Good morning one and all to another incredible day!
That’s all I got for today. I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.
Wednesday Morning Links
About The Author
Banjos
Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.
“Gas Prices Lift US Inflation to 3.8 Percent, the Highest Level in Nearly 3 Years”
I still blame covid.
That’s 3.8 additional percent on top of the Covid inflation. It’s a bold strategy, let’s see if it pays off for the mid-terms.
We tend to forget that inflation is compounding. It never goes away
Rule of 72 keeps on keeping on
Kevin Warsh Cleared by Senate for 14‑Year Fed Board Seat
And idiots still want lower interest rates.
If you just ignore inflation it will go away.
Rates should be in the tens.
“The charge is in reference to a photograph of the meeting between Van Hollen and Abrego and Garcia showing alcoholic beverages. Van Hollen insisted at the time neither man touched the drinks, saying Salvadoran officials staged the photo by placing the glasses on the table mid-meeting in order to undermine the process.”
Official cocktail waitresses?
saying Salvadoran officials staged the photo by placing the glasses on the table mid-meeting in order to undermine the process
Projection, of course.
I’m fine with Patel’s responses – the default should be to treat those grandstanding pompous jack-holes with the disdain the deserve – but he missed an opportunity. “So you claim you were manipulated and lied about for political advantage – did it ever occur to you that the press and members of your own party might be doing the same to me? Probably not, because you’re just a pompous grandstanding asshole trying to score cheap political points.”
Is today a holiday?
Every day is a holiday if you set your standards low enough.
Fourscore is off work today.
Oh yeah?
“He [Makary] will not be missed by a single career person,” an anonymous FDA staffer told Politico on Friday
The career people need to think about their careers.
“We gotta make this job long enough ’til we can retire”
not be missed by a single career person
That’s not the condemnation that asshole thinks it is.
I don’t think so, the boss here is telling me I have stuff to do.
Tell Mrs. JI we say hi.
Well, it is World Cocktail Day.
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/jack-daniels-maker-brown-forman-rejects-15-billion-takeover-offer-from-sazerac-48296c0e?st=DL4vX1&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
National Frog Jumping Day
Talk is cheap.
“A glamorous female prison warden has been busted for allegedly having a relationship with an inmate at a maximum-security prison dubbed the UK’s Guantánamo Bay.
Michelle Molver, 30, allegedly had a fling with lag Kemai Mathurine between Aug 1. and Sept. 5 last year while working as a prison employment lead at HMP Belmarsh – a London lockup that houses terrorists alongside murderers and rapists, the Sun reported.
Molver appeared in court Monday charged with misconduct in public office – an offense that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in the UK.”
https://nypost.com/2026/05/13/world-news/glam-prison-warden-busted-for-alleged-fling-with-inmate-at-max-security-lockup-dubbed-uks-gitmo/
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15808095/female-prison-officer-inappropriate-relationship-HMP-Belmarsh.html
Glam is mid with make up.
You ever been to prison? She’s a prison 10+1 for not having a set of balls.
And we’re talking about UK which is graded on a much more generous scale.
misconduct in public office – an offense that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment
Sounds good in theory, but I suspect it doesn’t work that way in practice.
It depends on the nature of the misconduct I suspect. Abetting the mass rape of young girls? A stern talking to! Miss-gendering the 6′ 3 pervert masturbating in a grade school girl’s rest room? Life imprisonment.
If you have legs like that, you should not wear skirts like that.
Prison guards doing prison guard stuff.
$30,000,000,000? That’s Zelensky’s money
Think of all the learing and hospices that could cover.
That money *could* be used to provide health care and housing to so many people! Of course if any politician had their mitts on it, they’d spend it on nothing of the sort. But it still could though.
“Over 430 witnesses were also interviewed, who told terrifying tales of terrorists raping and mutilating women both alive and dead, humiliating them sexually, and executing women while violating them and then parading their bodies as trophies.
“The men pulled a woman from the vehicle … forcibly removed her clothing, and raped her … They repeatedly stabbed her, killing her … They continued to rape her after her death,” Nova music festival survivor Raz Cohen told the commission….
Some of the worst crimes described by survivors were labeled “kinocidal sexual violence” — which the commission described as “crimes deliberately aimed at torturing and destroying the family as a cohesive social and emotional unit.”
That included young women being threatened with marriage to their captors — and, unspeakably, family members held captive together being forced to commit sexual acts on each other.”
https://nypost.com/2026/05/12/world-news/hamas-forced-sexual-torture-between-family-members-on-oct-7/
The Women’s March was unavailable for comment.
