IDK what the loudest bird is, in decibels per gram or whatever, but the Carolina wren has to be right up there.
Waldo Jaquith
@waldo.net
Thought follower. Public servant. Male software developer. Alumnus of 18F, the Obama White House, Georgetown's Beeck Center, U.S. Digital Response, the Biden-Harris Transition Team, Biden administration, GSA, and Treasury. He/him. Charlottesville, VA, USA.
My take: 3PAOs are busted, government needs to perform its own assessment with FTEs. No, this is not possible under our current regime, but it’s where we need to go.
Eric Geller@ericjgeller.com · 1h agoDOD CIO Kirsten Davies is at Black Hat talking about, among other things, the Pentagon's decision to pause phase 2 of CMMC, which would have required third-party assessments of defense contractors' cybersecurity starting this fall.
media when maga wins an election: we must travel the country and speak to these voters and extend empathy to them and give credence to their bigotry and false beliefs media when the left wins an election: is this the end of the american experiment
I once went through the same with Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli, who refused my FOIA request for Gov. Bob McDonnell's ethics training records, and declared that the AG office was immune from FOIA (which was not even a little bit true). Obviously the truth was that no training had been provided.
Natalie Alms@almsnatalie.bsky.social · 3h agoNEW for @notus.com: The White House says DOGE employees were trained on ethics and how to manage government records, but won’t give Congress’ watchdog the receipts to back that up. www.notus.org/agencies/con...
Here’s what EV sales look like in countries that aren’t controlled by the petroleum industry. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08...
Three years ago, EPA proposed cybersecurity rules for municipal water systems. Republicans sued to prevent the rules from going into effect, and that was the end of that. Now seven states' water systems are under attack by Iran.
Suspected Iran Cyberattacks on U.S. Water Supply Follow Years of Warnings and Neglect (Gift Article)
Federal and state officials are racing to address an assault on the nation’s water supply that they believe is the work of Iranian hackers.
nytimes.com
Oh my god the dietician who is telling everyone in the White House to only eat steak and sauerkraut doesn't wipe his ass.
This is the dude who defeated Madison Cawthorn. Theory: Republican districts that include liberal cities elect especial jackasses, e.g. Charlottesville being represented by John McGuire, or Asheville being represented by this guy.
Chris Hayes@chrislhayes.bsky.social · yesterday
The second Trump era has, if nothing else, been a good illustration of the idea that the people at the top echelons of society, in finance, law, higher education, politics, etc., are often the most credulous fools you can imagine.
Kevin Elliott@kjephd.bsky.social · yesterdayLook, they're not gonna stop doing it until it stops working
I assume the only purpose of this is to set up for a Susan Collins Defense of "but Blanche *promised*!"
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterdayThe Senate Judiciary Committee advances Todd Blanche's nomination in a party-line vote and Grassley ends the hearing
Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 is pretty funny! It's impressive that satire should work so well 400 years later.
You'd have to be total morons to buy this, so...
Nicholas Grossman@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 2d agoTrump has made big threats and given Iran a one-last-chance at least 8 times now, backing off without getting anything every time. "A whole civilization will die tonight" was April 7! He has claimed Iran is making concessions, desperate for a deal, and a deal is imminent too many times to count.
Naoero—nee Nauru—was mined for guano throughout the entire 20th until 80% of the island was stripped down to an uninhabitable limestone moonscape, the phosphate runoff killing the surrounding marine life. Colonization stripped the country down to almost nothing.
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2d agoOne of the world's smallest countries has a new name. Naoero, the island in the South Pacific formerly called Nauru, wanted its name to more closely match how it is said in the language spoken by its people.
"Their trees are all gross." Amazing stuff.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d agoTrump: "Look at the blue cities. What do they have in common? They're all dirty. They're filthy dirty. Their streets are dirty. Their streets smell. Their storefronts are broken. Their trees are all gross. Everything about the place is dirty. It's really all of them."
I normally appreciate the writing of M. Gessen, but they managed to get two important things wrong in this screenshot. There are two claims here, each of which they're flatly wrong about. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/o...
People in this country used to be afraid of announcing to the world that they were stone-cold idiots who shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a car. Now they're out here bragging about how dumb they are.
Razzball@razzball.bsky.social · 2d agoThe whole Mariners' pen believes Babe Ruth didn't exist. Kinda want all MLB players to believe this and make the owners agree to it in next CBA
This is very niche stuff for this general audience, but— If you're a government employee dealing with modernizing Medicaid tech infrastructure, I'm co-hosting a one-hour webinar on the subject next week, particularly about how to get better results within your existing contract.
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Modernizing Medicaid technologies through agile procurement. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
Constant policy changes result in expensive, exhausting, and inefficient software rebuilds and procurements. Break free of this cycle by truly modernizing how your government delivers software with hu...
usdigitalresponse-org.zoom.us
I tried boiled peanuts for the first time recently. Turns out they’re just beans in wet shells. Would not recommend.
One struggled to have sympathy for people who so obviously failed to grasp the fundamental nature of Trump.
Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 3d agoTrump “came up with a completely false quote saying I acknowledged things I never said. “My god." — Brad Karp, then the chairman of the law firm 2/2
It’s telling that Republican governors have nothing to say about this phenomenon.
Stephen Judkins@stephenjudkins.bsky.social · 4d agothis absolute scumbag www.oregonlive.com/wildfires/20...
Liberal “Peanuts” AI comics like this are becoming weirdly common. It’s all low-effort slop, where a character is made to say a thing that character would never say, in a way they wouldn’t say it.
TIL that Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" was co-written by David Bowie, who largely produced the album of the same name.
Lust for Life (Iggy Pop song) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Sweden just announced the same as the world has realized they can no longer trust either the product of the American intelligence community nor trust the American intelligence communities with their data.
Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · 4d agoJapan is setting up its first centralised intelligence agency since WWII, the National Intelligence Bureau, to coordinate intelligence, counter espionage, and respond to national security threats, CNN reports. It could pave the way for a foreign intelligence agency like MI6.