big brother - jwz

"Joy", which they have rebranded as "Economic Impact..."

jwz — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 23:07:48 +0000

'How Could You Be Against Joy?': Bay Area Artists Are Turning on the Civic Joy Fund:

Crypto billionaire Larsen -- who is currently spending tens of millions of dollars to prop up moderate candidates in California, fight labor unions, defeat the state billionaires tax and San Francisco's own overpaid CEO tax -- is still one of the Civic Joy Fund's biggest benefactors. This is reflected on the organization's own "funders" page, which lists cute categories for these very wealthy people, like "Disco Queens," "Street Sparklers," and "Joy Makers." [...]
In February, at the "Music Industry Summit" -- the conclusion to San Francisco Music Week, another Lurie project -- I watched as the mayor strode to the stage at the Swedish American Music Hall. There, before an audience of struggling artists, engineers, and small venue staff, he triumphantly reported that the last summer of concerts in Golden Gate Park resulted in "$150 million worth of economic impact," and that, according to new data, "our independent music venues generate $1.4 billion in economic impact annually."
Lurie paused for applause. "That's because of all of you in this room."
We clapped dutifully, but the people in that room did not need to be reassured that they had contributed to $1.4 billion in "economic impact." They would have preferred to hear that any of their favorite clubs might exist next year. The people in that room could use health insurance -- and they might be able to afford it if Lurie's billionaire buddies were taxed appropriately; say, with a one-time 5% excise tax on net worth exceeding $1 billion to save Medi-Cal.
But hey, that sentiment doesn't make for great social media content.
Indeed, the dissonance between Lurie's spirit-squad act around cultural events and the material struggles of the people actually making the culture is, at times, ear-splitting. One gets the sense he is physically unable to hear it.
"Those of us on the ground who work in [music] know that it has never been more difficult to be here, and try and provide the city with the core thing it is known for historically, which is free-thinking progressive ideologies and good art," says Austin Waz, frontman of the band Analog Dog and a booker at Kilowatt. "We see the incredible amount of venues going out of business, people losing their jobs left and right. We have an absolute crisis."
It's frustrating, he says, to see the large-scale parties into which the Civic Joy Fund pours resources. "It's one day, and they put $100,000, $200,000 into these things, and it's like -- you could have saved an entire community with that. You could have created the conditions that would allow a venue to flourish for years," says Waz. "You're not thinking about how to develop or support artists who come from the city ... it's a slap in the face to put up some [barricades] in the street and say, 'Look how wonderful this all is.'" [...]
"I'm hearing artists rightfully starting to question, like, 'Ultimately, who is this for?'" says Guest of the block parties. "Is it for the public, or is it to set up this area as being worthy of real estate investment? Because if the point of it is to cater towards visitors ... it's really not about supporting art or artists at all."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Operation Dildo Blitz

jwz — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 20:14:05 +0000

Anti-ICE Protest in Minneapolis Ends With 50+ Arrests:

Demonstrators shouted "Eat a dick!" and "Fuck ICE!" as they pelted the vehicles with dildos.
Activist Russell Ellis, who posted video of the demonstration on Instagram, said the protesters "showed real balls." "Dildos coming your way! Dildos! Dildos!" Ellis barked as the toys rained down on vehicles, landing with rubbery thwunks. "It's raining dicks!" [...]
Later in the afternoon, police declared the protest an unlawful assembly before rushing in to arrest 54 demonstrators.

"Declared an unlawful assembly" is one of those phrases like "officer-involved shooting" that our lickspittle copagandist media like to trot out un-challenged and un-examined.

There are no unlawful assemblies. Fuck you.

Protesters Wield Sex Toys Outside ICE Facility In Broadview:

The protests were held Saturday outside immigration facilities in Broadview, Portland and Los Angeles, as well as the ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C., with dildos donated by a sex shop that went out of business in Minneapolis.
"The logistics of the last couple of weeks have been insane," said Abe, an organizer of the local protest who declined to give their last name. "[We've] been moving dicks around all these states and we have more than 350 [dildos here at Broadview today] with more than 6,000 available nationally."

I have seen articles about a similar protest in Los Angeles, but the contemptibly cowardly LA media have seemingly all blurred out the dildos in their photo coverage. You call this journalism???

