Open Thread

Get well.

From my FBook today:

It is my sad duty to tell Goose’s many fans that he passed away this day. Always an ambassador, Goose’s joyful tail-wagging endeared him to many a stranger and the world is the poorer this day.

Goose was 13 years 4 months and my closest partner for over12 years. He died from un-diagnosed metastasized cancer. Apparently, when I was helping him up the stairs today, one of his tumors burst leading to internal hemorrhaging.

Goose loved life. I made a point to start every day as if it was his last..with a back rub, belly & ear scratching…as I did today. Goose was an independent spirit whom I will miss with all my heart, as I do my beloved Bandit, who died almost 20 years ago this day. Over the next few weeks I will probably over-post pictures of my buddy…but I think folks are used to that.

A lot of the tecchie Bernie supporters, who were quite impressive during the 2016 campaign (see bernkit.com) have persevered, via the Progressive Coders Network. The New York City area members hold a bi-weekly hack night at a company called Thoughtworks. I attended, tonight, for the first time.

Progressive Hack Night had only about a dozen attendees, but still exceeded my expectations

Mostly because of the speaker, Benjamin Yee. He is an advocate of not just open government, but also open politics. He pointed out, e.g., that most of the district leaders of the 5 NYC boroughs aren’t publicly listed, and there was almost no information that could be googled on the position until about 2 years ago.

A lot of the “Deep Structure” of the Democratic Party (Yee is both a Democrat, who worked on Obama’s campaign, as well as reformer/activist) is not recorded, anywhere. This is mostly intentional, as it helps retain power in their hands.

I agree with him that the duopoly is going to remain in place for a long while (hence the need to take it over, from within). There are VERY FEW people in the country trying to do what Yee is doing, which is educate on this deep structure widely (and at low cost). Most of the people who know about the deep political structure of either Dems or Repubs look to cash in on that experience. (BTW, there was a poster on the old political blog FireDogLake.com named Rayne, who made this same point.)

See:

web: benjaminyee.com

email: ben@Benjaminyee.com

twitter: @yben ;

his project or company is called Shiftspark

I encouraged Yee to join patreon. Would suggest that not just progressives, but fans of open government and open politics look into supporting his efforts.

@sbrennan — I am so sorry for your loss. Much love to you & Goose. Our dogs are the most important people to us (my spouse and I) other than each other, and I know how hard it is to lose them. Condolences and best wishes.

Here’s a link to the video. Watch Merkel. I love it. It’s my expression, on the inside, too. It’s a perfect German, or universal really, WTF!!

Note how Ivanka tries to chastise the criticism as Fake News conjured by a biased media. The media is certainly biased, it is certainly propaganda, and Fox News is included in that list as is The National Review & Breitbart and all the other conservative propaganda rags & outlets, but we don’t need the biased media, the propagandists, to tell us Trump IS NOT great for women and women’s health and that he doesn’t care the family and/or families.

BULLSHIT!! Ivanka, please just SHUT UP and stop it!!!!! Or maybe she can’t. Maybe she’s like the North Koreans who have had to pretend their entire lives to the point they believe it. I think that’s it, and THAT is frightening. Cultists are running the country and nothing will be done about it.

Ivanka Says Her Father Believes Women Can Do The Job As Well As Any Man

Also note in the video above, Ivanka says, “when my father was in the private sector….” Ummm…..Ivanka, your father has broken new ground. You speak in the past tense inappropriately and erroneously. Your father is both in the private sector still, obviously with his Real Time Emoluments, and he’s in the public sector. Under Trump we have reached the Political Singularity where Public and Private have finally merged and become one. There is no longer any distinction. That’s the nature of precedent.

Thank you MojaveWolf

Out here in Timber Country those of us who actually live here, who come from this place and know something about it are getting quite a chuckle over Putin’s Poodle, Our Tea Pot Dictator, harrassing the Canadians over lumber imports. Yes, yes, yes, we were promised twenty-five years ago the logging and lumber jobs would come back… Oh, wait.

Twenty-five years ago there were two hundred and fifty large log, raw log, mills in Oregon. Today there are twenty. Twenty-five years ago there were a thousand plus small dimension, moulding and specialties, mills in Oregon. Today there may be a hundred. Of the five thousand or so logging contractors and quarter million and more Loggers providing the mills with raw materials perhaps fifty, maybe a hundred employing perhaps five or six hundred people remain.

There is no infrastructure. Punishing the Canadians isn’t going to reopen those mills. They’re gone. Not there. Here at my home to seven generations on The High Desert the mill complex down the street, a hundred years ago the world’s largest single producer of white pine products, is a shopping complex. They sell silk panties where forty years ago I spent a winter pulling boards off the green chain.

Leaving aside that we spent four generations logging it all off and what’s left is damned hard to get at (think helicopters), with no mills to supply there are no Logging jobs.

That’s just Oregon. The rest of the Pacific Northwest: Washington, Northern Idaho and Calfornia and Western Montana, are no better. There’s no infrastructure. The mills are gone. They’re not there.

Punishing the Canadians isn’t going to bring them back. Greg Walden and the Drumpf uck Administration know that.

I think the timber tarriff may be a bargaining chip with the Canadians. The idea isn’t to bring timber jobs back but to leverege the Canadians into dropping their tarrifs on American produced dairy products. I grew up in a little town on the coast that used to bill itself as “the largest timber shipping port in the world”. The big Weyrhauser plant that took up over a mile of waterfront is now a casino owned by the united tribes of the Coos, Coquille and Grande Ronde and the major local industry appears to be methamphetimine. So yeah, I feel bro’.

Ten Bears – yeah, it’s impossible to run a logging business without mills. What does DRUMPF think people are going to do? Build new mills? Crazy talk.

@ SBrennan

We are brothers in that pain that I know all too well. I lost my last furry brother a year ago. I adopted another dog when I stopped weeping, and although there is no “replacing” an individual personality, at least I can tell myself every day that I continue to have a great dog in my life.

Peace and strength to you.