Of all the insane choices Trump could make for his cabinet, I didn't even see this one coming

Pete fucking Hegseth? He's been a TV asshole since 2014.

Over the years I've described this jackass as Trump's personal fluffer.

I'm not questioning his service, but this is fucking Looney Tunes.

Hegseth was a failed nominee for Trump for the position of Veterans Affairs back in 2018.

NewsHound Ellen wrote this article at the time: Fox Host Pete Hegseth Outed As Self-Dealing, Adulterous Hypocrite, Passed Over For VA Nomination

This twit even had the nerve to claim the term Redskins was a term of respect when the Washington football was embroiled in the name controversy. Fox's Hegseth: 'Redskins' Used Historically As 'A Term Of Respect'

Recently his claim to fame was to get war criminals found guilty by military courts pardoned by Trump.

It’s bad enough that Donald Trump seemingly plans to “honor” Memorial Day by pardoning a slew of war criminals, it’s even worse that the decision came after secret lobbying efforts by Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth.

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The Trump team is considering a draft executive order that establishes a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel *cough*Mike Flynn*cough* with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership. What could possibly go wrong? Via the Wall St. Journal:

If Donald Trump approves the order, it could fast-track the removal of generals and admirals found to be “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” according to a draft of the order reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. But it could also create a chilling effect on top military officers, given the president-elect’s past vow to fire “woke generals,” referring to officers seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness.

As commander in chief, Trump can fire any officer at will, but an outside board whose members he appoints would bypass the Pentagon’s regular promotion system, signaling across the military that he intends to purge a number of generals and admirals.

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It's important that Democrats understand that Trump's winning margin was as tiny as his hands, because he will simply keep repeating the word "mandate" until Congress and the media are hypnotized into submission. Don't let him get away with it.

Joan Walsh in The Nation:

As blue Western states and cities finish counting votes, it looks like the popular vote “landslide” projected for Donald Trump last week turned out to be a trickle. When all the votes are counted, he will end up with a margin of roughly two points over Vice President Kamala Harris. Presidents Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972 won more than 60 percent of the popular vote; Ronald Reagan in 1984 won 58 percent. Those were landslides.

Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine:

Upon learning that he had won a clear election victory, Donald Trump responded, as is his custom, with a transparent lie. “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” he gloated.

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Fox News legal editor Kerri Urbahn told 'The Story with Martha McCallum that Trump could force a pardon from Gov. Hochul by threatening to withhold federal funds to New York unless she pardons his 34 felonies.

This shouldn't come as a surprise since Urbahn was the Director of Public Affairs for the Department of Justice under Attorney General Bill Barr during the first Trump administration.

This segment was prompted by the judge delaying a decision on Trump's 34 felony convictions for another week.

MACCALLUM: Governor Hochul could also pardon President Trump on these charges because it is a state charge, right?

URBAHN: Yeah that's right and look she needs to really be thinking through this because New York state needs federal money and they get a lot of it.

And there is a lot that the federal government could do in terms of pulling funding from both the city and the state of New York. There's a bunch of ways to do it through the Justice Department and other places, and you know, at the end of the day it's all politics.

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Fox News hosts, like the MAGA cult, apparently do not care who Trump puts in his cabinet. Cartoon characters are just as acceptable as real people, don't you know?

To hell with Congressional approval.

Trump only hires great people, right?

Pete Hegseth is one rung higher than Daffy Duck, but well below Bugs Bunny.

Jessica Tarlov had a few words for Trump's choices so far and Watters couldn't handle it.

TARLOV: And you have Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz out there who are completely pro-Ukraine, which I think is fantastic.

Completely pro-Israel.

WATTERS: When you say pro-Ukraine, what do you mean by that?

TARLOV: I mean they think that Ukraine should be supported and that Putin is the authoritarian.

WATTERS: Rubio voted against the funding for Ukraine the last time.

TARLOV: Talk to him about peace settlement. If you think that it's a good thing for that kind of position-taking within the Republican Party, you're just wrong.

WATTERS: Trump's the commander-in-chief.

You could put Daffy Duck in there, who cares?

Secretary of State, Defense, Treasury, and other cabinet posts are important to the function of our country.

When Jesse Watters and other right wing jerk-offs are losing a discussion they unravel and babble nonsense. Secretary of State, Defense and other cabinet posts are important to the function of our country.

