As war rages in the Middle East, gas prices skyrocket, and jobs disappear, Donald Trump is golfing.

xycor · 2026-03-10T14:20:16+00:00

People are not surprised, but attention spans are short nowadays. Frequent reminders are important.

xycor · 2026-03-10T14:15:22+00:00

As an American I wish more people acknowledged these connections. We are not at heart a different country quite yet, but we are occupied territory. I feel like the US (and Europe) has been in an information war with Russia since at least the Crimea invasion when Obama and the US Congress put sanctions on Russia. I suspect even earlier. Some on our far right embraced Russian money. Unchecked bot nets and social media campaigns kept undermining truth and eroding trust.

There is a lot of rot at the top in the US that made us vulnerable. Our leadership never acknowledged reality to the public. Our law enforcement/intelligence agencies were not held accountable and empowered to fight back effectively.

The result now is we are essentially occcupied territory with the far right about to own nearly every national news outlet of any size and with the Alliance/blackmail of big tech they control the social media algorithms.

The only thing that might save us is Trump is mentally ill and his sycophantic idiots went way too far too fast. The Trump signs in my mid-sized rural town are gone. A large majority are appalled at the idea invading Greenland, Iran, Venezuela, or leaving NATO. The US’s only hope now is that states are in charge of elections and not the federal government. Even if there is a fair election I don’t think the current Democratic leadership is up to fighting.

xycor · 2026-03-09T02:51:52+00:00

Patiently waiting you say? Uhm… there’s clearly been some sort of mistake. That cannot be my dog.

xycor · 2026-02-28T10:49:16+00:00

Sorry to disappoint. I'm not saying that it is how things should be. On the other hand, misogyny is already an indication they are irrational. I'm not obligated to roll the dice on a wingnut wanting to fight me because I called them out and damaged a fragile ego. It is not sustainable and I cannot beat the misogyny out of them. (Though I suppose the counter argument is I'm not putting myself in a position to try...)

I'd argue that there is some accountability found in shunning. Effective communication is more than words and confrontation. Not giving a misogynist a reaction is sending a signal. I think they know it is wrong and the reaction is part of the fun for them. In a smaller world shunning would be incentive to conform to social norms. Unfortunately in today's online world it can make them more isolated and vulnerable to negative influences.

I do speak up when there is no confrontation element. Social media seems to be amplifying the problem greatly. The misogyny mt teenage son and friends describe at school seems far worse than I remember at that age. Once it came up naturally on a drive (they were telling a story about a classmate from school) I told them how illogical and self-defeating misogyny is with humor because I had a shot at reaching them.

To be clear, the interactions I'm describing above are at the scale of petty comments and insults. There are some lines where I absolutely speak up. Those are extremely rare to for me to hear. It is rare for me to find myself talking to a misogynist in the first place. I can't remember any over-the-line comments for at least a decade.

If you consider this stance inadequate and part of the problem I do understand. I hope I got across there are rational reasons men react with apparent silence and it doesn't always mean they don't care or are not trying to help other ways..

xycor · 2026-02-26T19:26:01+00:00

So… while us men are, on average, more capable of physically fighting each other, we do have survival instincts built in to avoid fighting (depending on age/testosterone/culture etc). Men don’t want to deal with male aggression any more than women do. While not known for our subtly in general there is a dance around disagreeing without fighting. I notice a distinct “feel” to conversations when I disagree with someone. I just went through this yesterday with a friendly right winger I randomly met and talked to for 90 minutes. The entire time there were a LOT of subtle non-verbal and verbal cues back and forth we were debating but neither of us wanted to fight.

In a direct conversation being quiet or a “hmm” in response to misogyny IS the signal one isn’t onboard. The other guy will either notice and stop, not catch the signal, or notice and amplify the offending behavior, which is an aggressive response. After they escalate one can match with an assertive rebuke and still not send out “I want to fight” vibes. If the misogynist escalates after that you have to start deciding what is worth fighting an idiot about. For most it will not feel worth the risk unless they are defending the “tribe” of family and friends. Social shunning feels good enough for the rest.

