ArtieShaw

When mine wants to cuddle, she has learned to place her paws gently against my skin.

Any movement means claws come out.

It’s very effective.

My cat(s) would never forgive me.

OK - I’m lying. They wouldn’t care but my husband would be super offended on their behalf.

Perfection.

That was an interesting listen. And sad. I can’t imagine the situation has improved.

Wikipedia mentions that they’ve flipped diplomatic ties with China and Taiwan a couple of times in the past 20 years. Honestly, that seem like a cheap price to pay for some investment.

Oh, but like the radio piece said, “You’ve never heard of it, but once you do it seems to be everywhere.” My grandfather and a couple of his brothers visited (and unsuccessfully tried to stay) in the 1930s. He always described it as a paradise. That was, of course, a long time ago and before the mass destruction. I also wonder if assume I have some unknown Nauruan cousins.

Two cats at once. I get the part of the bed not taken by the cats. I’m motivated to lie very still by the cats and the obvious repercussions for moving.

If that fails, the podcast Casefile - gruesome true crime stories recited by a very slow talking Australian fellow. It almost always puts me out. In bed or on planes.

I’m reasonably local to the area and watched that fiasco play out over the course of several years. I’d wager I have a few more facts than you do.

I’m not a fan of Chappelle’s work in the last 10-12 years, so just throwing that out there.

The housing might appear to have been affordable to anyone not familiar with the region, but it was a basic bitch suburban sprawl neighborhood that would have been sold at market prices. Oh, and those market prices are already 1.5 to 2 times the local average because it was located in Yellow Springs. As a concession to local sensibilities, the developer offered to donate 1-acre of out of that 30-acre corn field to a local charity connected to one of the town’s councilors. That one acre would have been a mix of park land and affordable housing.

There were a mix of proposals at different times, but many of the “affordable” solutions were clearly untenable. The example I gave was the final form. All were shitty.

I also remember that this corn field was offered for sale at around 1.5 million shortly after Chapelle purchased his adjoining property, but years before serious talk of development. It was a grift/extortion from the moment he moved there.

For context, Chappelle’s house on 5 acres cost $750,000. That same house would probably have been half of that if it were anywhere else in the region. Affordable housing in that town is the topic of intense discussion, but nothing has looked even remotely as dodgey as that particular proposal.

So, random Chapelle Fact: For the past couple of years Dave Chapelle has had a 24/7 police presence on his property. I assume he’s hired them off-duty, but they sit in a county sheriff’s car near his front gate. I assume someone made a credible threat to him for some reason, but don’t know full details.

Timing-wise, the police presence started close to the whole “Dave opposed affordable housing in his neighborhood” story - which was repeated enough times to make it into the popular consciousness, but also pretty much untrue.

My low stakes conspiracy theory is that this advertising campaign (the original one) is what’s responsible for people thinking that pouring vinegar onto baking soda is a legitimate way to clean things.

Baking soda + water = good cleaner! It’s a mild abrasive and slightly alkaline.
Vinegar on its own = good cleaner! It’s a mild acid.

Baking soda + vinegar = bubbles, salt water, and an excess of either your mild acid or your baking soda. Any cleaning is going to be in spite of the reaction, not because of it.

But now because of Big Bubble here, generations of Americans have been conditioned to think that bubbles have some sort of cleaning power. Damn bubbles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of_Jesus

A google of “historicity of Jesus” will turn up some results. The wiki link is one of at least three very similar wiki articles on the topic.

tl/dr - it’s generally accepted that Jesus was a historical person but all that can be confirmed from written accounts is 1) he was baptized and 2) he was crucified.

Of course people can and do question the independent contemporary Jewish (Josephus) or Roman (Tacitus and Pliny) sources, but they seem to be in the minority. Even the less shady version of Josephus’s passage suggests that he was talking about a person who existed.

I don’t have anything to add since I’m not Christian - merely surrounded by Christians. I’ve done a fair bit of reading trying to figure out what’s going on with all that.

This sounds like a recipe request!

-put a hole in your slice of bread
-butter both sides and set the pan on medium low heat
-toast the buttered bread in the pan and season it with salt (I toast both sides because the egg cooks pretty fast.)
-put a little tab of butter into the pan in the center of the hole
-crack an egg into the hole.
-little bit of salt on the egg and wait until the whites are almost set; a little bit of cooking spray on the egg if you’re unsure about the non-stickness of your pan
-flip and wait until you achieve your perfect yolk
-plate and add ground pepper or whatever you desire

I honed my technique during COVID quarantine days.

An alternative:
-toast a slice of bread in a pan with butter and salt
-soft boil an egg
-serve the egg over the toast or use an egg cup and dip slivers of the toast into the egg

We call them Egg Hole, because it’s a little bit funny and apparently we are both 12.

Not cool, man. Not cool.

That’s just what the cat is saying. I’m happy to see this bunny here.

Unless I’m also having an off day, the article is just really confusing. It makes sense to me that Italy would want the base back because it would be like selling a framed painting to Hitler and getting only the canvas back when it was returned. (Hitler, amirite?)

It’s probably a pretty nice base. Probably custom made for the statue shortly after it was unearthed, and probably the sort of thing that art historians would care about keeping together with the sculpture for art historian reasons.

It was a not so subtle way of saying “we love you but you’re not saved so you’re going to suffer during the tribulation.” Or, “are you sure you don’t want to accept Jesus and avoid all that?”

The rapture is not an instakill scenario for them, but the details make my head hurt.

Baptized Lutheran shortly after birth, but never attended church. It’s a long and vaguely racist family story. Don’t consider myself Christian.

My in-laws are fundamentalist end times folk, and it took years to try to make sense all of that. I love my husband, but it’s a lot to take in. And my brain naturally tends to try to make sense or analyze things, or figure out what’s motivating people.

Their older generation are very interested in controlling the people around them and they’re very good at it. I think it’s control and authority at the heart of it, with a helping of genuine trauma that makes death and reward look appealing.

Actual quote that I’ve heard a few times: “Life is hard, short, and cruel - and then you die!” \ Let me just say that Christmas visits can get really weird.

On a lighter note, they mailed us a Tribulation Survival Care Package for the 1999 x-mas, ahead of the Y2K impending millennial crisis. That was actually sort of fun, and the shiny space blanket came in handy a few times.

There’s an interesting podcast called Stuff the British Stole.

They did an episode on the Elgin Marbles, but they cover a wide range of stolen goods.

And not to lay all the blame on Britain, Germany stole an entire temple from Pergamum. It’s currently in a museum in Berlin. (I tried to see it while in Berlin, but the exhibit was closed. I’m still a little salty about that. Can’t see it in the original location. Couldn’t see it in the museum.)

he puked on the stairs and went back to hiding

Classic.

Congratulations on finding a good one!

To be fair, he makes an excellent plant.

I’ve also heard that cats try to mimic birds. It’s one of the theories behind that weird clacking noise they make when they see prey that’s out of reach.

That’s a hell of a fight face.