02 November 2024

It's 2 November

And I am sitting outside in Centerville, Maryland, and it is 61°F, and the sky looks

Like this:


This is not normal November weather.

01 November 2024

Yeah, That Will Fix Their Problems

I am not a big fan of most DEI programs.  This is not because I think that anti-discrimination policies are unimportant, but because I think that such policies are very important.

I think that most DEI programs are ineffective, the training does not make people less bigoted, so all they serve to do is provide employment for DEI professionals within the company and contracts for DEI consultants from outside the company.

From an organizational perspective they are more about checking boxes to reduce liability than anything else.

An effective DEI program is not about training, nor is it about raising awareness.  An effective DEI program should be punitive in nature, because potentially harassing and abusive employees will behave properly if they believe that there is a credible possible of negative consequences, firing and demotion.

It should be about deterrence, not about trying to make everyone love each other.

That being said, the decision by Boeing's CEO to shut down their Diversity Equity and Inclusion office is about as close to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic as one could get.

Boeing Co. has dismantled its global diversity, equity and inclusion department, making it the latest high-profile corporation to make changes to its DEI policy as its new top leader oversees a broader revamp of the company’s workforce.

Staff from Boeing’s DEI office will be combined with another human resources team focused on talent and employee experience, according to people familiar with the matter. Sara Liang Bowen, a Boeing vice president who led the now-defunct department, left the company on Thursday.

“The team achieved so much — sometimes imperfectly, never easily — and dreamed of doing much more still,” Bowen wrote in a farewell post on LinkedIn.

Boeing’s new Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg is streamlining the planemaker’s operations and trimming its executive ranks as part of a broader 10% reduction in headcount. The shift also comes as large US companies face increasing pressure from conservative activists to dismantle or downplay their efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion.

The problem at Boeing is white MBAs from Harvard and Stanford and Yale and Princeton 

This is a bullsh%$ action by a bullsh%$ CEO who won't accomplish sh%$ at Boeing.

If he wanted to change things, he'd be firing senior managers, and not posturing over what HR is doing.

First Friday of the Month ╭∩╮(︶︿︶)╭∩╮


Jobs added


Relative Weather Impact


Unemployment Rate
While the unemployment rate was unchanged, there were only 12,000 new non-farm payroll jobs created last month, well under the 125,000-150,000 needed to account for natural workforce growth.

The consensus estimate of 100,000 was also under the replacement level, but not near as bad. 

Obviously, the Boeing strike and hurricanes Helene and Milton had a lot to do with this, but these are very weak numbers:

Job growth slowed sharply last month, with workers sidelined by hurricane effects and the Boeing strike. The report, released just four days before the presidential election, could play a key role in how people view the economy as they head to the polls.

The Labor Department on Friday reported that the U.S. economy added a seasonally adjusted 12,000 jobs in October, versus a September gain of 223,000. That wildly missed even the muted expectations of economists, who had forecast 100,000.

Still, the unemployment rate stayed steady at a historically low 4.1%. That was in line with economists’ expectations.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton put thousands of people out of work across the Southeast, while the Boeing strike took more people off the job. Economists generally reckoned that the bulk of October’s downdraft was temporary, and didn’t affect the larger dynamics of the market. Wages, for example, continued to rise.

………

Still, the report’s timing four days before the election isn’t great for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.

Gee, ya think? 

Absolute crap jobs numbers 4 days before the election might be a problem for the incumbent?

………

Over the last several months, the general pace of job growth appeared to be slowing. Then, the September report released a month ago blew past expectations. Economists are now trying to figure out which is the one-off and which is the trend. The noise in Friday’s report makes it difficult to interpret.

Economist Brian Bethune of Boston College estimated that without the effects of the fall hurricanes, the Boeing strike and further adjustments, the October job-creation figure would have been 130,000, instead of the 12,000 the government reported.

Mr. Bethune's number would basically be treading water.

………

The unemployment rate is based on a separate survey of households. Respondents who say they had jobs but weren’t at work because of bad weather are still counted as employed. The same goes for workers with jobs who are on strike.

Some context:

The Boeing strike began in mid-September. The Labor Department’s monthly report on strike activity, released last week, said that there were 33,000 Boeing workers on strike for the entire pay period that included Oct. 12. Friday’s report showed a loss of 46,000 manufacturing jobs, driven by a decline of 44,000 jobs in transportation equipment manufacturing that the Labor Department said “was largely due to strike activity.”

To some degree, the hurricanes’ effects have already dissipated. Initial claims for unemployment insurance moved notably higher in early October, but last week they slipped to their lowest level in months.

Meanwhile, the economy has continued to grow solidly, with the Commerce Department reporting Wednesday that gross domestic product grew at an inflation-adjusted 2.8% annual rate in the third quarter.

Those last two numbers are good.

Now I wonder what the f%$# the Federal Reserve will do when it makes its interest rate decision 2 days after the election. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

………

Even though the economy and the labor market appear poised to keep buttressing one another, there are also limits to how many jobs the U.S. can sustainably keep adding without driving unemployment down to the point that wages start running too hot, noted Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US. Immigration added to the pool of available workers for much of this year. But with the number of people entering the U.S. down sharply since the spring, that supply has been curtailed.

Meanwhile, with population growth slow, more people reaching retirement age, and the share of Americans aged 25 to 54 who are employed near its highest level in a quarter-century, finding qualified workers is no easy chore for companies looking to hire.

That all suggests to Brusuelas that the economy might only need to gain somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 jobs each month to keep the unemployment rate steady.

I do not know what this means for the economy, nor do I know what it means for the Federal Reserve, but it ain't good political news.

31 October 2024

Headline of the Day

Elon Musk, Who Has Ties to Both Epstein and Diddy, Criticizes People With Ties to Epstein and Diddy
Futurism

You do realize that Elon Musk attempted to embezzle funds to build himself a literal glass house in Texas, don't you?

You cannot make this sh%$ up:

Business magnate and newly-minted political wrecking ball Elon Musk loves to have friends in high places — until those friends happen to be embroiled in widespread sex crime scandals.

