Artificial Intelligence, particularly Generative AI, is rapidly evolving and becoming more accessible to everyday users. With large language models (LLMs) such as GPT and LLaMA making waves, the desire to run these models locally on personal hardware is growing. This article will provide a simple guide on setting up Ollama—a tool for running LLMs locally—on machines with and without a GPU. Additionally, it will cover deploying OpenWebUI using Podman to enable a local graphical interface for Gen AI interactions.

What is Ollama?

Ollama is a platform that allows users to run LLMs locally without relying on cloud-based services. It is designed to be user-friendly and supports a variety of models. By running models locally, users can ensure greater privacy, reduce latency, and maintain control over their data.

Setting Up Ollama on a Machine

Ollama can be run on machines with or without a dedicated GPU. The following will outline the general steps for both configurations.

1. Prerequisites

Before proceeding, ensure you have the following:

• A system running Fedora or a compatible Linux distribution
• Podman installed (for OpenWebUI deployment)
• Sufficient disk space for storing models

For machines with GPUs, you will also need:

• NVIDIA GPU with CUDA support (for faster performance)
• Properly installed and configured NVIDIA drivers

2. Installing Ollama

Ollama can be installed with a one-line command:

curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

Once installed, verify that Ollama is correctly set up by running:

ollama --version

Running LLMs Locally

After setting up Ollama, you can download a preferred model and run it locally. Models can vary in size, so select one that fits your hardware’s capabilities. For example: I would personally use llama3.3 70B model. That is around 42GiB and might not fit everyone. There *is* a model for everyone, even for raspberrypis -YES. Please find one that you will be fit for your system here .
On machines without a GPU, Ollama will use CPU-based inference. While this is slower than GPU-based processing, it is still functional for basic tasks.

Once you are done, running ollama run <model_name> will work!

Deploying OpenWebUI with Podman

For users who prefer a graphical user interface (GUI) to interact with LLMs, OpenWebUI is a great option. The following command deploys OpenWebUI using Podman, ensuring a seamless local setup.

1. Downloading OpenWebUI Container

Start by pulling the OpenWebUI container image:

podman run -d --network=host -v open-webui:/app/backend/data -e OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:11434 --name open-webui --restart always ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main

2. Running the OpenWebUI Container

Once the image is downloaded, running ; ensure by running podman ps to list the existing containers. Access the OpenWebUI interface by opening your web browser and navigating to localhost:8080

Open WebUI will help you create one or multiple Admin and User accounts to query LLMs. The functionality is more like an RBAC—you can choose to customize which model can be queried by which User and what type of generated responses it “should” be giving. The features help set guardrails for users who intend to provision accounts for a specific purpose.

On the top-left, we should be able to select models. You can add more models by simply running ollama run <model_name> and then refreshing the localhost when the fetching is complete. It should let you add multiple models.

Interacting with the GUI

With OpenWebUI running, you can easily interact with LLMs through a browser-based GUI. This makes it simpler to input prompts, receive outputs, and fine-tune model settings.

Using LLaVA for Image Analysis

LLaVA (Large Language and Vision Assistant) is an extension of language models that integrates vision capabilities. This allows users to upload images and query the model about them. Below are the steps to run LLaVA locally and perform image analysis.

1. Pulling the LLaVA Container

Start by pulling the LLaVA model: ollama pull llava

2. Running LLaVA and Uploading an Image

Once the model is download, access the LLaVA interface via web UI on the browser. Upload an image and input a query, such as:

LLaVA will analyze the image and generate a response based on its visual content.

Other Use Cases

In addition to image analysis, models like LLaVA can be used for:

• Optical Character Recognition (OCR): Extract text from images and scanned documents.
• Multimodal Interaction: Combine text and image inputs for richer AI interactions.
• Visual QA: Answer specific questions about images, such as identifying landmarks or objects.

Conclusion

By following this how-to, you can set up a local environment for running generative AI models using Ollama and OpenWebUI. Whether you have a high-end GPU or just a CPU-based system, this setup allows you to explore AI capabilities without relying on the cloud. Running LLMs locally ensures better privacy, control, and flexibility—key factors for developers and enthusiasts alike.

Happy experimenting!

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Today's News:

LOS ANGELES—Reminding his son that he won’t be on the roster forever, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James reportedly began pressuring Bronny to have grandchildren before he’s too old to play with them in the NBA, sources confirmed Monday. “You know, son, I’m not getting any younger, and I want to be able to pick and roll with my grandkids in playoffs before my knees are completely shot,” said James, adding that he didn’t want his grandchildren to see him as a feeble old man who struggled to get back to his feet after diving on the floor for a loose ball. “At some point my mobility will go, and I might have trouble tossing them an alley-oop or setting a screen so they can dominate in the paint. I’m not what I used to be, after all. Some days I don’t even have the energy to swat shots into the bleachers or get up in a ref’s face and argue about a trivial call. Time is of the essence here. I just don’t want my grandchildren to see me as a helpless old man barely able to dunk from the free-throw line.” At press time, James was urging Bronny’s girlfriend to put a basketball under her shirt so he could imagine how being a grandfather felt for a moment.

The post LeBron Pressures Bronny To Have Grandchildren Before He’s Too Old To Play With Them In NBA appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Emphasizing that Americans need to get their travel documents updated because the agency wasn’t messing around anymore, the TSA officials confirmed Monday that, no, really, they’re going to require Real ID this year. “As of May 7th, TSA checkpoints will require travelers to be Real ID compliant to board domestic flights—we know we’re always saying that but this time we mean it,” said a TSA official at a press conference outlining the change this morning, urging prospective fliers to stop smirking and take them seriously because they were definitely, definitely not rolling it back anymore. “Yes, we said May 2023 before, and October 2021 and a couple other things before that, but those delays were just flukes. May 7th, 2025 is a hard deadline and the true point of no return for flying without an Enhanced Driver’s License or other acceptable Real ID document. For real, though. Five months, that’s it. You’d better get your ass to the DMV. Anyone still putting off getting a Real ID because they think we’re just going to kick the can another few years down the road will be laughing on the other side of their face come May.” At press time, the official announced that they were delaying full enforcement until March 2027 after their laminator broke.

