December 23, 2025
Daily Tech News 23 December 2025
Top Story
- NIST's time servers stopped providing an accurate reference time after a power failure. (Tom's Hardware)
Sounds serious, if you rely on an accurate reference time.
- Their facility in Boulder Colorado lost power for several days, and their backup generators ran out of fuel. (Jeff Geerling)
Due to this, their NTP service drifted out of sync by five microseconds.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (152) | Trackbacks (Suck)
December 22, 2025
Monday Overnight Open Thread (12/22/25)
*****
The Quotes of The Day
Quote I "Unfortunately, it sounds like this is what that bear has potentially found under the homeowner's house in the crawlspace. It's unfortunate. We want to see the bears in the woods, not in people's homes." Cort Klopping, with CDFW.
Quote II “We support LGBTQ rights fully. This has nothing to do with identity. Providing powerful hormones to a person in a psychiatric crisis without proper psychiatric safeguards is not affirming care. It is reckless. In this case, it acted as an accelerant, intensifying instability, impairing judgment, and compounding risk.”Dustin Bailey
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:58 PM | Comments (420) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Monday Cafe
Ruined abbey (no further details given)
Ruined abbey (no further details given)Posted by: Ace at 07:43 PM | Comments (278) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Brown Custodian: I Warned Security About the Sketch Guy "Casing" the School Who Would Ultimately Shoot It Up
In yet another case of "authorities" dropping the ball, someone saw something, someone said something, and the "authorities" did nothing.
Is this something? I don't know. There are often dropped balls in cases like this. I don't know if this is just a normal dropped ball or an ideologically-dictated dropped ball.
I think it might the latter. After all, apparently Brown knew all about the homeless man illegally squatting in the basement of the building where the killer struck. (Yes, I know that homeless man turned out to be one of the few heroes in this story, but obviously Brown didn't know that when they chose to allow him to live in their basement.)In yet another case of "authorities" dropping the ball, someone saw something, someone said something, and the "authorities" did nothing.
Brown seems to believe that fake Social Justice "safety" is more important than the actual physical safety of the deluded marks paying $100,000 per year to be miseducated there. They had already been questioned about their failure to warn the campus about the shooter, and then, later, told everyone that there was no further danger, despite having no idea if there was a continuing threat or not.
A Brown University custodian just dropped a bombshell by claiming he flagged the man who murdered two students to the authorities multiple times before the deadly shooting occurred. Derek Lisi has worked at Brown University in Rhode Island for 15 years, and if he is telling the truth, the horrible and tragic shooting that cost the lives of two young students and injured multiple others could have been avoided. Lisi said in comments that The Boston Globe published that he saw a man walking through the hallways, looking into classrooms, and trying to avoid being seen by suddenly darting into a bathroom -- all weeks before the shooting. Lisi saw the suspicious man at least 10 times and notified the campus security at least twice, but it appears that nobody took the behavior seriously. ... "I knew there was something off with him," Lisi recalled of the man whom he saw casing the university building and whom he later recognized in photos of the accused shooter. "He'd been casing that place for weeks."
Brown University is facing questions over its security policies after its emergency sirens never sounded in response to Saturday's shooting, while taking nearly 20 minutes to send an alert out to students. The scrutiny comes after campus cops passed no-confidence votes against their police chief and questioned the school's emergency response capabilities. Rodney Chatman, the university's director of public safety and emergency management, blamed the lack of sirens on the hectic nature of the crisis. He said police became aware of the incident when an officer saw students fleeing the scene. ... From there, Brown issued and retracted a series of alerts. It sent one at 4:51 saying a suspect was in custody, then another 20 minutes later walking back that claim. A 5:27 alert warned that there was another shooting, but a 6:10 message said that was actually "unfounded."As you know, 34 "human rights" organizations, which I assume are all funded by George Soros, sent a letter demanding that Brown disable its security cameras so that criminal leftist agitators, some in the employ of foreign governments or terrorist organizations, couldn't be photographed committing their crimes.
Brown refuses to say if they disabled the cameras or not. I think we all know this is an admission.
As originally reported in August 2025, a group of far-left human rights advocates sent a letter to 150 U.S. colleges and universities asking them to disable the CCTV systems to protect "free expression and academic freedom across the country," because "the Trump administration has launched an aggressive campaign against US academic institutions." The motive for the request to disable CCTV systems as stated: "Right now these tools are facilitating the identification and punishment of student protesters, undermining activists' right to anonymity----a right the Supreme Court has affirmed as vital to free expression and political participation." The letter from 'Fight For The Future' (August 2025) came after an earlier campaign by the same group seeking to stop the use of facial recognition cameras on college campuses. The Brown University President and school officials have been giving ridiculous answers to questions about the 800 cameras on the campus and the fact that no current footage exists of the shooter walking around inside the campus or inside the buildings therein.
