Month: August 2024
Combat
It’s going to be interesting watching the MAGA clowns argue in November or January why their very obvious coup is not a coup. We don’t need barely-literate doofs attempting to hijack high office while we’ve got at least one and maybe two major wars ahead of us.
And so many other problems that won’t be solved by putting a nearly 80-year-old doddering paranoid case in charge of them. And yes, the senility issue is true of Trump or Biden.
Rosemary Joaquin – It Was Me
Wow, this is really well-done. Usually small artist videos don’t seem to understand what filmmaking is all about; Rosemary and her DoP get it. Great photography, tight choreography, humor and just general fun all over. Great vid on a low budget1.
Joyce Jonathan – Les p’tites jolies choses
After a bad day yesterday of weird screw-ups, random pain, and aggressive, rude clients, I needed something anodyne and calm. So this hit the spot.
Kamala Harris doesn’t owe the national press anything. Exactly right.
Kamala Harris is taking power back from the press corps. She learned from Biden’s fatal error.
Russian Troop Shortage Is Exposed After Ukraine’s Incursion, Raising Risk of New Draft.
Are We Living in the Age of Info-Determinism? Increasingly, our networks seem to be steering our history in ways we don’t like and can’t control. I thought the future would be cooler.
Is COVID endemic yet? Yep, says the CDC. Here’s what that means. In reality has been endemic for a while.
Scientists hail ‘smart’ insulin that responds to changing blood sugar levels in real time.
NASA shuts down asteroid-hunting telescope, but a better one is on the way.
Cisco slashes thousands of workers as it announces yearly profit of $10.3 billion.
Shelter inflation is ‘the most disappointing aspect’ of July CPI report.
Port
The harsh reality is that 99% of Americans don’t give a crap what’s happening in Gaza or Israel and it won’t have any effect on the election one way or another. Being a large geographically-isolated country makes the US very inward-facing.
Hardly anyone cares that Kamala supports Israel or doesn’t support Israel. I certainly don’t and I know more than most voters.
Rood
I am 100% certain many of the switches, routers, etc., made in China are backdoored and compromised by the Chinese. And we’re gonna find that out the hard way when Taiwan is attacked.
Pox on Both
So we’re not supposed to call it monkeypox anymore because it’s offensive to monkeys?
I don’t think the monkeys care.
Real Boy
I finally convinced the California tax Nazis that I’m an actual person. Then they tried charging me for taxes I already paid after they deigned to believe I am in fact real.
After I sent evidence I already paid, they screwed around for a few weeks, required a ton more documents, then admitted that I’d already paid all my taxes. To me it felt like a strategy to extort more tax money out of anyone who wouldn’t fight it.
Well, I fought and would’ve gotten an attorney if needed. I pay all my taxes in full and on time but no way in hell I am giving a government free money. Especially the California state government.
Dronedash
Ukrainian FPV drone takes down a Russian Mavic drone about to perform a drone drop.
WTF is that drone carrying? That’s not an explosive. Food? If so things are getting dire on the Russian side if they are ferrying rations with drones.
Trusted
Harris to Call For ‘Price Gouging’ Ban on Food and Groceries.
This is just a poorly-worded attempt at anti-trust action, which is great. We need a lot more of that. These are not “price controls” in any traditional (or harmful) sense.
Harris, in her speech, will specifically single out the highly consolidated meat industry, deeming its processing middlemen “particularly egregious” price fixers with a history of being found to have illegally controlled prices.
She also plans to direct her administration to carefully scrutinize proposed mergers between large food companies with an emphasis on considering whether they will result in higher grocery prices for consumers
That’s exactly what the FTC and DOJ should be doing a whole lot more of. We need to get American trust enforcement back on track as illegal consolidation and related price fixing is causing unnecessarily high inflation. I support what she’s doing 100%, but not the speechwriter who put those words in her mouth. This statement also makes it more likely she’ll keep Lina Khan in place at the FTC, who is the best chair that org has had since the 1950s.
Some Big News
The Swiftboating of Walz is Sick, Inacurate, and Will Fail.
Agreed. So the big scandalous news is that Walz retired after serving 24 years in the Guard? The Republicans have to do better if they want to have any hope (besides another coup).
His unit was fully staffed and had adequate leadership without him. In fact, had the unit not had appropriate staffing, they could have denied his retirement and ordered a “stop loss,” which happened to thousands of military members in jobs that needed people. Stop loss was used regularly and would have been enacted if the situation deemed it.
Exactly. I was at risk for stop loss when I got out because my unit was going to be sent to Kosovo. Like Walz, I’d already declined to re-enlist before I knew this deployment was likely to occur. Luckily, I did not get stop-lossed but it was a real possibility.
The article I linked to is slightly inaccurate, though. There is no “Chief Master Sgt.” in the Army National Guard (or regular Army). That’s an Air Force rank. It’s Command Sergeant Major. Walz held that rank for a few years, but never completed the coursework to keep it upon retirement. Happens all the time, especially in the Guard. It’s probably more appropirate to say he is a “retired Master Sergeant” or whatever it says on his DD-214 but really it’s irrelevant. Walz served as a CSM and then retired. End of story.
Nothing really to see here.
Non Bon
Mentally ill mother thinks she’s dating Jon Bon Jovi.
WHAT? So we’re both dating Jon Bon Jovi? That no-good low-down two-timin’ New Jersey scoundrel. After I send him the remainder of my life savings, I’ll break up with the lout.
Kampaign
Kamala is a much better candidate than I thought she’d be, and actually has energy for campaigning and fundraising. This’ll be a good natural experiment to see how much that matters1, especially if the economy continues to hum along about the same as it is now.
I am glad that I was wrong about her capabilities and prospects.
