Daily Tech News 17 May 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Facebook is arguing in court that the FTC has no case that Facebook has become terrible because Facebook was always terrible. (Ars Technica)
They might have a point there.
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The Thrill Of Victory And The Agony Of ONT
—WeirdDave
Hello everyone! Boy, did I have a busy day today. Which was good, but I need a beer or three.
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Shy Blondes Meet-Cute Cafe
—Ace
Mads Peter Iversen Photography
Golden retriever puppy growing up.
German-engineered technique (of course) allows roads to clear tons of rain water, letting the water drip down to under-road pipes.
Dog was fascinated by seeing a dog on a trampoline on TV, so its owners bought it one.
I know a lot of these "bush-build" videos are fake in the sense that they have a pickup truck with a generator and lots of power tools just off-screen, but this is neat.
Seal has massive crush on a diver.
The bestest fetch-dog in the world.
ICYMI: Camel just wants to make friends with horses, who are skeptical because he's so weird-looking.
Big snake. So it's an AI "Cheapfake," as Cheapfake Tapper would call it. But it's a visualization of a legend about a giant snake, that legend also being pure bullshit. But this post nevertheless illustrates an important point about... something.
The Pete "Maverick" Mitchell of drone operators.
Sea otter (?) pops up in a vent in the ice.
Dogs that talk the talk but can't walk the walk.
Huskies start their Drama Classes early.
Spare a thruppence for film with added color and ambient sound of Victorian London in 1901, guv'nor?
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The Week in Woke
—Ace
from @GuntherEagleman on X
Ro Khanna @RoKhannaIt is absurd that Palo Alto School district just voted to remove honors biology for all students & already removed honors English. They call it de-laning. I call it an assault on excellence. I took many honors classes at Council Rock High in PA.
Mark Hemingway
@HeminatorMay 13
It's pretty amazing how omnipresent critical race theory was for a while -- hucksters such as Ibram X. Kendi, Robin D'Angelo, and Nikole Hannah-Jones et al. were everywhere -- and how absent they are now.A pretty big cultural victory.
Eh, maybe. I still see the hateful DEI charity-hire Jemelle Hill on TV, pushing anti-white racism.
technology sista (aspiring) @typeclonghouse"DEI until they come for my son's AP classes" Democrat
A Democrat running for office in a very MAGA Virginia district needs you to know what she gets up to at night.
Specifically: She's a swinger, baby!
Rorrer, a Democratic candidate for Virginia's House of Delegates in the 47th district, revealed Saturday on social media that she is married and ethically nonmonogamous, meaning she and her husband consensually date other couples together."In politics, people love to dig up the unexpected and spin it into a spectacle," the 47-year-old wrote on social media. "I don't do shame, and I sure won't give anyone else the opportunity to tell my story."
Rorrer told HuffPost on Tuesday that while no one was threatening to out her, she believes word of her lifestyle would have gotten out of her inner circle in Stuart, Virginia, her hometown with a population of just over 1,000.
A professor was arrested by Yale police for a "racist" statement she never made.
I never thought I'd end up in handcuffs and a jail cell for something I didn't say.But last May, police in New Haven, Conn., arrested me -- because a parking attendant falsely claimed I had used a racial slur against him nearly a year earlier.
I denied it. I asked the cops to check the parking lot's surveillance video.
They didn't -- and the state charged me first with disorderly conduct, then with three counts of breach of peace in the second degree.
It took almost a year, tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and endless stress before the nightmare ended on March 27, when the prosecutor finally dropped all charges.
Why? "Insufficient evidence," "inconsistencies," "credibility issues," video that "clearly contradicted" the accuser's claims -- and a possibility that I wasn't even the right person.
The judge dismissed the case.
If this can happen to me -- a First Amendment advocate with resources, legal counsel and a public reputation to defend -- it can happen to anyone.
In 2011, while still a student at Yale University, I founded the Buckley Institute, named for conservative hero William F. Buckley, Jr.
Our mission is to promote intellectual diversity and freedom of speech at Yale.
For the past decade, we've hosted an annual Disinvitation Dinner featuring speakers who have been disinvited from and disrupted on college campuses.
And now here I was, facing not merely an attempt at cancellation, but actual criminal charges that could mean prison if I was convicted.
It did not exactly feel like a coincidence.
The interest in my case seemed to have more to do with what the Buckley Institute represents than anything I ever did, or was accused of doing.
...
They made the malicious assumption that those who defend free speech do so to say offensive things.
The case was a farce from the start: There were no threats, no violence -- just a made-up accusation, rubber-stamped by a system that didn't bother to check basic facts before putting someone's life through a meat grinder.
When the state finally obtained the video footage I had asked the police to view before arresting me -- footage that had been accessible all along -- it showed me, on multiple dates, calmly parking, getting out of my car and walking away.
No confrontation, not even any interaction, with the accuser.
No slurs.
No drama.
Yet for nearly a year, I lived under a cloud of suspicion.
My experience should terrify anyone who values free speech and due process.
...
This wasn't about justice.
It was about ideology run amok.
When the woke campus mindset infects the criminal-justice system, fairness takes a back seat to political influence and pressure.
The parking attendant's attorney suggested as much when he objected to the prosecutor's decision to drop the case by bemoaning "the caste system in this country" in court.
The real systemic problem?
It's not bias.
It's cowardice.
It's a criminal-justice system that rushes to judgment, punishes the innocent and works on a sluggish timeline to correct its own mistakes, regardless of the cost to the accused.
