Donning My Tinfoil Hat

So, it appears that after Niger kicked the French military out of their country, there has been a huge upsurge in terrorism from Islamic extremists.

I'm thinking that there are entities in France and the US that might be supporting the aforementioned Islamists because they want to put the country back under Paris' thumb.

No evidence here, just my inner paranoid whispering in my ear:

Attacks that killed dozens of civilians and soldiers in Niger this month have put a spotlight on the military’s failure to restore security in the West African nation, nearly 18 months after staging a coup.

When the military seized power in July 2023, the generals claimed they were better suited to restore order to a country racked by the world’s deadliest jihadist insurgency. But Niger has since spiraled into further violence, with frequent attacks on military forces, the recent destruction of a village and the killing of more than 20 passengers on a bus.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack on military forces. All three attacks took place in western Niger, where affiliates of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda are active.

Militants affiliated with these groups have killed nearly twice as many civilians since the coup, compared with the 18 months that preceded it, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, or A.C.L.E.D., a nonprofit that tracks global conflict.

If this is the case, it would not be unprecedented, as western intelligence has been supporting Jihadis as a way to achieve regime change in Syria.

Yes

Not even the Joker had a perp walk of this magnitude. pic.twitter.com/INQMii6RAn

— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) December 19, 2024

This is like a painting by Raphael

Did the NYPD's perp walk of Luigi Mangione backfire?

This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions.

Nice to see the little bit of NYPD sadism blowing up in their faces.

Also, it appears that Eric Adams was there, probably to practice for his inevitable perp walk:

It was the perp walk that launched a thousand memes.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old charged in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was brought to New York City on Thursday via helicopter, clean shaven and wearing an orange Department of Correction jumpsuit.

He was promptly escorted off the helipad, the Hudson River behind him, by close to two dozen people including NYPD officers, federal officials and Mayor Eric Adams. Thompson’s killing sparked a national debate about the animosity many feel towards health insurers, with some praising Mangione for the alleged murder. The scene of him arriving Thursday resembled something more out of an action movie than a routine prisoner transfer.

Typically a perp walk is designed to shame the suspect and celebrate the police department’s work. Arguably no one engages in the practice more than the NYPD, who have paraded around everyone from small-time gang members to John Gotti. But the practice has been criticized by many for harming the reputations of people who have only been accused, not convicted of a crime.

In the case of Mangione’s perp walk, at least on social media, the optics appear to have backfired on the NYPD and the mayor. Many noted that the mayor himself has been criminally charged for corruption and bribery. On the morning of Mangione’s arrival, the mayor’s closest adviser Ingrid Lewi-Martin surrendered to authorities on criminal charges of bribery. She was herself perp walked later in the day.

But the overriding theme on X, Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere was that Mangione’s perp walk made a man accused of premeditated murder seem sympathetic.

Generally, I do not approve of murder as a means to resolve disputes.

That being said, I understand why people are inclined to be supportive of Luigi Magione, and the fact that the NYPD did not get that when they engaged in this stunt is not going to reflect well on them.

Just F%$#ing Shoot Me

I have an ear worm, the Chipmunks Christmas Song.

If I have to suffer, so do you.

The Stupid, it Burns

The state of Louisiana has forbidden the state health department from supporting Influenza, Covid, and Mpox vaccines.

This means that they are forbidden from even mentioning that they have the vaccines available at their facilities.

A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events.

Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop.

NPR has confirmed the policy was discussed at this meeting, and at two other meetings held within the department's Office of Public Health, on Oct. 3 and Nov. 21, through interviews with four employees at the Department of Health, which employs more than 6,500 people and is the state's largest agency.

According to the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear losing their jobs or other forms of retaliation, the policy would be implemented quietly and would not be put in writing.

Yeah, "Not put in writing," for when you told to do something illegal or incredibly stupid.

Staffers were also told that it applies to every aspect of the health department's work: Employees could not send out press releases, give interviews, hold vaccine events, give presentations or create social media posts encouraging the public to get the vaccines. They also could not put up signs at the department's clinics that COVID, flu or mpox vaccines were available on site.

 These folks are doing the level best, by means fair and foul, to kill as many of us as possible.

I Did Not Know That I Needed This

Researchers in Liverpool have released a questionnaire that claims to identify psychopathic tendencies in cats.

I have embedded it following the break.

Personally, I did not find it particularly useful, since our cats are indoor cats, so about ⅓ of the questions are irrelevant.

Also, I have always considered my cats merciless psychopathic murder machines.  It's why I love them so much.

What, exactly, is your cat thinking? Scientists came up with a questionnaire in 2021 that might give you some idea of where your feline friend fits on what's known as the triarchic model of psychopathy.

The model measures levels of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition in order to assess overall psychopathic tendencies. Ordinarily, the test is for human beings, of course, but here it's being applied to cats.

Having completed the survey – which you can find online – you'll be given what's called a CAT-Tri+ measure for your pet's level of psychopathy. The team is hoping that knowing this score can improve human and cat relationships.

This Sounds Very Familiar

It appears that there is yet another complex financial instrument finding favor in international finance, the "Synthetic Risk Transfer" , which sounds a lot like the Credit Default Swap (CDS) that was described by Warren Buffet as a, "Financial weapon of mass destruction."

When Wirecard went belly up a few years ago, Deutsche Bank ended up with a loss of just €18mn — miraculously little for a bank that had up until then made a habit of ambling into nearly every major financial cow pie in the world.

And this had been a giant pile of manure right on its own doorstep. Deutsche had previously underwritten Wirecard bonds, arranged loans for the company, and handed its chief executive a giant margin loan. Fellow German lender Commerzbank took a €175mn hit.

How did Deutsche manage to avoid this doo-doo? FT Alphaville gathers that it was probably at least partly thanks to something known as a “synthetic risk transfer” — one of the hottest bits of high-octane financial engineering these days. Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

In SRTs, a bank offloads some or all of the risks of some of its loans to ease how much capital it has to set aside for regulatory purposes. The loans remain on the bank’s balance sheet, but the buyer of an SRT typically promises to cover a chunk of the losses if the loans go bad. The buyers are investors such as insurance companies, hedge funds and (increasingly) private credit funds, which take on the risk in exchange for a fee.

Come to think of it, this sounds exactly like a CDS, only skeevier.

And they manage to invoke, "Saroff's Rule," "If a financial transaction is complex enough to require that a news organization use a cartoon to explain it, its purpose is to deceive." (With The Simpsons no less)

………

The advantage for GGG Capital is that it can harvest returns of typically 10 to 15 per cent without much work (beyond the initial due diligence on the loan pool) The loans remain on the Banque Alphaville balance sheet, so it does the ongoing work of monitoring the borrowers. And if they go bad, Banque Alphaville has to handle the actual clean-up, since they’re still on its balance sheet. GGG Capital is just there to reimburse the bank for losses (up to a point).

For Banque Alphaville, the advantage is (if the structure passes muster as a “true” risk transfer) that regulators will then require less capital to be set aside for the loans.

So basically, by papering over risk by paying a fee to an insurer (who is not actually an insurer), and who, if the whole things goes titsup, might not be able to make good on their promise, you can boost returns, and generate more bonuses for senior management.

