Happy Hour

Get happy

Not Funny At All

Stop laughing.

Oh No

All good liberals must be true to their principles and take no pleasure in this at all. Not even a little bit. Stop laughing.

Milo Yiannopolous has been apprehended by ICE in Louisiana ...

TMZ has learned.

The controversial political personality is currently being held at an ICE detention center, per inmate records. The circumstances surrounding his detention are not yet clear but our sources tell us Milo was detained at an airport.

The Art Of Warfighting

Pete's not gonna pay his employees.

Donald Trump’s war on Iran has driven the US military into a severe financial crisis, with the US navy forced to transfer money from its payroll and other sources to cover the costs of combat, according to documents seen by the Guardian, and interviews with navy officials, contractors and defense analysts.

No worries. I'm sure there will be an emergency supplemental. For the troops. Can't abandon the troops, Democrats! 

Bubbles

There is regularly a lot of talk about people existing in discourse bubbles - you exist in one, of course, I do not - such that alternative viewpoints are never heard. This is usually aimed at lefties! As if most media isn't blaring a combination of Washington Consensus/Right Wing views 24/7, and left wing views are, as I said, only presented as caricatures. 

Left wing views are only ever discussed by people who don't share them!

No one in the New York Times (for example) is ever presenting, as their the own, the hegemonic Woke Viewpoint that half their columnists are arguing with most of the time.

Bad Neighbors

One real reason to be opposed to data centers is everyone can see big tech is just stomping on the law (remember that quaint concept) and nobody stops them.

The largest planned AI data center in New Jersey is being accused of violating federal law after a Floodlight visual investigation found the site running dozens of unpermitted gas-powered generators. 

Thermal drone footage we captured last week showed the partly completed DataOne facility in Vineland was operating at least 45 of the site's 62 generators at the time.

DataOne has stirred controversy since breaking ground in 2025 due to persistent noise complaints, unpermitted construction and a contentious zoning process. It's located about 40 miles outside Philadelphia and slated to provide AI computing power to Microsoft as part of a $17-billion deal with Nebius, a Dutch AI infrastructure giant. 

Located roughly a mile from two schools, the tractor-trailer-size generators emit substantial amounts of health-harming air pollution linked to asthma, heart attacks and even premature death. 

It probably takes 2 years to get a permit to open a food truck (yes I made that up for rhetorical effect), the type of thing the Abundance crew were supposed to be spending their time on. 

Your Argument (That I Made Up) Is Ridiculous

An immense amount of money flowing through politics is coming from the tech investor/"AI" crowd, often through the hands of your faves in various ways. We've had months of people hooting and laughing at the stupid idiots for opposing data centers for dumb reasons because they are dumb. I thought this from Abundance dickhead Derek Thompson (finally starting to acknowledge reality) was especially funny:

Thompson: I want to re-circle something that you said because I think it’s so important. When I’m on social media, on Twitter, following the arguments among people who are building AI, I’ll often see them make this fact check where they’ll say, “There’s this popular claim about data centers using all of this water, but in fact, data centers use much less water than is commonly assumed.” But that fact check is often assumed to do the job of proving that anti–data center politics is based on a myth. And what your reporting, I think, does so well is it shows that the actual on-the-ground opposition to data centers is so much more complicated than just a single factoid about water use.

This still caricatures the water issue even as it acknowledges there are other complaints. 

I was very amused that he has just discovered that all of the people he followed on twitter might be arguing against a strawman! Surely all of those people with financial interests aren't just arguing their book! Much to consider about what it means if we get all of our information on X, the everything App, and generally ignore or denigrate any complaints because lefty NIMBYism or whatever.

On so many issues, and especially this one recently, the "left coded" argument on any subject is often only understood as caricature presented by its detractors.

"Following the arguments among," he says, not, "following the arguments between them and those who disagreed." You were just listening to two dumb bitches telling each other “exaaaaactlyyyy.”

