I didn’t get a damned thing done today. I honestly have no idea where the day went. I remember taking a trip to the pharmacy and a couple other little things, but that only sucked up about 2 hours. I mean, I did things, just nothing major and I end the day feeling no accomplishment of anything major. Which is fine, I suppose, for a hot humid, and sometimes rainy summer day.
I did go to pick up a cheap small metal outdoor garbage bin to store birdseed since the chipmunks and squirrels, those magnificent little fuckers, chewed right through the plastic bin I have had for years. I was at Menard’s, and they had some pretty reasonably priced refrigerators. I mean they’re all expensive as fuck, but I have not priced them in a while (we gave up on a new one at Joelle’s until we re-do the whole kitchen or hers dies)+, and was terrified to find out how much they run. Fucking Trump and his fucking tariffs. Yeah, just raise the goods on all appliances. You know we don’t make 90% of them here any more and no one is going to run out and spend hundreds of millions building a plant to make sub-par fridges from scratch especially when the plant won’t be constructed until you are out of office in 2028 and then they won’t pay enough to make a profit so no one will work there and oh by the way you are rounding up all the cheap labor and sending them elsewhere. Nothing anything these fucking guys do is ever thought out at even the most superficial fucking level. I’d kill for like William Weld competent Republicanism right now. Jesus fuck.
That’s just *chef kiss*.
I see the Supreme Court has been up to more fuckery, with reports ranging from the “it’s not as bad as you think” to “this is really fucking bad.” I don’t know what to think about the degree of badness, and I have given up trying to understand the legal reasoning because there is no philosophy at work here other than Cleek’s Law. It’s not a political court in the sense of competing political/legal philosophies or guiding ideologies, it’s a fucking partisan court with a majority composed of ethically and morally compromised (and at the very least in Thomas’s case, to the point of open criminality) partisan hacks.
Sotomayor’s dissent was on point.
So from my standpoint, the ruling changes nothing, the priority is to throw all of these maga senators and reps out of office, win the presidency, and expand the court.
I’ve mentioned before of my love for orange roughy, and I found some at the grocery store frozen and with pretty decent sized filets, so for dinner I made parmesan encrusted orange roughy that I pan seared in a teaspoon of olive oil, some green beans, and some rotelli with a red sauce. It was very good.
About to go binge watched
As I was saying, I am about to go binge watch the last couple episodes of Day of the Jackal. Curious how they are going to wind this down without killing people off because there is a second season coming.
Elizabelle
Will put up links when I am home. Assassinated Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman , her husband Mark, and their Golden Retriever Gilbert are lying in state in the state capitol. Former President Biden attended to pay his respects.
Somehow, that story just fell into another dimension. Big Beautiful Bill!
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Good for him.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
Or even Mitt Romney, who actually is a competent businessman who thinks stuff through. Too bad he ran against Obama in 2012 instead of waiting until 2016. We would not have liked many of his policies, and we may not have been pleased with his SCOTUS nominees, but they likely would have been along the lines of the less egregious among Nixon and Ford’s nominees rather than like Rehnquist or Scalia.
Shakti
I’m sure you have 4th of July plans. I did one thing today that I needed to do, my weekly prayer routine, ate a healthy breakfast, and caught up with a friend whose twitch stream I hadn’t seen in a while.
Otherwise I did a lot of staring into space. I am now pretending I am going to exercise before dinner.
sab
Back in the late 1970s when I was in law school everyone liked to rant about Wiliam O Douglas on the S Ct, because however you felt about the outcome of his decisions, his legal reasonimg was sloppy and useless as precedent.
There was only one of him. There are six of these new guys.
lowtechcyclist
I didn’t do a damn thing useful today, but that was by design. So much has been going on lately, I really needed a day where I didn’t feel obligated to do anything useful. So I did my morning Wordle, got a shower while everyone else was still asleep, and goofed off the rest of the day. I’d cooked dinner last night and the night before, so there were plenty of leftovers, and we ate most of them for supper tonight.
