A rambling speech by Donald Trump shall henceforth be known as a #TACO salad.
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha1.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 10:13 PM
===
He's not just a diva. He's a total TACO BELLE.
— Rob Thorne ???? (@torenware.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Our Very Serious Major Media might find it… unsettling… to honestly report mock someone they’ll need to placate for many news cycles to come, but there’s always a reliable celebrity distraction:
Musk says he’s “leaving government” but with everything DOGE stole is more like he’s “leaving with the government”
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Running interference
— Craig Hillman (@craighillman.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Per the NYTimes, “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama” [gift link]
As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
On Wednesday evening, Mr. Musk announced that he was ending his stint with the government, after lamenting how much time he had spent on politics instead of his businesses…
The White House declined to comment on Mr. Musk’s drug use. At a news conference with Mr. Trump on Friday afternoon, Mr. Musk was asked about The New York Times’s coverage. He questioned the newspaper’s credibility and told the reporter to “move on.”
As a large government contractor, Mr. Musk’s aerospace firm, SpaceX, must maintain a drug-free work force and administers random drug tests to its employees. But Mr. Musk has received advance warning of the tests, according to people close to the process. SpaceX did not respond to questions about those warnings…
“Elon has pushed the boundaries of his bad behavior more and more,” said Philip Low, a neuroscientist and onetime friend of Mr. Musk’s who criticized him for his Nazi-like gesture at a rally.
And some women are challenging Mr. Musk for control of their children…
He plays video games for hours on end. He struggles with binge eating, according to people familiar with his habits, and takes weight-loss medication. And he posts day and night on his social media platform, X.
Mr. Musk has a history of recreational drug use, The Wall Street Journal reported last year. Some board members at Tesla, his electric vehicle company, have worried about his use of drugs, including Ambien, a sleep medication…
people think this strains credulity but i could see musk getting his shit rocked by a toddler
— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Basically the musk story boils down to: immigrant on drug-fueled rampage massacres hundreds of thousands of innocents and robs your social security checks and Medicaid plans as law enforcement shrugs.
— Philip Gourevitch (@pgourevitch.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 12:06 PM
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The thing in the NYT story about he gets tipped off about federal drug tests ahead of time is eyebrow raising, not because it's surprising, but it's surprising they have that sourced well enough to actually print it. It's a very serious accusation that implicates many others in serious crime
====
not a denial!
— Sean O’Kane (@seanokane.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 12:17 PM
===
"Musk has become much less of a political attention magnet. What changed?"
honestly a lot of it is you guys got bored covering all the damage he was doing— Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly (@rtodkelly.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 11:19 AM
… Indeed, whereas Trump has—on the whole, if not always—seemed to benefit from understanding that any attention is essentially worth having, all the negative attention Musk has attracted in recent months, not least that related to the DOGE cuts, looks really to have harmed the tech mogul. Polls have shown that Musk is unpopular. Democrats have turned him into a campaign punching bag and seem set to keep punching, whatever his future role; many Republicans, in turn, have distanced themselves from him. (“People hate him,” a party operative told Politico. “He’d go to Wisconsin thinking he can buy people’s votes, wear the cheese hat, act like a 9-year-old. . . . It doesn’t work. It’s offensive to people.”) Hayes told Klein that Musk’s purchase of X had turned out to be “an enormous, almost Archimedean, lever on the electorate.” If that was true, the lever may have cranked back against him…
Baud
The destruction of America can’t compete with Biden being old.
mappy!
Taco Knights. Taco daze.
Michael Bersin
The second event in west central Missouri in three days – of three:
March and Rally – Warrensburg, Missouri – May 30, 2025
Around 100 people showed up for a march and rally yesterday evening – protesting the travesties of the second Trump Administration and the right wingnut-controlled Missouri General Assembly. Missouri House Democratic Leader, Representative Ashley Aune and Representative Ray Reed (D) marched and later spoke at the rally.
Later today, the annual Warrensburg Pride Festival.
Princess
One correction: I believe he pays *other* people to pay video games for hours on end.
Baud
Somewhere out there there’s a dog named Taco, and I now feel sorry for it.
TONYG
Just my opinion, but … when the New York Times refers to Elon’s bizarre collection of baby-mamas as “family life” and “romantic relationships” it looks like more sane-washing to me.
lowtechcyclist
Ah, but these were dark skinned furriners. When have those deaths ever upset Americans?
Probably around a million Iraqis died as a result of our invasion and inability to control their country in the years following. Did America care? Ha.
Princess
Meanwhile, Trump is so angry that every day is now TACO Tuesday, he’s doubled the tariffs on steel and aluminum for Canada and other countries and he’s not allowing US exporters to export certain things to China without licenses in retaliation for China slow-walking the export of rare minerals.
Its a good thing the US doesn’t make things with steel and aluminum because the US still doesn’t produce enough and won’t any time soon, and American manufacturers are still going to have to buy it elsewhere at the new higher-tariffed price.
lowtechcyclist
OK, so they pick and choose which illegal drugs they should be concerned about. On what basis? Seems to me that people playing major roles in running the U.S. government shouldn’t be doing so while having their brains messed up with drugs, and that it should be a BFD if they are. JMHO and all that.
NotMax
Weekend diversion. Flash from the misty distant past.
Puppet pitchmen. (Remember leisurely two minute commercials?)
;)
NotMax
@Baud
Rename it Boo. Stat.
;)
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: Gah! I so wish I hadn’t looked. Now that gd song is stuck. ;-)
Shalimar
When Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt aren’t willing to lie to protect your drug use, that is a shitload of drugs.
NotMax
@MagdaInBlack
There are a plethora of more noxious earworms
(Shall spare y’all any linkage.)
;)
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
Thanks, we’ve suffered enough already. ;-)
mappy!
