Yeah, it's a pretty good place.

The pie filter keeps the trolls under control, mostly, and there's a good variety of "front pagers" and things to talk about.

But it does get kinda insular at times. I fit in with the general take on politics there, but I do wonder if it's become too much of a "mutual admiration society" and we convince ourselves that we know how to win and make progress. November 2016 was more than a bit of a shock to me... :-(

I really dislike the lack of a threading option in the presentation, all the WordPress quirks (can't use certain mysterious spam words or the post vanishes), the link limits, the inability to post images, and the way discussions die so quickly there (I can't camp out there for hours at a time too often). But, nothing's going to change on the threading score. ;-)

Overall, things are getting better in many, many ways (Ebola vaccines, Cholera vaccines, etc.) and we can't ignore that. But we can't take any progress for granted. Too many powerful forces want to drag us back to the 1850s. :-( Fortunately, women and minorities are energized now - they may yet again save us...

How's the car search going? Are people finding ways to recover from the fires, mud, floods, etc., out there?

Hang in there, and keep the kitties happy.

Cheers,
Scott.

SImilarly, in countless newish-means of communicating lies daily improved tactics against the Visigoths now not merely at-the-door ... but trashing the entire household; still, anyone still dozing away in that Complacency fantasy brain/off state.. is also a major Enemy towards recovery. Sic transist and all that.

Carz: it seems that Foord HAS kept their (actually generous!) promise of recompense, by check alleged at dealer: now (!) The cynic-within does however marvel at any such mondo-Corp actually Being 'generous' (thus: by Not-listening to their own gaggle of legal beagles who could spin mindless-delays and nickel-dime stuff/we all know that drill.)

Having spotted the achilles-heel-of 'hybrids' [simple old MTBF for the complexity of TWO complete power systems]--for which You pay all along, etc.
(That plus the entry cost as say, for the KIa new plug-in offering)
That too-many-$$ left moi with good impressions (not only by the BS-dismantlers at TTAC) but others:

Seems it's to be a '18 Hyundai 'ECO' as blows the doors off many hybrid MPG claims re "economy" but--also-too--has a Sport-mode and the kick-in-ass (measurable 0-60 performance ∆) of the smaller but Turbo! engine, not unlike the Black Shadow vee's Torque vs. all those vertical twin screamers. (Ran out of options for a left-over '17 and better rebates. Pity not a hatch-back but them's the brakes-breaks)

Recovery: last week was a kinda Haul the Debris truck-fleet thing. I drove over the road where I used to get barbered ... it looked exactly like Berlin '45 there, The salon /nearby houses completely obliterated. With housing another Universal Murican-nightmare, many folk are in precarious straits (even had we actual sane governance--but still, Gov. Jerry + State legislature are still amidst the remaining Good-guys of governance. ie
I was f*ing Lucky during crap-shoot of the two weeks of this plot being In- then Out-side of that Red-zone.
(Just across creek, a huge mansion of a local Gentry dynasty went *poof*. Cthulhu works in mysterious Ways.

More luck: the Opossum who cadged food, whom I ƒeared-lost.. came Through and looks back st me (in kitchen) after my X-10 Syst raises the lighting on his approach to dish: I wave/s/he? eats. All is well for yet another critter. Makes endorphins, all that.

Glad that you too have survived Cthulhu's warz on Repo-grade Weather in your bailiwick; saw the pix from the ground in your parts.. ... lit the Survival candle then (as the whole E. bloc of the dis-US got What-global warming? schadenfreude from the plurality of dysfunctional Despicables :-/

We Shall overcome it seems, so long as Young Un possesses the insight that: this Drumpf Clan is due for extirpation by most Americans du jour.
Drumpf + New/or Old nukes must be --[separated]-- before we have any actual Hope, here, I wot.

Welcome to IWETHEY!