Good morning one and all to another lovely day!
Federal workers who fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave, Musk states
FBI Director Kash Patel Sworn in as Acting ATF Chief
Trump Taps Dan Bongino For FBI Deputy Director
Stonewall, UK’s Largest Trans Rights Organization, Turned Out to Be a USAID Front
DOGE claims $65B in total estimated savings as ‘Agency Efficiency Leaderboard’ is launched
Trump to sell Federal Building Named After Nancy Pelosi
CNN: Deep State Bureaucrats Threaten To Sell State Secrets If Trump Isn’t Nice To Them
New York City to close Roosevelt hotel as shelter for illegal migrants in June
America’s wealthiest households driving nearly half of consumer spending: Moody’s
Apple to open AI server factory in Texas as part of $500 billion U.S. investment
That’s all I got for today. I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.
Where is the legislation to make real changes?
Get moving, Congresscritters, you’re lagging.
Congress is too busy being worried about the fact people actually approve politicians they elect do what the people that voted for them promised they would do. That shit is dangerous for their career plans.
They’re busy putting together a budget that cuts nothing right now.
^^^ THIS
Already cut 60B, that’s 1/100 of the spending already, unless I’m a couple zeros off one way or the other,
In any case, it ain’t shit, rookie numbers
No living people should have government buildings named after them.
And if it’s named for a dead person, they should be buried there.
You’d quickly end up with a “relics of the Saints” situation, I expect UCS… “Finger bone here… purported piece of the shroud there….”
What if we dropped a letter from their name so it could fit on a newspaper?
Asking for some other city…
You mean It’s not home of Anne of Cleve’s Land?
That raises the conundrum of Grant’s Tomb
Isn’t it “Cleves” in English but “Kleve” without the s in German?
Sorry, Ted, I don’t speak foreign.
Technically, one is entombed in a tomb, not buried.
SDF-7: So people are superstitious monkeys prone to magical thinking? Who knew?
On the flip side, that would make it easier to express your disapproval of said politician.
I feel the same way about naval vessels, personally. But yeah — memorials should only be for the dead.
Government buildings should not be named after people.
Hold on… I’m not opposed to names on all government buildings.
To be fair, a Sewage Lift Pump serves a useful function.
Government buildings should not be
named after people.@Pioneer – Where then should the courts meet? Even in the most minarchist architecture, you need some forum of litigation for contract enforcement.
The government must rent privately-owned buildings.
UCS:
A private court system is possible.
In order to enforce a ruling, you will eventually need people willing to do force in sufficient numbers to make the idea of defiance unworkable. Once you have an army, you’re going to become a government PDQ.
“A private court system is possible.”
Private presumes voluntary, I believe. What do you do when the defendant simply declines to recognize the jurisdiction of the private court? Holding a trial without the defendant and then trying to enforce the result starts sounding awfully nonvoluntary/nonprivate.
I would assume that the private court only has authority over people who have agreed to its jurisdiction. Do kibbutzim have their own court equivlaents?
The absconder/scofflaw problem with a private court is no different than someone fleeing the jurisdiction of any other court.
“The absconder/scofflaw problem with a private court is no different than someone fleeing the jurisdiction of any other court.”
So you have a private organization going after someone who has not agreed in any way to be subject to its authority or comply with its orders. How is that not either a criminal organization or a governmental one?
Well. either the court only has jurisdiction over people who have previously agreed to it, or you’re in a situation where you have a private citizen going after an aggressor for private justice. Maybe the “court” is really the approval board for ACME Rent-A-Posse.
“Criminal” only applies in relation to established justice systems.
Your insurance only covers a compact posse. If you wish to upgrade to a full size you have to pay the difference.
R.C. Dean:
I can propose several ways in which there would be private court systems, but that’s much more of a pipe dream than anything else in the libertarian world at this point. Contracts with arbitration clauses already can take the court system out of disputes.
By the time we need to worry about the disposition of a private only court system, we’ll be drinking soycaf, paying with nuyen, dodging street samurai, and hopefully dealing with the sixth world as opposed to just megacorps.
private courts
There will always be an element of humanity that requires the threat of force for it to behave “honestly.” Any society that depends on private courts, contractual arbitration, etc, will have to be very picky about who is admitted to that society and a mechanism for ejecting badly behaved elements, and now you’ve got government in fact if not in name.
“Criminal” only applies in relation to established justice systems.
You can substitute warlord for criminal I suppose. You’re going to get some way of imposing will – either that or you are agreeing to suffer all that can be inflicted on you without retaliation.
Contracts with arbitration clauses already can take the court system out of disputes.
Yes, but (1) the court system is factored in as a final stop in case there is jiggery pokery (bad faith dealings) and (2) it still doesn’t solve the scofflaw problem. IMO, the closest we have seen to this type of “justice” is mafia/gang turf wars. Except even they operate under the law in the sense that they can only be so depraved before uncle Sam drops by and knocks some heads together.
i do not really think private courts are that possible.
Even in “anarchic” setting the courts were basically the only government. Like Iceland or Somalia and Zomia and shit
Well, as I am not an ANCAP I do think that the courts are a legitimate function of any gov’t, whether it is a private gov’t or public (which is essentially the same thing, only writ large). Without some form of public redress, you only have the will of a warlord to keep whatever peace and settle disputes, and that is still the same thing, only without buy in from what ever polity it “serves”.