The post Report: No, Really, TSA To Require Real ID This Year appeared first on The Onion.

For years, we Democrats have been reminding you that Donald Trump is a danger to democracy and a scourge on our nation. His election back into our highest office is a terrifying, perhaps fatal turning point in American history. He will bring about a backslide from which we may never recover. But what is most important right now is civility. Propriety. Politeness. Today, we’re taking the high road—the one that leads directly off a cliff. This dire threat to democracy must be certified.

Four years ago, this man incited an insurrection. He attempted to thwart the democratic process, to overturn an election. We must never forget what happened that day, no matter how many ways he bends its truth. We must tell of its violence in our history books and teach of its blight to our children so it may never be repeated. Except today, when we need to come together and agree on one thing: That guy should be in charge.

You may be asking, “Wait, so everything’s suddenly fine now? Process takes precedence over country?”

No. Never! Never. Never, ever. Just today, though. Today, yes.

Look, we understand more than anyone how bad things may get. We’ve been describing the terror that waits around the corner of this administration in op-eds, ads, and the occasional subtle fundraising email. All of which is why we will never stop fighting this fascist tide. We’re simply going to fight it by giving up—which, if you’ve been paying attention, has always been our strategy. And now, above all else, consistency is key.

We’re not afraid to tell the truth—to say it clear as day. This man is a tyrant. A money-loving, fame-grubbing oligarch. A charlatan. A hypocrite. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, but he’s taken all his clothes off. A snake in the grass, but we mowed the grass, and we can all see the snake, and we’re all saying, “That’s a snake! A poisonous snake! We must let it inside! We’ll show that snake just how polite we are! Hug us, snake, hug us until our bones are dust!”

So let us now raise our hands and our voices in accord. Let us agree to disagree. Let us shout from the rooftops, “This man will destroy us all!” and let us keep shouting that, while we make him our king. There is no other option. To preserve all that we hold dear, this terrible threat to our fragile democracy must be certified.

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

A reader writes:

We have about 25 employees, and prior to Covid, we had a somewhat-contentious compost bucket under the sink in our staff kitchen. It was always gross, full of flies and rotting food, and rarely emptied by the people who used it.

Recently, a colleague decided to reinstate the compost bucket and messaged the group chat to inform everyone that they would be emptying it at least twice a week. Of course, that didn’t happen, and it quickly got disgusting — several weeks’ worth of rotting, smelly food and hordes of fruit flies. After maybe two months of this, another coworker got fed up, made an executive decision, and tossed the bucket entirely.

And so “compost-gate” began. Some of us agree with removing the bucket; since it’s rarely maintained, it quickly becomes a health hazard in our shared kitchen. But the handful of people who do use it are upset, and telling the other colleague it wasn’t okay to get rid of it and it needed to be a group decision.

What do you think?

If the people who used the compost bucket wanted to keep it, they should have ensured it didn’t become a mess of smelly, rotting food and fruit flies.

They didn’t, so now there’s no compost bucket.

In theory, yes, the coworker who tossed the bucket could have given a warning that he was going to toss it unless someone started maintaining it (and if we had a time machine, that’s what I’d recommend) or could have appealed to someone with authority to manage the situation rather than just tossing the thing … but it’s not hard to understand people getting fed up with it and just removing it.

“Sorry, but having a bucket of rotting food and flies isn’t tenable in a shared workplace” is a reasonable stance to take.

If the rest of you are in the mood to compromise, you could agree that the bucket can come back as long as there’s an understanding that it will be tossed again if it’s not maintained … but frankly if I were the decision-maker here, I’d write it off as a project that has already proved impractical and not invite it back in.

OTTAWA – With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepping down as Liberal leader, observers have noted that not running as planned in the upcoming election is technically the closest he has ever come to following through on his 2015 campaign promise for electoral reform. “Trudeau’s initial promise was to reform first past the post voting, which […]

The post Trudeau opting not to run in next election closest he’s ever come to electoral reform appeared first on The Beaverton.

DREW: This house has been run down since the ’70s. We’re hoping we can help it get its groove back!

JONATHAN: That’s right. We’re going to give this fixer-upper a big boost of curb appeal.

GEORG: Why do you avert your eyes? Can you tell that I am nude beneath my velvet cloak?

JONATHAN: I think we should redo the roof first.

DREW: No way, I’m all about bringing these floors back to their glory days.

GEORG: Have you ever eaten tiger prawns on the burnished gold sands of Tahiti’s shores? It is true: I, Georg Property, have long known such carnal delights.

JONATHAN: The driveway is—

GEORG (sadly): We are the only species that dips the bodies of our fallen prey in butter. We are a species of lonely gods.

JONATHAN: This kitchen is so dated!

DREW: I think the last person to cook in here might have been Julia Child.

(Laughter)

GEORG: To love a woman… to make love to a woman… there is only one language for it.

[Seven minutes of uninterrupted French.]

JONATHAN: Janine and Doug… introducing… your new kitchen!

DREW: We’ve got stainless-steel appliances, a brand-new granite countertop, and even… a walk-in pantry!

JANINE: Why is the dog passed out on the floor of the pantry?

GEORG: Madame, he took too many poppers.

JANINE: Why did you give my dog poppers?

GEORG (profoundly weary): Madame, he is gay.

GEORG: In my dreams, I use the stars to guide me back to the heaving bosom of my lover, Mathilde, who once showed me how to achieve orgasm by stimulating my prostate with a piano key.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: I dread coming to family reunions because of you.

GEORG (screaming at a Roomba): Madame, halt! Return to your den of pestilence! Torment me no further with your infinite curves!

DREW: Look at the foundation of this house—it needs some serious work.

JONATHAN: Fine, I’ll call Bev and Kevin.

GEORG (frantically running in the background, shoving dirt in his pockets): Dirt! What the conquistadors themselves called brown gold! And it’s mine—all mine!

BEV: I guess what I’m looking for is—

GEORG: What are any of us looking for?

BEV: Oh. I don’t know, love? Comfort?

