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Sorry to be a bit maudlin this morning, but there are certain days which just do it to me. This is one of them. As much entertainment that my dating adventures have been, as much as my body count has expanded (my coping mechanism), and as delighted as I am to be getting involved with Prime, the reality is that my life as I knew it and treasured it ended almost 3 years ago. I’m getting by, but this is not the life I wanted or imagined.
SP would be 61 today.
My apologies for being a downer rather than my usual Catskills one-liner comic self.
That was the climax, now the denouement: other less important birthdays today include the role-model for modern politicians; the second-worst president in US history; the guy who taught Dizzy what’s what; a delightful writer and the author of one of my favorite lines: “After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening—on a lucky day—without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena.”; a far greater man than the aforementioned president; an actor, who despite great talent and great Yiddish, I will always think of as “that guy I saw on Star Trek”; a guy who would never pick his feet in Poughkeepsie; a guy who showed us what an ideal politician is; a slightly less insane Bobby Fischer; founder of a disgusting dynasty; the best second basemen I ever saw play, and whose firing told me everything I needed to know about the future of the Orioles; an insane woman who had a unique and interesting life; and a guy rumored to be a crypto-Jew.
And as a distraction, here’s some Links.
Russian plot? And seriously, this is my nightmare. I was going to ask the over/under until Trump gets blamed, but it’s likely happened by the time this posts.
Climate catastrophe. Women, minorities, and Cheloniini hardest hit.
Look, I’m strongly pro-immigration (acolyte of Julian Simon), but FFS, cry me a river.
Buh-BYE! Cunt.
If TNR says it’s false, it’s almost certainly true.
Mike Judge was far too optimistic.
Religion of peace. Note that these guys were about to get prosecuted by their oh-s-liberal government.
And herewith, SP’s favorite song, and one that’s perfectly appropriate. No, I’m not crying. Must be someone else you hear.
The system I work on, STARS, the automation portion, did it’s job. Was alerting CA/CA for at least 4 ‘sweeps’ (we don’t have a radar sweep anymore, it’s 1-second updates).
https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1884827088437264387/
Controller audio isn’t good either. What a fuck up all around and for the lost souls.
This eerily reminds of Ozzys latest story
Yeah, I don’t know if Ozzy is around but I would be very interested to get his take on this.
I saw it and immediately thought of the one that just posted.
I don’t have any more insights than anyone else other than that corridor of airspace along the Potomac is busy AF with helos and aircraft landing into Reagan, as well as all of the other military fields that dot the Potomac for POTUS to use, like Anacostia, etc.
I haven’t looked at any of the maps for that area in a long time, but I know they’ve closed and consolidated bases and changed that airspace after 9/11. TO what extent any of that factored, I have no idea. The video is horrific.
I could say a lot more, but it won’t add anything or help anyone. A terrible tragedy.
https://youtu.be/ouDAnO8eMf8?si=juP1QHRLUqW4_Bxb
Good solid info. What a shit show.
Thanks Ozzy. I was also reminded of the story you just posted, and wondered if some of the same factors might have come into play. The video really is horrific.
What about the beeps and the creeps?
They were jammed
jammed?
Given the raspberry…
CA/CA is the automation system prediction collision. It’s a visual and audible alert. Unfortunately, in heavy helo ops areas, they go off often and are ignored from my experience.
As I understand it, some times the warnings have to be ignored, e.g. flying into Lindbergh Field, San Diego. The landing approach will alert the ground is too close because it is bouncing off a building near that end of the runway.
Yes true.
In that instance, it would alert a LA (low altitude) warning and typically are filtered out for helos
Who doesn’t ignore ca-ca?
I’m surprised that they didn’t have the traffic vertically deconflicted. Maybe there’s not room or ability to do so for that particular approach, but “punch right through the approach corridor of an active runway, just make sure to look both ways” seems more 1975 than 2025.
After reading some comments on the blancolirio video, it sounds like the route was vertically deconflicted (ceiling of 200′ agl), but the speculation is that the helo was above that ceiling.
Still, a 150-200 foot separation (collision happened at or slightly under 400′) is not very comfortable.
When I flew that corridor back in the early 90s, it was 300′ AGL and below for helos. I remember after 9/11 when I was working as a prosecutor at MCB Quantico, old buddies from flying days mentioned that the airspace setup had changed. 200′ and below sounds right.
FWIW, New York’s Hudson River had a similar corridor 300′ and below for all of their traffic to deconflict with LaGuardia and Kennedy and all of the helo traffic.
I flew that one coming in off of the coast in a T-34 in 1992 for my cross-country: turned in at the mouth of the Hudson coming up from NJ coast, then straight past the Statue of Liberty all the way up to about West Point (over all of the bridges) and then hang a right at the federal prison on the CT side and head east to New England.
