthcoming opponent because of its reputation for bonebreaking, shit talking and cheating, one solid coaching technique is to respect that fear, but channel it into a little safe minimization talk. Sure, there's something there to be afraid of, a coach might say, but why are we afraid? We've faced tough outfits before. This one is different because they are not honorable players. In our league, that's not just different, it's weird, right? Did you check out there latest taunt? It's at least equal parts evil and weird. Did you hear what they said about the QB they faced last week? What did that even mean?
Warren Gamaliel Harding was a pretty weird dude. Married a widow for her money. Called her 'duchess' and had her read to him while stroking his hair. He also knew at a flash who'd be into an assignation with him in a White House china closet while duchess was at lunch.
He also had a weird relationship with the English language. Asked what it campaign strategy was, he said he liked best to go into the country, visit general stores, where he could "bloviate." He used the word 50 percent correctly. It indeed means talking a lot, but it has a negative connotation.
Harding is also solely responsible for saying that what the United States needed after World War I was "normalcy." The word was, and is, "normality." Harding didn't mind. He added a barbarous word into regular usage, right up there with ginormous and "towards."
Point is, the message was a winning one. The Harris-Walz message isn't the same. Our time, like all present moments, are different. But the messages do rhyme historically --- the country has been through public health and political calamities. It's not only time for "the adults" to wrest back control but for a return to normality -- which in the aspirant culture of American life refers not to a time in the past (contra "maga") but to an ideal vision that has always seemed possible but has not yet been achieved. Aggressively weird people, ideas, movements, etc. can't get us there.
Good weird people and their *aggressively normal* friends can.
Harris and Walz are aggressively normal. It was not by accident that in her opening line in Philadelphia, Harris contrasted her resume with Trump's -- she noted without saying as much that she was a record of achievement that's more typical of American presidential candidates. (statewide elected office, service in Congress, etc.). Trump's the one who, compared to the best examples from history is "weird." Walz's record is a like the resumes of five VP candidates stacked -- soldier, teacher, congressman, governor. It's Vance's all of 18 months in public office (and most of that on Senate recess) that make him a weird choice for VP.
I wouldn't use the word "normal" in electioneering communications. It's a slur against anyone seen as different. But in internal strategic messaging, I would -- to drive home the point to speechwriters, etc. that campaign is about a vision of a nation in which "normal" means compassion, nonaggression, nonviolence, tolerance, acceptance, equitable relationships between otherwise kind and considerate people. In that kind of normal, it's supportive, enriching, and inspiring character traits -- not immutable personal ones -- that define the word "normal."
Trump and Vance, et al, are indeed weird -- in the sense that they purport to be in a profession intended to help people, to represent their interests and safeguard their rights, and they say and act in ways that are completely opposite. And they expect that to work, to get them elected. Weird.
There are things that the left wing has been saying we need to "normalize" for some time now. Like listing your pronouns, so that if someone has a gender neutral name or whose appearance is GNC, it's obvious what they want to be called. Statewide institutions adopted it not because the middle aged woman at the admissions thought someone was going to misgender her, but because she wanted to help normalize the very concept of it so that when someone did list their pronouns, it didn't look out of the ordinary any more.
There are things that the right wing wants to un-normalize, that we absolutely have to stop. Most of those things are regressive policies that take away hard fought rights, because they don't like the "new normal" that the left has been trying to build.
Agreed. I'd just say that in the widest possible frame "the left" so-called (to me, it's everybody *except* the right, so-called) has not been trying to build a new normal as much as expand people's conception of the very old normal of "Hey, don't be an asshole."
The Church of Bill and Ted. "Be excellent to each other"
The GQP is making much over Walz's response to calling the National Guard during the George Floyd unrest.
A good Vox explainer of the events: https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/365535/tim-walz-minneapolis-burning-riot-george-floyd-minnesota-2020-protest
"Two things! Numero Uno: As we’ve discussed, grid expansion and permitting reform are now the biggest speed bumps in the energy transition. It can take years for new transmission lines to be built, mostly because the permitting process is slow and unwieldy. A bipartisan permitting reform bill is actually making progress in the US Senate right now, a near miracle in an election year"
A national smart grid is essential to making any progress in clean energy. It needs to be at a moonshot level of funding.
We can't do it with extension cords and lies
and then just pocket whatever money was allocated?
Ask Tim, he's a dad and knows safe electrical procedures...he reads that first part on all the instructions about plugging in.
'National? Hard pass!'
- Texas
Enjoy your next frozen blackout!
the difference between taking credit for just endlessly talking about infrastructure, and actually doing something about infrastructure could not be starker.
Driving around sunny Southern and Central California, I see vast new fields of solar being started and completed at a dizzying pace. Also more and more mountain passes with new and upgraded wind.
California doesn't want to be held hostage by another Enron and PGE power grab type situation.
Well, to be clear, PGE as the monopolist owner and manager of many power lines is still a fact of life.