Maybe the wedge issue has finally surfaced that can end the media hegemony of protecting the Big Taco and Republicans everywhere… Trump chickens out about Musk Melon’s drug use. Trump chickens out about getting tough with Putin. Trump chickens out about directing Republicans not to touch Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security in the Big Taco’s Big Beautiful Burrito. Every day is Taco Tuesday and Republicans everywhere acquiesce.
Spanky
Meanwhile:
More, sadly, at the link.
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: I appreciate you’re kindness, thank you ;-)
lowtechcyclist
@mappy!:
And of course all the TACOpublicans all chicken out at the mere thought of putting any limits on what TACO Grande can do.
Suzanne
Assumes facts not in evidence. I would hardly call sliding into someone’s DMs on Xhitter and impregnating them via IVF because your dick was mutilated by an implant “romantic”.
No flowers, dinner, foreplay?!
Scout211
CNN (web archive version) has a whole big news story up about TACO’s big mad when the reporter first asked his reactions to the new name for his tariff policies.
The origin of the name was interesting to me because I am not on social media. Most of you probably already knew this but it was new to me.
The story went on to quote anonymous White House sources who said TACO was really mad at his advisers who didn’t give him a heads up that TACO tariffs was being used to describe his big, beautiful, art-of-the-deal tariff negotiations.
So sad that his advisers spend so much time and energy stroking his ego and keeping things from him to protect that big ego that they now are being blamed for not informing him that financial experts were dissing him. So sad.
Spanky
@Suzanne: I assume the foreplay consists of writing a check.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
The drugs rich white people take are OK. The drugs poor white people take have been inflicted on them by Mexicans trying to humiliate America. Do try to keep up.
Suzanne
@Spanky: To be fair, if someone wrote me a really big check…..
Spanky
@Scout211: Reuters Financial article today:
Scout211
Fixed that for you. ;-)
Spanky
@Spanky: MEGA (Make Europe Great Again) is a new one to me.
Rusty
Nice of the NYT to time this story story just as Musk officially leaves, so the administration can refuse to answer questions and say its no longer relevant since he doesn’t work their any longer.
Scout211
@Spanky: Thanks. That article is very informative.
Yes, MEGA and the new MAGA (Make America Go Away) are great.
Butch
The idea that Musk told his kid to punch him and thinks that’s a good reason to have a black eye really says something about the man.
Barney
@TONYG: You’re right. The last person whose relationship with him could possibly be called “romantic” was Grimes, who used to publicly admit liking him, and gave birth to his child in Sept 2023, so you could extend the “romantic” rather than “paid mother” description to Jan 2023 or later if you’re generous. By Oct 2023 she was suing him, so it was over for sure by then.
Since then, he’s had the extremely simple relationship status of “nobody in the world likes him”, all through the campaign and since.
Scout211
@Butch: “My kid punched me after I dared him to” is the new “I ran into a door.”
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Honestly, I wouldn’t give a single nano-fuck that they’re getting high or what they’re getting high on if the motherfuckers were doing their jobs and following the goddamn law.
They ain’t. Their drug use is almost certainly a proximate cause of the sheer irrationality of their actions, but really, when a meth-head kills while under the influence he still gets charged with murder.
Sure Lurkalot
What is it about drug use that is disqualifying for Elon? There are well sourced rumors that Trump has sniffed Adderall for years, many videos of Don Junior yapping at the speed of light apparently on cocaine and don’t forget the reports of Dr. Ronny’s drug use and the stories relating his improperly dispensing prescription drugs to staff in Trumps previous administration.
It sounds like Musk’s drug use was his least reprehensible habit that could be reported on with a tsk tsk by the FTFNYT. “He was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people familiar with his activities” begs the question, “previously known by whom at the FTFNYT?”
TONYG
@Barney: Musk’s “relationships” with these women and their children is a throwback to the way it was for wealthy men for. thousands of years. The women and the kids are just property. “Efficiency”!
Butch
@Scout211: A box fell off a shelf.
Gin & Tonic
@Barney:
“Simple” doesn’t mean “wrong,” you know.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
I guess my point is elementary caution and prevention. If you know someone in your life is a meth-head, you’d want to do what you could to keep them from accessing weapons. Or being in a position of power in our government.
Either way, yes, they should be held personally liable for any crimes they commit and any damage they do, but if someone else hands the meth-head the gun, or puts the meth-head in a position where he can take a chainsaw to the U.S. government, that someone else should be liable as well.
(If we get through all this and come out the other side in a position to do so, there damn well needs to be a special court to assess the damage to our government, identify the laws broken and the names of those who broke them, and hand out appropriately long prison sentences. But that’s a different topic.)
Gin & Tonic
Yesterday I learned that one of the hated foreign students at Harvard is the daughter (only child) of Xi Jinping. And now Trump’s fellatrix Laura Loomer is lobbying for her expulsion and deportation. A brilliant strategy, no?
For anyone who wants a simple, one-sentence explanation of American “soft power” here it is – paramount leader of America’s premier global adversary sends his only child to university in America.
lowtechcyclist
@Sure Lurkalot:
Fixed.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Hating on long term visa holders, international students and scholars and the foreign workers is pretty mainstream and not just on the MAGA right
schrodingers_cat
Speaking of cartoon villains, Bernie Sanders is mouthing off again, about Democrats. He has done far more damage to our brand than any Republican has. And yet we never hear calls for him to step down from the likes of Hogg or other BS bros even though he is older than Biden.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
And, if nothing else, all this demonstrates is that, yes, there as that dickhead Sean Hannity whined about for the last 4 years, two tiers of justice: the “throw-the-book-at-’em” justice for us little guys and the “get out of jail free” one for the wealthy and politically-connected.
lowtechcyclist
@Sure Lurkalot:
I don’t give a damn about drug use by people who are in no position to mess anything up besides their own sorry lives. Elon, OTOH, was placed in a position to do an incredible amount of damage to our government, as evidenced by the fact that he did so.
If Trump’s some sort of drug addict, not a whole lot we can do about that: the American people elected him to his current office.
sab
@Sure Lurkalot: You will have to wait for the book.
