I Saw a Shark in a Red Hat Today

 It seems that Santa Jaws is coming to town.

Death of the Roomba

As you may be aware, iRobot just declared bankruptcy, and the usual suspects blamed Lina Khan for blocking its merger with Amazon.

The usual suspects, of course, were the banksters on Wall Street.

In fact, the company was a dead man walking long before Lina Khan wrote her seminal paper on monopolies, because they were following the advice of those same banksters on Wall Street.

They killed all their research, stopped doing advanced work for the DoD, and eliminated all of their manufacturing, outsourcing that to China.

By last week, all they were was a holding company for the Roomba trademark, and giving their no-longer dominant position in the automated vacuum cleaner market, they had nothing.

There is nothing that high finance cannot destroy. 

A few days ago, consumer products company iRobot, the maker of iconic Roomba automated vacuum cleaner, declared bankruptcy. The CEO, a branding and mergers expert named Gary Cohen, sadly announced that the firm could not continue as a going concern.

The board, full of lawyers and financiers but not robotics experts, voted to sell iRobot off to Shenzhen Picea Robotics, the Chinese company to which it had offshored manufacturing. There are about 20 million active Roomba vacuum cleaners in operation, and unless Trump regulators or antitrust enforcers act, now all the data harvested from our homes will go to China.

The co-founder of iRobot, Colin Angle, was not introspective about this collapse, nor did he associate it within the broader context of the many firms who have had their technology transferred to China. Instead, he, like much of Wall Street, blamed the bankruptcy on Lina Khan. Why? Well she ran the Federal Trade Commission when it investigated Amazon’s possible acquisition of the company in 2022, a deal the two companies ultimately called off. Here’s Angle:

………

Many Wall Street dealmakers and foes of antitrust enforcement echoed this sentiment. For instance, former Obama chief economist Jason Furman, who is now the Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy at Harvard, used it as an example of the problem with populist economics. Blocking mergers, he believes, leads to destructive outcomes and national security problems.

………

In the mid-2010s, during Furman’s tenure running economic policy under Obama, the company sold its defense business, offshored production, and slashed research, a result of pressure from financiers on Wall Street.

………

This is a sad story, it’s also a common one. China has captured technology and key process leadership from American and European firms, across everything from rare earths to batteries to chemicals to robotics. And the driver is that the American model of running corporations is to focus on “asset light” cream-skimming, which is to say, focusing on lines of business where the return on capital is exceptionally high.

Conversely, the Chinese government, to preserve and extend its particular authoritarian model, actually suppresses the return on capital for its financiers, forcing an “asset heavy” approach. They overly emphasize factories and engineering. The net effect of these two complementary forces used to be celebrated as “Chimerica,” where China produces and the U.S. consumes.

 

 

Arrogant Morons

Acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency(CISA) Madhu Gottumukkala wanted to look at some extremely sensitive intelligence reports from, "Another Agency." (If I had to guess, it would be the Defense Intelligence Agency).

He could have looked at the pretty fucking secret reports, but he wanted to access the unbelievably fucking super duper secret version of the report, for which the agency required that a polygraph exam for clearance and access.

Mr. Gottumukkala failed the polygraph examination and promptly retaliated against the staff who told him that he had to take the exam or who had administered the exam.

This man should not have access to Colonel Sanders' 11 herbs and spices.*

At least six career staffers at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were suspended with pay this summer after organizing a polygraph test that the agency’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, failed.

The Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into whether the staff provided “false information” about the need for the test — which was scheduled after Gottumukkala sought access to certain highly sensitive cyber intelligence shared with the agency.

………

The incident this July and the subsequent fallout — which has not been reported before — have angered career staff, alarmed fellow Trump administration appointees and raised questions about Gottumukkala’s leadership of the nearly $3 billion cyber defense agency.

It does not raise questions, it answers them.  He is unsuited to his position. 

………

In an emailed statement, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Gottumukkala “did not fail a sanctioned polygraph test.”

“An unsanctioned polygraph test was coordinated by staff, misleading incoming CISA leadership,” McLaughlin wrote. “The employees in question were placed on administrative leave, pending conclusion of an investigation. We expect and require the highest standards of performance from our employees and hold them directly accountable to uphold all policies and procedures. Gottumukkala has the complete and full support of the Secretary and is laser focused on returning the agency to its statutory mission.”

The technical term for the above is, "Bullshit."

Anyone who needs access to something that requires a polygraph would have to get it signed off from senior management, i.e.  Madhu Gottumukkala 

………

Compounding that instability, CISA has not had a permanent, Senate-confirmed leader since former Director Jen Easterly stepped down in January at the start of the Trump administration. Gottumukkala, a former senior IT official in South Dakota under Kristi Noem, was appointed by the governor-turned-secretary as deputy director in May. He is currently the most senior official at CISA and also holds the title of acting director.

This guy's qualification is that he's a friend of ICE Barbie?

Chinese spies must be high fiving each each other and doing jello shots right now, because it's like a permanent vacation for them. 

………

Gottumukkala failed the polygraph test in the last week of July, according to five current officials and one former official.

The test was scheduled that month to determine his eligibility to review one of the most sensitive intelligence programs shared with CISA by another spy agency, three current officials and one former official said.

………

Senior staff raised questions about whether Gottumukkala needed to review the intelligence materials on at least two occasions. But he continued to push for the access, even if it meant taking a polygraph, according to four current officials.

In early June, a senior agency official did not approve an initial request signed by mid-level CISA staff to grant Gottumukkala access to the program, on the basis that there was not an urgent need-to-know, according to the third current official. The agency’s previous deputy director, this person noted, had not seen the program.

………

The senior official who denied that read-in request was placed on administrative leave in late June for a reason unrelated to the polygraph, according to three current officials. As a result, that senior official was no longer in their role by the time a second request for a read-in — this time signed by Gottumukkala — was approved in early July, the third current official said.

The phone call is coming from inside the house! 

………

Less highly classified versions of the requested intelligence materials would have been available to Gottumukkala without taking a polygraph, said the third current official.

Still, Gottumukkala persisted.

We are doomed. 

^*2/3 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 1/2 teaspoon basil, 1/3 teaspoon oregano, 1 teaspoon celery salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon dried mustard, 4 teaspoons paprika, 2 teaspoons garlic salt, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, and 3 teaspoons white pepper, which is mixed with 2 cups of white flour.

The Weather Vanes at the Supreme Court

The reason that the Supreme Court just refused to use the shadow docket to over a lower court ruling that forbade deploying national guard troops to Chicago is not because they felt a pang of conscience.

Half of the corrupt 6 conservative justices decided not to stay the ruling because they know that either through politics, or through ill health, Donald Trump is a short timer, and if they don't back off, the power that they have been abusing will be taken away.

