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Comment Re:So more selectively-enforced, weaponized laws? (Score 1) 54

If people cared about government working

They don't care if it's working, that wasn't my point. They don't care if it works or not, they don't want to be bothered by it not working. As general rule, the republicans have quietly sabotaged things for decades, then loudly say "It doesn't work!, we have to kill it off!" then bother the airwaves with it until Hell won't have it about how We Must Do Something About It.

Example:
Massive day care fraud!? We must cut off all funds! (Never mind the fraud was already discovered and stopped 5 years ago.) That sort of thing. If they simply cut off daycare, those generally uncaring folks would say "Hey, that may not be something *I* use but it's good stuff!" whereas now they say "Well, at least they stopped those damned [racial characterization deleted] from stealing!" Same thing with "They're eating the Dogs! They are eating the CATS!" - turns out one woman, and she wasn't a PoC and was howl at the moon crazy to boot.

Comment Re:So more selectively-enforced, weaponized laws? (Score 1) 54

jacks smirking reven: What a mess.

It is in the interest of the parties to make the situation a case of "A curse on both your houses" so that their respective dedicated bases don't have to outvote the majority of people that feel "let me get on with my life and don't bother me" that just want the government to work and not have to expend time, effort and thought about it. If you recall the Monty Python skit "Argument Clinic", this is about the state of was passes for news. (It's on YT if you'd like to review.) I will say that "news" has never, in any time in history, ever been simply "pure reporting".

CommunityMember : the special election for LaMalfa's seat will be held with the existing district boundaries (the map changes do not take effect until the next election cycle).

Thanks, that's a point I wasn't aware of. That will likely result in the election being put off as long as possible rather than hurried up if the rules allow for that.

Comment Re:So more selectively-enforced, weaponized laws? (Score 2) 54

Sure, just convince 6 Republican House members to start.

By straight math, 3, but it's really likely done now.
There are 3 congress critters already out, one only temporary, two require an election and thus will be 60 - 90 days out.
TL;DR:

Doug LaMalfa, (R) California, died Sunday. The US Constitution requires that house seats be filled by special election and Doug LaMalfa's seat was gerrymandered to the Democratic Party in response to Texas' gerrymandering out 5 Democratic party seats.

Jim Baird (R) Indiana is out after a horrific crash, but "should" return. (And I wish him well in his recovery, though I disagree with 75% of his policy, he's a farmer that farms for profit, not for subsidy and mostly "gets it" on that sector). Likely could make it in to vote in two weeks if absolutely critical.

MTG resigned effective Monday (Jan 5th 2026), likely a GOP'er will replace her. and Tuesday someone elected a Democratic party member in their special election, defeating the GOP where not expected but can't recall which state.

Along with the loose cannons on the GOP House side, that means only one congressman needs to flip until the vacancy from MTG or LaMalfa are filled.
Chip Roy will flip as long as it's nothing important. Thomas Massie of Tennessee is another lose cannon but he's willing to go to the mat where Chip Roy won't.

The challenge is always in the Senate, where currently 13(? maybe it's 14) GOP senators need to vote to convict and remove and I don't see even just 4 GOP senators doing that.

Comment Re:Have they tried selling subscriptions? (Score 1) 25

Does it [AI] mislead more or less than the real press, I wonder?

That's a useful question. I will think on that, because I think at first blush that misinformation is misinformation, and the construction of a lie is of less import than it's effect. As one of my stock jokes, I say "We don't need to worry about AI, because it's attention span is only as long as it's power cord." but I read a disturbing piece about Anthropic's Caude. Haven't had time to read it completely as yet. My other stock thought is that lies you know are lies are useful insights into the motivation of others.

Comment Re:Have they tried selling subscriptions? (Score 1) 25

Maybe this is a dumb question, but have the newspapers

I want to point out that for the most part, there are no more newspapers, they are opinion papers. A bare, usually not well investigated set of facts (mostly a press release, unverified) followed by an entire banquet of opinion laid out on a smorgasbord of right wing memes or left wing wishful thinking, leaving "analysis" down to the basic divide of who is on first, what is on second, and I don't know is third base, leaving us to the unenviable occupant of short stop.

