Last night, I thought I'd be well enough to return to work today, but I was only able to work a half day before this flu knocked me down again. I'm much more certain I'll be able to work tomorrow. :3
You would think that we would've come up with a better way to notify those in the area that there are emergency vehicles on the move than "destroy everybody's eardrums" by now. :/
Look past the latest culture war skirmishes, and a more troubling pattern emerges: federal threats to university funding and headline-grabbing media cancellations aren’t just noise; they’re signals of a new kind of executive muscle-flexing. The common thread? Personal, combative language that doesn’t just ask for loyalty — it demands it. That’s the calling card of power being gathered, not shared.
This isn’t just the usual political jostling. These are warning flares for the very threat that kept the Founders up at night: an executive with no leash. The Constitution wasn’t born out of abstract theory — it was a security system against precisely this kind of power grab. To make sense of today’s turbulence, we must rewind to 1787, when the central fear was simple: don’t let a single leader morph into a monarch. The playbook we’re seeing now is eerily close to what Edmund Randolph once called the ‘fetus of monarchy.’
King George may not have stalked the halls of Philadelphia in person, but his shadow loomed large. The delegates, fresh from a bruising fight against a remote and unaccountable monarch, were determined not to swap one form of tyranny for another. Their challenge? Build an executive strong enough to get things done, but not so strong that power would sour into oppression.
Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to withhold his signature from all bills until Congress passes a GOP-led voting bill that implements voter restrictions ahead of the November midterms.
“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Be sure to mention that human rights must be assured to people of any gender or sex.
Got my dipole onto the 12m band while investigating power limit issues for 10m and I might just stay here for a while. :3
Still need to figure out the power issue, though. Using the braid of LL240 coax as the conductor for the loading coil worked a charm. When I was using magnet wire for the same, the turns got hot, but now I don't notice any heat. I also have stacked T200-2 cores, which don't appear to be warming up like the earlier single T200-2 core. At this point, it seems like the matching autotransformer (a single FT240-43) might be the issue, as it is still getting pretty warm. Will most likely rebuild it with stacked cores. 🤔
"The world’s wisdom traditions—even Christianity—are pretty easy to understand if you use your own eyes, your own mind, and your own heart to understand them." – Peter Bolland
Palantir Sues Swiss Magazine For Accurately Reporting That The Swiss Government Didn’t Want Palantir | Techdirt
Palantir Technologies, the infamous surveillance and data analytics giant chaired by Peter Thiel, has filed a lawsuit against Republik, a small Swiss online magazine, over a pair of investigative articles published in December. 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.
As if it’s any sort of surprise that European governments are wary of betting on US tech companies with close ties to the US government. It’s not like reports of US spies co-opting US tech companies for surveillance efforts haven’t been front page news over the past twenty years. And now, this administration—with its willingness to antagonize everyone in Europe, and its close ties to Palantir and Thiel? It’s no freaking wonder that the Swiss government was like “yo, maybe pass.”
If you run a company whose entire value proposition is the ability to see patterns, predict outcomes, and connect dots that others miss, you’d think someone in the building might have flagged…
Paul Ferguson
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •Paul Ferguson
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •