Genius. Until today, if you Googled “Trump” and “shithole” all you got were hotel reviews.

— Grant Hamilton (@Gramiq) January 12, 2018

After much debate, we resolved to turn the tables on three of our esteemed public officials. We embarked on an unauthorized sightseeing tour of their garbage, to make a point about how invasive a "garbage pull" really is--and to highlight the government's ongoing erosion of people's privacy.

We chose District Attorney Mike Schrunk because his office is the most vocal defender of the proposition that your garbage is up for grabs. We chose Police Chief Mark Kroeker because he runs the bureau. And we chose Mayor Vera Katz because, as police commissioner, she gives the chief his marching orders.

Each, in his or her own way, has endorsed the notion that you abandon your privacy when you set your trash out on the curb. So we figured they wouldn't mind too much if we took a peek at theirs.

Boy, were we wrong.

Trump continues to disappoint.

Among President Trump’s worrisome nominees to the judiciary, perhaps none is as alarming as Thomas Alvin Farr, a protégé of Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator, and a product of the modern white supremacist machine that Helms pioneered.

Farr, nominated to serve on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, began his career as counsel for Helms’ Senate campaigns, where he participated in racist tactics to intimidate African-American voters. This alone is reason to reject his nomination, as is his apparent lying on the topic to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Farr’s connections to Helms’ white supremacist causes and political network go much deeper.

...

Farr’s former law partner, Thomas Ellis, was Helms’ top deputy for decades. He also served as a director of the Nazi-inspired, pro-eugenics Pioneer Fund and used funding from that organization to create and bankroll a network of interlocking organizations to support Helms and other political candidates who espoused the notion of a superior white race and opposed civil rights.

...

Together, Helms, Ellis, and their protégé Farr unleashed a huge propaganda machine that incited hostility toward African-Americans. Farr served as a lead counsel to Helms’ 1990 Senate campaign, which ran the now-infamous “White Hands” television ad, designed to inflame white voter anxiety over Helms’ black opponent, Harvey Gantt. It showed a pair of white hands balling up a rejection letter while a voice said: “You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.” The same campaign also sent more than 100,000 intimidating postcards to North Carolinians, most of whom were blacks eligible to vote.

Farr represented the Helms campaign in 1984, when it circulated photos of his opponent, Gov. Jim Hunt, with African-American leaders in an attempt to foster white resentment. The racist nature of that campaign was so pronounced that a federal court cited it as an example of how bigotry in elections continued to flourish in North Carolina politics.

...

When Farr graduated from law school, Helms and Ellis brought him into their fold. Farr joined the small law firm of Maupin, Taylor & Ellis, where all of the named partners were openly hostile to civil rights.

Most recently, Farr has carried on Helms’ legacy by helping North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature create and defend in court discriminatory voting restrictions and electoral districts, which were eventually struck down by numerous federal courts that found them to be motivated by intentional racism. In fact, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that the state’s 2013 voter suppression law was aimed at blacks with “almost surgical precision.”

I couldn't find this many white-supremacist assholes if I wanted to, but Trump seems to have no problem digging them up.

Want to see if your PC is susceptible to the Spectre attack?

Here's a little C program (compiler not included).

With minor tweaking I got it to compile with VS2008. And... yes, my i7-3770 (Win 7) is vulnerable.

Sweet.

Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

Congratulations, sir! This dignified, statesman-like tweet is the perfect way to counter the book's narrative that you're an impulsive, childish dimwit. https://t.co/VW1uzqu5pr

— @HamillHimself (@HamillHimself) January 6, 2018

NPR just interviewed the guy who wrote that new Trump book. His take on things is even more depressing than the excerpts have been.

We're so screwed.

Wolff's book paints a portrait of a White House in disarray, with an incompetent Trump at the center.

"I think the two fundamental issues were that Donald Trump doesn't read anything. Let me accent that — anything. Nothing," Wolff told NPR. "If you're working for the president of the United States, that's an odd position because how do you get information to him? That's already a major hurdle. But then there's the second hurdle — that not only does he not read; he doesn't listen. So it becomes from Day 1, the crisis of the presidency: You can't tell him anything."

For example, Wolff pointed to how Trump was obsessed on his first full day in office with claiming that the crowds at his inauguration had been larger than at former President Barack Obama's — which was inaccurate. However, Wolff said, "You couldn't say to him, 'That's not true. You shouldn't have said it from the beginning, but now we have to fix it.' He wouldn't read it, and you couldn't tell him it because he won't listen to you. It is entirely his reality."

Gallup poltteth:

Per this, expect that Republican number to evaporate, once the Dems start campaigning for legalization and against Jeff Sessions' recent crack-down on decriminalization/legalization.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has scheduled a briefing for later this month to outline how the public can prepare for nuclear war.

It's been a long time since I've seen dry powder snow. NC winter storms seem to be all about ice or wet heavy snow. But today we have two inches of fresh, dry, blowing snow. And since it's not supposed to get above freezing until Monday, this stuff will be blowing around for a while.

Lovely!

And so I'm "working " from home!