South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been confirmed by the Senate as Transportation Secretary in the Biden Administration. This would make him the first openly gay cabinet member to be confirmed by the Senate.

(The first openly gay cabinet member is Richard Grenell, who served in an acting capacity during the Trump Administration and was never confirmed by the Senate.)

While most of the denizens of Twitter are congratulatory, and Buttigieg was confirmed by a comfortable majority, some of the denizens are seething in rage over the few GOPers who voted against him which would be Hawley, Blackburn, Rubio, Tim Scott, Rick Scott, Marshall, Tuberville, Shelby, Cassidy, Cruz, Cotton, Hagerty and Lankford.

It could be because Buttigieg has no knowledge of the transportation industry and there's really no reason to think he could learn the ins and outs especially quickly. But there's too much "It's just because he's gay, isn't it? Isn't it???"

Whatever. Buttigieg may surprise us all. But I'm putting him on notice that I expect the infrastructure to be not just repaired, but tastefully decorated!

But I'm putting him on notice that I expect the infrastructure to be not just repaired, but tastefully decorated! ~ Patrick at February 3, 2021 3:56 AM

Good luck with that. We are just not a people who appreciate having a working infrastructure. We don't take care of the things we have. We litter, we graffiti, and we despoil our surroundings with near-delirious glee. We are why we can't have nice things.

I didn't watch the confirmation hearings, so I don't know how Buttigieg answered questions about his lack of transportation industry experience, his philosophy of government's role in infrastructure development, or his thoughts about the job. Given that most confirmation hearings have devolved into speech opportunities for senators and not the job interview they should be, I would not be surprised to find that he was not asked any questions like those.

I will not accuse the listed senators of homophobia without more evidence. Opposing a gay man's nomination for a job for which he possesses very few outward qualifications is not, by itself, homophobia.

I can't help but wonder if actual qualifications matter any more in political appointments. Listening to the descriptions of Biden's nominees, one hears a chorus of "gay," "person of color," "transgendered," and more intersectional qualifiers, but one rarely hears of experience or knowledge directly related to the job. Janet Yellen, Lloyd Austin, and Merrick Garland may be the only exceptions. Of course, Biden's not the first president to appease his party's special interests with token nominees to his cabinet, nor will he be the last.

Who knows? Buttigieg may turn out to be a good Transportation Secretary. I am, however, getting tired of the cloying comments and tweets about how pioneering it is to have his husband by his side during the hearings. We get it, Pete, you're gay. Now, go be a good Secretary of Transportation, and not just a gay one.

Wiki—

In September 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Grenell as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany. On April 26, 2018, he was confirmed by the United States Senate by a vote of 56 to 42.

Grenell hisself says he was.

He still has some handsome energy about this.

Yoga FOR goats or Yoga WITH goats?

"Goat" in this instance refers to 'greatest of all time,' which is a verbal construction used by the kids to convey excellence.

That's right... It's time to talk about Tom Brady.

Absurd Stats To Enjoy At Your Leisure,
Tom Brady Super Bowl Edition.

There are many, many more.

Being short and useless for such things there was no reason to care about football at all until age 55 or so. But it's amazing how much I'm looking forward to this game, because OLD GUY.

And his (literally supermodel) wife *still* has more money than he does and has been begging him to retire for ten years, and he's about to deliver the most poignant imaginable message to the company that let him go last year. As a personality, he's completely unintimidating (contrast with MJ). Also, statue-of-liberty rushing man-to-man defense on fifth & seven out of the huddle with eighteen on the clock or whatever… Y'know, sports stuff.

Best thing to happen on TV since the last F1 race.

🐐 🧘

For the rest of my life, whenever I think of political naivete, I'll think of Radwaste. Because a billionaire's smartphone in a Honda Civic.

Thanks to Mandalorian memes, whenever someone mentions goat yoga, all I can think about is Goat Yoda.

Odd experience, but I think I just now experienced a "fuck you" moment. I'll explain, and it's certainly not directed at anyone here, because I suspect you all feel the same way I do on the topic of cancel culture.

It seems #ripchrispratt was trending on Twitter. The first possibility that came to mind was that he died. More likely, however, they were saying Rest In Peace to his career and cancel culture found another victim.

Sure enough, someone had screencapped a tweet of his from 2012, because apparently the original tweet has been deleted since I couldn't find it. (I'm assuming that someone didn't photoshop this to make him look bad and that he deleted his own tweet.)

And when I saw it, I felt something inside spontaneously shut off. Suddenly, I just became sick of the whole cancel culture and I no longer gave a good God damn whose life these professional grievance mongers want to ruin.

There's a distinction to be made between what Chris Pratt said and what, for example, Mel Gibson did. Pratt expressed no negative opinions about anyone and harmed no one, except those whose delicate, widdle, snowflakey fee-fees just shatter like crystal because wypipo ain't allowed to use certain words.

And I'm speaking as a gay man who knows all about Chris Pratt's supposedly anti-gay church.

I just now decided I'm going to watch his next movie, and if the theatres open, I'm even going to buy an extra ticket and give it away.

Regarding Richard Grenell, these are the dems and independents who voted against his confirmation.

But I'm sure it wasn't homophobic in their cases. It's only homophobia when the Republicans vote against gay cabinet members. Never mind that every one of those Senators who voted against Buttigieg, voted for Granell's confirmation.

Biden's Justice Department just dropped the Federal lawsuit against Yale for discriminating against Asian and White applicants.

Asians in America are not people without resources: They can and will take action on their own. America is going to have to come to grips with this.

Anyone with an iPhone can confirm this?

https://mobile.twitter.com/Stevenpotato/status/1356953980174131200

The show is actually meh, but kudos for giving a muppet a pair of gigantic knockers.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/1356641032226680832

Big Mac shucked right down to the cob last night.

We need people here who have little kids.

Trouble in Parler-dise:

Conservative billionaire Bekah Mercer just gave Libertarian millionaire John Matze the boot.

Looks like Cambridge Analytics' pet message board is going to be under new management. And not a moment too soon! Conservatives actually had a place to vent that wasn't TwitterFace.

Or is it all just a bunch of hooey?

Crid, there are maybe several books of sneaky tricks for parents to use with small children...

A classic trick, regarding nipping bad behavior in the bud, is to say, for example: "you didn't listen to me the first time, so that means you need more sleep and have to start going to bed earlier - every night."

Another trick (to cut parental stress) that I remember is to resist buying kids' books and to use the library instead. As Amy Dacyczyn, mother of six and author of The Complete Tightwad Gazette said, no parent wants to read the same books over and over, and if you borrow five books every week, you will not have exhausted the library's shelves before the child goes off to college. (What she didn't mention is that that also allows a parent of small kids to say "sorry, kid, that book isn't available this week," even when it is.)

And here's another, regarding ADHD:

https://www.statesboroherald.com/life/adhd-does-not-mean-your-child-has-food-allergy/

SPOILER

It says, in effect, that sugar and artificial ingredients do not necessarily cause ADHD, but kids who are led to believe that they do, may well behave ten times better when parents make big improvements in the kids' diets.