Today's links

• It's pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually: Just end all the private-sector profiteering.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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It's pretty easy to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, actually (permalink)

If Elon Musk wants to cut $2t from the US federal budget, there's a pretty straightforward way to get there – just eliminate all the beltway bandits who overcharge Uncle Sucker for everything from pharmaceuticals to roadworks to (of course) rockets, and then make the rich pay their taxes.

There is a ton of federal bloat, but it's not coming from useless programs or overpaid federal employees. As David Dayen writes in a long, fact-filled feature in The American Prospect, the bloat comes from the private sector's greedy suckling at the government teat:

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-27-we-found-the-2-trillion-elon-musk-doge/

The federal workforce used to be huge. In 1960, federal employees were 4.3% of all US workers; today, it's 1.4%. Zeroing out the entire federal payroll would save $271b/year (while beaching the US economy!), a mere 4% of the federal budget.

On the other hand, zeroing out the budget for federal contractors would save over a trillion dollars – the US spends 4 times more on private sector contractors than it does on its own workers, and while some of those contractors are honest folks giving good value for money, the norm is for federal contractors to pick the public's pocket and then use the proceeds to lobby for more fat contracts.

One key job we ask our federal employees to do is root out private sector fraud in federal contracting. We should hire more of these people! Private contractors steal $274b/year from the public purse – nearly enough to pay for all the employees in the federal government:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-106285.pdf

Musk doesn't know any of these, and he doesn't care to know. As Dayen writes, he's doing "policy by anecdote." Take Ashley Thomas, the director of climate diversification for the US International Development Finance Corporation. Musk sicced a mob on her, decrying her for doing a "fake job" that was somehow related to "DEI." But Thomas's job isn't employment diversification – it's crop diversification.

If Musk wanted to run DOGE as a force for waste-elimination, he wouldn't be attacking the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS (whose budget accounts for 0.012% of federal spending). He wouldn't be attacking federal fiber subsidies (he's mad that he can't get more subsidies for his dead-end satellite service that caps out at one ten-millionth of the speed of fiber). He wouldn't be attacking high-speed rail (which competes with his Tesla swasticars). He wouldn't be fighting with the SEC (which defends the public from costly stock swindles, which is why they've been investigating Musk for seven years).

He could, instead, go after private sector Medicare waste. 33 million seniors have been suckered into switching from federally provided Medicare to privately provided Medicare Advantage. Overbilling from Medicare Advantage (whose doctors are ordered to "upcode" patients to generate additional bills) costs the public $83b/year:

https://www.medpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Mar24_ExecutiveSummary_MedPAC_Report_To_Congress_SEC.pdf

Medicare Advantage patients are, on average, healthier than Medicare patients (Medicare Advantage giants like Unitedhealtcare cream off the cheapest-to-service patients). Yet, this healthy cohort costs more to treat than their sicker cousins on the public plan – the fraud costs us about 11-14% of the total Medicare bill, and we could save $140b/year by zeroing that out:

https://pnhp.org/system/assets/uploads/2023/09/MAOverpaymentReport_Final.pdf

Zeroing out Medicare Advantage overbilling would pay for "an out-of-pocket spending cap, a public drug benefit, and dental, hearing, and vision benefits" for every Medicare patient with tens of billions to spare.

Of course, as Dayen points out, the guy in charge of Medicare is Dr Oz, who has spent years shilling for Medicare Advantage, while holding massive amounts of stock in Unitedhealthcare, the nation's largest Medicare Advantage provider, and the worst offender for Medicare Advantage overbilling.

Then there's Medicare itself. Rates for Medicare doctor reimbursement are set by committees of specialists, who award themselves sky-high rates while paying rock-bottom wages to the frontline general practitioners who do the heavy lifting. Lowering specialists rates to match the rates paid in Canada and Germany would save the federal government $100b/year:

https://cepr.net/rfk-jr-physicians-pay-schedules-and-the-elites-big-lie/

Then there's Big Pharma. For years, Congress legally forbade Medicare and Medicaid from negotiating drug prices, which is why the US government pays the highest rates in the world for drugs developed in the US, with US federal subsidies. US drug prices are 178% more than other wealthy countries, and many drugs are sold at 20-30x the cost of production:

https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/comparing-prescription-drugs

A few of these drug prices are going to come down in the coming years, thanks to timid, but long overdue action from the Biden administration. To really tackle a source of government waste, the US government could use its "march in rights" to federalize production of the most expensive drugs:

https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/force-drug-companies-to-lower-prices/

One possibility floated by economist Dean Baker is for the US government to invest $100b/year in clinical trials, keeping the patents for itself and licensing multiple manufacturers to compete to produce these publicly owned drugs, which would save an estimated $500b/year:

https://cepr.net/financing-drug-development-what-the-pandemic-has-taught-us/

Then there's price-gouging, useless middlemen like Group Purchasing Organizations who soak the public purse for $20b/year – a "moderate" enforcement action could cut that to $10b. Speaking of eliminating middlemen, community health centers are a way cheaper source of care than big hospitals – $2371/year cheaper per patient, per year. By subsidizing these, the US government could save another $20b/year:

https://www.ohiochc.org/news/310956/Landmark-Study-Confirms-Medicaid-Cost-Savings-at-Health-Centers.htm

Next, Dayen moves onto the Pentagon, which pulled in $841b last year but has failed seven consecutive audits:

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4992913-pentagon-fails-7th-audit-in-a-row-but-says-progress-made/

The DoD firehoses money over private sector contractors, like the $3.6b it hands over to Musk's Spacex every year – a number Musk hopes to grow through Spacex's participation in a new consortium:

https://www.ft.com/content/6cfdfe2b-6872-4963-bde8-dc6c43be5093

Military contractor wastage is the stuff of legend, like the $2t F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a lemon that has over 800 outstanding defects and was just greenlit for another year's worth of full funding:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-13/lockheed-f-35-s-tally-of-flaws-tops-800-as-new-issues-surface

This kind of wasteage isn't merely shameful, it's illegal. The Nunn-McCurdy Act requires that these large-scale boondoggles be reviewed with an eye to shutting them down. But when beltway bandits like Northrop Grumman’s produce expensive lemons like Sentinel, the DoD continues to hand public money to them, citing "national security":

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3829985/department-of-defense-announces-results-of-sentinel-nunn-mccurdy-review/

The DoD contracts out so much of its essential functions that it literally doesn't know what it has. It pays contractors and subcontractors to produce parts for its systems, but has no way to know if those parts have actually been produced. Meanwhile, private equity rollups like Transdigm have merged every single-source aerospace supplier and jacked up the price of spare parts for existing military systems, pulling down 4,500%+ markups:

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/28/ro-khanna-transdigm-refund-pentagon/

To estimate the easy military savings – the ones that won't require shutting down jobs programs scattered in every key Congressional district – Dayen takes the CBO's estimate and cuts it in half, to get an annual savings of $150b/year.

Then there's general procurement, where the GAO estimates the US loses $150b/year to bid-rigging and another $521b/year to fraud (the USG also spends $70b/year on management consultants who do no discernible useful work). Dayen estimates the annual savings from "stringently enforcing fraud and abuse, insourcing operations, and no longer paying for bad advice" at $150b/year.

Then there's tax cheating. The IRS estimates that it undercollects about $606b/year in taxes. The top 1% account for $163b/year of that (Elon Musk's own effective tax rate is just 3.27% as of the five years preceding 2021, the year for which we have his leaked tax return; he paid no taxes in 2018). Every dollar the IRS spends on auditing brings in $2.17 in tax, and every dollar the IRS spends auditing the wealthy generates $6.29 in tax. A dollar spent auditing the top 10% brings in $10:

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2024/dec/01/opinion-the-irs-shows-what-government-efficiency/

Audits are durable sources of tax. People who've been burned by an audit are far more honest in the decade after that audit.

The GOP has zeroed out Biden's IRS increases. The CBO estimates that a fully funded IRS could easily increase the taxes it collected by a net figure of $200b/year.

