But are eggs gonna be okay
www.cnn.com/2025/06/22/b…— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 6:54 PM
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I don't know man I feel like if you're committing us to a regional war over uranium enrichment levels you should at least have some idea what the Department of Energy does.
===
I mean, this kinda reads like a panicky response to global economics that is going to have serious repercussions for a president's popularity. But ymmv.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:08 AM
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The problem is that American oil operations also exist at a certain price point that fundamentally cuts against "low low prices"
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:50 AM
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Americans are notably nonchalant about the price of their gasoline, I'm sure it's fine.
— Joy of Arc (@amethystjoy.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:38 AM
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Yes. bsky.app/profile/jfee…
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Governance via poasting.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 12:08 PM
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Frankly I think turning a portion of DOE into a nationalized oil industry is a very interesting proposition Mr. Trump i am just not sure that it is going to have a lot of support among very important GOP interests just sayin'
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 12:13 PM
But, seriously — our Felon in Chief needs to be distracted!
So many guys were calling the Guam flight a clever ruse in the age of OSINT but no the Pentagon was just afraid Trump was gonna do some Santa Tracker bullshit with the bombers
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Amazing. NYT has more confirmation that Trump's decision to bomb Iran was motivated in large part by the way the Israeli strikes were "playing" on Fox News, which drove him to want credit for it
— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 6:47 AM
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I wish Trump were increasingly isolated rn tbh because I don't like whoever has his ear.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 11:44 AM
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I wish the "Trump is a Kremlin agent" narrative would die forever. He's not a fucking agent. He's a narcissistic, wannabe authoritarian rube. He wants to be a Putin-like ruler. He already believed the same sort of shit they do. They know how to play to his vanity. He's way too dumb and impulsive.
— Brandee (@misscherryjones.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Chief Oshkosh
What is it about Republicans and the DoE that they don’t understand its function after all these decades? Hell, Gov. Goodhair kept making the same mistake. Fucking dipshits.
Old School
I hereby declare gas prices should go down!
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Baud
Why is Russia the only country in the world that doesn’t have a Trump tariff?
...now I try to be amused
@Old School:
We have a king, and his name is Cnut.
Joe Falco
Trump may not be a Kremlin agent, but he is certainly a Kremlin “asset”. The gift that keeps on giving to Putin whether it’s a loss of American power at home or abroad.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Add Belarus, Cuba and North Korea to that list.
Anne Laurie
We all *know* why, but also: What would anyone want to buy from today’s Russia?
Baud
@Joe Falco:
I don’t think he meets the Kremlin’s standards for an agent.
mayim
I was already discouraged enough about life under Trump (see my GoFundMe) and now this…. how on Earth did Trump not know that oil prices would spike after bombing? I know he’s none too bright and his cabinet isn’t any better ~ but didn’t any of them take Econ 101?
An upside/downside to unemployment: I’m not at a work computer during the day, so I have more time to read and comment here.
kalakal
As of 3 hours ago I am now a US citizen
mali muso
I went out and filled up on gas first thing this morning. I’m curious to see how long it takes before the prices at the pump start climbing.
Baud
@kalakal:
Congratulations! And condolences!
kalakal
@Baud: My timing could have been better
...now I try to be amused
@Baud: Ha! You beat me to it.
Baud
@kalakal:
I’m not complaining. We need all the help we can get.
Lyrebird
@Joe Falco: I clicked through and apparently that’s part of her point, which I think may be a little lost on those of us not fully up on the distinction.
Omnes Omnibus
@kalakal: Congratulations!
Rachel Bakes
@kalakal: Congratulations. I wish that had the same cache it used to, but we’re delighted with every addition.
bbleh
@Joe Falco: exactly. he’s not an “operative”; he’s an “agent of influence,” meaning somebody who’s got some degree of power or authority (in this case, a LOT) and who is thought to be receptive to messages and/or interests of the principal.
The only question I have, and at this point I think it’s only of historical interest, is whether, and if so to what degree, he was (almost certainly no longer is) susceptible to coercion based on past illegal receipt of money from Russia (individuals &/or government).
mali muso
@kalakal: Congrats! We need people like you to become part of the fabric of the nation.
gene108
My TV conked out last June. It was 14 years old. I got around to replacing it this May.
I bought an LG, because it was kind of fancy and on sale.
Unbeknownst to me the LG TV comes with LG Channels for free.
It’s like a basic cable package for free, without live TV like live CNN broadcasts, sports, etc.
It has some news channels that play pre-recorded segments like CNN, Fox News, ABC, Bloomberg, and others.
It has various free movie channels that play a bunch of not big hit movies or memorable classics, ION TV channels, random channels that show reruns of shows like “Ice Road Truckers”, Pluto TV channels, and others.
It’s a lot of mindless content for free.
Belafon
@kalakal: Congrats. How did you not get deported?
gene108
@Old School:
Very presidential !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You should run for president in 2028.
gene108
@kalakal:
Cool. 😎
catclub
Cheap petroleum products. India and China are not exactly chopped liver.
Spanky
@kalakal: Congratulations! And what the hell were you thinking?
I know, I know. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
oklahomo
@…now I try to be amused: Honest to god, first thing through my mind was French Connection, United Kingdom when I read that.
cain
@kalakal: Maybe excellent since ICE did not move to intercept you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Belafon: White dude.
Belafon
@catclub: And Trump branded asbestos.
Dorothy A. Winsor
These clowns don’t even know what they’re supposed to be doing, much less how to do it.
eclare
@kalakal:
Welcome aboard!
Elizabelle
@kalakal: Congratulations, and welcome and …. oh my.
May we presume you now have dual citizenship?
hueyplong
I guess we’re seeing the downside to relying on their incompetence as a brake on their bad faith
piratedan
its a real shame that this illegal military action is all anyone is going to be talking about instead of all of these economic deals he’s promised to deliver or the attempted Regime Change in Los Angeles….
Dangerman
@mali muso: I told Family the moment I heard we dropped bombs to go fill all their tanks. I did it the next morning (I was already in bed for the night).
I haven’t been outside today but I didn’t discern any notable increase last I looked. It’s surely coming. The oil companies could give a flying fuck that Trump is watching.
Spanky
I just went for a stroll around our (shaded) yard, because the Wunderground weather station up the street says it’s 98F with a dew point of 76, so feels like 121F.
It doesn’t feel like 121F. I’m not saying I’m going to go out and dig up a garden bed or something, but it’s not that uncomfortable if you’re in good shape and don’t get your heart rate & respiration going too much.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Amazing, he is leading himself by the nose into a war.
Matt McIrvin
Recall, Dubya Bush had fairly low gas prices through the early stages of his wars because his Saudi friends made sure of it for his political benefit. (This was *not* a deal in perpetuity.)
So, is something like that in the cards here?
danielx
Nothing says he can’t be both, or an asset instead of agent.
Sweet tidy bowl Jesus skipping across the blue water, this man is as easy to manipulate as a four year old. Not that four year olds can’t be pretty damn manipulative themselves.
Spanky
Shadows and clouds
Dangerman
@Dangerman: And I’m a little surprised that gas prices haven’t risen noticeably (haven’t been out today). Screw that Econ 101 supply and demand shit. An opportunity for a little crisis profiteering came knocking.
kalakal
@Elizabelle: Correct
mayim
@kalakal:
Good for you! [I think?]
