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I reposted one of my posts to !environment@beehaw.org about British Columbia refusing emergency action to save the last wild Spotted Owl left in Canada, so it may have been that. I usually just post fun and educational things, but I thought that was an important bit of news a broader range of environmentalists should be aware of.
I try to post one or 2 things a day on Superb Owl to give people something positive to look forward to each morning. I also try to find places you can actually go to visit owls and other raptors in person to get the full experience of these amazing creatures.
As Lemmy evolves, I hope things get to the point we can refederate with more instances so we have finer control in cross promoting positive and inspiring communities.
If you have an alt besides Beehaw though, come check it out. I wrote a long posts about owl feet with lots of pictures and info that got over 600 upvotes. I’m researching to write the next one about the different types of feathers and what they do.
I still like the concept of Beehaw, but I’ve found myself spending less time here. The last month or so, the content seems to be all negative things, so I end up either skipping most of it, it’s not coming on this instance every day. I try sorting Local/Top and Local/New, but I’m just not finding much.
I’m still mostly single-handedly trying to get !superbowl@lemmy.world to take off as an actual animal education spot and not a meme sub. I’ve been writing better and longer articles and showcasing rescues in each state. So there biggest chunk of effort I put into Lemmy is spent there, and I used to come over hear to actual browse content, but World and Beehaw seem to have reach equilibrium on the quality vs attitude, but World seems to have significantly more quantity.
I feel bad you guys can’t see my posts because of the defederation, and I’m not sure how that’s progressing since I don’t much follow the tech of Lemmy itself. But it Beehaw keeps on it’s current path or goes non-Lemmy, in but going to do 2 things, and I’d just stick to trying to make Lemmy better.
To be fair, the Republicans as a whole are still pretty united, this is just the Freedom Caucus people trying to throw around their brand of extra strength crazy.
McCarthy made a deal with the devil to win them over to get made Speaker, and they are going to taunt him with that every chance they get. He gets what he deserves from that alliance, which is fine by me.
That works too! I’m a BypassPaywalls user so I always forget about archive.
It looks to be a few hours behind though, and misses out on a bunch of important quotes that got added later.
Still, thanks for the additional resource reminder!
Congress Set to Avert Government Shutdown as House Measure Passes
Compromise keeps government funded until mid-November, while omitting Ukraine and border provisions
The House passed a measure Saturday to extend government funding through mid-November. It includes $16 billion in disaster relief.
WASHINGTON—Congress was on the verge of averting a government shutdown Saturday, after the House passed a measure with broad bipartisan support to extend funding through mid-November and sent the matter to the Senate.
White House officials said President Biden supports the measure and will sign it as soon as possible. The surprise breakthrough upended expectations that Congress was too divided to pass anything in time to keep the government from partially shutting down at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. But a delay in the Senate in quickly taking up the measure late Saturday raised the possibility of more twists in the drama.
The House voted 335-91 for the funding measure, which includes $16 billion in disaster relief but omits aid for Ukraine. It also excludes border-security measures sought by Republicans. The margin exceeded the two-thirds majority needed to clear the bill through the House, which considered the legislation under special procedures requiring a supermajority of votes. All but one Democrat voted in favor of the measure, while nearly half of Republicans voted against it.
“It’s easy to be a conservative that wants to do nothing,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said after the House vote. “But I believe America wants to find the conservative that can make government work efficiently, effectively and accountable.”
In reaching for a compromise, Republicans argued that the party had exhausted its options after dissident conservatives derailed an earlier plan, and said that the only choice now was to pass a bill extending funding at 2023’s $1.6 trillion annual rate through Nov. 17. That squares with major components of the approach being taken in the Senate, except that the Senate version includes an emergency $6 billion for Ukraine.
Some Democrats had worked to rally their members against the legislation, arguing against omitting aid for Ukraine and saying that Republicans had pulled a fast one by advancing a bill that they said would enable a pay raise for members of Congress. But Republicans moved to fix the cost-of-living increase matter and questioned why Democrats would be willing to shut down their own government in the name of supporting Ukraine.
