I could get no satisfaction but I choose not to.

Trump Announces 100% Tariffs on China
October 10, 2025

Day ten without a federal government.  I think the joke has kind of worn off now, where's our federal government?  No one's telling me what to do or punishing me for using the wrong pronouns, no one can live like that.  Ok, for the first couple days we all thought it was fun but my welfare check hasn't showed up yet and I'm starting to get worried.

What am I supposed to do, find a job?  I'll have you know that I paid $750 thousand dollars to get a PhD, I'm an official doctor of I Hate Trump-ology!  I don't have to look for jobs, they have to look for me!  And I don't come cheap.  So bring back the federal government and I'll stop complaining, at least until next week's riots.  Those are going to be awesome, I can't wait.

Macron Appoints Lecornu as French Prime Minister Again, He Just Resigned A Few Days Ago After Less Than a Month in Office
October 10, 2025

□ [“Trump Ended Eight Wars, Still Doesn't Get Nobel Peace Prize"]

To the extent I cared one way or the other, I just wanted him to win so we could watch the left explode.  It felt a little embarrassing to be checking if the results had come out yet, wtf would I care who wins one of these?  Obama won one and he did nothing but vote 'present,' both before and after.  I say this as someone who deployed to war zones three times under Obama and didn't see any anti-war protestors.

Keep in mind, January 31 is the deadline for nominations, so to the extent the Nobel people have any integrity, they can point to that.  Trump hadn't done much.  Since then, he's intervened in Armenia and Azerbaijan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand, Hamas and Israel and in his first term, Egypt and Ethiopia, Serbia and Kosovo.  Maybe people who genuinely oppose war really need more people like him.  Of course these countries are mostly non-white, so the left doesn't care if they kill each other.

Trump is very egotistical so I don't doubt that he genuinely wanted a Nobel, although I can't imagine why he would care about that.  That said, being Trump, and only taking office eleven days before the deadline, it sounds like he's had a back-up plan.  This year's Nobel is going to a token female revolutionary in Venezuela.  Her immediate response was to dedicate it to Trump and thank him for his support.  So the left will have to ignore the non-white female they're celebrating for defeating the guy she dedicates her victory to.

But there's more, you may have noticed that Trump has been building up forces next to Venezuela for a while now and it looked like where his next strike would happen.  Well this could be it.  This chick gets a push to overthrow the regime with the backing of Trump and the US military.  The Hugo Chávez regime could finally be destroyed and it wouldn't even take a war to do it.  It's iffy, like everything else, but it would be hilarious if Trump makes this happen around the time this year's Nobel is officially awarded in a big ceremony.  Better yet, have him attend the ceremony and hand over the Nobel to this lady.

If Trump really wanted this award, sucks to be him, but otherwise it's a win for Trump supporters and the left is too busy laughing to realize it.  They'd just be attacking the Nobel for degrading itself and Trump would have to tie himself to this leftist committee for the rest of his life.

New Zealand Pays $3,5M to Samoa After Lesbian Navy Captain Crashes Into a Reef, Causing Deadly Oil Spill
October 10, 2025

□ [“Layoffs of Federal Workers Begin Today"]

Not just a "furlough."  To the extent that they hadn't already been working on it all year, the executive branch has been looking into which people they can do without.  Because the government is shut down, there aren't many others who can make the decision, that's what the POTUS is for.  So now, when (or if) Congress ever starts again, the Republicans will have written reports on how to simplify or remove the laws that made this happen in the first place.

That's all well and good, if maybe a trifle optimistic, but there's also the legitimate question of what these people are going to do.  It sounds like the expected the government to do everything for them for the rest of their lives, now they have to face earning a living like the rest of us.  Difference is, most of us have actual skills people will pay for.  We had to learn them just to keep our parents from being stuck with us forever.

There will be plenty of "learn to code" jokes.  Maybe some of these people have enough savings that they'll get by, or they may even have useful abilities like a trade school would provide.  It's been pointed out that nobody cares who the fifth-best politician or athlete in town is, but the fifth-best plumber is never at a loss for income.

Slightly more-worrisome is that these people will want to fight against the government they spent all these years sucking.  Not sure if they'll be useful but they will be easily-manipulated and completely disposable.  This could be a potential big problem because the enemy will know how to use them.  It's also possible these people might see the error of their ways and start coming back to sanity, but I wouldn't count on that.

Belgium Police Foils Islamic Terrorist Plot Targeting Prime Minister Bart De Wever With Drone Attack
October 10, 2025

□ [“Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Complains Democrats Aren’t Standing With Him Against Trump"]

Don't you have all of Chicago standing with you?  Isn't that enough?  Well how about Illinois as a whole state?  You'd think that would have the federal government cringing on its knees.  Ok, what about similar rebellions going on in California, New York, Portland, DC and wherever else?  At some point, you need to accept that you have enough troops, you just need to figure out what to do with them.  You could have done that first but you go to war with the enemy you have, not the enemy you wish you had.

A bigger problem is that he just comes off as a sissy who doesn't realize what he's gotten himself into.  He's putting out the usual leftist rhetoric about how Trump is going to mess with the elections that are almost thirteen months away.  Tyrants don't need elections so just take that off the board of what to think about, at least if you expect people to believe that you're fighting a tyrant.

They're planning for another day of protests, not sure if it's tomorrow or a week from tomorrow.  Doesn't really matter, a bunch of old white people doing the same thing they've done for months.  At least it's starting to get cooler but then they'll need to stay home for the winter.  Confederacy 1.0 had some problems - population, economy, lack of unifying government - but they at least knew how to put up a fight.  Assuming Democrats manage to survive the next ten years, they're going to be very embarrassed to be reminded of stunts like this.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth to Investigate Pentagon Funded Animal Testing Using Aborted Fetal Tissue
October 10, 2025

DC to finally let Swamp Thing meet Jesus Christ in new four-part restoration of a cancelled controversial 1989 storyline
October 9, 2025

Massive Explosion at Nashville Military Explosives Facility – Multiple People Dead or Missing
October 10, 2025