Gvg
@Baud: There are at least thousands of dogs named taco and many cats too. I think they will be ok.
Petsmart and others have sold taco Halloween costumes for pets for years. This years Halloween celebration is likely to have a protest edge to it. Not just with taco’s, with everything. It’s always got a little contemporary humor sarcasm. This time with all the slashing and offending people, I think it’s going to have multiple streams of creative commentary.
I recall when the Hubble telescope was looking like a failure early on, there was a lot of costume commentary with blind scientists. Around the same time education budgets were being cut here, and teachers were dressed up covered in bandaids….
so start thinking about your costumes people!
Professor Bigfoot
A-MF-MEN.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
I could use a lot less fentanyl and meth in my neighborhood, personally. I don’t want any of those people to suffer, but some of them are not keeping their fucked-up behavior to themselves, behind closed doors. That’s my problem with Elon here…. he’s sure AF in no proper state of mind to make important decisions on behalf of others.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
Foreign workers, maybe. But the rest? That’s news to me. Been awhile since my grad school days, but back in the 1980s and 1990s there were lots of foreign grad students already. If anyone was upset by it, I sure missed it.
Professor Bigfoot
@Gin & Tonic:
I have just sat here for the last few minutes, reading G&T’s comment and I am still gobsmacked.
This comment says it ALL.
Bloody hell.
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
I know that dog.
Nukular Biskits
Semi-related: During out Thursday mgr meeting, my manager asked all of us to come up with a couple/three sentences to justify our existences.
I’m still a little fuzzy on this as to whether there was a rumor that DOGE (via DoD) was going to be asking defense contractors to explain what value they provided to the gov’t or had already started doing so.
In any case, my mgr wanted to have something ready and reviewed by corp legal, etc, when/if he gets asked (he’s the PM for our contract) so he asked for us to put what would happen if we weren’t around in the most apocalyptic terms possible without it being over-the-top.
ETA: Corrected “there” vice “their”
Princess
@Gvg: indeed, taco cat is a palindrome.
Miss Bianca
Meanwhile, in “you cannot make this shit up” territory, my blood-red county that proudly, overwhelmingly voted for Trump – whose county governments all tried to pass an “anti-sanctuary county” resolution (since the only “sanctuary” we recognize is for firearms – won’t someone think of the poor beleaguered GUNS out there?!) – has been…listed as a “sanctuary county” by the Trump administration and has all its federal funding threatened.
Jesus wept (with laughter).
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I kinda agree and I certainly understand, but it’s been a philosophy of mine that it’s not about drugs, it’s about behavior.
Like you said, when their asshattery crosses your perimeter that’s a real problem, but it’s the asshattery, not the drugs.
We wouldn’t tolerate stone sober asshats, neither, right? ;)
UncleEbeneezer
Well I finally have a band! Jammed with the country/surf/rockabilly trio yesterday and we hit it off smashingly. They were quite impressed with how well I knew the tunes on such short notice and my ability to play drums at a very reasonable volume (something a lot of drummers don’t do). They are also super-nice guys and the upright bass player is a teacher for a bunch of my tennis students and friends’ kids. Anyways, now I gotta learn a boatload of material for a double-gig on Sat 6/14, playing one set in the afternoon and then three more 7-10 at one of the local hotel/bar/restaurants. Fortunately the three-setter is really chill and low-pressure and we’ll do a lot of simple tunes that they will just sorta guide me through. After several years of not really being able to gig due to working most nights and geographic spread of Los Angeles and other factors, I’m really excited to finally have a band with some steady gigs again.
Another Scott
@Spanky:
Of course, there are specific rules about what a Special Government Employee like Melon can and cannot do.
He’s hit his 130 days. He won’t be “back and forth” as an employee with actual authority. At least, not without breaking the law.
Much more is out there, at various US Department web pages on their SGEs.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@UncleEbeneezer: congrats! I miss having a band.
Nukular Biskits
@UncleEbeneezer: Congrats!
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: “at least, not without breaking the law”.
Oh, you think this Administration suddenly cares about the law of the land?
Spanky
@Scout211: It occurs to me that if or when Trump realizes that Wall Street is mocking him, he’s gonna try to retaliate somehow. And I’m sure retaliating against the money boyz is gonna go just swimmingly.
Nukular Biskits
Dammit. I think I’ve asked this question before but does the webpage go back to the top for everyone else upon either refreshing or posting?
This never happens when using my phone and it doesn’t always happen when I’m on my laptop (using Firefox w/ NoScript).
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: It gives the lawyers filing suits something to work with.
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: no I don’t think he has done more long term damage. He is just more offensive because he caucuses with us and ran for our party’s nomination for President (because an independent had no chance) so he is like a back stabber. The republicans have been dripping lies and poison into the ears of voters for decades and it’s taken for granted, not weighed when measuring relative damage.
You arrived after it was already well underway, and from what you say, a similar thing happened in India. I have lived through the change, and watched it. Not only has it corrupted our civics and government but I would say it has poisoned many Christian churches. Some of them are so toxic I don’t know if they will ever recover their reputation. Well this sort of has happened before, and led to the reformation, but all I can say is they seem to be teaching wrong is right compared to when I was a kid, and religious no longer means nice, it equates to mean.
Bernie has a white centric anti immigration view that hits you personally, and he is what you think. I agree. I just think the whole conservative Republican anti intellectual, anti science, anti invest for future generations, don’t share with anyone else, greed is good, always blame someone else, only America is good or brave is far worse and bigger than Bernie.
It’s a good thing we didn’t pick Bernie because he isn’t smart enough to see the whole forest let alone know how to find a way through it. He is a very limited person. I guess we need him sort of on our side, but he sure is tiresome. Keeping a coalition together is work. You are free to keep reminding us of his flaws, I just look back at all the lies I heard that didn’t get stomped on in the media and also the weird stuff I hear from people now that I wonder what I didn’t hear because I wasn’t listening to what I considered liars…and we have to fix it.
