…maybe you don’t care…you probably don’t care…but…there’s a lady on a rainy little island who said she had some personal rules…& it is somehow more important to be able to say she can’t stick to her resolutions than whether or not the place she wanted to be able to say she was in where that would be a boast not being enough like the place that place is in for it not to be a straightjacket…than…say…a good or bad idea…which…is pretty strange…given that those things all relate to the state finances…& allow for a lot of “she failed” & “she lied” & “she can’t afford (do-you-see-what-we-did-there)”…because…get this…after what came before & with a view to what seems to be coming…to put more money into services & the public sector might take…more money…on account of all the austerity cash-starving book-juggling bullshit the other lot did to try to make out the colossally dumb idea was a stroke of genius & they were looking out for the people they were only creative in finding ways to screw…might be…to put up taxes…but she took the bait early doors & said she wouldn’t…so…that’s *her* fault if she does & she’s a dirty liar
Hypocrisy Central in the UK today as the Conservatives criticise Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ pre-budget suggestion that she may have to raise taxes to get the country out of a financial hole.A financial hole mostly caused by the Tories’ economic failure from austerity and Brexit on out.
…so…however badly I fail to rein this in today…trust, fam…it do be both the short & the polite version
…if you believe you can find a place to trade food stamps for caviar…on or off the amazon platform…then I have to guess you…like people who thought fucked up tweaking addicts in withdrawl that had blown up all their avenues to moral earnings were stealing pre-paid cell phones for the value of the remaining credit to trade with gangsters for the fix to get themselves straight…& that was how the illegal drug trade was worth so many fucking billions…which makes you…& I say this advisedly…so painfully fucking stupid that you are beyond lucky there isn’t a law against you leaving the fucking house based on a public health argument
Hey folks–I've been asked to pin this link here, so here you go.The lectures and podcast episodes for "America at 250," the lecture course that I'm teaching with David Blight and Beverly Gage are at this link.www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…
…”we”…are fucking up…& we’d been fucking up somewhat for long enough that we got past the part where you accept that perfection is not within our gift so a certain amount of fucking up you just got to “price in”…but…all the fucking-up-so-bad-the-kinds-of-fucking-up-we-used-to-argue-over-turned-into-whole-new-ways-to-fuck-up-without-touching-the-sides…left its marks…& then we came back & beat on the bruises like it was whack-a-mole
…so…look…yes it’s a rabbit hole…yes, it makes you feel the way those jenny cohn threads do where you’re all “I mean, fuck, ok I guess that yes I did know these are all horrible people who’ve made that part clear in all those ways & that they’re all mingled together through all of the everything that sucks so much but when you start trying to actually describe that it’s literally in wall’o’crazy territory & if you’re a certain age that makes you start struggling to take yourself seriously…so it’s the relentlessness with no sign of letting up that makes you want to nope out or just not admit you know how fucking insane it is to tolerate people that insane in the places they are happy to keep saying shit that proves they shouldn’t ought to be…but…someone tried to make a sincere effort at this by the looks of it…& I might feel like it would have been stronger if the language were stepped down a peg or two on the histrionic slider but even if the numbers are indicative rather than definitive…here’s the thing…this is…fucking INSANE…& if you happen to be me…that keeps meaning you know you sound like a crazy person even when you keep saying stuff like “I mean it seems like it couldn’t possibly be true because…c’mon…try it…listen to how crazy you sound just saying that to yourself?”
Mapping the authoritarian tech network: www.authoritarian-stack.info
…I…am not the sort of person with a subscription to janes any more than I can afford the raw feed from reuters or bloomberg’s terminal…& maybe I’d phrase it differently because I don’t necessarily think trying to get our head around it is helped by tee-ing up ways to look at it just through the bits you’d keep in the movie version rather than the stuff that actually gets its ratcheting increments to inch out their progress in directions no amount of straining ought to get anyone if this all worked on the basis of not letting crazy people fuck the world up while we’re all trying to live in that
Flock’s mass-surveillance machine is a rapidly expanding location tracking system – and a privacy nightmare. Communities across the nation are calling for lawmakers to protect us from this unwarranted government surveillance. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne…
…but…to borrow from way down after you scroll through the interactive graphics & such in the other thing to the part where that talks about europe
None of these decisions provoked real debate. Few reached front pages. Together, they reveal the systematic outsourcing of European sovereignty to American oligarchs whose ideology openly undermines democracy. .
It is a paradox with devastating implications: pursuing digital sovereignty while ceding control through every signed contract.
Each new contract deepens the trap. Once Palantir becomes indispensable, once Anduril’s drones are NATO standard, once nuclear facilities power AI that runs everything else— the transformation is irreversible.
…might as well be talking about the infrastructure of the internet there, chief
Europe faces an existential choice: build genuine technological sovereignty now, or accept governance by platforms whose architects view democracy as an obsolete operating system.
