Tabby Thursday
- Via Politico: Trump has sat for only 12 ‘daily’ intelligence briefings since taking office.
- Via NBC News: Ye song glorifying Hitler gets millions of views on X while other platforms struggle to remove it.
- Via The Daily Princetonian: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ’03 ‘plagiarized’ small portions of his senior thesis, experts say. But how serious is it?. TBH, my initial read is that this was just him being sloppy and lazy, on balance.
- Via CNN: First on CNN: Dangerously high levels of arsenic and cadmium found in store-bought rice, report finds. I am sure the newly established federal approach to food safety will be right on fixing this.
- Via NBC News: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she won’t run for U.S. Senate. On the one hand, I am glad there is no chance she ends up in the Senate. On the other hand, there was a more than decent chance she would have lost, and we would have been rid of her in government for at least a moment.
- Via the AJC: Pentagon directs military to pull library books that address diversity, anti-racism, gender issues.
According to the memo, a temporary Academic Libraries Committee set up by the department will provide information on the review and decisions about the books. That panel provided a list of search terms to use in the initial identification of the books to be pulled and reviewed.
The search terms include: affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender, transsexual and white privilege.
You know what good, well-thought-out policy looks like? Ctrl-F, that’s what.
The Naval Academy’s purge led to the removal of books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism, and Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” based on the list of 381 books that have been taken out of its library.
In addition to Angelou’s award-winning book, the list includes “Memorializing the Holocaust,” which deals with Holocaust memorials; “Half American,” about African Americans in World War II; “A Respectable Woman,” about the public roles of African American women in 19th century New York; and “Pursuing Trayvon Martin,” about the 2012 shooting of the Black 17-year-old boy in Florida that raised questions about racial profiling.
All about “merit,” indeed.
- Via NPR: Librarian of Congress firing is latest move in upheaval of U.S. cultural institutions. Funny how this administration just so happens to be finding a bunch of people of color to fire from positions of authority.
Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to hold the post. She was also the first person in the job to be term-limited. Her time was set to expire next year.
- Via CBS News: Trump fires director of U.S. Copyright Office, sources say. The fired director (a female) was appointed by the aforementioned Hayden. And Perlmutter issued a report that Elon Musk was unhappy about. A coincidence, I’m sure.
The firing of Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter came after Perlmutter and her office earlier this week issued part three of a lengthy report about artificial intelligence and expressed some concerns and questions about the usage of copyrighted materials by AI technology.
“It is an open question, however, how much data an AI developer needs, and the marginal effect of more data on a model’s capabilities,” the report read. “Not everyone agrees that further increases in data and test performance will necessarily lead to continued real world improvements in utility.”
- Via the AP: ‘Don’t get in my way,’ the new acting head of federal disaster agency warns in call with staff. Note the merit hire (emphasis mine).
Richardson has been the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for countering weapons of mass destruction. He does not appear to have any experience in managing natural disasters, but in an early morning call with the entire agency staff he said that the agency would stick to its mission and said he’d be the one interpreting any guidance from President Donald Trump.
Did the felon sit for 12 briefings or did he sleep through them?
I was reading the other day that current rice strains have an affinity for arsenic in the soil, although it’s not a necessary nutrient for the plants. This is not unusual; many plants will preferentially take up odd elements they don’t need. For example, in the last several years it has been discovered that some native plants at the site of the former Rocky Flats plutonium processing factory will take up plutonium from the low concentrations that were considered safely buried, incorporate it in stems and leaves, then deposit it on the surface when the leaves drop.
The article I was reading was concerned that the arsenic take up in rice seems to increase at warmer temperatures, which may be a climate change problem.
check
Hopefully that goes better for Richardson (and the people of the US) than that went for equally unqualified Michael “Heck of a Job” Brown(ie).
Going by the guidelines, they should ban the Bible and the Quran among others, even if they don’t get picked up the CTRL-F method.
Meaning the Quran may get banned.
@Matt Bernius:
I’m going to preface this by saying that yes, I am a bad person. A very angry bad person. I also spent months volunteering in New Orleans after Katrina. I have pictures of the tangled wreckage of trailer homes piled on each other from the storm. I have pictures of whole houses picked up and deposited in the street.
I can’t tell you how bad I want Florida, specifically Florida, to be hit with at least 4 of the absolute worst hurricanes ever. I want to see pictures of old dead bodies floating out of the Villages. I want those pictures next to Trump telling Floridians to get fucked.
To all our Florida commentariat, I will send you what little cash I have and am willing to put you and your families up for however long it takes. Florida can fucking twist.
@Beth:
The one reason I don’t wish bad things to happen to terrible people, is simply that my wishes do not and cannot affect where and when disasters strike.
Leavitt aka Buchenwald Barbie is lying again, of course. The Library of Congress is a research library; it does not loan books to kids. It is obligated to retain copies of copyrighted material.