Antifa and friends are saying none of this happened and if it did they deserved it.
Today in no minds will be changed….
None of it happened, they deserved it anyways, and what about the (((dog))) rape story! BELIEVE THEM
#TeachDogsToRapeBitchesNotPalestinians
The chart is priceless.
The Average Student-Loan Defaulter Is Nearly 40 Years Old
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/the-average-student-loan-defaulter-is-nearly-40-years-old-3d25a7b5?st=Q4nffn&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Nothing broken about student loans or higher education pricing.
JFC.
No worries, they will just hang on until the next Democrat either puts it on hold again or just makes the debt go *poof*.
The chart is priceless.
The interregnum.
The money should be recovered from the schools’ endowment funds. They issued the worthless degrees.
This.
It’s the opposite of a holiday, and I have to avoid excess aggravation right now, lest I murder a coworker.
Does your workplace have documented procedures regarding not murdering coworkers?
Holds bloody ax
“was that wrong? should I knot have done that? If I had known…”
Story from the startup days:
Our labs were only provided with a single point of egress. In order to highlight this problem the then manager put for requests for an axe, then power equipment in order to go through the walls in case that egress point was blocked by a fire.
They were denied.
Should have ordered one of those explosive breaching panels which have a shaped charge around the rim to punch out a doorway in the wall.
Hmmm. I wonder how EHS would react to submitting a MSDS for high explosives?
That’s why I quit corporate America 20 years ago.
Freelance murderin’ now?
Corporate America was a peach compared to American public sector.
subcontract killer
Who here hated patchouli?
https://www.dailymail.com/textbased/health/text-15811147/herb-perfumes-patchouli-oil-mosquito-repellent.html
Everyone.
🙂
↖️
Al Stewart hardest hit.
Eh, time is still passing.
The mosquitoes were repelled by the hippies, not the patchouli.
potato, potatoe
Do mosquitos enjoy blood with a little kick to it?
Rhy knows.
The TNR is concerned about damage Biden is going to do the elections.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-have-a-joe-biden-problem-again/ar-AA22Dn0e
Hardly a problem at all!
His arrogant insistence on running for re-election rather than making a dignified exit from office doomed his party and the country.
Totally overlooking the fact that Democrats spent four years covering up Biden’s condition.
😂🤣
“LGBTQ people”
I’m not under assault except by the Virginia Democrats.
Are these the same Virginia Democrats who want to eliminate all the judges on the state Supreme Court?
“A mural painted to honor Iryna Zarutska — the Ukrainian refugee who was murdered while riding a North Carolina train — is being taken down after outrage in Providence, Rhode Island.
On Tuesday, a construction crew was seen near the exterior of The Dark Lady, an LGBTQ+ club in downtown Providence, working to remove the partly finished mural….
The office of Mayor Brett Smiley told Fox News that he wanted the artwork taken down, saying that the art is “divisive and does not represent Providence.”
“The murder of the individual depicted in this mural was a devastating tragedy, but the misguided, isolating intent of those funding murals like the one across the county is divisive and does not represent Providence,” Smiley said in a statement.”
https://nypost.com/2026/05/13/us-news/iryna-zarutska-mural-taken-down-in-providence-after-local-outrage/
It excludes people who want more crime.
“Outrage”
If only she was an overweight dude with a heart condition and high on fentanyl.
Now I am outraged! Why TF is this a federal case? NC doesn’t have a capital murder statute? Is Nifong back in office in NC?
And I don’t get the mayor ordering the art removed unless it was on city property.
The state court found him incompetent to stand trial, didn’t they? I don’t like the dual sovereigns trick to beat double jeopardy, but if one of the sovereigns decides that being a violent moron means you cannot be tried for your crimes I am pretty ok with the other one trying the case, or random citizens dragging him out to the nearest oak tree.
Trains and a mile to Esther side of the track out west are federal jurisdiction.
Fry him.
It’s only “divisive” to the notion that the Goodthinkful Class should be able to spout off on politics unopposed, and rub the noses of normies in that.
https://www.dailymail.com/textbased/debate/text-15811897/supreme-court-justices-fury-exposed.html
KBJ, of course.
So she’s “combative” but more importantly she’s an idiot and a radical activist.
Yes, I have little problem with combative, especially in the face of institutions that have largely co-opted decorum and ‘institutional respect’ as a means of curbing and excluding dissent.
KJBs problem is she is completely unfit for the office she was appointed to.
