Morris is a former spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, and Gateway — one of the nation’s largest megachurches — has been particularly active in Dallas-area GOP politics.
The library collects patrons’ names, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth and addresses when they sign up for library cards. Library staff said there’s no evidence to suggest that this data has been compromised during the cyberattack.
OTTAWA – Liberal Leader candidate Mark Carney vows to improve the PC Optimum points situation for every Canadian. Speaking to a group of financial experts at the International Banking Federation, Carney made a campaign promise to grow “the bedrock foundation of every Canadian’s finances”, their Optimum points holdings. Carney said, “I know people care deeply […]
In brief: After near to below-normal temperatures for much of the last 30 days in Houston, the pendulum swings warmer again. We will have our first flirtation with highs of around 90 degrees by Thursday, although a nice front arrives to usher spring-like weather back into Houston this weekend.
Early season heat
If you remember about a month ago, the city experienced a sold week of high temperatures in the low- to mid-80s during the first 10 days of February. During that time we set several record highs, as well as record warm nighttime temperatures. This spell was followed by a much colder second half of the month. Now, we are about to take another step up in temperatures for a few days this week, with highs in the upper 80s. The record highs for both Thursday and Friday in Houston are 88 degrees, and we’re going to make a run at those records both days. Could someone hit 90 degrees? Some areas to the southwest of Houston definitely have a chance on Thursday.
So far, this month, Houston has has fairly seasonable temperatures. (NOAA)
Wednesday
We’re seeing some patchy fog across the region this morning, but it will burn off as temperatures rise today. Houston will not be as warm today as it will be on Thursday and Friday, but highs should still reach the lower 80s away from the coast, with mostly sunny skies. There is a slight chance of some showers later this afternoon or evening, in association with a weak front. However, chances are low, and likely to be confined to areas north of Highway 105. The most notable feature today will be winds from the south at about 15 mph, with occasional gusts up to 30 mph.
If you’re heading to the rodeo expect temperatures in the upper 70s early this evening. Those winds I mentioned will be peaking late this afternoon and into the early evening, so expect a fairly stiff breeze as you’re moving about. Winds will have died down a little bit after the show, but only a little. Expect temperatures of about 70 degrees late this evening, dropping into the mid-60s by Thursday morning.
Thursday
The combination of some briefly drier air and a warm southerly flow will allow high temperatures to really pop on Thursday. With sunshine, I expect most of Houston to reach the upper 80s, with possibly a few southwest locations reaching 90 degrees for the first time. Lows on Thursday night will again be mild, in the mid-60s.
Forecast for maximum temperatures on Thursday. (Weather Bell)
Friday
This will be another warm day. How warm depends on the extent of cloud cover, but I expect most of Houston to once again get into the mid- to upper-80s. Lows Friday night will drop into the low- to mid-60s again.
Saturday and Sunday
The arrival of a front on Saturday morning (likely with no rain, or very light showers at the most) will set up a splendid weekend. We’re talking dry air and highs in the 70s, and overnight lows around 50 degrees. Saturday may be a little windy with the front’s arrival, but I’m hopeful that gusts will only peak around 20 mph. In any case it should be a gorgeous, spring-like weekend.
Next week
We’ll warm up back toward 80 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday before another front swings through to keep the spring party going during the second half of next week. There’s not a strong signal for rain with the mid-week front, but at this point, who can say?
Tesla car dealerships across the U.S. have been attacked with guns and Molotov cocktails in recent days over what protesters believe is Elon Musk’s overreach in government. What do you think?
“Cars are supposed to kill people, not the other way around.”
Maggie Falix, Deed Issuer
“Good to see gasoline fighting back.”
David Poduska, Handball Scorer
“We are holding one of his children hostage, too, but he didn’t notice.”
We saw these stylish ski outfits briefly in the last chapter. I’m still very pleased with them. The bodyguard’s ski attire is one of Roger Moore’s outfits from For Your Eyes Only. There were many more brilliant ski outfits in that film, including a superb cowboy ensemble (a kind of ski Nudie suit, below left) that I couldn’t find a place for.
At a Zoom status hearing on Wednesday, the FTC officially asked US District Judge John Chun to delay the trial. According to the FTC's attorney, Jonathan Cohen, the agency needs two months to prepare beyond the September 22 start date, blaming recent "staffing and budgetary shortfalls" stemming from the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), CNBC reported.
"We have lost employees in the agency, in our division, and on our case team," Cohen said, explaining that "there is an extremely severe resource shortfall in terms of money and personnel," Bloomberg reported. Cuts are apparently so bad, Cohen told Chun that the FTC is stuck with a $1 cap on any government credit card charges and "may not be able to purchase the transcript from Wednesday’s hearing," Bloomberg reported.
The people have spoken. And by “people,” I mean “Elon Musk.” Trump is now buying into the batshit crazy that is the current Musk/Cybertruck discourse. This, of course, leaves the nominal VP plenty of time to get into long personal arguments with critics on Twitter. But it leaves the head DOGE free to bend Trump’s ear about the apparent unfairness of purchasers of Musk’s Pontiac Aztec 2.0 being treated like the white supremacist sympathizers a whole lot of them actually are.
Extremely recently, we covered the ridiculousness that is a Cybertruck owners’ group asking their Congressional reps to treat verbal and physical assaults (of them and/or their “trucks”) as “hate crimes” with enhanced sentences for those who dare to trifle with the Sheet Metal Squad.
