Good morning one and all to another glorious day and to the morning links!
Trillion dollar club: Leaders in Congress who helped amass $34 trillion in national debt
Chris Rufo Uncovers Evidence of Plagiarism in Harvard President Claudine Gay’s Dissertation
UPenn President Resigns Following Blowback From Trainwreck Capitol Hill Testimony
Alex Jones returns to X after Musk restores his account
Biden’s TSA Designates “Special” Airport Screening Line for Migrants Without Identification
NYC Trying to Register Illegal Immigrants to Vote
At Least 5,600 Federal-Only Ballots Cast in Arizona in 2020 Election Without Proof of Citizenship
Barbados PM Demands $4.9 Trillion in Slavery Reparations
Empty federal offices ‘are costing taxpayers $2.8 million a day’
Senator releases ‘naughty list’ of federal agencies with high employee no-show rates post-COVID
Solar Energy Company Accused Of Scamming Elderly People Was Awarded $3 Billion By Biden Admin
That’s all I got for now. I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.
“Chip off the ole block!” says PPP….
Morning, Banjos. Morning, all.
An organization of Black faculty has already rallied and begun letter-writing campaigns on her behalf.
I don’t know, but based on the tediously predictable subject matter of her dissertation, she sounds like a hit at parties.
Yeah, she can reword things until she’s blue in the face and all I’ll hear or see is “argle blargle”.
what is PPP an acronym for?
President Pudding Pop.
Nope. President Poopy Pants, actually. From the audience with the Pope.
President Poopy Pudding Plumps his Pants with a Pope was my favorite Dr. Seuss book.
If only that was because their plans went solely to Mexico City where they were summarily dumped off.
But open borders and replacement theory are just conspiracies, maaaan!
plans ==> planes, gorram it.
first: We are not dong that and you are racist for saying so!
second: If we were doing that it would be a good thing anyway!
third: Well, yes we are doing that, and you are racist for opposing us!
fourth: Why is everyone that is not an absolute moron turning on us?
Outrageous in multiple ways – nice job, the United States government!
Meanwhile, starting next year I will not be able to fly domestically because I don’t have a REAL ID…
Fuck America.
Last time I flew the explosives detecting machine registered a positive, and I had to get re-searched in a little private room. Of course they found nothing the second time. But the guy said that happens every day for him. Hope you all feel safe.
Glycerin in lotion is the most common false positive, I hear.
Hmm that might explain it.
But Vaseline wouldn’t.
*wouldn’t set it off, that is
“With enough fat one could blow up just about anything.”
I carry a letter (Army letterhead) with me explaining why it’s perfectly innocent that my hands and my bags test positive for high explosives.
I still occasionally get the “special room” but they aren’t too bad about it.
Try getting that treatment internationally…
What a bag of dicks.
That they give any weight to such a letter is just another example of security theater.
Winner!
Biden’s TSA Designates “Special” Airport Screening Line for Migrants Without Identification
And you people want me to get a visa just to visit as a tourist. Is this fair?
It isn’t — but Undead Americans aren’t a significant enough voting bloc, sorry. (Well, Chicago has their votes wrapped up nicely, but they never visit DC because they’d either they’d starve (lack of brains) or be out-competed (professional blood-suckers)….)
Completely coincidental to the prior story of making it easy for them to come in, easy to travel and having the Feds ship them where they want to change the voting patterns… just completely coincidental….
To be fair, it’s not going to change the voting patterns in NYC, which are already firmly grounded in “free shit”.
Concur. The north east is mostly already rife with abuse and criminal cheating that guarantees these states can’t not have team blue win.
I’m hoping this is the issue that finally turns my parents. I just need them to realize this is all orchestrated, and they are being replaced. They can complain all they want, but the Dems will no longer need them when they have 5 immigrants to override mom and dad’s votes.
“How’s it feel to want?”
Good News: We’re giving you the $4.9 Trillion
Bad News: We printed it, so that will only be enough to buy everyone in the country one item from the value menu at Wendy’s.
Barbados PM Demands $4.9 Trillion in Slavery Reparations
Why not. Make it an even 100
Romania should ask Turkey for a few trillion in reparations as they objectively looted us for 400 years.
Seems like it would be a byzantine claim there, Pie.
I’m calling istanBulshit! on that one.
IMPALE THEM!
I will just deduct it from the Trillions Barbados owes me.
Wait, isn’t Barbados only a thing because it’s populated by former slaves?
Why should that impact their racket?
1) It might well be worse if they were fully populated
2) Then tear them down and return the land to state or private hands.
Like all WFH scenarios — the question is if the employees are productive, not where they work. If they are, fine. If they aren’t… fire them. (Or if they are but the government shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing (DofEd leaps to mind), fire ’em anyway…)
My evident song for the day…
FFS… see above, Senator.
