Thomas Massie, Republican Representative from Kentucky, on the power behind the Epstein coverup:
“Last night I received a flash drive containing the complete list of files belonging to Jeffrey Epstein. Everything is there: every billionaire, every campaign donor, every single person. Now let me explain why you haven’t heard anything about this in the media. Because they’re all in there. They will do everything to prevent these documents from being made public. Epstein was far more than just a pedophile; he was an intelligence asset. He was part of a blackmail operation used to control billionaires, politicians, and world leaders. If this list ever sees the light of day, the system as we know it will collapse. The public has the right to know the truth, and I am not afraid to share it.”
After a very unpleasant experience with Apple’s latest macOS, Tahoe, back in December—and successfully downgrading back to Sequoia without becoming homicidal, I swore it off.
Based on everything I read online subsequently, I wasn’t the only one. “Worst O/S release in years!” seemed to be the common refrain. “Half baked, not ready for prime time!”
Usually Apple manages to iron out the little glitches in a new O/S within the first couple itertions. Unfortunately, based on what everyone was saying, the problems apparently continued through the 26.1 and 26.2 releases.
But this week, Apple released Tahoe 26.3 and the interwebs were strangely supportive. People were saying that nearly all of the glitches they’d been experiencing had been cleared up and it was running as well as Sequoia.
Hesitantly—very hesitantly—after doing a full backup, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the upgrade. Despite the good reviews, I was still fully expecting to spend my evening (and no doubt a good portion of tomorrow) downgrading everything again.
But hey, at least this time I knew what would need to be done.
Imagine my surprise when the installation completed, the machine rebooted and, well…it just worked!*
Yeah, I had to turn off the glass effects via the “Reduce Transparency” toggle in System Settings → Accessibility → Vision → Display because I still hate “liquid glass” (although it’s not as bad it had been previously to 26.3), and once that was done it was golden.
So if you’ve been holding off upgrading because of all the bad press, I can tell you that at least in my own case, everything is finally working as it should. Please note that your mileage may vary and to proceed at your own risk. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!
*one pretty striking glitch remains that I didn’t catch because I rarely use column view in Finder, so if you do be aware that this is still semi-broken..
Built in 1963, this 5 bedroom 9 bath home was on the market in Austin, Texas. It is not currently for sale but I thought you’d all enjoy seeing these. The property was listed for sale at 3.9 million in early 2021 and sold later that year.
This is the last one, I swear. And as is my self-imposed rule, one comes in, one has to go out.
I wish I’d done more research fifteen months ago before I got back into Minidiscs. Instead of just working off an old photo of the last deck I’d owned back in the day—forgetting that it lacked the PS/2 keyboard input for titling discs—and smashing “But It Now” on the first one I ran across that was fully functional and looked good, I could’ve saved myself a ton of money over the past year and went after one that was a better match functionally to my original deck from 2000 that also had a keyboard port,
As I got more and more back into this hobby, I realized how many functions and just little tweaks the deck I’d bought last November was lacking. Why did I go with that one then or even back in the day? It was a combination of faulty memory and the fact I was laser-focused LP2/4 recording capability. Back in the early 2000s it was probably a combination of not needing the keyboard port (I was able to label discs via my portable recorder and computer in conjunction with Sony’s admittedly horrible NetMD software) and more than likely it was cost related, since there were units in that lineup with keyboard ports.)
Oh well…the 480 still holds a place in my heart for nostalgia’s sake and it did what I bought it to do—so I haven’t been completely disappointed with the purchase.
Still, I got a pang whenever I ran across my original deck online—even if it didn’t do long play. But then I discovered the models that came out a year later had the same design and features and did the long play modes. Noted, and filed. The trouble was these days, the immediate successor to my original deck, the JE640, was pretty rare in the US. Even rarer was the top of the line, the JB940. Both models are readily available on the Japanese market, but they run on 100V (necessitating a step-down transformer if you want to use them in the states) and are seemingly only available in champagne gold. Nevermind the import tariffs!
