Quote of the Day

My basic test for whether a general purpose humanoid robot would be useful, well, generally, is whether or not it can clear my table, load my dishwasher, and then put the dishes away. I don't mean that's the most important task I can imagine, just that if it can do tasks like that, it would fit the fantasy, and if it can't, it's pretty useless. And once you try to imagine one doing that, I think you can see how that's... well... hard.

—Duncan "Atrios" Black

It really is a bit of a mind-f%$# that a random economist with a popular blog better understands the nature of reality than tech bro "sooper geniuses" out there like Musk, Andreeson, Altman, Pichai, and Zuckerberg.

They think that adding to the excrement that LLM artificial intelligence models are churning out, and then feeding the aforementioned excrement back into their LLM artificial intelligence models will somehow or other create something meaningful and useful, because all they know is how to throw money and random data at a model.

To quote Dick Feynmann, "Reality cannot be fooled."

F%$# Me! I Agree with Bill F%$#Ing Gates

Stopped clock, I guess, but when, "Bill Gates accuses Elon Musk of ‘killing’ children with USAID cuts," he is right.

Musk also killed about a dozen of people in Kentucky by DOGE's fakakde understaffing the local National Weather Service Offices.

I think that Elon Musk is sexually aroused by killing the helpless and weak.

No Blogging Tonight

 I'm working on Neanderthal chemically synthesized adhesives.

Want Some Cheese with That Whine?

According to Chief Justice John Roberts, the rule of law is endangered in the United States.

According to him, it's not endangered by Donald Trump ignoring Congressional appropriations, and he doesn't mention ignoring laws, nor does he mention ICE thugs abducting people off of the street and disappearing them.

No, to John Roberts, the problem is people criticizing the courts, particularly people criticizing the Supreme Court.

Perhaps if you did not grant immunity to Presidents for anything that might be construed as official acts, or did your best to gloss over naked corruption of justices Thomas, Scalito, and Kavanaugh, people would not be criticizing you.

Chief Justice John Roberts described the rule of law as “endangered” and warned against “trashing the justices,” but speaking in Washington Monday he didn’t point fingers directly at President Donald Trump or his allies for publicly excoriating judges who’ve ruled against aspects of Trump’s agenda.

“The notion that rule of law governs is the basic proposition,” Roberts said during an appearance at Georgetown Law. “Certainly as a matter of theory, but also as a matter of practice, we need to stop and reflect every now and then how rare that is, certainly rare throughout history, and rare in the world today.”

………

Roberts suggested some recent verbal attacks on the justices had gone too far, but he gave no specific examples. “The court has obviously made mistakes throughout its history, and those should be criticized, so long as it is in terms of the decision, really, and not ad hominem against the justices. I just think that doesn’t do any good,” the chief justice said.

Maybe if you were not gleefully presiding of the increasingly corrupt and politically partisan right wing of the court, people would not be criticizing the justices.

Johnny, respected is earned by what you do, not what position you hold.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We are basically treading water, with initial jobless claims unchanged and continuing claims falling a bit.

Not a clue as to what is happening with the jobs market: 

The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits was unchanged last week, but job opportunities are becoming more scarce for those out of work as economic uncertainty from tariffs discourages businesses from boosting hiring.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits held steady at a seasonally adjusted 229,000 for the week ended May 10, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 229,000 claims for the latest week.

………

The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, increased 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.881 million during the week ending May 3, the claims report showed. That aligns with a surge in the median duration of unemployment to 10.4 weeks in April from 9.8 weeks in March.

On the other hand, US factory output fell for the first time in 6 months: 

US factory production declined in April for the first time in six months, marking a soft start to the second quarter for manufacturers encumbered by higher import duties.

The 0.4% decrease in manufacturing production followed an upwardly revised 0.4% gain a month earlier, Federal Reserve data showed Thursday. Excluding autos, factory production fell 0.3% in April.

Overall industrial production was unchanged. Output at utilities increased, while mining and energy extraction dropped.

The retreat in manufacturing, which accounts for three-fourths of total industrial production, followed a healthy advance in the first quarter as many customers boosted orders before the brunt of President Donald Trump’s tariffs took effect. Recent months also included a ramp-up in the production of aircraft.

It seems to me that the pre-tariff panic buying is receding now, and with inventories high, orders to factories are receding.

What does this all mean?

F%$# if I know.

No, Just No

Major League Baseball has reversed their bans on Pete Rose and the Black Sox, all of whom were banned because they bet on games that they were involved in.

I guess that they decided that the owners could make some money off Pete Rose and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson merchandise, so all is forgiven.

This is wrong.

Allowing them back into the sport, even posthumously is wrong, it is wrong now, and it is wrong forever.

That sound you here is former Major League Baseball Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis  spinning in his grave at 4,256 RPM.