What’s the difference Justice-wise, between a warlord and a DA who whimsically selects the objects of prosecution? Doubly so for those that use “creative” interpretations of the law to justify said prosecutions?
The Warlord is more honest.
Is a lich really a living person?
C’mon, who wouldn’t want to pass through the AOC immigration detention center?
That it?
Cut deeper, we have to save $5T
Fine, we’ll propose increasing spending $6T then cut that by $5T and call it a spending cut.
Denied.
Now the cuts are $12T, no increases allowed.
The Apple factory will be in Houston.
It’s possible that Pelosi will want to buy the building named after her.
Bongino wrote a book…what was it named? Oh, yes: Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.. I wonder what Bongino thinks about the people now working under him.
The “administrative leave” thing is, I’ve heard, a way to weed out all the dead employees who are still getting a paycheck.
“The Nancy Pelosi Memorial Ice Cream Freezer” sounds about right.
That or “Memorial Insider Stock Exchange”
Newsom should just get a hog rendering farm — grease and pork.
“I wonder what Bongino thinks about the people now working under him.”
He has been vocal and detailed about dismantling the FBI top brass, and sending the bulk of the useless career types away from D.C. at a minimum and to start with, to dismantle the club that Obama’s weaponization created and empowered, and that think they have the right to abuse their power for personal and globalist agendas.
You can blame Obama all you want, but the roots of this stretch back to the Church Commission and the failure thereof to destroy what they believed they could reform.
The origins of this go back to Cain & Able. I do not care about that. I care about the asshole that took a skinny kid from Brooklyn, injected it with a super serum, and gave us Evil Captain Crooked America. The asshole in that analogy is Obama, the skinny kid our unelected and unaccountable government bureaucracy, and the super serum is Obama’s weaponization of said government entities. Before him these crooks didn’t think they could go into overdrive and do this out in the open like they have in the last 2 decades.
But you keep on doing you and defending Obama.
If I say the problem goes back to Woodrow Wilson, am I defending Obama? Or FDR?
The roots of this go back to Wilson. It accelerated under Obama, but that was more because the progressives thought they had won the final victory and were just cementing their power than because Obama was anything special in the progressive line. If I was forced to rank the Presidents most responsible for this state of affairs I’d rank them Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Obama, Nixon, with the ordering of the last three kind of up to the reader. Wilson planted the poison tree and FDR expanded it into an orchard, LBJ, Nixon and Obama all worked to grow it and weaponized it, but their evil pales in comparison.
You forgot Teddy Roosevelt.
Houston. Ugh.
What you have a problem?
Houston, they have a problem. The local government needs to be stranded in space.
Yeah, not a place where you build something that needs to dispose of waste heat.
You have got the Gulf there if you’re willing to drive the heat exchangers, NA. Would make the Cray mineral oil baths looks like child’s play…
(I was actually entirely kidding at first… but now I find myself wondering… if you build a few nuke plants to power the AI server farms anyway — can you share the secondary loop heat exchangers and cool those via pipes through the Gulf? Pure 2 second speculation… probably not feasible…. but it isn’t like you have to try to cool at 107 degrees with 99 percent humidity through the air…)
What? You can’t repurpose the heat for industrial purposes? Open up industrial bakeries adjacent to the facility and pump the server heat right into the ovens.
The ovens can be repurposed when SkyNet takes over.
“Designed in Texas”
Are they going to name future operating systems after natural features there?
/can’t actually think of any
There’s Big Bend and…that’s all I got.
Just when I start thinking perhaps we should proceed cautiously, temper our strategy carefully….I read the headlines. Fuck it. Where is that goddamned chainsaw?
The limited edition Milei chainsaw?
If a person works for the FBI or the CIA and somehow loses key documents in their office shredder, then automatic charge of treason, and, if convicted, death penalty.
Live by the shredder, die by the shredder.
“You used a document shredder. Allow us to show you our people shredder.”
[ Preet Bharara has entered the chat ]
If you try to do this piecemeal and with any order, you will not only end up with no cuts, but a slew of government scumbags justifying why they need more waste and abuses. It seems the DOGE team and Trump know that, and have chosen to just hack at it, and then pit back whatever they actually should not have cut back. To paraphrase Al Pacino’s character in that movie Scent of a Woman: “Take a flamethrower to the unaccountable and unelected D.C. bureaucracy!”
Proceeding cautiously is the short road to failure.
^^
Agreed.
L E R O Y J E N K I N S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, no, no, nick, it’s LEEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOYYYYY JENKINS!
EPIC!
ROAT: That’s the one
cavalier: This. A charge of treason because….it is treason. In fact, the mere threat of it should be punished in some way. I would think that the threat is criminal behavior
“The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats”
It is as if all the perverted shit foisted on minors was not accidental, but a result of so many of these people ending up in positions of power in government and abusing it. I remain convinced that there is a movement to legalize pedophilia that is using the adult causes as a shield to get them there.
Nice to know the people at the NSA all engaged in freakouts that would make those of the ole Nazi regime days look tame, too.
Hence the attempt to adjust the language regarding “minor attracted persons”.
LGBTQI2SMAP+
Dammit, rhywun. Now I need to change my wifi password.
There has been just enough of a consistent undercurrent of pedophilia in Places That Matter to make it hard to dismiss Q Anon as a nutjob conspiracy theory.
