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Diaries

Saturday Open Thread - 11/8/25: Odds and Ends

Good morning, good people! I hope you are all doing well!

My young attorney pal shared her interesting new family law case this afternoon. Seems a 19 yr old blond, blue eye woman met a guy of Hispanic origin in their freshman year at college, resulting in a baby. The mom's family brought their 19 yr old and 1 week old baby to my friend's office to hire her to proceed with an action to prove the alleged daddy via DNA testing, and establish official parentage and set up the long, 18 year struggle of co-parenting. My friend said the baby did have dark skin and straight black hair, mom is snow white, blonde, blue eyed.

Lawsuit was filed, dad was served, DNA testing to be done via court order. So far, normal. Then...

A woman called my friend. Said she was an aunt of the alleged dad, and wanted to tell my friend the lawsuit would go nowhere. See, according to the aunt, the white woman was messing around with lots of guys. Including Republicans. You know, the ones with straight hair and dark skin, unlike her family. which is cur;y haired and light skinned.

My friend did agree to the skin and hair description, but was puzzled about the Republican thingy...

She came up with the question I would not have thought of to ask: "Ma'am, do you mean Dominican Republic men?

Yes!

My pal and I mused about a lib dem/Republican child. I suggested to change his white Anglo name via court order to name him Marco. She suggested he might then have a chance in baseball. I suggested he would at least get a college scholarship to play baseball if he was named Marco, and then could proceed to the minor leagues, and go into politics.

We will be in contact and share ideas as her case proceeds.

Friday Night Photos Damn Big Dam Edition

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

My sister had never been to Hoover Dam, so while we were in Las Vegas we toured the dam.

A little info about the dam courtesy Britannica.com
Hoover Dam, dam in Black Canyon on the Colorado River, at the Arizona-Nevada border, U.S. Constructed between 1930 and 1936, it is the highest concrete arch-gravity dam in the United States. It impounds Lake Mead, which extends for 115 miles (185 km) upstream and is one of the largest artificial lakes in the world. The dam is used for flood and silt control, hydroelectric power, agricultural irrigation, and domestic water supply. It is also a major sightseeing destination, with some seven million visitors a year, almost one million of whom go on tours through the dam.

Hoover Dam is 726 feet (221 metres) high and 1,244 feet (379 metres) long at the crest. It contains 4,400,000 cubic yards (3,360,000 cubic metres) of concrete. Four reinforced-concrete intake towers located above the dam divert water from the reservoir into huge steel pipes called penstocks. The water, after falling some 500 feet (150 metres) through the pipes to a hydroelectric power plant in the base of the dam, turns 17 Francis-type vertical hydraulic turbines, which rotate a series of electric generators that have a total power capacity of 2,080 megawatts. Nearly half of the generated electric power goes to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the city of Los Angeles, and other destinations in southern California; the rest goes to Nevada and Arizona. The dam, power plant, and reservoir are owned and managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation.

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Open Thread - 11-07-2025 - Shifting Sands

Good morning. What follows is a collection of stories on some of the changes happening. Ignored the big change in New your City politics. My bias is it is not sincere and part of the manipulation to make changes in this country. There are others on the site who have more experience in straight political matters.

Elections discussion post

Pluto has suggested (and I agree) that there was a discussion started by Marie regarding the 2025 elections that is worthy of continuing. So, I am going to post here a link to the comment that started the thread and if folks feel like continuing the discussion, well, have at it.

If the discussion continues after it slides down the list a bit, I will pin it up at the top until it looks to be concluded.

Open Thread - Thurs 6 Nov 2025 - Go Germany!!!

Go Germany!

Go, Germany! The German government has stepped up to help pay US military base employees their October salaries during our government shutdown. This is something like 11,000 employees they are paying. The German government is considering it as a loan, which the US government will pay back when the shutdown is over. These are US civilian employees Germany is paying, not Germans. Of course, the shutdown has extended into November, so who knows if this will help those employees now.

It seems as though the government might not even be able to pay our soldiers starting November 15th, nevermind their families and others working on our bases. The US Army website is telling our soldiers based in Germany where to get help from foodbanks. Thank the gods Germany has a good social welfare system (compared to the USA) since that's where (in part) the army is sending our soldiers to get food!


Street performers - soldiers kissing a girl while holding their flags from alamy.com

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