You are quite correct, I should have said the book highlighted those issues, not that it was about them. As Sinclair said, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”

While socialism never took off to the extent Sinclair hoped, we did get the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, though those are feeling more like suggestions rather than standards with things like these policy changes and how cleanliness and food safety were treated through the COVID epidemic.

Taken together, the draft rules are a “very telling sign of this administration and how they view blue-collar workers…they have decided that they no longer have to care about workers at all.”

If only it was new or just this administration. Thirty years ago in high school we read a book about this same exact garbage from 1906, and it wasn’t exactly news then either.

Lol, you are correct, I just rewatched it. He was debating with Jerry at the dinner about turning it into a “real charity” which quickly devolved into people showering him with praise in order show worthiness of his “generosity” (jeez, this is sounding like how I imagine the Board of Peace will operate…). When Kruger calls him in, he still chickens out and gives the money back unprompted and plays the victim of religious persecution for his father’s celebrating of Festivus instead of Christmas.

I don’t know if George would have went through with it, because his cowardice, paranoia, and desire to not actually do anything likely would have won out, so I still think he’s less evil as he at least somewhat confesses to being a fraud and he returns the money without a fuss, which doesn’t seem like the behavior of a FIFA Peace Prize winner.

At least The Human Fund didn’t actually have George stealing from anyone, it was just him being a jerk. When Mr. Kruger gave him that big check he at least somewhat came clean it was fake. The president taking tax money for his League of Villians is just outright theft like if George would have cashed the check and called the accountant a liar.

Yes, but it has been accepted as your contribution to the Board of Peace. Thank you for your donation.

One can go to other language versions of the Wikipedia as well and the info is different. The pages aren’t just translations from English.

I’ll check out different countries’ pages sometimes to see different culture references or to see what names are in other languages. Very useful.

en.wikipedia

de.wikipedia (translated)

The first stream I was using to watch it was from Canada, so I just mainly got patriotic Canadian ads, but that stopped and I ended up on one from Sky Sports. Since it was the UK, I got the bonus of no ads at all!

Tea Party was just a new spin on what conservatives were trying to do to the country since the first World War when the Wall Street elite tried to do a fascist coup in the US. Thankfully they asked the wrong man to participate, and it was stopped.

Modern Democrats are not a liberal party. See the weak support for the new mayor of New York, whose policies aren’t really that radical but are treated as such. They begrudgingly accept things like a need for nationalized healthcare and workers unions, but they no longer go out of their way to push for those things.

Status quo like we had under Biden is the endgame of the Democrats. MAGA is endgame for the Republicans. Neither major party wants a true radical movement, and all other parties are essentially locked out of our political system.

While 6 yr old me and 16 year old me w of uld have wildly different opinions, the most significant 2 that I still love today as much as back then are:

The Simpsons, and Batman the Animated Series

Many things I’ve seen since then can’t top those two.

And they just seem to never have any luck with these cameras when they do have them. They always seem to be off somehow or missing when we need them the most. If they do work, there’s always some unfortunate technicality blocking the FOIA requests. Even the cameras monitoring the most important criminals’ jail cells go on the fritz at just the right moment for them to inhume themselves. But we keep on buying them and paying for all that cloud storage at monopolistic prices.

I wonder what would happen if we spent this camera and other ICE money on providing an efficient means to citizenship instead… 🤔

With as much as cameras have failed to reduce violence by the ordinary police, I can’t see this as much more than a payday for Axon. They’ve been fighting for ICE to get cameras for a while now. As another comment stated, lack of video evidence does not seem to be the weak link in fixing the violence perpetrated by ICE.

(Jacobin)

Axon Enterprise, Inc., a weapons company and the country’s largest manufacturer of body-worn cameras, has lobbied aggressively since July on the $64 billion Department of Homeland Security spending bill that lawmakers passed on Thursday. The company’s CEO, a regular campaign contributor to Republicans, also donated directly to key Democratic lawmakers who pushed for the body camera measures.

Now, the company is well-positioned to reap the benefits of the $20 million allocated by the legislation for body cameras as part of ICE’s extended $10 billion budget

Axon has faced lawsuits for monopolizing the police body camera market and raising prices on local government contracts. Its profits have soared despite recent studies casting doubt on body cameras’ ability to curb law enforcement misconduct.

Axon spent at least $1.4 million on lobbying in the last half of 2025, including on the Department of Homeland Security spending bill “for body worn cameras” and other technology, according to recent federal disclosures. Axon’s nearest competitor, Motorola Solutions, also lobbied on the homeland security appropriations bill.

Democrats on the Appropriations Committee touted the provision as an accountability measure. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), the top recipient of campaign cash from Axon executives ($20,073), including the company’s CEO, reintroduced legislation to do so last week. Gallego cosponsored the bill alongside fellow Arizona Democrat, Sen. Mark Kelly. Axon is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Not trying to single out Dems in this specifically, they are just the more surprising individuals involved. It just makes me mad that something like this that should be a win for the public seems moreso to be a win for every but the public.

“The mother of my children.” is the quote from the video.

They’re not welcome at Superbowl if I have any say about it!

You are right, I completely forgot about Book Club! Shame on me. 😮

Thanks for reminding me of this! With having reached my limits with US politics, I’ve dropped all my podcasts for the last few months so I haven’t heard Margaret for a while now.

Margaret is great on every topic she covers, but as someone who isn’t trans, I feel she’s really helped me to have a better understanding about the internal and external pressures surrounding the subject matter. I’m sorry I still can’t really verbalize any of my feelings on it, but I’d say to anyone thinking that writing about trans people is written only for trans people, I don’t find this to be the case with any of Margaret’s work. I’ve never had the physical sensation of someone unlocking parts of my mind so frequently to things it couldn’t grasp before.

I’ve been wanting to find something to break up my power run of reading Discworld for the first time, and I think this would be a great book to do that with.

Everyone in this story is just so brazen about their shitty actions. Like the other comment said, they are all getting the frustration and dissatisfaction they deserve. Except the actual guy that partook of the actual physical theft that probably still got a cut of the take, a free ride almost home, and possibly that stupid self-deportation bonus check the government was offering as an additional parting gift.

He took a quick drag off the stinger before he tossed it. 😄

It really just got blasted in the face with some flashlight bigger than it is. Their pupils adjust much faster than ours, but I’m sure it’s still unpleasant.

From the article:

While the victims reported more than $100m in losses, Brink’s said the stolen items were worth less than $10m.

From the Wiki entry on the robbery:

Some of the jewelers have sued the company. They have admitted in depositions that they, like many of their colleagues, routinely understated the value of the jewelry being transported on manifests they filed with Brink’s, in order to keep their insurance costs down to a level where their businesses can be profitable.

Brink’s in turn has sued to limit the payout to the declared value of the jewelry, accusing the jewelers of breach of contract.

It is believed, due to the amount of jewelry stolen in such a short time, that there were several people involved. Some of the jewelers believe that the theft was an inside job, or at least that Brink’s may know more than it has publicly disclosed.

Crooks all the way down! 😵