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Name: Peanut M&Ms: Chili Nut, Honey Nut, Coffee Nut Brand: Mars Place Purchased: samples from Mars Price: $1.19 retail Size: 1.74 ounces Calories per ounce: 147 Type: Chocolate/Peanuts Rating: 7 out of 10

Name: Crispy M&Ms S’mores Brand: Mars Place Purchased: CVS (3rd & Fairfax) Price: $2.50 Size: 8 ounces Calories per ounce: 113 Type: Chocolate/Cookie Rating: 5 out of 10

Name: M&Ms Boo-tterscotch Brand: Mars Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock) Price: $3.19 Size: 8 ounces Calories per ounce: 148 Type: White Chocolate Rating: 7 out of 10

PIMP google does it

OVER COMPENSATION literally

CES is one of the biggest tech events of the year. It’s when everyone convinces you that you need to buy a terrifying robot Einstein for some reason.

But Nick Offerman aka Ron Swanson and American Greetings — yeah, the greeting card company — trolled all of them.

Promising “a device like none other,” Offerman and America Greetings delivered just that. Offerman took to the stage to present… a regular greeting card that looks like:



via Mashable

Offerman, who was there to present the product had this to say:

"When I started dating my wife — her name is Megan Mullally, she's a very beautiful actress and singer and goddess — she and I loved giving each other cards," he told a crowd at the press event. "It's a very important part of our relationship, and so we've continued that practice.

"Even though there are times when it's more appropriate, of course, to send a text or an email ... when you really want to get a sentiment across, there's nothing like the artifact of the handwritten card." 

D'awwww... now go buy one for you mother or something.

H/T Mashable

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OpenAI's latest large language model, known internally as Orion, has fallen short of performance targets, marking a broader slowdown in AI advancement across the industry's leading companies, according to Bloomberg, corroborating similar media stories in recent days. The model, which completed initial training in September, showed particular weakness in novel coding tasks and failed to demonstrate the same magnitude of improvement over its predecessor as GPT-4 achieved over GPT-3.5, the publication reported Wednesday. Google's upcoming Gemini software and Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Opus are facing similar challenges. Google's project is not meeting internal benchmarks, while Anthropic has delayed its model's release, Bloomberg said. Industry insiders cited by the publication pointed to growing scarcity of high-quality training data and mounting operational costs as key obstacles. OpenAI's Orion specifically struggled due to insufficient coding data for training, the report said. OpenAI has moved Orion into post-training refinement but is unlikely to release the system before early 2024. The report adds: [...] AI companies continue to pursue a more-is-better playbook. In their quest to build products that approach the level of human intelligence, tech firms are increasing the amount of computing power, data and time they use to train new models -- and driving up costs in the process. Amodei has said companies will spend $100 million to train a bleeding-edge model this year and that amount will hit $100 billion in the coming years. As costs rise, so do the stakes and expectations for each new model under development. Noah Giansiracusa, an associate professor of mathematics at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, said AI models will keep improving, but the rate at which that will happen is questionable. "We got very excited for a brief period of very fast progress," he said. "That just wasn't sustainable." Further reading: OpenAI and Others Seek New Path To Smarter AI as Current Methods Hit Limitations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, North America, United States

Joanne and Gary, rival travel agents compete for their industry's top honor, the Globel Prize, while trying to address their clients' impossible demands in an Off-Broadway comedy that debuts this week, "Craving for Travel."

The 85-minute, two-actor, 30-character comedy was commissioned and produced by Jim Strong, president of the Dallas-based Strong Travel Services travel agency.

"Travel agents are always asked to do the impossible, and this play shows how that is done, from finding the impossible rooms to making dreams come true," Strong told the "Dallas Morning News." "I decided to bring it to life on stage as a comedy in New York."

From "Craving for Travel's" press release:

With their reputations on the line, travel agents Joanne and Gary will tackle any request, no matter how impossible, and any client, no matter how unreasonable. Full of overzealous travelers, overbooked flights, and hoteliers who are just over it, Craving for Travel reminds us why we travel-and everything that can happen when we do.

"Craving for Travel" opens Thursday at the Peter J. Sharp Theater, where it'll run through Feb. 9. Tickets are $32.50 and $49. They can be purchased at CravingForTravel.com, 212-279-4200 or the Ticket Central Box Office (416 W. 42nd St., 12-8 p.m. daily). More than half of the shows are already sold out.

Continue reading Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible

Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 07 Jan 2014 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Donald Trump’s policies risk making the US dollar a source of global instability Expert comment LToremark 13 November 2024

Although Trump favours a weaker exchange rate, his policies are likely to have the opposite effect. The risk is that the US dollar could become too strong, which is bad news for the global economy.

