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Posted by Elna McHilderson

It's only the first week of December and you already want to clock out for the holidays. This is the time of year where it is perfectly professional to respond with "we'll circle back to this after the holidays." It's a difficult time to trudge through and find any sort of motivation to work. So let your cat comfort you, they are the purrfessionals in that after all. Your boss asks you to come in early? "Sorry, boss. Little Ketchup attacked the Christmas tree. Going to be a little late cleaning that up." Have a million emails coming in for projects that will take way longer than a few weeks to figure out? Send them a cute holiday photo of your cat dressed up as a snowman or something, that will distract them until you can circle back. 

 

It's that time of the year to cuddle up with your kitty and enjoy the pretty lights you have put up in your house. Work? Your cat doesn't know what that even means! It's cold out and it feels like forever-darkness outside. Time to clock out and cuddle. Did a cat write this? Meow, meow, meow, who knows?! Just enjoy these festive silly kitty work memes below. 

[syndicated profile] crooks_and_liars_feed

Posted by Red Painter

Donald Trump underwent an MRI in October, which raised a lot of questions, considering Trump can't stop falling asleep in meetings, is slowing down dramatically, has daily bruising on his right hand and even seems to be losing control of one side of his body.

So, this MRI and 2nd "annual physical" (he had 2 annual exams, so clearly something is up) raised questions. After much pressuring, Trump's physician said that the MRI was for his heart and abdomen and that the images were "perfectly normal", which all readers should take with a grain of salt, since this administration will literally tell you Trump is the strongest and most alert President ever while he is literally sleeping during Cabinet meetings.

Gavin Newsom, widely considered to be the front runner for Democratic nomination for 2028, posted this letter from his physician, Dr. Doolittle.

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Giving Them Something To Chew On

Dec. 5th, 2025 04:00 am
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Posted by Not Always Right

Read Giving Them Something To Chew On

I check out a woman and ask if she wants her receipt.
Customer: "I don't want it. But I also don’t want you to have it. You'll return my items and steal my money."

Read Giving Them Something To Chew On

[syndicated profile] crooks_and_liars_feed

Posted by Brad Reed

President Donald Trump's administration drew criticism from climate advocates on Wednesday for taking a hatchet to fuel efficiency standards aimed at reducing US gas consumption and mitigating the damage done by human-made climate change.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed slashing former President Joe Biden's fuel economy requirements for new cars down from 50.4 miles per gallon down to just 34.5 miles per gallon on average by 2031.

NHTSA claims that the change in fuel-efficiency standards would slash up-front costs to cars by roughly $900, although it acknowledges that this would also increase US gasoline consumption, which could mean higher prices at the gas pump.

The move has the support of America's major automobile manufacturers, who said the new rules would give them more flexibility. Ford CEO Jim Farley, for instance, told the Washington Post that the rule change means that the auto industry "can make real progress on carbon emissions and energy efficiency while still giving customers choice and affordability."

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[syndicated profile] crooks_and_liars_feed

Posted by Heather

I'll believe it when I see it, but it seems even some Republicans are finally tired of Pete Hegseth thumbing his nose at them. As we've discussed here, the Inspector General found Hegseth violated military regulations with the use of his personal phone and transmitting classified documents.

The report found Hegseth could have endangered our troops, and as ABC reported:

The Defense Department's inspector general concluded that the information Hegseth put in Signal had been properly classified by U.S. Central Command prior to the secretary sharing the information with his colleagues and his wife, two sources said. But because the information was so sensitive and risked putting troops in danger if it fell into enemy hands, the IG concluded it should not have been relayed using the commercial app, the people familiar with the details said.

The sources said that, according to the report, Hegseth refused to sit down for an interview as part of the investigation. But he told the IG in a statement that because he has the power to classify and declassify information, he acted within his rights.

Hegseth also insisted in his statement to the IG that the information he shared in the chat was not sensitive and that it would not put troops at risk if exposed -- an assertion the IG rejected.

