I want to stress - these are not what I think the top 5 issues should be, they're what the voters this year by and large are basing their decision on. (Personally education is always a top 5 issues.)

There was not 100% agreement across all four sources. But all four came close. I’ve coalesced it down to the ones repeated across the results.

1. Cost of living / economy / affordability — The dominant issue across the broader coalition and among infrequent or persuadable voters.
2. Healthcare — Costs, access, and protecting coverage remain high priorities and a relative Democratic strength.
3. Democracy / rule of law / opposing Trump administration overreach — A major named driver for Harris voters in 2024 and a continuing motivator for the broader coalition concerned about institutional threats.
4. Abortion rights / reproductive freedom / women’s rights — Higher relative salience for general-election Democratic voters as a mobilizing and differentiating issue compared with pure primary rankings.
5. Fighting for working- and middle-class people / economic fairness and opportunity — Emphasis on policies that deliver for ordinary workers (tax credits, vocational training, anti-price-gouging approaches) over more abstract or far-left structural ideas.

Full post on my blog: Liberal and Loving It

It's a really interesting concept where a woman, after she dies, has to decide which husband (both are deceased) she wants to spend eternity with. Incredibly sweet and at times very funny.

Eternity (IMDB)

Big question - why isn't Hallmark instantly implementing all the great advice we all provide it here 😂?

And on that topic - Hallmark films are romances. There is a little humor here and there but by and large romances. They should consider trying their hand at RomComs. Films like French Kiss, Notting Hill, Avanti, etc. are very romantic. But also hilarious.

From the Tri-State load panel Saturday morning. The green are the wind farms in the Tri-State region.

And in my blog I have it also for the PSCo B.A. (basically the urban parts of Colorado except Colorado Springs)

It has also touched zero at times over the last month as well as a 2 day drought (with a single spike).

When the Colorado PUC and Colorado Energy Office say they’re going to get us to 95% renewables — how are they going to accomplish this? And keep in mind if their answer is batteries, the batteries to cover a 2 day dunkelflaute are really fucking expensive.1

It’s a nice dream. So is world peace. But if wishes worked every little girl would have a pony.

Until I read this (my post) I did not realize that HoF was a totally distinct venture of Hallmark's. So... has Hallmark made any noises about restarting HoF as another part of their offerings?

I'd watch those.

I just ran the A.I. on this for an interview I did today. It spends most of the time showing both of us, even when the person I'm interviewing is talking for a minute straight.

It's better than nothing. But not as good as Riverside used to be (they are awful at this now).

>

There’s a genre of SciFi that is alternate history. What if something different had happened at a given point. It can make for an interesting thought experiment too.

>

>So what would have happened if, in her first interview the day after her announcement, when she was asked what she would do different from President Biden, she had said...

Keep in mind while you read this, I am not saying any of those three statements would be the preference of any of us.

I'm saying Kamala Harris supporting those three statements and getting elected would have beat the snot out of our present situation with the narcissistic grifter as president.

It's a nice article. Nothing groundbreaking in it but it does capture the sweetness of Hallmark. Gift link so all can read.

It had one interesting tidbit I was not aware of:

>The Hallmark Channel was born in the summer of 2001, after a series of corporate acquisitions and rebrands transformed a longtime Christian channel into a home for secular family fare.

One minor item - in it Andie MacDowell says she thinks she's the first person to die in a Hallmark movie. Nope. >!Both The Lost Valentine and The Love Letter (two excellent Hallmarks) have the main woman's true love die, leaving her without a significant other for most of their life.!<

Hi all;

Everything I see here for competitions is running from spot to spot and the rapid fire. I'm 70. And even when I was in my 20's, I was uncoordinated. If I try that I'm either going to be slowly walking from target to target or falling down - with a gun in my hand.

So are there competitions like we see in the Olympics where you can take your time on each shot and there's no running?

Update: I've shot ~ 1,000 rounds so far (10 sessions x 100 rounds). This is my best so far. So I think I'm getting there. Iron sights, 5 yards, Ruger Mark IV 40101. BTW 12 shots so one hole is two bullets.

.

https://preview.redd.it/9w64829cnzhh1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=915592d9e629356d0eab940e8a6f21761e6f660e

>Sodium-ion batteries have almost none of the problems that lithium-ion ones do, and could be cheap enough to make fossil-fuel dependence a thing of the past

The article never mentions price. So are salt batteries coming in to play? Yes. Are they price competitive? Probably not because if they were they would be shouting out the price.

But their price will likely decline over the next couple of years. And it looks like they are starting to be produced in quantity.

Ok, so this happened about 20 years ago. Still a funny story. Our family (5 total - three daughters) were on a flight to Miami. For some reason we got split up so the two older girls were at the front of economy while my wife, our youngest, and I were about 20 rows back. The older ones were 13 & 17.

We get off the flight and the two that were up front were wasted. They reeked of alcohol and were clearly really drunk. At a level that only those young and in good shape can still be walking.

Turns out sitting next to them was someone connected to the Miami Heat and the steward was giving this person free drinks and anything else while trying to get a free ticket to the game. Since my daughters were sitting there, they got all the alcohol they wanted too.

My wife and I found it hilarious. The two of them trying so hard to pretend they were sober. And then watching them try to navigate their way to baggage claim, then the car. Oh we roasted them.

Didn't complain to Delta because it was so funny. If we had, that steward would have been in a lot of trouble. We don't know if he got tickets to the game.

Hi all;

Ok, I know predicting this is very iffy. But my wife wants to take a river cruise to Switzerland in August/September next year. We'll have a giant El Nino weather pattern next year which best as I can tell has no impact on central (horizontally, not vertically) Europe.

Are the ships going to be able to make it the full length of the cruise?

I have no problem with the pre-boarding for military, people who obviously have trouble walking, and people with infants. Yes give them time.

But then there's the 40+ people who pre-board under all the other criteria. I'm 70 so I'm old. I can walk fine and wait (I'm in group 1).

At a minimum, if you're going to have a giant pre-boarding group, then call it group 0 and make plain that they go before group 1.

And yes, this complaint is first world problems. But it bugs me that instead of acknowledging that there's a group 0, they just keep adding people to the pre-boarding group. Be honest about it.

Update: Boy did this seem to hit a nerve. First I want to reiterate, as I said above "I have no problem with the pre-boarding for military, people who obviously have trouble walking, and people with infants. Yes give them time."

Second, for the 1K, Global, etc. - at a minimum, give them a line. Even the comments below from those in 1K/G, they wish they had a line too.

Hi all;

I have a Ring Camera that's ~ 5 years old. It's now going offline at random time. If I wait a bit, it comes back online.

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

TIA

Hi all;

I got a private lesson for my first shooting. And I've now shot ~ 1,500 rounds. I think I need another lesson to help me improve further. At best I put 12 rounds (I shoot 6 at a time) in a 4" circle. At worst, it's a 10" circle.

I've watched a number of the videos (this is great) but there's what I think I'm doing vs. what I'm actually doing.

thanks - dave

Hi all;

I tell the A.I. to go through the video and have it decide when to go side-by-side and when to show just the person speaking. I then need to go through and change it in places. Usually changing it to side-by-side.

The only way I've found to do that is merge with previous/next scene. That sometimes isn't what I want. Is there a way to tell it what view mode for that scene?

And second, can I tell it which side to put us each on. I tend to be looking to the left in my video so it works better if I'm the right side, not the left.

TIA - dave