In a post re-sharing someone else's meme, the 53-year-old billionaire used the social network X-formerly-Twitter — which he owns, by the way — to once again promote a baseless political conspiracy theory: that people who would have been on "guest lists" for both deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and accused predator and trafficker Sean "Diddy" Combs are Kamala Harris supporters.

Beyond the fact that there's zero evidence the theory is true, what's particularly bizarre about the post is that Musk himself has bragged about being friends with and taking money from Diddy, and has not only been photographed with Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell but has also been tied to the dead creep on multiple occasions.

In other words, rudimentary context makes the post look like an epic act of projection.

I pity anyone who works at The Onion.  You simply cannot out-snark reality.

They Are Completely Insane

So Jesse Watters, Bil O'Reilly's former evil minion, and current Fox News anchor has declared that if his wife voted for Kamala Harris, he would consider it equivalent to adultury.

Ignoring the opportunity to snark Mr.Watter's history of cheating on his prior wife with his now current wife, this is completely bat-sh%$ crazy:

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): I don't believe these fake stories that you're saying on television about these guys, that they say that they voted for Trump and now they're voting for Harris because of their daughters. That is such a lie, Harold. I know you and I've met your friends and none of your friends strike me as that lame. And if I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair. That, to me —

………

PIRRO: Have you threatened her? Why would she lie to you?

………

WATTERS: Why would she do that and then vote Harris? Why would she say she was voting Trump, and then voting Harris, and I caught her and she said "I lied to you for the last four years."

PIRRO: So you admit you intimidate people.
When you have Jeanine f%$#ing Pirro calling you out on this, you have done something very, very, very wrong.

The North Korean Deployment to the Ukraine

A lot of people are looking at this as a sign of desperation by Russia, but the best evidence that the situation is reverse.  Pyongyang is looking at this deployment as payback for the materiel it has supplied Moscow during the conflict.a

The DPRK's military has not had meaningful modern battlefield experience in many decades, and they are looking to learn by participating in this conflict.

Truth be told, this lack of experience in modern near-peer conflict could be said to apply to almost any military in world, with the possible exception of India and Pakistan.

Most other conflict has been some variant of colonial or counter-insurgency conflict, what Captain Edmund Blackadder would describe as a, "Viciously sharp slice of mango," type of war.

Ever since the possibility of North Korea assisting Russia in its war effort emerged in the Summer of 2022, quantifying exactly what that would look like and its downstream effects have been challenging. Now, as indications point to North Korean troops wading into the direct fighting, one aspect of this major geopolitical shift beyond how it impacts Ukraine couldn’t be more clear — North Korea getting real-world combat experience on a modern battlefield alongside a well-versed ally is a very unwelcome development for South Korea and the United States.

The experience aspect of North Korea’s involvement in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is one we have stressed repeatedly, but it’s often overlooked, with the focus being more on the immediate impact an influx of troops could have for the Kremlin’s cause. This is understandable as Russia has experienced heavy losses and Ukraine has as well. Any major infusion of able bodies into the fighting from an external source could erode either side’s ability to compete on the battlefield.

………

With one of the largest standing armies on the planet and the need for cash, energy, and technological know-how for weapons development, North Korea has excess supply to offer when it comes to exporting fighting men in exchange for what it needs and wants. Add security guarantees from the world’s largest nuclear power and technological assistance in advanced weapons manufacturing and it’s clear that Kim Jong Un has every reason to provide Russia with whatever manpower it thinks it needs to turn the tide on the battlefield.

But the fact that under such an arrangement North Korea also gets real-world combat experience is an offering Russia could not provide the Hermit Kingdom during a time of relative peace. North Korea’s isolated forces could use this experience badly.

………

The massive and as ‘realistic-as-possible’ combat exercises South Korea executes alongside its American partners are far more advanced and actually combat representative than anything North Korea is capable of emulating. This is on top of the relatively poor standards of combat training for North Korean regular forces as a whole. So, being able to train with Russian forces and then fight in a real war with the threat of things like standoff guided weaponry, kamikaze drones, electronic warfare, night vision and thermal optics, and so much more, against a very battle-hardened enemy ground force, is arguably a priceless opportunity. The fact that the Ukrainian battlefield has direct similarities with what would exist during a war on the Peninsula is an even bigger plus.

 Foreign and military relations are confusing, neh?

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day


Hell, this may be the Ecch (Tweet) of the year.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's a very good unemployment report, with initial claims falling by 12,000 to 216,000, the lowest number in almost 6 months, and continuing claims fell by 26 K to 1.86 Million. 

A lot of this is people getting back to work after hurricanes Helene and Milton, though it should be noted that layoffs are up 3.7% year over year.

Meanwhile, PCE prices rose by .3% month over month, a bit higher than expected, which would seem to imply that the Federal Reserve will moderate any rate cutting.  (My guess would be ……… Naah.  Homie won't play that game today.  I should probably never play that game.)

Wages continue to (slightly) outpace inflation, which in my mind is a good thing, though in the mind of the Federal Reserve, not so much.

Not a clue where this all goes.

Deep Thought

I continue to mask to protect myself and my family.

There are good things, like not getting Covid, not getting Long Covid, and not dying. 

There are bad things, like when it chafes, the feeling of moistness on my face, and when a strap snaps.

The worst is when a sneeze catch me by surprise, and I end up ensnoterating my mask.

