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Last Colorado State Open Thread for the year. 12/30/2024 [1]

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Date: 2024-12-30  

I thought about taking today off, but since I will be taking the entire month of February off, I decided I needed to see what I could do with the various points of interest floating around in my brain. As I have indicated, I will need one or more Kosacks to cover the diary in February. Please indicate down in the comments or send me a Kosmail if you’re interested. If you recall from last October into November, there really are no limits to what you can write about for this Open Thread. I may be able to contribute comments, but I will be overseas and I will be on an entirely different schedule so I will not be posting any diaries (I think). I have appreciated those who have stepped up in my absence during my trips. I always look forward to reading diaries from you.

Do you have any resolutions planned for the New Year? Do you have any that you successfully achieved (or spectacularly failed at) from 2024? Do you even do the resolutions thing? I’ve put a poll at the end to see what you might think. I would like to hear any stories. I usually forget mine fairly quickly, or just have ones like “clean my office” that have been on my list for years and years. I’m sure I’d be interested to read what yours are so I can cheer and support you through the year.

Did you realize tonight there will be a “Black Moon”? This is the first time in a couple of years we will have one. You may be familiar with a “Blue Moon” where there are two full moons in a month. A “Black Moon” is the opposite — two “New Moons” in a month. I guess the reason why we know more about a “Blue Moon” is because we can see them, whereas with a “Black Moon” the only chance we have to see a “New Moon” (where the moon is not visible because the Sun is shining on the opposite side of the moon and not on the side we can see) is when there’s a solar eclipse. That’s rare to see from Earth. The opposite of a solar eclipse is a lunar eclipse and people can see that from all over the earth because we can look up and see the colors displayed on the moon’s surface, put there by the glorious sun god of your choice (Apollo, Helios, Surya, Amaterasu, Ra — There is only one god, and it is the sun god, Ra, Ra, Ra! etc.)

In a couple of notes specific to Colorado,

a more extensive list of the new laws for Colorado in 2025 than I posted last week can be found at www.9news.com/…

Finally, a lengthy article from the New Yorker magazine was published back in July and then updated just before the election. It starts with stories from Colorado and expands to include more stories from all over the country. The topic is the lengths people are taking to prepare themselves for another American civil war, as well as what form it might take and the fact that liberals are now starting to prepare ourselves as well. I think the possibility of a civil war is lower than if Trump had lost, but I think there are also plenty of people out there who are itching to use all the weapons, ammo and hatred for their fellow people in a destructive pattern. If you have any interest in the topic, you should find the article interesting.

… According to an analysis of FEMA data, some twenty million Americans are actively preparing for cataclysm—roughly twice as many as in 2017. Political violence, including the spectre of civil war, is one of the reasons. A recent study conducted by researchers at U.C. Davis concluded that one in three adults in the U.S., including up to half of Republicans, feel that violence is “usually or always justified” to advance certain political objectives (say, returning Trump to the White House). In May, Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, told the Financial Times that he believed there was about a thirty-five-per-cent chance of civil war breaking out in America. “We are now on the brink,” Dalio said, noting that a modern civil war—though it might not involve muskets—would see the fracturing of states and widespread defiance of federal law. In June, Dalio upped his estimate to “uncomfortably more than 50 percent,” predicting “an existential battle of the hard right against the hard left in which you will have to pick a side and fight for it, or keep your head down, or flee.” ... A Reuters investigation identified more than two hundred cases of political violence between January 6, 2021, and August of last year, and noted that “America is grappling with the biggest and most sustained increase in political violence since the 1970s.” ... In late September, the Wall Street Journal published a story titled “The Most Surprising New Gun Owners Are U.S. Liberals.” It noted the recent creation of gun groups marketed to Democrats, including one in Los Angeles called L.A. Progressive Shooters. Nearly three in ten liberals now own guns, according to a University of Chicago survey; researchers at Johns Hopkins have determined that more than half of Democratic gun buyers since 2020 are first-time owners. ...

I’m sure I have left out subjects of interest to you. I apologize and invite you to let us in on what is happening in your corner of our square(ish) state. Please remember to volunteer to write one of the four Open Threads in February. Until then, the floor is yours...

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