Yup. The guy was caught by the Secret Service as he was “trying to find an opening in the security.” About the only saving grace in all this is that the people trying to do this are idiots. Like that guy who came up with a brilliant plan to get past the bullet proof glass at an FBI building by using a nail gun.

Unfortunately, throw enough idiots into the mix and some of them will succeed just by dumb luck. And the right has plenty of idiots to throw.

Same thing happens in the Jewish community. My father is a Republican and believes that Republicans support Jews because “they support Israel.” He doesn’t see that the only reasons that Republicans support Israel are because:

1. The evangelicals want Israel to exist and be run by Jews so it can be attacked and Jesus can return.

And

2. So the right has a place to say Jews really belong (not in America).

They’ll “support Israel” all day and night while actively pushing for a Christian Theocracy in America where Jews are (at best) second class citizens.

I was the victim of a cyberstalker about a decade ago. This person was convinced that I was really someone else that she had a beef with. Her reasoning? We both like taking photos. (Apparently, I’m the only one posting photos online. All those pictures you see online? That’s all me. No wonder I have no free time!)

I couldn’t argue with her to let her know that she was mistaken because she had it on “very good authority” that I was lying about who I was. Namely, “God told her.” And I’m not exaggerating here. She literally thought that God talked to her and told her stuff like who was committing crimes.

Oh and I was guilty of those crimes according to “God.” I won’t name those crimes because they’re heinous, but suffice it to say she thought I was doing unspeakable things to kids. She was threatening to call my employer, the police, and everyone who knew me to tell them about what I was doing.

Luckily for me, all she had to go on was “TechyDad.” I blogged at the time, but didn’t post my exact whereabouts or my real name. The guy that she thought I was wasn’t as lucky. She contacted his employer (a school in New Zealand) and everyone with the same last name as him that was on Facebook and near him. All to tell them what he did to kids. (Again, her source was “God.” He didn’t really do anything and he had to have quite a few awkward conversations to clear things up.)

I finally got rid of the stalker by grabbing her IP address (from one of her comments) and modifying my htaccess file to report 404 Page Not Found for only that IP. She crowed on Twitter about how she singlehandedly took me down and then moved on. (I and her other targets would report her to Twitter, but she’d constantly have dozens of other handles ready and waiting and would switch to them the second her main one was banned.)

To my knowledge, she’s still out there stalking people.

Now, how would this have been different had she had my real name? Well, with a little work she would have been able to look up my location. (My name’s pretty common, but she’d find me eventually.) Then, she’d locate my employer, my address, and other information. She could send me packages or mail harassing me. She could contact my local police to swat me or just to report my “crimes.” She could contact my employer to report me and try to get me fired.

Now, I eventually did tie my real name to “TechyDad.” I wrote a book and didn’t want to publish under “TechyDad” so I used my two name. That being said, it was my choice. I definitely wouldn’t want it to be required for me to use my real name everywhere.

The only reason that he seemed like a “Genius CEO” with SpaceX and Tesla was because those companies had layers of management dedicated to protecting the company from Musk.

If Musk marched into Tesla and decided that all Tesla cars should have eyeball shaped headlights, managers would tell him what a genius idea that was and that they’d get right on it. Then, they’d distract him with something else while the idea went in the trash can.

Twitter has no such management layer so every Elon Epiphany becomes Twitter policy no matter how bad or destructive it is. SpaceX and Tesla were successes despite Musk and Musk gained his “genius” reputation because those companies were able to filter out his idiocy.

I was assuming that the reason was that Twitter fired all their system administrators so the services are basically held together with bubble gum and string. If too many people use the services, it’ll crash so they need to limit usage.

They can’t admit that the rate limits are due to unmaintained servers, though, so they trotted out the “people are scraping Twitter” excuse.

Come to think of it, didn’t Reddit use something like that as an excuse for the huge API pricing? Are they coordinating on how to ruin their services? If so, they’re doing a great job!

The level of fabrication would be impressive if it wasn’t so maddeningly illegal.

The guy didn’t contract for a website for his gay marriage.

He didn’t know that guy he was supposedly marrying.

And he’s straight.

And he’s been married to a woman for 15 years.

How did nobody check this out and what penalties can the website designer and lawyers face for lying in court?

As soon as they stop doing things worthy of criticism (and undo what they’ve already done), then I’ll agree that the liberal justices should stop criticizing the court.

Birthright citizenship is in the Constitution - the 14th Amendment. DeSantis couldn’t just have Congress pass a law repealing it. Now, he could have Congress try to pass a new Amendment removing it. That’s possible, but extremely unlikely.

First, he would need to get two thirds of each chamber of Congress on board. Right now, the chambers are basically divided 50-50. DeSantis might get one or two right leaning Democrats to jump on board (Manchin), but there’s no way he’d get enough to pass this hurdle.

Let’s say he did, though. The Democrats suffer a mass outbreak of temporary insanity and wind up passing this. Now, it would go to the states. DeSantis would need three fourths of the states, or 38, to ratify it. 27 states voted for Trump so lets assume they immediately jump on board. Georgia was close and is run by Republicans so we’ll give that to DeSantis also. This still leaves 10 states. He’d quickly run out of swing states and would need to convince some blue states to approve his amendment.