It’s only been a couple of days into this news cycle and Trump has already responded with an equally stupid “solution” to the apparent “Americans hate Cybertrucks/Cybertruck owners” crisis. And it’s even better than any satirist could have expected.
First, Trump purchased himself a Tesla (but NOT a Cybertruck) and insisted on paying “full price” as a show of support for the beleaguered billionaire and his hated flagship product, which generally resembles a game asset that won’t load properly.
After posing proudly by his new red Model S (which Trump almost certainly did not pay “full price” for), Trump went to work making the government stupid and his own legacy even stupider. Why bother with “hate crimes” when you can push all the buttons on the national security dashboard at once? Here’s Jeff Mason and Abhirup Roy reporting for Reuters:
Violence against Tesla dealerships will be labeled domestic terrorism and perpetrators will “go through hell,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday in a show of support for the electric carmaker’s chief, his ally Elon Musk.
And there it is: extra protections for a single American business. I guess the hundreds of thousands of other American businesses can suck shit when their dealerships, office buildings, showrooms, retail outlets etc. are vandalized, torched, or otherwise damaged by people unhappy with their management, services, or products. Only attackers of this one company will be treated as domestic terrorists, even as the hundreds of literal domestic terrorists who raided the Capitol building for the sole purpose of preventing a democratic election from happening now roam free, thanks to Trump’s blanket pardon.
Trump’s transparent protectionism was, of course, praised by other administration officials.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said “ongoing and heinous acts of violence against Tesla by radical Leftist activists are nothing short of domestic terror.”
According to Reuters, Tesla share prices rose 4% on the news that the Trump administration would be treating Tesla better than any other carmaker. Of course, you’d generally expect better than a 4% jump when a company is granted “most favored nation” status, but no other company is currently run by one of the most hated people in the US, much less the US government. So, you get what you get.
Not that we should have to ask the facts to back up this assertion that Tesla is being targeted by “heinous acts of violence.” Anyone rational would know this simply isn’t true. While there have been a few instances of vandalism, most of the actions being taken against Tesla take the form of peaceful protests — peaceful protests that, by the way, result in an inordinate show of force by local law enforcement.
The party of “facts don’t care about your feelings” is still developing deep bruises from protected First Amendment activity. GOOD. Keep it up. If nothing else, we can ensure the war on stupid will be at least as bothersome as attempting to thrust and parry each daily attack from the Trump Administration’s War on Everything.
I use that service a lot, and if it wasn’t going to be available in the morning, I needed to plan around it. The message also said, “For support use our chatbot.” So I went to the chatbot to confirm the time zone for the maintenance window.
The chatbot replied, “Sorry, I cannot help with outages or maintenance windows.” So chatbot doesn’t do the very thing they told us to use it for.
The announcement also said, “For more information, see this link.” So I went to the link.
The link is 404.
Now 0 for 2, I contacted the team directly. “Um, so that means 10am to noon Redmond local time (PDT)?”
Nope, they really meant 9am to 11am Redmond local time. They didn’t read the maintenance window times in their own announcement. People at remote offices will do the wrong time zone conversion.
I pointed out to them that their chatbot is unable to help with the very thing they directed people to use it for. And that their support link is broken. They said they’ll look into it.¹
The team sent out a follow-up announcement later that day clarifying that the downtime is 9am to 11am Redmond local time (PDT), not PST.
The next day, I received announcement that another popular service was going to be unavailable from 9am to 11am PST. I asked that second team to clarify whether the downtime really was 10am to noon Redmond local time, or whether they intended PDT rather than PST.
The second team wrote back and apologized for the error. Their service is dependent upon the first service, so they copied the downtime window from the first team’s announcement and pasted it into theirs. They must have missed the correction, so they copied the wrong information.
Two days later, I was part of an online group exercise, and the facilitator said that we would take a break and resume at 3:30 Pacific Standard Time. I commented in the group chat for the benefit of remote attendees that they probably meant Pacific Daylight Time, since that’s the current time zone in Redmond.
Time zones: They’re not just for sounding formal. They actually mean something. If you mean Redmond local time, then just say Redmond local time.
Most of the United States changes from Standard time to Daylight time this weekend.
CHICAGO—Showing a graciousness and magnanimity that the rest of the world has denied these pariahs and rejects, Jordan Hall, the only good-looking person in the office, was reportedly mingling Wednesday with his hideous coworkers like a missionary among lepers. Several reports indicated that the handsome and fit Hall was drinking and eating alongside the outcasts without a care for the skin rashes that might pass to him, and he even mercifully accepted a pen from one of them as a humble gift. As he walked amongst the unwashed masses in his office like a Jesuit missionary engaging with pustule-covered natives, Hall is also said to have helped fostered a sense of community by leading the pale and sickly employees to a local bar and regaling them with stories of a better world, all the while knowing just how doomed they really were. At press time, sources confirmed Hall had left for a better offer at a larger company, leaving behind a cable-knit cardigan that the unsightly workers embraced as a style icon.
