What's going on in your city/country/region?

[Roger Mexico]

Biden probably should have dropped out a lot sooner. He left the party in just about the worst possible situation--no time to actually choose another candidate, and only the last 3 months of a 2-year campaign cycle to promote the one they defaulted to.

Of course they might have just been screwed anyway.

Biden was actually the best candidate for the Democratic Party because he's senile and can't learn anything new, just like them.

I never thought she had a snowball's chance in hell. I thought Nader made some good points on (I think it was) Democracy Now; she went after the Republican base instead of tapping into the disenfranchised Democratic one. It is interesting to see moderates like David Brooks in the NYT saying that maybe to challenge Trump the party needed someone disruptive like Bernie Sanders all along, someone he personally wouldn't feel comfortable with. The consensus seems to be that the Democrats won't learn (again). I've never seen so many Democrats saying that.

They never deliver but there's always a worse option, so they ask for the vote for nothing in exchange. That won't work every time. I feel the same way about Trump as I do about Milei in Argentina; in their profound political ignorance, there is a huge amount of common sense in people not voting a failed candidate, painful as the result will be.

I worry about Israel now going even further with Trump's support. Hopefully this means Zelensky negotiates, but I'm not even very sure about that.

I don't think there's enough support for cutting Ukraine aid in the Republican party to let Trump get away with it even if he wants to. They'd be cutting off a revenue stream for American weapon dealers, if nothing else.

I am worried about escalation between Israel and Iran. Israel's not big enough to win an actual war with Iran by themselves, even with the US bankrolling and supplying them, so I kind of assume their strategy if it comes to that is to drag American forces into directly. Biden did nothing to actually pressure them to do anything differently in Gaza or Lebanon, but I don't think he would have fallen for this. Trump might, but hopefully it doesn't come to that.

A lot of people are predicting an economic crisis if the tariffs Trump has been talking about go through. His mass deportation idea would also hit the farm industry particularly hard, which isn't going to help the food price inflation his supporters blamed Biden for. The logistics of it are likely to require basically building concentration camps, too.



And yes, of course the Democrats won't learn anything from this. I agree that it's likely disruptive populism is simply what voters wanted. Even in 2008 Obama was sort of a disruptive populist candidate, but after him they went right back to just nominating whoever has seniority in the party and then yelling at people about betraying them after they lose. This might change in like a decade after the dinosaurs who've been in politics since the 70's all die off, but even then I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Catoptric]

$3,000,000 went to this:

Taxpayer Money No Longer Funding Hamster “Fight Club”!
https://www.peta.org/blog/northeastern- ... er-funded/

"September 13, 2017 update: Victory! Records just obtained by PETA reveal that for the first time in more than 20 years, Northeastern University experimenter Richard Melloni isn’t receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to give anabolic steroids or cocaine to hamsters and make them fight."

[HighlyIrregular II]

A sexual assaulter as a Supreme Court justice and as president, but a guy who pays for sex can't be Attorney General. I guess he shouldn't be, it's just that I'd like some consistency. Gaetz withdrew as Trump's AG pick and now Trump is looking for a different outsider.

[HighlyIrregular II]

Not my country, but assisted dying is now legal in England and Wales. Old, religious politicians, or MPs or whatever, are responsible for taking so long, and I don't think they're now allowing euthanasia. That's a whole other level. So it's still not a place I want to live and I didn't even read an entire article about it. But yesterday I read that Canada has unusually liberal euthanasia laws. That and clean air and water and a couple of other things are big factors in where I want to move, so I may be looking into Canada more in 2025.

[Catoptric]

Narco wars are possible


And this is mostly fear-mongering (and Douglas Macgregor profits from it)






This is apparently something going on in my area.


Also, I wasn't aware a "adult book store" had prostitution on the streets. I've always heard about that area being heavily involved with the sex trade like strip clubs, but this is a bit unexpected.

[HighlyIrregular II]

My three day late celebration of Thanksgiving. 19.5 lbs all to myself. Yay me. I got a new used laptop and strap-on ice cleats too.

Kinda almost got trampled by deer last night shortly before 10 PM. I read about injuries from that happening. I have to dress brighter, but deer have good night vision.

[Catoptric]

My three day late celebration of Thanksgiving. 19.5 lbs all to myself. Yay me. I got a new used laptop and strap-on ice cleats too.

