Rants

Unfiltered Thoughts

Raw opinions, hot takes, and things that need to be said.

September 18, 2025

10:18 AM 🔗

This is a test from digital ocean droplet 2

10:16 AM 🔗

This is a test from digital ocean droplet 2

5:50 AM 🔗

Test Rant

5:48 AM 🔗

Test rant from updated script

5:41 AM 🔗

Testing from droplet

September 05, 2025

5:51 PM 🔗

Imagine rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War, all while deploying federal forces against peaceful communities and the people who support them, and threatening more of it—all while thinking you deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. But hey, at least no one is talking about how you had 1000 FBI agents redact your name from the Epstein files. Get rid of this President and all those that support him. This means you, Biggs. Time for a replacement before you leach off the system with 100% retirement for life for not doing shit.

August 29, 2025

12:09 PM 🔗

Beginning Monday, South Carolina’s new hands-free driving law goes into effect. This new law prohibits drivers from using mobile electronic devices while operating a motor vehicle.

August 28, 2025

7:13 PM 🔗

Dear Dr. Houry,

I am writing to formally resign from my position as Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), effective August 28, 2025, close of business. I am happy to stay on for two weeks to provide transition, if requested.

This decision has not come easily, as I deeply value the work that the CDC does in safeguarding public health and am proud of my contributions to that critical mission. However, after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I find that the views he and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough.

While I hold immense respect for the institution and my colleagues, I believe that it is imperative to align my professional responsibilities to my system of ethics and my understanding of the science of infectious disease, immunology, and my promise to serve the American people. This step is necessary to ensure that I can contribute effectively in a capacity that allows me to remain true to my principles.

The Breaking Point

I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health. The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threatens the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people.

The data analyses that supported this decision have never been shared with CDC despite my respectful requests to HHS and other leadership. This lack of meaningful engagement was further compounded by a “frequently asked questions” document written to support the Secretary’s directive that was circulated by HHS without input from CDC subject matter experts and that cited studies that did not support the conclusions that were attributed to these authors.

Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.

Communication Breakdown

It is untenable to serve in an organization that is not afforded the opportunity to discuss decisions of scientific and public health importance released under the moniker of CDC. The lack of communication by HHS and other CDC political leadership that culminates in social media posts announcing major policy changes without prior notice demonstrates a disregard of normal communication channels and common sense.

Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page-long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function.

Some examples include: - The announcement of the change in the COVID-19 recommendations for children and pregnant people - The firing of scientists from ACIP by X post and an op-ed rather than direct communication with these valuable experts - The announcement of new ACIP members by X before onboarding and vetting have completed - The release of terms of reference for an ACIP workgroup that ignored all feedback from career staff at CDC

Dangerous Appointments

The recent terms of reference for the COVID vaccine work group created by this ACIP puts people of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor in charge of recommending vaccine policy to a director hamstrung and sidelined by an authoritarian leader. Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults. Their base should be the people they serve, not a political voting bloc.

Silenced Expertise

I have always been first to challenge scientific and public health dogma in my career and was excited by the opportunity to do so again. I was optimistic that there would be an opportunity to brief the Secretary about key topics such as measles, avian influenza, and the highly coordinated approach to the respiratory virus season. Such briefings would allow exchange of ideas and a shared path to support the vision of “Making America Healthy Again.”

We are seven months into the new administration, and no CDC subject matter expert from my Center has ever briefed the Secretary.

I am not sure who the Secretary is listening to, but it is quite certainly not to us. Unvetted and conflicted outside organizations seem to be the sources HHS uses over the gold standard science of CDC and other reputable sources. At a hearing, Secretary Kennedy said that Americans should not take medical advice from him. To the contrary, an appropriately briefed and inquisitive Secretary should be a source of health information for the people he serves. As it stands now, I must agree with him—that he should not be considered a source of accurate information.

A Dangerous Path Backward

The intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines favoring natural infection and unproven remedies will bring us to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive and many if not all will suffer. I believe in nutrition and exercise. I believe in making our food supply healthier, and I also believe in using vaccines to prevent death and disability. Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun.