Nukular Biskits
@Another Scott:
LOL. Oh, you precious, precious child, you.
Like Sheriff Cooley said in “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”:
Another Scott
@Butch: Didn’t the kid tell 47 “I want you to shush your mouth” or something?
Sounds like “X” doesn’t have much in the way of boundaries. I wonder why that is… I also wonder if he’ll straighten up before he does real damage to himself or the rest of us…
:-/
Best wishes,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Gvg: Rs have done more damage to the country than BS. I was focusing on the last 8 or so years. Bernie has done a lot of damage to the Democratic brand since he ran for President in 2016.
He has injected nihilism, the burn-it-all-down ethos on our side. And the pie-in-the-sky thinking unmoored to any reality.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
List generated by AI.
Another Scott
@Miss Bianca: Of course not.
But the list of impeachable offenses is still being kept. The House will likely flip, and potentially the Senate, in the near future.
And Melon himself probably doesn’t want to be brought up on charges.
Nobody knows the future, including the present MotUs.
Forward!!
[ eta: ] And OO’s excellent point about lawsuits.
Best wishes,
Scott.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Nukular Biskits
@rikyrah:
Mornin!
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: Mine keeps re-winding about 6 comments.
Jackie
@UncleEbeneezer: That’s such wonderful news! I’m SO happy for you!
Has the move to NM been a good for Mrs UB, too?
zhena gogolia
@Professor Bigfoot: Yeah. It really does say it all.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: Agreed. If people keep their bad shit to themselves, I’m absolutely fine with that.
I do think it’s important to drug test for certain jobs. For example, construction workers are often drug tested, because an error in spatial judgment or slow reflexes can be deadly. (And during the parts of projects when I am on site a great deal, I am also drug tested, which I think is eminently reasonable.)
IMO, high-level governance is another arena in which drug testing strikes me as also eminently reasonable.
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
Ay-yup. Based on “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” BS. I love it. I also love that it’s our Sheriff’s Office that would stand to lose the most in federal funding.
I’m mean that way.
SW
Sorry Elon, this K Hole is forever.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: Republicans have done the damage; but they’re the opposition, that’s what they do.
Would they have been so successful if Democrats had not been “stabbed in the back” from inside the tent?
Jackie
@Nukular Biskits:
Not back to the top after posting… on my phone, for the past week, when I hit post, instead of taking me to my post so that I can click on the nym I responded to and return to where I was, and continue reading where I left off, I get transferred to the middle of the thread and have figure out where I am. I end up hitting the “comment” button at the top, where I can scooch up to my just posted comment and click on who I replied to and get back to where I left off.
Frustrating as hell.
UncleEbeneezer
@Jackie: Yes. She has a swim class she enjoys, a weekly mahjong game with friends and now a birding group that meets at the land trust within walking distance from our place.
Josie
@suzanne:
Very reasonable. I also think drug testing is important for anyone working with children.
jonas
I’m old enough to remember when finding some trace amount of cocaine in the WH was worthy of a week-long meltdown on Fox. Now any couch in the place Elon even sat on briefly causes drug-sniffing dogs to start howling and pass out.
RevRick
@Spanky: Musk is more symptom than cause. He is the rotten fruit from the bad tree of injustice and violence. He did not cause the yawning wealth gap. That has been growing for over two generations and existed previously in the Gilded Age. He didn’t cause the indifference to violence done to racial, religious and ethnic minorities. He grew up in a world where that was routine and emigrated to a country with centuries of history of violence towards indigenous, black, Hispanic and Asian peoples.
Perhaps we hate him, because he is a reflection of us.
jonas
@schrodingers_cat: I dunno. Maybe some people in the tech industry were resentful of the number of foreign workers with H1-B visas, but until Trump made irrational nativism a major tenet of his MAGA cult movement, most Americans were proud that our higher ed system was the envy of the world and that it would send its best and brightest to work at our schools.
Butch
@Another Scott: Yup. Best part of that story is that Trump had his desk professionally cleaned after that meeting because the kid kept wiping snot on it.
jonas
I think that’s a good point. Musk embodies in one horrible, spoiled, drug-addled persona everything that’s most awful about our shallow, racist, celebrity/wealth-obsessed culture.
Same with Trump, quite frankly. He’s the most American of presidents in a certain, terrifying, way: brash, ignorant, spiteful and always grubbing after money.
Eunicecycle
@jonas: I read that the DOJ is opening a new investigation into that! Like that’s the most important thing going on right now.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Nope. But I always get pushback when I point out the damage cosplay socialist do to our brand. This thread is no exception.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
WTF on drug testing, the Defense Contractor I work for the government throws a shit if one of doesn’t fill out our weekly time card correctly.
schrodingers_cat
@jonas: I have been schooled on this blog about the finer points of the F-1 visa and how those students prevent native born students from getting the jobs they deserve because now they have to compete with someone who has a masters degree. This was long before Trump was reelected.
I am speaking from my personal experience and the comments here are insisting that their vibes are more valuable than my lived experience.
ETA: This is not the first time this has happened. The person doing the schooling and the namecalling in the example above was not someone who had ever been on a temporary longterm visa.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: I get that when I point out that from the Trumpist right to the Bernista left, it’s almost all white men.
This cannot be mere coincidence; but it is not a subject many are prepared to have.
RevRick
@jonas: H.L. Mencken predicted a boob President, but I think even he underestimated how mendacious and ugly that would be.
LAC
@suzanne: Having been a federal contractor and a federal employee, there is a drug testing policy in place for certain positions at federal agencies that cover an initial testing, annual testing and testing that is not announced. Not every position is subject to this although we have a zero tolerance policy as a whole. The area of concern we had at one of the agencies was alcohol use. It is not a controlled substance under the regs, you cannot suss it out in a urine test, and a blood test is considered intrusive, but it is a problem that came up with some of the doctors at this agency.
RevRick
@Professor Bigfoot: There’s an awful lot of white women too.