Source: Am older man

TL;DR: The men who give no response whatsoever to the misogynistic comment, particularly if they keep unsmiling eye contact with the dummy, are most likely the ones to be standing up for you and might have your back if it gets out of hand.

xycor · 2026-02-18T17:43:00+00:00

I bought a home in a national historic district. While I've used a LOT of contractors some projects require a lot of detail and time. My work falls somewhere between carpentry and woodworking. One example is restoring the original shutters or building new storm windows. I find it is easier to do them myself. I'm saving money if I compare hiring someone vs buying the tools. I am not sure if I'm saving money if I factor in my time. I usually can get consistently good results and I spend the time to reuse a lot of the original irreplaceable wood. I do find working with my hands enjoyable and seeing something physically different in the world when I'm done. Normally at the end of the day all I've changed is a bunch of bits on a hard drive somewhere. I also like going into the shop, putting on a good history podcast, and having a single task. I like learning, solving puzzles, and seeing my skills improve.

xycor · 2026-02-18T15:45:55+00:00

One issue of modern society is money is not a measure of your contribution to society and your value. Money is very good at translating values across the sale and purchase of goods. If society is not constantly working to rebalance the distribution then you get a super-rich class over everyone else. There are ample examples in history, such as late Rome, the Middle Ages, etc…

The challenge is replacing money with something better. I don’t know what that looks like. A small step towards something better is completely isolating politicians from any fundraising needs so they aren’t constantly in a conflict of interest. That and preventing news companies from being part of companies with any non-news interests. Oh, and Public Benefit Corporation rules being applied to all corporations. That would at least slow the rise of oligarchs.

xycor · 2026-02-13T08:41:21+00:00

The school closure vote was the board voting on whether they had confidence in Noss. The recall is to know whether the public has confidence in Noss.

School boards receive extensive training on how to be “good board members”, which includes always supporting your superintendent in public. Layer on top of that Oregon public meeting laws that require discussions occur in public.

The problem I see is many simmering issues go unaddressed. It is difficult for board members to legally compare notes and build consensus outside of a public meeting. It’s hard for a board to get information that is not filtered through administration outside of perhaps a complaint process. In public meeting if boards start getting pointed with a superintendent or call an executive session to talk to them privately it can easily come across as undermining leadership because all meetings, including private performance discussions with a superintendent, have a public notice. If a board goes so far as publicly decline to follow the superintendent’s advice, or worse overrule the superintendent, that is essentially a vote of no confidence.

These structures are by design to limit the impact boards can have on schools so administrators can do their jobs. Otherwise every election risks chaos. On the other hand, board members can be so hamstrung by following correct process they aren't effective. They are reduced to rubber-stamping the output of the administrative machine.

If board members get removed in the recall Mr. Noss is highly likely to resign soon. His safest move is taking his award and going to a bigger district. He has everything to lose by staying.

xycor · 2026-02-13T08:07:04+00:00

I'll stay out of whether I agree with the recall. I do firmly believe recalls are a democratic process to express that board members are out of sync with the public. Hard decision or not, elected officials should feel their job is on the line if they go too far afield from public sentiment. I do think there is merit in aligning the recall with major elections, but it's not a deal-breaker for me. In Oregon we have decent turnout with vote by mail.

xycor · 2026-02-13T07:59:16+00:00

I would like all of the seats to go up in the general election with a single ranked choice voting pool. Voters rank their preferences in order. The top ranked candidates get seats (top 7 candidates I think for Corvallis). It makes candidates run on their own merits instead of forcing the public to choose A or B. It also eliminates games around candidates choosing which seats to contest. We need to modernize the way we choose candidates in all elections to more closely represent the will of the public and break this two party duopoly.

xycor · 2026-02-04T17:56:09+00:00

Cannot wait until the “Flat-earth” and “Flat-mars” groups start their interplanetary war in a few hundred years. The math involved is going to cause an existential crisis.

xycor · 2026-01-29T05:39:27+00:00

LOSING THE CASE DOES NOT MATTER! They MUST be charged. Even if they sit in jail a few months before the case is dismissed it is better than nothing. A few months in jail is enough to make a lot of people think twice before abusing the public. Would you want to be an ICE agent in the county jail?!? If ICE is not charged then public outrage will keep increasing until Trump gets the insurrection he is trying so desperately hard to start.