If this is what free speech in America now looks like, we're all in more trouble than we realize.
It doesn't matter if you commit the offenses the left imagines you committed, because if they even imagined you did it, you crossed the line. The very fact that they can imagine you doing something means that there's some vibe you're giving off that much be punished and purged until you denounce your vibes.
A district judge in California of all places has ruled that schools must provide parents an opt-out for gender indoctrination.
Fox 5 San Diego reported:
Carlos and Jenny Encinas have two boys who attended La Costa Heights Elementary school in the Encinitas Union School District in the Southern District of California. In May 2024, their fifth-grader's teacher read his class the book, My Shadow is Pink, which urges children to question their own gender identity. Following the reading, their son was forced to watch a read-aloud video of the book with his kindergartener "buddy" as part of the school's mentoring program. He was then required to participate in an activity where he drew the kindergartener's shadow, using the color that "represents" him.Featuring a boy who sees his shadow as pink instead of blue, My Shadow is Pink promotes the idea that children can change their own gender, encouraging kids to find the color of their shadow described as "your inner-most you." The story displays the boy learning to cope with being true to his inner self, starting when he decides to wear a dress on his first day of school. His dad, originally full of "anxiety and stress" about the issue, changes his mind and puts on a dress too. He encourages his son to wear a dress to school, and if anyone doesn't like it, then "they are the fool."
The Encinas' fifth-grade son, a strong Christian, was very uncomfortable with being used as a mouthpiece for views contrary to his beliefs. Carlos approached the school with two requests: notification when sensitive topics would be read in school and an allowance for his children to opt-out of participation. Unfortunately, both requests were denied.
The judge issued an injunction ordering the school to provide parental notification and opt-outs for concerned children. But this is only a temporary injunction; no idea if the shithole state of California will respect it.
See the article for the whole story.
Our genius media:
What a weird thing to say. The Washington Post knows that its audience is entirely atheist/non-Christian, so they felt they had to explain what "hallelujah" might mean.
And their explanation isn't really accurate. Yes, "hallelujah" is Latin but in the same way that "taco" is English. The word exists in the language, yes, but it's just imported from another language with hardly a change.
James Carville offers a list of seven words that must be banned in the Democrat Party.
He started off the list with the phrases "communities of color" and "people of color." He said that in Democrats' zeal to prove how not racist they are, these phrases actually are a bit racist because they imply that all minorities are identical and not unique. But if Democrats stop using these phrases, will they then have to concede that not all minorities think alike? A tall order indeed. Next on the list was the phrase "generational change." Carville asked, "Why do you want to limit the appeal of your message to younger people? ..." Plenty of Americans of all ages want some drastic change. Next on the verboten list was the word "structural." Carville stated the obvious: "We're not going to attack the structural issues in the world right now." I would add two things: one, it sounds pretty elitist, and two, what are structural issues anyway?The next one should definitely be on the chopping block: the word "equity." Again, an elitist-sounding word. What Joe Sixpack kind of guy rambles on about equity? Carville again laid a truth on Democrats, saying, "People basically don't know what it means, and if they do know what it means, it looks like you tried to force an outcome."
Other words Democrats need to stop saying: "community" and "oligarchy." See the link for that.
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Left-Wing Supreme Court Rules 7-2 That Trump Cannot Deport Terrorist Illegal Aliens Without a Cumbersome Lengthy Trial
—Ace
By what right are they here? They have zero legal right to be here, but the soon-to-be-ignored-and-chastened Supreme Court says we have to have trials to deport people who are illegal aliens with no right to even be present.
Roberts and all of Trump's liberal-leaning, Federalist-Society-certified saboteurs voted with the liberal bloc.
When Republican AGs sued Biden over his illegal policy of ignoring the law and dissolving the border, the Supreme Court tossed out their lawsuit, ruling that the President had plenary power to conduct the foreign policy of the country (of which immigration enforcement is a part) and therefore the courts had no power to restrain him.
Now that Trump is deporting these Undocumented Americans, the Court reverses itself and says "You bet the courts have power to overrule the President in his conduct of foreign policy."
Disgusting -- and destabilizing.
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This Guy Read Jake Tapper's Cover-Up Book So That You Can Boycott It
—Ace
Tyler Austin Harper @Tyler_A_HarperI wrote about Biden and the new book. As the reporting in "Original Sin" makes clear: this story is bigger than just the 2024 campaign. It was more than a year or two of decline. We need to confront the truth: Joe Biden never should have been president of the United States.
Finally, a left-winger admits the obvious and undeniable.
So far, most discussion of the book has focused on incidents from later in Biden's term and 2024 campaign: not recognizing Clooney, calling Sullivan "Steve." But arguably the most damning new reveal came much earlier, during the 2020 campaign, when Biden was not yet president. 2/
You don't say!
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Shock Poll: The People Most Eager to "Disconnect" from Friends and Family Members Over Politics Are... Left-Wing Colleged "Educated" Women
—Ace
Educated...? Let's say "college-attending."
A poll finds that college-educated left-wing women, or AWFLs, are the group most eager to sever connections with friends or families due to their cultic "political" beliefs.
You. Don't. Say.
New polling data shows what you may already suspect: your experience of losing friends since the 2024 election of Donald Trump is absolutely real -- if very divided depending on your political tribe....
According to Cygnal's latest national survey of 1,500 likely voters (conducted May 6-8, with a 3 percent MOE), more than half of voters (53 percent) say "it's at least somewhat common that their friends and neighbors have ended a friendship because of Donald Trump and the 2024 election" while "39 percent say not that common or not at all common."