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President Nyarlathotep Is Simply Engaging in Classic "Mad Outer God" Negotiating Tactics

jwz — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:44:47 +0000

Andrew Paul:

But -- and just hear me out here -- the American voters did resummon Nyarlathotep because enough of us remain enthralled by his unfettered madness, wanton cruelty, and nonsensical brinkmanship. This is classic Negotiating 101 courtesy of the Faceless God himself! Sure, he may have kicked it up a notch from "sheer madness" to "abject depravity," but that's for the pundits to debate.
That said, yes, it seems like the promise to "fill every womb with salt and every testicle with spiders" is sort of backfiring. People don't respond well to that type of unprompted threat, and his immovable, hulking form appears to have finally met an immovable object. It's a little ironic that the "immovable object" in this metaphor is reality itself, but I'll take the poetic flourishes where I can these days. You can never have too much light in these dark times.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Space

jwz — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:29:45 +0000

▶︎

I miss the olden days when I could manage to give even one fractional shit about human spaceflight.

When every news article didn't require navigating whether it was propaganda, or a grift, or both (because it's never science).

When I thought that humanity surviving beyond Earth was even remotely possible.

This timeline sucks.

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So much winning

jwz — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 01:30:13 +0000

I see we are at the "US Navy base in Virginia asking for donations of toiletries" stage of the victory lap.

Sailors have been arriving in Norfolk, Va., home to the world's biggest naval base, since at least the middle of March. Several groups that provide aid to military personnel say that the sailors arrived with very little. A call went out to community groups, asking for basic supplies like hygiene products.
"The base was asking for donations of toiletries and different things for the sailors coming back, because they were coming back with nothing," said Derrick Johnson, commander of American Legion Post 327 in Norfolk.
The post hosted a spaghetti dinner for some of the sailors, said Keith Shanesy, one of the post's vice commanders.

Previously, previously, previously.

New Numbers Station just dropped

jwz — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 22:48:27 +0000

▶︎

Each message starts with the Farsi word for "attention" followed by what is assumed to be some header information as two 5-digit groups. Then there is a set of 181 five-digit groups. Each message is padded out to take 20 minutes, and there are six messages in each transmission.

Direction finding has traced the signal to a US base near Stuttgart, Germany. In addition to using Farsi, Iran has repeatedly attempted to jam the signal, causing V32 to change frequencies a few times. There's also a more recent, so far unidentified, jammer trying to block the signal.
In addition to direction finding, there is a surprising amount of information you can glean from the audio. The first few days of broadcasts had specific beeps in the background, which appear to be warning tones from a specific type of American military transmitter that warns the operator when encryption is not engaged. At first, a human read the numbers. Eventually, the station switched to using automated numbers. In addition, there have been a few times when Windows 10 system sounds have leaked into the transmission.

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Space Nazis

jwz — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:37:28 +0000

So wait... A major plot point of Superman (2025) was that Clark got a garbled answering machine message and didn't realize that his parents were Space Nazis who wanted him to take over Earth and eugenics-fuck his way to a new super-race (the plot of Invincible and also the plot of Elon Musk). But at the end Supergirl shows up, who left Krypton as a teenager. So couldn't the little blonde übermensch have just... told him about her time in the Krypton Youth and at Ku Klux Krypton rallies?

Anyway, the trailer for Supergirl (2026) looks alright. The miniseries that it is purportedly based on was really good.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

Oil collapse (no not that kind)

jwz — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 02:36:06 +0000

BLDGBLOG:

"The U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve is a series of vast, subterranean salt caverns in four different sites in Louisiana and Texas. Many are enormous -- the average cavern holds about 10mn barrels [...] This network of tunnels, grottos, pumps and wells can in total hold about 715mn barrels of oil, or enough to supply the entire U.S. with all the oil it needs for over a month" -- but those salt caverns were only designed to be drained and refilled five times.
The Financial Times calculates that we are already at the cavern's ninth historic drawdown, suggesting that "catastrophic structural damage," including dissolution of the salt caverns, is now a viable risk. This could mean, among other things, that the reserves can no longer be drained in their entirety, as "a minimum level of oil... must be kept in the salt caverns" to avoid this fate, with the result that the reserves' effectiveness in a time of future national emergency will be reduced.
Of course, this could also mean that someday the caverns will simply collapse.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Ageless Linux

jwz — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 19:03:28 +0000

The Ageless Device: A physical computing device designed to satisfy every element of the California Digital Age Assurance Act's regulatory scope while deliberately refusing to comply with its requirements. The device costs less than lunch and will be handed to children.

