Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Are You Ready For Service?

You'd Better Be! Cannon Fodder May Be In Demand Soon

The Internet Archive claims there are 14 films in this series; the five above made the YouTube/Internet Archive cut.

Draft hell, why not enlist? After all, how many Space Force "Guardians" will put boots on Iranian soil?

LATER, around 2034: Didn't know about this when I was assembling all that crap above.
Ellen Mitchell / The Hill:
Automatic registration for US military draft to begin in December  —  Eligible men will automatically be registered into the military draft pool by December as part of an effort to streamline the previous process of self-registration and save money.
Victor Nava / New York Post:   Eligible young men will automatically be registered for US military draft later this year
I spit on anything that claims "what to know" or "what you need to know". Eff you, what do you know?

"There Goes Your Inventory"

Expect A Toilet Paper Shortage

Total damn destruction. Even got a trailer.
(William Liang / For The Times)

Local Labor Action

The suspect in a massive blaze at an Ontario warehouse posted videos that appeared to show himself [sic] lighting the fire and griping about being paid low wages, according to video reviewed by The Times.

Crews responded to the 1.2-million-square-foot Kimberly-Clark paper products facility early Tuesday morning and were quickly forced out due to “extremely rapid fire growth,” according to the Ontario Fire Department.

The fire caused the building’s roof to collapse and escalated to a six-alarm blaze, requiring the response of around 175 firefighters and evacuation of about 20 employees.

Ontario Police Dept. Cpl. Emily Williams told KTLA that police are investigating the video. “We have had reports that he did give some information on social media,” Williams said.

Chamel Abdulkarim, 29, of Highland was arrested in connection with the blaze, according to authorities. Abdulkarim was employed by NFI Industries, a third-party distribution company for Kimberly-Clark products, fire officials said.

On his Facebook page, Abdulkarim had shared several first-person videos in which a man — presumably Abdulkarim — is seen lighting fires in a warehouse. Alex Montero, who said he met Abdulkarim in the warehouse that night, obtained screen recordings of the videos by way of a mutual friend on Facebook.

“You know, if you’re not going to pay us enough ... to afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this,” the man says while lighting a roll of toilet paper on fire.

In a subsequent video, the person filming continued to light fires as radios in the background relayed fire reports and evacuation instructions to employees.

“All you had to do is pay us enough to live,” the narrator says as the camera focused on several stacks of paper products beginning to catch fire.

“There goes your inventory,” he says in a final video as the flames began to spread out of control.

The Ontario Police Department did not immediately respond to questions from The Times about the videos.

“It was him that [sic] posted himself doing it,” Montero wrote in an email to The Times, referring to the videos. “If not I wouldn’t have put it out there like that.”

As previously noted. This guy's almost as cool as The Italian Assassin, Luigi Mangione. Anarchy Now!! Death to your corporate masters!!

[LA Times]

Sweepers, Man Your Brooms!
Clean Sweep, Fore & Aft!

I killed it!
The overhead was just a bit dusty & spider-webby after yrs. w/o a clean sweep.
Given the abundance of spiders, it's disappointing there are still fruit flies in the bunker.

Occasionally chunks will descend from above. Not good to get sticky, dusty spider-stuff in locomotive gearing, rolling stock (Stops rolling.) or even a turn-out. Can't come up w/ a scenario for giant brown snowballs all over the desert, either, so it's clean sweep time, 'cept it's sweep the overhead, not the deck. And bulkheads too. This stuff sticks!
The other third of the bunker.
Not even The Duke was safe.
Final state:
An improvement. Could use a coat of paint. Maybe I'll paint it all sky-blue, & the walls too. Or maybe the slumlord will. I kill myself. But not before I get the slumlord. Note the paint in the second image. That was when one of the slumlord's incompetent employees broke a pipe while plumbing in the ap't. above several yrs. ago, almost destroying my telebision & electrocuting me as I got a space heater off the deck. No apology, compensation or anything else from the slumlord, of course. Just a shitty paint job. Repipe this fucking building, you damned parasite, before I shove a pipe up your ass!!

Hotter Than Hell!

March smashes record as most abnormally hot month for continental US, federal meteorologists say

O.K. by me, my circulation sucks & I'm always cold anyway. Burn in your own hell, fools!

1909: Yale Climate Connections piles on.

The year so far: hottest and driest in U.S. history

After a season-defying March heat wave pushed things into overdrive, it’s an open question – and a crucial one – how soon more generous moisture might arrive.
The moisture will be more than generous when the icecaps go.

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Civilization Phaze III

For The Still Literate

Scum of the Earth. (AP Photos.)
Over 20 paragraphs, & essentially another laundry list of nails in the coffin of conservatism & its alleged, one time, yrs.-ago principles, but it can't hurt.

Boiled down, the fascisti are running scared, & their ideology, principles & tenets are out the window like a Russian oligarch. Speaking of oligarchs, several good paragraphs on "state corporatism", which this reporter thinks hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

No Words

As a long-time nihilist this reporter supports the destruction of all civilization; do let him know if you find anything that even resembles civilization in this awful world where everything is a sad, stupid joke.

People Are The Worst

Asshole Of The Day

The dickwad driving the pick-up took umbrage at the bus operator not letting him in, so when the bus slowed & started to turn toward the stop the asshole decided to drive as closely as possible w/o making contact, & stayed there honking, 'though the operator couldn't move the bus as the idiot was too close. Hope the police arrived & beat the shit out of the pick-up driver. (Police brutality is not wrong every time!!)Hell, were this reporter 30-40 yrs. younger I might've beaten him the living crap out of him myself, 'though the important thing here would be to demolish the penis-substitute pick-up & watch the fuckhead cry.

2011: Facebook tells me this has had 100 views. Apparently people will watch anything. Especially if it's visible because Zuck's robots didn't suppress as a link. Really starting to wonder if anything is worth any effort.

Fi-Yuh!!

Burn Baby Burn!

Strike back at your corporate masters!!

Monday, April 6, 2026

"Pretty Bleak"

"Full of hatred, he’s lying constantly,
and a lot of it is incoherent."

O.K., but other than all that ...
George Grylls / The Times:
The man who watches Trump all day, every day  —  Aaron Rupar spends up to 80 hours a week following the US president, from meandering speeches to impromptu press conferences.  He says it's ‘pretty bleak’  —  The psychological demands of Aaron Rupar's work are immense.

Today In Blasphemy

Trump and Hegseth Invoke God in Iran War

CNN: “Far from shying away from the idea that there is a religious aspect to the US-Israeli war on Iran, US government leaders are leaning into it, invoking God and promising fire and brimstone for Iran’s civil society if its leaders do not buckle to US demands.”
[Political Wire, 'though it's all above.]

In the last few mins.:
Are you a "hater" who wants America to lose? Does that mean you hate Gawd as well?

Outside World Of Evil (& Ennui)

Wasted 2.5 hrs. outside in the sun. Still feel like warmed-over crap, possibly because your outside world is stupid & ugly, filled w/ fat, stupid, ugly people & all their fucking litter & trash.
Dead tree, blank sign.
After two & a half hrs. in the hell of people & their damned effluvia, I return to the street where I live to find the fucking police harassing some poor guy who was sleeping on the curb when I left.
Note the clean-shaven one's eyes don't open. Malfunctioning Nazi robot?
Why can't these Nazi shitheels leave people the hell alone?
Have I mentioned exactly how much I hate every one of you? No, because my rage is so far off the chart it can't be measured, ergo I can't be exact.

Religious War

It would appear as if the IDF want to kill anyone who isn't Israeli & Jewish.Whaddya say about that, Jesus fans? Or about Military Easter?
“This is one of our better Easters I think in a lot of different ways. I can say militarily, it has been one of the best.”

— President Trump, speaking to reporters.

Not that any Jesus people are actual pacifists, or are in the least bit troubled about hypocrisy or interested in reality.

Sunday, April 5, 2026

"Praise Be To Allah, You Crazy Bastards"

Is 2000 Eastern Tuesday when he makes his big chickening out announcement?

Heard The Sirens & Wondered

Looks like an "attractive nuisance" to this reporter.
A Greater Emergency Fire damaged a boarded up, four-story building in East Hollywood Sunday morning and took firefighters more than an hour to extinguish, authorities said.

No injuries were reported.

The fire was reported at 3:17 a.m. at 315 N. Vermont Ave., just north of Beverly Boulevard — the site of a “previous burn,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Jennifer Middleton said.

Knockdown was declared after one hour and seven minutes with roughly 66 firefighters at the scene.

I dunno about that. Pretty damn sure the sirens & choppers were going an hr. before 0317. Typo?

[Local stenography site]

Easter Affirmation

Jesus may well 💘 you. Me, not so much. 

None of the mythos sounds like "dying" for anyone's sins; more like a refreshing 48-hr. dirt nap & then it's time to wake up & go to heaven. "Why hast thou forsaken me (for two whole days)?" 

And you unholy bastards have continued your sinning unabated for 2,000 yrs., haven't you?

Saturday, April 4, 2026

Artemis II Sends New Pix Of Earth

The East is Red!

Game over, capitalist pigs!

Outside World

Even the sky was dull. This is from 7 Jan. this yr.
Had to forage; managed to get it done in less then 45 mins. Nothing happened. Came back alive, & bored limp. I have never been so tired or numb in my life.