Is it possible that this happens? Yes, but it’s also possible that I find a winning lottery ticket on my front lawn tomorrow. I wouldn’t count on either one happening though.

They want the First Amendment to only apply to straight, white, Christian men.

Of course, they want all rights to apply only to them and all restrictions to apply only to everyone else. It’s why conservatives were very pro-gun control when black groups started marching while legally carrying guns. “We can’t have ‘those people’ using the Second Amendment! It only applies to us!!!”

It’s pretty much the playbook of all of DeSantis’ “accomplishments.”

1. Make a broad law banning or mandating some action.

2. Brag about how great, conservative, and anti-woke you are for passing this law.

3. Law gets struck down for being obviously and egregiously unconstitutional.

4. Either denounce “liberal activist judges who push the woke agenda” (ignoring that the judge was appointed by a Republican) or just ignore the ruling entirely and keep touting the law you passed regardless of the fact that it’s been junked.

The right to practice a religion ends when it smacks me in the face with its zealotry and steals bodily autonomy.

I’m religious and agree 100% with this. I’d never want my religious beliefs to be used to tell you what you can and can’t do. They’re my religious beliefs and should only affect me. On the flip side, I don’t want anyone else’s religious beliefs to dictate what I do.

There are too many people, though, who say “this is a Christian country and we need to follow Christian rules.” I’m Jewish and not Christian so I know that these people getting their wish would make me a second class citizen. And that’s if they don’t go all “deport all Jews to Israel” (which I’m not from) or just go full Nazi and decide to kill all Jews. (And, yes, I’ve met at least one Nazi who faulted Hitler for “not finishing the job.” These people are out there, they’re scary, and some of them are getting into positions of power.)

I started working from home in March 2020 also. I was convinced that my productivity would suffer working from home. Previously, I had only worked from home during snowstorms and that was me sitting on my couch or bed working on just my laptop screen. When the pandemic hit, I got an second monitor and set up a dedicated working area. That made all the difference.

I’m actually more productive now than I was in the office. I can get through an entire days’ worth of tasks in a matter of hours because I can focus without people walking up to me to talk.

I’m also healthier at home. When I went into the office, I needed to pack my lunch and any snacks I wanted. I’d often overpack and since my lunch container was on my desk next to me, I’d snack all day. Now, all my snacks are in my kitchen, but that means getting up and walking downstairs. Laziness actually helps me eat less. Go figure. Plus, I can make a salad fresh for lunch instead of relying on frozen meals.

Do I miss talking to my coworkers? Sometimes, but the advantages vastly outweigh the disadvantages. I’m also now technically working for my company’s home office which is in another state. A commute would be about 10 hours each way for me. (9 hours if I cut through Canada.) So I’m pretty much permanently working from home now as long as I stay in this position (which I have no intention of leaving at the moment).

I agree. The Republicans control enough state legislatures that saying “state legislatures can just declare who the winner is despite the vote tally” would mean a permanent Republican House and Senate majority (with the Senate majority filibuster proof) and a permanent Republican presidency.

Thankfully, any such ambitions to subvert democracy in this manner have been paused for now.

Note, paused and not stopped. I’m sure the Republicans will try to find another way to present this to get the Supreme Court to approve of it. This is a win in a battle, but the war is far from over.

Ask him how Prohibition is going since Amendments can’t be changed.

I make “egg muffins” and freeze them to reheat every morning. To make these, I steam a bag of broccoli florets. I break these apart and put them into greased muffin tins. Then I add some shredded cheddar cheese and egg beaters. I bake these (400° for about 15 minutes or until done). Then, after they cool, I stick them in the freezer. I make sure I have 12 in a Tupperware tub in my refrigerator.

Every morning, I microwave 3 of them and have that with some whole wheat toast and cream cheese. (I take more out of the freezer as needed and they are mostly defrosted by the next morning.)

There is no such thing as expunging an impeachment. You can’t do it. Once someone is impeached, they’re impeached. Of course, the Republicans won’t let a little thing like facts stand in their way.

She thinks many people in the mainstream have assumptions about women who get abortions that don’t match the reality she sees when she protests at clinics.

“They’ve never actually gone out to an abortion mill and seen that the majority of women who come in here — they have very hard hearts,” she said. “They’re flipping us off and screaming obscenities, just wicked things.”

Gee, you’re saying that when you go and call people murderers when they’re going through a stressful time of their life, people don’t tend to be polite back to you? Who knew?!!

Biden wasn’t my top pick in the primaries. (Bernie Sanders was.) When he was the nominee, I jumped on board because any issues I had with Biden paled in comparison with issues I had with Trump. I figured that Biden wouldn’t be perfect but would be decent. He definitely hasn’t been perfect, but even on his worst days he’s been SOOOO much better than Trump on Trump’s best days.

And when you hear he did something, your first response isn’t “Oh God. What did he tweet out now? Did he declare war on a country? He declared war on a country because they criticized him, didn’t he?!!!”

And it’s not like we had some recent example of people thumbing their nose at safety only to have their “safety is waste” vessel catastrophically fail… Oh, wait.