While most of the USA's opinion is formed before the frist facts are actually articulated, those that prefer not to consume mass produced, synthetic pablum are quite willing for form an opinion based on the very thing least available: Fact, with independently verified sources. Knowledge is power, and we certainly can't have a populace empowered by it. Fates forefend and heavens to Betsy!

Comment Re:For the fastest and most convenient way... (Score 1) 96

This impacts virtually no one so virtually no one will be convinced by you that they are using some kind of dystopian abomination.

Except those that air gap, which, admitted, if you're that worried about security, you already don't use Windows.

Find a better way to market Linux.

Unnecessary. Microsoft themselves are the best argument for leaving Windows, followed by their technology.

Where the driver in the change of OS comes from will be when Microsoft starts charging per inhale and per exhale per seat per day on the user side. When the question is "Why does/doesn't business do ...." the answer is always, always the same. MONEY. Microsoft is driving the use of their OS to be only if it can "phone home" and thus Microsoft can exact their pound of bits.

Comment Re:Time to give your money away! (Score 1) 55

What is "end stage capitalism"

When most people cannot rase a family on one income, afford housing, food, clothing, and health care.

how is it bad

Because with wealth redistribution from those that make the wealth happen to those that operate it makes commodities such as food, housing and clothing unaffordable.

and how can you prove that it exists and is happening?

the top 10% hold around ~70% of the wealth of the entire USA.
13.5 percent of the population go hungry every day, and 55% cannot afford unprocessed food for every day consumption.
Income inequality is rampant. One CEO "earns" 6,731:1 in pay. That's not percent - that's A&F's CEO's pay - equivalent to the work of 6,731 employees. I cherry picked that because it's shocking. The average is around 900 to one.

Comment Food Security and the elderly (Score 1) 168

The idea of buying large quantities of mass produced and largely processed food, is a path I'd rather avoid.

Many people in the USA are food insecure. I buy fresh and canned meat for myself and to give out to those I know need it.
Being an epicure is fine; if you can afford it, then by all means you should enjoy your meals. In the mean time, there are many that buy cat food, and they don't have any pets. Even that is dropping off - have you seen that a case of cat food costs more than 8 rotisserie chickens?

Comment Re:Time to give your money away! (Score 3, Insightful) 55

Why is it time to give his money away? If he just retired, now is precisely when he'll need it.

Warren Buffett is worth about 173 billion dollars, pegging him as the world's 4th or 5th richest person if memory serves.
He's 95 years old. If he spent 100 million dollars a day, he would need to live another 47 years to spend it all.

This is a fair example of end stage capitalism. Will 100 million dollars a day make him live another ~50 years?
(To be sure, Warren Buffett is quite well aware of the dependences of wealth and worries about it, but has not found a solution he's willing to communicate.)

I've been called a communist because I am against limited groups having wealth of this magnitude. (I do not consider myself a communist: It is an economic system whereby one greedy person can wreck the entire economy by just being greedy, which is base immoral human nature.) And while Warren Buffett did start with the advantage of a modicum of wealth from his upbringing, he didn't inherit gobs and gobs of money. He amassed the first part of his wealth by his own action, (Did the same thing I did - pinball machines) it was not at his own effort past about age 30.

I've read that the minimum wage was established in 1938 at twenty five cents per hour. At that time, Gold was $35.00 per troy ounce. 8 hours a day at twenty five cents per hour is $2, so about 17.5 days to make an ounce of gold.
Today, the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, $58 dollars per day, gold spot price is $4,319.50, so to earn the price of an ounce would take about 74 and a half days.
I went to get the historical data from data.gov; as so many other data sets in this post DOGE world, it has been removed and now if you want data prior to 1984 you have to pay for it. The average wage in 1938 was ~$2,100 (or 60 troy ounces) The average wage in the USA today is somewhere around $68,000.00 in 2024 (or 16 ounces.)