There's also new sources of tax. Dayen likes Dean Baker's proposal for taxes on stock returns: just add dividends and stock appreciation at the end of the year, then multiply by the tax rate. Baker says this is a loophole-free way to bring the effective corporate tax rate up from 20% to 25%, generating $65b/year:

https://cepr.net/winning-the-tax-game-tax-stock-returns/

This would be especially hard on heavily financialized companies with "impossibly high stock price/earnings ratios" – e.g. Tesla.

Dayen also proposes rejigging the tax rate on retirement and health insurance plans, where nearly all the tax breaks are scooped by the highest earners. The Tax Policy Center has $1.12-$1.38t/year worth of other tax reforms that would shift the tax burden from working people to the idle rich:

https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-largest-tax-expenditures

Dayen says, "let's ask for about 20% of that" and ballparks the tax income at $200b/year.

How about subsidy cuts? $10b/year in fossil fuel subsidies. Eliminating the notorious sources of fraud in crop insurance would save $5b/year:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-06-878t.pdf

There's $7b/year in subsidies to the Home Bank Loan system and $5b/year lost to pass-through entity loopholes.

Add it all up and you're saving $1.4215t/year without even breaking a sweat, just by tackling (some of) the country's worst looting and tax evasion. Dayen points out US expenditures will fall even more than this, because it won't be paying as much T-bill interest if it doesn't spend this money. We could also just make the Fed stop using the blunt, expensive tool of interest rate hikes to manage inflation. There's plenty of scenarios where interest payments result in the remaining $580b/year in savings, bringing the total up to $2t.

Now, sucking $2t/year out of the US economy all at once – even $2t in waste and fraud – would not be good for America! That kind of economic shock would bring the US economy to its knees, for years to come. All that money still fuels the demand side of the economy. But a slow rampup, and more public spending on useful programs (say, climate resiliency and retrofitting), would strengthen the economy while still bankrupting the fraud sector.

DOGE is wildly unpopular with the American electorate – even large pluralities of Republicans think its stupid. Campaigning on cutting fraud and profiteering would be a wildly popular way for Democrats to separate themselves from Republicans. Few Democrats are rising to the occasion, though.

(Image: Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0, modified)

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Labour’s decision to muzzle regulators in the name of ‘growth’ will backfire horribly https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/25/labours-decision-to-muzzle-regulators-in-the-name-of-growth-will-backfire-horribly

• We Only Have Ourselves: The How-Tos and DOs and DON’Ts of Mutual Aid https://lithub.com/we-only-have-ourselves-the-how-tos-and-dos-and-donts-of-mutual-aid/

• Austin rents have fallen for nearly two years. Here’s why. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/22/austin-texas-rents-falling/ (h/t Hacker News)

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Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Gilberto Gil’s extraordinary engagement with Brazilians https://web.archive.org/web/20050130034511/http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002400.shtml

#20yrsago Social Security “crisis” commentary that had me laughing aloud https://fafblog.blogspot.com/2005_01_23_fafblog_archive.html#110687103723037689

#20yrsago Details on cracking Apple’s iTunes DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20050129031800/http://osdir.com/Article3823.phtml

#20yrsago Outstanding tips for community moderation https://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html#006036

#15yrsago Copyright-maximalist judges plagiarize lawblogger in opinion https://www.24oranges.nl/2010/01/23/judges-plagiarize-blog-posting-in-copyright-case/

#10yrsago Comcast ghost-wrote politicians’ letters in support of Time Warner Cable merger https://www.theverge.com/2015/1/26/7878239/comcast-twc-fcc-merger-letters-politicians-ghostwritten

#10yrsago Koch brothers raise 2016 election warchest that’s on par with either party’s spend https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/politics/kochs-plan-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-campaign.html

#10yrsago Podcast: The case for … cities that aren’t dystopian surveillance states https://ia802809.us.archive.org/11/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_325/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_325_-_The_case_for_cities_that_arent_dystopian_surveillance_states.mp3

#5yrsago Listen: loudspeakers broadcast corona virus closure messages to the empty streets of Shanghai Disneyland https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1221812589161799682

#5yrsago Amazon threatened to fire two tech workers who spoke about climate and Amazon’s business, then 357 more workers joined them https://amazonemployees4climatejustice.medium.com/amazon-employees-share-our-views-on-company-business-f5abcdea849

#5yrsago Climate denial has destroyed the libertarian movement https://jacobin.com/2020/01/libertarianism-climate-change-environment-private-property

#5yrsago Why I won’t buy an Ipad: ten years later https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/27/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-ten-years-later/

#5yrsago One of the CIA’s waterboarding torturers called himself “The Preacher” and shouted religious nonsense while performing executions https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/25/some-folks-were-tearful-cia-waterboarding-on-trial-in-guantanamo

#5yrsago The privacy-invading, junk science “home DNA test” industry is cratering https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/23/276092/is-the-consumer-genetics-fad-over/

#1yrago Solar is a market for (financial) lemons https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/27/here-comes-the-sun-king/#sign-here

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Picks and Shovels with Ken Liu (Boston), Feb 14
  https://brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2025-02-14/cory-doctorow-ken-liu-picks-and-shovels

• Picks and Shovels with Charlie Jane Anders (Menlo Park), Feb 17
  https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow

• Picks and Shovels with Wil Wheaton (Los Angeles), Feb 18
  https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Cory-Doctorow-Wil-Wheaton-Author-signing

• Picks and Shovels with Dan Savage (Seattle), Feb 19
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-with-dan-savage-picks-and-shovels-a-martin-hench-novel-tickets-1106741957989

• Picks and Shovels at Another Story (Toronto), Feb 23
  https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/picks-shovels-cory-doctorow-tickets-1219803217259

• Picks and Shovels with John Hodgman (NYC), Feb 26
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-john-hodgman-picks-and-shovels-tickets-1131132841779

• Picks and Shovels (Penn State), Feb 27
  https://www.bellisario.psu.edu/assets/uploads/CoryDoctorow-Poster.pdf

• Picks and Shovels at the Doylestown Bookshop (Doylestown, PA), Mar 1
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-picks-and-shovels-a-martin-hench-novel-tickets-1146230880419

• Picks and Shovels at Red Emma's (Baltimore), Mar 2
  https://redemmas.org/events/cory-doctorow-presents-picks-and-shovels/

• Picks and Shovels with Lee Vinsel (Richmond, VA), Mar 5
  https://fountainbookstore.com/events/1795820250305

• Picks and Shovels at First Light Books (Austin), Mar 10
  https://thethirdplace.is/event/cory-doctorow-picks-shovels-1

• Picks and Shovels at Dark Delicacies (Burbank), Mar 13
  https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3257/Thu%2C_Mar_13th_6_pm%3A_Pick_%26_Shovel%3A_A_Martin_Hench_Novel_HB.html#/

• Cloudfest (Europa Park), Mar 17-20
  https://cloudfest.link/

• Picks and Shovels at Imagine! Belfast (Remote), Mar 24
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctorow-in-conversation-with-alan-meban-tickets-1106421399189

• ABA Techshow (Chicago), Apr 3
  https://www.techshow.com/

• Teardown 2025 (PDX), Jun 20-22
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

• DeepSouthCon63 (New Orleans), Oct 10-12, 2025
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• A radical plan to fight U.S. tariffs and build an export industry jailbreaking consumer products from iPhones to tractors
  https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-14-day-6/clip/16123612-a-radical-plan-fight-u.s.-tariffs-build-export

• Right to Repair with Karen Sandler (Software Freedom Conservancy):
  https://videos.trom.tf/w/q1AAL629GYMFtN6nCy15WE

• Just Say It's Capitalism (This Week in Tech)
  https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1014?autostart=false

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Latest books (permalink)

• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "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

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: The Weight of a Feather (The Weight of a Heart) https://craphound.com/overclocked/2025/01/26/the-weight-of-a-…eight-of-a-heart/

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

Back in 2016 and 2017, I began researching Houston’s greatest snowstorm, which occurred on Valentine’s Day in 1895. The city received 20 inches. I was confounded by this because there is no other storm on record that comes even remotely close to this for Houston, and so I decided to dig in to learn more.

You can read that full account here.

After reading a bunch of newspaper descriptions of the event, finding a few accounts in archives, and getting some incredible pictures from archives in Houston and Galveston, it became my absolute favorite weather anomaly of all-time. I mean, think about 20 inches of snow in Houston and what that would do today. Now, with all that said, I figured that was a one and done type of event; something we truly would never see again. And here in Houston, that still holds very true. But elsewhere?

