"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
SuperUser From wj, lj and JanieM [note: russell too, so for those keeping track at home, 4 for, none against] Russell hasn't replied, but strike while the Iron Dome is hot Quoting McKinneyTexas, and afterward addressed to him: You and all of the other headliners here have had plenty of time to square reality … Read more
by JanieM Last night John Cole at BJ quoted at length from this Bloomberg article: Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing business, is its fastest-growing and most profitable division, but it comes with a lot of upfront infrastructure costs and ongoing expenses, the biggest of which is electricity. Over the past two years, Amazon … Read more
by JanieM My first front-page post here at ObWi was about cemeteries. In it I mentioned my dilemma: do I want to be buried? (If so, how and where?) Cremated? I wasn’t sure then and I’m not sure now, but I will soon have an option that wasn’t available in February of 2017. Today was … Read more
by wj Because we are way overdue for a new open thread. And this https://deadspin.com/minor-league-baseball-team-wins-on-a-three-run-walk-off-1828308390 is just way too good not to share!
by liberal japonicus Perhaps red-meat liberalism talking here, but I have to wonder if the whole Trump presidency is a way for Darwinian selection to operate. Case in point: Chris Collins. here They’ve got video of him making the call to his son. whoops Here’s some background that I thought was interesting. Another example (hopefully) … Read more
by JanieM Since lj closed comments on the “Epitome” thread, I thought we should have a place to continue the discussion about the other big topic. And I don’t mean Intellectual Property.
by liberal japonicus A little worried that Typepad is going to get cranky with all the comments in the Epitome thread, so picking it up and maybe trying to do a restart、taking Janie’s question and asking one of my own. A list of my people and my nations… -Right handed, so much so that I’ve … Read more
by Doctor Science The struggle continues! Again, based on my Goodreads ratings. Best Novella 5 ☆: All Systems Red by Martha Wells | The Black Tides of Heaven by J.Y. Yang. Deciding which of these to rank higher is the purest form of torture. It’s possible I love All Systems Red more (because ♥Murderbot♥), but … Read more
Part Three of a Series by JanieM Today I went to the 2018 Maine Artisan Bread Fair at the Skowhegan Fairgrounds. I fulfilled my main goal, which was to buy some heritage wheat flours from Maine Grains. Their “Sirvinta” variety won’t be available until after this year’s harvest, but I got a bag of Red … Read more
by Doctor Science It’s getting down to the wire (again) for Hugo Awards voting, so I’m going to finalize my ballot by writing about it for you. This year I’ve made things easier on myself by using goodreads to keep track of what I’ve read and what I thought about it at the time. I … Read more
Awfully quiet around here. In case you’re bored and you feel like going on a treasure hunt, some dictionary has lost its definition of sanctimony. It was last seen roaming around the countryside in the guise of a tall guy with a self-satisfied smile on his face. Geez, what an asshole. [Hat tip to Anne … Read more
by Doctor Science Yesterday was Amazon “Prime Day”, and workers for Amazon in Spain and other European countries were on strike (I don’t know if this had anything to do with the site’s technical problems). Amazon is a notoriously terrible employer, but when I look at how CEO Jeff Bezos is running the company and … Read more
by JanieM Three headings: a memoir, a novel, and a panel discussion. 1. The memoir: Call Me American, by Abdi Nor Iftin Abdi Nor Iftin is an immigrant from Somalia, a young man in his early thirties who settled in Maine a few years ago. As a boy in war-torn Mogadishu, he was so enthralled … Read more
by liberal japonicus Ok, that’s probably overstating it. But I realize that not everyone is a football fan or even a sports fan here. But even if you aren’t, read this LGM post and the attached links and get back over here to chat. Fascinating stuff.
by liberal japonicus Wanted to riff a bit off of something that has come up in Sebastian’s thread on court packing, which is Russell saying “Win elections. There is no substitute.” Which had me think about this Jamelle Bouie piece (via LGM), where something the Count mentioned stood out: Under the Trump administration, even naturalized … Read more
by liberal japonicus We have one open thread, but I thought one unpolluted by American issues might be nice and, since the World Cup has no US team, well, there you go. I won’t explain much, cause if you like soccer/football, you probably know, if you don’t, you probably aren’t interested. I like soccer, but … Read more
by JanieM One of my favorite signs from the Augusta event: Open thread, with an emphasis on reporting in from here there and everywhere. The Augusta event was well attended, if on nowhere near the scale of the women’s march. Of the people I might have gone with, several were away and one was in … Read more
by liberal japonicus
Not really a great title, but I’ve been taking in a little of the discussion about Michelle Wolf’s monologue at the WHCD. And we are in need of an open thread and it’s a bummer seeing “What is racism?” every time in the sidebar (and yes, that is privilege talking, cause I can step back from it) Anyway, stuff below the fold.
