WTF-Beta

The saga continues. The NH Executive Council voted to terminate the contract with the out-of-state company that ran the inspection program--the company who sued the state for ending inspections.

At this time inspections are suspended until April, bucking the judge's orders.

“We have a program that is not authorized under New Hampshire law, but which the state has been ordered to continue by federal court order, given the requirements of the Clean Air Act,” said [NH Attorney General] Formella.

There is finger pointing, but efforts to resolve the quandary are on going.

Too bad #1 doesn't have the view of #2.

One thing that would bother me a lot about #1 is that it looks like there could be a lot of foot traffic right by your windows.

#1 has the better kitchen, but didn't you say you weren't much of a cook?

#2 has a more pleasant exterior. And that view!

I don't like the ultra shiny floors in #2 and if I lived there I'd be covering the floors with lots of rugs.

If I were younger, man what a dream to snatch up this place in rural France. (fyi, a gîte = a holiday rental)

Link to video

What say you? I did not write this, I came across it on one of Reich's comment sections. . .

DONALD TRUMP IS REALLY GOING TO ATTEMPT A COUP D’ETAT

                                            By Steve Parker

I was on my way to a doctor’s appointment when it came together in a massive explosion in my brain, this is actually going to happen. Donald Trump is going to attempt to pull off a coup d’etat on November 3rd, 2026. I am going to see armed civil war in the United States in my lifetime. I am going to be carrying a rifle in my 82nd year.

You only have to look at his army in training. ICE agents are following the Nazi playbook of the past used by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to destabilize and rough up society to ready them for the transition from democracy to fascism..

What is the most frightening aspect of these ICE agents is that they are being recruited to be loyal to the fascist trump regime and not the U.S. Constitution. This means that he is recruiting hundreds of thousands of young, strong men and women who share the MAGA mentality of delighting in cruelty for cruelty sake, power for the sake of control, and intimidation for the sake of enjoyment.

In reality if these agents were told to go to war for the trump regime, ie. violate the Constitution to overthrow our democratic government, I don’t see many defending our republic or ignoring the unlawful orders given by trump.

His current paramilitary organization, ICE, is absolutely loyal to donald trump and has shown on a daily basis violations of the law and the Constitution in the name of the “invasion from within” as commanded by Fat Donald or the twin psychopaths Stephen Miller, and the puppy shooting, Kristi Noem.

So on November 3, 2026, this group of fascist, 5th columnists will be asked to attack and physically obstruct countless polling places in strategic blue cities in many blue states on some imaginary “rigged election” bullshit. This will disrupt and invalidate the election and create immense confusion causing a Constitutional crisis that will have to be sorted out by Congress and/or the courts. This will give the fascists an opportunity to sow more havoc and confusion and take the election decision out of the hands of the people and put it into the hands of politicians (the Supreme Court has been politicized by the Republicans and trump).

Trump is already broadcasting his plan, “The Republicans ought to take control of voting. Nationalize voting. The states are just an agent of the federal government..”

The only way to stop Donald Trump from attempting his coup in November is to show him in February and March that the laws are to be upheld and violations will be prosecuted and perpetrators will be jailed.

The lead up to the coup, ICE’s reign of terror today, has to be aggressively and legally limited and defunded while decapitating the leaders by putting them on public trial for breaking the law and jailed if convicted.

The question that wakes me up at 2:30 AM is, who is literally going to fight back by putting their bodies in opposition to this well -funded, well-recruited, well-staffed, and well -armed Strumabteilung (SA) or ICE agents of the DHS on November 3rd?.

Who were the SA? Another theft by the trump fascists from their long dead brethren. “The Sturmabteilung (SA), or "Storm Detachment," was the original Nazi Party paramilitary wing (1920–1945), crucial to Adolf Hitler’s rise in the 1920s and early 1930s. Known as "Brownshirts" for their uniforms, they protected Nazi rallies, disrupted opposing meetings, and intimidated political opponents.”

The fascist Trump regime is, also, attempting to ready “Concentration camps” to house political prisoners as well as anyone who opposes donald trump.. Under the guise of facilities to hold up to 12,000 immigrants, these huge warehouses will, in reality, be the prisons for trump’s enemies. They may currently have names like Dilley or Otay-Mesa but in reality they are being prepared to function as Treblinka and Auschhwitz.

The Democrats in the Congress have to put up a fight to the death to prosecute the fascists leaders in the Republican party or decapitate the leaders Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and Mike Johnson by putting them on trial and jailing them if convicted of breaking the law.

This is going to happen! Donald Trump is really going to attempt a coup d’etat on our beloved land and Republic. This fucking moron who has stolen the presidency with help from Russia and support from the Republican party is going to end our wonderful, free country as we know it. A minority of fascists will attempt to overthrow our government.

We have to do more than peacefully resist. We have to do more than talk. We have to aggressively take the fight to them with the goal of taking out of play the fascists in positions of leadership in the Republican party and the trump regime. We have to prosecute with the force and power that Congress and society still have in their possession for those flounting the laws.

Donald Trump is going to attempt to overthrow our constitution and our government on November 3rd, 2026. He is preparing for it now. We the people have to fight him today. We the people cannot wait until November 3rd to prepare for this existential battle. We the people have to take it to them offensively instead of waiting and responding to them allowing the fascist to define the war and control the narrative and daily skirmishes. Our representatives in Congress need to impeach Kristi Noem and/or Pam Bondi to let them (trump's fascist regime) feel some consequence and know that they are not immune to the lawlessness they are exhibiting.

I love the European Robin, so adorable. I love our robins too, they have a lovely song.