The wealth of the nation comes not be the effort of your own hands and mind anymore. It comes from weaponizing capitalism. We Americans shout and cheer for unrestricted unfettered, unregulated, uncontrolled capitalism. There is a reason they call us "Wage slaves" and we are leaping into our own chains with wild abandon. There are no easy answers that all find palatable and comforting. Most are even against taxing the rich. This is the power of wealth. They get to program the people into that attitude and that unions are bad (which as with anything, they are not inherently good or bad, being run by people with good or ill intention.)

I don't have the answers either. I'm simply pointing out it's raining money and the rich are taking our share of it. Turns out communism isn't the only thing greed destroys; it destroys capitalism too.

Comment Re: Why not weapons grade U-235 in civilian reacto (Score 3, Insightful) 96

Your failure to even read the source document sorta makes me think it's the latter...

One link was completely unreasonable to access and the other won't without turning off the ad blocker, which I'm not willing to do.

Therefore: Without analyzing the articles provided:
US and UK Naval reactors do indeed use weapons grade U235 (Highly Enriched Uranium, or HEU vs. Low Enriched Uranium, or LEU)
There was a November 2016 analysis someone got, and while the summary and analysis of that report was mostly just black ink (redacted) it did point out that LEU wasn't efficient enough for use in subs give current parameters. Others say the math says it could be done, but would require a larger foot print due to the reduced capacity in not using HEU. I think the real driving factor here is "government loan guarantees" and using HEU reactors is simply a way to "make it make sense" to have the government hand out another three to six billion to corporations for free. (You know it'll get that high despite the lower estimates).

Personally, I'm not comfortable with weapons grade material in civilian installations, especially given the ping pong like migration of the OEMs from one set of MIC corporations to another, and the cost conscious attitude of private equity firms. At least the Navy has all the money it wants to maintain the things, PE won't provide it. We know that because it happens every damn time we turn around.

Comment Re:How many jobs were lost? (Score 1) 134

You missed the point. Wind farms obstruct the radar horizon. There is your justification.

I did do something with it that starts with a "D". I demolished that point.
Radar horizons on the sea are short range unless your target is flying high. Drones and cruse missiles fly no more than 50 feet above the waves. If you were involved with tactical awareness on a boat or ship you'd have that wired into your nervious system so deep you would even be capable of not thinking about that.
Again, other technology is more useful in radar detection at sea level, and even a wind turbines will not completely shadow what's behind it, not even if you stack 20 one to the front of another.

The Russians have lots of satellites.

They even have hunter killer satellites in violation of treaty. See OPLAN for the response to it.

Oh, banning drone imports was not covered in anything I said,

I'd noted that. Again, this is about what is being done now. And what is being down now doesn't make any sense given the parameters in the public domain. There are others which are not in the public domain but still do not answer the base question.

For that matter, how much C4 (or whatever) was in the pagers the Mossad handed out to Hezbollah?

You're welcome to go off on all the tangents you like. I'll chime in when you get to the part that answers "What does this do strategically, tactically, or politically to advance the stated goals IN THE USA." As to the middle east, none of the parties wants peace. They've been fighting each other since the year 700, 1,300 years now. When they all want peace, it's simple. Stop killing each other. Being the one eyed man in the valley of the blind is ultimately of no worth despite the aphorism to the contrary. Just means everyone hates you for not taking "their" side.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New year.

Comment Re:How many jobs were lost? (Score 3, Informative) 134

All those things could be true,

Then please point to anything you may have a doubt about. I'm not perfect. I also change my mind when I have information I didn't.

but there is a threat that needs to be evaluated.

I just did. The threat of wind farms to threat detection is zero based on what I know now.

Satellites are very easy to dodge as everyone and their mothers knows where they are and where they are going at any given time.

Oh, for Frigs sake. We may not have 15cm resolution 100%, but bet the check we do have 50cm. Hell you can BUY 1m resolution (3 feet) from the French right now.

The Soviets moved entire divisions while the satellites were elsewhere, and did massive war games when the satellites were overhead only to tow the broken down tanks to new locations for the next pass. They were masters of the art of satellite spoofing.

