I'm looking forward to a sequel to the Meta commercial featuring Chris Evans, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci. (Not because I plan to buy the things, I just hope they keep rolling the joke.)
Our watching-party had the attitude that it was a well-executed show that was very much not for us. (Based on a read of social media the people who it was for all seemed to dig it.)
I'd say I was happy that they managed to do a whole performance without saying the F-word on TV one single time but between my old ears and my unfamiliarity with the lyrics I mostly didn't know what he was saying. Other than "it was the right time and you picked the wrong guy", which we thought was a pretty good attitude to open the show.
If this is anything like other Illegal Actions By The Government it'll turn out to be "the law required that the disbursing organization file a form KX-3902B and have it fully approved before any funds were disbursed, and we've found a form was only provisionally approved at the time of review, which is clearly a violation of the law!"
The thing people seem to miss is that the government already runs like a business, if you look at union businesses where work gets paid by the hour and anything past eight hours is overtime.
What happens in most salary-only private-sector shops is that you work until the job is done, and you get paid Your Salary for that, regardless of how long it actually takes. And the management can tell themselves that Obviously Private Industry Is Better because half of the actual labor the work requires doesn't show up on anybody's balance sheet.
"following on from my previous example, there’s no law that says NGOforAfrica or the LGBTQ community in Sri Lanka gets X dollars toward the prevention of malaria."
The Foreign Assistance Act does in fact mention USAID directly, so refusing to provide it with the money allocated to it is in fact in contravention of the law.
What's going to happen with DOGE is what happened with Bush's Drug Czar, which is that the guy's going to come in hot and ready to solve the problem with a quick stroke of the pen, realize that the "problem" is nine-tenths created by the people the programs are meant to serve, pivot to making a huge splash about something that's a side issue (assault rifles / "woke" language) along with a few layups that get spun into Major Cases, and then finish the administration's term claiming the whole thing was a win.
"It probably never occurred to the Congress critters that they should pass laws that made Congressional ID badges good for access to any executive branch building. "
Can members of Congress enter the Supreme Court's private chambers during deliberations and take notes?
One of Trump's 2016 promises was "drain the swamp", and this looks a lot like a swamp being drained.
"Maybe we’ll get more of it when red-hat-wearing parents find their special needs kids’ IDEA plans disrupted."
Will you let those parents keep their kids at home instead of being forced to send them to school (and keep their taxes instead of paying for schools their kids don't attend)? Because if so, I feel like more parents than you think would take that deal!
"J" is usually an operating bureaucracy's interpretation of a legislated requirement. And government bureaucracies care very much about meeting their customers' requriements. (And, as is usual in the modern economy, "users" and "customers" are not the same people.)
My experience with stuff like this is that very often, there's a very simple solution "K" that is used by virtually the entire industry but nowhere in the government, and it turns out that the government has requirement "J" that "K" is unable to achieve without, e.g., Literally Making A Private Copy Of Google, which is why the government wasn't already using "K".
" Colombia got the entirety of their demands. Which were, again, ‘do not transport our citizens back to us corralled and handcuffed as prisoners in military vehicles’."
it is very amusing that you've dropped "refugees being deported" in favor of "transport [their] citizens back to [them]".
I'm old enough to remember when Trump's actions were going to destroy America's relevance as a world power and he wasn't paying attention to anyone. But I guess now Trump is a wimp who backs down at the first sign of resistance.
"what if I were to tell you that that obviously stupid policy was changed to actually require checking testosterone levels a few months later _by_ the governing body of the sport?"
Why did they change the policy?
Were they already planning to change the policy?
"It’s a loophole of an organization that was careless. In fact, under their old rules, he shouldn’t have been allowed either, because he was supposed to produce some ID with that gender on it, and he has none."
Intriguing. Tell me more about your support for a cruel heartless reactionary gender-purist regime that insists on Official Documentation for your actual identity.
