I haven’t written anything here about the events of the last 48 hours, probably because I’m still trying to process the footage of white supremacist insurrectionists invading the Capitol building holding a fucking confederate flag. If you’re a longtime reader of this here blog you know where my politics lie, but this shit goes beyond simple red-blue divisions. There was no plan, there was no endgame; these were people told to do something by a crackpot dictator who didn’t have the brains to understand what he was saying or the balls to own up to the damage he caused.
Meanwhile, the Capitol Police showed how white America gets to commit felonies on a live broadcast with absolutely no consequence while people of color routinely get rounded up in unmarked vans and teargassed for a photo opportunity. The cops knew this was coming for days and chose not to do anything about it. Black Lives Matter protestors got permits to assemble and were shot for exercising their constitutional rights. These maskless shitheads stormed a federal building, broke federal property, threatened state and federal legislators, and then got to walk back out the door and go home.
Nancy Pelosi is threatening impeachment if Trump doesn’t resign immediately. Twitter finally suspended his account, following Facebook, Twitch and Snapchat. Four years too late, you fuckwits.
Trump’s cabinet is bailing out on him; they don’t even have the decency to go down with the ship they’ve been helping steer into the rocks. Eat a bag of dicks, you worthless shits.
I want the new Attorney General to hit the ground running on Day 1 and prepare federal charges against Trump and his family. If Biden so much as whispers anything about not prosecuting him for all the obvious, illegal shit he’s pulled, my head is gonna explode. You have the house and senate, Joe. Grow a pair of fucking balls.
The President of the American Federation of Teachers issued a formal statement on Betsy DeVos’ resignation today.
Fast Company reports on a data viz designer who saw the a tweet showing the counties of the United States colored in by how they voted, and thought he could do a better job of displaying the truth. You’ve seen the GIF he created—it’s this one:
Measuring Land vs Measuring People https://t.co/Vju0kknYby#HowChartsLie #Elections2020 pic.twitter.com/EKhrJ4lBuo
— xan candal (@xancandal) November 6, 2020
At The Washington Post, Amy Siskind has been keeping a list of all the things the current administration has done differently than all of the previous administrations. Much of our current government has been a series of gentleman’s agreements and understood protocols; the current kakistocracy has pissed and shit all over every one of them. This is all the stuff a proper government is going to have to fix. Drain the swamp, indeed.
I got notification from the state that my ballot was received; next up is to be notified that it was counted.
The New York Times Editorial Board lays out the case against the Great Pumpkin: “Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.”. The whole thing is great, but I love this part:
In June, his administration tear-gassed and cleared peaceful protesters from a street in front of the White House so Mr. Trump could pose with a book he does not read in front of a church he does not attend.
I was patient and took advantage of some sales on Prime day to order a set of iPods Pro while they were $50 off; combined with the refund from my Anker earbuds and a $40 credit from Coinstar, the price was exactly right.
Well, we got through about 30 minutes of that hot mess before I had to leave the room, and Jen turned it off after that. I don’t know what to make of it other than that I don’t believe the pundits who say that Biden won, but neither do I believe that the Great Pumpkin won either. It was just an embarrassment. And Chris Wallace couldn’t keep order in a morgue.
Coup attempts have happened all over the world, and over half have failed. That’s because coups are hard to orchestrate. They are a violation of norms that require quick seizure of multiple levels of institutions with a claim that they are the rightful heir.
Coups tend to fail when government institutions (like elections) are trusted, there is an active citizenry and other nations are ready to become involved.
The role of citizenry is crucial. That’s because during the period right after a coup attempt— when the new government is claiming it is the “real” government — all the institutions have to decide who to listen to.
10 Things You Need to Know to Stop a Coup, from Waging Nonviolence (emphasis mine).
The greenhouse is winding down from its peak this summer. I went out this morning and chopped most of the plants that are still producing way back and yanked four plants that have stopped producing out of their tubs. Most of the cherry plants are still producing fruit and some of it is reddening, but there’s a lot of green fruit out there that might not make it through the fall. My plan is to pull the plants out of the bins and hang them upside-down from the roof to send all the nutrients downward to the fruit before it gets too cold. There are two green heirlooms in the same situation; I’m hoping I can get those to ripen as well. Sadly it also means I’ve got to put the door back in place.
I donated to the Biden/Harris campaign last week, voluntarily opening the floodgates of spam campaign mail, and after hitting DONATE I realized I wanted to get a yard sign. Heading over to the store I saw that a 24″x18″ sign is $25, which is entirely too much money to spend on too small a sign. I had some 4×3′ plywood left over from the Chic Shack and I have an overhead projector, so I decided to make my own. It was easy to find a PDF of the campaign logo, and after I printed it on a transparency I busted out the projector and set it up in the living room facing the wall.
Once I had the stencil drawn, I cut it out on the production table and transfered it to the wood. I’d whitewashed the wood on Saturday so it was ready for paint. At Lowe’s I got two pint-sized samples of red and blue paint so I covered the red section and shot the blue through the stencil with the sprayer. When that had dried I masked off the red section with painter’s tape and brushed it on.
From there it was an easy matter of cutting some leftover wood down for yard spikes and pounding them into the lawn with a deadblow hammer. I have to go back out and straighten the west side sign a little bit, but overall I’m happy with the results. It’s right outside the office window so I get to see the neighborhood walk past every day.