No Kings 2 is Saturday, Oct. 18.
Nobody is getting paid to be there. But you can demonstrate to the world that you oppose the rise of fascism in the U.S.
Find your local protest here: www.nokings.org#map— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Making sure all my enemies know that there's a big rally about how much I suck coming up, & also that it really bothers me
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 12:30 PM
******
This is an odd assessment, imho, because the WH actually doesn't really care about congressional priorities and the first real time it encountered them, the entire thing fell apart and the government shut down.
Most of the WH is about pulling levers where congress has given it power.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 10:16 PM
They care relatively little about passing any bills, because most of what they want to do is in the grey areas of executive power.
So yeah, this strikes me as dumb. Especially when congress is literally about to revolt on the Epstein files as soon as Grivalja gets sworn in.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 10:16 PM
There is a misjudgment of "this congress is heinously dysfunctional and can't pass bills" as "we are owning congress like little babies."
They actually are relatively inept when it comes to managing congress, as they can't get anything through a friendly one.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 10:17 PM
From the replies:
yeah honestly what Johnson and Trump are doing rn is akin to a prime minister abruptly proroguing parliament. it’s a last resort, something you do to buy time when you’re afraid you’re going to be embarrassed or challenged on the floor
what we have here is a “strongman” terrified of the House coming back into session
******
This is what it looks like when one side is about to cave on a shutdown. How do I know? I had a front-row seat as as an aide to the House GOP leadership during the very first shutdown, in the 1995 battle with Clinton. When they get nervous and defensive like this, they're looking for a way out.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 11:17 AM
I'm not talking about the merits of the arguments here. I'm talking about what kind of arguments you start to make when you know you're losing in public opinion and it's only going to get worse.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 11:18 AM
The only real obstacle is that if they reconvene and pass a CR, they're going to have to deal with the Epstein discharge petition. And Speaker Johnson seems like he REALLY doesn't want to do that, with an intensity I can't fully explain.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 11:22 AM
War for Ukraine Day 1,324: When Winter First Begins to Bite
Gloria DryGarden
You’d almost think Mike Johnson was in those Epstein files himself…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Gloria DryGarden: I does seem that way.
Gretchen
Marshall is my idiot Senator. I called 3 of his offices after I saw this clip and was sent to voicemail for all three. He also said this week that he can’t have a town hall because there’s too much risk of violence.
In better news, I was concerned that the Kansas City Marathon is being held on the same day in the same area as the No Kings rally. I just found out that the marathon starts at 7am and the rally is 2-4 pm, so the marathon should be over before the rally starts.
eclare
Damn it. As always the rally here in Memphis is on a very crowded street corner in front of a strip mall where cars go by at 40-50 mph. I just don’t feel safe going. There is a very nice park about two miles away from that location, I wish it were there.
Baud
@Gloria DryGarden:
I’m sure he’s there in spirit.
Geminid
Weird? Or Wired?
From Israeli N12News:
A Polymarket chart shows Ms. Machado’s chances were in the single digits throughout September and the first nine days of October. Then they surged to 67% Thursday night.
p.a.
@Geminid: When the whole planet is FanDuel…🤢
David_C
The CDC is being destroyed.
reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-administration-lays-off-dozens-cdc-officials-n…
Among offices affected are the Washington office and MMWR, and many, many more. Apparently, public health is a “Democrat” priority.
Baud
Princess
@Gloria DryGarden: Johnson probably isn’t in them but I bet some big Republican (and tbh Democratic) donors are in them.
Jeffro
@Gloria DryGarden:
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
they know that whatever’s in there is really, really bad for trump, and they don’t want to deal with what happens next…
…but there’s no way to have a Congress without releasing the Epstein files, so they’re really at a bigger decision point than they ever imagined.
As always, the choice is the same: the Constitution (in this case, Constitutional government, ie, a functioning Congress) or trump
Baud
Janet Mills decided to run for Senate in Maine.
sab
@Gretchen: They are destroying CDC and your idiot senator Roger Marshall MD doesn’t care. He was an ob/gyn.
p.a
@Princess: Donors and pols, or ex-pols. And thankfully the Dem Party stance (publicly at least) is: let the chips fall where they may.
I wonder about the MAGAts big on release;
ifwhen their team members’ names appear, I can see a shift to the “fake news” argument. It would be in line with authoritarian psychology, wouldn’t it?Gretchen
@sab: Yes. He’s an idiot who knows better and still parrots RFK. Stupid, evil or both?
prostratedragon
@David_C:
Inside Medicine has some details and a tentative list of staff and agencies affected.
Ann Telnaes
hobbitdreams
We will be joining a “No Dictators” rally since we’re in a constitutional monarchy and participants have been respectfully requested not to bring signs saying bad things about kings.
ETA: OTOH, saying bad things about the Felon is allowed.
hobbitdreams
@eclare: Perhaps they choose that location for the higher visibility? Is there a section on that corner that is more shielded from traffic? It’s reasonable to be concerned about safety, especially in these parlous times.
JPL
@eclare: I can’t locate one near me and I’m not going into Atlanta.
You have to Guard to think about also.
hobbitdreams
I think someone (Baud? Another Scott?) may have posted a link earlier, but Judge Perry’s TRO regarding the National Guard in Chicago is worth reading. Among other things, the judiciary seems increasingly loathe to buy what this mendacious Administration is selling.
ETA: Never mind. The link was just to the two-page TRO. Maybe someone with better google-fu can find the full document? It’s well worth the effort.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I went with neighbors to the last No Kings rally and have lined up drivers etc to go to this one too. We’re postcarding on Wednesday. I’ll be interested to see if people are still game. We’re in Chicagoland, so things are in turmoil, though we’re out in the suburbs, which is where our rally would be too.
Betty Cracker
Johnson from clip above:
Wow, that degenerate weasel sure sounds desperate! Good!
Re: the Epstein files, the proper framing is that Trump and Johnson are protecting rich pedophiles, imo. I doubt Trump is directly implicated in any crimes in the files; he had his own human trafficking racket in the form of affiliations with so-called “modeling” agencies.
But lots of wealthy Palm Beach and NYC creepers will be exposed if the files are released. I bet many of them are Maralago members. That’s why they’re desperate to keep the files away from public scrutiny.
frosty
@hobbitdreams: I’ve seen the same thing. Seville, Spain is calling their rally “No Tiranos” instead of “No Reyes”.
WTFGhost
@Princess: Democratic donors – not just “donates to everyone” donors – aren’t likely to want to be involved with someone who diddles young women. They’re more likely to be donors to causes to stop sex trafficking. Are there Dem donors who are horndogs? Sure, but why wouldn’t they hire their own sex workers from a legitimate escort service? Why trust someone like Epstein? Regardless, anyone who is actually dirtied by the Epstein file, e.g., anyone who had sex with REDACTED_1, REDACTED_2, etc. isn’t someone we want supporting us.
Republican donors – again, not just “both parties” donors – are the kinds of people who think it’s great if poor people suffer and die, because it’s cheaper that they die, rather than making businesses change how they do things, or forcing rich people to pay taxes; their figuring is, if the poor hadn’t been so stupid and useless, that they were poor, they wouldn’t deserve it so much. Those are the kinds of people who get excited by illicit sex.
Scout211
Shades of the Elon Musk email in the first stages of DOGE? CBS News staffers are being scrutinized by the big boss already.
. . .
So who is really in control?