Now I’m going to sit on the sofa with my laptop, and goof off some more.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Have you considered going the used route on a fridge?
drawback is pickup, hauling and getting rid of the old one.
Oh and Rmoney would have sucked just as badly. He would have simply put a nicer face on it.
We took a load of audio gear we will never use at Girls Rock Denver to a place where we got a great pair of used Peavey PA cabinets and $50!
Ruckus
John, welcome to my world.
Retired after 60 years of working, and this do little to nothing was not me – but I’ve grown into it and it seems to fit in rather nicely with my case of old fartitus. Now it’s actually not nothing, I build furniture, but one slow piece at a time and I’ve got one left after the one I’m finishing currently. And then I am going to be FULLY RETIRED. Because I mostly do nothing and found out I like it…..
dmsilev
I haven’t seen the show so just know about it secondhand, but isn’t ’killing people off’ pretty much baked in to the premise?
sab
I made a birthday cake from scratch today. I don’t make cakes since I was traumatized fifty years ago when my angel food fell with a bang so loud we heard it at the other end of the building. Instead of being fluffy and five inches high it was 3/4 inch high and the texture of cheese.
First try today was also a failure, so I threw it out and tried again. Success!
So today I got up, fed the animals, went to the post office and grocery, and made a cake. That was all I did.
Kitty litter boxes are waiting for my attention.
NotMax
IIRC you have a Costco membership? Might want to check out the fridges offered at their online site, which AFAIK include delivery, installation and haulage of the old one.
General consensus by way of experience by and reviews from others is to avoid Samsung. LG also seems to lean slightly more to negative than positive reviews.
Sister Golden Bear
Overshadowed by those two were two additional “holy shit this bad” rulings.
Supreme Court Rules For Haters On LGBTQ Books — Parents can tell schools that their delicate little darlings can opt out of any lesson or book that so much as mentions that LGBTQ+ people exist.
And SCOTUS Upholds Texas Law On Porn Age Verification — A reminder that part of Project 2025’s plans are to declare anything related to LGBTQ+ people, including our very existence, to be inherently pornographic, and then ban all porn. You can see where that leads….
They want us eradicated from public life, and probably entirely. With extreme prejudice.
Suzanne
@NotMax: Agree: Costco for appliances. With the exec membership, you get 2% back. If one is a careful shopper, you will get back the value of the membership, plus. I should note that I have the Spawns and SuzMom in the household, so maybe that’s harder for couples. But! You can buy glasses, food, pet needs, socks……
WTFGhost
I won’t say I’m cooking Italian, because some sainted grandmother would feel the need to wash my mouth out with soap for saying so, when I’m using sauces from a jar, and only added some onion and garlic. But, with my wife laid up – and fun fact, they’re charging us a boatload of money because something something broken hip medicare part A eligibility, and, since she can’t put weight on her leg with the broken hip, she’s not eligible for paid rehab, until she can, at which point it turns back on.
But I’ve found if you put a piece of chicken, at the bottom of a nominal marinara sauce, and simmer for a few hours, the chicken is tender and awesome.
You can do the same thing with salsa, though I haven’t tried simmering salsa forever, though who knows. I have a portable induction cooker, so I can set it to 175 and stop worrying about it burning. Still: today is the last jar of commercial sauce in the house, so I’ll probably have to see if it’s cheaper and easier to keep with commercial, or throw a lot of tomatoes and such into a pot and let them simmer forever.
I’ve realized I can use italian sauces over the bland fishes I’ve tried, and there’s no reason to shy from pork or beef, other than price.
So I may actually be eating healthier with my wife laid up than I did before, but, that’s engineering for you. “I need nutritious food that’s not over processed. I need protein – that’s chicken thighs (or breasts). Italian sauces seem like they could work (blorp). Gotta make sure the pan stays above 165 so the chicken cooks through, but, doesn’t burn – but I bought the induction cooker for this precise sort of situation. Someday, dumb and occasionally unable to notice burning smells, me, will need to cook something, and be sure it stays hot, but doesn’t burn.