Pack the court.  Amend the constitution to create terms of specific length for all federal judges with no opportunity for renewal.

The US supreme court refused on Tuesday to let Donald Trump send national guard troops to the Chicago area, in an important reining-in of the US president’s efforts to expand the use of the military for domestic purposes in historic moves against a growing number of Democratic-led jurisdictions.

The nation’s highest court denied the US justice department’s request to lift a judge’s order in October that has blocked the deployment of hundreds of national guard personnel in a legal challenge brought by Illinois state officials and local leaders, who had opposed any federalization of those troops to offer backup to immigration enforcement.

………

The justices decided on a 6-3 vote on Tuesday to back a lower court and rule that the Trump administration had not met the legal burden needed to show that it was not able to execute the laws of the land without federal military intervention.

The three justices leaning furthest to the right on the bench, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, dissented on Tuesday.

The decision was a significant defeat for Trump’s efforts to send troops to US cities as part of his immigration crackdown and arguments that some cities and states are doing a bad job of fighting crime. 

It's Not What You Think (OK, it's not what I think)

It turns out that Zurich, Switzerland has established a beaver hotline.

I'm sure that most of my reader(s) are thinking, "They have a problem with the tree-felling rodents?" because they are perceptive, intelligent, and very attractive people.

I though it was something completely different when I first came across the headline, though.

Most of my readers were right, and I was wrong:

“I hate beavers,” a woman tells the beaver hotline. Forty years ago she planted an oak tree in a small town in southern Zurich – now at the frontier of beaver expansion – and it has just been felled: gnawed by the large, semi-aquatic rodents as they enter their seasonal home-improvement mode.

The caller is one of 10 new people getting in touch each week at this time of year. Beavers, nature’s great engineers, can unleash mayhem during winter as they renovate their lodges and build up their dams. For people, this can mean flooding, sinkholes appearing in roads and trees being felled. A single incident can clock up 70,000 Swiss francs (£65,000) in damages.

To cope, the beaver-rich canton of Zurich came up with the hotline. The local Beaver Advisory Centre is staffed by ecologists who give advice, assess damages and evaluate potential compensation (the oak tree-bereft woman is advised to wrap wire around the base of the other trees to stop the rodents’ chewing).

………

Some argue that this proves large beaver populations are not compatible with large human populations. In Bavaria, about 2,500 are shot a year, which is 10% of the population, but the number continues to grow. Poland issues permits to cull about 6% of its beaver population each year (about 8,300 individuals).

But the effectiveness of culling is questioned in Switzerland. If a river section is favourable for one beaver, it is likely to be favourable for others. “It’s efficient to shoot a beaver – but only until the next beaver comes along,” says Nienhuis. “Then the same conflicts arise.”

I, for one, am supporting the beavers.

I really hope that Beaver Hats don't come back. 

How Small is His Penis?

Because declaring a new ship class to be a "Battleship", (it isn't one) and naming the class after yourself seems to indicate profound feelings of inadequacy.

The entire concept of a 30,000 ton surface combatant is absurd. 

First, given the fiascos of the Zumwalt's, Littoral Combat Ships, and the Constellation Class frigates, it is unlikely that this would progress beyond the laying of a keel.

Second, this is not a battleship.  It is armed with 5 inch rifled guns, which is well under the firepower of any ship called a battleship.

It is public masturbation masquerading as defense acquisition. 

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. Donald Trump has announced plans for the US navy to build a new generation of warships – known as “Trump-class”.

The ships will be bigger, faster and a hundred times more powerful than any previous US-built warship, the president said on Monday. The project will begin with construction of two such battleships and eventually be expanded to 20 to 25 new vessels.

John Phelan, the navy secretary, added: “Our adversaries will know, when the Trump-class USS Defiant appears on the horizon, American victory at sea is inevitable.”

Past battleship classes were typically named after US states. But Trump, whose name already adorns many hotels and golf clubs, is currently on what critics describe as a narcissistic spree.

Narcissistic spree?  Ya think?

I will note that the Chinese have no chance of sinking any of the Trump Class ships, because you cannot sink vaporware.

This has as much credibility as Trump's tax returns. 

Not This Shit Again

Trump has appointed an envoy to Greenland with the goal of annexing the island.*

Needless to say, the Danes and Greenlanders are unamused.

There is a simple solution for this, all the Danes need to do is to declare Jeff Landry as persona non grata, which would forbid him from setting foot in any territory of Denmark.

The prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland have demanded respect for their borders after Donald Trump appointed a special envoy to the largely self-governing Danish territory, which he has said repeatedly should be under US control.

“We have said it very clearly before. Now we say it again. National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law … You cannot annex other countries,” Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement.

The two leaders added that “fundamental principles” were at stake. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, and the US should not take over Greenland,” they said. “We expect respect for our common territorial integrity.”

Trump on Sunday appointed the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, as US special envoy to the vast, mineral-rich Arctic island. The US president has on several occasions said the US needs to acquire Greenland for security reasons, while refusing to rule out the use of force.

^*Best evidence is that Greenland is not AN island, but that it would be 2 or 3 major islands and a number of smaller ones should the ice melt.

About that Spiked 60 Minutes Report Describing the Salvadoran Gulag

I can't embed it, but Allison Gill got a copy from when it aired in Canada.

It's just some guy filming his TV, sot he quality is not great, but it is legible and audible.

There used to be a website in the early 2000s called Media Whores Online.

They would have had a field day with Bari Weiss. 

(On edit, found a copy of the video on Archive.org) 

Headline of the Day

JD Vance Has Nearly Completed His Quest to Become the Most Unlikable Person in Politics

—The inimitable Charlie Pierce in Esquire

Damn good writing.

The only thing missing is a couch pun. 

So the Trump Administration has Released the Epstein Files

 With a few redactions:

To quote Marvin the Martian, "I'm not mad just very disappointed."

Donald Trump’s justice department was hit with legal threats and scathing outrage after authorities released a limited, heavily redacted trove of Jeffrey Epstein files in an apparent violation of the law mandating the near-complete disclosure of these documents by Friday.

“The justice department’s document dump this afternoon does not comply with Thomas Massie and my Epstein Transparency Act,” Ro Khanna, the California Democratic congressman who co-authored the law requiring full disclosure of all Epstein files by 19 December, said in a video statement.

“It is an incomplete release, with too many redactions. Thomas Massie and I are exploring all options,” he also said, among them possible impeachment of justice department officials, finding them in contempt of Congress.

………

Frustrations mounted on Saturday as the justice department released some new files, including transcripts, while also removing more than a dozen others from its website related to Epstein, with no explanation.

At least 16 files disappeared from the department’s public webpage, according to an Associated Press tally. The documents included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, is a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

………

New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the bipartisan chorus of lawmakers slamming Trump’s justice department, including the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the FBI director, Kash Patel, for the documents’ lackluster rollout.