Lake Charles

Let it SNEAUX! Check out these gorgeous photos from local photographer Darion Noble!

Comment your snow day pictures below! #VisitLakeCharles #LouisianasPlayground pic.twitter.com/BI7zBIHdP5

— Visit Lake Charles (@LakeCharlesCVB) January 21, 2025

Lake Charles, LA received anywhere from 4 to 8 inches of snow in the area on Tuesday, falling well short of the 22 inches received in 1895, but still coming in as the third snowiest storm on record there (behind February 12-13, 1960 as well).

Lake Charles also had their coldest two-day period since 1962. These types of storms seem to occur every couple generations on the Gulf Coast. While Houston did not set any major records and the Beaumont and Lake Charles areas saw one of their biggest storms on record, where things got wild was to the east.

Acadiana/Lafayette

Central Louisiana, or Acadiana (or the Atchafalaya) saw a truly historic storm. Having also had their coldest pair of days since 1962, they received anywhere from 6 to 13 inches of snow. The coldest recorded temperature was 2 degrees at Cade southeast of Lafayette on Wednesday morning the 22nd. Grand Coteau, just north of Lafayette measured 13.4 inches of snow. Lafayette itself managed 9 inches, a bit shy of 1895’s record of 14 inches.

“Sleds of every description were improvised for the occasion. Some of these were extremely ludicrous, as for instance, the case of Dr. G. A. Marin in a big rocking chair ploughing through the snow in happiest style.” –Lafayette Advertiser, February 16, 1895

“Everything took on a peaceful vibe as the snow transformed even mundane mail boxes into picturesque works of art.” – The Acadiana Advocate, January 21, 2025

Baton Rouge

Down I-10 in Baton Rouge, the capital saw 7.6 inches of snow, also a bit shy of 1895’s record of 12.5 inches.

The Chance of Snow is…. pic.twitter.com/3HxGKajKOs

— LSU Football (@LSUfootball) January 21, 2025

The coldest back to back mornings in Baton Rouge since 1989 occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday thanks to the snow cover.

New Orleans

Some of the most enjoyable and spectacular social media posts I believe came out of New Orleans last week. The city recorded 8 inches of snow, just shy of the 10 inches the Big Easy saw in 1895. They also experienced their coldest two mornings since 1996.

Snow in New Orleans

— (@marcorasi.bsky.social) 2025-01-22T05:43:43.822Z

Traditional New Orleans architecture under the snow. #sneauxday

— Lisa Wade (@lisawade.bsky.social) 2025-01-22T01:30:11.034Z

Elegant snow umbrella, St Peter street, New Orleans

— (@marcorasi.bsky.social) 2025-01-23T23:20:49.148Z

Gulfport/Biloxi

Into Mississippi, Gulfport received 7 inches of snow. This tied with the New Year’s storm of 1963-64, which dropped similar amounts of snow east of New Orleans into Alabama but hit hardest north, away from the Gulf of Mexico.

Biloxi Beach in Mississippi Lauren Tedford

— Edward Silha (@itsedsilha.bsky.social) 2025-01-21T19:20:50.914Z

Thanks to the snowpack, Gulfport also had their coldest morning since 1985 (and third coldest on record back to the late 1800s) on Wednesday.

Mobile

Crossing into Alabama, Mobile had a truly historic event, logging their largest snowstorm on record. The 1895 storm dropped a half-foot in Mobile, while the 2025 storm produced 7.5 inches. Like the Mississippi coast, Mobile had their third coldest morning on record and coldest since 1985 on Wednesday. Even Gulf Shores and Orange Beach saw 7 to 9 inches of snow.

Pics of my parents home and the beach in Gulf Shores, AL . Wild times with that much snow! The one time I’d like to have gone back for a visit in winter!

— Fannytastic (@fannylyn.bsky.social) 2025-01-22T02:10:26.043Z

Florida

For Florida, the storm will now be the benchmark on which future storms are measured. Prior to last week, Florida’s state record for snowfall had been 4 inches recorded in Milton, FL back in 1954. Officially, Pensacola managed 8.9 inches in this storm, with a few locations, such as Milton and Ferry Pass, just north of Pensacola achieving 10 inches.

Frosty and his son taking some vacation time down in Florida after all the snow #photography #nikon #snowman #frosty #beach #snow #florida #pensacola #floridasnow #travel #sunset #winter #snowstorm

— Sleepy Waves (@the-sleeping-nomad.bsky.social) 2025-01-23T00:52:44.796Z

To the east, Panama City saw 3 to 4 inches of snow, while Tallahassee saw just shy of 2 inches, their largest storm since February 1958’s nearly 3 inches of snow. Even Jacksonville got on the board with a tenth of an inch of snow, only the fifth time they have recorded measurable snow.

The meteorology and differences from 1895

So what happened here, and how did this storm differ from the great 1895 storm? The meteorology had some strong similarities but also key differences in both storms. In 1895, low pressure formed in the southwest Gulf of Mexico and tracked eastward across South Florida and off the East Coast.

The combination of strong high pressure (indicated by the deep red colors over Texas) and overrunning moisture from the Gulf likely led to a significant thump of snow before the storm consolidated well offshore, taking the heaviest snow with it into the Gulf and grazing the Gulf Coast.

The 2025 case was much different, even if it was somewhat similar. In this year’s case, you barely had a formal low-pressure system over the Gulf. So my hunch is that in the 2025 case, you had less consolidation of the storm offshore, meaning more moisture was available to plow into areas like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Texas had more time with things in 1895 so was able to cash in more then than now.

There are some other factors at play in 2025 vs. 1895. For one, there was less snowpack on the Plains this time around, so Texas was a bit slower to turn colder. The trajectory of the cold was very similar in 2025 versus 1895 but less snow meant more modification of the air mass this time. That probably also played a role.

Another reason this storm did what it did farther east? The warm Gulf of Mexico. Monday’s sea-surface temperature anomaly in the Gulf showed widespread warmer than normal temperatures over a broad portion of the western Gulf.

In fact, some of those SSTs were almost 4°C warmer than normal, which is ballistically warm. There’s a case to be argued that the warmer Gulf, which is due to a combination of factors, including climate change played a role in “juicing” this storm a bit more, especially as it moved east. In fact, I might be willing to argue that an identical storm occurring in 1895 (not the 1895 storm, but rather this exact storm unfolding exactly as it did, except 130 years earlier) may have actually produced less snow in Louisiana through Florida due to what was likely a much colder Gulf of Mexico in 1895. The caveat to that is that a colder air mass as would be likely in 1895 could have boosted snow to liquid rations even more and produced a similar snowfall with less available moisture. It’s a fascinating possibility to consider, but unfortunately there’s no real way to know for sure.

But what we do know is that storms like this are truly rare on the Gulf Coast, and many core memories were made for many kids (and even some adults) last week between Houston and Florida.

In brief: This morning’s post discusses the potential for rain showers this week, which is high on Wednesday and Thursday. However, that will be offset by what looks to be fantastic, spring-like weekend. Also, we’re starting to get questions about another Arctic air blast during the first week of February. Is there any validity to this?

Monday

After Sunday’s widespread rains, a cold front has moved offshore during the overnight hours. It won’t go far into the Gulf of Mexico, but it will go far enough to bring somewhat cooler and cloudy conditions today. Expect high temperatures of about 60 degrees, with light northerly winds. Low temperatures tonight will fall into the lower 50s for most of the metro area, so the watch word for today is mild.

Tuesday

This will be another gray, slightly warmer day, as winds shift to come from the east at the surface. Expect highs in the lower 60s. There are mixed signals from the atmosphere in terms of rainfall potential, but I think the most likely outcome is the low-end potential for some light showers. Skies, otherwise, will be cloudy. Lows on Tuesday night will only fall into the mid- to upper-50s in Houston.