Bye bye, CBS News. We used to love ya. Walter Cronkite is turning over in the grave.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: true, but don’t forget…trump and Epstein had their little “secret”, whatever that is
(And I’m 100% positive it’s not just trump getting it on with models…)
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
hobbitdreams
Derek Guy, the fashion critic on BlueSky:
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
lowtechcyclist
@WTFGhost:
I think it’s simpler than that. To use Terry Pratchett’s words, they’re the sort who see other people as things, and things are there to be used. If their tastes run towards underaged girls, and this guy is giving them a chance to use some of them as sex toys, well why not is their reasoning if one can call it that.
NotMax
Weekend watch. The more you know…
What Happens When You Die On A Cruise Ship?
lowtechcyclist
There will be No Kings protests in the morning at a few locations in Calvert County; I’ll probably be at Dunkirk District Park, then head in to DC for the big rally there.
David_C
@prostratedragon: Thanks. I’d seen the text in a chat but didn’t know the source. Today I plan to make my way to Bethesda for the weekly NIH vigil. We have a local No Kings protest next week and I thought of two protests in one day, but old age prevents me.
hobbitdreams
@NotMax: Fun watch, after a fashion. ;-) Those floating petri dishes have never appealed to me anyway. The video didn’t change my mind.
piratedan
@lowtechcyclist: yeah, your fellow citizens as NPC’s to follow the gamergate parlance. While we’re all rooting for the main character to plow thru each minor annoyance on this ongoing mini-series about how awesome each of them are.
I do wonder how we turned out so many sociopaths in our society.
David_C
BTW, speaking of public health, I’m reading Tom Levenson’s book, So Very Small. So very enjoyable. So very relevant.
AM in NC
@JPL: I’ll be in Grayson, GA helping my dad after a surgical procedure. My plan is to go outside of his little gated community and stand by myself at the intersection there with the sign I would have had at my hometown rally in NC. I’m just hoping nobody runs me over. Which I am actually worried about because, Grayson, GA.
I’m hoping the fact that I am a woman in my 50s with gray hair will deter at least some MAGA motorists from mowing me down.
p.a.
Would that be a “fun” 1 day exercise here: post what we’ve accomplished today and account for our time use before comments allowed?
WTFGhost
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, and I bet you noted that honest brokers wouldn’t need to insist they were going to do four separate things, none of which included “…and some fix voted upon.”
The more Trump covers, the more I think he’s dirty. But even if he didn’t diddle any underage girls, and instead, just allowed Epstein to do it, he’s a hideous human being, and everyone with any decency has to clench their jaw to keep from puking on his shoes to think about what kind of man would do that. This isn’t like, covering for a friend, who swears he killed a man in Vegas, in self defense (when, in fact, he killed a man, just to watch him die). This is like covering up the rape of a child. Oh, right, that’s because it’s precisely that.
There are times when a prosecutor can be overzealous in charging “obstruction,” and “accessory after the fact,” and, if there is any Epstein associate with an effing medical license, “failure to report,” and whatever crime that means “you knew, and didn’t try to protect another human being, in a situation in which you would have cried out for society’s protection.” This is not one of those times.
So Trump’s dirty as hell. Worse, if legend is correct, he’s a rat. So, he can’t hold up his head in non-criminal society, because he really is a dirty, filthy, despicable human being who let girls get diddled, until Epstein threatened to rat him out for money laundering. He can’t hold up his head in criminal society, because he’s a rat.
He may also be protecting his friends, but let me tell you an alternate theory.
The FBI files for Epstein found that, if Biden had been willing to dig through them, he could have had the DOJ destroy Trump, or, if the Statute of Limitations was out, simply leak the information and torpedo him.
Bondi and Patel told Trump that; Dan BoingyBoingy was too grossed out by how dirty Trump is to play along. Trump can’t let those files be released, because not even the SCOTUS-6 would be able to justify keeping him out of jail if the files were released, and, regardless, the civil suits would destroy him utterly.
That fits all the facts. And, friend, it eliminates what seems to me to be a ridiculous supposition, that he isn’t dirty as hell, and guilty of raping the underaged, sure that he’d get away with it. Trump is totally the kind of guy who’d do that; “run right up and grab them by the pussy; and when you’re (an Epstein guest), you get away with it.”
rockclimber
Longtime lurker here. I am getting pumped up for the protests next week!
Baud
Make them pay
JPL
@AM in NC: I think smaller rallies will pop up. Good luck
Scout211
. . .
. . .
. . .
WTFGhost
@Jeffro: One person pointed out that “enigmas” – the word in Trump’s mash note to Epstein – is an anagram for “gamines,” a stereotypical young woman type. “Gamines never age” is a heck of a lot more confessional than “enigmas never age.”
eclare
@hobbitdreams:
I’m sure it’s for the visibility, the street has six lanes for traffic and a turn lane. There is really no way that I can think of to be better protected because it’s in front of a strip mall that has parking in front of the stores. If someone wants to drive onto the sidewalk there is nothing stopping them and then they are in the parking lot.
eclare
@Scout211:
This just infuriates me. That poor man and his family.
Scout211
Portland’s “Operation Inflation” makes national and international news
. . .
. . .
. . .
eclare
@Scout211:
Great protest name!
Ken B
@frosty: Are the Seville rallies why Trump wants Spain thrown out of NATO?
I saw a headline on some article last night before I went to bed, but it looked click-baitey and I went to bed instead of reading it.
Kosh III
@Scout211: Any legal beagles that want to comment on this?
Sending Abrego Garcia to Eswatini would be cruel and unusual punishment. He isn’t from there, he doesn’t speak the language(s) there and has no cultural or family connection.
Ken B
@Princess: If there were big name Democratic donors in the files, the GOP would have leaked them already.
Anonymous Expat
@Princess: I always got the feeling that there was always less than meets the eye to the Epstein story; “nobody knows” how he made his money, except that he managed to talk his way into Bear Sterns and thus Wall Street by befriending an executive there after talking his way into a job at a private school in the 70s; he narrowly avoided getting pinched for financial crimes for which his partner got put away in the 90s; he talked his way into having power of attorney over the billionaire owner of Victoria’s Secret for a decade. Given all that, it would be remarkable if he *didn’t* end up fantastically wealthy.
As to being connected to rich and powerful people, a lot of folks would like to bask in reflected glory by associating with the rich and powerful without necessarily blackmailing them. Clearly there was a network of enablers who made what Epstein did possible (and I wonder how unique his crimes are, given that it was all through the professional modeling pipeline), and I’m sure a number of people in his social circle are also implicated in his crimes; the impression I come away with is a narcissistic conman who embedded himself into a world where money flows freely among acquaintances (nepotism hires for no-work/no-show jobs, for instance) and an existing mechanism of exploitation helped steer victims towards him.
I could be wrong, of course, but I’d put money on the unreleased tapes being ones Epstein made of himself, and the as-yet-unreleased files being underwhelming in terms of implicating others.
New Deal democrat
FWIW, Is the stock market in an AI bubble? If so, how quickly will it pop?:
“I saw the dot coms crash from a front row seat. AI is running out of money way faster.”
bsky.app/profile/hannibaltabu.bsky.social/post/3m2vlmfzvvs2r
“ In August, the founder of hedge fund Praetorian Capital Harris “Kuppy” Kupperman penned an essay on the absurd finances behind AI data centers.… Kupperman’s napkin math found that AI data centers have an impossibly short runway to achieve profitability… because data center components age rapidly, either made obsolete through rapid advances in technology, or broken down over years of constant, high-powered usage.
“Kupperman’s original skepticism was built on a guess that the components in an average AI data center would take ten years to depreciate, requiring costly replacements. That was bad enough: ‘I don’t see how there can ever be any return on investment given the current math,’ he wrote at the time.
“But … ‘Based on my conversations over the past month, the physical data centers last for three to ten years, at most.’