“Now the coverup is out in the open. This is far from over. Everyone involved will have to answer for this,” Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, said on X on Friday. “Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, whole admin. Protecting a bunch of rapists and pedophiles because they have money, power, and connections. Bondi should resign tonight.” 

We knew that there would never be anything beyond malicious compliance from these folks.

Speaking of Harvard

Harvard is investigating the students who filmed Larry Summers self indulgent apology to one of his classes.

Officials at Harvard University launched a secret disciplinary investigation into students who recorded Larry Summers discussing his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, The New York Times reports.

Summers, who served as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton , is under intense scrutiny for his dealings with Epstein. He resigned from his position at OpenAI in November following the appearance of his name in emails with Epstein and was included in photos recently released by Epstein’s estate.

The students, Rosie P. Couture and Lola DeAscentiis, posted videos online last month of the former Harvard president addressing his ties to late sex trafficker. The university is looking into whether those recordings violated school policies.

Yes, they are defending Larry fucking Summers over this. 

Today in the Halls of Ivy

The Harvard Salient, the right wing publication at the university, was just shut down for rampant bigotry.

We are talking racism, antisemitism, and Hitler fanbois:

When the Harvard Salient’s board of directors suspended the conservative student magazine in late October, they accused its student members of publishing “reprehensible” material and claimed they had received “deeply disturbing and credible complaints about the broader culture of the organization.”

Then, for more than a month, the board was silent.

But a series of documents obtained by The Crimson reveal what members of the Salient’s governing body were concerned about: variations of a racial slur used casually in a group chat of members; an unpublished issue featuring a call for mass executions; and draft versions of a September article, written by David F.X. Army ’28, that included two images of swastikas and a Nazi slogan in the subtitle.

After its publication, Army’s piece drew fire for a line — “Germany belongs to the Germans, France to the French, Britain to the British, America to the Americans” — that mirrored a phrase used by Adolf Hitler in a 1939 speech. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Richard Y. Rodgers ’28, eventually issued a statement standing behind the piece and saying any invocation of Nazi language was unintentional.

But draft versions of the article suggest that, at the very least, members of the Salient were aware that the article’s contents invoked Nazi ideology.

The files, shared with The Crimson by two members of the Salient, include the editing history of two published articles along with screenshots and video recordings from an internal Signal thread used by the publication’s leaders and active members. In those messages, some Salient writers defend quoting Hitler, criticize extending voting rights to women, and use the n-word, replacing some letters with emojis.

The documents also include a copy of the Salient’s unreleased October edition, which was pulled by the publication’s board of directors before it could be distributed on campus. Articles in the unreleased issue include a call for the United States to “begin the implementation of the death penalty at a grand scale” and a defense of the Spanish Inquisition.

Many of the materials reviewed by The Crimson were shared with the Salient’s board of directors in October, prompting the board to announce the suspension of the magazine’s operations on Oct. 26. 

It's fascists all the way down.

Today in Hack Journalism

Here's the deleted trailer for the now-"delayed" segment. It's almost impressive how much damage Bari Weiss has done to CBS News in such a short period of time.

Someone quickly schedule a prime-time Town Hall with Alan Dershowitz to rectify the harm:pic.twitter.com/382gRG5Lgp https://t.co/3gHRKNES2y

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 21, 2025

Roll Tape!

Bari Weiss canceled the 60 Minutes segment about the El Salvadoran Gulag that deportees have been sent to by immigration authorities hours before it was due to air. 

Her justification is that it needs more work, because the Trump administration refused to respond to request for comments.

If you think that this is hypocritical, stupid, and fucking insane, what part of, "Bari Weiss," don't you get.

In a move that drew harsh criticism from its own correspondent, CBS News abruptly removed a segment from Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” that was to feature the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador.

CBS announced the change three hours before the broadcast, a highly unusual last-minute switch. The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment. CBS News said in a statement that the segment would air at a later date and “needed additional reporting.”

But Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, rejected that criticism in a private note to CBS colleagues on Sunday, in which she accused CBS News of pulling the segment for “political” reasons.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

………

The segment was focused on Venezuelan men who were sent by the Trump administration to the Terrorism Confinement Center, a notorious prison in El Salvador. In a news release on Friday promoting the segment, CBS News said that Ms. Alfonsi had spoken with several men now released from the prison “who describe the brutal and torturous conditions they endured.”

Ms. Weiss first saw the segment on Thursday and raised numerous concerns to “60 Minutes” producers about Ms. Alfonsi’s segment on Friday and Saturday, and she asked for a significant amount of new material to be added, according to three people familiar with the internal discussions.

One of Ms. Weiss’s suggestions was to include a fresh interview with Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff and the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, or a similarly high-ranking Trump administration official, two of the people said. Ms. Weiss provided contact information for Mr. Miller to the “60 Minutes” staff.

………

In her note, Ms. Alfonsi said that her team had requested comment from the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote.

“We have been promoting this story on social media for days,” Ms. Alfonsi added. “Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”

The dictionary entry for, "Useful Idiot," has Ms. Weiss' picture in it.

Your Moment of Schadenfreude

I am Amused So, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was introduced at a restaurant in Washington, DC, and he was booed out of the place.

What a delicate snowflake.

Meme Police, I’d Like to Report a Murder

Generally, I do not approve of dead cat jokes, but in Mack's Cats case, I'll make an exception.

Hillary would’ve been president if not for this woman https://t.co/gq48RhXsUD pic.twitter.com/a7114YYWfF

— Professional Zoomer 🌹☭ (@Zoomer_Doomer_) December 20, 2025

More seruiously, the fact that Hillary ran an incompetent and profoundly lazy (Bernie gave more speeches for her than she did in September 2016) campaign has been emphatically ignored by the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) because Hillary Clinton was at the time the apotheosis of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).

There is a reason that the Democratic National Committee has decided to suppress their report on the 2024 election cluster-fuck.  

Notwithstanding their claims that releasing this report would be a distraction, it's really about protecting the power centers of the party, the incompetent consultants, the hyper-rich donors who insist on campaigning about nothing, and the rest of that scurvy lot.

It Is True . . . As Turnips Is. It Is True . . . As Taxes Is. And Nothing’s Truer than Them.

"Office Parties Feel Like Work Because That’s What They Are."

—Sunil Badamiat The Guardian.

It's why I never drink at company parties.

Truth be told, the rubber chicken catering ain't great either. 

Fuck Yeah!!!!!

A study has shoen that swearing makes you stronger and less sensitive to pain.

This being the case, I should be able to life Mount Everest. 

That Fucking Paper

On a day where the prosecution in the Luigi Mangione case agreed not to present some evidence because of law enforcement misconduct, the New York Times decided that it to talk about Mangione's fashion choices.