Baud
@RevRick:
Where are they at?
TONYG
@Butch: It’s horrible to think about how screwed up Elon’s kids will be in a few years. Just broken young people.
pieceofpeace
@Baud: Yes, there is. My grandchildren’s golden retriever’s name is Taco, and he’s a sweet pooch!
RevRick
@Baud: The MAGA variant mainly inhabits the South, the Appalachian-Ozarks arc, the Great Plains and the northern Rockies. Are you shopping for a model — new or used?
stinger
@Baud: <waves>
narya
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m so glad for you!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: ISWYDT
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
At least I now know I’m not crazy … we both are!
Baud
@RevRick:
No, I’m just asked that to distract Heddy Lamar’s team of hustlers, cutthroats, doublers, base stealers, reach-on-errors, bunts, walks, balks, leg-outs, bandits, basehits, swipers, snipers, big-flies, Indian outlaws, Mexican catchers, dingers, bangers, Texas Leaguers, coathangers, base thieves, slap-bunts, gap powers, big innings, ass-kickers, three-basers, and Methodists.
Nukular Biskits
@Jackie:
Strangely, that makes me feel better.
Nukular Biskits
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Same.
And the repeated reminders that consumption of any products containing ANY amount of THC is not allowed.
frosty
Droit de seigneur. Warlord behavior.
zhena gogolia
@Nukular Biskits: When you want to reply to someone, first click on the date of their comment. Then reply. Then the back button will take you back to your comment. I don’t know why this is, but I also don’t know why, when I want to print a document on my work computer and I want it one-sided, I have to toggle from “Double-sided Off” to “Double-sided On” and back again before it will print single sided.
Nukular Biskits
@zhena gogolia:
The bizarre thing is the behavior for me is not consistent.
It’s irritating but nothing I can’t handle. Besides, I don’t want to seem unappreciative of Watergirl’s efforts at keeping this site running.
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
Great news! Glad to hear your new life is coming together in good ways.
frosty
@UncleEbeneezer: Congratulations, it sounds like a good group to play with. I haven’t gotten beyond Open Mic level but that’s OK. Did one with my buddy last week and it sounded better live than it did when I was rehearsing in the afternoon. I told my (sax player) brother and his response was:
“Congrats! You avoided the clambake.” I had to think about that one for a little while.
narya
@Baud: HEDLEY!
Elizabelle
Trump is TACO Loco. He is the opposite of “Belle.”
As lowtechcyclist suggested, TACO Belle can describe his lying sack of shit (but well groomed) press secretary. She is the worst ever, and that is saying something following Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
I see you’re a man of culture!
Ruckus
@Princess:
Its a good thing the US doesn’t make things with steel and aluminum because the US still doesn’t produce enough and won’t any time soon, and American manufacturers are still going to have to buy it elsewhere at the new higher-tariffed price.
Well said.
As someone who’s made tons of stuff out of steel and aluminum over 60 years of working, raising the prices of these basic materials because of zero knowledge of how things work and a massive overabundance of pompous arrogance seems so shitforbrains that to expect any less than this is, well foolish.
Anything he doesn’t understand he tries to break. So everything is fair game to his educated and yet very ignorant self.
frosty
@Nukular Biskits:
For me, refresh takes me back to the last comment I clicked on. ALWAYS remember the comment number you want to return to. Workaround: click on the date/time on the comment and that’s the one that refresh will return to.
Sure Lurkalot
schrodingers_cat:
You always get pushback because you are obsessed with Bernie and the tankie left as the source of all woes of the Democratic party. Do you prefer the don’t speak out of line, kiss the Dear Leader’s ass route of the Republican Party?
Bernie has been a finger wagging crank for decades. I agree his elevation to presidential candidate exploded his already vaunted self regard. But it is without a doubt that Americans have been squeezed to death by for profit health care and education, societal goods that many of our peer countries have found ways to provide more efficiently at less cost with far fewer barriers to entry. And Democrats could stand to listen to fewer plutocrats and pundits but perhaps you’d love a President Newsom or Emanuel.
Bupalos
@Gin & Tonic: In Timothy Snyders History of Modern Ukraine class at Yale, in relating some historical tidbit I forget he jokingly notes how the children of kings got different treatment, then says ‘if anyone is a child of a king, they need to let me know now.’ Which gets a laugh, but he says “No, that happens here. But don’t tell me on camera, come to office hours.”
Elizabelle
@RevRick: I would argue that Musk is a repudiation of us, and hardly a reflection.
I am also stunned that Trump enlisted the richest man in the world to fire federal employees and pull the federal government apart. Fire park rangers, and research scientists and doctors. Dismantle our aid to developing countries, and destroy our soft power. It is the epitome of cruel.
Ruckus
@mappy!:
And think about it, all his bullshit will and does negatively affect his supporters too.
Isn’t it amazing how much of his gilded education was an expensive waste of time and money? Every damn second and dollar.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: 35+ some odd years of “WYSIWYG” printing since MS killed WordPerfect, and they still can’t make it “just work”. Printing web pages seems to be going backwards and getting worse, also too.
It’s infuriating.
I feel your pain.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Professor Bigfoot
@RevRick: Nearly 2/3 vs 53%.
Far easier to get white women, I think, than white men; because their cause is white male domination.
From the “manosphere” to the entire GOP, women are to be owned and controlled… by straight white men.
As always, I’m all about seeing the main problem for what it is.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: Safari on iPad here.
I’ve just worked around it as “the price of doin’ bidness,” if you will. ;)
frosty
@TONYG: Yes, just that stupid “name” the one kid has, a string of nonsense letters starting with “X”. What a burden to go through life with. Especially adolescence.
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: Medieval aristocrats. That’s how they really see themselves.
High tech medieval aristocrats, but an aristocracy nonetheless.
Elizabelle
@UncleEbeneezer: Wonderful news! Good luck with it.