Kagen and Sotomayor have to be relieved they aren’t the dumbest justices anymore.
Will she eventually go Tennessee-D during a session?
I believe she will.
??? 🤔
If she starts walking with a cane, you’ll know it’s on.
Is there any kind of action that would be taken if she starts berating judges during trials? I expect that is what she would do is start shouting politics or personal digs.
R.J.:
I would hope Clarence Thomas would backhand her and tell her to shut up.
I would be sooo happy.
I’m waiting for her to blare an air horn during reading of the majority opinion followed by lighting it on fire.
And in a perfect NYC moment two coworkers and I have all independently grabbed our earbuds to block out a jackhammer outside our office and 14 floor below. It’s been going on for the past half hour.
+1 Back to the Office!
+1 Team interaction!
See, it’s working!
頑張れ!
And in football news we missed:
https://www.beinsports.com/en-us/soccer/articles/chaos-and-madness-in-the-prague-derby-pitch-invasion-injuries-and-an-early-ending-2026-05-10
I can’t imagine being hit in the face by a flare was particularly enjoyable.
This ain’t hockey – no checks!
Football news? The schedule isn’t getting released until tomorrow.
How are people there going to get married?
India Raises Gold, Silver Tariffs to Curb Imports
https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/india-raises-gold-silver-tariffs-to-curb-imports-7350aa4f?st=vQrEKc&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Debasement and black market metals.
Does their gold not already come from Africa?
Arrangements can be made…
For the second time in 2 years the fiber optic internet feed to work has been severed by an overeager fella in a backhoe. No CAD, no sharing test data.
/what is the Cal score?
Before answering that question, I am required to inform you that the data in question is known to the state of california to cause cancer.
A local school lost their internet connection yesterday during state testing that requires the internet.
They should go without the internet for a year or three.
Fun in the Philippines!
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/philippine-senator-says-arrest-is-imminent-urges-public-not-allow-icc-transfer-2026-05-13/
It’s like a Democrat’s fantasy of the fall of Trump.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kXmPDLRt6hA
The important thing is that the detective has no personal liability, her union no liability, but the CO taxpayers do!
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/misconduct-jury-verdict-parker-police-robert-dial/
Same as it ever was.
The restaurant comped part of her graduation dinner and gave her a gift card.
Dessert and coffee only!
Nurse anesthesia graduate saves chef’s life during post‑graduation dinner
https://6abc.com/post/nurse-anesthesia-graduate-saves-chefs-life-during-postgraduation-dinner/19088601/
For you car repair types.
Say that, hypothetically of course, someone backing into a garage lightly brushed the passenger side mirror against the garage door edge. Just brushed mind you, not crunched and dangling or anything like that, just cosmetic…
What’s the difference between e.g. THIS and THAT? Is there any reason to spend 4x as much for this totally aesthetic repair?
Is it powered? Folding? Usually they use junk internals or you may need to take the internals out of the old unit.
My preference would be E-Bay and a salvaged OEM one over any of the non-OEM solutions.
Would non-OEM violate any warranty?
It shouldn’t. There’s a law about it, but some dealers like to pretend it doesn’t exist.
The issue is quality. If it’s a beater car that’s different.
Roughly, about $350 difference
Powered adjustment, manual fold.
Guess I’m not terribly worried about internals as it’s pretty much ‘set it and forget it’; I don’t adjust it once set, don’t really use the ‘blind spot detection’ – that’s what eyes, neck, and situational awareness are for.
Roughly, about $350 difference
Get a load of the comedian over here. Well, I oughta…
My preference would be E-Bay and a salvaged OEM one over any of the non-OEM solutions.
Make sure they have the right part. Having pictures of the right part on the ad doesn’t mean that is the part you will get. I was looking for replacement floor mats for my Genesis since no dealer had them. Some sellers on eBay had pictures of the right one, but sent the wrong one. eBay briefly flagged me as a “malicious buyer” because I raised a stink about these sellers. I know about flagging because eBay sent me an e-mail about it. I raised a stink about the e-mail and head nothing more.
On the other hand, when my Genesis’ driver door switch assembly failed, I found out the hard way that Hyundai stopped making electronic parts for that year Genesis. And all dealers were sold out of the assembly. I found a salvage yard on eBay with the part. They sent the exact part pictured, which was the right one.
What’s the difference between e.g. THIS and THAT?
This, or that?
The song I was expecting, but not the context.
(that album holds up pretty well)
It is a very good album. Dres also has a son who might be a Glib .
Just duct tape on a piece of bathroom mirror and call it good.
