Best Of

Evening all. It's easy to be concerned by all the fascist shit Trump is trying to pull in the US, but the good news is they are so laughably, horribly bad at it.

Not content with uploading the entire unedited 60 minutes they wanted to censor, it turns out all the 'redacted' Epstein files can be read by copying and pasting the 'redacted' text into any other document...

I recall the Ministry of Defence did the same thing once (probably more than once). That's pretty incompetent given the ease of proper redaction now.

@mjsdc.bsky.social‬

NEW: By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocks Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to assist immigration agents. A majority holds that he likely lacks authority to do so. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissent.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a443_ba7d.pdf

It is interesting that some of Trump nominees are actually less servile and slavishly 'loyal' than the likes of the laughably corrupt Thomas.

On the redactions - “export to PDF”, kids.

That seems to be the problem. They redacted the documents using Adobe Acrobat apparently

Do you have a link? I can't find anything online about it.

https://bsky.app/profile/pattonoswalt.bsky.social/post/3maoktsarh22g

Includes the gem that Trump is searchable (and appears 600 times) if you add a space at the end

We are no better. I did a foi sometime ago of a Govt department. I got a hard copy and pdfs. If I put the cursor over the redacted email addresses on the pdfs they get shown.

Evening all. It's easy to be concerned by all the fascist shit Trump is trying to pull in the US, but the good news is they are so laughably, horribly bad at it.

Not content with uploading the entire unedited 60 minutes they wanted to censor, it turns out all the 'redacted' Epstein files can be read by copying and pasting the 'redacted' text into any other document...

I recall the Ministry of Defence did the same thing once (probably more than once). That's pretty incompetent given the ease of proper redaction now.

@mjsdc.bsky.social‬

NEW: By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocks Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to assist immigration agents. A majority holds that he likely lacks authority to do so. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissent.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a443_ba7d.pdf

It is interesting that some of Trump nominees are actually less servile and slavishly 'loyal' than the likes of the laughably corrupt Thomas.

On the redactions - “export to PDF”, kids.

That seems to be the problem. They redacted the documents using Adobe Acrobat apparently

Do you have a link? I can't find anything online about it.

https://bsky.app/profile/pattonoswalt.bsky.social/post/3maoktsarh22g

Includes the gem that Trump is searchable (and appears 600 times) if you add a space at the end

Christmas has come early.

ICE will be told to detain Santa if he appears in US airspace.

Evening all. It's easy to be concerned by all the fascist shit Trump is trying to pull in the US, but the good news is they are so laughably, horribly bad at it.

Not content with uploading the entire unedited 60 minutes they wanted to censor, it turns out all the 'redacted' Epstein files can be read by copying and pasting the 'redacted' text into any other document...

I recall the Ministry of Defence did the same thing once (probably more than once). That's pretty incompetent given the ease of proper redaction now.

@mjsdc.bsky.social‬

NEW: By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocks Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to assist immigration agents. A majority holds that he likely lacks authority to do so. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissent.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a443_ba7d.pdf

It is interesting that some of Trump nominees are actually less servile and slavishly 'loyal' than the likes of the laughably corrupt Thomas.

On the redactions - “export to PDF”, kids.

That seems to be the problem. They redacted the documents using Adobe Acrobat apparently

Government by technobros.

We need a squillion dollars for AI and space and shit. Also we don't know how Adobe Acrobat works...

I saw the other day that there is a world championships of Excell spreadheeting (is that a word?). The geeks shall inherit the earth.

Evening all. It's easy to be concerned by all the fascist shit Trump is trying to pull in the US, but the good news is they are so laughably, horribly bad at it.

Not content with uploading the entire unedited 60 minutes they wanted to censor, it turns out all the 'redacted' Epstein files can be read by copying and pasting the 'redacted' text into any other document...

I recall the Ministry of Defence did the same thing once (probably more than once). That's pretty incompetent given the ease of proper redaction now.

@mjsdc.bsky.social‬

NEW: By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocks Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to assist immigration agents. A majority holds that he likely lacks authority to do so. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissent.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a443_ba7d.pdf

It is interesting that some of Trump nominees are actually less servile and slavishly 'loyal' than the likes of the laughably corrupt Thomas.

On the redactions - “export to PDF”, kids.

That seems to be the problem. They redacted the documents using Adobe Acrobat apparently

Government by technobros.

We need a squillion dollars for AI and space and shit. Also we don't know how Adobe Acrobat works...

Just spent three (unexpected) days in hospital. On one hand I could not fault the dedication, empathy, desire to help and sheer hardwork of literally everyone I came into contact. On the other hand it was hard to conclude that, in this aging, overcrowded hospital at least (and accepting that the flu always hits hard this time of year), the system isn't just not working, it is on the brink of complete collapse. It was hard not to be aghast at some of the situations one was expected to tolerate in order to receive appropriate healthcare.

Hope all ok.

Thanks. Feeling ok if a bit exhausted from the experience, have a few more days of medication to take at home to hopefully ensure no reoccurrence of the problem and no need to return.

Just spent three (unexpected) days in hospital. On one hand I could not fault the dedication, empathy, desire to help and sheer hardwork of literally everyone I came into contact. On the other hand it was hard to conclude that, in this aging, overcrowded hospital at least (and accepting that the flu always hits hard this time of year), the system isn't just not working, it is on the brink of complete collapse. It was hard not to be aghast at some of the situations one was expected to tolerate in order to receive appropriate healthcare.

One reason for low productivity in the NHS is that capital spend has been far too low for years, hence antiquated IT, archaic buildings, delays getting investigations etc etc. For years capital, training and maintenence budgets have been raided to prop up front line services.

No other developed country keeps patients on trolleys as an overflow and very few don't look after patients in single siderooms.

I hope you are well enough to enjoy the holidays.

11 new "corrections" to the Peggie judgment seeking to correct "clerical mistakes, errors or omissions". Snuck out just before Christmas. After a previous "correction". It is actually shocking. None of these "corrections", which include adding the word "trans" before "female" or replacing "male" with "female" make any difference to the judgment or the reasoning of course. No sirree.

I presume it still ignores those parts of FWS which say the exact opposite of what Kemp has sought to draw from it. Dear oh dear oh dear.

But apparently making judges accountable is a step too far. When did we become a country that is unable to tell rogue judges to get fucked with their shit judgements and then remove them from the bench?

Several hundred years ago and for very good reasons. It is really important that Judges can, with impunity, criticise and hold to account what would in any normal relationship be their employers. Judicial independence is critical to a working democracy and the rule of law and arrant stupidity, bias and wrong headedness in an individual case cannot be allowed to undermine that principle. It is frustrating though. I am struggling to see any way forward with this mess other than to start again under a different Tribunal.

The existence of various levels of appeal might be the right course? This sounds like a case that cries out for a bit of high level judicial consideration.

No, that is just endless legal red tape, the same way so much gets delayed in this country. The legal system should get it right first time. We wouldn't tolerate that error rate without consequences in other professions.

Based on this polling I wouldn’t be surprised the Tories ahead of Reform at some point in quarter one of 2026, if present trends hold, not consistently but on an outlier basis.

Word missing there?

On the substantive point, am I right in thinking as well that Farage is at the same time the oldest and the least experienced of the four major party leaders? He's not likely to be improving now as he ages and he's never been in cabinet.

He has considerable political experience, but very little parliamentary experience. The latter is not that much of a barrier anymore, he will have had 4-5 years of it by the time of the next election which is not that far off several modern PMs, though the odds woudl also be that he has extremely few MPs in his ranks with much parliamentary let alone governmental experience, which may be a more significant factor.

He has lots of Parliamentary experience. The European Parliament that is. Plus he was leader of the EFDD political group in the Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_of_Freedom_and_Direct_Democracy . I don't like him (obvs) but he is familiar with parliamentary procedure.

I doubt he'll be touting his European Parliament experience. For several reasons, two of which are Nathan Gill and David Coburn.

Evening all. It's easy to be concerned by all the fascist shit Trump is trying to pull in the US, but the good news is they are so laughably, horribly bad at it.

Not content with uploading the entire unedited 60 minutes they wanted to censor, it turns out all the 'redacted' Epstein files can be read by copying and pasting the 'redacted' text into any other document...

I recall the Ministry of Defence did the same thing once (probably more than once). That's pretty incompetent given the ease of proper redaction now.

@mjsdc.bsky.social‬

NEW: By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocks Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to assist immigration agents. A majority holds that he likely lacks authority to do so. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissent.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a443_ba7d.pdf

It is interesting that some of Trump nominees are actually less servile and slavishly 'loyal' than the likes of the laughably corrupt Thomas.

On the redactions - “export to PDF”, kids.

That seems to be the problem. They redacted the documents using Adobe Acrobat apparently

Do you have a link? I can't find anything online about it.

https://bsky.app/profile/pattonoswalt.bsky.social/post/3maoktsarh22g

Includes the gem that Trump is searchable (and appears 600 times) if you add a space at the end