“… ‘the industry probably needs a revenue range that is closer to the $320 billion to $480 billion range, just to break even on the capex to be spent this year,’ Kupperman posited in his updated essay.
“[But] the industry’s actual AI revenue is closer to $20 billion annually.”
futurism.com/future-society/ai-data-centers-finances
The dotcom bubble of 1999 burst after a Barron’s article showed that the “burn rate” (how quickly companies would run out of cash) for some of the companies was as little as 7 weeks. I’ve already said that this “smells” like a bubble to me, but it’s impossible to know in the moment. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.
H.E.Wolf
@Kosh III: “Sending Abrego Garcia to Eswatini would be cruel and unusual punishment. He isn’t from there, he doesn’t speak the language(s) there and has no cultural or family connection.”
Not coincidentally, Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) is ruled by a rich, corrupt, authoritarian monarch: Mswati III.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mswati_III
H.E.Wolf
1. Yes.
2. Gradually, then suddenly.
hobbitdreams
@Scout211: Wearing those silly inflatable costumes is brilliant. Makes a mockery of ICE’s over-amped military posturing, plus great photos. Should be done everywhere silly costumes are sold.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@David_C: I wish the Democrats would threaten to hold those responsible for these illegal firings for every dime the federal government has to spend when they’re found to be illegal and the employees are reinstated – all the back pay, legal fees, other compensatory and maybe punitive damages. Tell Russ Vogt you’re keeping receipts and he won’t have two pennies to rub together for the rest of his miserable life.
Also blue state governors should be charging Russ Vogt interest on the funds he’s withholding- OMB guidance says 7%. For NY it’s $18 billion in transit funding which comes to about $1.2 billion per year, $100 million per month, $25 million per week.
Spanky
Google AI:
I’m surprised that Trump hasn’t already levied a bazillion percent tariff on inflatables.
MazeDancer
Maybe Trump has threatened if the Epstein files get released, Johnson’s Grindr profile does, too?
Shalimar
Reminder that when they say Soros will pay for the protesters, it is because that is what they do when they protest. Charlie Kirk’s organization paid for buses to get thousands of protesters to Washington for January 6th.
RevRick
@Gloria DryGarden: @Enhanced Voting Techniques: @Baud:
When Epstein was in full swing, Johnson was a mere pissant Representative from a Louisiana backwater. Johnson was a nobody.
He still is, even if he does hold the Speaker’s gavel.
mappy!
Inflatable Operation Inflation..
Democrats don’t have the votes to end The Shutdown (Working for the Clampdown)
Groceries were cheaper under Biden (All Lost in the Supermarket )
Biden never mentioned pardoning Maxwell “I’m allowed to do it but nobody’s asked me to do it,”
iKropoclast
You already discussed, deliberated, contented, and debated healthcare. Then you cut working Americans’ healthcare subsidies.
You need Democrats’ votes. This is their ask, one discrete item that was already part of law before, not out of line.
That’s how these things work. You can’t hoard all the LEGOs and expect the other kids to play with you.
Geminid
@Jeffro: I ran into this September 9 post by Pessach Lattin. It’s about the Epstein/Trum financial connection:
I know little about Pesach Lattin or finance, and Bear Stearns is long gone now–an old story. And financial matters lack the salience of sex trafficking crimes. Still, this sheds light on an important connection I was not aware of.
Also, if one of the replies to Mr. Lattin’s post is true–and it seems credible– these shady investments were a means of laundering Russian mob money, and that casts a harsher backlight on Epstein’s mysterious death in a New York jail. The Russian mob would have had the motive and the means.
SFAW
“Speaker Johnson, why are you afraid to release the Epstein files? Is it because YOU appear in them – extensively? If so, should Pammy Blondie’s and Krash Patel’s minions be investigating YOU, instead of someone like NY AG Letitia James? How does the God you claim to believe in feel about your attempts to coverup and protect vile behavior by you and your friends?”
Live boy or dead girl, as they say? Don’t really care, just want the focus to be on Johnson, and make him deny it. And deny it. And deny it.
As with every Rethuglican: if those mofos were somehow prevented from lying, we’d never hear a sound from them.
p.a.
@New Deal democrat: I want it to last into the new year so I can grab some retirement $$$ in the new tax year and do cd buys for 2 years of semi yearly payouts.
NotMax
@RevRick
Mr. Cellophane. :)
(Appropriate apologies to the multi-talented Ben Vereen.)
MagdaInBlack
@Geminid: ….to that Russian mob connection, add in the trafficking of girls from the former Soviet Union
p.a.
@SFAW: What kind of pressure is going on to get some signees to un-sign?
RevRick
@H.E.Wolf:
Gradually, then suddenly. Ah, Seneca’s cliff!
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
Tru dat. Johnson wouldn’t have been able to buy an invite to any of Epstein’s parties, let alone the island.
Ditto. He’s got to be the nobodiest nobody to have been House Speaker, at least in the past century or so.
WTFGhost
He still wants a girlfriend!
SFAW
@Geminid:
Interesting stuff, especially if it’s mostly (or even partly) true.
Kayla Rudbek
@frosty: yeah, the Spanish monarchy seems to be pretty decent right now…
lowtechcyclist
Hey piratedan, I’ll be headed your way before too long. Bringing homemade pumpkin pie!
prostratedragon
@Geminid: ✔️
Princess
@Anonymous Expat: You could be right. I recall that tape that brought down that Cawthorn fellow. On the other hand, it would be so easy for the tapes that incriminate his people to disappear. Entangled financial transactions are harder to partially launder. That’s why I think it’s money. I hope we get the chance to learn!
Betty Cracker
@WTFGhost: I don’t doubt Trump is a rapist and possibly a kid-diddler, but I don’t assume he relied on Epstein as a procurer since he had his own grotesque networks. Maybe that’s wrong, but as far as I know, there’s no solid evidence one way or another, and Trump’s behavior suggests he didn’t think there was anything in the files that would criminally implicate him.
Remember that Trump was president when Epstein was arrested on federal charges. Trump’s flunkies knew what was in those files when they hyped the release during the campaign. I think they got out over their skis, and now it’s come back to bite them. Good!
As for what’s actually in the files, my guess is that the Trump DOJ and then the Biden DOJ didn’t release them because they contain lots of non-legally actionable speculation about the criminal actions of powerful people.
Usually it would be the right thing not to expose individuals on the basis of non-legally actionable gossip, even if they’re scumbags, but I confess I wouldn’t mind it in this case. It seems like every perverted rich person was in Epstein’s orbit, and the Acosta-brokered deal on the Florida charges was the first miscarriage of justice. So fuck ‘em.
Princess
@New Deal democrat: what kind of precipitating event would tip it over the edge and make it happen? What are we waiting for? Or is one necessary? Will it collapse from the inside? I saw with dot com, some people think it was Japan sliding into recession that set it off. Others said Greenspan raising rates.
ETA should read more carefully — I see you address this at the end.
Sally
@AM in NC: Bravo to you, really.
prostratedragon
Trump’s Albert Speer-style German Arch of Triumph now planned for DC.
******
Mike Luckovich
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: Howdy, Comrade Wolf! If you be hankerin’ for another western, I ran across another Louis L’Amour novel you might cotton to: Conagher (1969).
It’s about a lonely cowboy scrapping with the ornery Ladder Five outfit, and a lonely woman who writes poems and ties them to tumbleweeds
iKropoclast
@prostratedragon: Never wants anything original. Always what someone else has.
Professor Bigfoot
@New Deal democrat: It feels like a bubble to me, too.
