Follow Up

Sunday I linked to a tale of woe & suffering caused by robots. It all came out to the injured party's satisfaction, but only because he has a large audience, a few of whom had a way to contact an actual human at Mall☆Wart; a way or ways which will no doubt soon be as useless as trying to deal w/ a brain-dead pseudo-intelligence. And one must wonder how big the rip-offs were & can only imagine the agonies they must've endured to get an e-mail address or whatever the contact was.

Big Local Action

From the AP:

MLB’s Los Angeles Angels to be sold to Rams and Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke

Did the fans in the stands at the Big A audibly chanting "Artie sucks!", "Sell the team!" & "Fuck you Artie!" during Angels broadcasts effect beer baron Artie Moreno? Talk is US$4 billion, highest price ever for an MLB team. And the Angels beat the Yanks 10-1 last night.

Other local sports ownership stuff:

Mark Walter scandal, LA Lakers sale raise concern about ownership in pro sports

Walter, who made his billions in the insurance business and until this summer owned stakes in the Lakers, Los Angeles Dodgers and the English Premier League’s Chelsea, is reportedly under investigation by the federal government for alleged tax irregularities and failure to report billions in financing for key portions of his businesses.

His abrupt sale of the Lakers to an ownership group that includes Josh Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law, is raising suspicion Walter is attempting to curry favor with the federal government and avoid the harshest of possible punishments.

Two-bit ass-licking crook trying to bribe his way out. How many people has his insurance scam ripped off? Throw him in jail for all of his crimes.

Private equity is now ruining sports along w/ everything else.

“There is probably no drier topic than billionaire debt service for everyday people, but we know for sure that fans are a more than a little bit tired of seeing their favorite teams treated like assets as opposed to community goods,” said Will Norton, director of the McCormack Center for Sport Research and Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “These teams are becoming so expensive that you simply have to look to open up avenues to capital that otherwise would look like precarious choices for the long-term health of the club.”

More franchises than ever in the NFL, NBA, NHL and other leagues are partially owned and controlled by either private equity firms, owners who live and do business hundreds of miles away from a club’s home city or top executives with financial priorities that have little to do with the sports brands they own.

Not to mention former Microsoft executive (guilt by association) Steve Ballmer, owner of L.A.'s Clippers, who appears to have been paying player Kawhi Leonard under the table.

Everything the Rich Touch Dies.

How Many Times Must I Tell You Cretins NOT To Buy From Amazon?

That's US$20 billion (W/ a "B"!) stolen from small businesses & your sorry asses!

Annie Palmer / CNBC:

The FTC and 22 state AGs sue Amazon, alleging it “secretly and systematically overcharged” advertisers more than $20B since 2019 by using “hidden surcharges”

Dave Michaels / Wall Street Journal:   The FTC and 20+ state AGs sue Amazon for allegedly making tens of billions over seven years by manipulating ad prices on its retail platform

Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net:   FTC, states plan lawsuit against Amazon over ad price fixing

Angela Palumbo / Barron's Online:   Amazon Stock Falls After FTC Lawsuit Over Advertising Prices

Reuters:   Amazon sued by U.S. FTC, over 20 states alleging company deceived advertisers

About Amazon:   Amazon's response to the FTC's lawsuit regarding Sponsored Ads

Financial Times:   US regulator sues Amazon for manipulating advertising prices

Forbes:   FTC Files Lawsuit Against Amazon Alleging Manipulative Ad Prices

Aimee Picchi / CBS News:   FTC and 22 states sue Amazon over alleged secret ad surcharge scheme

Bloomberg Law:   Amazon Sued by FTC Over Claims It Misled Advertisers on Pricing

Anzar Mehraj / Reuters:   FTC to file lawsuit alleging Amazon deceived advertisers, WSJ reports

Andrew Ferguson / @afergusonftc:   Digital markets play a critical role in the American economy—but they only work when participants can trust that powerful tech platforms play by the same rules as everyone else. That trust is foundational. Today, the Trump FTC—joined by 22 states—filed suit alleging that Amazon

IJR News:   FTC plans lawsuit against Amazon over ad pricing

@ftc:   FTC, states sue Amazon over secret ad surcharge scheme. FTC and 22 state attorneys general allege Amazon concealed unfair charges in its digital advertising auction pricing: https://www.ftc.gov/...

