We in a discussion about Musk slashing the Federal government. Why are you talking about the University of Colorado, and why are you using the University of Colorado as an example of a department?
I thought it was broad enough to cover such things as "spending" but if you insist, I'll limit future examples in this thread to stuff that has a .gov or .mil website.
This college has apparently decided that the Department of Education will likely have a problem with the name, at minimum, so has preemptively changed it.
Why do you think this is an attempt to ‘hide’?
If you don't like the word "hide", how's "rebrand"?
Back in the early oughts, my managed services job was bought and sold and renamed a buncha times and I had to get up and go into a room and fill out paperwork multiple times but when the paperwork was done I'd get a new badge and go back to the same desk and do the same job as I did the day before.
In the same way, the exact same job being done by the DEI Office now being done by the Whole Employee Office would be an example of what I'm talking about.
Do you understand the phenomenon I'm talking about here?
What you think the University of Colorado should have done at this point in time?
Oh, I'm not paid well enough to come up with game plans for universities.
Hell, renaming the department and getting rid of the troublesome office nameplate and replacing it with a nameplate with different letters on it is probably the best play. "Maybe Trump will get impeached and we can just keep on keeping on and, let's face it, DEI was getting to be a kind of thought-terminating cliché anyway so it's for the best."
Thank you for your letters to the Department of Justice (Department) dated February 11, 2025, and February 19, 2025. We are sending an identical response to the other Member who joined your letters.
In your letters, you requested briefing about any documents in the Department's possession relating to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and about the declassification of records regarding the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pursuant to Executive Order 14176. You also requested written confirmation of the date and location of those records' release.
The integrity of criminal investigations and prosecutions is essential to every component of the Department's mission to uphold the rule of law, keep our nation safe, and protect civil rights. The Department remains committed to meeting its legal recordkeeping obligations as it pursues that mission. We are reviewing your requests and look forward to engaging further to accommodate your oversight and legislative needs.
We hope this information is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact this office if we may provide additional assistance regarding this or any other matter.
Okay.
What's the first thing we notice there? That's right: Diddly Squat.
That's what they told her. Diddly.
Reading as charitably as possible, I'd say that they said that there are ongoing criminal investigations and potential prosecutions.
That said, it only really makes sense that there would be those things for Epstein and it doesn't make sense that there would be ongoing criminal investigations and potential prosecutions for JFK, RFK, or MLK Jr.
So I'm mostly just saying that we're going to have jam to-morrow, just like we had jam yesterday.
From the sounds of it, the contents will be coming out piecemeal. So we'll get a couple of names here, a couple of names there.
"So there will be names that *AREN'T* released?"
"Sounds like it."
"So this could be used as a weapon against certain people but other names will remain hidden?"
"Sounds like it."
Cutting out the DEI stuff is the stuff that will make the most noise. There will be various departments that will try to route around it by hiding that it was the DEI office the week prior.
This will get the DOGE fans to say "see how important it was that we get rid of this? Look at how sneaky they are!"
From the article I linked to above:
On the federal level, employees have been ordered to report efforts to “disguise” DEI offices through various name changes or otherwise. Other businesses and institutions, like CU, have opted to rename their offices and change the language on their websites.
Some say that The Denver Post is a Nazi newspaper for Nazis. Other call it "Commie fishwrap".
I can only link to it and ask you to decide for yourself if it is Facebook quality or higher.
I guess that’s how your sentence is supposed to end?
The conspiracy theory that *I* believe is that Owens tried to get in on the whole "Team Good Anti-Harassment" train, instead of being welcomed with open arms, she had her stuff shut down and Randi Lee Harper bragged about shutting it down in an open post to freakin' everybody.
From there, she assumed that she'd never get into the grift via Team Good and, to her surprise, found a home on Team Evil where she managed to Thrive, thus cementing the idea that it wasn't Team Evil that was opposing her but the very people who bragged about doing so to her very face.
And Randi made the unfortunate mistake of saying "it was us" instead of "it was me" and so Zoe got swept up into it.
"No, not *THAT* conspiracy theory... *THIS* one!"
I've told you the conspiracy theory that I buy into and posted links to it.
If you'd like to explain to me that "but what they did was good, though", that's fine. Feel free.
The main thing I remember everybody screaming was "WHERE IN THE HELL HAS THIS GUY BEEN FOR THE LAST YEAR?"
Gore came across as genial, charming, genuine... not wooden at all.
The whole "messaging" thing might be superficially amusing but, honestly, Bill Clinton and Obama were both once-in-a-generation charismatic talents who were masters at, yes, messaging.
Now maybe any plan that has "we need someone as charismatic as Bill Clinton" is doomed to fail if you don't have a Bill Clinton handy.
But I absolutely understand why, after Clinton and Obama, the thought is that the problem is messaging.