Helos should be close to the ground. As noted in the story I posted, one guy too high by 100′ and one guy too low by 150′ and you get dead people – lots of ’em.
“You can’t fire me!”
“You quit?”
“No! You just can’t fire me!”
According to a post here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/
Non career EPA employees are being warned that they could be let go at any time.
This is consistent with a verification of employees in my area of responsibilities.
And i understand that Fed’s have a horrible reputation. But i believe a better approach would be to remove some of the red tape we have to deal with.
This was a risk, still voted for him. Moving way faster than i expected.
Changing red tape is a slower process. I expect it is in the pipeline, but this is still the shock and awe period to try to demolish The Resistance™
Many friends I have are going to have a hard time too. This needs to happen if the government is ever going to be cut back.
I have dealt with layoffs and threats of layoffs my whole career, over 40 years of working. Stability is an illusion.
As a Fed. I have been RIF’s twice. It does happen out there as well.
Red tape, as in red tape imposed on the little people, or red tape protecting pubsecs?
Stability is an illusion.
Small business guy my entire career. This is the truest of true statements. While I can empathize from a basic human standpoint, I’m not sure why I should give a fuck. Where were all the feds the various times that my industries were being bombed? Oh yeah, they were behind it.
A recession is caused by some particular sector or industry, which has grown beyond its proper size, experiencing a sudden exodus of capital as lenders and shareholders discover they are invested in a bubble. It always hurts those in the particular sector or industry, but the reallocation of resources, even with some losses, will tend to fuel a growth spurt in other sectors. We have protected and pumped up the FedGov sector bubble for almost a century, it’s time for the lancet.
Never met her, I wish i did. Everyone has had amazing stories about her.
Every time my planned road trip would have gotten me close enough for a meetup – they moved across country so as to avoid me
Yeah, my one interaction with her was solid.
Same
RIP
Beautifully played and sung song. The few times I talked with SP I can see why that song was a favorite.
Think of her every time you’re on the site. It wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for her.
Same. I remember emailing with her when I started writing articles for the site.
I only interacted with SP when I first registered, she told me to “fuck off, Tulpa.” But then she welcomed me with open arms and made me feel at home. Wish I could have met her.
Same.
Same, and I regret not being around when she passed. When I came back and saw OMWC posting about his adventures in dating I was afraid to ask about SP.
A superb lady. Very sorry, Old Man. We all miss her.
The good news is that she’ll be there when you get there.
She rocked and I’d like to believe she’s still rocking up there.
Is there a shuttle service between Quaker Heaven and Jew Heaven?
Condolences OMWC
I am sorry for your loss OMWC, but on the bright side she was in your life and all the good things that brought.
I agree with the rest, every one of my few interactions with her was a demonstration of her good humor and graciousness as a wonderful human.
Can’t believe it’s been almost 3 years already.
I never met her either, but when I wrote my first article here, she was very helpful and funny.
Happy Birthday, SP.
Still sorry for your loss OMWC.
Now, why would someone be sneaking into Israel right now?
As Rachel Maddow would say, isn’t it interesting?
A real lack of details in that story.
Reading through the low review of our deportation policies, this caught my eye:
Don’t they know we’re supposed to be reducing our use of single use plastics in order to save their country from vanishing under the ocean?
If we just allow plastic handcuffs into the ocean, the sea turtles will start getting into bondage while on their cocaine binges from the plastic straws. Save the turtles.
Of Age Master Nasty Turtles probably goes on a different shelf at the video store.
Never any need for apologies, Old Man. Days like that are tough. Nothing I could say is going to improve anything, obviously, but you have my commiseration and condolences. Sometimes you just have to feel bad for a while, and stay hopeful that it won’t last forever.
Thanks for the kind thoughts. It will not last forever, but it will last until I’m gone. She did leave me an odd souvenir, though (glances at WebDom).
And in the not too distant future, another present!
Happy birthday Nero?
Happy birthday Adolf Hitler?
I would have guessed Bobby Fischer
Funny how no one ever looked at him and went “hey, you don’t look like the Aryan ideal”.
I may not look like a Murphy, but I act like a Murphy
Happy birthday Joe Kennedy?
Richard and Esther Shapiro?
Lol, nice
OMWC, I share in your sadness. Maybe not the same but it seems the memories are always there.
Mike Judge was far too optimistic.
Oh I think the Senator ranting about the onesie was proof enough.
Saw a “state report card” yesterday. Would it surprise anyone to learn that $36,000 gets declining results?
Needs m0ar moNie$!!11!
Colombia is nominally a U.S. ally – why would we accept anyone from there making an asylum claim?
Refugees from an insufficiently generous social welfare system.
