Hambone v3.0

Weekend Silicon Valley Meltdown Open Commentaries

NOTE:  There is a transcript feature button if you scroll down.  If you hit it, the transcript appears in the upper right corner of the screen if you don’t have the time or patience to listen to the audio.

I have written recently about Marc Andreesen, the legendary venture capitalist and creator in Silicon Valley. Andreesen is merely worth one billion dollars so he is not in the stratosphere of Musk, Zuckerberg, Gates and Sergey Brin. However, when Marc speaks his opinion carry a long way in the world of Big Tech.

The video above is a podcast by Ross Douthat, a Roman Catholic who serves as a token squishy conservative for the New York Times. Douthat is an intelligent wordsmith though and did a very fine job on this interview in which Andreesen recalls many of his contacts with senior level Biden officials at the White House, but never Biden himself. He never seemed to available.

They came away from the final White House meeting horrified at what the people there were intending to do with AI and censorship. It was the day the decision was made to vote for Donald Trump.  This was the tipping point for the Silicon Valley when Andreesen and Horowitz went back to California and began telling everyone about the impending nightmare.

Nota Bene: Benjamin Horowitz is the longtime business partner of Marc Andreesen and is the son of Frontpage Magazine founder, David Horowitz.

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113 responses to “Weekend Silicon Valley Meltdown Open Commentaries”

  1. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Outstanding, revealing interview.
    Thanks.

  2. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    Dang another great find! HTH am I supposed to keep up? 😉 I’m certainly going to try to at least read/scan the transcript as I don’t have an hour to kill. Not to be a Brown Nose but we’re lucky to have folks post really neat finds here. Texpat has the most but others here find great stuff.
    48 here and shooting for the mid 60’s today and man next week will be fine. Lows in the 40’s-50’s, highs in the mid 70’s and we may even hit 80 on a couple of days! YES! About dang time.
    Mornin’ Gang

    1. Tedtam Avatar
      Tedtam

      Texpat is da man. I am always in awe of his posts

  3. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    I’m glad to be able to publish these things of interest. I spend a lot of time, probably too much, trying to find informative things to read or listen to here.

  4. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    I thought it was very interesting when Andreesen talks about leaving his Wisconsin family farm for a state college in Illinois. He describes how Al Gore actually did push very hard as VP to have four higher ed campuses chosen as incubators to develop the internet for public use. One of them was Andreesen’s Illinois school.

    Even though he never said, “I invented the internet”, in reality he played an important political role in getting it started. Credit is given where credit is due.

    1. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      Well Algore’s party have so successfully hung false narratives on so many of their opponents, I’m not going to feel sorry for him.

  5. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Fire them all ! You thought Anthony Fauci was the highest paid bottom feeder in the federal government. Not even close, bro’. If we had any journalists left in America, they would have discovered these federal salaries years ago. We have to wait for Trump to fire them to find out. While we’re at it, I’d fire the whole damned board of directors, too. Where have they been and what nice benefits are they getting ?

    WASHINGTON — Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Jeff Lyash — the highest-paid federal employee with a compensation package of $10.5 million per year — abruptly announced Friday that he was retiring 11 days after the return to office of President Trump, who during his first term slammed Lyash’s “ridiculous” pay and vowed to fire him.

    “Sounds like Lyash got DOGE’d,” a senior administration official told The Post, referring to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to rein in allegedly wasteful federal spending.

    plus this outrageous trough feeding,

    Other TVA employees are also earning top dollar — with chief financial officer John Thomas raking in $6.3 million a year, chief operating officer Don Moul earning $5 million, general counsel David Fountain making $3.3 million and chief nuclear officer Tim Rausch taking home $3.3 million, according to a November report from the Knoxville News Sentinel.

  6. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Check out these X posts from Scott Adams and Robby Starbuck. It makes you want to gather up your tar, feathers, pitchfork and torch.

    The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.

    They literally never denied a payment in their entire career.

    1. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      Somebody Groked the post claiming it was false, the replies are funny. Yeah, like someone would “officially” put on the record they never refused any payments lol.

  7. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    It looks like Tedtam means business; Guess who’s moving? 😀

  8. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    Last night when the news was breaking on the Lear 55 crash they mentioned that it was an Air Ambulance and the first thing my wife said was, “I wonder if it had anything to do with the oxygen that they carry?” I thought that it was a very intelligent observation, not everyone would think of that. 😉

  9. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    I guess y’all know that this is the first day of February? BTW; the sun will set 10 minutes later on February 7th than today. 😉

  10. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    About to start my Catholic daughters meeting, and the control freak is here. I’ve already asked our regent to redirect the discussion away from any rosary display related issues that she may bring up.