GEORG (unfolding treasure map): Hardly. We seek the porcelain eye of Blind Tom, the most fearsome pirate to ever sail the Gulf Coast. He promised it to us after a night of unforgettable passion. (To Roomba passing by) Tempt me not with your ideal body, flattened orb!

DREW: Have you ever… oh, there he goes.

[GEORG, completely nude, climbs the roof of the house and performs a survey of the neighboring region with a large gold spyglass.]

JONATHAN: Do you regret promising our mother on her deathbed that we would look after him?

DREW: Jonathan, yes, every day.

JONATHAN: Me too.

GEORG (calling from the roof): Be gone, unmarried women! Be gone!

BEV: We love the new home theater.

KEVIN: Totally.

BEV: And the girls’ bedroom looks—

KEVIN: Amazing.

BEV: Amazing.

KEVIN: There’s just one thing…

DREW: Is it the primary bedroom?

BEV: Yes.

JONATHAN: You don’t love that it—

BEV: Looks exactly like an opium den from 1871?

DREW: We could have sworn you said you were looking for that in your opening interview.

GEORG (smoking opium in their bed): Cast this event from the velvet swaths of your mind! Ere tomorrow I shall add even more paisley! And women—draped over the furniture like scarves! Diaphanous women! Friends for your homosexual dog! Ah, what a decadent buffet life is!

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: What’s your fucking deal? Are you French?

GEORG (smirking): I am Georg Property.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: Why isn’t your last name Scott, like my husband’s?

GEORG (shaking head, whispering intensely): Liberté. Égalité. Properté.

DREW: Bringing Georg into the family business has been challenging.

JONATHAN: True, but at least at the end of the day, we all sleep in one big bed together, with our wives sleeping in dog beds at the foot of our bed.

DREW: Yes, that is Property Brothers canon.

GEORG (running behind them waving a sword): Avast, Lady Roomba! I do not know if when I capture you, I shall give you a kiss or stab your sinner’s bod with yon blade!

Trudeau said he will step aside as Prime Minister and Liberal leader. What does that mean for the country?

Trudeau says he intends to resign as party leader and as prime minister after the party selects its next leader.

Today's links

• Winning coalitions aren't always governing coalitions: You can take power by making promises, but wielding power means breaking them.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• This day in history: 2005, 2020
• 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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Winning coalitions aren't always governing coalitions (permalink)

Winning an election is easier than it looks: all you have to do is convince a bunch of different groups that you will use power to achieve their desires. Bonus points if you can convince groups with mutually exclusive goals that you'll deliver for them – the coalition of "people who disagree about everything" is hard to assemble, but it sure is large!

Politically, a "conservative" is someone who believes that there is a small group of people who were born to rule, and a much larger group of people who were born to be ruled over. As Corey Robin writes in The Reactionary Mind, this is the one trait that unifies all the disparate strains of conservative thought: imperialists, monarchists, capitalists, white supremacists, misogynists, Christian nationalists, Hindu nationalists and supporters of Israeli genocide in Palestine:

https://coreyrobin.com/books/the-reactionary-mind/

These groups all agree that power should be hierarchical, that your position in a hierarchy is something you're born with, and that letting people who were "meant" to be at the bottom of the hierarchy rise to the top puts society so out of balance that it's actually a threat to human survival. That's why conservatives of all stripes get so furious about "DEI" – any kind of affirmative action program serves as a defective sorting hat, putting the incompetent and unsuitable into positions of power over other peoples' lives. It's why "DEI" is the go-to scapegoat for any kind of disaster, including giant ships crashing into bridges:

https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-dei-utah-lawmaker-phil-lyman-misinformation

But while conservatives all agree that some of us are born to be in charge and others are born to be bossed around by our innate superiors, they have irreconcilable differences about who is meant to be in charge. British imperialists who pine for the Raj have views that are fundamentally at odds with the views of Hindu nationalists. They're both "conservative" movements, but they're actually bitter enemies.

For a conservative movement to win power, it has to convince the people whom it would relegate to the bottom of the hierarchy to support that goal (AKA "getting turkeys to vote for Christmas"); and it must convince other conservatives that they will be able to establish a hierarchy that accommodates multiple, co-equal ruling elites.

The first tactic is well-established. LBJ summed it up neatly:

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

The second one requires far more tactical thinking. Some elite groups are able to form coalitions by carving out exclusive zones: think of the friendly feeling among Modi, Orban, Erdogan, bin Salman, Trump, Milei, et al. These people all aspire to dictatorship, all espouse their superior blood – a source of personal and racial superiority – and hypothetically all believe that the world would be better if everyone (including their foreign counterparts) would take their orders.

One way to resolve this tension is to carve up the world geographically, which is why so many despots who seized power by promising to build ethno-states can co-exist with one another and even cheer one another on. Let Orban have Hungary, give Turkey to Erdogan, and let Bibi Netanyahu annex all of Gaza. Sure, in their hearts of hearts, each of these men secretly believe themselves to be racially and personally superior to the others, but so long as they all stay out of one another's turf, there's no reason to make a big deal out of that.

Another way to resolve this tension is to carve up the world temporally: think of the alliance between Christian nationalists and Israeli genocidiers. In the USA, "Christian Zionists" outnumber Jews who identify as Zionists:

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/qanda-for-every-1-jewish-zionist-there-are-30-christian-zionists-and-netanyahu-exploits-this-15656249

But Christian Zionists aren't philosemites. They hate Jews and believe that we are all going to hell for murdering Christ. Their support for Israel isn't grounded in a belief in the necessity of a Jewish ethno-state – it arises out of the apocalyptic belief that Christ will return once Jews "return to the Holy Land" – albeit only briefly, before being cast into a lake of fire for all eternity.

Like British imperialists and the Hindu nationalists, Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists are not on the same side. However, unlike British imperialists and Hindu nationalists, Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists want the same thing…for a while. Both groups support the establishment of a Jewish entho-state in Israel, they just differ sharply as to what happens after that comes to pass. So long as they don't dwell on that moment in the future, they can stand shoulder to shoulder, fighting together for an Israeli state that operates with absolute US support and total international impunity.