Tyler Durden / ZeroHedge News:   Amazon Shares Tumble Amid News Of FTC ‘Advertiser Deception’ Lawsuit

Federal Trade Commission:   FTC, States Sue Amazon Over Secret Ad Surcharge Scheme

Karen Weise / New York Times:   F.T.C. and 22 States Claim in Lawsuit That Amazon Secretly Inflated Ad Prices

While working the wage-slaves in their warehouses to early graves. Give Bezos all your money, sucker-ass chumps! Somehow, he deserves it, not you!

It's On Him Alright

No Gates or Brin in the rogue's gallery? Off w/ all their heads anyway!

Stolen from Ten Bears as I am too lazy, unmotivated & exhausted to look for the "funny".

A Brace Of Earworms

Yea, 'though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Still I & I will fear no evil
Still I & I will fear no evil Jah shall not fight the righteous by day
Jah shall not fight the righteous by day
But the wicked he will smite by nightWhenever the fuck you're ready, Jah! We wait, but our patience grows thin.

Getting Worse Every Day

Sharp rise in incidents of AI escaping users’ control, research finds

Exclusive: Number of times AI lies, ignores instructions and pursues goals in harmful ways almost doubles in July

How it will first affect you before everything else turns to shit. Have the common sense & simple human decency not to buy from Amazon or the Walton family. They are predatory scum who will be hanged from a lamppost.

[The Guardian]

250 Yrs. Of Disposable Crap

50 yrs. later, everything is at least 50 times worse.

These are among the items that have shaped the nation.
Here are their stories.

On the United States' 250th birthday, "American Objects" chronicles items that have impacted the culture.
Keep tuning in for tales of new objects as the year unfolds.

One could do worse things on a late-August Sunday than look at some of these objects. Here are three: Comic books. The baseball. Whites-Only signs.

Here's a New One: "Leninist Capitalism"

Or "Stalinist Capitalism"

Why Are We (and Were We) in Vietnam?

Today on TAP: The nation that defeated the U.S. 50 years ago now has the largest trade surplus with us of any nation.

A quarter-century ago, when advocates of normalizing trade relations with China insisted that doing so would compel China to transform itself into a democracy, America’s unions, a number of social democrats (including at the Prospect), and a smattering of China hands (James Mann in particular) called that argument a non sequitur: Capitalism had co-existed with right-wing authoritarianism and dictatorship, and would with its left-wing (or ostensibly left-wing) counterparts, too. Today, Leninist one-party rule (or in China, neo-Stalinist one-leader rule) gets along just fine with the C-suites of America’s corporations and banks, for the same reason that Wall Street prefers production in “right-to-work” states: the absence of worker power and the ensuing low levels of workers’ wages.

Meet the new boss, chumps!

I know one of the major Murkin model railroad manufacturers (w/ SoCal roots; started at a hobby shop on Hollywood Blvd.) has moved most if not all its production from China to Vietnam. Great fucking job, from Eisenhower through Kennedy, Johnson & Nixon.

Ha ha. Defeated in war & then in economic competition. Tell us again how the Democrats are all "Commies" & you're all for "free markets" you corporate fellow travelers. We won't be free until we've purified this evil species by eliminating the highly functioning psychopaths.

Mass-Grave Monday

You fucking Yankee pig-dogs beat the Nazis & the Nipponese, came home & let the very same fascists, wrapped in the flag & carrying the cross, take this shithole nation over because you sissified weakling losers in this nation of closet cases were scared of colored people & Commies. What sad losers.

Every trembling, fearful white pansy in this world of shit & pain should be taken behind the barn & shot in the head, & I'm the man for the job. Ignore me the & the sad truth (or even call the police because you don't like the truth) long enough, & I kill you. Simple, innit?

