I also had a handful of interactions with her as a student reporter back in the early 90s. She was always very gracious and engaging, but in my experience that’s kind of true of all politicians by definition.

The one thing that always stood out to me is the way she handled the dual assassination of mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk. I was just a little kid at the time, and the way she stepped up and took control of the situation filled me with admiration and confidence.

Maybe that was the high-point of her political career, I don’t know.

That said, you couldn’t be a Northern Californian at that time and not appreciate her leadership, no matter what else you may have disagreed with her about.

I say all of the above while not touching the obvious fact that she stayed in office far too long.

You mean my kids?

My cat’s name is Nancy Reagan. She’s almost lived up to it. And no, she doesn’t like you either and if you try to pet her you’ll get what you deserve.

Some cats have official titles. I had another cat whose title was “Chief Inspector.” He was known to do home invasions and conduct snap inspections of my neighbors houses. He had more friends in the neighborhood than me.

It was a warning. Frum is and always has been a staunch never-Trumper. He’s still a conservative, but he was never on board with Trump and to his credit has been pretty vocal in his opposition.

The guy is surrounded by a team composed of some of the most elite, highly-trained and experienced security experts on the planet. I don’t think he has much to worry about. His security detail will be composed of tier 1 operators; the elite of the elite.

Meaning no disrespect, but it’s pretty obvious that you don’t know much about the US military. The senior officer corps uniformly despises Trump for all of the obvious reasons that we already know about, and no doubt for other reasons that aren’t public knowledge.

Trump is only popular among the enlisted ranks, and even that’s not universally true.

In any case, while the enlisted ranks know how to keep things rolling and coordinated at the lower levels of organization, there is no world in which any of them knows how to coordinate whole divisions, carrier groups, fighter squadrons, signals intelligence, bomber groups, the nuclear arsenal, and so on and so forth.

The US military is a vast and incredibly complex organization and the only people who really know how to operate it are all in the senior officer corps which again, uniformly despises Trump.

All that said, I would almost kind of like some crazy MAGA fucker to try to assassinate Miley. You know he’s protected by some of the most highly competent and experienced security experts on the planet.

Not true at all. There’s tons of adaptive pressure. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t see the thousands of pelagic and shorebird species that we do. But even if what you say about the threat from predation were true --its not-- there would still be adaptive pressure from differential reproduction rates and access to nutrients.

They’re probably just “dumb” in comparison to corvids and parrots and the like.

None. My wife doesn’t know about tact, or the polite white lie or anything like that. She doesn’t have time for that bullshit. It’s one of her endearing qualities.

What a crock of shit!

Why would capital willingly poison its workforce as a deliberate policy? That makes zero sense.

I can see capital writing it off as a necessary side-cost of doing business, but I can’t see it as a deliberate policy.

Again, it makes no sense. Capital wants a relatively healthy workforce, not one that’s falling apart due to lead-caused neurological decrepitude.

I have a cousin who still insists that her mom died of pneumonia and that it wasn’t COVID. Her husband is currently in prison for storming the capitol on January 6th, which tells you all you need to know. It’s weird because she’s the only one in my extended family who’s even remotely into far right craziness.

Allegedly there are two known instances of people in the US dying due to complications from the vaccine, though one of them wasn’t the mRNA vaccine that the anti-vaxxers were most scared of. Compare that to the over 1 million people who died from COVID.

That and the fact that everything about our society shits on working people and tells them that it’s their own fault that they aren’t rich like the college-educated elites who look down on them.

It doesn’t actually make any sense, but I am telling you that this is a huge part of the resentment that Trump was able to tap.

I can and do agree with everything you argue while also maintaining the objectively obvious fact that context matters in politics.

You either get it or you don’t. I can’t help you with your lack of reading comprehension.

They specifically said that “you can be mad” about it.

You want to have it the way that they’re pushing some kind of agenda, when in fact they’re simply stating what’s true.

but that would require major reworking of large areas.

Yes, that’s precisely what will be required. There’s no getting through this without implementing massive changes to our way of life. Everyone wants there to be some kind of easy get-out-of-jail-free card, but that’s not how it’s going to be.

I used to be a big tele skier, but over the years I figured out that I prefer riding a snowboard when it comes to steep and deep powder.

To me it just feels better.

You do what makes you happy and I will as well.

I’m old, in my 50s, and have no interest whatsoever in telling anyone what to do or how they should enjoy the mountains.

I leave that shit to the kids. No one my age actually gives a fuck.

Thanks for the response. That makes sense and I think I’m probably on-board.

Cry me a river…

I’m increasingly of the same opinion, however, I dislike the fact that even talking about nuclear as a potential bridge technology is such a polarizing issue.

I am very far from being an expert on the subject and accordingly don’t have a strong opinion either way as to what role, if any, it can usefully play in transitioning to sustainable energy models.

What I don’t like is the immediate labeling of either side of the issue as somehow automatically being indicative of bad faith or “shilling” on behalf of a larger, nearly conspiratorial interest.