Coalitions who defer the question of how they'll use power to after they've gained power are using time (rather than space) as a buffer that keeps their differences from smashing together until they shatter. But time and space aren't the only buffers for the differences between coalition partners – there's also class.

"Class" has been the most important, most useful buffer for conservativism since the Reagan revolution. Reagan came to power by forging an alliance with evangelicals, whose cult leaders had historically demanded that members focus their energies (and cash donations) on the church, while avoiding politics as "worldly."

Reagan promised the Christian right a bunch of culture war stuff – bans on abortion, punishment for uppity women and racial minorities, prayer in school, segregation academies, etc – that his financial backers frankly didn't give a shit about. By all means, let working class evangelicals homeschool their kids and teach them that the Earth is 6,000 years old, it doesn't matter to Wall Street, who will reap a giant tax-cut and also send their kids to private schools with a rigorous curriculum. Bankers' wives and daughters will always be able to afford to fly out of state (or across the border) for abortion care, they will never die of AIDS in the charity wing of a community hospital, their daughters won't be trapped by bans on no-fault divorces.

For the past 40 years, American oligarchs and would-be oligarchs have entered into enthusiastic coalitions with virulently racist, sexist and homophobic groups, and maintained peace within their coalition by passing punitive, cruel laws that the rich can buy their way around. For many self-styled libertarians, the most important liberty is "not paying taxes" and this subordinates all other liberties, such that a "libertarian" will vote for a coalition whose platform promises to ban abortion, birth control, "interracial" marriage, and queer sex, so long as it also promises tax cuts. It's a weird kind of pro-freedom ideology that happily trades away (others') freedom for (your own) tax cuts:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#tolerable-racism

Remember, Trump's first CPAC speech was sponsored by Goproud, a group of "fiscally responsible" gay Republicans who believed in gay rights, sure, but not as much as they believed in getting so rich that even if poor gay people were ground into dust, they could float above it all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOProud

Class is the third buffer between the oligarchs of the right and the mass movement that provides the bulk for winning elections. After all, laws are for the little people, so by all means, we can promise – and even deliver – laws that we would never submit to, because we don't have to submit to them. This is Wilhoit's Law in action:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit#Wilhoit's_law

In a hierarchical society, class separates groups of people just as rigidly as time and space, and is every bit as useful a buffer as the other two forces.

Until it isn't.

Eventually – once you've banned abortion, once you've taken all the "controversial" books out of the library, once you've made affirmative action illegal – you reach the layer of non-negotiable culture war demands that the rich can't buy their way out of.

Like immigration.

Let's start with this: immigration doesn't have to result in wage suppression. Couple immigration with strong unions and a muscular labor rights regime and workers do just great. The more the merrier! America needs workers of every kind. What's more, the unions and labor laws in America owe their existence to immigrant workers, so there's nothing about immigration that is necessarily incompatible with winning rights for workers.

But the possibility of importing some overseas union organizers isn't what motivates the finance wing of the conservative coalition to demand "guest-worker" programs like the H1B visa:

https://twitter.com/RobertMSterling/status/1873175206073626660

H1B visas are "non-immigrant" visas, meaning that they are designed not to offer any path to permanent residence or citizenship. You can live in the US for a long time on an H1B, but you are bound over to your employer like a serf bound to a feudal estate: if you lose your job, you lose your right to abide in the country. That can mean losing your house, your car, your kids' school and friends. It can cost your spouse their job, because if you're kicked out of the country, they might well leave along with you, rather than remain alone here.

H1B tech workers are the workers that tech-barons have dreamt of for decades. An H1B worker can't job-hop, and so needn't be lured to work with gourmet cafeterias, luxury gymnasiums, or other perks of the whimsical tech "campus." H1B workers can't quit if they don't like their stock-options packages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech bosses hate tech workers, and they always have. It's not affection that causes Jeff Bezos to allow his coders to come to work with pink mohawks, facial piercings, and black t-shirts that say things their bosses don't understand, while his delivery drivers piss in bottles and his warehouse workers are injured at three times the national average. Jeff Bezos neither cherishes his coders' kidneys, nor is he especially hostile to delivery drivers' need to pee – he just squeezes any and every worker in any and every way he can.

Same for Tim Cook: the accomplishment that prompted Apple's board to elevate Cook to Steve Jobs' CEO office was the successful transfer of iPhone manufacturing to China. Specifically, Cook figured out how to work with his primary supplier, Foxconn, to create a working environment that produced reliable, precision-manufactured mobile devices, and all it took was creating a working environment so brutal that the company had to install suicide nets to catch the factory workers who couldn't stand it any longer:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract

Apple's tech workers aren't worked to suicidal desperation, sure – but not because Tim Cook likes coders and hates factory workers. It's because he's afraid coders will quit, and he's not worried about replacing factory workers after they jump to their death.

The point of the H1B program is to create a tech workforce that bosses no longer have to fear. Recall that when Elon Musk took over Twitter and circulated a mandatory "extremely hardcore" pledge that demanded that workers promise to subordinate their health and wellbeing to his profits, it prompted a mass departure, with the notable exception of workers whose immigration status (and/or insurance for serious health issues) depended on their ongoing employment at Twitter:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/16/23462026/elon-musk-twitter-email-hardcore-or-severance

When Musk's cronies gloated about shedding 20% of Twitter's workforce on "day zero," the workers they had in mind were the ones who didn't fear their bosses and wouldn't frog when the investor class shouted jump. "Sharpen your blades, boys" means we're slicing off workers who are laboring under the misapprehension that they are entitled to a say in their working conditions:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

After all, America does not have a tech worker shortage. The US tech sector fired 260,000 skilled workers in 2023, and more than 150,000 were shown the door in 2024. When Musk and his fellow tech bosses complain that they need more "talent," what they mean is they need workers who are so terrified of being deported that they'll accept low wages, sleep under their desks, refuse to talk to union organizers, and, above all, do as they're told:

https://youtube.com/shorts/N0FkyXFhmpo?si=GCh6bFqd31prazhz

Trump won office by promising mutually exclusive outcomes to different parts of his coalition. To the nativists and bigots (and workers who'd bamboozled into thinking that their low salaries were the fault of other workers, not their bosses), he promised a halt to immigration. To the plutocrats, he promised a large and pliable workforce – of low-waged agricultural workers and of precarious H1B tech workers who'd discipline America's "entitled" tech workers:

https://prospect.org/labor/2025-01-02-president-musk-american-workers-h1b-visas/

Now, he has to figure out how to keep everyone happy. Literally: the Speakership of Congress is only nine votes away from collapsing at any time (and until last week, it was just one vote away), and without Congress, Trump's ability to govern will be severely curtailed (see, for example, 2018-2020).