Those of us who remember the dotcom craze recognize the current AI craze; but worse— the servers in those data centers are more likely to be obsolete in less than 5 years.
prostratedragon
@iKropoclast: DC is meticulously laid out. Where exactly does he think to drop that monstrosity?
Anonymous Expat
@Princess: I hope we get the chance to learn, too; America is awash in uninvestigated, let alone unindicted, white-collar crime.
The push to ban members of Congress from stock ownership should be used as a jumping-off point to beginning to actually enforce those laws.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
The way we aren’t obsessed with those files is amusing to me. Our view is .
You in those files, you get what you have coming to you 😒😒😒
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
They ran on it and won.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Has she been a good Governor?
iKropoclast
Drop it? On the Wicked Witch of the East, so by Trump:s estimation…maybe Fani Willis?
It could figure into the plans for that monstrosity of a ballroom.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
Phuck Outta Here 😡😡😡
Ridiculous
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Originally to be two golden arches, until McD’s got wind of it.
//
Professor Bigfoot
@Spanky: Speaking as one who once worked for a Chinese company and visited there regularly— one can get every level of quality from China, from the very finest to absolute crap.
They will be priced accordingly. 😉
Baud
@rikyrah:
Yes, she’s excellent. Here only problem is her age. But that’s something for ME primary voters to consider.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all! Damn it’s been a long week.
Beautiful weather here today.
And, yes, I will be attending my local protest next Saturday, come hell or high water. Y’all?
NotMax
@Professor Bigfoot
See: wish.com
:)
NotMax
@Nukular Biskits
Not yet recovered from the monthly jaunt into town on Friday, where by early afternoon it was 93 degrees.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kayla Rudbek: Derek Guy always references King Felipe and his tailors as the epitome of fine tailoring and dressing well.
brendancallinge
@Baud: oh good. Another fellow kid running for office. Where these whippersnappers get the energy—and the gall—to try to force out their elders is beyond me.
I say shes too young to run: she should wait til she’s truly mature enough—say, 97 years old—like her erstwhile colleagues.
brendancalling
Why is my comment above in moderation??
ahh, wait. My phone has this habit of loading slowly and then being unable to put text where it belongs. This has messed up my nym. Sigh. ONE MORE TIME:
@Baud: oh good. Another fellow kid running for office. Where these whippersnappers get the energy—and the gall—to try to force out their elders is beyond me.
I say shes too young to run: she should wait til she’s truly mature enough—say, 97 years old—like her erstwhile colleagues.
Cliosfanboy
@prostratedragon: It’s on the Virginia side of Memorial Bridge, the circle where the parkway and traffic from over the bridge meet. I go through that circle several times a week.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: TACO Bell instead?
prostratedragon
@Baud: We’re in a short-term world until we get enough traction.
Nukular Biskits
@NotMax:
LOL! Dude. I worry about you sometimes.
Related – Remind me later to share a story about my first-ever underway on a legit cruise ship (mind you, I’ve been underway hundreds of times on US Navy vessels).
Another Scott
@hobbitdreams:
State of Illinois v. Trump
memorandum opinion and order — Document #70
District Court, N.D. Illinois
Docket Number: 1:25-cv-12174 – 51 page .PDF. See, especially, footnote #1 where Alexander Hamilton schools 47.
Temporary Restraining Order – 2 page .PDF.
Temporary stay is DENIED.
Expires 11:59 PM on October 23.
HTH!
Best wishes,
Scott.
prostratedragon
@Cliosfanboy: By the C-L mansion?
artem1s
@Geminid:
Sex is what’s keeping Estein alive in the media and social media sites. Sex sells. But where and who money came from and went to is what the GOP is really afraid of being exposed.
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
Answered my own questions [My emph]:
NotMax
@Nukular Biskits
One aim is to drive the YouTube algorithm totally bonkers.
:)
Cliosfanboy
@prostratedragon: that’s on the hill in the background. This monstrosity would be halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House.
maps.app.goo.gl/Koba3h5igvUH1pMn7
Miss Bianca
@Gloria DryGarden: Funny, that’s the first thing that came to my mind after reading that last…whatever you call a tweet on Bluesky.
artem1s
It feels like a bubble and another fad boondoogle to keep a bunch of VC crypto pump and dumps alive for a little longer. And give lawmakers a reason to support these stupid energy sucking server farms. remember NFTs? It was all about getting more suckers to sink money into crypto to keep that bubble going for a few more months/years. This AI fad might actually finally be the death of crypto if they manage to take out all those server farms at the same time. Communities are getting really fed up with these things being built in their back yards.
brendancalling
@Betty Cracker: he sounds like the defense lawyer character from Cheech and Chong’s “Trippin’ In Court” sketch, same tone and everything.
”Your honor, my client may have been found with [enormous amount of drugs], but there IS a reason, there IS an explanation. You see, my client simply FOUND these drugs and was on his way to the police to turn them in.”
He also looks like the Martin Short character Nathan Thurm, the chain smoking, nervous corporate lawyer.
I agree that SO much of this is to prevent the release of those files. Even MAGA is starting to figure it out.
Betty Cracker
@brendancalling: FWIW, I agree. If ME Dems nominate Mills, they’ll give up a powerful talking point against Collins. I also just don’t understand why the hell people who have the means don’t want to retire. Retired people (especially those with money!) get to do fun things, and if they want to, they can serve their communities in all sorts of ways!
NotMax
@artem1s
Bored Ape got boring lickety-split.
‘;)
NotMax
@artem1s
Power sucking POGs.
//
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
I also will never understand why people with the means do not retire. All I can conclude is that power must be one hell of a drug.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: How come no one says that of fossils like Grassley and St Bernard
I find ageism and other soft core bigotries on our side off putting
@Miss Bianca:
I have lived in ME for close to 10 years, I have many close friends there and I visit there fairly often. I was just there this summer. And a DSA type is not going to win in ME. Collins is beloved in ME she has excellent constituent services and has brought a lot of $$ to the University of Maine. A lot of independents and even Ds like her a lot.
Mills has a real chance, the other guy who is running has little chance IMHO to take down Collins.
Miss Bianca
@eclare: you know, for some strange reason, I’ve decided to let the people of Maine decide who’s too old, too young, too whatever, to represent them.
And that maybe, just maybe, Janet Mills knows something about her constituency that I don’t. And that maybe, just maybe, she’s being motivated by some reason beyond “power”. Crazy, I know, but people tell me that I am crazy, so I’m leanin’ into it.
NotMax
@eclare
Methamgetamine.
(Pronounced get-a-mine.)
//
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: I thought the major talking point against Collins wasn’t her age, it’s that she’s the embodiment of the “banality of evil” concept. Which can be true of someone regardless of age.
LAC
@sab: he is in MO, not MD. Our idiots in Maryland are somewhat under control.
p.a.
Maine is the U.S. state with the oldest population, based on the highest median age and the greatest percentage of residents aged 65 and older. As of early 2025, Maine had the highest median age at 44.8 years, and the state also showed the largest share of its population (22.94%) being over 65.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: It could be Janet Mills really wants to pry Susan Collins out of that Senate seat and thinks she has the best chance.
Mills could be right too. She’s won starewide office twice, and none of the other four candidates in the field have ever won one vote in one political race.
But I figure Maine Democrats want to ditch Susan Collins as much or more than I do, and they know their state’s political landscape much better. So while I’ll follow this primary with interest because I’m curious about such things, I’m not going to kick about their decision, or Mills’s either
Another Scott
Meanwhile, 47 “successfully completed a scheduled follow-up” medical exam!!11ONE.
Such strength. Much wow.
The public letter released by the WhiteHouse says even less than usual for him.