All you have to do is set everything up for an economic crisis.

This sounds a f%$#-tonne like the sh%$ that f%$#ed us in 2008.

I Did Nazi This Coming

Guess what?  The Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ has endorsed the Neo-Nazi Alternative für Deutschland party in Germany.

I'm not particularly surprised.  Elon's racism has been on public display for well over a decade:

Elon Musk is backing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), triggering an outcry in Berlin in the run-up to a critical snap election.

“Only the AfD can save Germany,” the billionaire X owner wrote on the platform on Friday in the latest of a series of endorsements of European far-right parties.

Musk has recently supported European populist-right politicians in increasingly clear terms, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Earlier this week, Farage boasted that Musk is “right behind” him — and raised the prospect that the tech tycoon would financially back his Reform UK party.

The AfD endorsement also served as a stark rebuke by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s most powerful adviser of the conservative alliance that is likely to lead Germany following a snap election set for Feb. 23.

Friedrich Merz, the conservative candidate leading the race to become next chancellor, has portrayed himself as leader who’d be able to make “deals” with Trump despite European fears the president elect will start a trade war and withdraw American military support for Ukraine.

AfD leaders, of course, were pleased by Musk’s endorsement.

 Time to go long on guillotine futures.

Not a Surprise

When the exemption was given to allow colleges to collude on financial awards in the 1990s, the requirement was that admission was to be. "Need Blind, meaning that they could not favor students with rich parents, even if said parents were big donors.

It comes as no surprise that the elite colleges and institutions have been violating the terms of that exemption for almost as long as it has existed.  (How do you think that Jared Kushner made it into Harvard?)

A filing in an antitrust lawsuit against some of the nation’s top universities alleges the schools overcharged students by $685 million in a “price-fixing” scheme, raising serious questions about their past admission and financial aid policies.

Documents and testimony from officials at Georgetown University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT and other elite schools suggest they appeared to favor wealthy applicants despite their stated policy of accepting students without regard for their financial circumstances. That “need-blind” policy allowed the schools to collaborate on financial aid under federal law, but plaintiffs in the case say the colleges violated the statute by considering students’ family income.

Every year, according to a motion filed in federal court Monday night, Georgetown’s then-president would draw up a list of about 80 applicants based on a tracking list that often included information about their parents’ wealth and past donations, but not the applicants’ transcripts, teacher recommendations or personal essays.

“Please Admit,” was often written at the top of the list, the lawsuit contends — and almost all of the applicants were.

Former students accuse 17 elite schools, including most of the Ivy League, of colluding to limit the financial aid packages of working- and middle-class students. The claimed damages of $685 million, which were detailed in the court filing Monday night, would automatically triple to more than $2 billion under U.S. antitrust laws.

………

A coalition of highly selective universities, formed in the late 1990s and known as the 568 Presidents Group, collaborated on aid formulas under a 1994 federal antitrust exemption. The exemption applied only if schools engaged in need-blind admissions. But attorneys for the former students say at least nine universities maintained admissions policies that still favored wealthy students in violation of the antitrust exemption, which expired in the fall of 2022.

Meanwhile, according to court documents, the schools’ endowments grew dramatically from a collective total of about $55 billion in 2003 to more than $220 billion in 2022.

Details that emerged in the case Monday included allegations that a former MIT Corporation chair applied pressure for the admission of two wealthy applicants; testimony from a former Harvard official who said the school had not joined the group because it would compel the school to reduce its financial aid awards; and a Vanderbilt University official writing in 2014 that if the statute expired, the school could be forced into a bidding war for students.

The court document contends Notre Dame has admitted that it sometimes granted admission to applicants based on factors that included the donation history, or future capacity, of the applicant’s family.

And at Penn, the suit says, applicants given a special-interest designation — indicating they were from a wealthy or donor family — were more likely to get in. A spokesman for the university said, “Penn’s dean of admissions testified the tag had ‘nothing’ to do with a family’s financial circumstances.” In 2020, Penn left the group to be more generous to students, according to the court filing.

The allegations stem from a class-action lawsuit brought in 2022 by eight former students who said the universities shared a methodology for calculating students’ financial need that reduced the amount of aid the schools provided to low- and middle-income students.

………

The group dissolved after the lawsuit was filed.

If the 568 President's group was above board, they would not have dissolved it, and they would not have increased financial aid awards.

………

Ted Normand, co-lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement that rather than competing based on the aid they could afford to distribute, the schools “saved themselves, and cost their students, hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.”

The schools did more than that, they engaged in a fraud on the students conspired to violate federal law.

Frog march administrators out of their offices in handcuffs.

Quote of the day

The Democrats Are a Social Club for Gerontocrats Who Love Losing

—Splinter

This is true...as turnips is. It was as true...as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them.

The Democratic Party is unquestionably the party of old, rich white people at this point. Kamala Harris became the first Democrat in ages to lose voters who make less than $100,000 per year, and the only demographics who shifted left in this last election were voters over the age of 65 and white voters with a college degree. One would think that in a historic realignment election which served as a wholesale rebuke to the Democratic Party writ large that the Democratic Party would want to make some serious changes.

But the Democratic Party is not a political party first and foremost. It’s a social club for gerontocrats and braindead consultants who specialize in losing winnable elections. It’s difficult to find a better example of what the Democratic Party actually values than losing a two out of three series to Donald Trump then giving a bunch of lip service to fundamental change, all while the same people stay in place.

This is the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) in a nutshell.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We had some decent numbers, with initial claims falling by 22,000 to 220,000, and continuing claims fell by 5,000 to 1.87 million.

Applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week after spiking earlier this month, continuing a streak of volatility that often occurs during the holiday season.

Initial claims decreased by 22,000 to 220,000 in the week ended Dec. 14. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 230,000 applications.

Claims data tend to fluctuate around the holidays. Overall, new filings have remained subdued, hovering near pre-pandemic averages.
Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, also fell, to 1.87 million, in the previous week, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. Recurring filings have been gradually trending higher this year. And the number of people who are searching for jobs for more than 15 weeks unsuccessfully has been on the rise this year in monthly government data.

Needless to say, we are into the holiday season, so the numbers are kind of flaky at this point.

Additionally, the 3rd quarter GDP increased was revised up by 0.3% to 3.1%, which ain't chump change:

The US economy expanded at a faster pace in the third quarter than previously estimated, owing in part to to stronger consumer spending and exports.

Gross domestic product increased at a 3.1% annualized rate in the July-to-September period, the third estimate of the figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed Thursday. That compared to a previous projection of 2.8%.

Finally, existing home sales rose sharply in November, to an 8 month high, even though mortgage rates are still relatively high.

Not a clue what this all means.

Pass the Popcorn

The House Ethics Committee will be releasing its report on Matt Gaetz.

So, we are going to be reading stories about his drug fueled exploits with young (underage?) girls shortly.

I am amused:

The US House of Representatives ethics committee has reportedly voted to release a report on sexual misconduct allegations against Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative who was forced to drop his bid to become Donald Trump’s attorney general amid fallout over the accusations.

According to CNN, the House ethics committee voted earlier this month to release the report, which is expected to be made public after the chamber’s final votes of the year later this week.