The move to advance the legislation marked a major turnabout for McCarthy, who had spent months trying to appease a dissident flank that rejected his every offer. McCarthy advanced spending bills that at a net $1.471 trillion for fiscal 2024 were widely seen by Democrats as breaking his debt deal with President Biden. McCarthy then revised his approach, offering to advance bills with even steeper cuts while also saying that any stopgap measure must simultaneously provide for new restrictions on migrants. They rejected that as well.
“I have tried for eight months,” McCarthy told reporters. “It took me a long time to finally get the appropriations bills on the floor; they were delaying. I tried yesterday with the most conservative stopgap funding bill you could find,” he said. “I couldn’t get 218 Republicans.”
McCarthy dismissed opposition from conservatives who have threatened to oust him as speaker. “If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it. There has to be an adult in the room,” he said after the vote.
White House officials and some Democratic lawmakers cast the vote as a victory, noting that the bill excluded the deep spending cuts that conservative House Republicans were pushing, reductions that would have slashed budgets for a range of domestic programs.
Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois, the lone House Democrat to vote against the short-term measure, said it was because the bill didn’t include funding for Ukraine. “Putin is celebrating,” he told CNN. “We got 45 days to fix it.”
Headed into the possible shutdown Sunday, federal government agencies have been alerting employees and laying out plans to bring nonessential government programs to a halt. Roughly 1.5 million civilian government workers wouldn’t be paid during a shutdown, while 800,000 employees deemed essential would continue working, according to the White House budget office. That number could change if a shutdown dragged on.
Just getting to the vote Saturday contained hours of drama. The House was stuck in a suspended state after House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D., Mass.) made a motion to adjourn, saying that Democrats needed time to read the bill because “we have serious trust issues.”
Republicans said that Democrats were stalling to give the Senate time to clear the last big roadblock to passing its own stopgap measure—a bid to give that version the best chance at being enacted into law.
“If we win this vote, this is the bill that will be signed into law,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) “If they can delay this until after the Senate vote, the Senate vote is going to become law. This is what this is all about. It’s nothing about them wanting to read it.”
In the Senate, Democratic leaders instructed the sergeant at arms to round up absent senators so that they could speed up a pivotal vote. Republicans said that Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) pulled a fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building earlier Saturday, which Republicans said was his attempt to stall the vote in the House. His spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. And Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), moving to delay the vote, stood up on the House floor to speak.
“Strap in because this may take a while,” Jeffries said, taking advantage of a special privilege available only to leaders, known as the “magic minute,” to bust through normal restrictions on lawmaker speeches. Normally, lawmakers would have to stay within their party’s remaining debate time—which for Democrats had been six minutes.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tried to delay the House vote to give the Senate’s stopgap measure an edge.
Critics of a short-term deal said McCarthy gave in too easily.
“Total capitulation,” said Rep. Bob Good (R., Va.), who has indicated he would be open to supporting an effort to oust McCarthy as speaker. “He has failed to do anything that he’s promised to do, including passing a bill that got every Democrat vote. Every Democrat vote!”
President Biden had declined to meet with McCarthy, urging the speaker to stick to the budget deal both parties agreed to earlier this year. The agreement set top-line spending levels for the coming fiscal years. The White House has excoriated House Republicans for bringing the government to the brink of a shutdown, warning of wide-ranging fallout.
Most routine federal food-safety inspections would cease in a shutdown, national parks would close, new small-business loan applications wouldn’t be processed and a supplemental nutrition program for women and children would run out of funding within days. Smithsonian Institution museums could close after Oct. 7. Many essential services—like the mail and the delivery of Social Security checks—would continue.
Federal agencies, with White House guidance, are required to figure out what operations can continue under an 1884 law called the Antideficiency Act that says it is illegal for the U.S. government to spend more money than Congress granted for that fiscal year. That law grants exceptions for safety and property protection. Presidents have taken differing approaches to national parks during prior shutdowns.