"Mexico's government deploying troops and spending money to enforce border security in a way they were originally not going to do" doesn't sound like "caving"...
Something to remember is that ATC is a profession, and professionals get certifications, and as long as you've passed the certification you're able to do the job, and there is no "better" or "worse"; there's only "has the cert" and "does not have the cert".
Like, that's the joke-that's-not-a-joke, "what do you call the doctor who graduated last in his class at med school? DOCTOR!" Doctoring is a profession, professionals get certifications, and while a smarter person might be able to get more certifications a less-smart person with a certification has a guaranteed minimum performance which is considered sufficient to the needs of the job.
So suggesting that ATC was hiring "less smart" candidates does not necessarily mean that they were hiring unqualified candidates; if you pass the school and got the cert you can do the job, whether you're Einstein or Lennie Small.
"In my time as a politically aware person I have seen it done successfully twice, once by Bill Clinton, and now again by Trump."
It occurs to me that you can guess who's going to win an American political race by looking at the two candidates and thinking that if you were in jail, which one would be more likely to be standing outside the bars explaining how the whole thing was your fault and which one would be sitting inside the bars with you, saying "she sure didn't look like no cop...?"
Assuming those email transcripts are not fake, it is rather shocking that the people involved felt so secure in their positions that they had no concerns about sending overt "here's how to cheat" instructions from their actual work email accounts.
(There's nothing that suggests ATC failure-to-perform was at issue in this event, though.)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Kansas City wants to Score the first Threepeat against the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans”
I'm looking forward to a sequel to the Meta commercial featuring Chris Evans, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci. (Not because I plan to buy the things, I just hope they keep rolling the joke.)
"
That and "Groove Is In The Heart" by Deee-Lite.
"
Our watching-party had the attitude that it was a well-executed show that was very much not for us. (Based on a read of social media the people who it was for all seemed to dig it.)
I'd say I was happy that they managed to do a whole performance without saying the F-word on TV one single time but between my old ears and my unfamiliarity with the lyrics I mostly didn't know what he was saying. Other than "it was the right time and you picked the wrong guy", which we thought was a pretty good attitude to open the show.
"
It probably ticked off the people in KC who wondered where those guys had been all game who could easily complete a 40-yard bomb into double coverage.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
If this is anything like other Illegal Actions By The Government it'll turn out to be "the law required that the disbursing organization file a form KX-3902B and have it fully approved before any funds were disbursed, and we've found a form was only provisionally approved at the time of review, which is clearly a violation of the law!"
On “Kansas City wants to Score the first Threepeat against the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans”
That's gotta be up there in the list of Awful Announcing.
As someone on Twitter put it, "Time to see what Mahomes has got left--" (car-crash noises)
On “Keynesian Beauty Contests, Schelling Points, and the Omnicause”
The thing people seem to miss is that the government already runs like a business, if you look at union businesses where work gets paid by the hour and anything past eight hours is overtime.
What happens in most salary-only private-sector shops is that you work until the job is done, and you get paid Your Salary for that, regardless of how long it actually takes. And the management can tell themselves that Obviously Private Industry Is Better because half of the actual labor the work requires doesn't show up on anybody's balance sheet.
"
"following on from my previous example, there’s no law that says NGOforAfrica or the LGBTQ community in Sri Lanka gets X dollars toward the prevention of malaria."
The Foreign Assistance Act does in fact mention USAID directly, so refusing to provide it with the money allocated to it is in fact in contravention of the law.
"
What's going to happen with DOGE is what happened with Bush's Drug Czar, which is that the guy's going to come in hot and ready to solve the problem with a quick stroke of the pen, realize that the "problem" is nine-tenths created by the people the programs are meant to serve, pivot to making a huge splash about something that's a side issue (assault rifles / "woke" language) along with a few layups that get spun into Major Cases, and then finish the administration's term claiming the whole thing was a win.
On “Spaghetti on the Wall: Tariffs and Free Trade”
"When we talk about free trade, we’re typically talking about trade unfettered by tariff."