Wednesday and Thursday

These will be warmer and wetter days. Expect high temperatures in the low- to mid-70s, with fairly humid air. (Not summer-like air, to be clear, but definitely a fair bit of humidity for January). Showers and possibly some thunderstorms will be possible from mid-morning Wednesday through Thursday night. Most locations will probably pick up 1 to 2 inches of rain, but we certainly cannot rule out some higher isolated totals. The threat of heavier rainfall will probably lie north of Houston, and areas such as Lufkin may face the potential for some flooding. It’s possible that a final line of showers and thunderstorms may accompany the passage of a cool front on Thursday night or Friday.

Friday

Rain chances will end some time on Friday morning, after which we’ll see clearing skies. Expect a pleasant day with high temperatures around 70 degrees, and a cooler night with lows in the upper 40s for much of Houston.

Saturday and Sunday

This weekend’s weather looks exceptional. We’re talking sunny skies and low humidity. Highs around 70 degrees. Modestly chilly nights. Like seriously, try to plan something outdoors this weekend.

Next week and an Arctic blast?

Most of next week should be mild, with high temperatures in the lower 70s, and overnight temperatures in the upper 50s or lower 60s. However we’ve started to get a bunch of questions about the potential for another Arctic blast around the weekend of February 8. This is pretty far into the future, but so far there appears to be far more buzz about this on social media than there is evidence to substantiate a seriously cold blast. I’m not ready to rule anything out for a forecast that is more than 10 days into the future. The models are hinting at a frontal passage around that time, but at this point I’d say lows are more likely to be in the 40s rather than the 30s or even 20s. So we’ll keep an eye on things, but I wouldn’t go wrapping your pipes again just yet.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Should conjoined twins receive one salary or two?

I recently read this article. The summary is that Abby and Brittany are conjoined twins who are fifth grade teachers. They only draw one salary between the two of them because they occupy one position in their school district. I can’t help but feel like this is a little unfair. I understand that they can only physically occupy one classroom at a time but they are two people with two minds who, presumably, both put work into lesson plans, etc. As an avid reader of your website, I am very curious to hear what your take on this situation is.

It’s true that the school district is benefiting from the position being filled by two people with two different perspectives and potentially two separate sets of strengths. It’s also true that they’re in a single teacher’s role, meaning that the school district would need to use a second teacher’s salary without that putting a teacher in a second classroom. And realistically, if hiring them meant paying two salaries to fill one position, it would significantly limit their job options because a lot of employers simply wouldn’t hire them. I do think you’d have a potential legal problem if the half-salary they’re each earning is less than minimum wage … but otherwise my take is that the whole system we’ve set up for work isn’t cut out to handle conjoined twins!

2. An acquaintance won’t stop contacting me about a job he was rejected for

An acquaintance of mine applied to work at my organization. He got partway through the process and realized through a mutual friend that I work there, so reached out asking if my area was hiring. We are, so I passed his resume along to my manager, as he seemed like a good fit in terms of skills and experience. This landed him an interview. My manager said something was “off” in the interview and he didn’t seem like the right hire, and asked me if I was strongly recommending him. I said no, he’s just an acquaintance. We used to volunteer at the same place for a time a few years ago, but I have never worked with him professionally, nor is he a close friend. So, she informed him we would not be moving forward.

That was two months ago. Since that time, he has contacted both me and my manager repeatedly to “follow up,” including emailing my personal email to ask for advice about how to be reconsidered. My manager told him we were no longer filling the position but he still persists, each time explaining how and why he would make a great addition to the team. After responding politely the first time, I am now ignoring his email. However, we do have mutual friends and I am worried we may run into each other, and in fact I likely will see him at an upcoming event. Do I continue to ghost him? I’m not the hiring manager but he got a very clear “we aren’t moving forward” after the interview. I don’t think he realizes these continued attempts to change my manager’s mind are giving a bad impression.

You’re not obligated to coach this guy, but since you’re likely to run into him, you could respond to his next email with, “I’m sorry this didn’t work out, but that really is the final answer and you should not keep contacting Jane about it — it’s coming across as too pushy and has no chance of changing the decision.” I might add, “Continuing to contact her will be harmful, not helpful.” If he keeps it up even after that, feel free to go back to ignoring him.

3. How to interpret new daily meetings with my boss

I have a fully remote sales job and have been a top performer for the last couple years, though admittedly I have been flagging lately. About a month ago, my boss started scheduling DAILY 30-minute 1-on-1s with me, in addition to our weekly hour. I’m trying to figure out why, and how to respond.

The way he framed it, I’m working with some challenging customers right now and could use the extra support, and this will give us a chance to discuss in detail. This kind of makes sense, but I don’t feel like I really uniquely need support compared to others on the team.

Two other interpretations were: either this is a warning shot that I’m underperforming (though I’m still otherwise being praised and assigned important work) or he’s concerned that I’m considering quitting (there’s been some drama lately and I don’t think I’ll stay forever, but I’m fine for now).

Each interpretation suggests a different approach — if it’s really for my benefit, I should just honestly pick his brain and end early if I don’t need help. If it’s a warning, I need to use the time to show commitment to the work. And if he’s trying to read me, I guess I shouldn’t share any doubts? Since I don’t know why we’re doing this, I try to cover my bases and project a lot of confidence and enthusiasm and progress and frankly, it’s exhausting. Does one of these sound more plausible than the others? What would you do?

Any of those is plausible. Do you have the kind of relationship where you can just ask him? Personally, with a boss I had good rapport with, I’d just say, “Can I ask — are we having extra daily meetings because you’re worried about how I’m approaching these clients? Or is there anything else in my work that’s making you concerned?” And depending on how that went, I might say, “If you think it’s helpful to meet daily, I’ll of course do that, but on my end, it works well to keep our weekly hour and just touch base ad hoc if anything comes up that we need to discuss before that.”

But otherwise, since you say you haven’t been performing at your usual level and there’s room to get back there, the smartest avenue is to do that. If that’s his concern, you’ll be covering it. However, that’s not about projecting extra confidence and enthusiasm; it’s about the actual work you’re doing; projecting enthusiasm alone is unlikely to take care of it. (And unless something happens that convinces you that  definitely not what’s behind the new meetings, it’s safest to assume it could be, and proceed accordingly.)

4. Should cost of living adjustments be prorated based on your start date?

Is it normal for cost of living adjustments to be prorated based on employment start date?

I work for a nonprofit with employees working remotely across the country (I am one of these). I started working here in July 2024, which was the beginning of the org’s fiscal year.

This past fall, the org held town hall meetings to share messaging about the upcoming year: COLA’s would be lower this year, no merit raises, and they revamped how bonuses are done, so no more individual bonuses but rather a team bonus situation. I’m new, so I don’t know how things used to be done and I tried not to worry too much. And of course none of us works at a nonprofit to get rich — I’m biding my time being underpaid just to try to get my federal student loans forgiven.

The COLA emails start coming out in early January. My adjustment is 0.58% and includes a note saying, “This COLA acknowledges the 2024 percentage and exceeds the 2025 projected rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and is intended to help alleviate the impact this may have on you and your family.” I did the math. That’s only $300 more per year, or $12 per pay cycle. I wrote back and asked if there were perhaps an accounting error, and was told that employees who started after October 1, 2023 do not receive the full 2.5% but rather a prorated amount commensurate with their start date. They said the reason for that is that employees hired in that time period “have a salary amount that takes the current CPI into account, whether by the amount offered or the minimum range amount they are brought in at. By providing a prorated amount for the following year, we are balancing out the total amount for COLA between the two calendar years.”

Is this normal? Is this fair? My expenses for the upcoming year are going up way beyond half a percent! There are many things about nonprofit life that make me cry, and the pay is the biggest one of them.

It’s not unusual for cost-of-living adjustments to be prorated in that way. The thinking is what they shared: that the salary you came in at already reflected the cost of living at that time, whereas people who have been with the organization longer had their salaries set under different cost-of-living calculations. Whether or not that’s true is a different question, and would depend on whether the salary band for the job you were hired into had changed in the previous year. But it’s pretty common for them to figure that you accepted the salary as a fair one only six months ago.

