Hope everyone had a great weekend. I got to see my friends play twice this weekend, and I got started on a bunch of projects around the house and garden. Notice I said ‘started’…now everything is in disarray, but progress is being made.
Geez, hate to start off with this one,,,
Suspect in Vancouver ramming attack charged with eight counts of murder
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/28/vancouver-festival-car-attack-suspect-kai-ji-adam-lo-charged-murder-ntwnfb
That’s rich
Trump claims mantle of FDR’s first 100 days, but differences are stark
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/28/trump-fdr-100-days
That’s a one way trip to CECOT
Two suspects arrested for theft of Kristi Noem’s purse, Secret Service says
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/kristi-noem-purse-suspects-arrested
Yemen’s Houthi rebels say 68 dead in US airstrike on prison
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/28/yemen-houthi-rebels-say-scores-killed-in-us-airstrike-on-prison
Stonks!
Stock futures tick lower as investors brace for a busy earnings week: Live updates
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/27/stock-futures-slip-ahead-of-busy-earnings-week-live-updates.html
Hope you have a great day!
…not that I have time to watch the whole thing…but…I would have expected more noise about this?
…&…I haven’t had enough coffee to get my head around why he’d be using the word veto about the bill that seems to be project 2025’s most legislatively substantial incarnation…but the nice lady must get up earlier or just needs less caffeination than I do?
P.S
…we’re rooting for you, canada…least worst options, please & thank you
It’s how I view the Liberal Party, the least worst option.
My son made it home from Ireland last night, he had an amazing time, unfortunately, he was not able to make it to the spot to collect the treasure, so I am sorry for that.
We truly appreciate the effort!!
Does he speak with the accent now?
oh no worries! we had fun doing it. I hope he had a grand time!
This is really funny: Axios reporter Alex Thompson calls out the media for “missing” on the Joe Biden story at the White House Correspondent Dinner (the dumbest media event that you should be fired for going to in the first place): https://www.mediaite.com/news/axios-reporter-calls-out-dc-press-corps-at-correspondents-dinner-for-blowing-coverage-of-bidens-decline-we-missed-a-lot-of-this-story/
It’s amusing because a) of course he has a book coming out about it b) it was missed in the sense of how, exactly, for two straight months it’s all the media talked about and c) if you are deeply concerned that the media overlooked a sunsetting president who wasn’t up to the job, then you have an **incredible** opportunity to re-do that coverage literally right now and oddly enough I haven’t really seen much of “Hey why is the president asleep at the Pope’s funeral?” or “Is it bad the president can’t climb stairs without assistance?”
…I kinda want a “supercut” montage of all the times he’s been asked about presidential business & responded with a variation on “not my department I wouldn’t know – ask the people running that” with a few of the “I am just now hearing this & it’s not at all what I was told by the people I think keep me informed”
…at this point it would probably have a runtime in excess of the median attention span…but what doesn’t since they killed off vine?
Who cares about his fucking book?
Like Bob Woodward who keeps everything close to his chest just so he can sell a book rather you know, actually reporting on it live.
Vancouver drive massacre suspect Kai-Ji Adam Lo apparently has some serious mental issues.
Doesn’t seem racially motivated, but doesn’t matter much at this point.
…so…apparently something knocked out power in a way that impacts spain, portugal & france?
…read something saying the spanish national railway lot referred to “the entire national grid” being offline…one substation that closed heathrow for a day or so seemed like a pretty big deal not so long ago…so I assume there will be links galore coming along to explain WTAF…but for now I can’t find much detail?
…best I could find for now…but in terms of cause they don’t seem to have said much beyond not yet ruling out a cyber attack?