More proof you made the best choice in facing facts quickly and relocating.
schrodingers_cat
@Sure Lurkalot: Well you are mind reading and did not address at all the point I was making. That Bernie’s presidential runs were not consequence free, they damaged the Democratic brand.
Mike E
@Baud: imagine how Moral Hazard feels
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Well, we aren’t following his desires completely so of course he’s going to be mouthing off – and it’s still. He implies that he’s on his own side, because then he follows no leader. He wants the world to follow in his footsteps and ideals and the world says not for all the money, so he pokes a stick in wherever and whenever he can, trying to “nicely” screw up the works to fit his ideal everything. He’s weird Al without the music.
jonas
@TONYG: The trans daughter whom he’s disowned and has nothing to do with seems to be thriving.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: That’s Hedley!
Baud
@narya:
There it is.
ETA
@Omnes Omnibus:
you too
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
What’s mind boggling is all the concern over Biden’s decline like Trump doesn’t manifest about a hundred different “not fit to be POTUS” character flaws per day starting with appointing a philandering drug addled psychopath to oversee the dismantling of the government. Why isn’t that one thing right there cause for thousands of daily articles concern trolling the public about whether Trump has lost several gears mentally?
Because the two points of Biden is old is to make different Democratic factions argue, and more importantly indirectly blame Democrats for Trump. It’s all because Republicans have no agency so Democrats failing to win is the root cause of all the dysfunction. Therefore we must continue nit picking everything Democrats do rather than doing something more useful, like full throated saying Republicans are doing crazy stuff that is 100% wrong, bad for the country and corrupt.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
That’s my problem with Elon here…. he’s sure AF in no proper state of mind to make important decisions on behalf of others.
Or quite possibly himself as well.
Bupalos
@Professor Bigfoot: Sanders support was overwhelmingly weighted by age and ideology and cut across ethnicity.
He beat Clinton with voters of color <35, beat her with younger whites, but lost badly with older voters especially older white women and older non-whites. As always even these divisions are overlaid by other traits like religiosity. For instance he narrowly won non-religiously affiliated black voters 45-60.
If you’re looking for the ethnic group he over performs with as a slice of the Democratic electorate, that’s Hispanic voters, but again, that’s at least partly because that slice is younger.
Much more true to say that Bernie was the candidate of the young and Clinton the candidate of the old than posing it in white/non-white.
RevRick
@Baud: That clarifies… I don’t know what the hell it clarifies.
Ruckus
@Professor Bigfoot:
As you very, very likely know it’s the drugs that take the concept of responsibility of your actions out of play for many humans. Not that they would ever admit it that way but it is often the reality. elon is a prime example of the worst of the worst. Not only does he seem to be able to get the drugs but his money goes a long way to protect him from scrutiny over them. Now of course he’s gone over the top rather spectacularly and publicly so it’s likely his money means doodly squat. And I’m still not holding my breath.
Baud
@RevRick:
Being a man of God, you may not have seen Blazing Saddles.
Repatriated
@narya:
@Omnes Omnibus:
STRZOK!
Ruckus
@Nukular Biskits:
Doesn’t for me but then my op system is entirely different than yours.
Mike E
@Sure Lurkalot: heh, Capt Ahab gotta chase Moby Dick to the very ends of all existence… I’m no Sanders stan* but he isn’t wrong about the sclerosis of the Dem body politic (e.g. see: NC Dems) and Hogg isn’t wrong per se, just very young. This useless finger pointing that’s ubiquitous on so-called progressive blogs is more a vanity display and proof we need to shut up and get to work.
*I’ve never pulled any lever other than the (D) one
RevRick
@frosty: Dig far enough back in your ancestry and you’ll find you have twice as many women ancestors as men.
Shalimar
@Baud: If you name your dog Taco, aren’t you just begging the immigrants to eat it?
Baud
@Shalimar:
I’d be more concerned about MAGA eating it and blaming immigrants.
trollhattan
@Ruckus: SOMEBODY had to greenlight Cybertruck.
Ruckus
@suzanne:
I’d bet more jobs are affected by drugs than most realize. If they make one feel good or indifferent – which is often the entire point, they can affect any job. If it’s a physical job with more/higher danger levels it can affect life and limb. And sometimes not just of the drug taker. I worked in and then owned a machine shop for decades and someone on drugs/alcohol could get hurt, hurt others, do a significant amount of damage. Not all jobs are at that level and some are far more so. If one sits at a desk drugs can screw up the outcome of one’s work. How about work building a skyscraper? How about work taking care of or teaching kids? How about being a stoned cook? How about being a stoned doctor or nurse? How about being uber wealthy and a complete jackass? Humanity ain’t perfect but sometimes way too far is completely dangerous (and often to others!) no matter what the job.
Baud
@trollhattan:
I’m so old I remember when drugs helped make music good.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: there’s not enough money in the entire galaxy to make combining my genes with that man’s an attractive proposition. And true reproductive success is having grandchildren and great-grandchildren (and I’m not sure that his kids would be stable enough to attract anyone to stay around with them)
zhena gogolia
@Repatriated: Thanks!
Baud
Via reddit
Bupalos
You doubled the difference here with a little slight of hand.
The figure is 60%. The difference between 60 and 53 is almost exactly the same as the difference between 60 and and 66.6%
trollhattan
@Baud:
We can rest assured if Elmo were a musician his music would really, really suck. Like Nickelback-Kid Rock disco suck.
trollhattan
@Baud: Have they already thrown out my DC Comic-theme security briefing concept? Served holding a fat line of coke?
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: I would be happy to volunteer (although I haven’t touched criminal law since I was in law school; maybe I can help with the various IP theft/infringement cases, and with writing up proper right of publicity and right of privacy laws)
Suzanne
@Ruckus: So, on one of my projects, on a day I wasn’t on the job site….. the superintendent was a drunk, and he had found a bar that was close enough to the site that we could remain in radio contact. So he would go to the bar while on the clock, but would be directing subs at the same time. While he was away from the job site and decidedly not sober, steel was being placed, and a column was dropped. It is pure fucken luck that no one died.
scav
Medieval higher-ups had responsibilities and duties as well as rights and, while far from living up to their ideals, merely by having them were a step above our self-congratulatory toddlers with-no-impulse-control wielding economic powers that are the sine qua non fetish of the MAGA manosphere.
