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bolverk

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by bolverk

  1. German Mennonites If you haven't been following the saga, this is a good place to get caught up: https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/topic/38992-covidinfluenzablack-death-2024-and-beyond/?do=findComment&comment=6875056
  2. The math: $8 million to Musk each day ÷ $65 per day to the average senior = 123,077 Social Security recipients
  3. In other news, fuck dem vets. Trump and DOGE Propel V.A. Mental Health System into Turmoil A chaotic restructuring ordered threatens to degrade services for veterans of wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Late in February, as the Trump administration ramped up its quest to transform the federal government, a psychiatrist who treats veterans was directed to her new workstation — and was incredulous. She was required, under a new return-to-office policy, to conduct virtual psychotherapy with her patients from one of 13 cubicles in a large open office space, the kind of setup used for call centers. Other staff might overhear the sessions, or appear on the patient’s screen as they passed on their way to the bathroom and break room. The psychiatrist was stunned. Her patients suffered from disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Treating them from her home office, it had taken many months to earn their trust. This new arrangement, she said, violated a core ethical tenet of mental health care: the guarantee of privacy. When the doctor asked how she was expected to safeguard patient privacy, a supervisor suggested she purchase privacy screens and a white noise machine. “I’m ready to walk away if it comes to it,” she wrote to her manager, in a text message shared with The New York Times. “I get it,” the manager replied. “Many of us are ready to walk away.” Scenes like this have been unfolding in Veterans Affairs facilities across the country in recent weeks, as therapy and other mental health services have been thrown into turmoil amid the dramatic changes ordered by President Trump and pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Among the most consequential orders is the requirement that thousands of mental health providers, including many who were hired for fully remote positions, now work full time from federal office space. This is a jarring policy reversal for the V.A., which pioneered the practice of virtual health care two decades ago as a way to reach isolated veterans, long before the pandemic made telehealth the preferred mode of treatment for many Americans. As the first wave of providers reports to offices where there is simply not enough room to accommodate them, many found no way to ensure patient privacy, health workers said. Some have filed complaints, warning that the arrangement violates ethics regulations and medical privacy laws. At the same time, layoffs of at least 1,900 probationary employees are thinning out already stressed services that assist veterans who are homeless or suicidal. In more than three dozen interviews, current and recently terminated mental health workers at the V.A. described a period of rapid, chaotic behind-the-scenes change. Many agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because they want to continue to serve veterans, and feared retribution from the Trump administration. Clinicians warn that the changes will degrade mental health treatment at the V.A., which already has severe staffing shortages. Some expect to see a mass exodus of sought-after specialists, like psychiatrists and psychologists. They expect wait times to increase, and veterans to eventually seek treatment outside the agency.cont'd:
  4. Meanwhile, in China, they’re celebrating. Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts are leaving a vacuum that China can fill. When President Trump announced on Friday that the United States would move ahead with a long-debated project to build a stealthy next-generation fighter jet, the message to China was clear: The United States plans to spend tens of billions of dollars over the next decade, probably far longer, to contain Beijing’s ability to dominate the skies over the Pacific. But here on earth, the reality has been very different. As the Department of Government Efficiency roars through agencies across government, its targets have included some of the organizations that Beijing worried about most, or actively sought to subvert. And, as with much that Elon Musk’s DOGE has dismembered, there has been no published study of the costs and benefits of losing those capabilities — and no discussion of how the roles, arguably as important as a manned fighter, might be replaced. On the list of capabilities on life support is Radio Free Asia, a 29-year-old nonprofit that estimates its news broadcasts reach 60 million people in Asia each week, from China to Myanmar, and across the Pacific islands where the United States has been struggling to counter China’s narratives about the world. It furloughed all but 75 of its Washington staff members on Friday, trying to stay on the air while court cases develop on Trump officials’ moves to defund U.S. government-supported media. At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth eliminated the Office of Net Assessment, an internal think-tank. With an annual budget that accounted for a few seconds of Pentagon spending each year, the office tried to think ahead about the challenges the United States would face a decade or two in the future — such as the new capabilities of artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons and the hidden vulnerabilities of supply chains for military contractors. It was a revered institution, what a Wall Street Journal editorial this past week called “The Office that Won the Cold War.” Mr. Hegseth said in a statement that it would be reconstituted in some unspecified way “in alignment with the Department’s strategic priorities,” though its value was that it challenged conventional thinking about those priorities. Over at the Department of Homeland Security, a series of cyberdefenses have been stripped away, at a moment when China’s state-backed hackers have been more successful than at any time in recent memory. Among those dissolved, at least for the time being, is the Cyber Safety Review Board, created on the model of the National Transportation Safety Board, which examines aircraft accidents and tries to extract lessons learned. The cybersecurity board was just beginning to take testimony on how Chinese intelligence bored deep inside America’s largest telecommunications firms, including the system the Justice Department uses to monitor its “lawful intercept” system, which places wiretaps on people suspected of committing crimes or spying — including Chinese spies. Now the board has been disbanded. No one at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency seems able to say what has happened to the investigation into one of the most successful penetrations of American networks, or who is now responsible for figuring out why American telecommunications firms were caught unawares, for more than a year, by China’s Ministry of State Security. The list goes on, more evidence that in its first two months the new administration has been devastatingly efficient in tearing things down, but painfully slow to explain how their actions fit into their broader strategy. All this has the Chinese celebrating. As the Voice of America was being dismantled and fell silent, The Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, wrote that “the so-called beacon of freedom, VOA, has now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag.”cont'd:
