This is even better than the nose snot egg separator.
Also, if you have a 3D printer you can download the STL files and print your own.
You know, there are food 3D printers now, so one could print a Chernobyl birthday cake.
The unit is small 130 mm x 150 mm long x 120 mm , but one could theoretically scale this up larger in your printer.
Also, you can add fragrances, I would suggest RADIUM by Caliber perfume, should you so desire.
Only $80.10 with 3 choices of backlight color.
Such a steal!
As the maker notes:
By pressing the button on the body, a moisture sprayer is activated from the reactor zone along with lights, creating the effect of burning and smoke during the disaster. This is not only a visually impressive spectacle but also a practical function – the model can work as a night light and a humidifier, which is very beneficial for health.
If you feel that this is in bad taste considering the suffering that this brought, I would note that the seller is from the Ukraine.
You can find instructions, and links to the STL models here .
It's unclear if the Libs will have a majority in Parliment, but they appear to be doing better than they did last time, when they had to form a coalition with the firmly, if mildly, left-wing NDP.
It appears that the NDP, and to a lesser extent the PQ (slightly Quebec secessionist) took it on the chin this election, likely because people thought that the Libs were worse than Trump.
What this says about Canada, besides that the electorate generally finds Trump to be toxic, I don't know.
PublicSquare, a website which bills itself as “the anti-woke online
marketplace" and offers a list of MAGA-friendly businesses, found its
mission completely upended after critics instead used the site to fuel
boycotts around the country.
The platform connects tens of
thousands of businesses across the country that publicly align with MAGA
views and oppose “progressive priorities” such as women’s reproductive
rights and diversity initiatives. To list a business on the site, owners
must first affirm that they will “respect the core values of PublicSquare”
and agree not to “support causes that are in direct conflict with our core
values.”
PublicSquare
urges the MAGA
faithful "to embrace this community of customers and merchants by providing
platforms, products, and services that enrich the way of life they hold
dear.” It notes it "is on a mission to restore the culture through the power
of commerce."
To use the platform, you simply enter your ZIP code
and it shows businesses nearby that openly align themselves with Trump and
his values. PublicSquare, which launched in 2022, also has direct ties to
Trump—Donald Trump Jr. sits on the board of directors and is one of its
investors.
………
Jeff, who had extensively researched PublicSquare at his previous bank
job, chimed in with a tip about the platform:
“MAGA has made it easy for all of us to avoid their businesses. A couple
years ago, they introduced a website — publicsq.com — to promote MAGA
businesses. We can use that same tool to make informed purchasing
decisions.”
His post quickly gained traction, spreading across Reddit threads
nationwide among people eager to do whatever they can to oppose President
Trump.
Won't someone think of the children?
Seriously, this is a case of, "You mess with the bull, you get the horns," or as I like to say, "This is what happens when you fist f%$# a cobra."
This is an energetic and thoroughly deserved take-down of the self-absorbed
hacks who
acted as fluffers
for Donald Trump so that they could write their, "First 100 Days," story.
………
Here's what's most striking about this story: Its authors are remarkably eager
to to tell us how they were jerked around by Trump, and how they responded by
writing exactly the story he asked them to write. Admitting that doesn't fill
them with shame. Hey, they're ambitious careerists, A-list journalists who had
to produce a big story for a "Trump's first hundred days" deadline. Wouldn't
you have allowed Trump to manipulate you to get that story?
Seriously, with a little bit of effort, they could have gotten Trump to say all kinds of destructive stupoid sh%$, and Trump would have been happy, because Trump is f%$#ing stupid.
Just push the buttons, and you get journalistic gold.
Of course, it means that your sources might go elsewhere, and shoe leather journalism is hard.
The pampered princelings who come out of journalism school are a disgrace, and I wish that A. J. Liebling was alive to tear them a new asshole.
I'm not certain about this, but this may be the most Canadian thing that I
have ever heard of.
Today is election day in the Great White North, and we will see if Donald
Trump has screwed the pooch for the Conservative Party of Canada, and if there
will be a backlash resulting in a Liberal Party victory as polls suggest.
I have no clue as to who this will go, but Canadians telling American
journalists to f%$#-off, and then apologizing for it is a very strong
reinforcement of stereotypes, at least for English speaking Canadians. (the
Quebecois apologize for nothing)
I have to note that the Canadians count their votes by hand in one night, and we will probably know the general results by midnight.
As for me, I am of the same mind as xkcd creator Randall Munroe:
Automakers and tech developers testing and deploying self-driving and advanced driver-assistance features will no longer have to report as much detailed, public crash information to the federal government, according to a new framework released today by the US Department of Transportation.
The moves are a boon for makers of self-driving cars and the wider vehicle technology industry, which has complained that federal crash-reporting requirements are overly burdensome and redundant. But the new rules will limit the information available to those who watchdog and study autonomous vehicles and driver-assistance features—tech developments that are deeply entwined with public safety but which companies often shield from public view because they involve proprietary systems that companies spend billions to develop.
………
The new rules allow companies to shield from public view some crash details, including the automation version involved in incidents and the “narratives” around the crashes, on the grounds that such information contains “confidential business information.” Self-driving-vehicle developers, such as Waymo and Zoox, will no longer need to report crashes that include property damage less than $1,000, if the incident doesn’t involve the self-driving car crashing on its own or striking another vehicle or object. (This may nix, for example, federal public reporting on some minor fender-benders in which a Waymo is struck by another car. But companies will still have to report incidents in California, which has more stringent regulations around self-driving.)
And in a change, the makers of advanced driver-assistance features, such as Full Self-Driving, must report crashes only if they result in fatalities, hospitalizations, air bag deployments, or a strike on a "vulnerable road user,” like a pedestrian or cyclist—but no longer have to report the crash if the vehicle involved just needs to be towed.
Cui Bono? Why the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™, of course!