Some famous Froggie surgeon just got convicted of molesting like 300 kiddies. He was convicted of CP, but received probation and kept molesting.
I’m seeing rumors that the FBI is shredding the Epstein documents instead of releasing them.
At this point they must be so sanitized and redacted there’s not much on there.
I’m seeing rumors of destruction of far more than that.
What… like with a cloth?
It’s been fun seeing one group of people claiming those doing thr shredding are trying to thwart Trump and another claiming they’re trying to shred the proof of Trump’s involvement.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
Yeah, what is the delay on releasing that? Bondi said on the day she was sworn in, I believe, she was going to release them, and still, nothing.
I doubt that the FBI hasn’t kept a complete copy somewhere. I am sure they will try to release a sanitized version (maybe, maybe not even that), but the blackmail potential will likely keep them from destroying the files completely.
Yep, files for blackmail is the FBIs original stock in trade, they could never bring themselves to destroy that. Nevermind they were probably plugged into Epstein.
Shoot, the FBI probably still has Hoovers blackmail files in some basement somewhere.
“Top. Men.”
“Federal workers who fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave, Musk states”
Musk needs to not be the public face of these moves. They need to come from the chain of command – OPM, OMB, one of those. He can announce the ridiculous shit DOGE finds every day.
Agreed. Execution is not the best. This order could easily be in a proper use of an EO to all agency heads to implement immediately or the head is fired and shit starts rolling down hill
And on the CIA’s 7th floor — home to top leadership — some officers are also quietly discussing how mass firings and the buyouts already offered to staff risk creating a group of disgruntled former employees who might be motivated to take what they know to a foreign intelligence service.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/24/politics/cia-security-risks-trump/index.html
CNN headline (my interpretation): “Trump is forcing good Americans to commit treason!”
It’s insane that’s the story they’re going with.
INSANE.
If it is going the way that’s phrased — that’s one of the few times I would 100 percent agree with the CIA higher ups that that is their job. And that they need to watch for it and be prepared to come down hard if any of their former employees violate their oaths and commit treason.
(Granted, that’s balanced against my eternal conviction that FedGov has WAY over-classified since at least WWII.. so what they “take to a foreign service” may be no more than the K-cup refill schedule but still classified TOP SECRET NO NOs!…)
This is like intelligence shit! (language NSFW)
They are the ones doing it. The higher-ups I mean.
Scroll down to the middle of this article and enjoy the picture!
Pins and stickers were on display Monday outside a metro station in Washington, “FEDERAL WORKERS ARE TRUE PATRIOITS”
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-says-workers-who-dont-respond-to-musks-email-risk-being-fired-27c2e9e4?st=UGvL6E&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
*barf*
I saw a picture of a protest in defense of the poor government workers, showing them marching with signs saying “We Will Not Resign”.
Well… Alright then, you’re fired.
Please add “attended a protest instead of doing my fucking job” to your list of 5 things you did last week.
https://x.com/JustACineast/status/1887515505000341757
Yep. Spot on with your tweet.
Yes. When Obama’s shit head energy sec. Chu made noises about tripling the price of fuel and in doing so laid waste to the logistics world in ’09, none of those fuckers had any sympathy for me and mine.
Not to mention when Biden shut down the pipeline and whacked 10k energy jobs (at least).
POS then-Gov Cuomo said about the people miffed over being forced out of work that they should go get “essential” [sic] jobs. No, Andrew, they *had* essential jobs until you put a gun to their businesses and forced them to shut down.
That’s POS future mayor of NYC Cuomo.
Curious which PAC or last of USAID monies paid for those pins
biden Bucks!!!!!
“Trump to sell Federal Building Named After Nancy Pelosi”
This is the kind of petty scoreboarding I can get behind.
The building is empty and unused. We will be lucky to get pennies on the dollar, unfortunately. What would be fun is to name it after the guy that hammered Nancy’s husband cause of whatever sex play they were engaged in.
“Taxation Is Theft Corporate Center”
Ya easy dunk, empty netter, homerun derby type shit is great fodder for the newscycle
“designed in the style of a dashboard from an alien spacecraft”
Hideous.
Attn Kindle users:
Amazon is removing the ability to download Kindle eBooks tomorrow: https://www.tomsguide.com/tablets/e-readers/hurry-download-your-kindle-ebooks-before-amazon-wont-let-you-anymore
I’m currently downloading all of mine using Tampermonkey & the script mentioned here:
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/lfhbento/3388607475edc23a571e8eaf568469e3/raw/f262b6f722fb4af3b00353d98412a5192ac9eae3/userscript.js
Unfortunately, it hit a snag after 185 books but I think I can hack around it
Ah, nice – just reloading the page of books I was on was enough to restart downloads
I may get around to it — I may not. I have something like 1800 titles to worry about and better things to do.
Wish I could just pass creds to wget right about now, have to say. Never set up Tampermonkey, so while I appreciate the script — no idea where to start with that. Probably will just go back to manual mode if I truly care.
Fortuantely, I don’t have too many.
A: Amazon made it impossible to simply load up a cart with books and make one purchase transaction, insisting on “One-click” buying for all kindle books, so I simply never got them from Amazon.
B: My keyboard kindle broke and the replacement models without real buttons just were not comfortable to use.
C: I shifted over to audiobooks, and while Amazon has always made it a pain in the ass, I still have a workaround that gets me my .mp3 version to load in my car.
