[Image description: the Aurora borealis painted the night sky with streaks of red, purple, and green all the way down to the 43rd parallel this evening]
I'm so glad you got to catch it this time!
LallyLuckFarm
joined 1 year ago
From my wife's coworker who lives nearby:
Tbh I'm fine missing out on it if it's as dismissive as the reply to @alyaza's direct firsthand experiences working with a local politician who faced issues campaigning which are completely germane to this conversation.
They’ve had the power several times over the last 16 years to make life better for the working class and the poor, and they seem to always elect to protect and promote the lives of the billionaire class.
Someone took the time to politely correct this misconception a few days ago, their reply from then is pasted below:
In the past you have stated that the Democrats had control of Congress and the presidency under Biden and Obama, yet they were unable to do things like get a public option in the ACA or codify roe v Wade. However this continues to be a misunderstanding of the situation.
While I can agree I am disappointed in the inability to get these things done, and Obama saying it was no longer a priority, I don’t see how you can pin this all on the Democrats as some kind of monolithic entity.
The fact of the matter is during Obama’s terms, there were anti abortion Democrats. These Democrats were enough to keep abortion access out of the ACA and prevent roe being codified.
Fast forward to Bidens terms, and we now have a filibuster rule that requires 60 senators in order to pass stuff in the Senate. There were not 60 senators who supported roe codification when the Democrats “controlled” the Senate.
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The fact that there are still anti choice democrats in our legislatures is a failing on the part of all the left-leaning voters in their districts and states (myself included) to organize and replace them with people who will advocate and vote for our policy goals. Alternative parties could capitalize on those races by representing the wants of those left leaning voters in off election years but choose not to.
I, and many others, do not blame other parties when the dems shoot themselves in the foot, we blame the dems for their poor decisions. Likewise, we blame the green party for running a quadrennial grift on the disaffected leftists who know enough to be upset but who wrongly believe the extent of their voting power is only this one race.
Most local candidates have to work to live, and making outlandish statements to these effects weaken a person's rhetorical standing. From the article you posted:
While they have little infrastructure in the county, within the last decade, Madison has nevertheless elected 10 Green candidates to different sorts of local office, more than almost any other city of its size in the nation.
Across the country, the Green Party barely has a footprint. It has little money or political organization, no members of Congress or statewide officeholders and just a few local ones. Every four years, though, the Greens run a candidate for president
In fact, they’ve [the Greens] pursued the opposite tack — they’ve directed efforts toward close battleground states where the party is sure to get more attention.
The Green party could clean house in Maine where we've actually got Ranked Choice Voting and they could win seats, but we're not a swing state and the greens don't act like they're interested. Neither does the Socialist party, or SocDems for that matter. But I do see their campaigning in battleground states, promising things out of their presidential candidates that are squarely the purview of congress, in which they're clearly not interested in having representation.
Being frank, the Green Party and Socialist Party do so little organizing when it's not a presidential election year that it ought to be a joke among all leftists. They aren't doing the outreach or work necessary to implement any of their grand promises made every four years, because they're not getting local party members elected in downballot races. I've been on both party's mailing lists for 22 years and in three different states and have almost never seen anything come of it. Well... besides fundraising emails every four years.
No, certainly not. We need and want you here, advocating for a better future alongside us and organizing with those around you for change 💕
My wife has gotten used to this but some of the neighbors still judge a bit. Then again, we're the house with the hummingbirds and tons of other nesting migratory birds as well as the house with lightning bugs
Fixed 
I once heard about a movie wherein people forgot about her...
Fwiw I laughed at the pH joke without any concept of who that person is, so I agree with you 
[Image description: text which says "You're a 10 but it's on the pH scale". Underneath is a picture of a woman whose face suggests she is dropping hard truths. OP has since learned that this is a character from a show saying "You're basic" and that the post is accidentally self-referential]
Hey folks! I am at the hospital with my wife waiting for our child to be born and my wife would like memes. Lots of memes. Stupid ones, funny ones, all manner of memes to distract her and produce happy hormones in her brain. Puns and dad jokes are also very welcome
ETA: seriously, thank you everyone! She's gotten some really hearty chuckles out of this and it's definitely helped keep her mood afloat.
ETA2: y'all are the best, li'l Juniper Mayhem joined us after 24 hours of labor and our sanity would have been in tatters if it weren't for all of you 
[Image description: Mugatu meme template with top text that says "These coals" and bottom text that reads "so hot for up to 72 hours"]
I was told my compost puns were moldy after the last talk I gave, so this time I'm going with some memes that are straight 🔥🔥🔥
I appreciate a creative use of scrap lumber as much as the next person, but jeez. I'm getting tired of floating sistered joists and framing.
[Image description: a wood burning of Bulbasaur on maple]
This is a piece I did for my newest neighbor as a housewarming gift
Hand done wood burning on mahogany. It's an image from the game manual of Tunic (if you haven't played, the manual is unlocked by finding its pages during gameplay). After cleaning up the enlarged image a little bit I transferred the image by hand with carbon paper before sitting down to do the burning in of the image.
Yesterday was the one bad day for several of our ducks so today we made some broth out of the leftovers from two we parted out for meals for the next ten days or more. It just so happened that today was the first true chilly wet autumn day (and yesterday was apparently the Hunter's Moon) and it felt good to fire up the wood stove instead of the gas range.
Big stock pot, two carcasses, onions grown on site, garlic, carrot, and parsnip the same. Some ACV, whole black peppercorns, and a dash of lemon juice before adding water to cover (we'll occasionally add a little more to keep things pretty covered. The stove will get loaded to run overnight to keep things simmering and tomorrow morning I'll strain it for soups and stock before loading it again for a second round with extra ACV to get what's left in the bones.
For anyone interested: The ducks were pasture raised with access to a pond, the garden scraps, worms during compost turning, and fruit grown for them in their run. The wood was harvested from the property next to us (the owner is a logger). The feet have been saved and dehydrated to use for dog chews (under supervision). The hearts, livers, and several gizzards will feed us or be turned into the craziest high value dog training treats you've ever heard of. The only way to truly honor our time with these members of our flock is to make them as much of a part of our lives as we can.
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It's so true. I've gotten to see them before, way up Maine, but not as brightly as this evening and it was breathtaking. Our whole dead end street was all out at the same time, we could hear each other marveling at it all