It's a Metaphor

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— Patsy “Resistance Kitty” Evans Ph.D. (@drharmony.net) June 3, 2026 at 10:15 PM

This is unbelievably true.

This Won't Come to Much

The House of Representatives has passed a War Powers Act resolution requiring that Trump get Congressional approval to continue prosecuting the war against Iran.

It has to be approved by the Senate as well, and would almost certainly require a conference committee to hash out differences, and even then Trump would veto this.

The US House of Representatives delivered a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump over his war on Iran on Wednesday, as representatives backed a move to force him to seek approval from Congress or withdraw US forces.

The House voted 215 to 208 in favor of the war powers resolution, as four Republicans voted with Democrats. The dissident Republicans were Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Tom Barrett of Michigan.

Wednesday’s vote came nearly two weeks after House Republicans cancelled an earlier scheduled vote, on the grounds that they lacked the votes to defeat it.

The vote sends the resolution to the Senate. A handful of Senate Republican defectors joined Democrats last month to advance a similar resolution forcing Trump to seek congressional approval after four Republican senators rebelled and voted with the Democrats.

………

The vote’s impact is largely symbolic, as it is unclear whether the House version, which is a concurrent resolution and does not need to be signed by the president, carries the force of law, even if it also passes in the Senate. But it was a striking demonstration of the nascent willingness among a segment of Republicans to defy Trump, who has kept a vise-like grip on the party on Capitol Hill, through his willingness to exact retribution against dissenters.

 It embarrasses, and likely enrages, Trump, but beyond that, I do not expect anything to change.

The End of an Era

The US Marine Corps has retired its final AV-8B Harriers from service.

The unmistakable howl of the AV-8B Harrier II has been a soundtrack to U.S. Marine Corps aviation for more than four decades. From the deserts of the Middle East and Afghanistan to the decks of amphibious assault ships at sea, the aircraft’s ability to take off from short runways, operate from austere forward bases, and land vertically made it one of the most distinctive combat aircraft ever to wear American markings. Before then, its predecessor, the first-generation AV-8A Harrier, had pioneered the ‘jump jet’ in U.S. service, after entering Marine Corps service in 1971.

Now, that illustrious era has come to an end.

In a ceremony today, the Marine Corps said its official farewell to the AV-8B when its final operational Harrier II squadron, Marine Attack Squadron 223 (VMA-223), known as the “Bulldogs,” marked the retirement of the aircraft at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina.

The event closes a remarkable chapter in Marine aviation history. The Harrier’s departure marks more than the retirement of an aircraft; it represents the conclusion of a concept that shaped Marine air power for generations and helped define the Corps’ expeditionary character.

It provided some unique capabilities, though these capabilities led to a high loss rate. 

Still Colorado's Worst Governor

Yes, it is Jared Polis again, who just vetoed a bill banning surveillance pricing, aka price gouging.

He really is a turd.

Rogue veto. Fresh from being censured by his own party for pardoning an election-denying county clerk who’d tampered with voting machines, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis again bucked fellow Democrats by vetoing a bill that would have been the strongest surveillance pricing ban in the country. Surveillance pricing is the algorithmic exploitation of consumers’ personal data to charge them the most they’re willing to pay. A majority of Americans oppose the practice, but in his veto letter, Polis claimed the Colorado bill could discourage “perfectly acceptable uses of technology to set an appropriate price or wage, or the use of technology to save consumers money through discounts.”

Polis’ term-limited administration ends in January, and one potential successor has already said he will sign a surveillance pricing bill. Gubernatorial candidate and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) told The Lever that “Nobody should be charged more for groceries during a natural disaster, for example — but that’s what happens with surveillance pricing, which allows businesses to track consumers’ and workers’ personal data and adjust prices and wages based on recent search and purchase history, location, and other data.”

What a pathetic waste of about a million years of evolution.

Speaking of Fraud

Following a certification of a class action lawsuit against Tesla for misleading about, "Full Self Driving," Tesla retroactively and surreptitiously changed the terms of existing contracts.

I'm an engineer, not a lawyer dammit,* but this seems to me to be to be a deliberate attempt at spoliation of evidence, which would mean that the judge could (probably should) instruct the jury that this behavior is an indicator that the party in question was acting from a knowledge of their guilt/responsibility.

Here's hoping that the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ gets his flabby white ass handed to him in court.

Tesla has retroactively modified “Full Self-Driving” purchase agreements to add “supervised” language that did not exist when owners originally bought the product. In some cases, the original documents have been made entirely inaccessible.

Electrek has confirmed the issue with multiple owners. The contracts in question were signed between 2016 and early 2024, when Tesla sold the package as “Full Self-Driving Capability” — with no mention of “supervised” and the implicit promise of unsupervised autonomy.

……… 

The critical detail: on both accounts, the only documents that are inaccessible are those that would reference FSD purchase details. Every other document, including purchase agreements for vehicles without FSD, opens without issue.

“It’s crazy because there are zero issues opening any documents on both accounts except those that would have the FSD purchase details documented,” Abcarius said. “Super fishy.”