Yes, which annoys me GREATLY, as it makes my job harder to do (still doable, tho—thanks to autist book fans). I download them occasionally anyway, so all mine are already backed up.
This shit is why I still prefer actual written-on-paper books.
WINNER!
I’m unclear on the implications. This change prevents me from downloading books to a platform that Amazon can’t reach out and screw with; or this change requires an active wifi connection to even read a book on a Kindle?
Yes.
IIRC, the standard for a while was to send a DRM’d version of the book to the Kindle, but there was a legacy download function for all the really old Kindles that got you the original file. They’re end of lifing that download function.
This breaks my work flow immensely, because I immediately download all e-books and save them to a local Calibre instance for safekeeping. Not that I use Calibre all that often, but I occasionally pull a book off of there onto my Kindle.
This just means more paper books, and less business for Amazon. I’m not gonna license my books, that’s absurd.
There is a real easy way to get around it: buy a physical book!
The digital form is so superior in my day-to-day life in every way that there is no fucking way I’m going back.
I’ll deal with Amazon’s fuckery and move on with the remaming years I have left. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Eh, using a kindle or Nook isn’t any different than streaming.
I really comes down to what media you really care about, I guess.
LOL I don’t have time for that.
The article doesn’t mention the further hoops you have to jump through to actually convert your files (i.e. break the DRM).
I think I’m glad I have a Nook, at least as long as B&N stays in business. ::knocks wood:: Disclaimer: for all I know, they’re pulling (or have pulled or will pull) the same shenanigans.
I do buy dead tree books if the graphics are significant or if there’s some danger the book(s) may be memory-holed. (See Huckleberry Finn and the “Little House” books.)
Suddenly Ms. Sen wants some fiscal responsibility and replication requirements in academic research. I’d expect no less than from a professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Funny thing is nobody has ever requested either of these things before, right? Suddenly now compromise is OK? Funny that…
A Compromise on University Funding
The 15% research cost cap is too strict, but there’s a solution.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/higher-ed-needs-to-compromise-with-gop-national-institute-of-health-cost-cap-297a780b?st=yPS9ys&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The grant is the grant is the grant. If a uni or prof cannot manage the moneys they get from a grant to ensure that the facilities needed are covered and that research assistants get paid, then they need to step back and look at what they are doing wrong.
None of this BS overhead shit.
Research grants have very narrowly tailored definitions of what you can call direct costs. Most other federal grants have broad requirements and allow indirect cost to be charged so long as the costs conform to federal guidelines and are applied consistently to all grants received by the organization, regardless of the source.
Also, the overhead for a state of the art research lab means your building and utilities are much higher than for work that could be done in generic office space somewhere, like substance abuse counseling.
So the reason research grants have sky high IDC rates isn’t because overhead is out of control, it has to do with grant definitions and wording. A former client of mine has a 14% M&G rate but a 74% IDC rate. I can assure you that salaries are at the lower end of the range, and there isn’t excessive admin staff.
SLD on what grants government should be funding, but if the NIH would change their language on direct cost to mirror what HHS or HUD use, there wouldn’t be as big a problem.
As for not paying overhead. I would suggest you try that for any product you buy and see how full the store shelves are. The real measure should be dollars spent vs. what was produced for the money and don’t worry about whether the mix of direct and indirect is an issue.
And just to reiterate – it is entirely possible the feds shouldn’t fund any research, but that is on Congress to fix when they pass a budget and appropriations bill, or a CR.
Oh, I am well aware of all of that, being a faculty brat and husband of a Uni director.
What I am saying is that a grant needs to be very explicit in the money it awards, and facility needs are just as important to this as research direction. Also, part of a Uni’s mission is to have these resources available, and money towards that institution from its basic funding should be used for that. In other words, what students pay in tuition should be going towards basic and advanced lab facilities, and endowment monies, along with state and federal education dollars should be included in this at the same time.
I sure hope there’s a nuclear reactor going along with those servers. No I did not RTFA.
Our tax funded foreign aid going to a First-World country to fund tranny nonsense. That’s a nice twofer “fuck-you” from the deep state.
@Jarflax and @Count Potato, both my mother’s annuities are cash-out-able, even the IRA one!
Regarding the other half of your post last night, Verizon did away with its messaging app too. The first non-Google app I tried was larded with ads, tried to get me to download the Temu app, and gave me near nonstop notifications about the same old messages.
Any good non-Google message apps out there?
iMessage?
I ended up using chomp, it has ads but they are not very intrusive, but it still interfaces with my car in the same lame Google Messenger way.
Textra
Mind you, I paid for mine, but if it’s not a subscription, I pay for all my apps.
Unfortunately, my phone is Android.
That was kind of my point, Ted.
I hope the surrender value is decent? I am not a fan of annuities, they probably are a good fit in some cases, but far too often they get pushed on fiscally unsophisticated people because they are a huge profit maker for the companies selling them, often paying out returns the ‘investor’ could get without all the strings.
Well, she’ll get back a lot more than she put in, but I’m not sure if it’s better than what she’d have gotten over 10 years in some other instrument. I don’t like annuities, either so I kinda put my head thru the desk when she told me that was what she had chosen.
Anyway, Mom said the penalty was small, but I didn’t ask what “small” means because it’s going to happen anyway.
I am glad to hear that! And don’t worry about what she could have gotten. That’s the best way to drive yourself crazy.