Just when you thought that America's Pastime could not get any more venal or corrupt ………

Rather unsurprisingly, it looks like Trump may have had a hand in this decision, he has been making statements supporting this for some time.

F%$# Donald Trump and f%$# MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Morons

Guess what?  After DOGE and its evil minions™ forced out 15,000 USDA employees, the US Department of Agriculture is scrambling to recruit new people to replace them.

Gee, hoocoodanode that firing all the folks who did the real work would result in no work getting done.

In testimony on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins confirmed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now looking to fill critical positions, after agreeing to pay more than 15,000 employees' salaries and benefits through September in exchange for their resignations.

………

But the need to fill positions so soon after letting people go has raised questions, including from Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

There are no questions here.

They are incompetent, though to be fair, this could be an attempt to allow right wing saboteurs to burrow into the bureaucracy, but my money is them being idiots.

What a Shame

The law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft is learning a lesson, " Go fash, go broke," as Scott Lemieux so pithily notes:

Venerable New York Firm That Struck a Deal With Trump Is Losing Lawyers

Cadwalader avoided a punitive executive order, but the accord has left the firm in turmoil

By Erin Mulvaney, May 8, 2025 2:55 pm ET

You know the joke about, "Legal Ethics being an oxymoron?" 

It turns out that for a lot of lawyers, and a lot of lawyers who had very comfortable positions at the 233 year old white shoe firm, legal ethics is something that they take very seriously.

Good on them:

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft struck a deal with President Trump last month intended to secure the future of New York’s oldest law firm. Instead the pact is backfiring, adding to an exodus of lawyers that has placed the firm on uncertain footing.

Cadwalader already was facing troubles, including imminent attorney departures, before its April 11 deal with the White House in which it avoided a punitive executive order by pledging at least $100 million of pro bono work to support the president’s priorities. The agreement now is pushing more lawyers to leave, people familiar with the matter said, spurred by anger that the firm capitulated to Trump instead of fighting back against an administration campaign that many in the industry believe to be unconstitutional.

A key partner in the firm’s litigation group is in late-stage talks to join a boutique firm and several other litigators are planning an exit, the people said. J.B. Howard, who is counsel at the firm and a former Maryland deputy attorney general, is also leaving and sent a letter to firm leadership protesting its capitulation, people familiar with his departure said.

The firm, founded in 1792, made a record $638 million in revenue last year. A firm spokesman said that 2025 is on track to be even stronger than the previous year and that Cadwalader has added five new partners in recent months. “Departures can be tough,” he said. But he added, “Some attrition is normal and expected; it is part of the typical rhythm of a successful firm.”

Unlike the consultant/vampires who populate the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment), these folks are actually (literally) putting their money where their mouths are.

I would remind folks out there that the famous Shakespeare quote, "First, let's kill all lawyers," is actually an endorsement of lawyers and their important role in resisting tyranny.

It is said in a discussion by a group of people planning to impose a reign of terror, and they want to kill lawyers because it makes them easier to do so.

Quote of the Day

Why Are Ice Agents Such Cowardly Wusses?

—Will Bunch

I actually have the answer for this one:  It's all law enforcement.

Police have been trained for decades to live their lives and do their jobs in extreme pants-wetting fear. 

They have been taught that if a violent suspect gets within 30 feet of them, they are as good as dead, and that everyone is a violent suspect.

When a cop defuses a situation instead of shooting a mentally ill man dead, they get fired.

This is a natural consequence of a culture of impunity and cowardice.

………

I’m dubious myself, but if this Jerry Lee Lewis “Great Balls of Fire”-inspired technique actually does work, I’ll tell you my first candidate for getting zapped down there: [This refers to a masculinity enhancing treatment that involves shining light on one's own testicles] the performatively male officers who work for America’s alphabet soup of Department of Homeland Security agencies — especially U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its little sister, Homeland Security Investigations.

They are suddenly everywhere all at once — waiting for hours in unmarked cars before pouncing in their blue jeans and untucked shirts, never wearing a badge but almost always donning a ski mask or a full-blown balaclava, even on 80-degree days. They epitomize America’s de-evolution from G.I. Joe to Mort from Bazooka Joe, but with less maturity than that, as they push around teenage girls and octogenarians, and are barely believable when they command, “We are the police!”

These dubious tactics — which are meant to intimidate undocumented immigrants and the American people writ large — instead reek of the agents’ own fear and paranoia. That came to a head last Friday in a shocking incident in which these masked desperados went wild over a lawful inspection of Newark’s new ICE detention facility by three New Jersey members of Congress and the city’s mayor, Ras Baraka.

And then comes the coup de grace:

The mayor was there to check out the facility’s alleged multiple violations of Newark law, but instead masked agents arrested him, charged him with “trespassing,” and detained him for several hours. After the chaotic scene, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told CNN that the congressional group had “stormed” the ICE facility, that a Congress member had “body slammed” a female ICE agent, and that all three lawmakers might be arrested.