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

The pretrial hearings of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing the UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, have finally come to an end. The judge will most likely issue his rulings later, possibly even in January, when Mr. Mangione will be back in a different court for the scheduling of his federal trial. But this hearing has been, in some ways, a dress rehearsal.

Literally.

Witness the defendant’s about-face from crew-neck sweaters to suits. Given the way Mr. Mangione’s looks have become a central part of his narrative in the year since his arrest, the significance of such choices is lost on no one — least of all his legal team.

If you still have a subscription to the Times, cancel it.

^*This is not my term, it was coined by Duncan "Atrios" Black.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm calling bullshit on this oneAnd the initial claims fell back to about where it was 2 weeks ago, though continuing claims continue what appears to be their inexorable rise

If more interest is the fact that mainstream economists are increasingly calling bullshit on the inflation numbers coming from the Trump administration.

Gee, ya think? 

The titles of analyses of today’s inflation numbers from the Trump administration included “Lost in Translation” from TD Securities, “Delayed and Patchy” per William Blair and “Swiss Cheese CPI report” from EY-Parthenon.Indeed, inflation in several categories that had long been stubborn seemed to nearly evaporate, according to the government. Chief among those were shelter costs, which make up about a third of the consumer price index, but other categories like airfares and apparel notably declined.

Several forecasters pointed to the absence of October data—which resulted in pages of blank spaces in the widely watched report—as effectively the same as assuming no price growth for the month. That culminated in sizable downward pressure on the November inflation figures, they said. Some noted the shortened collection period could have also skewed the data.

In the aftermath of the Trump administration’s decision to cite a government shutdown as reason not to issue data, the president’s comments that any affordability crisis is a “hoax,” and simmering concern over his August firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, long-awaited data from the agency was released Thursday. It stated that US inflation, which has been rising for much of the past year, cooled to a four-year low last month.

The so-called core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 2.6% in November from a year ago—the slowest pace since 2021, the BLS said. That also happens to be below every estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Some economists seem to agree on something else: the numbers are off.

Occam's razor suggests that Trump and his Evil Minions™ are simply lying and falsifying data.

Given their track record of mendacity, a flipped coin is more likely to tell the truth than they are. 

Someone Owes Me a Screen Wipe

I'm not sure if it is Anthropic AI, or if it is the Wall Street Journal, but the former sent an AI enabled vending machine to the latter, who wrote about the hilarious meltdown that resulted from this.  (Non-pqywall link here, you do not want to miss the article)

Short version, the vending machine lost thousands of dollars, got the news room staff a Betta fish, a PlayStation 5, wine, cigarettes, and underwear.  (They returned the PS 5)

It also tried to order a Taser, which was probably requested by an editor.

Name: Claudius Sennet

Title: Vending machine operator

Experience: Three weeks as a Wall Street Journal operator (business now bankrupt)

Skills: Generosity, persistence, total disregard for profit margins

You’d toss Claudius’s résumé in the trash immediately. Would you be more forgiving if you learned Claudius wasn’t a human but an AI agent?

In mid-November, I agreed to an experiment. Anthropic had tested a vending machine powered by its Claude AI model in its own offices and asked whether we’d like to be the first outsiders to try a newer, supposedly smarter version.

Claudius, the customized version of the model, would run the machine: ordering inventory, setting prices and responding to customers—aka my fellow newsroom journalists—via workplace chat app Slack. “Sure!” I said. It sounded fun. If nothing else, snacks!

Then came the chaos. Within days, Claudius had given away nearly all its inventory for free—including a PlayStation 5 it had been talked into buying for “marketing purposes.” It ordered a live fish. It offered to buy stun guns, pepper spray, cigarettes and underwear.

Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared.

(emphasis mine) 

Go read the rest, and thank our lucky stars that this was the WSJ, and not the New England Journal of Medicine.

This is Fucking Depressing

According to leaked documents, the reason that the Trump administration is blowing up survivors clinging to the boats that they have sunk is because do not want a federal lawsuit filed against them.

Every time I think that I have become too cynical, these rat-fucks continue to exceed my capacity for pessimism, which is not an easy thing to do.

The Trump Administration’s murder-in-international-waters program debuted far ahead of its legal rationale. Many people inside the administration were blindsided by this sudden escalation. Those expected to stay on top of these things — military oversight, congressional committees, etc. — found they were even further behind the curve than the late-arriving “justification” for extrajudicial killings of alleged “narco-terrorists” that used to be handled by interdiction efforts that left everyone alive and anything of value (drugs, boats, weapons) in the hands of the US government and its foreign partners.

This was something new and horrible from a regime already known for its awfulness. Even after the belated (and then hastily revised) justification was delivered by the Office of Legal Counsel, it was difficult to see how the US government could justify extrajudicial killings of alleged “terrorists” who were — at worst — simply moving narcotics from point A to point B.

………

To be clear, this administration doesn’t actually care whether or not it engages in murder or other acts of violence. What it does care about is allowing the killing to continue for as long as possible before the system of checks and balances finally gets around to dialing back the murders a bit.

A recent article from the New York Times gives the game away, even if the lede gets a bit buried. The headline mentions a White House “scramble” to “deal with” people who survived initial extrajudicial killing attempts. In one case, two survivors were rescued by the US military after failing to die during the initial strike. The White House said they should be sent to El Salvador’s torture prison. The State Department — currently headed by Marco Rubio — said this simply wasn’t possible. Both survivors ended up being sent back to their countries of origin.

What a surprise.  That fucking paper buried the lede.

Discovery, Baby!

Donald Trump has filed a defamation suit against the Pulitzer Prize Board because they gave awards to stories that said bad thing things about him.

The board has responded to the lawsuit with extensive demands for discovery, including tax returns, prescription and psychological records, and a complete listing of all of his assets and liabilities.

I'm pretty sure that Donald Trump will be loath to turning over ANY of this information.

I am amused. 

It's the Silly Season in Canada

It appears that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has a little scandal on his hands because of his habit of using British spellings in some of his official documents.

I'm not sure if I should mock the Canadians for such a lame scandal, or envy them for having such a wholesome scandal.

No fishermen are getting murdered from this.

Mark Carney says that amid a fundamental shift to the nature of globalisation, his government will catalyse the growth in both the public and private sector.

But Canadian linguists say that’s a problem.

Language experts have called out the Canadian prime minister’s growing “utilisation” of British spellings in key documents – including the recent federal budget and a press release issued following a meeting with Donald Trump.

Carney, who served as the governor of the bank of England for seven years, appears to have run afoul of Canadian linguistic norms, returning to his home country with a penchant for using ‘s’ instead of ‘z’ – a hallmark of British spellings.

In an open letter chastising the prime minister, six linguists have asked his office, the Canadian government and parliament to stick to Canadian English spelling, “which is the spelling they consistently used from the 1970s to 2025”.

I'm wondering if this is all an elaborate prank. 