30 October 2024

Yeah, I Work There

Normally I don't just publish a press release, but Antenna Research Associates is my workplace, so I am posting this without comment:

OceanSound Partners Acquires Antenna Research Associates, a Leading Provider of Integrated Radio Frequency

OceanSound Partners (“OceanSound”), a growth-oriented private equity firm that invests in technology and technology-enabled services businesses serving government and highly-regulated enterprise end-markets, today announced the completion of its acquisition of Antenna Research Associates, Inc. (“ARA” or the “Company”), a leading provider of integrated radio frequency (“RF”) and advanced communications products to the aerospace and defense (“A&D”) end-markets. ARA’s management team, led by CEO Logen Thiran, will continue in their operational roles and as investors in the Company. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 1963, ARA enables the U.S. Department of Defense and other national security-focused customers to modernize legacy platforms and deploy next-generation systems that enhance situational awareness, threat detection, and advanced communication capabilities. The Company leverages its over 60-year heritage in electromagnetic spectrum expertise, combined with scaled innovation, engineering, manufacturing, and testing infrastructure to design, develop, and deploy advanced antennas and other mission-critical RF solutions across several use cases, including Communications, Tactical RF, and Radar-Critical Subsystems. ARA’s core differentiation lies in its ability to leverage active electronically scanned array (“AESA”) technology applied in size-, weight-, power-, and cost-constrained applications.

“ARA’s comprehensive RF solutions portfolio is well positioned to address critical U.S. Department of Defense priorities such as the modernization of legacy technology systems and development of lower-cost and high performance unmanned aerial systems (“UAS”) and counter UAS solutions to better manage threats from U.S. adversaries,” said Joe Benavides, Managing Partner of OceanSound. “Since its founding in 1963, ARA has developed a portfolio of over 50 patents used in the delivery of differentiated RF systems and, more recently, innovative products leveraging small form-factor AESA technology to become a leading provider of RF solutions to the A&D market. ARA’s ability to miniaturize their products enables the development of small, low cost, higher-volume platforms such as drones, low earth orbit satellites, man portable communications and other mobile A&D platforms.”

“We are at an important inflection point in ARA’s development and are thrilled to partner with OceanSound, whose expertise in the A&D technology market will be invaluable, to accelerate ARA’s growth and strategic transformation primarily focused on making complimentary investments in and acquisitions of technology solutions,” said Thiran. “As the defense industry continues to demand advanced, low-cost technologies, our team is focused on building sustainable partnerships with customers to develop and deploy cost competitive, high-performance technologies to address the rapidly evolving requirements of the Department of Defense. OceanSound’s partnership approach will enable us to continue fielding innovative solutions leveraging the RF spectrum to better serve the needs of the market.”

“We are excited to partner with Logen and the current management team who have deliberately transformed ARA through targeted acquisitions of technology capabilities and then cross-selling the resulting differentiated solutions portfolio to higher value A&D programs,” said Jeff Kelly, Partner at OceanSound. “ARA’s long history of innovation and its reputation as a trusted technology partner to A&D customers positions the company well to meet the increasing demand to modernize our country’s defense posture. We will work closely with ARA’s management team to enhance the Company’s RF capabilities and customer relationships, that, together with additional strategic acquisitions, will enable ARA to deliver a more complete portfolio of advanced technologies to the A&D market.”

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP served as legal advisor to OceanSound. Raymond James & Associates, Inc. and Akerman LLP served as financial and legal advisors, respectively, to ARA.

About Antenna Research Associates
Established in 1963, ARA is a leading provider of integrated RF and advanced communications products, including components, assemblies and subsystems, to the aerospace and defense end-markets. ARA maintains deep specialization and differentiation in active electronically scanned array antenna capabilities utilized in size-, weight-, power-, and cost-constrained environments. ARA was founded in 1963 and is based in Laurel, Maryland. For more information, please visit https://ara-inc.com/.

About OceanSound Partners
OceanSound Partners is a New York-based private equity firm that pursues control investments in technology and technology-enabled services companies serving government and highly regulated enterprise end markets. OceanSound employs a partnership approach, working closely with founders, entrepreneurs, and executives of middle market businesses to drive transformational growth. For more information, please visit www.oceansoundpartners.com.

That is all.

Quote of the Day

If Nazis Are Involved, Nazis Are the Lede.
Jamison Foser

He makes what should be the obvious lede in a New York Times article about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

This is what he is referring to:

Nearly two weeks ago, before Donald Trump and JD Vance began lying about Haitian immigrants eating pets, the New York Times ran a lengthy piece headlined “How an Ohio Town Landed in the Middle of the Immigration Debate” that noted “by most accounts, the Haitians have helped revitalize Springfield … But the speed and volume of arrivals have put pressure on housing, schools and hospitals” and attempted to explain both. Sprinkled throughout the narrative is praise for the Haitian immigrants and the effect they have had on the city, as well as criticism – some of it extremely racist. And then way down at the very end of the article, more than 70 paragraphs deep, came this striking image: “On a recent Saturday, about a dozen Nazi sympathizers — masked men in matching red shirts, black pants and boots — waved swastika flags as they marched in downtown Springfield near a jazz festival. At least two of the men, who authorities said were outsiders, carried rifles.”

It was in the 3rd to last paragraph.

More generally, he is talking about how the media in general, and the Times in particular engage in a style of journalism that magnifies the lies:

………

Imagine a man, let’s call him Bob, is standing at a bus stop, waiting for the 5:10. He’s wearing a Dave Matthews Band hat and doing a crossword puzzle on his phone. Now imagine another man, let’s call him Bill, who has twice been convicted of random assaults and just got out of prison, walks up to him and punches him in the face and says “I hate the Dave Matthews Band.”

Would you expect a news report about this assault to focus on Bill’s history of violence, his previous convictions for assaulting people, and his time in prison? Or would you want news reports to focus on the Dave Matthews Band and the polarized reaction to their music? You’d expect a focus on what the assault and Bill’s history of violence say about Bill, right? There are, to be sure, deeply held views both pro and con about the Dave Matthews Band, but the Dave Matthews Band quite obviously is not the story here, right?

Note that this sort of coverage only applies to Republicans.

In 2000, you literally had high school kids showing that the Washington Post and the New York Times misquoted Al Gore in order to reinforce the idea that Gore was a serial liar.

This IOKIYAR coverage of politics is endemic to the national news media, and particularly bad in the Times and the Post.

Only Democrats can have trust issues, only Democrats can tell a lie, only Democratic lies can be called lies, and Nazis are never the lede.

