flossing tools?

Saturday, October 18th, 2025 08:11 pm[personal profile] mellowtigger
mellowtigger: (hypercube)

The one area where I am unable to reduce my plastic exposure is healthcare. Dental stuff, especially. Because of braces when I was young (and I had headgear that I wore at night), my teeth are crowded together, packed tightly. I have trouble using regular floss with my hands. I rely on those plastic picks, so I can "crunch down" on the plastic arm with my jaw to force the floss between my teeth.

I just crowdfunded a reusable plastic floss device. It wouldn't reduce my plastic exposure, but at least it would reduce my overall plastic usage. It would reduce my impact on the environment, even if not on my own health.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/619706607/flosser-y-fast-swap-firm-grip-flossing-perfected

Does anyone have other items they recommend? I'd likely buy more things to try out, until I find something that I know works well for me.

So, sometimes E and I have been watching Mom

Thursday, October 16th, 2025 02:01 pm[personal profile] conuly
conuly: (Default)
For one reason and one reason only, which is to criticize their set design.

We're supposed to believe that the protagonist of the series is a recently sober waitress, single mom. One kid's dad is nonexistent, the other is there but he certainly doesn't pay any child support. Her own family is definitely not helping out - indeed, she has to help her mother, who is also recently sober!

Dialog establishes that her nonsober life was pretty chaotic - evictions, jail time, the works.

And their house is fucking amazing. Three bedrooms for a mom and two kids, which to my NYC eyes is astonishing, and everything matches. None of the furniture has cigarette burns or scratches or crayon marks, nothing is missing a drawer pull or, indeed, a drawer, all their windows have curtains - matching curtains, even! - and all their lights have lampshades, none of their comforters are frayed around the edges, there's no food or drink stains, the doors all close properly....

You know, it occurs to me that I may be revealing a bit more about my own childhood home than perhaps I want to, so I guess I'll stop here. But seriously, set and costume design have some questions to answer, because they really didn't think any of this through. I can see such a tidy house from a waitress who is diligent about estate sales and thrifting - though probably none of it would match, it would be eclectic in a classy way. Or I can see nice furnishings from an alcoholic with a bigger income who was managing to keep a fingerhold on being functional in a way that this family clearly wasn't before the show. But c'mon!

********************


Read more... )

Another beautiful day!

Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 10:51 pm[personal profile] conuly
conuly: (Default)
And no headache, which is great - I've been super headachy these past few weeks.

*******************


Read more... )

Interesting Links for 18-10-2025

Saturday, October 18th, 2025 12:00 pm[personal profile] andrewducker
conuly: (Default)
but I'm not sure I like pink any better.

Maybe they could've eased us into it gradually, with purples?

**********************************************************


Read more... )
conuly: (Default)
I fall very in the middle - I enjoyed it, probably won't read it again.

But - am I supposed to feel most sympathetic towards the Read more... )

thixotropic

Friday, October 17th, 2025 09:00 pm[personal profile] darkoshi
darkoshi: (Default)
thixotropic
adjective: (of fluids and gels) having a viscosity that decreases when a stress is applied, as when stirred.

thixotropy
noun: property of becoming fluid when agitated and gelling when left to stand.

Photo cross-post

Friday, October 17th, 2025 08:01 am[personal profile] andrewducker
andrewducker: (Default)


The neighbours are putting in a front drive. The children were delighted to get a go.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

sleep study completed

Friday, October 17th, 2025 08:00 am[personal profile] mellowtigger
mellowtigger: (Default)

It's almost 8am, and I need a nap. Last night, I completed a sleep study, and of course I didn't get a good night's rest.

Click to see some photos and read the tale...

Lyft driver proving how patriotic he is?  USA flag in corner of the dashI took a Lyft at 7pm from my house to the distant metro area where the sleep clinic is located. The driver had skin that wasn't pale and spoke with an accent. As happened last time, this driver also felt compelled to prove their patriotism. That earlier driver driver played conservative talk radio. This driver played nice music but also had a USA flag on the front dash. I snagged this photo while it was well lit from street lights.