Also, it’s official, I’m being terminated July 1 for inability to return to work.
Not that I’ve been under unusual stress or anything, ha ha.
Um. I’d ask “so how’s your day been,” but alas, I already know the answer to that, the SCOTUS took a massive dump all over the American people, and wiped their ass with the last shreds of the Constitution, figuratively speaking.
Sister Golden Bear
Meanwhile on a personal rant, I had seven recruiters contact within a few hours about the exact same damn entry level jobs, which paid half of what my last two contracts did. Dudes, did you even look at my LinkedIn that says I have 15+ years experience, so trying to get me to apply for this position was an utter fucking waste of everyone’s time. And just to make things extra special, probably none of them were actually hired to represent the company, they just saw the opening and all were trying to submit candidates anyway.
And for those keeping score, I’ve not applied to roughly 340 jobs in the past six weeks. The results, one second-round interview which didn’t go any further, and 3-4 recruiters who got my info to submit me to their clients—and were never heard from again.
Ohio Mom
@Ruckus: Oh yes, I have learned to like doing nothing. But Cole isn’t retired yet, he still had to be mostly productive.
Today I remembered when I was visiting NYC and I was at my favorite aunt’s and GW was president. It was before 9/11 but he was already doing things we didn’t like though I don’t remember what they were.
I just remember my aunt saying, pretty much out of nowhere that I shouldn’t worry, everything GW was doing could be undone.
The next year when I was visiting, my aunt announced that This is the End of the Roman Empire.
Now my high school history class started at the dawn of the Renaissance — just a little bit about medieval times in the beginning for contrast. So I know next to nothing about the fall of the Roman Empire except it took a very long time and there were a few stretches of time with a good emporer that things looked better for a while.
Anyway, as usual, my aunt was right.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Plus the Costco online site seems to offer a more extensive selection than will fit in the brick and mortar stores for display.
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: I’ve been told by people who know that Costco’s hearing aid department is excellent.
ETA: Pointing to Steve LaBonne’s comment below to confirm my statement.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: The discount on my wife’s hearing aids will pay for our membership for the rest of our lives.
Suzanne
@Ohio Mom: The hearing aids are awesome. I am trying to get SuzMom to allow me to buy her some!
Maccheerful
Passing on again for those in the Seattle area, there’s a screening of film at the SIFF film center at the Seattle Center tonight, Searching for Nika, that’s in support of Ukraine. Proceeds go to funding medical and nonlethal military supplies through Ukraine Defense Support. 7 pm.
Details here
https://ukrainedefensesupport.org/ev/searching-for-nika-fillm-screening/
The director will be there, as will Ukrainian food. So you can stuff your face or talk cinema, but don’t do them at the same time as that would not be polite.
The film is about dogs and also about war. So every chance of being a good time.
Suzanne
@NotMax: I love the Costco website. I need to get an e-bike for Spawn the Elder, and it’s likely gonna be from there.
Ohio Mom
@Sister Golden Bear: Ugh. Very reminiscent of Ohio Dad’s last few job searches. I feel for you. The ageism in tech is awful. Crossing fingers, toes, etc. for you.
Thor Heyerdahl
Hi Steve!
HopefullyNotcassandra
@cmorenc: Antonin Scalia is the wicked step-father of all of this, even the corruption (see where & how he died). William Rehnquist was a rights slashing racist.
I wish we still had William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, Stephen Breyer, Sandra Day O’Connell, or even Anthony Kennedy on our bench
All Justices appointed by republicans. Justices capable of rational thought, rather than this current neo-confederate magical thinking sadism crew.
If these goyper Justices value suffering so very much, might I suggest fewer parties with billionaires and more hair shirts?
trollhattan
Read about a new book titled “Murderland:…” and just today, learn this tidbit:
Me: an hour away up I-5.
Ohio Mom
@WTFGhost: Ugh to what’s going on with you as well.
Whenever someone cries “Medicare for All!” I think, Um no, you don’t want Medicare for all, you want Medicaid for all, because Medicare is full of snags.