A. they are not productive. At least, not as productive as it is costing the US in rent.
Fuck them, bring them back to the office. I am done with this bullshit Work From Home. You work for someone, they call the tune. No show, your ass is out on the pavement.
And get rid of all the gov’t contractors. That is just a work around for violating the constitution. End that BS at the same time.
I can respect that to a point — but as someone who’s coworkers are in different states (and some in different countries), I can assure you that making me drive multiple hours into an office, sit in the stupid Open Plan format (where I have to “reserve” a desk) as opposed to using my (self-provided because I prefer tools that don’t suck) workstation and dual 32″ monitors on the little 15″ corporate laptop I’m sanctioned and listen to nothing but fucking sales chatter echoing through the building does not make me more productive. Only much, much less.
The gov’t employees may (probably are) different — but WFH is not bullshit for many cases due to the other management trends of the last decade.
You work for a private company, so it is between the two of you. But, if a company says “no more, we tried this, and it failed” then not coming in is job abandonment. And I have fired people for that before. No more of this “mmm, but COViD” crap. It is over.
Some people are productive working from home. But most people aren’t. Too many distractions that aren’t work related: kids, TV, gardening, shopping, etc. And, as pointed out by more than a few here, there is a ton of institutional knowledge that is lost be not having young/new employees mentored by older, more experienced employees. And that is a loss far, far greater than any cost gains of smaller offices. I have been through some of that crap, and it is so destructive to a business as to be unreal.
Further, if you are a gov’t employee, you work for me. Get your ass back to work, and if you cannot be fucked to show up, here is your walking papers. This is a perfect excuse to trim the fat, so to speak. Plus, it shows how little work is being done, and how few people are needed to do most of the “knowledge” work that is so in vogue these days. Twitter showed just how much fat there is on that calf, and I am pretty sure we can do the same with all of these departments.
Some people are productive working from home. But most people aren’t. Too many distractions that aren’t work related: kids, TV, gardening, shopping, etc. And, as pointed out by more than a few here, there is a ton of institutional knowledge that is lost be not having young/new employees mentored by older, more experienced employees. And that is a loss far, far greater than any cost gains of smaller offices. I have been through some of that crap, and it is so destructive to a business as to be unreal.
It depends on the business. My team works with clients all over the country and world. Other than an occasional meet-up, there’s no benefit to us working in a single location. As the vast majority of our business with clients is done virtually, my team learns the role better working virtually. Online meetings and client management is conducted differently than in person meetings. The institutional knowledge is still shared and much would be lost by forcing in-person. It would also restrict the talent pool since the best candidates won’t accept in-person restrictions in my industry.
At my company, productivity is tracked down to the minute. I know what employee time on projects cost going in, and there is very little opportunity for employees to milk work time on home-related distractions. It’s not an issue with a well-functioning team.
I agree not everyone is cut out for it though and not every job is capable of being done from home.
How are you inboarding new employee’s? Are they working with someone virtually, do they have instant access to the closest manager?
Or are they left to their own devices?
I do understand where you are coming from re clients around the globe, and how that isn’t dependent on where you are, but rather on what you are selling. But would a 24 hour office work better to overcome some of that, while helping to foster new employee’s into the workforce? Just a thought, but it makes, in my eyes at least, as much sense, especially if you are manufacturing physical objects (and if I remember correctly, you are not in a company that does that). But, in any case, does the fact that you have to account for every minute of productivity, in effect digital micromanaging, would it not be better to be close to your manager, who can then see how much work and effort that you put into the product? That can see you brainstorming with others around you, that you can have those priceless 30 second conversations at the watercooler with someone from accounting that you don’t normally talk too, but has that unique perspective on just what you are working on?
I think that, in the end, it is a culture thing. I don’t come from a digital environment, I come from operations and i don’t see any value added by going remote that cannot be superseded by in person work.
Yes and yes on the working virtually onboarding and instant access to closest manager. I do my best to replicate those inperson advantages as best as possible virtually. I think hiring remote workers across different time zones would be better than a 24 hour in-person work force at one location. At least for my work. For manufacturing or selling an inperson product, then there would be no question on the 24 hour in-person setup being better.
There are tradeoffs. Using your example, I have to schedule virtual time for those watercooler conversations which aren’t spontaneous anymore. That’s definitely a downside. Here’s a value add by going remote, though. I recently had different clients add 8am and 9pm meetings for the same day. For me at home, that’s no problem to easily build into my day. I don’t have to get to the office early or stay late. I can stop working at my normal time and then jump back on minutes before 9pm to take that meeting. I can’t imagine the burnout by having to to stay at office for 14 hour days or commuting multiple times a day.
That does blur the line between work and home. But, it’s well worth it to me for not having to commute. And I’d still have to take those 8am and 9pm meetings (overseas clients) if I was working in-person at the office.
