Least Surprising News of the Day

Elon Musk is poisoning Texas.

I guess some people do get to mess with Texas.

After Texas regulators said Tesla’s lithium refinery near Corpus Christi wasn’t violating its permits by discharging what local officials reported as black wastewater into a drainage ditch, independent water testing there this month found two toxic metals and other contaminants.

Eurofins Environment Testing, an accredited lab with locations across the globe, reported traces of hexavalent chromium, a well-known carcinogen, and arsenic, an environmental poison. Nueces County Drainage District No. 2, which manages the ditch, commissioned the test.

Neither hexavalent chromium nor arsenic is included as an allowable discharge pollutant in Tesla’s wastewater permit.

If you are rich in Texas, you do not have to follow the law, I guess.

………

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality sampled and tested Tesla’s wastewater discharge in February and confirmed that the company is in compliance with its permit, Bevan said.

But the state environmental regulator, known as TCEQ, didn’t look for heavy metals in February. Its water sample tested for dissolved solids, oil and grease, chlorides, sulfates, temperature and oxygen—all of which were within the bounds of Tesla’s permit.

TCEQ didn't test for heavy metals because they did not want to find heavy metals.

Can we give them back to Texas? 

Name the Star Trek Actor

Spoiler: It's Iggy Pop, (highlight to find out) who is looking more respectable than I had previously thought possible for him.

My mind is officially blown.

Also, he just turned 79, so I feel old.

Speaking of Geriatric Democratic Party Leadership in Congress

David Scott (D-GA 13) just died at age 80.  

He was running for reelection at the time.

He had been removed as ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee by fellow Democrats because his health problems prevented him from showing up, and he was increasingly unable to string together a coherent sentence.

It is complete bullsh%$ that members of Congress are using their office and their staffs as assisted living aides, and while there are Republican examples like Mitch McConnell, the fact that 7 of the 10 oldest Representatives are Democrats, etc. is an indication of a problem. (Further numbers, 15 of 20, 22 of 30, 31 of 40, and 35 of 50)

I think that I see the problem here. 

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

Between the lame FF(X), the F/A-XX games and the battleship effwittery, all I can say is that the last time anyone screwed the Navy as hard as Mango Musso, Kegs, and the Ruler Of The Queen's Navee are doing, the Navy had to get the Air Force to take him out. pic.twitter.com/i1kL6zoII5

— Bill Sweetman (@ValkStrategy) April 22, 2026

Mr. Sweetman, you just won the internet.

This is f%$#ing brilliant. 

Great Split Pea Soup, Lousy Toothpick Dispensers

If you have taken California's coastal highway, and not had some of Pea Soup Andersen's split pea soup, you are a fool.

It's excellent soup.

That being said, be careful with the toothpicks.  I have been ribbed about this for over 4 decades. 

In any case, here is the recipe.  It's vegetarian, but you can order it with ham.

If you wanted to keep kosher, you could add pastrami.

Andersen's Split Pea Soup

Vintage recipe for Andersen's Split Pea Soup from Andersen's Restaurant in Buellton, California. Family recipe. Vegan, Gluten Free.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time45 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr

Course: Soup

Cuisine: American

Keyword: soup recipe

Kosher Key: Parve

Servings: 6 servings

Calories: 236kcal

Ingredients

• 2 cups green split peas
• 1 rib celery, coarsely chopped (single piece from a stalk)
• 1 large carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1 bay leaf, crumbled into very small pieces
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• Sort the peas in a mesh strainer, removing any stones or impurities. Rinse them clean.
• Combine the peas, celery, carrot, onion, thyme, bay leaf and cayenne in a soup pot and cover with 2 quarts (8 cups) of water.
• Bring the pot to a boil. Keep at a high simmer for 20 minutes.
• Reduce heat to a low simmer. Let the mixture cook for another 25-30 minutes till the peas are completely tender. Towards the end of cooking, add the seasoned salt, then add salt and pepper to taste. I use about 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp of pepper. Use less if you're sodium-sensitive.
• Process the pea mixture through a food mill or a fine mesh sieve. A food mill will create the smoothest, creamiest texture.
• Process the pea mixture until all of the liquid is pushed through, and only pulp remains.
• A creamy soup will result.
• Bring the soup to a quick boil once more on the stovetop, then remove from heat immediately. If the soup seems too thick, add some hot water to thin it out to the desired consistency.
• Serve hot. I like to garnish the soup with a few breadcrumbs. Omit them to keep the soup gluten free and vegan. Keep leftover soup in a sealed tupperware. When the soup is chilled, it will solidify. Adding a little water and stirring as you reheat will help the soup to heat up more smoothly.