Why wouldn't government subsidies for production count as interference with free trade?
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
At least we won't have to pretend like Iran isn't inciting things (the way we did during the Iraq occupation.)
"
"It probably never occurred to the Congress critters that they should pass laws that made Congressional ID badges good for access to any executive branch building. "
Can members of Congress enter the Supreme Court's private chambers during deliberations and take notes?
"
One of Trump's 2016 promises was "drain the swamp", and this looks a lot like a swamp being drained.
"Maybe we’ll get more of it when red-hat-wearing parents find their special needs kids’ IDEA plans disrupted."
Will you let those parents keep their kids at home instead of being forced to send them to school (and keep their taxes instead of paying for schools their kids don't attend)? Because if so, I feel like more parents than you think would take that deal!
"
new hotness: USAID is Good Actually
old and busted: "sexual preference"
"
"J" is usually an operating bureaucracy's interpretation of a legislated requirement. And government bureaucracies care very much about meeting their customers' requriements. (And, as is usual in the modern economy, "users" and "customers" are not the same people.)
"
My experience with stuff like this is that very often, there's a very simple solution "K" that is used by virtually the entire industry but nowhere in the government, and it turns out that the government has requirement "J" that "K" is unable to achieve without, e.g., Literally Making A Private Copy Of Google, which is why the government wasn't already using "K".
"
" Colombia got the entirety of their demands. Which were, again, ‘do not transport our citizens back to us corralled and handcuffed as prisoners in military vehicles’."
it is very amusing that you've dropped "refugees being deported" in favor of "transport [their] citizens back to [them]".
"
I'm old enough to remember when Trump's actions were going to destroy America's relevance as a world power and he wasn't paying attention to anyone. But I guess now Trump is a wimp who backs down at the first sign of resistance.
"
(he's referring to the part about the CIA)
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
"what if I were to tell you that that obviously stupid policy was changed to actually require checking testosterone levels a few months later _by_ the governing body of the sport?"
Why did they change the policy?
Were they already planning to change the policy?
"It’s a loophole of an organization that was careless. In fact, under their old rules, he shouldn’t have been allowed either, because he was supposed to produce some ID with that gender on it, and he has none."
Intriguing. Tell me more about your support for a cruel heartless reactionary gender-purist regime that insists on Official Documentation for your actual identity.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
"Mexico's government deploying troops and spending money to enforce border security in a way they were originally not going to do" doesn't sound like "caving"...
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
Something to remember is that ATC is a profession, and professionals get certifications, and as long as you've passed the certification you're able to do the job, and there is no "better" or "worse"; there's only "has the cert" and "does not have the cert".
Like, that's the joke-that's-not-a-joke, "what do you call the doctor who graduated last in his class at med school? DOCTOR!" Doctoring is a profession, professionals get certifications, and while a smarter person might be able to get more certifications a less-smart person with a certification has a guaranteed minimum performance which is considered sufficient to the needs of the job.
So suggesting that ATC was hiring "less smart" candidates does not necessarily mean that they were hiring unqualified candidates; if you pass the school and got the cert you can do the job, whether you're Einstein or Lennie Small.
"
"In my time as a politically aware person I have seen it done successfully twice, once by Bill Clinton, and now again by Trump."
It occurs to me that you can guess who's going to win an American political race by looking at the two candidates and thinking that if you were in jail, which one would be more likely to be standing outside the bars explaining how the whole thing was your fault and which one would be sitting inside the bars with you, saying "she sure didn't look like no cop...?"
"
"We’re not going to do what we never said we were going to do?"
Does it seem like not saying it worked out for you guys?
"
Assuming those email transcripts are not fake, it is rather shocking that the people involved felt so secure in their positions that they had no concerns about sending overt "here's how to cheat" instructions from their actual work email accounts.
(There's nothing that suggests ATC failure-to-perform was at issue in this event, though.)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.