Personal Legacy

The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning. My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud. I am resigning because of the cowardice of a leader that cannot admit that HIS and his minions’ words over decades created an environment where violence like this can occur. I reject his and his colleagues’ thoughts and prayers, and advise they direct those to people that they have not actively harmed.

Abandoning Vulnerable Communities

For decades, I have been a trusted voice for the LGBTQ community when it comes to critical health topics. I must also cite the recklessness of the administration in their efforts to: - Erase transgender populations - Cease critical domestic and international HIV programming - Terminate key research to support equity

These actions are part of my decision to resign.

The Stakes

Public health is not merely about the health of the individual, but it is about the health of the community, the nation, the world. The nation’s health security is at risk and is in the hands of people focusing on ideological self-interest.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for the opportunities for growth, learning, and collaboration that I have been afforded during my time at the CDC. It has been a privilege to work alongside such dedicated professionals who are committed to improving the health and well-being of communities across the nation even when under attack from within both physically and psychologically.

Thank you once again for the support and guidance I have received from you and previous CDC leadership throughout my tenure. I wish the CDC continued success in its vital mission and that HHS reverse its dangerous course to dismantle public health as a practice and as an institution. If they continue the current path, they risk our personal well-being and the security of the United States.

Sincerely,

Demetre C. Daskalakis MD MPH (he/his/him)

August 27, 2025

5:16 PM 🔗

The folks behind all this are people like Russ Vought (head of the Office of Budget Management and primary author of Project 2025) and Howard Lutnick (Commerce Secretary and former Cantor Fitzgerald, which is the biggest supporter of the Heritage Foundation).

They want an era of isolationism for the U.S. because they think this country can prosper with the right access to raw materials and straight labor. It’s why they are working on: - Shutting down access to proper education - Having Trump go on and on about acquiring Canada and Greenland (partly for resources and accessibility but also as a buffer zone to the rest of the world)

They have been convinced into thinking AI will figure out all the problems with Elon Musk (SpaceX/Starshield/Starlink/Grok) and Peter Thiel/Palantir. Elon Musk has already announced he won’t push for a 3rd party; instead, he is putting his support behind Vance. With Trump being sick, it’s not long before Vance is in control.

Palantir’s Growing Control

Palantir is what found Elon his adult and kids DOGE team, which most people have forgotten is really USDS which has access to most federal agencies.

Understand that the decision by Trump to fire the NSA chief and his deputy may in fact be the most dangerous decision Trump has made so far. Timothy Haugh, like his last 2 predecessors, were restricting the access and control Peter Thiel had through his company Palantir over the CIA/NSA to commit domestic surveillance.

Palantir (just got a BILLION dollar contract with the US government) is now the biggest defense contractor for the CIA/NSA based on publicly available data on DOD contracts (they had millions added to their current contract a while back) along with providing day-to-day operations for both agencies. Palantir is contracted with state and local governments and police here in the U.S.

The goal for Palantir is and always has been domestic surveillance. Palantir is an intelligence corporation which provides advanced analysis, sigint, osint, criminal and threat awareness and kill chain efficiencies to all levels of US, UK, and corporate agencies.

The Scapegoat Mechanism

Now comes the push for removing Trump from office.

Elon was the early test to see if the scapegoat mechanism would work, and it sort of did for him. Peter is a key believer of the scapegoat mechanism, for which he says Trump fills that role.

Thiel’s relationship with Vance: - Has been grooming JD Vance since 2011 as his benefactor and mentor - Brought Vance to Mar-a-Lago to smooth over things with Trump so Vance could be VP - Gave Vance $15 million in donations to run for Senate (the largest amount of money ever donated to a single Senate candidate ever)

The scapegoat mechanism is simple: you have someone in power take on a lot of bad actions, then remove them, and so the masses feel it’s been all undone.

The test case was Elon and DOGE, which worked perfectly seeing as how all the federal investigations into Elon are gone and DOGE is still at all the federal agencies. Elon’s employee Amanda Scales still has the private server setup at OPM. All the data they got from the federal agencies and Treasury Department when they had hard physical access is still under their control.

In September, when the gap fund bill signed in March expires along with the deferred resignation program kicking in and the SSA/IRS data being handed over to Palantir as part of the DOGE plan they have provided for updating the SSA system, there could be a lot of reasons for him to be removed from office.