    Because I don’t trust her. But it looks like she’s trying to force the regent’s hand now.

  11. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    oyo
    uncklo.

  12. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    yoh
    uncklus.

  13. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    Corrected link to 9:59 post.

    oyo
    uncklo.

  14. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    uncklo
    yoh-yoh

  15. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    Despite the significant obstacles this presents to our ability to gather and report news in the national public interest, we will continue to report with the same integrity and rigor NBC News always has.”

    hahahahahahahheeheeeheeeheeeeehohohohohohohohohoohoohoohoohoo

    in the meantime they have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell ya.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyt-nbc-npr-politico-evicted-pentagon-press-offices-favor-trump-friendly-outlets

    1. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      Sweet!

  16. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    I’m back from church stuff. We are no longer a Catholic Daughters group, we are transitioning to an individual ladies’ apostolate. It seems that CDA, once they got wind that we were just considering leaving the national organization, blew the whistle and demanded we all get out of the pool.

    Well, okay then. Sayonara.

    We’ll be fleshing out our own by-laws and culture now, cradled within our own parish community. I actually think it’s going to increase our membership. The CDA was highly structured and rigid; this organization will allow us greater freedom in activities and how we do things.

    Anyway, now that I’m home, it’s time for my dose of Coffee and Covid. It’s so much more fun to read these days!

    Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! My goodness. Yesterday, amidst much other news, the Trump Administration piled on with a series of sackings that hysterical progressives are calling a ‘coup.’ I did my best to catch up. In today’s roundup: BlueSky lefties think the sky is falling; we begin to learn what DOGE has been up to through bureaucrat leaks, and it’s good; Musk captures the Office of Personnel and Management; DOGE battles with Treasury; Trump fulfills tariff promise; bloodletting at FBI management spurs howls of far-left outrage; Trump considers completely pulling the plug on USAID; Pentagon kicks corporate media out of DOD HQ and invites conservative media; another mysterious plane crash; Trump signs Laken Riley Act; Secretary of State Marco Rubio declares new US foreign policy and the end of globalism; and thoughts about the three controversial cabinet hearings this week and what the optics say about a declining Democrat future.

  17. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    C&C:

    The Dems are wailing and meandering about morosely, wondering what happened to their party and where’s the leadership? Made that bed, they did.

    Now, merely two weeks into a Trump Administration that can be fairly described as manic, there is so much change coming down the pike that we are on the verge the waterfall, if not already over, tumbling in mid-air, having reached the over-saturation tipping point where non-partisan Americans just tune out and go back to living their normal lives.

    Put simply, the 24×7 politics and the permanent outrage machine are simply too much emotional stimulation. We already lived through a year of apocalyptic predictions about the death of democracy. Nobody wants to go through that all over again. People can’t stay outraged about everything all the time.

    I agree – there’s a saturation point of perpetual outrage, and the Dems are very good at going over that limit. There’s a reason why the media’s not covering everything all the time any more.

  18. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Thanks to some (unusual, planned?) leaks, we are getting a glimpse into Musk and DOGE: I had no idea that sofa beds were part of the plan, so that DOGE could work around the clock. The beds were pulled out once DOGE moved into the OPM offices, dislodging the current residents to other, lower floors. I remember from my Organizational Behavior course in college what this means: demotion. That plays on their heads as well as the fact that their access to OPM systems has been restricted.

    Amusingly, the article was sourced from leakers, but failed to connect the obvious dot: the DOGE team cut the OPM staff out of the loop because they clearly think the career people will leak like rusty sieves.

    I’d hoped DOGE would do some good stuff, but I had no idea it would be like this.

  19. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    More C&C: Musk and his engineers have been dying to get into the Treasury data, to determine what money is going out and to who. Sunshine! Treasury has been refusing to cooperate. SHOCKER! /not

    Bad move. There’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s deputized a whole slew of folks like him. Instead of handing over passwords, a Treasury official has resigned. Gee, that’s not troubling, is it?

    Late in the article, the WaPo got around to admitting that DOGE’s request for access was completely legal. Trump ordered Treasury to do it back on January 20th when the President created DOGE. So if anyone is breaking the law, it’s career Treasury officials:

    /snip

    Trump’s executive order mandated transparency and reform. DOGE’s charter is to expose entrenched waste, inefficiency, or even corruption within the government, including the Treasury payments system. There is no reasonable objection to allowing DOGE its access.

    Resistance is futile.

  20. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    What the Liz warrens of the world remind me of.