…ok…look…I am officially not-starting on that
Dolly Parton releases “9 to 5” 45 yrs ago today.“I knew what it was like to be a working woman trying to make a decent living, trying to be taken seriously. .. I wanted a song that sounded playful on the surface but spoke to that frustration .. A song about women .. saying, ‘We deserve better.’”
…in case it’s too blurry & you also can’t get a search engine to cough up the original goods…that last bit goes about like this
So the next time you hear someone say that Heinlein or Bianca Jagger or Anita Bryant is fascist, I’ve given you one little yardstick of the genuine, the historical article. They shot my dog. I say my dog because this experience taught me something about fascists: if you don’t admit to owning the world’s stray dogs, they’ll shoot them. And one day they’ll be back. For you. With the boxcars.
…& that will gibson?
…that will gibson…the will gibson that posts as https://bsky.app/profile/greatdismal.bsky.social…couldn’t manage to have been dismal enough to make that a metaphorical set up with space for “I shot my own dog” being a fucking campaign brag to these bitches…so…look…I don’t consider myself the one doing this to you in some important ways?
The Democratic gubernatorial nominee in VA is effectively calling the Democratic mayoral nominee in NYC a liar on the eve of close, contentious, and crucial elections for both of them. What a joke this party often is. No wonder Republicans win so much.
Until now, Social Security disability benefits got easier to qualify for as a person reached 50+. A new Trump plan would end that.Under the plan, millions, particularly in red states, could find it more difficult to qualify for disability benefits in the future.➡️ More: propub.li/4oeO7VO
The roughly 42 million Americans who receive food stamps will get only partial payments from the federal government this month, after the Trump administration told a federal judge that it would not tap additional funds.
The trucking industry keeps our economy moving—but that doesn’t give it a free pass for its negative impacts. From pollution in frontline communities to heat-trapping emissions and damaged roads and bridges, this fossil-fueled sector must pay its fair share.
I’ve said we need a term for “government by liars” because this Trump administration does seem to be breaking new ground in the telling-constant-objectively-provable-lies department.
‘Federal prosecutors opposed Dunn’s lawyers’ motion to dismiss the charge, writing that Dunn was “recorded throwing a sandwich at a federal officer at point-blank range”.
POINT BLANK RANGE. A SANDWICH. LMAOOO
the sandwich guy is a political prisoner www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru…
…if these fucking people turn my ass into alan moore I will lose my shit, guys…I mean…I have at no point in my life tried to be alan moore…or wanted to in any part of my self that’s on speaking terms with any of the bits I know…I like a lot of his comics & if you said I could go talk to the man in a pub maybe I *would* ask about the wizard thing…despite basically having the dude in front of you the character in the comics the boys are based on who has the keys to the comic-book side to the in-universe kingdom & knows where all the obscure back issues are & also where the real bodies were buried after the actual events & why that story is even worse…surely has to be based on…in a way alan could probaly explain to you if you could follow him…so that would be like finding credit in the jukebox of your dreams & asking if you could look at the disc changing mechanism instead of playing anything…but…like…not because I wanna be a wizard
…maybe if you grow up with the harry potter thing you wanna be a wizard…if you attended the earthsea/gormenghast school of that sort of thing…& some…ahem…residential institutions for “youths”…that…not to put too fine a point on it…bear a similarity or two…you…maybe don’t feel the same about wizards…not deadpan-I-mean-it-like-magicks-with-the-k-&-everything…but…the man *is* a wizard…did amazing shit with swamp thing…at one point had so many parallel riffs on how to deconstruct the superhero genre that you could be reading top 10 or tom strong or promethea or supreme & it’d still all be one dude doing sort of one thing over & over while getting wildly different results…at the same time
#WolffBites: US poll of college students shows that 67% view socialism as either positive or neutral, while only 40% feel that way about capitalism. Capitalism's performance produces the yearning for something better.www.axios.com/newsletters/…
…& dense as watchmen is…if he told you over a dram or double or two…that the comedian was earnestly intended to be as eerie a bit of foreshadowing as that turned out to be…I’d probably even believe the gruff bearded bastard the way the-boy-who-lived believes stuff when robby coltrane says it
do you think during the 2024 cycle there were more stories about trumps plans to invade mexico or a few trans kids playing sports with their friends
…& then I’d have blown my chance to get him to tell me what the references in V for Vendetta were that I missed
The far right radicalization of young men is a serious issue. Fanning male rage was a big part of the MAGA movement and is part of the game plan on the Polievre Conservatives.In my latest piece I discuss the toxic impacts on schools and democracy.substack.com/home/post/p-…