The feds’ promised video didn’t reveal any “body slamming,” but it did show these face-hiding 298-pound weaklings jostling 80-year-old U.S. Rep. Bonnie Coleman Watson. If these craven agents ever formed a hip-hop group, they’d have to call them, ICE Low-T.

(emphasis mine)

The behavior of ICE, and IBP show that where one should have officers who enforce the laws and keep the peace, we have bullies and contemptible craven cowards.

I don't know if ICE should be abolished, but it's clear that at least 80% of these folks should be fired and forbidden from possessing a firearm for the rest of their natural lives. 

ICE is worse than your average cop on the beat right now, but this is where law enforcement is going generally.

Seriously?

A Phillip J. Fry MomentElizabeth Holmes isn't due to get out of jail for another 7 years, (Not long enough) but her baby daddy is looking to have yet another grift ready for her when she gets out.

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

Why on earth is anyone lining up to sent their money? 

Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. In the meantime, her partner is starting one of his own.

Billy Evans, who has two children with Ms. Holmes, is trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics” and “a radically new approach to health testing,” according to marketing materials reviewed by The New York Times.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because Theranos similarly aimed to revolutionize diagnostic testing. The Silicon Valley start-up captured the world’s attention by claiming, falsely as it turned out, to have developed a blood-testing device that could run a slew of complex lab tests from a mere finger prick.

Mr. Evans’s company is named Haemanthus, which is a flower also known as the blood lily. It plans to begin with testing pets for diseases before progressing to humans, according to two investors pitched on the company who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had agreed to keep the plans secret. Mr. Evans’s marketing materials, which lay out hopes to eventually raise more than $50 million, say the ultimate goal is nothing short of “human health optimization.”

Yeah, and they are claiming that it's exempt from regulation, which is a lie:

………

The marketing documents provided with the photo say there is “no regulatory oversight — U.S.D.A. confirmed in writing.”

It’s not clear what the company means by that. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Seth W. Christensen, said he was not able to confirm whether the agency had corresponded with Haemanthus. “U.S.D.A. does regulate vet diagnostics,” including blood testing, Mr. Christensen said.

Of course, it's all sooper-dooper sekret, so they cannot answer any questions:

Mr. Evans responded in an interview, “When you’re in stealth, you’re trying to be in stealth. They aren’t going to find anything associated with the name Haemanthus.” Mr. Evans sent a partially redacted document from the U.S.D.A. that said, “It does not appear that the proposed product is within the regulatory jurisdiction" of the Center for Veterinary Biologics, which is a part of the U.S.D.A.

Geebus, it's amazing just how much bullsh%# the children of privilege are allowed to get away with, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

You Maniacs! You Blew It Up! Ah, Damn You! God Damn You All to Hell!

They broke the broke the New York Times Pitchbot!

This is so egregiously horrible that it has exceeded the Pitchbot's ability to parody the "Gray lady."

It is a complete mind f%$# that a person who has dedicated many minutes every day to satirizing self described, "All the news that's fit to print," has found that the actual behavior of a NY Times reporter beyond parody.

This Pissed Me Off

I saw Some Like it Hot musical play at the Hippodrome Theater.

It was a good production, and the people working the sets probably have PTSD, the set work was insane. (In a good way)

What pissed me off was that somewhere between ⅓ and ½ of the audience headed for the exists when the final curtain fell.

So, they were heading for the exit as the actors were taking their bows.

That is just f%$#ing rude. 

Actors are people, so it's not the same as ignoring the credits and heading for the door at the end of the movie.

Yeah, This Ain't Good

We have missile and drone attacks and what appears to be the largest dogfight in decades, going on between India and Pakistan.

Given that both countries possess substantial nuclear arsenals, this is ……… How to phrase this? ……… Profoundly concerning.

India said early Wednesday that it had conducted several airstrikes on Pakistan, hailing a victory in the name of vengeance for the terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Kashmir last month.

But evidence was also growing that the Indian forces may have taken heavy losses during the operation. At least two aircraft were said to have gone down in India and the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, according to three officials, local news reports, and accounts of witnesses who had seen the debris of two.

The Indian government said its forces had struck nine sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of the disputed Kashmir region, in what it described as retaliation for a terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Kashmir. Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people had been killed and dozens injured after six places were hit on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and in Punjab Province. Residents of the Indian side of Kashmir said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling from the Pakistani side since India carried out its strikes.

………

India said on Wednesday that it had struck Pakistan after gathering evidence “pointing towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists” in last month’s attack on civilians in a tourist area in Kashmir. It said that its military actions had been “measured, responsible and designed to be nonescalatory in nature.” It added that it had targeted only “known terror camps.” 