This article seemed to have done better details about the drama going on in all this. Here are some tidbits since it’s paywalled. Give me a minute and I’ll get the white thing for anyone interested, because to hell with NewsCorp.
The House voted 335-91 for the funding measure, which includes $16 billion in disaster relief but omits aid for Ukraine. It also excludes border-security measures sought by Republicans.
Republicans argued that the party had exhausted its options after dissident conservatives derailed an earlier plan, and said that the only choice now was to pass a bill extending funding at 2023’s $1.6 trillion annual rate through Nov. 17. That squares with major components of the approach being taken in the Senate, except that the Senate version includes an emergency $6 billion for Ukraine.
Some Democrats had worked to rally their members against the legislation, arguing against omitting aid for Ukraine and saying that Republicans had pulled a fast one by advancing a bill that they said would enable a pay raise for members of Congress. But Republicans moved to fix the cost-of-living increase matter and questioned why Democrats would be willing to shut down their own government in the name of supporting Ukraine.
Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois, the lone House Democrat to vote against the short-term measure, said it was because the bill didn’t include funding for Ukraine. “Putin is celebrating,” he told CNN. “We got 45 days to fix it.”
“If we win this vote, this is the bill that will be signed into law,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) “If they can delay this until after the Senate vote, the Senate vote is going to become law. This is what this is all about. It’s nothing about them wanting to read it.”
Being able to max my HSA contributions was one of my signs that I finally “made it” in my career. The advantages of HSAs are great for those that don’t need to use them. Same with the required high deductible health plan itself.
Now my job is going away next month, and guess what does me no good then? No health plan, and I can’t contribute that money to the HSA, not that I’ll be getting any money. When I’ll need protection most, it’s not there. If the solution is to help everyone, universal healthcare is the only way to do it.
This is the kind of service government should provide. Would you go to a restaurant where they make you calculate your own bill, and if you calculate sales tax wrong, you get penalized? It’s up to the service provider to say how much you owe.
Very valid points. I forgot WordPad existed and I use Notepad way more than I’ve ever used WordPad. But many people still havent really used computers much in depth beyond specific things they’ve been shown.
I know I could just use Google Docs or throw LibreOffice in there, but many people now in retirement age have still managed to dodge learning much about computers.
If you deliver a new computer that can’t type a letter, send an email, and play YouTube out of the box, that seems like a fail. And I feel many that won’t know what do do without something like WordPad also may not have an Internet connection, nor should they have to if they just need a presentable looking doc.
Trying to reinvigorate !superbowl@lemmy.world and !anime@lemmy.ml .
SuperbOwl migrated from Reddit but nobody was doing anything with it. I try to post at least one owl a day. Currently I’m posting one owl rescue a day for each US state so people can visit and support them in person. Today is #11, Hawaii.
Anime communities seem so dead in Lemmy. There was finally an active thread last weekend, so I wanted to try to start another one this weekend.
The bat is definitely cute!
I enjoy that I can no longer tell if you are serious or not!
What a country! 😂
I had heard the kiwi stuff, but you had me second guessing myself!
I did look up the island names since I had never heard Aotearoa before, and a few of the blurbs say there are a few hundred actual islands that make up New Zealand, but it seems nobody can agree on an actual number because they all have a different estimate.
Lol, you two have me picturing literally just 3 bats in the whole country and the middle one being upset he isn’t biggest or smallest and is plotting to take one of the other 2 out.
Thank you! Those are some pretty significant facts. I’ve got much to learn about things over there!
Thank you for all that! As I said, we don’t seem to get taught much about that part of the world. LotR is probably the only NZ thing I can recall of the top of my head, which is pretty embarrassing.
I started using James Hoffman’s tip of rinsing off a spoon, shaking the water off, and then stirring your beans before grinding them.
Then I started taking a single bean and quick passing it under the faucet before tossing it in with the rest and shaking it around.
Now I just have a small spray bottle I repurposed. All methods are equally simple and get the job done to keep grinds from sticking to my Encore’s hopper.
Like others have said, it’s more subtle then slightest touch of humidity rather than actually getting anything wet.