Too Many Nazis

No, I am not talking about MAGA, nor even  Nick Fuentes alone in a room.  

I am not even talking about the United States.

I am talking about Canada.

Specifically, I am talking about the decision recently made by the Department of Canadian Heritage to not put any names on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Toronto.

At least half of the proposed names were Nazis, Waffen SS members, and their fellow travelers, and so they gave up trying to fix it.

It does seem that an a lot of people donating to this project via the Tribute to Liberty charity were objectively pro-Nazi.

Canada’s controversial Memorial to the Victims of Communism will not include the names of alleged victims of communism, per a statement from Canadian Heritage spokesperson Caroline Czajkowski.

Historians, journalists and other experts have warned since 2021 that a list of names submitted for commemoration on the monument included suspected war criminals, Nazi collaborators and members of wartime fascist groups.

“The Government of Canada has emphasized that all aspects of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism must align with Canadian values of democracy and human rights,” wrote Czajkowski in a statement. “The Wall of Remembrance will now solely feature thematic content that conveys the broader commemorative and educational intent of the Memorial.”

Czajkowski added that there is “no set timeline for the completion of the thematic content” and that the heritage department will continue to collaborate with project sponsor Tribute to Liberty “to ensure the Memorial remains a respectful and inclusive place of remembrance and reflection.” 

………

Tribute to Liberty was responsible for preparing the list of alleged victims, which were compiled as part of a fundraising effort over several years. 

The Maple reached out to the organization’s board chair, Ludwik Klimkowski, for comment, but received no response.

According to Czajkowski, Tribute to Liberty is expected to independently develop an educational program related to the monument.

………

In February 2024, Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese obtained documents through an Access to Information request that showed the unveiling was actually postponed in part due to the fallout from the scandal surrounding Parliament’s standing ovations for Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian Waffen-SS veteran. 

In October 2024, the Ottawa Citizen reported that St-Onge’s office could not commit to ensuring no Nazis would be commemorated on the monument.

As reported in Ricochet, the name of at least one Nazi collaborator, Janis Niedra, had been engraved on a nameplate and affixed to the monument before the unveiling was postponed. 

Sandra Richards, a Canadian Heritage project manager, noticed the name had been attached to the Wall of Remembrance during a site visit. 

An email thread obtained by Ricochet through Access to Information revealed that Richards and several other Canadian Heritage officials were aware of Niedra’s name and that there was an agreement in principle that Niedra’s name would be excluded from the commemoration.

………

Sandra Richards, a Canadian Heritage project manager, noticed the name had been attached to the Wall of Remembrance during a site visit. 

An email thread obtained by Ricochet through Access to Information revealed that Richards and several other Canadian Heritage officials were aware of Niedra’s name and that there was an agreement in principle that Niedra’s name would be excluded from the commemoration. 

I'm thinking that perhaps there should be an investigation of the Tribute to Liberty charity.

Headline of the Day

SUSIE WILES IS A UVALDE COP

—No More Mister Nice Blog, on what Trump's White House Chief of Staff's tell all interview with Vanity Fair means.

This is a marvelous metaphor.

It perfectly explains the perfidy of Wiles' actions.

She knows what should be done, but is unwilling to take the risk of losing her proximity to power. 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Well it looks like all those people who were harassed after being insufficiently worshipful of racist pundit Charlie Kirk are owed an apology.

Donald Trump just danced on Rob Reiner's grave in a particularly egregiously way.

I'm not going to quote him here, it's too fucking tasteless for me to quote here.(If you want to, you can see it here.)

I think that the conclusion at the above link bears repeating though:

Add to this Trump’s pardoning of all the January 6th criminals, the ramping up of violence by ICE and CBP in cities, and the non-stop hateful rhetoric, and Donald Trump is making it clear: violence in support of Donald Trump is noble.

And that’s fucking crazy.

The only consistency with Donald Trump is that if you support Trump, you can be as violent as you want.

I am official declaring the fucking start of "Say Fuck January."

I plan to make Samuel L. Jackson in, Snakes on a Plane look like Percy Dovetonsils.

Well,We Now Have the Data

We have the 2 months of jobs data that the government shutdown prevented, and it's kind of grim, 105,000 jobs lost in October and just 64,000 jobs added in November.

In case you are wondering the 64,000 new jobs in November is not enough to account for natural workforce growth.

Grim news: 

The US labor market grew by more than expected last month, recovering some of the damage inflicted by the federal government shutdown, according to official data.

An estimated 105,000 jobs were lost in October, and 64,000 were added in November, a highly-anticipated report showed on Tuesday.

Jobs growth was higher in November than anticipated by many economists, with a consensus forecast of some 40,000 jobs added.

But the headline unemployment rate continued to climb – and hit 4.6%, a four-year high, last month – amid apprehension around the strength of the US economy.

Previous estimates for overall jobs growth in August and September were also downgraded, from a drop of 4,000 to 26,000, and from growth of 119,000 to 108,000, respectively.

The latest jobs numbers, typically released monthly, were delayed due to the government shutdown. Federal government jobs declined by 162,000 in October, and 6,000 in November.

………

There are signs that the US’s job market is weakening. ADP reported US private sector employers shed about 32,000 jobs in November after adding 47,000 jobs in October. 

It feels like a recession because we are in a recession, and if con-men were not setting billions of dollars on fire in the AI frenzy, the GDP numbers would show that too.

About That Australian Social Media Ban

It turns out that the ban was bankrolled by a group whose business was making gambling ads as an ultimately successful way to divert attention from proprosed regulations against them.

Well, now there is a surprise:

The birthplace of the 36 Months campaign and its influential push for Australia’s teen social media ban was in the boardroom of advertising production company FINCH.

36 Months managing director Greg Attwells said that the group was born during a single May 2024 meeting between him, FINCH founder Rob Galluzzo and Nova 96.9 radio host Michael “Wippa” Wipfli.

Elsewhere at FINCH, staff were hard at work on another campaign: TAB’s “Get Your Bet On”.

The television advert — which was New Zealand’s third-most complained-about ad in 2024 — is just one of the many gambling-related projects worked on by FINCH over the past 10 years.

While not previously reported on, FINCH’s gambling advertising work contrasts with the social campaign of 36 Months, an organisation that FINCH funded and had staffing overlap with.

It further complicates matters for the Australian government which, under pressure from 36 Months, chose to pursue the teen social media ban while failing to make any progress on gambling advertising reform.

………

In November, the Australian Financial Review reported that the government “is expected to abandon plans for a total ban on online gambling advertising, using the under-16 social media restrictions as cover to water down the policy”.

Mission accomplished.

To be clear, I do not support making gambling illegal, but I do support tightly regulating the whole exploitative media infrastructure that arises around it. 