The ideological breakdown isn't close. Democrats and voters who backed Kamala Harris in 2024 are far more likely to say friends and neighbors have ended a friendship over the election, with self-identified liberals saying they have a hard time co-existing and playing nice with someone who voted differently than they did by 30 points, a 2:1 margin (61 percent common compared to 31 percent not common). On the other side, conservatives are much more even-keeled -- 49 percent say lost friendships over 2024 are common, but 45 percent saying it's not common.
If you wanted to drill down to the biggest dividing factor here, it's the portion of the coalition made up of college-educated women -- a cohort that now dominates the politics of the Democratic coalition. In their circles, they say differences of political opinion have led to broken friendships with friends and neighbors at a more than 40-point rate -- 67 percent to 24 percent.
...
It's the allyship that matters most, you see -- not friendship.
If you're wondering where all of this radical left-wing authoritarian cultishness is coming from: It's coming from stupid left-wing women.
I think women serve as the cultural and moral forces in society. When most women believe in wise things, society is orderly and prosperous.
When most women believe in sick, demented things -- or, actually, when a privileged minority of women who exert an outsized influence on morals and culture -- society degenerates.
Obviously our society has been degenerating for a long time.
Jordan Peterson explains that they've conducted surveys to determine if there is a left-wing fascist impulse -- there is, obviously -- and if so, what factors lead someone to embrace left-wing fascist attitudes.
The answers, based on actual social science surveys, are these:
* Female gender
* Feminine temperament. Note that some women may have a more masculine temperament and some men have a more feminine one.
* Low verbal IQ
That last one, he postulates, is critical for breeding this cultish left-wing fascist worldview, because you have to be sort of stupid to believe that all of your failures are due to a Conspiracy So Vast of men and white people working together to keep you from getting a raise and getting a husband.
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Tulsi Gabbard Fires Two Deep Staters for Undermining Their Superior Officer's Foreign Policy and Allegedly for Leaking;
Perjurer John Brennan Cries About His Frenz Getting Canned
—Ace
Okay, fair enough, that's your opinion.
But what is not fair -- or legal, actually -- is to leak your opinion to the press in order to spike a policy you disagree with.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has fired the top officials leading the National Intelligence Council -- whom whistleblowers describe as "radically opposed to Trump" -- and has moved the agency to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, to ensure she can block any "politicization of intelligence," Fox News Digital has learned.Gabbard fired Mike Collins, who was serving as the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, Tuesday, senior intelligence officials told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital reached out Langan-Riekhof for comment and did not immediately hear back, and couldn't immediately find contact information for Collins.
Collins also has whistleblower complaints against him for political bias and "deliberately undermining the incoming Trump administration," officials said.
I wonder if they were members of #TheResistance...?
Hm, seems likely:
They added that Collins was closely associated with Michael Morrell, the former deputy director of the CIA who worked to write a public letter in 2020 claiming that Hunter Biden's laptop had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation," and to get signatures from top ex-intelligence officials.
Tulsi Gabbard opening a folder
As for Langan-Reikhof, officials said she has been a "key advocate" for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and is someone who whistleblowers allege is "radically opposed to Trump."Meanwhile, Gabbard is moving the National Intelligence Council from the CIA to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to "directly hold accountable any improper action and politicization of intelligence," Fox News Digital has learned.
Many intel community leakers are "career bureaucrats that are entrenched in Washington politics," officials said.
"It takes time to weed them out and fire them," one official told Fox News Digital, adding that "plans to eliminate non-essential offices within ODNI that we know are housing deep state leakers are underway."
...
The moves come as Gabbard has taken steps to root out leakers and alleged "deep state holdovers" who officials say are politicizing intelligence analysis and "trying to sabotage President Trump's agenda."
...
So far, Gabbard has referred three intelligence community professionals to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution over alleged leaks of classified information. Fox News Digital first reported on those criminal referrals in April.
An ODNI official at that time told Fox News Digital that the intelligence community professionals allegedly leaked classified information to the Washington Post and The New York Times.
John Brennan went on MSNBC to nearly cry about it, which means:
Direct Hit. Deep State agents uncovered.
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Politico: Democrats Beginning to Fear That Their Five-Year Conspiracy of Deception About the Husk President Might Come With Actual Consequences
—Ace
While Politico refuses to say so, the media should have the same worries.
Oh right, I said "Democrats." That includes the media.
Joe Biden may have cost Democrats the White House in 2024. Their inability to admit it, some Democrats fear, could hobble them in 2028.As a fresh reckoning in the party unfolds around the former president's mental acuity, potential presidential contenders have mostly dodged questions about his condition while in office. They've also sidestepped whether the party should have more forcefully called on him to abandon his reelection bid earlier.
"How are some of these national frontrunners or people who are already barnstorming states like South Carolina or Iowa expected to look voters in the eyes with a straight face and say, 'Trust me, even though I got the 2024 election so terribly wrong?'" asked the former Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.), who said he expects the issue to come up on the trail in what is now the first-in-the-nation primary state. "There's no courage on display by any of the folks whose names are being circulated right now."
He said the party's Biden question needs to be "nipped in the bud" if Democrats want to reestablish trust with voters.