The news comes a month after the committee deadlocked on whether to release the report, as members fell along party lines in the private vote. The recent decision now suggests that at least one Republican member of the panel has joined Democrats in supporting its publication.

I think that Gaetz underestimated just how much he is loathed by fellow members of the Republican House Caucus.

Snark of the Day

British Food

More interesting and diverse than people thought.

Now, a recent study published in the Cambridge University journal Antiquity suggests a stunningly grim saga played out at Charterhouse Warren, at far greater scale than previously thought: The bones belong to at least 37 men, women and children who were slaughtered and possibly eaten in a ceremonial feast after their massacre.

—Duncan Atrios Black

Mr. Black owes me a screen wipe.

They Have Made a Desert and Call it Peace

Economy Still 16% Smaller than Before Austerity


Population Down by Nearly 10% from TrendThe good folks at the "Pink Paper" aka The Financial Times, have been lauding the astonishing success of Greece.

Economist and Modern Monetary Theory supporter William Mitchell is having none of it. 

He is right. 

Much like Latvia, where the population has fallen by ⅕ and the economy functions only because of remittances from expats, Greece is imploding:

Today, I consider the Greek situation, the decision by the UK Chancellor to further deregulate the financial services sector and then to calm everyone down or not, some music. The Financial Times published an article (December 12, 2024) – The astonishing success of Eurozone bailouts – which basically redefines the meaning of English words like ‘success’. Apparently, Greece is now a successful economy and that success is due to the Troika bailouts in 2015 and the imposition of harsh austerity. The data, unfortunately, doesn’t support that assessment. Yes, there is economic growth, albeit from a very low base. But other indicators reveal a parlous state of affairs. At least, this blog post finishes on a high note. Please note there will be no post tomorrow (Wednesday) as I am travelling all day. I will resume on Thursday.

………

DP growth is certainly occurring from a very low base.

But the economy remains 15.9 per cent smaller than it was in the June-quarter 2007, before the GFC.

The FT journalist then wrote:

Between the eve of the Covid crisis in 2019 and 2024, IMF data shows GDP per head will have grown more than 11 per cent in Greece …

It is not hard to increase GDP per capita when the nation’s population has contracted sharply since the austerity began.

Here is the evolution of the total population.

Since 2010, the Greek population has declined by around 5.2 per cent and a significant proportion of that decline has been driven by younger, educated Greeks leaving for distant shores.

A talent loss that will haunt the nations for decades to come.

………

The current GDP figures would look pretty wan if a significant proportion of the population had not been driven out of the nation by the austerity.

In fact, GDP per capita would remain below the peak in 2010 despite the recent GDP growth.

Further, unemployment remains high.

Here is the latest unemployment rate graph (to October 2024) with the dashed line being the moving average given the data is not seasonally adjusted. 

n October 2024, there were 9.2 per cent of available workers unemployed.

This is what happens when you let Germans run economic policy.

Well, that, and you end up with the unpleasant short man with a mustache.

Just F$#@ing Lovely

I had to dispose of a mummified canid I found in the back yard.

I think that it was a coyote, but it could have been a fox.

I used a snow shovel and a 30 gallon trash bag.

I will provide no pictures.

Posted via mobile.

Dysfunctional Incompetent Gerontocracies Gotta Dysfunctional Incompetent Gerontocracy

So, by dint of aggressive lobbying by Nancy Pelosi, because it is Gerry Connolly's turn and because she hates Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 74-year-old just diagnosed with cancer will be the ranking member of the Got the House Oversight Committee.

Pelosi was literally making calls from her hospital bed in Germany (she got a hold replacement after a fall in Luxemburg) trying to keep AOC from a leadership position.

One lesson to be learned here is never to trust Nancy Pelosi, and another lesson to be learned is the Democratic Party Establishment (There is no Democratic Party Establishment) consider the Republicans to be the opposition, and progressives to be the enemy.

Take a tip from The (former Dixie) Chicks, and don't be ready to make nice

House Democrats on Tuesday voted for Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) to become the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, electing him to the key position by a vote of 131-84 over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who was also vying for the role.

House Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee voted Monday night to recommend Connolly — who is 74 years old and was recently diagnosed with cancer — for the spot. The move was a hit for the 35-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, but she pressed on with her candidacy.

To quote (not) Tallyrand, "It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake."

I will be glad when the self-absorbed careerist geriatric leadership of the Democratic Party Establishment (There is no Democratic Party Establishment) is finally turfed out.

Posted via mobile.

Another Day,

Another school shooting. 

This one is in Madison, Wisconsin.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, that's the 487th mass shooting of the year.

I'm not even sure why this is news anymore:

Three people are dead, including the shooter, and six were injured in a shooting Monday morning at Abundant Life Christian School on Madison's Far East Side.

The shooting at the private school at 4901 E. Buckeye Road, happened shortly before 11 a.m., police Chief Shon Barnes said.

Here's what we know so far:

2nd grader called police

A second grade student at Abundant Life Christian School was the first call to police about a shooter in the building, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.

"Let that sink in for a minute," he said. 

As an aside here, at an increasing number of schools, that 2nd grader would not have had a cell phone, because they are banned.

I'm not sure how to square the circle of students being able to call the cops with the effects of distractions from their phones.

Shooter identified

The shooter was identified as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who goes by the name Samantha. She died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

She was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital.

F%$# thoughts and prayers.  Repeal the 2nd Amendment.

And Then an Angel Pissed Down the Barrel of My Rifle

It's cold, rainy, and miserable.

Guess who got a flat?

No, not me.  It is Sharon*.

She called roadside assistance, but they could not get the spare out of the car, because the knob for the hold down screw uy stripped.

After the guy left, I got the knob off with a torch. (I neither burnt myself or set her car alight, so I count it a win)

We got the car home, and I'll put the donut on in the morning.

On the bright side, we are having some very good Yemeni food as a consequence. 

Sharon* wants me to add, f$#@ Progressive Auto Insurance.

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

Posted via mobile.

It's Reagan's Fault

It appears that whenever you find something that afflicts society, 9 times out of 10, it goes back to the Reagan administration.

Case in point, food deserts, where large areas of poorer urban neighborhoods are underserved by grocery stores, requiring either long trips to get inexpensive and healthy food, or that they get expensive unhealthy food from local convenience stores and the like.

The concept of the food desert has been around long enough that it feels almost like a fact of nature. Tens of millions of Americans live in low-income communities with no easy access to fresh groceries, and the general consensus is that these places just don’t have what it takes to attract and sustain a supermarket. They’re either too poor or too sparsely populated to generate sufficient spending on groceries, or they can’t overcome a racist pattern of corporate redlining.

But these explanations fail to contend with a key fact: Although poverty and ruralness have been with us forever, food deserts arrived only around the late 1980s. Prior to that, small towns and poor neighborhoods could generally count on having a grocery store, perhaps even several. (The term food desert was coined in 1995 by a task force studying what was then a relatively new phenomenon.)