Friday, April 3, 2026

None Dare Ask Why

Would you like to know more?

Alcatraz Nostalgia?

Tami Luhby / CNN:
Trump wants $152 million to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz as a secure prison  —  President Donald Trump is seeking $152 million to cover the first year of costs to reopen the infamous Alcatraz prison as a secure facility.  —  The funds, requested as part of the White House's budget blueprint …
Noe Padilla / USA Today:   Trump requests $152M to turn Alcatraz Island into federal prisonSophie Brams / The Hill:   Trump seeks $152M to rebuild Alcatraz as ‘state-of-the-art secure prison’Nate Raymond / Reuters:
Trump seeks $152 million to reopen Alcatraz as active prison  —  The White House on Friday sought $152 million to return the former Alcatraz prison island to active duty, following up on President Donald Trump's call last year to transform the popular San Francisco Bay tourist destination. New York Times:   Trump Seeks $152 Million to Begin to Turn Alcatraz Back Into a Prison
This reporter was unaware that Federal Prisons can no longer hold prisoners, & the only possible recourse is to put The Rock back in business. The only recent escapes from Federal Prisons? Low-security, minimum-risk inmates leaving satellite camps, to quote a robot.

And a human:
Peterson noted that escapes from minimum-security facilities, like halfway houses, are much more common than those at jails and prisons. Federal data shows escape offenses accounted for less than one percent (0.4%) of all federal offenses between 2017 and 2021.
Think of the hundreds of convicts Trump pardoned. Maybe Alcatraz will be reserved for all the Democrats, "antifa" & others he keeps saying should be locked up. This reporter will not be taken alive.

Honkiness Update: Whitey's Scared!

Told by operatives in the rooms where it happened, WHITE WITH FEAR is a deep dive into the decades-long quest by some of America’s conservative political machine to amass power by exploiting racial fault lines.
Shouldn't that be "centuries-long"? And "some" of American conservatism's political machine? If it weren't for oppressing the bitches & darkies there wouldn't be American "conservatism", other than the money-grubbing & greed, of course.

Spotted at B.J. PBS.

Blah Blah Blah

Thursday, April 2, 2026

Another End Of Empire Rant

The Plot is Lost: Leaderless at the Limits of Empire

Trump has never known what he was doing. Now, he knows even less.

A relatively young person who performs a good diagnosis, but nonetheless has hope. Ha ha ha ha ha, Pollyanna.
We can make something better than this and we deserve something better than this.
Call me cynical, but the evidence is crystal-clear that "we" can't "make something better than this", leading to the conclusion that "we" don't "deserve something better than this". Whoever this amorphous "we" is, anyway.

Sunnyside '61

When men were men, esp. brakemen.Many GG-1s, but check the Pennsy O1 boxcab locos at (1:08) & (1:35).
Later in life, they were used for transfer work around Penn Station and Sunnyside Yard, mostly hauling empty passenger stock. They were all out of service and scrapped by the mid-1960s.

Trump To United Snakes:
Fuck Off & Die!

We Can't Afford You

NBC News:
Trump says it's ‘not possible’ for the U.S. to pay for Medicaid, Medicare and daycare: 'We're fighting wars'  —  Trump urged states to fund benefits programs instead because “we have to take care of one thing: military protection.”  —  President Donald Trump on Wednesday said it's “not possible” for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid and child care costs, arguing that it should be up to the states to “take care” of those programs while the federal government focuses on military spending. The president’s remarks were delivered to attendees at a private Easter luncheon at the White House, where Trump also accused Democratic-led states of fraud.

He went on to say that he told Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought: “Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care. That has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of day care. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care, and they should pay for it too.” 

Later in his remarks, the president added that states would have to raise their taxes to pay for child care costs and that the federal government “could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up” for it. 

“It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” Trump said. “They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”
Cassandra Buchman / Straight Arrow News:   Trump says US can't fund day care, Medicaid because 'We're fighting wars'Isaac Arnsdorf / Washington Post:
Trump backs off campaign promises to protect Medicare, help with child care
Alan Rappeport / New York Times:   War Clarifies Trump's Spending Priorities: The Military, Not Child Care
To recap, we'll be getting a resurgence in diseases because of Bobby Jr., & there won't be any money for the children or anyone else, because we're using it to murder people while bringing a sovereign nation "back to the Stone Age." Or not using it to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States", to coin a phrase.

Piling on, at 1847:

Trump Wasted $3 Billion on Tomahawks to Attack Iran. Here's What Americans Could Have Got Instead.

The US government has deployed 850 Tomahawk missiles to fight Trump's illegal and brutal war on Iran, and it has done so as it continues to slash funding for public services at home.

Another reminder that only chumps & idiots pay taxes.

Waist Deep In The Big Muddy

World War Stupid