In its own statement on Wednesday, the Pakistani government called the Indian strikes “an unprovoked and blatant act of war” that had “violated Pakistan’s sovereignty.” Pakistani military officials said they had begun a “measured but forceful” response, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed that the country’s forces had downed five Indian aircraft — a claim that could not be verified.

In its own statement on Wednesday, the Pakistani government called the Indian strikes “an unprovoked and blatant act of war” that had “violated Pakistan’s sovereignty.” Pakistani military officials said they had begun a “measured but forceful” response, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed that the country’s forces had downed five Indian aircraft — a claim that could not be verified.

One Indian official confirmed the crash of three aircraft, but cautioned that the reasons were not clear. Two other Indian security officials confirmed reports that some Indian aircraft had gone down, but would not elaborate on the details. They all spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of military action. 

News channels and witnesses said at least one aircraft had gone down on the Indian side of Kashmir. A second aircraft was reported to have been downed in the Indian state of Punjab, according to Indian news reports and a witness account.

Analyzing witness photos from one wreckage site, in the village of Wuyan in India-administered Kashmir, a weapons researcher identified the debris as an external fuel tank for a plane. The analyst, Trevor Ball, of Armament Research Services, said the tank was likely from a Rafale or Mirage fighter jet, both of which are made by the French manufacturer Dassault Aviation and used by India. Mr. Ball could not confirm whether the tank had come from an aircraft that had been hit by enemy fire.

I'm rather surprised that the Pakistanis appear to have done so well, not because they were using Chinese equipment, which they were, but because they were using relatively low end Chinese equipment, the Chengdu J-10 and CAC JF-17, and they took out a Sukhois and Rafales, which are not low end aircraft.

More concerning than aviation geekery though is that both sides have nukes, and this can go pear shaped quite quickly, and the fallout (pun intended) from uncontrolled escalation and literally go nuclear.

Quote of the Day

Apparently, Stephen Miller thinks that Donald Trump can suspend the writ of habeas corpus. There’s just one problem with that idea, as a little known law professor wrote in the Cornell Law Review in 2014: “Congress alone can suspend the writ.” The name of that professor was Amy Coney Barrett.

—Corey Robin

I hope that Mr. Robin is correct here, but we do know that the conservative wing of the court frequently operate under the legal principal of, "It's OK if you're a Republican." (IOKIYAR) 

It is naive to expect conservative Supreme Court Justices to act in a non-partisan manner or with integrity.

F%$# Me! I F%$#ing Agree With Charlie F%$#ing Kirk!

The bill to ban congressional stock trading is entitled the PELOSI Act, or "Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments."

I usually don't like cute names for pieces of legislation, but this one hit the nail on the head. Bravo.

Pass it!! pic.twitter.com/pN8nicKJRx

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 29, 2025

I agree on all points, that cutely named bills are childish bullsh%$ and that insider trading by members of Congress is both corrupt and corrupting, but that t.

Well, a stopped clock is right twice a day. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nancy Pelosi and her husband's trading activities have been incredibly suspect, though she is not the only corrupt rat-f%$# doing this, even if it is technically legal.  (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and also senior FTC officials.)

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

People are afraid to change jobs

Perception is reality, and confidence is down

This one may be good. So we have falling unemployment claims and falling productivity.

The claims number is positive while the productivity number is bad.

On the third data point, labor costs, they are up, but that is slowing.

More important may be the psychology out there, with confidence falling, which can depress consumption.

Also, as expected, the Fed deferred any rate cut at their last meeting. 

The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week as the spring break-related boost from the prior week faded, suggesting the labor market continued to chug along, though risks are mounting from tariffs.

Employers are hoarding workers after difficulties finding labor during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. But that could become tougher as other data from the Labor Department on Thursday showed worker productivity dropping for the first time in almost three years in the first quarter, lifting labor costs.

Though productivity was likely distorted by President Donald Trump's sweeping import duties, which depressed output last quarter, it nonetheless highlighted the economic risks wrought by the ever-shifting trade policy.

………

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 228,000 for the week ended May 3. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 230,000 claims for the latest week. The decline unwound some of the surge from school spring breaks in New York state, which had lifted claims to a two-month high. 

………

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25%-4.50% range. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters "the tariff increases announced so far have been significantly larger than anticipated," adding "if sustained, they're likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth and an increase in unemployment."

………

WORKER HOARDING

Worker hoarding accounts for most of the labor market's resilience. Some companies more exposed to the trade tensions have started laying off workers, though on a small scale.

An Institute for Supply Management survey last week showed manufacturing employment remained depressed in April, noting that "layoffs were the primary tools used, an indication that head-count reduction is becoming more urgent." 

Rising economic uncertainty has added to companies' hesitancy to hire more workers, leaving those who lose their jobs experiencing long bouts of unemployment.

The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, decreased 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.879 million during the week ending April 26, the claims report showed. 