Good luck to you in your upcoming job search.
tam1MI
I was without cable and internet for 3 1/2 days after it conked out on Tuesday. The technician FINALLY showed up today, checked my equipment and and my wall connection, found nothing wrong, then went outside to check the outside cable. He came in holding a piece of chewed up cable. It had apparently worked it’s way aboveground and then gotten chewed through by squirrels.
Magnificent little fuckers is right.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Sister Golden Bear:
In the USA as of today (& never ever previously) no teacher can teach about Portia, Rosalind or Viola without first seeking parental consent.
Quipped the Elizabethan Antediluvian Times
“ This is a major blow to Shakespeare. People will never remember his name, the pervert.”
Walt Whitman just took off from the United States. He was sighted near Kiev lifting everyone’s spirits.
Six of our Justices are fools.
Jeffro
it’s not directly related (but maybe it is?) but with things like this I’m often reminded of the quote from longtime republican/libertarian humor writer PJ O’Rourke about trumpov vs Clinton, back in 2016 – this was his ‘endorsement’ of Clinton:
I’m tired of the trumpov freak show and I’m even more tired of the cost to our country.
These people need to understand that ‘rule or ruin’ works both ways.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@cmorenc: Antonin Scalia is the wicked step-father of all of this, even the corruption (see where & how he died). William Rehnquist was a rights slashing racist.
I wish we still had William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, Stephen Breyer, Sandra Day O’Connell, or even Anthony Kennedy on our bench
All Justices appointed by republicans. Justices capable of rational thought, rather than this current neo-confederate magical thinking sadism crew.
If these goyper Justices value suffering so very much, might I suggest fewer parties with billionaires and more hair shirts?
H.E.Wolf
I love this! I like floor plans, too. I could draw a pretty good floor plan of my grandmother’s house, although it’s been decades since I was there.
I can’t remember where the bedroom closets were, though. Must not have been on my radar as a kid. However, I do remember exactly where the coats-and-boots closet was… because we kids used to crawl in there and use it as a hideout!
Hilfy
Mr. Cole, why do you think we’ll have an honest election in 2028? Or even 2026? Radical Republicans plan to win in 2026, and thereafter, by disallowing as many votes as possible. Married women wlll only vote under maiden name, if the paper work is available. All blue state voters will have to prove they have an American born parent. Lose of citizenship status will be retroactive for blue state voters.
And whatever other hellish idea they can think up. trump’s disfavor-able numbers are so high he cannot “win” an honest election.
indycat32
Again this year, young adult cats have mysteriously appeared in my neigborhood and made a bee-line to my house since I have food. My theory is, there’s a person who likes kittens but loses interest once they’re adult. They’re extremely friendly, obviously raised inside, try to come in every time I open the back door. This year, there was a tan colored male, who I got fixed but has since disappeared; a gray and white male who isn’t fixed yet because he doesn’t always show up for early breakfast so I can get him to the clinic, and an absolutely gorgeous long hair dilute tortie (I got her fixed first!). She weighs about 8 pounds, is extremely friendly, loves laps and skritches. I am so tired of this.
H.E.Wolf
Requoting so that I can thank you for your way with words. :)
Harrison Wesley
Saw “Little Satchmo” this afternoon and shook hands with Louis Armstrong’s daughter. Wonderful break from Black Mirror America.
different-church-lady
I tried to tell you.
dmsilev
@Suzanne: My condo building bought a gazebo from Costco a few years ago.
Some assembly required. Basically the Ikea kit from hell, except with solid wood instead of particle board etc. But once assembled, it’s been great and has held up well, and the price was very good.
Baud
Photo
TONYG
@Sister Golden Bear: Here’s what I wonder about the “Schools must pander to stupid, bigoted parents ruling.”. Let’s say that some parents “opt out” by keeping Timmy and Suzie home when “offensive” material is being discussed in class. (And, yeah, “offensive” will soon include biology classes that mention evolution and geology classes that mention the fact that planet earth is more than 8,000 years old.). Will the teacher be allowed to give Timmy and Suzie a failing grade on a test because they didn’t learn the material? Or will the teacher be forced to just give every kid an A+ ?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@indycat32:
Good on your for getting them fixed.
