W
I didn’t watch the address to the nation this evening. I’m pretty sure I’m better off that I didn’t.
The comparison to Biden’s performance may be an apt one, the perils of age being demonstrated publicly. The difference for me is that Biden was surrounded by rational people in his administration who could keep the government train on the tracks. The lot in the Trump administration are incompetent and as loony as he is.
@Piano-Dad said in Candy store memories:
The smell of fresh, warm, roasted cashews!
Oh, boy. Do I ever remember those! Whenever my dad and I went to the Sears on Harlem and North we'd buy a little bag of those cashews. Years later as an adult I used to pop in to the State Street store during my lunch hour. One day I went in and was crushed to learn that they had eliminated the cashew roaster and there were no more to be had. A very sad day....
More details about the study:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/09/study-instacart-ai-pricing-cost-of-groceries.html
FTC is looking into this...
A study released last week showed that prices for the same products in the same supermarkets that work with Instacart can vary by around 7%, which can result in over $1,000 in extra annual costs for customers. Instacart responded by saying that retailers determine prices listed in the app.
In 2022, Instacart spent $59 million to acquire Eversight, a company specializing in artificial intelligence-driven pricing and promotions for retailers and consumer packaged goods. Instacart sought to “create compelling savings opportunities for customers in real-time” with Eversight, according to a regulatory filing.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/17/instacart-sec-probe-pricing-tool.html
In case you want to watch:
Why is no one questioning this man's sanity? Or wondering, at least, why he's wasting time and money on crap like this?
A series of plaques recently installed in the White House’s “Presidential Walk of Fame” includes scathing attacks on former Democratic presidents and lofty praise for President Donald Trump.
Susie Wiles, care to explain this to the rest of the country?
There was a small store near my childhood best friend's house that had a penny candy section. I fondly remember picking out some nutritionally awful but totally delicious (to a kid) treats.
Saw these in a grocery store today and the memories flooded back...
I resisted. Those little sugar beads inside are tooth-breakers.
What were your childhood favorites?
The pipe that will supply the heat pump, drawing water from the River Rhine in Germany, is so big that you could walk through it, fully upright, I'm told.
"We plan to take 10,000 litres per second," says Felix Hack, project manager at MVV Environment, an energy company, as he describes the 2m diameter pipes that will suck up river water in Mannheim, and then return it once heat from the water has been harvested.
In October, parent firm MVV Energie announced its plan to build what could be the most powerful heat pump modules ever. Two units, each with a capacity of 82.5 megawatts.
That's enough to supply around 40,000 homes, in total, via a district heating system. MVV Energie aims to build the system on the site of a coal power plant that is converting to cleaner technologies.
The scale of the heat pumps was determined partly by limits on the size of machinery that could be transported through the streets of Mannheim, or potentially via barges along the Rhine. "We're not sure about that yet," says Mr Hack. "It might come via the river."
C-SPAN’s ‘Ceasefire’ Tries To Show Cooler Heads Can Prevail At A Time Of Hyper-Polarization
https://deadline.com/2025/10/c-span-ceasefire-debut-mike-pence-rahm-emanuel-1236577144/
Longer read at New Yorker, but it's behind a paywall.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/caught-in-the-c-span-ceasefire
Chevron stands as one of the last big shippers of Venezuelan oil after the U.S. seized a sanctioned tanker last week allegedly carrying the country’s crude to the black market.
The threat of another U.S. seizure has disrupted the country’s usually bustling traffic of dark-fleet vessels ferrying the Latin American country’s oil to China and Cuba. Several tankers are idling at Venezuelan ports and others are veering away from the region, vessel-tracking data show.
President Trump on Tuesday ordered a complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela, escalating his administration’s pressure campaign against strongman Nicolás Maduro.
For Chevron, though, it remains business as usual. The company is still sending oil tankers to the U.S. Gulf Coast, its operations unimpeded thus far by rising tension between Trump and Maduro.
In boardrooms around the globe, a specific anxiety is taking hold. It isn’t just the fear of robots taking jobs; it is the paralyzing worry of “buyer’s remorse” in a market moving at breakneck speed. According to Bill Briggs, Deloitte’s chief technology officer, as we move from AI experimentation to impact/value at scale, that fear is driving a lopsided investment strategy where companies are pouring 93% of their AI budget into technology and only 7% into the people expected to use it.