Bloomberg story has a little more:
They don’t mention him doing “exceptionally well” on any cognitive exam this time…
Rep. Crockett’s 8 page letter lists a bunch of things in the news and asks a bunch of reasonable questions.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Kayla Rudbek
@NotMax: and polluting as well, I have even seen continuing legal education about lawsuits against the data centers
schrodingers_cat
Maple Syrup Messiah is not happy about Mills running for the seat.
Shamelessness is his superpower, where was this attitude in 2016?
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, I’ve lived in Maine off and on over the years myself (admittedly as a “summer complaint”, mostly), and have relatives up there, so I’ve spent a fair amount of time there; and the temperature of the state does not strike me as particularly radical in a DSA-type way.
But I will be very interested to see how this primary transpires.
ETA: But I think Bernie Sanders should STFU about it, frankly. And I wonder why nobody harping about candidates’ ages isn’t suggesting that *he* shuffle off this political coil.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: Wow, that is a marvelous document. I wish it could be on the front page of the NYT.
trollhattan
Another day, another empty mailbox containing no Soros check.
Sorosssss!
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: lol
(Also, it doesn’t bear thinking of)
hobbitdreams
@Another Scott: Thank you! I knew you would come through. 😊
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
I maintain Barbabella is the love child of Barbarella and Vinnie Barbarino. Med school? As if.
p.a.
@schrodingers_cat: I keep reading Graham Parker for Graham Platner. Don’t know if GP is a US resident but I’d support him in politics.
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan: I think Dr. Vinnie Boombatz is in there somewhere too.
Scout211
Good luck, President Biden. We are rooting for you. ❤️
PatrickG
@David_C:
I finally got around to reading it a few weeks ago. A very good read!
He’s going to have to do a second edition, given that he published right before current events.
trollhattan
@p.a.:
Hey Lord, don’t ask me questions.
NotMax
@Scout211
Fox audio clip: “Biden admits to consorting with hor…mones.”
//
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: Damn, Skippy. That was quite a read. Too badwe won’t be reading it on the front page of the FTFNYT any time soon…
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia:
Dr. Nick, also too:
Best wishes,
Scott.
p.a.
@Another Scott: His tailored cognitive exam is listing his pathetic nicknames, “crooked Hillary, sleepy Joe, “stolen election…”
Geminid
Those ingerested can find a good account of events leading to the Gaza ceasefire in the Times of Israel. It’s titled:
This link
ought todoes not work. Not sure what the problem is, but its,a good summary of events so I will try linking again in a reply.Another Scott
Meanwhile, I haven’t seen this mentioned here yet.
APNews.com (from October 9):
Long past time that this was ended.
Congratulations to Sen. Kaine on the successful conclusion of years of work to get this done.
A good thing.
(47 will probably try to ignore it, as he does all the other laws he does not like. Grr…)
Best wishes,
Scott.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
This was a brilliant idea. More and more show up everyday. The complete mocking of those masked up thugs..
CHEF’S KISS 💋
WaterGirl
@rockclimber: Welcome to commenting!
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: If Mills wins the primary, I’ll be rooting for her to dislodge Furrowed Brow. I still don’t get why someone in their late 70s (or older) runs for office though. That goes for all of them.
Geminid
@Geminid: A link to the Times of Israel article about events leading up to the Gaza ceasefire that came into effect the night before last:
timesofisrael.com/from-doha-strike-to-sharm-el-sheikh-breakthrough-how-us-brokered-elusive-gaza-deal…
rikyrah
@Baud:
If she can appeal to those supposedly middle voters that continue to vote for CONCERNED LITTLE SUSIE, I am all for her
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Maine is an old State, in terms of demographics.
Baud
@Another Scott: I noted it the other day. Hopefully, it survives conference. It should unless Trump intervenes.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Not his state. He should Mind his business 😒
Other MJS
@Scout211:
It strikes me that Dems use “unacceptable” a lot, which for me has the emotional impact of “tsk-tsk”. How about “grotesque”, “outrageous”, “treasonous”. Or simply “betrayal”. Maybe we should all gift our reps with thesauruses.
sab
@LAC: Oops. Typo and failure to proofread. Though how’d I hit m instead of d when they are at opposite sides of the keyboard
ETA stands for Medical Doctor in this case. He was an ob/gyn.
piratedan
@lowtechcyclist: woohoo!
Spanky
@Another Scott: “Advanced imaging” is not on any routine exam
Eta, OK, maybe a mammogram.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s too bad. It probably means a lot of people will stay home rather than vote for Mills.
Baud
@rikyrah:
I have no idea who would be the best candidate against Susie, but it’s not my call.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: IDK how popular he is in ME. Collins is well liked. Her father was a fixture in ME politics too. She is going to be hard for any D to beat. So we don’t need Magic Grandpa to put his thumb on the scale
The last thing Mainers want is an outsider telling them what to do. They pride themselves on being independent.
Aziz, light!
@trollhattan: I made a sign for next weekend. On one side: “My Soros check must be in the mail.” On the other: “Antifa’s founder is my grandson.”
Another Scott
@Baud:
👍
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Bernie? Popular enough, I’m sure. Maine is a very white state and close to Vermont. It’s not like a lot of people need to stay home to turn the election. Susie’s tough against any candidate.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
BINGO.
2 choices, one realistic and proper, the other 1000% bull _ _ _ _.
Guess which they go with…….
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: You are probably right.
trollhattan
Plans released for Donny’s next July 4 celebration.
bbc.com/news/videos/c8rvrk3y1rno
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s not reasoning it’s defense.
They know they are doing wrong, and they don’t care about anything but getting caught.
Sister Golden Bear
Need an outfit for the No Kings protests? Prices of inflatable frog costumes have jumped, but you can DYI an adorable froggy visor.
Sister Golden Bear
@Gloria DryGarden:
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Geminid
@Geminid: I see that Kay, tbe former Balloon Juice commenter, has a good post about the Gaza ceasefire over on Mistermix’s blog. She included a long passage from a Wall Street Journal article describing the US’s role supporting the ceasefire process, plus a gift link to the entire article. The WSJ might have the best reporting on this war of any US news site.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
Stupid tariffs.
Geminid
@Baud: I expect the vast majority of Graham Platner’s supporters to sit out the election because they don’t live in Maine.
Baud
@Geminid:
There are a few other people running too, IIRC.
Another Scott
@Sister Golden Bear: I was just looking around the Big River place. Lots of choices in creature shapes. The idea is great, but I can see the batteries running down (and one wants to think about whether they need access to their hands…) I’ll probably just go with a relevant T-shirt (from the Pitchbot store).
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Sister Golden Bear:
He and his kid have pledged to not consume porn. They didn’t say anything about making porn.
eclare
@Geminid:
What was the title of the article? I can add a gift link here.
Got it.
wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-rebuilding-government-next-e271530b?st=y36fYY&reflink=desktopweb…
Baud
This is a acceptable in America society.
Geminid
@Baud: Yes. Besides Mills and Platner, a former Katie Porter staffer, a brewpub owner, and a former Air Force officer are also running.
dc
@Baud:
I know it doesn’t matter in this regime, but isn’t that ilegal use of government paid resources? Who/how can sue for to stop this and the stupid notices on government websites?
no body no name
@Professor Bigfoot:
A ton of stuff on Amazon and Etsy is sourced from Temu and resold at a markup. It’s laughable at times.
Ruckus
@piratedan:
I do wonder how we turned out so many sociopaths in our society.
Wealth.
It’s nice to not live paycheck to paycheck, it’s nice to have an expensive home, it’s nice to drive a car that costs more than the average yearly income……
And on and on. Wealth is nicer than a weekly paycheck. Nicer than an apartment in the middle class part of town, nicer than driving an 8 yr old car, nicer than taking a vacation at a hotel near your cousin, etc, etc.