………
One company in particular emerges as a winner: Elon
Musk’s Tesla, which now will be able to curtail public reporting on its
Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) features, and may enjoy an
easier road to federal safety approval for its upcoming Cybercab, a two-seat, purpose-built robotaxi that does not have a steering wheel or brakes.
“The company that probably benefits the most from that is Tesla,” [Telemetry Marketing VP Sam] Abuelsamid says. Though the Transportation Department cited safety as the number one motivator behind the new rules, “there’s nothing in these changes that actually prioritizes safety,” he says.
Of course it does nothing for safety.
The goal here is to make it easier for people to make money killing their customers, and other drivers, and pedestrians ………
Seeing as how this IS a real thing it seemed to me that there should be some sort of combat event in the Society for Creative Anachronism recreating this.
This would be analogous too the occasional game of Buzkashi, a Central Asian equestrian game, that are conducted every now and then by SCA groups.
I was on the way to an SCA event with Sharon, and said this.
It's basic logic, since war pigs are a weapon specifically targeting elephants, any analogue must find a way to simulate both animals.
As soon as I said this, I saw how absurd of what I said was
I do feel the need that this is not even close to the weirdest thing that I have ever said.
The weirdest thing that I have ever said was probably, "It's not Buffet Time at the Wildebeest."
My children were being taken feral at dinner over a decade ago, and it seemed to me that they resembled a pack of heyenas having a throw down over a recent kill.
This did stop Charlie and Nat from misbehaving, because they were laughing to hard to do anything else.
At this time it is not certain whether it was just the squeals of the pigs, or if the pigs were coated in pitch and lit on fire before being driven towards the elephants.
This says something important about humanity, but I have absolutely no clue as to what this important thing actually is.
To the best of my knowledge, the Black Sabbath song has nothing to do with this historical factoid.
The implication, of course is that this list will be used to allow graduating lawyers to be will not be applying to these firms:
The day after Donald Trump’s election last year, three Georgetown Law students started a political movement to brace for impact.
The students texted each other, started organizing, and eventually discovered the ability to perform a simple act to put the world’s wealthiest and most powerful law firms on the defensive.
They created a spreadsheet.
After Trump signed executive orders singling out law firms for political retribution, the students recorded BigLaw’s responses in a document they titled “Legal Industry Responses to Fascist Attacks Tracker.”
The Google spreadsheet currently names more than 800 firms, assigning them to one of five stark categories: “Caved to Administration,” “Complying in Advance,” “Other Negative Action,” “Stood Up Against Administration’s Attacks,” or “No Response.”
The document started out a resource to help fellow Georgetown Law students make informed decisions about potential future employers.
In case you are wondering, there has been an impact on where recent law school graduates are applying:
………
Forbes first picked up on a trend of students turning down the possibility of six-figure salaries from the likes of Skadden Arps, Paul Weiss, Milbank, and Willkie, Farr and Gallagher, which all entered into settlements providing the Trump administration with tens of millions of dollars in pro bono legal services. One Geogetown first-year law student (1L) interviewed for the story reportedly skipped a Skadden interview. (The firms did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.)
Politico then reported that these individual choices resonated industry-wide, speaking to students, recruiters, and partners at major law firms.
I am stunned, but for the first time in a long time, this a good thing.
To quote Ann Frank, "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."
Normally not a fan of filk songs, I can take them or leave them, but this one is inspired:
For those of you who do not know what a, "Filk," is, it's typically a song where lyrics are substituted for an existing piece of music, kind of like Star Spangled Banner.
The Star Spangled banner is a filk of "To Anacreon in Heaven".
The equally epic sub-hed is, "Mall Cops Give it a Go."
His thesis is that f%$#ing with Harvard is a lot like Tommy DeVito killing,
"Made Man," Billy Batts in the Scorsese classic movie Goodfellahs. (My
analogy, not Mr. King's)*
He thinks that the legal power available to the university will defeat Trump
completely.
I'm not sure that I ascribe the nigh mythical capabilities of Harvard alumni
that Mr. King does, but I do know that the Harvard community does seem to be
an extremely connected clique at the highest levels of society.
Yes, I know, it's not, "Say f%$# January," but the hed deserves to be
reproduced in its entirety.
*It's the only reason that many of the writers at The New Republic in
the Marty Peretz era had those prestigious jobs †Well, that and plagiarism. Peretz seemed to love serial plagiarists.
FWIW, I'm pretty sure that the next Pope will not be as good as Francis, he is arguably the best Pope since John XXIII, but I am certain that he will be a better Catholic than J.D. Vance.
Hell, I'm a better Catholic than J.D. Vance, and I'm Jewish.
I will not be doing a play by play of the smoke coming from the Sistine Chapel.
It turns out that disengaging from work at the end of the day to blog is much easier than is disengaging from looking from a job at the end of the day to blog.
There is already a system which works, and is cheaper than the private alternative, but Pete Thiel needs a few trillion dollars to enslave human subjects for his life extension technology. (I have mentioned before that Thiel is literally a vampire wannabee?)
One of the most important stories in some time came out two days ago. But with so much else going it didn’t get quite as much attention as it should have. It’s from ProPublica. And it’s about a Peter Thiel-backed start up called Ramp. It’s a corporate credit card processing outfit. The game here is pretty straightforward. Trump and Musk are looking to hand some or all of the government’s $700 billion internal expense card program (SmartPay) over to Ramp. A bunch of the meetings were organized by Josh Gruenbaum, a private equity guy who Trump and Musk installed as chief acquisitions officer at the GSA. (He was also the lead signatory on the demand letter to Harvard we’re now told, as of last night, was accidentally sent. So Gruenbaum’s got a lot going on.) Ramp’s value add is supposed to be the use of AI to monitor spending.