Some potential presidential contenders have been willing to criticize Biden, to varying degrees, risking pushback from critics accusing them of hypocrisy after they defended Biden last year. Just this week, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said there was "no doubt" about Biden's cognitive decline, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg conceded the party "maybe" would have done better without him and Rep. Ro Khanna of California said "Democrats must be honest ... Joe Biden should not have run for reelection."
But they were the exception. For the most part, leading Democrats -- many of whom attested to Biden's fitness when he was still on the ticket -- are ducking what is fast becoming the first real litmus test of the 2028 campaign. The problem for Democrats is Biden's blast radius keeps expanding. It isn't just the embarrassing accounts dribbling out from a forthcoming book. It's that so many Democrats with 2028 ambitions were defending him at the time -- and are now being forced to answer for what they knew and when.
When Murphy, in an interview, fessed up to Biden's diminishing capabilities, GOP operatives threw months-old comments in face. "This you??" said an aide to Speaker Mike Johnson on the social media platform X, pointing to when the Democratic senator had vouched for Biden in the wake of a damning Wall Street Journal report on the subject.
Khanna got similar treatment. After Biden's disastrous debate, one social media user pointed out, Khanna compared Biden to the fictional boxer Rocky, saying the latter was a "fighter" even if he "wasn't the most eloquent."
On Thursday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro appeared to try to differentiate himself from other ambitious Democrats -- and put some distance between himself and Biden -- by maintaining he privately raised concerns with the former president in the moment.
...
While Shapiro said publicly at the time that Biden had "a responsibility to reassure" Pennsylvanians he could win, the governor and most other elected Democrats defended Biden's fitness up through the final months of his presidency.
Note that the only thing Democrats will admit about Biden's health is that maybe he lacked the physical ability to "vigorously" fight in the 2024 election, or maybe he didn't reassure voters that he "could win."
This is the same lie they all told when they were pressuring Biden to drop out. They all claimed they had no questions about his mental acuity or ability to discharge the office. They only were concerned about his "ability to win" or the public's mistaken perception of Biden as too frail and deteriorated to be president.
This is how they justify forcing him out of the race but letting the demented man remain president for six more months.
And they're still lying, including those, like Josh Shapiro, that Politico claims are finally doing some "truth" telling. They're still pushing the absurd lie that Biden was mentally fit, just maybe not capable of convincing voters that he was mentally fit.
Asked by POLITICO in August 2024 if he had any concerns that Biden had slipped, Shapiro said, "Not at all, and I've been in regular contact with the president."
The article notes that Gavin Newsom vouched for Biden's fitness, even after the debate.
At least he vouched publicly.
But he was present at the fundraiser where Biden shocked people with his weakness and lack of mental acuity.
But the book reports that Newsom attended a June 2023 fundraiser with Biden in Kentfield, California that "went awry," with attendees "shaken by Biden's meandering remarks.""I remember leaving that fundraiser thinking, Fuck," one attendee told the book's authors, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
Democrats continue pushing the lie and refusing to come clean:
"I think he had good days and bad days. That's all I'll say," Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan told POLITICO.
The leader of the free world, the man with access to the nuclear football, is not allowed to continue in office if he has "some good days, some bad days."
Many Democrats who vouched up and down for Biden's fitness now say... they didn't see Biden's infirmity, because they just never spoke to Biden much:
...It was a pleading of ignorance that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer likewise employed, telling CNN on Thursday, "I didn't see the president frequently. And I can tell you I can't speak to that directly."
But you did speak to his fitness directly in 2024. You say you didn't really see him much -- but you vouched for him anyway.
... Some Democrats argue that their leaders aren't owning up to the truth about Biden -- and risk keeping the issue alive indefinitely as a result. They fear that Democrats' record-low approval ratings are tied, in part, to their unwillingness to come clean.
This is amusing: "Tapper" is trending, and not for good reasons.
FBI Now Investigating James Comey for Posting "86 47" on Instagram, Widely Seen as a Call to Kill ("86") Trump, the 47th President
—Ace
Pine-Scented Druid Philosopher James Comey is at it again.
This time, he's not taking pictures of himself communing with Treebeard in Fangorn Forest.
Now, he's posting wannabe Gay Thrist-Trap pictures of himself summoning Aquaman with a magic conch:
He's also pretending he just came across shells arranged to spell "86 47," and totally didn't arrange the shells that way himself.
When people pointed out that to "86 someone" means to get rid of them and usually to kill them, James Comey, who worked at the FBI for decades, claimed he had no idea this mob slang was ever used in that way.
This is despite the fact that the left is now using the code "8647" in direct connection with threats of murder.
Karol Markowitz wrote last month:
In Holland, Mich., Redmond, Ore., and elsewhere, grinning marchers wore shirts and carried placards emblazoned with the number "8647," pairing the old slang term for murder with a 47 for Trump.One 8647 protester stood right alongside Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in Minneapolis.
"Hands off or heads off," read the message on a life-size guillotine paraded about in Denver.
Wait, a life-sized guillotine?
Didn't the presence of a very fake, half-sized "gallows" get used against the J6ers to claim that their incitement could really lead to mass killings of congressmen?
Yes, I think it did.
This cockgargler is now under investigation by the Secret Service, Kash Patel says, who have primary responsibility for investigating threats to the president or incitements to assassinate him.
I hope they find some convoluted way to throw his well-traveled ass in prison.
Secretary Kristi Noem @Sec_NoemDisgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump.
DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.
Give him the J6 treatment -- put in jail for months in pre-trial detention.
If they don't throw him in prison, we'll have to find some other way to 86 James Comey.
Hey, I don't know what it means, either.