Electrek has confirmed that other Tesla owners, specifically those with Tesla HW3 vehicles and FSD, have the same issue. The issue specifically affects contracts from the era when Tesla sold FSD without “supervised” language.

………

Making original purchase agreements inaccessible fits a broader pattern.

In August 2024, Tesla deleted a blog post from October 2016 that stated “all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory — including Model 3 — will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.” The post was removed without explanation while lawsuits were building. It is still accessible through the Wayback Machine.

 Now, the original contracts that would show Tesla sold FSD without any “supervised” qualifier are becoming inaccessible — right as Tesla faces up to $14.5 billion in lawsuits spanning FSD false advertising, Autopilot crash liability, and securities fraud.

When will Elon be frog marched out of his offices in handcuffs? 

^*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!

Of Course He Did

Remember serial (and surreal) fraudster and former Congressman George Santos?

Well, he is back in the news, because he announced that he would be attending the State of the Union address and then bet that he would not be there on Kalshi, and then did not show up.

George Santos may be the latest individual caught trading on insider information in a prediction market.

According to NPR, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is examining whether the former New York congressman placed bets on Kalshi using nonpublic details about his own plans. The market in question centered on whether Santos would attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in February.

In the days leading up to the State of the Union address, Santos posted a video on X stating he would appear in the event. That public confirmation pushed the odds of his attendance on Kalshi close to 75% the night before the event, drawing millions of dollars in wagers across related markets. Santos did not show up to the State of the Union address, however. During the speech he posted on X that he was watching from an airport television instead. The odds on his attendance collapsed shortly afterward.

The first thing learned (more accurately re-learned) is that George Santos is a cheap bunco artist.

The second thing learned is that this is a feature, and not a bug of the, "Prediction markets." 

Bad F%$#ng Idea

So, there are a number of ways that a future Democratic Party controlled Congress can deal with the issue of Gerrymandering.

This is the worst one I have seen so far, Congress refusing to seat Representatives from the states that have redistricted.

Apart from the obvious, it would cover California or any other blue state redistricting as well, it would embolden Republicans to do the same thing for any reason that they can pull out of their flabby wrinkled white asses.

………

Here’s an idea, then, for how the next Congress can defend multiracial democracy without needing to pass legislation. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution makes each House of Congress the “Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members.” Meanwhile, Article IV, Section 4 says that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” This provision—known as the Guarantee Clause—has long been held to be unenforceable in court—“non-justiciable,” to use the technical term. This rule dates back to the (wild) 1849 case Luther v. Borden, in which the Supreme Court declined to get involved in the recent Rhode Island civil war.

Instead, making good on the guarantee of republican government is left largely to Congress—and not only through the use of its legislative powers. For, as Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (yep, same guy) put it in Luther v. Borden, “when the senators and representatives of a State are admitted into the councils of the Union, the authority of the government under which they are appointed, as well as its republican character, is recognized by the proper constitutional authority.” In other words, Congress judges the republican character of each state every time it seats that state's elected representatives. This also implies that Congress can refuse to seat a state's representatives, if it thinks that state's government is not republican. And it has in fact used this power, most notably during Reconstruction: the Southern states' delegations were not seated until they had re-established legitimate, republican government to the satisfaction of Congress.

Suppose, then, that a majority of the House of Representatives thinks that Callais was wrongly decided. That would mean that the elections for Congress in states like Tennessee, which have eagerly exploited Callais, were conducted unlawfully, even unconstitutionally. It might even imply that the governments of those states are no longer republican in character: surely, after all, the Fifteenth Amendment guarantee of black suffrage is an essential part of what republican government means in America today. Accordingly, Congress could refuse to seat any of Tennessee's nine (all-white, all-Republican) representatives.

This would be a f%$#ing disaster.

Trial Lawyers for the Win

Have you heard the one about people who told the truth about bigot Charlie Kirk winning lawsuits against the employers who fired them?

Well, you have now.

Big props to Drew Pittock and BrieAnna J. Frank of USA Today for sussing out something I’d been curious about for months. You may recall that, in the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk, and in the teeth of gale-force wing-nut keening, some people posted some of Kirk’s own words as a kind of corrective. Some other people posted admittedly tasteless reactions as well. Fearing the vengeance of the cult, major institutions, including government agencies and universities, fired these social-media miscreants. Many of those people turned around and sued the institutions in question. And, with discussion of reparation payments all the rage these days, it’s fit that we point out that some of the victims of cowardice and mob rule are cashing out in a big way.

Settlements totaling more than $1.5 million have been reached so far with people who lost their jobs over social media posts that were critical of prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk in the wake of his assassination.

The free-speech cases in Florida, Tennessee, and Indiana highlight a growing debate surrounding the First Amendment, political discourse and social media. It’s “not surprising to see this flurry of settlements,” Aaron Terr, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s director of public advocacy, told USA Today. “I think the size and frequency of these settlements shows that violating the First Amendment is expensive.” ... USA Today reported a little more than two weeks after Kirk was killed, at least 50 people had lost their jobs in the education sector alone. A Reuters investigation also found that 600 people were fired across the private sector for posts they shared about Kirk.