BATON ROUGE, LA—As a direct result of receiving pediatric emergency care services, local toddler Tim Ilsington, who was hospitalized Monday, will reportedly spend the rest of his life associating Mickey Mouse with physical pain. Sources confirmed that the 2-year-old, who was admitted to Ochsner Medical Center after fracturing his ulna, will from this point forward let out an involuntary wince every time he even imagines the big ears and smiling face of the popular cartoon rodent. According to sources, the hours Ilsington spent in the brightly colored rooms of the hospital’s children’s wing will form an inexorable link in his mind between the Walt Disney Company’s mascot and agonizing bodily distress, leading him to experience convulsions and vomiting during viewings of Mickey Mouse Funhouse as a preschooler, or while visiting the Magic Kingdom as a preteen. Sources added that this hospitalization will lead to the adult Ilsington only being able to achieve sexual release by getting whipped by a partner dressed like Steamboat Willy.
PHILADELPHIA—Saying he was in the market for a more powerful and rugged vehicle, prospective car buyer Gabe Orcutt reportedly took an SUV out Wednesday for a test hit and run. “I took it for a spin through some pedestrians, and I like how smoothly this thing flees the scene of an accident,” Orcutt said of the GMC Acadia, adding that he was impressed by how well the mid-size sport utility vehicle handled curbs and bollards. “I popped right up on the sidewalk, over a guy, and into the park, no problem. The all-wheel drive was perfect for getting through the uneven mulch on the playground, and the backup camera made reversing out from under the slide so easy. Plus it gets great gas mileage. I topped out at 110 mph evading the police, and it barely used any gas.” Orcutt later confirmed that while he liked the Acadia, he ultimately needed something cheaper that wouldn’t depreciate the instant he drove it through a storefront window.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy…” — Elon Musk
- - -
I see Musk’s point. Empathy is destroying Western civilization, which is why it’s good that he and DOGE got rid of all those USAID programs around the world. Fending off starvation in Ethiopia and providing clean water in Colombia was completely crippling Western civilization, taking away precious funds we should be using to buy crypto.
Think about it this way: Every time we allow a certain kind of immigrant over our border, we may believe we’re being kind, but we’re actually sacrificing our culture and heritage. Yes, my grandparents were immigrants too, and sure, people said the same thing about them. And if I could somehow travel back in time, believe me, I, too, would not want them to come into this country. Ideally, this would create a whole new alternate timeline where we could just openly endorse being cruel motherfuckers without having to do any mental gymnastics to justify it, which is exhausting, to be honest.
Also, you should listen to the context of what Elon Musk was actually saying in his quote about human empathy. He was going on a perfectly normal rant about California. Then he pivoted to another rant lamenting how people automatically assume you’re an asshole if you vote Republican. This is so unfair and makes us feel like marginalized victims as we’re cheering on ICE while they harass brown people.
What Musk meant was that you need to care for your family, which is totally natural. If you take care of others at your family’s expense, this is called “suicidal empathy.” Now, let’s take that concept to a national level—every time we give welfare to someone struggling, that’s one less ski lesson for little Ashlynn. You understand? Suicidal empathy is why we have a $34 trillion national debt, and it’s not the low taxes on the wealthy that helped make Elon Musk worth $241 billion.
Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that Hannah Arendt quote: “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.” But it’s wrong of you to bring that up, because I happen to know that Arendt had sex with a Nazi. So when you cite that quote about empathy, you’re basically supporting a Nazi. Whereas the man I voted for probably never had sex with a Nazi, and his immigrant rhetoric only vaguely resembles the Führer’s.
Speaking of Nazis, they also famously eschewed empathy, but it’s really not fair to mention that now either, even though I just dredged up Hannah Arendt’s sex life. Besides, who can remember stuff that happened so long ago? I can’t even remember when Russia was considered the bad guy. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia—I just saw that on the Tucker Carlson Network.
At the dawn of humanity, Homo sapiens learned to cooperate with one other, extending our feelings of compassion to people outside our immediate tribes. With a shared sense of purpose, we were able to build villages, towns, and eventually nations. And now we’ve reached the next stage of human evolution, where compassion is for cucks. I wish liberals would stop blocking human progress.
And Western civilization is definitely worth saving, people. But not the liberal values part, of course. I don’t mean the democracy part either. Or the shared ethical values. Or that stuff Jesus said about love and forgiveness. The whole human rights thing is questionable too. Wait, what were we talking about again?
Oh yeah, saving Western civilization, which is priceless, just like my $TRUMP meme coin ever since he deregulated crypto. So let’s embrace being cruel, motherfuckers.
People don’t understand what’s funny anymore. You basically have to tell them when to laugh—and that burden often falls on yours truly.
“He’s just trolling us,” I say to my wife, as I pay two hundred dollars for eggs and our town gets measles for the second year in a row.
“It’s actually so hilarious,” I explain as we discover we’ve been purged from voter rolls. She’s not chuckling yet, but I think she’s starting to get it.
The mainstream media takes him too seriously. The truth is, it’s all a big overreaction to some good old-fashioned gags.
“It’s just a prank,” I remind the bank teller as I take out a personal loan for my annual physical. I look up at a nearby television, where he’s announcing a new plan to hunt people for sport.
See that big grin of his? “What a trickster,” I smirk as I agree to a 50 percent interest rate and put a lien on my kidneys.
“It’s all a big joke,” I remind my children as we watch an infomercial for his new mandatory cryptocurrency on the only news channel we’re allowed to stream.
“Too good,” I nod knowingly as he unveils plans to turn all federal buildings into casinos. “Top-ten standup of all time,” I wink as I empty my savings account to buy an avocado.
And the other guy—such a class clown. “Comedy is finally back,” I insist, as I prick my finger for my daily blood draw, the new requirement before using his internet for the day.