Glad you decided that joining this crazy country was still a worthwhile endeavor ~ we need all the sane voters we can get.
Professor Bigfoot
@kalakal: Congratulations! (oh, you poor so-and-so)
Downpuppy
Oil futures are down $5 today, from $74 to $69. Markets are weird.
Steve LaBonne
Welcome kalakal to the insufficiently large fellowship of sane American citizens. We need you!
Betty Cracker
@kalakal: AND unless I’m mistaken, you’re a Florida resident too, so double-yay! The country and the state need all the rational voters we can get!
Kirk
@kalakal: My sympathies, and congratulations.
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus:
My thoughts too* but … at the ceremony there were about 60 of us and those of a pallid complexion numbered about 5 which was a pleasant surprise given the daily news. It was a very joyful occasion
*the only way I could be any whiter would be to dye my hair platinum blonde and change my name to Sven
mayim
@gene108:
I’ve been using Tubi and the Samsung TV app that came with my phone. They have a similar range of programming ~ at any given point, there’s at least one Law & Order, NCIS, or Criminal Minds episode. A couple days ago, I happened on Miss Marple [with Joan Hixson], which was an excellent distraction from the real world.
One [I can never remember which] has BBC and CBC news, which is enough for me whenever I venture out of the Balloon Juice bubble.
WTFGhost
@kalakal: Congratulations! Kinda. I mean, as a lifelong American, born in Philly Naval Base (when there was a Philly Naval Base), this is one of the worst times to become an American, but, perhaps I’ll say you’re our living embodiment of hope. Yeah, you, you alone, carry all of our hopes and dreams! Just for a few seconds, while we congratulate you, I mean, and then you can shed those symbolic pressures after a moment.
Seriously: congratulations, and I hope current events expresses my cautionary congrats, better than I could.
Omnes Omnibus
@kalakal: At my ex-wife’s, back in 2008 I think she was the only blue-eyed blonde.
schrodingers_cat
@kalakal: Congratulations, fellow naturalized citizen.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
I was sitting outside (in the shade, of course) between 2:30 and 3 and I was reasonably comfortable, but I had to go in to deal with some stuff, and when I came out again at 3:30, the combination of heat and humidity just overwhelmed me.
trollhattan
@kalakal:
👍🍔🙌
Professor Bigfoot
@piratedan: It’s a Gish Gallop of evil shit, and every bit of it serves as a distraction from every other bit of it.
Yutsano
@kalakal: MAZEL TOV! Florida just gained a solid blue voter just in time.
Scout211
@kalakal: Nice! Congratulations to you. :-)
During the Dubya wars, the Army helped my SIL get his citizenship. We were so happy for him and that is the one thing for which I can thank Dubya.
RandomMonster
@Baud:
Yeah, the I wish the “Trump is a Kremlin agent” narrative would die forever crowd never bother to explain Trump’s utter subservience to Vlad.
piratedan
@Professor Bigfoot: a smorgasbord of kaka to be sure, there’s so much crap, if we had each major network focusing on each debacle, there’d be like 12 to fifteen networks with full broadcasting slates…
Bupalos
@danielx:Sweet tidy bowl Jesus skipping across the blue water, this man is as easy to manipulate as a four year old. Not that four year olds can’t be pretty damn manipulative themselves.
He’s both extremely easy to manipulate and impossible to manipulate to any consistent purpose, which is the secret to his dignity wraith powers. Everyone who thinks they’re svengali and that they discovered the secret entrance to Trump’s cave of wonders turns out just to have temporarily stumbled into a narcissistic pothole. Then the truck comes and hits them.
trollhattan
Message discipline, Iran gots it. Still channeling the Dude WRT aggression that will not stand, man, now from the Big Lebowski himself.
geg6
@Spanky:
The heat index here is 108F. Temp is 97. Dew point is 71. It is completely miserable. When I got up this morning at 6:30, the temp was already 81. I don’t think my AC has stopped running. I hate this shit.
Harrison Wesley
So when the big oil companies tell him to pound sand, he’s gonna have ICE raid their boardrooms?
Matt McIrvin
@Spanky: Right now I’d much rather be a naturalized citizen than a resident alien of any sort in the US… though given Miller’s enthusiasm for “denaturalization” it’s no guarantee of safety either. (I’m not convinced *my* status is safe and I’m a pasty pink guy born in the Midwest.)
RandomMonster
That’s what it’s like here in Baltimore.
RandomMrs tried to start the car a few minutes ago and the battery is dead.
glc
@kalakal: Condolences
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin:
Get a grip, friend.
Why precisely do you say that? What do you envision happening?
trollhattan
@geg6: Big Nope vibes. Hope it ends soon.
We do heat, heat and heat but never the humidity thing, which is just wrong.
WTFGhost
@Matt McIrvin: Well, the trouble with oil prices, is, until oil hits a certain level, some methods of extraction are no good.
If oil drops below – I don’t know, let’s say $75 a barrel – then you can only make money if you can extract oil for significantly less than $75 a barrel. If you can’t, you idle your equipment, or lay off your workers, or whatever you need to do, to stop chasing $80 a barrel oil that will lose you $5 a barrel!
The Middle East sits upon some wonderful oil fields, and can pump oil cheaper than in many other parts of the world. Still, if they were to restrict output, then the price would increase, and they would make more money, with the same effort.
But they don’t want to pump a glut of oil, so that the price falls, unless they want to hurt someone who depends on high oil prices.
Neither does the US. “Drill baby drill” will only lower prices to the price point the big drillers want – then, they’ll stop producing more, to protect the price.
eclare
I encourage everyone to look at the photo at the bottom of the post. Ahhhh…
Dan B
We had heat in Arkansas. One day there was heavy dew that burned off at 98°. At 1:00 PM it was 108. This was before AC so by 3:00 PM we were lying on soaked sheets delirious. I’ll sick to cool Seattle, thank you.
WTFGhost
@Elizabelle: I think it was just a joke, but, the way the administration is playing, they might say that it was identity theft and the real Matt McIrvin died at birth, and *this* is an anchor baby, intended to cause terrorism – I mean, he doesn’t vote Republican, what other proof do you need?
sab
@kalakal: Yay!
Dan B
@eclare: Good picture choice!
In Seattle I had to roll up my sleeves at 78 brutal degrees!!
catclub
Bush fucked up a lot of things, but at the time I was very thankful that he told Dick Cheney to fuck off on bombing Iran. …. good old days.
Suzanne
@kalakal: WOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!
I mean…. your timing….. but congrats!
WTFGhost
@eclare: All I see is a white background. The same white background John Oliver once insisted was a blow-up shot of Snoopy’s… never mind. *NOT* a family friendly vision.
(I kid – I’m sure you’re reading the post in a different browser. Is it the protest pic, “just think of the party we’ll have when you all die?”)
HinTN
@mali muso: Yep, I topped off my two diesel machines yesterday and called my supplier this morning to fill my tank. We’ll see if I get billed the price per gallon they quoted.
Belafon
@RandomMonster: That’s easy. The relationship between those two isn’t in the ownership sense, but in the dominatrix sense.
JeanneT
@mayim: I made a contribution to your gofundme. Hope things turn around for you!