Immigration isn't an issue like abortion: oligarchs can support abortion bans and still procure abortions when they need them. It's much harder to support an immigration ban and still procure precarious, low-waged workers for your business. It will take many years for American-born workers to be so brutalized and broken that they capitulate to the working conditions that American guest workers and undocumented workers accept, and bosses are impatient.

It's hard to put on a convincing performance of banning immigration, as the UK's New Labour discovered. In the years leading up to the 2010 election, Labour – under Blair and then Brown – made a big show of "cracking down on immigration." At one point, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that she was axing dozens of UK visa categories, while carefully not mentioning these were so niche that hardly anyone qualified for them. This created chaos for the people affected and their families – I lost my own "Highly Skilled Migrant" visa at this time and we had to move our wedding plans up by eight months so I could stay in the country with my British partner and our daughter – but it didn't do anything to quench the xenophobic rage that UKIP and the Tories had been stoking, and Labour lost its next election.

American conservatives are rightly proud of their ability to form coalitions. They trumpet their ethic of "no enemies to the right" and contrast this with the "cancel culture" of progressives:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-year-democrats-lost-the-internet/

It's true that purging your ranks of coalition partners who disagree with you at the margins is a severely self-limiting move. It's also true that the broader your coalition is, the easier it is to win power.

The right has built a coalition of people who want opposite things. Infamously, Project 2025 isn't just a collection of terrifying ideas for running (and ruining) America – it's a collection of mutually exclusive terrifying ideas for running and ruining America:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

Trump's top health picks – RFK jr, Weldon, Oz, Makary, Bhattacharya, Nesheiwat – want mutually exclusive, irreconcilable things that are as impossible to compromise on as "banning immigration" while simultaneously "expanding the H1B program":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/clinical-trial-by-ordeal/#spoiled-his-brand-new-rattle

Big, diverse coalitions of people who normally oppose each other are great for winning power, but they're very bad for wielding power. Trump's majorities in Congress and the Senate are razor-thin, and while the Democrats had to suffer under the Manchin-Synematic Universe, the GOP's Klown Kar of Krazies has dozens of swivel-eyed loons who will happily blow up "must-pass" bills just for shits and giggles.

What's more, the GOP has spent decades installing easily blown circuit breakers into the American legislative and administrative systems, from the filibuster to the debt ceiling. By design, these allow small groups of lawmakers to kill bills and hamstring presidential power. Trump's first attempt at removing one of these breakers – the senseless kabuki of the annual debt ceiling showdown – was a total failure:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-12-19-debt-limit-should-absolutely-be-eliminated/

Musk thinks he can ram through policies that sizable portions of the GOP coalition would rather die than support. So far, Trump has proven a pliable puppet for Musk's ambitions. But the Musk-Trump coalition is every bit as fragile as any other in the GOP, and Trump is notoriously sensitive to accusations of weakness. Musk can threaten to primary any GOP lawmaker who gets in his way, but as the Kochs discovered after they unleashed the Tea Party, grievance-fueled, paranoid, heavily armed cults are hard to keep on a leash.

The coming months are sure to be an all-out war of GOP infighting as the coalition must wield power without the useful buffers of space, time and class. They'll be an object lesson in the dangers of a coalition that's so broad that everyone is welcome, even people who'd happily line you and yours in front of a firing squad.

But just because the right's attitude to coalitions is to have a mind so open its brains fall out, that doesn't mean the left should pursue a program of overwhelming ideological purity. Trump is a stupid guy with incoherent ideas, but look at how far he got by erecting such a big tent that anyone fit underneath it (even actual Nazis).

The progressive coalition doesn't need to be that big. We can have enemies to the right. The hugs Kamala Harris bestowed on ghouls like Liz Cheney didn't win the election, and the medal Biden just gave her won't help either:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/us/politics/presidential-citizens-medal-liz-cheney.html

Manchin and Synema can "fuck off until they come up to a gate with a sign saying 'You Can’t Fuck Off Past Here,' Climb over the gate, dream the impossible dream, and keep fucking off forever":

https://michaelmarshallsmith.substack.com/about

But the fact that some people don't belong in a progressive coalition, it doesn't follow that there's no room to make the coalition looser and broader. Sure, a big coalition makes it hard to wield power, but without that coalition, we'll never win power.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter Delivers Farewell Address https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-jonathan-kanter-delivers-farewell-address (h/t Matt Stoller)

• Chinese Organized Crime’s Latest U.S. Target: Gift Cards https://www.propublica.org/article/chinese-organized-crime-gift-cards-american-retail (h/t Schneier)

• Some Public Limits of Everyday Weirdness (2025) https://bruces.medium.com/some-public-limits-of-everyday-weirdness-2025-754551c54a2d

---

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago T-shirt: HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC AND IT’S FUN https://web.archive.org/web/20040429213938/http://www.downhillbattle.org/postal/index.php

#20yrsago Machine learning is innately conservative and wants you to either act like everyone else, or never change https://lareviewofbooks.org/blog/provocations/neophobic-conservative-ai-overlords-want-everything-stay/

#5yrsago Everything you wanted to know about money-laundering but were afraid to ask https://x.com/CZEdwards/status/1213597148274511872

#5yrsago Republican New York State Assembly leader publishes anti-drunk driving PSA shortly before drunkenly crashing a state-owned car https://web.archive.org/web/20200102042442/https://www.mpnnow.com/news/20200101/video-assemblyman-kolb-charged-with-dwi-after-victor-crash

