David Byrne's "Everybody Laughs" is regularly reprised by myself and The Childe.

Guided access on iOS is a great thing to enable before handing iPhone over to The Childe. I was far more familiar with MDM-driven ways to lock a device to an app (probably relying on same API). This prevents 'em marking as read notifications w/messages that might then get missed for hours—or days.

The madness. www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump...

There's really nothing to add, is there?

Rabbiatu is a nurse who worked during COVID, had been in the U.S. 30 years. A judge ordered that she could not be sent back to Sierra Leone for her safety, for fear of torture (!). So our evil regime sent her to Ghana (in shackles), and Ghana dragged her back to Sierra Leone.

Remigration is ethnic cleansing, which is a crime against humanity and a form of genocide. That is what the regime is signaling. That is what it is wants.

The DC shooting story is really getting to me because we literally trained this man as a child soldier for a death squad in a forever war and Stephen Miller et al want to blame it on other cultures? It's our culture, American culture, that killed that woman.

The holiday movie season has started. My list begins with The Ice Storm and ends with The Ice Harvest.

I don't think I've ever seen a floor-to-ceiling Metro car ad for the official White House christmas ornament before.

The thing about building software that passes the Turing Test is that we fail it.

🐽

What a horrible habit, reading the news: https://machination.org/2025/11/21/what-a-horrible-habit-reading.html

The Trump Administration is really throwing a blanket on things... www.propublica.org/article/in...

So yesterday Trump was holding hands with MBS, and today he's demanding the execution of two Senators and four Representatives. Seems like something rubbed off

Listening to the Republican's witness, Dr. Blaze, attack the concepts of risk pools and solidarity and not really attack profiteering besides moaning about it by implication in this morning's opening testimony before the Sen. Finance committee led by Sens. Crapo and @wyden.senate.gov

Trump’s racial profiling ICE goon army is ripping parents from kids

Everywhere there's lots of piggies Living piggy lives You can see them out for dinner With their piggy wives Clutching forks and knives to eat the bacon — Piggies, The Beatles

When a shield becomes a shackle: https://machination.org/2025/11/18/when-a-shield-becomes-a.html

Gardens vs. giveaways: https://machination.org/2025/11/18/gardens-vs-giveaways.html

Is it just DCPS's implementation or are all instances of Aspen systems complete garbage?

Sick of Pages.app's apparent memory leaks in Tahoe, I'm back to LibreOffice. Uglier, but it works better right now. Thought about revisiting Nisus... only to read this news and analysis: tidbits.com/2025/10/25/nisus-...

Trying to be in a moment, here, where I am, without being attached to all the things this place is attached to or overwhelmed by swimming against the tide still. Ironically, helping me be here is a folk radio presenter, & friend of friends, from my hometown, many hours away, broadcasting right now.

NEW — I spoke to DoorDash about the White House claiming the company's report shows "inflation has been tamed" and whether that's an interpretation one should make. An economist also weighed in, pointing out dictatorships use data obfuscation as a tool, and right now they're "grasping at straws."

Over by A. Litteri in Union Market.

"“The more you push me, the more I’m not going to do what you want,” said the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, in response to a public outcry to tax the rich." Hochul can go, just like Jeffries and Schumer and Gillibrand.

The best way we can honor service members is to send the National Guard home: https://machination.org/2025/11/11/the-best-way-we-can.html

Interestingly, younger Americans are significantly more likely to dislike data centers than older ones and dislike is bipartisan This from a Heatmap story (paywalled): heatmap.news/energy/data-...

After the 2016 election, I wrote this, about how Chuck Schumer was the worst possible Democratic leader at the worst possible time. He still is! theintercept.com/2016/11/14/c...

Where is Senator Cornyn? Drinking Shiner at Trusty's/Union Pub/Tunnicliff's/Tune Inn/The Pug. Heck, the Raven? Stuck at the airport? Stuck in the toilet? Took a wrong turn in a Capitol sub-basement? Asleep in the cloakroom? Frozen with guilt, remembering he has grandkids, realizing what he's done?

Finally we have an updated answer to the question "If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?"

Listening to these pathetic rationalizations from King, Hassan, Shaheen, whoever else they have queued up. Disappointed that they're not having windup speech by Sen. Neville Chamberlain.

The original Dem demands were: 1) Permanent ACA subsidies 2) Medicaid funding restored 3) No more blank checks for the regime (rescission) They dropped Medicaid immediately. Went silent on rescission. Cut back to 1 year of subsidies on Friday. And surrendered today. The Senate Democrats!

How about we shut down the government for this very popular and specific goal and then, hear me out, we hold out for like a month and a half and then, ok this part is important, after a watershed election where we ran the table, ONLY THEN, fold and don't get the one thing we said we wanted.

Sure we put you through a month of hell, but on the other hand we got nothing for it.

I was asleep, are we back in a snatching-defeat-from-jaws-of-victory position again

So: fund the government, vote no on the ACA in 30 days, then do a bunch of rescissions to destroy whatever else they might have agreed on or any regulatory authority to enforce anything. I’m so out of the Democratic Party.

There’s just no one better at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

so much suffering and sacrifice only to to agree to terms that will beget more suffering and sacrifice.

i’m ready for something different than whatever the fuck this is

if they were going to cave anyway they should’ve done it a week ago to spare SNAP recipients the agony.

This is key. The vote the Dems secured here is a fake nominal vote. Everyone knows this.

IF THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO, WHAT THE HELL WAS THE POINT OF THE SHUTDOWN @schumer.senate.gov A "PROMISE OF A VOTE ON HEALTHCARE" MEANS THAT PEOPLE WILL LOSE THEIR HEALTHCARE

Hear from FPF's Lauren Harper others at Public Knowledge's "The People’s Oversight Hearing," a panel event about Congress’s abdication of its oversight duties and more. 📍 1200 U Street Northwest, Washington D.C. 🕒 Wednesday, Nov. 12 at 9 a.m. EST RSVP:

So, listen, call Schumer’s office no matter where you live, no matter if you’re registered to vote. Leave a voicemail that says if Senate Dems cave without an ACA premiums fix, you will never vote for or donate to another Senate Democrat as long as he is Leader

I am pretty sure I know of at least one person involved in the fight for maintaining healthcare access who doesn't want to cave and get nothing. If you're not so sure about your Senators (you have Senators? You lucky duck!), call them. If you're sure they're stalwart, yeah, call 'em still.

Sen. Sullivan on the floor right now, "there's nothing more American than paying people" for their work. Great, let's get his vote for a national living wage pinned to inflation and access to medical care for a worker and their dependents (that's compensation, baby)! Shutdown over!

Lindsay Graham is a regular @nader.org, that's for sure. 🙄 'Sen. Lindsey Graham … "Another year of insane profits at the expense of consumers and American taxpayers," he wrote.' www.politico.com/live-updates...

Halloween is not yet over in this house. The decorations are still up. The now (just barely) rotting and partly eaten jack-o-lanterns are even more ghoulish. The Childe and I are recovering from a field trip with the Muppets Haunted Mansion.