Spectacular on so many levels.
The Missing $25 Gift Card That’s Rocking the Hamptons
“Mystery has prompted a disciplinary trial with 1,400 pages of testimony and derailed a school principal’s career; 38 surveillance cameras… Meanwhile, based on his published rates, the fees for the arbitrator overseeing the hearing have already exceeded $24,800”
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/amagansett-hamptons-school-principal-amazon-gift-card-38e3faf4?st=4BrzzR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
$122,000 per student? Seriously?
Let’s not forget the paid housing for the superintendent.
Stonewall, UK’s Largest Trans Rights Organization, Turned Out to Be a USAID Front
WON”T SOMEONE THINK OF THE POOR TRANS CHILDREN??? you people are heartless.
Look at the vampire lecturing us on heartlessness.
Won’t somebody think of the foreigners who are now out of work?
I had just started my NGO for teaching poor Africans about Romanian wine. And all for nothing.
I also had a whole bit prepared about the importance of otherkin transbinary winemakers to help the grant process.
Maybe if you find a way to tie your NGO to defeating the AfD and RN you can get some of that sprouting capital from Brussels, I know the EU waffles on sending any money to the east, but if you brew your proposal right it might work.
Give young Muslim men wine tasting classes so they stop raping! Brilliant!
Fallingwater continues to be both beautiful and a money pit.
https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/luxury-homes/frank-lloyd-wright-fallingwater-renovation-754e1adc?st=15XwiN&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Did you see the article I put on Friday about the newly built FLW house here in Willoughby?
I did indeed!
I did like that it was built to modern code standards.
FLW design – looks nice, built like shit.
FIFY
His aesthetics have not been to my taste, but every FLR house I’ve been in, I’ve wanted to live in. Ditto some of his junior architects who built a bunch of houses in Norman.
Contra UCS, they look beautiful, and exceeded the abilities of the builders at the time.
https://www.wsj.com/business/mark-weller-penny-defender-trump-d543a9de?st=2pHmw9&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I approve of this work. Yes, yes, I know that there isn’t much call for the penny, but it is part of US currency, and thus needs to be maintained, even if doing so costs more than the penny itself.
Getting rid of it is a step down a bad road, one that leads to gov’t takings and digital only currency.
CNN has to keep those sources anonymous. Otherwise, they’d be handing those vulnerable spies to the Russians on a silver platter.
“Anonymous sources” = “shit we made up”.
When you need to peddle a falsehood, quote anonymous sources.
Anonymous sources are the most trust worthy because they are risking everything …
“Please. Do not divide this community anymore. Bring back topics that bring us together, like the ‘inclusive playground at Bear Creek.’”
The Small Town Tearing Itself Apart Over Preferred Pronouns
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/the-small-town-tearing-itself-apart-over-preferred-pronouns-d021be72?st=Er9Qyc&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Coming from the People’s Republic of NJ this all seems so quaint.
Good, make the left die on the hill of making women compete against biological men.
Democrats need to make oppressing women and mutilating children their top issues, even higher than killing babies.
It is with the deepest and most profound sadness…
“Joy Reid’s show, ‘The ReidOut,’ ended tonight. And Joy is not taking a different job in the network. She is leaving the network altogether and that is very, very, very hard to take,” Maddow said. “I am 51 years old. I have been gainfully employed since I was 12. I have had so many different types of jobs you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But in all the jobs that I have had, in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I’ve had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid. I love everything about her. I’ve learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her. I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC, and personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door.”
That doesn’t say much for her past work history.
I heard that dude Rachel Madcow complained about joy being fired. Maybe they need to fire him next.
Joy was not a winning campaign slogan. It’s time to find a new one.
No Joy in Mudville tonight.
🙄
A square wouldn’t understand.
Things sure are different than they were back in the first term, where the saboteurs had the upper hand. Man, I bet they are all now wishing they had not “fortified” the 2020 election and had not given the MAGA movement to learn and plan to hammer the cock block.
I watched Justice League last night. Holy shit what a garbled mishmash of nonsense. People actually pay good money to watch stuff like that?
Aside from somebody named Gal Godot…
Watch the Zack Snyder version. That one was awesome and not the crap they rolled out at first.
The Snyder version is at least coherent.
If you really want Justice League, watch the animated series.
I second Mr Ilium’s recommendation.
Snyder version
I’m drinking instant coffee mixed with cold water and am happy I got out of bed before noon. Until I can reset my sleep cycle, caffeine is a lesser evil than lying in bed for 12 or more hours per day.
I remember seeing some bullshit all-hands diversity seminar on the NSA in-house TV station once. We had a TV that would cycle between various Arabic news channels, but some genius decided that was a no-go since every section didn’t get one.
The NSA news aggregator tool was cool. It’d be fun to automate that with Grok and see what turns up. There are so many opportunities for automation there that will never happen because it would mean fewer people and smaller budgets.
Time to get a job and move out of the house. Let move past May 8, 1945.
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/german-vote-boosts-europes-centrists-as-merz-seeks-independence-from-u-s-6b4aee39?st=fjnf9A&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
When Europeans don’t care enough about Europe to step up, why should America?
soft power?
It’s all talk. How do you build up your military while simultaneously destroying your power grid and deindustrializing?
They are willing to reopen nuke plants or turn the cheap Russian gas back on. So they’ll keep training their tiny army with broomsticks because they don’t have enough rifles.