Vice President J Divan Vance, who has demonstrated the democratic soul of an ambitious Stasi recruit, led the mob. He told people to inform on their colleagues who did not memorialize the deceased at a proper volume. Now that everything’s calmed down, the bill is coming due for what happened to people like a Tennessee cop named Larry Bushart.

Mess with the bull, you get the horns.

Of Course They Will

Trump has chickened out over the slush fund, but the order giving Trump and his family a free pass on tax fraud will remain.

I'm wondering if this was the real goal all along. 

The Justice Department is standing by an extraordinary measure giving President Trump, his family and his businesses potentially lucrative protection from I.R.S. investigations, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said on Tuesday.

Mr. Blanche’s remarks about the tax protections came during an appearance in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee, in which he told lawmakers that the Trump administration was abandoning a related plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to pay restitution to people who claimed they were victims of government “weaponization.”

Mr. Blanche said the end of the fund would not affect the separate agreement shielding Mr. Trump from audits of tax returns he and his family had already filed. Both proposals had emerged in recent weeks as part of a settlement of Mr. Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. But now only the measure benefiting the Trumps will survive, Mr. Blanche said.

“Nothing has changed with that,” he said, referring to the tax proposal. “We’re not moving forward with the anti-weaponization fund.”

Mr. Blanche’s directive left in place a staggering public benefit to a president who has sought to bend the government toward his own financial interests. A host of thorny legal questions also remain. Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against the I.R.S. was revived last week by a judge concerned about potential deception in the agreement to withdraw the suit and to release the Trumps from any ongoing audits.

These protections could be immensely valuable to Mr. Trump and his family, who have faced repeated audits from the Internal Revenue Service. Just one investigation by the I.R.S. stemmed in part from how Mr. Trump claimed losses on his Chicago tower could have cost him more than $100 million, The New York Times has reported. The Trump Organization had recently entered settlement talks with the I.R.S. to try to resolve the audit, The Times previously reported.

Tax lawyers and former I.R.S. officials have said that the protection for Mr. Trump was unprecedented in its scope and form, particularly since it extends to “affiliates” of the Trumps. Pre-existing I.R.S. procedure has been to audit the president every year, rather than confer on him sweeping protection from scrutiny on tax returns already filed.

 

Meatloaf for Dinner Again?

New rules from the Department of Agriculture will drastically increase the speed of lines in slaughter houses, which will results in more worker injuries, particularly repetitive stress injuries, and increase contamination, likely including a human finger or two.

Welcome to a reboot of Upton Sinclaire's The Jungle.

The country’s poultry and swine processing plants, already incredibly dangerous workplaces, are poised to get a green light from the Trump administration to vastly speed up the work. In February, the Agriculture Department released two proposed regulations to increase evisceration line speeds for hogs, chickens, and turkeys. The swine plant proposal removes the current maximum of 1,106 hogs an hour and instead imposes no limit at all, allowing companies “to determine their own line speeds,” which has never happened before. The proposed poultry rule, meanwhile, allows all chicken plants to run at 175 birds per minute, a limit that has only applied previously to plants involved in a pilot program. Turkey processing plants could increase from 55 to 60 birds per minute.

The rules, which come after the meatpacking industry has repeatedly lobbied for the ability to run lines as fast as possible, will almost certainly lead to more worker injuries. Workers will be left with chronic pain or amputated digits and limbs, but they will make these companies more money. “More meat, more profits,” noted Kathleen Fagan, an adjunct professor in the Case Western University school of medicine and a former medical officer at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA. The effects of this new rule will not only be felt by workers; it also threatens to let more foodborne pathogens infect Americans’ meat.

The industry, which is already made up of highly profitable conglomerates, has unsuccessfully tried for this before. Under President Barack Obama, it pressed for higher speeds overall; instead, the administration allowed 20 poultry plants to run faster as a pilot program. Under the first Trump administration, the industry petitioned to get rid of “arbitrary line speed limitations,” but rather than accede to that demand, more plants were allowed to apply for waivers to join the pilot and increase their speeds.

 

Headline of the Day

‘Like a Klingon prison’: inside Barack Obama’s audacious, near-windowless, $850m presidential library

—The Guardian, on the architecture of the Obama library

Over 7 years ago, I said that his library would, "Rip the heart out of one of Fredrick Law Olmstead's most significant works."

I stand by this assessment.  See the world's ugliest menhir:

He Deserves This Bad Week

US district judge Christopher Cooper has ruled that Donald Trump's name must come down from the Kennedy Center.  He has also ruled that Trump's 2-year shutdown to remake the building into a gold plated grotesque will not go forward.

A judge on Friday ordered the removal of Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, ruling that the prestigious Washington DC venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress.

US district judge Christopher Cooper in Washington directed the Trump administration to take down all physical signage bearing Trump’s name and to eliminate any references to a “Trump Kennedy Center” from official materials within 14 days.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote in a 94-page opinion. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

The judge added: “The Court has concluded that the Board overstepped its statutory bounds by unilaterally renaming the Kennedy Center after President Trump.”

