Nov 06 2024
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I guess we’re all about to live through the Find Out phase of the Leopards Eating Faces Party meme in real time.
Nov 15 2025
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These two are becoming semi-regular visitors. This is the third time in two weeks theyve stopped by while I was outside. Yes, those are bald eagles, less than a hundred feet from my sitting spot. I hope they stick around.
Oct 05 2025
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I suppose if I have to turn 70, this is as good a day as any. I’ve had an excellent breakfast, a couple of miles of a walk, a short nap, a sadly typical outing from our local footballers, and a surprisingly optimistic prowl through the new IRS rules for old people. Lots of major changes and challenges coming our way soon. Here’s hoping I don’t make a mess of them.
Happy Sunday on allayall.
Sep 01 2025
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We’re still here, and still humming along.
It’s been a very long, strange summer, filled with surgery, rehab, infections, more surgeries, more rehab, one more surgery, occasional tree and plumbing adventures, and a couple of major life decisions. Relax, though, the medical stuff was all close family and mostly just ate a lot of time and attention.
Feb 20 2025
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Did one of y’all break the internet this morning, or maybe shut down a major DNS server?
Since 8 a.m., the following sites or apps are either completely or intermittently “unavailable”:
Schwab.com, vanguard.com, fidelity.com, regions.com, usbank.com, chase.com
Hell of a day to need to move some money so the mortgage payment doesn’t bounce…
I reset the DNS server on the desktop Mac, and everything is fine there, but can’t find the setting to change it on the iPad, where Chase, Schwab, and Fidelity servers are still nonexistent, and the Chase and Schwab apps can’t connect.
Edit: my browser and the Chase app both had updates available from the App Store, so I ran them, and the Chase app worked - for three seconds, after which it went blank and refused to log back in. The version on my phone shows the update, but won’t download it. Schwab.com will open the splash page, but the login button gets a server not found message. This is borked.
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Did one of y’all break the internet this morning, or maybe shut down a major DNS server?
Since 8 a.m., the following sites or apps are either completely or intermittently “unavailable”:
Schwab.com, vanguard.com, fidelity.com, regions.com, usbank.com, chase.com
Hell of a day to need to move some money so the mortgage payment doesn’t bounce…
Feb 16 2025
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@glitterordeath , I hear you like flamingoes, but have you ever heard their soundtrack?
Feb 14 2025
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Oh, HOLY SHIT!
From today’s Morning Memo at TPM:
Worse Than The Saturday Night Massacre
The mass resignations at the Justice Department mark the most serious crisis in its history, a darker moment than its previous low point during Watergate.
By this point, you know the gist of what happened. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York resigned Thursday afternoon rather than follow an order from Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to drop the criminal case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the case was kicked back to Main Justice to do the dirty work of dismissing the Adams case, but at least five senior attorneys also resigned rather than participating in the nakedly political scheme.
I’d argue that yesterday’s Valentine’s Eve Massacre is worse than 1973’s Saturday Night Massacre, not out of some prurient obsession with ranking political scandals but as a way of highlighting the seriousness of what is happening right now.
Unlike the Saturday Night Massacre, when the top officials at the Justice Department held the line and resigned rather than carry out President Nixon’s corrupt order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, here the higher-ups have acquiesced to and are furthering the corrupt scheme. This time, the resignations are coming from lower down in the chain of command because Bondi and Bove are doing President Trump’s bidding rather than holding the line in defense of the law, DOJ guidelines, and their own ethical obligations as lawyers.
All of this is happening in the broader context of political purges at DOJ and FBI even as Bondi and the White House tear down the walls meant to protect the Justice Department from improper political influence. The bad things are all happening, and they’re happening now.
Who Resigned
Danielle R. Sassoon, 38, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a career prosecutor who has been with the office since 2016. She has sterling credentials: Harvard undergrad, Yale law, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She is a Federalist Society member who was named to the acting role just last month by the Trump administration to fill the post until Jay Clayton is confirmed.