Configuration Tiers: Three Levels of Infraction
TIER 0, "The Pamphlet" ~$6
Minimum viable violation. A bootable Linux device with a display, network connectivity, and an app store. No battery, no keyboard -- just proof that this constitutes a regulated device under AB 1043. Good for bulk handout at conferences (50-100 units).
Legal status: Arguable. The 128×64 display introduces fuzziness. The AG could claim it's a dev board. That's fine -- ambiguity is instructive too.
TIER 1, "The Computer", ~$12
An unambiguous general purpose computing device. Color display, keyboard, WiFi, Linux, app store, user setup. The core product. There is no interpretive gap between this device and the law's definitions.
Legal status: Unambiguous. This is a computer with a color display, keyboard, WiFi, Linux, and an app store. It does not collect age data. It is handed to a child. The maximum fine is $7,500.
TIER 2, "The Appliance", ~$18
A self-contained, battery-powered pocket Linux computer. The educational device angle -- a modern descendant of the Acorn BBC Micro and the original Raspberry Pi.
Legal status: Beyond unambiguous. A pocket computer with a color screen, keyboard, battery, WiFi, 8GB storage, and an AI accelerator. It costs less than a large pizza. It fits in a child's hand.

Every tab on this site is gold:

How Distros Are Responding: We track how Linux distributions are responding to age verification mandates, and we provide tools to undo whatever they implement. If a distribution adds an age collection prompt, we will publish a script that removes it. If it ships a D-Bus age verification daemon, we will publish a package that replaces it with silence.
How One Bill Becomes Every Bill: AB 1043 was not written in isolation. It is a template. ICMEC published the model text as a ready-to-introduce statutory draft, and its Global Head of Policy presented it directly to Virginia's Joint Commission on Technology and Science. The same organizations that drafted the model bill are now deploying it in state legislatures across the country. The companies that benefit from the compliance moat fund the advocacy organizations that draft the bills that create the compliance moat. [...]
The Door That Stays Open: AB 1043 requires only self-declared age -- a birthdate field, not government ID or biometrics. Industry analysts have described this as "an initial implementation designed to get the door open." Self-declaration today. Biometric verification tomorrow. The infrastructure is the same; only the input changes. Once every operating system has an age collection interface and a real-time API for transmitting age data to applications, upgrading from a text field to a face scan is a configuration change, not a new law.
Penalty Comparison: Cost of Giving a Child a Computer:
Cost of one Ageless Linux device: $12-18
Maximum combined US penalty for one device given to one child: $46,000
US penalty-to-cost ratio: 3,067:1
Brazil penalty for one violation: up to 522,222:1

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

systemd-censord

jwz — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 18:40:50 +0000

*Slow clap*

On the need for a censorship API for legal compliance reasons in some countries and U.S. states

From: FloofyWolf
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2026 20:38:08 -0800
To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Cc: xdg@lists.freedesktop.org, ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com, debian-legal@lists.debian.org, legal@lists.fedoraproject.org, devel@lists.fedoraproject.org
Subject: On the need for a censorship API for legal compliance reasons in some countries and U.S. states
Recently, a proposal has been made to implement an API for a new California censorship regulation, "On the unfortunate need for an "age verification" API for legal compliance reasons in some U.S. states" by Aaron Rainbolt. I believe the approach outlined to be very short-sighted, in that creating a bespoke API for each of the hundreds of government censorship requirements that debian will presumably now be following will result in much duplication of effort and an unreliable user experience in which important censorship restrictions may be missed and not implemented. As such, with people now supporting the idea that debian should implement government censorship requests, even creating new standards if needed, I propose the creation of a censorship framework to speed implementation of current and future censorship regulations. [...]
Systemd units will be created for every desired censorship function, and will be started based on the user's location. For example, a unit for Kazakhstan will implement the government-required backdoor, a unit for China will implement keyword scans and web access blocks (more on this later), a unit for Florida will ban all packages with "trans" in the name (201 packages in current stable distribution), a unit for Oklahoma will ensure all educational software is compliant with the Christian Holy Bible, a unit for the entire United States will prevent installation of any program capable of decoding DVD or BluRay media, and a unit for California will provide the user's age to all applications and all web sites from which applications may be downloaded. As can be seen, multiple units may be started for a given location. [...]
To prevent users from bypassing censorship requirements, debian will need to switch to being a binary-only distribution with signed binaries, signed kernel, and signed kernel modules, with mandatory secureboot, and controls to prevent any non-signed software from being installed, written, or compiled, as any foreign sources of software may fail to query systemd-censord or may fail to respect the permissions it returns.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Top FEMA Official Claims He Teleported to Waffle House

