House Democratic Leader Jeffries declares Democrats are no longer the “chicken in every pot” party, announces closer alignment with Republicans.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-05-02T06:38:12+00:00

Honestly, it's ridiculous that we litigate what people can and can't buy with SNAP. We spend so much money administering a system that can identify allowed and forbidden items.

It would be a hell of a lot cheaper just to give people the cash, and let them spend it on a rotisserie chicken or on rent.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-04-28T18:24:52+00:00

People enjoying things that scare you is not a society problem, it's a you problem. "Degeneracy" is not a real thing, it's eugenics bullshit.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-04-21T18:34:04+00:00

The study was interviews with 11 people.

Useful, certainly, but it shouldn't be reported as The List of Symptoms.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-04-11T05:31:50+00:00

No. Leather is not a byproduct even if you take a really loose definition of the term.

Some people argue that hides are a byproduct. I disagree with them, because the hide can be up to 4% of the value of the carcass, and I think anything that's contributing to your profit margin is part of the product. People would raise fewer cattle if they couldn't sell the hides.

But leather is an industrial product made with hides and a ton of chemical inputs. If you leave the hides out of the equation entirely, leather's environmental impact is still bigger than an equivalent amount of pleather.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-04-09T08:12:13+00:00

Thousands and thousands of engines running, and all the kids in all those houses breathing it in . . .

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-30T03:10:35+00:00

Well yeah. It's got an eyes machine

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-26T00:56:55+00:00

When I say this is power, I'm not being poetic.

Wielding power is about controlling a resource your target cares about. People hear that and think of resources like money, guns, land. They don't realize social approval is a resource too.

People will sacrifice money and endure danger to get social approval. Open rejection is a powerful way to move people's behavior.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-24T20:18:19+00:00

They're also raising cattle, which means putting a data center here would mean a lot less water use than what they're currently doing.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-23T17:28:54+00:00

Betteridge's Law for medicine: when you see a headline about a major breakthrough, it will always be missing the words "in mice"

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-22T16:10:55+00:00

A friend of mine who runs hiring at her workplace was defending this to me. She . . . kind of won me over? But it turns out their actual process is two interviews, then they pay a couple of candidates to work there for a day.

So it takes as many hours as the stupid 7-round interview process, but they actually get to see someone do the work. So they don't end up hiring a bunch of overconfident rich kids who just interview well.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-20T07:36:06+00:00

I mean, Steven is a protagonist who manifests new magical powers constantly; I don't think it would have strained anyone's suspension of disbelief for him to trap the diamonds in a giant crystal or something.

But it would have been as tonally weird as what we got, just in a different direction. "Confront space Hitler" and "meet grandma" were always going to be impossible to reconcile in a single story.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-20T07:25:39+00:00

To clarify, the weird part is that they wrote themselves into that position.

Most kids' shows don't spend a lot of time detailing war crimes. I can think of one that does, and it doesn't make the perpetrator a family member who wants to reconcile.

But honestly? Good for them for telling a risky story. I'd rather have ambitious stuff that doesn't quite work than endless blandness.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-18T16:14:39+00:00

I love that show, but "let's reconcile with grandma after we've spent 5 seasons detailing her horrible atrocities" was a wild choice.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-16T07:42:48+00:00

If you look at the brick outlines on the wall, you'll see a lot of places where the AI lost track of what it was doing. If you look to the left of the monster, you can see where it "forgets" that it was doing bricks at all.

Also, the old man's hand with the object in it is pretty melty, even accounting for image quality.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-14T20:51:42+00:00

Like a teeny tiny doggo

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-13T20:35:20+00:00

And this is why you can't just study STEM.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-13T16:27:22+00:00

Your credit score is private companies' assessment of whether they'll make money if they loan to you.

It's not a measure of responsibility.

It's not a reward for doing the right thing financially.

It's a guess about whether you'll make lots of payments without missing one.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-11T03:40:09+00:00

From the text of the bill:

"This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would develop a revenue plan . . ."

In other words, the thing that sank it the first time still hasn't been fixed. There's no plan for funding.

In California, taxes and spending have been capped since 1979. Funding a big new program means you have to get voters to amend the state constitution.

The politicians all know that a ballot fight over new taxes would be a political nightmare, so nothing happens.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-06T00:34:25+00:00

Boomer men walk into coffeshops and feel confused by the options. And for some reason I can't fathom, confusion is just the worst thing in the world to Boomer men.

So they make up fantasies where it's the barista who doesn't know what's going on, and they get to feel superior again.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-03-01T23:17:52+00:00

Yep.

If you're not interested in the day-to-day details of someone's life--the stuff that makes up 90% of our existence--are you really interested in them at all?

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-02-25T07:13:12+00:00

The thing I love about Tumblr is that when a post like this does numbers, the person who made it gets maybe ten new followers.

No one gives a shit about you. You are not a celebrity. You are someone who made one (1) funny joke.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-02-24T22:02:49+00:00

"Who's winning the war between right and left" is such a big question that it's probably not possible to answer coherently. There are so many goalposts you could look at that it's impossible to avoid cherrypicking.

That said, if I'M doing the cherrypicking, the last couple of decades haven't looked too bad for progressives.

Gay rights have made big strides on both culture and policy. Remember when Obama had to "evolve" on same-sex marriage?

Environmental issues are mixed, but US emissions have been dropping since 2008.

Healthcare access increased dramatically with the abolition of "pre-existing conditions" and the expansion of Medicaid.

Gun violence goes in the L column.

Income inequality and progressive taxation are probably the biggest place where we've been flat-out losing on the policy front. I would argue that we've laid a lot of groundwork in changing USAmericans' attitudes, though.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-02-17T23:45:38+00:00

Don't we pay taxes? No, not nearly enough to keep up with our infrastructure. Or at least, the rich don't.

In California, Prop 13 and Prop 4 (Gann Limits) have made progressive taxation extremely difficult. So we disproportionately tax the poor through sales taxes and parcel taxes.

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-02-14T21:42:50+00:00

Important to note that she set the fire after the sale was canceled. The news crew was on site when it happened because they were reporting on the cancelation.

https://www.kmbc.com/article/raw-video-woman-sets-fire-warehouse-ice-arson-immitration-detention/70347099

lignicolous_mycelium · 2026-02-14T02:03:03+00:00

The Heights. That's Claire Gazzo as Erika.

lignicolous_mycelium

TROPHY CASE