5. Federal employee grappling with private sector resume

I’m a federal employee. If you’ve been watching the news this week, there’s a lot going on in the background that’s making life for federal employees very hard right now. Aside from the obvious, they are making several lists of categories of employees, likely trying to figure out how to get rid of as many of us as possible in big sweeps of layoffs and firings at once. (We’ve been told these lists are being provided with names to the White House.) This has pushed me to try to find a private-sector job for the first time in more than 25 years. I know I need to completely overhaul my resume from a federal format where listing your duties is primary to a corporate one where accomplishments are king. What I’m not sure of is my current position, which I started about 4-5 months ago. I’ve done two big things that will eventually make a difference and have numbers behind them, but they’re not there yet. I know you’ve advised folks in the past to leave these shorter stays off resumes, but I’m concerned about it not looking like I’ve had a job since the summer. How would you advise me to handle this? If this weren’t my current position, I’d just leave it off, but I’m stumped here.

Leave your current position on your resume. People will understand why you’re looking right now. And for the two big things you’ve done that don’t have numbers behind them yet, you can still list those! Not all accomplishments can be measured quantitatively, and that’s okay. Just describe as best as you can what you’ve done and what the impact is / why it matters.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I just received an email from my company’s corporate marketing team inviting me to speak on an internal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) panel about my experiences being a woman in a male-dominated industry during the national Women in (Industry) week this spring. I know exactly why they asked me – I am the only woman in my company in my position! Let’s say I work in the auto industry (not what I actually do, but my industry is just as male-dominated). My company has a lot of women in sales, accounts, management, etc. but I am the only female mechanic out of probably 300 mechanics across the nationwide company.

I am twisting myself into knots trying to decide if I should agree to speak on the panel or not. The other women invited all have 15-25 years in the industry, and in roles that are increasingly becoming more popular for women, but I am much younger and only have three years’ experience. I also make it a priority to ensure others see me as a regular mechanic, and not a female mechanic or “diversity hire,” and that I’ve earned my position instead of being handed it.

On one hand, I know it is important to share my experiences and inspire the next generation of female mechanics, but on the other hand, I don’t know of any other hopeful female mechanics in the company, and I am a deeply private individual who generally doesn’t want to share my personal experiences. My social media presence is practically nil, and I am not part of any company developed social/resource groups. I’ve also never met any of the other women on the panel or the moderator, so I’m not sure if this is a safe space to share my thoughts on being a woman.

I’m absolutely torn between the world’s supposed need to hear my story and my own needs for privacy, and I know my answers to their questions won’t be what they are hoping for. For what it’s worth, I know I’d have similar feelings on any other type of panel, like if I was asked to be on a panel about my thoughts on leather seats or safety of foreign cars. I also have never known any another female mechanic before or after I started working, so if I can do it, why can’t other women do it without hearing from me?

Here are some of the questions the marketing team is proposing and what my answers would be:

What advice would you give women who are starting careers in the auto industry? Same advice I’d give any men who asked me.
How do you approach mentoring younger women? I’m young and am still getting mentored (by men). I don’t mentor yet, so can’t help you there.
What steps should women take in personal branding? I’m not 100% positive what personal branding is all about, but I assume whatever steps men take.
How do you balance your work and family needs in this demanding field? I highly doubt they’d ask this question to a panel of men! But I don’t have a household or pets, so pretty easily.

Let’s stop you from tying yourself in knots. If you don’t want to be on the panel, you don’t need to be on the panel. You don’t have a special obligation to do extra work that you don’t want to do just because you’re a woman. If they don’t have many women to choose from, that’s on them to solve, not you.

That’s not to say there isn’t benefit to hearing from women who are succeeding in male-dominating industries. There is! But you are already doing the work of dealing with a male-dominated industry; that is a burden in and of itself, and you really aren’t obligated to take on more work associated with it if you prefer not to.

Some people are excited about participating in these kinds of panels. You happen not to be, and that’s okay. You are not personally responsible for remedying deficiencies in your company, your industry, and our society.

You can decline the invitation, and you don’t need to explain any particular reasons when you do. It’s enough to simply say, “I appreciate you thinking of me, but I need to decline” or “No thank you, but best of luck with the panel” or “I’m not available for it, but best of luck with it.”

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

For the past 18 months, the person in my office who holds the same job title as me has had serious attendance and communication problems. I’m not talking a few times a month. I’m talking it’s a miracle if he makes it in most of five days in a week. He’ll be in four times over two weeks. I’ve created a spreadsheet to keep track, this is not exaggerating.

Our job description is very specific that in office attendance is absolutely required of us at least three days a week. Our job title has the word “on-site” in it. I prefer to work in the office five days a week because home is a distraction-filled wasteland for me, and I wouldn’t have issues if he was coming in three times a week regularly. He isn’t, though. I was hired because it was too much work for him by himself, and I’m in the office by myself all the time.

He will sometimes inform me he isn’t coming in, but he just as often won’t and just doesn’t show up. He will often say he’ll be in later, only to change his mind and just not come in at all. I’ll get an apology lunch (if he bothers to show up) or text (if he doesn’t) the next day.

The problem is that I’ve done what I’m supposed to! I checked in with him first and made sure everything is okay. I asked what I could do to help him directly. When that didn’t work, in November of 2023 (and no, that’s not a typo), I first spoke with our supervisor on this. He is in a different part of the country so doesn’t have eyes on it directly. And I’ve brought it up regularly with this supervisor (in one-on-ones) ever since.

There have been discussions between boss and coworker. My coworker shows up for a week, maybe seven days, and then starts to fall off again. He knows what he’s doing is wrong because he keeps apologizing! There have always been excuses. Sometimes, it’s a funeral for a family member (which I can’t begrudge, though his family must be massive), but most of the time it’s a tummy ache or lack of sleep. While I would want leniency in those situations, the fact that my 2024 spreadsheet has 90 entries in it means he didn’t show up a third of the year.

What makes this harder is when he’s in, we work great together! We have very similar approaches to our job and can knock out all kinds of work extremely quickly. But I’m alone most of the time. And I’m afraid to take time off because I’ve come back with stuff I’d asked him to address while I was out completely ignored.

Our supervisor has suggested a meeting with the three of us, but what is this conversation going to do that the individual ones have not? Going up another tier feels like throwing two people under the bus. My boss’s boss is further removed, and finding time to discuss with him is next to impossible. But I’m being taken advantage of! I don’t know what to do. This is easily the best job I’ve had outside of this and I’m so upset that I’m here. How on earth do I proceed?

There are two issues here: (1) it’s aggravating that your coworker is flagrantly ignoring expectations he keeps agreeing to follow, and (2) you’re afraid to take time off because he won’t do the things he’s supposed to do during that time. #1 is really between your coworker and your manager; it’s aggravating but it’s also not yours to address (and you really should stop tracking his in-office days in that spreadsheet because it’s not your job to do that and that’s just going to keep you more mired in the aggravation). But #2 is very much your business, and so are any other ways that his not being there and his lack of communication affect your work. That’s where you need to focus.

From now on when you raise it with your boss, keep your focus 100% on how this impacts your work. Your boss clearly doesn’t care as much as you do about the rest of it, so take the parts that are causing concrete problems for you and dump those in her lap. For example: “I haven’t been using PTO because in the past when I’ve come back, Cecil hasn’t covered the things he’s agreed to cover and it has resulted in ___. But I do need to take time off. Can you help me with this?”

That might mean that you need to be okay with things falling through the cracks while you’re gone — and alerting your boss to those things when you return, and not cleaning them up yourself (or if that’s unrealistic, telling your boss other priorities will need to wait so you can clean up the mess Fergus made).

But also, it’s been over a year since you started raising this problem, and it’s time to accept your boss doesn’t care as much about it as you do. You’re approaching it as if she will start managing Fergus better if only you can convince her that she needs to … but for whatever reason, she doesn’t share your take on the situation. Maybe that’s because she’s a bad manager (likely), or maybe it’s because there are things going on behind the scenes that you don’t know about, or who knows what. Regardless, you’re going to be a lot happier if you accept that this is how things are and that you’re not in a position to change them, and shift your focus solely to pieces that directly affect you and let the rest go … most especially the spreadsheet.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring the full release of government documents related to the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. What do you think?

The post Trump Declassifies Secret JFK, MLK Assassination Documents appeared first on The Onion.

The Justice Department has vowed to “vigorously defend” President Donald Trump’s executive order ending citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants after a federal judge temporarily blocked it. The Onion examines the pros and cons of ending birthright citizenship. 