#5yrsago The estranged anarchist daughter of the Republican gerrymandering mastermind inherited and dumped all his files https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-anarchist-daughter-of-the-gops-gerrymandering-mastermind-just-dumped-all-his-maps-and-files-on-google-drive/

#5yrsago Permitting the growth of monopolies is a form of government censorship https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

#5yrsago Podcast: Science fiction and the unforeseeable future: In the 2020s, let’s imagine better things https://ia802806.us.archive.org/35/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_322/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_322_-_Science_fiction_and_the_unforeseeable_future.mp3

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Musk’s Move Into Politics: Yanis Varoufakis and Cory Doctorow on Fighting Billionaire Control (Virtual), Jan 7
  https://www.youtube.com/live/I0kvjNh7czM

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

• 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

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

---

Recent appearances (permalink)

• The Intersection of Storytelling and Technology (Grey Matter)
  https://www.greymatter.show/episodes/s1e109-cory-doctorow-the-intersection-of-storytelling-and-technology

• Can we avoid the enshittification of clean-energy tech? (Volts.wtf)
  https://www.volts.wtf/p/can-we-avoid-the-enshittification

• Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (HOPE XV)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrciT_dc2sc&amp;list=PLcajvRZA8E0_tLLEh1COeAv-TcaDna2k1&amp;index=32

---

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#/.

---

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

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

---

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: Daddy-Daughter Podcast 2024 https://craphound.com/overclocked/2024/12/17/daddy-daughter-podcast-2024/

---

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

OTTAWA – According to experts Justin Trudeau resigning is proof that just making political error after political error over the course of 9 years can topple even the most powerful politician. “Canadian voters have become far less forgiving than they were during the elder Trudeau’s government,” said analyst Chauncey Kearns. “They don’t just accept things […]

The post Report: Just one or two million mistakes can bring down a Prime Minister appeared first on The Beaverton.

STANFORD, CA—In response to seeing what the pollinators were capable of in the 1991 coming-of-age drama, ecologists at Stanford University issued a statement Monday calling for the extinction of bees after they watched My Girl. “Upon observing the heartbreaking scene in which Macaulay Culkin’s character Thomas J. is attacked and ultimately killed by a swarm of bees while trying to retrieve his best friend’s lost mood ring, we came to the conclusion that the insects are simply too dangerous to be allowed in our ecosystems and must be completely exterminated,” said Professor Anders Lipcot, holding back tears as he explained that the bees should pay for what they did to the “innocent little boy” who just wanted to prove how much he cared for his companion Vada. “While eliminating bees poses risks to our biosphere, at least we will never again have to look on helplessly as some like Thomas J dies of a fatal allergic reaction to bee stings. To think, if there were no bees, that character might still be alive today.” The ecologists added that a complete collapse of global agriculture would be a welcome outcome for a world without that “sweet, blond angel.”

The post Ecologists Call For Bee Extinction After Watching ‘My Girl’ appeared first on The Onion.

With the start of a new year, millions of Americans are honing in on their fitness goals and returning to the gym, including the weight room floor. The Onion dispels the common myths many people have about strength training. 

MYTH: Training with free weights is more effective than training with machines.

FACT: Machines are actually much harder to lift.

MYTH: Strength training is just for men.

FACT: While society has traditionally viewed weightlifting as the purview of men, anyone can be insufferable.

MYTH: You should start with lighter weights and build up over time.

FACT: Impress everyone at the gym by leaving in an ambulance.

MYTH: Strength training is unsafe for pregnant women.

FACT: Being a pregnant woman in America is generally unsafe.

MYTH: Lifting weights makes you less flexible.

FACT: The Rock can do the splits. 

MYTH: Steroids cause a wide range of health problems.

FACT: You wouldn’t say that to my face, punk.

MYTH: You don’t need to be able to open your own jars. You exist in a community and deserve love and support just as you are.

FACT: The human animal is a species of one, irrevocably severed from its own kind due to the sin of consciousness.  

MYTH: It takes time to see results.

FACT: No one has ever stuck with it long enough to find out.

The post Strength Training: Myth Vs. Fact appeared first on The Onion.

The state’s 988 suicide had the nation’s fifth highest rate of abandoned calls in August, the latest data available, amid a multi-million funding deficit that could worsen as federal dollars expire this year.

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

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

1. We can’t have couches anymore

I work as a staff member at a college. The other day, the HR director told us he is getting rid of all of the couches around administrative offices and lobbies. When asked why, he said, “Title IX. We want people to remain upright.”

I have no idea what this means. I have never had a student or colleague try to lay down on these 3.5-foot couches. I looked briefly at Title IX documentation, but could not find anything on seating. These campus-approved couches are utilitarian at best: uncomfortable, wrapped in ugly, fire-retardant patterns and just long enough to fit two people reasonably without touching. They are in glass-walled, visible offices and public waiting areas. We were told the two-person couches would be replaced with two chairs instead. Which would be right next to each other.

I am not sure what could happen on a couch — hanky panky? Or unwanted touching? Do you have any thoughts on whether “Title IX” is a reason to remove couches? I don’t really care what people sit on while they are waiting to meet with administrators, I just want to know if this absurd reason is actually real.

Title IX is the law that makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, which can include sexual harassment and sexual coercion. Your HR director is saying, “We don’t want to make it easy for sexual contact to occur in our work settings, and we think the presence of couches may do that.”

It’s a bit silly to think that someone who wants to have sex in an office would require a couch to do it, but that’s what he’s referencing. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there was An Incident that led to the change — but if there was, it’s pretty likely that it would have happened with or without the presence of a couch.

2. Coworker offered to use food stamps for our holiday party

During the lead-up to our holiday party, a younger coworker offered to use their extra food stamps to get food for the team. They explained that they weren’t planning to use the stamps for themselves and wanted to contribute to the celebration. They went around and asked everyone for their requests.

While their offer was generous and clearly well-intentioned, it made some of my coworkers uncomfortable. No one knew quite how to navigate this. Some were unsure if it was appropriate to accept, given the purpose of food stamps. Others didn’t want to hurt the coworker’s feelings by declining.

