11 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. Yay, Zuckerberg has found a place free from political bias – Texas! (quote from The Guardian)

   Zuckerberg said Meta’s “factcheckers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created”. The tech firm’s content moderation teams will be moved from California to Texas “where there is less concern about the bias of our teams”, he said.

   The new nation run by tech oligarchs USA is coming along nicely!

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   1. Yes, very nice!  It’s a credit to American big tech oligarchal genius and leadership seeing them all now working together so hard towards the goal of making California more pleasant and habitable.

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2. Remember during the campaign when Trump talked endlessly about taking over Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America?

   No? You don't remember hearing any of that either and it's all new ideas from an unhinged, easily influenced narcissist that we elected as fucking President?!

   FUCK!

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   1. Denmark, which owns Greenland, has a reply for The Yam: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/06/danish-king-changes-coat-of-arms-in-apparent-rebuke-to-donald-trump

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      1. That's way too subtle. I need a head of state somewhere to respond more like "Shut the fuck up you orange fuck." That would get his attention.

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3. For the nerdy amoung you, my latest post – Basics of the Electrical Grid

   BTW, one of the things people are bad at is preparing for low probability, horrific outcome events. If we get another Carrington Event or someone explodes a nuclear bomb 50 miles up over the center of the U.S. – it would take out the entire electrical grid.

   I don't know if our society could survive the months to years before we had electricity outside of what the military has with hardened local generators.

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4. No surprise, but Trump's Useful Idiot on the bench in Florida has thrown another wrench in the proceedings to reveal the findings of the Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith.

   Cannon temporarily blocks report on Trump classified-documents probe

   Todd Blanche, representing Trump, and slated to be the number two pick running the DOJ under Trump spits on the rule of law with these words:

   “The release of any confidential report prepared by this out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt, designed to politically harm President Trump and justify the huge sums of taxpayer money Smith unconstitutionally spent on his failed and dismissed cases,” the letter reads.

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5. Since the GOP-controlled Congress won't impeach Trump, perhaps someone should suggest another round of competency tests.

   Transition Live Updates: An Emboldened Trump Talks of Taking Greenland and Panama Canal by Force

   How long will it take VP Vance and the billionaires to effectively 25th Amendment Trump?

   

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6. Josh Marshall at TPM:

   That Melania Trump documentary? Turns out Amazon paid not for ownership but simply licensing, a whopping $40 million. Yes, $40 million straight into the Trump family’s pocket. (Really, what do you think the expenses for this charade amount to?) And there was a bidding war to get on board. Disney and Paramount got outbid by Amazon. Sad! They lined up to for their chance to hose Trump down in cash, in a kind of licensing wet t-shirt contest.

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   1. Even Gordon Gecko would be impressed by this level of greed.

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   2. Well, you know that documentaries need money to get made …. /s

      In addition to funding from other sources, [Ken Burns] The Civil War was awarded $1,349,100 from NEH—a figure, Burns said, that represented between 30 and 35 percent of its budget.

      So, for $40 million, Melania's bio-documentary is bound to be 10 times as good, amIright?

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