Peter Thiel/Palantir just got what they wanted: access to a big enough database for the first step in complete surveillance.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/30/trump-citizenship-database

Thiel’s Global Reach

Peter is also a major defense contractor for: - The UK intelligence community and army, along with the major police forces in the UK - Healthcare (branched out a few years ago with a contract to sift through all the data at NHS England, which is done now, so Kier announced that NHS England will be shut down—not NHS) - Norway’s government and civilian surveillance services (Peter through his company has full access) - The IDF (Israel) in all their operations from Gaza to the West Bank to Iran (Peter/Palantir provides direct support)

Thiel’s Control of Palantir

Thiel’s ownership structure: - Directly owns roughly 180 million publicly traded shares (7%) - His investment firm Rivendell 7 owns 34 million publicly traded shares - Other Thiel vehicles own 37 million shares - Thiel entities also own 32.5 million supervoting Class B shares in Palantir

Those Class B shares carry 10 votes while public ones carry only 1 vote per share. Now here is the kicker for why he still controls Palantir: Thiel has sole investment power over 335,000 Class F shares as part of a trust that has 49.99% voting interest in the company.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/palantir-stock-chairman-peter-thiel-b63415c7

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir

Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, knew Thiel well before 2003 when Thiel tapped him to be CEO.

Karp’s controversial statements: - Has condemned “woke” ways of thinking, calling woke a central risk to Palantir - Claims Palantir is a counter-example to companies he considers woke - Condemned pro-Palestine protests, calling them “an infection inside of our society” - Remarked that peace activists are war activists and they should be sent to North Korea - Has said the West has a superior way of living - Supports Palantir’s contract with ICE and using the software to enable separation of families

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/01/alex-karp-hill-summit-trump-00155571

Peter Thiel: Background

  • Born in West Germany, grew up and went to school in the city of Swakopmund in West South Africa (the city was notorious for its continued glorification of Nazism) to a dad who was an engineer working on uranium, which was in violation of international law
  • Partners with Elon Musk at PayPal, early investor in Facebook
  • Self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, believes women’s right to vote is wrong, idolizes Curtis Yarvin and Yarvin’s philosophy on replacing democracy with authoritarianism—all in Peter’s own book
  • Palantir, after its creation in 2003, was bailed out partly by In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm

—Post by: nycdiveshack from Reddit

1:49 PM 🔗

In America, it doesn’t matter your background or life experiences. Anyone can be a mass shooter

1:38 PM 🔗

Thoughts and prayers my ass. These children were literally praying as they were being shot. - It’s just a fact of life, JD Vance. Fuck the NRA and GOP.

August 11, 2025

12:30 PM 🔗

The city ranked #1 in violent crime per capita is Mobile AL. Red Mayor and red Governer.

8:30 AM 🔗

They’re starting the process of normalizing and conditioning the public to accept martial law, while also turning DC into a military zone before the midterms so when they reject the election results and illegally overtake the rest of the government, any attempt to protest or rebel will be shut down immediately.

August 10, 2025

2:16 PM 🔗

Just learned about tmux and now I am in love. Only the nerdy ones will understand.

August 04, 2025

11:23 AM 🔗

I highly recommend it for anyone that wants to be miserable - Mark Gingrass

11:22 AM 🔗

If you are not prepared, be prepared to pay the price - Mark Gingrass

8:50 AM 🔗

There should be caution tape in front of the storage rack where all the dumbbells are. I’m always trying to grab a weight, but there’s some old guy standing right in front of it, doing curls and blocking access to three sets of dumbbells.

August 03, 2025

7:55 PM 🔗

Senator Josh Hawley destroyed Lankford. Its insider trading, point blank.

2:51 PM 🔗

Using my phone for my best rant.