I'm sorry that we live in a world where people in the USA feel the need to prove their patriotism to avoid various levels of harassment.

I spent about 12 hours there with my sleep technician, roughly 7pm to 7am. It was lights out at 10pm, then I tried to sleep on my back but never actually succeeded. I only slept when I could turn on my side, which they didn't like. I woke up after the first round of side sleeping, and they asked me again to try sleeping on my back. After another long while of failing at that, I finally got permission to sleep in any position. I'm guessing that they were able to record my brain slipping into sleep then immediately waking up when I started to snore. They didn't have to put me immediately on a CPAP machine, which they said they were required to do by protocol if I had too many breathing interruptions in an hour. There aren't enough breathing interruptions if I wake up immediately upon snoring, though.

So I succeeded in sleeping on my side again for a 2nd round of uninterrupted sleep. I'm still a few hours short of 8 hours, though.

Oh, and here's a photo of the sensor stand before the sensors got attached to my scalp, face, chest, back, both arms, and both legs. I also had some kind of sensor up each nostril, to help detect whether my exhales were through my nose or my mouth. I'll hear the results in about 2 weeks.

sleep study room in Twin Cities, wires not yet attached

As soon as I got home, I took another shower to get the sticky goop out of my hair. I also sprayed my nose with iodine spray, since I couldn't wear any mask or nose filter during the sleep study. The cat apparently spent the whole night downstairs on the living room chair that I vacated 12 hours earlier. I should go feed her again now, then I'll debate crawling into bed for some more rest.

Day 1731: "Profoundly concerned."

Thursday, October 16th, 2025 03:46 pm[syndicated profile] wtfjht_feed

Posted by Matt Kiser

Day 1731

Today in one sentence: A federal judge in Chicago ordered ICE agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz to wear body cameras during encounters with protesters; former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith defended his prosecutions of Trump, calling Republican allegations of political bias “ludicrous”; Trump urged that “they” investigate “Deranged Jack Smith,” calling him a “criminal,” as Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel stood beside him; former national security adviser John Bolton was indicted on 18 counts of mishandling classified information; the Trump administration is preparing to remake the IRS to make it easier to investigate left-leaning groups and Democratic donors; the Senate failed for the 10th time to pass the House stopgap bill to reopen the government; the White House claimed it’s “winning” the government shutdown, citing internal polling that shows Democrats losing support; and 58% of Americans say Trump and Republicans have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the government shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats.


1/ A federal judge in Chicago ordered ICE agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz to wear body cameras during encounters with protesters, saying she was “profoundly concerned” agents ignored her prior limits on force. Judge Sara Ellis expanded last week’s restraining order that banned targeting journalists and peaceful protesters with tear gas and “less-lethal” munitions, and ordered ICE Chicago Field Director Russell Hott to appear in court. The Justice Department said widespread recording “would require a tremendous amount of resources,” and argued media reports were “one-sided and selectively edited.” Ellis, however, replied: “Don’t violate the Constitution, and we never have to pull any video from anybody, ever.” In a separate ruling, the Seventh Circuit kept in place a block on Trump’s plan to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois for now. (Axios / CNN / The Verge / New York Times / Associated Press / NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times)

  • More than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by federal immigration agents during Trump’s second term, including dozens held for days without being allowed to call family or lawyers. The Department of Homeland Security denied targeting Americans, saying, “We don’t arrest US citizens for immigration enforcement,” even as videos and court filings show citizens beaten, tased, and pepper-sprayed during raids and protests. (ProPublica)

  • Border Patrol deleted a propaganda-style video that used a Michael Jackson song with an antisemitic slur after it drew millions of views and support from extremist accounts. The agency offered no real explanation beyond, “We deleted the post and will update with different music,” dismissing questions about why the unedited lyrics were used. (Axios / Mother Jones)

  • The U.S. military commander leading Trump’s strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean will step down at year’s end. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Adm. Alvin Holsey, head of U.S. Southern Command, would retire less than a year into his assignment, offering no explanation. Holsey’s departure follows five lethal U.S. strikes off Venezuela that killed 27 people and renewed congressional scrutiny of Trump’s claim that the U.S. is in a “noninternational armed conflict” with cartels. (Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / New York Times / Washington Post)