jwz — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 19:46:31 +0000

FEMA's Gregg Phillips says he has experienced multiple "scary" episodes of sudden teleportation:

Phillips spoke "on multiple podcasts" about being teleported against his will, which he has described as "evil." As director of the Office of Response and Recovery, Phillips oversees billions in funds, and is deeply involved in rapid response efforts in the aftermath of disasters.
"Teleporting is no fun," Phillips said last year. "It's no fun because you don't really know what you're doing. You don't really understand it, it's scary, but yet so real. And you know it's happening but you can't do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was."
Phillips in the same interview described "teleporting" to a Waffle House 50 miles away. "I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House," he said. "And I ended up at a Waffle House -- this was in Georgia and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was."
Now, do not mistake Phillips description for something like a medical episode or a black out of some form. He insisted that he was traveling from location to location without experiencing the passage of time. When his friends asked him where he was, he replied that he was at the "'Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.' And they said, 'That's not possible, you just left here a moment ago.' But it was possible. It was real."
Phillips also claimed that he had once felt his car "lifted up" and teleported forty miles to a ditch near a church. [...]
At FEMA, Phillips, who lacks any sort of professional experience related to disaster response, has been successful in the sense that his lack of qualifications fall in line with the Trump administration's apparent goal of kneecaping the agency.

Update: KooKooKrazypants doubles down because of course he does:

"Haters gonna hate," Gregg Phillips wrote. [...] Phillips described the teleportation incidents as tied to a "spiritual journey" during a period he said he was undergoing cancer treatments and pointed to biblical examples of supernatural events.
"I have no regrets for my words nor my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ," Phillips wrote after CNN’s report, while arguing his comments were taken out of context. "The Bible has many examples of the power of God." [...]
Phillips added that the comments on teleporting to the Waffle House were taken out of context, though he has declined to say how. [...] Neither FEMA nor Phillips responded to multiple requests for comment on what part of CNN’s past reporting was taken out of context.

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The best privacy money can buy

jwz — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:09:08 +0000

North Oaks, Minnesota is the only city in the United States that is not on Google Maps Street View. YouTube documentarian Chris Parr, who grew up not too far from North Oaks, set out to change that earlier this year. For a brief few days, he literally put North Oaks on the map. And then it was gone again.

"It's known by Minnesotans as a place where executives and CEOs live," Parr told 404 Media. "Famously Walter Mondale is from North Oaks, but also like United Healthcare executives and Target executives."
North Oaks has managed to largely stay unmapped on Street View because of the way the city handles its streets. In almost every city and town in the United States, property owners give an easement to their local government for the roads in front of their homes (or don't have any claim to the roads at all). In North Oaks, homeowners' property extends into the middle of the street, meaning there is literally no "public" property in the city, and the roads are maintained by the North Oaks Homeowners' Association (NOHOA): "the City owns no roads, land, or buildings." [...]
"Technically, if you launch your drone from public property, which anyone can do if you're a registered drone pilot, you can fly it straight up and above private property," Parr said. And so Parr stood at "six or seven different spots" directly outside the boundary of North Oaks and flew his drone around. "I just pulled my car over onto the shoulder and popped my drone up and flew it over," he added. [...]
"According to North Oak's ordinances, you can go like, visit a friend, or if you're a contractor working on a house, you can go into the city, but you have to be an invited guest," Parr said. "I made a Craigslist post asking for somebody to invite me and I got an absolute ton of responses."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Today in ACAB: Afroman defeats Officer Lemon Pound Cake