By the 24 hour office, I meant having a sales, for example, shift that worked, say, 11pm to 8am, things like that. Not uncommon in the manufacturing or, as in my case, logistics world.
One of my biggest frustrations was having different departments held to different standards. Like having a casual Friday, when you also have a fleet of delivery drivers that need to be in uniform so as to face the clients for easy identification. The amount of tsuris that alone can create in a workforce is so massive that it can, and did in that company, lead to unionization and all of the troubles that brings.
But, like I said, I come at things from an OPs background, and I am always going to start with those issues and expectations at the fore. Others, coming from a digital background say, will have different inputs.
But different jobs do have different requirements. Even within the same general category.
On the helpdesk, I had to be covering the phones from 8-5, M-F, as those were the active hours, and thus no flexibility. Desktop support has a more stringent dress code as they’re interacting with
snooty peopleusers of all types in person. And as an application admin, Nobody ever sees me or talks to me, but I have more off-hours work to avoid disrupting the users. So there’s more flex in dress code and start/stop times than the other two roles.There will always be different standards based on what you do.
Different job needs, yes. Arbitrary standards, no. At least, there shouldn’t be. People understand that a salesman has to go out and meet the clients, that a mechanic is going to have dirty hands. But when one group of drones gets fun things when another is held to the lash, that is when you have problems.
Everyone should dress professionally for their position at all times. You are working.
You should see what the federal offices that are full of bureaucrats are costing us.
Convert it into affordable housing, duh.
Just like China’s doing with their Covid prisons:
https://wamu.org/story/23/12/08/chinese-cities-are-turning-quarantine-centers-into-affordable-housing-for-workers/
Something something… Obama third term….
Sounds like that solar company scammed the elderly, and senile president.
Is it a scam if both sides were willing participants in looting the Treasury?
Well, I for one feel scammed. So, yes?
Solar Energy Company Accused Of Scamming Elderly People Was Awarded $3 Billion By Biden Admin
This sounds exactly like scamming elederly people so it makes sense
The trillion dollar club is no surprise. Republicans only pretended to care about small government to get votes.
Milei gettin down to work.
Almost no one, including libertarians, are talking about him. Weird.
NPR was calling him a hypocrite this morning for “walking back” his dollarization plans and also having “moderate technocrats” in his cabinet.
So…NPR is trustworthy all of a sudden? I take it as a very good sign that he’s on the right track.
I didn’t say that. Just remarking on the attack line du jour.
Bit early in the game for that. I wish him well but the blackpill in me tells me the system will block him from meaningful change and will lead to a million articles about how libertarianism failed
Agreed. He’s a smart guy though. He might get around some of it.
Also he walked back dollarization plans after trying to talk to Biden and getting the cold shoulder. No surprise there.
Him downsizing some of his more radical ideas is a good thing that shows he’s able to adapt as his party doesn’t control the Argentine congress or whatever it’s called. He needs to dip his toes in and get some limited but real successes before he goes whole hog.
Alsotoo, how stable is the dollar right now? Rubles might be a better option…
Go bitcoin. Or martian imperial units. Anything but dollars and yuan.
That makes cents.
He has my attention. I am so used to disappointment that I am hesitant to put real hope in him yet. I am keeping an eye on the guy.
He literally abolished ministries on his first day.
There’s no pleasing you people.
I’m waiting to see how effective the counterattack against him is at undoing his work.
Oh, I am well pleased with him. Amazing man. I am just so far down in the grave, with dirt being shoveled on me, that I can’t see the sunshine. I wish him all the success. The world needs him. He’s just trying to battle the raging sea of incompetence and thuggery. Every evil plot possible will be hatched against him. His one chance is that the country is so bankrupt that the criminals cannot afford to fight back.
Well, of course not, we’re (mostly) libertarians. Being pleased would lead to agreement and no two libertarians…
I actually had a long time client talk about him yesterday. Been working with her over a decade and through small conversations she has decided she’s probably a libertarian.
Are you going to set up a pool in the backyard and baptize her?
“One of the crew, one of the ship…”
Australia to halve immigration intake, toughen English test for students
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67609963
I didn’t hear the actual story, but NPR had a teaser this morning about how the Hamas tunnels are a good thing, actually. They’re a “vital lifeline” for bringing in food and medicine for “civilians.”
Our tax dollars at work (in both cases).
And it is all disinformation and lies..
Time to defund NPR. No free country has government-funded media.
free as in free from capitalist exploitation? Cause I am sure there is government press in North Korea
I am no commie shitstain.
Fast food news:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231208-krispy-kreme-doughnuts-the-latest-us-chain-to-try-its-luck-in-france
https://www.allrecipes.com/mcdonalds-new-restaurant-chain-cosmcs-menu-sneak-peek-8412121
That McDonald’s concept looks odd. I don’t know about that…
I like it. It is drive through oriented, hand held, and the styling is Googie.