Most of us live middle class lives, some a step or 2 above, some a step or 2 below. Living a life of wealth is nicer. Of course to do that one has to have an income and/or bank account a few steps higher than average. I worked in a professional sport full time for 10 years and saw some very nice houses of people that supported the sport, who spent the money that supported the top participants. They were nice, normal humans with money, sometimes MONEY. They had earned that money in one rational, legal way or another. Not everyone with money earned that money, some had family that left them a fair bit of it. So, while I am working class retired, I’ve met a fair number of people that are now well off retired. Or even well off working, living in extremely nice houses, in extremely nice neighborhoods, that most of us never could. They never held it over others, they had just been very successful and often lucky and if you didn’t see their homes, you’d never have known them to be wealthy. But the inherited lucky were sometimes different, entitled, sometimes “above the normal folks.” I thought of them as snooty.
Geminid
@eclare: Thanks. The article covers the role of the US command center that’s being set up in Israel, as well as the International Stabilization Force it will coordinate with. These are essential components of the larger deal.
Karen Gail
I looked up DO since wasn’t familiar with the term.
DO stands for doctor of osteopathic medicine. They use the same conventional medical techniques as MDs but with a few other methods. DOs tend to focus more on holistic health and prevention. In holistic health, all parts of a person, including their mind, body, and emotions, are considered during the treatment. They also use a system of physical manipulations and adjustments to diagnose and treat people
More than half of DOs work in primary care, but they can also specialize in another area, just like MDs.
DOs have all the same responsibilities and rights as MDs, including the abilities to perform surgery with proper training and prescribe medicine.
There are a lot more MDs than DOs in the United States. Almost 9 in 10 doctors who went to a U.S. medical school have an MD degree. One study found that around 19% of doctor’s visits were to DOs, and 81% were to MDs.
Both allopathic medical schools and colleges of osteopathic medicine are competitive to get into. However, students attending colleges of osteopathic medicine have slightly lower average GPAs and MCAT scores compared to students attending medical schools.
These lower GPAs and MCAT scores do not necessarily reflect the quality of students in DO programs. There are fewer students in colleges of osteopathic medicine compared to allopathic medical schools. Only a quarter of medical students in the U.S. attend a college of osteopathic medicine. But interest in the DO degree is rising: between 2011-2012 and 2021-2022, enrollment in DO programs increased by 68%.
DOs also learn about how the bones, nerves, and muscles work together and influence people’s health. They spend extra time (usually about 200 hours) studying osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM). This is also called osteopathic manipulative technique (OMT). OMT focuses on methods used to relieve back pain, neck pain, strained muscles, and other conditions.
Ishiyama
@brendancallinge: Kudos for the Firesign Theater reference. “Hello, fellow kids!”
Karen Gail
We have an elderly man as President, am totally clueless why the White House doesn’t have a physician, as the personal physician, who specializes in older care. Rather than doctor whose specialties appear to be ER and tactical medicine. It’s not like the White House is a physical battle ground with chance of bloody carnage.
Decorated Navy DO is named Physician to the President – American Osteopathic Association
Eyeroller
@Karen Gail: Osteopathy is pseudoscience. The “allopathic” part was added so they can practice legally as physicians. They are still taught useless manipulations but they have to do residencies and pass the same licensing exams as MDs. Currently osteopathic medical schools seem to be a way into the profession for students who couldn’t quite get into a conventional medical school (though it’s still competitive).
Some DOs do sell themselves as “holistic” but that doesn’t really mean much.
Eyeroller
@Karen Gail: They use military physicians.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Eyeroller:
I have a good friend who’s a DO and described it exactly that way. Couldn’t quite get into med school so went the DO route.
I’ve had a couple of DOs over the years as my primary, they’re fine.
Karen Gail
@Eyeroller: I can’t believe that there are no military physicians practicing who take care of older people; we have older flag officers that would need much different care than younger active troops.
But then from what we have seen in White Housse physicians honesty and practical knowledge seems to be lack. The first one? made Trump an inch taller in records so that he wouldn’t register as obese.
Karen Gail
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I had one help me deal with my cancer; I didn’t want chemo and read about what is done in Europe. The one I found had spent time in Europe learning other ways to treat cancer other than chemo. The big thing for me, at the time, was I had two different types of cancer neither one that should be treated with chemo but the oncologists at University were all on the chemo wagon. (More than one admitted that to use chemo on my thyroid cancer would probably make it worse. If not the thyroid cancer then it would make the malignant melanoma worse.) One of the oncologists did suggest the Doctor I ended up seeing.
MazeDancer
Tish James has been letting her niece stay in the house she bought for her for little to no rent.
Good-bye baseless case.
Anna Bower reports.
p.a.
@Karen Gail: My current PCP is a DO. No issues, and he hasn’t once mentioned manipulations of any kind, and I do have a cranky back and bad shoulder. I believe he went to med school on the Navy’s dime in return for active service duty.
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: Ars Technica has had Ed Zitron on, and the Futurist and the Register are also shouting this out from the rooftops
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: if you’re royalty you should be setting the standard and keeping professionals in business (as long as you and the country can afford it)
trollhattan
Two guesses as to his party, the second shall not count.
Not included above is the requisite divorce due to banging a lobbyist.
TONYG
I had to look up Roger Marshall. Senator from goddamn Kansas. Another deadbeat red state that gets more in federal benefits than it pays in federal taxes. As a New Jersey taxpayer, I’m subsidizing those assholes. They at least should send me a thank-you note.
Soprano2
@eclare: Reasons I don’t retire even though I could:
1. I like my job. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning and feel like I’m doing good.
2. They’re finally paying me a decent salary. Also, they finally listen to me!
3. It keeps my life from being consumed by caretaking.
4. People have told me I’ll know when I’m ready; I’m not there yet.
It’s easy to say you’d retire if you had the chance; it’s not so easy to do.
trollhattan
Have they also reanimated Leni Reifenstahl?
Holy crap this is awful.
bsky.app/profile/ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3m2w5eixins2v
Another Scott
Meanwhile, in scientific publishing land … TheRegister.com:
One can argue that new processes and technologies are always like this, and that can be true. Still…
Marketoonist.com (from 3/27/2023)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Karen Gail
@p.a.: For years my Doctor was an MD who specialized in “Ingrative Medicine” I liked that he didn’t jump to write prescriptions but looked at whole body. When I first went to him he did a complete blood work up; caught that shingles virus was low level active, and strangely that I had a level of lead in blood. Guess all those years of lead exposure never really go away. He had a chiropractor on staff but never suggested that I see him for my back pain; you break you back and a good chiropractor won’t touch you.
Soprano2
@Scout211: I wish him and his family luck. That hormone treatment is effective, but it can be brutal. My husband’s last boss had it; hubby said he acted like a 14-year-old girl right after the treatment. It wasn’t his fault, that’s the effect the hormone treatment can have.
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: Literally the first thing I thought was “Popular sitting governor isn’t a bad choice, but how old is she?”
Sigh.
jowriter
@rikyrah: I am not a resident of Maine but we have a family place up there. Mills has done a commendable job and is timed out on running again for governor. Maine has one of the oldest (if not the oldest) demographics in the US so the fact that she is in her late 70s is not such a stretch. I’d like to see how Platner (currently trying for the D spot to run against Collins) could swipe the ME-O2 House seat from Golden, who was the only Dem to vote with the GOP on the execrable BBB. Golden is annoying but he has held that seat. Would be a big deal if Platner could unseat him for the Dem spot there. Would be fantastic if either of them could beat Collins. They are both natives and both ME-02 residents, being “from here” is important to Maine voters.