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THE MORNING RANT: Would Venture Capitalists and Startup Accelerators Invest in Entrepreneurs Who’ll Be Remediating Derelict Wind Farms?
—Buck Throckmorton
I’m going to try to marry two different ideas going through my head into one thesis today. I apologize if it comes across a little clunky.
1) The Venture Capital / Accelerator types in my area have no interest in real industrial businesses. Instead, they keep chasing the same startup fads - either worn-to-death digital/software ideas, or green feel-good concepts.
2) There is a looming industrial/entrepreneurial opportunity to undo and remediate the environmental wastelands created by solar and wind projects, especially wind.
I was about to write about topic #1 when I got an email from co-blogger Mr. CBD stating: “We drove back from the Loire Valley yesterday, and for about 30 minutes we drove through an area of the valley that was covered in wind turbines. Hundreds of them! I saw a grand total of four that were spinning, and it was a typical windy day. And those four were clustered together, which tells me...something!”
I then responded to Mr. CBD: “There will be an amazing business opportunity in 15 to 20 years removing these derelict monstrosities and remediating the concrete-damaged soil where they now stand. I'd mention it to the local VC guys as a great business opportunity, but the only non-digital business opportunity with a tangible product that they care about is startups related to EVs and their batteries.”
Over my career, I have worked with many people who have started and built businesses, from construction to contracting to manufacturing to retail to distribution, etc. Pretty much all of them have some tangible product which they are buying, manufacturing, shipping, or selling. I do understand, of course, that this is a world where some of the most valuable publicly traded companies are only selling bits and bytes, but even the likes of Amazon and Apple are moving a lot of physical products.
But there is also a huge world outside of digital and high tech, and as best I can tell, those interested in startup and venture capital investing (at least locally) are generally uninterested in any tangible product, with one exception – pitches related to EVs and their batteries.
The willingness to be seduced by the EV hype, while abstaining from all other industrial startups is telling. It tells me that these are credulous investors who want to invest in fads rather than in companies with an actual product or service for which there is a market.
A local “startup accelerator” that provides funding and “mentoring” recently let go almost half of its staff amidst a reorganization. I’m not going to link to the story nor name this company, because I am not seeking to mock it by name. Rather I want to point out the myopic focus I observe in the venture capital and “accelerator” arena, at least locally. This is part of the report on where the accelerator will be targeting its time and money going forward:
[These] include companies focused on electric and autonomous vehicles, supply chain innovations, urban planning, smart traffic solutions, automotive battery technology and quantum technology.
That is one trendy list. And clearly, any companies engaged in most of these areas would be relying on government grants and contracts for revenue, especially in regards to urban planning, smart traffic solutions, and the EV related stuff. There are not consumers and businesses clamoring to buy urban planning software or smart traffic solutions.
So, to circle back to my two clunky points. That giant field of static wind turbines that Mr. CBD observed in France will soon be a field of derelict wind turbines. And there are thousands of such fields across the globe. There are over 75,000 ”active” wind turbines in the U.S. alone. “Active” doesn’t necessarily mean that they are spinning or producing any electricity – they just haven’t been decommissioned. But they will. All 75,000 of those monstrosities will have to come down as the wind debacle plays out and they reach the end of their relatively short life span.
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Mid-Morning Art Thread
—CBD
Interior with Figures
Joseph Hirsch
Compared to yesterday's dreck, this is a competent portrayal. What the point of the art is a different issue, and I do not have high hopes for an answer that isn't a hodgepodge of socialist babble and anti-capitalist nonsense.
Yeah...the artist was a communist sympathizer. But at least he could paint!
The Morning Report — 5/ 16 /25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. With the tempest in a Teapot Dome over the so-called "gift" from Qatar of a jumbo jet to President Trump still swirling, a friend had told me that supposedly the delivery of the jet had been arranged by Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants in the last years of his junta for the same reasons President Trump is accepting delivery on behalf of the United States, and not him personally. I cannot find reference to this anywhere on line, but the salient facts as to why the jet is being accepted and is sadly needed remain:
Buzz Patterson, a retired Air Force pilot, White House military aide, and carrier of the nuclear football, has stepped in to inject a dose of reality—and firsthand experience—into the conversation. While critics scramble to paint the move as some kind of scandal involving President Trump, Patterson makes clear this is nothing new or scandalous, and absolutely nothing that warrants the breathless outrage.“I’m going to try one last time,” Patterson began in a post on X. “The Qatar B-747 was built in the US by Boeing. They are offering a newer 747 to replace one of the two current AF-1s that have been flying for 40 years. Which are tired and need to be replaced.”
That last point is key. The current Air Force One planes are aging relics that first entered service when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Replacing them has been a long, slow, and—thanks to bureaucratic delays—frustrating process. Patterson, who served as a military aide during the Clinton administration and has flown on Air Force One over a hundred times, says the Qatar aircraft would simply help fill the gap until Boeing completes new replacements—something that won’t happen for years.
No wonder the Democrat/Left is shrieking its lungs out about this. The average American is paying more attention to who and what the Dems are pushing and defending, that is criminal illegal alien invaders that are murdering and raping their way across America while sacking the US treasury in the process.
House Republicans are moving to block an estimated 1.4 million illegal aliens from receiving American taxpayer-funded Medicaid as Democrats struggle to message their support for the unpopular position.The House Energy and Commerce Committee completed its markup of its portion of the budget reconciliation bill Wednesday morning after an all-night session which included a provision blocking anyone unable to verify citizenship, nationality, or satisfactory immigration status from coverage. The committee projects 1.4 million illegal aliens will be removed from the program due to those requirements.