Kevin Driscoll, the acting head of the department’s Criminal Division who previously had been in the Public Integrity Section;
John Keller, the acting head of the Public Integrity Section;
Rob Heberle, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section;
Jenn Clarke, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section;
Marco Palmieri, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section.
The Thuggery
Bove’s letter responding to Sassoon’s resignation is as dastardly and villainous as anything I’ve ever seen come out of the Justice Department. It’s comic book villain material. Among the snarling remarks and acts of retaliation:
Bove put on administrative leave at least two other line prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan who had worked the Adams case, claiming without basis that the entire prosecution was politically motivated (improbably by a Democratic president against a Democratic mayor in a Democratic city).
Bove threatened Sassoon and the line prosecutors with internal investigation, by both the attorney general’s bogus “weaponization” group and the Office of Professional Responsibility.
Bove suggested that Sassoon’s oath to uphold the Constitution was superseded by “the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General.
In her letter, Sassoon had revealed: (i) Bove cut her out of his negotiations with Adams’ lawyers of what she alleged was a quid pro quo arrangement; (ii) scotched one of the prosecutors from taking notes of the meeting with Adams’ lawyers; (iii) made his decision to drop the case despite knowing that a superseding indictment was in the works to add additional obstruction charges against Adams.
MUST READ: The Dueling DOJ Letters
Feb. 12: Danielle Sassoon’s letter to Bondi
Feb. 13: Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s response letter to Sassoon
(Bold by me)
Any attorneys here care to offer professional opinions on what this means to the rule of law?
Feb 09 2025
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If you’re missing the news columnists who quit the major papers for being afraid to do actual journalism? They are reassembling over on substack. The front page has a link to Paul Krugman’s new home, too. Dan Rather’s been there for a while now. Subscriptions not required, just “No thanks” on the splash page.
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Random waiting-for-coffee-to-drip thought on a Sunday morning:
The simplest way to explain the basic political spectrum to a kid is that those on the left believe governments exist to serve the people, and those on the right believe people exist to serve the government.
Feb 08 2025
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We need to embrace the fact that the tumblr userbase is aging. What’s everybody’s favorite kitchen appliance?
It’s a toss up between my kitchen aid mixer and my Jura espresso maker.
My airfryer. It cooks proteins like a dream. And quickly.
Tossup between the electric kettle and the (more gadget than appliance, I confess,) rotary grater that suction-locks onto the counter, grates hard cheese effortlessly, slices veggies, and turns a medium potato into skillet-ready hash browns in less time than it takes the skillet to heat. Similar to this:
Outside the kitchen, the best $15 I’ve spent since I retired was my Mr Coffee mug warmer. I haven’t tasted cold coffee in five years.
Jan 16 2025
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Who was it who said people are becoming conservative not because they want to be rich but because they want to be mean? That shit was spot on
This is not who said that, but my favorite post-election analysis concluded the same and, ever since I read it, I’ve just been seeing it proven correct over and over. (I am very sorry to tell you that a British person wrote it. I know.)
“The American Republic has been pulled down, possibly past the point of no return, by affluent people. People who have lives their ancestors would have literally killed for. Who on average spend 10% of their pay on groceries, the lowest in the country’s history, not to mention human history. Who are lashing out at others at the slightest inconvenience, because they want to lash out at others.
"Americans are prosperous, but without any deep sense of obligations to others. We are a highly commercial, individualist people, and when we let go of even a thin liberal conception of the public good, we become nasty, petty, small, vindictive and irrational.
”… This is a disease of affluence, not poverty. This isn’t a story of a working class that is being pinched. It’s the story of a working class that is doing better than any comparable working class ever has and a professional class who are angry about that. Who feel that this newfound security means they no longer show proper deference to their social betters.
“… many Americans, including many non-white Americans, are deeply troubled by the prospect of a symbolically equal citizenry.
”… People like having social inferiors. They will often prioritise this over not just narrow economic interest, but virtually any other concern. Once people gain a bit of comfort, the desire to punish people for not ‘knowing their place’ (be it the working class, women, or a racial group) can become their sole political instinct. The Trump movement is about reinstating or reenforcing structures that allow them to do so.“
"I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” - Lyndon Johnson