Of course, that may lead you to the conclusion that you need someone good at messaging to be running for the office...
I remember the exhaustion. "Clinton Fatigue". The whiplash from the Clarence Thomas hearings just a few short years prior (and this was back when people still had attention spans).
But maybe Gore still loses Florida under those circumstances... maybe he still loses Tennessee.
I'm thinking of "real" media places that put an exclusive emphasis on free markets and personal liberties and maybe WSJ is on there... maybe the Economist... Then I get to Reason Magazine and after that we're in crazytown.
So while I might agree that the whole "free markets/personal liberties" thing is underserved, I have no idea what Bezos means when he says either of those terms and no reason to believe that he means what I mean when I say them.
But, gotta say, as platitudes go, I am 100% down with the platitudes.
"So you think that the people he's going to fire shouldn't be fired?"
"Oh, I wouldn't go *THAT* far."
I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:
I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.
I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.
I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.
Ugh. Sony just shut down Monolith Studios. You know the guys who made The Nemesis System? The system that was freakin' amazing and only got used in two games? The system that they patented so nobody else can use it for free until 2035?!?
I’m actually kinda wondering if the GamerGate-gullible people on this site actually believe Zoe Quinn sent an army of harassment against Candace. On one had, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Zoe had anything to do with it. On the other hand, [insert conspiracy]
Randi Lee Harper bragged about getting Social Autopsy shut down. From the horse's mouth:
You blamed your Kickstarter getting shut down on trolls. You’re wrong. That was us. As long as you’re willfully harming other people by creating shitty uninformed products while kicking the shit out of anyone that tries to help you, we’re going to keep getting you shut down. You have created more work for me in the past 3 days, but I’d rather invest this time now, because if this bullshit doesn’t get nipped in the bud early, it’s just another fucking platform that I’m going to have to try to help protect people from in the future.
Randi Lee Harper may have been lying, of course. If she is, she's one of the people in on the conspiracy.
On “Musk vs Gore”
We in a discussion about Musk slashing the Federal government. Why are you talking about the University of Colorado, and why are you using the University of Colorado as an example of a department?
I thought it was broad enough to cover such things as "spending" but if you insist, I'll limit future examples in this thread to stuff that has a .gov or .mil website.
This college has apparently decided that the Department of Education will likely have a problem with the name, at minimum, so has preemptively changed it.
Why do you think this is an attempt to ‘hide’?
If you don't like the word "hide", how's "rebrand"?
Back in the early oughts, my managed services job was bought and sold and renamed a buncha times and I had to get up and go into a room and fill out paperwork multiple times but when the paperwork was done I'd get a new badge and go back to the same desk and do the same job as I did the day before.
In the same way, the exact same job being done by the DEI Office now being done by the Whole Employee Office would be an example of what I'm talking about.
Do you understand the phenomenon I'm talking about here?
What you think the University of Colorado should have done at this point in time?
Oh, I'm not paid well enough to come up with game plans for universities.
Hell, renaming the department and getting rid of the troublesome office nameplate and replacing it with a nameplate with different letters on it is probably the best play. "Maybe Trump will get impeached and we can just keep on keeping on and, let's face it, DEI was getting to be a kind of thought-terminating cliché anyway so it's for the best."
On “From Fox News: AG Pam Bondi announces Epstein files will start to be released on Thursday the 27th”
Florida's Anna Palina Luna wrote the FBI for a formal response on the Epstein, JFK, RFK, and MLK Jr files.
They sent back a letter saying:
Okay.
What's the first thing we notice there? That's right: Diddly Squat.
That's what they told her. Diddly.
Reading as charitably as possible, I'd say that they said that there are ongoing criminal investigations and potential prosecutions.
That said, it only really makes sense that there would be those things for Epstein and it doesn't make sense that there would be ongoing criminal investigations and potential prosecutions for JFK, RFK, or MLK Jr.
So I'm mostly just saying that we're going to have jam to-morrow, just like we had jam yesterday.
"
From the sounds of it, the contents will be coming out piecemeal. So we'll get a couple of names here, a couple of names there.
"So there will be names that *AREN'T* released?"
"Sounds like it."
"So this could be used as a weapon against certain people but other names will remain hidden?"
"Sounds like it."
"
My initial takeaway: jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
...Do you read what I said above (or below) as a defense of Owens?
On “Musk vs Gore”
Let me rephrase it, then.
Cutting out the DEI stuff is the stuff that will make the most noise. There will be various departments that will try to route around it by hiding that it was the DEI office the week prior.
For example, here's an article from The Denver Post: University of Colorado renames DEI office to 'Office of Collaboration'
This will get the DOGE fans to say "see how important it was that we get rid of this? Look at how sneaky they are!"