Sure Lurkalot
@kalakal: Congratulations! I know from your words here you will be a fine fellow citizen.
eclare
@Dan B:
It was WaterGirl’s choice, not mine. And just shut up on your bad self with your comfy temps!
eclare
@WTFGhost:
No, it’s a photo of glaciers by Arrieve.
Jeffro
trump understands the extremely dumb American voter’s mindset quite well: the president is in charge of gas prices and always has been
it’ll be fun watching him try to “explain” why that’s wrong, via Adderall-fueled tweets, over the next few months
and by ‘fun’ I do mean FUN =)
sab
@kalakal: When my brother in law got his citizenship last year (after the election but still Biden) they had people from the passport office to get that paperwork in the works. Is that still the case. It was very helpful to not have to schedule and wait for an appointment.
WTFGhost
@Dan B: I live in Renton, which has had some lovely microclimate recently – lots of cool nighttime weather.
I’ve also been learning how to cool a house down at night. Open those windows, and blow fans from the windows, to points of mass in the building… unless you have enough ventilation to pull a couple-three airchanges an hour, you want to cool down *stuff* that will continue to cool the air for hours after the air starts to heat up.
Air has very little thermal mass, you see – if you bring 65 degree air into an 80 degree home, you won’t drop the temp much – the stuff in your house is all 80 degrees, see, and they’ll cool a little bit, but not a whole lot.
If you blow cool air at a wall all night, the wall will cool down, and hold some of your coolness around.
Also, in WA, a portable swamp cooler (it’s only made for tents, but it works as a spot cooler) can do *amazing* things to keep you cool during all but the worst of the summer. Another fun thing, is, it moves 500CFM – it will move all of the air in a 10x10x10 room in two minutes. Just the extra air flow, pushing warmer, moister, air out the window, is a big help.
Plus, you can turn it on fan mode, and blow a metric boatload of cool air into your house during the evening. (The metric boatload is about 12% higher than a standard boatload, and please note, the term is “boat-load” not “butt-load”. Butts don’t tend to store all that much, and they’re emphatically *not* good air storage.)
Jeffro
I agree, but he’s definitely one of their best unpaid volunteers, da?
sab
@RandomMonster: I learned that the hard way living in Nevada. Batteries there die in the summer because of running air conditioning. I still can’t train my husband here in Ohio to turn off the air conditioner before he turns off the car.
dmsilev
@Chief Oshkosh:
That’s actually a bit unfair to Rick Perry, and it pains me deeply to have to write that. He at least had enough self-awareness to realize that he was in over his head at DOE and to listen to advice from the senior career folks there.
(I’m maybe three degrees of separation away from said senior career folks, and got the stories via the rumor mill)
Jeffro
hmmmm…
I’M GONNA TARIFF MY BRAINS OUT BUT YOU BIG CORPORATIONS BETTER ‘EAT’ THE COST!
I’M GONNA BOMB A MAJOR OIL-PRODUCING COUNTRY, AND DESTABLIZE THE WORLD IN GENERAL, BUT DON’T *YOU* RAISE OIL PRICES!! DON’T DO IT, *YOU*!
(who is *you*? wtf)
I’M GOING TO CUT TAXES FOR THE RICH AND TARIFF AND DEPORT LIKE A MADMAN, BUT THE FED BETTER START CUTTING INTEREST RATES!
I’m starting to sense a pattern here…
Jeffro
@kalakal: congratulations!
also, now you have to help us fix this mess
kalakal
@sab: No they didn’t. That’s pretty much first on my list
trollhattan
@WTFGhost:
Popping a whole house fan into our then 80 YO Sac Valley house made a world of difference, as most summer nights manage to get down into the 60s and moving it through chills the interior while forcing hot attic air out. In morningtime, button things up for the day and the AC isn’t needed until afternoon.
Stops working days into a multi-day 100+ stretch where it only gets down to the 70s overnight. Those are not super common. Yet.
Shalimar
It occurs to me that if Trump had asked someone what the Department of Energy does, maybe he could have consulted with them before tearing up the deal with Iran 8 years ago and we wouldn’t be going through any of this.
mayim
@kalakal:
I frequently joke that I’m so white that I managed to get a sunburn in Dublin in February. But I’m going to add bleached-hair Sven as an alternate description.
tobie
SCOTUS conservatives side again with the Trump admin at the expense of the law. Today the 6 GOP hardliners on the bench ruled that detained immigrants can be sent to third countries without trial. From Steve Vladeck:
Dan B
@WTFGhost: We’re in mid Beacon Hill with an air sealed house, big attic fan, and ductless heat pumps. When we installed the heat pumps we thought we’d use the AC about one day a year, ha!
Hello neighbor!
Elizabelle
@Shalimar:
Four legs good, two legs bad.
If Obama supported it ….
Doubt TRUMP’s “weighing options” went any further than that.
Sure Lurkalot
It hit 93 on yesterday’s bike ride less than 10% humidity but a mile closer to the sun so it was still quite toasty). Today’s topped out at 68, it was glorious.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: When I got my citizenship during T1.0. I just went to the post office and got the forms. Got photographed there and got the passport in less than a month.
trollhattan
@Dan B:
Beacon Hill. I see my jr high, Asa Mercer is still there but no longer a jr high (intl middle school or somesuch). Overlooking Boeing Field, from there we saw every dang plane they ever made and could identify them all by sound.
Weird mix today of original homes and new units stuffed into tight old footprints.
RandomMonster
Now you’ve taught me something!
Dan B
@eclare: We lived about 90 miles (guessing here) west of Memphis. The beastly hot day was in northwest Arkansas. The house in Batesville was three story yellow brick with a tile roof so the thermal mass kept it cool in the summer. In the winter the leaky windows and uninsulated walls made it extremely cold.
Dan B
@trollhattan: We’re about eight blocks from Asa Mercer middle school. Our neighborhood was 90% black twenty years ago. Now it’s 80% Asian.
divF
@dmsilev: By the time Rick Perry visited the Berkeley Lab (one of the DOE labs), he had completely gotten with the program of our part of DOE. He gave a talk that extolled the lab’s success as a scientific enterprise, including it’s role in working with the international scientific community and training foreign scientists.
I give him a lot of credit for that.
mayim
@JeanneT:
Thank you so much! The last few months have been less than great and every bit will help me get back to the stability I was approaching [post surgery bills] when I was laid off because of DOGE shenanigans.
Just a reminder to everyone: don’t forget IMLS when you call your congressional delegation. It’s the federal agency that funds libraries and museums ~ and it’s effectively zeroed out in FFOTUS’s huge ugly bill. Losing IMLS funds will impact just about every community [urban, rural, suburban, tribal] in the country. I could go on at length if anyone wants more details…
PatD
All the worst people in the world are endorsing Cuomo for NY mayor. The LibsofTiktok clown, Laura Loomer, Charlie Kirk, and then some Democrats who really should know better.
Jackie
@geg6: And then there’s Alaska!
Suzanne
@WTFGhost: An evaporative (swamp) cooler will be ineffective when the dew point is above 50, roughly. Dew point is 72 degrees where I am ATM.
trollhattan
@Dan B: Funny, because Beacon Hill was perhaps half Asian when I lived in Seattle. Cycle of life.