“LMAO, we just got punk’d!” I comment on an interview clip where he lists the reasons health care isn’t as important as rockets that explode.
“He really cracks me up,” I shout to my copilot as we try to land the plane without the FAA (there weren’t enough pilots for my flight, so they asked for volunteers, and I’m always ready to get in on the schtick).
How does nobody get it? How are so many people missing the punchline? I can’t believe everyone’s falling for the runaround.
“They’re just a couple of big goofballs!” I yell as they drag me away for writing this. Can you believe I’ll never see my family again? What a great bit.
OTTAWA – With US-educated former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney emerging as winner of the Liberal leadership race, Pierre Poilievre was caught blowing the dust off the old Michael Ignatieff “he didn’t come back for you” attack ad. “I knew this baby was good for one more race,” said Poilievre, gently sliding his hand […]
WASHINGTON D.C. – Faced with a growing number of airplane crashes caused in part by aggressive cuts to FAA staffing, President Donald Trump has solved the problem by pivoting his focus towards causing a stock market crash instead. “I’m the guy who bankrupted four casinos, so steering previously successful things into catastrophic crashes is pretty […]
Toronto, ON – Coffee lovers, rejoice! Roll Up the Rim to Win is back… with a twist. This year, Tim Hortons will publicly shame all customers who incorrectly answer the skill-testing question on the app. “We’re so excited about this year’s promotion,” said chief marketing officer Hope Bagozzi. “Not only did we bring back the […]
WASHINGTON—Promising to use the U.S. DOGE Service to usher in a new age of government accountability and transparency, Elon Musk ordered the creation of a federal employee revenge porn database this week. “Federal employees have been lazy and unmotivated for years, so to ensure productivity going forward, all government workers must email me private nudes they would never want leaked,” said Musk, who warned members of the U.S. civil service that failing to send in a sexually explicit video in which their face was clearly visible would be considered a resignation. “In the event of insubordination or noncompliance with executive orders, these private porn videos will be immediately posted to Pornhub and other sites using the employee’s full name. I don’t want any of that softcore shit either—only videos with full penetration or clear oral sex acts will be considered valid. DOGE employees and myself will be personally reviewing each video to ensure compliance and will reject any videos deemed not explicit enough.” Musk added that for any federal employee who does not currently have a qualifying sex tape, AI would be used to create one.
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA—In a new revelation shedding further light on the ticket sales and distribution giant’s alleged monopoly, a bombshell report published Tuesday found that Ticketmaster controls 80% of America’s middle school talent shows. “Ticketmaster retains the exclusive booking rights to thousands of middle school auditoriums across the country, creating an out-of-control resale market that prices out parents hoping to see their children perform amateur flute solos or tap routines set to Kidz Bop renditions of pop songs,” said researcher and report co-author Alyssa Cade, whose findings also revealed that scammers and bots take advantage of Ticketmaster’s stranglehold on talent shows, often reselling tickets for 10 times their original price. “This monopoly means that Ticketmaster is essentially engaging in price-gouging, forcing parents to spend $200 to $300 on a ticket that was originally guaranteed with the donation of one canned good.” Reached for comment, Ticketmaster defended its sales practices by claiming it was only fair that both the company and middle schools received a cut of sales.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA—In an attempt to stay organized as she balances the demands of fame and her personal life, pop superstar Taylor Swift reportedly spent Monday night editing the spreadsheet in which she ranks all of her friendships. “Hmm, I think Selena [Gomez] can stay at the number-four spot—things were looking a little dicey with the Emilia Pérez backlash, but I think we’re on steadier ground now,” said the 35-year-old recording artist, muttering to herself while indecisively dragging a cell bearing the name “Donna Kelce” around to different positions in the 17,300-row spreadsheet that she has painstakingly maintained since 2006. “I could see Hailee [Steinfeld] having some potential to move up a few spots if she plays her cards right, but we haven’t talked since she did the ‘Bad Blood’ video. Then again, there’s a little more flexibility there now that Olivia [Rodrigo]’s off the list. Maybe I move Donna into her old spot? According to my formulas, the math checks out.” At press time, Swift was said to be agonizing between Katy Perry or Brittany Mahomes for the last place and second-to-last place positions.
In brief: Houston’s weather remains mostly calm for the foreseeable future. Two things to watch for this week are uncharacteristically hot temperatures on Thursday, and then a lunar eclipse later that night. Hopefully we’ll see partly cloudy skies so the eclipse is viewable.
Lunar Eclipse
The greater Houston region, indeed all of North America save for the western half of Alaska, will be treated to a total Lunar Eclipse on Thursday night. Unfortunately the eclipse will occur rather late, with the Moon entering the Earth’s umbra (darkest part of its shadow) at 12:09 am CT on Friday morning. Totality, at which point the Moon is tinted a coppery red, lasts from 1:26 am CT to 2:31 am CT. NASA has more information about the eclipse here. So will it be cloudy? I believe our region will see at least partly cloudy skies, and I expect that to increase to mostly cloudy by sunrise on Friday morning. So the forecast is not ideal. However, the totality will last long enough such that I do expect some breaks in the clouds that will allow the eclipse to be visible.
