Amazing! We have been waiting for over a week on the insurance company to decide whether to authorize more hyperbaric oxygen treatments for my husband. We are floored to get the notice that they have approved 100 more sessions! I guess they figure that doing that is more cost effective than having him in the emergency room every 10 days. Whatever the reasoning, we are grateful!

Just on the phone to mum

Me - Blah blah blah {BURP} blah blah

Mum - how do I write that sound down

Me - giggles ... Sorry it just flowed out

Mum - yeah it always does

Me - giggles

Mum - you nearly deafened me

Hugz & xXx

And I got a refund of 30$ too ... Winning

Hugz & xXx

https://www.europesays.com/1362915/ House Republicans Turn On JD Vance as Trump Campaign Unravels: ‘The Worst Choice’ #AnythingGoesNews #BreakingNews #GlobalNews #LatestNews #News #WorldNews

Joey Puppycat Ramone #claws #cat #catsofmatsodon #blackcat #BlackCatAppreciationDay #void #CatsOfFediverse

At the Olympics, AI is watching you

New system foreshadows a future where there are too many CCTV cameras for humans to physically watch.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/07/at-the-olympics-ai-is-watching-you/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

Is this a cardinal direction?

📷 #Nikon #Z8 + Nikkor 180-600mm (ISO 3600, f8, 1/3200s)

#birds #birdphotography #wildlifephotography

Notes on remitting Stripe Tax to the UK and EU

https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/notes-on-remitting-stripe-tax-to-the-uk-and-eu

#DigitalNomad #tax #stripe #UK #EU

This book could have been an article.

This article could have been a paragraph.

This paragraph could have been a sentence.

This sentence could have been a word.

This post could have been a thought.

Just returned from the wine shop around the corner and lo! It’s time for the #Momocrats!

Pour a glass of your favorite bevy and spend happy hour with your funniest, smartest friends talking politics!

Also: place your bets on the first F-Bomb. I think it will be about JD Vance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sibd_hXVmCs
H/G @Karoli @socalmom @AlizaWrites

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar comments on the horrifying shooting of Sonya Massey in her home in Springfield, Illinois, after she called the police thinking an intruder was on her property. Policeman Sean P. Grayson then shot Massey. Abdul-Jabbar writes,

"The question here isn’t how this could happen, but why it happens with such regularity—mostly to Black people. …

This is why Black people fear the police."

#police #murder #Black #shooting #SonyaMassey
/1

https://kareem.substack.com/p/the-horrifying-police-shooting-that

I hope the shit hits the fan at this weekend's Labor conference, re #Palestine. #auspol

about 1% of sobriety is giving up the thing one is addicted to. 99% is attending to the reasons one is addicted in the first place.

Central Park today: a grey catbird, a northern cardinal that found a peanut from a supply that someone was using to feed birds (plus a rat…), and a northern flicker.
#birds #wildlifePhotography #birdCPP

Nice boys and girls at JB hi-fi ... I get an upgrade on the headphones for the same price of zero $ ... Yay

Hugz & xXx

Happy Friday !
#CatsOfMastodon

TIL that John Lennon's masterpiece Imagine was co-written by Yoko Ono

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_(song)
#til #todayilearned
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1ed2wh2/til_that_john_lennons_masterpiece_imagine_was/

One final note about the shooting, then resources on JD Vance and Project 2025

I’m going to say one final thing about the Trump shooting, then turn the rest of this into a resource post, highlighting some useful information about Project 2025, JD Vance, and the two together, since there is some involvement.

I argued in the past that it doesn’t matter whether Trump’s ear was hit by a bullet or shrapnel, because it fucking doesn’t, it was still an assassination attempt. I’ve argued about how Democratic conspiracy theories give us more MAGA and give them something to counterbalance against January 6th.

But most importantly, going off about which happened gives Donald Trump more attention for something he wants attention about.

For a blessed few days, nobody was talking about the stinking orange buffoon, not really, and given that literally nothing changes about the story he wants to talk about if it’s shrapnel or if it’s a bullet, that was a really good thing. It was “fuckity-bye, ear” in the news and I was delighted for it.