I have triggers set up on eBay to email me when certain items show up. A week ago, a 940 appeared, and for once, it wasn’t a champagne gold 100V model. It was black (matching the rest of my gear), located in the US, and the price was—reasonable (all things considered). Even so, I made the seller an offer at a substantially lower price, never expecting that it would be accepted.
It was accepted.
It arrived today, and I have to say the build quality is so far and above the deck I bought fifteen months ago that it’s crazy. The 940 wasn’t Sony’s absolute top-of-the-line across their entire inventory that year, but it was top of the line for this particular series, and it shows.
So now I’m throwing my old 480 deck up for sale, hoping to recoup at least some of what I paid for this “new” one.
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
But what would “rising to the moment” look like? What can the opposition party do without majorities in either house? Well, they could start by refusing to continue to fund ICE, a masked thug snatch/murder squad that roams our streets, killing with impunity:
That’s table stakes. What would a real political response to fascism look like? Again, it wouldn’t stop with banning masks for ICE goons, or even requiring them to wear QR codes:
The fact that ICE agents worry about consequences despite Vance’s assurances suggests ways that Dems could “meet the moment.”
I think Dems should start a Nuremberg Caucus, named for the Nazi war-crimes trials that followed from the defeat of German fascists and the death of their leader:
What would this caucus do? Well, it could have a public website where it assembled and organized the evidence for the trials that the Democrats could promise to bring after the Trump regime falls. Each fresh outrage, each statement, each video-clip – whether of Trump officials or of his shock-troops – could be neatly slotted in, given an exhibit number, and annotated with the criminal and civil violations captured in the evidence.
The caucus could publish dates these trials will be held on – following from Jan 20, 2029 – and even which courtrooms each official, high and low, will be tried in. These dates could be changed as new crimes emerge, making sure the most egregious offenses are always at the top of the agenda. Each trial would have a witness list.
The Nuremberg Caucus could vow to repurpose ICE’s $75b budget to pursue Trump’s crimes, from corruption to civil rights violations to labor violations to environmental violations. It could announce its intent to fully fund the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division to undertake scrutiny of all mergers approved under Trump, and put corporations on notice that they should expect lengthy, probing inquiries into any mergers they undertake between now and the fall of Trumpism. Who knows, perhaps some shareholders will demand that management hold off on mergers in anticipation of this lookback scrutiny, and if not, perhaps they will sue executives after the FTC and DoJ go to work.
While they’re at it, the Nuremberg Caucus could publish a plan to hire thousands of IRS agents (paid for by taxing billionaires and zeroing out ICE’s budget) who will focus exclusively on the ultra-wealthy and especially any supernormal wealth gains coinciding with the second Trump presidency.
Money talks. ICE agents are signing up with the promise of $50k hiring bonuses and $60k in student debt cancellation. That’s peanuts. The Nuremberg Caucus could announce a Crimestoppers-style program with $1m bounties for any ICE officer who a) is themselves innocent of any human rights violations, and; b) provides evidence leading to the conviction of another ICE officer for committing human rights violations. That would certainly improve morale for (some) ICE officers.
Critics of this plan will say that this will force Trump officials to try to steal the next election in order to avoid consequences for their actions. This is certainly true: confidence in a “peaceful transfer of power” is the bedrock of any kind of fair election.
But this bunch have already repeatedly signaled that they intend to steal the midterms and the next general election:
ICE agents are straight up telling people that ICE is on the streets to arrest people in Democratic-leaning states (“The more people that you lose in Minnesota, you then lose a voting right to stay blue”):
The only path to fair elections – and saving America – lies through mobilizing and energizing hundreds of millions of Americans. They are ready. They are begging for leadership. They want an electoral choice, something better than a return to the pre-Trump status quo. If you want giant crowds at every polling place, rising up against ICE and DHS voter-suppression, then you have to promise people that their vote will mean something.
Dems have to pick a side. That means being against anyone who is for fascism – including other Dems. The Nuremberg Caucus should denounce the disgusting child abuse perpetrated by the Trump regime:
The people of Minneapolis (and elsewhere) have repeatedly proven that we outnumber fascists by a huge margin. Dems need to stop demoralizing their base by doing nothing and start demonstrating that they understand the urgency of this crisis.
