News: Politics

Regulations are written in blood. You can't just start slashing them and then pack the courts full of pro-corporate sycophants and not have consequences. But those consequences take a while to hit and since the media is controlled by billionaires it's easy to shift to blame around and confuse the issue.This last year was especially bad when the billionaire it's just put their foot down and stopped allowing the journalism to happen at all. I don't know what you do with that level of hysteria. Especially when it's continuously fed by billionaire propaganda. Mix in some deep deep deep spending cuts that will devastate your community and Trump can easily get the money together to give his billionaire buddies a trillion dollars of your money every year. That money will be shifted into tax cuts for the billionaire buddies running the administration. When that happens the media outlets that exist is billionaire propaganda can be subsidized but the honest journalists either go out of business or they get bought up.The billionaires put their foot down during the last election and they are not taking it off our necks anytime soon. What do you do when every single news outlet gets bought up by a billionaire and they just put their foot down and refuse to allow anyone to be anything but an offshoot of Fox News?Big donors basically means billionaires here and that includes the tech Titans. As right-wingers are so fond of pointing out high income earners pay about ...

Sen. Graham (R. of S. Carolina): We are here holding this hearing to hear evidence of transsexuals taking over America. Our witness is Dr. Hoo Me of NiH.Sen. Blackburn (R. of Tenn.): Okay, Dr. Hoo, what can you tell us about the homosexuals taking over America?Dr. Hoo: Uh. I thought we were discussing transsexuals.Sen. Blackburn: Aren’t all these sexuals the same?Dr. Hoo: No, not really. When one’s preferred gender does not match their biological “equipment”, we call them transsexuals.Sen. Blackburn: Can’t they just look in their pants and figure it out?Dr. Hoo (with a wry smile): Your brains are in your pants?Sen. Blackburn: What?Sen. Cruz (R. of Texas): I thought WE wanted to look in their pants?Sen. Rick Scott (R. of Florida): I think we should get to look in their pants.Sen. Josh Hawley (R. of Missouri): What is Sen. Blackburn trying to hide? We should check her pants.Sen. Graham: Stop it, Stop it, STOP IT!! No one is looking in anyone’s pants.Sen. Blackburn (very annoyed): Keep your eyes out of my pants, Sen. Hawley. Please answer the question Dr. Hoo.Dr. Hoo (resuming his professional demeanor): I guess at a certain level of generality, all sexuals are the same. Take you for instance, I take it you are heterosexual, yes?Sen. Blackburn: HOW DARE YOU? Accusing ME of being a heterosexuai!!!Dr. Hoo (even more professionally): It simply means you are attracted to what you consider an opposite sex.Sen. Blackburn: I’ll have you know I am happily married and have never been ...

Release in July 2024, this detailed report goes over the threats against the United States as well as the strategic readiness to reply to those threats. This is the most detailed non-classified information available and is a very interesting and somewhat frightening report.It starts out with this summary info:The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war. The United States last fought a global conflict during World War II, which ended nearly 80 years ago. The nation was last prepared for such a fight during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago. It is not prepared today.China and Russia are major powers that seek to undermine U.S. influence. The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) recognizes these nations as the top threats to the United States and declares China to be the “pacing challenge,” based on the strength of its military and economy and its intent to exert dominance regionally and globally.The Commission finds that, in many ways, China is outpacing the United States and has largely negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific through two decades of focused military investment. Without significant change by the United States, the balance of power will continue to shift in China’s favor. China’s overall annual spending on defense is estimated at as much as $711 billion, 2 and the Chinese government in March 2024 announced an increase in annual defense spending of 7.2 ...