President-elect Donald Trump has a dollar problem. In recent months he has shown a clear preference for a weaker exchange rate to support the competitiveness of US exports and help reduce the US trade deficit. And yet, as the market has sensed since the US election, the much more likely outcome is that his policies end up strengthening the greenback. The risk is that the US dollar – which is expensive already – becomes more obviously overvalued, and this could increase the risk of global financial instability. 

The dollar has been on a rollercoaster ride in the past few decades. From 2002 until 2011, for example, the dollar weakened by around 30 per cent in inflation-adjusted, trade-weighted terms, according to BIS data. Yet in the years since 2011, the dollar has strengthened and is now at a more appreciated level than at any time since 1985.

What shapes this rollercoaster, broadly speaking, is the global balance of economic vitality: when the US economy gains momentum relative to the rest of the world, the dollar tends to strengthen; and vice versa. 

After China joined the WTO in 2001, the balance of economic vitality shifted decisively away from the US, in favour of China and other emerging economies. This was the decade of the commodity boom: the longest, biggest peacetime increase in commodity prices in nearly 200 years during which a sustained surge in China’s economy supported GDP growth across the developing world. The dollar weakened as a result.

But after 2011, a combination of factors – including the eurozone crisis and its aftermath, together with the sagging of the Chinese economy – tipped the balance of economic vitality back in favour of the US. The dollar strengthened once again.

And since both the European and Chinese economies remain very fragile, the balance of economic vitality seems likely to keep favouring the US dollar.

Two more considerations also point to a stronger US dollar under a second Trump administration.

The first is the exchange rate implications of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports. When the US imposes tariffs on a trading partner, the foreign exchange market tends to sell that trading partner’s currency, forcing it to weaken to offset the dollar-price increase induced by the tariff. This helps explain why the Chinese renminbi depreciated by some 10 per cent in 2018 after Trump began imposing trade restrictions on China in January of that year. 

More widespread tariffs on a whole range of US trading partners should therefore strengthen the dollar more broadly.

A stronger dollar should also result from the macroeconomic framework Trump seems likely to deliver. He will certainly want to extend his 2017 tax cuts beyond 2025 when they are currently due to expire, so a more sustained loosening of US fiscal policy seems likely. Since boosting the US economy will create inflationary pressure, the market will expect interest rates to end up higher than they might otherwise be. The resulting combination of looser fiscal and tighter monetary policy tends to be a stronger currency.

The dollar probably has a fair amount of room to keep going up, since it is not obviously overvalued just yet. The US current account deficit – the broadest measure of a country’s trade deficit, and a rough but useful measure of financial vulnerability – was a little over 3 per cent of GDP last year. 

This is around half the level it reached in 2006, just before the 2008 global financial crisis, meaning the risks arising from an overvalued dollar may be for the latter part of Trump’s second presidency.

A strengthening dollar is also not great news for the rest of the world economy. A strong dollar tends to depress global trade growth, restrict developing countries’ access to international capital markets, and make it more difficult for countries whose currencies will be weakening to keep inflation under control.

If and when the dollar becomes unsustainably expensive, a further problem will present itself: how to deal with an overvalued currency without risking a lot of financial dislocation.

This problem last occurred in early 1985, when the dollar was universally reckoned to be dangerously dear. At that time the US was able to call on trading partners who depended on the US security umbrella – the UK, Germany, France and Japan – to negotiate the ‘Plaza Accord’, which coordinated a series of interventions in the foreign exchange market that allowed the dollar to decline in a measured way.  

It is virtually unimaginable that something similar could be negotiated today, not least because Chinese policymakers believe that the post-Plaza strengthening of the yen in the late 1980s led to an economic disaster for Japan. Beijing will not play ball.

Without much scope for a negotiated decline in the dollar, more chaotic alternatives seem likely. 

One is that the market decides suddenly that it no longer has an appetite for expensive dollar-denominated assets, and this might lead to a messy adjustment in the foreign exchange market. 

Implications of the new US presidency: what awaits Ukraine? 19 November 2024 — 2:00PM TO 3:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 13 November 2024 Online

After 1000 days of Kyiv’s resistance, experts discuss how to secure Ukraine’s and Europe’s future.   

The 19 November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

The 19^th November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

Having been given time to adapt, largely due to the slow release of Western military aid, the Russian army is pressing home its advantage. Along the entire eastern frontline, the Russians are simultaneously bombarding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities. With the election of Donald Trump in the US, it seems to many that the tide has turned definitively in Putin’s favour at the political, as well as the military, level.