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[syndicated profile] slashdot_feed

Posted by BeauHD

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A Donald Trump-backed push has failed to wedge a federal measure that would block states from passing AI laws for a decade into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters Tuesday that a sect of Republicans is now "looking at other places" to potentially pass the measure. Other Republicans opposed including the AI preemption in the defense bill, The Hill reported, joining critics who see value in allowing states to quickly regulate AI risks as they arise. For months, Trump has pressured the Republican-led Congress to block state AI laws that the president claims could bog down innovation as AI firms waste time and resources complying with a patchwork of state laws. But Republicans have continually failed to unite behind Trump's command, first voting against including a similar measure in the "Big Beautiful" budget bill and then this week failing to negotiate a solution to pass the NDAA measure. [...] "We MUST have one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes," Trump wrote on Truth Social last month. "If we don't, then China will easily catch us in the AI race. Put it in the NDAA, or pass a separate Bill, and nobody will ever be able to compete with America." If Congress bombs the assignment to find another way to pass the measure, Trump will likely release an executive order to enforce the policy. Republicans in Congress had dissuaded Trump from releasing a draft of that order, requesting time to find legislation where they believed an AI moratorium could pass. "The controversial proposal had faced backlash from a nationwide, bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers, parents, faith leaders, unions, whistleblowers, and other public advocates," the NDAA, a bipartisan group that lobbies for AI safety laws, said in a press release. This "widespread and powerful" movement "clapped back" at Republicans' latest "rushed attempt to sneak preemption through Congress," Brad Carson, ARI's president, said, because "Americans want safeguards that protect kids, workers, and families, not a rules-free zone for Big Tech."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

RoboCop Statue Rises In Detroit

Dec. 5th, 2025 02:02 am
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Posted by BeauHD

alternative_right quotes a report from the Guardian: The statue looms and glints at more than 11 feet tall and weighing 3,500 pounds, looking out at the city with, how to put it ... a characteristically stern expression? Despite its daunting appearance and history as a crimefighter of last resort, the giant new bronze figure of the movie character RoboCop is being seen as a symbol of hope, drawing fans and eliciting selfie mania since it began standing guard over Detroit on Wednesday afternoon. It has been 15 years in the making. Even in a snowstorm in the dark, people were driving by to see it, said Jim Toscano, co-owner of the Free Age film production company, where the statue now stands firmly bolted down near the sidewalk. RoboCop hit theaters in 1987, portraying a near-future Detroit as crime-ridden and poorly protected by a beleaguered and outgunned police force, until actor Peter Weller appeared as a nearly invincible cyborg, apparently created by a nefarious corporation bent on privatizing policing. A grassroots campaign to build a RoboCop statue in Detroit began in 2010, eventually raising over $67,000 on Kickstarter and resulting in a completed sculpture in 2017. However, hosting setbacks caused it to get stuck, "stored away from public view," reports the Guardian. The project finally found a home after business owner Mike Toscano agreed to display it in their new open-air product market, calling it "too unique and too cool not to do."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Posted by BeauHD

U.S. regulators are pressing Waymo for answers after Texas officials reported 19 instances of its self-driving cars illegally passing stopped school buses, including cases that occurred after Waymo claimed to have deployed a software fix. Longtime Slashdot reader BrendaEM shares the report from Reuters: In a November 20 letter posted by NHTSA, the Austin Independent School District said five incidents occurred in November after Waymo said it had made software updates to resolve the issue and asked the company to halt operations around schools during pick-up and drop-off times until it could ensure the vehicles would not violate the law. "We cannot allow Waymo to continue endangering our students while it attempts to implement a fix," a lawyer for the school district wrote, citing one incident involving a Waymo that was "recorded driving past a stopped school bus only moments after a student crossed in front of the vehicle, and while the student was still in the road." The letter prompted NHTSA to ask Waymo on November 24 if it would comply with the request to cease self-driving operations during student pick-up and drop-off times, adding: "Was an appropriate software fix implemented or developed to mitigate this concern? And if so, does Waymo plan to file a recall for the fix?" The school district told Reuters on Thursday that Waymo refuses to halt operations around schools and said another incident involving a self-driving car and an actively loading school bus occurred on December 1, which "indicates that those programming changes did not resolve the issue or our concerns." In a statement, Waymo did not answer why it had refused to halt operations around Austin schools or answer if it would issue a recall. "We're deeply invested in safe interaction with school buses. We swiftly implemented software updates to address this and will continue to rapidly improve," Waymo said. NHTSA said in a letter to Waymo on Wednesday that it was demanding answers to a series of questions by January 20 about incidents involving school buses and details of software updates to address safety concerns.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[syndicated profile] dailykos_feed

For decades, the United States has played a major role in reducing child mortality. The Trump administration’s stance seems to be “well, what if we didn’t?”