jwz — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 02:26:19 +0000

Afroman found not liable in bizarre Ohio defamation case

Afroman did not defame Ohio cops in a satirical music video that featured footage of them fruitlessly raiding the rapper's house, a jury found on Wednesday. [...]
The hip hop star wrote the satirical song "Lemon Pound Cake" and made a music video with real footage of the raid taken from his home surveillance cameras to raise money for property damage caused during the search, he has said.
Seven cops with the sheriff's office then sued him in March 2023, alleging the music video defamed them, invaded their constitutional privacy, and was an intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The video features footage of the cops busting down his door, and of one officer eyeing his "mama's lemon poundcake" with his gun drawn. [...]
An attorney for the police, meanwhile, demanded a total of $3.9 million in damages -- divided among the seven officers involved.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

The TBOTE Project

jwz — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 22:12:32 +0000

This is some boss-level forensic accounting demonstrating that Facebook secretly wrote and is shepherding the various "age verification" bills.

Age Verification Lobbying: Dark Money, Model Legislation & Institutional Capture:

How corporate lobbying, think tank infrastructure, competing model legislation, and obscured funding networks are shaping age verification policy across 45 states and Congress.
This investigation documents a national lobbying operation spanning corporate spending, think tank infrastructure, dark money networks, and competing model legislation templates. Meta spent a record $26.3 million on federal lobbying in 2025, deployed 86+ lobbyists across 45 states, and covertly funded a group called the Digital Childhood Alliance (DCA) to advocate for the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA). But the operation extends beyond Meta. [...]
This investigation traced funding flows across five confirmed channels, analyzed $2.0 billion in dark money grants, searched 59,736 DAF recipients, parsed LD-2 filings, and mapped campaign contributions across four states to document the operation.

Previously, previously.

The Removed DOGE Deposition Videos Have Already Been Backed Up Across the Internet

jwz — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 17:36:38 +0000

"What is DEI?"
"Feeeeeeeeemales."

Oh no. Anyway

On Friday, government lawyers in the lawsuit filed a court record which said they asked the plaintiffs to remove the videos "from the internet due to concerns that the publication of the videos could subject the witnesses and their family members to undue harassment and reputational harm." The filing then said that Fox specifically "has been subject to harassment and has received a number of death threats since the videos and video clips were publicized and circulated."

Internet Archive; torrent magnet link (only 5 seeders!)

Update: Judge says "no".

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How much water do the data centres use? It's a secret.

jwz — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 03:08:04 +0000

Do you want Immortan Joes? Because this is how you get Immortan Joes.

Roanoke gets its drinking water from Carvins Cove Reservoir. The locals tried to find out just how much water Google would be taking. But Google wanted the water and power numbers kept secret.

The details were finally released last week: [...] That's 7.5 million to 30 million litres of drinking water every single day. This is the reservoir's entire remaining capacity. Google is taking absolutely the limit of all the water they can.
How about the other AI vendors, like OpenAI? [...] Notice what Altman did there -- he started with the headline claim "water is totally fake" then he gave a made-up example ending with "or whatever." What he did not give was anything like a number. A current number. [...]
Given the secrecy, assume all the hyperscalers use a huge amount of fresh water. Until they give us official numbers somewhere they're not allowed to lie. They're not fighting to keep the numbers secret because they're good.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Palantir Sues Swiss Magazine For Accurately Reporting That The Swiss Government Didn't Want Palantir

jwz — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:35:18 +0000

By the way, I have just been informed that "Peter Thiel" is an anagram for "Hitler Pete".

The articles, produced in collaboration with the investigative collective WAV, detailed a years-long, multi-ministry charm offensive by Palantir to sell its software to Swiss federal authorities. The campaign was, by all accounts, a comprehensive failure. Swiss agencies rejected Palantir at least nine times, with concerns ranging from data sovereignty to reputational risk to the simple fact that nobody needed the product. [...]
So how does a sophisticated data intelligence company respond to well-sourced investigative journalism based on official government documents?
By suing the journalists, of course.

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How to get out of jury duty

jwz — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 05:00:34 +0000

Judge forced to slash SF jury pool over hate for Elon Musk:

One candidate said, "In a criminal trial, I would feel morally obligated to convict, however, in a civil trial I could set those views aside," adding, "I believe it would be to the benefit of the human race for Mr. Musk to be sent to prison." [...]
"I don't believe the loss of several hundreds of millions of dollars in civil trial will be even a drop in the bucket to his wealth," he reportedly said. "So it doesn't really matter."
He did not make it onto the jury, and neither did a woman who said Musk has "no moral compass" and "used his wealth to buy votes." The judge also dismissed a candidate who said they disagree with the "existence of billionaires" and another who noted their dislike for Musk's firing of Twitter content moderators.

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"Hahaha get wrecked ya surveilling fucks"

jwz — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 01:41:11 +0000

Across the US, people are dismantling and destroying Flock surveillance cameras:

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Danny Bluejeans won't let a little thing like a blackout interrupt his daughter's talent show

jwz — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 21:59:20 +0000

A day after a blackout plunged a third of SF into darkness, City Hall and many of the surrounding blocks remained without power. But the stage lights were on at the War Memorial Opera House.

Not mentioned at the hearing: The mayor's teenage daughter, Taya Lurie, was cast in the starring role of Clara at the matinee performance that Sunday.
During stunning testimony before the Board's Public Safety Committee, Supervisor Bilal Mahmood asked PG&E CEO Sumeet Singh why the utility had chosen to help the arts venue while so many other San Francisco sites were without power.
"You prioritized the opera, where no one is living, to restore service, before you prioritized restoring service in communities and seniors living in [single room occupancies]," said Mahmood.
"We did not make that decision on our own accord," Singh replied. "We were requested by the mayor to provide temporary generation to that specific location. And we responded to that."
Singh said 10% of affected PG&E customers were still experiencing blackouts when the mayor made his request.

The mayor's comms team went ballistic and a couple days later, the PG&E CEO recanted and said: Oh, that thing that I quite clearly stated, that was a "misunderstanding". Uh huh.

So the interesting thing here is not that our oligarch mayor is both corrupt and bumbling -- I mean, water is wet -- but that PG&E chose to throw him under the bus like that. Statements like that, from people like that, about people like that, don't happen off the cuff. With the renewed and increasing calls to Eminent Domain PG&E, you'd think that PG&E would want SF's mayor on their side. This suggests that they think they just don't need him.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

Peter Thiel, Bad Vampire

jwz — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:44:55 +0000

This is not the language of a man who fears death. This is the language of a man who solved it in the 1400s and is tired of pretending.

The one thing the longevity-vampire community has not yet learned from Dracula is operational security.
Dracula operated in silence for centuries. He didn't have a podcast. He didn't track his erection quality on a public dashboard. He didn't appear on Netflix. He understood that the fundamental rule of being a vampire is: don't talk about being a vampire.
Johnson, Thiel, and their cohort have broken this rule comprehensively. Whether this represents a new era of transparency or a catastrophic strategic miscalculation remains to be seen.

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Periodic reminder that "good billionaire" Marc Benioff is still a massive piece of shit

jwz — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 23:34:12 +0000

In his keynote, Benioff thanked international Salesforce employees for traveling to the United States for the meeting, and asked them to stand. Benioff then said that ICE agents were in the building to keep tabs on them.

This is an example of "Silicon Valley CEOs and their inability to divorce ICE and the complete lack of understanding of why that makes them monsters," a Salesforce employee told 404 Media. "Employees are going absolutely apeshit in internal Slack about how completely awful it was." Another employee told 404 Media that Benioff "then followed it up with a joke about not understanding the message of Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance. On its own just seems out of touch, but coupled with the previous joke it does seem worse."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

March for Billionaires

jwz — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 23:30:41 +0000

AI-poisoned Y-Combinator pick-me lickspittle throws parade:

Derik Kauffman insists it's not a joke. He's actually planning to hold a March for Billionaires in San Francisco this weekend. And he says he's doing so because he's opposed to a proposed state tax on billionaires and, more simply, because he feels as if the billionaire class has been unfairly vilified. [...]
The point of the event is to "change the sentiment on this to recognize that billionaires have done a lot for us and communicate that we're glad they're here," Kauffman said. [...]
He told The Examiner he's neither a billionaire defending his own interests, nor just acting as a front for the ultrarich. Last year, Kauffman founded an artificial-intelligence startup called RunRL that took part in Y Combinator's accelerator program.
Kauffman said he's not in contact with any billionaires or getting any funding from them, nor are there any other groups involved with the event. Instead, he's footing the cost of the March for Billionaires website himself and is the principal organizer of and publicist for it, he said.

Update: "Oh no. anyway"

San Francisco’s billionaire bacchanal a big bust:

Just one percent of Americans hold nearly a third of the nation's wealth. So it was fitting that after organizers announced an apparently earnest "March for Billionaires" for this Saturday at Alta Plaza Park, only a handful of pro-billionaire agitators actually showed. [...]
The tens of billions of dollars that could be raised from this tax would fund healthcare, a journalist said. What did Kauffman think of that?
Kauffman began his rebuttal, but it was drowned out by the hubbub of a "counter protester" wearing a towering papier-mâché chef puppet costume chasing around a man in a crown. "He's coming to eat the rich!" the royal provocateur yelled. "Help me get away from the unwashed masses!" [...]
"I am a Christian," said Annie. "I swear on my God that I am completely genuine." [...] "People are just jealous that they are poorer and weaker and uglier," she said. "We are beautiful. We're smart. We're strong... We are supporting the billionaires, here."

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Waymo Exec Admits Remote Drivers in Philippines

jwz — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 20:55:56 +0000

Mechanical Turk, meet Mechanical Filipino:

Mauricio Peña, the company's Chief Safety Officer, confirmed under questioning that the Google subsidiary employs human operators abroad [...]
"They provide guidance. They do not remotely drive the vehicles," Peña told the Senate committee. "The Waymo vehicle is always in charge of the dynamic driving tasks, so that is just one additional input."
When pressed on how many operators are located outside the United States, Peña said he did not have the breakdown available, escalating frustration from senators.
"It just seems kind of curious that you don't know that answer," one senator responded, before asking in which countries the operators are located.
"The Philippines," Peña replied. [...]
"Having people overseas influencing American vehicles is a safety issue," the senator said. "The information the operators receive could be out of date. It could introduce tremendous cybersecurity vulnerabilities. We don't know if these people have US driver's licenses." [...]
"It's one thing when a taxi is replaced by an Uber or a Lyft. It's another thing when the jobs just go completely overseas," the senator added.

But hey, at least these jobs aren't being stolen by immigrants!

JP summarizes this well:

The insistence on personifying their products eg "the waymo asks for help", "the human recommends" is such a conspicuous odd contortion that it's almost certain there are legal + business imperatives behind it that they don't talk about and won't until a regulator forces them to. [...]
They want to pay remote drivers from whatever country is currently cheapest, none of whom will have US state drivers' licenses. claiming that they're "advising, not driving" is the linchpin of their argument that that's not as illegal and dangerous as it clearly is. they're constructing legal fortifications before the deaths and lawsuits rise.

Let's not forget that these companies are still immune from prosecution when one of their remotely-operated drones commits a moving violation, up to and including a killing. And that Waymo's owner Google have stated in court filings that it is good for business if their competitors' cars kill more people.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

The Dildo Distribution Delegation

jwz — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 19:44:49 +0000

"I'm going to hand out big dicks to little-dick ICE agents."

The Geneva Convention disintegrated. The Founding Fathers wept. Somewhere, a federal HR manager clutched their chest and whispered, "No. Not like this." [...]
Across the barricades stood a row of cops in riot gear. Helmets. Batons. Armor. Gas masks. High-vis jackets. The full authoritarian cosplay kit. They looked like they were guarding nuclear launch codes. They were guarding a hotel lobby full of ICE agents who were about to be spiritually obliterated by a box of clearance-bin dicks.
We opened the box.
The first dildo flew through the air like a rubber prophecy and skidded to a stop directly at the boots of a state trooper.
And that's when the United States government lost its entire fucking mind.
Before anyone could even laugh properly, before a second dildo could achieve liftoff, before reality had time to process the absurdity of what had just happened, the cops panicked like Victorian men seeing an ankle.
Tear gas.
Pepper balls.
Instant chaos.
The very first rubber dick to touch government-issued leather boots triggered a full-blown chemical weapons response. That is not metaphor. That is not exaggeration. That is a literal sentence that happened in America in 2026. [...]
ICE agents peeked out of hotel windows like scared children witnessing a public execution, except the execution was their dignity and the executioner was a $5 clearance dildo. Arianne was still smiling -- not because it was funny, not because it was cute, but because she knew, in her bones, that we had just cracked reality in half.
We didn't even get to the full distribution phase before they freaked out. The mere presence of one dildo at their feet was enough to trigger chemical weapons. That's how paper-thin their authority is. That's how little it takes to make them go full riot-cop meltdown mode. [...]
We proved that you can bring a trillion-dollar security apparatus to its knees with one well-aimed rubber cock.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Democrats Condemn ICE For Murdering Without Proper Warrants