Even talking about him overhyping the damage or whatever just gives it all more air.

Don’t give it – or him – any air. Don’t let him get up. Until and unless something actually major actually happens – not hypotheses or speculation, actually something major – keep it quiet, because it helps shift the focus back on him.

Keep the focus on Harris and on Vance. That’s what’s good for us. Not speculating about trivia nobody outside the obsessed cares about: himself, as victim.

Make sense? Good. I’m shutting up about it until and unless there’s some actual hard news, and I recommend you do too.

Have some more resources on Project 2025 and JD Vance; use them as appropriate when talking to your friends and family about the election, particularly the Trumpy ones:

• This is a two-fer: Trump again denies Project 2025 — despite Vance writing foreword for chief architect’s book. This is the same book that calls progressives “unhumans” and praises the January 6th insurrectionists. So that’s fun.
• You’ve heard the “childless cat ladies” with “no stake in America” quote, of course. Push comes to shove, he really doesn’t think women – certainly not childless women – should be able to vote. He doesn’t just come out and say it like the GOP candidate for governor in Nroth Carolina did, but it’s in there.
• There are so many levels of Christofascism in the Project, here’s yet another one: A Jewish couple were rejected as foster parents because of their religion. This is the future Project 2025 envisions
• FBI director issues warning on ‘frightening’ Project 2025, specifically its plans to make the FBI directly responsible not to the constitution but to one man, Donald Trump.
• How J.D. Vance Went From Green Tech Investor to Climate Change Doubter – it’s about money and power, naturally.
• JD Vance roadblocked dozens of US diplomats while he obsessed over their views on gay rights, because he really, really hates the queers.
• Anybody remember the Spoils System in the Federal government? I kind of doubt it, because nobody – I mean, literally I’ve seen nobody – talks about it in relation to J.D. Vance’s radical plan to build a government of Trump loyalists based on Project 2025. Not only was it massively corrupt from top to bottom – absolute looting for the winning political party – but it even triggered the assassination of President James Garfield.
• Enjoy this big collection of JD Vance being absolutely evil. He really hates women without children – no, he really hates women in general, and hating women who don’t have (white) children is only the start.
• Here Vance supporting police tracking women’s periods for evidence of abortion.

There’s more, but this is getting pretty long. I’ll leave you with this last little nugget:

• The AP had to take down their fact check about JD Vance never having sex with with a couch. This is because while he didn’t actually tell such a story in Hillbilly Elegy, they can’t prove a negative, so couch time is back on.

And with that, enjoy the weekend.

101 days remain.

[link] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics

Joy Division
#photography #nature

Dear Dems,

Keep the focus on the American people. Give positive attention to Kamala Harris. Or talk about Trump's declining mental state or the dangers of Project 2025.

Stop wasting time on meaningless BS. It's fun to talk about JD Vance having sex with a couch--but it's pointless. All the BS about diapers, bronzers, Botox, and even whether Trump was hit with a bullet or shrapnel detracts from what gets voters to pay attention and vote.

Focus on what matters to get people to #VoteBlue.

When they kick Vance off the ticket they’re going to say it’s so he can spend more time with his furniture

Raccoons are trying to break into Cybertrucks, and there's some speculation that this is happening because the raccoons are literally confusing them with dumpsters

The #Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles command, what rogues teach, and young children are made to learn by heart.
—Voltaire

___________________
#atheism #faith #god

Theists:
Teaching kids that a celestial magician can solve real-world problems is *child abuse* and fails to prepare them for life.

___________________
#atheism #faith #god

Must-read: Brilliant, surgical analysis by Michelle Goldberg of how bad fathering twisted JD Vance's character, leaving a hole in his core that he desperately tries to fill by adopting a series of fickle masks. [gift link] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/opinion/jd-vance-changeability.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-E0.f_Wx.WGS_rVG5ir8m&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

Vaccines tell a success story that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump forget—here are some key reminders

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-vaccines-success-story-robert-kennedy.html

Vance: Childless Americans Should Pay Higher Taxes - Joe.My.God.

https://www.joemygod.com/2024/07/vance-childless-americans-should-pay-higher-taxes/

from Lakota Man

So, why is the NRA (National Rifle Association) engaging in politics when IRS code 501c explicitly prohibits tax-exempt organizations from doing so?
It’s time for the NRA, the Heritage Foundation AND politically active churches to start paying some taxes.
Who here agrees?