………

In a separate report, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said nonfarm productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, fell at a 0.8% annualized rate in the first quarter. That was the first decline since the second quarter of 2022 and followed a 1.7% growth pace in the October-December quarter. Productivity grew at a 1.4% rate from a year ago.

The quarterly drop in productivity was flagged by the government's advance gross domestic product report for the first quarter published last week, which showed the economy contracting at a 0.3% rate, the first decline in three years.

Unit labor costs - the price of labor per single unit of output - jumped at a 5.7% rate in the first quarter after rising at a 2.0% rate in the October-December period.

The economy was swamped by a flood of imports as businesses rushed to bring in goods before tariffs kicked in.

It seems to me like we are on the cusp of something major happening, and I'd bet dollars to navy beans that it's not gonna be good.

This Sherman Kills Fascists

Say what you will about the M-4, but it did kill a lot of fascists, and it's still doing so:

I think that this is a 76mm armed Sherman, and not a Firefly with the 17 pounder, but I'm not an expert on such things.

Bad Day at the Office

It's not Ramstein, thank God, but the Italian Air Force aerobatic demonstration team the Frecce Tricolori had another midair incident.

All of the aircraft landed, with nothing worse than a broken leg for one pilot, but this ain't good.

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

internet vs real life pic.twitter.com/XUqFrplcLw

— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) May 6, 2025

This is true, as true as turnips is, as true as taxes is, and nothing is true than them.

Good News

Though I expect the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling from U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers requiring North Carolina to certify the victory of Democratic incumbent state Supreme Court judgeAllison Riggs.

The core of the ruling is that one should not be allowed to change election rules retroactively when they do not like the results:

In a ruling that could put an end to nearly six months of legal battles over North Carolina’s contested Supreme Court election, a federal judge on Monday ruled against the Republican candidate’s effort to overturn his narrow loss.

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the state Court of Appeals, cannot “change the rules of the game after it had been played.”

Myers ordered the state not to throw out any votes and to certify the results of the election as they were at the close of the canvass period, with Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs winning by 734 votes.

………

However, Myers has put his own order on hold for seven days to give Griffin a chance to appeal.

I would expect this to go to the Supreme Court, where it has no chance, because we know how that the defining characteristic of Chief Justice Roberts legal career can be summarized as, "Not letting n***ers vote," and when added to Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh that gets you to 5 votes against democracy and the rule of law.

Gee, Corruption Much?

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has droped charges against University of Michigan pro-Palestinian protesters after it was revealed that she had what should have been disqualifying ties to the school's board of regents.

This creates the appearance of corruption.  She should have recused herself:

Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced on Monday that she was dropping all charges against seven pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested last May at a University of Michigan encampment.

The announcement came just moments before the judge was to decide on a defense motion to disqualify Nessel’s office over alleged bias. Defense attorney Amir Makled said the motion largely stemmed from an October Guardian report detailing Nessel’s extensive personal, financial and political connections to university regents calling for the activists to be prosecuted.

These ties?

• $33,000 in campaign donations from university regents.
• Her office hired the law office of the regent who chaired her 2018 campaign.
• Her office was more than 8½ times more likely to prosecute protesters than the local DAs. 
  

“This was a case of selective prosecution and rooted in bias, not in public safety issues,” Makled added. “We’re hoping this sends a message to other institutions locally and nationally that protest is not a crime, and dissent is not disorder.”

It certainly seems that way.

………

The Guardian’s investigation revealed concrete evidence of conflicts that defense attorneys argued factored into the prosecutions. Among the findings, the story revealed Nessel’s office charged pro-Palestinian protesters at a higher rate than other state prosecutors.

Nessel was recruited by university regents, who were frustrated by local prosecutors’ unwillingness to crack down on most of the students arrested, to take over the case and file charges, three people with direct knowledge of the decision told the Guardian at the time.

The investigation also found that six of eight regents contributed more than $33,000 combined to Nessel’s campaigns. Additionally, her office hired a regent’s law firm to handle major state cases, and the same regent co-chaired her 2018 campaign. Meanwhile, Nessel received significant campaign donations from pro-Israel state politicians, organizations and university donors who over the last year have vocally criticized Gaza protests, records show.

………

Makled said the judge had told him he was leaning toward granting an evidentiary hearing on the bias allegation, which would have opened Nessel’s office to discovery, or the requirement to turn over evidence.

“I think she didn’t want to open the can of worms that was coming her way,” Makled added.

This is important because the State AG taking over local prosecutions in this way are highly unusual, and in this case it appears to be motivated by political considerations.

Best Vacation Video Ever

Well, now I know where I want to go on my next vacation.

H/T Stephen Saroff      o o  The Bear who Swims      
                        (_)_____o      
                     ~~~~(______)~~~~~~~~~~
                         oo    oo

How About Throwing Tim Cook in Jail?