The Gates Foundation issued a report Thursday that said about 200,000 more children worldwide under age 5 have died or will die this year compared with 2024. Last year saw 4.6 million children die before their age 5, but that is projected to increase to 4.8 million in 2025. 

This is the first time this century that annual child deaths have increased. Child deaths have declined sharply since 1990, when 11.6 million children under 5 died. Nations made a concerted effort to drive that rate down, and it’s a genuine miracle that the number of deaths has been more than halved in just 35 years. 

Bill Gates called the Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development “a gigantic mistake,” which undersells it. The United States played a big role in decreasing child deaths, and now we are playing a pretty big role in increasing them.

The administration shuttered USAID in July because that is apparently now a thing we let the president do, even though the power to create and eliminate agencies rests with Congress. The courts stood aside as well, letting President Donald Trump slash billions in foreign aid. 

FILE - Flowers and a sign are placed outside the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, file)
Flowers and a sign are placed outside the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development on Feb. 7.

These cuts have already directly impacted hundreds of thousands of children. 

In Ethiopia, the cuts mean a shortage of hospital staff, leading to children being discharged prematurely. In Nigeria, children are dying from malnutrition. The administration is so dedicated to abject cruelty that it even destroyed food bound for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, food that could have fed 1.5 million kids. 

Impact Counter, which projects the human costs of these cuts, estimated that over 600,000 people have died, two-thirds of whom are children. Reviewing the breakdowns of that data and the methodology is an emotional gut punch. How do you feel about 14.7 million fewer children receiving treatment for pneumonia or diarrhea? How about roughly 168,000 children dying per year from malnutrition? And here’s malaria, where aid cuts are projected to lead to over 6 million additional child malaria cases. 

Children are also at greater risk thanks to the arbitrary termination of maternal and child health funds. The administration did that even in the face of a USAID memo saying this would eliminate postnatal care for over 11 million children. 

A modeling study published in The Lancet in April predicted that the cuts to this funding would reverse the decline in maternal and child deaths, with maternal mortality increasing 29% by 2040, under-5 child deaths increasing by 23% in that time, and stillbirths by 13%. These are grim, brutal numbers, and Trump owns them. 

The United States has removed itself from the global stage, stepping away from obligations and refusing to see itself as part of the larger world. Sure, millions of children may die, but that’s just the price we pay for “America first.”

[syndicated profile] dailykos_feed

A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know.

What the f-ck is the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace?

When you order a Nobel Peace Prize from Temu.

Hegseth could have killed troops with Signal chat leak

Does the defense secretary’s “warrior ethos” include endangering soldiers’ lives?

House speaker to struggling Americans: 'Relax'

Pop a chill pill and just take out a short-term loan for those groceries, sheesh.

Cartoon: Going after drug traffickers

… to give them presidential pardons.

Sean Duffy vows to make America smoggy again

He’s also vowing to bring back … station wagons?

Did The New York Times just grow a spine?

The Old Gray Lady is finally fighting for the First Amendment.

Minneapolis mayor tells Trump what the real 'garbage' is

Hint: It’s not the Somali community.

Tennessee is best sign yet for Democrats' 2026 hopes

We see a big blue wave on the horizon.

Click here to see more cartoons.

[syndicated profile] icanhascheezburger_feed

Posted by Sarah Brown

Cats are famously fluid creatures, and every cat owner has witnessed moments where their pet seems to forget that bones even exist. One minute they are a perfectly normal house cat and the next they are spilling over the edges of a bowl like a furry waterfall. They pour themselves into baskets, sinks, flowerpots, and cardboard boxes that should never accommodate their full bodies, yet somehow do. It is as if gravity bends around them out of respect.

Their ability to reshape themselves into whatever container they choose is both impressive and deeply confusing. A cat can stretch to the length of a baguette or compress into a perfect loaf without warning. They melt off couches like butter left in the sun and slide under doors with alarming determination. Scientists may try to describe it with flexibility and cartilage, but anyone who has lived with a cat knows the truth. Cats are liquid because they want to be.

And while their physics-defying behavior makes no logical sense, it always results in excellent entertainment. Every new puddle-cat formation feels like discovering a fresh law of nature, one that proves the world is a little stranger and a lot funnier with felines around.

ursamajor: people on the beach watching the ocean (Default)
[personal profile] ursamajor
Okay, after rehearsal last night, I think the ship is feeling a bit more on an even keel. Even if we are only 10 days out from the annual holiday concert, and we just finished getting all of our music last night.