1. The Soviet Union fell 32 to 39 years ago depending on what landmark in history you go by.
2. That was then, this is now. We have better coverage and I will grant that if an opponent is cleaver enough to simulate what their opposite number expects to see, and shows them that, then that is a successful tactic when their opponent falls for the ruse. It also works both ways if one has capable flag officers, which Trump and Hegseth just went to great effort to alienate and outright fire. Ask yourself "Who gains from a weak USA? Who gains from wasting USA resources on ineffective stratagems?"
3. Fails to show how wind farm and drone construction/import IN THE USA is a factor here.

Anyway, given a few Ukrainian drones have proven capable of sterilizing the Black Sea of surface ships I suspect the Pentagon isn't feeling very secure right now.

Keep your eye on the target at hand. What is the justification for WIND FARM cutoffs, and why will restriction DRONE PARTS IN THE USA going to achieve a strategic, tactical or domestic political goal? And the Ukrainians are not "sterilizing the black sea". No point to that. Here's a shipping map. (Note the lack of shipping near Ukraine, that's not Ukraine's doing, that's the Russians.) They are sinking some Russian targets that are worth the expenditure of effort and resources. Pretty standard tactic in war.

 

The Houthis chased off an aircraft carrier last year. Drones had better have the military brass spooked.

AGAIN: keep your eye on the target at hand. How will banning wind farms or drones in the USA do one damned thing with the Houthis who are not IN the USA? And the Admiral was right to withdraw the carrier from a threat vector. That's why we build carriers - to project other forces into the threat area, not to soak up hits.

One solution could be to put a radar unit on the towers just under the lower blade height to provide an uncluttered view to sea.

Other technologies meet that need; you were in the situational awareness of the boat and you know what those are if you'd think about it. I'm not going to tell the guy that did it how to do his own job.

But hanging military hardware on civilian infrastructure makes it an instant target not that it isn't already.

I'm old. I get in to thinking old habits if I don't watch myself. One of those habits are assuming an opponent will follow the "rules of war" and attack only valid military targets. They will not. Civilian targets are much less well protected and are of higher value in asymmetric warfare. AGAIN: keep your eye on the target at hand. How will banning wind farms or drones in the USA do one damned thing?

Another question, do you really want and important part of your energy generation way out at the edge of your defensive zone?

The USA "defensive zone" is 200 miles out from the coast looked at one way. Looked at another way, it's anywhere an ICBM can be launched. Anywhere there's a connection to the Internet is a threat surface in cyber warfare.

You don't even have to hit it, get close and the shock wave will snap a blade off. Durable they are not.

Which will disrupt one wind turbine. Much easer to get into the grid switch gear SCADA systems and simply short out the QT grid transformers that take more than a year to build, and you can do that from St. Petersburg to Tbilisi to Wuhan to Moldova.

Speaking of drones, you might review the damage the kamikazes did in WWII.

Keep your eye on the subject at hand. There is no strategic, tactical, political, or other legitimate reason of value to prohibit drone imports INTO the USA. Banning wind farms in the USA has no impact on that either.

The AI claims "Kamikaze attacks during WWII

And that was using chemical devices. I'm sure a B-53 or equivalent physics package, which weighs less than those self guided (kama kazi) or automated WWII drones did.

Details here.

Mercy snip. irrelevant, point granted.

The 1980 Mark 48 was already a bitch to evade.

And ADCAP is worse. And the Russian navy devised a cavitating torpedo that reportedly hits 200+ knots and everyone with subs has nuclear torpedos. It's now a case of remaining undetected in the first place. Keep your eye on the target at hand. How will banning wind farms or drones in the USA do one damned thing about your concern here?

Now they are too smart to be fooled by a noisemaker. Drones are not as new as people think, but they are smaller.

SEe the point above on remaining undetected. Keep your eye on the target at hand. How will banning wind farms or drones in the USA do one damned thing?

Neither the West nor Russia has found a defense against drones as of yet.

That anyone admits to, that is the case. Off hand, I can think of several ways from hanging monofilament to Tesla coils and wide band antennas for jamming.
snip irrelevant discussion to the point of banning drone imports and wind farms

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