It is a nice transition from staid to paid.
McD’s has been the leader for the past half decade in converting bright welcoming unique facades to grey square shitboxes.
Because my Sunday plans fell through, I wound up watching Bodies. I find it sufficiently weird to be entertaining. The “modern audiences” crap is present but mostly ignorable. The wholly irrelvant gay subplot is the worst since it eats screentime while providing literally nothing narrative-wise. Maybe it’s fanservice for the Victorian twink crowd, who knows?
Watched the first episode of Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix this weekend. Two thumbs up. Looking forward to the rest.
That is such a horribly racist show — showing that even a half-white woman is a better fighter than any Japanese man!
/sarc
I liked it. watched it while sick. probably more enjoyable if you don’t binge watch.
I enjoyed it.
It’s silly action and Kill Bill style (even containing a direct homage) but it’s certainly entertaining.
A bit ahistorical of course. Japan had lots of guns at this time.
I mean, so far I don’t know that I’ve seen an actual samurai in the show.
Let’s ask Tonio. :-p
I thought Jessie was the only twinkophile?
Dammit, I always misspell Jesse.
Hardly ;->
I enjoyed Bodies quite a bit, at least up until the ending which was a cheat in my opinion.
I haven’t finished it yet, but I expect the obvious plot hole to be either disappointing or a clever trick.
I’ve just gotten to the point where it turns out that the guy she’s been calling “baba” is actually named “Barber.” English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
‘The leftist Bajan leader, of the Barbados Labour Party, claimed that her country was owed a staggering $4.9 trillion in reparations for slavery from former colonial powers, but acknowledged that repayment of the supposed debt would “take time”.
“We’re not expecting that the reparatory damages will be paid in a year, or two, or five because the extraction of wealth and the damages took place over centuries. But we are demanding that we be seen and that we are heard,” Mottley said according to the left-wing Guardian newspaper.’
Hehehehehehe…or what?
The population of Barbados is 280,000, give or take. So that’s what, a couple hundred million apiece?
“Why did the cost of everything here suddenly increase 10,000% ?!”
Meh. Were it to come to pass not one regular citizen would see a penny of that.
Barbados’ government: So?
We all want to take the money and run..
Isn’t CardiB from Barbados? They could inflict more of her on the world!
Soon they will need wheelbarrows to take all that cash to the bank!
Why do I feel that her rhetoric, boiled down, translates as “Imperialist pigs! Give us money!”. SOP bullshit.
Just wait until the tourists get put off by the entitled give us money bullshit. They’ll be able to call themselves Haiti II before this is all over.
TPTB: All movie night posts done through New Years’. I am going on vacation shortly and made sure there will be content.
I made a fill-in Christmas post, just submitted it in case there was a gap.
A thigh gap?
A gap in poorly written content. That is my niche.
Thanks RJ. May you find some wonderful garbage movies to entertain you while on vacation… or don’t, I’m not your supervisor.
If you haven’t seen it yet, Black Friday (with Bruce Campbell) is on Crackle.
Nice. I am hoping to see that new Godzilla movie while on the cruise ship.
‘Solar Energy Company Accused Of Scamming Elderly People Was Awarded $3 Billion By Biden Admin.
President Joe Biden has been pushing the Democrats’ leftist green energy agenda seeking to address the “climate crisis” and has emphasized expanding solar energy. Earlier this year, the Biden administration launched a $7 billion “Solar for All” grant competition proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and created by the president’s Inflation Reduction Act.’
Well, they’ve certainly refined the scamming old people part of their business model.
They offer Robot Insurance as well.
https://www.newsweek.com/ammo-prices-set-rise-substantially-vista-outdoor-firearms-1850528
Get your orders in meow.
Gunpowder? I thought cartridges these days used nitrocellulose or something similar as the propellant… less fouling and smoke and all.
It’s a commonly understood term, and since there are multiple chemical blends that are used as propellants and known as some form of powder (first two that come to mind are the black and smokeless varieties) I’m not going to say that ‘gunpowder’ must strictly refer to ‘black powder’
1. ¿Que?
2. If this is the reason, why are they raising their price on primers?
Meow?
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IMG_6894-scaled.jpeg
Yeah, I am gonna have to get some dies for what I am shooting these days, and fire up the press.
Good morning banjos, good morning glibs.
Morning waffles.
Well.. thanks for putting that idea in my head now! 😉
Easy enough — but Monday so no surprise there.
I played https://squaredle.com/xp 12/11:
*20/20 words (+1 bonus word)
🎯 Perfect accuracy
I played https://squaredle.com 12/11:
*26/26 words
🎯 Perfect accuracy
🔥 Solve streak: 139
Only 5 Trillion? Something as egregious as that will take at least eleventy squizillion dollars to put right.
I thought it was Billion 300 million trillion 300 million dollars…
Since sloopy isn’t here for sports stuff, I have a set of random comments about one event.