  5. Read correctly, this is an implied threat. If you complain, we’re coming after you.
  6. I could say, but you’d have to tell us your old username first.
  7. Wordle 1,372 3/6 ⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛ 🟨🟨⬛🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #650 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟦🟨🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1153 4️⃣7️⃣ 8️⃣5️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
  8. No surprise she/you is being set up to run for Congress -- it's what we've all expected for a couple of years now. But to answer your question: If you haven't noticed, a lot of really fucking terrible shit's going down in our country right now, and that inconsequential cunt is the least of our concerns. If you're Kelly, go troll for attention somewhere else, or better yet, tend to your poor, neglected daughter instead of being such a pathetic excuse for a mom.
  9. It sounds like doctors up in Lubbock are ready to give up on a mass vaccination effort and are now resigned to the fact that this is just going to spread. Against stupidity, we are defenseless. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/health/measles-outbreak-texas.html
  10. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/trump-cornell-student-ice.html
  11. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/trump-tesla-vandalism-prison.html
  12. Krasnov will 100% usurp the Crown and claim the entire Commonwealth as our new empire.
  13. 80 Teslas damaged at Hamilton dealership
  14. Sorry about that. Gift link because it has a couple of videos: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/weather/dust-storm.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5k4.Fjln.BDjXYxAt3cN0&smid=url-share
  15. Same corruption playbook. In just this week in Washington, Mr. Trump called for the impeachment of a federal judge who was seeking basic information about his mass deportation efforts, fired two Democratic commissioners of an independent trade commission and was rebuked by a judge who said his administration’s gutting of the agency in charge of foreign aid most likely violated the Constitution. This week in Jerusalem, Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet fired Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent of the F.B.I., after the agency started investigations into the prime minister’s aides. Among other claims, the aides are accused of mishandling classified information and leaking a document to a foreign newspaper. Mr. Netanyahu’s office has strongly denied the allegations. ***** Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Netanyahu is seeking to rein in domestic watchdogs and judicial authorities that, like in the United States, have pursued investigations against him or his allies. Like Mr. Trump, the Israeli prime minister has faced criminal charges that he says are false claims fomented by left-leaning and unelected bureaucrats. In Mr. Netanyahu’s case, he is standing trial in a yearslong corruption case that requires him to appear in court several times a month. ***** Alon Pinkas, a political commentator and Israel’s former consul-general in New York, said it was doubtful Mr. Netanyahu would have moved against the Shin Bet chief had Mr. Trump not been president. The two leaders were kindred spirits politically, he said, and had “both adopted an identical language that would make George Orwell cringe with envy.” Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu also regularly use this language to discredit the news media, another institution they often view with contempt. Israel’s national broadcaster, Kan, reported this week that it was during a meeting with Mr. Trump in Washington last month when Mr. Netanyahu was inspired to fire Mr. Bar. Asked to comment on that report, Mr. Netanyahu’s spokesman, Omer Dostri, responded with a terse text message: “fake news.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/trump-netanyahu-israel-political-strategy.html
  16. Effects of USDA cuts by DOGE hitting the food banks. Key passage: The halt to the funds, which was first reported by Politico, comes in addition to other recent cuts to federal food assistance. Earlier this month, the Agriculture Department halted two other programs that distributed food to banks and schools. Lawmakers are also mulling cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, which were used by about 42 million people in the 2023 fiscal year. Food bank directors fear that an across-the-board contraction to federal food assistance could drive more people to food banks just as they are losing access to critical supplementary funds. “This is perhaps the first moment in the history of food banking that we have seen record low unemployment and record high demand at food banks,” Mr. Hall said. “Any circumstance that would cause even a modest increase in demand at food distributions will result in a food crisis.” Representatives of the Agriculture Department did not respond to requests for comment. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/politics/food-banks-usda.html https://archive.is/2MZ2s
  17. Where our Christ-followers thread posters at? Effects of USDA cuts by DOGE hitting the food banks, especially in rural areas. Key passage: The halt to the funds, which was first reported by Politico, comes in addition to other recent cuts to federal food assistance. Earlier this month, the Agriculture Department halted two other programs that distributed food to banks and schools. Lawmakers are also mulling cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, which were used by about 42 million people in the 2023 fiscal year. Food bank directors fear that an across-the-board contraction to federal food assistance could drive more people to food banks just as they are losing access to critical supplementary funds. “This is perhaps the first moment in the history of food banking that we have seen record low unemployment and record high demand at food banks,” Mr. Hall said. “Any circumstance that would cause even a modest increase in demand at food distributions will result in a food crisis.” Representatives of the Agriculture Department did not respond to requests for comment. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/politics/food-banks-usda.html