2/ Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith defended his prosecutions of Trump, calling Republican allegations of political bias “ludicrous.” Smith criticized the Trump Justice Department’s prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, saying such actions “reek of lack of process.” He warned that the administration’s firings of career prosecutors would have an “incalculable” cost to the country and said, “Nothing like what we see now has ever gone on.” Hours after the interview was released, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan demanded that Smith testify by Oct. 28 and provide all records from his tenure, accusing him of “partisan and politically motivated prosecutions” and “abusive surveillance.” Smith dropped both federal cases against Trump after his 2024 election win, citing Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president. (New York Times / CNN / Associated Press / The Guardian / NBC News / ABC News / Axios / New York Times / The Hill)

3/ Trump urged that “they” investigate “Deranged Jack Smith,” calling him a “criminal,” as Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel stood beside him. He added, “I hope they’re going to look into [Andrew] Weissmann too,” and said former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco “should be looked at very strongly,” before asserting, “I’m, in theory, the chief law enforcement officer.” The Justice Department, at Trump’s direction, recently indicted former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, even as Bondi and Blanche warned there was insufficient evidence to convict. (Democracy Docket / Talking Points Memo / New York Times)

4/ Former national security adviser John Bolton was indicted on 18 counts of mishandling classified information, including eight counts of transmitting, and ten counts of retaining national defense material. Prosecutors said Bolton “abused his position” by sharing more than a thousand pages of Top Secret information with two relatives through personal accounts from 2018 to 2025. The charges follow Trump’s repeated public calls for Bolton to be prosecuted, including statements that Bolton “should go to jail” and a 2020 demand that he be charged over his book. Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the case involves “personal diaries” that were “unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021.” (Bloomberg / Associated Press / ABC News / CNN / Reuters / NBC News / CNBC)

5/ The Trump administration is preparing to remake the IRS to make it easier to investigate left-leaning groups and Democratic donors. The plan would install Trump allies in the IRS Criminal Investigation unit and limit the role of agency lawyers in reviewing cases. Senior IRS adviser Gary Shapley said he plans to replace the unit’s chief and has already drafted “a list of donors and groups” for investigation. Trump, meanwhile, ordered acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent to identify “financial networks” he claims fund left-wing violence, saying, “Scott will do that. That’s easy for Scott.” (Wall Street Journal / New Republic / The Hill / Mediaite / New York Times)

  • Trump hosted an East Room dinner for corporate and wealthy donors funding his new White House ballroom. He said the project, estimated at $200–$250 million, was “fully taken care of” and that some offered “$25 million,” with donations routed through the Trust for the National Mall, including $22 million from YouTube as part of a settlement. Ethics experts warned that the push risks coercion and conflicts for companies with federal business, saying firms that “don’t show or don’t give” could be “out of favor.” (Wall Street Journal / The Hill / Washington Post / Bloomberg / Axios)

6/ The Senate failed for the 10th time to pass the House stopgap bill to reopen the government, ensuring that the shutdown will extend into next week with senators out until Monday. Senate Democrats also blocked a $852 billion defense spending bill in a 50-44 vote that fell short of the 60 needed to proceed. “Another week has passed, and the Trump shutdown drags on,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, while Majority Leader John Thune said, “There’s an offramp here: It’s just to fund the government.” Thune also offered Democrats a floor vote on Affordable Care Act subsidies after reopening, saying they should “take yes for an answer.” (CNBC / Politico / Washington Post)

7/ The White House claimed it’s “winning” the government shutdown, citing internal polling that shows Democrats losing support. Internal data show Democrats’ net favorability dropped to -21%, while Republicans improved to -8%. Blame for the shutdown narrowed to a 6-point gap with 44% faulting Trump and the Republicans, and 38% blaming the Democrats – down from a 13-point lead for Democrats two weeks ago. “Time is on our side,” one senior official said, saying “they will lose this” because “the people who know the most about the shutdown know that the Democrats aren’t voting for the clean CR.” The administration began firing furloughed federal workers, warning that “if the Senate Democrats want the RIFs to end, they can end the shutdown. It’s that simple.” (Axios)

