I keep meaning to check out her version of Freebird. There are those who say it rivals the original, and that's not really possible IMO, but I'm willing to hear it out, and always meant to.

Now we know why despite having a full team of very highly-compensated attorneys, Maxwell filed her magnum opus appeal pro se (representing herself): it was so she could fling as much horseshit as she liked at the court without having to worry about little concerns like factuality or keeping a law license. Judge shot it down anyway.

This is hilarious. I'm still reading it, but here's a fat paragraph from the introduction by the judge (page 2, emphasis mine):

Maxwell’s claims are all meritless and all or almost all are frivolous. The vast majority are procedurally barred — either because Maxwell made and lost the same arguments on direct appeal, or because she could have made such arguments on appeal but elected not to do so. And the purported “new” evidence to which Maxwell points, principally materials released under the EFTA, is largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell and does not support her claims of error. On the contrary, to the extent it is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges.

She even cited Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution agreement in Florida as a reason why she should never have been convicted by New York, claiming it as a defense . . . except it never even names her, lol.

Understand that I'm not specifically concerned with finding these particular emails. The emails were adequately quoted in the articles, and it was only curiosity that caused me to look further.

As far as the original records from the main DoJ dumps go, those are still out there, not just in the US but around the world, just like pee in a swimming pool, and will remain so. There are multiple public archives and who knows how many private archives, plus whatever got quoted and used in derivative works, such as The Guardian articles I referenced.

Rather, I'm concerned with what the DoJ is doing, and specifically why. They pulled this more than once at the beginning, releasing records and then trying to retract the more troublesome ones (which is why people started archiving them immediately upon release) and then stopped for a while. Looks like they're back at it.

Or to put it another way, a highly placed person or group of people made the specific decision -- likely upon request -- to take down those specific records and leave the rest of them up. Why would the presence of these few particular emails on a government server scare anyone? Yet they do, enough for someone to act on that, and have been very quietly removed. That's the interesting part.

There is a game I used to play in the late 90s and aughts that was simply stupid but fantastic for stress relief, and I still think about it even though it's been possibly fifteen years or longer since I played it. Just checked the archive and it's there.

I had no idea this even existed until now. Many thanks.

Woobies. A librarian turned me on to it when I told her I'd gladly listen to more audiobooks but I hate just sitting there, having nothing to do with my hands. She told me to ignore how it looks and just do it. She was right. I still miss it when I'm just listening to music, or did until today.

Of course I went and played it immediately, lol.

He got booed off the stage by college students after off-putting remarks infuriated what should have been a friendly crowd. And when the crowd turned on him, he tucked tail and left.

The Republican candidate for governor took the stage to boos – a bad sign − and came off as a privileged know-it-all who had no patience for the young crowd.

Then, he made matters worse when he said, “The truth of the matter is, you know, no matter what happens in whichever direction we go, people in my generation have already made it,” Ramaswamy said. “We’re gonna be fine. It’s gonna be your generation…that pays the price.”

Ramaswamy said “peace out” and abruptly walked off the stage as he was serenaded with boos and derision.

This is excellent. Thanks for the link.

You're not wrong about any of that, but if the progressive wing wins a significant minority of a Dem majority, Jeffries' days as Speaker are numbered, IMO.

This is the same guy that took a leak while on a hot mic during an Alex Jones/Elon Musk/Andrew Tate livestream.

The sound of splashing liquid interrupted Jones, who was in the middle of a rant about what he called a “corporate world government whose aim is depopulation.”

“Someone’s got their thing open peeing! Someone’s got their phone open in the bathroom,” Jones yelled to an audience of tens of thousands of listeners. The livestream’s host, social media influencer Mario Nawfal, tried to alert Ramaswamy to what was happening.

“That’s your phone, Vivek. I’m not able to mute you. Vivek?”

The embarrassing moment prompted laughter from Musk and others on the call.

“Well I hope you feel better now,” a giggling Musk said.

“I feel great, thank you. Sorry about that, guys,” Ramaswamy said.

What an absolute fucking dolt.

Apologies for the source, but the NY Post is great for bottom-scraping trash, and this was a Jones-Musk-Tate mutual admiration event complete with live piss performance. Not sure how much more room for "lower" there is in a print publication.

This is my take on it as well. Or to put it another way, Jeffries has become SO singularly focused on political strategy and optics manipulation that he has become oblivious not only to what it looks like from the outside, but that voters are actual people with needs who happen to be increasingly angry right now and he's dancing with the son-in-law of the guy personally responsible for this growing hell.

He doesn't even seem to have an inkling of the fact that by voluntarily involving himself with Kushner, in many eyes he has aligned himself directly with Trump. He certainly has in mine. I don't give a good goddamn what the letter after his name is: if he's voluntarily dealing with Kushner he is not averse to Trump, nor does he have a problem with anything Trump is doing. Period, end of.

This is what it looks like when a political actor gets so mentally sucked into playing the game of politics that they entirely lose sight of human voters and tangible outcomes for others in real life. Only someone so far up their own ass that they can scratch the inside of their right nostril with their left big toe can do what Jeffries is doing with Kushner and think it's going to fly.

That whole "a good prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich" was when you could pull your jurors out of a citizen pool that didn't walk in already believing you were lying through your fucking teeth.

But then they pulled the mask off, and let us all see how they are using the courts for vindictive prosecution and political harassment.

Looks like the ham sammich days are ending, lol.

Someone should tell these motherfuckers about Theresienstadt, the self-administered Jewish ghetto used for propaganda by the Nazis, until it too was swallowed by the machine and administrator and resident alike went into the ovens.

That is exactly how I see gay people who punch down on trans people, or Black people that punch down on Asians, etc.

In an abusive situation, punching down never helps anyone, even the puncher. It just makes the puncher another abuser whose own time is coming too.

You'll never guess what Bill Gates' daughter has been up to . . .

More information

They would have to get rid of juries altogether.

Given that our current legal system was created as a direct reaction to star chambers and baked into the constitution, they have an uphill climb, at the least.

Holy shit. That's some arrogance right there, thinking no one would ever know or find out. Grand juries are secret, but they're not THAT secret.

they think everything is more openly corrupt than it is yet.

You nailed it.

Huh, I hadn't heard about that, and I do mean not a word. The bigger committees like Ag tend to rule themselves in a straighter line because of the power involved -- everybody is watching everyone else very closely -- but this seems like a new low. At least the proxy votes got tossed. I also didn't know Tuberville was/is MIA.

Now I know. Thank you for the info and the links, I really appreciate you taking the time.

One notes the absence of a goddamned data center on the property. Good enough for American backyards, not good enough for him.

May it be a curse to him.

It's definitely pine. Unfortunately, it can be hard to get pine to look right on the finishing side, and to choose finishes that keep it looking good.

Use a shellac-based sealer or pre-stain preparation before you apply your new finish, even if you're going to be painting it: a proper pre-finish sealer will keep your stain from looking overly splotchy in the near term, or the pine resins from discoloring your paint from underneath with time.

Also be aware that pine yellows over time, to the point of becoming orange. Your current finish is fairly dark and in a reddish shade that complements the natural yellowing, so if you like that end result, when picking your stain you should do the same.

But if you are thinking of going lighter and "brightening up" the piece, consider your choices carefully. You might even want to do a paint wash instead of a traditional stain.

Watch some "refinishing pine" videos on YouTube to give you more information, not so much on what to do but on what to avoid.

It is all too easy to make pine look like shit when you're refinishing. But now you have been warned, so if you just think it through before you dive into the new finish you'll be fine. It's all about pre-sealing (non-negotiable, IMO) and then choosing a finish and shade that accounts for how pine bleeds and changes color.

EDITED to add: Here's a video that illustrates five different ways you can go with your pine once you get it down to raw wood, if you're interested. She goes into the various options and why she does what she does: you should get a good overview of what you're facing from it.

I think the inconstancy has to do with whether your VPN of choice is allowing itself to be used for bot scraping and other shitty resource hogs. Back when AI scrapers were running openly via their own company's network and then started to get blocked by IP, the scrapers didn't stop. They just went to VPN.

So on VPN it's not unusual for me to be fine and then suddenly get blocked from sites, or just extra captchas, Cloudflare checks and the like out of the blue; I've come to assume that just means someone's using it to be shitty. Switching proxies helps occasionally, but not always. I live with it.