Areas that will see a total lunar eclipse on Thursday night. (NASA)
Tuesday
After Monday’s splendid weather we have another pleasant day on tap, with mostly sunny skies. After temperatures start out this morning in the upper 40s, we’ll see highs reach the upper 70s. Expect southwesterly winds, with a few gusts up to 15 or 20 mph later this afternoon. All in all, very, very nice outside today.
There are zero weather concerns for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this evening. Temperatures will be mild, in the lower 70s, heading into the show, with a breeze from the southwest. After the show, it will be in the low- to mid-60s outside, with mostly clear skies. Lows on Tuesday night will only drop to around 60 degrees with the warmer, southerly flow.
Wednesday
After the potential for some fog on Wednesday morning, we should see a mostly sunny day, with highs reaching around 80 degrees. A weak front will push through, but it’s not going to change much other than bringing some slightly drier air that will play into Thursday’s weather. Low temperatures on Wednesday night will only drop into the low 60s.
Thursday
The combination of slightly drier air and warm air advection from the southwest will lead to a very warm day on Thursday, with some parts of the Houston metro area possibly hitting 90 degrees. Most of us should remain in the upper 80s, but it’s going to feel warm regardless, especially for mid-March. Low temperatures on Thursday night will fall into the mid-60s.
High temperatures on Thursday will be toasty indeed. (Weather Bell)
Friday
The development of some clouds may help put a lid on temperatures Friday, holding them generally to the mid-80s. But it will still feel rather warm outside, with a fair amount of humidity. A cold front is coming, but it probably will not arrive until early on Saturday, so expect a fairly warm night.
Saturday and Sunday
I don’t expect much in the way of precipitation with the front, perhaps a few light showers, we’ll see. Quickly afterward we should see clearing skies, probably some time on Saturday morning. As a result we’ll be left with clear skies and lower humidity for the remainder of the weekend. Look for highs in the vicinity of 80 degrees and nights around 50 degrees, give or take. Seriously, this will be an exceptional weekend for outdoor activities.
Next week
We should see a gradual warm-up next week through about Wednesday, at which some point some sort of front is likely to trundle through. Whether this brings us any rain is anyone’s guess. I’ll give it a solid maybe.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker’s anxiety becomes my problem
I have a coworker, “Lily,” who reports to my manager and has been at the company for two years, with our team for four months. She and I are both pretty new to the workforce (we are 25 years old), so I would appreciate some advice on handling this situation in a mature and sensitive way.
Lily does great work — she’s diligent, detail-oriented, and on top of all our tasks. However, she seems very anxious all the time, and her anxiety can feel overwhelming. She has a tendency to talk very fast without making eye contact, and as soon as she’s spoken for a while and I open my mouth to respond, she’ll cut in and tell me even more. When she runs into work-related problems, she will run to me and just tell me what the problem is, and then wait expectantly for me to say or do … something. If I ask questions in response, she’ll jump in the second I finish my sentence and blurt even more about the problem, with a great sense of desperation. She has seemed on the verge of tears because of very small things and she will insist with urgency that I need to help her solve the problem immediately, even though I know from my experience it is not a big deal at all.
I’m really struggling not to let her anxiety make me anxious. I try very hard to respond to her panic with calm, but no amount of reassurance, explanations of what’s important and what’s not, or positive feedback (even specific notes on what she is doing well) seems to sate the fire-hose of urgency.
I don’t manage Lily. When I asked our manager for advice, he told me that he had seen this in junior employees before, and it would naturally go away as Lily became more experienced. That advice is not helpful for my day-to-day interactions with Lily. Is there anything that can be done here, or do you think I just need to do a better job of riding the wave of Lily’s anxiety?
To what extent is it your job to be fielding so many questions from Lily in the first place? Obviously you want to be collegial and that means some amount of willingness to help troubleshoot things … but that’s only true up to a point. If a lot of that is going on — and it sound like it is — Lily should normally be seeking help from her manager, not a peer.
So the first thing is to be less available for these anxiety spirals! Say you’re busy and can’t help and she should check with your mutual manager … or skip the declaration of busyness and just say, “Oh, you should talk with Manager about that.”
Right now it sounds like Lily is treating you as a manager stand-in (probably because it’s less intimidating to go to you than to her boss) and you should stop serving in that role. You’re not her manager, you’re not being paid as her manager, and by soaking up all her anxious questions, you’re keeping your boss from seeing the extent of the issue, as well as taking on an emotional burden that you don’t need to take on.
2. Micromanager is now checking everyone’s version histories — hourly
My supervisor has always been a micromanager to our five-person unit. He literally rewrites everyone’s work to suit how he is feeling that day, and this includes emails to upper management, stakeholders, etc. We are all nearly at our wit’s end, but unfortunately there are no other openings to apply to or request transfer to without taking pay cuts.
Over the past two weeks, he expanded his micromanagement toolbox to include demanding editing access to everyone’s assignments via OneDrive, where he monitors our version histories to see what we accomplished each hour and calls us out if we didn’t get what he considers enough done. It now just outright feels like he has created a toxic waste dump of an environment to work in. Are there any next steps you can suggest? We have no idea what to do.
Good lord. He’s monitoring version histories? By the hour? Does he have no work of his own?