Briggs highlighted this “93-7” split as something that really surprised him—and a critical error. Organizations are obsessing over the “ingredients”—the models, chips, and software—while ignoring the “recipe,” which includes the culture, workflow, and training required to make the technology work. Briggs compared this tech-heavy approach to “trying to get paella” but ending up with “just cilantro.”
James Woods talks about his friend Rob Reiner.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/maga-actor-james-woods-tears-120058127.html
@ShiroKuro Yea, I think I remember JD telling people to call out the people who posted negatively about Charlie Kirk's death and to report them to their employers.
Not directly related to the ballroom but...Do we see a theme emerging??
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!!!
President Trump on Monday signed an executive order designating t>
"The manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, primarily performed by organized criminal networks, threatens our national security and fuels lawlessness in our hemisphere and at our borders," the order declared.During an event in the Oval Office, Trump said the carnage fentanyl has caused in American families is worse than U.S. deaths in many wars.
"Two to three hundred thousand people die every year, that we know of, so we're formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction," Trump said.
In fact, Trump's numbers are wildly inflated. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl killed roughly 48 thousand people in the U-S last year - a 27 percent drop from the year before.
Experts also say fentanyl would be difficult to use as a weapon of mass destruction. There is only one documented incident worldwide, in 2002, where the Russian government weaponized fentanyl in gas form. There have been no cases reported in the U.S.
"It is not evident that there is any basis or need for, or net benefit to, officially designating fentanyl compounds as weapons of mass destruction," concluded a 2019 report by the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University.
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5645149/wmd-fentanyl-trump-cartels
Maybe Trump is taking a page from the former South Korean president:
South Korea’s ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol plotted for over a year to impose martial law to eliminate his political rivals and monopolize power, investigators concluded Monday.
Yoon’s martial law decree in December 2024 lasted only several hours and resulted in his rapid downfall.
Independent counsel Cho Eun-suk, who announced the six-month probe’s result, also accused the former president and his military allies of ordering operations against North Korea, in a deliberate bid to stoke tensions and justify his plans to declare martial law.
Despite the lack of a serious response from North Korea, Cho said that Yoon declared martial law by branding the liberal-controlled
There aren't the votes to impeach or to convict. And it seals the argument that many on the other side have that "they're just out to get Trump". TDS. They're brainwashed.
I think her definition of "doing something flagrant" is "he does something so awful that even members of the GOP rise up against him". I mean, we've all seen what's happened since he took office. With very few exceptions, everyone in the GOP has fallen in line behind him. As far as the voting public? Too many of those who voted for him in 2024 would still vote for him today over a Dem candidate. Seriously, take a look at the comments section of any right-leaning publication and you'll see what I mean.
I don't think that the "Trump is evil/bad" strategy will work. I'm with Carville, though I think I'd go back to his Clinton era advice of "It's the economy, stupid." That is a possible path to success.
@AdagioM said in What are you reading?:
@wtg Knitting Without Tears is a fabulous book. It’s like having a chat over a cup of tea with your favorite knitting aunt.
I figured you had probably read it (sounded like she is a knitting legend) and hoped you'd throw your two cents in. Think I'll look for a used copy and give it a look!
@CHAS said in No, Nancy, it is not time to be nice:
If only Congress would move on it.
I think that she's saying the time isn't right. No point in impeaching if you don't have the votes to convict.
Based on how everyone in the GOP has caved to the toddler-in-chief's threats and tantrums, I think I have to agree with her assessment.
Need to focus on the legacy that Reiner leaves behind.
For me, When Harry Met Sally. An annual watch in the wtg house, usually between Christmas and New Year's (both holidays feature prominently in the movie).
President Donald Trump doubled down on his criticism of Rob Reiner, asserting today the slain Hollywood director was “a deranged person.”
“I wasn’t a fan of his at all,” Trump said from the Oval Office, less than a day after Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in what is being investigated as a homicide.
“He became like a deranged person – ‘Trump derangement syndrome.’ So, I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country,” he said.