The overall picture is a standard one: Come in, take over the data and financial architecture; discredit it by having your media arms dish out mountains of phony stories about fraud and abuse; fire all the employees and hand a cash-drenched, sweetheart contract to yours and your friends company.
It really is amazing how much all of these Ayn Rand worshiping individualists are spending every working moment trying to steal from the rest of us.
………
Now, yesterday I heard that a new DOGEr, named Roland Tenglong Shen, showed up (remotely) at the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service (BFS) and was hastily granted access to the Bureau’s systems. (Way faster than normal onboarding rules allow.) The focus of his access appears to be something called the Payment Analytics Cloud Environment (PACE) which is itself part of Disbursement And Debt Management Analytics Platform (DDMAP). I’m told it all came together very fast yesterday. At first I thought this might have something to do with DOGE’s new “Defend the Spend” program, which I mentioned last night and was discussed in an article in the Post. The timing seemed to come together very nicely.
But when I got around to googling Shen’s name this morning, that told a different story. Roland Shen works for Ramp. Right, the Thiel and Kushner family-backed company trying to land that motherlode payment processing contract.
In any case, back in the old days civil servants chose contractors and there was supposed to be a process of competitive bidding, though no bid contracts could come together in some circumstances. But if your company’s wants the contract, it certainly helps to have an employee literally scoping out at the environment in advance.
If fraud, bribery, and securities statutes had been properly enforced against the Silly-Con Valley tech bros, many of these folks would be enjoying that hip new theme park ride, the, "Orange is the New Black Experience."
Specifically, Brooks is saying that, "It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power."
Kristol is even more out of character, noting that the "Abolish ICE" crowd deserves an apology from the rest of us:
Where does the “Abolish ICE” movement go to get its apology?
open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
I did not know that a pathetic drunk could multitask so effectively:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about
forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that
included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people
with knowledge of the chat.
Some of those people said that the
information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat
included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the
Houthis in Yemen
— essentially
the same attack plans
that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that
mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.
(Emphasis mine)
Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense
Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn
criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign
leaders.
Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, who
continues to serve as his personal lawyer, both have jobs in the Pentagon,
but it is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military
strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.
I've got a guess as to why, it's because Secretary Pete is an addicted
co-dependent idiot?
Then again, I'm an engineer, not a psychologist, Dammit!*
The previously unreported existence of a second Signal chat in which Mr. Hegseth shared highly sensitive military information is the latest in a series of developments that have put his management and judgment under scrutiny.
This is a bit of a surprise, albeit a pleasant one, because I thought that the
court was too busy prostituting itself to Trump and his Evil Minions™.
What did surprise me is that the court issued its ruling at 1 am Saturday
morning, and did so before Justice Scalito could finish writing his dissent.
Late night rulings are unusual. Issuing a ruling before the dissent is
finalized? I cannot recall when this has been done before.
Also, the moved with blistering speed, jumping the line in front of the 5th
Circuit appellate court, and they did so before the DoJ had a chance to
respond.
It's pretty clear that a majority of the justices, only Alito and Thomas
dissented, did not trust the Trump administration not to change the facts on
the ground before they issued their ruling:
Shortly before 1 a.m. on Saturday, the Supreme Court issued an emergency order halting the Trump administration’s reported efforts to fly Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvador prison before they could challenge their deportation. The court’s late-night intervention is an extraordinary and highly unusual rebuke to the government, one that may well mark a turning point in the majority’s approach to this administration. For months, SCOTUS has given the government every benefit of the doubt, accepting the Justice Department’s dubious assertions and awarding Trump immense deference. On Saturday, however, a majority of justices signaled that they no longer trust the administration to comply with the law, including the court’s own rulings. If that is indeed the case, we are likely careening toward a head-on conflict between the president and the court, with foundational principles of constitutional democracy hanging in the balance.
SCOTUS’s emergency order in A.A.R.P. v. Trump arose out of the government’s unlawful efforts to ship Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran prison by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. On Thursday, lawyers for these individuals told a federal court that the government was preparing to summarily deport them to El Salvador, where they would be indefinitely confined at a notorious detention center. A federal judge in the Southern District of Texas had already blocked their removal—but the government sought to evade this order by busing the migrants into the Northern District of Texas, where the restraining order would not apply. It then gave these migrants “notices,” in English only, declaring that they would be deported immediately, without stating that they could contest their deportations in court. (Officials refused to give these notices, or any other information, to the migrants’ lawyers.) The government intended to fly them out of the country within 24 hours, according to court filings.
………
There are three remarkable aspects of the court’s decision. First, it acted with startling speed—so quickly, in fact, that it published the order before Alito could finish writing his dissent; he was forced to note only that a “statement” would “follow.” It is a major breach of protocol for the Supreme Court to publish an order or opinion before a dissenting justice finishes writing their opinion, one that reflects the profound urgency of the situation. Relatedly, awkward phrasing in court’s order may imply that Alito—who first received the plaintiffs’ request—failed to refer it to the full court, as is custom, compelling the other justices to rip the case away from him. No matter what, exactly, happened behind the scenes, it’s clear that a majority would not let Alito hold up speedy action. It also acted before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit had a chance to step in, and before the Department of Justice had an opportunity to respond to the plaintiffs. These highly abnormal moves also reveal a desire to act fast.
Second, it is plain as day that the Supreme Court simply did not trust the Trump administration’s claims that it would not deport migrants over the weekend without due process. If the court did believe these representations, it would not have acted in such a rapid and dramatic fashion; it could have waited for the lower courts to sort through the matter, confident no one would face irreparable harm in the meantime. The majority’s decision to wade in straightaway points to a skepticism that the Justice Department was telling the truth. It’s damning, too, that the majority did not even wait for DOJ to file a brief with the court before acting. The only plausible explanation for the court’s order is that a majority feared the government would whisk away the migrants to El Salvador if it did not intervene immediately. That fear is well-grounded, since we now have substantial evidence that the government lied to a federal judge last month to thwart a court order stopping deportation flights.