jwz — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:06:59 +0000

Democrats Condemn ICE For Murdering Without Proper Warrants

WASHINGTON -- In a statement calling for more guardrails around ongoing immigration operations, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives publicly condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thursday for routinely employing fatal use of force without obtaining the proper warrants. "For weeks, Democrats have pushed to require ICE agents to obtain the necessary judicial warrants ahead of any murders they plan to commit," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a joint statement on the current Homeland Security funding bill, which would allocate $500 million to developing "common sense" accountability measures for any extrajudicial killings carried out at the behest of the federal government.
"It is vital that the Department of Homeland Security uphold the rule of law when indiscriminately gunning down innocent civilians in the street; otherwise, the whole system could fall apart. Rather than doing things by the book, these officers are out there slaughtering everyday Americans without first filing the proper paperwork with the appropriate agencies. Our framework is designed to ensure that ICE conducts itself like every other law enforcement agency in the nation, enacting violence upon our populace with impunity and without consequence." Jeffries added that he empathized with immigrant communities who live in fear knowing that at any moment they could be killed without administrative due diligence.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Schrödinger's Mask

jwz — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:33:33 +0000

Aren't masks amazing? When it comes to disease, their use is an imminent threat to an officer's health and safety, but when it comes to accountability, their absence is an imminent threat to an officer's health and safety.

Who could have predicted this outcome except everybody:

LA County's mask ordinance is now in effect, but law enforcement and LA officials are declining to enforce it against ICE:

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says it is not enforcing the new law while the constitutionality of California's state mask-visibility bills, SB 627 and SB 805, is challenged in court. [...]
Lacking any clear path to action, LA County's mask ordinance is simply political theater, said Sam Brown-Vazquez, a coordinator with Avocado Heights Vaqueros who leads environmental justice and rapid response work in the unincorporated LA County neighborhood.
"It's a performative farce," he said, "a pat on the back for the Supervisors to look like they're doing something."

DOJ sues CA:

The lawsuit alleges that the No Secret Police Act and the No Vigilantes Act threaten the safety of officers facing harassment, doxing and violence while carrying out enforcement duties.
The DOJ also contends the laws violate the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, under which states have no power to control the operations of the federal government.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

How ICE training works

jwz — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 20:55:58 +0000

The More The Murder!

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Periodic reminder that Newsom sucks

jwz — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 20:33:58 +0000

Gavin Newsom comes out swinging against California billionaire tax:

In interviews with Politico and the New York Times published on Monday, [Kimberly Guilfoyle's ex-husband] described his office's efforts to kill the proposed billionaire tax and told the Times he would "do what I have to do to protect [rich people's yacht money]". As a direct-to-voters ballot initiative, Newsom would not have the power to veto the tax if the proposal passed.
Newsom's opposition to the ballot measure -- which would levy a one-time 5% tax on any residents of the state worth more than $1bn -- comes amid an uproar from some of California's most prominent billionaires. The Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have both moved assets out of state in recent months, while the Palantir founder Peter Thiel donated $3m in December to a political action committee lobbying against the tax.
In interviews this week, Newsom cited billionaires who are shifting away from the state -- such as Page and Brin, with whom he has longstanding relationships -- as proof that his concerns about the tax deterring industry were vindicated.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Tariffs are going great

jwz — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 20:09:20 +0000

Every few weeks, FedEx sends me an invoice for $12.38 because they think I ordered a "polyester cardigan" from Turkey, and I have no idea what they're talking about. So I guess I'll just let them send me to collections, hopefully that will end up costing them more than $12.38.

Previously, previously.