This post immediately brought this painting to mind:
https://www.oceansbridge.com/shop/artists/h/hee-her/henry-edward-lamson/the-widower-2
When Bro Dean lost his wife last year, I told him “That is my worst nightmare.” Condolences, OM.
RM program update:
There is an exercise in “how would you handle the following scenarios” with varying degrees of plausibility.
Some of them I’m having trouble coming up with responses other than “kick the shooter off the range, fire the RO, and resign.”
😶
Is “summary execution” an option?
that’s prohibited under 10.6.2 “unsportsmanlike conduct.”
Is the horror of child transitioning finally coming to an end?
“the notion that we each have an innate ‘essence of male or female’, as one trans campaigner explained to me”
See, that’s how you Science(tm).
Look, they can trans you by adjusting your chakras with some healing crystals, but they need someone to watch your aura while they’re doing it in a vortex to make sure they don’t introduce too many thetans into your soul.
It’s like you don’t even science man.
How does homeopathy deal with transness?
How does homeopathy deal with transness?
First you take the sex you want to transition from and grind it up really small. Then you titrate it, diluting it 100:1 at least 30 times. I think to properly do this you will need to have SpaceX go out and gather that giant cloud of water NASA saw in space. Once the titration is complete you simply have the patient drink the result, this will stimulate the patient’s immune system to activate transitioning them from the old sex to the new. In this case Homeopathy and Allopathic medicine yield equivalent results.
“the notion that we each have an innate ‘essence of male or female’, as one trans campaigner explained to me”
This is what makes the T an existential threat to the LGB. There is simply no possibility of accommodating homosexuality as a real ‘thing’.
It’s amazing how quickly we went from the national controversy of banning gay conversion therapy to protect gay children from their homophobic parents (and gay adults from their internalized homophobia, I guess), to proclaiming that little boys who like to play with dolls and little girls who like to climb trees must be chemically prevented from going through puberty and have their genitals surgically altered so that their anatomy matches our collective expectations of masculinity and femininity.
genitals surgically altered so that their anatomy
matcheslooks like our collective expectations of masculinity and femininity.genitals surgically altered so that their anatomy
matches looks likemocks our collective expectations of masculinity and femininity.Considering the actual surgical results.
“core tenet”
This.
It’s very much going to cause the most rheeing out of all the recent action.
TBH, Pat, I’m less surprised at the “broader culture” — the T’s are resurrecting an essentialist view right out of the 40s & 50s (and before); one that never entirely vanished.
What horrifies me is the acceptance by the LGBs.
The alphabet car ride.
FTFY
I have a completely unproven suspicion that L’s and G’s support this junk at lower rates than your average wants-to-be-modern hetero. If only because the T’s are a direct threat.
The problem for the Ls and Gs is they pretty much got everything they wanted. So those activists needed something new to feed their activism habit, and the Ts just happened along.
Not if this Jeopardy champion has any say in it!
By this logic if you support vaccination for kids you must also support lethal injection for kids.
I’ll take “False Equivalencies” for $500, Alex.
It’s the year 2025, and Amy has never heard of Christian Scientists or Jehovah’s Witnesses and their beliefs around medical treatment.
Trump will probably have to recess RFK. Maybe Gabbard and Patel too. Sanders and Warren acting deranged for their pharma overlords was a sight yesterday.
https://x.com/TracieB81868463/status/1884739149577752664
4 years ago, most Republicans voted to confirm a fat dude wearing a dress.
And don’t forget the skinny guy in a dress that was pushed on the SES so that he didn’t have to get confirmed.
RFK is kind of a crackpot so they can have that win.
They aren’t acting. They are deranged.
Walter Kirn got into yesterday’s hearing, and had a really good seat. He live Tweeted it. He was completely disgusted with the Dems behavior. As were the rest of us. They are still performing, but for a shrinking audience.
The Dems are all going to vote against RFKj because they blame him for Harris losing.
But the Dems should be careful what they wish for.
Now that is pure, unadulterated Francis Urquhart.
The three witches from MacBeth?
Wow. Project much?
It’s not projection, it’s this:
I still get a giggle out of the people who spent half a century defending communism and squealing MCCARTHYISM suddenly seeing Red Dawn everywhere they look.
The ’80s called, they want their foreign policy back. Hurrrr durrrrrrrrrr
From what she says, the Dems were pissed because she questioned whether Obama and Hillary should bomb someone (Syria?). And then she backed Bernie over Hillary. I’m surprised she hasn’t fallen backwards onto 6 bullets yet.
I’m very sorry for your loss. It’s funny, I was going through some old emails recently and found some of hers. Since I know her real name, where did SP originate?
I kept them, btw.
“Site programmer.”
Lol.
I was expecting something more entertaining.