The high-poverty, majority-Black Deanwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C., is typical of the trend. In the 1960s, the area had more than half a dozen grocery stores, according to a study by the anthropologist Ashanté Reese. These included a branch of the local District Grocery Stores co-op, a Safeway supermarket, and independent Black-owned businesses such as Tip Top Grocery on Sheriff Road. By the 1990s, however, the number of grocery stores in Deanwood had dwindled to just two, and today the neighborhood has none. 

………

Food deserts are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or low population density, and they didn’t materialize around the country for no reason. Something happened. That something was a specific federal policy change in the 1980s. It was supposed to reward the biggest retail chains for their efficiency. Instead, it devastated poor and rural communities by pushing out grocery stores and inflating the cost of food. Food deserts will not go away until that mistake is reversed.

………

Congress responded in 1936 by passing the Robinson-Patman Act. The law essentially bans price discrimination, making it illegal for suppliers to offer preferential deals and for retailers to demand them. It does, however, allow businesses to pass along legitimate savings. If it truly costs less to sell a product by the truckload rather than by the case, for example, then suppliers can adjust their prices accordingly—just so long as every retailer who buys by the truckload gets the same discount.

For the next four decades, Robinson-Patman was a staple of the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement agenda. From 1952 to 1964, for example, the agency issued 81 formal complaints to block grocery suppliers from giving large supermarket chains better prices on milk, oatmeal, pasta, cookies, and other items than they offered to smaller grocers. Most of these complaints were resolved when suppliers agreed to eliminate the price discrimination. Occasionally a case went to court.

During the decades when Robinson-Patman was enforced—part of the broader mid-century regime of vigorous antitrust—the grocery sector was highly competitive, with a wide range of stores vying for shoppers and a roughly equal balance of chains and independents. In 1954, the eight largest supermarket chains captured 25 percent of grocery sales. That statistic was virtually identical in 1982, although the specific companies on top had changed. As they had for decades, Americans in the early 1980s did more than half their grocery shopping at independent stores, including both single-location businesses and small, locally owned chains. Local grocers thrived alongside large, publicly traded companies such as Kroger and Safeway.

 ………

Then it was abandoned. In the 1980s, convinced that tough antitrust enforcement was holding back American business, the Reagan administration set about dismantling it. The Robinson-Patman Act remained on the books, but the new regime saw it as an economically illiterate handout to inefficient small businesses. And so the government simply stopped enforcing it. 

………

Why didn’t large chains fill the void when local stores closed? They didn’t need to. In the 1960s, if a chain like Safeway wanted to compete for the grocery dollars spent by Deanwood residents, it had to open a store in the neighborhood. But once the independent stores closed, the chains no longer had to invest in low-income areas. They could count on people to schlep across town to their other locations. Today, in fact, many Deanwood residents travel to a Safeway outside the neighborhood to shop. This particular Safeway has had such persistent issues with expired meat and rotting produce that some locals have taken to calling it the “UnSafeway.” Yet, without alternatives, people keep shopping there.

Yet another example of how Ronald Reagan's enforcing Robert Bork's corrupt theory of  antitrust ruined the United States.

For America to be "Great Again" we need aggressive antitrust, and this includes not just standard antitrust enforcement, but a rollback of the scope of policies that deliberately enhance monopoly powers, like patent and copyright.

There's an App for What

Our Littermaid™ automatic cat box is in the process of giving up the proverbial ghost, and I am looking for a replacement.

It appears that Littermaid™ is no longer made, so I am looking for alternatives, and reading reviews, and the reviews spend about half their time discussing the utility of the apps included.

Wait ……… They want me to monitor how and when my cats piss and sh%$?

And some of them want to collect this data for themselves?

And the reviewers think that we give a f%$# about this?

Designed by AI

So, the good folks give me humanities department at UCLA have decided to Teach a completely AI generated course in literature and history.

If the course it's half as incoherent as the book cover, the students will flee the course screaming, "Tekeli Li!!!!

UCLA announced the other day 2BW will be the first course in the UCLA College Division of Humanities to be built around the Kudu artificial intelligence platform. The textbook: AI-generated. Class assignments: AI-generated. Teaching assistants’ resources: AI-generated.”

.......

But what really got me fuming was the horrible, horrible textbook cover that was extruded for this course.

This image is for a book that’s apparently called History & Fiction: Survey of Literature from the Middle Ages to the 17th Century, but you won’t find those words on the book’s cover — already this AI is failing at a basic job. The AI decided to put some letter shapes in the spot where we might find a title that look like “Of Nerniacular Latin to An Ecoolitun on Nance Langusages”. Not even close!

The images are even worse. A Greco-Roman revival building sits between two grainy hills, while rivulets of faded blues, browns, and yellows flow down like sewage spills, carrying along all sorts of unintelligible debris and pixels.

Floating awkwardly above this sludge are melted saints and smudged Rennaissance-esque folks, crowded out by processions of object-shaped blobs: a stack of pancakes made with drywall dust and covered in syrup, a banana in a custom leather scabbard that’s sealed with a wrist watch, a crab’s legs peeking out from under a purple Victorian lampshade.

But since this is a comp-lit course, there’s some attempt at a flow chart of something thrashing its way through this yard sale of Cronenberg rejects. Two unseaworthy boats pour streams of golden piss into a word box labeled “Sgiaiviaescm” which leads to “Frodiidawes,” two unforgettable movements in literary history, I’m sure. This history doesn’t last long though, as they’re blocked from developing further by the curling procession of “Poiuchance” morphing into “Vuilao Luainles,” a process that is hindered or aided by a croissant that someone tried to play like an accordion and then abandoned, right in the middle of the flow of literature’s evolution.

Somewhere out there, as always, is “Italian.”

Read the rest, it is an epic rant. 

..... And Then You Win*

There had been a lot of criticism of Lina Khan during her time as head of the Federal Trade Commission, most of which is in profoundly bad faith.

One of these is the assertion that her "Radical" antitrust agenda always loses in court.

Not so much these days.

Late this afternoon, Judge Adrienne Nelson issued a preliminary injunction blocking the $24 billion merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, leaving Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan with yet another big litigation win. On BIG, we’ve covered this merger several times, because of its size, scale, and legal importance.

Nelson had a strong opinion, echoing the FTC’s argument in challenging the merger. The commission’s logic was simple. Kroger and Albertsons, if they combine, will gain market power and use it to raise prices to consumers and lower wages to workers. There’s a lot more than that, of course, but that’s the gist. I’m going to highlight some of what Nelson wrote, which includes important statements on labor and the new merger guidelines, but first I want to give some context on why the merger mattered. Let’s start with the food industry, which is already far too consolidated. My earlier analysis of the case hasn’t changed, so I’ll just quote it here.

It's likely that a Trump FTC Chair will walk away from this, but this is still a big win.

^*The full quote is, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win," often incorrectly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.

As Atrios Would Say, "That F%$#ing Newspaper"

I am referring, of course, to the New York Times, who we now know are refusing to print the manifesto of alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione, and refusing to even publish photographs of him.

Internal New York Times messages about its coverage of alleged gunman Luigi Mangione have been leaked to me and the contents are revealing. On Tuesday, management said “the news value and public service of showing his face is diminishing,” instructing staff to “dial back” its use of such photos. It also directed that Luigi’s “manifesto” not be published in the paper.