TRUMPSTEIN: If Andrew can no longer be "Prince" because of Jeffrey Epstein, Trump can no longer be President because of Jeffrey EpsteinNote: the UK monarchy wants Andrew to atone by revealing what he knowsGet the all-new Monday Countdown Podcast here: tinyurl.com/58n8fadv
…so…anyway…out here all the way past however many looking glasses we’ve torn through at this point…we’ve got to the part where the straight lines of the straight bats that the official lines have been played with have laid their tracks across the page until they made it all the way around the curve to the point where stripping andy the unsweatable man of everything but his place in the line of succession last I checked…is to be touted as preparatory maneuvering to set a stance from which to apply pressure upon the US to do something about…you know
TRUMPSTEIN: If Andrew can no longer be "Prince" because of Jeffrey Epstein, Trump can no longer be President because of Jeffrey EpsteinNote: the UK monarchy wants Andrew to atone by revealing what he knowsGet the all-new Monday Countdown Podcast here: tinyurl.com/58n8fadv
…so…maybe today goes the way where this is anything from 2x to 5x this long by the time I call it quits & keel over for the day…fuck knows I have yet to put anything in it from the slate of stuff in my head listed under “that seems like it wouldn’t go amiss getting an airing in one of those disaster-messes you have the incredible temerity to call a post…repeatedly…somehow”…& that’s…like…I mean…the list of shortlists on the shortlist of that list is already longer than this post…so however you read it that way lies madness…like…fo’sure…which…apostrophes being the duplicitous little buggers they are…might be “for sure”…but…times being what they are…might be a surprise foreclosure hiding in plain sight
And here's former vice president Mike Pence sharing a Wall Street Journal article calling out the head of the Heritage Foundation for defending Tucker Carlson's friendly chat with Nick Fuentes.
Ahead of election day, new national polls show Trump almost as unpopular as he has ever been. But, as @joshtpm.bsky.social notes, the picture is different on the generic ballot — and much more puzzling.talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/makin…
The Trump administration has recast Binance founder CZ as a martyr—and his pardon may have unintended consequences for the US crypto industry. www.wired.com/story/trumps…
My Stop the Presses newsletter defines some terms to help you navigate the current chaos. They include:Self-coupBrandolini’s lawAgent provocateurFalse flagStreisand effectConcern trollingToxic empathyUncanny ValleyRed pilland Accelerationism. But I can’t help you with "6-7."
this is all so stupid, wasteful and, quite frankly, misleading to investors. A $38bn deal huh? How’s OpenAI paying that? How much counterparty due diligence was done on these deals?
If I had to guess, OpenAI needs this because inference is so much more aggressively compute-intensive than they are letting on. My gut says that anyone saying “actually they’re profitable on inference” may end up embarrassed
NEW: I learned a lot talking to Alex Karp's biographer, Michael Steinberger. Namely, that Palantir has ambitions to become what IBM used to be for the U.S. government: its de facto operating system. www.inc.com/sam-blum/ale…
The defensiveness of Altman in this video over revenues is fascinating. Definitely feels like OpenAI is absolutely making $13bn in revenue in 2025 and nothing is wrong to me!
I’m sorry this whole thing is strange. It’s going to go up steeply. But it’s also already doing that you say? Is that right? And actually you’ll make $100bn in two years. What’s going on Sammy? What are you hiding
The FT does some of the best and most engaging financial reporting in the world. They have made the story of a dodgy car parts company that borrowed billions fascinating.
This is an absolute beast of a piece – 10,000 words, deeply-researched, exhaustively-explained – but I think it will end up being one of my most consequential works.
The Democratic gubernatorial nominee in VA is effectively calling the Democratic mayoral nominee in NYC a liar on the eve of close, contentious, and crucial elections for both of them. What a joke this party often is. No wonder Republicans win so much.
The trucking industry keeps our economy moving—but that doesn’t give it a free pass for its negative impacts. From pollution in frontline communities to heat-trapping emissions and damaged roads and bridges, this fossil-fueled sector must pay its fair share.
Ben Shapiro is outright trying to kick Tucker Carlson out of the conservative movement in this video. The right's civil war is truly here www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaRJ…
Teen Vogue built a brand on the fact that there is in fact a substantial intersection of nuanced political coverage and appealing to young women and I think a time will come, fairly soon, when they realize that was a really stupid thing to throw away.
Trump’s assault on SNAP doesn't just starve families. It exposes a cruel, long-running political project of the right. Cammy Pedroja examines how withholding food aid reinforces gender and class hierarchies that keep women from equality.
Like many Americans, Scott Adams had insurance problems. But unlike most people he has powerful friends on social media, and when he asked President Trump for help, he got the cancer drug he needed.
Efforts to give Turkey a key role in President Trump’s peace plan have alarmed Israeli officials, who view the country to be too close to Islamist groups and a rival for regional influence.
