Same. We adopted a boy in August that is the most chill, patient, and friendly cat I’ve ever shared a house with. I mean, I’ve had friendly cats before, but they’re usually still pretty aloof. This boy just always wants to be where the people are, soaking up attention like a sponge. He is the stark opposite of his big sister, who will flee at the slightest unexpected noise or movement and has been known to claw and bite people who try to pet her without an explicit invitation.

Not “probably”. The court literally declined to take any disciplinary action at all.

This gives me hope for the future. The district is solidly red, but the recall effort was able to cross party lines and convince enough Republican and Non-affiliated voters that it was more than just a partisan issue.

Inpurrvention?

Technically, not forced. They sent him a C&D letter, which is basically threatening to sue if he leaves it up. It’s not legally binding or anything, he could choose to ignore it. They’d have to get a court order to actually force him to take it down. I’m glad for this family that it worked, but there’s no greater justice here.

Dudefella is trying to claim he’s a whistleblower and should therefore face no consequences. Last time I checked, whistleblower laws only protect you if you’re reporting illegal activity. If the hospital stopped providing these services when they were made illegal, then he’s just doxing people for no good reason. (not that I think it would be a good reason either way)

I’m just really concerned that, in the political environment of Texas right now, he’ll get away with little or no consequences. Hell, there are probably a ton of people looking at him as some kind of hero right now, and that just makes me feel ill.

Slaughterhouse 5 is a great novel. I haven’t read it in a long time. Maybe time for a re-read.

Note that the writer did not apologize for what she said. She only apologized for using Dolly Parton as an example of someone who is “unaligned with God’s vision for humanity”. You know, because she doesn’t tell queer people that they are going to hell just for existing.

To be clear: he claims the people giving him all these gifts are his “friends”. The fact that they are also wealthy donors to the RNC and various conservative issues is (in his mind) coincidental.

Ah, I think I understand. The potential problem here is that even a donation to a campaign fund could be seen as a bribe if the person running for office is a public official. “Sorry, I can’t accept your generous gift, but you cold contribute to my campaign for mayor!” Interesting, I’ve honestly never run across that info, but it makes sense. Thanks!

From the AP version of the story:

Under Connecticut law, voters using a collection box must drop off their completed ballots themselves, or designate certain family members, police, local election officials or a caregiver to do it for them. Clark wrote in his decision that the volume of “mishandled ballots” left the court unable to determine the legitimate result of the primary.

It’s a state law that they aren’t supposed to drop off someone else’s ballot except under very specific circumstances. It’s a dumb law that makes it more difficult for people to vote if they can’t easily get to a polling place or a ballot drop off. But it’s the law so, charge and prosecute them, and redo the election I guess. But hopefully the people of CT will work to change the voting laws.

Interesting. What state is this in? We don’t have any restrictions like that in my state and I’m a little curious about what the justification is.

Public employees can not take campaign funds directly, so if a teacher wanted to run for local office, it’s a campaign finance violation for them to accept money directly.

I don’t think that’s right. The main issue that PACs address is individual limits on campaign contributions. You, as an individual, can only legally give a candidate $X towards their campaign. X varies depending on the race. But you can give as much as you want to a PAC. They just have to disclose your name if you give more than $10K in a calendar year. The thing is, the FEC act used to make it illegal for a PAC to directly campaign for or against a federal candidate. The Citizens United decision overturned that clause and opened the doors to unlimited campaign contributions. Candidates aren’t supposed to coordinate with a PAC, but there’s a lot of nodding and winking going on.

Slightly off topic but this is a perfect example of why school staff should not be carrying firearms.

There is no Buldak flavor that isn’t spicy. They all start with the same “hot chicken” base flavoring, then have additional flavorings added. The 2x and 3x varieties just have more capsaicin in the base. Like, a LOT more. I bought a 4 pack of 2x by mistake (thought it was original) and had to force myself to finish a bowl. It was painful. The regular spicy versions I would consider to be about the equivalent of a bowl of ramen with a few dashes of a relatively spicy hot sauce. Tasty and not unpleasant for me at all. But everyone’s tolerance levels are different.

Already happening in some places. Local governments are cutting library funding because they don’t like the some of the content that their libraries are stocking, but the courts won’t let them ban it all.

So we could have a well regulated militia in lieu of a standing army, right?

I’ll give him this much: Dude really knew how to dodge a shoe.

I’ve had mine for almost 2 years now. My usage has always been situational. I use it to game when I’m away from my relatively high-end gaming PC. Extended trips. Any time I know I’m going to be sitting and waiting somewhere. Or maybe I’ve just had a long day of remote work and want to play a game but I don’t want to sit at my desk, so I’ll plop down on the sofa or outside with my Deck.

Cloud data storage platform is a more accurate description. My project uses it to store tons of log data from our back end services. They have a query interface that our BI team uses to do long term trend analysis on the data. But we don’t store anything super sensitive there. No PII, no credit card data, nothing proprietary.