Notes

You will also need: Soup pot. mesh strainer, food mill

Nutrition

Calories: 236kcal | Carbohydrates: 42g | Protein: 16g | Sodium: 216mg | Potassium: 720mg | Fiber: 17g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 1825IU | Vitamin C: 3.4mg | Calcium: 46mg | Iron: 3mg

 

A Big Win

The referendum to redistrict Virginia has passed, which is likely to net Democrats at least 3 seats in the next congressional election.

Democrats maintained their electoral momentum on Tuesday by securing the passage of an aggressively gerrymandered House map in Virginia, which could deliver the party up to four extra seats as it tries to win back control of Congress.

National party leaders had been heavily invested in the outcome, with Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, helping orchestrate the statewide Virginia referendum with Democratic state legislators. Speaker Mike Johnson, hanging on to a slim majority, tried to rally the state’s Republicans.

Democrats sought to focus the campaign on President Trump, who instigated the nationwide redistricting fight last summer in Texas to help House Republicans in the midterms. A vote for a gerrymandered House map, Democrats argued, was a vote to help their party stop Mr. Trump’s agenda. The president stayed out of the contest until the final hours before Election Day, when he urged Virginians to block the map.

“Donald Trump tried to rig the midterm elections by gerrymandering the national congressional map,” Mr. Jeffries said in an interview on Tuesday night. “He has failed.”

I don't like Gerrymandering, but I don't like bringing a knife to a gun fight either. 

Support Your Local Police

In their latest antic, the PBA is suing the Civilian Complaint Review Board for not following a law that was repealed.

Specifically, they are suing the CCRB because the police union wants it to follow the now repealed section 50-a of the state civil rights law, which made law enforcement misconduct proceedings confidential.

They've already lost this once before.

How about sanctions this time?

New York City's largest police union filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the City agency tasked with investigating police misconduct, accusing the agency of "disseminating… inflammatory, stigmatizing, and life-altering unsubstantiated accusations… tied to identifiable police officers."

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan by the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, alleges that the CCRB is violating officers' rights by allowing the public to see the agency's closing reports of investigations into police misconduct—specifically, the part of those reports that shows the type of misconduct the officer was investigated for, in cases where, for whatever reason, the agency didn't make a final determination that the misconduct took place. That information, the PBA contends, should be secret from the public—at least in instances where officers are accused of lying to investigators, sexual misconduct, or bias-based policing.

………

Hell Gate broke the news last year that the CCRB had a previously undisclosed policy of obscuring the nature of some charges against officers in public-facing data. When police officers are accused of making untruthful statements to investigators—or of sexual misconduct, or of racial profiling—and the board doesn't substantiate those allegations, it reclassifies them in the City's Open Data Portal to something more vague and innocuous-sounding.

………

The PBA, which represents rank-and-file cops across the NYPD, clearly interpreted the revelation differently. Rather than faulting the oversight agency for mystifying its own data to protect cops' reputations, the union faults the agency for offering a less-than-complete whitewash, allowing the public to see the original charges if they request investigation records through the state's Freedom of Information Law.

The law has changed.  Police will be held (a little bit more) accountable.

Get over it. 

Maybe I Was Too Cynical

While I was not pleased when Abigail Spanberger won the Democratic primary for Governor of Virginia, former CIA officers are not my first choice for elected officials, she is clearly better than her predecessor the antediluvian Glenn Youngkin.

Since her taking office, I have been impressed by her actions, such as her stripping tax exemption from Confederacy huggers, rolling back executive orders requiring law enforcement to collude with ICE, and supporting a constitutional amendment restoring felon voter rights.

She is not playing nice, as can be seen by her signature on a bill ending Robert E. Lee license plates in the Commonwealth.

Being willing to stick it to racist dirt-bags is a good thing. 

Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed Del. Dan Helmer’s bill to end the renewal of commemorative Robert E. Lee license plates in Virginia Wednesday, according to a press release.

A portion of the sale of these plates has previously supported the neo-Confederate organization known as the Sons of the Confederacy.

“The Confederacy was a four year period in which traitors hellbent on preserving slavery tried – and then failed – to divide the Union,” said Helmer in a statement. “The Confederacy and its leaders do not deserve our commemoration, and its adherents certainly do not deserve taxpayer dollars.”

More red meat please.

Snark of the Day

Siri, What Killed the Most S.S. Soldiers in the Final Year of World War 1?

Graphic Firing Table noting that SecDef Pete Kegsbreath will no longer be requiring that US soldiers get flu shots.

For the historically challenged, the biggest killer of US soldiers for the entire war was Spanish Influenza.

I think that the joke might have been a bit funnier invoking one of the AI programs out there, but it is still funny as hell. 

Asking for this dumbf%$#:

Mind you, this fits with this overpromoted dumbass' worldview, where pushups always trump logistics (yswidt) and military learning.