“.. Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on Monday shot down a Democrat-led attempt to force the Trump administration to fully fund the country’s largest anti-hunger program ..”@politico.com #SNAPwww.politico.com/live-updates…
“Only the elected officials I like are legitimate” is barely a step away from him just claiming the right to appoint them
okay. first, he really put the final nail in cuomo so nice job donald. secondly, he didn’t endorse him so much as he is blackmailing ny voters and threatening to withhold federal funds if we elect mamdani. i know we can’t really expect honesty anymore but that’s what happened
A recent M.I.T. study found that 95% of companies that had invested in A.I. tools were seeing zero return.
…oh…& while we’re here…how come this bit is either broken or missing in so many guy-brains?
Oh, I find people in their 20s (women especially, as I am straight) attractive, and I don't feel bad about that; some people are just pretty! Also I find my brain sorts attractive women in their 20s the same way it sorts attractive men of all ages, i.e, "Okay, they're hot, and also, not for me."
…more than one thing can be true at a time, my dude(s)…like…in some worlds whether or not a person might present as a different gender than your personal philosophy would stretch to saying they had a shot at…wouldn’t matter a whit to you…unless you were trying to shoot your shot at that…which would be between y’all…so…like…that shit wouldn’t come close to being a canary in an electoral coalmine with all the hallmarks of the classic norwegian blue…including being nailed to the perch by some damn bugger or other
The Trump regime calls SNAP food aid “a broken and corrupt program.” It's a typical right-wing “blame the poor” campaign by people uninterested in the well-being of others. This thread includes a few examples from the past, including this headline in the Palo Alto (CA) Times in 1968. 🧵 1/4
Ah, a thing I missed: It appears 3 other clergy have joined Rev. David Black as plaintiffs in this case: a Catholic priest, a UU minister and a UMC minister.
And these filings bring the number of clergy who claim to have been and/or have been filmed being hit with projectiles shot by ICE/DHS to 6
Huh.
Real curious what’s in the redacted section of this filing by plaintiffs in the journalist, activist, and clergy-led lawsuit against DHS’ treatment of all three groups at the Broadview, Illinois ICE facility. (Plaintiffs have asked it to be un-redacted.) https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71559589/183/chicago-headline-club-v-noem/
A significant percentage of that new $100B for ICE is going to end up going to pay for collision repair centers, excessive force settlements, and wrongful arrest suits.
NEW: Footage of a US citizen in Chicago being rammed then dragged from her car on her way to work.Abducted, with no warrant, her family couldn’t find her for hours.She was later released with NO CHARGE. A DHS statement said she “violently resisted arrest, injuring two officers”.You decide…
Giant corporations get a massive tax break from Trump.Trump gets donations for his multi-million-dollar ballroom from giant corporations.What do American families get? Price hikes on groceries, electricity, and health care.
Wowow 😮 This is indeed one of the greatest paper endings of the century. Scientists: if you outsource writing to LLMs, you will end up filing off and blunting the good parts of writing — and thus science.
…look…you know the thing about how eventually you grow up to turn into your parents?
…well…not to sound like my father…but…incels & all that MRA red-pill bullshit that’s a boom industry these days…we had a word for those people before we had an internet…& it meant most of the same stuff
…they’re…just
…wankers
…speaking of trying not to be one of the wankers…at least not your whole life…since it seems like grown people could expect to have better expected of them…in case I fail to supplement this part later on…& given you’ve to wait a couple more days until the next installment from the skinner lads & your boy ren drops its beat…I can see how you might call this a token effort in this unique context…but off this post I’d probably fight you to see if it not fitting the description was the hill I finally die on?
The Trump family has tapped two little-known boutique banks to help finance a blizzard of crypto deals it has struck this year: one based in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, the other sandwiched between a junkyard and a funeral parlour in New Jersey on.ft.com/3JkGsX0
As many US Federal workers are not getting paid, Palantir's revenue "from U.S. government business grew 52% in the quarter from a year ago to $486 million."www.cnbc.com/2025/11/03/p…
…hell you can make it so the courts tell you you *have* to do it
The owner of that other hellsite intentionally amplifying garbage information that is easily explained – and community noted – purely to sow distrust in our elections.(Sliwa is also on the ballot twice)
They are lies. Fact check: 18 false claims Trump made on ‘60 Minutes’ [ CNN Politics]
President Donald Trump littered his new “60 Minutes” interview with a wide-ranging assortment of false claims, the vast majority of them previously debunked.
…what’cha gonna do, huh?
If you don’t stop these people now, it will get much, much worse.
Ask me how I know?
“is it because you’re a Holocaust historian?”
– Yes
“Or is it because you’re American?”
– Also yes.
