This and That

Happy Birthday(ish) Ally!

It was her birthday, very recently, send her a Happy Birthday!

I am SOOOO upset

Here is the item description:

• [Support Mini ITX Motherboard] ITX Motherboard dimension 6.7*6.7in (17*17cm).
• [Support Flex Power Supply Unit] Flex PSU dimension 3.21*1.59*5.91in (81.5*40.5*150mm).
• [Support 1 Single Slot Full Height PCI-e Expansion Card] To add video card or network card or more.
• [Come With 1 Front USB 3.0 or 2.0 Port] 2 in 1 cable only plug one connector to motherboard.

Two MAJOR issues for me. First, it doesn’t support a 170x170mm motherboard. No, it supports a 170x167mm motherboard. If you put a 170×170 in the case, there is not enough room to put the cover on.

That lead to time in the shop grinding off the offending metal.

The clearance for the board is very tight under the four disk bays. I had to get a different CPU cooler that was low profile. That’s ok. Everything went together once I got the fan in place.

Then I went to install the PCIe 10G SFP+ card. There is no space in the back for that card! They put the damn full height opening in the worng place.

FAFO

I’m stealing this from X. I was going to write about this, I had multiple sources. I was going to quote published documents. Instead, I’ll let this stand for itself.

To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump.

I’ll illustrate.

Traditional Approach:

1. Colombia…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) January 26, 2025

To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump.

I’ll illustrate.

Traditional Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. On Monday, the State Department convenes an interagency task force with DoD, NSC, DEA, INS, ICE, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security.
3. The task force meets for four days and develops a position paper.
4. The position paper is rejected by the Secretary of State, who is unhappy that insufficient equity considerations are built into the process.
5. The task force reconvenes a week later to redevelop three new, equity-centric courses of action and create a new position paper.
6. The process is delayed a week because Washington DC gets three inches of snow.
7. SecState approves the new position paper for interagency circulation, and considerable input is received from the heads of other departments so the task force must reconvene.
8. The original three proposed responsive courses of action are scrapped in favor of a new, fourth course of action that achieves the worst aspects of the three prior courses of action but satisfies the interagency.
9. Someone in State who disagrees leaks to the Washington Post, who writes a story about how ineffective the Presidential administration is.
10. The White House Chief of Staff sets up a session three days later to brief the President, who approves the new fourth course of action.
11. Over a month after the issue is first raised, the State Department Public Affairs Officer holds a press conference announcing that Colombia has agreed to try to send fewer criminals into the US and everyone declares victory.

Trump Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. After a par-5 third hole where he goes one under par, Trump uses his iPhone to post on social media as to how the USA will destroy Colombia’s economy if they do not do what the USA demands.
3. By the time Trump gets to the par-4 sixth hole, Colombia’s President has agreed to repatriate all the illegal Colombians in his own plane, which he will pay for.
4. Trump finishes three under par and goes to the clubhouse for a Diet Coke where he posts a gangsta AI image of himself and the new FAFO Doctrine.
5. Winning.

See the difference? It’s called LEADERSHIP.

For a little bit of clarity on how heavy handed Trump 2.0 was, Colombia exports around a billion dollars worth of roses every year to America. In order for those roses to be sold, they have to get expedited inspections. They also have to be reasonably prices.

With the 25% tariffs, Trump was going to put the hurting on 31% of their economy. But it is better. If Colombia had not caved, the tariffs were going to go up to 50%.

In addition, Trump ordered full inspections of everything being imported from Colombia. That means that many of those roses would have wilted in transit.

Oh, did you remember that Valentine’s Day is coming up? And that is the biggest sales day in the country for roses.

Whining on X

I could write a dozen articles about whining liberals over on X. The most common whine is, “a bad thing is going to happen. This is what you morons voted for. Don’t you feel stupid now?”