Either way, not our problem. If they can’t be assed to effectively defend themselves, why the Hell should we do it?
Its hilarious how they are aggressively doing exactly what Trump wants.
Upping their defense spending, taking ownership of the mess in Europe, and giving him support to pull out troops out of Europe.
He couldn’t have orchestrated it better.
The 8000 pound gorilla, in the china shop, with a meat axe
The Colorado River is shrinking
The river is shrinking due to climate change, which means the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, created by dams on the Colorado River, have reached record low levels in recent years amid a megadrought spanning more than two decades. If water levels fall much lower, they could lose the ability to generate hydropower within the massive dams that hold them back, or even lose the ability to pass water downstream.
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allowed President Biden to designate $4 billion for Colorado River programs, including big sums for programs that pay farmers, cities and Native American tribes to conserve Colorado River water and, instead, leave it in those reservoirs. The payments are compensation for money they can’t make by using their water to grow crops or for other uses.
A lot of the IRA money has already been delivered, but Bart Fisher, who sits on the board of the Palo Verde Irrigation District in California, is worried about what will happen if it goes away.
“If there’s no funding,” he said, “there will be no conservation.”
Sure that sounds right.
Maybe look for a solution that doesn’t rely on who controls the government.
Indeed. Live by the gov’t teat, die by the gov’t teat.
Sigh. It never ends.
“A New Hampshire woman was arrested on Friday after police found footage of her urinating on food products at the grocery store where she was employed in a trove of online videos documenting similar disgusting acts dating back four years.”
https://nypost.com/2025/02/25/us-news/nh-grocery-store-employee-arrested-for-urinating-on-food-and-filming-it-after-cops-find-trove-of-similar-videos/
I wonder if the ability to record videos so easily now is encouraging some of these crimes.
How many followers did that get her? I ask for a friend…
“online” might just be cloud storage.
I think the crimes originally were never recorded. That type of thing has gone on since the Romans. Probably before.
The difference now is some morons who do it self-select for criminal prosecution by recording their own acts.
Woman or “woman”? It would be much easier to pee on the products if you are standing up.
WOOHOO!
Finally some good news in this process.
Just got off the phone with the local PD guy who processes the permit form. Turns out the missing section I was worried about was their responsibility, and gets filled in when I turn it in.
Phew.
🤣
One of the other documents required to be filed is the Abstract of Driving record from the DMV. I just ordered mine. Here’s the extent of the record:
Clearly driving gloves protect against tickets!
Maybe.
I mean the only ticket I expected to see was one I got for parking in front of my own house.
I forgot to move my car before noon on street cleaning day – $50 fine.
😅👍
In the current funding cycle, landowners in Fisher’s irrigation district alone are getting about $40 million in exchange for cutting back on their water use. No one knows how much funding, if any, will be delivered in the next cycle, which starts in August. Fisher said farmers are already thinking about their budgets for the next growing season.
Typical ass backwards government program. Why not charge them for the water they use, at prices set by auction?
The only explanation for “dwindling” water supplies is global warming. The only solution is rationing.
This reminds me of the old two stupid dogs episode
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8kt9eg
dunno if that works for you, the key bit is between say 2:30 and 4:30
“Not much water for all this land”
“Sadly so. But the government still pays me good money for what I don’t grow. “
“Government TV’s hacked to show AI video of Trump licking Elon Musk’s toes—WaPo claims it’s ‘possibly’ fake
Along with the footage of Trump kissing Musk’s feet, the video displayed the message: “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/government-tvs-hacked-to-show-ai-video-of-trump-licking-elon-musks-toes-wapo-claims-its-possibly-fake
LOL
a fake made with grok?
Revealed: Dublin’s priciest Guinness pints as customers fume over ‘rip-off’ prices nearing a whopping €10
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14433413/dublin-guinness-price-pint.html?ito=amp_twitter_share-top
I mean in Bucharest a pint of Guinness is 7 Euros and we are a much cheaper city, lower rents lower wages…
Depends on the venue here, in a pub, between $5-$8. At a concert hall/sporting event $12-$15. And are we talking Imperial pints or US pints?
It’s probably a Metric Pint of 250 mL
proper pints obviously not those silly american things
Proper pints prevent pitifully poor pours.
I can get Guinness for about $2 a pint at the local grocery store.
a can does not count
PieInTheSky:
But bottles are OK? I’m on the side of modern cans over bottles.
The ball of nitrogen in a Guinness can is what makes it drinkable.
I like stouts, but generally not in a bottle.
Sensei:
For the Guinness draft bottles (which may have been discontinued, I haven’t looked for them in a while) had the rocket widget in them. Designed to stay in the bottle, and so that you could drink it from the bottle.
I recently bought a case of Guinness Draught. No widgets in the bottle, but the bottles are 11.2 not 12 oz.
“The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which lost its only Republican-nominated judge in 2022, ruled against parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri in their lawsuit alleging Ludlow Public Schools actively lying to them about not socially transitioning their daughter.
While they acknowledge the “fundamental importance of the rights asserted by the Parents to be informed of, and to direct, significant aspects of their child’s life … parental rights are not unlimited,” the three-judge panel wrote.
They may not “invoke the Due Process Clause to create a preferred educational experience for their child in public school” because “our pluralistic society assigns those curricular and administrative decisions to the expertise of school officials, charged with the responsibility of educating children,” the ruling says.