First, suck it Chelsea fans. Also, tell your manager Pinoccio, or whatever his name is, that he is a moron.
Second, Everton is still in 10th/17th, but only one point behind West Ham and Forest for 9th/16th.
Thirdly, apologies in advance to Swiss, but I enjoyed the meme going around the Everton boards:
DOBBIN IS A FREE ELF.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Xn20puYDE
Fourth, the Chiefs need to cut Kadarius Toney.
Also, the Chiefs should can Matt Nagy’s ass. (From a Bear’s fan that holds a grudge against Nagy)
We are acutely feeling the loss of Eric Bienemy.
Yep. From what I’ve gathered, Nagy is too much of a touchy-feely, friend to the players kinda coach who doesn’t hold them to account for their mistakes. Bieniemy didn’t care who you were or what you’ve done in the league. He’d light your ass up and expected results.
I saw the Mahomes meltdown, which doesn’t bode well for the team going forward. It does add to the volume of complaints about the officiating in the NFL, which is on display nearly every week as there’s just missed calls (somewhat forgivable and understandable) and just phantom penalty calls where there’s nothing that was wrong, but the ref thew the flag and is damned well going to make a penalty stick.
No no no you’ve got it all wrong! Twitter reliably informs me the refs are in the Chiefs’ pocket!
I had flipped away in disgust so I didn’t catch it live.
KaDROPius Toney, yeah?
I thought it was MVS who had the drops.
/Packer fan
What you did there was noted and generated amusement.
(Bill Engval voice) Here’s your sock.
Yesterday, two Browns that were new to the team broke team records. Dustin Hopkins beat out two of Phil Dawson’s team records (most field goals in a season, and most field goals of 50+ yards in a season). Joe Flacco was the first Browns QB to have 3 scoring passes of over 30 yards in a single game.
The only way it could have been better yesterday is if the Rams had managed to win against the Ravens.
Eagles. Jesus.
The Vikings-Raiders game was painful to watch.
At least the correct team won.
The Altar Boy and I have decided that the problem with Dobbs is that he finally learned the playbook. Instead of reacting naturally and using his athletic ability, he know goes through his progressions (slowly) and tries to run the play no matter what.
Doesn’t say much for our coach either that he is still using the same playbook that he had for Cousins. Stay in the pocket (no rollouts or options) make accurate throws into tight coverage.
I saw an American football score similar to what you would see in real football, is that common?
No. The target scoring event in football grants seven points (there are ways of scoring 3 or 1 points as well).
Most soccer scors can be counted on the fingers of a particularly clumsy shop teacher.
well the Raiders and Vikings did not do a great job of achieving that
Looking at score alone, what it can say is that the defense on both teams was exceptional.
There are 2-point possibilities also.
Last week someone was 5-0. Only way that can happen is a field goal and a safety.
Iowa this year was aiming for soccer scores. IIRC, they set a new record low Over/Under betting line 5 times. And hit the under on at least 4 of them.
Combination of an out of this world defense with an ungodly bad offense. Their punter needs like 19 yards in the bowl game to set the NCAA bowl puntage yardage record for a season.
it’s going to be ridiculously easy to gut the federal bureaucracies when the opportunity arrives. a less-obvious benefit of continued work from home. just fire the 70% that won’t come in and then evaluate from there.
when the opportunity arrives – 2178?
I played https://squaredle.com/xp 12/11:
*20/20 words (+4 bonus words)
📖 In the top 25% by bonus words
I played https://squaredle.com 12/11:
*26/26 words (+5 bonus words)
🎯 Perfect accuracy
🔥 Solve streak: 78
Remember, kids, the rule of law is for everybody equally.
Re Rufo. It’s wild AF how many mediocre people hold positions of power across the board. It’s the Peter Principle writ large out there.
Stupid people. Very stupid people. And that’s what worries me most You can’t fix stupid. They don’t know they’re stupid.
And when the stupidity is blended with arrogance you have an especially toxic mix. See the current form of the Liberal Party of Canada. Stupid people.
Stupidity and arrogance? You forgot unaccountability and unchecked power. It is less a mix and more of a toxic sewer. The goings on are a complete clown show.
Most of the problems we are supposed to care about, used as pretenses for those people holding onto and increasing their power are fake.
Global warming? Cootie bugs? The ME conflict? Russia? The laundry list of culture war issues? What a bunch of horseshit. The only one that is ‘real’ is the ME conflict and even that could be fixed in 24 hours if anyone actually cared to do so.
Wife is watching TV right now. Between the snippets of the show is a deluge of get younger, get smarter, get sexier, lose weight, shrink your prostate, have more energy secret magic potions. Always a new break through, game changer, secret discovered , magical bullshit. We have been discovering magic cures as long as I can remember yet we are still fat, lazy, and unhealthy. The ads for other shows are about dope heads, jail birds, wife swappers, the trashiest of trashy people’s family lives all naked and afraid.