The good folks at Wired note that the malicious compliance with regard to federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers order loosening Apple's control of its app ecosystem may constitute criminal contempt and that the judge has accused Apple finance VP Alex Roman of lying under oath.

Yeah, criminal contempt, that's the ticket.  Just have Apple to pay a few pennies in fines and perhaps issuing another order that they will subvert will stop this behavior.

Sorry, if Roman attempted to deceive the court, that's perjury, and it is clear that he did so with the approval of Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Jail them.  Even if it's only for a weekend, throw their flabby white asses in jail:

Apple “willfully chose not to comply” with a court order to loosen its app store restrictions—and one of its executives lied under oath about the company’s plans, a federal judge wrote on Wednesday.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has referred the situation to the US Attorney’s Office in San Francisco “to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.”

………

Apple pursued its noncompliance strategy “with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote in her ruling on Wednesday. “That it thought this court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation.”

She also said that Apple executives tried to hide the real motivations for the changes. “In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option,” Gonzalez Rogers said. She went as far as accusing Alex Roman, a vice president of finance at Apple, of lying during testimony in which he talked about how Apple came to its decision to go with a 27 percent commission on purchases made outside the App Store. “The testimony of Mr. Roman was replete with misdirection and outright lies,” the judge said.

………

Citing internal Apple documents from 2023, Gonzalez Rogers said Apple’s App Store chief Phillip Schiller “had advocated that Apple comply with the injunction” but that CEO Tim Cook “ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise.”

No, Cook decided to subvert the court order and he encouraged Apple executives to lie under oath.

That is suborning perjury, and it's a felony.

 

 

Maybe DOGE Can Look Into THIS Fraud, Waste, and Abuse

Elon Musk's Boring Company is now claiming that it is a small business and so qualifies for contracts reserved for such entities.

Not long after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, Elon Musk’s $7 billion tunneling company registered as a small business on a government portal for federal contractors. The Boring Company registered with the System for Award Management portal, better known as SAM.gov, on November 12, 2024, exactly one week after Trump’s victory. Some federal government contracts are designated only for qualified small businesses. Its decision to file as a small business suggests that Boring, despite its substantial valuation, has failed to generate meaningful income.

I think that the author of this article, Caleb Ecarma, is missing the forest for the trees.  This is not a case of a failed business, this is a case of fraud against the people of the United States of America.

This company has raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars.  The lede is that this is the sort of fraud that Elon Musk rails against.

………

The company, which is based near Austin, Texas, has built just a few miles of commercial tunnels, all of which are located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Its failure to generate substantive business could explain why it would seek federal funding from a White House that has proven to be partial to Musk’s business interests. A senior Trump adviser, Musk also leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the White House’s austerity and parapolitical initiative. Steve Davis, the president of the Boring Company, is reportedly in charge of DOGE’s day-to-day operations.

It appears to me that DOGE has a bird's eye view of the shenanigans, and so should be able to stop them. 

This is not a case of a badly run business, this is a crime.

And Trump Elects Yet Another Center-Left Party

FriendlyJordies is Actually Giddy

In this case, it was Australia, where incumbent Labor PM Anthony Albanese has
secured a landslide win of the the Liberal Alliance (Notwithstanding their name the Liberals are right wing)  after being well down in the polls.

Australia’s centre-left prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has won a second term with a crushing victory over the opposition, whose rightwing leader, Peter Dutton, failed to brush off comparisons with Donald Trump and ended up losing his own seat.

Albanese’s Labor party scored an unexpectedly comfortable win on Saturday, after a five-week election campaign dominated by the cost of living and global economic uncertainty.

At the turn of the year, Labor was struggling in the polls, but Dutton ran a campaign derided by commentators as one of the worst in Australian political history, and the former police detective struggled to clearly dissociate himself from some Trump-like rhetoric and policies.

Albanese, 62, had pitched himself as a steady hand to guide Australia through a period of global turbulence turbocharged by Trump’s tariff war. He becomes the first Australian prime minister to serve consecutive terms since 2004.

Did I mention that the Liberal leader lost his seat just like the Conservative Party leader in Canada did??

Well they did:

Labor was certain to add to the 77 seats it held going into the election, with the opposition Liberal/National Coalition projected to receive its lowest ever national vote and to lose further seats.

In a six-minute concession speech, Dutton accepted “full responsibility” for the party’s wipeout, which included losing his own seat, and said that the party had unfortunately been “defined by our opponents in this election”.

………

The Australian conservative party’s loss mirrored that of the recent election in Canada where the centre-left Liberal party won a fourth-term despite being well behind in the polls in the leadup to the election.

Like Dutton, Canada’s Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, lost the seat he had held since 2004 in an election dominated by the impact of Trump’s presidency.