Posted by: Ace at 06:45 PM | Comments (234) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Surprise: The "Reporter" Who Leaked and Whined That Her Hit-Piece Got Held Up Turns Out to Have a History of Batty Leftwing Propaganda Pieces
Chuck Ross for the Free Beacon:
LOL.
'60 Minutes' Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, Who Cried Foul Over Delayed Immigration Piece, Was Behind 'Intentionally False' Hit Piece on Ron DeSantis That Even Democrats Said Was Wrong
Alfonsi's immigration piece needed additional reporting, Editor in Chief Bari Weiss told CBS staff
A 60 Minutes correspondent is up in arms after CBS management delayed a story decrying the deportation of illegal aliens from the United States to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, accusing CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss of caving to political pressure and betraying sacred journalistic principles. The correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, was behind an embarrassing 2021 flub at 60 Minutes in which she falsely reported that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) gave preferential treatment to a campaign donor to distribute coronavirus vaccines. ... In her leaked email to her colleagues, Alfonsi accused CBS News and Weiss of engaging in "corporate censorship" and of "betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism." Reporters at CBS News are threatening to quit over the Weiss decision, CNN's Brian Stelter reported (it's unlikely that anyone will actually quit due to the fast-shrinking job market for television reporters).
... There's precedent warranting additional legwork on Alfonsi's segments. Alfonsi was the lead correspondent on a debunked story in 2021 that DeSantis gave preferential treatment to the supermarket chain Publix to distribute coronavirus vaccines because the company donated $100,000 to DeSantis's campaign. "How is that not pay-to-play?" Alfonsi asked DeSantis when she confronted him after one of the governor's press conferences. Several Florida officials, including Democrats, blasted the 60 Minutes report, saying that DeSantis's office was not involved in awarding contracts to Publix. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D., Fla.), who oversaw Florida's emergency management division in 2021 and is known for tangling with the GOP, said that the division recommended Publix for the contract because other pharmacies were not equipped to distribute vaccines. "No one from the Governor's office suggested Publix. It's just absolute malarkey," he said. Then-Palm Beach County mayor Dave Kerner (D.) called the story "intentionally false." Publix said the story was "absolutely false and offensive." And DeSantis said the story provides an example of "why nobody trusts corporate media." "They are a disaster in what they are doing," the governor said. "They knew what they were doing was a lie." Poynter, a media watchdog group funded largely by liberal charities, called the report a "sloppy moment" that "misses the mark." The Publix donations to DeSantis's campaign were "neither illegal nor unusual," according to Poynter. CBS did not correct or apologize for the segment, only issuing a narrow statement defending why it edited down DeSantis's comments to Alfonsi and pointing out that DeSantis declined 60 Minutes' offer for a full sit-down interview. ...In more propaganda news: NPR is warning its reporters from continuing to cite a "law professor" named Carl Tobias, who is apparently on dozens and dozens of reporters' cell phones as someone willing to give them whatever quote they need to sell the main political point they're trying to make. Apparently he's almost always cited as "an expert," and an expert in many different fields. Whatever you need an "expert" to comment on, Carl Tobias is your one-stop shop.
Alfonsi never weighed in on her faulty DeSantis report beyond the narrow statement issued by CBS. 60 Minutes rarely apologizes for or corrects its reporting unless confronted with widespread public opprobrium and overwhelming evidence that its reporting was false.
Posted by: Ace at 05:48 PM | Comments (185) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Is This Something?
The first trailer for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, due in theaters next July.
Matt Damon looks too stupid to be Shrewd Odysseus, and Nolan is doing the Industry Standard race-swapping, but... I do like most Nolan movies, and hope this is good.Posted by: Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (432) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Communist Cuba "On Edge of Collapse" Due to Trump's Oil Embargo of Cuba's Key Ally Venezuela
Late last week, Trump seized a second Venezuelan tanker.