These assholes are native to our timeline.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
NO, NO THEY DIDN’T.
I was getting my car serviced once and the dealership next door was a tesla dealer. I saw a cybertruck up close. As someone who manufactured things out of metal with extremely close tolerances for decades I was anything/everything but impressed.
Jackie
@zhena gogolia:
That’s what’s supposed to happen… Obviously that formula is acting wonky for some of us lately.
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: I think there is some tension about having a lot of foreign students in STEM (mostly starting with freshman year “I am paying a lot of tuition to be taught by someone who speaks in an accent so thick that it’s difficult to understand what they are saying” because the graduate students are used as teaching assistants/lecturers for a lot of the lower-level undergraduate courses) which then feeds into “STEM is for the foreigners, not for a real American” attitudes (and remember that the freshman may have 12-18 credits per semester, if half of that is from graduate students who can’t be easily understood, a lot of people will switch out to business or liberal arts majors in order to have better grades)
It’s not easy on the graduate students either (there were three graduate student suicides in the math department when I was in undergrad).
And I think that there was and is some cheating going on as well in terms of ensuring that the foreign graduate students are fluent enough in English (gaming the TOEFL) and also the subject matter GREs had bad reputations for being cheated on (depending on country, again this was back in the 1990s-early 2000s) although with AI and ChatGPT the cheating possibility is much worse now in my arrogant opinion. I think that some of the graduate school programs may not give weight to the subject matter GREs anymore because of this.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
There are any number of jobs in this world that have danger levels that anyone not paying at least decent attention can get hurt/killed or hurt/kill others. I carried a loaded weapon on in port watch in the USN, and when I asked what my orders were the first day I was told, “shoot to kill.” And clarification was not forthcoming. And then was in the Shore Patrol for most of my last 2 1/2 months. Carried a nightstick and asked the same question and got “Whatever is necessary.” And when not in the military I worked making things out of metal, from parts one could hold 10-20 of in one hand to things that needed an overhead lift or a forklift to even move.
My point is that many, many jobs have dangers, sometimes those dangers are not that obvious and sometimes they are extremely obvious – and dangerous. And often humans get used to the dangers and forget that many things/situations can cause a lot of harm. Especially if one has their head up their very dark and smelly orifice.
Kayla Rudbek
@frosty:
@TONYG: I don’t know how far away we are from Bujold’s uterine replicators, but she had all kinds of various misuses in the Vorkosigan series (human cloning for brain transplants by the ultra-capitalist Jackson’s Hole, interstellar invasion and occupation to gather new genetic material by the Cetagandans, and droit de seigneur by at least one of the Barrayaran counts running a fertility clinic). About the only thing that she didn’t have was religious fanatics insisting that any child not conceived naturally didn’t have a soul or was born to be a slave (which I can see some of the far right US Catholics and Protestants doing)
Another Scott
@scav:
I’ve felt for a while that too many of the MotUs have taken George Wallace’s famous slogan and morphed it into: Feudalism now, Feudalism tomorrow, Feudalism forever!!
:-/
We watched Lucy Worsley’s show on the Black Death last night. Around half the population of Britain was killed by it.
Of course, the serfs were tied to the land and had to pay rent ot the lord for the privilege of farming or working it. What I didn’t know was that they were limited by their lords on how many animals they could own. So an extended family might be allowed all of two horses. And of course, if a male worker died, well that would mean the lord’s income would go down, so obviously the survivors would have to pay a tax, which might be one of the horses. It caused, er, issues if the family patriarch, father, and son were killed by the Black Death in a few weeks. Any survivors were likely to be severely impacted by the taxes to the lord.
The magic of the marketplace meant, though, that survivors would get larger claims on the family (rented) land, remaining workers had more power to demand higher wages (until the PTB tried to pass laws to prevent increased wages), and even women survivors gained more status and power. Lucy told the story of a surviving daughter who lived into her 60s and became quite a MotU herself (and never remarried).
So, the wannabe feudalists who also want to destroy public health and civil protections might want to be careful what they wish for…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jackie
@Baud:
I can see it now; Three Boobs and a Blonde daily briefings – complete with commercials selling pillows.
prostratedragon
What sufficiently large checks do to some otherwise reluctant people: “Moody’s Mood for Love,” King Pleasure, who put lyrics to a famous solo by saxophonist James Moody.
Kayla Rudbek
@scav: yes, and the medieval aristocracy and royalty sometimes got rebuked by the Catholic Church (how much rebuking depending on time and place, although much of the priesthood was recruited from the younger sons of the aristocracy and gentry). Pope Leo seriously needs to bring back excommunication and interdiction as punishment for the MAGA American heresy.
Baud
@Kayla Rudbek:
I would expect nothing less from a Woke Communist Pope.
Gretchen
@Baud: OMG. They’re making briefings look like Fox News shows so he’ll pay attention? And the DC press still wants to talk about whether Biden had lost a step?
Baud
@Gretchen:
I’m told the medical term is foot Parkinson’s.
Gretchen
@Suzanne: I used to work evenings in an xray department, and had to page techs when someone needed an emergency xray. The head tech spent a lot of time in the recovery room, and I thought sure, surgeons need to look at xray. It took weeks for my 18 year old self to realize that there was a bar named The Recovery Room across the street from the hospital, within pager range.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Gretchen: It boggles the mind.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Can’t find it now, but I just saw a comment on Reddit that said that Confederate propaganda is so widespread, a lot of people can’t distinguish whiteness from competence.