The Trump administration fired Ms. Hayden because she is black. Even while backing incompetent failures like rapist thug Trump and drunk texting goon Hegseth, MAGA conservatives have decided black = unqualified.
They’ve so decided because modern Republicans are even more hopelessly racist (and sexist, and homophobic) than the already-dire American baseline.
x
IIRC, the Naval Academy retained ‘The Bell Curve’, but removed books refuting it.
@Beth:
I’ve been reading this blog for 20 years and even contributed posts here. The above is the sickest comment to OTB I have ever read.
Beth, you need serious mental help.
@DK:
This is kind of an ongoing theme when looking for rationales for what Trump does. A month or two back, I was visiting a friend and overheard a conversation between two other people where one asked the other why Trump wanted to dismantle the Department of Education. The other replied that she didn’t really understand either, but trusts Trump and had to conclude that if Trump wanted it dismantled, it must be because “the employees are doing bad stuff to kids.”
Buchenwald Barbie has less excuse for saying insane sh!•, though, because she’s not well into her 80s and living in a senior independent living facility like the two people I overheard. I am still gobsmacked at how ridiculous this line of thought is, tho.
And “sloppy and lazy” are attributes every American should demand in our Secretary of Defense!
Gawd, we are so fucked.
@just nutha: I swear man every time I hear “for the sake of the children” it’s connected to some awful piece of legislature or policy. It’s like a magical phrase that turns off the brains of otherwise decently intelligent people.
@Beth:
I suspect your comment will be deleted, but it goes without saying that wishing indiscriminate death on people based on where they live is wildly amoral.
I suppose you know this, as you claim to be a bad person. Tho I have not met many queer ravers who were bad people. I suppose these anti-PLUR unicorns must exist. Or maybe the UK’s climate — both outdoor and political — is changing you?
@Kathy:
I actually do wish for terrible people to receive comeuppance; I’ve observed this tends to happen naturally due to the basic math of living (making enemies often has predictable consequences). But someone is not automatically terrible because they live in Floriduh.
@Bill Jempty: @DK: Over the top rhetoric is one thing. People actually dying and Beth feeling she had to leave the country because of what people in The Villages overwhelmingly voted for is quite another. Drs Joyner and Taylor may or may not feel a need to react. I, personally, will cut some slack.
@gVOR10: Second time today I’ve had my phone lock up trying to post a comment. It posts, but I don’t get edit. Meant to add I live in FL. I took damage from Ian.
@gVOR10: Third time, and this will likely be fourth.
iPhone, Safari.
ETA – Nope, got edit.
@DK:
Sure, I hope for the same, and am often disappointed.
But the fact remains what wishes have no power to affect natural disasters.
They can affect actions. Get enough people wishing that a minority be mistreated, or that laws be enforced with brutality, and politicians may eventually respond to such collective wishes. Or get someone prominent enough and with a large audience or following, to wish harm on a person or group, and some of his followers may fulfill it.
@gVOR10: My scorn for America’s deadly identitarian bigotry is well known. That includes my growing contempt for fellow liberals who ignore how certain Americans have been radicalized into increased racism, sexism, and homophobia over the past decade — instead deflecting blame onto Democratic “messaging,” Biden’s age, 107 days, wokeness, or whatever lame avoid-the-real-issue excuse of the day is.
So I’m doubling the time I reside in Berlin with my Polish boyfriend, for more mental and physical safety. (Kinda ironic, since Germans similarly alarmed by nationwide denial of Aryan and antisemitic radicalization once decamped to the US.) If my parents weren’t still with us, I’d be seeking German citizenship. Decades of Amerikkkan microagression is enough.
So I get the context. And I’m petty enough to enjoy schaudenfruede when specific Trumpers complain of being chewed on by leopards they elected.
Still, 4.6 million Floridians (43%) voted for Harris, including my brother. I don’t believe in indiscriminate collective punishment, I’m petty not a ghoul.
On the other hand, my Miami-based Berniebro turned Rogan/RFKJr fanboy turned Mar-a-Lago guest best friend…
@Matt: This is where you and I will disagree. In matters of belief (and particularly political belief) I’m less inclined to believe in “otherwise decently intelligent people.” We all believe that whatever view we hold is the decent, intelligent one.
@gVOR10: Same lock up phenom for me. Android phone. Google.
@Matt Bernius:
I’m going to preface this by saying that yes, I am a bad person. A very angry bad person. I also spent months volunteering in New Orleans after Katrina. I have pictures of the tangled wreckage of trailer homes piled on each other from the storm. I have pictures of whole houses picked up and deposited in the street.
I can’t tell you how bad I want Florida, specifically Florida, to be hit with at least 4 of the absolute worst hurricanes ever. I want to see pictures of old dead bodies floating out of the Villages. I want those pictures next to Trump telling Floridians to get fucked.
To all our Florida commentariat, I will send you what little cash I have and am willing to put you and your families up for however long it takes. Florida can fucking twist.