I am not sure if this is a one time hiccup, or if the court is beginning to feel their prerogatives as the Supreme Court are being ignored by the Trump administration, or that they (7 of them anyway) actually feel that Trump's behavior is a threat to the constitutional order.
This othering has been central to American politics since before the founding of the Republic, so count me as skeptical.
While I do think that one could turn this hostility towards employers who exploit illegal workers, as well as those who weaponize hatred in order to exploit legal workers:
The Gallup poll
on whether Americans think immigration should be increased or decreased
shows a curious pattern. From about 2001 at a high of 65 percent, there
was a steady decline in the fraction of respondents who favored less
immigration, with a corresponding upward trend in the fraction favoring
more. The lines briefly crossed in mid-2020, with a plurality in favor
of increased immigration—but starting in 2021, there was a sudden jump
back toward restriction.
During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump consistently received his
highest approval ratings on immigration. The fraction of people saying
that immigration is the most important issue in the country jumped
from 9.2 percent in 2021 to 14.6 percent in 2024. And Trump’s
xenophobic stance seemingly paid off even among Latinos who would be
targets of his mass deportation agenda—he was the first Republican to
win the Rio Grande Valley, which is chock-full of mixed-status families, since 1912. Post-election reporting saw many anecdotes
of unauthorized immigrants themselves saying they would have voted for
Trump, because surely he wouldn’t deport hardworking people like
themselves.
But now, that support is fading fast. More recent polls show the priority of immigration plummeting, and majority disapproval for Trump on the issue. In the most recent YouGov/Economist poll, he is now 11 points underwater, down 16 points since he was inaugurated. Among Latinos, he is now 46 points underwater.
I think it is reasonably clear what is going on here. Republicans
have a highly effective propaganda apparatus that, with the decline of
mainstream journalism and the rise of social media, is more effective
than ever. Under the Obama and Biden administrations, conservatives
successfully whipped up a xenophobic anti-immigrant frenzy with a
torrent of outrageous lies, against a background of perceived crisis at
the border. But as soon as Trump takes power and makes actual decisions
rather than just spreading misinformation, the public gets a whiff of
what Republican anti-immigrant policy looks like in practice, and they
don’t like it. It turns out that few people thought they were voting for
the president to kidnap a legal resident by mistake, deport him to a
torture prison in a foreign country, and openly defy a Supreme Court order to bring him back.
The problem here is that things really suck in our society, and until we direct people's attention to the actual causes of these problems, which is to say what Theodore Roosevelt called the, "Malefactors of great wealth."
The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) needs to stop pre-conceding negotiations with the Republicans and point the finger at those who are actually
Last night was the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's midnight ride to warn the Minutemen of approaching British troops.
I want to take a moment to share an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence's grievances against King George III.
Remind you of anyone?
Harvard University received an emailed letter from the Trump administration last Friday that included a series of demands about hiring, admissions and curriculum so onerous that school officials decided they had no choice but to take on the White House.
The university announced its intentions on Monday, setting off a tectonic battle between one of the country’s most prestigious universities and a U.S. president. Then, almost immediately, came a frantic call from a Trump official.
The April 11 letter from the White House’s task force on antisemitism, this official told Harvard, should not have been sent and was “unauthorized,” two people familiar with the matter said.
The letter was sent by the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services, Sean Keveney, according to three other people, who were briefed on the matter. Mr. Keveney is a member of the antisemitism task force.
I'll believe that it was an honest accident if Mr. Kevene is fired and deported to El Saklvador's CECOT prison.
OK, I know that this is extreme. His head could be impaled on a pike, or he could be publicly hoist up a flag pole by his testicles.
………
After Harvard publicly repudiated the demands, the Trump administration raised the pressure, freezing billions in federal funding to the school and warning that its tax-exempt status was in jeopardy.
A senior White House official said the administration stood by the letter, calling the university’s decision to publicly rebuff the administration overblown and blaming Harvard for not continuing discussions.
“It was malpractice on the side of Harvard’s lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the antisemitism task force who they had been talking to for weeks,” said May Mailman, the White House senior policy strategist. “Instead, Harvard went on a victimhood campaign.”
And then the Trump administration caved like the bitches that they are.
And those claims of an accident?
………
Harvard pushed back on the White House’s claim that it should have checked with the administration lawyers after receiving the letter.
The letter “was signed by three federal officials, placed on official letterhead, was sent from the email inbox of a senior federal official and was sent on April 11 as promised,” Harvard said in a statement on Friday. “Recipients of such correspondence from the U.S. government — even when it contains sweeping demands that are astonishing in their overreach — do not question its authenticity or seriousness.”
OK, my bad, THREE flagpoles.
And of course, Trump responded by cutting off billions of dollars in aid, and ordered the IRS to try to pull Harvard's tax-exempt status.
Governor Sanders had to choose between Big Pharma and ordinary folks, and she went with ordinary folks.
Good news, not not what I expected:
Arkansas became the first state in the nation to prevent healthcare conglomerates from operating drugstores here when Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed House Bill 1150 on Wednesday.
State law already regulates what pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) pay to reimburse independent pharmacies, but pharmacists have complained that the companies violate the law. The state has also fined four PBMs a total of $1.47 million for paying Arkansas pharmacies below the legally required amount for prescription drugs.
PBMs negotiate prescription benefits among drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies and health insurance providers, and the biggest ones also own pharmacies and insurers. The Federal Trade Commission released an interim report in July 2024 saying these conglomerates are eliminating competition and increasing drug prices at the expense of patients.
HB 1150 headed to Sanders’ desk April 9 after clearing the Senate with a bipartisan 26 votes, six days after it passed the House with 89 votes. The bill generated hours of discussion and public comment in the House and Senate committees on Insurance and Commerce this month.
