Yes, excellent video for describing the difference.
So would you pronounce haughty the same as hottie?
Ayup.
When I was composing a reply to you while in the shower just now, I thought about how I pronounce the two vowels (and how hard it is to represent without IPA, which I don’t write or read very well). “Caught” I pronounce further back in my mouth, and with my lips a tiny bit rounded, in contrast to the “cot” vowel, which is more frontal and flatter. I also hold the “caught” vowel a tiny bit longer - almost like “caw-t”.
Heheh, and in the last example in the above video. I pronounce “hot dog” as what most English would probably hear as something like “hot dawg”, with the first word seeming like it was clipped off somehow.
But then again, I’ve had people ask me if I’m from Connecticut.
- scabpicker, a Texan since birth. I understand the strong urge to leave the place where you’re born, but I still live here.
A good example of “Mary/merry/ marry” homophones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AT07v9V4-w
How is it that taxpayers are getting stuck paying the bill for this pigfucker?
The Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has reached a settlement agreement with whistleblowers who alleged retaliation after they accused him of serious crimes.
Paxton, a Republican who was re-elected last year, will apologize and the state will pay the whistleblowers $3.3 million, according to settlement documents filed Friday morning.
(Bolding added)
They elected him.
I mean, not all of them, obviously. But enough supported him that he got elected. This is why elections matter. People who voted for him (or neglected to vote) only have themselves to blame, and those who voted against him can blame their stupid neighbors.
That’s the answer for why people suffer for the bad decisions of any of their elected officials.
He won 54.4% of the vote in Texas not 3 months ago.
And, yes, I do blame my stupid neighbors.
The same wackadoodle style law that allows anyone to sue anyone who facilitates an abortion is being formulated create city ordinances to punish librarians who don’t toe the Reichwing line.
Similar to the abortion law, the book-related ordinances would apparently mean that violators could be sued for at least $10,000, plus attorney fees and legal expenses. The report also states that civil action could be brought against the library if workers don’t scrub contested titles from shelves.
Which is having exactly the effect desired:
Whether or not the draft ordinances get passed, a chilling effect has already started to sweep over the state, Robinson said. Librarians are leaving the profession and soft censorship is ballooning, meaning that staff may refrain from filling certain collections or may remove titles before they’re challenged.
The Lone Star State leads the country in the number of banned books, according to a 2022 report by the literary free expression advocacy group PEN America. Nearly two dozen Texas school districts were mentioned in the report, and Granbury ISD was high up on the list with around 130 bans.
Hearing that Texas is the state with the most banned books naturally led me to wonder how many books are banned in my state of Connecticut. Zero, turns out, at least as of last year. Here’s a color-coded map by state showing book bannings. You have to scroll a little way down:
I was surprised by a couple of those, like for example the other two members of our local tri-state area, New York and New Jersey. Both have banned at least one book. Shame on them. At least California stands strong with no bans.
I was surprised Pennsylvania’s tally was so high for the area. Surprised and dismayed that Protagonist or prominent secondary characters of color is second – by one percentage point – only to LGBTQ+ themes. Anybody claiming racism is a thing of the past in the US is full of shit.
I checked my own state. Four books are/were banned (or at least challenged) across three school districts. The weird thing is that of those three, one is the district I was in from K-12 (although they recently reinstated the book) and another is right next to where I live now. 
Two of those four books were reinstated or had the challenges denied across the districts. From what I can tell, there are only two books still denied, both in the school district near me.
Everything banned or challenged was LGBTQ+ related, if anyone is wondering whether bigotry might be a factor.
Kind of hard to judge the entire state by local school boards.
And that’s what those seem to be for both NY and NJ - suburban or ex-urban school districts. For what it’s worth, the only towns more than 1 book on the list are Marlboro NY with 2 and Yorktown with several - which are all ‘pending investigation’ so presumably some ‘concerned’ asshole put up a fuss about a long list of titles they likely cribbed off the internet.
The books involved seem to be the usual sort - dealing with either race or trans issues.
Yay, us!
I like the color on the map showing states with 51-250 bans, along with an asterisk that says “No state banned 51-250”. The implication is if they’re banning books, some states go crazy, and the rest are on a limited case-by-case basis.
If I have high blood pressure, it’s gone up.
Shit like this scares me if the trend continues.
How much worse does it have to get before you kick into “scared” mode?
Cool seeing the reintated books in Atamasama’s post - hope that trend continues.
Currently weary - hearing the less about these stories, the better.
Nothing reluctant here - f&*( Texas.
and follow on from the lawyer:
Just evil. "Silva is not only being represented by Jonathan Mitchell, who cooked up Texas’ bounty hunter abortion law, but also the Thomas More Society, an anti-abortion law firm. Please brace yourself for some men’s rights bullshit from a TMS lawyer: “Abortion harms not only the unborn children who are killed, but also the fathers who have had their fatherhood stolen from them,”
I’m curious about what exactly happens if you are on the losing side of the suit. And a: you don’t have the capacity to pay “judgment proof “ or b: just flat out refuse to pay? I glanced over the law when it was first published Texas. I don’t remember seeing any extra nastiness about collecting on the judgment. So basically it looks like any other civil court judgement…prevailing party still has to go through the process that any other civil court judgment would have to get asset seizure and wage garnishment and so on. Sounds like I was on the losing side I could jerk them around just like Donald does when he loses a court fight…correct? Or did I miss something onerous in the law.