I mentioned that we do that and the reaction by some was “wtf” as in “how dare you?”
Doing animal rescue in NOLA immediately after Katrina changed our outlook massively on doing the kinds of things your doing.
Again, good on you and thanks!
Geminid
@Ohio Mom: I have studied the Roman Empire in detail, especially its decline and fall.
That is a controversial matter. Some historians say poisoning from lead water pipes caused the decline, while Gibbon thought it was the the new Christian religion that undermined the Roman state and led to.its fall.
Bu I have done my own research, and my conclusion is more mundane. Carbon dating of Mediterranean driftwood points to the little-known collapse of the Palletine Hill, around 550 CE. All those pallets clogged the River Tiber all the way to Ostia port and it took years to clear them. Rome never recovered.
There’s a lesson here: don’t get behind on recycling!
Suzanne
@dmsilev:
Redundant.
I should note that I am convinced that every couple in their 30s has had a fight instigated by a KALLAX.
frosty
@Shakti: I finished pretending to exercise a little while ago. It was tough, but I got through it.
dnfree
@NotMax: I said it in the previous refrigerator post and will repeat here: the refrigerator that came with our current house developed problems and three different repair groups quite emphatically told us they refused to work on LG refrigerators. The old refrigerator was installed in 2010, but the repair people didn’t ask what year it was.
MagdaInBlack
@Geminid: That Roman log jam made me think of this:
https://www.redriverhistorian.com/post/the-great-raft-of-the-red-river
..which I only learned of about 2 weeks ago.
Harrison Wesley
@sab: The Fallen Angel has been a subject of great literature for centuries.
Soapdish
Law means nothing any longer. As others have said, it’s all Calvinball now.
https://newrepublic.com/article/167032/dobbs-roe-bar-exam-calvinball
Rusty
@Sister Golden Bear: I lost my previous job in my mid-50’s, one recruiter’s comment was this would be so much easier if you were in your 40’s. I finally got a few offers but it was a rough process, thankfully now over 5 years in the next job and with luckni can finish my career here. Job hunting in my 60’s would be near impossible in my field. Im sending prayers and warm thoughts your way.
M31
@Geminid: hahahaha was just reading about Monte Testaccio, a pretty big hill near Rome that is actually a huge pile of broken empty clay jugs– “amphorae” –that used to hold olive oil.
Wikipedia tells me 53 million of them
frosty
That’s me, too. But I fucked up last summer. I’ve been retired but working odd hours at my old company. I emailed my supervisor (20 years younger than me) and told him I was turning in my laptop since nobody had called in a year. He said, “Funny, I was just about to call you, we have a project you’d be perfect for and we are swamped.”
I looked at it, decided against it but hadn’t gotten around to telling him then his boss emailed out to several people “Great news, frosty’s on board!”
What a fuckin’ nightmare. I put in a 20-hour week, drafted a report for the client meeting on Wednesday then in our weekly call his boss spent most of the time telling me and my assistant what we should have done and it wasn’t in the proposal! That she wrote!!!
So now we’ll be scrambling this weekend. To quote Maynard G. Krebs: “WORK!!!!!???!!??!!”
Jay
@TONYG:
I think the kids fail the Standardized Test and attendance requirements. Fail the year and have to repeat the year. 3rd time they fail the Grade, they get a P, no marks. In their last year of elementary school, when they fail the third time, they are given a P, no marks and told “schools over for you”.
“But I want to go to Junior High, (big whine).”
“Sorry but schools over for you, there are laws against 24 year olds being around 14 year olds”.
dnfree
@Rusty: I had to change jobs 25 years ago when I was 52 and was very fortunate to be able to find an IT/systems analyst/programming job at that age with 30 years of experience. I feel sorry for anyone over 50 looking for a job, because I’m sure things haven’t improved.
Edited to add that I was able to retire from that job when they replaced the system I was working on with packaged software.
sab
@Harrison Wesley: Is that what happened?