NutmegAgain
I want to know when the asswipe local gas stations, who put stickers on their pumps blaming Joe Biden for a price increase, are now going to do the same thing with little Trump stickers. Ha ha I crack myself up.
trollhattan
@divF: Imagining Rick Fucking Perry being part of a Republican brain trust. Just…wow.
When governor he made trolling trips to California to try and snag business. And then that giant fertilizer pile exploded and we saw a lot less of him, after.
Harrison Wesley
@tobie: That’s vile, even for this court.
Belafon
@tobie: SCOTUS to the St. Louis: Wish you weren’t here.
Princess
Apparently ground beef prices are at a record high. I read all about it in a story in the NYTi— oh wait. No I didn’t. They haven’t mentioned it.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: If *someone* can be denied due process, *anyone* can be. Some CBP or ICE agent on a routine stop or border checkpoint could just decide they don’t like you for whatever reason (maybe they’ve been sweeping social media accounts) and declare you a criminal alien. Now you’re in the category where they don’t have to prove you are and you can’t even prove you’re not.
They haven’t started doing this to citizens on any scale, as far as I can tell, but they’re certainly doing similar things to non-citizens with legit visas or green cards and no criminal history, on the basis of ideological disapproval.
RevRick
@Jeffro: It’s only the latest edition of Sir Stupid commanding the tides to cease.
He is so enamored of his own impulsiveness that he just assumes normal businesses make decisions the same way he does. And because he was the head of an operation that had few levels of management and those staffed by toadies, he thinks CEOs snap their fingers and things get done in no time.
The oil and gas business has long been subject to boom-bust cycles, and so they tend to go to great lengths to avoid too much risk. In case, nobody noticed the major companies were not part of the initial fracking boom… and with good reason. First, fracked wells deplete much faster than traditional ones, and you have to drill an ever increasing number just to stay in place. Horizontal fracking has somewhat addressed this problem, but it doesn’t eliminate the fact that the fracking process takes a lot more inputs to yield an equal volume of crude. Second, because fracking requires constant drilling, it creates a race to see who can drill the most and get the crude onto the market fastest, the exact opposite of big oil’s desire to control supplies and thus prices. The last thing big oil likes is for prices to plummet (Trump begged OPEC to cut production in 2018 to prevent a wave of bankruptcies caused by fracking glut) or to skyrocket throwing the economy into recession (see 2008, which was a housing crash + oil shortages).
He can scream drill, baby, drill all he wants and throw a gazillion leases at big oil’s way, but the truth is there’s a long line of steps from planning to production to market that includes ordering oil rigs and hiring workers and refinery capacity.
tobie
Am I mistaken but did SCOTUS step ever so slightly out of its comfort zone when they said that Trump had the power to detain people off the street under the Alien Enemies Act but ought to give migrants a limited chance to question their detention in court? Since then every ruling has been a big free pass to the admin to do whatever they want with immigrants. Send them to South Sudan? Or Libya? “Sure thing,” say Alito, Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas and Coney Barrett. “We serve you, Mr President.” It doesn’t matter how many cases we win in lower courts. The 6 conservatives have made clear they will always side with a Republican President and throw every other judge under the bus.
trollhattan
@PatD:
If nothing else all the election news is stirring potential voters out of their torpor.
David Collier-Brown
@kalakal: Cool!
As soon as you can, get a US passport, for identification as well as travel
NutmegAgain
@Sure Lurkalot: We’ve got 97 heat, 57 humidity. Connecticut! Those are August temps. And just to note, living near a big river, even in New England, pretty much guarantees high humidity.
@WTFGhost:
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In his first term, Orangey McOrangeface appointed Rick Perry, governor of oil-rich Texas, as Secretary of Energy. Perry knew nothing about nuclear energy. Eight years later, and the Felon still doesn’t know about the departments that make up his administration.
tobie
@Harrison Wesley: Vile is absolutely right. Detainees can be sent to third countries with atrocious human rights records.
From Aaron Reichlin-Melnick:
Chief Oshkosh
@dmsilev: Nah, at the time that he took the job, he thought it was all about oil. So, yeah, mad props for learning on the job…I guess?
Captain C
@Princess: Perhaps there’s a story about how filet mignon is so expensive* these days, though?
*I have no idea.
NotMax
@kalakal
Woo hoo!
Did you double check the certificate to make sure there’s not a rubber stamped notice about an expiration date?
;)
NutmegAgain
@WTFGhost: My mom perfected that method a long (long!) time ago. If you have a house with multiple storeys, just open a window at the top, and open the cellar door (kind of depends on having a rubble foundation maybe), and you get beautiful convection currents. I can tell it’s working when my huge and very furry dog lies with his head at the top of the cellar stairs. Newfies are very good temp monitors–winter and summer you can always tell where the coldest spot is. Oh, and the other piece of course is to close the curtains during the day.
Jackie
@kalakal:
Congratulations? Haha I kid. A New Democrat in Florida!
NutmegAgain
@kalakal: Yay, congrats
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@trollhattan:
That’s pretty much Denver. For 50+ years, swamp coolers were the go-to cooling device. Not anymore. They simply can’t deal with extended periods of heat.
We actively manage opening and closing in our old City Cottage and yeah, as long as it gets down into the 60s at night, we only need the AC for maybe 4 hours a day. It we get high 90s, or like 4 days last week, 105+ days and 75 degree nights, AC has to run longer and the cooling effect of night time doesn’t cut it.
tobie
@kalakal: Congratulations. May you have many opportunities to make your voice heard in the democratic process.
XeckyGilchrist
Damn, that sure sounds like burdensome and job-killing regulation of the free market
NotMax
@Princess
“Let them eat pets.”
//
PatD
@trollhattan: A positive development, even if a bad candidate wins. Increased Dem turnout for competitive races is good for political engagement and prevents voter apathy.
Jeffro
@RevRick: all too true – here’s hoping reality comes crashing down on the MAGAts, and hard
(it would be quite something if high gas prices created more trump-revulsion than J6…file under “a good thing happening for the wrong reason”)
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: Yes – I know I’m lucky, having picked a great place to live. Living here, it’s like, you don’t (yet) bother burying coils for a heat pump, to use geothermal energy – you use an all-air heat pump, because the temp only rarely goes below 40, and, I have a full home furnace, so even when it’s too cold to pump, I can waste a little natural gas.
(Technically, you could use a buried coil heat pump, but you’d want to use it to heat/cool the house, and your water. Otherwise, at this time, it’s not economical to go to the trouble of digging down to bury the coils below the frost line, where the temperature stays constant.)
Anne Laurie
Congratulations, and welcome to the Thunderdome!
planetjanet
@kalakal:
Congratulations!!@@
trnc
“We’re on it” means they’re working furiously to obliterate every last regulation that inconveniences Exxon.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: Then we have to use our privileged position as citizens to protest in great numbers, don’t we?
They do not have all the power, unless we hand it over.
trollhattan
Trumpers never going to quit Trumping.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: That’s one of the reasons I’m doing it. The only real defense against this is scale.
Ruckus
Schnorkles O’Brok has it right.