Hiding gender transitions “does not restrict parental rights in a way courts have recognized as a violation of the guarantees of substantive due process.””
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/new-england-becomes-ground-zero-fight-against-males-girls-sports-secret
It takes a village to chop her tits off.
Sure Dems, keep getting between parents and their kids, that’ll be the path to victory!
I don’t know how parents are not going medieval from this shit.
Some have and the full force of the State has come down on them.
What happened when Latin America’s most free economy elected a socialist?
https://www.cityam.com/what-happened-when-latin-americas-most-free-economy-elected-a-socialist/
In order to understand why Chileans voted for the socialist Boric, the answer is not to be found in objective economic data, because these data confirm the success of capitalism in Chile. The answer lies in a shift in public opinion. Ultimately, Chile is a striking example of a phenomenon we see in so many countries today: As time passes, nations “forget” why they became economically successful. The economic elites focus on their businesses, but leave the arena of public opinion to their opponents, who dominate the universities and the media. There, “the rich” are increasingly denounced as scapegoats for negative developments in society and, as a result, an anti-capitalist interpretation of reality increasingly comes to dominate the public discourse.
The paradox is that, on the one hand, Latin America’s model capitalist country was very successful: Between 1975 and 2015, the income of Chileans increased more than in any other country in Latin America. Life expectancy rose from 69 to 79 years. And social mobility, that is the opportunity for people to move up the social ladder, was greater than in any other Latin American country, as an OECD report confirmed in 2017.
On the other hand, despite all successes, my survey in the summer of 2021 had shown just how strong anti-capitalism was in Chile. From July 30 to August 9, 2021, Ipsos surveyed 1,000 representatively selected people in Chile. Combining responses to the survey’s pro-state and pro-market statements, we found that statements in favour of a stronger role for the state met with 23 per cent approval and statements in favour of economic freedom elicited 19 per cent approval. Among Chileans under the age of 30, pro-market statements gained approval from 19 per cent of respondents and pro-state statements from 26 per cent. Among those over the age of 60, the relationship between support for the market economy (22 per cent) and for a stronger role for the state (19 per cent) was reversed.
TL;DR version – The Culture War Is Eternal.
And I bet there was no shortage of commie agitators pushing for these results.
See: every other country on the planet.
Now you see it, now you don’t
Nearly 40% of the federal contracts that President Donald Trump’s administration claims to have canceled as part of its signature cost-cutting program aren’t expected to save the government any money, the administration’s own data shows.
The Department of Government Efficiency, run by Trump adviser Elon Musk, published an updated list Monday of nearly 2,300 contracts that agencies terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 794 in all, are expected to yield no savings.
That’s usually because the total value of the contracts has already been fully obligated, which means the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so.
“It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. It doesn’t accomplish any policy objective,” said Charles Tiefer, a retired University of Baltimore law professor and expert on government contracting law. “Their terminating so many contracts pointlessly obviously doesn’t accomplish anything for saving money.”
It’s pointless to try to change the way things work. Quit rocking the boat.
A penny saved is a penny earned is a concept Americans need to get back to.
Too many are saying ‘it’s just $x amount, it’s not anything!’
By cancelling the contract, even though the money has been spent, they are probably taking it out of consideration for renewal, possibly out of any funding in a CR or similar. Cancelling is not the same as immediate termination of a contract. Businesses do it all the time. Short of material breach, few commercial contracts can be terminated with no notice. I’ve had many conversations with CFOs that go something like “We can’t terminate this before X date, but if we want it gone then, we need to give notice now. No, it won’t save us money this month, but after X date it will.” The CFO generally whines and throws things, but goes ahead with termination because it will, in fact, save money in the longer run.
That’s not how this works.
Thousands of children in England have been accused of witchcraft over the past decade, according to new figures that come alongside a film released on Monday.
Faith-based abuse is a worldwide phenomenon but experts found 14,000 social work assessments linked to witchcraft accusations since 2015. In the year running to March 2024 alone, there were 2,180 assessments linked to witchcraft.
The statistics, compiled by the National FGM Centre, come as the film Kindoki Witch Boy is released, telling the story of Mardoche Yembi, 33, who was accused of witchcraft as a child growing up in north London and subjected to an exorcism. Its release date also marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old girl who was tortured after accusations of witchcraft were levelled against her.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/24/thousands-of-children-england-falsely-accused-witchcraft-kindoki-witch-boy
ah cultural enrichment
Diversity makes them stronger! Before they imported wise African tribal people England had no defense against 8 year old witches!
DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH!!!!
Being an asshole is my strength.
Once the whites are gone, diversity in Britain is going to kill each other.
Speaking of digital fuckery I’m going to need my phone to get into my building from now on. Or enter a seven-digit number lol.
A true bureaucracy would require your phone to get into the building but prohibit taking your phone into the building.
Hmm, that would be a start, but I think requiring the phone to move between floors improves this, after all it would technically be possible to enter the building using the phone and leave the phone sitting outside the doorway after it signaled to permit entry
I don’t mind phones themselves, but I hate this trend of relying on them for every little thing.
No, I am not going to scan a squiggly to get a link to look at your menu! Either give me a menu, or I will go else where. And I loath two part security for things that do not need it. You want to pay my mortgage? Go on into my account, you can’t pull money out from my lender, you could apply for another mortgage, but there are so many other steps that I am not in the slightest bit worried about that. This is just getting retarded.