Elizabelle
@Baud: Prez Biden is such a class act, He also stopped by the hospital to visit with shooting victims state Senator John and Yvette Hoffman and their family. Mrs. Hoffman was released a few days after the shootings.
In your picture, we can see Gilbert’s brass urn near his photograph.
I am just as glad Felon47 has left those poor families alone.
YY_Sima Qian
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Yeah, who’d thought we’d be pining for Anthony Kennedy…
WTFGhost
RevRick
zhena gogolia
@RevRick: Oh, I hope it heals quickly!
Jackie
In other news…
Harrison Wesley
@sab: I am an imperfect vessel, so I cannot say.
Sure Lurkalot
@NotMax: Both the dishwasher and fridge died during Covid. Purchased both on Costco online, both delivered and installed in a 10 day timeframe where other people I know were waiting weeks or months for appliances from other stores. Highly recommend as well!
Cathie from Canada
Loved Day of the Jackal and the last two episodes are very startling, also very good. Can hardly wait for the next season
Jackie
@RevRick:
Despite your description, it sounds like positive news! Hang in there!
Sister Golden Bear
@Rusty:
I’m turning 61 next week—although fortunately I look much younger—and I’m reaching the same conclusion.
mayim
@Sister Golden Bear:
I’m 59 and look younger ~ but I’ve taken most dates off my resume, just in case. Ageism isn’t as bad in libraries and related fields as it is in others, but I want to level the playing field as best I can.
But the constant rejection takes its toll.
Eric S.
@Sister Golden Bear: I’ve been playing baseball and softball since I was knee high to a grasshopper. This year a friend learned I wasn’t playing in a Sunday league. She commissioner of Women’s League that is vast majority lesbian, but anyone who identifies as female is welcome with open arms. She asked me to be an umpire. I agreed. I knew I would enjoy it but I am absolutely loving the gig. These women (over 300 in the league) are some of the most welcoming and fun people I’ve had the pleasure to meet. And they help each other without hesitation. Someone new to the game came to bat and asked how to hold the bat and where to stand. The opposing catcher hopped up and told her everything she needed to know. That’s the Recreational level. At the most competitive level I’d recruit every player for my own teams in a heartbeat. I’m rambling (+4) but the fact the GQP hates these people proves how small of mind and soul they are. That’s not a revelation to me but so strongly reinforced this summer.
TONYG
@Jay: Ha. That’s what should happen. But if the children of these idiots start to get failing grades, then there will be whining at a tremendous decibel level, followed by class-action lawsuits claiming that being tested on sinful content violates religious freedom. I think that what will probably happen is that in the states of the former Confederacy — and in other backwards-assed states — testing will be watered down to the degree that kids who are functionally illiterate and innumerate will still pass. High school diplomas in those states will become almost useless, and those states will fall further behind the rest of the country in terms of poverty and lack of education. Maybe Reconstruction in those shit-hole states should have been much harsher and should have lasted a century.
RevRick
@zhena gogolia: Thank you for your kind words. I go back in 10 days to get stitches removed.
RevRick
@Jackie: So far, it is. He’s concerned about possible scarring, but we’ll cross that bridge if we need further corrective surgery.
cain
@Sister Golden Bear: That’s frustrating.
I’m going to be laid off in bout 2 weeks. I think. I’m doing job searches. I’m not looking forward to doing all this while trying to handle my wife’s traumatic brain injury and once again having to deal with this country’s shit healthcare that apparently is going to get worse.
cain
@Sister Golden Bear:
I actually disagree. Here’s the thing – this AI shit is making it worse for entry level positions. They need senior people to at least train the AI because they think that they can eliminate entry level position. It’s dumb as fuck.
cain
@Rusty: I’m not looking forward to job hunting again. I still feel young and vigorous. I’m older than our blogfather by about 2 months I think.
Like Sister Golden Bear, I look younger than my age and act like a much younger person.
Kayla Rudbek
@sab: the only principle that they have is that they always favor the Republican side.
catclub
My furniture building consists of cutting one board (and painting it!) for a tread on an outdoor staircase.