Humans look to me nothing more than hairless monkeys. Maybe we have the ruling class we deserve….getting what we voted for so to speak.
Maybe so, but I know a whole lot of people who are alive but would have been dead long ago if not for drugs and medical procedures discovered and introduced in the last 100 years.
There’s more to life than just being alive. A visit to a nursing home is depressing.
Great song choice. Could not be more appropriate. 🙂
Quibbling at the atomic level is our new American pastime.
We received the first snow of the year. It left a light layer with only patches remaining by morning. Schools announced a two-hour delay.
We have had some 24 hours of non stop hard rain.
Lots of flooding warnings.
what exactly is a school delay?
When school isn’t cancelled, but the start time is pushed back to allow for the roads to be cleared.
why can kids just walk to school 10 miles in a blizzard up hill?
You forgot both ways.
phantom penalty calls
Let ’em play.
One of the problems is a lack of consistency from officiating teams. And for fuck’s sake quit suspending play for ten minutes while you microscopically inspect the replay like it’s the goddam Zapruder film. If there isn’t an obvious error, plainly seen at live action speed (like the receiver’s foot being halfway past the boundary of the end zone), play on, and deal with it Monday. I think a lot of bad calls are generated by the possibility of being second guessed review.
Breakingviews: How rich societies can live well with slow growth
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/global-markets-breakingviews-2023-12-11/
”
Meanwhile, poor people in rich countries need more income. If growth is slow, that means they will need to be given a bigger slice of the economic pie. Even after basic needs are met, extra income can boost people’s happiness. But the narrow pursuit of money can also be counterproductive: it discourages people from spending time on other things that matter to them; it contributes to climate change; and it weakens the social fabric.
CULTURAL REVOLUTION
Advanced economies have a choice, however. One option is to double down on materialism. This could be a recipe for mounting frustration if people do not get what they are striving for. Both national and international politics could become increasingly fractious as people and countries fight over a cake that isn’t growing as quickly.
The other option is to take a more holistic approach to wellbeing which gives greater weight to people’s social, intellectual and spiritual needs. More effort would go into building communities and protecting the planet.
Of course, material demands would not vanish. There would still be conflicts over who gets what share of the economic pie. Many older and richer people would be unhappy to see their wealth transferred to younger and poorer ones.
Members of Gen Z are in general idealistic, according to a study by the consultancy McKinsey. They believe in doing their bit to stop climate change, want greater equity in society and demand more purposeful work.
In the United States, members of Gen Z are also more likely to suffer from mental illness than other age groups, while their European counterparts struggle with self-stigma. Financial crises, climate anxiety, the Covid-19 pandemic and global unrest have fuelled pessimism.”
Real CULTURAL REVOLUTION led by clueless youngsters has never been tried
Government approved social, intellectual and spiritual values? What could possibly go wrong?
Protecting the planet? From what, Martians?
https://youtu.be/HBuk1HXcz1k
Was expecting this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vSCJ9vKICQ
They’re both from the same film.
That didn’t work.
WARNING: Sack of dog shit detected! Both approaches describes are crap choices. How about seeking joy through individual accomplishment? The two-sided coin presented only allows choices mandated by others. Free yourself from the group! Oh yeah, we taught an entire generation to use binkys into their twenties….
Fuckin’ commie drivel. Always the same shit over and over. Why bother writing more when you can simply pass out handbills written 100 years ago.
“Economic pie”. Remember kids, economics is a closed system.
Also, google tells me that the twat who wrote this is Winston Churchill’s great-grandson.
The blood thins.
it is closed if you want to stop all growth to please Gaia
It’s bubbles all the way down.
These two are not unrelated.
All work has a purpose. Either you get pay, benefits, or some other benefit (satisfaction, etc). If you don’t like it or it’s not enough, bust your ass to change. Stop expecting a participation trophy on your first day.
Why buy what we’ll never need?
Recent price weakness drew demand from the United States, which has sought up to 3 million barrels of crude for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in March 2024.
“We know the Biden Administration is in the market looking to refill the SPR, which will provide support,” IG analyst Tony Sycamore said in a note, adding that prices were also being supported by technical chart indicators.
In the longer term for crude, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said that one key to success of the COP28 climate summit was for nations to reach agreement on the need to phase out fossil fuels, though his comments met with resistance from OPEC.
If the UN says to stop burning oil, that’s it; no more oil.
well in Romania plenty rig their cars to use LPG, does that count as oil or is that different?
On the surface, Javier Milei is a radical libertarian, and Jair Bolsonaro is a hard-line nationalist. Yet these rhetorical differences obscure the deeper ideology the two right-wingers share: a nihilistic and extreme neoliberalism.
https://twitter.com/jacobin/status/1733996264457392534
KK is a nihilistic neoliberal! I knew it !