Will this one survive the winters up there?

Nothing.

So much stupidity.

If AI takes over it's because stupid people will let it take over. They will swallow the lie that it will make our lives so much better. It won't. Because we don't know how to handle it. We don't understand it's proper roll in society. It's the same with all technological advance. There is always a down side (sometimes a big one) that gets swept under the rug and ignored because it's so much fun to play with shiny new toys and all the money they can make.

Look at computers. Damned useful; sometimes people do outright fabulous things with them. The internet, ditto. Cell phones, maybe, maybe not. But we've spent decades sweeping all the negative aspects of these technologies under the rug to make sure they work mostly for the benefit of making profits, not the betterment of society. They replaced artisans and skill in many fields, replacing them with heaps of rubbish and inferior goods.

I have little faith that our politics will usher in this new technology in a way that benefits society equitably and prioritizes humanity.

I like croutons after they've soaked up a bit of soup and go a bit soft.

Wow. And he plays so much with his eyes closed. I wish had such good blind knowledge of the geography of the keyboard!

Hi, @Big-John ! Nice to hear from you. Funny, you crossed my mind just a few weeks ago; I was wondering how you were doing. I saw a picture of lake Michigan along Chicago and was reminded of the time you showed me some sites.

I can't say I have a favorite, there are simply too many great artists and paintings. But I do have some that I'm partial to. From the Renaissance period, for example, I like Perugino quite a lot. For the time and subject, he paints nice faces. Very often, faces back then fall into the grotesque or absurd.

@ShiroKuro That's no thread drift. I should change the title to something more generic, like US Olympics.

I don't have TV either, so I can only catch the meager offerings NBC posts on YouTube (and it's stingy to say the best).

Here is something I'm not getting: They are using drones now for some events. Alpine skiing, for instance. Now, when I watch videos from vloggers I don't hear nary a peep from the drones they use. Why is it, a "professional" outfit like NBC has these drones that whine and wheez and buzz and distract like crazy? Surely, they can either mute the drone footage, or edit out the sound. It seems very sloppy to me.

I'd also love it if more than one media outlet were allowed to cover the games.

The choreography of this dance is stellar!

Link to video

I like this Italian couple's music choice.

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Top notch this year.

Amber Glenn free skate at Nationals this year:

Link to video

Testosterone-lower drugs and radiation are standard treatments for prostate cancer.

From Robert Reich:

Unfortunately, testosterone-lowering drugs have some unpleasant side effects — fatigue, weight gain, declining bone and muscle mass, reduced sex drive, impotence and erectile dysfunction, hot flashes, mood changes, liver damage, and greater risk of heart attack.

Think menopause for men.

Long story short, I was about to take a testosterone-reducing drug when a doctor offered a second opinion, urging me to use estrogen (estradiol) patches instead. She told me about recent research in the U.K. showing the patches to be just as effective as testosterone-reducing drugs in lowering testosterone and fighting prostate cancer — but without most of the awful side effects.

Oh, and the patches are far cheaper than the drugs.

So, you may ask: Why are testosterone-reducing drugs still being prescribed when they have all sorts of lousy side effects, and when estrogen patches are just as effective without most of those side effects, and they’re cheaper?

Answer: because pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) prefer the more expensive drug treatment.

Okay, now I need to give you a bit of background on PBMs.

PBMs rake in big profits by controlling the pharmaceutical market and siphoning off some of the profits to the biggest insurance companies, from which they extract rebates.

Ergo, they have every incentive to push for pricier drugs because that’s where the money is. (This also explains why research into cheaper remedies is so often done in the U.K. and elsewhere rather than in the United States, where the PBMs have a lot of influence over what’s researched.)

Under former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan (whom I spoke with recently), the FTC released a series of damning reports on PBMs — and filed a critical antitrust case against them for inflating the prices of insulin.

The FTC found that the big three PBMs — Caremark Rx, LLC (affiliated with CVS), Express Scripts, Inc. (with ESI), and OptumRx, Inc. (with OptumRx) — marked up generic drugs dispensed at their affiliated pharmacies by thousands of percent.

Lina Khan says these include many lifesaving drugs, such as those to treat cancer.

Which is why Pharmacy Benefit Managers have been pushing more expensive drugs to treat prostate cancer — drugs that also have worse side effects than estrogen patches.

But here’s the good news. Congress has just reined in PBMs.

Based on the work of Senators Ron Wyden and Mike Crapo, Congress issued rules that prohibit PBMs from discriminating against smaller pharmacies or keeping any part of the rebates they extract, limiting them to flat dollar amounts rather than percentages of a drug’s price, and requiring them to give their customers full pricing information.

The new rules were included in the DHS spending bill that Trump signed into law Tuesday. Most of these changes will go into effect in 2028.

Lovely.

Link to video

Per SCOTUS! Any little bit of good news is welcome in these dark days.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed California to use a new voter-approved congressional map that is favorable to Democrats in this year’s elections, rejecting a last-ditch plea from state Republicans and the Trump administration.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-california-congressional-maps-8362a34b739ea91d37a190eee1b6a6d1

@Daniel I wish I had enough money to afford both!

If I could truly afford a place in the country and a place in the city--I would most likely spend most of my time in the country. So I think that's the answer.

It may simply be due to the fact that I was born and grew up in the country. I know people who were born and grew up in the city and I suspect it might be hard for them to imagine living full-time in the country. But everybody is different, so who knows.

There was a restaurant on St. Marks Place in the East Village that I used to frequent that made a terrific miso salad dressing. Just fabulous.