  • The Justice Department stopped responding to Congress about the Jeffrey Epstein investigation after the shutdown began, leaving House Oversight Democrats without new documents since August. Rep. Robert Garcia said the Justice Department has “failed to provide any substantive or insightful information,” while the agency blamed the Democrats for the government shutdown. (Politico)

poll/ 58% of Americans say Trump and Republicans have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the government shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats. 54% call the shutdown a “major problem,” and 89% say it’s at least a minor problem. 43% favor extending Affordable Care Act tax credits. Only 4% say they have “a great deal” of confidence in Congress, while about half have “hardly any.” (Associated Press / AP-NORC)

⏭️ Notably Next: Your government has been shut down for 16 days; “No Kings Day” is Oct. 18; the 2026 midterms are in 383 days.



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Life with two kids: one of whom will sleep

Thursday, October 16th, 2025 09:31 pm[personal profile] andrewducker
andrewducker: (Default)
It would be awesome if I didn't have to have an argument with Gideon about bedtime every single night.

Sophia doesn't do that any more. I wonder at what age he'll grow out of it.

Why is it always cynicism when you're right?

Thursday, October 16th, 2025 12:00 am[syndicated profile] ash_feed

Posted by The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510]

While tinkering with a new project last week that involved my old BBS tagline database I rediscovered the tagline that I used as the title of this post. I've been trying to keep up with my pattern of posting at least once every month but it's been hard, what with everything going on. Out of an abundance of caution I ran a post I'd been working on past my lawyer for advice and was informed that I should refrain from publishing it, even with multiple disclaimers because we live in a time that would have given Cardinal Richelieu an erection. I guess we really do live in a Cold War-like era once again. We also seem to live in an era where people are hiding their neighbors because there are masked kidnappers executing military raids in the United States.

Anyway, taglines.

Sometimes for the sake of my mental health I poke around with stuff just to have something constructive to do. In this case I was reading through the documentation for Homer, the personal dashboard I use to organize all my stuff 1. I don't really read the docs for it because it's a static web page that reads a config file on the back end and displays links with nice icons when you load it. Not much to it. What caught my eye was that there is now a feature where you can have a message box at the top off the page that can pull from a REST API, parse the output, and display it on a schedule. There didn 't seem to be anything out there that would do what I wanted, which was pick an entry randomly from a datastore and return it as part of a JSON blob so I took a stab at writing one. My first few attempts didn't come to much so I decided to try my hand at PHP, which is a language that I haven't really don't much with (except for one quick hack a few jobs ago). I decided to approach it the way I would a Python project:

  • Open a text file for input.
  • Read every line in the text file into an array.
  • Close the input file.
  • Pick a random element of the array.
  • Clean up the text a little.
  • Pack the string into a little blob of JSON with the key "tagline".
  • Print the JSON, which sends it to the HTTP client.


Breaking it down like that I was able to look up how to do each task in PHP separately and I had it up and running inside an hour. It's a dumb little hack, not even 30 lines of code, but it was fun to tinker with.

Something I've been kicking around in the back of my head is an article that talks about the state of web browsers in general. These days options are pretty thin on the ground - there's Firefox and all of its forks 2, Chrome and all of its forks 3, and Safari if you use Apple stuff 4. There are, however, some alternatives out there that aren't one of the big three. I've got links stashed away and half-baked plans of putting them through their paces but I haven't had the time or compute cycles to sit down and do it. What I do have is a few months of kicking the tires on Librewolf after Mozilla stuffed LLM support into Firefox, which I trust about as far as I can throw a Buick. 5 Anyway, I ran into two particular problems (well, one annoyance and one problem) that I finally sat down and figured out a while ago. When reorganizing some things in my wiki a few days ago I stumbled across my notes and figured that I should post them because somebody else might find them helpful.