House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) ignored a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the cost savings from striking illegal aliens from the taxpayer dole Wednesday and if fighting it would “open up” Democrats to attacks that they support tax dollars going to illegal aliens. . . Newsom has moderated some of the radical left-wing stances that sent him to Sacramento but are seen as politically toxic in a national general election — suggesting House Democrats are fighting a battle they may be destined to lose on ensuring taxpayer-funded Medicaid for illegal aliens. Complicating Democrats’ messaging is their repeated calls for decades to rid Medicaid of waste, fraud, and abuse – the very initiative they now insist to loathe.
I don't know where this 1.4 million figure comes from. Biden's four-year border erasure allowed perhaps 10 times that number in if not more, and there were probably close to at least 40 million illegal aliens already here long before he was wheeled in as Obama's puppet. And it doesn't even come close to the fictitious 11 million illegal aliens figure that has been bandied about at least since Reagan was duped into signing the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty travesty in 1986.
the reality is that the Democrat Party is far beyond distressed. As a functioning political entity, it has no reason for existing beyond opposing Trump, and secondarily Republicans. It is completely devoid of any issues, policies or even philosophies relevant to the majority of Americans. Their top issues are protecting violent illegal aliens and drag queen story hour for kiddos while trashing Martin Luther King’s dream by insisting on hiring people based on skin color. The economy is right there! (It won’t be by the end of the year or before, but it is right now.)Meanwhile, President Trump remains steadfast in his efforts on all fronts. ICE is so overwhelmed trying to remove Biden’s unknown millions of illegals that Trump is doubling down on deportation efforts. On Friday, he ordered the Department of Homeland Security to increase the deportation force of the United States by 20,000 officers. It would be an enormous and needed expansion of immigration enforcement. Details to be ironed out, but also expect him to seek creative ways to house the illegals in various facilities on their way out, because the existing ones are also overwhelmed.
Politically speaking, Democrats have ripe targets of opportunity. But with a base of radicals and extremists they insist on playing to, they are resolutely avoiding them. The question is: Can they recover any purpose on behalf of the American people or will they continue to slide into political second class citizenship?
The Democrat Party was, is and always will be ANTI-American, insofar as that all it cares about is the acquisition of absolute power, and so that last last question answers itself. Party politics is one thing, but evil never rests.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Secret Service have launched an investigation into an alarming social media post published by former FBI Director James Comey.Former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday shared an image on Instagram that many people saw as an unsubtle threat to President Donald Trump. Comey posted a photo of a rock formation on a sandy beach that spelled out “86 47,” and captioned the post “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
. . . DHS Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on X that Comey’s post was being viewed as an assassination threat and an appropriate investigation has been launched. “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” Noem said. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
Considering, the Left went apeshit about Sarah Palin's "target" imagery, and the fact that James Comey was a co-conspirator in he various and sundry plots to derail Donald Trump's candidacy in 2016 via the Russia Collusion hoax and that the FBI and CIA used foreign and domestic intelligence assets to gin up that smear campaign and that both have been implicated in the use of assassination in their operations (legitimate and otherwise). That President Trump has already been the target of at least two known attempts on his life prior to the 2024 election, Comey to me is a very sick and dangerous threat to our national security and needs to be investigated thoroughly with a view towards imprisonment for a very long time in a Federal prison.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Have a great weekend.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Daniel Greenfield: Newsom locked up Californians and freed criminals to terrorize, rape and kill them.
How Gov. Gavin Newsom Killed 30 People
- Victor Davis Hanson: They broke every pretense of legality and fair play to try to destroy Donald Trump.
Would the Left Finally Explain the Inexplicable?
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Daily Tech News 16 May 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Netflix will show ads created with generative AI mid-way through shows and movies. (Ars Technica)
No it won't. Not to me anyway, because I already cancelled my subscription.
Not over this, specifically, but because it's awful.
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Spanning The Globe To Bring You The Constant Variety Of ONTs
—WeirdDave
Hello Horde! It's Thursday night, welcome to the ONT. Let's start with a meme that escaped from tomorrow's post:
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Police Cat Cafe
—Ace
by Nevin Johnson
From Hot Air: Video from the March earthquake in Myanmar shows one part of the earth's crust sliding right on by another. Neat.
Cats think everything is a game for their benefit.
"Joe Biden is sharper than ever." It's his mouth hanging open that get me.
Cat says "I'm the real victim here."
Gymnastic balloon-popping can be an Olympic sport if we all rise up and demand it.
Whoops, that incontrovertible proof I posted earlier this week demonstrating that unquestionably bears are out of control turns out to have been an AI Cheapfake. (See the note, hit translate.) I guess bears are not officially out-of-control... for the moment.
Big cats, like Republicans, are biologically programmed to seize and pounce.
This is even more common among humans.
Do you prefer the vegetarian option?
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Axios: "Hard Data Suggests Tariff-Driven Inflation and Recession Fears May be Overblown"
—Ace
The media has pushed the idea that Trump's tariffs would spark rampant inflation and provoke a deep recession harder than they pushed the idea that Biden was a "super-ager" who routinely "ran circles among his Millennial staffers."
And now Axios, in a brave Jake Tapper sort of way, actually bothers to look at the evidence and the numbers, and assigns its Market Watch Repoter Emily Litella to say,
"Nevermind."