His abysmal ignorance of why the US military has been aggressive about things like preventive medicine, field sanitation and hygiene since 1941 explains a lot (tho this jackass is on record boasting that he doesn't wash his hands after dumping a load, so YMMV...).

I wrote a whole series on "The Imperial Japanese Army in WW2: What Went Wrong", and one of the single biggest failures that hammered the 大日本帝國陸軍, Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun was the whole manly-man/bushido cult of warriorness that neglected beans and bullets for swords and spirit.

The notion that somehow a poorly-supplied, under-resourced and -armed fighting force would beat more logistically and tactically competent enemies because of some sort of mystical whatever-the-Japanese-is for "cult of the badass"?

The stoopid, it burns.

 

Headline of the Day

Court To Bondi: Demanding Platforms Censor Speech And Bragging About It On Fox News Is, In Fact, A First Amendment Violation

—Techdirt

To quote Buddy/Syndrome from the movie The Incredibles, "Oh, ho ho! You sly dog! You got me monologuing!"

Villains of this sort cannot resist monologuing. 

For the better part of five years, we’ve been treated to an elaborate performance about the unprecedented constitutional horror of “jawboning.” Jim Jordan held hearings. Missouri’s AG sued. The Supreme Court heard Murthy v. Missouri and concluded there wasn’t enough evidence of government coercion to establish standing, let alone a First Amendment violation. None of that mattered to the MAGA ecosystem, of course, which continued to treat a handful of out-of-context sternly worded emails from Biden officials as the greatest censorship regime in American history.

Then the Trump administration came in, and a funny thing happened. The same people who’d built entire careers around the supposed horrors of government pressure on tech platforms suddenly had nothing to say when the Attorney General of the United States went on Fox News to brag — brag! — about demanding Apple remove an app and Facebook take down a group, both because their content was critical of ICE enforcement.

On Friday, Judge Jorge L. Alonso of the Northern District of Illinois granted a preliminary injunction against DOJ and DHS, finding that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the government violated the First Amendment by coercing Facebook and Apple into suppressing protected speech. The ruling is short and direct in an almost embarrassingly straightforward way — largely because Pam Bondi and the rest of the government handed the plaintiffs most of their case on a silver platter, then held press conferences to make sure everyone knew about it.

………

The legal framework here is familiar territory for Techdirt readers. Bantam Books v. Sullivan from 1963 established that “thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings” against parties who don’t come around to the government’s preferred speech outcomes violate the First Amendment. 2024’s NRA v. Vullo reaffirmed and sharpened that principle, holding that “[g]overnment officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.” The test, per Vullo, is whether government conduct, “viewed in context, could be reasonably understood to convey a threat of adverse government action in order to punish or suppress the plaintiff’s speech.”

Now, get an injunction against the head of the FCC. 

There is Only One True Healer, and it Ain't Trump

Then again, what do I know about healing, I'm an engineer, not a doctor, dammit!

I know that this is AI slop.  I do not know who generated it.  It's funny as hell.  Deal with it. 

It's 420, My Friends

 Blazing!

More of This

Providing subsidies in the form of tax breaks to groups that support the Confederacy is bad policy and bad politics. 

New Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger has signed into law a bill that removes tax exemptions from the Daughters of the Confederacy and other Neo-confederate groups.

About f%$#ing time:

On Monday, Virginia’s governor, Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat and the state’s first female governor, signed into law a bill that eliminates tax exemptions for organizations connected to the Confederacy.

HB167, passed by Democrats in the Virginia house and senate, specifically removes the Virginia division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial, the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, along with other groups, from the state’s list of organizations that are exempt from state property taxes.

Founded in 1894, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is a non-profit with chapters in states including California, Kentucky, South Carolina and others. The organization is largely responsible for the proliferation of Confederate statues and monuments across the country after the US civil war. According to tax filings published by ProPublica, the group raised more than $2.1m in revenue, had more than $1.1m in expenses and possessed $15.8m in assets in 2025.

………

Still, Virginia lawmakers are pushing ahead with their efforts. Last week, Spanberger signed into law a different bill that discontinues speciality license plates that feature Robert E Lee and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. She also sent a bill that would establish a taskforce at the Virginia Military Institute to, among other things, recommend ways for the college to distance itself from sanitized narratives about the Confederacy back to the assembly with recommendations.

In many ways, this is more important than removing the statues, because this ends a direct state subsidy to an ideology that supports slavery and insurrection.

Econ 101, if you pay for it, people will make it.

Stop paying for Confederate apologists. 

Maybe the Problem is in Brussels

Days after voters in Hungary turfed out Euro-skeptic Russian friendly Viktor Orban, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/19/bulgaria-election-rumen-radev-boyko-borissov. 

I'm wondering (as I have many times in the past), if the problem is not an anti-democratic out of touch EU leadership, which foments instability and extremism.