  21. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    There’s a mention of tariffs and the reaction of “You mean Trump is doing what he said he was going to do?!!” Onward: DOJ crackdowns and firings. (I think I hear angels singing…) First, almost 30 prosecutors on the Trump lawsuits were given their walking papers. Then there was this:

    According to MSNBC, the firings also included top FBI career leaders and “more than 20” directors of various FBI field offices across the country, including…. David Sundberg, who championed the J6 investigations, was the DC Field Officer Director…

    But what really got Democrats stirred up was Bove’s request for a list of all rank-and-file FBI agents and personnel who worked on the January 6th cases—a list that could include thousands.

    That’s when the fur truly started flying. It was an all-hands-on-deck moment for Democrats. … they all issued hyperbolic, outraged statements from their offices and on social media.

    It backfired horribly. It was incredibly bad optics. These politicians’ support doesn’t help the FBI at all. The fact that all the Democrats’ most partisan members were screeching like barn owls only proved the point.

    You’d think that if the FBI Agents were apolitical and totally unbiased and neutral and so forth, at least some Republicans would be sticking up for them (likewise, if they were really even-handed, some Democrats would be irritated with the FBI).

    Has the FBI no friends left among the Republican Party? If not, it speaks volumes.

  22. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    Senate confirmation interrogators b(r)ought to you by Pfizer.

    bernie ‘foot lines are a goot ting as long as I don’t have to stand in duh foot lines’ sanders is a full fledged commie dope.

  23. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Mr. C. touches on the ramifications of the FBI and “the list”: the FBI is warning that firing so many employees would create an inability to do its main function (which so many have forgotten, so this would be a good reminder, IMHO). Mr. C. comments that there were so many agents assigned to the J6 “investigations” that they were already compromised:

    In other words, imagine how much more efficient the FBI will run, once the “largest investigation ever,” which distracted everyone, is finally over. Speaking of efficiency, on Thursday, media began reporting that a DOGE team was now embedded on the Director’s floor at FBI headquarters. The 4-man DOGE team reportedly includes two former FBI agents, a former aide to Representative Jim Jordan (R-Oh.), and an as-yet unidentified SpaceX employee.

    Combine the OPM couch story, the Treasury takeover, and the SpaceX employee telling the FBI what to do, and you can understand why the BlueSky-ers are so aggravated they are tossing around inflammatory words like “coup” and “oligarchy takeover.”

    Cry me a river. I feel for the good agents that will be swept up in this. I hope they survive the cleansing. We’ll be needing them on the backside.

    But the bad guys just assumed that the corruption was so big that there was no way that it could be cleaned out. They failed to factor in the Trump personality, his energy level, the wissed off public, and the outrage factor.

    It may be a big swamp, but there is a drain plug, and it’s getting pulled.

  24. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    C&C:

    Schumer is spreading the rumor (hope?) that Trump is going to shut down USAID and merge it with something else. That huge money laundering operation may be disappearing, and its potential disappearance is sparking outrage and, more likely, fear. The ‘independence’ under which it operates is a fuzzy idea, easily co-opted by bad players.

    …Those terms are squishy enough that Democrats and every sketchy deep state agency have coopted it as a money spigot. USAID is a tool to quickly splash cash around the world wherever it may be needed, like funding color revolutions and regime change operations, or Democrats’ congressional campaigns.

    … Foreign aid logically falls under his constitutional authority over foreign relations.

    Over the years, lawmakers have created statutory authorities purporting to allow USAID to function semi-autonomously. This effectively gave unelected bureaucrats wide latitude to execute U.S. foreign assistance policy— even if it contradicted the sitting President’s policies. But Reagan’s unitary executive theory suggests that the President may fire USAID officials and override their decisions without congressional micromanagement.

    It sure looks like President Trump is toying with a showdown with Congressional Democrats over his control of Executive Branch agencies and their employees. This is another developing front in the war with the deep state. If Trump can cut off the money, the deep state will wither away.

    Like him or hate him, Trump is a tiger and the Swamp Critters have jerked his tail once too often.

  25. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    After a brief dip into plane crashes, Pentagon media shakeups, Laken Riley and immigration – there’s a dive into Marco Rubio and the latest view on world power structures:

    YouTube: Secretary Marco Rubio on Buying Greenland, His Trip to Panama, and How to End the Russia-Ukraine War (1:04:52).

    Watch the whole thing. The Rubio upgrade installed in the State Department is a massive improvement. The new Secretary of State said that the U.S. has been “funding a stalemate” in a war that has “set Ukraine back 100 years.” Both of those critical, long-overdue admissions suggest the Trump Administration is taking a practical, honest approach to the Proxy War.

    That is terrific news.