Soprano2
@Karen Gail: I agree, he would be better served by a gerentologist.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, re the Epstein files, … JustSecurity.org timeline:
Reminder – Donold was POTUS in 2020.
There are lots and lots of moving parts there, lots and lots of apparent stonewalling by Donold’s DOJ, and lots and lots of MAGAts who are just fine with it…
Personally, I expect that even when they get 218 votes for the release of the files, there will still be “redactions” that have nothing to do with protecting the victims. This won’t be over soon no matter what happens when the House is finally back in session.
Grr…
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
David_C
@Soprano2:
5. I’m finally good at something! 😉
Ruckus
@Karen Gail:
It’s been a few decades since I’ve been in the USN, so much may have changed and I’d bet that some has, seeing as how medicine has learned just a tad in the last half a century. Medicines have evolved, grown, gotten far better in the last 50-60 years. But military concepts – have they really changed? What any branch of our military does hasn’t likely changed all that much, even as the tools and process likely have. I’ve been using the VA for the last 3-4 decades and it has changed, just as much of life has changed. Not big changes but smaller ones, which sometimes over all, change a lot. We, humanity have learned a fair bit over the last half a century. Now some humans have learned doodly squat. Because that may be as much as they can learn, or because they were hiding their heads in a dark, smelly place. Such as some of humanity has always done, since day one. But there are more of us and we have ways of seeing a lot more of the world and how it operates – or doesn’t. I’m not sure if it’s better, worse or pretty much the same but I believe #3 is the more likely. Or at least the most often. Much has changed in the last 30-50 years. How many have a land line phone? I haven’t for over 25 years. Why would you?
New Deal democrat
For those who are interested, here is a link to a Reddit thread asking people about any memorable direct contact they or a family member has had with ICE:
reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1nxmase/serious_people_who_have_had_a_direct_runin_with/
Some very strange and/or depressing stories. The “wildest” although I guess unsurprising one’s are the Native Americans who are getting detained because they “look” like immigrants, and their tribal ID isn’t believed.
Karen Gail
@Ruckus: Okay, I have to admit to having land line; I make like one or two calls in a month. And it is the same line as my internet so it makes sense for me; but I can see your point. Change happens; as for changes in military. There are been a couple of specials on the changes in the Navy that were made public when Arnold Schwarzenegger did his documentaries on changes Navy was making in regard to climate change since Naval bases are the most vulnerable to rising seas. What I do remember from orange ones first time in office he thought the Navy should go back to technology that hadn’t been used in decades. But then this is person who is doing best to turn back calendar, only surprise is that he hasn’t started suggesting sailing ships.
I don’t know how other branches are changing but we do know that soldiers sitting in US can pilot drones in other parts of the world.
tam1MI
Dammit. Maine already had some perfectly good candidates for the seat, now they are just going to rip themselves apart in the primary and we’ll be stuck with Furrowed Brow for 6 more years.
Ruckus
@TONYG:
States like Kansas don’t have enough people living in them to support things like California does. Like many things the size of the cost side is paid for by the production side. High population states have a higher paying size. Now that doesn’t mean the population of Kansas hasn’t grown, it likely has to some degree but not the degree of say CA or NY. But unless you are a farmer you likely go where there are jobs and places like CA and NYC have jobs. I was an employer for a number of decades after dad retired. Not a large number of employees but still, I signed paychecks for a number of years.
Jackie
@Geminid:
That genuinely made me LOL! You’re undoubtedly right!
Ruckus
@Karen Gail:
It’s difficult to see clearly with one’s head firmly planted in their exit port. A concept that more than a few humans seem to delight in. Of course it makes seeing the outside world or the rest of humanity in any kind of rational reality a tad difficult. I believe that even if this is more of a social statement than actual truth of eyes, ears, brain placement, it does have an element of truth to it. We used to call it being full of shit, but that seemed to some not to be a very polite phrase. And of course it isn’t and never was intended to be one.
Humanity is a very large group and there will be significant changes/differences in any large group of humans. Now from a viewpoint of far enough away the significance level may seem smaller, but from an individual view – wow might be the appropriate word for many differences. And look at history and see the changes in the last say 100 years. How many have a land line phone? And why? Our world has changed a lot, even in the lifetimes of many still breathing, let alone a generation or 2 ago. My father was brought from his birthplace, Kansas City, to Los Angeles in a horse drawn wagon at one year old in 1918. Over dirt roads that are now interstates. His father was a factory trained Packard mechanic. Packard closed in 1956. My grandfathers and grandmothers were all born in the 1800s. Hell I was born in the first half of the last century. Barely in the first half but still. The world has changed very, very significantly in that time frame. If you look at the early world of my grandparents it doesn’t even seem like the same planet. If you look at the early world of my parents, the world has changed significantly. And it’s also done so in my lifetime. I remember my mom’s car, the first one I knew about, a 1946 Packard sedan. And Packard has been out of business for 69 years. And wasn’t much for a few years before that. There are so many things that have changed significantly since it’s likely easier to name the things that haven’t. But I can’t think of any.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@jowriter:
The current state auditor, meaning a Dem that’s won a statewide seat, is running against the otherwise odious Golden.
Karen Gail
@Ruckus: I am probably a couple of years younger than you, but I am also old enough to remember and have lived when things were so totally different.
I had blind spots about race since Dad was USN and was born restless (cue Lee Marvin’s song about “Wandering Star” from “Paint Your Wagon.”) We lived in California and Wisconsin; neighbors in California were all new to San Jose and from all over the world. It wasn’t until my 30’s that I even began to realize just how bigoted people were in Wisconsin; sadly, I think it has gotten worse.
This is what scares me about the GOP; they want to take us back to days when slavery was accepted and women had no rights. They don’t want to make progress they want to return to an age when rich white men were called “robber barons” and it was considered a compliment.
There are times when I read the news and hear about what is happening in the world and wonder why we forget that we all live on one planet. Carl Sagan gave lectures and reminded us with the “Blue Marble” picture of how we are all here together. People not only forget that but in the race of greed they have forgotten that physical resources are limited; when I started reading and talking with University Professor his field of expertise wasn’t considered as worthy of a department. He studied things like healthy soil, how to heal the land and what farmers were doing in the name of greed. After his death University of Wisconsin at Madison took a long look at his work and there is now a department and course of study that uses many of his books as foundation. I find it concerning that more people are still blissfully ignorant of just how our food gets to the grocery store and just how depleted the soil has become.
Marc
That is something I never thought about. I was diagnosed with the same time of cancer that my mother and grandmother (at least) had. They both had surgery followed by blasting the area with radiation, collateral damage from the latter eventually killed them both. Surgery followed by chemo seemed a better alternative and I had to look around to find someone willing to do just that. Eventually, genetic testing determined that even the chemo was likely unnecessary, surgery alone was sufficient for others having the same markers.
Now, NCIS/NIH cancer research is getting blown up just as the need for surgery was getting questionable. A niece has apparently been cured, without surgery, by direct injection of an mRNA vaccine into a tumor. Now, research will have to be done elsewhere in the world to determine if this works for everyone with this common form of cancer, or only those with our peculiar genetic makeup.
Karen Gail
@Marc: What never made sense to me was poisoning a body to kill cancer and the number of deaths that could be attributed to chemo. When you have surgery it takes time for even a healthy body to recover; so when my thyroid was removed I asked what was showing up on scans as “hot” and I signed paperwork only giving permission to take what was hot. (Learned lesson hard way when found out I had a total hysterectomy when only one ovary was involved.)
