The US only gets back to sanity when YOU actually vote. Your cue to get out the vote for Democratic Party candidates.

It's Caturday today.
If your media doesn't contain enough feline photos, you know what to do.
#Caturday

If you have a Mastodon account with a picture of a cat in your banner image or your author illustration, pleez be patient, I'm following each of you as quickly as I can.
#Catstodon #Mastodon

Try to think of Mastodon more like improv -- where you try to support your fellow participants -- rather than like a debating club -- where you try to score points.
Ya dig?
Bong hits 4 cooperation.

Norwegian tourism board highlights some of Norway's architecturally stunning restrooms after "shit house" country verbal jab from convicted felon Trump.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/29/trump-norway-shithouse-toilets
#Norway

Too many October surprises!
(I'm getting sick of October surprises.)
JD Vance, you're the October surprise!
"BREAKING: Brazil’s Supreme Court Just Named JD Vance’s Shell Company in a Criminal Election Probe The Same Day Bolsonaro Fled To Miami.
Brazilian Justice Flávio Dino ordered the Federal Police to trace money, bots and mineral deals from Vance’s Rockbridge Network to Bolsonaro’s campaign."
Brazil wants Flávio back to face the music and is launching an investigation into Vance, who helped fund Bolsonaro's comeback from a faceless Wyoming bank account.
https://deanblundell.substack.com/p/breaking-brazils-supreme-court-just
#Bolsonaro #JDVance #OctoberSurprise

Mistaking him for someone they had been following in a Home Depot parking lot, masked agents of US Homeland Security accidentally arrested Flavio Bolsanaro when he landed on Wednesday in Miami from Brazil. (Satire by Andy Borowitz)
If you were waiting for the October Surprise in US midterm elections, it just might be that the GOP has made the US a haven for aspiring fascist dictators and corrupt candidates fleeing consequences for fraud in their own countries.
#Bolsonaro #ICE #Homeland Security https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/bolsonaro-accidentally-arrested-by

A gloss on a statement from Cory Doctorow about data centers ..."that are torching the planet and elevating the worst people on earth to positions of political, technical and commercial prominence...":
This elevation of the worst instincts that mankind has to offer is spreading like a cancer through nearly every aspect of contemporary life.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/10/23/better-to-give/
#Ai #TechBros #DataCenters #CoryDoctorow

Almost forgot to crow about dropping off my Oregon ballot 4 the midterm elections at my county office.
My little rescue dog Archie went with me.
As we were leaving a guy asked if we were feeling patriotic, and Archie told him that we certainly were.
#VotIngUSA #USMidtermElections

The Russians hacked Jared Kushner's phone.
Is THIS the October surprise?
Dean Blundell reports,
"The man Donald Trump sent to Moscow to negotiate with Vladimir Putin was carrying a phone that Putin’s military intelligence service had already cracked open. That is the bombshell buried in the Vanity Fair excerpt of Matthew Cole’s new book Princes and Thieves, published Thursday afternoon: the GRU hacked Jared Kushner’s phone, and what they pulled off it ended up in the hands of Dutch intelligence. The Dutch, who have a long and well-earned reputation for sitting inside Russian hacking operations and watching, saw what the Russians saw. And what the Russians saw was Jared Kushner’s secret negotiations with Gulf royalty and more than $700 million in transfers through bank accounts tied to the crown princes who treated the Trump White House like an ATM."
To paraphrase a Clinton campaign slogan coined by James Carville: "It's the corruption, stupid."
https://deanblundell.substack.com/p/breaking-the-gru-hacked-and-read
#JaredKushner #OctoberSurprise

Dear Fediverse Friends:
I'm finally ready to migrate away from geemale, and can use some of that Fediverse savvy to decide on a replacement.
The only providers with which I am currently familiar are Tuta and Proton, and I don't really know a lot about either.
I am open to suggestions from people who are actually happy with the alternatives that they've found to the "Do Evil," company.
Important features would include:
-- Ability to export email from gmail and import into the new vendor
-- Generous storage allowance
-- Reasonable cost
-- Reliability
-- Security
-- You know, the usual suspects, and especially the important ones that I've neglected to mention.
Thanks awfully 4 boosting 4 reach, and 4 any good suggestions that you may have, based on your experience.
#Email #GoogleAlternatives #DeGoogling

Here's a Caturday treat for all of us.
What looks like a crow in this image us actually a cat with its head cocked, as cats do.
Enjoy your Caturday with a cat cosplaying a corvid.
#Caturday #Corvids

Is the bankruptcy of Character.ai the fall of the first Ai domino, or a sign that the entire bubble is about to burst? Well, heck, why not both?
Will investors get the jitters when they realize that spending billions to make millions is no way to run a real business?
We live in the stupidest of times, so who can say?https://www.404media.co/r/b773cd09

These cool early mornings are all the incentive I, for one, need to stay in bed on a Monday morning, which I can do since I'm retired.
Apologies 4 gloating, but I'm also passive-aggressive.
Bong hits 4 an ill-conceived and poorly worded Mastodon post.

This story has been reported by several news outlets, but you're getting THIS particular angle HERE first!
Secretary of Whatever he is today, Testosterone Pete Hegseth, announced aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln Wednesday that he plans to livestream the execution of the man convicted of murdering13 GIs at Fort Hood in 2009.
What others haven't told you is that tech bros Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos are currently competing against one another in negotiations with convicted felon Trump for the rights to live stream the firing-squad.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/lets-livestream-this-badass-execution
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/what-kind-of-shithole-country-livestreams
#Satire #PublicExecutions #TechBros #ShitHoleCountries

I can console myself about not getting my call from the Nobel Prize Committee with the certainty that Donnie hasn't gotten his call either.
#NobelPrize

Haven't gotten my call yet from the Nobel Prize Committee with the good news, so my hope is still alive.
How about YOU?
#NobelPrize

"No Kings, No Fools, No Trump"!

I've got my cardboard ready for my poster for No Kings on Saturday, October 17, 2026 in the US. And I can use a bit of help from the Fediverse hive mind.
My board has 2 sides, so I can use up to 2 slogans.
I keep coming up with good ones, but I also keep forgetting them.
I figure if they're in my timeline, I'll be able to hang on to them.
Here's one I thought of recently" "Stop the madness. Vote."
I'm sure you guys can do better than that, though.
https://nokingsnational.com/p/october-17-the-next-no-kings-day
#NoKings #NoTrump #USPolitics

Let's end the old week and start the new one with a meme commemorating how Republicans are using the US Congress to beclown themselves with baseless conspiracy theories that crumble in the light of day.
Who votes for people who control all the branches of government yet spend their time in performative hurr-durr?
#USPolitics #JackSmith #CrazyConspiracies.