In his own way, Donald Trump is like the Soviet Union:  Providing nothing of value to its own people, but improving life in other nations because of their reaction to the threat.

Why is Larry Ellison Rich?

I know no one who likes Oracle, either the product, which really is not any better than its competitors, nor the company whose policies towards its customers can only described as abusive.

Still, I do get the idea that if your IT department selects Oracle, they can be sure that they will never be fired for that decision.

At least until now, as Oracle engineers screwed the pooch yet again, leading dozens of hospitals having to return to paper records for almost a week.

This is what happens without aggressive antitrust enforcement.

Monopolists lapse into incompetence:

Oracle engineers mistakenly triggered a five-day software outage at a number of Community Health Systems hospitals, causing the facilities to temporarily return to paper-based patient records.

CHS told CNBC that the outage involving Oracle Health, the company's electronic health record (EHR) system, affected "several" hospitals, leading them to activate "downtime procedures." Trade publication Becker's Hospital Review reported that 45 hospitals were hit.

The outage began on April 23, after engineers conducting maintenance work mistakenly deleted critical storage connected to a key database, a CHS spokesperson said in a statement. The outage was resolved on Monday, and was not related to a cyberattack or other security incident.

………

An EHR is a digital version of a patient's medical history that's updated by doctors and nurses. It's crucial software within the U.S. health-care system, and outages can cause serious disruptions to patient care. Oracle acquired EHR vendor Cerner in 2022 for $28.3 billion, becoming the second-biggest player in the market, behind Epic Systems.

………

Oracle's CHS error comes weeks after the company's federal electronic health record experienced a nationwide outage. Oracle has struggled with a thorny, years-long EHR rollout with the Department of Veterans Affairs, marred by patient safety concerns. The agency launched a strategic review of Cerner in 2021, before Oracle's acquisition, and it temporarily paused deployment of the software in 2023.

I would note that every medical professional that I have discussed this with hates EHRs.

It's all been downhill since the initial release of MUMPS, because the people in charge of development are now programmers, and not medical professionals, and the customers are now IT departments and bean counters whose goal for the software is to maximize profits, largely through upcharging.

This is what happens when you allow the inmates run the asylum.

バカにつける薬はない*

Dateline, Mt. Fugi, Japan. A student climbs the iconic Japanese mountain before the start of the official climbing season, loses his climbing equipment, needs a helicopter rescue, realizes that he left his mobile phone on the mountain, so he climbs back up the mountain to recover his cell phone and needs to be rescued again. 

An inexperienced climber became stranded on Mount Fuji last week, after climbing to the top of the Japanese mountain and losing some of his climbing gear. As if that weren’t bad enough, the man subsequently returned to the peak a few days later because he’d forgotten his phone at the summit. He then had to be rescued again.

BBC reports that a 27-year-old Chinese university student (whom authorities have mercifully declined to name) was initially rescued last Tuesday near the summit of the mountain after losing his crampons. Crampons are a kind of spiked cleat that allows for safe traversal of icy environments. He was at a height of some 12,388 feet when he had to be rescued by helicopter and flown to safety, authorities told CNN.

However, the student then made the dubious decision to scale the mountain again a few days later because he had forgotten his phone at the top, officials said. He had to be rescued yet again, after climbing to a height of 9,842 feet and experiencing altitude sickness, CNN writes. Altitude sickness occurs as the body’s response to climbing in elevation too quickly. Some climbers can have trouble adjusting to the more limited oxygen levels and may experience disorientation and difficulty breathing.

This guy is cruising for a f%$#ing Darwin Award.

^*This translates to, "There is no medicine for stupidity."

Glad I Got a Costco Membership

Because for once, I will be following the lead of Trump administration officials, and stockpiling things like toilet paper and canned goods:

Donald Trump’s trade wars with China and other nations are widely expected to cause sharp economic pain, but some experts have warned consumers not to hoard supplies and goods before prices skyrocket, arguing that mass stockpiling could backfire spectacularly.

Well, many Americans aren’t listening to that advice, according to survey data this year, instead preparing for the possibility of store shelves being bare amid a Trump-inflicted recession. Funnily enough, this includes a number of government officials and staffers working directly for the man who launched these massive new trade wars, all on the grounds of bad tariff math and the flimsy premise that he would bring economic “liberation” to America and make the country “wealthy again.”

Two Trump administration officials and a Trump aide tell Rolling Stone that they have done some stockpiling of their own in recent weeks or months, and that they know others working in Republican politics — inside and outside of the administration — who are doing the same. One of the Trump officials says they have already run to Target to bulk-buy toilet paper, some types of food, and other household supplies.

When asked why they’re doing this, the Trump aide — who says they and their partner have done similar household-supply hoarding lately, and are also “stashing cash” reserves in their D.C.-area home — simply replies: “Because it would be stupid not to!” The aide adds that they still believe in Trump’s tariffs regime, though, citing the supposed advantage of “short-term pain” in exchange for long-term “prosperity.”