Matthew Goodwin, who is still welcomed by the BBC and other mainstream media outlets, now explicitly promotes a white supremacism identical to Enoch Powell's ("the West Indian or Indian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman … in fact he is a West Indian or an Asian still")
…he’s the tick on the big shaggy dog getting wagged by the tail it keeps chasing without catching even though it’s had it stuck in the same crack long enough the chickens are all roosted & the cows came home already
…that was a smidge over three weeks ago…& I was counting on getting their memo
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has died at age 84. And, today, voters in New York, Virginia and New Jersey choose new leaders in key races. n.pr/3XgOEdT
In case you’re not on Bluesky, ’cause that embed didn’t work:
It’s not in this article but the government asserts that the sandwich was thrown at “point blank range”, which implies subway sandwiches have defined effective weapon ranges of varying lethality, and I would like to see the government’s chart of these ranges.
That one made me chortle yesterday. I was trying to figure out if any sandwiches qualify as melee weapons and then realized that obviously meatball subs have the most range.
…have you considered the aerodynamic qualities of a fully laden cornish pasty…in…say…the way you might if a weird-looking guy asked you about it at one end of a sketchy rope bridge over a bottomless chasm…if he thought the one about the swallows was a busted flush these days?
…I mean…if you can *throw* a…*foot*-ball…so clearly nothing is sacred to you heathen lost souls…& put a decent spiral on it…& you pick your filling(s) right…I’m thinking maybe that could go the distance…& if you had some pratchett-type dwarves on hand…actual shrapnel on contact is a distinct possibility…so…I mean…let’s have those charts out the one guy mentioned & we might have a game on our hands here?
Please do not take this as an invitation to have one-of-those Internet arguments but … is a pasty a sandwich? I wasn’t considering the ancestral line of Hot Pockets in the sandwich phylum.
If so, though, yeah, I mean, you can do some fine aerial work in the pie/sandwich space.
…cf. “we clearly live in a benighted fallen eden of lost souls bereft of shame or decency”
…fuck it…sure…pasties are sandwiches now…my mostly-beard-looking friend of indeterminate gender & deep knowledge of the underworld kingdoms & the terrors that lie below unseen to any but the deepest delvers…has thoughts
…ever seen those youtube videos with the soda & the mentos…or seen rock cakes that can break rocks?
…never mind what the pastry tube is…look…let me step to the side so you can see better…now…is that…stephen miller huddling in the back there behind y’all?
…umm…abba stronginthearm, was it? …say…would you happen to know cheery littlebottom? …not in a “don’t you all know each other way” it’s just it seems like she’d enjoy this part…anyway…in your own time…if you’re happy with your azimuths & whatnot
…also…in the internet version of this we’re not doing
…is a pizza a pie?
…is a calzone a pizza?
…if calzone is pizza then pizza is pie & calzone -> pastie is basically a scaling problem more than class distinction…so…pie is also a sandwich
…even if it’s a disc
…*oddjob enters the chat poorly disguised as sal from do the right thing*
…does this town have a college with an ultimate frisbee league?
…speaking of which…I’m…certainly by hours-spent…way deeper sunk into the watching-other-people-play-the-game clock-debt than I am into playing any sorts of games from all the ones there are now to all the ones there were before there was an internet much less one on which you could watch people you weren’t with play games you didn’t have & wouldn’t be that good at it if you did because who has that kind of time or budget…or whatever…but…two I always found to be interesting to the people I know who do the most of the table-top sort & read a bunch of the same sorts of books & comics & whatever as I seem to…were thud
…& I won’t inflict my opinion on anyone about whether or not they were driven to it in pursuit of ways to fill their time while we all wait for rothfuss to be satisfied with whatever the next volume is of his originally-going-to-be-a-day-apiece trilogy of unreliably narrated escapades
…whether or not he appears to be sensible of the wide open space he’s left himself to have that be lying about the three days or the each day fits in a book demand
…&…aside from just starting with a T…or getting into whether one of them sounds like thank you to some people…those seem to have some similarities in ways some people would refer to as “kinda cute that way”
…just…trying to claw back a little on serially sounding like the voice of doom in the name of the forlorn optimist or whatever I think my pitiful excuses might add up to in today’s market for a hill of beans worth dying over
…if that’s not your thing…it’s arguably even easier to ignore so hopefully no harm, no foul still applies?
One of the biggest things that makes me despair for humanity is the Silicon Valley bros. They’re at the top of a system built to make them impossibly rich and powerful, to give them lives free of care and consequence. They don’t have to be evil to get any of it, but all they ever do is ask how many more people can suffer so they can have more.