It’s easy when the horrors have become commonplace to become so beaten down and disheartened by the fight that you can lose sight of why you’re doing it.
The repeated brutality and the relentless sorrows and the never-ending crises can squeeze out and suffocate your imagination, gradually rendering you unable to see a future worth walking into anymore.
And then suddenly, when you least expect it, there it is.
Suddenly, you find those long-dried-up reservoirs of hope bursting open once more.
Caught up in the throes of a stirring rhythm that you cannot resist, you find your way back.
For thirteen minutes on a football field in San Francisco, from thousands of miles away, we could see it again.
This America: diverse, creative, joyful, colorful, unified.
This America, where fear is banished, where fierce embraces find each of us, where no one is left outside.
This is it.
This is what we’re fighting like hell for.
This is why giving up isn’t an option.
And this is why centering something other than Love is the only way we lose.
Bad Bunny reminded us that in this war for the nation we’re still renovating, it is not might, or force, or eye-for-an-eye violence that will cause us to prevail; it will be our refusal to become as miserable and hateful as those we oppose.
He, a man faced for months with the undeserved scorn of tens of millions of strangers, the target of the worst poison human beings are capable of, chose not to stand upon the largest platform and fly some bitter, middle finger contempt.
He simply showed his humanity and reminded us of our own.
He refused to allow his enemies to defeat him by becoming them.
Love wins.
Words can easily feel like hollow platitudes, like empty cliches, until they aren’t.
Until they are the truest truth there is in this life.
Until we can feel them in the marrow of our bones.
Until those words towering above a beleagured multitude that has been starved of Love.
That love is what those grim-faced, joyless exclusionists are afraid of, what they are working so tirelessly to eliminate.
That’s why this was more than just entertainment, more than songs and set pieces, more than pop music and sentiment.
We cannot lose sight of who we are.
Our compassion is what makes us different.
We do wield those open, bleeding hearts they ridicule us for.
We are a people who believe that the open hand is greater than the clenched fist.
Now, I’m not so naive to believe that a 13-minute show is magic: that violent mobs of masked men are going to suddenly disappear from our streets, that the cruel and calloused hearts all around us are going to soften, that the people so addled by racism that they needed an alternative to this celebration of our commonalities are going to be moved to alter their allegiance to a monster.
In fact, witnessing such a bold and beautiful declaration of diverse coexistence will likely make those threatened by such things double down in their attacks, but that doesn’t matter.
But what I do know is that for thirteen minutes, it all became clear again.
For thirteen minutes, we could see the future.
We have had our attentions redirected, our spirits lifted, and our strength returned.
We have been reminded of the place that we might still be if we refuse to stop doing the hard work; if we continue to make sure that everyone has a place here, that everyone finds welcome, that everyone gets a chance to dance.
Over the span of thirteen minutes, Bad Bunny gave his detractors lessons in empathy, diversity, unity, and geography.
He gave the rest of us the eyes to see what we may have forgotten.
last night, so many colicky cultists completely lost their shit over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show that America came this close to depleting the National Strategic Reserve of Binkies.
Fox News: “it’s Super Bowl Sunday today. it’s a snacking holiday in the US. you are— as the CEO of MAHA, uh, what would you have as a Super Bowl snack?”
Bobby Brainworms Jr.: “you know, I am on a carnivore diet so I just eat meat and ferments. and I’m very happy with that so I’m probably going to have a yogurt.”
that’s right, Bobby used ‘ferments’ as a noun — as one does when one is a fucking crackpot.
go ahead, make fun of Brainworms’ speech habits all you want — but yogurt is, in fact, an important part of Bobby’s five food groups: ferments, whale head, dead bear cub, raw sewage, and heroin.
but just imagine that Obama had been asked, back when he was president, what he was going to chow down on during the Sports Bowl — and that had answered ‘yogurt.’
the entire wingnut outrage-industrial complex would have lost their fucking minds, and screamed their heads off about ‘out-of-touch elites.’ Republicans bearing pitchforks and torches would have swarmed the White House and burned it to the fucking ground.