Shitforbrains really is worse than useless. He has zero idea how the economy works, what most people have to do for a living, that most normal people have to actually WORK FOR A LIVING. I worked for just over 60 years to be able to retire and not be much worried about money. I’m not filthy rich or even close enough to see what filthy rich looks like and I live off social security. Screw that up, that I (and millions upon millions of others) who paid into it for all those decades to have a not unreasonable retirement life and you might find just a few citizens rather pissed off – at the very least.
Darkrose
@kalakal: Congratulations!
trnc
@kalakal: Congrats!
Dan B
@trollhattan: Our neighborhood was a development by Boeing for black workers to be able to live near the plant since they couldn’t live outside the Central District at the time.
planetjanet
@Spanky: These vultures want to drive the real economy into a ditch so they can get free money from the Fed again.
rivers
@Downpuppy: I was watching BBC and they explained that this was probably because the expectation was that Iran would shut the Strait of Hormuz – so what actually happened was a relief.
Sure Lurkalot
@Princess:
Too busy interviewing 6 Trump voters for their thoughts on the prince of peace president they helped inflict on us.
prostratedragon
@kalakal: A brave decision these days, but welcome aboard!
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
They do not have all the power, unless we hand it over.
Unless it retires being a democracy. And becomes not about who we all are, or what different things we do/did to maintain a reasonably decent democracy that is here for ALL OF US.
rivers
@trollhattan: Also it’s going to be 100 degrees in New York City tomorrow so those early votes probably matter more than usual.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: It troubles me that the Supremest Court Six are traveling back and forth between their homes without having to see crowds of us.
The Supreme Court deserves a march and a lot of creative, and informative, signs. (Of course, the 6 fuckers are about to recess any day, until October.)
Makes me wonder if we will have any conservative retirements.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
Agree absolutely!
KSinMA
@kalakal: Congratulations! May the US make you glad of it one day soon!
WTFGhost
@tobie: Keep in mind, the justices didn’t quite give him the free pass you mentioned. The fifth amendment isn’t just against self incrimination – it says no person shall lose liberty without due process of the law.
Now, cops have the administrative right to detain you, under certain circumstances, and it’s frequently abused, but, when the cops pick you up, habeas applies, and that requires the cops to give you a phone call, and allows your lawyer to show up and annoy the ever-living crap out of the cops, until they can show proper cause, or release you.
Okay, but, when migrants are picked up – documented and not, lawfully allowed to be here, or not, the administration is doing everything to wipe out habeas. You don’t know who picked up the migrant – mask, no name, no badge number – and you don’t know which organization (ICE, DHS, Border Patrol, effa bee eye, ATF, a J6er with no vetting) made the arrest, nor, where the person will be held.
The courts were as trapped as they could be to say “they must get due process, and that always includes habeas corpus – show cause, or release the person.”
Note: they didn’t actually *say* habeas applies. That is, however, part of due process. Otherwise, the cops “administrative” rights to detain you become the secret police vanishing you.
The SCOTUS hasn’t yet said that Trump can send people to El Salvadoran prisons, or to South Sudan, as far as I know. However, that’s because the courts are forbidden to offer an opinion, without a case. No one with standing has yet sued to say “sending people to a gulag without due process is unlawful, and it must be reversed.”
Also remember: *NO CASES* have made it to the SCOTUS. All the SCOTUS has done is vacate lower court decisions that seemed to impermissibly hem in the executive, while the cases slowly wind their way through the courts.
In some cases, the SCOTUS isn’t entirely wrong. Federalizing the troops, for example, is something the President can do, and saying “on the emergency docket, we’ll decide that *this* invocation of federalization wasn’t sufficiently merited,” is really something the courts shouldn’t do… not without a full case, with arguments from both sides, and so forth.
(I don’t believe the SCOTUS actually weighed in on federalization – but, if they had/did, as a not-even-a-paralegal, it would make sense that they’d wait for the case to arrive formally – and yes, with a nasty, knowing, smirk that says “we know delaying this sort of decision is wrong, but it triggers you libs!”)
arrieve
@kalakal:
Congratulations! We need all of the sane citizens we can get.
Ohio Mom
@kalakal: Congrats!
Really, what a nice surprise. If you ever mentioned you were going for citizenship, I missed that thread.
Welcome, and thank you for reminding me there are people who still believe in the hope of this nation-state.
WTFGhost
@prostratedragon:@kalakal:
What @prostratedragon said is kinder and more succinct than my semi-teasing response. Welcome aboard, let’s hope we can do more than rearrange some deck chairs.
Sure Lurkalot
@NutmegAgain: I grew up on the east coast and in the Midwest so I haven’t forgotten the interminable sticky, buggy summers. Bonus tropical storms and tornados!
Hope everyone stays safe and endures this heat event.
TEL
@kalakal: What Baud said!
prostratedragon
@Professor Bigfoot: Fractal distraction.
WTFGhost
@trollhattan: You know, the reason not to let him out on bail is, they’re afraid he’d leave federal jurisdiction, which is precisely what he’s fighting to avoid.
I’m not a lawyer, but I do know, if I was a judge, and someone handed me that kind of BS answer, I’d do my best to (verbally, and metaphorically) ream them so hard they’d never need TP again.
(See, when you abuse people with reams of paper, eventually, it softens into… never mind. It was a pun.)
I mean, a judge shouldn’t be tasked with teaching basic legal principles to anyone with a JD. That’s what the “JD” means. Which is probably proof positive that our favorite famous couchfucker is so insecure he has to put his degree on both sides of his name, so you don’t forget, he went to *Yale*.
arrieve
@eclare:
I didn’t even notice! Thank you for pointing it out. Antarctica looks really good from the vantage point of miserably hot NYC.
Baud
@Princess:
Yesterday, I saw a headline that said inflation ticked up. The headline described the inflation as “mild.”
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Baud: Sure flies in the face of Brandee’s post, dunnit?
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@kalakal: You have all our deepest condolences.
Shalimar
@Jackie: I was in Anchorage in August of 1987 when the temperature hit 83 for a few days and everyone was trying to find fans they could buy because it was unbearably hot. There must not have been a heat advisory then if this is the first. I remember thinking “yeah, this kind of sucks but I could also be back in Florida where it is high 90s every day of August.”
tobie
@WTFGhost: I’m not a lawyer but according to Constitutional Steve Vladeck, the ruling allows the admin to deport detainees to “third countries” without them being able to challenge this decision. Essentially the govt can do a bait-and-switch, first saying they’re going to deport someone to, say, El Salvador but then deciding to house them in Libya instead.
Money quote
eclare
@arrieve:
Same for miserably hot Memphis.
Shalimar
@WTFGhost: What I remember about standing from CivPro is that it’s so complicated because it’s gives them an excuse for not hearing cases they don’t want to decide on. I wonder if anyone with cases winding through the system will still have standing by the time they get to the Supreme Court.
WTFGhost
@tobie: Okay… wow. I mean, after they said the dogshit team could access everyone’s everything in Social Security, I guess I’m not surprised, but, um, holy shit.
ETA: it looks like this is recent/today, so, I would have been able to stand on high minded principles 12 hours ago. The whole effing world changes in 12 hours, because the SCOTUS thinks the Fifth Amendment is potentially unconstitutional.
Shalimar
@Princess: I would buy all the meat I need for the next year and freeze it now because inflation will get a lot worse relatively soon, but unfortunately, I don’t have a generator and a hurricane in Florida can destroy all the food you’re storing at any time.
pieceofpeace
@kalakal: Congratulations!