Happy birthday, Site Programmer!
Ha!
Hmmm.
In my earlier internet life “SP” would have stood for “suppressive person” which was someone skeptical of or an ex-Scientologist.
I know Sloopy is a Porsche guy, but this Mercedes will be on the block soon. He should think about taking a run at it.
https://rmsothebys.com/auctions/tt25/
I love how they list the different languages the client services agent speaks, as you know that they are both serious about that, and that there is a real need for it.
Interesting editorial.
Foreign Lessons in the Perils of DEI and Affirmative Action
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/foreign-lessons-in-the-perils-of-dei-trump-administration-policy-india-south-africa-malaysia-33f19d85?st=349hNU&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Very interesting. Thanks!
And the government just approved blanket eminent domain. So add famine to the bingo card. Morons.
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
The Trump administration has followed up with agencies about employees thought to be working on diversity issues as well as those who have attended internal diversity events, people familiar with the matter said.
The overreach begins.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-administration-orders-agencies-to-find-more-dei-workers-to-ax-7b627c36?st=1ESsBD&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The easiest way to purge the most radical liberals from the government.
Just did another security in-briefing a few weeks ago…all those questions are still on the list – and they’re pretty serious about it.
I’m doing the annual batch of compliance training in my civilian job. All mention of DEI has been scrubbed.
I don’t expect any change in my manditory waste of time, as the “We Be Racist ’cause We Wants to Be Racist” amendment got crammed into the state constitution.
Wasn’t attendance mandatory?
Ya that part makes no sense. I’m forced to do DEI type training…what does that have to do with anything.
My condolences, OMWC.
In the few interactions I had with SP, she was always gracious and humorous, and I miss her.
The thought of losing my wife fills me with horror. It’s been on my mind of late because her sister and one of her first cousins both have been diagnosed with cancer in the last two months. For the cousin, it’s a death sentence and he has only a few months to live.
Sorry to hear about your wife’s family. Genetics isn’t necessarily destiny, but knowing those risk factors provides the opportunity to at least be vigilant with screenings and that sort of thing.
You got that right, both of our parents died of lung cancer just past age 60 and yet my 76 y.o. brother still smokes like a chimney.
I am in the same boat: the wife dying is a horrible thought, and yet I make plans of what I would do on an almost daily basis if it did happen. See, she had a pretty serious heart attack scare not too man years ago, and her father had his first at the same age. So it is something on her mind, and mine.
Condolences about your wife’s family.
Follow up on the stranded astronaut kerfuffle. It appears Elon was trolling the media:
Musk posts a silly tweet saying Trump wants SpaceX to rescue the Starliner astronauts and the press goes stupid again
So essentially, their return has all been arranged. I guess the space suit issue is resolved (maybe they return in shirt-sleeves).
I am of the opinion that only fools listen to the news media about anything. Apparently yesterday I was one of those fools.
Word
Twain?
Thomas Jefferson.
Now there was a president with a contentious relationship with the media of the day!
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, boys!
https://x.com/WallStreetMav/status/1884968559819866395
I have 7 dozen in my fridge right now. My mother-in-law found them for a decent price.
We also have a friend with chickens, and she sells us fresh eggs for $3 a dozen. That’s a bargain these days. And any time I bring this up, Mrs. TOK reminds me that she wanted to get chickens last year, but I said no. Sigh.
Shockingly, it’s perfectly fine to keep upto four chickens in the city I’m currently in.
I didn’t have anywhere to coop them up.
My objection is that like most men, any animals would default to my care. Over the years we had 2 dogs, many cats, and still have a turtle, and I ended up doing most of the work. But if we put the coop near the house I might be be convinced.
We have one neighbor that just shares eggs with us and another who sells them very reasonably, so even in the before times we weren’t buying many at the store.
If you don’t think the country is in decline, consider this – 48 years of my life nobody in the middle to upper middle income suburbs where I’ve lived entertained the idea of having chickens in their yard. I knew exactly one person that did – an old Italian immigrant woman that was used to raising chickens and rabbits.
Now, half the people in my neighborhood are googling what’s involved in raising chickens.
Same goes for missing items on store shelves. It went from “virtually never” to “not uncommon”.
I do wonder if the reaction to latest round of bird flu is overblown. I find it difficult to believe that now we’re in some unique situation the requires the entire fucking species to be annihilated across the country.
LOL was just in the supermarket looking at eggs. Passed.
I think this made the rounds, but it’s worth repeating.
We have always advocated for whole-person health and we interpret that quite literally. As oral health professionals, we cannot beg for the mouth to be proverbially put back into the body, and then ignore when the mental, physical, and bodily safety of our communities is threatened.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/notable-quotable-oral-health-justice-progressive-gender-dei-trump-executive-order-d022dac4?st=1PJpvM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
What?