Now he's tracking a third tanker from the "dark fleet."The U.S. Coast Guard is pursuing a sanctioned oil tanker near Venezuela as President Donald Trump intensifies his pressure campaign against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro with a sweeping blockade targeting illicit oil shipments. "The United States Coast Guard is in active pursuit of a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela's illegal sanctions evasion," a U.S. official said in a statement to Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson. "It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order." Reuters reported that another official noted the tanker was operating under sanctions and that it had not been boarded thus far. The official also said interceptions could be taken by flying or sailing near vessels of concern. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the officials did not provide the name of the vessel or where it was operating while being pursued. The pursuit comes days after Trump announced a "total and complete blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. .. A second tanker was seized by U.S. forces on Saturday, again, off the coast of Venezuela. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X that the U.S. Coast Guard, with assistance from the Department of War, apprehended the oil tanker during the early morning hours. The ship had last been docked in Venezuela.This may result in Maduro's downfall. It might also result in the downfall of the Castroist regime in Cuba. Venezuela has been sending its communist ally Cuba shipments of very subsidized oil for decades, and now those shipments are less than one-third of what they had been.
Cubans are going hungry, suffering from spreading disease and sleeping outdoors with no electricity to power fans through the sweltering nights. A quarter of the population has fled during the island's most prolonged economic crisis.Is this good or bad? I'll reserve judgement until Tucker Carlson explains to me how communists are really just Friends We Haven't Met Yet.
And it's about to get worse. The U.S. is ratcheting up pressure on Havana's key benefactor, Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro's regime, which has kept the Communist-ruled nation afloat with cheap oil. Now Venezuelan oil exports are at risk thanks to a partial blockade targeting sanctioned tankers--the kind that carry about 70% of the country's crude. One tanker that the U.S. has already seized was en route with almost two million barrels of Venezuelan oil. The blockade adds to a U.S. pressure campaign on Maduro that also includes a major military buildup in the Caribbean, airstrikes on boats allegedly connected to Venezuelan drug trafficking and threats of bombing the country itself. Were Venezuela's oil shipments to stop, or sharply decline, the Cubans know it would be devastating. "It would be the collapse of the Cuban economy, no question about it," said Jorge Piñón, a Cuban exile who tracks the island's energy ties to Venezuela at the University of Texas at Austin. Venezuela has been vital for Cuba's economy since 1999, when then-President Hugo Chávez described the two countries as bound together "in a sea of happiness." Cuba deployed sports trainers, doctors and counterintelligence agents to Venezuela, the latter to root out traitors who might overthrow Chávez. Venezuela responded with 100,000 barrels of oil shipped to Cuba daily. The heavily subsidized oil shipments have fallen to 30,000 barrels a day. Agents from Cuba's vaunted intelligence service remain in Venezuela, where they have worked to purge disloyal military officers and government officials, helping ensure Maduro remains ensconced in power. Cuba's deep reliance on Venezuela means Cuba's Communist government is doing all it can to prevent Maduro--who trained in Cuba as a young man--from being forced from office in his greatest challenge after nearly 13 years in office. That means ensuring he is always surrounded by security and loyal aides, with no one carrying cellphones or other electronic devices. "They are taking very good care of Nicolás Maduro and his immediate successors," said Thomas A. Shannon Jr., a former high-ranking U.S. diplomat who engaged frequently with the Venezuelan regime. "The Cubans are not going to go quietly into the dark night."
Posted by: Ace at 03:32 PM | Comments (359) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Epstein Files Reveal Bill Clinton Cavorting With Very Young Women on Pedo Island; Democrat Flacks and Leftwing Media -- But I Repeat Myself-- Claim Trump Is "Curating" the Photos to Make Slick Willy Look Bad
Meanwhile, a recent NY Times hit piece failed to connect Trump to Epstein's crimes.
Plus a rousing chorus of "But Trump!!!"
Donald Trump's Department of Justice on Friday released more than 300,000 pages of photos and evidence connected to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The vast trove includes images showing the disgraced financier and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell socializing with high-profile figures, including former president Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson. One photograph appears to show Clinton in a swimming pool alongside Maxwell and several unidentified, partially clothed women. Clinton broke his silence on Friday to turn the tables on Trump, releasing a statement that declared: 'The White House hasn't been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they'll try and hide forever.'Uh-huh. Should he have released them this morning instead, Slick? Isn't he on some kind of Congress-imposed deadline?
Britain's disgraced former royal, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, also appears in the material, along with his former wife, Sarah Ferguson. References to Trump are limited in the documents, and he has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the case.
Meanwhile, a recent NY Times hit piece failed to connect Trump to Epstein's crimes.
Byron York
@ByronYork 4h The New York Times makes another big effort to connect Trump to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. Fails again. "The Times interviewed more than 30 former Epstein employees, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with the two men over the years. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship and scoured court documents and other public records...An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein's abuse and trafficking of minors."
