Tootfinder

Flu and covid shots accomplished (assuming no one's trying to run another of these https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/enforcement/utah-doctor-and-co-defendants-charged-for-running-a-covid-19-vaccine-sch…

How the US democracy is designed to avoid representation
Right now in the US, a system which proclaims to give each citizen representation, my interests are not represented very well by most of my so-called representatives at any level of government. This is true for a majority of Americans across the political spectrum, and it happens by design. The "founding fathers" were explicit about wanting a system of government that would appear Democratic but which would keep power in the hands of rich white landowners, and they successfully designed exactly that. But how does disenfranchisement work in this system?
First, a two-party system locked in by first-post-the-post winner-takes-all elections immediately destroys representation for everyone who didn't vote for the winner, including those who didn't vote or weren't eligible to vote. Single-day non-holiday elections and prisoner disenfranchisement go a long way towards ensuring working-class people get no say, but much larger is the winner-takes all system. In fact, even people who vote for the winning candidate don't get effective representation if they're really just voting against the opponent as the greater of two evils. In a 51/49 election with 50% turnout, you've immediately ensured that ~75% of eligible voters don't get represented, and with lesser-of-two-evils voting, you create an even wider gap to wedge corporate interests into. Politicians need money to saturate their lesser-of-two-evils message far more than they need to convince any individual voter to support their policies. It's even okay if they get caught lying, cheating, or worse (cough Epstein cough) as long as the other side is also doing those things and you can freeze out new parties.
Second, by design the Senate ensures uneven representation, allowing control of the least-populous half of states to control or at least shut down the legislative process. A rough count suggests 284.6 million live in the 25 most-populous states, while only 54.8 million live in the rest. Currently, counting states with divided representation as two half-states with half as much population, 157.8 million people are represented by 53 Republican sensors, while 180.5 million people get only 45 seats of Democratic representation. This isn't an anti-Democrat bias, it's a bias towards less-populous states, whose residents get more than their share it political power.
I haven't even talked about gerrymandering yet, or family/faith-based "party loyalty," etc. Overall, the effect is that the number of people whose elected representatives meaningfully represent their interests on any given issue is vanishingly small (like, 10% of people tops), unless you happen to be rich enough to purchase lobbying power or direct access.
If we look at polls, we can see how lack of representation lets congress & the president enact many policies that go against what a majority of the population wants. Things like abortion restrictions, the current ICE raids, and Medicare cuts are deeply unpopular, but they benefit the political class and those who can buy access. These are possible because the system ensures at every step of the way that ordinary people do NOT get the one thing the system promises them: representation in the halls of power.
Okay, but is this a feature of all democracies, inherent in the nature of a majority-decides system? Not exactly...
1/2
#uspol #democracy

Placing my plate at the table, I think to myself "I'll sit here" and try to pull out the chair. Instead of weighing 3 pounds, it weighs 20 pounds. Okay, there's a cat sleeping in that chair, I'll just sit at the next chair. Oh, that one also weighs 20 pounds. Maybe I'll just eat on the couch instead?
We have too many cats. 😃

Ok, yeah, I'm not done processing my anger over liberals doing shit like this. So this historian sees a rise in right wing violence, sees the US government carrying out ethnic cleansing, sees a rise in white supremacist terrorism, and then says, "oh yeah... this reminds me of a time right around the 1920s. Hum... yeah, ANARCHISTS fighting the government! Yeah, that's the same thing."
FFS, IT'S THE RED SUMMER! If you want a parallel between today and some horrible time in US history, TALK ABOUT THE RED SUMMER. The point of the language of dehumanization that the right uses, the point of all the anti-black and anti-emigrant rhetoric, is that it leads to genocide. Trump already carried out an act of genocide (#USPol

Clustering methods for Categorical Time Series and Sequences : A scoping review
Ottavio Khalifa, Viet-Thi Tran, Alan Balendran, Fran\c{c}ois Petit
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07885

Jona blogde gisteren over De Dresdener Codex en noemde daar natuurlijk Yuri Kronozov, de man die de Maya taal ontcijferde. Dat is iemand die in mijn visuele geheugen is vastgelegd en daar niet uit verdwijnt. Ook zijn standbeeld is met kat.
https://mainzerbeobachter.com/2025/09/0…

Não discuto com inimigos distantes, mas com aqueles que, perto da minha casa, obedecem e cooperam com os que estão longe, e que sem eles seriam inofensivos.
(Thoreau)
#quotes #citas #citacoes

A lower bound on the minimum weight of some geometric codes
Bence Csajb\'ok, Giovanni Longobardi, Giuseppe Marino, Rocco Trombetti
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04307 https://

@… Ale człowiek jest w jakiś sposób wychowywany - dorasta i uczy się przez pryzmat otaczającego go świata. Więc do kogo można mieć pretensje, kiedy wyrasta na takiego, a nie innego człowieka? O to mi chodzi - to się nie wzięło z nikąd.

To wcześniejsze pokolenia stworzyły takie, a nie inne środowisko - to wina rodziców, dziadków, wujków, cioć, nau…

Besides the bruised bananas I am chuffed at today's ride to the store and general adventure ride around town, going places I didn't think I could get to by bike. I rode about 13 miles and a little over an hour. The ebike is great for outrunning traffic or getting up those nasty hills. I still go really slow (PAS 1 or turned off) when on the crowded Oak Leaf Trail.
#mke