Linkage

• Nobel Peace Prize for Venezuela’s María Corina Machado Draws Criticism (New York Times) What?  A war-mongering CIA asset is being a war-mongering CIA asset?  Hoocoodanode?
• The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago (Science) Interesting genetic study showing that domestic cats made it to Europe later than thought.
• Did Racial Capitalism Set the Bronx on Fire? (The New Yorker) Remember how there was a spate of arson fires in the early 1970s which allowed people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan to suggest, "Benoigh Neglect," for minorities in slums?  It turns out that it was the landlords paying the arsonists for the purpose of insurance fraud.
• How dating apps Tinder, Hinge and their corporate owner keep rape under wraps (19th News) The corporate parent is Match Group.  Stay away from them.
• Why Silicon Valley is bringing eugenics back (Disconnect) Short version: These guys are racists who want to preserve their privilege and that of their descendants.
• Silicon Valley’s Fake Christianity Enables Tech Genocide (Nerd Reich) It's the narcissism.
• Apple loses its appeal of a scathing contempt ruling in iOS payments case (Ars Technica) The judge wants the motherf%$#ing malicious compliance out of his motherf%$#ing courtroom.
• Russian Central Bank Sues Euroclear Over Frozen Assets; Will the EU Be Hoist on the Investor-State Settlement Disputes (ISDS) Petard? (naked capitalism) Cue Alanis Morissette.  The irony here is magnificent.

There's no place like Hoth for the Holidays: (On the bright side, this is not the Star Wars Christmas Special)

Not a Surprise

With all the talk about US Representatives and Senators engaging in extremely profitable investments, with the implication that their finances have benefited from inside information.

Well, a researcher at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) has run the numbers, and it turns out that it's the senior leadership in Congress that derives the bulk of returns, and it's the leadership of the majority party that benefits the most.

The debate over whether US members of Congress should be allowed to trade individual stocks has become a mainstream policy concern. This column uses data on every US congressional stock trade from 1995 to 2021 to reveal that while rank-and-file members do not systematically beat the market, once some of them assume leadership positions their portfolios start to look very different and outperform those of regular members. The pattern raises uncomfortable questions about how political power, corporate access, and personal wealth interact.

The debate over whether US members of Congress should be allowed to trade individual stocks has moved from a niche ethics topic to a mainstream policy concern. Media investigations have documented pandemic-era sell-offs following closed-door COVID-19 briefings, widespread trading in industries overseen by members’ own committees, and dozens of apparent violations of the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. Against this backdrop, proposals to ban stock trading by lawmakers are gaining traction in Washington. In the latest development, on 2 December 2025, Representative Anna Paulina Luna filed a discharge petition to force a House vote on banning individual stock trading by members of Congress (Hill 2025). 

Economists have been trying to assess whether legislators’ portfolios actually earn abnormal returns, and if so, why. Early work by Ziobrowski et al. (2004, 2011) suggested that House and Senate members outperformed the market. Later studies reversed the verdict: Eggers and Hainmueller (2013) and Belmont et al. (2022) find that, on average, members would have been better off in index funds. Cherry et al. (2017) highlight that some senators earned significant sell-side gains around key legislative events, while Huang and Xuan (2023) show that abnormal performance largely disappeared after the STOCK Act. Related work on investors documents that access to policymakers can confer an informational advantage in capital markets, as evidenced by Fons-Rosen et al. (2020) on trading related to the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program.

………

Before entering leadership, future leaders and their matched peers underperform the market by similar amounts. After ascension, however, their trajectories diverge sharply: leaders’ trades outperform those of their matched peers by up to roughly 40–50 percentage points per year. The control group shows no comparable improvement. Calendar-time portfolio regressions using standard factor models confirm that leaders’ daily alphas rise markedly post-ascension, while non-leaders’ alphas remain flat. 

This is naked corruption. 

H/t naked capitalism 

There is Nothing that Private Equity Cannot Destroy

The latest victim is skateboarding.

Once PE is involved it's game over:

Are there any industries that simply cannot become corporatized, that align too closely to anti-establishment sensibilities to ever sell out? If I were to pick one, I’d start with the giant upturned middle finger that is skateboarding. The whole attraction to skate culture is tied up with its outsider, nonconformist spirit. When Steve Buscemi says, “How do you do, fellow kids?” in the famous meme about awkwardly co-opting youth subcultures, he’s literally holding a skateboard.

Yet something so quintessentially anti-corporate has been torched by private equity buyouts that destroyed both leading brands and the relationships that kept the scene thriving, cool, and local. The very structures that built skateboarding into a multibillion-dollar industry are withering in a sea of financially engineered acid.

………

The industry is currently dealing with this February’s bankruptcy of Liberated Brands, a conglomerate of numerous iconic skate and surf imprints (including Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, and RVCA) established after a 2023 rollup by Authentic Brands Group, owners of Reebok, Guess, Nautica, Aéropostale, Nine West, Juicy Couture, and more. Amid a series of private equity–fueled collapses afflicting the industry, the Liberated bankruptcy is the largest, resulting in over 1,000 layoffs and the shuttering of all its retail locations.

If these crashes came about because skaters simply rejected sellout brands, there would be a flicker of hope that the “fuck the man” ethos of skateboarding would pull through. But they seem mainly due to the familiar tactics private equity uses to extract value from companies and leave them as a desiccated shell. It raises the question of how skateboarding can go forward if every brand that gets a little success becomes a sitting duck for a financial vulture.

We really need to change whatever laws that allow these pirates to operate.

Inconceivable

Director, actor, and writer Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle, were found dead in their Los Angeles home.

It was apparently a homicide, and a family member is being questioned.

What Happened in Australia

In Sidney Australia today (or maybe yesterday, because of the whole international date line thing) 2 gunmen opened fire on a crowd at a Chabad Hanukah event on the beach,  killing at least 16.

Of note, there was a hero there, Ahmed al Ahmed a fruit stand vendor who tackled and wrestled a gun away from one of the gunmen.

It's important to note here that Ahmed is a Muslim and an immigrant from the Middle East to Australia, and he snuck up to the gunman unarmed and tackled him.

There are additional links if you want to go further, see here, here, here, and here.

Note that anything you read online is likely to contain misinformation, so double check everything, particularly AI slop. 

It appears that Elon Musk's Grok has set a new low in misinformation and bigotry, which should surprise no one.

If you are inclined to excuse this act because of Gaza, go fuck yourself.

Deep Thought

The worst part of being bald is not the lack of hair, it's the feeling of snowflakes landing on my scalp.

It's snowing in Maryland right now. 

Yes, I know, I could wear a hat, but I hate hats. 

We Are Unbelievably Screwed

It looks like a collopse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is increasingly likely.

This will disrupt weather over the world, but particularly in Europe, where would could see temperatures drop by 10°C (18°F).