Brussels' insistence of EU growth at all cost, austerity, and lap dog behavior with regard to the US seem to be a petri dish for instability. 

Bulgarian ex-president Rumen Radev – an EU critic who has called for renewing ties with Russia – on Sunday hailed a “victory of hope” after his formation topped the eighth parliamentary elections in five years.

Projections from polling agencies put his Progressive Bulgaria (PB) grouping at 44%, which would give him an absolute majority of at least 129 seats in the 240-seat parliament.


The European Union’s poorest member has seen successive governments since 2021, when anti-graft rallies brought down the conservative administration of pro-European leader Boyko Borissov.

Radev, 62, who resigned earlier this year after nine years as president, ran on a pledge to fight corruption.

PB came in well ahead of Borissov’s GERB party and the liberal PP-DB coalition, both of which stood at about 12%, according to the projections. Official final results are expected no earlier than Monday.

………

Radev, who has called for renewing ties with Russia and opposes military aid to Ukraine, was president for nine years before stepping down to lead the new centre-left Progressive Bulgaria group of parties.

The contradictions inherent in the EU structure are not likely to end well.

Today in Failed OpSec

I am not sure what the most important role to ensure security on a war ship, not I'm pretty sure that number 2 on the list is promptly check your physical mail for GPS trackers.

Militaries around the world spend countless hours training, developing policies, and implementing best operational security practices, so imagine the size of the egg on the face of the Dutch navy when journalists managed to track one of its warships for less than the cost of some hagelslag and a coffee.

The security snafu was reported by Dutch regional broadcaster Omroep Gelderland. In a Thursday report, Omroep Gelderland journalist Just Vervaart said the broadcaster was able to track HNLMS Evertsen, a Dutch air-defense frigate deployed to help protect France’s aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle against missile threats, by mailing a Bluetooth tracker concealed in a postcard to the ship.

Per Vervaart, the Dutch Ministry of Defence makes it easy to send mail and packages to soldiers and sailors in the Dutch armed forces and posts full instructions online. It's that freely available open-source intelligence data that Vervaart was able to use to send the tracker to the Evertsen. 

 Oopsie!

I Am Now Officially Unemployed

Bummer.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, initial claims are down, continuing claims are up, and I am about 24 hours away from becoming an unemployment statistic.

F%$# this.  I need some quality time with my cats. 

No Posting Tonight

Job interview tomorrow.

Also, taxes. 

Today in Paleo-Cuisine

And I do not mean the folks who subsist on uncooked food.

This refers to recreating northern and eastern European cuisines from 6,000 to 3,000 BCE. (Original journal article here)

They did detailed analysis of food residues in and an pottery and then attempted to cook some dishes.

I gotta see if there are some good recipes there.

 

America's Finest News Source

When someone threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's house, The Onion led with, "Man Who Threw Molotov Cocktail At Sam Altman’s Home Claims He Was Following ChatGPT Recipe For Risotto."

This sounds completely credible. If I were on the jury, I'd vote for acquittal. 

Following reports that a 20-year-old man had been arrested for throwing a Moltov cocktail at Sam Altman’s home, the suspect stated Monday that he only initiated the attack because he was following a ChatGPT recipe for risotto. “I’ve been using ChatGPT to help with cooking for a while now, so I didn’t think too much of it when the ingredients list included a bottle filled with gasoline and a cloth wick,” said the alleged attacker, who added that he naturally assumed making the rice dish involved driving several hours to the OpenAI CEO’s residence, especially after the AI chatbot had given him a “pretty decent” sesame chicken recipe the week before. “I have to admit I felt a little weird as I prepared to toss this flaming incendiary device through [Altman’s] front window, but the recipe explicitly stated that this was an essential step to get that creamy, velvety risotto texture. I guess I didn’t know any better. I mean, I’ve never made risotto before.” The suspect went on to tell reporters that he still had “a whole fridge full” of Molotov cocktails at home, having attempted to prep enough risotto to last the week.

To be fair, making a good Risotto is very difficult. 

A Corrupt Trump Administration Official? Pshaw!

Emil Michael, who is the Pentagon’s under secretary for research and engineering made millions of dollars in profits after select xAI for the Pentagon.

You remember xAI, don't you?  It's Elon Musk's LLM artificial intelligence program.

You know, the one that was generating child porn.

A high-profile US defense department official who oversees the agency’s artificial intelligence efforts made a profit of up to $24m selling a private investment he held in Elon Musk’s AI company earlier this year, according to government ethics records released this month. The value of his stake totaled a maximum of a million dollars when he joined the department.

Emil Michael, who is the Pentagon’s under secretary for research and engineering under the Trump administration, oversees negotiations with AI companies and has been pushing the defense department to rapidly increase the widespread use of AI.

Michael declared in March 2025 that he had a position in xAI valued between $500,000 and $1m.