Joy in FL
@kalakal: Glad to add you to the country. Congratulations: )
Tony Jay
@kalakal:
Dear God, man, did it not cross your mind to take basic precautions?
I keed. Congratulations.
JiveTurkin
@Shalimar: I would buy all the meat I need for the next year and freeze it now because inflation will get a lot worse relatively soon
Maybe a little worse. The Fed is now predicting inflation to be flat for June, core CPI at 2.0% for second quarter on annualized basis.
The inflation effects of for tariffs have yet to materialize and there is growing feeling that the effects, if any, will not be nearly as signicant as feared.
Harrison Wesley
@Shalimar: Don’t worry about that. Just go out and harvest what you need – fish,fowl, reptile, amphibian,human…. hmm, I probably spent too many years hypnoing on Walking Dead.
Harrison Wesley
@Tony Jay: I’ve always advised my Merka-curious relatives in the Old Country to remember to wear a Constitution before entering.
mrmoshpotato
driftglass on Bluesky
JaySinWA
@Shalimar: Canned goods are in order as long as they can stay battened down in a hurricane.
There are other canned meats besides Spam, but Spam has history.
Seriously, canned goods have very long shelf life and generally don’t require additional water.
Sally
@Joe Falco: He’s a Kremlin “Tool”.
eclare
@JaySinWA:
Dried beans.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
I grew up with one of those in the house. It worked well except for the hottest nights. House was old, with steam heat; no ducts, so AC was window units in few rooms.
Tony Jay
@Harrison Wesley:
The plan was to touchdown in The Big Easy, but I was blown off course and ended up with a Baton Rouge.
No, it’s okay, I’ll see myself out.
Jeffro
mild but up when a Dem is president = Armageddon
mild but up when a MAGAt is president = eh, what?
(also: down when a Dem is president = “WHY ISN’T IT EVEN LOWER??!?”)
danielx
@Tony Jay:
As well you should.
JaySinWA
@eclare: Dried beans require clean water, dry storage and heat. Canned beans are a better bet for most emergencies. Dried beans and rice are cost effective for long term complete proteins if you can cook them. OTOH IBS can make beans a non-starter for some.
ExPatExDem
Ok…
Well, Trump and JV Dance just triumphantly declared a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
Actual Tehran Times headline: “Iran did not agree to a ceasefire. Trump is lying again.”
What a clown show this administration is.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@kalakal: Congratulations!
tobie
@WTFGhost: I’m sorry to be the bearer of such awful news. Marcy Wheeler wondered whether Steve Miller’s pressure campaign against SCOTUS has worked and I have to say I have the same suspicion. For a very brief moment at the beginning of Trump’s 2nd term, some of the SCOTUS conservatives placed limited guardrails on the Trump admin but they seem to been brought to heel over the past few months. Today’s “emergency relief” for the Trump admin was so devastating.
JaySinWA
@kalakal: Wecome to the party pal. /DieHardQuote
Gvg
@RandomMonster: it is not necessary. I had never heard it and my father was careful to tell me things like that.I just checked, and apparently older cars in the past had some reasons to need that precaution but not for quite some time. When you turn off the ignition, ac is not draining the battery. Nothing is, unless it is direct wired to the battery. Some people used to do that for certain things, and ac was done that way way back, when it was more of an accessory and not a part of all cars. Some people did their radios that way. The most common direct wire to the battery was the cigarette lighter which newer cars don’t even have. When cell phones were taking over charger plugs used the cigarette lighter, and we were warned that leaving the phone plugged in overnight could run the battery down. Now that they are just charging ports, they have safety circuits and don’t charge when the car is off, although I would check that with an unfamiliar car.
Eric S.
@kalakal: Welcome! Remember to vote the bums out.
japa21
Another heat related story. My younger son, the HS social science teacher in Chicago is ending a week long cultural history tour of Montreal, Toronto and Detroit. He should have left Detroit a little over an hour ago on Amtrak. He just texted us that the train was cancelled due to the heat and they had to scramble to get a flight on Southwest.
I blame Trump.
ETA: I forgot to mention, this was with 14 Jr and Sr students. He is totally burned out.
Jay
One of the Econ Blue Sky guys a couple of days ago sad that in talking to Target Employee’s in charge of setting prices, said that they said, many products will see a 95% price increase in July.
mrmoshpotato
@japa21: Fuck Trump. Hopefully the last minute flight didn’t cost too much.
TONYG
@mali muso: If history is a guide, oil prices will go higher long before any shortages from the Iran war begin. That spike in prices, not death and destruction (not even the deaths of U.S. military personnel) is what will get the attention of Mister and Mrs. America.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Strange that. I’m sure it is a burocratic oversight of some kind…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@tobie:
What possible leverage could Miller have on them? They have lifetime appointments to the court and there’s zero chance any of them could be impeached and removed
Paul in KY
@Baud: Maybe he thinks he’s an agent and that’s the hold they have on him? Some bogus swearing in ceremony with a shiney badge, etc.
Baud
According to Blue sky, people are starting to notice how low crime rates have gotten under Biden (and continuing).
Jackie
Sibling rivalry in Florida!
I thought moms are supposed to be neutral!
Paul in KY
@kalakal: Congrats! Glad to have you in the barrel with us :-)
Jay
Video at link. Turn sound on.
https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3lsalddvahs2b
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: I heard her, she said what I was thinking: “Bounty Hunters.”
(she said a lot of other things I was thinking too =-)
Spanky
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
He knows where they live. He knows who their children are.
You have to remember just what kind of creature Miller is. Just go with the lizard brain explanation.
Jackie
@Jay:
GOOD for her! Called them bounty hunters and chased them off! She’s awesome!
Westyny
@kalakal: Thank you for your leap of faith.
MagdaInBlack
@kalakal: Congratulations, welcome aboard !
YY_Sima Qian
Good news, but considering the single source to date… (by which I mean Trump, not Barak Ravid):
I guess Trump’s desire for a Nobel Peace Prize won out for now. Also, w/ the suspect set of actors involved, don’t know how long it will last (see the ceasefires in Gaza & Lebanon).
The war is paused w/ 400 kg of HEU unaccounted for, no IAEA eyes on Iranian nuclear facilities, & Iran retaining the ability to reconstitute the enrichment program (which is impossible to truly eliminate absent of occupation or collapse/fragmentation). None of the factors driving toward war have been alleviated meaningfully. There are likely to be negotiations, but why would Iran agree to make further concessions such as zero enrichment, cap on ballistic missiles, & human rights? It could make concessions on support for partners & proxies in the region.
Given Iran’s dramatically weakened defenses & system of deterrence, Bibi will be tempted to “mow the grass” any time he wants. The theocratic regime might want to weaponize the nukes to secure its survival from external threats (following the example of the Kim Dynasty, & avoiding the examples of Saddam & Qaddafi), & may want to lean much further toward the PRC for support. w/o much of an “Axis of Resistance” to throw tens of billions on, it may even provide more resources to weaponize the nuclear stockpile & purchase PRC weaponry.
YY_Sima Qian
@kalakal: Congratulations! Dual citizen?
