It’s the state of mind caused by simultaneously believing two (or more) things that conflict with each other.

And I guarantee that billionaire Larry Ellison blithely believes that he’ll be exempt - that all of this surveillance will just be used against the little people. And he’s almost certainly right.

People on every single relatively small forum ever in the history of the internet have gotten frustrated and angry when other people do that, because it’s spammy.

Do you not know the history of the term “spam?”

It’s from a Monty Python skit

That’s what the front page of a forum (or the inbox of an email account) looks like when someone “spams” it - like “spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam.”

Hmm…

I would assume then that the effect is somehow tied in with the fact that the light is diffused and relatively dim, since it’s simply a fact that the blues and greens are the colors that pop. Possibly there isn’t enough light to show up orange or red - effectively, everything is sort of in shadow?

And by contrast, as I write this, it’s very smoky where I am, and yes - the light is notably orange. And I’ve noticed before that when it’s like this, shadows have an obvious blue tint.

Pretty much.

Don’t get too hung up on the name - it’s just a personal bit of shorthand. What I’m talking about is the actual phenomenon. Parrish’s paintings are just the closest popular representation I’ve seen of it.

It seems to happen most often in late summer, when (in my area at least) afternoon thundershowers are relatively common. There are times when the clouds will roll in, but they’re not dense enough to bring rain, and just at dusk, the light through those clouds is diffused but oddly clear, so in spite of the fact that the light level is low overall, colors, and especially blues and greens, really pop.

In HSL terms, it’s essentially 100% saturation but only maybe 30% light, and since the light shifts toward red/orange, the blues and greens are the colors that stand out the most.

What I call Parrish light - the distinctive tone that’s prominent in Maxfield Parrish’s paintings.

It’s a relatively subdued but clear reddish orange that I see most commonly with relatively uniform but thin thunderclouds at dusk. It makes blues and greens much more vivid, in spite of the fact that the overall amount of light is relatively low. And it’s glorious.

Just the opposite. I’m the one who goes off to do something else at family gatherings because they just talk and talk and talk.

Though it’s not so much that they talk so much as that it’s just the same stuff over and over - alternately, my brother slavishly regurgitating right-wing techbro quasi-libertarian bullshit and my mom reciting in excruciating detail some anecdote that’s maybe vaguely related to the topic at hand and that she’s told countless times already, because it’s her go-to every time something in that vicinity comes up.

And what I wouldn’t give to know them less well…

I think there are two different things at play there, and both have been mentioned, so all I can add is that it’s not one or the other but both. (Well - that and a song)

Partly it’s the common human need to feel that we matter - that our lives are in some way significant.

And partly it’s the fear of death and the resulting desire to believe that we’ll “live on” at least figuratively.

And the song is from Shriekback and is directly on topic - Dust and a Shadow

Broadly because the entire dynamic of left-wing partisanship in the US - both for the politicians and for the voters - is built around the binaristic idea that the only alternative to supporting the Democrats is supporting the Republicans, and that doesn’t work if they admit that there are more possible positions than just those two.

I assume they’re not sucking up to Bibi, but to AIPAC.

I don’t believe that my approval or anyone else’s is at all relevant.

My position is that there’s only one person who has the right to decide whether or not it’s acceptable to trade sex for money, and that’s the person entering into the trade. Assuming that all other contractual requirements are met - they’re of legal age and acting of their own free will and so on - it’s just as much their right to trade sex for money as to trade ditch digging or code writing or coffee brewing or meeting taking for money.

(edited for clarity)

That’s not a bug - it’s a feature.

The ultimate goal is to bring back Victorian workhouses, updated for the modern age of privatized prisons and officially sanctioned corporate slave labor.

So I clicked this expecting to just find that they’re lying pieces of shit.

But actually they’re lying racist pieces of shit.

Not that I’m surprised really… just noting that fact.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen that much projection in a single article before.

Essentially every single thing that he accuses the left of planning to do is actually something that the right has already done, and is in fact one of the reasons that reform is necessary.

The most frustrating part of it is that it’s not simply that he self-evidently has no integrity and no principles, but that he’s a short-sighted moron. Like every useful idiot in every authoritarian coup ever, he’s defending the autocrats simply because their actions currently align with his shallow self-interest, and is completely oblivious to the fact that they could just as easily (and sooner or later will) oppose his interests, and by then, in part specifically because of his shallow stupidity, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.

What was?

This is an interesting thing to come along right now.

On the one hand, it seems odd in the face of the fact that the Supreme Court appears to be doing everything they can to normalize and even legalize overt corruption. It would seem that all Congress has to do is let them, and they’ll benefit from it just as much as the justices will.

But on the other hand, the Supreme Court is also trying to expand their power to legislate from the bench, and that cant be sitting well with Congress. And Alito and Thomas, at least, are so vividly and plainly corrupt that it could be to Congress’s advantage, ironic as it might be, to set themselves up as the arbiters of government ethics, specifically to undermine the grotesquely corrupt SC.

I would go so far as to say that it’s vital that Biden handles court reform, because it has to be done before the election.

We can already be sure that Trump and his backers are planning legal challenges on whatever grounds might vaguely appear to be something resembling legitimate in the event that he loses, and we can also be sure that at least Thomas and Alito will rule in their favor, no matter how ludicrous their arguments might be, simply because they’re entirely and completely compromised. They’ve already demonstrated that law is irrelevant - that they serve demagoguery, shallow self-interest, bigotry and corruption. And given the chance, they WILL do their parts to destroy democracy in the US.

We can’t afford to give them the chance.

And that could be Biden’s legacy - the president who led the efforts that saved America from a fascist coup.

I’ve seen no evidence that they are.

What little organic commentary I’ve seen has been cautiously optimistic at worst.

The barrage of anti-Harris stuff that all started appearing at essentially the same time reeks of astroturf.

I don’t think Manchin has ever, in his entire life, actually done something “with a heavy heart,” since that would require a conscience.

I’m an American, so yes - in a heartbeat.

Broadly, I wouldnt much care where it was, just so long as it was somewhere that was not being actively transfomed into a plutocratic/christofascist autocracy.

And in fact, there’s virtually nothing that I want more at this point in time than to get the hell out while I can. I fully expect that if I don’t, I’m going to end up in prison or dead, just like so many other vocal dissidents under so many other authoritarian regimes.