2:05 PM 🔗

I got rid of – just one I got rid of the other night, you buy a house, they have a faucet in the house, Joe, and the faucet the water doesn’t come out. They have a restrictor. You can’t – in areas where you have so much water they don’t know what to do with it. Uh, you have a shower head the shower doesn’t uh, the shower doesn’t, you think it’s not working. It is working. The water’s dripping out and that’s no good for me. I like this hair lace and [sic] – I like that hair nice and wet. Takes you – you have to stand in the shower for 20 minutes before you get the soap out of your hair. And I put a, a thing – and it sounds funny but it’s really not. It’s horrible. And uh, when you wash your hands, you turn on the faucet, no water comes out. You’re washing whole – water barely comes out it’s ridi – this was done by crazy people. And I wor – wrote it all off and got it approved in Congress so that they can’t just change it. - President Trump

August 01, 2025

3:03 PM 🔗

Can’t vote for your interest if you too stupid to know what your interests are.

10:14 AM 🔗

Powell doesn’t single-handedly decide rates as he wants. It’s a committee and he’s the chair, not a dictator.

Trump can’t conceive of any process that involves checks and balances because he thinks like a dictator and all such process is simply an impediment. So he attempts to dismantle anything that stands in his way. He believes one person should run the country (him), forever, and any objection is treason. He has said so clearly many times.

July 30, 2025

5:02 PM 🔗

Pedo files being covered up by pedophiles.

July 29, 2025

5:22 PM 🔗

We couldn’t save your wife without killing the baby, so we decided to let them both die.

5:03 PM 🔗

Theft by employers through stolen wages exceed all other forms of theft combined. Mugging, burglary, shoplifting. All less than stolen by employers from employees. And yet, if an employee takes a dollar out of the register, the cops will arrest them and throw them in a jail cell, when a kid decided to back out of selling their goat too the the fair because she loved it and wanted to keep it as a pet, the cops travelled 500 miles, took the goat, and had it slaughtered. (https://reason.com/2023/03/31/police-traveled-500-miles-to-seize-girls-pet-goat-for-slaughter/) But call the cops about an employer keeping thousands of dollars of your pay? Uh, thats a civil issue.” Notice how its only a crime if its the poor stealing from the rich. Thanks for what you do at the DOL. Its too bad the conservatives have been dismantling so much of the federal DOL.

5:02 PM 🔗

Test

4:57 PM 🔗

It’s not the strangers/drag queens/LGBTQ people that you, or especially kids, need to worry about. It’s the men in the family. After working 11 years at a crime lab doing DNA, I don’t know if I’ve come across a kid rape kit with a trans person as the suspect. But there are thousands of them from the dad/stepdad/moms bf/step brother/grandpa/etc. If you want to protect kids, start there.

So, bathroom bills aren’t really protecting kids, just diverting attention from actually threats.

4:50 PM 🔗

This is a multi-line rant.

It has multiple paragraphs.

And it should preserve the formatting!

4:49 PM 🔗

Testing the commit feature of the new rant script!

4:49 PM 🔗

This script makes it so much easier to add rants! No more manual editing and formatting.

March 1, 2025

9:39 PM 🔗

This entire rant is from From Reddit user JustMyOpinionz . This deserves to be read:

The Oval Office meeting between Trump, Vance, and Zelensky was not just a failure of diplomacy. It was not just an insult to an ally. It was treason.

What happened in that room was an act of groveling submission to authoritarianism, a moment in which the so-called “leaders” of America turned their backs on the very values this nation was founded upon. Trump and Vance did not speak to Zelensky as allies, nor as partners in democracy. They spoke to him as cowards who have already surrendered.

Trump and Vance are not America. They are a disgrace to America. They are a stain on the very soul of this nation. They are the embodiment of every failure, every betrayal, every moment of weakness that has allowed tyranny to flourish. They are not defenders of democracy; they are its executioners.

And yet, while Trump cowers before dictators and sells out his own allies, while Vance parrots the talking points of autocrats, while American democracy fights through its darkest hour, there is one man who stands where they have fallen.

Zelensky.

Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, is the true leader of the free world.

Not Trump. Not Vance. Not the billionaires. Not the cowards and appeasers who think that democracy can be traded away for temporary comfort.

Zelensky is the last man standing in the face of authoritarian aggression.

He does not have billions of dollars in stolen wealth propping him up. He does not have a state-controlled propaganda machine rewriting history on his behalf. What he has is courage. What he has is a spine. What he has is a commitment to democracy that puts every so-called leader in the West to shame.