Not long after the ruling, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would work with Congress on transferring ownership of the Kennedy Center.

“I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management,” he wrote. 

Ummm....wut?  Transfer?  You do not own the Kennedy Center.  Neither does Congress.

The American people own it.

Cooper also temporarily blocked the center from closing this summer for proposed renovations, two months after Trump announced its two-year closure.

He said that “in ratifying President Trump’s closure announcement, the Board was derelict in discharging the full range of its responsibilities to the Center”.

………

The lawsuit was brought by Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democratic US representative and a member of the Kennedy Center’s board by virtue of her position in Congress.

Thank you Representative Beatty. 

 

It Was as True . . . As Turnips Is. It Was as True . . . As Taxes Is. And Nothing’s Truer than Them

Imagine being so unable to love your child that you set fire to the whole damn world instead.

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— George Wallace (@mrgeorgewallace.bsky.social) June 1, 2026 at 4:10 PM

Great wisdom.

He truly is a truly horrible human being. 

Good Move

The NAACP has called for college athletes to boycott schools in states that have engaged in racist mid-decade redistricting.

If this works, it's a good thing. 

The NAACP on Tuesday launched a campaign urging Black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to boycott athletic programs of public universities in states that “have moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation”.

In the announcement of the “Out of Bounds” campaign, the civil rights giant name-checked eight states – Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Georgia – whose flagship public athletic programs generate more than $100m in annual revenue. Each of those states has moved to draw new maps to limit Black voting representation, following the supreme court’s Louisiana v Callais decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act.

“What these states have done is not a policy disagreement. It is a sprint to erase Black political power,” Derrick Johnson, president & CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement. “The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice.”

The campaign calls on football and basketball players who are currently being actively recruited by targeted programs to withhold their commitments until the states “restore fair congressional maps and meaningful Black representation”, to ask coaches and athletic directors at targeted programs where their universities stand on voting rights and to visit and seriously consider committing to athletic programs at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

It might work.  College sports is something sacrosanct in these states. 

………

The assault comes from the country’s highest judicial office, where the supreme court gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 under the argument that protecting the voting opportunities of Black people is a discriminatory practice and not a restorative one, despite the hundreds of graves throughout the south, marked and unmarked, of Black Americans killed for trying to vote.

………

This week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) turned to sports to join part of its dissent, calling for Black athletes to boycott public universities in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), arguably the most powerful football conference in the country and certainly its greatest incubator of Black athletic talent. The NAACP is responding to a political attack with a social and economic one, for no institution is as culturally relevant in the south as college football, and few economic engines gain as much public attention as sports.

 Here's hoping that this causes enough pain to create a political backlash against the racist dirt-bags.

Colorado's Worst Governor

Jared Polis, once again showing how he is a Republican in drag.

This time, he vetoed the repeal of Colorado's anti-union right-to-work law.

This is in addition to his commuting Tina Peters sentence for election fraud.

For the second time, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a bill that would have eliminated a unique second election requirement in the state’s union formation law, after business and labor groups failed to reach a compromise on how to tweak the measure.

“In the wake of (last year’s) veto and the substantial negotiations that preceded it, I would have hoped that both business and labor leaders could have worked to craft a long-term and durable agreement on this matter that would have served Colorado workers and businesses alike,” Polis wrote in his veto letter on Friday. “Unfortunately, because that did not happen, this issue will likely come up again next year and every subsequent year until it is addressed, which creates uncertainty for both workers and businesses.”

House Bill 25-1005 would have repealed the Labor Peace Act in Colorado. Unions can form with a simple majority, per federal law, but in Colorado they must win a second election with 75% of the vote to negotiate so-called union security — whether all workers need to pay into collective bargaining negotiations.

His political career needs to be ended. 

It's Taco Monday!

I do not mean the snack involving fillings held in a tortilla, rather, I am referring to the acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out, and in this case, Donald Trump has put a hold on his $1.776 billion "Lawfare" fund.

It appears that even his most sycophantic allies in Congress felt that this was a bridge too far.

The Trump administration plans to drop its controversial $1.8 billion "weaponization" fund the president sought to compensate alleged victims of prosecutorial misconduct under the Biden administration, two senior administration officials told Axios.

Why it matters: Bashed as a political slush fund that could be tapped by those convicted in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Trump's proposal has drawn bipartisan pushback in the GOP-led House and Senate.

Also, a Federal judge has opened an inquiry as to whether Trump and the DoJ perpetrated a fraud on the court, (it clearly is) which has the potential for major sanctions.

A federal judge ordered President Trump to respond to "grievous" accusations that his settlement with the IRS, which led to the creation of his anti-weaponization fund, was "premised on deception."

Why it matters: The order comes the same day a separate judge placed a temporary hold on the $1.776 billion pot of money, another potential hurdle to the administration's controversial settlement plan.

Driving the news: U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams' order followed a earlier motion from 35 former federal judges, who implored her to reopen the case brought in January over the leak of Trump's tax returns.

