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Looking at our wonderful Daily Mail, and this headline really says it all. "Looters take to Venezuela's streets as blackout enters its FIFTH day killing 15 kidney patients as under-pressure president Maduro claims the power cut was caused by an 'imperialist' electromagnetic attack from the US" dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6793585/Venezuelans-turn-looting-Caracas-fourth-day-power-outages.html

Very poor leadership ability by Crazed & corrupt Nick Maduro (I don't call him the President), and others in the Food Starved Venezuela regime, who are not able to get their workers to turn the electric on.

Puerto Rico, they had a big Black Out there, right? And then, so many hurricanes came through, that turned into a whole problem in itself (big worry for folks like myself that own property in the Caribbean). But, what happened after was so different. Because Puerto Rico is not Socialist. They hired Whitefish Energy. From beautiful Whitefish Montana -- home of my former Secretary, Ryan Z. And home of Richard Spencer. Big fan of mine, I'm not such a big fan of him. Can we call that one a coincidence? Doesn't matter, they got the job done. Very quickly, for very little money. Because of me. It's called leadership. Something Nick Maduro has none of. ZERO. And his country is suffering, very badly, because of it. Not just the Black Out, it's many things. Somebody tried to whack the guy with a Drone. Which you didn't hear about on Soylent News -- censored, or Rejected story. They failed very badly.

But, we're not going to fail. We're sending "aid." I hired Elliot Abrams. Very smart, and famous guy. He knows all about sending "aid" from when he worked for Ronnie Reagan. And he also worked for Baby Bush, he was in charge of spreading "democracy." He spread it to Iraq, he did so much of the planning for the Iraq War & Invasion. He tried to spread it to Venezuela, he got President Chavez (RIP!!) out of office for a couple of days. That one was a failure, we're not going to fail again. Because Donald J. Trump is running the show now!!!!

Comma.ai founder George Hotz wants to free humanity from the AI simulation

What keeps George Hotz, the enigmatic hacker and founder of self-driving startup Comma.ai, up at night is not whether his autonomous car company will be successful or what other entrepreneurial venture he might embark on next. No, instead, Hotz says he’s tortured by the possibility that all of us are in an advanced simulation observed by either an omnipotent extraterrestrial or supernatural being, or an artificial intelligence far beyond the realm of human conception and understanding.

“There’s no evidence this is not true,” an animated Hotz told a crowd at his SXSW talk on Friday, aptly titled “Jailbrealing the Simulation” and billed on the festival’s website as an exploration of whether breaking out of a simulated universe means we can “meet God” and kill him. “It’s easy to imagine things that are so much smarter than you and they could build a cage you wouldn’t even recognize.”

[...] It’s hard to know seriously to take Hotz sometimes; he strikes me as someone who often says something to get a reaction or to verbalize his inner monologue as a way of making sense of it. And he said as much onstage. “Do I actually believe it? Some days yes,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t know how I feel about something until I say it out loud.”

The crowd didn’t much care either way. During the Q&A, an audience member asked Hotz if he would consider partnering with transhumanists — people who believe in humanity’s eventual evolution by way of merging the body and mind with robotics and AI — to found his church. Hotz was rather ambivalent to the idea; perhaps he didn’t think people would take him at his word. But if he does a start a church, the sermon he gave at SXSW yesterday was delivered to a room of would-be believers.

Smoke weed everyday.

Related: George Hotz's Comma.Ai Cancels Comma One

Folks, I'm making today a very special day. For the beautiful Boardroom Babes. For the Government Gals. The Housekeeping Honies. And the Family Females. The smart -- and the sexy.

By the way, women’s unemployment rate is down to 3.6%. It was 7.9% in January, 2011 before I took office. And we(me& House/Senate GOP) did Historic Tax Cut, you ladies have that extra money in your pockets, because of me. So go ahead and buy yourself something nice. You're welcome!!!

Lenovo Unveils ThinkStation P520 & P920 ‘AI Workstations’: Xeon Plus Quadro RTX 6000

Ubuntu Linux based systems shipping with 10 or 24 cores, 128 GB or 384 GB of RAM.

Maybe that will be the new minimum in 15 years.

R. Kelly

R. Kelly denies sexual abuse allegations in explosive interview

R. Kelly was "unhinged" in interview with Gayle King, columnist says (12m36s)

Gayle King talks about her explosive R. Kelly interview on CBSN (7m18s)

Full interview is apparently around 80 minutes and has not been released in its entirety yet. Even Oprah wants the full video.

Turmoil or manipulation?

Previously: R. Kelly Contracts Ligma
R. Kelly Exposes Himself

President Donald J. Trump participates in the first meeting of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board! Watch the meeting here: 45.wh.gov/RtVRmD

VERY SPECIAL tweet from President Bolsonaro of Brazil. About what goes on at Carnival. I'll tell you, it's something no decent person should see -- especially not at work. But, I looked anyway. It's very sad. And we had a lot of those goings-on in New York City.

Especially in Times Square. When I was a boy, I would sneak out of the house. Hop on the Long Island Rail Road with my friend. And go to Times Square to watch movies. It was a tremendous place to be a kid in. But it turned into something horrible -- so filthy. If you've ever seen Midnight Cowboy or Taxi Driver, it was exactly like that. Until we cleaned it up, very successfully. Took a long time and Mayor Giuliani deserves a lot of the credit for that. And we have a Disney Store there now. Jair's working very hard, he's cleaning up Brazil. 🧼🚿 And I think we'll see Disney coming in Rio de Janeiro! pic.twitter.com/u0qbPu9sie

The U.S. trade deficit surged to a 10-year high in 2018, with the politically sensitive shortfall with China hitting a record peak, despite the Trump administration slapping tariffs on a range of imported goods in an effort to shrink the gap.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that an 18.8 percent jump in the trade deficit in December had contributed to the $621.0 billion shortfall last year. The 2018 deficit was the largest since 2008 and followed a $552.3 billion gap in 2017.

It's a rather idiotic metric to set in the first place. But, if you can't even excel at the metrics you set for yourself then you are failing.

Despite Trump's Promises, The Trade Deficit Is Only Getting Wider
U.S. trade deficit jumps to 10-year high in 2018
In a Blow to Trump, America’s Trade Deficit Hit Record $891 Billion

President Donald Trump revoked a requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in drone strikes and other attacks on terrorist targets outside of war zones.

Trump formally ended the requirement with an executive order on Wednesday, months after signaling such a move. The administration last year ignored a May deadline for an annual accounting of civilian and enemy casualties required under an order signed in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama. The order was part of an accountability effort to minimize civilian deaths from drone strikes.

Trump Cancels U.S. Report on Civilian Deaths in Drone Strikes

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras: The most fun you'll have with a history lesson

Patricia Clarkson on leading the Mardi Gras group breaking with tradition

In New Orleans, The Fight Over Blackface Renews Scrutiny Of A Mardi Gras Tradition

Mobile mom says shoes thrown from Mardi Gras float sent her kid to the ER

Popeyes might be onto something with chicken-tender-cradlin’ Mardi Gras beads

Sounds like a great way to get grease all over your shirt on Fat Tuesday.