The directive was heeded. If you visit Times’ front-page story today on the shooter, it features Mangione’s back as he was being marched to his arraignment in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Another Times story today on Mangione’s notebook features a photo of a generic police-tape barricade.

This is media paternalism at its worst, the idea that seeing the shooter’s face too much, or reading his 262-word statement, will necessarily inspire copy-cat assassinations and should therefore be withheld from the public.

There is something profoundly dysfunctional at the New York Times, even more so than the media in general.

Cancel your subscription, and use Bypass Paywalls Clean if you feel the need to read an article.

Unparalleled Arrogance

To make that statement about any President of France not named Charles de Gaulle is remarkable, but once again, following the ouster of his previously selected Prime Minister, Emanuel Macron has once again named a PM without any consideration or discussion with the two largest parties in the assembly.

French President Emmanuel Macron named François Bayrou, a centrist ally, as prime minister on Friday, in a bid to restore stability after a no-confidence vote toppled the shortest-serving government in the modern French republic.

Shortest-serving government in the modern French republic so far.

The new prime minister must now try to cobble together a government and get a handle on France’s spiraling deficit and debt burden — in a way that satisfies enough of the warring political factions to keep everything from crashing down again.

European allies are looking for France and neighboring Germany, also in political and financial turmoil, to get their affairs in order at a time when President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to launch a trade war and to pivot the U.S. position on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The appointment of 73-year-old Bayrou — a well-known name in French politics and a longtime Macron ally — came after a nearly two-hour meeting with the president at the Élysée Palace on Friday morning.

………

Facing backlash over the political turmoil, Macron has called on the country’s fractious parties to make compromises in the national interest. He held consultations with the leaders of different blocs in the lead-up to Friday’s announcement. The far-right and far-left parties that pushed for the no-confidence vote have not been included in the talks.

Yes, Macron calls for compromise, and refuses to talk to people who are not his personal allies.

Who says that irony is dead?

Yeah, This Pardon I Object To

Joe Biden has commuted sentence of Michael Conahan, so he gets out .

You remember him, he was a judge in juvenile court who shut down the county detention facility and sent children, and cut a deal with a private prison in exchange for bribes.

This guy should not have his sentence commuted.  Hell, he should have spent the past 13 years being hung from a flag pole by his tongue: 

A former Pennsylvania judge who was convicted of sending children to jail while receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks from the facility’s operator in the early 2000s was one of the nearly 1,500 people whose sentences were commuted Thursday by President Joe Biden.

Michael Conahan had been sentenced to 17½ years in federal prison after being convicted of racketeering conspiracy for his role in the so-called Kids for Cash scandal in Luzerne County. Conahan pulled funding from a county-owned juvenile detention center there and agreed to send juveniles to a for-profit facility in exchange for payments, a scheme that netted him and fellow jurist Mark Ciavarella nearly $3 million.

Conahan, who was convicted in 2011, had been serving his sentence in a Florida facility and was due to be released in 2026. But he was placed in home confinement in 2020 due to the pandemic.

All those commuted by Biden on Thursday had been placed in home confinement for at least a year, the White House said.

Conahan's (and Ciavarella's) actions were particularly heinous, and not only should he not have had his sentence commuted, he should have been sent back to prison as soon as the vaccine was available.

People who violate this sort of trust should be held to a higher standard, whether they be judges, cops, or district attorneys.

Seriously, Just Shut Them Down

Another day, another centimillion dollar settlement paid by McKinsey & Company for corruption, this one for rat-f%$#ery with Purdue Pharma in furtherance of addiction to opioids.

Enough already.

McKinsey & Company has agreed to pay $650 million to settle a Justice Department investigation of its work with the opioid maker Purdue Pharma. A former senior partner has also agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for destroying internal company records in connection with that work.

At the center of the government’s case was the global consulting giant’s recommendation that Purdue Pharma “turbocharge” sales of Purdue’s flagship OxyContin painkiller in the midst of an opioid addiction epidemic that was killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.

The settlement and the government’s findings were presented at a news conference in Boston on Friday. According to prosecutors, McKinsey “knew the risks and dangers associated with OxyContin,” as well as the fact that top Purdue Pharma executives had pleaded guilty to federal crimes relating to sales of the drug. Yet the consulting company chose to continue working with the drugmaker to boost sales of the opioid.

………

McKinsey is widely regarded as the world’s most prestigious management consulting firm, with offices around the globe from which it advises most of the Fortune 500 companies as well as government agencies, including those in authoritarian nations such as China and Saudi Arabia.

That they are not a corporate pariah is an indictment of our society in general.

In recent years, McKinsey has settled government investigations in the United States and overseas by paying hundreds of millions of dollars while not admitting any wrongdoing. That is no longer true.

McKinsey issued a statement on Friday apologizing for its work with the opioid maker.

Oh my, they apologized.  How about throwing executives in jail?

………

In court papers released on Friday, federal prosecutors traced the arc of McKinsey’s work with the opioid maker.

In July 2009, McKinsey wrote that Purdue Pharma’s “top priority” should be “driving a more impactful OxyContin franchise.”

In subsequent years, as the opioid crisis grew, McKinsey continued to formulate new ways for the drugmaker to increase profits, including targeting “opioid naïve” patients, a term used to describe individuals not currently using the drug or those who had used it only once.

You know, before they are jailed, the people who did this should be publicly horsewhipped as well.

………

Congress held hearings in 2022 focusing on the firm’s simultaneous work with opioid makers and the Food and Drug Administration after reports in The Times and elsewhere. A congressional report found that since 2010 at least 22 of the firm’s consultants had worked for both Purdue and the F.D.A., sometimes at the same time.

And they still are hired as consultants by the US government.

No.  Just no. 

My bad, they prosecuted one guy:

………

The guilty plea by the former senior partner, Martin Elling, stems from internal communications in 2018, after Massachusetts sued Purdue over its opioid marketing. Two of the firm’s leading partners who oversaw the Purdue account, Mr. Elling and Arnab Ghatak, discussed how to handle it.

OK, they prosecuted two guys:

………

The plea follows an announcement this month by federal prosecutors that another former McKinsey senior partner, Vikas Sagar, pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with paying bribes to secure South African government contracts for the firm. McKinsey had earlier fired Mr. Sagar.

How about a corporate death penalty for McKinsey.  They should be destroyed just as Arthur Andersen was.

F%$# Me. I Agree with Musk and Ramaswamy

As a part of their DOGE clown show, they want to shut down the National Endowment for Democracy.

At least I am disagreeing with a Wall Street Journal editorial:

On June 8, 1982, President Ronald Reagan delivered a sweeping address on freedom and democracy to members of the British Parliament. He urged democracies not only to defend their principles at home but also to promote them abroad. He traced the struggle for freedom to the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and the Greeks’ stand against the Persians at Thermopylae. He asserted that “freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings” and noted that the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights “guarantees free elections.”

………

Reagan’s vision sparked the creation in 1983 of the National Endowment for Democracy, a private nonprofit corporation funded by Congress that acts as a grant-making foundation. Reagan’s words are woven into the organization's founding declaration. For four decades, the organization has remained true to this vision. 