Kinda almost got trampled by deer last night shortly before 10 PM. I read about injuries from that happening. I have to dress brighter, but deer have good night vision.

I was having to look into it, but it seems I am wrong: That pan looks like it will overflow with liquid as it cooks.

The sponge looks deadly.

[HighlyIrregular II]

I was having to look into it, but it seems I am wrong: That pan looks like it will overflow with liquid as it cooks.

The sponge looks deadly.

I only tried the pan because I read it could be done. I was going to use a serving spoon to spoon out excess liquid if needed. Ironically, I threw out my plastic baster because I didn't want the hot juices that contacted plastic to get in my food, but I didn't realize there was a plastic giblet bag in the turkey. I saw the unbagged neck, looked deeper, and didn't see anything else. I saw the bag in the other end when the turkey was done. It looked intact, but just now I looked at the photos and parts look melted.

While it was cooking I did some research and found a webpage that said Butterball uses heat proof bags, not plastic. Well, I had found that page with a Google search, and I'm pretty sure it was on Butterball's website. Then when I saw the plastic giblet bag I did another search and couldn't find that page. All I found was Butterball's warnings to remove the plastic giblet bag before cooking. My Google search probably brought up an old page that Butterball doesn't link to anymore.

I cleaned the stovetop with the sponge then demoted it to "dirty sponge" for things like oven cleaning.

partially melted giblet bag.jpg (341.41 KiB) Viewed 292 times

cooked turkey.jpg (169.72 KiB) Viewed 292 times

leftovers.jpg (158.29 KiB) Viewed 292 times

[Catoptric]

I was having to look into it, but it seems I am wrong: That pan looks like it will overflow with liquid as it cooks.

The sponge looks deadly.

I only tried the pan because I read it could be done. I was going to use a serving spoon to spoon out excess liquid if needed. Ironically, I threw out my plastic baster because I didn't want the hot juices that contacted plastic to get in my food, but I didn't realize there was a plastic giblet bag in the turkey. I saw the unbagged neck, looked deeper, and didn't see anything else. I saw the bag in the other end when the turkey was done. It looked intact, but just now I looked at the photos and parts look melted.

While it was cooking I did some research and found a webpage that said Butterball uses heat proof bags, not plastic. Well, I had found that page with a Google search, and I'm pretty sure it was on Butterball's website. Then when I saw the plastic giblet bag I did another search and couldn't find that page. All I found was Butterball's warnings to remove the plastic giblet bag before cooking. My Google search probably brought up an old page that Butterball doesn't link to anymore.

I cleaned the stovetop with the sponge then demoted it to "dirty sponge" for things like oven cleaning.

partially melted giblet bag.jpg

cooked turkey.jpg

leftovers.jpg

Looks good, and it seems it is the preferred pan choice for Alton Brown when getting the turkey crispy ( https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-si ... avy-recipe ).

I've started using large electric roasters and would probably still use them, though they won't generally get crispy because of how they work (though pretty good results still if you adjust the temps from the highest setting to the lower 200 degrees and slow cook.) It's still very messy due to water needed to start off, but that always seems to come with the territory. One issue with the electric roasters is always needing to weight the lid down with a brick or something, since the turkey are almost always too big for the roasters, no matter how big they are.

Even the safer plastics are considered to have hormone disrupters if not BPA, and between using plastics for brining as well as retaining moisture for roasting, I've tended to wonder about safety (but also, Butterball is known to fuck their turkeys. . . https://www.yahoo.com/news/unpacking-cl ... 00983.html )

The turkey turned out well.

[Catoptric]

United Health CEO was shot and killed, and social media was making laugh-reaction emojis. . . So I had to look into it.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/eHGGfuK9rCbtFqVS/
Direct UHG post https://www.facebook.com/share/p/hKatHTsXTUvNa91j/

Backstory of controversy over Optum, which UHG bought, and the CEO would have addressed in the past.
https://www.tiktok.com/@christyprn/vide ... 47?lang=en

News story of the shooting
https://www.foxnews.com/us/shocking-vid ... nyc-street



Also


A 'De Rotschild' died in a fire
https://www.aol.com/eccentric-millionai ... 3-PD4A3-oc