Japan made VS China.
Go with sensei. eBay or Car-Part.com.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Okada said at the time of the plaintiff’s second citizenship application, he was still not able to write basic hiragana and katakana characters, despite having lived in the country for nine years.
I won’t pretend this is as simple as many claim. It took me about 6 months to be able to read and write a random character when I first started. Mind you that wasn’t the only part of Japanese that I was studying at the same time.
And yet:
The plaintiff arrived in Japan in October 2013 after fleeing severe human rights abuses in his home country and later enrolled in a doctoral program at Waseda University, where he studied and received a doctorate in international relations, hoping to work for the United Nations.
Yes – he has a PhD and can’t utilize the basic Japanese writing system. How has the UN failed to pick him up?
Tokyo court rejects refugee’s bid for naturalization over limited Japanese skills
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/05/12/japan/crime-legal/ruling-naturalization-refugee/
Was the persecution the lack of jobs and benefits?
He writes in Ebonics.
It’s not his fault, it’s genetic.
This is hilarious:
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/05/12/business/business-housing/moved-to-maine-climate-change-texas-joam40zk0w/
“In addition to extreme heat, Shawn and Sara dodged tornadoes and survived deadly snow and ice storms, among other weather events, while living in Texas.“
Good. Leave, you pantywaists. BTW, every year in Texas is hot, and has tornadoes and ice storms.
Delaware and Joe Biden await their arrival!
https://www.buildingenclosureonline.com/articles/92966-delaware-tops-list-of-states-with-fewest-natural-disasters
Wait. They moved to Maine to avoid snow and ice storms? They’re not exactly that bright… are they?
About the only thing you can say in their defense is Maine is better prepared than Texas to handle snow and ice.
I wonder if they know about snow tires? Judging by:
This includes evaluating whether to keep their oil heat — a heating method they’re unfamiliar with
I’ll guess not.
They should get a heat pump. It’ll work great.
I’ve always been suspicious of heat pumps in New England for the winter, but a former coworker of mine has them in his house. He thinks they’re great. Maybe newer ones are better?
They are really inefficient in extremes, either way. Does his house feel warm? Does he supplement it in below zero? That would be interesting to hear.
They are. I have two minisplits. The low temp (Mitsubishi Hyperheat) doesn’t lose heating capacity until 5F and can heat down to something like -15F. Still has a COP of 2.0 at 5F so more “efficient” than baseboard or furnace heat (but depending on your electricity vs heating oil cost, may cost more).
They look exactly how you’d expect them to.
And they’re probably trying to inflict their politics on the locals.
As far as I can tell, Donald Trump does not consider me to be his chattel property. That separates him from Biden and the rest of the Democrats.
Perfect spot
The proposed project is backed by Kevin O’Leary, the venture capitalist who appears on the TV show Shark Tank and recently played a villainous tycoon in the movie Marty Supreme. O’Leary has claimed Stratos will deliver thousands of jobs and help the US compete with China in the burgeoning AI industry.
“I don’t think there’s a bigger site in the world than this,” O’Leary told Fox News. “It shows the Chinese and the rest of the world we are not messing around, we are going to get this done, move it forward and provide the compute power to our AI companies that defend the country.”
Why wouldn’t you put a gigantic facility which requires massive amounts of water and energy in the desert? I’m sure they did a study.
At least Musk put his next to a giant river.
Never let a tragedy go to waste.
Passengers aboard plane that struck, killed man on DIA runway intend to sue, law firms announce
Law firms Ramos Law and DJC Law say passengers will seek more than $10 million in damages
Given that I’m delayed by suicide by train at least 3 or 4 times a year I should be rich
https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/passengers-aboard-plane-that-struck-killed-man-on-dia-runway-intend-to-sue-law-firms-announce
CWABOA
This should be fun.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/05/the-newest-ai-boom-pitch-host-a-mini-data-center-at-your-home/
You get free internet and partially subsidized power. I wondered if it was dumping all that heat inside the house, but it appears external.
https://www.span.io/blog/span-announces-xfra-a-distributed-data-center-solution-to-close-the-speed-to-power-gap-for-ai-compute-demand
I expect it blow up similar to Google Fiber.
That would be nice in the winter.
In winter I’d look at it as free heat too.
It’s basically 80A of electric heat.
I’ve seen people vent the positive pressure from their well into their crawlspace as free cooling.
Not like a lithium ion battery?
A small backup battery is (likely) lithium ion. But it sucks unused capacity from your electrical service.
No, I meant the idea was going to blow up like a lithium ion battery….
