Notices by Gene Cowan 🏳️‍🌈 (genecowan@mastodon.social)

Days like today I get notifications from the power company that there is excessive demand and I should turn off my air conditioning until 7pm; and I wonder: there are at least a dozen data centers within a couple miles of my house; are they turning off their cooling too?

@jaykuo The weird thing is that in any other presidency we would have automatically assumed that this sort of thing would never make it to the President's desk, that he had a million more important things to think about. Today we automatically assume that he is spending his day on stupid shit like this.

RE: https://mastodon.world/@jeffowski/116658681103320287

Gosh, what other group of fascists fled to Argentina to avoid the consequences of their action? If only history had something to teach us here.

"Louisiana Republicans have eliminated an elected position days before an exoneree who overwhelmingly won the New Orleans-based clerk seat was set to take office.

Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly 30 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, easily won election to the criminal court clerk position in November, earning more than two-thirds of the vote. He had been set to take office next Monday."

https://apnews.com/article/new-orleans-criminal-clerk-calvin-duncan-exonerated-6a48a3d1ca81c91d42dc122dbed77f29

Most prescient comment I’ve seen so far about Catherine O’Hara:
“We really need Catherine O’Hara to help us deal with the passing of Catherine O’Hara.” 😔

Jeebus h. Crisp.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/national-parks/2025/12/05/national-parks-free-entry-days-2026/87631147007/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pay-more-rising-dollar-store-costs

@VeroniqueB99

I just don’t understand why people don’t get that Russia has been at war with the west for more than a decade now.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/20/europe/poland-russia-aerial-assault-ukraine-intl

“White House staff apparently had to get creative with some of the items Trump wanted hung around the fireplace, as they blocked hidden doors built into the room.”

They also block the viewports in those doors that allow staffers to keep an eye on what is happening in there. Interesting, no?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-oval-office-gold-gilding_n_68910956e4b06ab33893e975?ncid=APPLENEWS00001

@skinnylatte Is it the food or the guy?

@TheDefiant604 @davidaugust @Urban_Hermit Yup. Worse, he disabled the radar on early cars that had it. That’s when I turned off all the bells & whistles on mine.

@inthehands @david And worse still, even though his fame is tied intrinsically to Tesla, he had nothing to do with creating the company or its product; he simply bought it and co-opted it, and added video games and fart sounds. Like everything else he’s identified with, he’s a fraud built on others’ hard work and creativity.

In case you want to know where all the private tech bro jets are parked, they’re at the north end of Dulles Airport at Atlantic Aviation and other private hangars on Cockpit Ct. I can smell them from my living room couch.

Addendum: the airport has turned one of their runways into a parking lot for private jets. I’ve never seen anything like this in my planespotting. Billionaire blacktop.

The number “1488” is a common symbol used among hate groups. The “14” is shorthand for the “14 Words,” a stand-in for a white supremacist slogan, while “88” refers to an abbreviation of “Heil Hitler,” since H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-lindell-pillow-price-alleged-nazi-dog-whistle_n_66ef01d5e4b0859639dabf43

The rapid expansion of state voucher programs follows court decisions that have eroded the separation between church and state.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/03/tax-dollars-religious-schools/

The IRS is making its free tax-filing platform permanent and open to all 50 states, the Biden administration announced Thursday, following the successful launch of the first-of-its-kind website.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/05/30/direct-file-irs-taxes/

"We're going to have lawyers in all the major polling locations across the country. We have lawsuits in 81 states right now," announced the stable genius — aka Donald Trump's sycophantic daughter-in-law — on Newsmax. Wow, that's pretty impressive. With all those extra people to reach, no wonder the RNC is broke.

https://boingboing.net/2024/04/24/stable-genius-lara-trump-just-informed-us-that-the-u-s-actually-has-81-states-video.html

@georgetakei just another example of the politicians picking their own voters rather than the other way around.

@BethanyBlack I spent thousands on a 4x3 HD CRT TV around that time which displayed HD content letterboxed across the center; along with a DTV decoder box. The engineers at the local PBS station used to come down to my house a few blocks away to as a test bed for their digital transition.

A year later I had my first widescreen CRT HDTV and it was so futuristic but nearly 3 feet deep. Today, I have an OLED screen a fraction of an inch thick.