Posted by: Ace at 02:32 PM | Comments (315) | Trackbacks (Suck)
AGAIN: Violent Deranged Homeless Man, Set Free By Leftwing Judges Over and Over Again, Randomly Slashes and Permanently Blinds a 75 Year Old Woman
Below the fold, a cop says that this homeless criminal is "notorious" for randomly attacking people. Yet he was allowed to roam the streets, menacing and attacking citizens.
Update: I had to go to the UK to get a media story about this.
Below the fold, a cop says that this homeless criminal is "notorious" for randomly attacking people. Yet he was allowed to roam the streets, menacing and attacking citizens.
Oh and they said "he usually just punches people" I guess that is okay... Posted by: steevy
Tuck's News
@tucksnews HORROR: 75-Year-Old Seattle Woman Loses Her Eye After 'Serial Assaulter' Known to Cops Hits Her Face at Full Force with Wooden Board with Screw (VIDEO) Meanwhile, in the Democrat hellhole of Seattle... A 75-year-old woman lost her eye after she was brutally attacked by a serial assaulter who has a history of punching and stabbing people. 42-year-old Fale Vaigalepa Pea hit Jeanette Marken in the face with a wooden club with a screw through the end of the plank as she was standing on a street corner in downtown Seattle after picking up a food order earlier this month. Surveillance footage shows Pea approached Marken and swung the wooden club with full force at her face. Bystanders rushed to Marken after she hit the ground. She was rushed to a nearby hospital and treated for her facial injuries. Family members told KOMO News that Marken lost eyesight in the damaged eye.
Kevin Kijewski
@KevinKijewski This shocking Seattle video exposes the failure of soft-on-crime policies under Democrat prosecutors like King County's Leesa Manion, a recipient of George Soros funding. Repeat offender Fale Vaigalepa Pea - arrested eight times in 2025 alone for assaults, drugs, indecent exposure, and more - brutally attacked a 75-year-old woman with a spiked board, leaving her permanently blind in one eye and requiring facial reconstruction. George Soros has backed over 100 similar prosecutors nationwide to socially reengineer our communities, including potential Michigan Democrat Attorney General nominees Karen McDonald and Eli Savit. We also can't ignore the mental health crisis fueling this violence - too many cycle through arrests without treatment, endangering innocent people. As Michigan's next Attorney General, we'll fully prosecute violent offenders, support law enforcement, and pursue real solutions to protect families and address the mental health crisis endangering our communities. It's time to make Michigan safe, normal, and red again in 2026.
Update: I had to go to the UK to get a media story about this.
An elderly woman was savagely attacked in broad daylight by a man wielding a wooden board with nails in it. Jeanette Marken, 75, was left permanently blinded in her right eye after being hit in the face with the makeshift weapon in Seattle, allegedly at the hands of repeat offender Fale Vaigalepa Pea, 42. Family members told KOMO that a screw sticking out of the board gouged out Marken's eye, and after several surgeries she was told she will not recover her eyesight in the eye. Marken's son Andrius Dyrikis told the outlet that the random attack has left the family stunned, saying: 'To take a wood club with nails and hit her at full force in the face? I don't understand it.' ... Police said Pea was 'notorious' for attacking random victims on Third Avenue in Seattle. The bodycam footage showed a paramedic question the officer after he recognized Pea, asking: 'Who is this guy?' 'He's a regular. He usually punches,' the officer responds. 'I guess today he decided to escalate from his usual.' According to KOMO, Pea's string of offenses dates back to 2011, when he stabbed two people at a party. One of the victims in that attack was stabbed eight times, yet despite a jury finding Pea guilty of the savage attack, he received a sentence of just 18-months community custody. Pea continued racking up criminal offenses over the years, including one in 2020, four in 2023, and one in 2024. This year, the King County jail reported that Pea has been booked into custody a staggering eight times, for offenses including assault, indecent exposure, drug offenses, and property destruction.Oh and he's also a transgender. Whether he's a "real" transgender (I use that term with reservations) or just another thug who has a Courtroom Gender Epiphany, I don't know.
However, KOMO reported Seattle Municipal Court and King County Superior Court records show none of his arrests this year resulted in charges - until the alleged attack on Marken. Pea is now charged with assault in the first degree, and will remain in custody until he has a competency hearing later this month. Prosecutors cited Pea's lengthy rap sheet in a charging document for the assault on Marken, saying that his 'egregious actions in this case, as well as his prior assaultive criminal history, demonstrate that he is a substantial danger to the community and is likely to commit a violent offense.' Dyrikis said he felt let down by the justice system for allowing the repeat offender to roam freely on the streets despite his history. 'He's a usual? A usual what? Attacking people? Civilians? What the hell is wrong with your system?' he questioned. 'I want someone to at least say to my mom, 'Hey, we're working on this, we're fixing it... I want them to say, 'we notice, hey, we're working on it.''
Posted by: Ace at 01:26 PM | Comments (348) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Bari Weiss Halts "60 Minutes" Hit Piece on Trump Over Sending Criminal Illegals to El Salvador, Saying Further Reporting and Context is Required; The Left Freaks Out
It's the same kind of entitlement that the hard-left progressives and communists infesting the federal bureaucracy have: It doesn't matter who the president is, it doesn't matter what his policies are, it doesn't matter if America voted for those policies -- they're the ones in charge. They own the place. Leftists are appointed by Nature to rule over all other men.
And the staffers, employees, and underlings at CBS "news" don't care that their leftwing agitprop business model has failed so badly that their corporations are being sold out from under them at a deep discount. Bari Weiss's position as Editor in Chief doesn't matter -- they are entitled to run the show.CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss defended her decision to pull a controversial "60 Minutes" segment on an El Salvador prison, telling staff Monday the piece "wasn't ready" and needed more reporting -- pushing back on accusations that the last-minute move was politically motivated. Weiss addressed the backlash during a network-wide editorial call, saying she held the segment because "we simply need to do more," according to a recording reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. "I held a '60 Minutes' story and I held that story because it wasn't ready," Weiss told CBS News staffers on Monday. When reached by The Post, CBS News confirmed the accuracy of the Journal's reporting. Weiss said the story "has already been reported on by places like the [New York] Times, the public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment in this prison. So to run a story on this subject, two months later, we simply need to do more." She said the only newsroom she wants to run is one where editors can have "contentious disagreements" while assuming "the best intent" of colleagues -- an implicit criticism of "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. "The only newsroom that I'm interested in running is one where we are able to have contentious disagreements about the thorniest editorial matters and do so with respect and crucially where we assume the best intent of our colleagues," Weiss said on the editorial call on Monday. Alfonsi blasted the decision in a Sunday email to top correspondents, writing that she learned just a day earlier that Weiss had "spiked our story" and arguing the move was political, not editorial.That's a laugh. Every story 60 Minutes runs -- or chooses not to run -- is political. They did no stories on Biden's mental decline, for example, nor any negative stories on Obama, Biden, or Hillary Clinton. But they choose to run hit-piece after hit-piece on Trump. These are choices, and they're animated by political animus. But they insist that they have access to an Objective Holy Standard of Newsworthiness that you wouldn't understand -- and neither would professional journalist Bari Weiss. Your facts are opinions, their opinions are facts. Just like your speech is violence, and their violence is speech.
... "Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices," Alfonsi wrote, according to the Times.As someone at Hot Air pointed out, the RatherGate forgeries passed your attorneys, too. All it takes to avoid a defamation suit when making allegations about a public figure is no provable malice. Note that CBS "news" staffers take the position that a story doesn't have to be true and accurate to run. It merely has to not be provably defamatory. By the way, 60 Minutes has already done this story. And they'll do it a dozen times more unless they're told they are supposed to be "journalists," not DNC staffers.
... Weiss rejected Alfonsi's characterization during the morning call on Monday, saying the prison conditions had already been reported by the Times and others and that airing a similar story months later required additional reporting, including making "every effort" to get key principals on the record and on camera. "To me, our viewers come first, not a listing schedule or anything else," Weiss said on Monday. "That is my North Star and I hope it's the North Star of every person in this newsroom."It's not. They're political actors with a political agenda.
Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (282) | Trackbacks (Suck)
THE MORNING RANT: As Warner Bros Discovery circles the drain, CEO David Zaslav extracts generational wealth for himself
to my “bad business tally.” Mr. Washington wrote:
to my “bad business tally.” Mr. Washington wrote:
To add to your bad business tally… WB’s David Zaslav did such a bad job his distressed studio is about to functionally disappear… there will be hundreds if not thousands of layoffs, many from the very divisions that created the value Netflix now wants to own. And despite this abysmal record, Zaslav is going to walk away from this deal with the reward of generational wealth for his failure.It doesn’t take much digging to see what a mess Zaslav has made, and how obscenely he has rewarded himself despite (or because of ?) the destruction he has wrought. Some quick background - David Zaslav was a successful executive at NBC before taking the helm at Discovery Communications. Meanwhile, AT&T had bought Time Warner Media in 2018. By 2022, AT&T decided to unload that same entity, which it had renamed Warner Media. Mr. Zaslav and Discovery took on about $40 billion in debt to buy Warner Media, plus it assumed Warner’s existing debt, leaving the post-acquisition company (named Warner Bros Discovery) choking on about $50 billion in debt. The cost of digesting the merger, along with a variety of operational reasons, caused WBD to start losing money, which was really inconvenient since it needed to service all that debt. Over the following three years, Warner Bros Discovery lost over $21 billion. These tremendous losses necessitated severe austerity measures, including several rounds of layoffs putting thousands of employees out of work. Those laid off employees weren’t actors. They were everyday people behind the scenes in sales, accounting, production, etc. The actual owners of the company, its stockholders, also took a financial drumming thanks to Zaslav’s stewardship of the company. A decade ago, Discovery stock was trading at about $40 per share, and it hit $50 per share shortly before the Warner Brothers acquisition. But as WBD bled red ink and focused on cost cutting, its top line revenue started decreasing too. Losses combined with negative revenue growth are a toxic combination to investors, resulting in the stock price dropping about 80% to less than $10 per share. Despite the rolling financial catastrophe at Warner Bros Discovery, Mr. Zaslav continued to be richly compensated. Over the past three full years, his total compensation exceeded $140 million. In 2024 alone, a year that WBD suffered an $11 billion loss on declining revenue, Mr. Zaslav was rewarded with total compensation of $52 million. Despite WBD’s persistent losses and its doubtful ability to service its debt, it houses a valuable film library, and it still owns some desirable properties such as HBO and Warner Bros Studios. Netflix and Paramount are both making bids to purchase WBD at about $30 per share, which doesn’t recoup all the money investors have lost, but it is much better for stockholders than the bankruptcy that seems imminent if WBD remains independent. Unfortunately for WBD’s employees, its acquisition will result in thousands more jobs being eliminated by the acquiring entity. But where does that leave Mr. Zaslav and his executive team? Don’t worry, they’ll be fine. According to The Hollywood Reporter, upon the sale of Warner Bros Discovery, Mr. Zaslav will receive $30 million in cash plus another $537 million in equity, for a total golden parachute of $567 million. Several of Zaslav’s top lieutenants will also receive golden parachutes worth in excess of $100 million. That is impressive compensation for destroying a company. Think of how much they’d be worth if they were running a profitable company with revenue growth. I am a free market capitalist. I don’t write these types of articles because I’m seeking government action to regulate away the behavior of people such as Zaslav. Just the opposite. To keep the socialists at bay, there is an obligation for us free marketeers to police those who are accessing levers of power to extract wealth rather than create wealth. If corporate boards don’t start putting some controls on parasitic executive behavior, people will start voting for politicians who will.
Oh, heck yeah! Let me do a little research and put together a post. I’m so glad that Zaslav and his heirs are set for life after he ran WB into the ground. Those lost jobs, livelihoods, and ruined lives are mere statistics. The transfer of wealth from WB to Zaslav is inspiring.
— Buck Throckmorton (@BuckThrockmort) December 17, 2025
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (237) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Mid-Morning Art Thread
Osservanza Master This is wild! If you had told me that this work was from the Magic Realism school and was painted in the 1930s, I would have bought it!
Osservanza Master This is wild! If you had told me that this work was from the Magic Realism school and was painted in the 1930s, I would have bought it!
Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (322) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Morning Report — 12/22/25
And yet elsewhere in the world as lurker extraordinaire Prof. Victor Davis Hanson notes it is indeed open season on Jews. For sure the ongoing 1,500-year bloody war of genocide waged by Islam is a war on Jews. But there is also a rhetorical war being waged against The Jews which sadly has its roots in racial/religious bigotry that predates the founding of this nation and even way before Islam.
The Milwaukee County judge on trial for helping a violent illegal immigrant elude federal law enforcement authorities has been convicted on one of the two charges against her. A jury late Thursday found Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of felony obstruction but determined there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her on a misdemeanor charge of concealing an individual from arrest. Her attorney told reporters that Dugan will appeal the conviction, a verdict that should serve as a wake-up call to judges who disregard laws they don’t like in the furtherance of judicial activism.Well of course she'll appeal, since despite my seeing this as a positive sign, given the nature of who occupies far too many a judge's seat in far too many an American courtroom, she might have a shot at winning an appeal. And yet she lost in a Wisconsin court which as we all know, thanks to Madison and Milwaukee is not the conservative bastion that it seemingly ought to be, especially in the eyes of a NYC transplant like me. But be that as it may, here's hoping this criminal is disbarred, disrobed and never gets within 1000 miles of a judges bench except as a defendant, and ultimately serves a lengthy stretch in a federal lockup. And, speaking of Wisconsin, this decision came down from that state's highest court, that, given its current far-leftist majority is a pleasant surprise:
Earlier this year, on June 5, 2025, the Supreme Court rendered a major victory for religious freedom in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission. In a unanimous judgment authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Court reversed an earlier order in favor of Wisconsin. The justices reasoned that Wisconsin violated Catholic Charities’ First Amendment rights in denying it a tax exemption because it thought the services provided were not primarily religious insofar as its employees “‘do not proselytize or serve only Catholics’ in the course of performing charitable work.” On remand, Wisconsin officials ignored the Supreme Court, again denying Catholic Charities’ request for an exemption. However, on December 15, 2025, in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, on appeal, the state’s high court summarily ruled that Catholic Charities is entitled to the requested exemption from unemployment taxation. As such, this column reviews Catholic Charities’ judicial history before reflecting on its impact on religious freedom. . . . . . On December 15, 2025, in Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, Wisconsin’s highest court summarily ruled that “[i]n light of the Supreme Court’s holding that this court ‘impose[d] a denominational preference’ that does not survive strict scrutiny…we determine that Catholic Charities [and its sub-entities are] eligible for the religious purposes exemption to [state] unemployment taxation. . . . . . Catholic Charities is noteworthy because members of the Supreme Court, including separationists Justice Sotomayor, author of its unanimous opinion, with fellow separationist Justice Jackson penning a separate concurrence, put aside their ideological differences in rectifying Wisconsin’s having trammeled Catholic Charities’ First Amendment rights. . . In sum, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court finally applied precedent properly in protecting Catholic Charities’ religious freedom rights. In so doing, Wisconsin’s judges acknowledged that because secular jurists lack the authority, and expertise, to interpret what qualifies as being at the heart of the Catholic Church’s or any other church’s mission, they must defer to the judgments of religious leaders who define their missions.So smacking down a rogue justice who interfered with federal law enforcement and actually aided and abetted a cviolent criminal evade apprehension and a decision that upholds religious liberty, we are given a couple of things to keep hope alive.
And yet elsewhere in the world as lurker extraordinaire Prof. Victor Davis Hanson notes it is indeed open season on Jews. For sure the ongoing 1,500-year bloody war of genocide waged by Islam is a war on Jews. But there is also a rhetorical war being waged against The Jews which sadly has its roots in racial/religious bigotry that predates the founding of this nation and even way before Islam.
Just a few years ago, it used to be that anti-Semitism was mostly on the left and repugnantly identifiable and condemnable by most. . . The right used to be a unified corrective to left-wing anti-Semitism. It still polls nearly 70 percent in favor of Israel. For a while longer, it is far more likely to condemn anti-Semitic violence than the left. But recently, its own base, in varying degrees, has come full circle and joined the left in its distaste for Israel and Jews in general. . . One hallmark of the new right-wing furor against Jews and Israel is the strange symbiosis they employ. Formerly edgy podcasters become vicarious hosts of virulent anti-Semites. The partnerships are a way of not directly owning up to their toxicity but just “putting it out there.”I have no idea how Carlson and Owens were brought up or arrived at their beliefs about "Jews" or "The Jews?" I assume that both have either inherited/absorbed the beliefs of their parents and families which have been passed on for generations. It's not the world's oldest hatred for no reason. Or, even worse, maybe they engage in this merely for personal gain. It's a very short walk from Charlie Kirk and 9/11, to the Deicide trope and even believing that Jews use the blood of Christian children to make Passover matzohs. And that's that, my friends. Have a great day! And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
. . .Candace Owens initially championed Kanye West (“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE."). Then she graduated to expressing her own old anti-Semitic tropes: “There is just a very small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism. … All Americans should want answers because this appears to be something that is quite sinister.” Tucker Carlson hosted critics of the U.S. effort against Hitler in World War II and Israel-behind-it conspiracists before escalating to inviting Nick Fuentes on in a mostly friendly manner—which might be attributed to his interview format, except he has attacked fellow conservatives far more than has odious Fuentes.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
- Victor Davis Hanson: As leaders equivocate and extremists unite left and right, open season on Jews spreads across the West—unchecked, unnamed, and certain to grow deadlier.