The regulators must carefully regulate these behemoth monopolies.
PG&E is a major problem and we've seen what happens when they are allowed to dictate energy policy with their deadly tactics. The GOP is no longer in control of the Public Utilities Commission in CA. That's good for regulations.
PG&E killed my friend Jim Franco in San Bruno. PG&E should be disbanded and given to the public.
It's infrastructure week AGAIN?
Yeah, but this time there'll be actual infrastructure stuff happening. I know, hard to get one's mind around that.
I got caught in a traffic jam where one of those infrastructure things shut down one lane of the road, so I'm voting for Chump now.
Topic adjacent: https://substack.com/@yajagoff/note/c-64692497?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2kpl4m
So, in the last 24 hours since he was nominated, the only dirt that’s come out on Walz in addition to the 28-year-old DUI is him admitting during vetting that he doesn’t use teleprompters.
There is going to be something. Because he's a human being, not a fictional construct, and human beings have flaws.
To my mind, that's not a problem. I am a little worried that some of the people who are falling all over themselves adoring him right now won't be able to handle the reality that he's human, when something less than perfect comes out.
I can happily think someone will do a good job, support that person, and vote for that person, without elevating them to paragon status. Let's all aim for that.
Surely he's started a couple of charities and drained the assets?
Wait - no adultery/felony convictions/business fraud & failure or ongoing criminal trials?
What kind of candidate is he then?
He'd be a Republican if he had any adultery, or business fraud, or kid diddling in his closet.
the flying monkeys are *so* confused about all of this.
With his resume, it's not surprising that he doesn't use teleprompters.
Teachers don't need no stinking teleprompters!
Sounds like he screwed up about the same time in life that I did.
I am not proud of it at all but I got a DUI when I was 25, the night my friends took me out to celebrate my starting college. And the judge thought I was nuts when I didn't make any effort to plead it down to a negligent driving.
I was in the middle of a very ugly divorce from a violent alcoholic. I could have never looked either of my daughters in the eye again if I'd attempted to wheedle out of trouble when I knew damned good and well that I had fucked UP and in a major way.
A lot of us fuck up in our 20s. I never got a DUI, but I did throw up at a party after drinking too heavily, and my best friend at the time had to clean up after me.
I cleaned the kitchen in our shared apartment for three months after that as an apology.
Hugs
I don't think a single DUI should be held against anyone. (I don't mean zero consequences, just that it's not something we should still be bothered by years later.) Our culture has a broken relationship with alcohol, so someone getting drunk and making a stupid decision isn't really unique.
It's people who keep making that same mistake that are the problem.
You can thank the OG Karens over at MADD for a lot of that fucked up attitude to alcohol and driving.
It's been off of my record for quite a while now but I will never forget how thoroughly humbling the entire experience was. I was SO ashamed of myself.
Past you being ashamed: Good. That said, I hope you stopped being ashamed a long time ago. You've had your consequences and learned from them. It's over.
From all that I've seen of you here on Wonkette you're a good person. This story just cements my high opinion of you.
hated waking up in jail with a hangover
It's ok. Part of the infinite past.
Be here now, with us.
They got nothing
hence the freakout across the board.
he taught in China for a year, apparently
So he's obviously some sort of Manchurian, folksy, Midwesterner!
The Chicomm Connection!
we will be hearing a lot about it soon, I'm sure
and I suspect there's a very quick and devastating response already laid out for our team [fingers crossed emoji]
He was there in 89 when the massacre went down.
6 year old stolen valor bullshit for the creepiest weirdos to share with each other.
Remember when John Kerry was a coward? The guy who actually went to Vietnam instead of Studio 54, like Dump.
I always said that Kerry should have stood up on stage during the debates and in his angriest voice declared "I KILLED PEOPLE in the service of my country while George was larking around in the Texas Air Guard!"
I never understood just why he was so passive around that attack.
Most people who have killed people in war really don't want to talk about it.
A teleprompter gave its life for the sake of Trump, and Walz spits on that legacy.
GOP: Vice Presidents can’t serve if they have a misdemeanor! It’s a rule we just made up!
But only if it is in the last year of a term where the Senate and the President are not in the same party.
What a monster!
The headline of the blurb described it as “weird.” This may be attempted sarcasm.
He especially does not like the fragmentation teleprompters that Pabs uses.
In all fairness, it's hard to get fresh clams this far inland.
That's what canned clams are for.
You Monster
I'll have you know that I also use canned clams in my Thanksgiving dressing.
Of course, I am also a monster, so there's that.
Say, did you know who else is from Minnesota?
That's right, Peter Graves was born in Minneapolis.
ever see a naked man Joey?
I've had enough of street fights,
I've had enough of Graves.
- Pete Townshend
Mission Impossible on our side!
And his brother!
He'd have no career at all were it not for self-destructing cassette tapes.
Yes, Joel and the bots told us about that!
Heck, Art Crow wrote a screenplay!
Okay, Ima go watch that episode again.