I generally use nihilistic to describe people who want to reduce the world’s population by 2/3 and make the remainder eat bugs and kiss the boot. I also use the terms Malthusian or self-loathing.
People who want to bring back the glory days of innovation and happiness are not nihilists.
Nihilists are worse than Hitler!
At least National Socialism is an ethos!
They better watch it. If he is even marginally successful, all those terms like “right wing”, “radical”, “extreme” are going to become positive in people’s minds.
Sam 👁️
@SamtheNightOwl
so, 1 of my coworkers in accounting casually admitted to me that she’s probably an alcoholic. i said that if you’re not drinking every day, you’re probably not an alcoholic. she said she doesn’t drink every day, but when she does, she kills almost a whole wine bottle. i said “oh”
Mike Bird
@Birdyword
This website needs a cultural translation feature. In America this means you are an alcoholic, in Britain it means you an ordinary drinker, and in parts of Eastern Europe it means you are a temperance campaigner, or pregnant.
https://twitter.com/Birdyword/status/1734060850233868339
How big of a bottle of wine?
When New Zealand’s new government announced it was scrapping the country’s world-leading tobacco laws, it came as a particularly hard blow to Māori people.
With the Indigenous community having the highest smoking rates, its leaders had fought for reforms for years.
The country’s model was the first to spell a complete end to smoking – and so was hailed by health advocates globally.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67574419
These days, only 8% of New Zealand’s adult population are daily smokers, but the number is more than double that- 19.9% – among Māori. It is even higher among Māori women.
It takes a toll, not only on health but finances.
The proposed policies – especially denicotisation and the so-called Smokefree generation – have never been implemented anywhere.
But public health researchers considered New Zealand – a high-income country of just over five million people – an ideal setting to try and achieve tobacco “endgame”.
What was new here was the focus: targeting the industry, not the individual.There are many drivers behind “health inequity” – but the underlying reasons are rooted in New Zealand’s colonial history. White Europeans took over the Pacific nation in the 18th Century.
“Colonisation is an underlying driver of ethnic inequalities in smoking behaviour,” Associate Prof Waa and other researchers wrote in the Tobacco Control journal last year.
They noted Indigenous’ people’s experience of generational theft, racism and cyclical poverty were the “basic causes” affecting access to income and housing and overall health.
Maybe the Maori can sue the Lennilanape.
When all else fails, guilt-trip whitey.
I can’t even try to unpack that gibberish.
“world-leading tobacco laws”
Fall in line and march with us toward the glorious future.
Any time a gene pool is introduced to a new thing it takes a while to adjust. See: alcohol and amerindians, tobacco and whitey, cocaine and everyone not from the andes, and so on. It doesnt have anything to do with any of the gibberish mentioned.
After a few hundred years it will moderate itself.
Shocking revelation
In the days that followed Sam Altman’s ousting from OpenAI on November 17, employees inside the company and several members of the broader tech community likened the move to a coup.
The narrative in the immediate aftermath of his firing was that broad ranks of OpenAI liked Altman and that his sudden dismissal was shocking — an erratic move by a board that was prioritizing ideology over the demands of its stakeholders and the wishes of its employees.
But over the past few weeks, new details have emerged that shed more light on the board’s decision — which was ultimately reversed by a circuitous route — to fire Altman.
These new details suggest that Altman is a skilled corporate schemer who manipulated people and perceptions within OpenAI to maintain his own standing and that his tactics rubbed more than a few people at the organization the wrong way.
——-
But new reporting suggests that the board may have been referring to instances in which Altman played board members off one another — especially ones who disagreed with his aggressive approach to rolling out artificial-intelligence technology. From its inception, there has been tension at OpenAI over how carefully it should proceed, given the potential threat the technology poses to humanity.
It’s Machiavellian backroom schemers, all the way down.
“Potential threat to humanity.” Skynet, here we come.
Some of the board’s six members at the time found Altman to be disingenuous and a bit too calculating. Several of them had backgrounds in nonprofits or academia, and Altman’s “move fast and break things” tech-executive approach didn’t necessarily sit well with them, the New Yorker reported.
“They felt Sam had lied,” a person familiar with the board’s discussions told the New Yorker. They dreaded Altman’s tactics so much that when they began talking about removing him, they were intent on ensuring it would be a surprise, The New Yorker reported. “It was clear that, as soon as Sam knew, he’d do anything he could to undermine the board,” a person familiar with their discussions told the outlet.
Wise parasites know to lie quietly and not disturb the host as they feed on its life essence.
When 97% of the employees threaten to quit if the CEO isn’t brought back that’s not a business it’s a cult.
The difference between a cult and tech company is how you spell prophet?
The words of the profit were written on the subway walls and concert halls.
