Longest week ever? I feel like it was. I hope yours was better!
This seems fine; everything is fine!
Biden warns Iran after U.S. forces clash with proxy groups in Syria
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/24/biden-iran-airstrikes-syria/
Hope any readers in this area are alright
Tornado in Mississippi kills at least seven, with more trapped under rubble
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/25/tornado-deaths-mississippi-alabama-rolling-fork
Sprots!
No more No. 1 seeds left in NCAA men’s basketball tournament after Alabama and Houston lose
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/sport/ncaa-mens-tournament-no-1-loses-spt-intl/index.html
Today in adorableness:
Have a great weekend!
Hmmm…I guess everyone is sleeping in today. Well, not me. I’m leaving for another Open House, this time in the prestigious Kings Point enclave in Great Neck. There’s an estate that was built in 1928 on the market and from the outside it looks like would suit my Gatsby-esque needs perfectly. I wonder what a recent owner did to the interior…
https://nypost.com/2023/03/24/this-over-the-top-great-neck-mansion-asks-45m/
Big surprise — the guy behind this was a business partner with Trump and broker of Trump-Putin!
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go-lucky-jewish-group-that-connects-trump-and-putin-215007/
Tried unsuccessfully to get some extra sleep. My company uses Slack and of course, email. Up until yesterday I had both on my phone; everything worked perfectly. Due to some new security policy, everyone had to log out and log back in. No big deal, right?
I spent six hours on the phone with our outsourced IT. Eventually I got everything back on my work laptop. At the end of the day, they were confident they’d got it on my phone. Except when I left the house and got out of wifi range, my phone stopped working. I mean, it worked a little, very sluggishly. So I tried to take all the crap off (this is my personal phone that I pay for, and work apps aren’t mandatory). Still broken and I can’t get it all off. I can’t delete my new “work profile,” and as soon as I leave wifi, the phone is borderline bricked. Seems I’m no longer the administrator on my phone. I tried a late call to IT, since I’m East Coast, and got an answering service. I’ll try again at 10 or so today just to see, but at this point I’m looking at doing a hard reset and restoring it from my backup, except I’m not sure my current backup won’t have the same crap on it. So my Friday was wasted, and if I want to use my phone at all, looks like Saturday’s going to suck too.
I am upset. Sleeping is difficult. Bitching helps. Thank you all.
Just imagine if finance bros decided to invest in making tech actually work, instead of dumping tens of billions on the Twitter takeover.
I slept til one PM!
DeSantis is making his backers nervous, according to NBC:
I think the linked thread raises a good comparison to capital bubbles — you have a huge amount of money chasing too little value. Which is how you end up with Crypto and NFTs.
The obvious fear is that the crazy oligarchs end up coming to consensus and brute force their way behind one fraudster anyway, along the lines of 2016. Maybe it’s Trump, maybe they dig up an alternative. Maybe they stick with RDS.
What makes consensus harder is the limited amount of time left. What makes it easier is a press that is desperate for a GOP strongman to emerge who they can call a moderate.
David Brooks had a column a week ago already trying to push some bottom feeders as sunny, middle of the road alternatives (hints — Brooks is pushing committed anti-abortion, antigay, anti-healthcare, anti-democracy, hard right turds). We’ll see what they can polish up.
David Brooks should tread carefully when it comes to reproductive rights. He dumped his first wife for his research assistant, who is 23 years younger than he is and of child-bearing age. Those rights might come in handy one day, although Brooks probably lives in New York, where reproductive rights are actually in the state constitution.
Even more astounding to me is how much footsie the Times, CNN’s new owners, and much of the rest of the legacy press has been playing with extremists who want to blow up defamation protections for them.
Dominion only started putting Fox through the wringer after clearing a lot of very high hurdles. If any of the GOP candidates win in ’24, outlets are going to be sued into bankruptcy before hack judges. It may still happen under the right wing Supremes.
Least surprising story of the day?
https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims
This guy must be a drag queen, right?
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/03/christian-college-professor-charged
Fucking Cigna. I’ve been stuck with them for a couple of years now. And I’ve gotten that medically not necessary reply before too. I can’t believe I miss UnitedHealthcare.
When I showed this story to my wife, she went off for about 10mins on how all the insurance companies do this. She said something about trying to get someone vitamin d shots and had to jump through a ton of hoops to get it covered. Our medical system is very broken and getting worst.
I got a $1200 claim that hit my HSA in early February from my surgery last September – apparently for the squish-inflating things they put on your legs to reduce blood clot risk. I never got an actual bill in the mail from them so I’m just like not fucking doing anything until that eventually arrives.
…ok…so I’d clocked the location part but somehow not lined up in my head the date component…&…just…you know how from time to time yet another thing crops up where you just sort of sit back puzzled all over again that this guy is free to just keep walking around free to pull more of this kind of crap?
https://apnews.com/article/trump-waco-texas-a29e292fd3fec30e9db4c2f980fe5b67
…I mean…it’s wasn’t literally day-of…but…c’mon…is there not enough shitty news today?
You can pretty much imagine the NY Times Pitchbot bit – “Trump celebrates gun toting extremists who kill federal agents while liberals peacefully protest police killings of unarmed civilians. Here’s why that’s good news for the GOP and trouble for Biden.”
…it would track…the same guy did a number about some sort of “ultimate local control” of education that was all “parents’ rights” & saving them from “pink haired communists”…aka…well…maybe the FBI?
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/21/fbi-colorado-springs-surveillance/
Fake or not suggested yet? Fine line in FL…
Has to be fake. They want no school days at all.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has proposed using more than $300 million from Alabama’s education budget for non-education expenses, including prison construction and $25 million for a Montgomery whitewater rafting development that has run behind schedule and over budget.
From afar, the Montgomery Whitewater rafting park under construction near Maxwell Air Force Base might look like a tourist attraction, but the county commission president there assures me it’s more than that.
It’s an educational opportunity, too.
“There’s going to be engineering opportunities out there for students,” Montgomery County Commission Chairman Doug Singleton said when I spoke with him Friday. “Opportunities for students, not only to have jobs but to learn about careers and have opportunities that they would never ever get to see.”
https://www.al.com/news/2023/03/alabama-governor-sends-education-dollars-to-water-park.html
…what is it with these assholes & diverting public funds…it’s…almost like they don’t want public services…which is weird for people whose salaries are nominally for…public service?