It was a one-time occurrence, and I’d love your thoughts on how you would have navigated this as a coworker. It doesn’t feel right to escalate it to HR and even saying something to this employee, I believe, would cause them to feel a ton of shame and embarrassment.

You’re right that it wouldn’t be appropriate to use food stamps to fund a company party — and it would violate the terms of the benefit.

So: “You’re kind to offer, but we couldn’t accept that.” Or, “You’re kind to offer, but I don’t think they’re allowed to be transferred so we couldn’t accept that.”

3. We can’t use holiday party leave to do axe-throwing as a group

My manager is a good guy but a bit of a pushover. We are at an office with very few perks, but every year at the holidays we are allowed half a day of leave to attend an office holiday party.

This year my boss asked us if we would be interested in going to a local axe-throwing place (and paying our own way) during the workday as an office party. It is not mandatory, but we would be allowed to charge our “holiday party leave” time to attend. A sufficient number of people were interested so the party was booked.

Now my boss’s boss has told us we can still attend the party but we would have to charge PTO as we are going someplace with “weapons” involved. As far as I know, this isn’t an office-wide policy, she just made it up this year for this particular event. She also complained that she wouldn’t be able to attend the party anyway because someone has to be in the office.

We are all pretty bummed, but the bigger implication is she is just arbitrarily taking away our job benefits and we don’t think it’s fair. Do we have any recourse here? Should we throw axes in defiance of her edict?

Eh. I see why it grates, but it’s also not inherently outrageous to say that the office won’t sponsor parties centered around weapons. And while you’re paying your own way, they’d be sponsoring it in the sense of giving you party leave to attend … which might be making her worried about issues of liability if something goes wrong. (Of course, something could just as easily go wrong if you went zip-lining or any number of the other off-site activities some offices choose. Axe-throwing just makes the risk feel more obvious.)

You can certainly try to push back as a group on this type of thing, but ultimately it’s her call to make.

4. How to end a conversation after giving negative feedback

I just gave some negative feedback to one of my direct reports, but I struggled with how to end the conversation. Basically, she failed to do a follow-up task as per procedure because she was too busy, and that resulted with some employees not getting a recognition in due time and in our org, those recognitions are very important. I told her it was unacceptable and to ask for help if she is overloaded. I was able to use an example of someone close to her to drive home the importance of not letting such things slip.

She apologized and accepted the feedback and after that I had no idea how to close the conversation. Yes, I was not happy but it was not a life-or-death situation and other then her agreeing not to do it again in the future, there was no reason for me to prolong the conversation beyond that. The exchange was happening on a Teams chat. I had to pull away for a few moments to deal with an email, but after that I was able to come up with this: “I understand that you’ve been very busy while Varys is absent, but I cannot take action to help you out if I am not aware of what is going on. What is important going forward is that this doesn’t happen again. I will send the scrolls to the Wall via Raven.”

Is there a general script that I can use to close such conversations? I didn’t want to harp on the issue but I didn’t want to close it by softening the message after she apologized with an “It’s ok” as I would if it was a minor issue.

You’re overthinking it! It’s enough to just say, “Thank you.”

When you’re delivering critical feedback, once it’s clear the person gets it (and, if relevant, is taking whatever action you need them to take), you don’t need to reiterate the message again … and in some cases, doing that can come across as berating them. In your mind you’re summing up the main takeaways, but to the person being criticized, hearing it repeated can feel like you’re hammering it in when they’ve already made it clear that they get it.

That’s not a hard and fast rule; sometimes something is so serious that reiterating it in a summary at the end makes sense. But in this case, it sounds like you were really just looking for a way to close the conversation, and “thank you” (or “I appreciate it” or “I think we’re on the same page now, so thank you” or “sounds good, thank you” or similar) is a perfectly fine (and lower key) way to do that.

Related:
how to criticize someone’s work without making it awkward

5. Why did this rejection bother to say the job was already slated for someone else?

I’ve been casually looking for a new job for the past year or more, and I encountered this line in what was otherwise a fairly standard “we’ll keep your info on file, please search our site for other positions” email response: “This role was specifically intended for transitioning one of our temporary contract employees into a full-time position at Company.”

Is there a reason they would need to send this? I hadn’t interviewed or anything so it felt odd that they went into detail like that. I’ve certainly gotten enough “thanks, we’re going a different direction” messages that this one stuck out.

Transparency! They didn’t have to offer it, but they did. They’re letting you know that the rejection wasn’t about your qualifications, but simply that they’d already selected someone for the position. (And yes, it’s a problem that they even bothered to post the job if people didn’t have a real shot at it, but some companies’ internal rules require them to do that … even though this is very much not in the spirit of said rule.)

A man is suing the California Lottery alleging that he has not received part of his winnings from a nearly $400 million Mega Millions jackpot after he located one of his winning tickets but not the other. What do you think?

The post Man Sues Lottery After Losing Winning Ticket appeared first on The Onion.

THE INTERNET – Just when you thought technology couldn’t get any awesomer, this latest generative video super computer can now make an entire video of a dog eating spaghetti in mere seconds, and all it takes is the same amount of power used by the whole nation of Haiti in a single day. Mamma mia! […]

The post Science Win! This AI video of a dog eating spaghetti uses the same amount of power as Haiti! appeared first on The Beaverton.

New comic!
Today's News:

Someone needs to learn the meaning of catching 'em all.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Choco-beefs are of course inferior to beef-tensors.

Today's News:

Dr. Neo Cortex is trying to create an army to take over the world! It's up to Crash to stop him before it's too late!

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Crash Bandicoot: Warped - Dingodile (Sega Genesis Remix) By TheLegendOfRenegade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SszE6rx-QEU

Crash Bandicoot 2 - Neo Cortex (Sega Genesis Extended Remix) By TheLegendOfRenegade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXg3XEbS4OY

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The scheme has faced resistance, including from President-elect Donald Trump.

The newspaper decided not to run Ann Telnaes' cartoon of tycoons kneeling before Donald Trump.

The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the hit reality show Love Is Blind in which it classified the show’s contestants as employees, opening a case that could have ripple effects across the reality television industry. What do you think?