• The coalition of judges alleged in their Wednesday filing that the settlement "raises profound questions about the parties' candor toward the Court and manipulation of the judicial system."
• Williams ordered the plaintiffs to respond by June 12 to the allegations of collusion, the assertion the dismissal was "premised on deception by the Parties," and the question of whether the case should be reopened.

It appears that Trump has finally done something so transparently corrupt that even Republican members of Congress are balking.

Linkage

• Harvard Graduation Speaker Unloads on AI in Profanity-Loaded Tirade, Prompting Cheers From Students: "I'm Here to Tell You the Mission of Your Generation Is to Destroy AI" (Futurism) Ronny Chieng from The Daily Show.
• Dev Says He's Getting Threats After Leaving a Booby Trap for Vibe Coders  A(Gizmodo) I'd call this a good start.
• I Translated Völsa Þáttr for You (J.G. Harker) a 14th century story which may provide information on ancient Norse pagan practices.
• Tesla Insiders Admit Self-Driving Is a Complete Disaster (Futurism) You do not need to be an insider to know this.
• Woman With No Right Hand Is Pulled Over for Using Phone in Her Right Hand (New York Times) Ticket quotas don't fulfill themselves.
• Netflix wiz creates app to slash AI bills, then open sources it  (The Register) Optimizing the queries.
• Stablecoins Are Private Money. That’s Why They’re a Risk to the Economy (Wall Street Journal) Also, it's a numbers racket. 
• More Fed policymakers eye possible rate hike as inflation risks rise (Reuters) Yeah, that new Fed Chair is not going to do what Trump wants.

From the department of too much free time:

F%$# Flock

An amendment has been proposed to a major transportation bill that would ban the use of automated license plate readers for any purpose beyond toll booths.

It appears that the anti-Flock movement has friends in Congress. 

US lawmakers plan to introduce an amendment Thursday at a House committee markup hearing that would prohibit any recipient of federal highway funding from using automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling—a sweeping restriction that, if adopted, would bring an immediate end to state and local ALPR programs across the United States.

The amendment, obtained first by WIRED, is sponsored by Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and Freedom Caucus member, and Representative Jesús “Chuy” García, an Illinois progressive whose state has become a flash point in the national fight over ALPR misuse.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will mark up the underlying bill—a $580 billion, five-year reauthorization of federal surface transportation programs—at 10 am ET on Thursday.

Neither Perry nor García's offices immediately responded to WIRED's request for comment.

The amendment runs a single sentence: “A recipient of assistance under Title 23, United States Code, may not use automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling.”

Here's hoping it passes. 

What About Class Solidarity?

It appears that Bill Gates' former bestie Warren Buffett has cut all ties with the Microsoft founder after revelations about Gates' extensive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

I'm shocked.

Normally billionaires stick together.

By virtue of the inherent exploitation it takes to become one, there’s ontologically no such thing as a good billionaire. To sort them along a spectrum of palatability is to miss the forest for the trees and a distraction from the fact that the continued existence of these roughly 3,500 billionaire sickos (and one almost certainly soon-to-be trillionaire sicko) presents an existential threat to the other nine billion humans they’re robbing, surveiling, and increasingly starting to hide from.

While you do not, under any circumstances, “gotta hand it to” billionaires, it doesn’t hurt to call out good behavior in the rare instances where they demonstrate it, if only to demand more of it. Take self-described “class traitor” billionaire and California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer who, if (big “if”) he were to be elected and follow through on his campaign trail rhetoric, would aim to tax those like himself out of existence. Though it clearly pains many a left-leaning CA voter to regard a former hedge-fund manager who recently walked back his support for a moratorium on data center construction as the state’s most progressive candidate for governor, his DNC-backed opponent keeps collecting maxed-out donations from the full roster of Captain Planet villains—Chevron, Kalshi, Meta, Airbnb, and now Anthem BlueCross BlueShield. Those pesky Contradictions become near-impossible to ignore.

A similarly commendable action by a billionaire is highlighted in a Wall Street Journal profile published today about the breakdown of Bill Gates’ nice guy image following the revelation of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. In the Journal’s report on the hit to Gates’ meticulously manicured image caused by the DOJ’s tranche dumps in late 2025 and early 2026, it makes the case that Gates’ longtime friend and Berkshire Hathaway chairman, Warren Buffett, has gone full-on no contact with the Microsoft founder since the files dropped, referencing a March CNBC interview where Buffett says he hadn’t spoken to Gates since their release.

I still subscribe to the Honoré de Balzac quote, "Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”

It appears that f%$#ing little girls is a bridge too far for Buffett though.  

Tunguska on Cape Cod

My younger brother, Daniel, reported hearing the explosion of a meteor exploding over Cape Cod at his home in Wellesley.

That's a bit of excitement.

About That Lasagna

This is a sweet dessert historical dessert lasagna using a sweet spice mix (powder deuce) and walnuts made with fresh egg-free pasta which uses grape must as a leavening.

Pasted from MS Word, so there may be issues in the formatting.