“These massive corporations are attacking our state because we will be the first in the country to hold them accountable for their anticompetitive actions,” Sanders said in a statement Wednesday.
This is probably the most aggressive anti-monopoly action taken by a Republican of national stature since ……… (Checks Notes) Teddy Roosevelt? (Maybe Nixon, or William Howard Taft, but definitely a long f%$#ing time ago)
It's welcome news, but this is profoundly weird.for this to have come from Governor "Smokey Eye".
I'm beginning to wonder if the DOGE boys are messing the the Department of Labor data to create a false sense of prosperity, because it makes no sense that initial unemployment claims fell to a 2 month low.
Everything seems to have been freezing up in response to the Trump Mishugas.
I would note that continuing claims have continued their slow climb.
Maybe no one is hiring or laying off right now:
The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell to a two-month low last week, suggesting labor market conditions remained stable in April, though uncertainty around tariffs is making businesses hesitant to boost hiring.
President Donald Trump's import duties are squeezing the housing market, with other data on Thursday showing single-family housing starts plunging to an eight-month low in March, which underscored economists' expectations that economic growth likely ground to a halt in the first quarter.
………
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 215,000 for the week ended April 12, the lowest level since February, the Labor Department said.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 225,000 claims for the latest week. There are still no signs mass firings of federal government workers have significantly impacted the labor market.
Dunno what is going on, but I do know that things are f%$#ed up and sh%$.
………
Claims declined during the March and April survey weeks, suggesting a steady pace of job gains this month. The economy added 228,000 jobs in March while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1% in February.
Next week's data on the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, could shed more light on the labor market's fortunes in April.
The so-called continuing claims increased 41,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.885 million during the week ending April 5, the claims report showed, indicating some laid-off workers were finding it difficult to land new opportunities.
Yeah, some workers, like, you know, me. f%$#
………
A third report from the Commerce Department's Census Bureau showed single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, dropped 14.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 940,000 units in March, the lowest level since July.
They decreased 9.7% year-on-year. Weak homebuilding added to economists' expectations that gross domestic product growth slowed to below a 0.5% annualized rate in the first quarter, with greater odds for a contraction.
A surge in imports as businesses front-loaded goods to avoid tariffs accounts for some of the anticipated stall in growth. The economy grew at a 2.4% pace in the fourth quarter.
………
Overall housing starts tumbled 11.4% to a rate of 1.324 million units. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast housing starts falling to a rate of 1.420 million units.
Multi-family building permits jumped 10.1% to a rate of 445,000 units. That lifted overall building permits by 1.6% to a pace of 1.482 million units last month.
Yeah, a new prosperity. And eggs are cheap now too ……… NOT!
Whatever the f%$# is going on here, it ain't good.
By "Sensitive Information" I mean confidential legal discussions, the names of
whistle blowers, and list of labor organizers.
Any guess as to what the famously union averse Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo
Guy™ is going to do with this information?
In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump's new
Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the Southeast
Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board.
The
small, independent federal agency investigates and adjudicates complaints
about unfair labor practices. It stores reams of potentially sensitive data,
from confidential information about employees who want to form unions to
proprietary business information.
………
But according to
an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal
overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the
whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff
members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted
access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the
agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on
unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law
experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to
do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.
Meanwhile,
according to the disclosure and records of internal communications,
members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on
the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them,
turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their
access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed
by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might
do.
(Emphasis mine)
Criminals acting like criminals. It should be noted here that this shows that Elon Musk's Evil Minions™ had specific criminal intent, which makes prosecution under statutes like the CFPA much easier. (I offer the caveat that I am an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit! ⃰)
The employees grew concerned that the NLRB's confidential data
could be exposed, particularly after they started detecting suspicious log-in
attempts from an IP address in Russia, according to the disclosure. Eventually,
the disclosure continued, the IT department launched a formal review of what it
deemed a serious, ongoing security breach or potentially illegal removal of
personally identifiable information. The whistleblower believes that the
suspicious activity warrants further investigation by agencies with more
resources, like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency or the FBI.
The labor law experts interviewed by NPR fear that if the data gets
out, it could be abused, including by private companies with cases before the
agency that might get insights into damaging testimony, union leadership, legal
strategies and internal data on competitors — Musk's SpaceX among them. It could
also intimidate whistleblowers who might speak up about unfair labor practices,
and it could sow distrust in the NLRB's independence, they said.
The
new revelations about DOGE's activities at the labor agency come from a
whistleblower in the IT department of the NLRB, who disclosed his concerns to
Congress and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in a detailed report that was
then provided to NPR. Meanwhile, his attempts to raise concerns internally
within the NLRB preceded someone "physically taping a threatening note" to his
door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him
walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone, according to a cover
letter attached to his disclosure filed by his attorney, Andrew Bakaj of the
nonprofit Whistleblower Aid.
Elon's thugs are not just criminals, they are terrorists.
The suspect is alleged to have hopped the fence, broken 2 windows with a
hammer, and tossed in Molotov cocktails made out of beer bottles.
It is unclear if this guy is a MAGAt, he might also have been motivated by
Gaza. (I'll update as more information becomes available, though I will note that as Governor of Pennsylvania, Gov. Shapiro has as much to do with Gaza policy as I do.)
That being said, the absolutely worst response to this came from (no surprise)
The Atlantic:
While everyone is wringing their hands over the norms, our government is being dismantled, people are being disappeared or sold into slavery in El Salvador.
Whinging about norms is a statement that you do not believe that leopards will eat your face.
It is remarkable just how ineffectual and incompetent the elites are. (The author is the faculty chair of the homeland-security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.)
Everyone wants to be the Master of Ceremonies from Cabaret, but they lack Joel Gray's talent and integrity.
I read economist Dean Baker regularly, and I highly recommend following his
blog at the CEPR,
Beat the Press.
