Pammy Jo The Fat Orange Monster

The fat orange monster and Pam pic.twitter.com/khkd2GRQAM

— MAGA Cult Slayer🦅🇺🇸 (@MAGACult2) February 13, 2026

About That Swamp

Potomac wastewater spill appears to be largest in US history

A wastewater spill into the Potomac River that began last month now appears to be one of the largest in American history.

DC Water, a local water utility, said in a press release last week that part of a sewer system known as the Potomac Interceptor collapsed along the Clara Barton Parkway on Jan. 19. In that same release, the utility said it “estimates that approximately 243 million gallons of wastewater has overflowed from the collapse site.”

On Monday, DC Water said there had been a “significant overflow” Sunday amid a “high flow period,” with some bypass pumps not in service at the time.

Potomac Riverkeeper Network, a local environmental advocacy group, claimed in a Facebook post Wednesday that the sewage spilled had topped 300 million gallons.

Dean Naujoks, who holds the title of Potomac Riverkeeper, told The Baltimore Sun in an article published Tuesday that the only other spill he could compare in size had occurred in 2017 on the U.S.-Mexico border, leaking 230 million gallons.

“The Potomac River is a shared natural treasure, and any event that threatens its health understandably causes concern, frustration, and a sense of loss. Those feelings are not only valid – but they are also shared by all of us at DC Water,” DC Water CEO David L. Gadis said in a Wednesday open letter.

When asked about the scale of the Washington sewage spillage, Gussie Maguire, a Maryland staff scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation compared it to annual sewage spillage in Baltimore.

“The way that I put it into perspective for myself and for people before, is I compared it to annual sewage overflow amounts,” Maguire told The Hill in a Thursday interview. “You don’t really necessarily want to think about it, but there are a lot of sewage overflows going on in any particular year.”

“I follow happenings in Baltimore pretty closely, and their largest volume of sewage spilled in a year. … The largest year that they’ve had in terms of volume in the last — in recent memory is from 2018, and they had right around 260 million gallons over the course of the entire year, or 250.”

Maguire also said the area where the rupture occurred was set for upgrades by DC Water, with the utility having already “allocated over $600 million.”

The sewage spill was “a single event, but the circumstances that led to it are not unique, according to Maguire, who also pushed for a continued stream of money to go to infrastructure upgrades and repairs, calling taking that kind of action, “really, really important, so that we don’t see this sort of large-scale spill become a regular occurrence.”

University of Maryland researchers have said they found levels of E. coli bacteria at a Potomac River site that topped Environmental Protection Agency recreation standards by 10,000 times two days after the Jan. 19 rupture. A week later, according to the researchers, the bacteria levels had dropped to 2,500 times over standards.

Erika Jordan

Fighting Back

Data Poisoning is my new favorite subversion.

In a somewhat superficial attempt to test the theory, I googled "How to fuck up the algorithm"

It came back with this:

"Fucking up the algorithm" on social media involves actions that confuse the recommendation system by providing it with inconsistent or contradictory data about your interests. This causes the platform to show you irrelevant or unwanted content.

Here are ways to confuse or disrupt a social media algorithm:

• Interact with diverse and random content: Like, comment on, and watch content from a wide variety of unrelated topics and niches. This sends mixed signals about your preferences.
• Avoid consistently liking content: Refrain from the habit of liking every post you see, as this makes it harder for the algorithm to discern your genuine interests.
• Engage with undesirable content:
• Intentionally interact with content you do not like (e.g., watching videos you hate, commenting on posts you disagree with). The algorithm may interpret any interaction as a sign of interest.

Utilize platform tools to misguide it:

• Block accounts that post content you want to see.
• Explicitly "see less like this" on content you might otherwise enjoy.
• Clear your history frequently: On some platforms like YouTube, clearing your watch and search history can disrupt the algorithm's long-term tracking, causing it to hyper-focus on the next few videos you watch, which you can use to further confuse it.
• Use private browsing or third-party tools:
• Access content through methods that prevent the platform from tracking your behavior, which limits the data the algorithm can use to build your profile.
• Post inconsistently and irregularly:
• Posting content at random times and frequencies, rather than following optimized schedules, can hinder the algorithm's ability to predict engagement patterns for creators.
• Create a new profile and immediately violate common practices:
• For dating apps like Tinder, repeatedly deleting and remaking your profile can lead to a "shadow ban" or other negative algorithmic consequences.

Essentially, the goal is to behave in a way that defies typical human attention patterns and makes it impossible for the algorithm to build an accurate, predictable profile of your interests.

I'm proceeding on my presumption that in spite of what the tech geniuses are trying very hard to talk us into believing, machines are not now - nor will they ever become - sentient.

No matter how sophisticated the software gets, it's never going to be moved to tears looking at a sunrise over the plains from a perch in the mountains, or the sound of Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma. It's never going to feel content sitting in the sun on a winter day. It's never going to be joyful or happy, and it's never going to be suicidally depressed.

Because it's a machine. It can't see or touch or taste or hear or smell. In the end, it's nothing but a well ordered pile of silicates and conductors and plastic.

Of course, time could prove me wrong about all that. But I doubt it.