It was rather well received: 

Lenten Sweet Lasanas (Lasagna)

I am using leavened pasta.  See Liber de Coquina ubi diuersitates ciborum docentur, (A Book About Cooking):[1]

I — 10. De lasanis : ad lasanas, accipe pastam fermentatam et fac tortellum ita tenuem sicut poteris. Deinde, diuide eum per partes quadratas ad quantitatem trium digitorum. Postea, habeas aquam bullientem salsatam, et pone ibi ad coquendum predictas lasanas. Et quando erunt fortiter decocte, accipe caseum grattatum.

Et si uolueris, potes simul ponere bonas species puluerizatas, et pulueriza cum istis super cissorium. Postea, fac desuper unum lectum de lasanis et iterum pulueriza; et desuper, alium lectum, et pulueriza : et sic fac usque cissorium uel scutella sit plena. Postea, comede cum uno punctorio ligneo accipiendo.

This translates[2] to: (emphasis mine)

I — 10. Take leavened dough and make a sheet as thin as possible. Then, cut it into squares the size of three fingers. Then, cook the said lasanae in boiling salted water. When they are well cooked, take some grated cheese.

If you want, add good, ground spices and dust them on a cutting board. Then, place a layer of lasanae and dust again; and then, another layer, and dust; and continue in this way until the table or plate is full. Then, eat them with a wooden stick.

I will to use leavened pasta for a Lenten recipe to account for the lack of eggs.  It's presence is for dough flavor and conditioning, and not for actual leavening.

The basis for my recipe is from Anonimo Veneziano’s Libro di cucina/Libro per cuoco.[3]  It is a recipe for Lent, and is a sweet dish, suitable for dessert.

Se tu voy fare lansagne de quaressima, toy le lasagne e mitile a coxere, e toli noxe monde e ben pesta e maxenate, e miti entro le lasagne, e guardale dal fumo; e quando vano a tavola, menestra e polverizage de le specie, del zucharo.

Translation was by Helewyse de Birkestad,[4] OL  (MKA Louise Smithson):

If you want to make lasagne in lent, take the lasagne (wide pasta noodles) and put them to cook (in water and salt).  Take peeled walnuts and beat and grind them well.  Put them between the lasagna (in layers), and guard from smoke (while reheating).  And when they go to the table dress them with a dusting of spices and with sugar.

Normally for fresh pasta, I would use eggs, but during lent at this period as the consumption of meat, fowl, eggs, and milk products were forbidden, hence the walnuts, sugar, and olive oil.

In addition to the ground walnuts in between the layers, I am adding chopped, "Wet," walnuts and sugar syrup to the top of the lasagna.

I am using powder douce (see Appendix A) as the spice mix.  It is mentioned in the recipe for Loseyns in The Forme of Cury. Then I am baking in a pan to allow the flavors to meld and for the syrup to infuse the dish.

Ingredients:

Quantity
2 cup	Flour, general purpose or 00 flour
2 cup	Flour, Semolina
2 cup	Fermenting grape juice, room temperature
	Additional flour, Semolina
	Olive oil
2 cup	Active (fermenting) grape juice or sourdough.  (I am using juice, see Appendix B)
1 cup	Ground walnuts
	Powder Douce (See Appendix A)
1 tsp	Salt (optional)
	Granulated or powdered sugar, can be white, brown, etc.
1½-2 cups	Chopped walnuts

Preparation of the pasta:

1. Mix the 2 cups of both flours thoroughly in a large bowl along with 1 tsp salt.
2. Make a mountain out of flour mixture and create a deep well in the center, then add 1½  cups of the grape juice and 1 Tbsp of olive oil into the well and whisk the juice and oil gently with a fork, gradually incorporating flour. When mixture becomes too thick to mix with a fork, begin kneading with your hands until the dough comes together.  Add additional water or juice as needed.
3. Knead dough until it is smooth and supple, 8 to 12 minutes. Form into a smooth ball, and  place in bowl covered in a damp cloth let sit in a bowl covered with a damp towel for 2 hours.  Knead the dough again to remove as much of the leavening as possible.  Allow it to rest at room temperature for at least 30 (1-2 hours is better) minutes or in the refrigerator over night. (preferred)
4. Roll out to desired thickness (I do about 1/16 of an inch) and cut into 2 inch (3 finger) wide strips.  You can dock the dough with a fork.
5. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add sufficient salt so that it tastes like the ocean, then add the noodles, cooking until tender yet firm to the bite.  This will probably be 5-7 minutes.
6. Remove from water store so that they do not stick together. (Hanger, parchment paper, etc.)

Preparation of the lasagna:

1. Mix ground walnuts and Powder Douce to taste, add water to make a paste similar to peanut butter.
2. Oil a baking pan. (I will also be lining the pan with parchment paper)
3. Put a layer of noodles into the pan, and then spread a thin (About the thickness of peanut butter on a peanut butter sandwich) layer of the walnut spice mixture.  Finish with a layer of noodles on top.
4. Add a dusting of the Powder Douce the top layer of noodles.
5. Spread wet walnut glaze evenly over the top of the lasagna.
6. Cook at 350-400°F (175-205°C) for ½ hour covered, and then uncover and cook for an additional 10 minutes. After the lasagna has cooled, cut into squares and skewer with toothpicks.

