Pat @Pat@qoto.org

@stux

I think s/he is trying to hide behind the toy soldier so whatever s/he's stalking won't see her/him. But s/he's about 5X the size of the soldier, so...

@gaymanifold

I can think of a couple of possible explanations for this:

1 - The large number of people who had COVID-19 and suffered organ damage made them more susceptible to hospitalization from the flu.

2 - The increased surveillance for COVID-19 and the need to differentiate the two diseases has lead to finding more case of flu.

3 - Possibly a more virulent strain of flu this season. About 3/4 of cases from recent surveillance are N3N2, which historically causes more serious illness.

@wjbeaver

Unanswered questions form a vacuum. Torricelli and Aristotle and the rest of science feel the pressure to fill the vacuum with answers. I think that nature has a love/hate relationship with vacuums – it loves them so much that, when allowed to, it rushes toward the vacuum, but in so doing destroys it. Scientists love it when they can answer a question of nature, but what will scientists do when all of the questions of nature are answered? I think they will hate it.

#NASA #ArtemisI #moon #HumanSpaceFlight

Artemis I Orion capsule will splash down near Guadalupe Island in about two hours from now.

Live coverage:
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public

@goldclusters

>"Twitter is currently down. So I am here...."

Twitter is back up again, so I am here.

@brewnoir

>"Your recomendations to stay active on fediverse?"

Yes.

London, dob 1984 - American actress, TV and film
Jimmy Durante, dob 1893 - American comedian, singer, vaudevillian
Bohr, dob 1885 - developed a model of the atom under the old quantum theory
Arthur, dob 1829 - 21st president of the US

(images: London CC-BY-SA-3.0, Travis Hudgons; Durante, Bohr, Arthur public domain)

@bloc

Was he mentioned in that film? That's funny. He's probably the least-know POTUS.
@willzy

@andrewsinclair

@lupyuen

Well, one good thing is that maybe that guy who goes around responding to posts saying, "Pics or it didn't happen", will stop doing that. 😂

@andrewsinclair

>"Right, so who else on here is a good person to follow?"

People who write toots that you like to read.

@trinsec @favus

I actually blocked rach a while ago. Don't remember why, but I guess I must have figured out it was a fake. I just now happened to be browsing the public timeline while I wasn't logged in and saw this toot.

@trinsec @favus

Since we're all confessing, my profile pic isn't really a picture of me.

@joice

Welcome!

@Deglassco

Honest was the wrong word. Perhaps "consistent" or "less hypocritical". I don't think it's possible to use the words honest and Congress in the same sentence.

(I just now did a deeper dive on the current situation in the Senate in another (long) thread with a fellow mastodonian, if anybody's interested.)

@LeaveNothingForTheFuture

@jud

I don't think the move to deny Obama a SCOTUS pick was just for Dobbs. The GOP got young, loyal justices who are going pay dividends for decades. The Dems didn't lose the court via stupidity, they lost it to raw power. McConnell broke precedent and then used the nuke option to stack the court because he felt it was worth the trade. He exchanged a rook for a queen.

>"... simply explained by Sinema and Manchin being under financial (Sinema) and political (Manchin) pressure not to get rid of the filibuster?"

The filibuster precedent is already gone with regard to judicial nominations. To use it to fix a shitty decision by those SCOTUS picks is virtually the same thing. I don't think there is any pressure about that. I'm pretty sure it's about not wanting to pass the legislation itself.

Also, I mentioned the Dems not wanting to get rid of abortion as an issue, but the GOP also uses it too. Both of them want to keep it as an issue, for fundraising and as a potent distractor. But a lot them don't want to actually go on record with a vote for fear of losing future political maneuverability.

I honestly think I could count on one hand the number people in Congress who actually care about the issue beyond its mere political utility.

@freemo

@icedquinn

Are you talking about something like squid, or generally like memcached, or are you talking about something else?

@willzy

*** Quiz Spoiler ***

You did pretty good.

Chester A. Arthur was a general in the civil war, but he's mostly known (or unknown) as a president of the United States.

I think London is mostly known for her TV work in the US and some may know her from her relationships with rappers. She's done a few movies, not big ones with worldwide releases, so her notoriety is mostly provincial, to the US.

@jud

>"Ah, how very clever. They got McConnell to block Obama's court pick in 2016 because they knew in 2023 they'd have a 50/50 Senate."

I don't understand why you said that. I don't understand how it relates to what I said.

>"Oh, and all the Senators for 7 years were able to keep this master plan perfectly secret."

These tactics are not a one-time plan, they're a mode of operation for Congress. They do these tactics in order shield members from making votes that constituents wouldn't like. Most of them don't want a bill to pass, but they get one member to block it. Or use any number techniques to make it look like they want a bill to pass, but somehow it never makes it and they blame it something else.

Abortion, for example, is a goldmine for Democrats. They don't want that controversy to go away. They don't want to kill that golden goose. They don't want to pass legislation to make it legal once and for all. Then they'd lose a huge issue to rally and distract their voters with.

@freemo