    But Rubio went much further. He also explained a whole new policy approach upending fifty years of settled neocon theory. “It’s not normal for the world to have a single unipolar power; that was an anomaly of the Cold War,” Rubio explained. I wish I had more time to further explore the implications of this revolutionary declaration. Maybe tomorrow.

    Either way, the Trump Administration just announced it will abandon the all-costs pursuit of American hegemony. The alternative is a practical, multi-polar world with at least three independent, cooperating superpowers (if not four).

    In other words, the globalist era is over.

    As a quick reminder, Rubio was the Senator who forced deep state diva Viktoria Nuland to admit that the U.S. built biolabs in Ukraine. So we can be confident Marco Rubio knows what time it is in Kiev.

    I haven’t delved into the video yet, but it looks interesting. I wonder what reaction it’ll have in Russia, China, India, and Britain?

  26. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Regarding the weeks’ confirmation hearings:

    A final point. Kennedy and Gabbard in particular used the Senate floor to slam open the Overton Window on a whole range of topics once considered untouchable conspiracy theories. For example, Kennedy dragged into common parlance the ugly fact that Americans pay more for our healthcare than any other nation— but experience the worst outcomes.

    Nobody denied that now inarguable fact. Astonishingly, it became a mantra stolen by many of the Democrats, including socialist Bernie Sanders….

    The Dems have been pushing that Overton Window further left, and faster and faster, for years. It’s nice that we’re finally reversing its trajectory, even if it’s just a little bit.

    RFK also shone a spotlight on the autism epidemic, forcing a long-ignored but critically necessary conversation into the mainstream, in the process giving progressives permission to at least consider possible causes.

    Gabbard, meanwhile, ripped the mask off the Iraq war. …the intelligence community’s failures in Iraq cost thousands of lives and countless billions— and there’s never been any accounting for that failure….

    And most significantly, all the Senators questioned the nominees about these previously off-limits issues, even if just to mock their ideas, but in the process proving the senators do know about the problems. It’s just that until now, they’ve pretended to be unaware of them.

    /snip

    What we are all experiencing is, as advertised, shock and awe.

  27. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    A Domestic Tranny Terrorist Death Cult

    With Trump & Co and air disasters sucking all the oxygen out of the room, this truly bizarre whacko terrorist story has been sort of buried. It reads like some kind of bad B-movie script from the seedier sides of Hollywood.

    In 2022, Curtis Lind, a Vallejo landlord who had been letting folks live on his property in “trailers and containers” was stabbed—allegedly by tenants who had stopped paying rent—with a Samurai sword. Lind shot two of his attackers and killed one of them—31-year-old Emma Borhanian. Two weeks ago, Lind was stabbed to death on his property, just before he was scheduled to testify in the case. On Tuesday, 22-year-old Maximilian Snyder was charged with the murder.

    First, let’s have this chart of characters which we know now is incomplete.

    The young woman in the lower left side is being hunted for the murder of her parents and providing the weapons used to kill the Vermont BP agent.

    At various points, different Zizians have faked their own deaths, but the majority appear to be at large. “We still don’t know the whereabouts of the people in this story who aren’t either dead or in custody, and we sort of expect them to continue doing murders,” writes Aella.

    Aella is a sex worker who has been compiling a timeline of this lurid story.

    August 2021: Ziz advocates for “airlocking” (a sci-fi term for killing) various people in blog comments and claims many people seek “suicide by Ziz.” Ziz runs a blog which appears to be the primary attractor for this community. They claim that people have two hemispheres, and are either non-good, single-good, or double-good (very rare, which Ziz herself is). Ziz advocates for a ruthlessly enforced altruism towards all living creatures, and to follow the principle that it’s never valid to surrender. She promotes the punishment of “non-good” people, particularly those who are not vegans.

    1. squawkbox Avatar
      squawkbox

      Ill just leave this right here. Is she trustworthy and or believable?
      More importantly is she a candidate for Friday Brunette Open Comments?

      1. Texpat Avatar
        Texpat

        I didn’t know if she really existed or if that was some phony identity. What she has written though is pretty well backed up now by other news reports so far.

  28. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    These people are not fooling around.

    Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr. has made a bold move, dismissing about 30 federal prosecutors involved in the Capitol riot cases. This decision, announced on Friday, signals a significant housecleaning of the top prosecutor’s office in Washington, D.C., as Martin gears up to purge partisans who weaponized the Justice Department against Joe Biden’s political enemies, including Trump, pro-life activists, and others.