My lived experience is that wokeness and competence seldom coexist.
My new dentist shows symptoms of autism. I approve.
I am DblEagle and I approve of Jarflax’s message.
My current hygienist spent time in rural communities, far outside the college town she grew up in.
I approve.
Dental Public Health
Well you got horseshit from a horse’s ass – astonishing.
A question that wouldn’t have been asked a few years ago…
Were there pilots in that Blackhawk?
https://x.com/DerrickEvans4WV/status/1884969498911875217
News accounts say yes.
I recognize the possibility of autonomous drones, but it is hard for me to imagine that a computer program can fly a helicopter.
That would be my Turing test – can a computer hover off the back of the ship? I fucking doubt it. It is impossible for me to do justice in describing the “feel” it takes to hover.
I’m reminded of the old “What’s my Secret” with Ray Kurzweil in 60s where his secret was that he had programmed a computer that composed a piece of music.
The guests – the female guest, in fact – was able to suss out that a computer had “composed” the music.
AI has come a long way – and I’m a huge fan of E.T. Jaynes’ work on the “optimal processing of incomplete information” – but I still do not think that a computer could make helo pilots obsolete. It is in many ways the equivalent of trying to get a computer to play in a jazz quintet. You need “feel” for the other players that a computer just can’t replicate. Ditto for balancing all of the competing forces that are at play in normal helicopter operations, much less when things get sticky.
See, I’d think that this would be one thing that computers are really good at — interpreting the accelerometer and servo data and responding faster than a human can.
The K-Max worked really well for the Marines in Afghanistan – which is why I can’t believe it didn’t make it into mass production for a pilot-less delivery vehicle for food/water/ammo to remote sites with minimal crew risk.
Don’t mention the Jews
None of them can probably utter the word without spitting.
That’s the thing – it’s not about response time. It’s about anticipation. (Hence my analogy to jazz).
If you’re “responding” you’re already behind… and getting behind-er with each passing moment.
Well that’s a thread fail – this is in response to NA’s comment just above.
Whoever made this training slide should be shamed.
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-30-092507.png
🤦♂️
My only hypothesis is that they did an internet search for wavelength diagrams, slapped two into the slide and didn’t pay attention to the fact that they were set up opposite each other and created a confusing mess by juxtaposition.
Undoubtedly. Which means they shouldalso be shamed for stealing images.
Is it supposed to show different ways of describing the spectrum? Or did someone use ChatGPT to draw a slide?
Maybe they were on a different spectrum?
Fuck.
On the mid air collision over the Potomac, this is what I’ve heard so far:
1) The Helo’s transponder indicated it was 200′ lower than it was actually flying. This could be because they set the reference pressure on their altimeter incorrectly.
2) The CRJ was originally supposed to land on runway 1. But in order to increase the rate at which planes could land, they requested (and the pilot agreed to do) the plane circle visually to land on runway 33. A plane took off from runway 1 as this was happening, and the plane behind the accident aircraft was lined up to land on runway 1.
3) The helo was flying a corridor that is well established (route 4, but might have been slightly off course).
4) TCAS was disabled on both aircraft by design; it’s inhibited at low altitudes in the vicinity of airports because it would go off spuriously.
It appears to me that neither aircraft saw the other. Because they were on a collision course, until the very last few seconds, each one would have seen the other’s navigation lights as looking like flashing lights that were attached to the ground. The helo pilot likely thought that all the traffic was inbound to runway 1, and because he was well clear of that runway that he had nothing to worry about. The pilots of the passenger plane were focused on the landing with the pilot flying focusing on his line up and the pilot monitoring managing the radios and watching the instruments.
For me the baffling thing is ATC’s role in this. That tape is pretty damning. The whole point of ATC is to avoid precisely this sort of problem.
They will blame Trump for laying off DEI staff. Just wait.
That started last night.
Why didn’t the Blackhawk respond?
It was a Blackhawk.
Charlie Cooke’s take.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/air-travel-is-astonishingly-safe-and-this-accident-was-no-politicians-fault/
Blackhawk? That is Helicopter of Color, thankyouverymuch!
Shitlord…
Links in the chain.
TCAS will work and does work in and around an airport, just won’t provide a RA below 1000′.
That side-step procedure is demanding so yes, you are correct, those pilots were busy and focusing on that task.
One note, the military was probably on UHF. Commerical flight on VHF.
ATC monitors both but doubtful that either aircraft had the other tuned to at minimum listen in.
Towers also typically have a separate helo position to free up the frequencies.
Has anybody seen or heard from Kash since the crash?
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
Re: the RFK, jr story – wait, so we’re still pretending that Lyme’s disease was not a cold era military lab concoction? I thought it was generally accepted that it was something we cooked up to introduce to the Soviet’s livestock, but accidentally got released here instead?
