Feb 14, 2026
Sick Fucks
I've tried hard to overcome some of the less-than-worthy residual effects of my breeding and upbringing. I come from dirt farmers in southern Colorado. They settled things outside. They were people who believed strongly in slugging out their differences and then having a friendly beer together afterwards.
I've never liked that kind of fighting, even though I've felt obliged to indulge in it on a few occasions in my 72 years. It just never made any real sense to me. I hit him and my hand hurts - he hits me and my face hurts. You feel bad scared going in, and bad sorry coming out - what's the fuckin' point in any of that? Let's just skip to the place where we're having that friendly beer together.
So I've worked on not letting myself slide back into the mindset that it's just something you do sometimes.
But.
If I ever come across any of these Epstein Class pricks, they're going to sleep.
Overheard
When Pam Bondi is finally in prison, I'll gladly fork over a few extra tax dollars to pay somebody to walk by her cell at least once every day and yell out the DOW Jones average.
Feb 13, 2026
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
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.
Fighting Back
Data Poisoning is my new favorite subversion.
"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:
In a somewhat superficial attempt to test the theory, I googled "How to fuck up the algorithm"
It came back with this:
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
Feb 12, 2026
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)