The turn of the screw

“When I said ‘I’ll take it black,’ I didn’t mean this black. …”

Cost of coffee? Up nearly 21 percent. Cost of screws from Taiwan, America’s No. 1 supplier?

Just ask the Taiwanese, who make screws for everything from bathroom cabinets to data-center fans.

Margins are thin and getting thinner, as is the herd of manufacturers, thanks to The Pestilence’s 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, plus competition from mainland China on product and the homegrown computer-chip industry for workers and government support.

Kent Chen of Sheh Fung Screws Company told The New York Times that his orders are down 20 percent compared to this time last year.

“Everything is in pause mode. A lot of our customers said, ‘We’ll see,’ but then we didn’t receive many orders.”

Oh, he got his orders, all right. Same as the rest of us.

“Assume the position!”

We are so screwed. Ain’t enough coffee in the world for this bullshit. Especially at these prices.

‘Tedious and burdensome’

Page 1 of 85. I’m surprised the judge didn’t order these ambulance-chasers summarily hanged.

Well, “tedious and burdensome” is one way to describe The Pestilence’s latest lawsuit against The New York Times.

“Wall-to-wall bullshit” is another. Or “the ramblings of an ADHD preschool dropout ‘parented’ by an outlaw-biker uncle who makes him work without safety gear in his poorly ventilated meth lab.”

But Judge Steven D. Merryday of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida clearly is not one for hyperbole, and so he confined his observations to phrases like “tedious and burdensome,” and “florid and enervating,” noting that in alleging only two simple counts of defamation, “the complaint consumes eighty-five pages.”

“A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner,” Hizzoner wrote.

He added — without giggling, which must have been difficult, because this shit is funnier than Jimmy Kimmel on a good day — that the complaint, as written, “stands unmistakably and inexcusably athwart” legal requirements that complaints must be “a short and plain statement of the claim.”

And then Merryday wrapped things up the way editors of my early attempts at journalism were known to do, by crumpling that big ol’ 85-page pile of bushwa into a wad and throwing it at the authors, with further instructions appended.

“This action will begin, will continue, and will end in accord with the rules of procedure and in a professional and dignified manner,” Merryday wrote. “The complaint is STRUCK with leave to amend within twenty-eight days. The amended complaint must not exceed forty pages, excluding only the caption, the signature, and any attachment.”

Then he dropped the mic and walked off stage.

Heil, Caesar!

Another dick-tator with a golden comb-over.

On the first day of July, the month named for Julius Caesar, the Senate bent to its dictator’s will and approved his giant, ugly-ass, abortion of a bill.

Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina— who will not seek re-election after Orange Julius Caesar threatened to find someone to primary him — were the only Repugs to vote nay. All others assumed that fabled position.

Prince MAGAbelly had to cast the deciding vote, and now this huge, loathsome turd must float back to the House for resolution of the changes made in its version. A vote there could come as early as tomorrow.

Might there be a few hurdles involved? Hear ye, hear ye, from Ye Oulde New Yorke Times!

Hurdles, you say? It is the hee, and also haw. The majority in the House makes the Senate look … well, senatorial by comparison. The Senate is up to its saggy tits in senile old hoors, to be sure, but the House is the political equivalent of a Bizarro World Alice’s Restaurant, where you can get anything you want, including Alice, her husband, Ray, Fasha the dog, the entire complement of the Group W bench, and maybe Officer Obie too, all rolling around in a half-ton of garbage, if that’s what blows your skirt up.

So poor people will starve, get sick, and die, rich people will get richer and write letters to their senators complaining about how they have to step over the stiffs on their way to the squash court, and Elon Spunk will start a new political party in a frantic attempt to … save us from ourselves? Nope. To put himself back in the news cycle as anything other than a bad joke, despised even by the people who bought his cars.

Better debug that exploding Starship stat, bruh. I hear OJC wants to claw back your subsidies and deport you to Mars, and for sure he’ll make you drive your own paddy wagon.

Air conditioning (and one ventilation)

One of those hazy, lazy days of not-quite summer.

Lots of schmutz in the air today. Our air purifier started sounding like a 747 trying (and failing) to take off from Newark, so I figured Elon was back to blowing up Starships in Texas between Special K binges and using his face as a catcher’s mitt for some pitcher’s high hard one.

But nope. Just windblown wildfire smoke and dust from Mexico, according to the local press. A health alert* has been issued. And warmish, too, so much so with the doors and windows closed that I finally caved and turned on the air conditioning. We must think of Miss Mia Sopaipilla, after all.

* Health alert not provided concerning side effects of the Second Amendment.

All hats, no cattle

A hat for each of his horns.

Famous sperm donor Elon Muskhat is returning to fucking up his companies instead of fucking up the government, according to The Atlantic.

And not a moment too soon.

Nobody is compelled to deal with this asshole’s companies. But it’s kind of hard to avoid dealing with the government. It’s always telling you where you can’t hike, or fucking poor people while blowing the Pentagon, or shipping your neighbors off to the Sheik of Yerbouti for challenging new careers as rare-earth miners and/or sexytime playthings.

He’s got his own town in Texas, I hear. Let him fuck that place up for a while.