Is the team up for pushing back as a group and saying, “This is interfering with our ability do our work and making us feel you don’t trust us to act with integrity and in the company’s interests”? It’s possible that if you speak up about it as a group rather than individually, it’ll create enough pressure to get him to stop. If that doesn’t work, in some companies it would be the sort of thing you could speak with either HR or his own boss about, framed as, “This is demoralizing the team and harming everyone’s productivity and he needs more support on how manage properly.” But in other companies, that would get you nowhere at all, so it depends on what you know about his boss and the abilities of your HR people and their willingness to intervene. (It’s worth noting HR doesn’t typically have the power to curtail this kind of thing on their own, but in some companies they’d respond by coaching him on how to manage more effectively, especially if they hear it from the whole team.)
3. How to handle a GoFundMe for laid-off employees
I work at a large nonprofit, and we went through a massive layoff yesterday. Most of the staff is reeling.
The staff quickly put together a GoFundMe for the laid-off employees and raised thousands of dollars in the past day. It’s generous, but something about it doesn’t sit right with me. It’s coming from a good place — people are shocked, frustrated, and want to help — but it feels misguided.
If people were serious about showing some kind of solidarity, I can’t help but feel that we’d be talking about a different kind of organizing (a work stoppage with a set of demands about getting rid of the overpriced, mostly empty office building or inflated executive pay before we lay off staff, for example). Instead, this feels kind of like condescending/poorly designed severance. Am I being unreasonable here? Should I just kick in some cash and hope it helps?
I don’t think you’re entirely off-base. I don’t think it’s condescending and anyone who doesn’t want the help can turn it down, but it doesn’t sit right to have coworkers, who might be in precarious financial positions themselves, take on the responsibility of providing financial support to laid-off employees rather than the organization to provide severance.
However, the impulse is a very kind and understandable one! The GoFundMe is something people can do now and which provides immediate help for people who might need it urgently, which can’t be said of a hypothetical campaign that might or might not succeed (and which, even if it does succeed in some ways, could easily not result in people getting their jobs back).
Ultimately I’d judge the GoFundMe on its own merits: do you want to contribute? You don’t have to! But I wouldn’t reject it solely because you’d rather see the staff organizing. Also, though, if you want to see the staff organizing … are you willing to explore what it would look like to lead it yourself? If not, I wouldn’t judge the thing people are willing to organize.
Also, what it’s worth, responding to staff cuts at a nonprofit through a lens of solidarity is likely not the right lens; you need to look at what the organization can actually do with its budget, at a time when many nonprofits are seeing their funding dramatically cut. Maybe in your org’s case there are smarter trade-offs they should have made, ones that would avoid layoffs; if so, that’s a more realistic framing than one of general staff solidarity, since a nonprofit’s loyalty needs to be to its mission above individual jobs, as rough as that can be to live through.
4. Telling a coworker she has a beautiful name
Can I tell a female worker that she has a beautiful name when we are introduced or will I get in trouble? I’m a man.
Would you ever tell a male coworker that? I’m guessing no, which is a good litmus test indicating you shouldn’t say it to a female colleague either.
Most women really don’t want male colleagues commenting on their face/hair/smile/name/other things they don’t have any control over; even if your intentions are wholesome, it’s going to feel rooted in relating to them as a woman, rather than as a professional person who’s at work. Interact with us the same way you would interact with male colleagues, please.
5. Should I explain the termination of federal probationary employees in my cover letter?
I’m one of the many federal probationary employees who recently received a termination letter. Can I assume that potential employers will know that I was swept up in mass layoffs of questionable legality, or is it safer to provide an explanation in my cover letter as to why I worked for less than five months at my old job? I was thinking that at the end of the cover letter, after discussing my old position, I could say something like, “Unfortunately, my time at X was cut short by blanket layoffs of probationary employees (anyone with less than one year of service) across the federal government. However, I am excited by the opportunity to bring my experience to…”
I imagine the answer to this question differs by industry. For context, I’m a social scientist with a PhD who worked in a federal statistical agency. I’ll be looking for research positions both remotely and in the greater D.C. area.
Most people will know without you spelling it out, but there’s also nothing wrong with explaining it — just use as few words as possible on it so that the focus of your letter can stay on your qualifications. I’d edit your proposed language down to: “Unfortunately, my time at X was cut short by blanket layoffs of probationary employees anyone with less than one year of service across the federal government. However, I am excited by the opportunity to bring my experience to…”
Mostly that’s to use fewer words, but it’s also true some people have been misunderstanding the term “probationary” and thinking it means “on probation because of your performance,” rather than because you were new. While it should be clear from the context, it’s better to leave no doubt.
Eggflation is excuseflation: We don’t have egg companies in the business of making eggs anymore, we have egg companies in the business of exploiting egg shortages.
Inflation has many complex causes and dynamics, but this much should be obvious: when prices go up, and the profits go up, the price rise – the "inflation" is in part the result of greed – it's greedflation.
Orthodox economists insist that greedflation is impossible. Sure, companies would prefer to jack up prices, but if they do, other companies would rush in to sell more cheaply. Besides, there are all these other plausible explanations for inflation, like the covid supply-chain shocks, or avian flu. But greedflation can easily take hold despite competitive pressures, and the fact of bird flu can fuel greedflation, rather than disproving it.