Hard data suggests tariff-driven inflation and recession fears may be overblown
With major indicators from April -- the month of peak tariff uncertainty -- now in, none show the kinds of recessionary or inflationary conditions implied by business and consumer surveys.Why it matters: Warnings and anecdotes are taking on greater importance as signs of how tariffs are working their way through the economy.
The big picture: New data out Thursday showed steady retail sales and a surprising drop in wholesale prices in April. So far, so good.
But also Thursday morning, the country's largest retailer warned that it will not be able to absorb tariff-related price increases -- even considering the trade war pullback announced earlier this week.
Walmart, known for its low prices, will pass some of those costs onto the consumer. If Walmart can't hold the line, it's hard to see how other retailers might be able to.
Walmart is particularly dependent on China for Cheap Plastic from China.
I do enjoy how they admit the facts momentarily, only to immediately undermine the facts with more spin and more premonitions of doom.
What they're saying: "We're wired for everyday low prices, but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb," Walmart CFO John David Rainey told CNBC on Thursday.
"It's more than any supplier can absorb. And so I'm concerned that consumer is going to start seeing higher prices. You'll begin to see that, likely towards the tail end of this month, and then certainly much more in June."
Oh, you have Concerns?
Your Concerns are:
[ ] Noted
[ ] Not Noted
[X] Ridiculed
By the numbers: Retail sales rose by 0.1% in April, after a massive spending surge that was even stronger than initially reported. The control group, used to calculate personal consumption expenditures in GDP, fell by 0.2%.
It's almost as if business optimism and consumer confidence are spiking under Trump.
Axios again attempts to re-establish its predictions of doom by speculating that spending only increased due to people rushing to make purchases before the dreaded tariffs.
No doubt, that may be a contributor. But they push aside all other explanations in favor of the negative one that reinforces their prior beliefs.
Meanwhile, inflation fell. Axios concedes that falling inflation might disprove their predictions of inflation falling.
What a major concession.
...Between the lines: The Producer Price Index, a gauge of wholesale prices, showed little sign of tariff-related price pressures that businesses have warned about.
PPI fell by 0.5% in April after a flat reading in March, rounding out an upbeat inflation snapshot after the index's consumer counterpart released Tuesday.
Goods prices were flat last month after falling almost a full percentage point in March. Services prices fell by 0.7%, the biggest drop since the index began in 2009.
The bottom line: "There is little evidence, so far, that tariffs are inflationary and instead profit margins are being squeezed. But as Walmart suggested Thursday morning, that is a situation that may not last long," ING chief international economist James Knightley wrote in a note.
Politico, too:
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Supreme Court Hears Arguments Over Nationwide Universal Injunctions Issued by Lowly District Court Justices Who Keep Electing Themselves President
—Ace
A lowly district court issued a One Man Universal decision stating that birthright citizenship was the law of the land and always would be, and then issuing various nationwide injunctions purporting to control President Trump's actions.
Trump appealed, but only on one part of the ruling: The arrogance of a lowly district court judge, who only has jurisdiction over the area (the literal jurisdiction) he is seated in, issuing what he purports to be nationwide "universal" injunctions. (An injunction is a judicial order forbidding someone from doing something.)
Nationwide injunctions are highly controversial, especially by lowly district court judges, because they are at the very, very bottom of the federal judicial system, and yet they keep arrogating to themselves plenary power to dictate the elected government actions.
Even more importantly, district courts only have jurisdiction over the small, um, jurisdiction they're appointed to judge cases in. In other words, a district court judge from southern Massachusetts has the power to rule on cases in southern Massachusetts. But these low-level bureaucrats keep claiming to have nationwide or "universal" jurisdiction, and instead of limiting their rulings' effect to just the jurisdiction they are seated in, they claim they can rule for the entire country.
These rulings have long been considered out-of-bounds -- including by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who argued against universal injunctions issued by district courts when she was Obama's Solicitor General.
She has a different opinion now, of course.
Jonathan Turley @JonathanTurleyThe Supreme Court argument is now concluded and there was far more heat than light offered inside the courtroom...
...Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh seemed strongly in favor of the Administration. Roberts also made repeated points that seemed to support some of the arguments of the Administration, though it was not clear how he would vote...
...On the left, Kagan repeatedly strived to distinguish this case from her earlier objections to universal injunctions under the Biden Administration. She seemed solidly with Sotomayor and Jackson...
...That leaves Gorsuch and Barrett. Gorsuch has previously expressed criticism of universal injunctions but asked probing questions on both sides. Barrett seemed more accommodating in seeking a way to uphold universal injunctions...
Of course this c*nt did.
...In other words, this could be a nail-biter. I think that the Administration still has an advantage in curtailing universal injunctions. However, I did not come away with the sense of a lock with a majority, particularly given Barrett's questions. I am also unsure how Roberts and Gorsuch will play out on the details. Fortunately, we will likely know within a couple of weeks.
NYT legal reporter Adam Liptak sums this up with fair accuracy:The justices have been struggling with two contrary impulses. Many are troubled by injunctions issued by individual federal judges that block executive branch initiatives nationwide. But many of them are also troubled by the executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship and frustrated by the difficulty of reaching the merits, as the Trump administration has only appealed on the first point.New Jersey's lawyer may have offered a middle ground, arguing that this is the rare case in which nationwide relief is needed because it is the only way to grant complete relief to the more than 20 plaintiff states.