Poor baby.
https://twitter.com/GLNoronha/status/1732863973672755578
When I was a student in my group of friends were about 0 political activists. We just didnt much care for shit like this. Maybe that is not good either but whatever.
Same here. I studied and dipped my wick quite a bit. Politics? Who cares, Andrea and Robin are coming over tonight.
One of the first comments:
“I support brutal genocidal rapist baby killers.
Why is everyone being so horrible to me?”
Idiot bitch: consequences and accountability are only for the people I don’t like!
Niall Ferguson: The Treason of the Intellectuals
Anyone who has a naive belief in the power of higher education to instill morality has not studied the history of German universities in the Third Reich.
https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-treason-intellectuals-third-reich
In 1927 the French philosopher Julien Benda published La trahison des clercs—“The Treason of the Intellectuals”—which condemned the descent of European intellectuals into extreme nationalism and racism. By that point, although Benito Mussolini had been in power in Italy for five years, Adolf Hitler was still six years away from power in Germany and 13 years away from victory over France. But already Benda could see the pernicious role that many European academics were playing in politics.
Those who were meant to pursue the life of the mind, he wrote, had ushered in “the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds.” And those hatreds were already moving from the realm of the ideas into the realm of violence—with results that would be catastrophic for all of Europe.
A century later, American academia has gone in the opposite political direction—leftward instead of rightward—but has ended up in much the same place. The question is whether we—unlike the Germans—can do something about it.
Why do people constantly say Hitler and others were going to the right? A fair bit of the article is correct, but it by saying “American institutions went left instead of right” the article drops off a cliff of credibility. Always this violence and hatred comes from the left. We have many smarter people than me here. Prove me wrong or debate anyway, because we are a herd of cats.
I think this was discussed yesterday… the left right thing for the Naz is a can of worms, and writers who do not want to be considered cringe will say right every time
If they can accuse you of being nationalistic, you are right wing. Regardless of how leftwards the rest of the shit you support is. That’s marxists for ya.
Going by old, pre-WWII standards, nationalism vs. internationalism was the left right divide. Everyone was fascist, everyone was doing some sort of socialism. This is all tied to the Spanish civil war, and it’s break between Franco’s Nationalists and the International brigades.
Marxist factionalism – Stalin was a nationalist. Trotskyites are internationalists. We know who won that battle in the USSR.
The fact Altman was so quickly reinstated as CEO suggests that none of these allegations were enough for the company’s powerful backers, such as Microsoft. Sutskever, too, has expressed regret over his actions. Still, the word on the street is that Altman may have gotten the message that it’s time to remake his image.
No forty year old allegations of unsolicited tickling in preschool? No newly unearthed racial badspeak in private correspondence?
This whole thing reeks of the same shit done to James O’Keefe at Veritas by that board of snakes. I do not think Altman is any kind of special, but I am fucking glad it backfired on these scumbags on the board, and hopefully it costs this board of assholes all it can.
How about allegations of sexual abuse from his sister? (who seems troubled, to say the least)
I think this was discussed yesterday… the left right thing for the Naz is a can of worms, and writers who do not want to be considered cringe will say right every time
Hitler invaded Russia. Ergo, right wing.
So if you are the invader you are the bad guy? Is this some sort of feminist world view?
The ultimate sleeper. I wouldn’t do anything to it other than make the current wheels look more beat up.
TIL, the Model S plaid has the same wheelbase length as a 2001 Honda Odyssey
That is a bit of a Q ship. But you are left with a cross between a Honda and a Tesla.
A Toda.
I think they called it the Plaidussey.
“The Treason of the Intellectuals”—which condemned the descent of European intellectuals into extreme nationalism and racism.
Anybody who objects to the goal of benevolent internationalist socialism is a right wing totalitarian monster.
meh 20s germany had its share of totalitarians, lets not deny that
The ultimate sleeper. I wouldn’t do anything to it other than make the current wheels look more beat up.
I will be very disappointed if those guys paint that thing. And yes, they should put a set of steel Honda wheels on it, at least for everyday cruising to Taco Bell.
Problem is clearing the the Model S brakes.
There are folks that make restomod custom wheels that look like steel wheels that clear modern large brakes, but they probably cost close to a grand a corner.
Just skin some Honda mags and glue them over the Telsa mags. Problem solved!
Maybe CBP can set up no passport express lines at ports of entry next.
German priest raps from the altar
https://twitter.com/CatholicArena/status/1634902390766813185
MAGA deplorables threaten to sue if their kids have to opt out of LGBTQ books at school. FOR SHAME!!!!
There are folks that make restomod custom wheels that look like steel wheels that clear modern large brakes, but they probably cost close to a grand a corner.
Those guys don’t seem to have much trouble funding their projects. I will never comprehend youtube economics.
Capristan Swim / Miami Art Basel Fusion Fashion 2023 Full Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZmwyE_Pt08