…so there’s a variant on the prisoner’s dilemma…people have put it better than this will…but kind of like the good place & the trolley problem…when the choice is a) you both say nothing & you both serve a reduced sentence because they can’t prove it was either of you b) one of you says something & the other doesn’t & the something is “the other guy did it” so they get off & you go down or vice versa or c) you both say the thing & you both go down for the max on the other guy’s testimony…that…I dunno…is too close to the knuckle for comfort or something…so they reframe it sometimes…less penal context for your choices & different stakes…say all it takes is both of you to agree you’ll share the prize for both of you to get the prize in equal measure…or one of you could say that but be lying…& if the other one believes them they lose their share & it goes to the liar…because that’s what happens to suckers who take a bet named after them…but if they both lie neither gets anything
…I’m told by people who definitely know more about math than me that in a mathematical sense those are the same problem if you’re solving to optimise for the choice that gives you personally the best chance of the best outcome you can hope for while making surest that if you don’t get it neither does anyone else…& math says…by those rules…the “correct” answer…is lie every time
…”we”…”know this”…the way the pony-people in game of thrones meant “it is known”…but there’s money in it…& everybody got to pay some piper or other…whole damn pipelines of the fuckers, even
…that’s…how it all works & the wheels stay on…at least while the ride is still broadly internal-combustion powered
…china…your posterboy for lots of things nobody wants the US to try to be…& probably more guilty of IP theft & corporate piracy & industrial sabotage than the US even after you throw that crop of entitled asshats into that mix…where you can do business “inward investment” style until a little after they have the method down for the blue ice & then the state finds a reason you gotta sell that stake of yours inside the jurisdiction…that place?
…that place is putting on renewable energy capacity at such a rate that not only does their contribution mean that even playing war games & data centre games like those are the same games “the markets” always play getting played the same old, same old way…that’s where more power is generated by source than coal…by the *global* numbers…so…*they* have the kind of EV industry & market that tesla’s valuation continues to supposedly reflect the inherent advantage of the prime mover that is elon musk in that as so many other spaces…by being iconoclastic enough to work outside the envelope…& by envelope I mean both the letter & the spirit of the law…any fucking law…from natural on up to whatever bullshit clarence & aileen think they haven’t got done wiping orange ass with
…while uncle sam is hitting the vodka slammers with cousin vlad while they compare the can-can fillies to the cossacks because what’s life without a few secrets between the important people…eh, buddy-ol’pal…fuck that previous generation I think you’re great…now tell me more about how the people who said I should be in prison would already be in prison if it worked like how again? …that’s my favorite part…after the money…obviously…that part’s hardly a secret…whole damn point is to brag about how much more I have of it than can possibly be considered legal by even the most credulous mind…god I love me
…I dunno…I guess I have to imagine that’s a fair approximation of what goes on in that obviously-in-fact-bald-for-AGES head based on the incontinent mess that dribbles out of it?
It’s like the trolley problem except they win no matter which track they choose and there’s a third track in which they don’t have to kill anybody but they win slightly less and they’re still like damn guess I gotta send it into that crowd, should we design an app to make it go faster or optimize the number of people we can pack onto the track?
…& fuck that berners lee with that narrow gauge proof of concept that we could be doing all this on a for real non-lethal mag-lev monorail powered by the wind & the weather come rain or shine or hill or high water or river deep or valley high & no mohammed would lack for a mountain come to him & be in such a good mood you could draw him in a cartoon & nobody would even get mad about it
…have you *seen* the RoI these people are squeezing out of these vehicles with these instruments & the all-in bet being made in capital…which is shouting in internet-speak…when it speaks with the loudest voice in the room about the only game in town which you have to play at their house which is your house because you can’t unless you agree to the contract you don’t read about the parts of the thing that you aren’t interested in?
…lotta people seem to hear that part clearer than the other thing
…guess the circles they move in don’t take them past the rooftops on corners that have all these people I’ve been hearing screaming about all that…since…oh, I dunno…when was it we called people who might look up at someone on a high ledge & chant “jump”…what was it…not ICE protesters from portland…the for the lulz thing with a side of rubbernecking…that was…gawkers…wasn’t it?
Used to be a career killer
…ikr?
…but
…if you’re rich
…I hear they let you do it
…hell you can make it so the courts tell you you *have* to do it
…so…”realistically”
…what’cha gonna do, huh?
Trump is the Wail of Wall St.
…he’s the tick on the big shaggy dog getting wagged by the tail it keeps chasing without catching even though it’s had it stuck in the same crack long enough the chickens are all roosted & the cows came home already
Dear Abby,
You’re a fucking idiot.
…wait…I know the one about the watched pot
…but that account appears to have taken its eye off the ball on account of getting distracted
…that was a smidge over three weeks ago…& I was counting on getting their memo
…shit…I told you my track record for spoilers wasn’t the greatest…my bad
Can we wish for the rule of 3’s without being bad people? Asking for a friend.
*snork*
https://bsky.app/profile/johnrogers.bsky.social/post/3m4qwtwrgt226
In case you’re not on Bluesky, ’cause that embed didn’t work:
That one made me chortle yesterday. I was trying to figure out if any sandwiches qualify as melee weapons and then realized that obviously meatball subs have the most range.