Dean Baker predicted the real-estate crash of 2008, and had sold his house and
moved into a rented home a few years before, so he got it right and acted on
this.
More significant is his focus on how IP absolutism with regard to copyright,
patent, and other forms of government enforced exclusivity have become a drag
on the economy and a contributor to inequality.
By definition, IP is a form of rent-seeking, because there would be no profit
without the state, and the guns of the state, enforcing these provisions,
there would be far less value in the products involved.
Well, he just made a fascinating proposal for a counter-measure for Trump's
tariffs. Instead of reciprocal tariffs, simply
ignore IP protections of US entities.
There is historical precedent, during World War II, the US issued compulsory
licenses for free against German and Japanese entities under the Trading with
the Enemy act.
What's more, the firms targeted, Pharma, Media, etc. have large and aggressive
lobbying operation, because their business models require the expansion of IP
protections into hitherto uncovered areas.
I like it:
Most forms of retaliation that countries are planning in response to Donald
Trump’s tariff-fest involved higher tariffs and import restrictions. These
measures may hurt the US economy, but they will also hurt the country
imposing them. The logic is that the measures will be crafted so that the
pain in the US will be greater than the pain the other country experiences.
That will likely prove correct, but the EU, Canada, and other
newly created enemies can go one better. They can pursue retaliatory
measures that will badly hurt the United States while actually helping their
own economies. Specifically, they can announce a policy of no longer
respecting US patent and copyright monopolies for as long as Donald Trump is
playing his silly tariff game.
There is serious money at stake
here. Last year the United States
received
almost $150 billion in royalties and licensing fees. That’s more than 5
percent of all after-tax corporate profits.
And this is just in
straight fees. It doesn’t count all the cases where the intellectual
property is embedded in the product. For example, it would not count the
value of the software in a US-made computer that was shipped to Canada or
the EU. US computer makers would have a much harder time competing overseas
if their competitors could use the Windows operating system and other
Microsoft software at zero cost.
There actually is precedent for
not respecting the patents of countries in a confrontation. The United
States
used
the Trading with the Enemy Act in World War I to allow compulsory licensing
of patents held by German companies or nationals. This meant that companies
were free to use these patents without permission of the German
patentholders as long as they paid a modest licensing fee set by the US
government. Canada, the EU, and other U.S. trading partners can go the same
route.
I believe that the increasingly large role of exclusivity is an example of
lobbying driven parasitism which we all pay for.
The rest of his post is reproduced after the break with Dr. Baker's
permission.
I am not going to suggest what God should do in response, but maybe
something ……… Biblical?
Artist Vanessa Horabuena is a Christian, a Trump fan, and a ‘worship
artist’, which looks suspiciously like being a speed painter. Think Rolf
Harris on amphetamines and altar wine. While we can’t critique her
technique, we’re not too sure about her taste in cult leaders.
Back
in January, she was chosen to perform a live painting of Trump at the
Liberty Ball, following the inauguration, where she created a piece she
named “Prayers for our President” accompanied by a religious song called The
Blessing by Kari Job.
If my memory serves me correctly, those who worshiped the Golden Calf did not have the proverbial, "Happy Ending," as is typical of biblical wrong-doers.
Unfortunately for us, while those who did not worship the Golden Calf did not suffer the most extreme consequences, the whole community suffered the consequences of this episode.
We got all the Chomeytz (leavened food stuffs) cleaned up tonight.
We will do be doing bedikat chametz (בְּדִיקַת חָמֵץ) in the morning.
So once again, no meaningful blogging tonight.
*Yiddish, it translates to, "It's hard to be a Jew." (Shver tsu zayn a yid) It's a Yiddish aphorism as well as the title of a comedic play written by Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich).
Or because it was all a scam to allow Trump and his Evil Minions™ to trade with the knowledge that the aforementioned import taxes would not actually go into effect. (Why not both?)
I am not sure if this is a humiliating back-down, but if anyone in the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) have any political acumen (they don't), they should be calling it such.
It does not matter if it is true or false, they should be calling Trump a wuss who caved to China.
It took a week for the plunge in the stock and bond markets—along with a sustained campaign by executives, lawmakers, lobbyists and foreign leaders—to prompt Trump to roll back for 90 days a major element of his sweeping tariff plan.
The president said that the reaction to the tariffs was getting a bit “yippy”—like a nervous athlete unable to perform—and he relied on his instincts to change course as he watched the bond market tank and listened to business leaders including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon express fears of a recession. The episode was classic Trump: He took a drastic action, closely tracked the reaction, kept advisers and allies guessing and then changed course.
In this case, the extraordinary reversal was announced via Trump’s social-media platform just hours after so-called reciprocal tariffs officially went into effect. He tapped out the post in the Oval Office as he sat with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Trump also significantly raised tariffs on China.
Shortly after Trump published his post, as markets rose, Bessent stood outside the entrance to the West Wing and explained that the move to pause some of the tariffs was discussed Sunday when the two men met. “He and I had a long talk,” Bessent said before a crowd of reporters. “This was his strategy all along.”
1h44m of a lame-ass gamer getting roasted in a live stream. Sweet.
So, Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ wanted to demonstrate the performance
of Starlink™ based wifi by live streaming his playing Path of Exile 2 at
the hardest level.
First, he wasn't any good at it, and second, he got roasted by the live stream
participants.
Elon Musk
rage quit a livestream of the video game Path of Exile 2 on Saturday night
after repeatedly dying while also being ruthlessly cyberbullied in the
chat.
Path of Exile 2 is one of Musk’s favorite games—so much so that he once
claimed to be one of the world’s top players in an attempt to boost his
gamer cred, before later backtracking and admitting that he had been
secretly paying people to level up his account to make him appear more
talented at it than he was.
Nevertheless, while attempting to show off Starlink’s in-flight WiFi
capabilities while onboard his private jet over the weekend, Musk streamed
himself playing some PoE2 on the hardest difficulty, which was broadcast
live on X.
