Live and learn: I tried including Anaheim chilis in ratatouille. The flavor was good, but the tough skins weren't. Next time, they get roasted and skinned first.

"The majority of Americans now say that they don’t believe in superior or inferior races. Most people know that this isn’t a good way to think, which isn’t at all the same as not thinking it."

--Dashka Slater, "Accountable: the true story of a racist social media account and the teenagers whose lives it changed"

The election chief in my county -- a blue country in the Pacific Northwest -- is asking for better security. People have been sending death threats to poll workers, and taking advantage of our mail-in ballots' privacy sleeves to send in powders -- baking soda in one case, fentanyl in another.
MAGAts are cowards. To paraphrase one of Mark Twain's characters, one is safe from ten thousand of their kind -- as long as it's daylight, and they're not behind him.
#politics

#cosobooks
If you have a vagina or love someone with a vagina I recommend Rachel E. Gross's "Vagina Obscura." The title is a bit misleading--it covers everything from the ovaries to the clitoris.

https://share.libbyapp.com/title/6396842

The lingering cough turned out to be pneumonia, aka "old man's friend" because while the coughing is tedious the anoxia produces a dreamy lassitude.... Better to treat it, though, unless you're ready to go.

I was shocked to learn that TFG's famous mugshot has actually been retouched. Through confidential sources I have secured the unretouched
version.
#TrumpMugShot

TFG deserves an Obie for the way he stage-managed his surrender. He made people wait all day, leaving the talking heads with nothing to talk about but him and the jail he was headed for; came in on a big jet with his name on it; kept his face out of view, like Homer keeping Odysseus out of the Odyssey until Book 5, until it came out in his carefully posed mugshot; zipping back out, still unseen except for the mugshot, on his big dark jet. He makes politics pure theater, and runs the show.

#politics
The bad news is TFG's organization will, by its own admission, use his mugshot for fundraising merch.
The good news is there'll be no copyright on it, so the rest of us can have our fun with it too.

215 pounds? Sure.

Hivemind--has anyone else tried to send money via Venmo and had the transaction come out $50 short?
I sent my friend $414, Venmo (2 weeks later) has disbursed only $364.
Anyone else seen anything like this? TIA.

#politics
Do Republicans really think women go through 9 months of pregnancy and the day before their due date go "Eh, I don't think so" and pop down to Planned Parenthood for a D&C?

Been enjoying the nuthatches, chickadees, and juncos visiting my bird feeder, a roofed tray hanging from a line stretched between a tree and the house.
Also enjoying the Stellars Jay having a hard time landing on it -- he's more than twice the size of the little guys, about one-eighth the mass of the feeder itself, and it wasn't mounted with steadiness in mind.

Olympia ain't perfect, but the buses are free and there are ripe blackberries at some of the stops.

#politics
The guy gets stupider by the minute. 10% tariffs on *everything*? And he wants to call it "ring around the collar"? Who in hell is writing this movie?

Trump vows massive new tariffs if elected, risking global economic war
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/22/trump-trade-tariffs/