The post Labor Board Classifies ‘Love Is Blind’ Contestants As Employees appeared first on The Onion.

California sober: No alcohol or drugs except marijuana

New York sober: No alcohol or drugs except cocaine

Kentucky sober: No alcohol or drugs except a cool, tall mint julep on a sweltering July afternoon

Oregon sober: No alcohol if it’s not an IPA

Texas sober: No alcohol except empty beer cans to shoot

Maine sober: No addictive drugs except lobster rolls

Maryland sober: No addictive drugs except crab cakes

Georgia sober: No addictive drugs except whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene is on

Oklahoma sober: No drugs, but I suspect we’d grow amazing pot

Arkansas sober: No alcohol except moonshine

Massachusetts sober: No alcohol, but I still act like an asshole

Illinois sober: Liquor? Ya got it all wrong, copper. This here’s an honest Chicago church hall, see?

Kansas sober: I just eat BBQ until I feel drunk

Missouri sober: No alcohol or drugs, but you know we were high when we decided to build our big-ass arch

Louisiana sober: No drugs or alcohol unless I’m a tourist turning a historic city into a hellhole

Idaho sober: It’s called DT-alpha, a new designer rave drug from Berlin that combines the euphoria of molly with the dissociation of a psilocybin and nitrous gas combination. Its street name is “Boise.”

Nevada sober: You’re kidding, right?

West Virginia sober: No alcohol unless I’m in a bar singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”

Ohio sober: Whatever drugs JD Vance says is keeping me lazy and dumb

North Carolina sober: No alcohol or drugs except 150 billion cigarettes a year

New Hampshire sober: Our liquor laws are so confusing it’s impossible to drink here anyway

Washington: Adrenachrome

Rhode Island sober: Why? You holdin’?

Colorado sober: California already took ours

Iowa sober: You try sitting through a caucus without drinking!

Virginia sober: No alcohol or drugs until the next Whiskey Rebellion

Indiana sober: Addicted to basketball

Alabama sober: Addicted to football

Washington, D.C. sober: Addicted to any sport unless I have to change a team name to be less racist

Mississippi sober: No alcohol or drugs, but I abuse the letter “i”

Hawaii sober: I told your family I’m checking into rehab, but I’m really checking into Sandals

Pennsylvania sober: No alcohol or drugs except on Election Day, apparently

Wyoming sober: I wish I knew how to quit you (you = alcohol and drugs)

Delaware sober: No alcohol or drugs, but when Joe Biden comes home, I’m buying him a shot

Utah sober: Bitch, we invented this shit

New Mexico sober: Magic mushrooms

Connecticut sober: Cremini mushrooms

Alaska sober: No drugs or alcohol except at night (which lasts six months)

Michigan sober: Some years I lean toward drinking, some years I don’t. I’m hard to predict.

Nebraska sober: No alcohol or drugs except the high I get when I leave Nebraska

Wisconsin sober: Does anyone really consider Pabst Blue Ribbon “beer?”

Vermont sober: No drugs or alcohol with an ABV above one percent of the top one percent of the top one percent

Tennessee sober: Not sure, but “Tennessee Sober” is an amazing title for a country song

New Jersey sober: What are you, my fucking doctor?

Montana sober: No cigarettes unless I’m rolling my own, hombre

Minnesota sober: No alcohol or drugs except the steroids Jesse Ventura legalized

North Dakota sober: No alcohol or drugs, but if I’m caught I blame it on South Dakota

South Dakota sober: No alcohol or drugs, but if I’m caught I blame it on North Dakota

Arizona sober: No alcohol or drugs, but if I’m caught I blame it on immigration

South Carolina sober: No alcohol or drugs unless I’m riding a Sea-Doo

Florida sober: Not sober

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Hovertext:
Really every theorem should either describe what it does or have ten thousand names, chained by hyphens, going back to an early hominid named Garg.

Today's News:

“New year, new you,” they say. Well, Project 2025 is going to make what’s new actually really fucking old. Like listeria- and child labor-old. The country went for some Grover Cleveland shit, and you know what? We, the People, can play that game. This New Year, it’s time to roll back the clock and become the worst version of yourself.

It’s going to be so much easier than coming up with strategies for self-improvement. Those Heritage Foundation guys were kind enough to show us how, and it turns out all you really need to do is stop trying.

Toss out the Department of Education and start homeschooling your kids because, under your roof, they won’t be forced to learn about pronouns or how to read. And thinking about the benefits of immigrant labor is complicated, so we might as well assume they’re all criminals and get on board with mass deportations. Your community might suffer, but community is overrated. What’s it ever done for you?

Consumer protections? Gone. Post office? Privatized. Your life? In your own hands. Literally. The Affordable Care Act is on the chopping block. But that’s okay because you were tired of subsidizing everyone else. If they need health insurance, they should try not getting sick. If they get sick anyway, you know where they can purchase some horse tranquilizer.

The great thing about old stuff is that it endures. Family values, gender roles, asbestos. It’s all still there under the fluff of progress and enlightenment. You just have to be bold enough to exhume the corpse of simpler times and fly your MAGA flag. We’re abandoning all pretense that society and government provide tangible benefits so you can be free to pick your favorite Hobbesian adjective and return to the animal state that best suits your solitary brutishness.

You might feel guilty deprogramming the woke mind virus and stripping all sense of empathy, compassion, and civic-mindedness from your psyche, but that’s how they get you. As the name implies, this is a project. Much like cleaning out a beloved parent’s house after their passing, it’s sad they’re gone, but they kept calling you wanting to talk, and that was annoying.

Alas, you’re not getting much of an inheritance since it all went to medical debt. But you won’t have to worry about that because you and your kids will drink raw milk and colloidal silver to gain natural immunity and possibly superpowers, making you obvious candidates for the upper strata in the coming society of Übermenschen.

And if that doesn’t work out, and your personal Project 2025 is buried in the rubble of a fallen empire as the oligarchs strip it for copper? Just keep being the worst person you possibly can. The other worst people will have to acknowledge your efforts eventually.