Dark_Cloud_Overhead

Been listening and thinking about what Musk is really after in getting access to the payment system, and the thing that I've heard that makes the most sense to me is kind of the most obvious I think. He's looking to monetize it, but not by doing something as obviously illegal as messing with people's bank accounts or anything like that. I think that idea is pretty farfetched. Not so much that it would be impossible for him to do it necessarily, but just it would make no sense that he would ever try something like that when there's a much more attractive and safer alternative for him. Just the data itself is worth its weight in gold. Okay, so it doesn't have any actual weight cuz it's data, but you know what I mean. https://ourfinancialsecurity.org/2025/02/blog-what-will-elon-musk-and-his-tech-bros-do-with-your-personal-data/ Since Musk acquired X, he has promoted turning the social media platform into a financial services “everything app” including banking services and virtual payment platform that would encompass your “entire financial life.” This business model is not unlike the massive and dominant financial services payment apps in China like WeChat and AliPay that blur the lines between banking and commerce. Former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra, whom Trump fired on Saturday, has warned that these apps have become state surveillance tools that closely monitor the lives of Chinese people. Musk has developed this plan for years, acquiring money service transmitter licenses in multiple states. And, just a week a ago, X signed a deal to partner with Visa to provide peer-to-peer payments for tasks like splitting bills with friends or buying a coffee by connecting to people’s debit cards and bank accounts, which represents the first step in actually creating Musk’s long-sought, Chinese-inspired platform. And what might give Musk’s newly muscular social media-payments platform a critical edge in a market filled with other powerful banks and financial services companies? Well, access to the federal payment data and sensitive personal information of tens of millions of Americans just might do the trick. Combining that data with what X already extracts and Musk’s Starlink satellite internet usage data would then create a powerful, textured, database of private information on all of us. They've been trying to assuage people's fears saying he was only give read-only access, but that's all he really needs. He is the exact type of person this information is supposed to be kept away from at all costs and why all this really should be scaring the shit out of people. With every story the last couple weeks, I keep hearing one thing echoing over an over again in my mind: "Big Brother is watching you." Trump may be something of a buffoon, who's mostly just concerned with always being the center of attention, but he's the perfect smokescreen for a guy like Musk whose ambitions appear far grander and much more dangerous. He is exactly the type of would-be tyrant Orwell was warning us about.

Just two questions... Who's working on building the Snowpiercer, and how soon can I get my ticket for it?

C.I.A. Sends White House an Unclassified Email With Names of Some Employees "The list of partial names was provided in an effort to comply with an executive order to trim the federal work force." Incompetence at its finest. They had no way of apparently sending the list in a classified manner to the office of personal management, so they had no recourse but to do it this way in order to comply with Trump's executive order. Geez louise. What insanity.

Guy's just a gutless wonder. Love's swinging his big tariff club around, making a big show of what a tough guy he is, but the second shit gets real he looks for nearest exit. Mexico and Canada repositioning some troops inside their country is nothing but an empty gesture that lets him save face. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/politics/us-canada-trade-fentanyl-fact-check/index.html If this was really about drugs or illegal border crossings he wouldn't be lumping Canada into this anyway.

Better watch out if you try that. I don't think he's been potty trained.

They're both just playing patty cake at this point. Crazy.

If feeling sorry for yourself was a sport, Bulma would be the undisputed champion.

He speaks? Cuz of the D name. What is with the D name? Apparently it doesn't mix well with Celestial Dragons it would seem. Can't think of why else he would bring it up. Man I want double One Piece back so bad!

You think they're prescription or just sunglasses? I'm pretty sure he's taken them off for at least a moment or two, but maybe I'm misremembering.

Now they air the correct Mash promo. Oh boy, can't wait to see how he's gonna get out of that situation.

Dad at least was a decent guy, and who knows if his son hadn't kept acting like such a little douchebag his hope to live a normal life among the people might have worked out.

LOL Yeah. They can try all they want, but nothing they show me is gonna make me feel sorry for Doflamingo.

LMAO He made a throne. My God!

Divine Visionary? What the heck is this guy doing there. LOL Love defected.

I had stuff cooking on the stove. <---- My excuse. LOL Nyaaaaa, what's up Dot?

When you got right-wing billionaires taking over media organizations and twisting their coverage like this, who needs to actually cheat. A lot easier to just buy up all the microphones so people only hear what they want us to hear. This is the real danger to me and the last true line of defense. When they start going full force after journalists and trying to shut down what's left of the free press, it's over.

Back to Doom Patrol, I'm just about done with season 2, and wow. I didn't think it was possible for the show to get any more insane, but I clearly had no damn clue.

Eh, I don't really buy it. I'm sure they tried all sorts of shenanigans, but I can't believe they actually got away with tossing out enough votes to swing anything without anyone catching on before now. Either way, what does it matter now? As pleasant as it would be to live in denial, it's just engaging in a form of pointless escapism from the unfortunate reality we find ourselves in now. I find it a lot more believable people were simply swayed by the massive misinformation campaign they waged anyway, as I'm a firm believer in the endless stupidity of the human race.

Guess I was the one and only person who actually watched it.

For a small plane, it sure made one huge fireball. It went down only like around 30 seconds after taking off, so it had a full load of fuel aboard. That and it went down at a pretty steep angle and at high speed with its engines still going, so seems it wasn't any type of engine failure but some type of catastrophic loss of control that may have led to it going down.

Of course he did. You just knew he couldn't let a horrific tragedy that should be a unifying moment for the country go by without trying to inject his usual brand of bullshit, racist, conspiratorial, toxic, finger-pointing nonsense into it. I mean, you hope just one damn time some depth would be even too low for someone like him to stoop to, but if there is one consistent thing about him it's that he never fails to limbo beneath the bar of our most base expectations. Anyway, just saw there were a bunch of young figure skaters aboard the flight. Was watching Nancy Kerrigan and some other top figures in the sport talking about it. They were in tears. It's looking like they pretty much given up hope of there being any survivors. Damn.

In a sane world, Caroline Kennedy's statement that she put out yesterday would be a death knell for him, but he's just gaslighting congress about all his anti-vaccine statements so far. Pretty clear he's just gonna pretend none of it ever happened or he was somehow misinterpreted over and over and over again. Sadly, that's probably all he really needs to do... is just give them enough of narrative so they can hide behind it while they hold their noses and vote him through, same as Hegseth.

Watched Peacemaker, the Suicide Squad spin-off series. The characters act just so juvenile most of the time, it's ridiculous. It was pretty funny though. The opening dance sequence and song though... That's gonna be stuck in my head for at least a week.