the American opioid crisis is almost entirely the work of Purdue Pharmaceuticals and the Sackler family of murderous profiteers, but because Americans can't imagine anything being their fault, we've invaded Venezuela over it

We have reached the part of Christmas where I eat leftovers in the order of how little food there is in the container, so I can have the joy of cleaning out as many containers at one meal as possible. I finished five different containers at lunch.

So chuffed that my native county in NY, an ancestrally Republican place, gave 15 out of its 25 seats on the county legislature to Democrats last night, re-elected its Democratic comptroller and elected a Democratic county judge both by 40k to 32k votes.

One interesting angle I don't think anyone has played up is that Andrew Cuomo and RFK Jr. used to be brothers-in-law.

How much of elite capitulation to trump is due to the fact that our society has cultivated a leadership class solely on the basis of abstract “business” theory who are not rooted in any particular craft or discipline?

If only American liberals had thanked president trump more, with more tears in their eyes, for ending the war in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn’t have had to keep bombing Palestinian kids.

Why yes I am having fun blocking all the shitposters and or bots who are showing up here, why do you ask?

Going to cancel Disney+ and send the $16 a month to the ACLU. And promise my 8 year old to go out for ice cream every month to try to mollify her somewhat (should cost about $16 too). Please pray for us parents who believe in free speech.

If you want more NY thoughts, the collision in the 1800s of Dutch tolerance and New England passion for social righteousness fueled both the ideas of the abolitionist movement and created the manpower necessary to carry them out in the many immigrants who fought for the Union in the Civil War.

I live in what was 300 years ago the Dutch heartland of North America. I have a vanishingly small percentage of Dutch ancestry, so don't really count it as my history. It is fascinating to me that the Dutch laid the foundations of NY and within 200 years, had basically drifted into history.

Prove me wrong: Without the Erie Canal, NY would have become just a slightly colder Pennsylvania.

I know it’s vanilla to say so but the Beatles are just so good. What Bach was to western art music (until twelve tone music) the Beatles are to rock n roll. They anticipated it all, no rock group has yet invented something they did not.

I hope Governor Hochul was able to introduce our Texas Democratic guests to Albany's most unique food: mozzarella sticks with raspberry sauce. I am not kidding, this is a real food.

One of my favorite memories from my chaplaincy internship in the hospital was sitting with another recent seminary grad, using our seminary Greek to figure out that "nephrolithiasis" must mean the patient's kidneys were turning into stone. We agreed that must be pretty awful before we realized

Nothing is more NY than a bunch of fig tree saplings for sale by the side of the road.

For more than three years, I regularly visited hospice patients in a nursing home. Some of them were there because they had no family, some of them because their families couldn’t care for them (try caring for a 200 lb bed bound person when you weigh 120), and some of them were there because their

“If you’re going to sell the Bible, you should know the Bible.” - leader Jeffries just note

Is there anyone on BSKY live-blogging this process in the House and explaining all the parliamentary procedures, etc.? Like what Joshua Friedman does for court hearings? Knowing more about parliamentary procedure, I find, goes a long way to soothing your broken heart.

The fact that I am still tearing the perforated edges off of dot matrix paper in 2025 may mean that we went a little overboard as a society making that stuff.

If you are confused about who the fourth senator is who has not voted yet, my guess is it’s Majority leader thune. If the vote will fail, he will also vote against it. This would allow him to later bring it up again with a motion to reconsider.

I’ve never lived in a pine forest before so I really didn’t realize the insane menace that pine pollen is. Going to take a few days to clean off every single exterior surface from a thick layer of yellow gunk.

I called Chuck's office last week and told him that before the classified briefing he was so proud of arranging happened, we would be at war with Iran. A 39 year old dad from upstate has a better read on the situation than someone who's been in the Senate for 27 years. What a joke.

I would be happy to be deported to any of the countries my European ancestors came from that no longer exist.

They always say to stop and smell the roses but they don’t tell you you might accidentally inhale bugs while doing so.

My seven year old is upset that there are currently no colleges or universities in the US offering degree programs in cryptozoology (e.g. unicorn studies). Higher education has 10 years to fix this problem.

This is why we can’t have dog things.

When I go to the library, I like to visit books on the shelves I’ve already read and returned and see how their doing.

Hell yeah! Put this on loop—this wise man speaks for me. 🔥

Is anyone ever illegally blind?

I saw news from El Salvador the last few years about mass roundups of alleged gang members and them being jailed with no trial. But I thought a small Central American nation didn’t really affect the US. Now I realize what Dr. King meant: “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Maybe the reason they complain so loudly about peaceful protests in front of the chief fascists' homes is THAT THEY WORK AND THEY DON'T WANT US TO FIND THAT OUT! www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/...

Yesterday was a great day! The highest estimate I saw was 5 million people and certainly more than 1 million people, in the streets, demanding an end to authoritarianism and a return to democracy. BUT I believe that for this movement to move forward, we must, ASAP, agree on 3-5 demands

How long until they accuse the stock market of being infested with evil DEI stock traders who are purposely tanking the market to get back at the regime?

Cory Booker was on the floor of the Senate for LONGER than "JD" "Vance" was in Greenland. Kind of shows you who the serious one is doesn't it?

I know it may be an unpopular opinion, but Holst's Military Suites are 100 times more earwormy than The Planets.

Let's be clear about this: maybe you're a white American with some sort of American accent. If the government is allowed to arrest and deport immigrants without due process, it can arrest and deport you without due process. Due process is how you prove you're an American citizen.

No concrete dates, times or places other than that the first one is suppose to be in April in Rockland County. Taking bets on whether he actually shows to any of these.

It's just stunning how completely incompetently this tariff rollout has gone. Tariffs on everything! Except autos! Except maybe other things! If "great" means incompetent, stupid, and sucker punching your friends in the face, count me among the meek.

"But Lord," saith Martha, "by now the dog hath been out in the rain for six hours and surely he stinketh!"

Anyone else watching Trump's tariffs crash the market in real time? It's like the proverbial train crash, you can't look away.

It's almost as if the Mexicans aren't the ones bringing drugs and crime and raping people? The exact circumstances of the brothers' release are unclear, though they follow reports that Trump [regime] officials pressured Romania to lift the travel restrictions. Tate is a vocal supporter of [Trump].

It always kind of bugs me that "This Land Is Your Land" stops at New York, so I always change "the New York Island" to "the Eastport island" and "the Gulf Stream waters" to "the Passamaquoddy waters." The first time I went out there, I couldn't believe how far America went. Would love to go back!

Has anyone else noticed right-wing ads on Youtube videos popping? Just got an ad featuring Tucker Carlson on a Brian Tyler Cohen video. I got off of Facebook a few weeks ago because the same thing was happening: more and more posts the algorithm gave me were right-wing propaganda.

I've been playing with MapQuest and finding it actually better in some ways than Google Maps. Google Maps often routes you on "shorter" back road routes that are unpaved, narrow, curvy, insanely steep, and just not suitable if you value your undercarriage. MapQuest sticks to reasonable, main roads.

Free music! Everyone welcome! If you like the way the organ sounds, chip in a few bucks to keep it sounding that way for another 120 years!