Of course we are. Every biolab on the planet should be razed and the ground salted.
Odds seem to have shifted on RFK getting confirmed. Fetterman now very skeptical.
I wonder if Trump still has his deal with McCarthy to put the House in recess so Trump can put the Senate in recess and do his remaining slate as recess appointments.
Transmissions show early instruction for Army helicopter to avoid passenger jet
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/plane-crash-dc-what-happened-8ca58d8c?st=wzqDbG&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Shades of PSA 182.
Re Domino’s with pineapple, my mom wanted it.
“It looks like a bribe and a signal to every company that corruption is the name of the game,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said in a statement. “After Meta pays to play, what does Mark Zuckerberg expect as a return on this investment?”
Now do your contributions from Big Pharma Liz…
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/trump-signs-agreement-calling-for-meta-to-pay-25-million-to-settle-suit-6f734c8c?st=agpJsN&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Happy birthday SP. I heard her voice once on a Zoom, near the end, and she sounded feisty as hell. That’s someone you don’t just replace. I hope you have a glass of very expensive wine tonight. Take care Old Man.
Indeed. Happy birthday.
I found out there is banana curry pizza in the world. The pizza Overton window has moved.
Banana curry pizza? I’d try it. Maybe call it something other than pizza, but the combined flavors don’t sound horrible…
R.J.:
I’ve terrified some coastal people by saying that nearly every pizza place around me has a chicken bacon ranch pizza on the menu.
The Kash Patel hearing is on. This one should be fun. Kash investigated the Russia Collusion Hoax and has the receipts on all those liars. Of all the people to push back, I’d expect him to be the pushiest.
https://www.breitbart.com/ (scroll down a bit)
Dammit, Tulsi’s hearing is this morning too. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!
Get a life?
😜
The Gabbard hearing is on too. More pontificating by assholes questioning her judgement.
Kash is pretty sharp. He’s having none of their BS. But he hasn’t been questioned by a screeching Dem woman yet.
And by “questioned” I assume you mean “shrieked at like a lunatic”.
Klobuchar answers the bell!
According to Dershowitz, RFK did great yesterday. He is slightly biased as he hates Warren with the passion of a thousand suns. I don’t think RFK is going to make it though. It was far too easy to find all kinds of comments he made in the past that upset our overlords.
It depends on the shrewdness of the overlords. I think some understand that it would be a really bad idea to vote no.
RFK is popular. The audience was cheering for him. And some people have threatened to primary people who vote against him.
Kash is getting friendly questions about the Steel Dossier and Crossfire Hurricane. Now the Hunter laptop. We’re getting into some shit now.
Dems are all about January 6. But he’s holding his own.
These hearings all remind me that I don’t hate Democrats and politicians in general nearly enough.
It’s getting to the heart of Dems vs Repubs and the weaponization of the justice system.
Well when you’ve been crafting a weapon, you damn sure don’t want it in the hands of your enemy!
FedGov workers aren’t being fired. They are being “promoted outwards”.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/29/business/lvmh-ceo-bernard-arnault-coins-new-phrase-for-being-fired-promoted-outwards/
“Promoted to customer,” my dad used to say.
I like that.
“Being given an opportunity to use their education in a more meaningful way” was my standard
Damn, what ever happened to “spending more time with their family”?
“Spending more time with their cats” just doesn’t have the same ring.
Freed from the toil and drudgery of serving the public.
Funemployment!
Think of all the time they’ll have to create great art now!
Condolences OM, when her and I spoke she was funny and gracious, she will be missed.
Welcome to (((shenanigans))) NJ style.
N.J. school district says it’s broke, can’t pay teachers without emergency loan
https://www.nj.com/education/2025/01/nj-school-district-says-its-broke-cant-pay-teachers-without-emergency-loan.html
For background:
https://njedreport.com/5-million-in-six-years-nice-gig-for-lakewood-lawyer-and-too-bad-hes-not-the-only-one/
Lakewood is 60% Orthodox per Google. They don’t generally send students to public schools. I’ll leave the exercise of connecting the dots to the reader.
The school district in the predominantly Orthodox Jewish community has long struggled with the cost of providing busing and special education costs for students who attend private yeshivas in the area.
Why is the public school district providing money for private education? Shouldn’t that be the parents?
https://njedreport.com/lakewood-macher-sends-out-email-defending-private-ultra-orthodox-jewish-schools-in-backlash-to-new-york-times/#:~:text=On%20Sunday%20the%20New%20York,Why?
Ohio just passed a bill allowing parents to take their children out of public school for ~an hour a day for religious instruction/education. Personally, I don’t think that should be mandated, and I have issues with public schools being mandated to allow this. But that’s assuming that the purpose of a school is to provide a broad education instead of being a day care center.