I do want to make a historical note here:  The toilet paper shortage at the height of the Covid pandemic was a real thing, and it was not caused by hoarding.

It happened because home and business toilet paper are two completely different products, and with people not going to restaurants or the office, demand for that crashed, but demand for household toilet paper rose, because whether or not you are going out, you still need to crap.

I would note that there is no small amount of hypocrisy involved, but I am not shocked about this at all.

Yeah, I Know, One Should Not Speak Ill of the Dead

But in the case of David Whorowitz (Horowitz) who has died at the age of 86, it's pretty hard to follow that cultural norm.

Given that Whorowitz, as I have referred to him throughout my time blogging, was a mentor and major influence on Stephen Miller, I do not feel any obligation to follow cultural norms.

I have never been able to figure how much of his schtick was honest belief and how much was a character he played for money, but in the end, it does not matter.

The fact that he was crucial in the creation of Stephen Miller is all you need to know about him.

Luckily, there is a Jewish saying that is appropriate for describing him, "יִמַּח שְׁמו",

Question of the Day

Why Do AI Company Logos Look like Buttholes?

—Velvet Shark

The quick answer is, of course, that form follows function, but the anus is an essential part of our body, and artificial intelligence is an essential part of nothing.

And Now the Monthly Jobs Report

And ADP's survey was wrong with 177,000 new jobs added to the non farm payroll and unemployment remaining at 4.2%.

The U.S. labor market steadily added jobs last month despite jolting tariff announcements that many economists expect will give way to a trade policy-induced slowdown later this year.

The Labor Department reported Friday that the U.S. added 177,000 jobs in April, above the gain of 133,000 jobs that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see. The unemployment rate, which is based on a separate survey from the jobs figures, held steady at 4.2%.

The report revealed solid data “that no one wants to trust,” said Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at investment bank Jefferies. That is because the figures likely reflected staffing decisions made in February and March, before President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcements early in the month that induced significant market volatility.

………

The time frame of the jobs survey only captures so much. The Labor Department asks employers how many people they had on their payrolls during any pay period that includes the 12th of the month. That provides a limited look at companies’ early thinking on how to adjust to sudden tariff announcements.

I think that we are not seeing the full effects of chaos in international commerce and international finance yet.

Also, there is this:

………

What’s more, businesses and individuals are telling surveys that they are worried about the economy. Consumer sentiment in April hit one of its lowest levels on record, according to the University of Michigan.

The pace of April’s job gains was lower than the 185,000 jobs added in March. The gains for February and March were revised down by a combined 58,000 jobs. Hourly wages grew by less than expected compared with both a month ago and a year ago.

Some of April’s job gains may have been driven by the burst of activity that occurred as companies worked to get in front of tariffs, said Pantheon Macroeconomics economist Samuel Tombs. Employment in the transportation and warehousing sector rose by 29,000 jobs last month.

I think that we are in a recession now, while I am looking for a job.

Sucks like 1,000 Electrolux all going at once,

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not good news, with initial claims rising to a 2 month high and continuing claims rising to a 4 year high.

I would note here that it's the continuing claims, (I am STILL part of this statistic) that are of concern.

While the (inherently noisy, in this case driven by Spring Break in New York) continuing claims data shows that employers are still very conscious of the costs of laying people off, the continuing claims show that they are currently loath to engage in new hiring.

Applications for US unemployment benefits rose to the highest level since February during the week that followed Easter and spring recess at New York City public schools.

Initial claims increased by 18,000 to 241,000 in the week ended April 26, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 223,000 applications.

Before adjusting for seasonal factors, initial claims increased about 12,900 last week. Applications in New York alone rose more than 15,500. Some school workers in New York City, such as bus drivers and janitors, are allowed to apply for benefits during winter and spring breaks. This could account for the large gain in the state’s unemployment claims. 

………

The four-week moving average of new applications, a metric that helps smooth out fluctuations from week-to-week, rose to 226,000.

The number of job cuts announced by US-based employers dropped to about 105,400 in April as plans to shed federal workers subsided, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report. After some 280,000 firings linked to the actions of the Department of Government Efficiency were announced in March, last month’s tally included only about DOGE-related 2,700 job-cut plans.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.92 million in the week ended April 19, the highest since 2021 and a sign that it is taking longer for out-of-work people to find a job. The figure exceeded all estimates.

What should be noted is that at this point, most of these federal firings are either:

• Stayed by judicial order,
• Not complete, so the workers are still on paid leave, and cannot file for benefits.

We are seeing the beginnings of the bow wave of federal firing, 

Also, we have the tariffs, which will cause damage even if not implemented, as much of our economy is frozen in place waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I'm not sure if this is really bad news, but it sure as hell ain't good news.