You weren't following arguments! You were following one side of an argument by people using their platforms and power to stomp the other side! This is not a good faith debate pervert session!

This is, actually, how the "marketplace of ideas" works!

Morning

Freaky Friday.

Happy Hour

get happy

He Can Just Do That

A little warning to the next Dem president: those coveted swing voters, the common clay, are going to be very used to a president who just does stuff, or seems to.

Sure Why Not

We will see which news outlets and map generating tech companies go along with "Lake America."

Trump's Buddy

We might be going to war with Switzerland.

European football's governing body UEFA is preparing to bring criminal proceedings against FIFA President Gianni Infantino over the attempt to sell shares in the World Cup to private investors.

The revelation is contained in legal documents, with UEFA subpoenaing FIFA and the financial institutions involved in the US to obtain documents related to the scheme.

But the planned legal action would be launched in Switzerland, where FIFA has its main headquarters.

Sounds a bit weird, but other countries have somewhat different legal systems and ways of talking about them!

It's Also US Law

Not that the Biden administration cared, either.

“As long as you're an ally of ours, I'm not for conditioning weapons to Israel.”

Jared Moskowitz — who leadership just tapped to lead the Middle East & North Africa subcommittee — said in April he doesn’t support conditioning arms to Israel, even if it breaks international law: pic.twitter.com/r7P4yaDxm8

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) August 26, 2026

Inspiring choice, Jeffries.

Deport Geddy Lee, Too

I'm curious which goods they have in mind:

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration's top trade negotiator suggested the US ought to consider banning some Canadian goods, injecting another threat into a trade dispute between Washington and Ottawa.

...

"Canada has banned the sale of liquor and spirits. We haven't banned anything from Canada. You know, they've capped the type of autos we can bring in, they've banned certain goods and services from procurement in the provinces," US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in an interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Wednesday.

"Canada" hasn't banned the sales. Most of the provinces did. 

The funny thing is that I bet they haven't thought about it. I'm sure the Canadians have had the "break glass in case of Donald" binders prepared for various contingencies for awhile. That's why they can quickly figure out how to cause the maximum pain (hitting important employers in swing states and small but critical supplies). I bet the Trumpers didn't make a plan.

Public Health

"Infant" almost certainly means before they would've been given a measles vaccine, which would mean they are the victim of other people not being vaccinated and the general decline of population immunity.

One of the two people who recently died of measles in Pennsylvania was an infant, the state Health Department said Wednesday.

The department announced Tuesday that two unvaccinated residents had died of measles, the first measles-related deaths in the U.S. this year and the first in Pennsylvania in 35 years.

...

Both were residents of Lancaster County, where the share of kids who have gotten the MMR vaccine fell from 95.5% in 2017 to 87.6% last year.

 

Morning

Thoughtless Thursday

Wednesday Night

'Cause I've seen blue skies through the tears in my eyes.

Not So Happy Hour

An experience I shared with a lot of people of my era was having somewhat overprotective suburban parents who were, for some weird reason, totally fine with young teenagers going to see a midnight showing of Rocky Horror in the big scary city.

 Since it was one of the things I was allowed to do without much argument, I did it quite a lot.

And it was a very developmentally healthy thing to do (no snark).

RIP Tim Curry.

I Can Hear Melinda Snorting Derisively From Here

Yah Bill Gates just needed some additional funds. 

Bill Gates tells Axios his association with Jeffrey Epstein was a "huge mistake" but hopes it won't prevent him from influencing debates over artificial intelligence and global health.

...

"What I did do, in some ways, was very limited, and it was motivated by my desire to raise money," Gates said. "But … it was a huge mistake."

Well Okay Then

Darline Graham: Government run health care…. bad idea after bad idea. Annie Andrews backs it all. I have a different background. My parents worked long, hard hours. If that were sick, they had to get up and go to work. My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father just over… pic.twitter.com/fvFCrmudhi

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 26, 2026