He sold those holdings on 9 January for between $5m and $25m, according to disclosures filed with the office of government ethics (OGE). He reported that he owned the xAI shares through a company called KQ Partners. (Government financial disclosure reports are designed to show ranges of holdings, rather than precise amounts.) The increase in value amounts to a gain of between 400% and 4,800%.

xAI, which is the company behind Musk’s Grok chatbot, is not publicly traded, so it is unclear how Michael obtained his position, how it was priced or to whom he sold it.

During the period that Michael owned the xAI stock the Pentagon announced two separate agreements with the firm. In July 2025 the Pentagon chose Grok as one of four commercial providers that would help the department utilize artificial intelligence.

The level of routine corruption in the Trump administration is a complete mind-f%$#. 

Remodeling Hell

In late February, construction finished on the tallest spire of the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, Spain. 

It only took 144 years but construction is still not complete.

I know that Rome was not built in a day, but this is a bit much. 

The final piece of the central tower of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has been laid in place, bringing the church to its maximum final height 144 years after work began.

After several days when it has been too windy to work, the upper section of the 17 metre-high four-sided steel and glass cross was winched into position at 11am on Friday, completing the tower dedicated to Jesus Christ. At 172.5 metres, the Sagrada Familia, to which the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí devoted the later part of his life, is Barcelona’s tallest building and the world’s tallest church.

It looks like another 10 years of construction hell for the Catalonian capitol. 

………

The end to the building at the church is expected in about a decade with the construction of a striking south-facing facade.

It was nevertheless a day full of emotion for a city that has lived with Gaudí’s unfinished work for generations and, although there remains much work to do, the temple now defines the Barcelona skyline as much as the Eiffel tower in Paris or the Empire State building in New York.

 

 

Osama, Take Me Now!

Fox host complains about low teen pregnancy rates:

"The problem is teens and young adults. From ages 15-19, the fertility rate is down 7%" pic.twitter.com/YlxCoyZxlx

— FactPost (@factpostnews) April 10, 2026

We have the video

There are always political events which surprise me.

I'm not omniscient, and I acknowledge that.

But nothing could have prepared me for Republicans have come out in favor of teen pregnancy.

As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know."

During a Friday segment on Fox News's America’s Newsroom with anchor Dana Perino, senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel called a declining birth rate among people aged 15-19 a "problem."

The discussion revolved around new CDC data showing the United States fertility rate, based on birth rates, has fallen to a record low based. The fertility rate fell 7 percent in 2025, from 53.8 births per 1,000 childbearing aged women—defined as age 15 to 44—in 2024 to 53.1, according to a report released by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics on Thursday.

………

But when reviewing the graph of birth rates by age of the mother over year of birth, Siegel remarked:

"We still have 3.6 million births a year. But the problem is teens and young adults from ages 15 to 19."

Siegel added:

"The fertility rate is down 7 percent, and it’s down 70 percent over the last two decades, meaning we’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait until they’re in a more stable life situation, until they’re more financially secure. Maybe they haven’t found the right partner."

I'd ask what the f%$# is wrong with these people, but it would be a multi-hour effort just to index that list using a super-computer. 

The Guy Schumer Hand Picked to Succeed Him

It's Brian Schatz ("D"-HI) who has gone to extremes to suck up to big money lobbyists.

Yeah, that's gonna win elections. 

As my colleague Bob Kuttner explains, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tim Scott (R-SC) have moved through a bipartisan housing bill supported by President Trump that if signed would represent the most (only?) progress of the second Trump term. The bill passed 89-10, reflecting awareness that housing affordability is a critical subject to loosen public anger over an economy that doesn’t work for most of them. The bill mostly adds funding to build housing, tackles land use rules, and lifts restrictions on manufactured housing that could lower costs of construction.

But on Wednesday, there was apparently only one provision worth talking about on the shambling mound that used to be Twitter: a requirement that investment companies that build single-family homes in order to rent them out (a strategy that has advanced over the past decade known as “build-to-rent”) and have over 350 properties sell them after seven years of rent collection. This was the subject of forceful objection by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), the heir apparent to Chuck Schumer in the Senate Democratic leadership.

Schatz called this particular measure “positively Soviet,” described it as “an effort to demonize people who want to build rental housing for folks,” and claimed it was a “drafting error,” presumably to embarrass its authors into a fix. “There is literally no reason to do it this way, and it would take like a two-line fix. But what we were told last week was, I’m sorry, the bill is closed,” he said.

………

That’s because this wasn’t about a policy change, but a signal to the people who actually do build-to-rent for mass amounts of properties, who aren’t families or pension funds as Schatz intimated, but private equity firms. They have been the ones loudly objecting to this measure. He was effectively telling the industry that he was on their side, and in opposition to their most hated opponent, Sen. Warren.