Ol’ Zuckerburg once gave 100M to a school district in NJ, I believe the district with Camden in it. A year later he went to see what happened and *poof* the money had disappeared. Every penny up in smoke. No one knew where, how or who. Not one single penny could be accounted for.
The complaints I have heard from many jews are that the orthodox are horrible welfare queens who game the system every way they can.
I suspect this is one of those stories where all of the players are bad guys and they all deserve to lose. That is just my impression, I could be wrong.
Yes – Lakewood is infamous in NJ.
Last year there was a big panic in the town where we used to live (Allamuchy, NJ). An Orthodox billionaire was buying up land and businesses with plans to give it the full Lakewood treatment. Would have destroyed the town’s tax base and schools.
Then he got busted for a giant COVID billing scam and the whole thing fell apart.
https://www.labpulse.com/compliance-regulation/funding-finance/fraud/article/15677650/covid19-testing-operation-accused-of-massive-doublebilling-scheme
Fell back asleep. That was nice.
Skimming……
Re: Tundra and the pub sec workers whining. They are complaining about job security…are they appealing to the public for sympathy? They have been the cause of so much job insecurity and job loss in private employment they have the temerity to expect us to now support them?
Fuck that.
“I’m getting by, but this is not the life I wanted or imagined.”
I also suffered a great loss 2+ years ago, that sentiment rings true with me also. I thought I’d get to some “new normal”, but now it seems like I’m just coasting towards death, what a horrible feeling.
It’s probably cold comfort, but as someone who has never married, had children, or even had a great love reciprocated, it feels the same, just without the memories.
For some reason that brought the lyric “You say it’s lonely at the top for you, with no one to share the view? It’s lonely at the bottom, too, it’s just more crowded” to my mind.
“coasting towards death” is a bit grim. But I am getting to the point of having more friends and loved ones in the next world than this one.
Hopefully it will be a nice reunion.
Ya know how some people develop a kinship with others they do not even know because of shared experiences? Heavy shit like combat vets, trivial things like common ownership of Jeeps (it’s a thing, really) and everything in between?
If there is an afterlife I would imagine we will all feel like a reunion for everyone that had to live.
We are all born the same…naked, screaming and trying to figure out what the hell is going on around here. You have to figure it out on your first go, you dont get a practice run. They whole time you are trying to learn while playing catch-up life is beating the shit out of you. It is a bit traumatic.
It will be a reunion for all of us.
SP ❤️❤️❤️
Seeing you guys just absolutely clicking at dinner made my year.
Boo hoo hoo
Commenting on X, Musk laughed at a specific aspect of the offer, writing, “Hit ‘Send,'” accompanied by a screenshot of the letter to employees describing how to submit their resignation via email.
Musk’s attitude as he works to enact sweeping changes across the federal government — potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of career employees who have spent their lives working behind the scenes — is not lost on some workers, who told ABC News that the Trump administration and Musk’s tone have been “cruel” and “demoralizing.”
“It feels like the new administration thinks we are dirt and do nothing for the country,” said one 20-year federal employee who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution. “This is heartbreaking.”
Who could possibly think government employees are a bunch of useless timeservers?
Hell, doing nothing for the country would be an improvement over the damage they actually do.
Any private citizen who has had to deal with regulatory agencies certainly know what ‘cruel’ and ‘demoralizing’ feels like. Are these people really trying to appeal to the public for sympathy?
Many agencies have severed themselves entirely from direct contact with the public because so many people want to kill them. Now they want sympathy? Really?
As I recall the EPA, who has jurisdiction over ‘navigable waters’ was trying to claim jurisdiction over all land and water anywhere and everywhere because all land is part of one or other watershed.
Some guy sells timber. Trucks and machinery moving about create a rut in an access road. Rain fills the rut with water (a mud puddle) suddenly the EPA appears, claims jurisdiction and fines you into oblivion.
Want to build a house on a private lake? Tough shit. Have a house on a lake, river or seashore? You are fucked.
Now they want sympathy? We are supposed to keep paying them to torture us and destroy our prosperity and any possibility of prosperity?
Let me think on that for a bit.
do nothing for the country
Like hell, we know what you do TO the country.
SP would be 61 today.
RIP
Sorry OMWC
The song video is good.
“Absolutely do not resign. There is nothing that says that the day that you resign, that they can’t just let you go. They don’t have to pay you — there’s nothing that says they have to pay you till September 30,” he said. “This is nothing that has been done before. This is not in our regulations. There’s no regs about it. We’re not even sure if it’s actually legal. This is about trying to cut the federal workforce down, really kind of just breaking down these pillars of democracy.”