“UPDATE: Due to licensing restrictions, we are unable to stream The All-American Halftime Show on X. Head on over to our YouTube channel tonight around 8PM ET to watch the full show.”
holy shit, what? because of ‘licensing restrictions,’ TPUSA’s dumb-ass event couldn’t be shown on Elon’s Nazi Bar and Child Porn Emporium?
you fucking eejits. you had literal months to get your act together, and you forgot to get permission to stream it? way to respect the hallowed memory of misshapen garden gnome Charlie Kirk, you incompetent shitwits.
I’m sorry, was Turning Point broadcasting from inside a strip club?
so why all the MAGA hatred for Bad Bunny? what crimes against humanity had he committed that were so egregious, Turning Point had no choice but to offer their own counter-programming?
‘the only thing more powerful than hate is love’? what the hell?
look, Bad Bunny — if that even is your real name — MAGA hasn’t spent the last ten years hard at work transforming American into a failed fascist pesthole, only to have you fuck it all up by telling everybody there’s something better than hate.
by the way, this year’s Nobel Prize in Taking One For The Team definitely should go to Juliet Jeske, the host of Decoding Fox News podcast. she selflessly watched the entire Turning Point show, so we wouldn’t have to. she then edited it down into a two-minute highlight reel and added a commentary track. you can see it here.
The Turning Point USA Half Time show broken down into two minutes – the highs, the lows, the poor audio production and overuse of pyrotechnics. A 55-year-old man dancing around in shorts. It was everything and nothing all at once.
headlining the TPUSA show was super-tasteful style icon Formerly A Kid Rock.
tell me, has Not Anywhere Close To Being A Kid Rock ever been to Epstein Island? it’s a legit question to ask, because he sure writes lyrics as if he has.
The track, “Cool, Daddy Cool” was released in 2001 and was featured in the children’s movie “Osmosis Jones” that same year. It includes the line, “Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage/ See, some say that’s statutory/ But I say it’s mandatory.”
wait, a song that rhymes ‘statutory’ with ‘mandatory’ was featured on the soundtrack of a children’s movie? what numbskull greenlit that idea?
here’s a fun thing that Definitely Not A Kid said about the Olsen Twins when they were 14 years old.
“Why is every guy in America waiting on these chicks to turn 18?” he said during the appearance. “If there’s grass on the field, play ball.”
‘grass on the field’ — get it? get it?
fun true fact: Don’t Mistake Him For A Kid is also the author of a song called ‘Balls in Your Mouth.’ you’ll never guess what it’s about.
Republican family values!
is there anything more pathetically hilarious in this world than MAGA trying to cope?because nothing says ‘we’re not easily-triggered snowflakes’ more than having to create your own safe space so you don’t have to watch someone singing in Spanish.
it’s estimated that 127 million people watched the Bad Bunny halftime show, and 5 million watched Turning Point’s shit-show. I’m not sure on what planet that constitutes a ‘massive victory for TPUSA’ — but you do you, MAGA.
also, I’m pretty sure that everyone who tuned in to Kid Rock caterwauling about his love for pedophilia already supports ICE.
hey, you know who wasn’t watching the Turning Point show? Dear Leader, that’s who. check out what was on the big screen at the Motel-a-Lago Super Bowl party: Bad Fucking Bunny. what the hell, Donny? you’re the MAGA King. you’re supposed to be leading by example.
look who was with Donny at his Florida golf motel last night: the Kompromat Kid himself, Lindsey Graham.
I wonder what Old Linz’s favorite Kid Rock song is.
doesn’t Sundowning Grandpa Befuddlepants sound like the angriest out-of-touch old white guy in the world? how dare the NFL force him to watch something that doesn’t conform to his extremely cramped and hateful worldview.
