The Love Song Of James Alfred Comeyfrock. Tabs, Friday, May 16, 2025

Your morning news roundup and things to read!

Tabs gif by your friend Martini Glambassador!

James Comey went for a walk on the beach — possibly in white flannel trousers, while debating the wisdom of eating a peach — then posted an Instagram photo of seashells on a beach laid out to say “86 47,” and rightwing media wants him hanged from the highest yardarm for “threatening” Donald Trump. As a former busperson and waiter, I’ve never thought “86” meant anything other than “toss out.” We never once assassinated the wilted salad. Maybe wingnuts worked at tougher restaurants. [CNN]

The Wall Street Journal reveals how Donald Trump talked Marjorie Taylor Greene out of running for the Senate against Jon Ossoff next year. His political team and pollsters ran a poll finding she’d easily win the primary, but would lose against Ossoff in a general election by 18 points. Neener, and might we also add, neener. Wait, what are we saying? We could be rid of her! Damn it, Trump! [WSJ gift link]

Fun/horrifying HuffPost story looks at how the White House almost never seems to want to post transcripts of Trump’s word salad. Just 20 percent of his public appearances have been transcribed for the whitehouse.gov website, and the last transcript of Trump’s public remarks was on March 13. Why, it’s as if the White House’s claim to be the “most transparent” administration in history might not be entirely true!

Asked for comment, White House comms director Steven Cheung replied with characteristic gravitas, “You must be truly fucking stupid if you think we’re not transparent. The president regularly does multiple press engagements per day and they are streamed live on multiple platforms. […] Stop beclowning yourself.” Cheung demanded his reply be printed in full, but we aren’t Huffpost, so we abridged it, ha ha Herman! [HuffPost]

That jet Qatar wants to give Donald Trump? It’s not so much a huge compliment as a way of offloading an expensive but unwanted white elephant the royal family has been trying to sell for years, without success. They were just looking for the perfect mark to think it was a fantastic gift. [Newsweek]

A Tennessee teenager playing an online game heard another teenager in California talking in the game’s chat about planning to bomb and shoot up his school. The kid in Tennessee took it seriously and contacted California law enforcement, leading to the arrest of two boys in Northern California, who had stockpiled guns and homemade bombs. Yay, hero TN kid! [LAT]

More than 2000 Starbucks baristas are on strike to protest the company’s new dress code that’s intended to create greater conformity and blandness. The union argues that the dress code isn’t only dumb, it also doesn’t address more serious problems like understaffing. [AP]

Want some good climate news? This is holy forking shirtballs good climate news: A new analysis shows that, for the first time ever, China is generating so much power from renewables that CO2 emissions declined by 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2025, and one percent from 2024 emissions, largely thanks to less use of coal. There have been previous dips in Chinese carbon emissions linked to economic downturns, but this decline is happening even while demand for electricity is growing. “The analysis, based on official figures and commercial data, shows that China’s CO2 emissions have now been stable, or falling, for more than a year.”

The increase in carbon-free power, from new wind, solar, and nuclear resources, has overtaken growth in electricity demand, resulting in less fossil fuel use. If that trend continues — nothing is guaranteed — it would mean that China’s carbon emissions will have peaked well ahead of its goal of 2030. China remains the biggest source of carbon pollution, and still has a long way to go in decarbonizing, but this is far better than projections from a decade or two ago. [Carbon Brief]

The world’s largest manufacturer of zippers, YKK in Japan, has developed a motorized self-propelled zipper that can zip itself up when the user pushes a button. Yes, that sounds goofy or pointless at first blush, but if the big chunky prototype can be miniaturized, it could do wonders for accessibility for folks with limited mobility, and it could also be used in industrial applications. Here’s a video showing the zipper connecting two 16-foot fabric panels.

You can almost hear the “Jane, stop this crazy thing!” jokes coming across the Pacific! This second video shows the funky motorized worm gear that pulls the zipper forward as it connects a couple of tents — like maybe in SPAAAACE!

No telling when a clothing-sized version will be developed; it would obviously need to be resistant to hacking/pranks and have safety measures to prevent … owie. [Verge]

Check out this cool interview with physicist/science journalist Adam Becker about how, for all their seeming whizbang futuristic aspirations, techbro billionaires tend to dismiss the actual science that would get in the way of their half-baked sci-fi aspirations. Thank goodness, really. The subtitle of Becker’s new book tells you plenty about the technodelusions he sets out to skewer: More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Not surprisingly, Becker is more than a little skeptical about handing the keys to the starship to these wieners, who don’t even seem to get the point of the science fiction they claim inspires them. Here’s a pull quote!

Living on Mars sucks. Mars isn't even mid. Mars is just crappy. The gravity is too low. The radiation is too high. There's no air. The dirt is made of poison. There's very little water. It gets hit with asteroids more often than Earth does because it's closer to the asteroid belt. And the prospects for terraforming technology in any meaningful way are not great. Making Mars as habitable as Antarctica during the polar night would be the greatest technological undertaking humanity has ever taken by many orders of magnitude, in order to create a place that nobody would want to live, and where the gravity would still be too low. It's a deeply unpleasant place.

That goes well beyond “ain’t no kind of place to raise your kids / in fact, it’s cold as Hell.” I think I need to get Becker’s book! [Ars Technica]

You filthy fuckaducks didn’t think I’d deprive you of the obligatory Thornton picture, did you? Here he is, snoozling cutely on my office chair just before I sat down to write today’s Tabs. Li’l sweetheart!

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Wonkalonks! Your pal Suzy Greenberg has seized the means of Wonkmeet production! Save the Date! Sat., June 7, she’s hosting a Wonkmeet at Camp Plymouth State Park, 2008 Scout Camp Rd, Ludlow, Vermont! She’s rented the Wedding Grove Pavillion and is thinking 1-5 p.m. $5 for adults to get into the park. Parking and restrooms nearby. Stay tuned and spread the word.

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