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Joined 12 days ago
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Cake day: October 27th, 2026

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  • Thankfully, I haven’t noticed excessive farting in Archie. But I still have questions. Is my cat farting more or less than a small dog, say, a Chihuahua? What do cat farts usually smell like? And at what point is some farting too much farting?

    Jackie Flynn Mogensen is a breaking news reporter at Scientific American. Before joining SciAm, she was a science reporter at Mother Jones, where she received a National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications in 2024. Mogensen holds a master’s degree in environmental communication and a bachelor’s degree in earth sciences from Stanford University. She is based in New York City.


  • The numbering is weird, there aren’t actually 50 Propositions because you need a certain number of signatures to get something onto the ballots. Only like 10 Propositions actually make it onto the ballot each year.

    Everyone is eligible to receive a mailer that contains the full wording of the proposition, a couple of pages summary with complete “for” and “against” arguments (and rebuttals), as well as a ~2 paragraph summary from a coalition of folks representing the “for” and “against” campaigns.

    On top of that, outside groups like DSA provide “Voter guides” like the above, that you can independently research.

    The ballot itself just has a title. You are not required to read anything to vote, but I’d wager most folks just read the official “for” and “against” blurbs and form an opinion.

    ETA: You can see the official voter guides here, just scroll to the PDFs and choose your preferred language.

    To be honest and blunt, the quick reference opposition arguments were quite weak, which is likely what carried this proposition over the line.










  • Look, I’m tired of Jefferies smug “I tweeted about it, what more do you want” face, but I do want to call out a bit of a hypocrisy I’m seeing here on Lemmy.

    Theres a bunch of folks clamoring about how they want Democrats to focus on trying to fix things and not just waste time on impeachment, but then Jefferies says that’s what he’s gonna do and everyone is back to WHAT ABOUT IMPEACHMENT.

    Personally I’m a fan of the walk and chew approach of doing both, but seeing a lot of people bickering about what Democrats should do for the next two years as if nothing they do will be sufficient.

    For me, for now, I’m just glad we slowed the bleeding.



  • The reason impeachment is even in discussion is because we have a president who would rather burn the country down while blaming the Democrats, than compromise.

    Hell, compromise is even the wrong word, they could pass the “Trans ban tax cut deregulation super bill” and he would still veto it out of spite.

    Without presidential support or a super majority, Democrats main tools are investigations and impeachments. If anything, that gives them leverage or a shot at getting someone into the Oval Office not obsessed with retribution.

    Republicans in both chambers could take a hint and help pass things without the president, but it’s more likely they’re doing the political calculus and coming to the decision that resisting Democrats passing popular bills is the best shot they have at the GE in 2 years ago they can say “See, the blue wave was useless and Democrats can’t govern.”

    This isn’t me pre-appologizing for Democrat inaction, it’s the reality of how our political system works - having a simple majority in one of the three beaches of government isn’t free reign to do whatever you want.