Slouching Toward Open Season on Jews
Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:18 AM | Comments (447) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 22 December 2025
Top Story
- How Pepsi saved the Roomba, and how Lina Khan murdered it. (Tech Crunch)
I hadn't heard the Pepsi story before:The press drove this huge initial demand - 70,000 robots. So next year we're going to do four times that. We made 300,000 robots. We even made a television commercial, but we were a bunch of geek engineers, so it totally failed. After Cyber Monday we were sitting with 250,000 robots in our warehouse like, "Oh my God, the world's going to end."
And now for Lina Khan's FTC, the AntiPepsi:
Then something good happened. The guy running our website said, "Why did sales quadruple yesterday?" We hadn't done anything. What had happened was Pepsi had started running a TV ad with Dave Chappelle. He walks into this beautiful home, picks up a potato chip, and a Roomba comes out. He's like, "A vacuum cleaner!" He throws down the potato chip, the vacuum eats it, then chases him. His pants are ripped off. He stands up in boxers. A beautiful woman appears, and he says, "Your vacuum cleaner ate my pants." We sold 250,000 robots in two weeks and realized we knew nothing about marketing.The amount of money and time spent was indescribable. I would not be surprised if over 100,000 documents were created and delivered. iRobot invested a significant part of our discretionary earnings against fulfilling the requirements that went along with doing the transaction. Amazon was forced to invest many, many, many times that. There was a whole team, both internal and external employees and lawyers and economists working to try to, in as many different ways as possible - because it seemed like our message was falling on deaf ears - demonstrate that this acquisition was not going to create a monopolistic situation.
It was never going to create a monopoly. The FTC didn't care. It wanted scalps.There was daily activity for 18 months associated with this. Perhaps most telling, when I was testifying as part of being deposed, I had a chance to walk the halls of the FTC. The examiners on their office doors had printouts of deals blocked, like trophies.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (106) | Trackbacks (Suck)
December 21, 2025
Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 21, 2025 [Doof]
The Winter Solstice is upon us
The Winter Solstice is upon us
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Gun Thread: Pre-Christmas Edition!
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Food Thread: Nice Buns! But Size Does Matter!
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First World Problems...
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What An Incredible Time To Be Alive [Pete Bog]
On December 17th, 1903, one hundred and twenty-two years ago on a windy sand dune in North Carolina the world was changed. Two brothers, bicycle mechanics from Ohio ran a contraption made of wood, cloth, and wire down a rail until it gained enough speed to become airborne. The first manned powered flight. In the scale of recorded human history, about 5,000 years, 122 years is a trivial span. I would suspect that no similar span anywhere in that history has been as technologically prolific as these last 122 years. The 122 years preceding flight likely are the second most prolific. The power of steam had been harnessed to propel trains, boats, early automobiles, and mechanized farm equipment. Metallurgy flourished. Electricity had been turned from a novelty to useful applications that were just beginning to be implemented. Fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine had burst onto the scene.
The Wright Brothers pioneering pursuit of flight was only made possible by the application of power derived from what was at the time a groundbreaking innovation. A lightweight gasoline engine designed by an employee of their bicycle shop that weighed 180 pounds and produced 12 horsepower. He had hand built the engine in six weeks using simple tools such as a lathe and drill press. And it worked! It is difficult to overstate the importance of what the Wrights accomplished. In the few years following the first flight aviation exploded into the public consciousness and the pace of change in design, reliability, airworthiness, and range was significant. The First World War supercharged the development of the technology and culminated in the development of fast, maneuverable machines that could be armed with guns and bombs. Military tactics changed to accommodate the new technology. The interval between the wars supercharged the development of airplanes and modern aviation both from a civil and military standpoint. During this same period similar advances were occurring in just about every field of science and technology. Just as the telegraph had eclipsed the Pony Express to spread news, radios and air mail surpassed the telegraph. A dominant theme delivered in that stream of news was the pace and breadth change. One hundred twenty-two years. Both of my grandfathers were born before the first manned flight. Their great grandchildren may be able to go to space. I may be able to go to space. What an incredible time to be alive.Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:00 PM | Comments (216) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 12-21-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (Jesus Christ was born!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(HT: TheJamesMadison was unavailable for comment)
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, sneak a peek at a Christmas present under the tree, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (332) | Trackbacks (Suck)
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