Not Murdered Yet


Mawage

As of today, by the Gregorian calendar, Sharon* and I have been married for 30 years.

By the Hebrew calendar, our anniversary will be on November 11.

I am not surprised that she is still with me, she is, after all, a famously stiff necked woman even by the standards of our famously stiff necked people.

I am a bit surprised that she has not murdered me.  She has not even tried. (It would be a crime of passion, not premeditated, so it would be something like a cast-iron skillet, a knife, a brick, a beading needle, or a plaster of Paris bagel and cream cheese paperweight)

If she had, it would have been completely justified, as my family and friends could attest to.

2 kids, 3 States, 5 domiciles, 7 cats (so far), 11 cars, and two people who have managed to put up with each other for 3 decades.

It's kind of a miracle.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

29 October 2024

There is Crazy Rich Guy, There is Bond Villain, and Then There Is


Quoting Cerebus………
Elon Musk having a "Compound" for his many children and baby mommies.

He is officially bat-sh%$ insane with an apocalyptic view of the future of the world.

His estranged daughter, Vivian Wilson, nailed it when she said that he, "Want[ed] to seem like the CEO from Ready Player One."

It is notable that the New York Times used the term, "Compound."

Rich people have estates, terrorists have compounds:

On a quiet, leafy street of multimillion-dollar properties, one stands out: a 14,400-square-foot mansion that looks like a villa plucked from the hills of Tuscany and transplanted to Austin, Texas.

This is where Elon Musk, 53, the world’s richest man and perhaps the most important campaign backer of former President Donald J. Trump, has been trying to establish the cornerstone of an unusual family compound, according to four people familiar with his plans.

Mr. Musk has told people close to him in recent months that he envisions his children (of which there are at least 11) and two of their three mothers occupying adjoining properties. That way, his younger children could be a part of one another’s lives, and Mr. Musk could schedule time among them.

Directly behind the villa is a six-bedroom mansion that Mr. Musk helped purchase, according to two of the people and public records. The total cost of both properties was about $35 million. When in Austin, he often stays at a third mansion about a 10-minute walk away, the people said.

Three mansions, three mothers, 11 children and one secretive, multibillionaire father who obsesses about declining birthrates when he isn’t overseeing one of his six companies: It is an unconventional family situation, and one that Mr. Musk seems to want to make even bigger.

Sounds a little bit crazy, huh?

A proponent of in vitro fertilization, Mr. Musk believes strongly in increasing the world’s population. He has even offered his own sperm to friends and acquaintances, including the former independent vice-presidential candidate Nicole Shanahan, according to two people familiar with his offer. Ms. Shanahan turned him down.

Sounds a little bit crazier, huh ?

………

In a biography published in 2015, Mr. Musk worried that educated people weren’t having enough children. “I’m not saying like only smart people should have kids. I’m just saying that smart people should have kids as well,” he said. “I notice that a lot of really smart women have zero or one kid. You’re like, ‘Wow, that’s probably not good.’”

His views seem to echo those of his father, Errol Musk. The elder Mr. Musk, who is 78 and has seven children with three women, praised his son’s “good genes” and desire to have many children.

“You breed horses,” Errol Musk said in an interview in September. “People are the same. If you have a good father and a good mother, you’ll have exceptional children. If you have no children, I feel very sorry for you.”

Yeah, there is a f%$#-ton of racist Apartheid born eugenics and family pathology there, ain't it?

This guy is nuts.

I Voted Early


Not a Long Video

I voted early, and it went very quickly.

Accompanied by my intrepid, if somewhat half-assed cameraman Charlie Saroff, I was in and out in 15 minutes.

I would have been out in 10, but I thought that it would be cool to use the digital marking machine.

I lost 5 minutes waiting for those, and then switched to the old fashioned stations with a pen.

I'm surprised that it went so quickly.

There were 11 early voting stations in Baltimore County, so I went after I picked up my kid at the train station.

Vote early and often.

Quote of the Day

I Dunno, Man, If the Business Model Is Guilting Liberals Into Paying Out of Some Sort of Civic Duty, Then Perhaps They (And I Include Many Journalists in This, Not Just Management) Should Stop Sh%$ting on Those Liberals.
Duncan "Atrios" Black

The New York Times and the Washington Post, among others have been complaining about criticism, the Times Maggie Haberman has suggested that a, "Vast Left Wing Conspiracy," set up to criticize the press.  (The actual quote is, "An industry ……… that is dedicated toward attacking the media," but that is a distinction without a difference.)

The mainstream press has been presenting false balance in response to false claims of journalistic bias from the right, and now that the sane people are pushing back, their feelings were hurt. (And their pocketbooks, but that is another story)

If you cannot call a lie a lie or call a liar a liar, you are not a journalist, you are a stenographer.

28 October 2024

Safely at Oakland International Airport

Probably not noteworthy, except for the fact that our plane was a Boeing 737 MAX 8.

No MCAS issues or fuselage plugs blowing out, so far.

The next leg of the trip is a 737-700.

Heading Back to Charm City

Just found my seat for the flight back.

Obviously, this will be a light posting day.

Posted but mobile.

27 October 2024

The Election is Over

You know how they say that it's all over when the fat lady sings?

This is not true.  It's all over when Insane Clown Posse raps.

In this case, Violent J had endorsed Harris:

In what surely comes as a heartbreaking disappointment to Donald Trump, Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J has endorsed In what surely comes as a heartbreaking disappointment to Donald Trump, Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Kamala Harris for president.

Speaking with comedian Troy Iwata for a recent segment on The Daily Show, Violent J confirmed that Harris is his preferred pick for the White House, saying “I want her to win because she’s a Democrat, and I love my mom.”

.......

Speaking about why he prefers Democrats to Republicans, Violent J explained, “My mom said the Democrats are saying less taxes on the poor, more taxes on the rich.” When asked about the taxes he pays, he enthusiastically claimed that he pays “up the fucking anus, and I’m happy about it. I pay double what they ask.”