When an industry is heavily concentrated, when it is a cartel that controls key chokepoints that restrict access to key markets, then rising prices don't trigger discounts from rival companies, because rival companies simply can't get any market oxygen. And when a shock – covid, bird flu, etc – strikes, cartels can hike prices way over their higher costs, and point the finger of blame at the shock. This is a special subspecies of greedflation called "excuseflation":
Egg prices are at record highs, and we're told that this is the fault of bird flu. but a closer look demonstrates that eggflation is excuseflation. The egg industry is a vertical stack of monopolies, duopolies, and cartels, controlling everything from the genomes of egg-laying chickens to the raising and processing of chickens, to the distribution and retailing of eggs. These monopolists have conspired in the open to use the excuse of bird flu to restrict production and raise prices, over and over, every time bird flu strikes, posting record profits while poormouthing about their rising costs – costs that don't actually show up on their balance sheets.
In "Hatching a Conspiracy," an investigative series for Matt Stoller's BIG newsletter, antitrust lawyer Basel Musharbash lays out the history, mechanics, and fantastical profits of Big Egg, whose price-fixing and price-gouging are every bit as shameless as their excusemaking over bird flu:
Start with bird flu itself. Bird flu outbreaks have been a fixture of poultry farming since time immemorial, though obviously things got worse with the advent of industrial poultry farming, with its bigger flocks in closer quarters. You'd think that, in the face of these frequent, deadly flus and the resulting mass culls, the poultry industry would have figured out how to cope with outbreaks, and you'd be right.
Bird flu culls can wipe out a lot of birds – over 115m layers in the US for the current flu – but these culls take place on a rolling basis, over a period of years. New layers can be incubated and raised very quickly, and there are large reserves of fertilized eggs that can be quickened on demand. Since the start of this current bird flu in 2021, egg production has only fallen by 3.5%. But even that picture is misleading, because American egg consumption has dropped over the same period by 7.5% – even as other countries have blocked imports of America's plaguey eggs, so the industry is shipping 2.5% fewer eggs abroad, too.
The upshot is the story about eggflation arising from bird flu doesn't withstand even cursory scrutiny. The industry claims it's raising prices to cope with a shortage that just doesn't exist. It's an excuse. It's excuseflation.
But – as our neoclassical econ friends will hasten to remind us – raising prices like this just invites competitors to flood into the market with cheaper options. The only way excuseflation can work is if the supply-chain is sewn up by a few dominant firms that can collude to rig markets and block new market entrants, and that is exactly what's happening here.
Start with the grocer's fridge, festooned today with signs warning you that you are limited to purchasing one dozen eggs per customer. At first blush, it may seem like that fridge's dwindling supply of eggs comes from a whole bunch of companies, but closer inspection reveals that nearly every egg for sale in America comes from a single company. Cal-Maine Foods is an obscure conglomerate that bought dozens of egg brands, including Farmhouse Eggs, Sunups, Sunny Meadow, Egg-Land’s Best and Land O’ Lakes eggs:
Cal-Maine CFO Max Bowman has done a series of investor calls trumpeting the company's rising profits, and attributing them to "significantly higher selling prices" and "our ability to adapt to inflationary market pressures." Investors responded with a buying frenzy, driving Cal-Maine's stock to record highs.
Since the start of the bird flu epidemic, Cal-Maine's profits have averaged between 300% and 600% of their pre-bird flu levels. But Cal-Maine's plague profiteering playbook didn't spring up out of nowhere in 2021. During the bird flu outbreaks of the 2000s, Cal-Maine observed that bird flus were good for big egg brands, increasing the price of eggs, but that these increases were transient, fading quickly as flock sizes recovered. During the 2015 bird flu pandemic, producers quickly raised layers to maturity and replaced their flocks, and saw only modest rises in egg prices (and profits).
This time, it's different. The 2021 bird flu outbreak sparked immediate, substantial, ongoing and durable increases in the price of eggs. The number of layers has plunged, driven by a dramatic decrease in the size of the "parent" flock, from whose fertilized eggs we get out supply of layers – from 3.1m hens in 2021 to 2.5m in 2025. The numbers don't tell the whole story, either – the parent flock is, on average, much older than historical norms, meaning that it produces fewer eggs.
That shortage can be seen in the number of pullets – immature hens – being added to farms since the bird flu outbreak. Despite record egg prices, farmers are not increasing the number of egg-laying birds on hand. As Musharbash writes, the only thing that's increased since the start of bird flu is profits. Parent flocks, fertilized eggs and pullets have all seen steady, deliberate decline. That has only worsened over three years. This isn't a bottleneck in the supply-chain – it's a monopoly at play.
Or, rather, monopolies. The whole poultry supply-chain is an inbred mess. The entire realm of chicken genetics – that is, which chickens exist at all – is controlled by two European firms, the PE-backed Hendrix Genetics and the billionaire-owned Erich Wesjohann Group. These companies have bought or killed virtually every source of egg-laying hens in America over 20 years. Here's Musharbash:
Today, no egg producer in this country can expand the number of hens in its flock — or even replace the hens it already has when they age out or die — without the cooperation of this duopoly. And, since the value of hens rises with the price of the eggs, when the price of eggs is high these two barons have a clear interest in keeping the supply of pullets to producers on a tight leash — so the high prices stick.
But not everyone is at the mercy of the Big Bird Genome: Cal-Maine has a sweetheart deal with them, and can apparently access as many egg-laying hens as they need, whenever they need them. This has allowed Cal-Maine to outbreed, outsupply, outsell and destroy any rival egg company that interfered with its business or refused to sell out. The 60-ish family-owned producers are stuck in a peripheral, disadvantaged role relative to Cal-Maine, and anyone who steps out of line gets immediately and totally crushed.