Did the same thing when thyroid cancer showed up in two lymph nodes years later, told surgeon just those two nodes and nothing else. But most surgeons won’t tell you have that right to make those choices; after surgery one tried to talk me into stripping area around those nodes while was still drugged.
After all just how many people know that the chemotherapy pushed by drug companies is the result of poison gas experiments by Nazi doctors.
Marc
Two things can be true at the same time. In this case, the first truth is that machine learning in general and large language models, in particular, are just another sophisticated programming tool. They can assist people in being more productive at recognizing and generating prose, code, imagery, etc., but this only works in the hands of those skilled enough to guide the process. No executive minion is ever really going to be able to write a few prompts and effectively replace hundreds or thousands of people. It just doesn’t work that way, as those who have tried are quickly finding out.
The second truth is that the people you are hearing from are those who are over-leveraged in the perpetual belief that just order of magnitude of compute power is all they need to reach AI “break even” point. Which means making enough money from subscribers to pay for the actual data centers and model training required to support them. At this point, they are still spending 10X what they’re getting back from the actual market. They need to keep this going perpetually, or the whole economy will collapse along with it. I’m betting they will fail, within months, not years.
Think of it this way, Oracle is “investing” in OpenAI by providing services, which OpenAI “pays” for by giving Oracle stock. OpenAI then uses that increased valuation to “buy” from AMD a future promise of delivering chips (which may or may not happen), paid for with more stock, and so forth. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Amazon, are also involved in this investment cabal. No actual money changes hands, the increased valuations and holdings primarily provide collateral for borrowing and facilitating generation of “revenue”. It all exists as “real” money propping up the stock market and our mutual funds, right up until the moment some critical loan gets called.
Ruckus
@Karen Gail:
This is what scares me about the GOP; they want to take us back to days when slavery was accepted and women had no rights. They don’t want to make progress they want to return to an age when rich white men were called “robber barons” and it was considered a compliment.
They think they want that. They really, really do not. That world would make most of them poor. And in a world of the number of people standing on this planet now versus a century or more ago that would never fly. Also remember that most people struggled with physical work. I started working in a machine shop over 60 years ago as a rather young teen. This world has changed a hell of a lot and so has this country. And unless one learns how to turn the world around so that time can go backwards it isn’t going to ever happen. Now that doesn’t mean that some don’t think it would be better if whatever happened. BUT. And it’s a big, round, not at all that pretty BUT, that’s not how it works. They expect the world as they see it, their kind in charge. However, other than asshole thinking that one skin color – or lack thereof makes one better, none of the world was better back then (whenever then was) is pure unadulterated bullshit. There will always be, or at least in one long lifetime this is still true, people that think something makes them superior. For many it’s money. But I worked in professional sports and there was always someone that thought they were superior and they had no proof – other than negative proof. I once had some dipshit come up to me at a professional sport event that I had a lot of power over, that I’d never seen or met, and he said nothing that wasn’t pure shit to and about me. I never saw him at an event ever again, because I talked to his boss, very nicely. His boss knew me and had for a fair number of years. My point is that some people have a concept of themselves that is about 500% away from any reality whatsoever. Most of us don’t normally interact with that many humans to find the one that stinks that far beyond any rational level. Now I did but it is rare. Rare enough that I still remember it over 2-3 decades later. My point is that old saying, it takes all kinds. It really doesn’t but that doesn’t stop all kinds from showing us who/what they are. So the saying should be – We have all kinds. We don’t need a small percentage of them. But we will never be rid of them – it’s humanity. In all its levels of every measure – in all it’s good/bad/indifferent.
Marc
@Karen Gail: I hear you, but when you’ve got a whole cadre of allegedly well educated confident people telling you things, some of which may not be “true” (whatever that means), just what should one like myself choose as the specific red flag to question everything? Actual cancer research was lacking 70 years ago when they started messing with these “cures”, there are still doctors floating around advising treatments that have long been debunked.
Karen Gail
@Marc: I hear you, my sister in law had ovarian cancer; a friend talked her into going to Mexico and doing targeted treatment. Trouble was how expensive it was, but it did give her seven more years and she lived to see both daughters not only graduate high school but also college. The stress of her marriage retriggered her cancer and the only treatment she could afford was chem. After she went on chemo she lasted months; in pain from the cancer and the drugs.
Every person I’ve known and talked to who went with chemo or radiation talked about just how bad the pain was; personally, I would rather not prolong my life by living in pain.
Ruckus
@Marc:
There will always be humans that think they know more than anyone else. And it’s possible that in some small way they might know more than most. But this world has significantly changed in the lifetimes of many still breathing. I was born in the first half of the last century and so much is different since I started walking and talking that it is almost impossible for someone decades younger to have any of the concepts of what life was like then. Life is still life but how it’s lived has increased in possibilities far more than anyone could have had any idea of back then. Sure it’s still life, it still has a start, a middle and an end. But that start and that middle can be a hell of a lot different that it could be back when I started. And it wasn’t the same for everyone – a statement that could still apply today. How you were raised, how and what was taught in schools, how we live, where to live, communications, what we are doing here, what tv looked like then and now, and on and on. And on. What will it look like in another 100 years? Will it be so crowded that it’s almost impossible to move? Will we still have cars? Can we still have cars? What will entertainment look like/be? Will the internet still exist? Will families with 3 to 5 or more kids exist or be rare? Will we live in barracks rather than homes? Etc, etc.
Ruckus
@Karen Gail:
Living in pain really does not seem all that much like living. But then often in the concept of actual pain, most adults can live with what I’d call a significant amount of pain. But it can get old some days, having rather constant pain. But pain, unless it’s pain well over what the docs mean when they say tell me your pain level on one to ten. I once told a doc when asked that – 20. He looked at me like I was nuts. I told him I get migraines, I’ve had them well over level 10, as in I’d scream but that makes it worse. He looked at me for a couple of minutes to see if I was screwing with him. He figured out I wasn’t. I have well over 100,000 miles on motorcycles. I was once hit by a coyote that ran onto the road, hit my front wheel and forced me into the front of an oncoming pickup truck. That sounds like a lot of fun – and pain – doesn’t it? And yet no actual injuries and I rode away. I’ve had migraine pains that made that feel like a sitting at the dinner table enjoying my meal. Fortunately I very, very rarely have them any more and never at that level. And there is now a pill that works well and rapidly. I’ve been told that giving birth is no walk in the park but women do this over and over because the outcome is great.
H.E.Wolf
@Geminid:
Thank’ee kindly, pardner! Sounds like a good read to while away the hours when I’m home on the range. I’ll post on over to the library and pick it up if they have it.
ETA: In my saddlebags already! Ebooks are right handy.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you! I just learned a new thing. Always a pleasure.
Kayla Rudbek
@Karen Gail: it goes back a bit further than that; Fr. Julius Nieuwland’s research was used by other people to develop chemical warfare in WW1 (Fr. Nieuwland to his credit was NOT interested in pursuing that, and went back to Notre Dame and invented synthetic rubber instead)
Gloria DryGarden
@JPL: I don’t know where you are, but chattooga county has a protest, and so does Rome. In those parts the Democratic Party has no formal address, probably for safety. I’ve followed the relevant counties’ Democratic parties on their Facebook pages.
neither of these two counties had their protests on the no kings national lists. You might look up your counties organization..
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: I think they’re just going to refuse to seat Grijalva, period, and also refuse to seat any new Democrats elected in 2026. Congress did this sort of thing now and then until the Supreme Court ruled that the situations under which it could happen were starkly limited, and this is a ruling they could try to get overturned so that they can simply refuse to seat any new Democrats.