QR codes in lieu of menus makes me nuts.
The meme…it’s happening.
Firing FedGov will destroy us!
Today – may hurt some families, but overall economy will be fine.
I expect next will be ‘we should have done this sooner!’
It’s just a reverse of the meme
I asked one of those whiney lefty bitches complaining about public sector employees losing their jobs at work when the last time she saw someone in the private sector being paraded in the news to complain about private sector jobs cuts because of the economy our government destroyed was. She was baffled. I again emphasized this is all theatre by people hoping to keep the massive abuse, inefficiency, and criminality that paid them well from becoming common knowledge and they were counting on the usual useful idiots in team blue to help them escape that future. I could see her circuits frying.
Their brains are indeed fried but I think it’s simpler than any of that.
Donald did a thing, therefore it is must be resisted.
I used to know a guy who was pretty libertarian minded, but he just lost it when DJT was elected. Honestly believes that Elon was doing a Nazi solute, and won’t shut up about it!
I just don’t get the total hate in some quarters that should be going “huh, this is pretty much what I was asking for all these years.”
Cognitive dissonance is a brutal thing. The morons currently losing it about the things happening, have Trump living rent free in their puny brains. And he is breaking the false reality where they were the good guys they lived in since the days of black Jesus, to pieces. It is existential. Admitting they were wrong/played, and that they are the bad guys, would break them. So they doble down on the reality unraveling around them.
Robin Hanson
@robinhanson
Arguments never defeat arguments. Instead people with enough status make arguments be accepted enough to be worthy of defeating, and then others with enough status may offer rebuttals worthy of considering. Without status, neither acceptance nor rebuttal happens.
Quite often, accepted arguments are logically rebutted by people with insufficient status to get others to listen. Eventually someone with status repeats their arguments, to acclaim and effect.
https://x.com/robinhanson/status/1894406118840864874
Every story about a government worker unjustly deprived of his/her dream job should include that person’s salary.
And benefits (including retirement) and schedule.
And what they actually did in terms of real work output, not what the fanciful ideation of their job is depicted as.
I was at lunch with a friend in Brooklyn, and she brought up the ICC’s ruling — genocide. Two people immediately came up to us, interrupted, and publicly admonished us for using “the incorrect G-word.”
My friend immediately shot back …
“Actually,” she said, “I have a Master’s in Middle East studies. My family is from Egypt. I’m very educated.”
The two people, now irate, pushed further.
“It is not a genocide, that is propaganda and you have been misinformed.”
https://x.com/TulikaBose_/status/1894121397108035912
I’ll take things that never happened…
Taps out at any mention of that corrupt outfit.
Today, in people with the same politics, agree with my politics.
The Israelis have the ability to commit genocide against the Gazans, but they don’t. The gazans on the other hand would absolutely commit genocide against the Israelis if they could. The two sides are not the same.
“I have a Master’s in Middle East studies.
I read that in Dr Science’s voice.
The Energy Multiplier Module is a fast-neutron waste-burning version of General Atomic’s Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactor, with silicon carbide fuel cladding.
It operates at 850°C to produce 500 MWth without refuelling for 30 years, turning it into 240-296 MWe of electricity.
https://x.com/ToughSf/status/1894069786042126792
Today, in publicity stunts
The proposal drafted by the National Center for Public Policy Research — a self-described conservative think tank — urges Apple to follow a litany of high-profile companies that have retreated from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives currently in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump.
Tuesday’s shareholder vote comes a month after the same group presented a similar proposal during Costco’s annual meeting, only to have it overwhelmingly rejected. A similar outcome is expected during Apple’s annual meeting despite the vocal objections of critics.
Just as Costco does, Apple has steadfastly stood behind diversity and inclusion efforts that its management contends make good business sense.
But the National Center for Public Policy Research’s proposal has attacked Apple’s diversity commitments for being out of line with recent court rulings and said the programs expose the Cupertino, California, company to an onslaught of potential lawsuits for alleged discrimination. The group estimated about 50,000 Apple employees could file cases against Apple without detailing how it arrived at that figure.
Why do I suspect this “conservative” group’s “shareholder proposals” are carefully crafted to incite a “no” vote?
I dunno but I would love to see 50,000 Apple employees file cases for the illegal racist bullshit they like many other companies absolutely do pull.
Because they’re still terrified of the activist mobs. Give it time.
In its rebuttal to the anti-DEI proposal, Apple said its program is an integral part of a culture that has helped elevate the company to its current market value of $3.7 trillion — greater than any other business in the world.
“We believe that how we conduct ourselves is as critical to Apple’s success as making the best products in the world,” the company said in its statement against the proposal. “We seek to conduct business ethically, honestly, and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.”
I believe 100% in the “Don’t like how we run the company? Invest your money somewhere else,” school of thought.
That works up until how they run the company violates fiduciary duties. I don’t know if Apple’s diversity programs do, maybe/probably not, but telling shareholders they should just sell and take a loss because management violated its fiduciary duties to them doesn’t work.
Some asshole is microwaving fish.
Wait, today’s a remote day. I’m heating up lunch.
I believe 100% in the “Don’t like how we run the company? Invest your money somewhere else,” school of thought.
There is a corollary to this, which is, “If you don’t want a bunch of armchair CEOs second guessing your every move at the shareholders’ meeting, don’t go public.’