Thrashy

I've not rewatched Voyager since its original airing, but my recollection is that they had been playing up a Seven/Doctor pairing for a while and then Chakotay just swept in out of the blue as the Designated Guy in the final episodes. I always wondered if there was pressure against pairing off the two most "synthetic" members of the crew as being too much like having them "keep to their kind?"

In Trump's case it is usually to do with his own inflated claims of rally attendance rather than any firm polling data. Donny really knows how to inflame his base, but his party's consistent underperformance in by-year elections suggests that doesn't translate into general election success.

The only people who didn't take that bet were ones who didn't see the point of putting money on 1:1.01 odds.

So this is something that I already have to deal with at the state and local level, in the form of building and fire codes. Most such codes are developed by standards organizations. Is it a little bullshit that these organizations are able to maintain copyright control over parts of the law? Yes, but also organizations like the International Code Council and the National Fire Protection Association generally do a very good job developing these documents, and the current state of affairs is such that these organizations and other like ANSI and ISO are de-facto part of the fabric of law in the specialized areas they write standards and tests for. Requiring their publications to be freely and publicly available will actually be an improvement on the current state of affairs, where much of their work is locked behind paywalls.

After leaving the church, I've always found Saul/Paul's conversion story a bit suspect. So you mean to tell me that you're just out on the road one day, going from town to town persecuting Jesus-cultists, and a beam of light from heaven strikes you and tell you that what you actually need to do is join the Jesus-cultists, but spend the rest of your life assiduously walking back every radical thing they believe? Suuuure. I think maybe ol' Saul just saw a movement with a power vacuum at the top and thought he should be one to fill it.

Jumping all the way back to 1954 in Lee Atwater's infamous timeline of the Southern Strategy and hoping the 2024 electorate will go with them is a bold strategy. We'll see how it plays out for them.

There's a certain sweet irony in the "token DEI hire" being the overwhelming and enthusiastic consensus pick to take over the campaign. Not that I expect Republican commentators to make the connection, but at least I can enjoy it.

An Eisenhower-era deportation program that set up the current dynamic of militarized deportation and border control.

I also grew up in Missouri, though I live in Kansas now, and I know several people who fit that description.

The thing that kills me about Missouri is that it used to be a competitive state for moderate Democrata, but the rural chunks of the state fell victim to right wing populism during the Tea Party wave in 2010 and now there's a whole generation of Missourians whose defining political characteristic is rancorous hate for "liberal" city people. Kansas' politics aren't great, either, but at least the rural voters care about farm issues here... In Missouri, particularly south of I-70 where the only real industry they ever had was lead mining, all that's left is the hate they've been fed from right wing assholes.

Not even that. The 22nd Amendment states that a person can only be elected to the office twice, unless they've served two or more years of somebody's else's term, in which case they can only be elected once. Five months away from the next inauguration, it would change nothing if Harris had to take over the Presidency for some reason.

This psycho was just in the news for attaching her Democratic opponent for "raising a groomer" because one of her grandkids is trans. She makes Marjorie Taylor Green look polite by comparison, and the shame of it is that, given how state-level politics have been trending in Missouri, she's got a decent shot of winning in the general just because of the magic (R).

I think that's giving the media too much credit. The day of the debate I was honestly feeling optimistic -- All Biden really needed to do was talk sense and dunk on the guy who'd just become the first Presidential candidate to also become a convicted felon, and the rules had been set to cut Trump off at the knees by muting his mic when it wasn't his turn to talk. The night should have been a cake walk, but instead Biden came off like a tired and confused old man.

The level of despair I felt the next morning cannot be understated -- I even started to lay the groundwork to emigrate out of the US if necessary. Having Biden step aside and make way for someone more able to fight Trump is a desperately-needed breath of fresh air.