His vote did not matter.  It was not needed.  He could have told Private Equity that there was no point in his voting no with this much support.

He didn't because he wants to demonstrate his slavish fealty to them. 

Pay Enough to Live

It appears that someone at a Kimberly Clark warehouse is feeling very underappreciated by his employer.

They burnt down a 1,2 million square foot (111,000 m2) warehouse and shared the whole thing on social media.

I'm not sure that I'm particularly upset by his behavior.

Many workers’ pay is effectively frozen in an unforgiving labor market that hasn’t seen any meaningful increases in wages in decades. Meanwhile, the cost of living — not to mention the price of gas — continues to rise, making it difficult for low-income households to squeeze by.

One strategy we wouldn’t recommend is to set a 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse filled to the brim with toilet paper and other highly flammable paper products on fire — which is exactly what a disgruntled employee at a paper products facility in Ontario, California did earlier this week, as the LA Times reports.

The resulting fire, which started just after midnight local time on Tuesday, was enormous, requiring 175 firefighters and 15 fire trucks to put it out.

And if you really, really can’t keep yourself from watching the world burn, we do not, under any circumstances, advise you to film yourself while doing it — which is also what 29-year-old Highland resident Chamel Abdulkarim has now been accused of doing.

The NFI Industries employee was promptly arrested in connection with the blaze after a video showing a man lighting tall stacks of toilet paper on fire went viral online.

“All you had to do was pay us enough to live,” the man could be heard saying in the video. 

We now have a corollary to that old adage, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

People who own warehouses full of highly flammable paper products should pay their employees enough to live.

So Much for Judicial Independence

The Trump administration just fired a number of immigration judges after they followed the law when making their decisions.

That seems just a little bit ……… Fascist.

It's certainly an explicit attempt to intimidate judges into breaking the law. 

The Trump administration has fired two immigration judges who dismissed high-profile deportation cases against international students who had advocated for Palestinians.

The firings of the judges, Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, marked the latest efforts by the Trump administration to reshape the country’s immigration courts.

The administration has dismissed dozens of immigration judges and, according to those on the bench, has put judges under pressure to deny asylum claims and order deportations. Unlike federal judges in the independent judicial branch, immigration judges work for the Justice Department and are hired and fired by the attorney general.

The two judges, who were terminated alongside four colleagues on Friday, oversaw two high-profile cases filed by the government against the students, Rumeysa Ozturk and Mohsen Mahdawi.

 If there is an election in 2028, and if the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) doesn't shoot itself in the foot again, every one of these bastards, from Trump, to Miller, to Bondi, to Blanche, to Rubio need to spend the rest of their lives in jail.

From the Department of, "About F%$#ing Time"

This picture should refresh your memoryThe Ramsey County Minnesota District Attorney and Sheriff are investigating the detention of ChongLy “Scott” Thao by ICE as a possible kidnapping.

Thao, a US citizen, was dragged out of his house wearing a pair of shorts and Crocs by ICE agents after they broke down his door.

It was all without a warrant.

Ramsey County is investigating the January arrest of a St. Paul Hmong American man by federal immigration officers as a potential case of kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, officials announced Monday. 

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher said at a news conference they will pursue information from the Department of Homeland Security that they need for their investigation into the arrest of ChongLy “Scott” Thao on Jan. 18, calling it a violation of the U.S. Constitution to forcibly remove Thao without probable cause.

………

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers bashed open the front door of Thao’s East Side home at gunpoint without a warrant, then led him outside half-dressed in freezing conditions.

………

Thao later told the Associated Press that his daughter-in-law alerted him that ICE agents were banging at the door. He told her not to open it. Masked agents then forced their way in and pointed guns at the family, yelling at them, Thao recalled.

“I was shaking,” he said. “They didn’t show any warrant; they just broke down the door.”

Thao, a naturalized U.S. citizen and Hmong elder, was quickly handcuffed and was seen on video being led outside bare-chested in freezing temperatures, wearing nothing but Crocs, boxer shorts and a children’s blanket. A photo of the incident drew immediate attention on social media.

 Throw the book at them.

Amazon Delenda Est

You are supporting a company that tells everyone to keep working when another employee dies on the job.

Management at Amazon is by design a bunch of, "Little Eichmanns," to quote Ward Churchill. 

Amazon does not just need to be broken up, it needs to be razed to the ground, and salt needs to be sowed in its ruins.

This is what your Amazon Prime membership funds

Sam was helping unload trucks when a heavy thud against concrete echoed across the Amazon warehouse. An employee’s lifeless body lay on the floor.

Work halted in the loading docks on the south side of Amazon’s distribution center in Troutdale, Oregon. Sam and other employees stared at the person who’d collapsed just 20 feet away. Conveyor belts of packages continued to roll.