Good.

Posted via mobile.

Epic Retro Hotel Sign

We are staying at this hotel and heading back to Baltimore tomorrow morning.

26 October 2024

This Business Will Get out of Control. It Will Get Out of Control and We’ll Be Lucky to Live Through It.


Cue Freddie Dalton Thompson

Israel has now launched missile strikes against Iran.

This is not, and has never been, about the safety and security of Israel, it has been about Benjamin Netanyahu's determination to stay in power at any cost.

The Israeli army launched airstrikes on military targets in Iran overnight into Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces announced in a statement.

"In response to months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the State of Israel – right now the Israel Defense Forces is conducting precise strikes on military targets in Iran," IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a statement released to the media.

………

Several strong explosions were heard in Iran's capital Tehran and the nearby city of Karaj city, Iranian state media initially reported overnight into Saturday.

The New York Times further reported that Iranians said that other explosions were occurring in other cities in Iran, including in Isfahan and Shahid. 

Iran's Fars News Agency reported that according to the information they currently have, the targets of the Israeli attack were military bases in western Iran. It was also reported that there are currently no signs of an attack on nuclear or oil facilities.

This is about Netanyahu wanting to prolong the war to prolong his time in power.

He would destroy the whole world to stay in power and stay out of jail.

For Your Mental Health and Relaxation

Think of this as a way to lower your blood pressure in this crazy world of ours.

We were down in Nescowin, Oregon for a memorial service for my stepmom.

Neskowin is a beach community on the coast of Oregon, and it is beautiful. 

The first post is a video with sound of the ocean on Sunday, followed by panoramic pictures in chronological order, followed by regular pictures in chronological order. 

We came in Friday afternoon, which was beautiful, 18°C and clear, a rarity on the Oregon coast in October. 

It was still that way on Saturday until about 2, when crowds started rolling in, and if anything it became even more beautiful. 

On Sunday, it was rainy and foggy and chilly, but more beautiful still.

Pictures are after the break:

No Blogging Tonight

Shabbat dinner work 20+ relatives, and I am tired.

24 October 2024

Another Day, Another Defamation Lawsuit

In this case it's the Central Park Five, innocent teens railroaded into prison for a crime that they do is not commit.

You may recall that Donald Trump bought full page advertisements calling for them to be put to death.

He had never apologized for this, even after the kids were exonerated.

They are now suing Trump for defamation over comments that he made about them during his debate with Kamala Harris.

A group of men who were exonerated in the rape and assault of a woman in Central Park in 1989 have sued Donald Trump for continuing to suggest that they are guilty, including at the presidential debate in Philadelphia last month.

The Central Park Five alleged in a federal defamation lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania that Trump falsely claimed during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris that the men pleaded guilty after being charged in the case as teenagers and that they had killed someone. The defendants in fact were cleared of wrongdoing. And the victim of the infamous attack suffered life-threatening injuries but survived.

At the time of the crime, Trump took out a full-page newspaper ad calling for a return of the death penalty in New York, a move widely seen as a reaction to the attack on the jogger, directed at those who had committed the assault.

After a re-investigation of the case and after another suspect’s DNA confirmed his involvement, the defendants, who were Black and Latino, were cleared of wrongdoing. By then, they had served years in prison.

......

The new lawsuit stems from Trump’s comments at the debate, which was watched by 67 million people on Sept. 10, according to court papers.

In a portion of the debate focused on race and politics, Harris, the Democratic nominee, said she wanted to remind voters that Trump had taken out the newspaper ad suggesting the perpetrators of the jogger attack should face the death penalty.

Trump issued a muddled response, first suggesting that the teens pleaded guilty before he seemingly backtracked.

“They admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately,” Trump said. “And if they pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”

We are incredibly lucky that Trump is so incredibly stupid. 

Now I Get It

I had a bathroom scale in the trunk of my car (long dull story) and I brought it in the house so that I could weigh the luggage that we were checking. (Don't judge me)

It's a digital scale, which is more marketing than anything else, it has an encoder reading marks on a rotating, while the analogue version has your eye reading Marla on a rotating disk.

I needed to get the weight of our bag, it needed to be under 50 lbs, and the bag was large enough that it covered the readout.

So I weighed myself (none of your f$#@ing business, that's how much) and then I weighed the suitcase and me, and subtracted the difference.

The latter confirm was unstable enough that the number never settled.  

In the old style scale, I could simply look.

But this was a speaking scale, something that I had always thought was useless, so I could put the suitcase in the scale and hear the weight.

It was overweight, and I made adjustments.

I had always thought that a talking scale was worse than useless.

I stand corrected.

Posted via mobile.

23 October 2024

At the Gate

Flying to Portland International Airport, and then driving to Nescowin on the Oregon coast for a memorial for my step mom.

Changing planes in Sea-Tac.

I'll probably post some more during the layover.

Posted via mobile.

22 October 2024

Screwing Up in Reverse

It appears that Elon Musk's Ecch (Twitter) will not be subjected to the regulations accorded to "Gatekeepers" under EU regulations because he has destroyed the site's ad revenue.

So, Ecch is not subject to increased scrutiny for the potential harms to users because it has become a cesspit of racism, fascism, and trolling.

Following an investigation, Elon Musk's X has won its fight to avoid gatekeeper status under the European Union's strict competition law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

On Wednesday, the European Commission (EC) announced that "X does indeed not qualify as a gatekeeper in relation to its online social networking service, given that the investigation revealed that X is not an important gateway for business users to reach end users."

Since March, X had strongly opposed the gatekeeper designation by arguing that although X connects advertisers to more than 45 million monthly users, it does not have a "significant impact" on the EU's internal market, a case filing showed.

A gatekeeper "is presumed to have a significant impact on the internal market where it achieves an annual Union turnover equal to or above EUR 7.5 billion in each of the last three financial years," the case filing said. But X submitted evidence showing that its Union turnover was less than that in 2022, the same year that Musk took over Twitter and began alienating advertisers by posting their ads next to extremists' tweets.

I am certain that Elon's stans will claim that this is evidence of his genius, but I put it down to his being a lucky moron.

Literally Pro Teen Pregnancy

Why yes, the state Attorneys General of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho are demanding that mifepristone be banned because it deprives the states of teen pregnancies, why are you asking?

This is some seriously f%$#ed up sh%$:

Three Republican attorneys general filed a complaint in federal court on October 11 arguing that their states have a right to pregnant teenagers, and that right is being violated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

………

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, and Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador—all Republicans—take issue with this. Abortion access decreases teen pregnancy, and they seem to think that is a bad thing.

“Remote dispensing of abortion drugs by mail, common carrier, and interactive computer service is depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States,” the attorneys general allege in the complaint, which was filed before forced birth enthusiast Judge Matt Kacsmaryk in the Northern District of Texas’s Amarillo Division. They claim that decreased births constitute “a sovereign injury to the state in itself,” and causes downstream injuries like “losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding if their populations are reduced.” In other words, uteri are state slush funds, and girls owe the state reproduction once they are capable of it.

………

Bailey, Kobach, and Labrador’s argument treats teenagers as breeding stock. The complaint is shocking in its brazenness. But it is a natural outgrowth of the conservative legal movement’s efforts to subordinate women: Girls choosing not to give birth is wrong, and men can go to court to set it right.
These people are not the opposition, they are the enemy, and they are evil.

Headline of the Day

Streaming’s Slow Enshittification Continues As Netflix Kicks Users Off Cheapest Ad-Free Tiers
Techdirt

Yeah,this pretty much nails it.

This raises a linguistic issue, before Cory Doctorow coined the term, there was very little discussion, much less any awareness, of how companies, particularly tech firms, were going out of their way to screw their clientele over time.

Now that we have a word, we all know.

Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) described this phenomenon in his description of Newspeak.

We’ve illustrated repeatedly how as streaming subscriber growth has slowed, streaming giants have had to pivot to some bad industry habits to ensure Wall Street gets those sweet improved quarterly returns. That’s included everything from utterly pointless layoff-creating mergers and price hikes, to annoying new restrictions and a steady increase in ads (that you have to pay more to avoid).

Streaming giants want to drive users to advertising because there’s greater profit potential in charging more for ad placement and collecting user behavioral ad data than there is in subscriptions. So that’s the direction the industry is headed, whether consumers like it or not. Some people don’t mind the ads; personally they just remind me that I’m living in a shallow dystopia.

Last year, Netflix stopped selling its cheapest $11.99 ad-free tier in the U.S. and UK. Last week, it started warning customers still on that plan in the UK and Canada (and soon the U.S.) that the plan will soon be shut down. There is a $7 per month ad-based plan, but you’ll need to pay extra if you want to do anything with it (multiple concurrent streams, 4K, share your password).

………

But the price of that introductory ad-based will also rise endlessly, disproportionate to product quality, feature restrictions, and shrinking device support. The need for improved quarterly returns (at any costs) creates a consumer “pricing funnel” that forces consumers to pay more and more money for a product that’s often getting worse (the traditional cable and broadband industries perfected this thanks to monopolization) with a steady uptick in monetizable restrictions.

………

To be clear, consumers still find value in streaming services like Netflix, and it remains an improvement over traditional cable because of cost and the ease of cancellation. But with “subscriber churn,” becoming an issue as cost-conscious users binge watch a service catalog then cancel, I can absolutely guarantee that these companies will find creative new ways to make cancelling annoying and difficult.

………

You’re also going to see a growing number of harmful sector mergers as executives (who have run completely out of ideas) try to boost stock valuations and grab tax cuts via purposeless consolidation. Consolidation whose only result historically has been more debt, higher prices, worse quality products, and layoffs.

And as more and more subscribers get annoyed and head to the exits (and alternatives like piracy), executives will blame absolutely everything (VPNs! China! Regulation! the wokes!) for their inevitable downfall, having learned absolutely nothing in the process.

Of course they will have learned nothing.  To quote Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

21 October 2024

The Studios Are Refusing to Distribute? Imagine That

The award-winning documentary about the successful union effort at Amazon's JFK 8 warehouse in Staten Island, Union has been unable to find a studio willing to distribute the film.

There could be a number of reasons for this, the increasing hostility of the studios towards unions generally, the fear of retribution from Jeff Bezos, etc. 

Basically, studio executives are being chicken-sh%$s:

To someone not completely enmeshed in the state of the entertainment business, the documentary Union might seem like it has the trappings of an attractive nonfiction sales title: a dramatic story arc culminating in a history-making news event, close access to key players, a charismatic central character, glowing reviews and a premiere at a prestigious film festival.

And yet the film, which documents how an unconventional grassroots group organized the first-ever U.S. union at an Amazon warehouse, is coming to select theaters on Friday without the backing of any major entertainment companies. Months after the Brett Story and Stephen Maing-directed film screened at the Sundance Film Festival and won a special jury award there, the filmmakers announced they had turned to theatrical self-distribution in the absence of any major studio or streamer deals. With the move, a press release in June noted, the team was “recognizing the difficulties faced by political documentaries in distribution of late.” 

Social-issue documentaries have had a rough time of it lately, with longtime impact-driven company Participant Media shutting down in the spring and consolidations reducing the number of buyers interested in this kind of fare in the space. But Union, with its detailed portrait of a consequential American labor story, is an especially salient example. The filmmakers’ current self-distribution plan may ultimately target their intended audience just as effectively, or even more, than a conventional, mainstream release. But their story also offers a glimpse into the bind that some nonfiction filmmakers are facing in a cost-cutting, risk-averse market. 

Naah, the executives are chicken-sh%$s, and they are still suffering from butt-hurt from the strike earlier this year.

This was never goping to make a lot of money for the studios, but it would have made money nonetheless, but they won't want their workers to get uppity, I guess.

Yet another reason why the big studios should be broken up.

More Climate Change Weirdness

While this is hurricane season, the emergence of a micro hurricane in the Caribbean is not how things have gone in the past.

5 miles in diameter, cyclonic, and hurricane force winds.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the water is almost as hot as a bathtub:

A hurricane so small that it could not be observed by satellite formed this weekend, surprising meteorologists and even forecasters at the National Hurricane Center.

Hurricane Oscar developed on Saturday near Turks and Caicos, and to the northeast of Cuba, in the extreme southwestern Atlantic Ocean. As of Saturday evening, hurricane-force winds extended just 5 miles (8 km) from the center of the storm.

This is not the smallest tropical cyclone—as defined by sustained winds greater than 39 mph, or 63 kph—as that record remains held by Tropical Storm Marco back in 2008. However, this may possibly be the smallest hurricane in terms of the extent of its hurricane-force winds.

………

Writing in his summary of Oscar's development on Saturday afternoon, National Hurricane Center forecaster Philippe Papin noted that the hurricane was only discovered due to a last-minute flight by Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft.

"It is fair to say it's been an unexpected day with regards to Oscar," he wrote in his 5 pm ET advisory. "After being upgraded to a tropical storm this morning, a resources-permitting Air Force Reconnaissance mission found that Oscar was much stronger than anticipated and in fact was a tiny hurricane. It is worth noting that remote sensing satellite intensity estimates are currently much lower."

 This is not normal.

Headline of the Day

Trump Evasive About Raising Pa. Minimum Wage While Pretending to Work at McDonald’s in Bucks County
The Philadelphia Inquirer

A suggestion for the New York Times, hire whoever wrote that hed, and have them give lessons.

This is how news is handled, not with the equivocation and both-siderism that one seems to be the rule at the Times.

The McDonald's was closed, no one paid for any food, there were no customers, and the franchise owner refuses to pay his workers well.

That is the story:

While visiting a McDonald’s in Bucks County on Sunday, former President Donald Trump failed to answer a question about raising the minimum wage even though an overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania voters support an increase.

Trump, 78, “worked” the fry cooker at a McDonald’s — which was closed to the public for the event — in Feasterville.

………

The beginning of the question is cut off, so it’s unclear if the reporter was asking about raising Pennsylvania’s minimum wage specifically. At $7.25, the state’s minimum wage is aligned with the federal rate, and is one of the lowest minimum wages in the country. It hasn’t been changed since 2009, the last time the federal minimum wage was increased.

“It’s a beautiful thing to see these are great franchises and produce a lot of jobs and it’s great,” Trump went on. “And great people work in here too.” As several reporters shouted again about the minimum wage, he continued to ignore them.

Trump’s obfuscation could mean something to the more than three-quarters of all Pennsylvanians who somewhat or strongly support increasing the state minimum wage.

That's because in Donald's world, paying decent wages is for suckers.

An Update to Yesterday's Story

Remember when I noted that Ron DeSantis was threatening prosecutions against TV stations for running political ads that he did not like

It seems like only yesterday.  Wait ……… It was yesterday.

It now turns out that the lawyer who was tasked with sending these letters out has said that he was instructed to by the Florida Governor's office.

That's a criminal conspiracy:

Letters that threatened Florida TV stations with criminal penalties if they aired a political ad backing a referendum that would repeal the state’s six-week abortion ban came directly from Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office, according to the attorney who signed and sent them.

Attorney John Wilson said that he resigned as general counsel for the Florida Department of Health rather than “complying with the directives” of DeSantis’s executive staff to send more cease-and-desist letters to TV stations running the ad.

“I did not draft the letters or participate in any discussions about the letters prior to Oct. 3,” Wilson wrote in an affidavit filed in federal court Monday. Instead, he said, three attorneys on the governor’s staff gave him the letters to send.

………

In an earlier letter, Wilson condemned the actions of the administration. “A man is nothing without his conscience,” Wilson wrote in a resignation letter on Oct. 10 obtained by the Miami Herald. “It has become clear in recent days that I cannot join you on the road that lies before the agency.”

………

Wilson also wrote in the affidavit on Monday that the governor’s office told him to find outside attorneys to “assist with enforcement proceedings” against TV stations that ran the “Caroline” ad.

How about a federal prosecution.

Bueller?  Bueller?  Garland? Garland?

Ponch? Ponch?

So, the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ has decided to buy votes in Pennsylvania

This is, as they say, a violation of black letter law.

Why is he not being arrested right now?

Oh, yeah, right, Merrick F%$#ing Garland:

Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, said law enforcement should look into Elon Musk’s new ploy to give $1m to a registered voter who signs a petition supporting free speech in key swing states each day until the US presidential election.

Legal experts have said it appears to violate laws that prohibit giving incentives to people to register to vote. On Sunday, Shapiro expressed similar concerns. Monday is Pennsylvania’s deadline to register to vote.

“I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “That is deeply concerning.”

Later in the interview Shapiro added: “I think it’s something that law enforcement should take a look at. I’m not the attorney general any more of Pennsylvania, I’m the governor, but it does raise serious questions.”

This raises no question at all.  It's illegal, and you can get up to 5 years in Club Fed for this:

Though maybe some of the other things Musk was doing were of murky legality, this one is clearly illegal. See 52 U.S.C. 10307(c): “Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of  encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both…” (Emphasis added.)

I am not a lawyer, but the above IS from a lawyer.

Arrest him, then do a psych evaluation, and then place him under the conservatorship of James Parnell Spears.

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day


This is indeed true, unless, of course, they can see the bottom of their bowl.

20 October 2024

Speaking of Snollygosters

When Elon Musk showed off his "autonomous" humanoid robots, they were not autonomous, they were operated by remote control by humans:

After Elon Musk provided his "long-term" vision for autonomous, humanoid robots at last week's "We, Robot" event, we expressed some skepticism about the autonomy of the Optimus prototypes sent out for a post-event mingle with the assembled, partying humans. Now, there's been a raft of confirmation that human teleoperators were indeed puppeting the robot prototypes for much of the night.