The annoyance was that trying to open something that didn't use HTTPS for its control panel (like most wireless access points and DSL modems) would result in an error window and a "Yes, for pete's sake I'm sure" button the click through. In theory it's a great idea for keeping people from clicking on phishing sites but in practice phishing sites were the very first to take advantage of cheap-to-free and easy to get SSL certificates 6 so it's just a pain in the ass for the rest of it. This is because web browsers in general (and Librewolf in particular) have an HTTPS only setting that needs turned off. To do so:

  • Type about:config into the URL bar.
  • Search for dom.security.https_only_mode
  • Flip that setting to false
  • Try loading the annoying page in question again.


Also along those lines, and it was a big enough pain in the ass that I kept Firefox installed in parallel only for this purpose was getting through the captive portals at coffee shops and hotels. What I usually did was hit a URL that I know supports HTTP (I Can Haz IP?) and that would be enough to trigger the captive portal (and captive portal detection in the browser). However, for some reason Librewolf wasn't having it and it took me a while to collect enough information to troubleshoot it. It comes down to the above "HTTPS only mode" and a few configuration options that I think were changed as part of the fork-and-rebrand part of Firefox's license. So, here are the config changes I had to make in addition to the above HTTPS-only one:

  • Type about:config into the URL bar.
  • Search for captivedetect.canonicalContent
  • Set it to <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=https://support.mozilla.org/kb/captive-portal"/>
  • Search for network.connectivity-service.enabled
  • Set it to true if it's not already.
  • Search for network.trr.wait-for-portal.
  • Set it to true if it's not already.
  • Search for network.connectivity-service.IPv4.url.
  • Set it to http://detectportal.firefox.com/success.txt?ipv4 if it's not already.
  • Search for network.connectivity-service.IPv6.url.
  • Set it to http://detectportal.firefox.com/success.txt?ipv6 if it's not already.


After making those changes I no longer had any trouble with Librewolf, and it's worked with the last three or four releases of Librewolf.

All of that said and done and said and done again, I leave you with this bit of wisdom:

This message is for one reason alone: To tell the strongest among you - those with the greatest power protect those without. That's my message to the world.

--Professor Charles Xavier, X-Men: Apocalypse


  1. I keep forgetting to write about Homer. It's extremely helpful software, and about as lightweight as any recently written web stuff can be these days. 

  2. All of which basically have the same codebase, just different branding and user.js files which may or may not be helpful or useful. 

  3. Ditto. 

  4. I don't know if you can call Webkit it's own browser or not. It's an engine that can be used to build a web browser. 

  5. I know, I said "not a fork of one of the big three." I need a daily driver web browser than I can trust somewhat more than the big three and doesn't have nerfed adblocking support. I know that Mozilla said they have no plans to remove Manifest v2 support from Firefox, but much of the Mozilla Foundation's funding comes from Google and a half billion US dollars never, ever comes without strings attached. It is a truism that the best way to control the opposition is to lead it yourself

  6. Just like spammers were the very first to jump on all of the DNS-related anti-spamming measures to ensure that their garbage got through. They were set up and running weeks before most companies even got their change control requests approved. 

siderea: (Default)
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1885137.html


Content Advisory: US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within.

[Previously: The Essequibo (Buddy-ta-na-na, We Are Somebody, Oh): Part 1]

Now, when looking at these strikes being carried out in the Caribbean, shockingly, I think there's not been a ton of coverage on this. CNN, for one, their Pentagon reporters, have been some of the only ones consistently covering what's happening in Venezuela. CNN and the New York Times right now, I would say, are the two that are kind of all over this and have been for a while. I don't know why it's getting so little coverage elsewhere, but it is. So, normally I would like to look at these, uh, these reports and source them from multiple different outlets and we just don't have that because there's so limited coverage around US military operations in SOUTHCOM right now.

— Preston Stewart [PrestonStewart on YT], 2025 Oct 15, "American Bombers Send A Message To Venezuela"


[...] I know that the people of the United States are attentive observers and the people of the United States are very aware of what is being attempted against Venezuela is armed aggression to impose regime change.