I was built for retirement.
Kayla Rudbek
So over on Bluesky I was reading out Fr. Bill Dailey of Notre Dame for filth and the idiot actually liked and reposted my remarks where I called him a fascist lickspittle and said that priests like him were a reason that people left the Catholic Church. What kind of a moron do you have to be to respond like that?
BlueGuitarist
@Sister Golden Bear:
the haters are full of hate, but you are awesome
catclub
@Sister Golden Bear: Yes. any carveout of the rights of non-christians, for ‘religious’ reasons. Is in their wheelhouse.
catclub
Some people want a smaller and purer Catholic church.
WTFGhost
@Ohio Mom: Funny thing about job searching – barring a miracle, my working days are behind me. My brain malfunctions a lot, or fogs up to the point that simple things like speaking, or reading, or writing or even listening, require total focus and are still error prone. I’m also in constant pain, because, apparently, when my body wants me disabled, it doesn’t screw around.
The good news is, my attorney has a strong case built to show I’m disabled, to get my soon to be former employer’s LTD plan to pay out. If that works, I’m going to be fine – not rich, but unlikely to ever be a burden.
If that fails, I’ve already applied for social security disability as well.
Jay
@cain:
BlueGuitarist
Democrats’s odds of gaining the Omaha US House seat (NE-2) have increased.
Republican incumbent Don Bacon has announced he’s not running for reelection.
one of the few Rs in a district carried by Biden and Harris.
Kayla Rudbek
@catclub: this is one of the reasons why I haven’t been to Mass since before the pandemic. As Mr. Rudbek remarked back in 2010 when I got a job in the DC area, “oh, God, I’m moving back to the diocese of Arlington, and I’m never going to go to mass again”. Pope Leo needs to clean house and squelch the American heresy (as explained by rahaeli over on Bluesky).
catclub
@trollhattan: Was Gary Ridgeway the Green river killer?
NotMax
@catclub
Cue Ninotchka.
:)
cain
@Jay:
You won’t get senior people without entry level people. These people are going to realize that for AI to improve you need to keep creating content and if you get rid of the entry level position – well.. you also get rid of one source of training.
Eventually, us older people won’t be in teh picture and then they are going to be fucked because they don’t have any senior people left, just AI.
Kayla Rudbek
@Sister Golden Bear: yeah, it’s majorly frustrating being an older woman in tech (or tech-adjacent in my case). I’m sending out resumes on the down low (love my team and commute, mostly like the job, but I’m a defense contractor and with all the DOGE script kiddies running amok, I might as well try to be full private sector and get more money if I have to put up with Silicon Valley levels of uncertainty and dickitude, and not having Russian assets and rapists in my chain of command either would be a plus)
NotMax
@cain
AI will be even more discombobulated by cursive than the young’uns.
//
Geminid
@BlueGuitarist: This will be Rep. Bacon’s second retirement. He retired from th U.S. Air Force a little over ten years ago, as a general.
If it were me, I would use my free time to tour the best miniature golf courses in the Midwest, and fish some along the way. But I suspect Bacon will take a lucrative lobbyist job on K Street instead. Sad!
YY_Sima Qian
More movement on the Sino-US trade war front (gift link to WSJ article below):
I don’t think the PRC ever intended to strangle the US’ civilian or even dual use industries (except in using the threat as negotiation leverage). However, I would be quite surprised if the PRC will approve export licenses of rare earth magnets to US or even European defense contractors. Diversion can meet some of that gap, but I suspect it will affect the restocking of US munitions expended in recent conflicts, as well as supply to Israel & Ukraine.