Or we put them in the barn, seal it & introduce the insecticide/release the whirlwind!

Turnabout is fair play! As someone keeps typing, NO HALF-WAY MEASURES!!

Beef In The News

None Dare Call It Communism!

Comrades! Glorious News! By decree of the People’s Beef Committee, 300,000 metric tons of ground beef shall enter tariff-free for 90 days, priced 25% below the capitalist market. Thus shall the workers eat, the ranchers prosper, and the Great American Herd rise again!

“Conservative lawmakers and pundits alike spoke out on the internet Friday after President Donald Trump announced a new deal that will temporarily lift certain tariffs on ground beef imports, with Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) warning ‘this will further harm’ American ranchers, ‘most of whom are MAGA Republicans,'”Mediaite

Mediaite: Fox’s Tomi Lahren torches Trump over new policy to “import a bunch of foreign beef.”

Apparently, by Sen. Sheehy's logic, it's perfectly fine if non-MAGA citizens are harmed. Will this beef be reserved for MAGA states, then? Another argument for reverse immigration: Back to the Auld Sod for you, bog-monkey!

Anonymous quote from Earth-Bound Misfit. Also, Political Wire.

49 Mins. Of Fascist Fossil Fuel Propaganda

When did it all start downhill? That bastard Ford & the assembly line? The "Fuck the trees & mountains, watch us destroy them!" attitude?The last ten mins. are amusing; as w/ so many rosy predictions from long ago almost none of it has happened except electronics & computing are actually better than imagined (Punched card system!) & much of that arrived yrs. past the expected date.

Also enjoy the "Walkers will be shot" subtext, a min. past the obligatory use of atomic energy at (42:01).

Apocalypse NOW!!

I don't understand why warnings of impending doom & the judgement that's about to be handed down (No wicked shall esacpe!) aren't number one on the charts, whatever the charts are today. Streams? Downloads? What could be more relevant now, wherever you get it?I mean, learn some English, Philistines!

'Cause Babylon take over on themself, dem are di ruler
Slave I an' I so hard without any dunza
While I and I mass on ya, time for hunger
But no nat should done pon di need pon a dunza
Which is the people's food
Meanwhile I an' I mass on ya, time for hunger

Sound familiar? You're soaking in it.

Nurisng Home Crisis Arrives

I mentioned Norm Ornstein, who described the coming Trump-caused health care crisis two items below. Wait no more!

‘There is nothing else’: Californians face eviction as insurer cancels assisted living benefit

Four weeks ago, Matt Johnstone received a call from the board-and-care facility in North Hollywood where his 89-year-old father lives. Health Net, the insurance company that pays for his care, was eliminating its assisted living benefit, meaning he would have to move out soon.

Johnstone panicked. His father has dementia and needs around-the-clock care. Neither Johnstone nor his brother can afford the roughly $6,000 per month the facility costs, and with health problems of their own, they can’t safely meet his needs at home either. Without insurance coverage, their father could end up on the streets, he said.

“He’s declining, and I just don’t know what’s going to happen if the program ends,” Johnstone said. CalMatters is not publishing the father’s name because Johnstone fears the plan will target him for speaking with media.

America-hating rich to the rest of America: "Suffer & then die in the streets, you old bastards!!" 

This country is going to need many more Luigi Mangiones. C'mon older people, defend yourselves against this subhuman scum while you can still pick up a gun & use it! Sic semper tyrannis!!!