— Nicolás Maduro, 2025 Oct 3, via Times of India via AP via VTV, "Venezuela Deploys Army & Tanks After Another Deadly U.S Attack, Fighter Jet action"


I am still desperately trying to pull together Part 2 of this series, but in the meanwhile, more things keep happening. I keep checking in with my focus group, aka, Mr. Bostoniensis, about what he is seeing in the news, because my own algorithms are, uh, rather peculiarly trained at this point, and the answer seems "rock all", so I thought I'd post a news round-up of some of the developments over the last couple of weeks. (Holy crap it's been two weeks.)

October 2nd


It comes out that the Trump administration has literalized the 'War on Drugs'. [CW: 'controlled but unclassified'] )

US terminates diplomatic relations with Venezuela )

October 3rd


Fourth US strike on a boat in Venezuelan waters is announced by Trump admin )

October 6th


Venezuela announces it foiled a false-flag plot against the US Embassy in Venezuela )

October 8th


Democrats in Senate try to limit Trump's war powers but fail )

October 9th


The Venezuelan opposition leader wins the Nobel Peace prize )

Venezuela requests emergency intervention from the UN Security Council )

The US asks Grenada, 100 miles off Venezuela's coast, to allow US military installation )

October 10th


The Nobel Peace Prize winner dedicates the prize to Trump, confusing a lot of people who haven't been keeping score )

It comes out that Maduro had been trying to negotiate his way out of US demands for his outster by offering up 'a dominant stake in Venezuela's oil' )

UN Security Council has emergency meeting per Venezuela's request )

October 13th


Maduro closes Venezuela's embassies in Norway and Australia )

Venezuelan activist and political consultant in exile in Colombia were shot )

October 14th


US bombs fifth boat off Venezuela, six killed )

US announces Admiral in charge of US SOUTHCOM visiting Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada )

Which brings us to today. (Well, it was today when I started writing this.)

October 15th


Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela [CW: 'highly classified'] )

Three US Air Force B-52 bombers buzzed Venezuela for four hours; Venezeula scrambles an F-16 in response )

It comes out that the boat of Colombians bombed in September was not bombed by mistake, but was deliberate )

Nobel Laureate Machado exhorts Trump to rescue Venezuela from Maduro )

Trump is musing aloud to the press about airstrikes on Venezuela )

This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one
of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.


Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Day 1730: "It’s getting really ugly."

Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 03:04 pm[syndicated profile] wtfjht_feed

Posted by Matt Kiser

Day 1730

Today in one sentence: The Senate failed to pass funding bill for the ninth time as the shutdown entered its third week; a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from firing more than 4,000 federal workers during the government shutdown; the Trump administration blamed the ongoing government shutdown on Saturday’s “No Kings” protests; the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared ready to limit the Voting Rights Act; Trump authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela; House Speaker Mike Johnson called Portland’s naked bike protest “the most threatening thing I’ve seen yet”; and JD Vance brushed off the leaked Young Republican chats that praised Hitler and used racist and violent language, saying “kids do stupid things."


1/ The Senate failed to pass funding bill for the ninth time as the shutdown entered its third week. Republicans continue to push for a “clean” continuing resolution to reopen the government until at least Nov. 21, while Democrats insist that any deal extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year. (Politico / CNBC / The Guardian)

2/ A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from firing more than 4,000 federal workers during the government shutdown. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said the administration had “taken advantage of the lapse in government spending […] to assume that all bets are off, the laws don’t apply to them anymore,” calling its actions “contrary to the laws.” She added that the government’s approach was “ready, fire, aim” and carried “a human cost that cannot be tolerated.” The order takes effect immediately and bars the government from issuing new layoff notices or enforcing ongoing ones while the case continues. Before the ruling, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said layoffs could grow “north of 10,000.” (NBC News / Associated Press / Washington Post / Politico / NPR / New York Times / Axios / CNN / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / CNBC)