‘nobody understands a word this guy is saying’ — nobody except for the world’s 635 million Spanish speakers. ‘the dancing is disgusting’ — hey Donny, is this you, jacking off two invisible giraffes?
and why won’t Bad Bunny sing about how great the stock market is doing? why won’t Bad Bunny do anything about the NFL’s kickoff rule? THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER, BAD BUNNY.
and so today’s hero of the day is, quite obviously, Bad Bunny himself — because anyone who can get this many dumbfucks to shit themselves raw over a sportsball entertainment show is okay in my book.
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:
practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.
we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.
For those who don’t contain a vast knowledge of Green Day lore like myself, I don’t think it is hitting just how much of a “fuck you” the NFL is giving DJT/The White House.
This is a band that is:
Made entirely of openly bisexual/queer men.
Made entirely of men who are vocal about being raised by single mothers on welfare.
One of their members was adopted and raised by a Black woman and has said he “understands how his mother could hate ‘the white man’ and love him with her whole soul.”
Were the first band to say, “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist/MAGA U.S.A.” on live television without ANY warning.
Literally released a song last year called, “The American Dream Is Killing Me”
Only hires ALL FEMALE bands to open for them to address inequality in the music industry.
OPENLY tells trump supporters they are not welcome at their concerts.
Anyway, Enjoy Feb. 8th Magats! You’re gonna hate it.
Psychologists say time itself began to feel different after 2000. Then it shifted again after 2020. Not because the world suddenly moved faster, but because the human brain stopped recording life in the same way.
Before 2000, life had a natural rhythm.
Seasons felt unique. Years felt separate. Childhood felt long for a reason.
Your brain was truly present.
After 2000, something quietly changed. Not the clock. The brain.
Internet. Email. Smartphones. Endless scrolling.
Constant stimulation flatted our sense of memory.
Researchers from Stanford and UCLA discovered that when the brain is overloaded, it struggles to form deep memories, and fewer memories make time feel shorter.
Your brain silently concludes that nothing important happened.
So entire years begin to blur together.
Ping. Scroll. Switch. Refresh.
Every interruption breaks mental continuity. Your brain can no longer build long timelines. Days feel chaotic. Years feel missing.
The pandemic didn’t just disrupt routines. It reshaped how we experience time. Stress. Fear. Uncertainty. Isolation. Monotony. All at once.
Under constant stress, the prefrontal cortex stops planning. The hippocampus stops storing memories. The nervous system shifts into survival mode. The result? Days blue, weeks disappear, and years merge into one.
People everywhere report the same feeling: 2020 feels like yesterday. Everything since then feels like a single long year. I feel years older than I should. You are not imagining it.
Time slows down when life is full of novelty: new places, new faces, new challenges. After 2020? Less travel, less change, less variation. No novelty means fewer memories. Fewer memories mean less sense of time.
Stress doesn’t just blue the past. It also compresses the future. Studies show stress makes people feel older, lose long-term vision, believe time itself is running out. The brain becomes trapped in the present moment.
Time feels faster when the rain is overwhelmed, stressed, under-stimulated, fragmented, and disconnected. Time itself never changed. Our ability to experience it did.
We now live in a world of information overload, low novelty, high stress, and constant distraction. The perfect formula for life to feel unreal.
That’s why the 2000s flew by. The 2010s faced away. And the 2020s feel like a blur.
Here is the hopeful truth: you can expand time again. The brain slows time when it experiences novelty, presence, deep focus, emotion, adventure, and meaning.
Psychologists suggest simple changes:
Do fewer things with deeper focus.
Turn off constant notifications.
Seek real and new experiences.
Change your surroundings.
Create clear memory moments.
Reduce ongoing stress.
An intentional life feels longer.
Time never actually sped up. The world didn’t suddenly distort. Our brains simply stopped fulling living. And to feel time gain, we must relearn how to truly live again.
[From an Instagram post I failed to properly document.]
everything fucking sucks right now, so let’s just take a moment to savor JD Vance getting the shit booed out of him at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Italy.
announcer: “there’s the vice president, JD Vance and his wife Usha— oops, those are not— uh, those are a lot of boos for him.”