“I didn’t have a direct line of sight of the person’s face, but I saw a body form laying lifeless,” Sam told The Western Edge. Employees who spoke for this story requested anonymity to protect their jobs and their names have been changed.

………

The man who collapsed on the floor died Monday, April 6 on the second level of the Amazon warehouse as machinery filled the cavernous loading dock with a dull hum.

In 911 calls, obtained through a public records request, one employee called for an ambulance at 1:55 pm. The dispatcher coached a confused employee over speakerphone on how to use a defibrillator.

………

For more than an hour, several employees said, workers in the facility were instructed to continue fetching totes, picking items off shelves and loading them onto trucks for delivery as the man lay dead, and management figured out their next steps. News of the fatality quickly spread through the building, but workers say top managers did not call operations to an immediate halt. A week later, several workers said they still do not know what caused the man to die. Records indicate he was 46 years old.

Rather unsurprisingly:

………

A 2019 investigation by Reveal found the Portland area facility had the worst injury rate out of 23 major distribution centers analyzed using data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In 2018, more than a quarter of all workers at the building - known as PDX9 - had some type of injury on the job.

If you work at Amazon, I suggest thinking about the humble wooden shoe,  known as the sabot in French.

In the past, workers found alternate uses for said shoes, throwing it into the machines. 

Unsurprising

After working with AI content, the management at Wikipedia came to the conclusion that AI was total pants, and so they have banned it from the crowd sourced encyclopedia.

Gee, I could have told you that. 

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales once described his creation as a “temple of the mind.”

Now, a decade on, it’s taken on another role: a refuge against AI slop.

Late this month, the English version of the online encyclopedia officially banned the use of AI to generate or rewrite articles, after years of piecemeal experimentation and heated internal debate among its volunteer editors, 404 Media reports.

That debate finally came to a vote on March 20, which ended in an overwhelming 40-to-2 decision to place heavy restrictions on how large language models are used to maintain the site.

“Text generated by large language models (LLMs) often violates several of Wikipedia’s core content policies,” the new policy states. “For this reason, the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite article content is prohibited, save for the exceptions given below.”

As the exceptions stipulate, it’s not a wholesale ban on AI: “Editors are permitted to use LLMs to suggest basic copyedits to their own writing, and to incorporate some of them after human review, provided the LLM does not introduce content of its own,” the policy continues. “Caution is required, because LLMs can go beyond what you ask of them and change the meaning of the text such that it is not supported by the sources cited.”

This has happened almost everywhere that AI has been applied.

Kind of Like Captain America Winning an Election

Peter Magyar has defeated Victor Orban in parliamentary elections, which is arguably the first major defeat for right-wing populism in years, if not decades.

This is good news, since a descent into Fascism does not end well, particularly in Europe.

It's also interesting linguistically, as my son observed.

Magyar is the preferred term for ethnic Hungarians, so Peter Magyar is the equivalent of, "Peter Hungarian," so, yeah, a bit like Captain America being elected President.

On a rather more prosaic level, in terms of bread and butter issues for the average Hungarian, I would not expect much change.  Magyar is firmly right of center, and so things like years of under-investment in the social safety net and healthcare are likely to continue.

I Was Wrong

While shaky, it appears that the US — Iran cease fire has not collapsed in 3 days, as I had predicted.

It's lasted twice that so far, and I now think that it might last almost as long as Liz Truss's tenure as UK Prime Minister.

Or not. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Some Times, the Economy Lands on You

 As an FYI, my position at Bascom Hunter is ending this Friday, April 17.

My conversion from contract to direct was dashed on the rocks of corporate reorganization. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

What can you do? 

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author & ask for advice.

KURT VONNEGUT (who left us 19yrs ago today) was the only one to respond.

His reply was a doozy. pic.twitter.com/r9vE8uNEk6

— Michael Warburton (@For_Film_Fans) April 11, 2026

This is remarkable.

I'm not a fan of Kurt Vonnegut's writing, it's never done much for me, but I love his attitude.

I've confirmed this story, and here is his letter as text, which I find more convenient than an image. 

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!" 

~Kurt Vonnegut 

Color me impressed. 

Quote of the Day

There’s a huge argument among Democrats about whether they need to run more centrist candidates. I am not ready to weigh in on that debate. But if you’re going to take that side, find better centrists. I mean, are Cuomo and Eric Adams the best you can do?

—Paul Krugman, on the low quality of Democratic Party centrist candidates.

Dr. Krugman, you are an economist, you should understand economic incentives.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is not interested in good policy, nor is it interested in winning elections.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) makes its money from candidates whose only skill is fund raising, and the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) gets a cut of their ad buy.

Good candidates can generate their own press and motivate voters without massive media purchases, and this costs the consultants who effectively run the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) money.

Cleaning Up Archived Drafts

Nothing major, but I have a backlog of stuff in draft that I have not cleaned up in a while.