From the article I linked to above:
Some say that The Denver Post is a Nazi newspaper for Nazis. Other call it "Commie fishwrap".
I can only link to it and ask you to decide for yourself if it is Facebook quality or higher.
I guess that’s how your sentence is supposed to end?
"Something needs to be done. This is something."
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
Is writing something the same thing as taking over a building?
To the extent that it is, I'd say "yes, of course".
If it's different for any reason, we'd probably want to explore those reasons.
If those reasons exist at all, of course.
"
The conspiracy theory that *I* believe is that Owens tried to get in on the whole "Team Good Anti-Harassment" train, instead of being welcomed with open arms, she had her stuff shut down and Randi Lee Harper bragged about shutting it down in an open post to freakin' everybody.
From there, she assumed that she'd never get into the grift via Team Good and, to her surprise, found a home on Team Evil where she managed to Thrive, thus cementing the idea that it wasn't Team Evil that was opposing her but the very people who bragged about doing so to her very face.
And Randi made the unfortunate mistake of saying "it was us" instead of "it was me" and so Zoe got swept up into it.
"No, not *THAT* conspiracy theory... *THIS* one!"
I've told you the conspiracy theory that I buy into and posted links to it.
If you'd like to explain to me that "but what they did was good, though", that's fine. Feel free.
"
Students and Faculty at Columbia have taken over a building and are chanting stuff like "Globalize the Intifada".
My main question: Does Tenure cover this?
"
I'm pretty sure that if Gore had fewer than two years, he'd have been able to run again in 2004.
"
Remember Gore's concession speech?
The main thing I remember everybody screaming was "WHERE IN THE HELL HAS THIS GUY BEEN FOR THE LAST YEAR?"
Gore came across as genial, charming, genuine... not wooden at all.
The whole "messaging" thing might be superficially amusing but, honestly, Bill Clinton and Obama were both once-in-a-generation charismatic talents who were masters at, yes, messaging.
Now maybe any plan that has "we need someone as charismatic as Bill Clinton" is doomed to fail if you don't have a Bill Clinton handy.
But I absolutely understand why, after Clinton and Obama, the thought is that the problem is messaging.
Of course, that may lead you to the conclusion that you need someone good at messaging to be running for the office...
"
I remember the exhaustion. "Clinton Fatigue". The whiplash from the Clarence Thomas hearings just a few short years prior (and this was back when people still had attention spans).
But maybe Gore still loses Florida under those circumstances... maybe he still loses Tennessee.
"
Bush does? Huh. My assumption is that Clinton has a lot of baggage that weighs Gore 2000 down and does not weigh down Incumbent Gore.
"
Well, you know the "Call Her Daddy" podcast? That's the one that interviewed Harris.
Well, in the latest "Call Her Daddy", Monica Lewinsky explains that Bill Clinton should have resigned instead of throwing her under the bus.
I mean, I'm sure she thinks that.
But can you imagine what the 21st Century would have looked like if he did?
"
I'm thinking of "real" media places that put an exclusive emphasis on free markets and personal liberties and maybe WSJ is on there... maybe the Economist... Then I get to Reason Magazine and after that we're in crazytown.
So while I might agree that the whole "free markets/personal liberties" thing is underserved, I have no idea what Bezos means when he says either of those terms and no reason to believe that he means what I mean when I say them.
But, gotta say, as platitudes go, I am 100% down with the platitudes.
"So you think that the people he's going to fire shouldn't be fired?"
"Oh, I wouldn't go *THAT* far."
"
"Free Markets" == "More H1Bs"
"Personal Liberties" == "No Unions"
"
Bezos, huh? Lemme see what he said... holy crap.
Oh, so he fired Shipley. Huh.
Huh.
"
Is there any way to punish or reprimand a judge short of recalling her?
On “97th Oscars Projections: And The Oscar Goes To…”
When are all of the votes locked?
I mean, if (GOD FORBID) Pope Francis passes overnight, I could easily see a bunch of votes switching to Conclave.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
Most? As in more than 51%?!?
Wow. Promises kept!
"
Ugh. Sony just shut down Monolith Studios. You know the guys who made The Nemesis System? The system that was freakin' amazing and only got used in two games? The system that they patented so nobody else can use it for free until 2035?!?
Yeah, well, that studio got shut down.
"
Yeah, I hope the budget is very successful.
"
I hope it's as successful as Obamacare.
Wait, is this a *BUDGET* budget? Like not a reconciliation budget?!?
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
The "using the military against US citizens" rubicon has already been crossed, sadly.
I would most certainly hope that they not be used on US soil.
I mean, unless in defense of the country.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
Randi Lee Harper bragged about getting Social Autopsy shut down. From the horse's mouth:
Randi Lee Harper may have been lying, of course. If she is, she's one of the people in on the conspiracy.