The DOGE chief was, predictably, terrible at the
game, but that was the least of his problems—Less than five minutes into
the stream, a player logged on and asked Musk if he could “please jerk off
mr trump so he dies of a heart attack.” It only got worse from there.
For
the next hour and a half, Musk sat in stony-faced silence and blasted
techno music while dozens of users with names such as ELON_IS_A_PEEDOPHILE
and ELON_MUSK_IS_PATHETIC repeatedly spammed the chat to tell him “YOU
HAVE NO FRIENDS AND YOU WILL DIE ALONE” and “YOU WILL ALWAYS FEEL INSECURE
AND IT WILL NEVER GO AWAY.”
………
Eventually, he vanished when his WiFi connection abruptly cut out and ended
the stream, which he later deleted from X but was swiftly
reuploaded onto YouTube.
Needless to say, massive levels of schadenfreude here.
Elon Musk is now a subject of (very well deserved) derision.
To quote Ben FranklinAbraham LincolnMark TwainMaurice Switzer, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."
They haven't. This is marketing to Game of Thrones fanbois.
For over 2 million years, dire wolves roamed present-day North America
until their extinction around 10,000 B.C.
On Monday, a
Dallas-based bioscience firm said it had brought the species back to life in
the form of three pups, claiming to have “successfully restored a
once-eradicated species through the science of de-extinction” in a
remarkable statement on its website.
Notice that there is no mention of any peer reviewed or pre-peer reviewed
paper?
Red flag.
The team at Colossal
said the pups
— named Khaleesi, [More GoT Wankery]
Romulus and Remus, and ranging in age from 3 to 6 months old — were created
using a combination of gene-editing techniques and ancient DNA found in
fossils from between 11,500 and 72,000 years ago.
Other
scientists, however, say that while Colossal’s technological feats are
impressive, the animals are not truly dire wolves — and that the process
raises ethical questions.
“The reality is we can’t de-extinct
extinct creatures because we can’t use cloning — the DNA is just not well
enough preserved,” said Nic Rawlence, an associate professor and director of
the Palaeogenetics Laboratory at New Zealand’s University of Otago.
………
Pontus
Skoglund, leader of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at Britain’s Francis
Crick Institute, said in a
post on Bluesky
about the dire wolf projectthat he was “not necessarily against the
initiative, but would a chimpanzee with 20 gene edits be human? … These
individuals seem optimistically 1/100,000th dire wolf.”
………
In the wolves’ case, scientists edited the gray wolf genome to approximate the size, color and coat of a dire wolf, Rawlence said. “There are about 19,000 genes in that genome. They looked at all the differences and said there are 20 key differences in 14 key genes that they could change to make a gray wolf look like a dire wolf,” he said. “Their technology is amazing, but my personal view is it needs to be used to conserve the animals we’ve got left,” he said. This could include using money the company has raised to manage existing endangered species or reintroduce genetic diversity among existing species to help them adapt to climate change or diseases.
This sounds a lot like Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons levels of humbug.
This is, of course, about the leak of Yemen war plans to a journalist on the Signal app.
The subhead says it all:
No phone, no app, no encryption can protect you from yourself if you send the information you’re trying to hide directly to someone you don’t want to have it.
The Japanese aphorism, "バカにつける薬はない," there is no medicine for stupidity, applies here.
Mayor Eric Adams declared Thursday he will be skipping the Democratic
primary in June and running for reelection as an independent candidate in
November.
The announcement came just hours after the federal
corruption case against the mayor was permanently dismissed . In
a brief video
announcing the decision, the mayor said the case made it impossible to mount
a run in the June primary.
Adams realizes that his electoral goose is cooked, so he will be running as an
independent.
Not a surprise, he is corrupt, self-important to the point of being
delusional, and just f%$#ing embarrassing.
FWIW, the New York City primary elections use ranked choice voting, (RCV) so I
don't see Cuomo winning the primary, because of the way that RCV works:
People rank their candidates from 1st to 5th choice, and on the first round,
everyone's 1st choice is counted, and the low vote getter is removed, and that
voter's 2nd choice votes are counted.
This procedure continues until a candidate has an absolute majority of the
vote, typically when there are only 2 or three candidates remaining.
I don't see Rat Faced Andy Cuomo ever reaching 50%, no matter how much money he raises. In no particular order:
He is seen as a vindictive bully, and no one who has ever been one of his victims wants him to have power ever again.
He killed thousands in nursing homes and covered it up during the height of the Covid pandemic.
Adams was guilty as hell, and the Trump administration tried to have the charges dismissed without prejudice, meaning that they could refile at any time, and so use this as a way to coerce the Mayor to do their bidding. The judge was having none of this, and dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning that double jeopardy applies, and so the prosecutors cannot refile charges:
………
This is one of the small victories, even if it — at first glance — it appears to be a win for the Trump Administration. The indictment against NYC Mayor Eric Adams — stemming from a corruption case that managed to ensnare pretty much all of his closest government confidants — has been dismissed by Judge Dale Ho.
This dismissal event was highly controversial. Once Trump took office, he directed the DOJ to dismiss the case against the mayor. This immediately prompted the resignation of the DOJ prosecutors who had brought the criminal charges. Trump’s preferred DOJ officials publicly pilloried the prosecutors that chose to walk, rather than undermine their ethics. Then Trump’s careerist prosecutors took over, raising a litany of bad faith arguments as to why Eric Adams should be allowed to walk.
Trump wanted Adams to walk, but only while being manipulated by puppet strings. Trump wanted to ensure the mayor would go all in on his anti-immigrant efforts and figured being given a free pass on criminal charges might purchase enough loyalty to get him through the next four years.