Shingles vaccine might lower risk of dementia https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2024/07/26/shingles-vaccine-lower-risk-dementia/1561721999144/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

George

#Photography
#DogsOfMastodon

#bloomscrolling #photography #mastodon
#hibiscus #yellow #flowers #flowerfriday

Yeti heard how some single males will take a selfie while holding a fish to show they’re good providers. Lacking such a fish, Yeti took a selfie with one of his favorite toys to show he will provide you much amusement if you adopt him.

https://cdhs.net/meet-the-pets/
#sheltercat #adoptdontshop #yeti #catsofmastodon

Happy Hour News

I think we all have been holding our breath wondering what the callous Yutes of Today were gonna do during the 20204 Goat Rodeo when the choice was between two old dudes (one admittedly a monster), and they were not budging. And they described themselves as double-haters, and said they planned to turn to independent candidates if they’d bother to get off the couch at all.

They’ve budged:

The election just got a lot more interesting. It’s inspiring young voters to register.

Move over Taylor Swift. Vice President Kamala Harris may be one-upping you ‒ at voter registration anyway.

Last September on National Voter Registration Day, Swift set a record by encouraging more than 30,000 people to register in a single day.

But in the first 48 hours after President Joe Biden bowed out of his bid for reelection and Harris announced she was running in his place, more than 38,500 registered, according to Vote.org, a nonpartisan platform that encourages voter registration.

As of Friday morning, the figure had surged past 100,000.

Holy cow!

“An engaged electorate is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy, and this continued wave of voter enthusiasm shows that Americans are determined to make their voices heard,” Andrea Hailey, CEO of Vote.org, said in an emailed statement to USA TODAY. “The surge of youth engagement is a strong indication that the next generation is motivated to show up this November.”

As we’ve been saying all along this Goat Rodeo, it is going to be won and lost depending on getting more new people into our column than into Team Evil’s. And I gotta think —I just gotta!— that most of those under 35 voters are not signing up for the 4th Reich.

I might be hope scrolling these days, but this is nothing but good news for democracy (little dee).

https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/07/26/news-that-will-drive-you-to-drink-2137/

i don't know if anyone around here still visits Reddit, but have any of yall'st noticed that it's more and more spammed with ai generated sludge

Tucker Carlson has overtaken Joe Rogan on Spotify, $SPOT, and is now the #1 podcast in America.

#news #finance #economics #stocks #options

Lane closures on West Atlanta Road in Cobb County Friday and Sunday overnights https://cobbcountycourier.com/2024/07/lane-closures-on-west-atlanta-road-in-cobb-county-friday-and-sunday-overnights/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

they call me: Finally Off Work for the Next Day, Hell Yeah

Since I got asked this a bunch last night after reporting stuff I heard from the White Women Call #AnswerTheCall2024, “Now is not the time for purity politics,” I’ll define what I think that means.

Leftist purity politics is:

“I’m not going to do that thing to move the world left because the world is not already left enough.”

(You can feel this way I guess but what’s the point in saying it? It only brings down the energy of those who have chosen to act in a way they think best.)

Or variants, including “I’m going to distract from leftward momentum and drain energy from people moving the world left because they aren’t left enough.”

Purity politics is NOT:

“Please consider the effects on marginalized people as we work together moving left.”

(This is worthwhile actually, and not what I was calling “trivial.”)

Nor:

“I have a better idea for a strategy / approach / policy, so I’ll try to persuade you but we may disagree and have to hash it out.”

Also productive.

🧵

#USPol

The degree of cruelty that California ‘liberal’ politicians have towards homeless people is simply breathtaking.