    But he’s also taken another bold step, effectively launching an investigation into Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over comments he made back in March 2020 during a #MyRightMyDecision rally outside the Supreme Court. During the rally, Schumer blatantly threatened Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch over their potential votes in the first abortion case before the Supreme Court with the new conservative majority.

    “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer said to a chorus of cheers. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

    1. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
      Dr phil Good-E=1984

      Regarding chuck shoomer.

      Couldn’t happen to a nicer Mayo stain.

    2. Bonecrusher Avatar
      Bonecrusher

      I understand why UpChuck wasn’t prosecuted prior to Trump #47; Trump had no backup in the DOJ or FBI – there was no one who would prosecute. Now that he is #47 and is cleaning the house at FBI and DOJ, the crime of threatening a Supreme Court Justice has a decent chance of being prosecuted, as it should be. No one is above the law. When Schumer made the comments, he was outside of the Senate chambers and not protected by the speech and debate rule.

  29. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    BTW Caroline Glick is on hiatus from videos for an undetermined time. Dunno bout columns. She has taken job in the gubment.

  30. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Excellent X thread from Real Clear Politics polling guru, Sean Trende:

    Favorite Quote:

    The Right’s response now is “ok, fine, we’ll just flood the press corps with new right-of-center podcasters and bloggers. Give your statue of liberty speech in a room full of Alex Berensons and catturds and see how it goes over.” 
    

    The move to allow  podcasters and bloggers into the Press Corps is part of a broader shift on the Right, that really starts with @elonmusk’s acquisition of X. Before that, when conservatives complained about bias and censorship on social media, the left/lib response 1/  

    was “well go ahead and build your own social media site.” Which everyone knew was very difficult. And then there would be moves to get whoever hosted the new site to refuse to host it and the response would be “well build your own hosting platform” and so forth. 2/

     

    Musk’s acquisition of Twitter/X really looks increasingly like an important turning point in the conservative approach, which in the face of this became “well what can you do?” It was a realization “no, actually we can take these institutions and make them ours.” 3/ 

  31. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    Texpat
    BUT CAN Aella MAKE IT TO FRIDAY BRUNETTE OC?
    Looking at statistics she provided to the New York Post I am thinking maybe,

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      That’s beyond gross.

      1. squawkbox Avatar
        squawkbox

        I have never understood why anyone would post crap like that on the iNet. More disturbing is those that find it interesting.

        1. Texpat Avatar
          Texpat

          She was making $100K a month on OnlyFans and now she’s making $450 a week at Burger King.

    2. Shannon Avatar
      Shannon

      Re: Brunette Friday

      Stinkies need not apply.

      They can go to some Euro blog.

    3. Bonecrusher Avatar
      Bonecrusher

      She’s a stanky ho.

  32. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    THE WEEK IN PICTURES: I DON’T REALLY CARE MARGARET

    It is clear by now in week two that the Trump Administration has decided to treat the media, and its political opponents generally, in a most fitting manner; that is, like dogs. And no one is doing this better than Vice President J.D. Vance. I think “I don’t really care Margaret” should be the default slogan to throw at every liberal who cries “racism!” “nazi!” “carnivore!”, and other reckless epithets.

  33. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    I got a little bit of yard work done, since the weather is so nice. Deconstructed a couple of tubs and put that dirt in my asparagus bed. Cleared the autumn leaves from around Rhett, and those partially decomposed leaves were put on top of my half-made hosta bed. Crunched down the brittle plastic tubs and dragged that bag to the trash can.

    Somewhere along the line I lost my outside glasses. I guess I’m going to have to buy another cheap pair.

  34. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Dr. Malone discusses Kash Patel, Patel’s views on the FBI, and his confirmation hearings.

    Star Spangled Awesome

  35. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    She was a brunette by birth, but a blonde by habit.

    1. Shannon Avatar
      Shannon

      🙂

  36. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    This is a little off into legal procedural jargon, but it is important to understand. It is how leftist Circuit Courts game the system against the Second Amendment and SCOTUS itself. We need more judges like Lawrence VanDyke.

    In his recent dissent in Teter v. Lopez, Judge Lawrence VanDyke highlighted a procedural machination employed by the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that allowed Hawaii to evade a Second Amendment challenge to its ban on butterfly knives.

    Initially, a three-judge panel unanimously and correctly held that Hawaii’s ban was unconstitutional under the rigorous test established by the U.S. Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

    Judge VanDyke explained that the Ninth Circuit “responded the way it always does when a Second Amendment claim is vindicated” by taking the case en banc (i.e., heard by a panel of 11 randomly selected judges from the circuit). While it is not uncommon for federal courts of appeals to consider a case en banc, the Ninth Circuit has developed a highly unusual practice of automatically vacating a three-judge panel’s opinion when it grants en banc review.