Trump’s declared ambition to resolve the war in 24 hours implies a Russian-American deal, cutting Kyiv out of negotiations. Such an ‘agreement’ would endanger the country’s future and expose the rest of Europe.

This webinar will cover:

• Ukraine’s strategy of resistance in the context of Trump’s White House.
• The immediate risks during the transition period.
• How Kyiv sees Europe’s role in the new geopolitical environment. Will Kyiv completely give up on the US?
• The extent to which Germany, Ukraine’s second largest donor, can step in.  

Familiar sounds of encouragement and needling filled a practice field at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick on Monday as Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story and the infielders took grounders and Charlie Blackmon and the outfielders gathered their bats and spikes. Only a few faces that always seemed to be around are missing as Spring Training begins.

If German Marquez, Kyle Freeland and Jon Gray want to battle it out for tops on the staff, that's perfectly fine with Rockies manager Bud Black.

Having two pitchers of notable accomplishment and one of immense promise is a luxury for the Rockies. But it creates a decision nonetheless for manager Bud Black.

The countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting is down to single digits for all 30 MLB clubs, but as exciting as it is to see the return of Major League stars, it's also a time to dream about the next wave of baseball talent.

Here are the top players in each league who could get the opportunity to show what they can do at the highest level this year, perhaps even contending for Rookie of the Year honors

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hasn't even reported for duty yet and already he has become the main talking point at Blue Jays Spring Training. General manager Ross Atkins was bombarded with questions about MLB Pipeline's top prospect during his first media availability of the spring on Thursday.

Charlie Montoyo is about to embark on the first spring of his managerial career, and based on the number of decisions he has to make, it's going to be a challenging six weeks.

Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo was so impressed with Aaron Sanchez's first bullpen session of the spring that it would have been almost impossible to wipe the smile off his face afterwards.

Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election, but asserting that he did became a prerequisite for Republicans standing for nomination to Congress or the Senate to win their primaries. An entire party became a vehicle for disinformation.1 Trump did win the 2024 presidential election, and key to that victory was building on the success of that lie. If you control enough of the information ecosystem, truth no longer matters.Another telling example: Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are not eating cats and dogs. US vice president elect, JD Vance, the source of that claim, admitted as much even as he justified it. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I'm going to do,” he said.2Disinformation in politics is nothing new. History is replete with claims that were fabricated to advance political aims. Although...

At one of my first meetings as an elected council member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, we approved a report called Access All Ages. It encouraged less ageist thinking and bias among healthcare staff that might lead to them denying older people surgery.1 But sometimes an operation isn’t the best option. Among patients who have surgery, 14% express regret and 15% experience complications, which are at least four times as likely if they’re frail or physically inactive.2 The Centre for Perioperative Care has published information on the importance of exercise before surgery,3 but that alone may not be enough.We need shared decision making,4 including asking patients what matters to them. The public should be primed to ask about BRAN—the benefits, risks, and alternatives to surgery and the likely result from doing nothing.4 A slew of data supports this approach, especially from the POPS initiative (Perioperative Care of...

Endogenous reprogramming of glia into neurogenic progenitors holds great promise for neuron restoration therapies. Using lessons from regenerative species, we have developed strategies to stimulate mammalian Müller glia to regenerate neurons in vivo in the adult retina. We have demonstrated that the transcription factor Ascl1 can stimulate Müller glia neurogenesis. However, Ascl1 is only able to reprogram a subset of Müller glia into neurons. We have reported that neuroinflammation from microglia inhibits neurogenesis from Müller glia. Here we found that the peripheral immune response is a barrier to CNS regeneration. We show that monocytes from the peripheral immune system infiltrate the injured retina and negatively influence neurogenesis from Müller glia. Using CCR2 knock-out mice of both sexes, we found that preventing monocyte infiltration improves the neurogenic and proliferative capacity of Müller glia stimulated by Ascl1. Using scRNA-seq analysis, we identified a signaling axis wherein Osteopontin, a cytokine highly expressed by infiltrating immune cells is sufficient to suppress mammalian neurogenesis. This work implicates the response of the peripheral immune system as a barrier to regenerative strategies of the retina.

Typically, at least two discarded babies are found in the Mamelodi City Dump every week. AIDS Hope seeks to eliminate this horrible reality.

OM Russia organizes a winter camp for Siberian teenagers where they learn to always to trust God.

The story of Yury, who came to Christ in prison.