Preparation of wet walnuts:

1. Take 2 cups sugar of your choice and 1 cup water, and bring to a simmer, stirring frequently, until the sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Add the chopped walnuts and boil for at least 10 minutes stirring regularly. 

Appendix A.                 Spice Mixes

I could not find any detailed documentation for these spice mixes.

This is unsurprising.  This mix would be generally known by cooks, and so in a recipe, it would just be called out as if it were a single ingredient.

It is likely that it may have varied from cook to cook as well.

Powder Fort

I am using the following spice recipe from Dishably.[5]

The spice is strong (hence fort) and peppery mix.

Ingredients:

Quantity
¼ C	Powdered Ginger (or use fresh grated ginger at a 4:1 fresh:ground ratio)
¼ C	Long Pepper, Ground
¼ C	Cinnamon (Ceylon preferred),Ground
1½ tsp	Cloves, ground
¼ C	Black pepper, ground
1 tsp	Cubeb
1 tsp	Grains of paradise

 

Powder Douce

Powder Douce (Sweet in Latin) is a milder and sweeter mix, and much like Powder Fort, documentation of the spice is sparse.

I am using the spice recipe from Edouard Halidai (MKA Daniel Myers) Medieval Cookery:[6]

Quantity
3 Tbsp	Powdered Ginger (or use fresh grated ginger at a 4:1 fresh:ground ratio)
4 (2) Tbsp	Sugar (Whatever type you favor, I am using dark brown sugar)
1½ Tbsp	Cinnamon (Ceylon preferred, adjust for different cinnamon varieties),Ground
¼ (1) tsp	Cloves, ground
1 tsp	Nutmeg, ground

 

The numbers in parenthesis are the original recipe.

When I tried out the spice mix, I found that the clove was overpowering, and it needed to be sweeter.

Appendix B.                  Grape Pomace, Must, Juice, and Lees

For my recipes, I am calling crushed grapes, "Must," calling the cloudy fluid pressed from crushed grapes, "Juice," and, pulp and skins remaining after pressing "Pomace."

Organic grapes have active wild yeast on their skins, and so can be used as leavening, like sourdough. 

For modern grapes, particularly non-organic table grapes, it is likely that fermentation would not start on its own, as the yeast has been removed through washing and chemicals.

As such, after crushing, I added a small quantity of yeast (I had an already open packet in the refrigerator) to the crushed grapes, which was set out at room temperature until activity was observed.

In addition to creating yeast flavors, fermentation of the must extracts tannins and color from the grape skins.

For the purpose of any of the included recipes, you can stop here.

From this point forward, I will be discussing the ambiguity of the terms, "Must," and, "Pomace."

These terms are used in a number of different ways depending on region, type of wine, etc.

Grapes are harvested and then crushed, bursting the grapes and creating a mash, which contains juice, pulp, stems, and seeds.  (This is usually called must)

For white wines, this is often (but not always) pressed almost immediately, extracting what is often called grape juice, but sometimes called must, which is distinct from the grape juice that you find in the store, which is filtered.

Neither the white wine grape juice nor the pulp remaining (pomace) have experienced significant fermentation at this step.

In red wines, initial fermentation is allowed to occur in the crushed, which extracts color from the skins of the grapes, giving red wine its color.

After 5-7 days,the juice which is pressed out (typically at about 3-5% ABV) is called either must or juice.  The remains of the pulp and skins are called pomace.

Both the must and the pomace contain active yeast cultures as well.

When must is used as a leavening agent, it can refer to either the fermenting juice or must.  The latter use seems to be primarily (at least in Roman cookery) used for making millet cakes that were intended to be used as a shelf stable leavening agent.[7]

Lees are the sediment that accumulates at the bottom of a brewing vessel after they have done their job, and it is sometimes also used to make brandy.

There are some wines that are allowed to age before racking to allow the lees to create different flavor profiles.

---

[1] https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/fbz/fb05/germanistik/absprache/sprachverwendung/gloning/tx/mul2-lib.htm?set_language=en

[2] https://historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/english/recipes/medieval-lasagna-with-walnuts-a-lenten-recipe/

[3] https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/fbz/fb05/germanistik/absprache/sprachverwendung/gloning/tx/frati.htm

[4] https://www.medievalcookery.com/helewyse/libro.html

[5] https://delishably.com/grains/Lasagna-The-Easy-Recipe

[6] https://medievalcookery.com/recipes/douce.html

[7] https://tavolamediterranea.com/2017/09/01/baking-bread-romans-part-pliny-elders-leaven-starter-pasta-madre-levain/

 

Bad Day at the Office

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket just blew up on the launch pad during a static test firing:

In addition to be a spectacular conflagration,it's a major setback for the program:

An explosion on Florida's Space Coast last night lit up the sky more than 100 miles away.