  18. Previously, I'd never read WIRED magazine for their political reporting or op/eds, but with Elmo Mush in the White House, they've really found their calling. "Chaos is a ladder" strategy Elon Musk and Donald Trump Have Chosen Chaos Elon Musk secured his choke hold on the mechanics of the federal government weeks ago. Along with Donald Trump, he has already standardized chaos across the US. Two months into the second Trump administration, the United States is in pure chaos mode. Tens of thousands of workers are fired one week and forcibly rehired the next. Tariffs rise and fall based not on strategy but on one man’s ire. Deportations fly in the face of judicial orders, careening the country toward a constitutional crisis. The only constant is the volatility itself. On paper, that may be surprising. A central premise of Donald Trump’s appeal is that he is an apex businessman. Same with Elon Musk. The elevator pitch: Through the sheer force of their combined savvy, America will be saved from “bankruptcy”—or worse. There aren’t many Harvard Business School case studies, though, that suggest maximum instability is the path to success. There’s plenty of Occam’s razor at work here: The US is wobbling wildly because its president and de facto CEO are some combination of self-serving and inept. But in between and among the absurdities, something darker takes shape. Inherent in every chaotic act is a challenge. Every outrage is a test. In the meantime, the uncertainty has international consequences. Tourism has plummeted, as potential visitors cancel their trips to a country increasingly, openly hostile to noncitizens. Europe is rearming itself in the face of a heightened potential for conflict, as Ukraine becomes the fulcrum on which decades of solidarity between the US and Europe may pivot. Allies have considered sharing less intelligence with their US counterparts, given the Trump administration’s increasingly cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin. It’s a heel turn worthy of a WWE Monday Night RAW plotline. But the US is not in the business of selling spectacle. Its value lies in its reliability. Instead it is now erratic, unpredictable. It’s messy. International politics is a relationship business; Donald Trump seems intent on undermining America’s relationships at every turn. (Well, except toward Moscow.) There’s the slash-and-burn approach to budgeting, a seeming race to create a minimally viable government. The operative part of a turnaround plan is the “plan” part. Firing as many people as possible as quickly as possible—without apparent consideration for actual skills or value that they bring to the role—does not qualify as a plan. It’s just more instability. The good news is that many of those employees are being reinstated, as the gears of the judiciary have slowly begun to turn. But that reinstatement itself may prove temporary, depending on what higher courts say. And even if those workers do come back, how motivated will they be to stay now that they know how their employer views their worth? More to the point, who would go work for the US government in its current state? Civil service doesn’t pay great, but at least you get to feel like you’re serving a higher calling with a side order of job security. The only callings being served right now are Donald Trump’s retribution tour and Elon Musk’s amateur hour AI jamboree. Eventually they’ll run out of SpaceX interns to hire. (A quick side note: Donald Trump reportedly told transportation secretary and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons champion Sean Duffy that he should hire Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates to work as air traffic controllers. The average starting salary for an MIT undergraduate is $126,438. The starting salary out of ATC school is $43,727. Business savvy!) As for Musk, he secured his choke hold on the mechanics of the federal government weeks ago. But the installation of Starlink terminals at the White House, his repeated attacks against federal judges on X, his open dismissal of Congress—none of these are normal. The longer they go on, though, the more they feel like they might be. That’s the point, really. The standardization of chaos. The steady insistence that no matter how outlandish, how dangerous, this tilt away from democracy gets, it’s actually nothing to get upset about. Attempt to remake the US government as quickly and radically as possible, because otherwise how will you know how far you can push it? Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll land among the kakistocracy. The good news is that there is a way out of this. The courts have already stopped DOGE at various turns and reversed some of its most extreme activities. Congress could wake up tomorrow and remember that it’s a coequal branch of government. Public pressure can remind politicians that elections aren’t decided only by whose corner the world’s richest man is in. Boundaries do exist, even if they need to be reinforced with rebar. And then there’s the bad news, which is the likelihood that Trump and Musk will at some point stop pretending to care about any official checks on their power. Or that they already have.
  19. Cases have also spread to three new counties surrounding Lubbock where it wasn't previously reported: Garza (Post), Hale (Plainview), and Hockley (Levelland). Hey, dipshits with kids! Vax 'em up before it spreads out of the Llano Estacado and pours over the top of the Caprock down into the part of the state that actually has people.
  20. I just skimmed a few pages from back in April 2022 when there were rumbles about Elmo buying Twitter. Start at the top of page 12 when those folks come out of the woodwork stanning for the Nazi. 52-80 makes a real ass of himself by leading that dipshit charge while cheeseweasel mostly cheers from the sidelines for everything to burn to the ground, cajun makes weird noises, and a slew of silent supporters show their stripes with pos reps. I've got to say, though, that Pearland takes the cake with these two hilarious and unironic posts (no, I'm not being sarcastic by saying 'unironic.' This fucker bought the act.): I didn't have the stamina to continue until the actual purchase happened later that fall, and we all saw firsthand Twitter begin to be transformed into the complete cesspool that it is today.
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