My black cat, Pluto, snuggling with a knitted quilt lying on top of a camping mat I've been testing to sleep on.
I think we can call this camping pad "cat approved". The quilt he's being protective of was a gift from @atheisticsnail.bsky.social & its shockingly cozy.
Or even an outright empediment.
And part of my argument against a concept of "general intelligence" is the fact that there are people who could do very well on both of my assessments for a few areas of studies and just fall flat on their face for a dozen others.
If you want a good assessment of "general intelligence" - which I'm not even convinced is a useful concept, but hey - it's not an IQ test.
It's two qualitative assessments:
1. How well can the person explain concepts & ideas to other people;
2. How efficiently can they develop new useful ideas.
Oh, and no punctures, it's still holding the air I've put in it with no observable distance. Granted, I haven't hooked up a pressure sensor to make absolutely sure, but I think a basic "comfort" testis sufficient for this job.
I can confirm, they keep coming back to the pad as a nest. I've been leaving it out on my living room floor in no small part to test its ability to resist kitty claws. The goal is to go camping with the cats (if they enjoy it), so all gear must be kitty-tested.
"What if your life raft that you're climbing into during a hurricane sinks?"
At least I tried, coward. At least I honestly looked at the world around me & decided to do something about it. that could change the problems I actually had to deal with.
Step one: describe how Virginia would or could generally flip red again given the actual current demographics.
Step two: describe how & why that would nullify the chilling effect on GOP gerrymandering in red states caused by democratic counter-gerrymanderinng.
Me, getting sick of this shit: Exhunt Stage Left.
Reality, not done with this shit: You aren't nearly old enough to retire, get back to work!
Me, acknowledging reality:... damnit, I don't want stage directions anymore.
They think you're stupid.
My job programs me to try and politic things around so that everyone leaves happy, even as I manipulate the situation such that as many people as possible leave agreeing with me. So its a whole thing.
I'm trying to be a good adult & just ignore them, but given we just wrapped up voting here in Virginia... I'm a bit primed to argue with idiots & I know that feeling bleeds over to other things I'm engaging with.
Not an excuse, just an explanation. Call me out as necessary.
Just to lay the groundwork for the future: unless I have some reason to believe we're hitting, like, Harvey Weinstein levels of abuse in media, I may act "very serious* about media (eg, don't talk shit about Tremors), but it's generally going to be lighthearted for me.
Same, same... 😭
I will also admit that people having "hot takes" about my home state voting to nut-punch the GOP over their gerrymandering of various states has me a bit... reactionary. So I apologize in advance if I end up being an asshole. It's still my fault, but I'm a bit primed to be spicy.
Nhaw, just going "wait, what are you talking about".
To pass redistricting in Virginia, 2 seperate sessions of the Assembly had to vote for it. And we had to elect a governor who would support it.
And then, after all of that *and* a legal case that went to the Virginia Supreme Court, we, the people, still had to vote for it. Wake up.
No, you're dropping it here because you fundamentally refuse to confront the fact that 2018 is fundamentally different from 2026.
bsky.app/profile/inan...
But I haven't watched MCU movies you watched, so we can't go off names alone :P
(At this point, I'm only replying so we can have amusing bants if that sounds like fun, we've both made our points - if it's not fun, it can end here)
I'm making***
Ladies, Gentlemen, & the technicolor dreamboat!
Is self defense self defeating?
Get back to me when you can actually argue that self defense is self defeating.
Here in Virginia, we did something about that gerrymandering.
We took a number of gerrymandered districts that gave the GOP an advantage and we broke them up, we merged their conservative populations with a genuinely conservative district & created a map that, ironically, is more representative.
That does nothing to actually undo what the GOP has done in Texas for the next 6 years.
What are you doing to actually countermand the GOP gerrymandering of Texas?
How are you making their gerrymandering cost them more than they earned?
Answer the question: given that you *do not live in the gerrymandered state*, how do you fight the gerrymandering of that state?
Pretending that gerrymandering was anywhere close to a dead letter is just lying to yourself & pretending you can ignore gerrymandering in other states is stupid.
See, I was being nice & leaving out all of the other ways the GOP decided to ignore the spirit & the letter of the Voting Rights Act as soon as the Roberts' court gave them legal cover to do so.
Pluto, begging for attention.
Pluto, stealing my couch.
Kuro, reali,ing he's in a cardboard box he barely fits on & is twice as tall as he is.
Kuro, pretending he's as tall as the box.
I making a conscious decision to disengage with the idiotic "rise above" assholes who think it's okay if a few people die to defend democratic norms that have already been destroyed. So, here's some stupid cat photos.
Fighting fire with fire is a good thing, actually.
Sadly, $2.50 will no longer afford a coke in most convenience stores where I live... So he's even more useless than that.
No one is asking for the "easy button", for once in your life listen to the people actually being harmed by the evil you tolerate.
We're asking for a "stop this fucking bullshit" button. The bullshit is GOP gerrymandering of GOP states. If your answer doesn't stop that, you didn't answer.
No one ought to pre-emptively gerrymander a state, @tyschalter.com. However, if others are using gerrymandering as a weapon, the only rational or possible answer currently available to those being targetted is to gerrymander right back.