Jay
You will note that the report says “deported”, not “kidnapped” ot held in an ICE Concentration Camp, but “Deported”.
https://bsky.app/profile/premthakker.bsky.social/post/3lsbxszjf622e
Baud
@Jay:
That’s from 2016 to 2020, I think. It’s going to get worse.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
Iran said nope, TACO Don is lying. Israel hasn’t commented.
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/paleofuture.bsky.social/post/3lsakhi6eb22h
The list is not comprehensive, I would add WaPo, ABC and a few dozen others.
Harrison Wesley
@YY_Sima Qian: Sorry. This is bollocks.
Jay
zhena gogolia
@Jay: Brava!
patrick II
@kalakal:
In under the wire. Congrats.
YY_Sima Qian
A succinct summary of the failure of Iranian strategy for the past 2 decades:
OTOH, the Israeli-Iranian Was was rapidly heading toward stalemate (albeit one that was massively in favor of Israel militarily). The hit rate of Iranian missiles launched at Israel was rising, even as the sizes of the salvo fell dramatically. Israel was running low on interceptors, the IDF already exhausted from 20 months of war in Gaza/Southern Lebanon & operations in the WB & SW Syria, the IAF could not sustain a high operational tempo for long, especially over such distances. Iran was hitting infrastructure targets, & timing their limited salvos to keep much of the Israeli population w/in shelters. The Israeli economy has already been hit hard by the non-stop mobilization & war.
At the end of the day, the “Axis of Resistance” was expendable to Iran, to avoid inviting overwhelming Israeli & US response. tThat response came anyway, & Iran didn’t do much in the time bought by the “Axis of Resistance”, except to divert the HEU stockpile, & possibly diversify some of the enrichment infrastructure, to secret locations, though perhaps that was the most important preparation from the regime’s perspective.
Now, Iran can try to pursue different strategies, also determined by whether the theocratic regime survives the coming domestic discontent, & what replaces it if it does not.
I think it is interesting how little sympathy Iran has received on Chinese social media, because Iran has always hesitated & hedged when it came to economic & military partnership with/ the PRC (loose talk of new “Axis of Evil” in DC & select other Western capitals notwithstanding). The common assessment has been that the theocrats distrusted the Communist “infidels”, the IRGC did not want Chinese competition to encroach on their commercial empires, the technocrats naively held out hope for a rapprochement w/ the US, & all three held themselves superior (as inheritors to the Persian civilization) to the Chinese.
Baud
TS
@Jay: As expected, trump makes up his own reality – even Wapo has the heading “trump says”
HopefullyNotcassandra
The Supreme Court just eviscerated our human right to due process on the shadow docket without a word of rationale so president Trump can evict human beings to countries entirely unknown to them.
This Court cares not about life.
This Court cares not about the law.
prostratedragon
In non-foreign policy, Anna Bower:
YY_Sima Qian
@Harrison Wesley: I am sure Trump is claiming credit for the hard work that the Qataris did. Qatar does have a lot of pull w/ the Bibi government, having so much money to buy influence, & it is the one Gulf State that is actually somewhat friendly to Iran (since relations w/ the rest of the GCC has been tense).
LAC
@arrieve: Amen! Welcome,citizen Kalakal!!
kalakal
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes
YY_Sima Qian
History rhymes:
kalakal
Thanks all for the
condolencescongratulations! My timing may be questionable but I do love this placeYY_Sima Qian
@kalakal: Good! Need to have options in this brave new world of ours.
Jay
Betty Cracker is getting new neighbors.
Once again, cruelty is the point. And this is double cruel, sticking the abducted in a Concentration Camp composed of unheated, un AC tents in Floriduh!, boat and air access only, and using FEMA funds illegally seize that was supposed to compensate Cities to providing housing to migrants and refugees.
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3lscmohfezs2c
YY_Sima Qian
That was predictable, Trump jumping the gun to claim credit:
However, the sense I get from reading the astute commentators is that a ceasefire will happen. Israel is getting its last licks in & put more pressure Iran on the “timing & details”. We might also see one last sizable salvo from Iran, too.
Kayla Rudbek
Have not caught up yet from this morning,
And the Patent Office is proposing to have AI examination of patent applications https://www.reddit.com/r/patentexaminer/comments/1lgi3eg/us_patent_office_wants_an_ai_to_scan_for_prior_art/ and won’t pay the AI companies for it https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/20/us_patent_office_ai/
(Note that patent applications have no copyright attached to them, the IP and legal issues are going to be along the lines of potential trade secret theft for applications with a non-publication order, and/or insider trading of the information in the applications that are under 18 months from filing and therefore not published yet)
No One You Know
@Anne Laurie: Sour cherry pierogies, maybe?
But you still need eggs to make them.
Old School
@kalakal: Congrats! Now you have to fix us.
Jackie
@Jay: “Alligator Alcatraz”
Any immigrants that try to escape… gator food in the prison guards minds. Sickening.
YY_Sima Qian
Not sure this will make any difference to the EU’s & the E3’s very accommodating posture toward Israel:
YY_Sima Qian
A video making the rounds on Chinese social media has a Chinese laborer working in Israel ranting angrily at the fact that the authorities only allow Israelis into the shelters when Iranian missiles come falling, non-Israelis are left above ground to fend for themselves. It ended w/ some anti-Semitic remarks (about not having “any sympathies for the Jews”).
Abusing & discriminating against foreign “guest” (ha!) workers is pervasive across E/SE Asia & the ME. Just recently, the Israeli Labor Minister had thanked the new PRC ambassador for arranging for tens of thousands of Chinese laborers to work on construction projects in Israel (including new settlements in the WB), to make up for the short fall in available Palestinian laborers since 10/7/23.
No great power has clean hands here, whatever the highfalutin rhetoric they use in favor of one side or another.
twbrandt
@japa21: ack! I am in Chicago and am supposed to go back home to Detroit via Amtrak Wednesday afternoon. Hope things get sorted before then.
Sorry about your son and his class, that has to be really stressful.
Another Scott
@mayim: Fingers crossed that things look up for you very soon.
Donated.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
PatD
@Baud: damn, would have expected more votes for Crockett but maybe Dems got the message on getting a bit younger in leadership positions.
Marc
@Matt McIrvin: Agree, among other things, lack of due process before deportation means you may never get the chance to prove you’re a citizen.
Jackie
@PatD: I don’t consider Robert Garcia “old.” He’s 47, just a few years older than Crockett.
Marc
By the way, just got back from my last set of injections (and colonoscopy) for an NIH/NCI-sponsored intestinal cancer vaccine trial (I was not a fully positive result, unfortunately). Research assistant says I got in under the wire, this was the last day, the rest of the research has been DOGEd. Oh well…
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/meganotoole.bsky.social
Israel has been using “bait traps” for the last 4 weeks in Gaza.
The US run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sets out aid, the IDF takes up “overlook” positions. The GHF guys lose control of the crowds, because they have 0 training, tactics or methodology. The IDF and the IAF then open fire on the “Looters” with automatic weapons, tanks and 250lb bombs, murdering desperate starving Gazans and destroying the aid.
https://zeteo.com/p/exclusive-american-security-contractor
Jackie
EEEK!!! Look out Austin drivers AND pedestrians!!