The International Olympic Committee was forced to ask fans not to boo the U.S. delegation led by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio during Friday’s opening ceremony for the Milano Cortina Winter Games.
is it any wonder that Mr. Heartbeat Away gets booed everywhere he goes? he pretty much goes out of his way to be as unpleasant as possible. look at the embarrassing spectacle Couchfuck creates as he leaves the Milan Prefecture after meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
it takes an entire four and a half minutes for every one of JD’s vehicles to clear the building and clownfuck their way into local traffic.
Vance treats the streets of Milan the same way he treats a couch. he’s just going to ram it in there — and if anyone doesn’t like it, that’s just too damned bad.
it’s all so unnecessary — because watch what happens once all that bullshit runs its course: out comes Lauren Ware, the wife of US Ambassador Tillman Fertitta — on foot. no pomp, no circumstance, and no dumbfuck motorcade.
one person with a small security team — as happens when you’re not such a ginormous piece of shit that everyone can’t wait to heckle you.
because Lauren Ware doesn’t make a point of being an asshole, she can wander wherever she wants — while JD Vance can’t even walk through Union Station in Washington DC without people screaming ‘GO FUCK A COUCH’ at him. remember this, from last August?
“oh look, it’s Couchfucker. you gonna fuck a couch, buddy? GO FUCK A COUCH, JD VANCE, GO FUCK A COUCH!”
MILAN — The start of the women’s short program at the Olympic figure skating team event was drawing close Friday afternoon, but American star Alysa Liu couldn’t get to the Milano Skating Arena. She and her coach and choreographer were stuck on an official Olympic bus, blocked from the arena parking lot by the motorcade of Vice President JD Vance, who attended the team event. “We almost didn’t make it,” Liu’s coach, Phillip DiGuglielmo, later said.
ace job, you dumb-ass.
imagine training for years to compete in the Olympics — and almost missing your one shot at glory because some furniture-fucking asshole is on an ego trip.
could someone please remind JD that his job is to stand over there and wave a flagand clap for our Olympians, and not be the constant chaotic center of attention?
for fuck’s sake, he even brought his own food with him. who does that?
A cargo plane transported food from the United States for the delegation, while two other planes brought armored vehicles to be used during official movements.
come on — Couchfuck is in Milan — one of Europe’s greatest cultural centers. shouldn’t he be taking advance of the experience? I sure as shit would. what’s the issue, JD — are there no doughnut shops in Milan?
let’s find out. because I’m a responsible journalist and everything, I googled ‘doughnut shops in Milan’ — and guess what:
so what was JD’s problem? how hard would it have been for him to learn enough of the native language to say ‘how long have you been selling doughnuts? HA HA! that’s great’?
‘da quanto tempo vendi ciambelle? AH AH, fantastico.’
you’re welcome, bro. it’s called being a responsible journalist.
thanks to Donny and his henchmen, the whole world hates us now. we’re the playground bullies of the planet, kidnapping a leader here, threatening to invade there, and just plain tariffing everywhere.
or, like Couchfuck McGee in Milan, we’re just creating ego-driven chaos for chaos’ sake — because fuck you, that’s why. none of these shitwits are big on consent.
it’s all so fucking embarrassing.
President Donald Trump’s team offered to unfreeze federal funding for the paused Gateway tunnel project if Democrats in Congress agree to rename Penn Station and Washington Dulles International Airport after him, according to someone with direct knowledge of the negotiations.
only weak and fragile fuckwits need this kind of constant affirmation.
Louisiana Democrat Chasity Verret Martinez defeated her Republican opponent by double digits in the special election Saturday night for a state House seat in a district President Trump won by 13 points in 2024.
Martinez won 62% of the vote compared to 38% for her Republican opponent, Brad Daigle, according to unofficial results from the Louisiana Secretary of State.
in 2024, Donny won this district by 13 points. just fifteen months later, Democrat Chasity Martinez’s crushed her Republican opponent by double digits — a 37-point swing from red to blue.
in special election after special election, Democrats keep prevailing by significant margins. that’s how fucking radioactive Donny and his fascist policies have become.
there’s a blue wave a-comin’.
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:
practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.
we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.