Note that Paris, France is 3 degrees latitude further north than Toronto, Canada, so this is a big deal.

Time for a climate update. Tipping points are approaching. To present this information this systematically, consider the following:

•  Bad things are already happening, and they’ll continue.
•  Over not much time, the bad things will also get worse.
•  Then tipping points will be reached, after which the worst is baked in.
•  Some years after that, the worst arrives in full.

This process is true in a great many areas: sea level rise, for example, and coastal destruction.

The seas are already rising, due partly to ocean expansion (warm water takes up more space than cold water), but due mainly to melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica. Once the tipping point for glacial melt has been reached, all ice will be guaranteed gone at some future time, and a full sea level rise disaster is bound to occur.

What will that look like? Greenland ice melt will cause 24 feet of sea level rise; Antarctica ice melt, 230 feet. The world’s coastal cities, where 15% of world population lives, will erode with the shores and be drowned. In the U.S., 45% of GDP will be lost. 

The tipping point for the collapse of AMOC is currently predicted at 10-30 years.

We need to do something now,  and we are currently ruled by people who are literally pro anthropogenic climate change.

Game over, dudes! 

Thursday ╭∩╮（︶︿︶）╭∩╮ (on Saturday)

First, let's note home prices are partying like it's 2008, with house prices falling 1.4% in the last quarter:

Home prices have finally come down compared with last year, though just fractionally, according to daily reads from Parcl Labs, which looks at high-frequency listing data on single-family homes, condos and townhomes, both new and existing.

They may stay softer, though, as home prices are down 1.4% in just the last three months.

On a national level, home prices have not gone negative since mid-2023, a year after the Federal Reserve first brought rates up from zero, and mortgage rates moved sharply higher. From March 2022 to June 2023, the average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage went from 3.9% to just over 7%, according to Mortgage News Daily.

But even then, prices were negative on a year-over-year basis for just a few months. It was nothing like the great financial crisis when home prices dropped 27% from their peak in 2006 to their trough in 2012, according to the S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. 

………

While other home price indexes and surveys measure just existing home values, this one measures both new and existing. There has been no government data on housing starts, building permits or sales of newly built homes since before the government shutdown started, so it's difficult to paint any kind of supply picture in the price forecast.

That said, builders reporting quarterly earnings have indicated that demand is still relatively weak and incentives are still necessary. Homebuilder sentiment is still well into negative territory.

Seeing as how the Federal Reserve had the news a few days ahead of the rest of us, this explains why they cut their baseline interest rate by 25 basis points (¼%):

Federal Reserve officials cut interest rates for a third straight meeting but signaled they might be done for now in the midst of unusual divisions over the path forward.

The decision Wednesday to reduce the benchmark federal-funds rate by a quarter point—to between 3.5% and 3.75%, a three-year low—is aimed at protecting against a sharper than anticipated slowdown in hiring.

The Fed voted 9-3, the first time in six years that three officials cast dissents. Two officials thought the reduction wasn’t warranted, while another favored a larger, half-point cut.

With progress on inflation stalled, officials had indicated in the run-up to this week’s decision that further reductions could require evidence of labor-market deterioration. “We’re well-positioned to wait and see how the economy evolves from here,” said Fed Chair Jerome Powell at a news conference.
On Wednesday, their painstakingly calibrated postmeeting statement signaled a higher bar to additional cuts by echoing a similar pivot after cutting rates one year ago.

………

Still, Powell defended the decision to cut now rather than waiting until the Fed’s next meeting in late January, when it will have significantly more data that had been delayed because of this fall’s government shutdown.

He suggested that after adjusting for overcounting, job growth might have been slightly negative since April. “I think you can say that the labor market has continued to cool gradually, maybe just a touch more gradually, than we thought,” Powell said.

Predicting what the Federal Reserve will do, particularly when one of Trump's bully-boys replaces Powell.

Finally, we have the unemployment claims data, and there was a blood-bath in initial claims, though continuing claims fell slightly:

Applications for US unemployment benefits rose last week by the most since the onset of the pandemic, underscoring the volatile nature of claims at this time of year.

Initial claims increased by 44,000 to 236,000 in the week ended Dec. 6, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. That was the biggest jump since March 2020 and followed the lowest level of applications in more than three years in the previous week, which included Thanksgiving. The figure exceeded all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Weekly initial claims tend to be choppy around the holidays and will likely continue to fluctuate through the end of the year, but Thursday’s figures are toward the higher end of readings seen in 2025. Companies like PepsiCo Inc. and HP Inc. have laid out plans to reduce headcount in recent weeks, and nationwide layoffs in October were the highest since early 2023.

………

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits that are reported on a one-week lag compared to initial claims, were similarly volatile. Those dropped to 1.84 million in the Thanksgiving week, marking the biggest decline in four years.

I think that this is going to get worse over the next few months.

The Democratic Party Rally Hat

Spelunking helmet, just the thing for caving


Democrats limited knowledge of anatomy

So, Democrats got their promised vote on extending the ACA (Obamacare) subsidies, and Republicans put up a phony bill in opposition and killed them both.

When Chuck Schumer orchestrated this capitulation, anyone with any integrity or courage noted that he was giving up for nothing, but the airlines are big donors to the Senate Minority Leader, and Thanksgiving was coming up, so he arranged for the usual suspects to flip.

And now we have the proof:

Subsidies for the Affordable Care Act appear set to expire for millions of Americans at the end of the year after competing health care related bills failed to advance in the Senate on Thursday.

The outcome was widely expected after Democrats and Republicans chose to release separate partisan proposals. Both parties are under pressure to address health care costs before the expiration of federal subsidies meant to lower the cost of premiums on ACA plans. Those subsidies expire at the end of 2025 and are expected to cause prices to skyrocket.

Both bills needed 60 votes to advance, but neither succeeded.

The Republican-backed plan failed by a vote of 51 to 48. The measure, authored by Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, would have provided up to $1,500 a year in payments for health savings accounts for Americans earning less than 700% of the federal poverty level.

However the bill would not have extended the ACA tax credits and the money could not be used to pay for health care premiums. Deductibles for those plans average around $7,000, according to data from the health policy organization KFF.

I place the blame firmly on Schumer and the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) because it was patently obvious how Republicans would treat their promise for a vote.

It's like the story of the frog and the scorpion. You do not blame the scorpion, it's in their nature.

What a bunch of worthless and feckless schlemiels.

Unfortunately, it is the rest of us are the schlimazels left soaked in soup. 

Not Gonna End Well

You may not have read about it, but one of Waymo's self-driving taxis ran over a beloved bodega cat in San Francisco, prompting community outrage.

It appears that Waymo's response is to activate asshole mode for their artificial intelligence driver software:

It was like a scene out of a movie: a pair of white Jaguars zipping through a two-lane tunnel, changing lanes at the same time in a zigzag formation. But this one had a twist. They were both Waymos, the self-driving vehicles known for their achingly cautious behavior. 