During a test of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket in the evening hours on May 28, ahead of an upcoming mission to deliver a batch of Amazon Leo internet satellites to low Earth orbit, the launch vehicle experienced an anomaly that led to its complete loss and what is likely significant damage to the Launch Complex-36 (LC-36), at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

 

The Apotheosis of a Libertarian Community is an Out of Control HOA

Case in point, a massive survivalist bunker complex currently embroiled in litigation.

It sounds a lot like every Home Owner Association horror story that you have ever heard.

Row upon row of concrete bunkers with steel blast doors peek up from the rolling grasslands—like hobbit holes for the apocalypse.

There are 575 of them, clustered on a former munitions depot near South Dakota’s Black Hills and billed as “The Largest Survival Community on Earth.” The pitch: Ride out nuclear war, the next pandemic or societal collapse in relative comfort.

Yet for many residents, the dream has soured. The threat hasn’t come from Armageddon, but from friction that resembles a suburban homeowners’ association battle.

Lawsuits, countersuits and disputes are piling up over septic systems, property taxes, off-leash dogs and a growing list of community rules. The legal skirmishing has reached the state supreme court—twice. Promised amenities, including a restaurant bunker, a pool bunker and a horse-stable bunker, have yet to materialize. Guns have been drawn, and there have been offers to settle things with fists. The developer denies wrongdoing and says complaints come from a few malcontents.

………

The doomsday enclave, known as Vivos xPoint, is the brainchild of Robert Vicino, a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur who had a vision in 1980: He needed to build a large underground structure to protect 1,000 people from a coming “life-extinction event,” according to the company’s website. He since has developed a global network of such communities.

In 2016, Vicino began working with local ranchers to convert the long-abandoned South Dakota property—far from “known nuclear targets” and “high-crime anarchy zones” (read: cities)—into a compound for “like-minded survivalists to ride out ‘the event,’” as Vivos puts it. Vicino later bought the property outright, according to his son, Dante, Vivos xPoint’s director of operations.

No bear problem this time, at least not yet.

No Posting Tonight

 Working on a medieval Lenten lasagna recipe using leavened noodles.

Replacing Low Value Human Capital

Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, used that phrase to describe the 8,000 people that he plans to replace with AI.

After his odious utterance, he tried to walk it back.

Hopefully, he won't be able to do so, and he will spend the rest of his life living in fear and paying for bodyguards.

AI has emboldened CEOs to make all kinds of smug declarations that betray their contempt for lowly human laborers.

But Bill Winters, the CEO of the British multinational bank Standard Chartered, said something so viscerally off-putting that he’s now gone into full damage control mode to get the heat off his back.

On Wednesday, he wrote an internal memo to employees attempting to explain away his remark that he would be firing thousands of workers and replacing the company’s “lower-value human capital” with AI.

Yes, you heard that right: “lower-value human capital.” And it clearly didn’t go over well.

“Many of you will have seen media coverage following the investor event in Hong Kong, particularly the reporting around automation, AI, and workforce changes,” Winters said in the memo, per The Wall Street Journal. “I know this may be unsettling when reduced to simple headlines or a quote out of context.”

No, it's not a matter of context.  You told your truth and revealed yourself to be a psychopath.

How About We Put Your Face on Toilet Paper?

Donald Trump wants to print a $250.00 bill with his face on it.

I can't even. 

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Unemployment

Inmflation>So, both initial and continuing unemployment claims rose last week, though only by a bit.

More significantly, inflation continues to spike, and consumer spending and GDP for the last quarter was adjusted down which means that Trump's new pet Fed Chairman is likely not going to convince the rest of the FOMC to cut rates.

US inflation increased at its fastest pace in three years in April, driven by higher energy prices amid the war with Iran, and cementing economists’ views that the Federal Reserve could hold interest rates unchanged well into next year.

Surging price pressures are eroding household income and could restrain consumer spending and economic growth this quarter. Income at the disposal of households after adjusting for inflation dropped for a third straight month in April, other data showed on Thursday. Given the soaring cost of living, Americans are growing frustrated with Donald Trump’s handling of the economy. A Reuters/Ipsos survey last week showed the president’s approval rating fell to nearly its lowest level since he returned to the White House, hit by a drop in support among Republicans. Trump won the 2024 presidential election in large part because of his promise to lower inflation.

The government on Thursday also revised down the growth pace in consumer spending in the first quarter to 1.4% from the previously reported 1.6% annualized rate. Overall gross domestic product (GDP) growth was slashed to a 1.6% rate from the 2.0% pace estimated last month.

So it's beginning to look like Stagflation, and elections are 5¼ months away.

Skeet of the Day

Paxton's win proves the MAGA base will follow Trump to hell. I look forward to making them go there.

[image or embed]

— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein.bsky.social) May 27, 2026 at 10:18 PM

I believe that this is a just, possibly noble, sentiment.

As my people are wont to say, the MAGAts should, "גיי אין גיהנום מיטן קאָפּ ערשט און באַק בייגל." (Go to hell head first and bake bagels.)