This is something to keep an eye on. It could take up to a decade for an alternative supply chain for rare earth elements refining/processing & rare earth magnet manufacturing supply chain to be established in the US, even if just for the MIC, & it will be expensive, & environmentally damaging. Rare earth elements refining/processing & rare earth magnet manufacturing are applied sciences, so it certainly can be done given enough resources. Chinese firms hold the vast majority of recent IP, but the published IP would also give other players a roadmap to follow. The greater constraint, as w/ any effort to revitalize manufacturing in the US, is the human capital. Dozens of PRC universities/institutions offer research disciplines specific to rare earths, thousands of students graduate from these programs every year. The knowledge base has been lost in the US & Europe, & has to be rebuilt.
prostratedragon
@sab: Wow, 3/4-inch, you say! That beats the mac and cheese that was so bad I didn’t attempt it for maybe 30 years.
Ramalama
@cmorenc: Romney is a grade A, complete jagoff. Everyone but 100 turds in Massachusetts was glad to see that prim and ironed and elevator-owning asshole exit the state.
Geminid
@Geminid: I thought we had hashed out the New York City Mayoral race on earlier thread, but then I heard about Andrew Cuomo’s new campaign slogan:
Timill
@Sister Golden Bear: How’s your COBOL? ;-)
I jest, but my US history goes:
2011: pick up job off LinkedIn that is adjacent to my specialty
2013: pickup contract thru job 1 in my specialty.
March 2015: laid off.
June 2015: pick up another job in the same area through my previous agency.
March 2019 laid off again.
July 2019 pick up unconnected job still in my field.
March 2022 get headhunted back by the 2013-2015 job. Find guy I met on the 2011 job is still there…
Just turned 70, and this job will run out in the next year. Plan to retire…
Sally
It’s one of the things I love about the British dramas. They do kill off main characters, you never know who is going to die, or when. I have occasionally gone to bed in tears when my fave character has been garrotted before my very eyes (Spooks). In Vera, and Unforgotten, main characters just got killed. The only reason my heart is not in my mouth at every episode in Slow Horses is that I read the books. Yes, I am a silly billy.
YY_Sima Qian
@Sally: Wait, Slow Horses are based on a series of books? Didn’t know that.
Sally
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes it is. I first read about them in a review in the Economist. At one stage Mick Herron was writing one per year, and I was hanging out for each one. Apparently Mick Jagger loved the books so much (as did I) that he asked to write and perform the theme for the show.
Jay
@cain:
On the one hand, you have massive layoffs at the Borg members like Microsoft.
On the other hand, Companies don’t know it tariffs will be gone in a month, 90% in a month, or 55% in a month.
It costs a lot of money to onboard new hires.
So, say you have a small company, 25 people. Current workload is such that you could level things out by hiring 3 more people, but it will cost, aside from wages $20K each to onboard them and they won’t be up to speed for a month or two.
Right now, tariffs on your exported products and imported parts are 10%. If tariffs drop to their historic 0%, demand for your product will rise by 15% and 3 new people arn’t enough. If tariffs tariffs go to 55%, your demand will drop by 50% and you will need to lay off 12 existing employees. If tariffs go to 90%, well you are out of business.
Your lead time for materials is 90 days, so you already have 3 months supply coming in at 10% more than the past, but you need to place orders for October now.
Your backlog is at a very respectable 30 days, but closing your invoices is at 60 days.
So, what’s the plan?
Having done “this job” for 30 years, “fuck if I know” other than no new hires, pay overtime or let deliveries slip, try to buy 3 months of materials, delivery staggered, every week, at a locked in price for October, November and December, and move away from JIT because the trucks aren’t moving at anywhere the same rate, create some space or rent space to stash a month’s worth of inventory away and finished product if orders are cancelled, and try to get a larger line of credit.
That is where a huge number of companies are at right now.
If Bob in Shipping /Receiving retires, we will hire somebody to replace him, it’s a good starter job, if he sticks it out because the OBBB makes him unsure if he will get the SS he paid into, the costs of his ACA might blow up, and btw, his 401K has taken a 20% hit just since Feb, well then, we won’t be hiring.
That’s why new Graduates are screwed.
evodevo
@WTFGhost:
I bake the chicken breasts in the oven till tender (hour or so), THEN put Bertolli 5-cheese sauce on it at the end for a few minutes. Serve over angel hair with garlic bread and salad…