Carlin said: “Given how frantic they are... there are things in those records that are going to make real trouble. I’m talking about prison time. It reinforces the fact that they know they’re in real trouble if these things are released—particularly if they’re released soon.”Ex-National Archivist Thinks Trump Is Hiding His Records to Avoid ‘Prison Time’

“This is real, this is serious and it’s frightening,” said Brian Clardy, a Murray State University history professor. “We must build a democratic resistance that amounts to a counter-fascist coup — In short, we must all become ‘antifa,’ or antifascists,” said John Hennen, a Morehead State University history professor emeritus.Two Kentucky historians agree the GOP is steering the US straight toward authoritarianism

A LOT happened in 2021! Here's a large selection of pictures documenting the year. https://apnews.com/article/2021-top-photos-associated-press-d0b894e16a0f7759745c7888331c314b

As scientists and concerned citizens, we applaud the recent trend towards legislation that requires the prominent placing of warnings on products that present hazards to the general public. Yet we must also offer the cautionary thought that such warnings, however well-intentioned, merely scratch the surface of what is really necessary in this important area. This is especially true in light of the findings of 20th century physics.     We are therefore proposing that, as responsible scientists, we join together in an intensive push for new laws that will mandate the conspicuous placement of suitably informative warnings on the packaging of every product offered for sale in the United States of America. Our suggested list of warnings appears below.   WARNING: This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity.   WARNING: This Product Attracts Every Other Piece of Matter in the Universe, Including the Products of Other Manufacturers, with a Force Proportional to the Product of the Masses and Inversely Proportional to the Distance Between Them.   CAUTION: The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85 Million Tons of TNT per Net Ounce of Weight.   HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE: This Product Contains Minute Electrically Charged Particles Moving at Velocities in Excess of Five Hundred Million Miles Per Hour.   CONSUMER NOTICE: Because of the "Uncertainty Principle," It Is Impossible for the Consumer to Find Out at the Same Time Both Precisely Where This Product Is and How Fast It Is Moving.   ADVISORY: There is an Extremely Small but Nonzero Chance That, Through a Process Know as "Tunneling," This ...

Times.  Change.  Workers have been told for 20 years that they need to adapt their skillsets or die, and now it's time for managers to do the same.  Have you not realized that your under-40 employees have been socializing "not in person" as often as in-person for the last few decades?  (Especially if you're the type who complains that "these kids won't get off their phones!")  It's 100% possible to have complex, meaningful interactions without being in the same room, and it has been for years.  "Team chat rooms" are much more conducive to a healthy team environment, where you can pay attention or not depending on how many balls you have in the air at once, especially when compared to the office bore who wanders from office to office to find a victim to shoot the shit with.  Want to have a quick chat about issue X?  Fire up the voice chat -- and then share your screen to show your buddy what your issue is.  Need help from more than one person?  Now you don't have to try to cram three people into a Smurf-sized cubicle and crane your neck to get input from your colleagues.  Especially after lunch, and nobody's brushed their teeth.  Walking a new hire through a procedure?  Record your meeting, and they can re-watch it.Managers -- *good* managers -- are *thrilled* at the possibilities and flexibility that working from home is bringing to their productivity.  I live in Austin, and my commute was 45 ...

They say it’s a war already well under way. That means the start of any ‘conventional’ conflict will be murky and confused. And, even once the shooting starts, sowing doubt and disbelief will be a significant weapon in its arsenal.China already ‘engaging in irregular war’ with US in the ‘grey zone’It's war, Jim, but not as we know it. Not as we know it.

One possible reason why Work From Home is okay now, will not affect h-1b hiring plans. Is because hiring has always been about nationality. Specifically don’t hire Americans, instead hire compliant foreign workers, that are tied to the job.Facebook (in Facebook vs DOJ) admits it finds 30x more local STEM/IT workers than it can hire. That indictment is online. If you have any evidence that you can present to the DOJ that refutes this information (again provided to the DOJ, from Facebook, under threat of Federal obstruction of justice charges). Then you should provide that information to the DOJ, immediately. This indictment has been on the books for 5 months (and it was entered post election, so it wasn’t a political stunt). Facebook has yet to issue a rebuttal or counter claim.I suspect Facebook will hope that Biden will (in exchange for continued silencing of conservative voices) try to drop the case quietly or settle for fraction of its value. And the value of this case (based on prior, similar cases) is 100,000$ per count, this indictment has 2600+ counts.We have to realize that Facebook intentionally protected foreign workers from local competition. And that wasn’t 1 or 2, better qualified local candidates per foreign worker (by Facebook’s own admission in the DOJ indictment), it was 30x more better qualified local candidates than foreign workers.Big Tech is not actually having any trouble finding local candidates for their STEM/IT positions. And that is because everyone wants to work for a big stable ...