forrcaho

I've got to admit, I was a bit confused by this headline, because I'd heard that despite cuts to NOAA, the usual flood alerts were given and Texas officials were lying about that.

The article clarifies that a bit:

Former and current NWS employees have defended the agency’s response, as have meteorologists across the country. NWS’s Austin/San Antonio office—which covers the region— issued a flood watch on Thursday afternoon, followed by flash flood alerts that night into Friday morning.

However, the office’s warning coordination meteorologist took an early retirement offer in April as part of NOAA’s personnel and budget cuts, which were part of DOGE’s efforts to slash government “waste.” The position still hasn’t been filled, and according to the department’s website, the office currently has six additional vacancies. That vacancy may have delayed urgent communication with local officials.

It also sounds like the Trump admin isn't going to change their plans for NOAA:

Unfortunately, NOAA’s recently released 2026 budget plan would shut down multiple NOAA labs, including the decades-old National Severe Storms Laboratory, which is crucial in researching and developing storm prediction technology, including hurricane forecasts. These cuts were outlined in Project 2025, with Russell Vought—Trump’s OMB Director—writing that he wanted to gut NOAA because the agency is responsible for “climate alarmism.”

I have to agree, knowing the facts about how rapidly the climate is changing does lead to alarm.

It appears that the credulous Fox "news" watchers really did believe that there were violent immigrant gang members in massive numbers all over the country, as they've been told for decades now. Anyone who understood that's not the case wasn't surprised that "mass deportation" meant rounding up gardeners and construction workers (duh!). But Rogan and his listeners bought into the idea that only the thousands of cartel mobsters that were taking over the country under weak Democrat rule would suffer.

Those were imaginary baddies all along! Tell your listeners that, Joe!

Thanks for the warning. I've crossed Best Buy of my list of places to shop.

Walmart heiress Christy Walton bought ONE full-page color ad in the New York Times. The rallies themselves appear to be independently organized

you can volunteer to host one on their site

and you can get a good idea of who's actively involved in organizing them by looking at their partners page.

Ok, this is an idea I had after reading numerous comments on this post. You're all asking how this would work ... hear me out.

California declares its own currency, the "California dollar". Wages earned in California dollars wouldn't be taxed like US Dollars.

There are some issues to work out; I think the IRS does tax your foreign assets ... some ... but I think that this scheme could work.

A bill like this was proposed in the Minnesota state house, shortly before one of the co-sponsors was arrested for soliciting sex from a minor.

I once saw a headline that someone (I forgot who) said that "AI is weird". All I could think was, well yeah, he's been called "Weird Al" all of his professional life ...

That article says they're closing for Easter, which is not an uncommon thing in the US-- for example, Costco will also do that. Nothing to do with the boycott, or "looting".

My bad, the illustration was supposed to be of Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, who has been accused of trafficking fentanyl. On the one hand, it seems encouraging that they had to find someone who could more credibly be presented as criminal -- hopefully an indication that their claims about the pro-Palestinian students and Argentinians with tattoos they've disappeared were not deemed credible enough by the general public.

Still, we only have the allegation of this administration against this person, so it's quite possible she's entirely innocent. It's not like they give a fuck about actual crimes or making our country safer. They just want to be seen as badasses.

When I worked an hourly job on the night shift, we would all clock out to change the time and then clock back in.

You got a link for that? I'm not finding anything online linking Rumeysa Ozturk to anything related to drugs

Upvoting for the concise summary of what the article is about (thanks!); not for the opinion expressed (which appears to conflate Russian developers with the actions of the Russian government -- something I find problematic at best).