………

The organization has long enjoyed bipartisan support. But now it’s coming under assault and is reportedly near the top of the Department of Government Efficiency’s hit list. If true, this is a troubling development.

I can’t claim to be a neutral observer. I served for nearly a decade on the foundation’s board, during which time I developed deep respect for the organization’s mission and for the dedication and integrity of its staff.

This man is lying.

The NED was created by Bill Casey as a CIA cutout for regime change operations.

It's purpose was to allow those operations to be pursued by the CIA without any formal government approval.

Bill Casey and the CIA wanted to be able to overthrow governments without any authorization from Congress or from the President.

It was intended to subvert the democratic checks and balances of our government.

It is a corrupt and destructive organization that should have been shut down years ago.

Damn

The bankruptcy judge in Houston rejected the sale of Alex Jones' Infowars to The Onion.

I think that his ruling was complete bullash%$, and is an indication of the general corruption of the US bankruptcy courts.

A judge late Tuesday night said he would not approve the sale of Infowars, the website founded by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, to the Chicago-based satirical publication The Onion, prolonging a messy tug of war between two high-profile suitors.

The ruling, by Judge Christopher M. Lopez in federal bankruptcy court in Houston, poses a roadblock for The Onion’s plan to take possession of the Infowars site and its associated assets after it won an auction last month. The Onion’s bid was backed by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, who in 2022 won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones spent years claiming that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax and that victims’ family members were actors complicit in the plot. The Onion has said that it wants to turn Infowars into a satirical site mocking the kind of conspiracy theories that Mr. Jones spreads.

Judge Lopez’s ruling put the fate of Infowars in limbo. He instructed a court-appointed trustee, Christopher Murray, to come up with an alternative resolution, though it was not immediately clear what approach Mr. Murray would take. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The deal that the trustee approved basically had the Connecticut parents foregoing much of their award so that other creditors were to get more.  (They really wanted to hurt Jones, a sentiment that I support)

This sucks.

It's Thursday ╭∩╮（︶︿︶）╭∩╮

Undeniably bad numbers, with 242,000 initial claims, well above the forecast of 220,000, while continuing claims rose to 1.89 million:

Applications for US unemployment benefits rose to a two-month high last week, at a time around the end-of-year holidays when data is volatile.

Initial claims increased by 17,000 to 242,000 in the week ended Dec. 7. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 220,000 applications. A metric that helps smooth out volatility, the four-week moving average, rose as well and unadjusted data suggest the gains were spread across states.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, increased to 1.89 million in the previous week — which included the Thanksgiving holiday — according to Labor Department data released Thursday.

Also, the producer price index (PPI) rose by .4% last month led by ……… Eggs?

U.S. producer prices increased by the most in five months in November, but easing costs of services such as portfolio management fees and airline fares offered hope that the disinflationary trend remains in place despite stalled progress.

A surge in the price of eggs amid an avian flu outbreak accounted for much of the bigger-than-expected rise in producer inflation last month. Other details of the report from the Labor Department on Thursday were, however, mostly favorable, prompting economists to sharply lower their estimates for the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price measures tracked by the Federal Reserve for its 2% inflation target.

So bird flu is f%$#ing the poultry industry.

And, we are seeing an increase in infections being transmitted to people.  (And cows)

We may be seeing yet another pandemic in its early stages.

Deep Thought

 I don't make the rules, I just know them and quote them in the most obnoxious manner possible.

Inflation Numbers Today

They are generally as expected, with year over year inflation edged up slightly. pretty much in line with expectations. 

The perception is that the Federal Reserve will cut rates at its next meeting anyway.

Fresh inflation data released on Wednesday made clear that the Federal Reserve’s fight against rapid price increases was not over. Still, the details of the report probably gave central bank officials enough confidence to cut interest rates at their meeting next week.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 2.7 percent in the year through November, just slightly faster than the 2.6 percent reading in October. After volatile food and fuel costs were stripped out for a better sense of the underlying inflation trend, “core” inflation held steady at 3.3 percent.

But drilling into the details of the report, a long-awaited slowdown in housing cost inflation materialized last month. Because rental costs make up such a big chunk of overall inflation, that could pave the way for cooler inflation readings going forward.

As one can ascertain from the graph, shelter is a very big part of the problem, and it has been made immeasurably worse by the machinations of private equity and hedge fund speculation.

Greedflation is a thing, and it needs strong regulation to fix it, which will not be happening over the next 4 years.

I Get This

I generally do not give much thought to the proclamations of celebrities, but something Keira Knightly said really resonated with me.

She will not have any more children in addition to her current 2, not because of the work, and not because the pain of labor, or the inconvenience of pregnancy, but because she cannot deal with having to watch Peppa Pig with her kids any more.

Keira Knightley is over having kids but it's not because of any of the reasons you may think.

The British actress and star of Netflix's new spy-thriller series "Black Doves" spilled the real reason why two children are enough for her on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon."

“You know that thing where you’re like ‘Oh, you know they’re so nice. Should we have another one?’ ” Knightley said. “And you think, ‘Oh yeah, I could do the pregnancy. I could even do the birth but I cannot watch anymore Peppa Pig.’ So there's no more kids."

Knightley described her children, who are 5 and 9, as "very cool right now. They're into Studio Ghibli and just like beautiful things where you're just like 'oh, this is just lovely' after seven years of 'Peppa Pig.'"

 Thankfully, my kids were pre Peppa Pig.

I’m Beginning to Think That Is a Basic Flaw in Its Architecture

Yet again, the Pentagon has grounded the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor.

This is the 3rd grounding in about 1½ years, and there are a lot more.

For an aircraft that has been in service for almost 20 years, this is not a good thing.

It has always had maintenance issues, a susceptibility to vortex ring state, is unable to autorotate, and has a highly restricted flight envelope.  (This is one of the reasons that Israel ended their consideration of the type)

There are other technologies that deliver similar ranges, albeit at slightly slower speeds and have few, if any of the tilt rotor's vices.

Quote of the Day

Elon Musk Feeds AI 'All Court Cases,' Promises It Will Replace Judges Because He's An Idiot

—Above the Law

While ……… Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ is an idiot, I'm inclined to think that, much like the Ecch (Twitter) algorithm, Musk is to deceive not to develop a great legal software brain.

It really is remarkable how Elon Musk has destroyed his carefully cultivated image as a visionary genius in a couple of years.

It was always a humbug, but he had spent decades in support of the deception.

Support Your Local Police, a Threefer

A couple of stories today, first, in Worcester, Massachusetts where the Department of Justice has found a pattern of excessive force and sexual abuse in the police department:

A two-year investigation by the Justice Department found patterns of “outrageous” conduct by the police in Worcester, Mass., including excessive use of force and sexual contact between undercover officers and women suspected of prostitution.

In a report released on Monday, the department’s civil rights division detailed police misconduct dating back at least five years in Worcester, a city of 207,000 in central Massachusetts. It corroborated repeated reports by women’s advocates in the city that officers had “tricked or misled” women suspected of being prostitutes into providing sex acts and “offered less, or no, punishment in exchange for sex.”

Federal investigators found that the Worcester Police Department’s “inadequate” policies, training, supervision, investigations and discipline “fostered these unlawful patterns.” They also raised “serious concerns” that the department’s enforcement practices could result in biased and discriminatory policing of Black and Hispanic residents, who were disproportionately arrested and subjected to force, according to the report.

………

Worcester is the second city in Massachusetts where the Justice Department has found a pattern of police misconduct in recent years. An investigation of the narcotics division of the Springfield Police Department concluded in 2020 that officers there had used excessive force because of deficient policies and a lack of accountability.

………

In Worcester, examples of excessive force included “unreasonably stunning people with Tasers, striking people in the head, using police dogs to bite people and escalating minor incidents, including during calls related to behavioral health,” according to the Justice Department report.

………

The report cited multiple examples of Worcester officers hitting people in the head and face, including one instance in which an officer punched a handcuffed man three times in the face when he resisted an escort to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

Another officer responding to a mental health call, who had previously received 40 hours of training in crisis intervention, hit a man in the face while he was restrained and lying on a hospital stretcher, the report said. The officer described his action as an “open hand distraction technique.” He did not report his use of force against the man, who had spit at him, until a bystander’s video later attracted public attention.

………

Still, despite longstanding complaints about inappropriate sexual conduct by officers — and “multiple credible accounts that W.P.D. officers have sexually assaulted women under threat of arrest” — leaders of the Worcester police failed to develop responsive policies or training, the Justice Department found.

In addition, officers who admitted to sexual misconduct were never disciplined, according to the report.

If you think that this is horrifying, the fact that police all over the country are reselling automatic weapons on the black market.

By automatic weapons, I mean things like, "90 machine guns, including an M134 Gatling-style minigun capable of shooting up to 6,000 rounds of ammunition every minute."

That makes me safe.

In related news, the the former sheriff of Culpepper County Virginia is going on trial for selling deputy positions to people who wanted to buy guns.

By selling, I mean taking envelopes of cash for a badge: 

When Democrats took power in Richmond five years ago and trained their attention on tightening gun laws, a rural sheriff named Scott Jenkins stood before the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors and vowed to fight back, pledging to use the authority of his office to skirt what he called “ridiculous” and “insane” attacks on the Second Amendment.

“If the legislature decides to restrict certain weapons that I feel aren’t a harm to our community, I will look to swear in thousands of auxiliary deputies in Culpeper,” Jenkins declared at that December 2019 supervisors meeting, positioning himself at the vanguard of resistance to perceived liberal interference.

………

In fact, federal authorities allege, Jenkins, now 53, already had begun appointing auxiliary deputies — but not purely out of concern for citizens’ self-defense.

When the ex-sheriff goes on trial Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, charged with multiple counts of bribery and fraud, prosecutors said, the jury will hear about a long-running scheme in which Jenkins enriched himself and his political campaign by selling badges and law enforcement powers to untrained, well-to-do people, including a felon.

………

Six men paid a total of about $65,000, much of it in cash stuffed in envelopes, for deputy credentials, which they could use for personal privileges, such as dodging traffic tickets, prosecutors said. Three of the six were indicted with Jenkins; the others have not been charged. Prosecutors said two undercover FBI agents posing as wannabe auxiliary deputies gave Jenkins an additional $15,000 in cash.

………

The two accused conspirators referred to the businessmen as “money guys,” the filing says. “The ‘money guys’ were motivated to purchase sheriff’s badges primarily because Jenkins and Individual 1 told them that the badges gave them authority to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states. … In addition, Jenkins and Individual 1 told the ‘money guys’ that if they were pulled over by law enforcement while driving, they could show their badges and credentials to request ‘professional courtesy’ and avoid a ticket.”

Here is a quick way to identify corrupt cops, if they brand themselves as "2nd Amendment" cops, they are dirty.

Quote of the Day

I Was at a Show in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday Night, and When the Comedians Onstage Cracked a Joke About the Shooter the Entire Place Erupted in Cheers

— Jia Tolentino at The New Yorker

The shooter is, of course, allegedly Luigi Mangione, and he shot the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

So much hate.  So completely justified.

Worst Adaption of King Lear Ever

Rupert Murdoch has lost the court fight to cut 3 of his 4 children out of control of his media empire.

He wanted to give complete control to Lachlan, and leave the other 3 eldest James, Elisabeth and Prudence with no control of the Newscorp.

The judge said that an irrevocable trust is just that, irrevocable, and additionally making Lachlan the exclusive manager of the organization would jeopardize the interests of the other three.

In arguments, Rupert Murdoch stated that he wanted Lachlan, who most closely follows his antediluvian politics, to run things, but I'm wondering if this wasn't a ploy initiated by the eldest son.

In any case, whatever pain this causes the patriarch of the Murdoch clan is well deserved:

A Nevada commissioner ruled resoundingly against Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to change his family’s trust to consolidate his eldest son Lachlan’s control of his media empire and lock in Fox News’s right-wing editorial slant, according to a sealed court document obtained by The New York Times.

The commissioner, Edmund J. Gorman Jr., concluded in a decision filed on Saturday that the father and son, who is the head of Fox News and News Corp., had acted in “bad faith” in their effort to amend the irrevocable trust, which divides control of the company equally among Mr. Murdoch’s four oldest children — Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence — after his death.

The ruling was at times scathing. At one point in his 96-page opinion, Mr. Gorman characterizes the plan to change the trust as a “carefully crafted charade” to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles” inside the empire “regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries” of the family trust.

………

The battle over the family trust is not about money — Mr. Murdoch is not seeking to diminish any of his children’s financial stakes in the company — but rather about future control of the world’s most powerful conservative media empire, which includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and major newspapers and television outlets in Australia and Britain.

And therein lies the rub.  If Lachlan runs said empire without any input from the beneficiaries of the fund, he can cause them significant financial harm.

It should be noted that the trust appears to have been structured to evade inheritance taxes, so there is a bit more schadenfreude there as well.

………

The commissioner’s ruling, while significant, is not the final word in the case. The commissioner acts as a “special master” who weighs the testimony and evidence and submits a recommended resolution to the Probate Court. It falls to a district judge to ratify or reject that recommendation. Even then, the losing party is free to challenge the determination, which could precipitate an intensive new round of litigation.

Yeah, but Murdoch is 93 years old, and any new round of litigation will likely outlast him.

You are going to hell Rupert, you might as well begin enjoying it on earth.

I am completely unsurprised that former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr is hip deep in this affair.  If something unethical is to be done, he's your man.

In Lieu of a Cake with a File, Send Old Bay

There is now a suspect in the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione.

He's a Marylander and a Baltamorean, he went to the posh private Gilman School in Roland Park, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, seriously Ivy League.

According to my eldest, he was the friend of a friend theirs on social media.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Weird, to say the least.

Luigi Mangione, the online version of him, was an Ivy League tech enthusiast who flaunted his tanned, chiseled looks in beach photos and party pictures with blue-blazered frat buddies.

He was the valedictorian of a prestigious Baltimore prep school who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a head counselor at a pre-college program at Stanford University.

………

The police now believe that Mr. Mangione, 26, is the masked gunman who calmly took out a pistol equipped with a suppressor on a Midtown Manhattan street last week and assassinated Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare. He was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Monday after an employee at a McDonald’s recognized him and called the police. Officers said they found him with fake identification, a weapon similar to the one seen in video of the killing and a manifesto decrying the health care industry.