by liberal japonicus Maybe I’m reaching for a cute headline, but that’s what seems to have happened. A cursory reading suggests that they compared the DNA they had with DNA profiles on genealogical sites to get a familial match. The article references the Grim Sleeper case. On July 7, 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported … Read more
by JanieM A friend of mine bought her five-year-old a stuffed animal on Amazon. Almost as soon as it arrived, one of the legs came off. She wrote to the seller to report the problem and got this reply: Hello friend Thanks for your order in our store. The sheep is made from cotton. We … Read more
by JanieM I live across the road from the northern end of a lake that’s about five miles long, maybe a mile wide at its widest, over a hundred feet deep in spots. The lake is a year-round playground: swimming, fishing, jet-skiing, a bit of water-skiing in the summer; snowmobiling and ice fishing in the … Read more
by wj It occurs to me that, since an Open Thread is desıgned to wander around multiple topics, why shouldn’t the post do so as well. So this one is going to start with technology and end up at politics. This past year, I’ve been working on a project with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Addresses, … Read more
by Doctor Science Hugo nominations have to be in by Friday, so I’m going to put up my longlist and hope the process of writing helps me make up my mind. I’m resurrecting my goodreads account to better keep track of what I’ve read (and what I started but did not finish, and why). I … Read more
by liberal japonicus My oldest daughter is going to NY city for an academic program with her university in June. Of course, I would like her to soak up that liberal elitism that I have heard so much about as well as learn to properly hate all conservatives and all things conservative, as I know … Read more
by JanieM
Part One: Bread on the Table
Part Two: Bread off the Table
About twenty years ago I was diagnosed with an auto-immune skin condition. The dermatologist said that as with other auto-immune diseases, the cause was unknown, there was no cure, and the condition might come and go. There were much worse manifestations than the symptoms I had, but there was no telling whether my outbreaks would repeat, get worse, spread, disappear, or what.
The doc did say that there was anecdotal evidence, but no reliable research, suggesting that diet might play a role in triggering outbreaks. I don’t remember which foods were on his list, but I do remember that NSAIDs and food dye were mentioned, and staying out of the sun was strongly recommended. I gave up gardening (my knees were happy about that) and bought a sunscreen shirt and a wide-brimmed hat. I took aspirin and ibuprofen even more rarely than I already had.
I had outbreaks of the skin condition each year for a couple more years. They would start in the spring, evolve over the summer and fall, and fade away before starting all over again the following spring. They were unsightly – tiny raised bumps that gradually flattened into purplish spots all over my hands, partway up my arms, and thick on one side of my neck.
Somewhere along the way, a friend recommended a non-traditional medical practitioner who had helped my friend with some health problems. I decided to consult that person, and she had a lot of suggestions for me, the most challenging of which was to stop eating wheat. (This was some years before “gluten-free” became a buzzword, and a marketing ploy. My consultant was on the front edge of the wave, I guess.)
For a year or so I pretended, mostly to myself, that I was working on it.
But SRSLY, no bread? No pasta?
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
by Doctor Science Ursula K. LeGuin has died. The SFF community knew she was fading, but we hoped, illogically, that there would be a reprieve, time for more encores. For so many of us, she was our mother, our teacher, our grandmother. An icon of what we might do, and even more of what we … Read more
by wj We’re way overdue for a new open thread. So here it is. To kick-start things, I noticed something interesting this morning. A bunch of items in the Washington Post on the general theme of how things played out over the weekend regarding the shutdown. For example, this one entitled White House Strategy: Keep … Read more
by JanieM I’ve just started making and eating bread again after about twenty years of (mostly; it’s hard) avoiding wheat. I was going to write a post about these adventures, but the more I thought about it the bigger the topic got, until it was far too long for a single post. So I’m going … Read more
by wj Yesterday, in Wisconsin, there was a special election. Governor Walker had nominated a prominent state senator to be his agriculture secretary, so this was to fill his (safe) seat. It wasn’t a big deal . . . except it was. The previous (Republican, obviously) state senator was a popular guy. And the Republican … Read more
by liberal japonicus It is another example of ObWi synchronicity that Sebastian writes about fears just before I went under the knife (that’s a phrase) If you really want to crank those fears up to 11, aim for a long convalescence in a hospital. I suppose you can become accustomed to it, but getting old … Read more
Guest post by Bruce Baugh; originally a comment at File770. There’s an aspect of worldview which is sort of prior to specific politics, religion or philosophy, and so on, that needs some explicit attention. Some people believe that it’s possible (in the sense of “feasible for some significant number of people”, not the abstract possible … Read more
by Eric Martin This is more evidence that the housing crisis and financial meltdown were the result of the CRA, Fannie and Freddie and, in general, extension of home ownership to poor minorities: Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage … Read more
U CAN HAS CHEEZEBURGER, CRABZ SUK. SRSLY., originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein. By Lindsay Beyerstein
This post is NOT by Moe Lane. I’m using the administrative account instead of my own identity for reasons which I will hope you will understand after you read. I’m fairly certain that a regular reader could guess who wrote this, but I ask you not to do so in the comments. The company I … Read more
It’s now clear (SAT time): Michelle Malkin : Obsidian Wings as Hillary Clinton : Republican party Malkin is the one common enemy that unites all the warring factions. In any event, before I slink back into that long night of semi-permanent retirement, let me offer the following two thoughts: 1. Malkin is not the conservative … Read more