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-28/massive-power-outages-cause-blackouts-in-spain-and-portugal.html
finding it a little bit sus they are keeping mum about what happened
usually with power systems its fairly straightforward to find out what went wrong where…if not nessecarily why and how
but i figure a black out that big is unlikely to have been caused by anything physically breaking…sooo..gotta be software right? i reckons that makes the options cyber attack or whoops bad system update
Please, Canada:
With the caveats that Ben Smith kinda sucks and Semafor sucks worse, I feel like if I had more time I could write a few thousand words about this truly fascinating piece: https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
Admittedly it’s my longtime drumbeat — the internet has radicalized the powerful way more than it has the common person because the latter can now easily criticize the former — but it’s also like kinda weird how all these rich person group chats go fash because I’m in a bunch and none of them ever go fucking Nazi. Odd, that.
Rough week:
Student rescued from Mount Fuji twice in one week
Really interesting piece from The Guardian:
In Poland, we know all about fighting illiberal regimes. Here are our lessons for the Trump age
Weight Watchers is not about Debt Watchers.
They might be going into bankruptcy soon.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/consumer/article-14644697/amp/weightwatchers-file-bankruptcy-chapter-11-weeks-debt.html
you know…a second coming of terry probably would improve the world…at least a bit
oh holy shit….you can buy now pay later for groceries over there?
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/26/americans-groceries-buy-now-pay-later-loans.html
fuck me…..not gonna be good times when that whole system bites everone in the ass
…when I was a kid people, mostly, still used credit cards for “big” purchases…& given I remember cash machines being new basically cash & cheques for most others…guineas if you were buying horses because rich people have a thing about tradition or whatever…but the basic discipline was don’t pay interest to cover a cost you can meet…it’s still arguably true but if you can pay the thing off every month the difference between a credit card & a debit card is negligible…particularly if you’re paying interest either way because you live in your overdraft
…& because of-course-this-is-how capitalism works…either of those rates is comparatively forgiving compared to the sort of short term loan arrangements offered by the legal loan sharking business…but the model is identical to the ones that talk about “the vig” in the movies…they just take all your stuff using baliffs & maybe turf you out of your home by doing a deal with the bank that owns that to cover your note…instead of breaking your legs
…used to be much more a US thing to hire-purchase your car though it seems to have been a bit of a booming sector in the UK for a while…but mentality is slow to change…so, although the details are a maybe not a 1:1 match in terms of rates & regulations I think the thing the UK took to calling those loans might not land the same way in the states on account of loan payments being arguably a normal monthly outgoing…but the nearest they got to “just don’t call it usury” was to flag them as “payday loans” as a reminder that they cost more than you borrow & it comes out of your next paycheck…& they had endless press to make sure everyone knows they’re all the problems of overextended credit card debt on steroids & spiralling into personal bankruptcy is nearly as easy even if you don’t have US healthcare
…all of which sort of euphemistically ignores the specific point that renders the indicator salient…namely that nobody goes to the lender of last resort unless all they have is their last resort…I dunno…maybe we abused the word ultimate so badly that it sometimes gets used to mean something else but last is about as final & considerably plainer
…sagan was right…we choose to have poor people
…not most of us, obviously…the money’s there…& most needs could be met for…plausibly…all of us…even at the arguably unsustainably huge numbers there are of us…which is pretty staggering when you think about it…but capital works like tolkien’s dragons…the horde is all…& it’s not really a proper horde if there aren’t some starving peasants somewhere to provide contrast & verisimilitude…& the occasional snack
…so…we note an uptick in a thing increasing numbers of people have been doing in first world societies at least as long as I’ve been alive when the gradient on the chart gets steep enough…& the rest of the time we give ourselves a pass because they aren’t borrowing from the leg-breaking brand of lender & that’s progress
…sorry
…honestly when I clicked reply I was just going to mention the “payday loan” nomenclature as a matter of passing interest…but it turns out I’m way madder about the whole thing than it seems useful to be…which still isn’t half as angry about it as it seems like pretty much everyone ought to be
…but I guess chalk up another for that josh johnson point about why there won’t be civil war…that level of anger is…impractical…it’s too exhausting to be sustainable…feels like that might explain more than it’s cheerful to contemplate, really?