@derekballing.com
Not Team Red. Not Team Blue. Team Not-Orange. RPG & computer nerd. PoliSci obsessed. Self-identify as 🇮🇪 citizen, the place I _chose_ to become a citizen. Born and remain a 🇺🇸 citizen, for whatever _that_ is worth these days. "I have friends everywhere."
A language selection pull-down that includes options like "English, middle (1100-1500)", "English, old (ca.450-1100)", "French, middle (ca 1400-1600)", etc.
Checking in for my doctor's appointment, they asked me what language I spoke. Tempted to make them send over an expert in reading Chaucer.
I’m not sure why every country out there isn’t just like “ICE: you’re not permitted here, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Well they live far away, use it on their phones, so it’s a whole process of “switching her devices over to use the new app” … which I don’t really want to do remotely.
If you want to ward off ICE you use GARLIC and HOLY WATER.
I look forward to your Article V efforts. Sign me up for your newsletter :-)
I own my own domain so it’s theoretically easy, but my 75-year old mom has an email address in my domain so it’s difficult again.
Spinal Tap
Ennio Morricone
Pink Floyd
The Police
Rammstein
Have you moved from "stickers on your laptop" to "patches on your body armor"?
@housedemocrats.bsky.social Just an FYI: I have donated to one or two specific candidates, in races near and dear to me. If anyone other than those people I've donated to spams my phone (as y'all have been -- tirelessly) I will delete, and - worse - "mark as spam".
Consent matters.
That’s why you use VPNs while doing this sort of shit.
Irony: Pretti dying as an ICE observer has underscored the _importance_ of ICE observers. Without the dozens of camera angles we now have on that tragedy, the official [bullshit] narrative might've been able to hold up. But thanks to other observers, the truth was obvious.
Gimli: Never thought I’d die fighting side by side with a libertarian. Legolas: Taxation is theft Gimli: Please shut the fuck up and put your gas mask on.
Spotted in the Liberal Gun Owners subreddit…
Predator air-wrestle meme with Dillon as “shoveling snow” and Arnie as “protesting” with their clenched fists as “Fuck ICE”
Perot was crazy but he wasn’t wrong about the chokehold the two parties have on democracy.
Some day let me share with you the replacement constitution I’ve been working on (disclosure: with AI help) in the hopes of some day shit-canning the train-wreck we have now, but keeping the spirit intact.
Proton is a great solution.
The right solution would be to double down, schedule as may high-profile games in that window as possible, and blame Trump for why Republican leaning football fans can’t watch any of their college football championship games.
Just saying…. In the 18th Century, a bunch of under-equipped civilians went to war with the greatest military power on earth for a whole lot less than what the Federal Government is doing to its subjects now.
Because that’s not how the Insurrection Clause is applied. SCOTUS gets a lot wrong but they got that one right. It’s for Congress to decide - as a national matter - what is insurrection or not, rather than it being state-level piece-meal.
No requirement to use a bible whatsoever. There’s that whole separation of church and state thing.
So much misinformation. Have the conflict-bots reached BlueSky?
I’ve been working on this ChatGPT model for the past several months, asking it to calculate the odds of being 1930s Germany, or an “illiberal middle ground”, or “constitutional guard rails hold up and course-correct”.
Current likelihood: 34%, 66%, 0%
COMPUTE! is still a thing?
Your ideas intrigue me. Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?
The proper response to “show me your proof of citizenship” is “fuck all the way off”.
That level of defiance against tyrannical orders should be proof enough of your being a natural born citizen.
Really need to watch Inglourious Basterds again.
Especially since it’s CBS News reporting it. ICE lies. CBS sells it.
ICE/CBP/DHS = Sicherheitspolizei Change my mind (meme)
"This is what happens when civilians are allowed to just photograph ICE agents willy-nilly. They distract these noble heroes from the mission, and cause injuries possibly deaths." - JD Vance, probably
Saw that Emo Phillips is back out on tour. Look, Emo was never really _my_ thing, but I'm so ridiculously happy that there's enough people out there that he IS their thing that he's still able to book tours. Great to see a quirky oddball comic playing the long game like that.