    1. Bonecrusher Avatar
      Bonecrusher

      Half of the jurists on the 9th circus would be better suited to cleaning the basements of outhouses in Appalachia than pretending to be wise interpreters of the Constitution.

  37. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Shannon posted a video of singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham a couple of days ago. I didn’t realize who he was until I discovered his song The Weary Kind was part of the soundtrack for Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s great performances in the film Crazy Heart. Bingham wrote the song with legendary Fort Worth music producer/songwriter T-Bone Burnett.

    For what it’s worth, this song received a helluva lot of recognition.

    On January 17, 2010, the theme song “The Weary Kind”, written by Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett, was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Original Song at the 67th Golden Globe Awards. The song also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 82nd Academy Awards and a Grammy for Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media at the 53rd Grammy Awards. The soundtrack also won a Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media at the same ceremony.

    1. Shannon Avatar
      Shannon

      I have never seen Crazy Heart.
      Headed home now to watch it.

  38. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn of the famous ’60s folk rock group The Byrds did a 50th Anniversary Sweetheart of the Rodeo tour about 5 years ago. Of all people to show up onstage with them was Marty Stuart. I bought that album in 1968 when I was 16 years old. It is how I discovered Gram Parsons.

    1. Shannon Avatar
      Shannon

      That is one circuitous route.

  39. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Texpat 5:09

    Not only that, if you didn’t notice, the guy is a major character in the Yellowstone series.

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      Wow. I never made that connection and I loved his character.

  40. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Most folks don’t know realize who T-Bone Burnett of Fort Worth is but I’ll just say this: If any musician anywhere in the world has their cellphone ring and sees it’s T-Bone Burnett, they answer on the first ring and don’t let it go to message. He is that good across many genres.

  41. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr. has made a bold move, dismissing about 30 federal prosecutors involved in the Capitol riot cases.

    I say we take their law licenses away.

  42. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    I’m sitting in the pub on the square in Bellville. I hate craft beer so I’m drinking an overpriced glass of wine.
    On the TV is a replay of an old LSU vs. A&M game. I have no idea what year it is, but LSU was leading 35-17 early in the 3rd Quarter.
    I hate it when these two teams play against each other. They are my 2nd and 3rd favorite teams.

  43. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    That’s a beautiful sliver of moon tonight. With Jupiter (I believe) almost sitting in its lap.
    🙂

    Never mind. It’s Venus.

  44. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Dr. phil has this really cool garage band.

  45. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Hold on to your lover…

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      Classic rendition of the great Randy Newman song.

  46. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    WILMINGTON, DE — President Donald Trump announced this morning that he has officially replaced the entire federal workforce with one single teenage Chick-Fil-A employee.

    In a move expected to drastically improve the efficiency of government services, sixteen-year-old Bryan Sanders of Wilmington will take over the jobs of all 3 million current federal employees starting on Monday. 

    “With Bryan’s work experience running the drive-through at Chick-Fil-A, we expect his taking over three million federal jobs to be seamless,” said Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. “We believe Bryan will also provide a massive upgrade in terms of how pleasant it will be to interact with government employees. He is just so darn polite.”

    1. Shannon Avatar
      Shannon

      Gotta get rid of them waffle fries, though.

      1. GJT Avatar
        GJT

        Hey!! Keep yer dang hands off my waffle fries.

      2. Super Dave Avatar
        Super Dave

        Amen to that! Those greasy, soggy things aren’t even close to a “Fry”! I do wish Chick Fil A would bring back their carrot N raisin salad though, I used to get that instead of the joke they have for fries but now I just get a sammach since the rest of their sides pretty much sux. FWIW; The carrot N raisin salad was as good as my aunt Imogene made. 😉

  47. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    Gonna’ be a great day! I’m fixin’ sausage, grits, eggs and pancakes for breakfast.
    Mornin’ Gang

  48. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    I spotted this lie over yonder;

    From a HR Leader…

    Some of what DEI is:

    -ramps and sidewalk curb cuts

    -subtitles & captions (TV & phone)

    -family restrooms

    -changing tables in men’s restrooms

    -breast feeding/pumping stations & accommodations

    -floating paid holidays

    -pay equity & transparency

    -parental leave (time & pay)

    -coming back to a job after birthing a child

    -not having to just accept workplace harassment

    -work accommodations for a variety of disabilities

    -flexible work arrangements

    -size inclusive chairs and beds in medical facilities

    -belt extenders on planes

    -various food options for vegetarians/vegans/kosher/gluten-free/etc at medical facilities

    -non smoking areas/end of smoking indoors

    -being able to have medical professionals and your coworkers use your preferred name (not just queer people have those)

    -wellness programs and incentives

    -more relaxed & inclusive dress code policies

    -rooms to pray/meditate at work & other public places

    -employee recognition programs

    -employee/network resource groups

    -large print materials

    -materials in different languages

    -multiple religious options at hospitals

    -accessible bikes and public transit accommodations

    -businesses not becoming fully cashless

    -company-covered mental/behavioral health resources

    Some of What DEI isn’t:

    -hiring an under qualified person for a job just because they’re a person of color

    -hiring based on race just to meet diversity goals (this is illegal)

    -a new fad or buzz word. DEI work has been going on for many many years, under different names

    SMDH

  49. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    That reminds me Happy Groundhog Day! 😀

    1. bsue54 Avatar
      bsue54

      Again??? 😉

      1. Super Dave Avatar
        Super Dave

        Over, and over and over,……… 😉

  50. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    AAA DAMM 3 Day Challenge. 😀

  51. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    Homes for sale Clear Lake City 1967.

    1. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      That’s neat.

  52. GJT Avatar
    GJT

    Finally got around to listening to the video in the OC with Marc Andreesen. I keep fearing something will come along to derail Trump and his team’s agenda, the interview gives me hope that will be harder to do than imagined. I also come away realizing we probably needed to go through what we did to get here.

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      we probably needed to go through what we did to get here.

      Amen to that, Trump will should be able to get a lot more done because of the last 4 years no to mention that he has had 4 years to think about what needs to be done.

    2. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      Biden and those raving lunatics overplaying their hand day and night for 4 years was plowing the landscape for Trump and the Right. The public unwinding of the authoritarian censorship projects and the attempt to have the federal government totally control AI doomed the imbeciles. Big Tech has been coasting on their laurels for a while. AI is the “next big thing”. they’ve been waiting for to create zillions in new wealth.

  53. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    Oh and I also checked out the O.C. Piece but I scanned the transcript. A great find indeed.

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      Somebody posted the entire text of the NYT interview in front of the paywall. I went back and couldn’t find it so this was the best I could do.

  54. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    CAIRO (AP) — Powerful Arab nations on Saturday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.

    Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League released a joint statement rejecting any plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

    Trump floated the idea last month, saying he would urge the leaders of Jordan and Egypt to take in Gaza’s now largely homeless population, so that “we just clean out that whole thing.” He added that resettling most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million could be temporary or long term. Some Israel officials had raised the transfer idea early in the war.

    This is rich and Beege Wellborn has the same reaction as I did…

    BWAHAhahahaha!

    I will lay a big, fat donut on the bet that Trump just threw that out there to prove the point that there ain’t NOBODY wantin’ these homicidal psychopaths anywhere near them.

    And now that we’ve established they’re absolutely incorrigible, untrustworthy savages, plans can move forward from here how to deal with them.

    Love that girl.

  55. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Marc Andreesen wants to have this quote from Lefty Matthew Yglesias the day after Biden’s Inauguration cast in platinum and hung in the Smithsonian.

    1. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      Love this comment –

      If you go after the king, you best not miss.

      😀 😀

      1. Super Dave Avatar
        Super Dave

        😀

  56. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    This is a perfect example of how the MSM lies. AP has a headline saying Trump offers air traffic controllers a buyout to quit. They then waste 15 paragraphs offering no new information and eventually telling you the controllers weren’t eligible for the program, period. The whole thing was to have an excuse to blast that headline.

    1. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      Yeah, I saw that blurted out multiple times with no link or backup.

  57. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Fox’ Business Network’s Charles Payne joked, “I’m actually worried. This looks like the scene right before the cult leader starts passing around the Kool-Aid.” 

    As some noted after looking at all this, the GOP might never lose again.

    I have things to go do, but I encourage everybody to go read and watch the video clips from the Democratic National Committee leadership convention where they just held elections. If you are worried about the Dems mounting a strong, or even credible, response to Trump…well, rest your mind.

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      Fox had a clip of a dozen or so Democrat leaders being interviewed by three Talking heads and they were asked for a show of hands of who thought that Kamala’s defeat was caused by racism and misogyny & EVERY DAMN ONE OF THEM RAISED THEIR HAND! That told me all I need to know, they STILL don’t get it. Oh and the black dude asking the question said; “that is the correct answer BTW”

    2. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      Lol. They decided there is such a thing as female?? I’m so confused.

  58. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    About Texpat’s @ 10:17 AM Newt Gingrich has said that he thinks the Republicans have the next 12 years sewn up. Not that I believe that but I hope he is right.

