The orange man spoke at a black tie dinner last night.
WaPo:
The orange man spoke at a black tie dinner last night.
WaPo:
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson urged Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to resign and told their bosses to leave Portland in a scathing statement issued Saturday after federal agents launched tear gas at a large crowd protesting near the Portland ICE facility.
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” Wilson wrote. “Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame.”
Thousands of protesters, including children, marched through Portland and enveloped the blocks around the South Waterfront facility Saturday afternoon. Federal agents launched tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets at the crowd shortly after it arrived after some crossed the building’s property line and approached its security gate.
I used to love to go for a walk in Door County after a fresh snow. The animal tracks crisscrossing the road were like a map of where anything had been, and in most cases, what they were. There was one time when we saw a long snake-like line through the snow. We finally figured out that it was Morgan, our neighbor's golden retriever. Bill had left Morgan's leash on him in case he needed to restrain him if a car drove by. The leash dragged behind the dog, creating the snow snake. 
Wonder how many tickets were sold vs how many people attended.....
Chris Christie on This Week, regarding MN: The administration is addressing the PR problem, not the actual problem. Trump is worried about the polls and doesn't care about what's really happening in MN. Homan is just an outwardly calmer but probably no different than Bovino, face to the public.
Democrat and machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet won the special election Saturday to represent a solidly red Texas Senate district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense of a panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections.
The loss was a major setback for Wambsganss, a conservative activist whose advocacy in recent years helped make Tarrant County — nearly half of which is covered by Senate District 9 — a testing ground for socially conservative policies. Long active in GOP circles, Wambsganss rose to prominence in 2022 when she helped the GOP fill North Texas school boards with candidates who held Christian conservative views. The movement’s success resulted in an explosion across the country of book bans, rewriting of curricula and a thinner line separating church and state.
In a statement, Wambsganss said the outcome was a “wakeup call” for Republicans, but she insisted things would shake out differently in November, when she and Rehmet will face off again for a full four-year term representing the district.
“The dynamics of a special election are fundamentally different from a November general election,” Wambsganss said. “I believe the voters of Senate District 9 and Tarrant County Republicans will answer the call in November.”tps://www.texastribune.org/2026/01/30/texas-senate-district-9-runoff-rehmet-wambsganss-special-election/
Rehmet was far outspent in the leadup to the November election, spending $68,000 compared to millions spent by the two GOP candidates. He remained financially outgunned heading into Saturday, with Wambsganss reporting a whopping $736,000 in expenditures compared to Rehmet’s roughly $70,000, according to campaign finance filings with the state.
Outsiders have also been spending on the race. VoteVets, a progressive national veterans PAC, poured in roughly $500,000 to boost Rehmet. Patrick, the upper chamber’s presiding officer, contributed $300,000 to Wambsganss’ campaign through his PAC, Texas Senate Leadership Fund.
Rehmet entered Saturday with no cash on hand while Wambsganss had $310,000.
“We have an opportunity to really show that if you have a good message and you stick to voters and what they want, listen, that you can win an election as an underdog, that you can overcome millions and millions spent against you,” Rehmet said in an interview Friday. “As long as you’re doing the right thing, you can get elected.”
The 5 year old who was taken by ICE with his dad. DHS says the mother wouldn't take him and the father said he wanted the boy to go with him.
The mom fills in a few key details, including that they were in the US legally under a Biden program that was rescinded by the orange man:
The ruling from the judge:
A 5-year-old boy and his father must be released by Tuesday from the Texas center where they’ve been held after being detained by immigration officers in Minnesota, a federal judge ordered Saturday in a ruling that harshly criticized the Trump administration’s approach to enforcement.
Images of Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, being surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers sparked even more outcry about the administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota.
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who sits in San Antonio and was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, said in his ruling that “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
Biery had previously ruled that the boy and his father could not be removed from the U.S., at least for now.
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-minnesota-boy-detained-a1ef2144c03a0136ef123f5a3685ee44
In the age of cloud computing, it's easy to forget that IBM (NYSE: IBM) still sells its hulking mainframe systems. Following IBM's fourth-quarter earnings report, it's clear that the mainframe business is not only surviving but also thriving.
Here's an incredible fact IBM CFO Jim Kavanaugh disclosed during the earnings call: IBM's mainframe business recorded its best fourth quarter revenue in more than 20 years. Revenue soared 61% year over year, adjusted for currency, driving a 17% increase in the infrastructure segment.
I use the ‘potato’ prompt with ChatGPT every day — here is how it finds the holes in my logic
Using this prompt word automatically triggers my custom instructions and gives better results
Somebody who uses ChatGPT or another AI chat bot, let us know if this works....
...guess that explains why I never heard from him....
Is there anybody in the world that Epstein didn't know?
Plays Well With Butter
Everyday Recipes for Modern Gals
The softer side of @mik ....
Yea, I don't get the Obama comparison. The attacks on her were vicious and non-stop.
Melania has been largely left alone, probably because she is mostly absent in terms of doing much of anything that the public sees. This film is getting attention because a) it's apparently pretty bad and b) Bezos/Amazon paid a lot of money for it, which makes people speculate the reasoning behind that spend.
That said, I'm not a fan of the stuff that makes sexual references about her. I also never found the weekly cheerleaders pics that folks used to post next door to be much fun either, so maybe I'm just a stick in the mud.
Trump's Tariff War Is Crushing American Alcohol Makers
A Canadian boycott and retaliatory trade barriers have wiped out U.S. wine and spirits sales abroad, costing American producers jobs, revenue, and entire export markets.
https://reason.com/2026/01/31/trumps-tariff-war-is-crushing-american-alcohol-makers/
@Mik said in Andrew's Mountbatten-Windsor's new house:
A man of great privilege banged some 17 year olds. No surprise there. In the pantheon of evil deeds that hardly rates mention.
Not sure those formerly 17 year olds see it that way.
What local authorities can and can't do.
The article wasn't about those kinds of technologies.
The value of technology isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. Also, a desire to consider the impact of technology, good, bad, or just different, isn't a sign of being a Luddite!
Only 10 human cases of Guinea worm were reported worldwide in 2025, the lowest number ever recorded, bringing the ancient disease closer than ever to eradication. The Carter Center announced the historic provisional figure following the one-year anniversary of the passing of the Center’s founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
“President Carter always said he wanted to outlast the last Guinea worm. While he didn’t quite get his wish, he and Mrs. Carter would be proud to know there were only 10 human cases reported in 2025. And they would remind us that the work continues until we reach zero,” said Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander.
Poised to be only the second human disease eradicated after smallpox, the 10 Guinea worm cases mark a 33% decline from the 15 cases reported in 2024.
When The Carter Center assumed leadership of the global Guinea worm eradication campaign in 1986, an estimated 3.5 million human cases occurred annually in 21 countries in Africa and Asia.
Other eagle cams.
Pittsburgh: https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/hays-bald-eagle-cam/
Delaware Botanic Gardens: https://www.coasttv.com/news/eagles-rebuild-nest-at-delaware-botanic-gardens-hinting-at-new-season/article_01e3e0bb-3ae4-4c84-95fa-7fc74d578dea.html