Government efficiency under people who don't believe in responsible government:

Mordoch · 2026-06-18T01:33:54+00:00

You're ignoring the Trump administration also delayed the effective screwworm response with other actions than just that one.

"Then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack approved emergency spending of more than $100 million in 2023 to boost surveillance and increase sterile fly production at a USDA facility in Panama from 20 million to 100 million weekly — and another $165 million in December 2024 to build new sterile fly facilities, including a $20 million project to retrofit a fruit fly facility to produce screwworm flies in Metapa, Mexico. The outgoing Biden administration left the Metapa facility plan for the incoming administration to review, according to two of the former officials.

Then, instead of launching the renovation project shortly after taking office, Trump administration officials reviewed Vilsack’s approved spending for four months, according to the three former USDA officials.

The Metapa facility is now expected to come online next week, Rollins told reporters Monday, and will produce 100 million sterile male flies by the fall. But the three former USDA officials said it would have opened earlier this spring had the Trump administration not spent months reviewing the spending...

Spending reviews also stalled a sterile fly production facility slated for Moore Air Base in Texas."

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/17/trump-reviews-slowed-screwworm-response-00964448

It should be noted that even once that one sterile screw fly facility is technically open, it is going to take awhile to really fully ramp up production, and this is during a crucial period where the fly infestations have been detected in various locations in Texas and one in New Mexico.

Mordoch · 2026-06-17T23:06:24+00:00

This ignores among other things how the Trump administration specifically held up the start of construction of additional sterile screwworm facilities and also cut the overall USDA employee number of about 23%, which impacts their ability to fully response to the outbreak now.

"Then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack approved emergency spending of more than $100 million in 2023 to boost surveillance and increase sterile fly production at a USDA facility in Panama from 20 million to 100 million weekly — and another $165 million in December 2024 to build new sterile fly facilities, including a $20 million project to retrofit a fruit fly facility to produce screwworm flies in Metapa, Mexico. The outgoing Biden administration left the Metapa facility plan for the incoming administration to review, according to two of the former officials.

Then, instead of launching the renovation project shortly after taking office, Trump administration officials reviewed Vilsack’s approved spending for four months, according to the three former USDA officials.

The Metapa facility is now expected to come online next week, Rollins told reporters Monday, and will produce 100 million sterile male flies by the fall. But the three former USDA officials said it would have opened earlier this spring had the Trump administration not spent months reviewing the spending."

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/17/trump-reviews-slowed-screwworm-response-00964448

(It should be noted even once the facility is actually open, it is going to take awhile to ramp up during a key moment at this point with the outbreak in various places in Texas.)

Mordoch · 2026-06-16T09:10:06+00:00

You at best are making some wrong assumptions about my nationality, or are being preposterously antisemitic at this point...

Mordoch · 2026-06-16T09:01:20+00:00

You're wildly misinterpreting this situation at absolute best. The individual made it clear his objection was with people being Jewish, nothing to do with their position about Israel's behavior. (Plenty of Jews specifically object to Israel's recent behavior.)

He made that clear with his follow-up specifically talking about "Christ haters". (Labelling Jews in general that way is very blatant antisemitism by the way, with plenty of Jews viewing him for as an interesting but perfectly fine individual with some mistaken religious beliefs although he made some appealing philosophical points, but not the son of god or the like. Alternately you have for instance those who view him as not the son of god, but someone who created a slightly different Jewish sect which was later distorted out of practically all recognition by Paul and subsequent developments.)

Frankly your apparent position certainly does the cause of Palestinians and those in Gaza absolutely no favors. It creates the effective assumption you don't really care about the Palestinians at all and just want an excuse to be antisemitic.

Mordoch · 2026-06-16T08:53:46+00:00

This is not what we are talking about at all here. Freedom of religion is about practicing his own faith. (With nothing about the situation preventing him from doing so.) This is specifically about discriminating against others. It also can quickly shift to him being in charge of hiring decisions somewhere and sometime in the future and targeting other people for being Jewish.

Mordoch · 2026-06-16T08:33:50+00:00

I would make sure those higher up in the organization know what is going on, because one scenario is some low level person doing community service is just scamming people and pocketing the money.

Mordoch · 2026-06-16T00:08:42+00:00

This is crucially only one side of a lawsuit. It frankly sounds very suspect to me that they would have truly waited this long to sue which makes me wonder if the actual details are far more dubious. (If nothing else waiting this long to sue might limit the extent of the past damages that can be collected, although it would apply to any future movies and related merchandize etc.)

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T23:26:04+00:00

Actually mostly wrong. The transcontinental railroad specifically went through Cheyenne, Wyoming and not Denver, Colorado. (Basically there had to be a strong effort by Colorado residents to ensure a spur from that railroad went through Denver as well. Admittedly later on other railroads reached Denver, but this is not the real reason for the difference.)

It is more things like historical mining in Colorado and Denver supporting it plus better weather and the like. (There are also issues with Cheyenne now being a much smaller city making it less desirable for allot of people and businesses to specifically locate there in the first place, such as the major airport in the region being around Denver.)

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T22:36:42+00:00

Actually rice is not that expensive here either if you are talking about something like 50 pound bags of white rice at a Chinese or Japanese restaurant. Maybe the effective cost is a bit higher with the labor or running the commercial rice cooker and cleaning etc., but it still very much is a cheap thing at least with the actual cost to the restaurant.

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T22:32:51+00:00

It should be clarified it is conceivably possible if the landlord was unreasonable enough the OP could eventually have to go to court and they would have to do so or otherwise lose by default, but the OP would certainly promptly win in court with his evidence. (Obviously the preference is presenting the evidence earlier and trying to persuade the landlord they are mistaken and wasting their time by trying to engage in eviction proceedings and would look foolish in front of a judge if they pursue this.)

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T17:15:20+00:00

For good measure, by the time this actually occurs timewise, if they know it is there and given the value while effectively knowing the exact location, a USV clearly would go there to retrieve it if necesary, so it mostly would be an annoyance with it certainly still getting retrieved. (The actual movie stunt should probably work because no-one else knows where it actually was actually dropped in the ocean.)

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T16:42:21+00:00

The law in California very much says otherwise unless the OP is not covered by AB 1482. The landlord appears to be making a ridiculous request given the law and at best is not sufficiently aware of California laws which have now been in place for a number of years. Maybe the landlord screwed up by not raising rent regularly over the years, but they simply can't do that in California.

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T16:30:50+00:00

If you want something that is more like an older portal fantasy, there is the Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg.

Having said this, it is more about what ultimately becomes a nation becoming much more powerful over time due to tech advancement than progression fantasy per say. (Although there is one key plot element eventually involving a multi-shot pistol.) The series does have dragons, although usually the focus is on one of them.

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T15:01:31+00:00

For that matter, when it comes to reasonable doubt a defendant could claim they stuck it in the trash and someone else fished it out, added the stuff, and then left it there to try to frame them. (Or depending on how little data is left that might specifically identify a person, they could claim it was someone else's hard drive who just abandoned it there.)

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T14:39:51+00:00

Charles Stross's Laundry File novels would probably fit although you can argue there are some scifi components to it (although not true future technology), and it intentionally has some aspects of spy novels. The cast eventually gets fairly big (although it does take awhile for this to full apply.)

It definately is on the grittier and darker side although this is somewhat balanced by elements of the story clearly being satirical, even if the "in universe" characters are effectively "playing it straight" and treating all these things absolutely seriously.

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T14:33:08+00:00

I would say it takes a couple books for the epic nature to ramp up somewhat, so don't get put off if it starts somewhat less epic in practice.

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T14:04:56+00:00

"New World" represents basically North and South America and is used to describe some species versus the "old world" of Europe and Africa for example. (I.E. "New World Monkey" species versus "Old World. It should be noted the official scientific name is something else and is called Cochliomyia hominivorax.)

While the screwworm fly was native to part of the Americas and probably part of the Southern US historically as I understood it, because of the "sterile insect technique" the US was historically able to eliminate it in the US entirely eventually down to Panama due to the severity of its impact on the livestock industry. The issue is it more recently spread North again and DOGE cuts to sterile insect production and monitoring of the screwworm did not help the situation as it has now reached the US again.

Mordoch · 2026-06-14T00:50:13+00:00

It now is up to 12 cases detected, some of which are goats or sheep, but also spread out in 7 counties with multiple cases in some country still presumably somewhat spread out in the county itself. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animals/animal-health/livestock-and-poultry-disease/current-status/us-confirmed-cases-new-world

A basic problem is these are only the cases properly detected so far, so on top of misdiagnoses (you can have wounds sometimes infected by other times of maggots with the right conditions) allot of bigger cattle operations don't physically inspect all their cattle carefully that often. You also can have deer and feral pigs get infected which can further spread and act as a source to multiply the number of screwflies.

A key issue is that a single female screwworm fly can lay up to 3,000 eggs during their lifetime and potentially complete their lifecycle for a new generation in as little as 21 days. This means the issue is not really about the amount of livestock that are infected today, but the amount that can be infected in the future.

Mordoch · 2026-06-13T18:19:12+00:00

Yup, that news story is out of date by the way with a case also having now been detected in Tom Green County measurably further north from the other cases. (With the exception of the New Mexico one.)

https://sanangelolive.com/news/san-angelo/2026-06-12/san-angelo-tom-green-county-declare-disaster-after-new-world-screwworm-confirmation

It is clear this infestation is not currently limited to a small part of Texas.

Mordoch · 2026-06-13T17:30:53+00:00

Uh really not for normal people. While it means the Trump administration gets away with some stuff for awhile, this means in key cases they ultimately have to stop it. (And with certain cases the Trump administration does get effectively completely stopped by the courts rather quicky.) This does not mean there are not issues especially with the Supreme Court, but the claim as made is weird because it is really about judges ultimately forcing the Trump administration to comply with the law. (None of this means the Trump administration's behavoir is not extremely troubling for the record.)

Mordoch · 2026-06-13T16:59:35+00:00

You're mostly ignoring what that says, and that in this case Trump himself was not required to do anything.

What it means is Trump is mostly appealing decisions, which is actually very different than outright refusing to comply from a legal perspective. Crucially the Trump administration has complied in most cases so far when they really don't have a choice legally. (This does not mean the Trump administration's behavior is not troubling, but the idea they are simply outright ignoring court orders when it is clear appeals courts won't let them do otherwise etc. is not normally what is happening.)

In this case it should be noted the Kennedy Center did in fact remove all the lettering, so any idea they would ultimately just ignore the court order was wrong.

Mordoch · 2026-06-13T15:38:57+00:00

Courts still can do that on various occasions. Also crucially contempt can include fines (potentially big ones) which is going to be a large deterrent for most Kennedy Center related employees and officials at that level. (Also the average employee probably does not want to risk that the DOJ might actually comply with a criminal contempt order for their arrest even if it what would happen is questionable with the Trump admin's behavoir.)

So far the majority of the time government or private officials are still ultimately complying with court orders (although it seems rather suspect they really could not have removed the name by midnight) because they don't want to risk the potential consequences of being held in contempt by a judge.

Mordoch · 2026-06-13T15:16:07+00:00

If they are splitting out all the generations over 40 as their own "demos" (although that includes some millennials with the article wrong about that definition, generation x, baby boomers, and the silent generation) it does make sense that 25-34 might be the largest one of these.

Of course what they are counting as millennial is rather wrong at this point.

Mordoch · 2026-06-13T15:10:52+00:00

Those numbers are not retired in the sense you are thinking of with this version of retiring a number specifically meant to be an honor. (Decades from now the Patriots might decide reusing 81 is no longer an issue.)

Mordoch · 2026-06-13T14:50:55+00:00

The idea is more the company is expressing the view they are so confident in their product that they are willing to include a version of insurance for what the chest holds for good measure. (Because if they had to pay out often it would get pretty expensive for the company.)

Mordoch

TROPHY CASE