Today's Belle et al

• Huge debt - and getting huger
• The deficit is growing
• Shrinkflation is accelerating
• Job growth sucks
• Mortgage foreclosures are rising
• Personal bankruptcy is rising
• Farm failures are rising
• Consumer Confidence is in the shitter
• and
• and
• and

But hey - The Epstein Class is doing just fine, so who cares about those workin' slob losers in the "middle class"? Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

How the hell do I short this market?

During a "shutdown", what essential services are cut, and what is kept up and running?

• The hotlines for reporting things like fraud and ID theft are taken down, but the office that handles corporate mergers and acquisitions is on the job
• Air traffic control operations for private jets may be impacted, but the commercial traffic has to be limited

40% of the gains in the stock markets is due to speculation on AI.

A Word

The Korean Vegan

An Executive Order is not the law.

And I can't believe anybody has to be reminded of that - but here we are.

The Great Sorting begins

First, gotta love it when a Pam Bondi gets a little hysterical about "the DOW is over 50,000!!!" and then it kinda craters the next day.

And I wonder if I'll get another chance to short this shit. Yeah - prob'ly.

BTW - let the big tech companies pay their own fuckin' bills when it comes to water and power and infrastructure. I'm sick to fucking death of having to subsidize The Epstein Class.

US stocks drop as investors try to separate AI losers from winners

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are dropping Thursday as the market splits further between perceived losers and winners from the rush into artificial-intelligence technology.

The S&P 500 fell 1.1% after erasing an early gain that brought it just below its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 569 points, or 1.1%, as of 12:49 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.5% lower.

AppLovin tumbled 18.3% despite reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Like other software companies, it’s come under pressure recently from worries that AI may undercut its business while fundamentally changing how people use the internet.

AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi pushed back on such worries, saying in a conference call with analysts that indicators show his company is doing well. “There’s a real disconnect between market sentiment and the reality of our business,” he said.

Its stock nevertheless worsened its loss for the young year so far, which came into the day at 32.2%.

Cisco Systems dropped 11.6% despite likewise topping analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue last quarter. The tech giant indicated that it may make less profit off each $1 of revenue during the current quarter than it did in the past quarter.

Analysts said that could be an indicator of higher prices for computer memory that everyone is having to pay amid the rush driven by AI.

More broadly, questions are rising about whether businesses that are spending heavily on AI will end up seeing high-enough profits and productivity to make the investments worth it.

In the meantime, the companies serving customers with huge AI budgets are benefiting.

Equinix, for example, jumped 12.5% even though the digital infrastructure company’s results for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations. It gave financial forecasts for 2026 that topped analysts’ expectations, and CEO Adaire Fox-Martin said that “demand for our solutions has never been higher.”

The company’s data centers are helping to power the world’s move into AI.

Outside of tech, McDonald’s rose 2.2% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The restaurant chain credited moves to improve its value and affordability, including cutting prices on some U.S. combo meals in September.

Walmart’s rally of 2.9%, meanwhile, was one of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500. It erased losses from earlier in the week after a report said spending at U.S. retailers overall stalled in December.

In the bond market, Treasury yields fell after a report said slightly more U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected.

The number was nevertheless lower than the prior week’s, which is a signal that the pace of layoffs may be improving. It also followed a surprisingly strong report on the job market from Wednesday, which said the nation’s unemployment rate improved last month.

A strengthening job market could push the Federal Reserve to keep its cuts to interest rates on pause, even if President Donald Trump has been loudly and aggressively calling for lower rates. That’s because lower rates can worsen inflation at the same time that it gives the economy a boost.

It all raises the stakes for Friday’s upcoming report on inflation at the U.S. consumer level. Economists expect it to show inflation slowed to 2.5% last month from 2.7% in December.

A separate report on Thursday said that sales of previously occupied homes slumped last month by more than economists expected, which also weighed on yields.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.13% from 4.18% late Wednesday.

In stock markets abroad, South Korea’s Kospi rushed 3.1% higher thanks to gains for Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and other tech stocks. The moves were more modest in other Asian markets and in Europe.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.9%, and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.3%.

Chip Franklin

It's one thing to be a sex predator and a pedophile. In a very important way, it's worse to know about the shitty things these fuckin' assholes are doing, and then ignore it in order to profit from it.

We're in the process of watching Rule 6 of the Daddy State Awareness Guide play itself out.

Total Criminalization

If we're all guilty, you can't hold me accountable without the risk of exposing your own culpability.

Today's Amanda

Dumbass Mayo-Americans (MAGA rubes) have to start understanding that their continuing support of Trump's Epstein Class buddies and their fucked up policies are costing them more than the alternative. ie: putting people in charge who are a bit more honest and a lot more competent at this whole government thing.

A good place for them to start is getting their tiny brains around the fact that a tariff is a tax - an extra tax - that they pay every time they buy the gas and the groceries and stuff at the hardware store that Trump told them was going to cost them less.

It's costing all of us more. Companies have done some very clever, very sneaky things to make it look like it's not as bad as it really is. There's been a massive move towards shrinkflation. Anybody with two brain cells they can rub together has to notice that we're all paying more and getting less.

And a little side-effect? Trump is figuring out ways to syphon that money into his own pocket. I know - everybody's really surprised by that one, right?