PRO: A solid start to ending all rights

CON: Class of stateless refugees might not buy as many laundry pods

PRO: New legal obligation to hate kids

CON: Would reduce supply of cheap infant laborers

PRO: Saves immigrants embarrassment of associating themselves with America

CON: Harder to lure mail-order bride

PRO: Stops the Norwegian diaspora in its tracks

CON: Mixing up babies at hospital no longer fun, victimless prank

PRO: Statue of Liberty can become a fancy hat store

CON: Cruel, if you consider that a con

The post Pros And Cons Of Ending Birthright Citizenship appeared first on The Onion.

A study published in the journal Nature Medicine found that about a million Americans a year are expected to develop dementia by 2060, roughly double today’s toll. What do you think?

The post Study Finds 4 In 10 Americans Could Develop Dementia After 55 appeared first on The Onion.

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In devastating news, I was informed by patreon subscribers after this comic was complete that there is a Dutch town named Winkle, permitting a Winkle Winkle-Winkle Winkel Winkle Winkel Winkel.

Today's News:

Dubbed the Gulf of New Spain by the conquistadors, the vast body of water that borders Texas and four other U.S. states has been given numerous names by locals and early explorers including the North Sea and the Seno Mexicano, according to John S. Sledge, an Alabama author and historian who wrote a book about the Gulf’s storied history. But some four to five centuries ago, mapmakers began to use the name we know today: Gulf of Mexico or Golfo de México—drawn, like the country’s name, from the Indigenous Nahuatl language. 

Now by presidential decree, Donald Trump has ordered it to be rebranded as “the Gulf of America.” In Trump’s long list of executive orders, this oddity came as something of a surprise, prompting some Gulf Coast residents to pose questions like: Can he do this? And if so, will it cause chaos? The answer is both yes and no, Sledge and others said. 

Trump can order all federal agencies—even the National Hurricane Center—to use the new name in documents, websites, and future maps. And he can work through Congress, the Secretary of the Interior, and an obscure entity called the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to rebrand major landmarks. But state and local officials can do whatever they like with their own maps, signs, and charts, and officials may use competing terms even in advisories or orders to evacuate whenever a hurricane strikes.

In fact, most of the Gulf of Mexico is international waters, and the International Hydrographic Organization, which maintains registries of names,  will likely not adopt Trump’s moniker. Mexican and Cuban officials will continue to call it the Golfo de México—in fact, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum sarcastically quipped in response to the proposed change that she might redub the United States “América Mexicana.”

Sledge, who lives in an Alabama Gulf coast community famous for white sand beaches, said the name the Gulf of Mexico has its own “kind of romantic appeal,” partly because of its accrued history, featuring tales of bold pirates, explorers, shipwrecks, sea battles, and ultramodern oil drilling. “It’s important to think about it as a shared resource,” he added. “We have a tremendous amount of natural resource extraction of oil and gas and of seafood. But Cuba and Mexico depend on it as well.”

Because of pollution threats, global warming, and its economic importance, the Gulf of Mexico is one of the world’s most studied bodies of water, featured in some 30,000 recent academic publications. It’s been described as “a sort of ocean in a bowl” and a place in which “more toxic waste is released … than into any other significant US coastal water body.”

Given those threats, Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, offered an alternative initiative for Trump. “Instead of changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, President Trump should be taking action to protect this incredible resource, which has significant cultural, ecological, and economic value to communities that live along its coast,” she wrote the Texas Observer. “But Trump has done just the opposite. His executive orders aim to make it easier to fast-track polluting fossil fuel projects that exacerbate the climate crisis and put Gulf Coast communities at risk.” 

President Trump entitled his order “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness.” But the proposed “Gulf of America” appears to be a modern political invention, Sledge said. For those who’d prefer to return to white American roots—say, 1492 or so—there’s another option, Sledge said. 

When Columbus sailed into what we call the Gulf of Mexico, he believed he’d discovered a new route to Asia. “He went to his grave thinking Cuba was actually some sort of peninsula, an extension of Asia, and some of those early explorers after Columbus called it the Chinese Sea,” Sledge said. “So we could always go back to that.”

The post Name Games: Trump’s ‘Gulf of America’ Move Flouts History, International Cooperation  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

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This is me on bluesky.

Today's News:

When I showed this page to a cartoonist friend, he was very taken with the lad in panel 1, instantly nicknaming him “Bobby Problems”. Keep an eye out for the return of Bobby Problems.

The post Pretty little insect appeared first on Bad Machinery.

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Hovertext:
Have you noticed that a lot of ancient philosophers who talk about letting go of attachments didn't have families?

Today's News:

Articuno and Misty pair well together, when you're lucky.

Animatic, Animation, Backgrounds, Character Design, Coloring, Editing, Lineart, Lighting, Sound Design, VisualFX, Writing By Jeremey Chinshue
https://twitter.com/JeremeyChinshue

Music:
Pokémon Card GB2 - Great Rocket Battle (CPS-2 Remix) By TheLegendOfRenegade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131TQu-fv5k

Critical Point! VS Team Rocket: Low Health (Remix) ► Pokémon Heart Gold & Soul Silver By Zame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VPff3S4288

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#Pokemon #PokemonTCGPocket #PokemonTCG #SomethingSeries #TerminalMontage #Gaming #Animation #Parody #Short

SFX used:
Epidemic Sound
Sound Ideas
Yu-Gi-Oh
Call Of Duty
Dragon Ball Z
Nintendo
Undertale
Spiderman
Megaman X4
Oldspice
Meme SFX
Simpsons
Jackie Chan Adventures
Attack On Titan
Disney
Willy Wonka
Star Wars
Sonic The Hedgehog
Ed, Edd and Eddy
Minecraft
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Pokemon

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Little is more satisfying than seeing a jerk get a well-deserved comeuppance. For example, some satisfying stories shared here in the past:

•   •   •

“I worked with a horrid VP of Sales – arrogant, obnoxious, just a nightmare. We were in an internal meeting and he used the phrase ‘get in a circle jerk’ with them (and even used the hand motion). Then smirked at me, the only woman in the room and the youngest by far.

I’d had enough so (fake) innocently asked, loudly, ‘What’s a circle jerk?’ He tried to move on but I asked again, ‘Sorry I don’t understand, what is a circle jerk – if I’m negotiating the contract I need to know the terms.’ Everyone froze. The CEO walked in and asked, ‘So where are we?’ I loudly said, ‘Well, we are waiting for ____ to explain what a circle jerk is as he’s really worried about it being part of the contract.’ It was absolute gold and a career highlight that sadly can’t go on a resume!”

•   •   •

“A colleague kept stealing my work – copy-pasting stuff from documents I’d written, and claiming PowerPoint decks as her own. So I embedded my name in everything I made – in the footer or the slide master, in a tiny white font. Then when she claimed the work was hers in a meeting I asked for the mouse to ‘point to something’ and ‘accidentally’ highlighted where it said ‘documents created by (my name) on date.’”

•   •   •

“Years ago I was working for a new group of attorneys – at the same time as my mom was undergoing chemo treatments. Suffice to say, I was super stressed all the time, which took its own toll on my immune system, so I ended up sick myself quite a bit. One of the attorneys actually suggested that I was sick ‘all the time’ because I was out ‘partying too much.’ None of the attorneys knew anything about my personal life, mostly because they never would ask, so he had no idea how insulting this was. Later that year I was fired.

Two years ago I ran into the ‘you party too much’ attorney who was out at a bar with his wife. I had DREAMED of this day for years. I walked up to him and was SUPER nice initially, said it was nice to see him, etc, and then said since I didn’t get to say goodbye to him when I left the firm abruptly, I had to address something he had said to me. He meekly asked, ‘Hope nothing bad?’ I said he had suggested that I was sick a lot because I ‘partied too much.’ His wife is now VERY interested why her husband had been talking to me about partying, I’m sure. I explained that in fact, I wasn’t partying, I was dealing with a stressful job with a bunch of assholes while my mom was undergoing chemo treatments. His face went WHITE at this point as he stammered that he had no idea. ‘And that is exactly the point,’ I explained, ‘you don’t know what is going on in someone’s life. You’re an asshole.’ I have never felt so vindicated in my entire life as I did in that moment, and in front of his wife no less. It was entirely worth the wait.”