Later on Monday, Mr. Mangione was charged in Manhattan with murder, along with additional counts of forgery and illegal weapons possession. And in the hours after his apprehension, his baffling journey from star student to murder suspect began to come into focus.

Mr. Mangione was in regular contact with friends and family until about six months ago when he suddenly and inexplicably stopped communicating with them. He had been suffering from a painful back injury, friends said, and then went dark, prompting anxious inquiries from relatives to his friends: Had anyone heard from him?

My guess is that he got f%$#ed over by UHC, and he f%$#ed back violently.

His family owns a right-wing radio station, and his cousin is a Republican in the Maryland House of Delegates.

In any case, if you want to send him a care package, I would suggest Old Bay Seasoning in its original packaging.

Trust me, it's a Maryland thing.

There was a part of me hoping that he would get away with it.

Just Shut Them Down

So, once again, we see McKinsey & Company having to pay significant fines for facilitating corruption, this time in South Africa.

It is increasingly clear that this is not a few bad apples, this is their core business model.

They need to go the way of Arthur Andersen:

A McKinsey & Co. subsidiary agreed to pay more than $122 million to resolve allegations it paid bribes to officials at two South African state-owned companies to help the firm win millions of dollars of consulting work.

McKinsey Africa was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and as part of the settlement, the subsidiary entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement, according to prosecutors in Manhattan.

Vikas Sagar, a former McKinsey senior partner in the consulting firm’s Johannesburg office who participated in the bribery scheme, pleaded guilty in December 2022 to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA, according to the Justice Department. Sagar’s guilty plea was unsealed on Thursday. Attempts to reach Sagar weren’t immediately successful.

McKinsey in a statement said it conducted an investigation into the conduct of Sagar and terminated his employment more than seven years ago, adding that it has “zero tolerance” for such conduct. The firm added that it was “deeply remorseful” that an employee of the firm engaged in such conduct, and that it had made a full repayment of fees to the state-owned companies and would continue to cooperate with U.S. and South African authorities.

Unethical behavior is at the core of their business.

Just shut them down.

Thoughts on Syria

I don't have much in the way of insights beyond the obvious, that frozen conflicts are a recipe for disaster.

In the short term, and by that I mean in the next 6 months, I would expect to see significant refugee flows (from the mid 5 figures to the low 6 figures) from the Syrian Alewite community, which numbers about 2½ million in Syria.

They, specifically the Assad family, have been in charge of Syria for over 50 years, and the new government will be dominated by Salafi Jihadists, and as such, they consider Shiah and Alewite religions to be apostasy.

Also, there are 50 years of scores to settle, which may push migration even higher.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

My son Charlie does standup, and I got a text that is a work in progress for his act.

Here's 4 things we know about "The Adjuster," the person who shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson:

1. He can bench press the entire weight of America's sorrow.

2. He is an advocate for quality mass transit.

3. He rescued my cat from a tree in 2019.

4. He knows the names of every barista at his favorite cafe and they're always happy to see him.

I do not want my death to be memed mercilessly.

F%$# Scott Walker

One of the lasting legacies of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the infamous ACT 10, which essentially banned unions for government workers (except for cops and firemen) in Wisconsin, has been struck down.

It turns out that the exception for cops and firemen, who were given said exemption because they endorsed Walker, was not sufficiently defined, and the statute could not stand without that:

A Dane County judge on Monday sent ripples through Wisconsin's political landscape, overturning a 13-year-old law that banned most collective bargaining among public employees, consequently decimating the size and power of employee unions and turning then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker into a nationally known political figure.

The effort to overturn Act 10 began in November 2023 when several unions representing public employees filed the lawsuit, citing a "dire situation" in workplaces with issues including low pay, staffing shortages and poor working conditions.

In July, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost ruled provisions of Act 10 unconstitutional and denied a motion filed by the Republican-controlled Legislature to dismiss the case.

The lawsuit argued the 2011 law violated equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing public employees into two classes: "general" and "public safety" employees. Public safety employees are exempt from the collective bargaining limitations imposed on "general" public employees.

Frost agreed. He said he couldn't sever Act 10's definition of "public safety employee," which he said is "irrational and violates the right to equal protection of the laws," and also keep the rest of Act 10 intact.

"I cannot solve Act 10's constitutional problems by striking the definition of 'public safety employee,' leaving the term undefined and leaving the remainder of the law in place," wrote Frost in Monday's ruling.

Frost added that "Act 10 as written by the Legislature specifically and narrowly defines 'public safety employee.' It is that definition which is unconstitutional. The Legislature cites no precedent for this bold argument that I should simply strike the unlawful definition but leave it to an agency and the courts to later define as they see fit. I am unaware of any such precedent (...)."

In the earlier ruling on the motion to dismiss the case, Frost pointed out the law treats different groups of public safety employees differently.

"Nobody could provide this Court an explanation that reasonably showed why municipal police and fire and State Troopers are considered public safety employees, but Capitol Police, UW Police and conservation wardens, who have the same authority and do the same work, are not," Frost said.

The law was all about political payback, and while I understand why Judge Frost was disinclined to state reality, that is the reality.

The law was a corrupt political and electoral thing, and the fact that it has been overturned is a good thing.

H/t Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Not a Remotely Mature Technology

It turns out that as a result of libel suits and complaints, ChatGPT has been manually hard-coding names into their system. 

They cannot get the program to stop spewing falsehoods, so they shut it down whenever certain names are mentioned:

OpenAI's ChatGPT is more than just an AI language model with a fancy interface. It's a system consisting of a stack of AI models and content filters that make sure its outputs don't embarrass OpenAI or get the company into legal trouble when its bot occasionally makes up potentially harmful facts about people.

Recently, that reality made the news when people discovered that the name "David Mayer" breaks ChatGPT. 404 Media also discovered that the names "Jonathan Zittrain" and "Jonathan Turley" caused ChatGPT to cut conversations short. And we know another name, likely the first, that started the practice last year: Brian Hood. More on that below.

The chat-breaking behavior occurs consistently when users mention these names in any context, and it results from a hard-coded filter that puts the brakes on the AI model's output before returning it to the user.

………

OpenAI did not respond to our request for comment about the names, but we know when the filter originated, and as a result, the other names are also likely filtered due to complaints about ChatGPT's tendency to confabulate erroneous responses when lacking sufficient information about a person.

We first discovered that ChatGPT choked on the name "Brian Hood" in mid-2023 while writing about his defamation lawsuit. In that lawsuit, the Australian mayor threatened to sue OpenAI after discovering ChatGPT falsely claimed he had been imprisoned for bribery when, in fact, he was a whistleblower who had exposed corporate misconduct.

The case was ultimately resolved in April 2023 when OpenAI agreed to filter out the false statements within Hood's 28-day ultimatum. That is possibly when the first ChatGPT hard-coded name filter appeared.

What they are doing at OpenAI is not just an admission of error, it is an admission that they cannot make the system work properly.

If the system were truly intelligent, then it could be made to understand the underlying facts, and it cannot, and never will be able to.