If you are wondering why some older news or quotes are being blogged about, it's Spring cleaning.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!

No commercial bank failures this week, but I did miss a credit union failure from last week:

3. Copper & Glass Federal Credit Union,  Glassport, PA

I'm not sure of the specifics, but it has been liquidated after being placed under conservatorship in November of last year.

Here is the Full NCUA list, and the direct link for this year.

Pizza Tastes So Good When Pesach Ends

 There is a reason that matzoh is called, "Bread of Affliction."

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So this week, initial claims rose more than expected, and continuing claims fell more than expected.

I have no f%$#ing clue what this all means, but inflation appears to spiking as well, which strongly implies that we won't see any more rate cuts from the Fed. 

New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits increased moderately last week, showing no signs of labor market deterioration and potentially giving the Federal Reserve room to keep interest rates unchanged as it monitors the economic fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Monthly inflation rose by the most in 12 ​months in February and economic growth almost braked in the fourth quarter, other data showed on Thursday. Economists expect that price pressures increased further in March as the war drove up the cost of energy and other products.

………

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 219,000 for the week ended April 4, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 210,000 claims ​for the latest week. Low layoffs are anchoring the labor market. A surge in global oil prices has sent the national average gasoline retail price soaring above $4 per gallon for the first time in ⁠more than three years and wiped $3.2 trillion from the stock market in March. 

Economists are bracing for a jump in inflation in March, with the Consumer Price Index expected to increase about 1.0% on a monthly basis, translating to a year-on-year rise of about 3.3%. The government ​will release the CPI report for March on Friday. Inflation already was elevated before the war, largely because of Trump's broad import duties.

A separate report from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis showed the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index increased 0.4% in February, the largest increase since February 2025, after gaining 0.3% in the prior month. The increase, which was in line with economists' expectations, reflected strong rises in the prices of recreational goods and vehicles as well as clothing and footwear.

………

Excluding the volatile ​food and energy components, the PCE Price Index increased 0.4% in February for a second straight month. In the 12 months through February, so-called core PCE inflation advanced 3.0% following a 3.1% increase in January. The slowdown in year-on-year core PCE inflation reflected last year's high ​readings dropping out of the calculation.
The U.S. central bank tracks the PCE price measures for its 2% inflation target.

Economists say monthly PCE inflation needs to increase 0.2% for a sustained period to bring inflation back to target. The release on Wednesday of the minutes of the Fed's March 17-18 policy ‌meeting showed a ⁠growing group of policymakers felt last month that rate hikes might be needed to counter inflation.

The central bank left its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 3.50%-3.75% range. The odds of a rate cut this year have greatly diminished.

I am not sure what is going on, but it ain't good.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

It comes as no secret that Pope Leo is not a fan of  Trump and Netanyahu's war against Iran.

After Leo XIV gave an anti-war "State of the World" speech, Apostolic Nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre was summoned to the Pentagon and the Pope and the Church were threatened.

If we are looking for signs of the apocalypse, I think that they found one.

Relations between the U.S. and the Catholic Church have not been the same since January, when senior U.S. defense officials shared an abrasive message with a Vatican official.

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.

“The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

An important note here, the Free Press, formerly Common Sense, is a propaganda rag founded by Bari Weiss, and as such I would not take anything that they write at face value, but I am quoting the New Republic, which has been a reliable source of news ever since Marty Peretz got dumped.

One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon, a region inside France.

Credit where credit is due, someone knows their European history.

It appears that the threats were so blatant that the Pope canceled his planned visit to the United States,

………

But the blatant intimidation tactic is the first of its kind ever made by American officials to the Catholic Church. There are no public records of any previous meetings between Vatican and U.S. officials at the Pentagon, let alone an instance in which the world power suggested that it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.

The Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s warning that Pope Leo cancelled his plans to visit the U.S. later in the year, reported Hale, who noted that “many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”

This is f%$#ed up and sh%$.

A Public Service Warning About the Danger of the Beatles

I have been listening to a lot of Beatles songs lately, as well as some of the Fab 4's later solo work.

I highly recommend this, but I have had nearly constant ear worms.

For the past few days, it has been George Harrison's What is Life.

This is a posthumous video, part of a contest approved by Harrison's widow and son

Official video created by Brandon Moore for George Harrison - What Is Life. The video was created for the Genero.tv competition and was chosen as the overall winner from all entries by Olivia & Dhani Harrison.

“We were totally surprised and delighted by this video and it was a clear favourite for both of us. The dancer really expressed unbounded joy, and managed to capture the spirit of “What is Life” through movement, which the director captured beautifully. Thank you to each and every filmmaker for all of their time, effort and care, and above all their love for George and his music which is evident in all of these videos – it has been a real pleasure to watch them!”

Olivia & Dhani Harrison

Now you can have the ear worm.