•   •   •

In the comment section, please share your stories of jerks getting their comeuppance!

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader recently sent me a cover letter that I want to share as a great example of explaining why you’re applying for a job in a different field and how your skills will carry over.

First, though, the caveats I’ve learned to give when sharing these:

• The writer has allowed me to share this as a favor to me and to readers. Please remember she’s a real person when you’re commenting.
• This writer’s voice is her voice. It will not be your voice, and that’s part of the point.
• There is no single cover letter in the world that all hiring managers will love or that would be the right fit for every employer and every industry. But I receive letters all the time from people telling me that moving in this sort of direction dramatically increased the number of interviews they were getting.
• Do not steal this letter or even parts of it. It works because it’s so customized to the writer. It’s intended for inspiration only — to show what the advice here can look like in practice.

First, here’s the context this writer sent to me:

Like many library workers, I burned out during the early years of the pandemic. I quit my job with nothing else lined up, which was scary. I applied to other library jobs, but also looked at other spaces. I ended up making a full career change into youth work at an LGBTQ+ community center, and while no job is perfect (as you always say) I am the most professionally fulfilled I’ve ever been.

The reason I’m writing to you is that I credit years and years of reading your advice with being able to make such a drastic shift. My supervisor has told me that without my cover letter, they never would have considered me, since they didn’t initially think a library background would be relevant to the work. Said cover letter was written from scratch for this specific job, and based largely on your advice about cover letters.

And here’s the letter, with identifying details changed for anonymity.

•   •   •   •   •

Dear Hiring Manager,

One thing I didn’t realize about working in libraries before I started was how much of the work is centered on programs, event planning, and community partnerships. But after eight years of developing programs for teens, coordinating large-scale events like the kickoff to a Summer Reading Program, partnering with local organizations, and visiting high schools to engage with teenagers in the place they spend the most amount of time, I’ve developed my skills in programs, events, and outreach and I am ready to take on a position focused more exclusively on LGBTQIA+ teenagers and their needs.

Some of my most successful work as a librarian has been with teens who are part of historically excluded groups, including LGBTQIA+ teens. On both Caprica and Gemenon, I partnered with after-school clubs created by and for queer teens to connect them with literature that reflected their lives and identities or to educate them on topics they were interested in. I have also worked with queer and trans teen volunteers at the library who vocalized the importance of having a safe community member to talk to and a way to connect and give back to their community. I have also formed ongoing partnerships with special education classes, groups serving teens with disabilities, teen parent support organizations, and other school and community partners that allowed me to bring services to teens who might not have accessed them on their own.

While moving to the Galactica would be a shift from my work in libraries, the last eight years have helped me to develop all of the core competencies needed to succeed in the position, especially critical thinking and adaptability – even before the pandemic, I was consistently evaluating and adapting programs and services based on outcomes, community needs, and teen requests, and adapting library services for a pandemic required constant flexibility – as well as collaboration and communication, necessary skills when working with other library departments and outside organizations to serve our community. I have also spent the time learning about adolescent brain development, talking with and getting to know a wide variety of teens, and advocating for the teens in our communities, skills and knowledge that will help me excel as the Youth Program Manager.

I am passionate about serving teenagers, especially LGBTQIA+ teenagers. Battlestar Galactica is the kind of organization I wish I had been able to access as a teen, and I would be thrilled to join the organization as the Youth Program Manager, or in another position that is youth-oriented and would be a good fit for my skills. I look forward to talking more about what I can bring to the Galactica and its services for LGBTQIA+ youth.

Sincerely,
Apolla Thrace

CENTENNIAL, CO—With a series of television ads that will run in all major media markets and feature dozens of bloated, wincing celebrities, industry trade group the National Beef Council debuted its new “You’re Supposed To Feel Like That” campaign on Friday. “If your stomach hurts and you feel sleepy, that just means the beef is working,” the Emmy-nominated actress Sydney Sweeney says in one of the ads before taking a large, sensual bite of a hamburger as words like “intestinal cramping,” “acne,” and “heart disease” appear on the screen. “Sure, you may need to sprint to the bathroom, but that’s the point. If you’re not doubled over, shaking, and sweating through your shirt, then you need to eat more beef. You should be able to feel the beef in your colon.” The National Beef Council has simultaneously launched billboard and glossy magazine ads that feature a row of coffins with the tagline “Beef: It’s supposed to kill you.”

The post National Beef Council Debuts New ‘You’re Supposed To Feel Like That’ Campaign appeared first on The Onion.

A study published in the journal Current Biology found that when one chimpanzee urinates, the others in a group are more likely to follow, a phenomenon called “contagious urination” that could have deep evolutionary roots in humans as well. What do you think?

The post Study Finds Peeing Contagious In Chimpanzees appeared first on The Onion.

Bad Bunny’s new album Debí Tirar Más Fotos has climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard charts, beating out Taylor Swift. Here is everything you need to know about the artist.

Birth Name: Craig Peterson

Age: Whatever being born in 1994 makes you…maybe 22?

Obligatory Kardashian Relationship Duty: Fulfilled

Genre: Cross-algorithm

Vocal Style: Unintelligibly drunk but still making some valid points

Lyrical Themes: Consensual tomfoolery

Charitable Cause: Helping Puerto Rico overcome the lasting devastation caused by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Most Popular Song: The one currently vibrating through the wall through the apartment next to yours

Alter Ego: Chet Hanks

The post Artist Profile: Bad Bunny appeared first on The Onion.

QUEEN’S PARK – Premier Ford announced today that he will call for a snap Ontario election, conducted entirely via mail-in ballots which have been conveniently printed on the backs of the $200 rebate cheques his government recently sent out. “Folks, with Donald Trump being elected down in the States it is extremely important that you […]

The post Doug Ford announces snap election with ballots printed on backs of $200 cheques appeared first on The Beaverton.

We’ve been banging our heads against the wall, trying to think of the new “it” thing our customers want. At one point, somebody suggested improving our product, but then we thought of something better—something totally groundbreaking, something absolutely huge. We should implement a terrible AI system.

Customers only care about one thing: barely functioning AI crammed into every facet of their lives. We all know this. That’s why anybody who’s anybody has slapped AI onto their product. AI phone, AI refrigerator, AI stick. If it doesn’t have AI, what the fuck are we even doing?

Up until recently, the industry was pretty stagnant. We had been relying on outdated ideas like “ready for market,” “finished product,” and “works reasonably well.” We were all stuck selling products that broke only after a few years. Now, we’re finally innovating by cutting to the chase and selling products that are already broken.

I know I’m personally tired of products pretending like they work for a bit, then getting hit with a surprise “This device is not compatible with the newest update,” or “You need a subscription service to continue using this product,” or “Nobody said it was waterproof.” Just give me my broken garbage and quit playing games.

Before anybody states the obvious, I understand that terrible AI systems are technically terrible, but I’ll be damned if they’re not confident. Like yeah, it may be wrong when I ask it a question, but it sounds right. What naysayers don’t seem to realize is that people respond better to a confident liar shouting out answers than a polite expert. Women can back me up on this.

Plus, isn’t it kind of exciting? For instance, maybe you looked up how to change your oil, and now your brakes don’t work. Doesn’t that sound fun? Just living in a constant state of fear that all of the information you have access to is anywhere from a little to very wrong?

The only people who don’t like terrible AI don’t understand it. So, let me break it down for you. The “A” stands for “artificial,” and the “I” also stands for something, but I can never remember what it is. I want to say the internet? I just checked with AI, and it confirmed it stands for “artificial internet.” Anyway, AI means futuristic and better. And this better future not only has extra fingers but is also illiterate.

If you’re still not convinced, it’s probably because you think AI is a feature that adds value. That’s all wrong. It’s not a feature; it’s more of an idea. Obviously, everyone can tell that AI isn’t working correctly, but you can see what it’s going for, and wouldn’t it be pretty amazing if it did work? Man, that would be pretty impressive. The value added is a feeling that you’re on the cutting edge of technology even though you’re using a product that is now actively worse.