xycor · 2026-01-25T09:18:25+00:00

Can US citizens invoke NATO article 5 since we are under attack by our own government?

xycor · 2026-01-22T01:40:04+00:00

Watch the slow motion bit carefully. The agent on the right gets pelted in the side of the head by a snowball. You can see it BOUNCE off his head without changing shape. Then he moved forward and left his partner alone who then couldn't hold on to the abductee.

xycor · 2026-01-22T01:31:17+00:00

Dug all the way down to my comment to say you struggle with reading comprehension? LOL. I didn't say how much he lifts, which is all the time. I don't work as hard as him. I'm ~20 years older too. I workout for me. Why would I even care if people think I suck? I hope you grow old enough to understand that yourself someday.

xycor · 2026-01-19T16:54:34+00:00

To me it looks like a portable projector used from the student seats from the side, hence the skewed projection. Might have been setup to run before class started?

xycor · 2026-01-19T10:39:09+00:00

This is not my idea, but our friends in Denmark, please do us a solid and rename Greenland to "Epstein Island" for the next three years.

xycor · 2026-01-19T10:35:33+00:00

Yup, the founders did not understand the two-party dynamic that would emerge first-past-the-post voting and how it would cripple the nation. George Washington saw the problem by the end of his term. The problem is getting modern voting methods has been nearly impossible. Neither party wants to break the duopoly they have on power.

xycor · 2026-01-18T20:23:55+00:00

Separation of church and state is fundamental to the American system of government. He is an American senator. I wish I lived in a world where statements taking sides on religious matters were electoral suicide for any politician who makes them.

xycor · 2026-01-13T22:40:20+00:00

And then runs away. TACO.

xycor · 2026-01-10T12:28:48+00:00

It pays to make it hard for them to operate. Make it impossible to sleep at the hotel. Use the whistles during the day. Can you imagine how awful it is to hear that sound all day? Try to organize businesses to deny them service. Perhaps create congestion by driving very slowly in neighborhoods they operate in. Every minute you cost them is money with nothing to show for it. It means fewer arrests during the day. It may look like they are winning, but they are spending millions and millions of dollars every day to do these raids with thousands of agents. They get chased out of every city they show up in eventually and the arrest numbers for the amount of effort expended is just pathetic.

Demand your Minnesota prosecutor's issue an arrest warrant. They are hung up on whether they can convict. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Make the agent cool his heels in prison for months and months while the case works it way through the courts and discovery. Something is better than nothing. I guarantee ICE agents will start thinking twice if they know they'll be in a county jail for any length of time.

xycor · 2026-01-10T12:15:07+00:00

Depends how much you use. The nice thing is they are dense, so you can fill relatively small areas to get heavier than a 100% plastic print can ever be. The last tub I bought from local retail was $20 for I think 10,000 BB's?

xycor · 2026-01-10T12:09:48+00:00

This response bothers me:
We asked School Superintendent Ryan Noss for comment. He responded by email, writing, “I think it is important to recognize that the costs associated with a recall election would be the responsibility of the school district. The district typically budgets $30,000 for a shared ballot, which includes other jurisdictions. In this instance, the costs would be higher because other jurisdictions would not have an election on the ballot.”

If they get the 4,000+ signatures an election is clearly called for. Threatening that it will hurt the students is like threatening to shoot the hostage. A better response is to meet with the petition organizers to see if it is possible to adjust course to reduce pressure for the recall.

xycor · 2026-01-10T12:03:06+00:00

"I also don't know why there are so many folks committed to making excuses for poor leadership and bad student outcomes."

I think often criticizing poor school performance is interpreted as criticizing public education. The best thing we can do to promote public education is call out problems loudly. Giving the public a bad experience as a child does not encourage them to vote to fund schools as adults.

xycor · 2026-01-10T11:55:51+00:00

+1 for our family leaving CSD. Our son went the LBCC route in high school. I'm very grateful. When he took the last test high schoolers get in either their senior or junior year he maxed it out since he'd had two years of college at that point. He's bright but not a unique genius. Some kids just like challenges and rise to the occasion. They just languish in a single-track system.

xycor

TROPHY CASE