I'm most nervous about the Magnificat, of course, never having done it; how many trills can you possibly fit into 45 measures? ALL OF THEM, says Bach. But the Hallelujah Chorus is old hat. The new arrangement of Break Bread isn't too difficult, aside from some truly weird close harmony chords in the third round; I do need to record that with a keyboard before this weekend so I can send it out to the sopranos.

And then the Whitney Houston stuff is easy, at least to me, at least partially because these are childhood car radio songs for me, especially the finale medley of So Emotional, Where Do Broken Hearts Go, and I Wanna Dance With Somebody. I mean, I even sang the last of those three for the third grade talent show, and can still get just about every nuanced ad-lib at karaoke today; restraining myself to the choral part is gonna be the hard part here, hahaha. (The tenors and basses get to do the DANCE! spoken word at the outro, though, [personal profile] hyounpark is gonna be so stoked.)

Speaking of, right now, he's in Boston (well, okay, he's about to get on his plane back from BOS), and I'm a little jealous, even if it is for the most last-minute work thing possible and it's not like he got to see anybody but work people, though he did squeeze in dinner at Abe and Louie's. And turns out Boston hasn't quite yet gotten the snow, though Western Mass did, so at least I don't have to be jealous that he got the first snow and I didn't. (Him: "You can have all the first snow you want, I've had enough for a lifetime!")

And he got his Flour sticky bun, so all is well there. :) He tried to pick up their Bakers Gonna Bake sweatshirt for me, but they didn't have any in stock at Clarendon which was his closest option, though they don't have that much room for merch (Central Square is much bigger).

He did manage to stop by Burdick's and pick us up some drinking chocolate and chocolate penguins or mice, so that'll be good for the truly frigid nights we've been having lately (I know, I know, by Bay Area standards). I do need a slightly more windproof solution for night biking; when I was biking home from choir last night, I had a fleece on over a puffy vest over a wool sweater over a long sleeve top, but my arms were still chilly. It wasn't quite cold enough to require pulling out the puffer (which, admittedly, is showing its age because it dates from Eastern Mountain Sports still being an intact company); I think I really just need a windbreaker shell. We'll see.

*

Note to self for Thanksgiving next year: PEANUT SAUCE FONDUE. I mean, it might not wait until next year, peanut satay is a regular guest at the table chez us, but the reminder that we could make a vat of it and do it all fancy banquet style is a good one. :)
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Posted by Boing Boing's Shop

ChatPlayground AI: Lifetime Subscription (Unlimited Plan)

TL;DR: Run your AI experiments in one place with ChatPlayground AI's Unlimited Plan for $79.97 (reg. $619) for a total savings of $539 through Dec. 7 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

If your browser currently looks like an AI convention — one tab for ChatGPT, one for Claude, another for Gemini, and a rogue document full of half-finished prompts — ChatPlayground AI might finally bring some order to the mess. — Read the rest

The post Finally, a way to stop wrangling five different AIs at once appeared first on Boing Boing.

A Very Sound Assumption

Dec. 5th, 2025 12:00 am
[syndicated profile] notalwaysright_feed

Posted by Not Always Right

Read A Very Sound Assumption

Me: "I do hope you enjoyed your stay with us, ma'am!"
Customer: "I did! And it's so nice of the hotel to hire exclusively deaf people! You all need jobs too, and I had no trouble with any of you hearing or understanding me at all!"
Ironically, it takes me a second to process what I have just heard.

Read A Very Sound Assumption

[syndicated profile] slashdot_feed

Posted by BeauHD

Ancient Slashdot user Alain Williams shares a report from Al Jazeera: The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has announced it filed a complaint against Microsoft, accusing the global tech giant of unlawfully processing data on behalf of the Israeli military and facilitating the killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. In the complaint, the council asked the Data Protection Commission -- the European Union's lead data regulator for the company -- to "urgently investigate" Microsoft Ireland's processing. "Microsoft's technology has put millions of Palestinians in danger. These are not abstract data-protection failures -- they are violations that have enabled real-world violence," Joe O'Brien, ICCL's executive director, said in a statement. "When EU infrastructure is used to enable surveillance and targeting, the Irish Data Protection Commission must step in -- and it must use its full powers to hold Microsoft to account." After months of complaints from rights groups and Microsoft whistleblowers, the company said in September it cancelled some services to the Israeli military over concerns that it was violating Microsoft's terms of service by using cloud computing software to spy on millions of Palestinians.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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