  59. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    This reminded me of Southern Tragedy.… I do miss her.

    1. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      😀 Note: Cadaver Dogs will be met with…..resistance.

    2. bsue54 Avatar
      bsue54

      me too

  60. GJT Avatar
    GJT

    Early last December I decided to empty my aluminum can slush fund and dip my toe in Crypto. I quickly went upside down but finally got above water a bit at the end of the year. Still right side up at the moment but this past week was rough for most all Crypto. Interesting to watch, it seems to follow no patterns to any news or events of the day.

    1. Shannon Avatar
      Shannon

      You’re a better man than me.
      I don’t have the brain power to grasp even the most basic concepts of what crypto is.

      1. GJT Avatar
        GJT

        Well I had to get a lot of help from my son to get setup, but navigating the Coinbase app is very easy once you are. Still, my understanding is only about a half inch deep and a foot wide.

  61. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    James Pinkerton wants to move the residents of Gaza to some islands. There are 600,000 islands in the world. 589,000 of them are uninhabited.

    In his calculatedly off-the-cuff remarks, Trump talked about sending them to adjoining Egypt, or perhaps to Jordan. Yet those countries are not enthused. Indeed, every government in the Middle East is on guard against the sort of jihadism Hamas epitomizes. Perhaps Trump could make those countries an intake offer they can’t refuse, and yet it does the U.S. no good if the relocated Gazans do what exiled Palestinians did to Lebanon beginning in the 1970s—plunge that once-happy land into a civil war that smolders to this day. 

    and,

    So what to do? This author has a suggestion, which he published back in November 2023: move the Gazans out of Gaza. Pay them, in fact, to move; as Churchill might have said, pay-pay is cheaper than war-war. Without a doubt, relocation as a permanent solution is a better investment than reconstruction as a prelude to the next round of destruction. 

  62. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    76 degrees, bright and sunny here in L.A……Nice!

    1. GJT Avatar
      GJT

      78 and sunny here Doing a nice ribeye here in a little while.

      1. Super Dave Avatar
        Super Dave

        I just salted a couple of T Bones to throw on the grill later. Oh and Ribeye sounds great.

  63. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Wishing for a ribeye while having poblano soup.

    Fay would spend two days making the most decadent poblano soup, everything fresh, all from scratch.

    The HEB Texas brand of poblano soup isn’t bad at all. But the label admits that one serving provides 70% of your supposed daily salt requirement. So I won’t be buying it again.

  64. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    About this fine weather, I’m going to grab a beer and join my wife on the front porch. 😉

  65. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Recently returned from church, dropped some beef into the crock pot. Hope I didn’t do that too late, but we have leftovers if that tough cut needs more time.

    I spent some time outside yesterday and so today I’m taking it easy(er). I think I’m going to go upstairs and tinker in my sewing/craft room. When MIL died, we got a few small TVs, and I recently acquired another Roku so I can watch videos while working. If I need to review a technique or a get an idea, I can easily pull up the appropriate YouTube video.

    But first, I think I need to make a rosary. I’ve given away a few and need replacements.

  66. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Dr. Malone’s Sunday Strip: the post-WIP WIP

  67. Bonecrusher Avatar
    Bonecrusher

    I am going to stipulate that I tend to think a bit differently about lots of things; this innovation however, is brilliant. Cancel the vibrations with a flexible material. Petroleum products to the rescue.

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      Flex coupling technology has been around for decades, but it has greatly advanced via chemical engineering. I worked with an inventor on a couple of these products back 30 years ago. There are dozens of variations on the idea now.

    2. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      On a similar note, we vibration tested Victaulic flex pipe couplings at B 49 back in 2013. It was part of NASA’s public/private testing program.

  68. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Shannon – Hubby is planning on taking his new baby to this car show. If I can, I’ll be there, too.

    March 8th: http://www.austincountycruisers.com/ClassicCarStampede.htm

    1. Shannon Avatar
      Shannon

      Hope I can see y’all there.
      Low-Rents used to bring his Camaro often.

      1. Texpat Avatar
        Texpat

        Wow. I didn’t realize Bellville put on a car show like this. Pretty fancy. I did have to laugh about the fact they think cars “1985 and older” are classics. I was 32 years old in 1985, dammit.

        1. GJT Avatar
          GJT

          I think we blew the doors off being classics to being full fledged antiques.

  69. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    We watched a great movie starring Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter and Lena Olin tonight called One Life. A very powerful, moving, true story of a young man from London who goes off on his own to save almost a thousand children in Czechoslovakia from the Nazis at the beginning of WWII. Powerful, exquisitely done film.

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