Trump and Vance? They are frauds. They are weaklings who would rather kneel before tyrants than fight for what is right.

But Zelensky? He stands.

While Trump schemes, Zelensky fights. While Vance panders, Zelensky leads. While America stumbles, Zelensky holds the line.

February 23, 2025

6:30 AM 🔗

The Fork was a completely tone deaf offer that could only be devised by someone who has never had to actually worry about having a real job.

Normal people can’t just lock themselves into unemployment with 2 weeks to decide without something else lined up already. That’s not how the real world works for people who need income to feed their kids and pay their mortgage.

February 20, 2025

3:58 PM 🔗

2:19 PM 🔗

I Called My Reps—And You Should Too

Today, I finally did it. I picked up the phone, dialed the numbers for my House Representative and both U.S. Senators from South Carolina, and I let them have it.

Not about the return to office mandate itself—I get it, mandates come from above. But what infuriates me is the absolute lack of clarity, formal guidance, and answers for those of us being forced into a decision that impacts our lives, our families, and our futures.

Here’s what I told them:

  • Where’s the official guidance?
    It’s all rumors, speculation, and chaos. No one knows what’s happening. If you’re going to upend people’s lives, at least have the decency to put it in writing.

  • What about relocation pay?
    Are they going to help people move? Cover expenses? Do we just eat the cost of uprooting our lives because some bureaucrat made a decision on a whim?

  • What about locality pay?
    If I’ve been working remotely from South Carolina but they now force me to move to D.C. (or elsewhere), does my pay adjust? Am I expected to take a financial hit on top of everything else?

  • Why the hell are you doing this without a plan?
    If I have to relocate, I need notice. If I stay, I need to know what happens next. Will I get severance? Will I be allowed to stay in my role remotely? Or am I just expected to twist in the wind while the people making these decisions keep collecting their paychecks?

None of these questions have been answered. None of them. And that’s unacceptable.

So yeah, I called. I made my voice heard. And if you’re in the same boat, you should call too. Because sitting around waiting for guidance that may never come is a surefire way to get screwed over.

If they want to rip people out of their homes, they need to own up to the consequences. I’m not letting this slide.

February 19, 2025

4:19 PM 🔗

I deleted my social media. No more doomscrolling, no more endless feeds designed to keep me consuming mindelss media. I don’t need it. I don’t want it.

Instead, I built this website. No algorithms, no chasing likes—just me, writing what I want, when I want. I know I have no audience. That’s fine. This is for me.

But I’m not just writing. I’m moving. I’m going to the gym. I’m biking. I’m hiking. I’m living. Because I don’t want to just consume—I want to do.

This is my life. And I’m taking control of it.

So, if you’re reading this, ask yourself: are you consuming, or are you doing?

February 18, 2025

11:38 PM 🔗

Elon is neither a data scientist nor a data engineer. I’m not one either, but I work with data, and the number one rule is that you cannot draw conclusions from data you don’t fully understand.

  • What is the definition of each field in the table?

  • How was the data collected and processed?

  • What does a blank field represent—missing data or an intentional omission?

  • Are there established rules for interpretation (e.g., assuming individuals over 120 years old are deceased)?

  • Is this dataset even the authoritative source of truth for these records?

  • What happens if states no longer report deaths, or if reporting errors come from state agencies rather than the federal government?

  • Is this data cross-referenced with benefits records?

  • What SQL Statement did his young adult entourage use to query this anyway?

A screenshot of this table, without context or analysis, serves only as propaganda, pitting working-class Americans in the private sector against those in the public sector. It distracts from more pressing issues, such as changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the lucrative government contracts Elon’s companies receive, and the broader oligarchic takeover.

No serious data professional would take that screenshot at face value.

11:13 PM 🔗

My first post using mobile. Let’s see if it works.
It does!

11:09 PM 🔗

Just realized that trying to automate rants was more trouble than it was worth.
Back to manual updates for a few days.

10:44 PM 🔗

This is my first rant! Netlify Identity was a pain, but I figured out a better way.

February 17, 2025

9:00 AM 🔗

Let’s just test yesterday’s format.