@ShipwreckedCrew predicts the justices may split, and uphold the universal injunction only as to the ban of Trump's order reversing so-called "birthright citizenship," but setting up oversight/checks-and-balances for universal injunctions in all other cases.
The "wise Latina" Sotomayor kept Asking Statements of the Solicitor General. She would "Ask" a Declaration and then cut off the Solicitor General before he could respond.
Even Roberts eventually had enough of her, and interrupted her interrupting to tell her that he actually wanted to hear the Solicitor General's answer to her statement.
Martin Harry @MartinHarryFLListening to the birthright citizenship oral argument at the US Supreme Court. Justice Sotomayor continues to be argumentative, ask questions without allowing a response and monopolizes the Court's time. Chief Justice Roberts had had enough and cut her off. Later, he directly contradicts her belief that Supreme Court review takes 4-5 years, even in emergency cases.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts reined in Justice Sonia Sotomayor during argument over birthright citizenship and nationwide court injunctions on Thursday.Sotomayor dominated questioning for several minutes at the outset of Thursday's argument after taking over from Justice Clarence Thomas. She pressed U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer for President Donald Trump's administration on several points relating to the authority for federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions, often speaking over the lawyer and interrupting him.
Sotomayor argued that Trump's order invalidating birthright citizenship violated four Supreme Court precedents, and that it was justified for a federal judge to grant an injunction against such a controversial order.
"You are claiming that not just the Supreme Court, that both the Supreme Court and no lower court, can stop an executive from universally violating holdings by this court," Sotomayor said.
"We are not claiming that because we're conceding that there could be an appropriate case only in class only," Sauer said.
"But I hear that--," Sotomayor said, beginning to interrupt Sauer.
"Can I hear the rest of his answer?" Roberts then interjected.
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Paid Liar Jen Psaki's Ratings Tank
—Ace
Rachel Maddow has gone back to her one-day-a-week gig, collecting $25 million per year for this tiny amount of "work" like a good socialist, and it's now on the slender shoulders of Ginger Clownwhore Jen Psaki to keep the dying cable channel alive.
It was a Psaki bomb.Former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki tanked with a key demographic in her new show's second episode -- indicating possible trouble for her future ratings.
Her new gig features her show "The Briefing" in MSNBC's prime time slot, at 9 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays, while "The Rachel Maddow Show" pivots to only being on air Mondays.
"The Briefing" had a strong showing of 1.2 million viewers on Tuesday, with 139,000 viewers in the key demographic of people ages 25 to 54.
But viewership quickly dropped Wednesday, with 1 million viewers tuning in -- and just 65,000 people in the coveted demographic tuning in, according to Fox News.
"The demo" is usually defined as ages 25-54. That kind of a range. People with jobs who can afford to buy stuff, and people who are young enough and callow enough to have their buying choices influenced by advertising.
In other words, "the demo" is all of us. We're right in the meat of the demo with our nearly-universal "almost 29" age demographic.
For comparison, Fox News' Sean Hannity got 2.64 million viewers on Tuesday at 9 p.m. with 312,000 in the highly desired demographic, while CNN's Kaitlan Collins eked out 468,000 total viewers but scored 75,000 people ages 25 to 54 watching.The former press secretary had left her job at the White House in 2022 to pursue a gig at the liberal outlet, and began hosting "Inside with Jen Psaki" on Sundays in March 2023.
...
[M]addow had managed to bring in better numbers when she held the prime spot.
The host averaged a total of 1.9 million viewers and 141,000 among viewers aged 25-54, per Fox, meaning that Psaki's Wednesday episode had brought down the number of viewers by a total of 46% and 54% in the important demo.
Adweek, a publication which seems left-wing and very pro-MSNBC, spins MSNBC's collapsed ratings as "mixed" and says it's merely experiencing a "slow start" with its new lineup.
MSNBC's new programming lineup finished its first full week, and the numbers were mixed. The network experienced week-to-week declines in total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo during primetime and total day. MSNBC continued to miss Rachel Maddow's nightly presence as it fell by double-digits in both measured categories during primetime.
So MSNBC's ratings fell in all categories by double-digits and that's "mixed"?
Meanwhile, Fox News had 96 of the top 100 cable news telecasts and was the most-watched cable news network during the announcement of Pope Leo XIV's election....
MSNBC's primetime lineup averaged 892,000 total viewers and 77,000 A25-54 viewers for declines of -12% and -13%, respectively.During total day, MSNBC averaged 564,000 total viewers and 52,000 demo viewers for respective dips of -2% and -5% in those measured categories.
Among all basic cable networks, MSNBC stayed at No. 4 in total viewers and dropped four spots from No. 15 to No. 19 in the demo during primetime. Across total day, it remained at third place in total viewers and remained at No. 13 in the demo.
Mixed.
House Investigating Whether Pfizer Slow-Rolled Their (Fake) Vaccine Announcement to Further #Rig the Already-"Fortified" 2020 Election
—Ace
Bob Hoge at RedState quotes the WSJ (a Murdoch-owned paper, as Lyin' Jake Tapper would add):
Lawmakers are investigating whether Pfizer waited to share results of the Covid vaccine in 2020 until after that year's presidential election, based on new allegations that a former Pfizer scientist has said he was part of an effort to "deliberately slow down" the testing, according to a new letter from the House Judiciary Committee.The House panel is seeking information from Pfizer and from the scientist, Philip Dormitzer, after learning he allegedly told colleagues in 2024 at a subsequent job he was worried he would face an investigation of his role in the vaccine's release and asked to be relocated to Canada.
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