And if we’re not ready to take the plunge into AI, we at least need to call one of our preexisting systems “AI.” Lots of companies do this. Just rename things to AI. Chatbot: AI. Automated voice messaging system: AI. Outsourced customer service rep in Myanmar: AI. If companies aren’t even pretending to have AI, they will lose their customers’ trust.

At the end of the day, we have to add AI to our product. We don’t really have a choice. It’s best to think of terrible AI as if it’s your deadbeat brother-in-law. Sure, nobody asked Michael to stay on your couch for six months, but there he is, making bad music, hallucinating, and teaching the kids how to make bombs. He’s forced his way into your home in the same way AI has forced itself into our products. There’s really no use in fighting it, because, like it or not, artificial internet isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I'm imagining a large number of economists briefly considering then deciding against hanging this in the office.

Today's News:

1 of 11: Former President Donald J. Trump, the first U.S. president to serve during a Civil War since Abraham Lincoln in 1861, died this week at 98. Which of the following was his last recorded statement?

• “I’m not dying”
• “I’m running for president”
• “Pass me that gun so I can make sure JD goes before me”
• “Covfeve”

2 of 11: Congress passed a bill this week that is set to increase the federal minimum wage to what hourly rate?

• $7.50/hr
• The rate remains $7.25/hr but now includes a voucher for 15% off at Amazon.com
• The bill failed to pass, by one vote
• The rate decreased, actually

3 of 11: The CDC reported that the latest strain of Hand, Foot, Mouth, Ear, Nose, Throat, and Torso Disease has accounted for five million deaths nationwide. How many Americans have received the latest vaccine?

• 5 percent
• 0.5 percent
• Approximately 10–15 people
• The CDC was dissolved 20 years ago

4 of 11: In 1957, U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond (SC) spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in protest of the Civil Rights Act, marking the longest filibuster in Senate history—until this Wednesday when the record was broken. Which senator spoke for 30 hours, and what was the subject of their filibuster?

• 103-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); health care reform
• Sen. Josh Hawley Jr. (R-MO); Equality for the Security of the Border Act (a bid to build walls around the northern, eastern, and western U.S. borders)
• Sen. Kim Kardashian (D-CA); Regulatory Oversight of the North American Petroleum Industry and SKIMS Act of 2044
• 111-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA); unintelligible

5 of 11: After hundreds of injuries and several fatalities, Jeff Bezos suggested it may be time to suspend Amazon’s Prime Intelligence Shift Supervisor Program. How have Prime Automatons been harming factory employees?

• Prime Automatons have inadvertently photon-blasted Amazon’s remaining human employees who’ve discussed unionizing
• Prime Automatons have inadvertently starved Amazon’s remaining human employees by photon-blasting their bagged lunches
• Prime Automatons have inadvertently lured Amazon’s remaining human employees into a false sense of security, before seducing them and ultimately frying their genitals
• Prime Automatons have done all of the above, but have done so following direct programming orders. The nonfatal injuries were the result of a human programming error. That employee has been fired

6 of 11: A law passed in Louisiana last week will allow public school teachers to remove what topic(s) from previously mandated curricula?

• Foreign language requirement
• American History, 1776–2016
• Geometry, in its entirety
• Anything they see fit

7 of 11: Floppy disks, beepers, and Xerox machines are all on the rise. What primary grievance has Generation Beta voiced as motivation for ditching today’s technology?

• Cyber-security threats jeopardizing user-sensitive data
• The $79,999 price tag of Apple’s iBody 5
• Neuralink’s inability to produce paper copies
• Retinal Combustion Syndrome (RCS)—a recent phenomenon linking 20+ hours of daily screen time to the singeing of users’ retinas

8 of 11: In a landmark case, all 18 Supreme Court justices unanimously ruled that human life begins at conception. According to Chief Justice Kavanaugh’s written opinion, what else was determined to be enforceable by law?

• All women must be referred to as “mothers”
• All “mothers” must rear children
• All “mothers” who undergo hysterectomies will be tried for murder
• The Ten Commandments “must be read aloud to the mother” directly following conception in an effort to “start the fetus down the right path”
• All of the above

9 of 11: Viatris Inc., the supplier of EpiPen, is facing a $1 trillion price-gouging lawsuit. Why has demand for EpiPens skyrocketed in the past month?

• In conversation with Texas Governor Joe Rogan, Boca Raton Mayor Tucker Carlson falsely claimed that the use of epinephrine prolongs male pleasure during sex
• Hordes of college males have begun using EpiPens recreationally
• Due to a lack of research funding, more Americans suffer anaphylactic allergic reactions than ever before
• All of the above

10 of 11: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk agreed this week to compete in a tie-breaking, winner-takes-all fifth MMA fight, to be live-streamed exclusively on XMeta Media in the summer. Why?

• Machismo
• To raise awareness for those suffering from RCS
• To fund the rescue of 12 Americans stranded on Mars after a failed SpaceX mission
• Your guess is as good as ours

11 of 11: As much as it pains us to say this, just this morning, Rupert Murdoch successfully completed his hostile takeover of the New York Times, making this our last-ever NYT News Quiz. Per today’s press release, how does Murdoch plan on reshaping our company?

• Replacing The Daily’s Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tavernise with Greg Gutfeld and Ann Coulter
• Launching a version of Connections that asks the user to match Murdoch’s twelve children to all eight of his wives
• Dissolving the company entirely
• Wait, he actually just died of RCS, so now we have no idea

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
-Albert Einstein

Today's News:

SPRINGFIELD, IL—Describing the items on the shelf as yet other example of the “woke nonsense” abetting the feminization of American men, local conservative Nick Schwab, 54, told reporters Wednesday he was outraged by the availability of tampons and other period products in men’s grocery stores. “This is fucking unbelievable—what if I’d had my son with me today and he’d seen this?” said Schwab, who added that he would expect this sort of thing at a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, but not at an ordinary men’s supermarket, where he insisted male shoppers should be able to buy food without fear of getting “brainwashed by the trans agenda.” “God, I miss the days when I wasn’t continually forced to apologize to the world for being a man. What’s next? Will the radical left make them put in a whole aisle of lipstick and makeup and stuff like that?” Schwab went on to ask what the world was coming to when his grocery store had shelves full of tampons but the condom dispensers were somehow always empty when he went to visit his local glory hole.

The post Conservative Outraged Tampons Available In Men’s Grocery Stores appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Pointing to the mounting scientific evidence showing the risks of using such explosive devices, outgoing U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory this week in which he recommended adding cancer warning labels to all nuclear bombs. “Nuclear bombs can cause cancer anywhere they are detonated, yet far too few Americans understand the dangers of standing in a nuclear blast zone for even a few minutes every day,” said Murthy, who described the warning labels as a necessary corrective to counter decades of misinformation from nuclear weapon makers. “Back in the ’50s and ’60s, detonating a thermonuclear device every once in a while was seen as a harmless way to blow off some steam with friends. These days, though, we know that’s not the case, particularly for those who are nursing or pregnant. These labels will ensure that Americans understand they are putting their health at stake when they set off a few fusion bombs during a night out.” Murthy added that California had already been applying such labels for decades and had seen a marked decline in nuclear bomb users.

The post Surgeon General Recommends Adding Cancer Warning To All Nuclear Bombs appeared first on The Onion.

DUBOIS, WY—Saying the one-size-fits-all approach had yet to let him down, a local ram told reporters Thursday that he would stop headbutting things when headbutting things stopped working. “Say what you will about it, there’s pretty much no problem in my life that can’t be solved by lowering my head, charging forward, and smacking my horns into whatever’s in front of me,” said the male bighorn sheep, adding that while he was theoretically open to other methods of problem-solving if headbutting ever proved insufficient, it hadn’t happened yet. “I figure if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Another ram tries to make a move on my mate? Headbutt. Hiker comes a little too close for a photograph? Headbutt. Predator tries to eat me? Brother, you better believe I’m giving that thing a headbutt. It works like a charm 100% of the time. A ram couldn’t ask for a better go-to move.” At press time, sources confirmed the ram successfully took his mind off his chronic brain fog and memory lapses by headbutting a large boulder.

The post Ram Will Stop Headbutting Things When Headbutting Things Stops Working appeared first on The Onion.