So, it might seem that dismissing the charges with prejudice would just be another example of a court failing to act as a check on executive power. But Judge Dale Ho’s dismissal [PDF] makes it clear he’s unhappy with Trump’s DOJ. More than that, this dismissal ensures Adams can’t be prosecuted for these charges, even if the mayor decides he’s not going to be Trump’s puppet.
Trump’s DOJ wants to have both the carrot and the stick. Judge Ho says the court will allow the carrot, but will be confiscating the stick. Here’s how that’s explained in the opening of Ho’s comprehensive, 78-page dismissal:
A critical feature of DOJ’s Motion is that it seeks dismissal without prejudice—that is, DOJ seeks to abandon its prosecution of Mayor Adams at this time, while reserving the right to reinitiate the case in the future. DOJ does not seek to end this case once and for all. Rather, its request, if granted, would leave Mayor Adams under the specter of reindictment at essentially any time, and for essentially any reason.
The Court declines, in its limited discretion under Rule 48(a), to endorse that outcome. Instead, it dismisses this case with prejudice—meaning that the Government may not bring the charges in the Indictment against Mayor Adams in the future. In light of DOJ’s rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents. That appearance is inevitable, and it counsels in favor of dismissal with prejudice.
Now, the DOJ is stuck with its politically opportunistic dismissal. If Mayor Adams decides to push back against Trump (however unlikely that is), he has nothing to fear from Trump’s DOJ. At best, they’d have to start over from scratch and find some other set of criminal charges to levy against Adams for his disobedience.
I feel compelled to invoke Anatole France, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
The dismissal is an unequivocal win for Mayor Adams, but it is a loss for Trump and his Evil Minions™.
Needless to say, June 24 in New York City, primary day, is going to be very interesting.
It appears that the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™'s merry band of idiot vandals are, "Planning a Hackathon at the IRS, so that they can have complete control of and access to the data, including personal data of hundreds of millions of taxpayers.
They believe that they might need some help, so they are looking to bring in Peter Thiel's Palantir for technical support. (Also, because it is a convenient way to divert taxpayer money to a Musk buddy, but I digress.)
Expect to see a complete collapse of the income tax collection shortly:
Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has plans to stage a “hackathon” next week in Washington, DC. The goal is to create a single “mega API”—a bridge that lets software systems talk to one another—for accessing IRS data, sources tell WIRED. The agency is expected to partner with a third-party vendor to manage certain aspects of the data project. Palantir, a software company cofounded by billionaire and Musk associate Peter Thiel, has been brought up consistently by DOGE representatives as a possible candidate, sources tell WIRED.
Two top DOGE operatives at the IRS, Sam Corcos and Gavin Kliger, are helping to orchestrate the hackathon, sources tell WIRED. Corcos is a health-tech CEO with ties to Musk’s SpaceX. Kliger attended UC Berkeley until 2020 and worked at the AI company Databricks before joining DOGE as a special adviser to the director at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Corcos is also a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Since joining Musk’s DOGE, Corcos has told IRS workers that he wants to pause all engineering work and cancel current attempts to modernize the agency’s systems, according to sources with direct knowledge who spoke with WIRED. He has also spoken about some aspects of these cuts publicly: "We've so far stopped work and cut about $1.5 billion from the modernization budget. Mostly projects that were going to continue to put us down the death spiral of complexity in our code base," Corcos told Laura Ingraham on Fox News in March.
Corcos has discussed plans for DOGE to build “one new API to rule them all,” making IRS data more easily accessible for cloud platforms, sources say. APIs, or application programming interfaces, enable different applications to exchange data, and could be used to move IRS data into the cloud. The cloud platform could become the “read center of all IRS systems,” a source with direct knowledge tells WIRED, meaning anyone with access could view and possibly manipulate all IRS data in one place.
This is a recipe for insecure data being used to attack and blackmail regime opponents. That is probably a feature, not a bug.
Over the last few weeks, DOGE has requested the names of the IRS’s best engineers from agency staffers. Next week, DOGE and IRS leadership are expected to host dozens of engineers in DC so they can begin “ripping up the old systems” and building the API, an IRS engineering source tells WIRED. The goal is to have this task completed within 30 days. Sources say there have been multiple discussions about involving third-party cloud and software providers like Palantir in the implementation.
Another kickback to Peter Thiel, imagine that.
………
“Schematizing this data and understanding it would take years,” an IRS source tells WIRED. “Just even thinking through the data would take a long time, because these people have no experience, not only in government, but in the IRS or with taxes or anything else.” (“There is a lot of stuff that I don't know that I am learning now,” Corcos tells Ingraham in the Fox interview. “I know a lot about software systems, that's why I was brought in.")
Knows, "A lot about software," and thinks that this is enough? He needs to know about accounting standards, privacy regulations, and database schema. Software is the least important thing here.
………
"It's basically an open door controlled by Musk for all American's most sensitive information with none of the rules that normally secure that data," an IRS worker alleges to WIRED.
Again, a feature, not a bug.
This is going to fail, and it will fail spectacularly.
The White House abruptly abandoned the nomination of Dave Weldon, the former Florida congressman who questioned vaccine safety, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday amid concerns he could not be confirmed by the Senate.
The move leaves the Trump administration in search of a leader for the agency — which formulates vaccine policy recommendations — as a growing measles outbreak highlights criticism of the administration’s public health response.
The Senate health committee announced Weldon’s nomination had been pulled shortly before he was scheduled to testify at a hearing Thursday morning.
The withdrawal of Weldon’s nomination marks a rare setback for a Trump administration pick. The Senate has confirmed every controversial choice brought to a full vote on the floor to date.
Weldon, a 71-year-old doctor who left Congress in 2009, drew scrutiny for his longtime promotion of the false claim that vaccines can cause autism.
This blog is a place to put my stream of consciousness thoughts about life, politics, technology, and cats.
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I find that if I wait until year's end I miss stuff from earlier in the year.
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