…have you considered the aerodynamic qualities of a fully laden cornish pasty…in…say…the way you might if a weird-looking guy asked you about it at one end of a sketchy rope bridge over a bottomless chasm…if he thought the one about the swallows was a busted flush these days?
…I mean…if you can *throw* a…*foot*-ball…so clearly nothing is sacred to you heathen lost souls…& put a decent spiral on it…& you pick your filling(s) right…I’m thinking maybe that could go the distance…& if you had some pratchett-type dwarves on hand…actual shrapnel on contact is a distinct possibility…so…I mean…let’s have those charts out the one guy mentioned & we might have a game on our hands here?
Please do not take this as an invitation to have one-of-those Internet arguments but … is a pasty a sandwich? I wasn’t considering the ancestral line of Hot Pockets in the sandwich phylum.
If so, though, yeah, I mean, you can do some fine aerial work in the pie/sandwich space.
…cf. “we clearly live in a benighted fallen eden of lost souls bereft of shame or decency”
…fuck it…sure…pasties are sandwiches now…my mostly-beard-looking friend of indeterminate gender & deep knowledge of the underworld kingdoms & the terrors that lie below unseen to any but the deepest delvers…has thoughts
…ever seen those youtube videos with the soda & the mentos…or seen rock cakes that can break rocks?
…never mind what the pastry tube is…look…let me step to the side so you can see better…now…is that…stephen miller huddling in the back there behind y’all?
…umm…abba stronginthearm, was it? …say…would you happen to know cheery littlebottom? …not in a “don’t you all know each other way” it’s just it seems like she’d enjoy this part…anyway…in your own time…if you’re happy with your azimuths & whatnot
in that case can I interest you in my chicken-pot-pie-apult?
…now…would that be kentucky pine you’re going with for the arm *&* the pivot?
…no…you do you…& I’m not out here trying to get any redwoods felled or nothing…but…lotta trees out there…also…trebuchets are…like…a thing?
…have you considered…a burrito ballista?
…also…in the internet version of this we’re not doing
…is a pizza a pie?
…is a calzone a pizza?
…if calzone is pizza then pizza is pie & calzone -> pastie is basically a scaling problem more than class distinction…so…pie is also a sandwich
…even if it’s a disc
…*oddjob enters the chat poorly disguised as sal from do the right thing*
…does this town have a college with an ultimate frisbee league?
…speaking of which…I’m…certainly by hours-spent…way deeper sunk into the watching-other-people-play-the-game clock-debt than I am into playing any sorts of games from all the ones there are now to all the ones there were before there was an internet much less one on which you could watch people you weren’t with play games you didn’t have & wouldn’t be that good at it if you did because who has that kind of time or budget…or whatever…but…two I always found to be interesting to the people I know who do the most of the table-top sort & read a bunch of the same sorts of books & comics & whatever as I seem to…were thud
https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/thud/
https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Thud_(game)
https://www.instructables.com/TravelThud/
THUD The discworld boardgame [Steam “workshop” for a tabletop simulator version]
…if you can’t be bothered with any of that the lspace entry for it starts with a link to the one about the book…which takes the !
https://wiki.lspace.org/Thud
…& I won’t inflict my opinion on anyone about whether or not they were driven to it in pursuit of ways to fill their time while we all wait for rothfuss to be satisfied with whatever the next volume is of his originally-going-to-be-a-day-apiece trilogy of unreliably narrated escapades
…whether or not he appears to be sensible of the wide open space he’s left himself to have that be lying about the three days or the each day fits in a book demand
…there are…others…in various…flavors, I guess
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/259162/call-to-adventure-the-name-of-the-wind
…but some people actually knocked up an inferred rule-set for the game characters in the books play?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/197405/tak
…&…aside from just starting with a T…or getting into whether one of them sounds like thank you to some people…those seem to have some similarities in ways some people would refer to as “kinda cute that way”
…just…trying to claw back a little on serially sounding like the voice of doom in the name of the forlorn optimist or whatever I think my pitiful excuses might add up to in today’s market for a hill of beans worth dying over
…if that’s not your thing…it’s arguably even easier to ignore so hopefully no harm, no foul still applies?
Some days I wish I believed in hell.
Dick Cheney, vice president who shaped war on terrorism, dies
*and there was much rejoicing gif*
I”m not even going to pretend how to use the more advanced functions of our new comment editor.
No deferments for death.
Saw it first thing this morning and said out lout “Ooh, good omen for election day!”
One of the biggest things that makes me despair for humanity is the Silicon Valley bros. They’re at the top of a system built to make them impossibly rich and powerful, to give them lives free of care and consequence. They don’t have to be evil to get any of it, but all they ever do is ask how many more people can suffer so they can have more.