I wonder just how much the house pulls when the oven, furnace, dryer, and the well are all running. I’m sure it’s no where close to 80 amps but it’s not nothing.
Well is on a 50 amp breaker, dryer 30, holding tank 20, furnace pair of 60s, heat pump 40, water heater 30, range 50 and then all the 115v stuff.
Sure it’s not all on at the same time, not pulling maximum load. But throw another 80 amps of load into the mix. $150 off the electric bill would be nice and another $45 for internet, would it be worth the extra noise, heat and looks? Maybe.
Word of the day
Some experts say the United States is no longer a liberal democracy, but operating under a system called “competitive authoritarianism.”
——-
If you’re not familiar with the term, here is a basic definition:
Competitive authoritarian countries have democratic rules and hold competitive elections, but the party in charge uses various tactics to tilt the electoral playing field in its favor to maintain power.
I thought it meant opposing authoritarian parties using winner-take-all electoral “mandates” to control the people.
It was fine when the authoritarianism was about mandating progressive ideals.
“experts”
without reading Sensei’s link I’m guessing it dovetails with my preference for distributed networks over gargantuan dedicated infrastructure projects like that idiot’s Utah project.
Maybe I lack imagination, but the obsession with size baffles me. Economies of scale are not infinite.
And the underutilization of most home internet and electricity capacity. You don’t pull maximum bandwidth or 200A 24/7 at homes. OTH, data centers run much closer to limits.
I’ve been around long enough to see integrated systems get replaced by distributed systems which were replaced by integrated systems which were replaced by distributed systems which were replaced by . . . . . . {and so on and so forth}.
One place I worked, the first project I was helping with was rolling calls from a centralized call center out to the field offices. When I was leaving the company about 10 years later, the last project was rolling calls from the field offices back into centralized call centers.
Perpetual employment, Neph!
“Elected authoritarians, when they come to power, try to convert the state, which is supposed to be a neutral arbiter, into both a weapon and a shield,” said Levitsky, who co-authored the book How Democracies Die. “It’s a weapon to be deployed against political rivals, and it is a shield to protect themselves and to protect their allies who engage in authoritarian or illegal behavior.”
Levitsky says Trump’s pardoning of the people convicted in the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol is a prime example.
How would you characterize the weaponization of the entire apparatus of the state in pursuit of those political dissidents, Professor Egghead?
another exercise in willful blindness
Say, weren’t there a number of pardons right at the end of the previous term? Those were just hunky-dory, right?
Audi is releasing this into the US market first. Usually Europe is first. I can’t imagine why.
The 2027 Audi Q9 Flagship Has Cupholders Big Enough for a Stanley and a Sound System That Vibrates Your Seat
It’s three rows (large demand in US market) and it’s got screens. And I do mean screens.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-2027-audi-q9-flagship-has-cupholders-big-enough-for-a-stanley-and-a-sound-system-that-vibrates-your-seat
It’s like they looked at BMW’s recent large SUVs and said “hold my beer”.
“ A button opens and releases the door. There’s no mechanical backup”
NO
Not ever.
I had a cut wire in the rear fore harness of our 2014 F150. The door refused to open due to one broken wire. Hell no. Of all the dumb safety laws out there mechanical door locks and handles should be required.
“Almost none of the needles in this children’s playground have AIDS on them”
https://x.com/FletchMatlock/status/2054389538391265635
I want this Audi
Oh my that is sexy.
Needs some work on the front end I would say. Throw some Willys headlights on it and a vertical slat grille.
https://dev.acautos.com/40-41-willys-pickup/
“Almost none of the needles in this children’s playground have AIDS on them”
That is fucking awesome, but they should have put her in a tailored grey Mao suit.
Speaking of failure
The pandemic-era backslide in math and reading scores for students across the U.S. was not a sudden catastrophe but the continuation of a brutal, decade-long “learning recession” that began years before COVID-19’s arrival. That’s according to the latest Education Scorecard, an annual deep-dive into student data from The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University and Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research.
The new Scorecard, released Wednesday and in its fourth year, offers several revelations for families, educators and policymakers looking for clarity — and hope — at a time when public education has been blamed and battered for those persistent declines in student performance.
Among the report’s takeaways: Most states are finally making gains in math; federal relief dollars likely helped the lowest-income districts mount a hearty comeback; and, while most states have yet to make gains in reading, those that have all made legislative changes to how it’s taught in their schools.
We’re just not hitting it hard enough. More of the same, with bigger budgets should do the trick.