Bloomberg cites unnamed "people familiar with the matter" in reporting that Tesla "used humans to remotely control some capabilities" of the prototype robots at the event. The report doesn't specify which demonstrated capabilities needed that human assistance, but it points out that the robots "were able to walk without external control using artificial intelligence" (the lack of a similar AI call-out for any other robot actions that night seems telling).

How is this not securities fraud, and why hasn't he been arrested?

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day


What, you mean that Trump is a snollygoster?

Well knock me over with the out of control 116,851 ton MV Dali.

Who Had Arnold Palmer’s Penis on Their Election 2024 Bingo Card?

Lord knows that I didn't.

Heck, if you had presented this as a story to the editors of The Onion, they would have sent it back as too over the top.

Something is deeply wrong here.

The best comment about this comes from the Golf great's daughter, who noted that Arnold Palmer detested Donald Trump:

Golf legend Arnold Palmer’s daughter said she was “not really upset” by the lewd story former President Donald Trump told about her father at a rally in his hometown on Saturday.

Peg Palmer Wears, the 68-year-old daughter of the golf icon, told the Associated Press “there‘s nothing much to say” about the story the Republican nominee chose to open his rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, surrounding Palmer’s manhood.

“This man was strong and tough,” Trump told the crowd in a perplexing speech on Saturday. “And I refused to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros. They came out of there, they said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable.’ I had to say it.”

………

Palmer, a longtime Republican, died in September 2016 before Trump’s first electoral victory. He golfed with other presidents, including George H.W. Bush and Dwight Eisenhower—a man he looked up to as an ideal leader, The Washington Post reported after his death.

However, Wears previously indicated her father was less enthusiastic about Trump‘s candidacy. In 2018, Palmer’s daughter said in an interview with The Sporting News that he was “appalled by Trump’s lack of civility and what he began to see as Trump’s lack of character” before his death.

 What a surprise.

19 October 2024

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day


Yes, this is completely incoherent.

Also, it typifies the rot in the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) and the rest of the very serious people types operating inside the DC beltway.

The thinking is, "These people cannot be bad, I was just at a cocktail party with them."

Yeah, This is a Big Deal

One of the secrets to the US victory against Japan during WWII was vastly superior logistics.

The US could operate and resupply ships at great distances from their home ports, while the Japanese were far more reliant on getting supplies in port.

It was, and is, a big deal in any sort of naval conflict, and it remains a capability that is generally lacking in other naval powers at this time.

One of the advances in technology that has found its way onto warships, vertical launch cells, has thrown a bit of a spanner into this while logistics process, since reload loading the cells requires equipment that can only be used in port, or rather, it was, as the VLS reloading underway has been demonstrated recently.

The U.S. Navy has achieved a significant breakthrough in maritime combat readiness by successfully demonstrating the Transferrable Reload At-sea Method (TRAM) on a warship in open waters for the first time.

This innovative technology allows warships to rearm their missile systems while at sea, drastically reducing downtime and enhancing operational effectiveness.

The historic demonstration took place on October 11th, off the coast of San Diego, where sailors aboard the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Chosin (CG 65) used the hydraulically-powered TRAM device to load an empty missile canister into the ship’s MK 41 vertical launching system (VLS).

One interesting question raised is whether this is compact enough to operate on the far more numerous Arleigh Burke class destroyers, which carry a similar missile loadout.

It it does, it means that surface combatants won't have to be pulled out of an operation to reload.

Pass the Popcorn

We have gotten another dump of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith's election interference case.

While some folks are claiming that this is attempted election interference, I would argue that it is more just an alignment of the facts, and timing of the delays that Trump and his Evil Minions™, including the 6 conservative justices on the Supreme Court.

Between this, and Arnold Palmer's penis (more on that later), this has not been a good week for the Trumpster fire:

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on Friday unsealed the appendix of source materials underpinning special counsel Jack Smith’s massive legal filing that detailed the evidence collected against Donald Trump in the federal D.C. election interference case — though the document was heavily redacted and appeared to contain few new revelations.

The unsealed and unredacted portions of the 1,889-page appendix included transcripts of interviews with the legislative committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, excerpts from former vice president Mike Pence’s autobiography, a transcript of a Trump White House news briefing after the election in November 2020 and a transcript of a 2023 CNN town hall interview with the former president.

Trump’s legal team had opposed making the materials public so soon, arguing that Chutkan’s releasing them now could appear as though the court was trying to affect the upcoming election. But Chutkan disagreed, saying that withholding the documents could amount to election interference.

Trump's legal team has spent years delaying this.  If they had not, this would have been out while the primaries were still going on.

Tough sh%$ folks.

………

One portion of the appendix that adds new detail is a less-redacted version of a previously released transcript from the House Jan. 6 committee, which indicates Trump was told of the Jan. 6 riot as early as 1:21 p.m. that day.

………

Trump didn’t send a video message telling people to go home until 4:17 p.m. — nearly three hours after his apparent conversation with the valet.

Chutkan had previously unsealed Smith’s detailed 165-page filing, which contained a thorough account of the evidence investigators had gathered with footnotes indicating the source of the materials. It was meant to convince the judge that Trump could still be prosecuted even after the Supreme Court ruled this summer he had broad immunity.

The appendix was far less explosive, but it still underscored Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the election results.

The appendix included dozens of statements by swing-state lawmakers, agencies and officials contradicting allegations of election fraud by Trump and his campaign, along with Pence’s written account of his repeated refusals to go along with Trump’s plan to not accept the outcome. Prosecutors have argued that Trump’s chargeable conduct was in his private capacity as a candidate and not subject to presidential immunity, including his dealings with state officials in the alleged phony elector plot.

Also included in the appendix were transcripts of Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where he pressured the state official to “find 11,780 votes” to flip the state’s result and key post-election memos by Trump’s private attorneys concocting a plan to submit fake slates of electors from swing states to throw the election to the GOP-controlled House.

This really isn't anything new, but to the degree that this puts Trump on his back heel, this is a good thing.