…so there’s a variant on the prisoner’s dilemma…people have put it better than this will…but kind of like the good place & the trolley problem…when the choice is a) you both say nothing & you both serve a reduced sentence because they can’t prove it was either of you b) one of you says something & the other doesn’t & the something is “the other guy did it” so they get off & you go down or vice versa or c) you both say the thing & you both go down for the max on the other guy’s testimony…that…I dunno…is too close to the knuckle for comfort or something…so they reframe it sometimes…less penal context for your choices & different stakes…say all it takes is both of you to agree you’ll share the prize for both of you to get the prize in equal measure…or one of you could say that but be lying…& if the other one believes them they lose their share & it goes to the liar…because that’s what happens to suckers who take a bet named after them…but if they both lie neither gets anything
…I’m told by people who definitely know more about math than me that in a mathematical sense those are the same problem if you’re solving to optimise for the choice that gives you personally the best chance of the best outcome you can hope for while making surest that if you don’t get it neither does anyone else…& math says…by those rules…the “correct” answer…is lie every time
…”we”…”know this”…the way the pony-people in game of thrones meant “it is known”…but there’s money in it…& everybody got to pay some piper or other…whole damn pipelines of the fuckers, even
…that’s…how it all works & the wheels stay on…at least while the ride is still broadly internal-combustion powered
…china…your posterboy for lots of things nobody wants the US to try to be…& probably more guilty of IP theft & corporate piracy & industrial sabotage than the US even after you throw that crop of entitled asshats into that mix…where you can do business “inward investment” style until a little after they have the method down for the blue ice & then the state finds a reason you gotta sell that stake of yours inside the jurisdiction…that place?
…that place is putting on renewable energy capacity at such a rate that not only does their contribution mean that even playing war games & data centre games like those are the same games “the markets” always play getting played the same old, same old way…that’s where more power is generated by source than coal…by the *global* numbers…so…*they* have the kind of EV industry & market that tesla’s valuation continues to supposedly reflect the inherent advantage of the prime mover that is elon musk in that as so many other spaces…by being iconoclastic enough to work outside the envelope…& by envelope I mean both the letter & the spirit of the law…any fucking law…from natural on up to whatever bullshit clarence & aileen think they haven’t got done wiping orange ass with
…while uncle sam is hitting the vodka slammers with cousin vlad while they compare the can-can fillies to the cossacks because what’s life without a few secrets between the important people…eh, buddy-ol’pal…fuck that previous generation I think you’re great…now tell me more about how the people who said I should be in prison would already be in prison if it worked like how again? …that’s my favorite part…after the money…obviously…that part’s hardly a secret…whole damn point is to brag about how much more I have of it than can possibly be considered legal by even the most credulous mind…god I love me
…I dunno…I guess I have to imagine that’s a fair approximation of what goes on in that obviously-in-fact-bald-for-AGES head based on the incontinent mess that dribbles out of it?
It’s like the trolley problem except they win no matter which track they choose and there’s a third track in which they don’t have to kill anybody but they win slightly less and they’re still like damn guess I gotta send it into that crowd, should we design an app to make it go faster or optimize the number of people we can pack onto the track?
…& fuck that berners lee with that narrow gauge proof of concept that we could be doing all this on a for real non-lethal mag-lev monorail powered by the wind & the weather come rain or shine or hill or high water or river deep or valley high & no mohammed would lack for a mountain come to him & be in such a good mood you could draw him in a cartoon & nobody would even get mad about it
…have you *seen* the RoI these people are squeezing out of these vehicles with these instruments & the all-in bet being made in capital…which is shouting in internet-speak…when it speaks with the loudest voice in the room about the only game in town which you have to play at their house which is your house because you can’t unless you agree to the contract you don’t read about the parts of the thing that you aren’t interested in?
…lotta people seem to hear that part clearer than the other thing
…guess the circles they move in don’t take them past the rooftops on corners that have all these people I’ve been hearing screaming about all that…since…oh, I dunno…when was it we called people who might look up at someone on a high ledge & chant “jump”…what was it…not ICE protesters from portland…the for the lulz thing with a side of rubbernecking…that was…gawkers…wasn’t it?
A great obituary for good ole Dick…
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/11/cheney
No shit?
https://dailyboulder.com/doj-official-says-trump-would-be-arrested-tomorrow-if-not-president/
More smart investments…
https://popular.info/p/update-medicare-freeze-beneficiary
Lets hope CA passes Prop 50
https://www.wonkette.com/p/a-post-about-redistricting-with-a
WTF? We are ruled by 12 year olds.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-white-house-2674263551/
It’s a lot.
…swear down…uh…whatever works…daddio sounds a bit disco…but…like maybe it could maybe hang with the soul train more than stu the cartoon disco guy?