Sunday, March 23, 2025

The deportation of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violence and dictatorships

Of course, T-rump ended the TPS status for very many people from various countries, in spite of the fact that he was the "tough guy" and lured them into thinking he would fight for them - and their family and friends voted for T-rump. 

Then, he started deporting people who were suspected of gang activity. 

The song  "I never thought the leopard would eat my face" comes to mind…

And now he turns to people who were given a path to citizenship by Biden, as they left their home countries. Yep. They, too, have been told they will be deported. 

All of these nearly 1,000,000 people in total across all of these "groups" will face danger and hardship. All because of this xenophobic nonsense. 

And here's where Republican leadership from south Florida is in a tough spot. They wholeheartedly support T-rump. But they also love their communities and are proud of where they come from, and they and protect the people who come from similar places - or, heaven forbid, they actually care about people in their community. 

Their responses to this is to try and thread that needle. The one that kind of sums it up for me is Maria Elvira Salazar:

"Trump is cleaning up Biden's political mess, and the legal limbo the Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans are facing is entirely Biden's fault. He fooled them. They came here fleeing failed, communist countries believing in Biden's empty promises. The Trump administration should take this under consideration and not punish them for Biden's mistakes."

Right. Blame Biden! Got it. 

This is the article that contains the quote, but there are many others that cover it in varying level of detail. 

I'll grant you the issue is complex. The immigration programs from the Caribbean, central, and South America evolved under Obama. T-rump never touched it in his first term. Biden offered some solutions, but surely didn't go far enough. And T-rump is simply harming people, ignoring the law, and eschewing due process because … yeah I don't know how you to end that sentence. 

Thursday, March 20, 2025

The underwater turbine

Here's some new tech being deployed to try and create green energy from the oceans. 

Conceptually, I like it. I do wonder what impacts it will have on the local ecology and what maintenance will be like (salt water is notoriously corrosive). 

Another company doing the wrong thing

Ben and Jerry's was founded by a couple of former hippies. And their world views were decidedly liberal. 

They ran a good company and espoused their views through their marketing. It was at the core of their business 

In 2000, they sold out to Unilever, but they had an agreement that they could continue to run as they always had.

In the acquisition agreement, Unilever agreed to carry on the company's tradition of engaging "in these critical, global economic and social missions"


Ben and Jerry are no longer involved in day-to-operations, but the (until recently) current CEO followed the same rules of the road. 

And then Unilever decided that he wasn't doing what they wanted and fired him. (And the mouth breathers celebrated of course). 

If you read through the article it seems quite clear it was because he was being a social activist, contrary to company views. 

https://www.fastcompany.com/91301964/ben-jerrys-ceo-fired-unilever-social-policy-liberal-views

So. If you want to do something about this the answer is to avoid unilever products. What they are can be found here:

NASA astronauts get a $5 per diem each day

This is a fun, quirky story about how the two astronauts who were unable to get home for a year were given their government allotted per diem. 

"While in space, NASA astronauts are on official travel orders as federal employees."

This means that in addition to their annual salary — about $152,258, according to NASA — Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams received around $1,430 for their 286 days in space.

Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore did not exactly see their extended stay as a hardship. "This is my happy place," Ms. Williams told reporters in September. "I love being up here in space. It's just fun, you know?"


Astronaut Clayton Anderson who also had an extended stay in the early 2000s added "it IS a government job with government pay. I would have done WAY better with mileage!"


A look inside imagineering

Crunchlabs was able to go inside Disney imagineering's labs and shows us around!

You can see many of the things they are working on. It's wicked cool. 

From a personal standpoint, this was always my dream job …. So it's really fun to take a peek at what they're doing. And I do appreciate that several imagineers remind kids that they can create the future through imagineering, engineering, or simply being creative.