Unprecedented perfidy. Pearl Harbor was nothing compared to this sneak attack on the cradle to grave job security we have come to expect.
As though an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy is a pillar of democracy.
“This is about trying to cut the federal workforce down, really kind of just breaking down these pillars of democracy.”
Because those are exactly the same thing.
That poor 74 year old truck driver that I mentioned yesterday is still stuck in the same sinkhole.
https://apnews.com/article/japan-sinkhole-truck-accident-yashio-tokyo-water-db91ee657832b76a1f7addabb8459f0e
I hope he is still living and gets out ok. Talk about shit luck…
Isn’t it a sinkhole full of sewage too? The guy is going to get fatally sick!
Biolabs shenanigans: How often do we find out a biolab is working on beneficial work..engineering bugs to render harmful pathogens, parasites, illnesses harmless? Eliminate pestilence? I am not saying it isn’t going on, just that we dont hear about it much.
It seems, perhaps because it is so noticeable and sensational, they always come to light working on weaponizing bugs against humans.
“But we need to do gain of function research to create vaccines for potential pandemics.”
“OK, so give me a list of successful vaccines from GOF research.”
Crickets.
I’m agnostic on the idea of gain of function research. It’s obviously dangerous, but potentially could provide insights that have value. But you don’t do your really dangerous, eminently weaponizable research in hostile countries with notoriously lax standards.
I’m convinced “gain of function research” is just a euphemism for “bioweapons research”.
Shut it all down. Make engaging in it a capital offense.
GOTCHA!
U.S. President Donald Trump’s military deportation flight to Guatemala on Monday likely cost at least $4,675 per migrant, according to data provided by U.S. and Guatemalan officials.
That is more than five times the $853 cost of a one-way first class ticket on American Airlines from El Paso, Texas, the departure point for the flight, according to a review of publicly available airfares.
It is also significantly higher than the cost of a commercial charter flight by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Make ’em walk.
Unmentioned – still much less than supporting them here, right?
Dare anyone point out that bullets are cheaper still?
A one time cost to get them gone and deter other criminals and rent-seekers from sneaking in isn’t going to make me oppose the removal of the criminals and rent-seekers.
It’s nice to see the MSM caring about government expenditures.
Given the politicians and organizations that support this how can one oppose this sensible legislation?
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/movie-industry-loves-bill-that-would-force-isps-to-block-piracy-websites/
I’m sure that quite a few RINOs will be all in too.
My usual comment of “stop banning shit” will be modified into “Stop enacting labor.”
Meanwhile, over at the EPA
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island called Zeldin the wrong man for the job.
“We need an EPA administrator who will take climate change seriously, treat the science honestly and stand up where necessary to the political pressure that will be coming from the White House, where we have a president who actually thinks (climate change) is a hoax, and from the huge fossil fuel forces that propelled him into office with enormous amounts of political money and who now think they own the place,” Whitehouse said in a Senate speech.
Trump is “under the thumb of the fossil fuel industry,” Whitehouse said, adding that the EPA administrator “has to be truthful and factual and support and defend our environment and our safety from climate change.’’
He has nothing against Zeldin personally, Whitehouse added, “but the likelihood of him standing against that fossil fuel bulldozer that is coming at him is essentially zero. And in that context, this is very much the wrong guy.”
Oogah boogah Big Fossil will kill us all!
We can’t allow the EPA to focus on real threats and meaningful marginal improvements. That would be crazy.
take climate change seriously, treat the science honestly
I see a contradiction here.
Climate changes, the current interglacial is proof. But the serious science indicates it’s not us driving the changes.
No contradiction. Same crap we have been hearing from them. “Trump needs to keep doing things business as usual. We need an EPA administrator who will continue pushing our agenda.”
Guess what asshole. You lost. You dont get to keep running things.
Wrong again – We need an EPA director who will gut the agency and burn entrails.
Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island
Proof that Rhode Island shouldn’t be a state.
Nice of that person to point out they need an early retirement.
Nothing lasts forever
Daily Ray of AI (NSFW language)
He left out banning trigger warnings? That’s retarded.
Fag.
“I can’t wait until American women can’t get blueberries for their smoothies,” she said. “I cannot wait until there is a full crackdown on all small businesses, as if that’s going to be the solution to the immigration problem,” she claimed
https://nypost.com/2025/01/29/media/cnn-democratic-guest-says-women-wont-have-berries-for-smoothies-if-illegal-immigrants-are-deported/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=nypost&utm_medium=social
Democrats are still reskinning their old objection to freeing the slaves, I see.
“I can’t wait until American women can’t get blueberries for their smoothies,” she said.
Fat, spiteful and vindictive is no way to go through life.
But that’s what happens with no smoothies!