Geminid
@Sure Lurkalot: I don’t see how a often-expressed grudge against Bernie Sanders equates to a liking for Gavin Newsom or Rahm Emmanual. That was a cheap shot in my opinion.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: That’s interesting. There’s evidence that people confuse confidence and competence too. That’s probably not relevant except as it confirms people don’t always judge well. But we knew that. Trump was elected.
trollhattan
@Gretchen:
Freaking hilarious. Love that.
I suspect every large city and most midsized ones had a bar called “The Office.”
Haroldo
@UncleEbeneezer:
The drummer has gotten some!
WTFGhost
@Professor Bigfoot: Friend, I’ll grant you the drugs probably *help*, but I don’t think they’re the proximate cause. I think what they probably did was add to the *glee* with which it was done, but they were already completely irrational.
Mind you, drugs can cause actual psychosis, but, for most people, they evoke and magnify, just like power/wealth evoke and magnify bad personality traits.
@Miss Bianca: While out on a walk, the dog’s caregiver bags more class than in Trump’s entire existence.
prostratedragon
@WTFGhost: Back when I indulged, would call joints “placebos.”
Marc
The back button simply tells your browser to return to the previous “active” URL in your history. The date of a comment is the permanent URL for that comment, so clicking on it pushes the comment URL on the history, clicking back will then reload the page at that comment. None of that is under WaterGirl’s direct control. There does seem to be some new JavaScript weirdness that affects page load, however, at least on Firefox.
WTFGhost
@Ruckus: Just to point out the obvious, as well:
For a long time, I needed high powered stimulants – I was up to a very high dose of Adderall, but I swallowed, not crushed-and-snorted – to function, and I was always aware of whether or not they were affecting my judgment. (They never were making my judgment worse, though they sometimes made me more risk averse.)
Today, I use a lot of THC to handle day to day pain. I can be very stoned, and act responsibly and rationally, as nearly as I can tell. Now: would I be solving complicated problems, allowing people’s lives to depend on my being correct? No – but not because I’m stoned, because I can’t do that on the best day of my current life. I have reason to believe that if I were the man I was in my 20s, that I could learn to work pretty heavily stoned, but it would be something to learn, and it would require precise dosing, so I could account for being a bit stoned, the way I account for being a bit speedy (from Ritalin or Adderall).
There’s more to the issue than drugs being a huge risk. Of course, I also acknowledge that my risks are greatly mitigated, for stimulants, because the drugs are precise and taken with medical supervision, to ensure that the side effects aren’t too impairing – and I acknowledge I’d probably need the same sort of oversight for, and practice with, THC before I could be safe, sane, and responsible while using it.
Butch
@TONYG: I suspect your prediction is actually present tense – “are” screwed up.
Marc
@Baud:
a Woke Communist Black Pope
fixed it for you, just wait until MAGA connects the dots and figures that part out :)
dnfree
@Kayla Rudbek: Pregnancy is always a physical risk for the pregnant person. I wouldn’t risk my life to have a baby for money. And what happens if after the baby is born it turns out to have some defect? Will the wealthy party continue paying for its care?
WTFGhost
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In Star Trek, Next Gen, a (temporary) telepath catches Jean Luc out, when he confidently asserts “we’ll go this way!” and she’s all “you have NO IDEA which way is better!”
Well – it’s proper command procedure. Even if you know your choice might suck, be confident – just, not arrogant. When it turns out your choice sucks, you can just as confidently announce you feared this *might* happen, so we’ll try the other way.
And that’s the problem: a good leader should be confident, knowing that “one of these two ways will probably work, try one, then the other.”
TACODon be like “we’ll go this way! And if we run into problems, I’ll blame you for not warning me!”
Marc
40 years ago I had a contract at was then the world’s largest digital typesetting company (they built the gigantic presses for newspapers and magazines) to build a WYSIWYG front end for page layout. The distinction between fixed format page layout (say PDF) and flexible format screen layout (HTML) can’t easily be fixed as they really are like apples and oranges. With proper use of CSS one can change HTML formatting to a better approximation of a fixed page layout when printing, but that takes a lot of extra work when creating the page.
As for printing UI issues, well, enshitification strikes again.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: Just the way my nieces and nephews have turned cynical about politics and especially Democrats due to Bernie is why I especially hate the fucker.
And for every person bleating about “Bernie was the only one talking about [xx]”; no he wasn’t, but talking was all he’s ever done anyway. Big talker, that Bernie.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Spanky: I believe this Musk is leaving story-line is all about stopping discovery into DOGE and its destructive/looting? government activities currently ordered in Judge Chutkan’s court.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/a-judge-refuses-to-toss-states-lawsuit-against-elon-musk-and-doge
Booger
@Miss Bianca: Are you in Virginia…by any chance?
Bill Arnold
@lowtechcyclist:
Yeah.
Whiskey Pete[1] abuses (allegedly) an entirely legal mind-altering substance.
People in the real world still get fired for drinking on the job.
[1] The moniker, it works.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Sure Lurkalot: As I said yesterday, Bernie Sanders hasn’t done jack shit compared to the people he’s lambasted and turned his followers on. He’s one of the worst things to ever happen to this country, and he can fuck off forever.
Bill Arnold
@Nukular Biskits:
Shrug.
Those not bound by the law should not be protected by it.
They are outlaws, perhaps even in the original sense. (“An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law.”)
If they have (and yes, the T2 administration has) co-opted the law enforcement apparatus, it can take a while for the consequences to catch up to them.
Bill Arnold
@Marc:
Printers (the machines) might as well be satanic devices, even if not hacked (security generally sucks).
Today, in my home network, DHCP was failing so most devices were not connecting to the network. It appeared to be related to a (Brother, inkjet) printer asking for permission to do an update; turned the printer off, and everything else connected to the network immediately.
TONYG
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, that’s true. That attitude — assuming that confidence equals competence — is the opposite of my experience in my I.T. “career”. In that line of work it is widely assumed that the person who brags about being the “smartest person own the room” is usually the dumbest. But I.T. people are, by definition, not “normal” people.