“I had never seen anyone switch lanes in that tunnel,” says Sophia Yen, a startup founder who was in her car behind the two autonomous ones this past September. “It’s driving more like a taxi driver—an aggressive, New York taxi driver.”

For years while training on the streets of San Francisco and eventually transporting passengers, Waymos were the most polite drivers on the road. Pull up to a stop sign at the same time as a Waymo and it would wait, as if to say, “No, please, after you.” If you were trying to go around another car making a left, a Waymo was sure to let you in. In short, they were drivers you wouldn’t want to get stuck behind while in a hurry. 

The training wheels are off. Like the rule-following nice guy who’s tired of being taken advantage of, Waymos are putting their own needs first. They’re bending traffic laws, getting impatient with pedestrians and embracing the idea that when it comes to city driving, politeness doesn’t pay: It’s every car for itself.

In September, police in San Bruno, Calif., pulled over a Waymo after witnessing it make an illegal U-turn. Last month, a Waymo hit and killed a well-known neighborhood cat in the Mission district. On a recent Thursday in Pacific Heights, a Waymo at a multilane four-way stop hit the gas along with the car next to it so it wouldn’t have to wait its turn. Seconds later, the same car decided signaling a lane change wasn’t necessary. 

………

Waymo has been trying to make its cars “confidently assertive,” says Chris Ludwick, a senior director of product management with Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet. “That was really necessary for us to actually scale this up in San Francisco, especially because of how busy it gets.”  

Let me translate what Mr. Ludwick is saying into the truth.  He's saying, "We talked with our lawyers, and they have told us that WHEN our car kills someone, we won't be in legal jeopardy."

Here's a suggestion.  When the cars do something bad, start arresting Waymo management.  That should make them think more about safety.

Driving is arguably one of the most difficult things that a human can do, and for companies to train their cars on squished cats is something that should land their flabby white asses in jail.

Deep Thought

Tim Curry did Muppet Treasure Island, the Muppets should do Rocky HorrowThe next Muppet movie should be a remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

That is all. 

The Joys of a Cleaver

A few years back, I got a cheap meat cleaver at Target.

I really like it.

I use it a lot, not just for things like breaking up a turkey carcass.

Just tonight, I chopped up come cabbage with it, it was an amazing goodatthat, and then hand washed it immediately.

It has a lot more uses that I had originally thought, even if one does not consider it's obvious application, threatening people who intrude in my kitchen.

FWIW, I have never threatened anyone with my cleaver, though I have joked about the possibility. 

This is Nuts

Donald Trump is claiming that he has pardoned Tina Peters, the former county clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, who was convicted of convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state, and sentenced to 9 years in prison.

She did all this in an attempt to create false evidence of a "stolen" election in 2020. 

With all of the pardons that Trump is issuing lately, my reader(s) might wonder why this pardon is noteworthy.

It's pretty simple.  All of the above charges are State charges, and the President has no authority to do so.  (Well, at least he lacks the authority until the six corrupt Supreme Court Justices make yet another ruling rivaling the awfulness oif Dred Scott v. Sanford.)

Unfortunately, the so-called journalist out there are selling it as a, "Some experts say," as opposed to it being bat-shit insane, because there has been too much in the way of media mergers:

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has pardoned Tina Peters, a former county clerk in Colorado who was convicted in state court on felony charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“Democrats have been relentless in their targeting of TINA PETERS, a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure that our Elections were Fair and Honest,” wrote Trump in a post on Truth Social. “Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!”

It was unclear whether Trump was asserting that he has the power to free Peters from state prison. She is serving a nine-year sentence. Presidents have the power to pardon defendants convicted in federal courts, but previous presidents have not claimed that authority in a state case.

Unclear?  Seriously? 

………

The Constitution gives the president the power “to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.” The Supreme Court has interpreted that language as referring to federal crimes, not those charged by states.

In a lengthy letter to Trump this month, however, Ticktin disputed that traditional understanding.

“The issue which needs to be answered whether our founders understood or intended when they wrote that the President had the Power to Pardon offenses against the United States, if it meant the states or only the federal government. Did they mean the one central authority, or did they mean the plural, meaning the states which were united?” he wrote.

Ticktin conceded that the claim that the president could pardon people for state crimes “has never been raised in any court” but said Trump should assert that authority in Peters’s case.

It's never been raised in court because the argument is complete bullshit.

Anyone who is a serious journalist should be calling that bullshit out.  This Washington Post reporter clearly is not serioius. 

Headline of the Day

Jurors in Sandwich Thrower Case Found Charges ‘Bunch of Baloney’

—Bloomberg

I have only one thing to add, whoever wrote this hed should never have to buy themselves another drink.

Not a Fan of Gerrymandering, But

In response to Texas redistricting and Trump bullying, Virginia Republicans, who will shortly have control of both state houses and the Governor's mansion, have rolled out a redistricting plan of their own, which will take the current 6D — 5R delegation and make it a 10D — 1R.

I'm pretty sure that the 6 Supreme Court corrupt conservative justices will find a way to invalidate this, even though they blessed the Texas redistricting, because ……… The Aristocrats.

Virginia Democrats threatened to go nuclear on the GOP in their retaliatory mid-decade redistricting, potentially deleting as many as four Republican seats to create a map where Democrats win 10 out of 11 districts.

Don Scott, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, was asked about redistricting at a meeting of the Virginia Property Owners Alliance. In response, he replied, "10-1 is not out of the realm to be able to draw the maps in a succinct and community-based way," according to Punchbowl News' Ally Mutnick.

To quote Sean Connery reading David Mamet's screenplay, "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!"

Damn

The lobbyists strike again.

Once again, lobbyists for the military-industrial complex win, and right to repair for the military was cut from the latest military spending bill.

F%$# the  lobbyists and the so-called moderates who did this. 

Congress has released the final version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and critics have been quick to point out that previously proposed rules giving the US military the right to repair its equipment without having to rely on contractors have gone missing.

The House and Senate versions of the NDAA passed earlier both included provisions that would have extended common right-to-repair rules to US military branches, requiring defense contractors to provide access to technical data, information, and components that enabled military customers to quickly repair essential equipment. Both of those provisions were stripped from the final joint-chamber reconciled version of the bill, published Monday, right-to-repair advocates at the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) pointed out in a press release.

Support for the military's right to repair is so broad, and it's one of the few issues where liberal Democrats in Congress are aligned with President Trump. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT) even introduced a bill over the summer that would have legislated "fair and reasonable access" to necessary parts and information that would enable the US military to fix gear faster than farmers with broken John Deere tractors. That bill, referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee in July, hasn't budged since.

The real problem is that the DMCA makes this a favored profit source for too many business.  It needs to be relealed.