3/ The Trump administration blamed the ongoing government shutdown on Saturday’s “No Kings” protests, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying, “No Kings equals no paychecks.” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson claimed Democrats “are controlled by their radical left base,” and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett suggested the government could reopen “on the 19th.” Despite Republicans controlling Congress and the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson kept the House out of session and said he “wouldn’t negotiate.” Organizers, however, announced the Oct. 18 protest date in Sept., before the Oct. 1 shutdown. Saturday’s nonviolent marches and rallies, planned in more than 2,500 locations nationwide, are expected to be the largest single day of protest in U.S. history – larger than the first “No Kings” rallies in June, which drew over five million people. (Axios / The Hill / NBC News / Media Matters for America / Time)

4/ The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared ready to limit the Voting Rights Act, questioning whether any use of race in drawing election maps is constitutional. During arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, several justices, including Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts, questioned whether race-based remedies under Section 2 of the 1965 law should continue indefinitely. Since the Court ended federal preclearance in 2013, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been the main legal basis for challenging racial bias in maps and for creating majority-minority districts across the South. Louisiana and the Trump administration nevertheless argued that creating a second majority-Black congressional district in the state violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause, while civil rights lawyers warned that the law remains necessary to prevent vote dilution. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the administration’s stance would “just get rid of Section 2,” which would shift power over voting maps to state legislatures and weaken one of the last federal checks on racial bias in elections. (Associated Press / New York Times / Politico / NPR / Washington Post / ABC News / NBC News)

5/ Trump authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, giving the agency authority to carry out lethal operations against Nicolás Maduro’s government. The order follows at least five U.S. strikes on boats the Trump administration said were smuggling drugs from Venezuela, killing 27 people, including one strike that hit a Colombian vessel. Lawmakers from both parties said they have received little information about the intelligence, targets, or legal basis for the attacks. (New York Times / NBC News / CNN)

6/ House Speaker Mike Johnson called Portland’s naked bike protest “the most threatening thing I’ve seen yet,” saying the riders showed “abuse of law enforcement by radical leftist activists.” Johnson argued that the protest of nude cyclists reflected how “it’s getting really ugly.” The event drew over a thousand participants and was described by local outlets as peaceful, with no arrests reported. The protest was organized against Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard to Portland, which is currently blocked by a federal restraining order. (The Oregonian / KGW-TV / Axios / Portland Tribune)

  • Los Angeles County declared a state of emergency over ICE raids, authorizing about $30 million in rent relief, legal aid, and a possible eviction moratorium. Officials cited families skipping work and lost income tied to ICE actions. (Los Angeles Times / New York Times / ABC News)

7/ JD Vance brushed off the leaked Young Republican chats that praised Hitler and used racist and violent language, calling the reaction “pearl clutching.” Rather than condemn the messages, Vance said they were “edgy, offensive jokes” and that “kids do stupid things, especially young boys.” Vance deflected to an unrelated controversy, saying that Democratic candidate Jay Jones’s 2022 texts about shooting a Republican rival were “far worse than anything said in a college group chat.” The Young Republican National Federation, meanwhile, said it was “appalled” and demanded that all involved “immediately resign.” (Politico / Axios / Politico / The Hill / Mediaite / Salon)

⏭️ Notably Next: Your government has been shut down for 15 days; “No Kings Day” is Oct. 18; the 2026 midterms are in 384 days.



Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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conuly: (Default)
I'm meh on the lyrics and music, but the video...! So here it is, with a couple of other videos that inexplicably got skipped last time I posted a lot of videos.

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Fate of Ophelia )

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Two covers of the same song )

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Guinea pigs exit and enter the tube )

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Ghost waltz )

The rain has stopped and the weather is amazing

Saturday, October 11th, 2025 07:31 pm[personal profile] conuly
conuly: (Default)
Also, another one of our furnace pipes has developed a leak. Every time we fix one, the next one goes. I've patched this one, so with any luck (and with our keeping the heat pretty low) it should last until we can call in a plumber.

(Does anybody know a plumber who will accept payment in semi-feral kittens? There's a batch around the corner, very adorable, very healthy, and willing to warm up to anybody who feeds them! They do need to be just a little bit neutered, defleaed, and probably dewormed as well, not to mention vaxxed, but that's surely no big deal for the right family! Actually, I think it's two litters, so that should be ample payment for a little bit of plumbing work.)

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