Your World & Welcome To It

John Harwood / Zeteo:
How ‘Psychopath’ Trump's Mayhem Will Backfire in 2028 for Republicans  —  Steepening gas prices, Medicaid cuts, war with Iran... Norm Ornstein joins John Harwood to dissect how Trump's chaotic reign will far outlast him once he goes.  —  John Harwood, Norman Ornstein, and Team Zeteo

James Shotter / Financial Times:
Far-right Israeli minister advocates killing ‘30 to 40’ Gazans each night  —  Itamar Ben-Gvir also calls for re-establishment of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian enclave  —  Israel should be killing “30 to 40” people each night in Gaza and should build Jewish settlements in the Palestinian enclave …
Al Jazeera:   Israeli minister calls for killing '30 to 40′ Palestinians in Gaza nightly

Julia Frankel / Los Angeles Times:   Israel's Ben-Gvir publicly advocates killing ‘30 to 40’ people in Gaza nightly

Financial Times:

Most US voters say they are worse off under Trump — FT poll  —  Democrats lead Republicans on economy just months ahead of midterm elections  —  Most US voters say they have become worse off under Donald Trump, according to an FT poll revealing mounting discontent with the president's handling of the economy and cost of living.

John Bowden / The Independent:   Most voters say they are worse off under Trump, new poll says

Charlie Sykes / To the Contrary:   Another Deplorable Week in Review

Middle East Monitor:   Most US voters say they are worse off under Trump: Poll

After the electoral blodbath the Demonic Socialist Transgenderers will finally be able to cut off everyone's pecker!!

As The World Turns ...

Miserable world on a dying planet.

Friday 'Phone-In

"Hello? Hello? Anybody there?"

Crummier Food At Higher Prices

And if it's worse next summer? Who knows what will happen? Always the possibility the Gulf Stream will collapse & these will be remembered as the "good" old days.

See The Hypocrites, Dem A Galang Deh

Grates on the ears, dunnit?

S.V. Date / HuffPost
:Trump Snapping Up America's Means Of Production While He Labels Everyone Else A Communist
Veronique de Rugy / Reason:   The GOP Is Warning About Socialism While Quietly Embracing It

Socialism for me, nothing for thee!

Friday Freak Out

Released sixty yrs. ago June.Remember the "Great Society"? Far from great, but almost infinitely greater than today's "greatness", certainly when viewed through the dim mists of sixty-yr. old memories.

Death By Diarrhea

Making America Poop Again

Jessica Nix / Bloomberg:
Two People Die From Illness Traced to US Parasite Outbreak  —  Two people have died in Michigan from the severe diarrhea-causing parasite that has sickened thousands across the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  —  Both people had underlying health conditions, the agency said in a statement Monday.
Jacqueline Howard / CNN:   First deaths reported in cyclosporiasis outbreak

Rachel Roubein / Washington Post:   Two cyclospora-related deaths reported in Michigan

Reuters:   US cyclosporiasis outbreak kills two people in Michigan, officials say

Fox News:   Michigan reports 2 deaths in rare parasite outbreak that has sickened more than 11,000

Pien Huang / NPR:   What Cyclospora does inside the gut and how it gets there

Max Rego / The Hill:
2 cyclospora deaths reported in Michigan
Herb Scribner / Axios:   Cyclospora outbreak causes first two deaths

Paula Wethington / CBS News:   Michigan health officials report 2 deaths among cyclosporiasis cases; patients had underlying conditions

Claire Carter / Washington Examiner:   Two deaths in Michigan linked to cyclosporiasis outbreak

Krystal Nurse / Straight Arrow:   First deaths reported in cyclosporiasis outbreak

Siddhi Mahatole / Reuters:   Michigan reports two deaths in ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak

Conor Murray / Forbes:   Michigan Reports 2 Deaths In Cyclosporiasis Outbreak

TMZ.com:   2 People Dead in Cyclosporiasis Outbreak

Caroline Hopkins Legaspi / New York Times:   Two Deaths Linked to Cyclosporiasis in Michigan

FOX 32 Chicago:   Cyclosporiasis outbreak deaths: 2 dead in Michigan as cases continue to climb

NewsMax.com:   Mich. Reports 2 Deaths in Ongoing Cyclosporiasis Outbreak

Sudhin Thanawala / Associated Press:
Michigan reports the first 2 US deaths related to a diarrhea-causing parasite
STAT:   Michigan reports first two U.S. deaths in outbreak of cyclospora