Yeah, SURE the person(s) behind the wheel are HOLDING AND CONTROLLING the steering wheel!
tobie
@YY_Sima Qian: I gather that some of the sites struck in Tehran are purely symbolic. Tehran has a “Destruction of Israel Clock” that was hit, and the front gate of the Evin Prison where political prisoners are held was also hit. Outside Tehran an access road to the Fordo nuclear facility was struck. These details are not hard to find if you want a more granular sense of what’s going on.
Another Scott
@kalakal: Woot! Thanks for your faith in America!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/ryanlcooper.com
YY_Sima Qian
@tobie: All of those strikes you are talking about happened yesterday, before Trump’s announcement. OSINTtechnical was referring to the IAF strikes on Tehran overnight (now ceased), shortly after Trump’s announcement.
KrackenJack
@WTFGhost:
I beg to differ. A butt is half a tun or two hogsheads, so a buttload is a perfectly cromulent unit of measure.
YY_Sima Qian
@tobie: I was also less interested in the minutiae of the last minute hostile actions, but whether Israel & Iran was actually headed toward a ceasefire (irrespective of the last minute hostile actions) or if Trump was talking out of his ass. Both were equally plausible a few hours ago.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
Keep in mind that there is a major gap all across media and OSINT, in the “news” cycle. There is no 24hr Media anymore.
So no “new” news until tomorrow am, Mid East time at best.
As an example, Chris O Wiki is an Australian, so he’s in bed now.
YY_Sima Qian
OK, this made me laugh. I wonder what kind of beef Giuliani has w/ the Pahlavi’s:
I guess Giuliani is tight w/ the MEK, which is no fan of the Shah’s regime, either.
YY_Sima Qian
Happening now, Iran getting its last licks in:
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
MEK paid him for decades, I guess they are no longer paying him, I guess no Iranians are paying him anymore. Maybe 4 Seasons Landscaping can toss him a bone to do ads for them.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: & despite the daily atrocities for 20 months running, no one is prepared to impose costs on Israel for its massive war crimes & crimes against humanity. Not the regional players, not the great powers, not the Global South (not really), beyond rhetoric. Instead, the US is sanctioning members of the ICC for investigating genocide in Gaza.
Thus ends any semblance of international order. The Russian invasion of Ukraine had already been a dire challenge to international order, but at least some countries sprang into action to impose costs, despite the limitations of such cost-imposing actions.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
I don’t think the Fat Lady has sung, yet.
Bibi still needs a distraction from murdering Palestinians.
The Iranians still need to look strong to stay in power.
Putin still needs to distract from his murders in Ukraine.
TACO Don still needs a distraction from the OBBB and his domestic kidnapping spree.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
Nobody was going to take action on Serb leadership, until they did. Rwanda, etc.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Three cheers for that woman for standing up to the fatass, American Gestapo shitstains.
tobie
@YY_Sima Qian: Details matter especially when they’re counter to the narrative you offer. Israel’s targets in Iran were primarily (if not exclusively) military facilities and symbolic sites. Iran has been firing at hospitals and apartment buildings in Israel. Just seconds after the cease fire was supposed to start, Iran hit and a seven-story apartment building in Beersheba killing three and seriously wounding several others. I guess the cease fire is off the table because neither party really wanted it.
Jay
@tobie:
Israel has been firing at hospitals and apartments in Gaza and the West bank for 9 months. 29 hospitals and tens of thousands of apartments buildings. Before the start of the war, and in the beginning, the IDF and IAF demonstrated the ability to hit a single house, a single apartment, because their un-human vetted AI suggested that one of the Occupants was maybe Hamas, killing their family as well. By December, they didn’t bother, dropping 2500lb bombs to take down an entire 25 story apartment building or flatten and entire neighborhood, killing or wounding 2500 people for a one person “target”, picked out by AI.
The difference is that Israel can precisely hit their targets. They have a 15 foot CEP, (Circular error of probability, 90% hit within 15 feet, the other 10%, well as the US discovered in Afghanistan, Iraq 1, Iraq 2, Libya, Syria, well, they can miss by an entire country).
Iran hit the Hospital right next door to the IDF Headquarters. Who puts a IDF Headquarters next door to a Hospital?
The missiles Iran uses have a 2500 foot CEP.
I guess if you are used to using Palestinians and Israeli’s as human shields as doctrine, that’s why you put military targets right next to civilian targets. Hamas used the same tactic, but by tunneling.
IDF strikes on Iran have so far, killed 9600+ Iranian Civilians.
YY_Sima Qian
@tobie: What narratives am I offering?
Just because Israel was primarily targeting military & regime structure (such as police & Basij headquarters, state TV, etc.) does not change the fact that its sudden attack while negotiations was still ongoing was a gross violation of international law & a reckless geopolitical escalation, likewise w/ the US’ sudden attack. Seeking regime change (which Bibi & his government made no secret of, & the targeting aligns w/ that objective) w/o any plan for the day after is not evidence of responsible behavior. The IDF also did not make much considerations for collateral damage when targeting regime leaders. If it was Iran taking the initiative in escalation, it would certainly have been roundly condemned. A number of Western governments were quick to condemn Iranian retaliation to Operation Rising Lion, even though Iran had not yet targeted civilian structures in those initial salvos.
& yes, Iran has targeted both Israeli infrastructure (such as refineries in Haifa) and civilian targets (hospitals & neighborhoods) in pure vengeance mode, also a war crime. Its “Axis of Resistance” has commitment many more war crimes & crimes against humanity in the in the past couple of decades. However, since 10/7/23, & arguably since the US assassination of Qassem Suleimani in ’20, the theocratic regime has chosen tit-for-tat response to every Israeli & US escalation, & not escalating themselves. The latest performative strikes against the Al Udeid base in response to Operation Midnight Hammer is but the latest example. To me, that is a sign of a largely rational regime still attached to reality & understanding of its limitations, which does not preclude the regime being cynical, brutal, coldblooded & self-interested, which it most certainly is.
What does any of that have to do w/ Israeli war crimes & crimes against humanity in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the WB, & further encroachment on Syrian territory despite a new government that is more interested in domestic consolidation than adventurism toward Israel?
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
The vast majority of “Mercans, (eg. the MAGA flip flop), including Politicians, are all “Ride of Die” with Israel, despite it not being 1967 or 1973 anymore.
A couple of MAGgot ReThug politicians today posted on the Dead Bird Site that their loyalty is, and will always be to Israel, over the USA.
On the bright side, this will be the 4th Generation in a row of ‘ ‘Merkins who get the opportunity to fight. die or get wounded in the Middle East, and then get ignored and abandoned when they come home.
Pretty sure it won’t be the last.
Kayla Rudbek
@HopefullyNotcassandra: the Seditious Six should all be impeached and disbarred.
YY_Sima Qian
Utterly shambolic “ceasefire” process, just like everything else Trump is involved in:
Must be the worlds 1st ceasefire where one side is allowed to the other for an extra 12 hrs.
We’ll see how long it lasts:
rikyrah
@kalakal:
Congratulations👏🏾.
Citizen Alan
@tobie: Every day, another goddamned Republican says or does something that an editor would dismiss as unrealistically, cartoonishly evil if a writer had the villain in a work of fiction say or do it.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@mayim: I am so sorry life is kicking you. I hope things get better soon. I will try to help more after the 1st of the month.
Geminid
@Jay:
From Ankara-based Clash Report today: