Monte P

When you’ve known each other for 50 years

Donald Trump vowed a U.S. energy boom. Texas got oil layoffs instead. President Trump used tariffs and now Venezuelan oil to drive down oil prices and keep pump prices low. For Texas, low oil prices brought layoffs and idle rigs.

Donald Trump vowed to unleash U.S. oil. A year later, low prices are squeezing Texas producers. www.houstonchronicle.com/business/ene...

I Became The Only Person Who Knew How Our System Worked. Then I Couldn't Leave. March 2023. First vacation in 14 months. Manager approved it, flights booked, bags packed. I was leaving for the airport in 3 hours when my…

I Became The Only Person Who Knew How Our System Worked. Then I Couldn’t Leave. by @Carson_001 in @gitconnected levelup.gitconnected.com/i-became-the...

Trump has made ICE a 70-30 issue — for Democrats By using brutal force in public, ICE has given Democrats a chance to change how voters think about immigration policy. Will they take it?

Trump has made ICE a 70-30 issue — for Democrats
open.substack.com/pub/gelliott...

Brave Combo - Group Dance Epidemic (Fun... And Functional!) View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1997 CD release of "Group Dance Epidemic (Fun... And Functional!)" on Discogs.

I’ll have to check it out! In the meantime, this was another favorite on the Colorado trips - their versions of the Hokey Pokey are classics!

www.discogs.com/release/3341...

It was a staple on our summer road trip to Colorado. Both daughters finally forgave me.

Eat the rich!

Are the Broligarchs Ready to Be on the Downward Turn of the Wheel? Today, I want to share some additional thoughts with you on this...

As Trombone Shorty sang so prophetically:
"The same people you misuse on your way up
You might meet on your way down
You think the sun rise and set for you
The same sun rise, set, and shine on the poor folks too"

talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/are-t...

I strongly endorse Mi Madre’s on Manor Road for breakfast tacos. The Old Man’s Fan recommendation is a #8 (migas) and a #9 (huevos y machacado).

www.mimadresrestaurant.com/breakfast-menu

House and Executive Branch Now Totally Derailed by Epstein Every time I think Donald Trump is putting some distance between himself...

House and Executive Branch Now Totally Derailed by Epstein talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/house...

Texas Economic Stabilization Fund Balances by Biennium from https://graphics.lbb.texas.gov/esf

SInce 2014, the Texas Economic Stabilization Fund has grown each biennium, from $6.7B to $21B. Abbot and Patrick refused to fund warning systems from The Rainy Day Fund. What the hell were they waiting for? Casket futures to go up?

Kerr County asked Texas for help multiple times in 8 years. It said no. Kerr County and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority have tried several times to get funding to upgrade flood alerts on the river, dating back to 2016.

Abbott and Patrick have been in office since 2015, $1 million for a warning system was too much. With 80 lives lost that works out to be $12,500 per soul!

Kerr County asked Texas to help pay for a flood warning system for 8 years. Can it happen now? www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investi...

'Cancún Cruz' spotted on another trip abroad amid deadly Texas flood Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, must have had flight miles expiring soon, otherwise it’s hard to explain the extreme inopportune timing of his luxe family vacation.� Cruz was spotted on a ...

Teddy was all tired out from screwing the people of Texas and he needed a break! Now, it's back to work on his podcast!

www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

I'm waiting for one of them to grant "Cancun" Ted Cruz some space on the editorial page to explain how relinquishing Congress' authority to the executive branch is really fodder for the next "Profiles in Courage."🤘🤘

You know the situation is dire when the f*cking Onion writes a more pointed editorial than anything written by the New York Times, Washington Post, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle or Austin American Statesman.

Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice Share This Editorial

Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice — theonion.com/letter-to-co...

Texas Fiddle - Okie Guitar, by Mark Rubin and Sean Orr 12 track album

I wanted to share a link to an interesting album featuring my friend, Mark Rubin. If you buy from bandcamp, all proceeds go to the artist.

jewofoklahoma.bandcamp.com/album/texas-...

Our AI Future Is Worse Than Skynet We face a less dramatic but even more exasperating doom.

Yet another cautionary article on the enshittification of society thanks to our AI tech overlords.

Our AI Future Is Worse Than Skynet open.substack.com/pub/paulwald...

She continues:
“We’ve allowed these people to be called job creators,” she said. “And I don’t care if it’s AI or crypto or whatever, we bow down to them and let them tell us what they are going to do to our community because they are job creators. They’re not job creators, they’re profit makers.”

“This is going to sound awful,” she says, “but if they're putting it here, then that means it's bad. We've lived here long enough to see that that is how it works. You put those things that you don't want in your neighborhood in a place like this.”

I was reading an article in WIRED magazine about the Kentucky Crypto Craze in 2021 this afternoon. Let me share a quote from Nina McCoy, a former school teacher in Inez, Kentucky, discussing the possibility of AI data centers repurposing the resources from abandoned crypto-mining ventures:

A plea for tech workers to unionize written by one of my favorite new sci-fi writers:
pluralistic.net/2025/04/27/s...

Why We Rewrote Everything (And Immediately Regretted It) The dangers of rewriting code from scratch.

Maybe Leon's DOGE Bros should read this sad tale involving "Clean Slates" and code rewrites:
medium.com/@all.technol...

Stop Looking for Methods in the Madness There’s no plan, secret or otherwise, behind Trump’s tariffs

Once again, I turn to world-renowned economist Paul Krugman to explain the rationale behind Trump's economic policy. He confirms, there is no rationale, it's all the hallucinations of a old man in the grips of dementia.

Stop Looking for Methods in the Madness open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

To assert that a team of 20 programmers and an AI can replicate the functionality of millions of lines of a procedural language using an object oriented one with minimum disruption in five f*cking months is the definition of magical thinking.

digbysblog.net/2025/03/29/s...

I have 47 years experience working in software development, most of it on government applications. I made my bones with COBOL and IBM job control language. I’ve worked with Java the last 12 years.

Incompetent or Evil: A False Dichotomy Trump’s people can be and are both

Krugman seems to find Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.") inadequate to describe the actions of Trump's merry band of pranksters. You be the judge.

Incompetent or Evil: A False Dichotomy open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

They make a brisket and egg breakfast taco that’s A-OK. Try Stile Switch Barbecue and the pork belly burnt ends. Enjoy your writing too.

I dug out an iPod Classic that had stopped working 10 years ago in one of my office closets. Found an electronics repair shop that replaced the battery and also replaced the 80G drive with a 128G SSD. Cost about $120.00. Back in business!

YouTube video by Jonathan Pie The Art of The Deal

No one can match Jonathan Pie for foul-mouthed, insightful invective concerning Donald Trump's "beautiful" deal-making prowess.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk0n...