Cal-Maine dominates the United Egg Producers trade association. A judge compared Cal-Maine's relationship to the UEP to a "mob boss":
Despite the fact that the UEP exists primarily to promote Cal-Maine's interests at the expense of other egg companies, family owned businesses like Rose Acre Farms have continued to join the association, seemingly out of the view that they have no hope of surviving unless they get in line. UEP acts as a kind of OPEC for eggs, setting production limits that the whole industry follows. As the court found, the EUP is a "bullhorn" through which Cal-Maine "barks out orders."
The UEP's own economists are admirably forthright in their description of this process. As economist Donald Bell put it in 1994: "More hens, less money!" You don't need an econ degree to understand the corollary: fewer hens, more money. And as the number of layers has plummeted, the wholesale price of eggs has climbed – up 75% in 2023 alone.
The US has a planned economy – the thing we were all told America would never submit to, not like the basket case USSR, with its dysfunctional production system and shortages. But America's eggs aren't at the mercy of technocrats – they're entirely dependent on the whims of greedy monopolists. When Trump Secretary of Ag Brooke Rollins met with Cal-Maine last month, she left promising to bribe Cal-Maine to increase production, at the most profitable moment in world history for these companies:
Eggflation is a microcosm of other monopolies that dominate American industry, stealing from everyday people to enrich a tiny coterie of shareholders. This isn't even the only sleazy chicken monopoly in the USA – a different, equally sleazy arrangement dominates poultry farmers who raise birds for meat, called "chickenization":
The next time you go to Denny's and wonder about the $0.50 per egg surcharge on the menu, remember, that charge isn't downstream of bird flu – it's the inevitable eggflation cause by excuseflation, a form of greedflation.
Musharbash has two more installments to go in his series for BIG, but if you're feeling impatient, you can read the report this series is adapted from, "Kings Over the Necessaries of Life”: Monopolization and the Elimination of Competition in America’s Agriculture System," which Musharbash wrote for Farm Action:
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
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“The Trump administration said Friday that it’s pulling $400 million from Columbia University, canceling grants and contracts because of what the government describes as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.” — AP
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What with antisemitism on the rise again—we see it with the re-ascension of Donald Trump, the loosening of moderation on social media, and Netflix’s hiking its basic plan to cost Americans two dollars more a month to watch Seinfeld—you can’t blame American Jews like me for feeling a little uneasy. Until now, that is, as the Trump administration is finally making an example out of that longtime bastion of anti-Jewish fervor, Columbia University.
But I’m glad the Trump administration is showing it will use the power of the presidency to protect America’s Jews. Sure, I know what you’re thinking, that Trump doesn’t seem all that Jew-friendly, given his blood-and-soil rhetoric, his hiring of white supremacists, and his winking at white nationalist militias like a bubbe at her favorite grandson with his arm elbow-deep in a jar full of chocolate rugelach.
But as Trump himself has said, some of his best friends are Jewish. Like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, megadonor Miriam Adelson, and advisor Stephen Miller, who are all just as Jewish as you and me. And just like you and me, this spring, they’ll attend a family Passover Seder, when they’ll pledge to care for the widows and orphans and strangers in our midst. Then, the next morning, Lutnick will continue his work to help cut widows’ Social Security payments, Adelson will keep lobbying to eliminate orphans’ Medicaid, and Miller will resume his quest to imprison and/or deport as many strangers as federal agents can get their hands on. But hey, I guess maybe a Jew is a Jew?
Plus, as Americans, we’re all protected by Kash Patel, Trump’s new conspiracy-minded FBI director, who has promised to go after America’s enemies. Of course, once you find the first conspiracy, you’re bound to find the one behind that, then the one behind that one—which inevitably involves The Protocols of the Elders of Zion—after which, let’s face it, it’s Jews all the way down. But surely we’re in good hands there.
Besides, even if Trump had the impulse to do something anti-Jewish, it’s not like the Trump administration would get its act together, riven by factions as it is. On the one side, there’s Elon Musk, who happens to believe the Great Replacement theory and recently in public performed a Nazi salute. And on the other side, Musk’s sworn enemy, Steve Bannon, who happens to believe the Great Replacement theory and recently in public performed a Nazi salute. My fellow members of the tribe, no need to worry; those guys will never agree on anything.
So, cheer up, American Jews. We’re perfectly safe. Even if things go badly for us here, we can always take our passports and go somewhere beyond Trump’s reach. Like Canada. Or someplace so remote, even Trump would never think to look there: Hello, Greenland! I feel safer already.
CLEVELAND—Excitedly heading out to yards, balconies, and public parks across the country to reap the wellness benefits, the U.S. populace confirmed Monday that it was using the extra hour of daylight to sun its perineums even harder. “If you thought I was serious about my health before, just wait and see what another whole hour of basking my taint in direct sunlight does for my libido, circulation, and mood,” said Ohio resident Elena Nelson, echoing the sentiment of 340 million Americans who had removed their pants and underwear, laid on their backs with their legs raised, and enthusiastically sunned the region between their anus and genitals until the last of the day’s light. “That lost hour of sleep is a small price to pay to bring my perineum-sunning to the next level. Squatting over a SAD lamp gets me through the winter, but it just doesn’t hold a candle to soaking up actual solar goodness. C’mon, everyone! Let’s spring forward into tanning those gooches!” At press time, millions of perineal carcinomas added that they were feeling a lot more energized, too.
