Badness on All Sides

Happy Saturday citizens.  I have no new pictures, really all I have is badness.  So, let's dig in.

Putin and Zelenskyy agreed that Ukraine would not bomb Russia during their abbreviated parade, if there could be a prisoner exchange of 1,000 soldiers.  Zelenskyy said that those lives were more important than bombing the parade.  Today Putin cancelled the prisoner exchange, saying that Ukraine was not ready.  Liar, he never planned to do this.

The parade was pitiful.  There were no tanks, missiles any of that.  There was a group of war widows attempting a goose stepping formation in the parade.  This is what Putin looked like, he may have regrets.  His people are beginning to realize how bad things are.

The administration is going to let 47 fly to China to talk to Xi.  This would be the guy who can't walk in a straight line, has trouble with stairs, is carrying 20 or so pounds of water weight, has the back of both hands smeared with makeup, and a dreadful looking rash on his neck.  Other than that, he's fine.

The era of the anonymous phone number could be ending. On April 30, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved a proposal requiring telecom providers to verify customers’ identities before activating service.  Government-issued ID, physical address, legal name, and existing phone numbers would all be included. The stated goal is stopping robocalls. The result would be an identity-verification regime covering one of the last semi-anonymous communication tools available to ordinary Americans.  Article is here.  This will include the pay as you go phones that various companies cell.  Journalists use prepaid phones to protect sources, domestic violence survivors use them to avoid being traced, and whistleblowers, activists, or anyone with a reason to separate phone activity from legal identity relies on this.  I can not tell you how much this infuriates me.  I guess this is why we need all of these giant data centers.

Speaking of Box Elder,  "The project will actually produce more than 9 gigawatts of energy, Davies explained, because anytime a gadget consumes power, it also produces energy in the form of heat, whether it’s a toaster, a car or a sprawling rack of computer servers.  All the heat the Stratos Project emits will add up to another 7 to 8 gigawatts of energy in the form of waste heat.  Typically, waste heat is generated far from the power plant itself, in homes, businesses or on roads where it dissipates.  But for the Stratos project, it will get dumped into the local environment of Hansel Valley, in the same geographic bowl as the power plant. That actually makes the data complex a 16 gigawatt thermal load project, the “equivalent of about 23 atom bombs worth of energy dumped into this local environment every single day,” Davies said."  This is in the Great Salt Lake watershed, so that will probably get worse, as well.  What ever happened to environmental impact statements?  Why do three old white men get to force this decision on the citizens who do not want this.  The paper did an article, you can read it for free once, I think.

When the Supreme Court once again gutted the Voting Rights Act, they said it wasn't needed anymore.  Racism and Jim Crow are over, they said.  Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said he hopes the Supreme Court will overturn the 14th Amendment — the historic law that gave Black Americans citizenship and equal protection after the Civil War.  He wants to remove Black people's influence by diluting their districts.  Sort of like Jim Crow all over again.

Two good tweets from twitter.

DOJ wants to pay Trump's $83.3 million judgment to E. Jean Carroll. Taxpayers' money. Your money. Sometimes I feel like we're all watching a Netflix series.
Posted by Jesus Chrysler  

NEW: Iran is preparing to assert full sovereign control over the seven undersea internet cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz, with foreign firms required to obtain permits, pay transit fees, and operate under Iranian law, per Fars. The cables carry 15-20% of global internet and financial data traffic linking Europe, the Gulf, and Asia. Cable management and maintenance would be exclusively assigned to Iranian companies under the proposal. The IRGC previously warned of cutting the submarine cables passing through Hormuz, which Gulf states depend on for over 90% of their internet, banking, and cloud services. Iran relies on them for less than 40%, with the rest routed overland through Turkey. 
Posted by Hormuz Letter. 

And then there is this.