THIRD SUNDAY UNFUNNIERS

There are 134 days to the mid terms. They can’t come fast enough.

The tale of the Saboteurs of the Reflecting Pool has now gone from funny but pathetic to full-on pathetic, watching a senile old fuckhead try once again to use his ability to spin bullshit so as to control the larger storyline. In this case, it’s just becoming more obviously ridiculous.

Reality bites the lie: The Federales arrested a former three-time Olympian after he reached into the algae-filled Reflecting Pool to see what it felt like. David Hearn, 67, became a talking point on Friday among conservatives who claim the algae bloom in the Reflecting Pool is an act of sabotage by political opponents. “I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn told The Washington Post after he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of destruction of government property. His arrest was filmed by Emily Miller, a conservative journalist, who claimed on X that he had “grabbed the hose that female National Park Service workers were using to clear the algae.” In Hearn’s account, he said he was on a 52-mile bike ride when he stopped to view the refurbished Reflecting Pool and, upon noticing a piece of “American flag blue” liner detached from the bottom, reached in to see what it felt like. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.” Hearn was detained for around five hours before he was released, and is scheduled to appear in D.C. Superior Court on July 9. Yes, you really do have to be born a moron as well as show your surgery card for the prefrontal lobotomy to be a “conservative” nowadays.

In a Lies Anti-Social post yesterday, Gramps escalated his days-long insistence that his troubled $14 million renovation was the victim of a crime rather than a botched paint job. “The United States Park Police have arrested multiple individuals for vandalizing our Nations magnificent Reflecting Poll,” he wrote, misspelling “Pool.” “Who would do such a thing? These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments. Years in jail! Work will begin immediately on its repair.” David Hearn - the only person arrested for any charge resembling what Dilbert’s talking about, was charged with a misdemeanor, not the felony-grade “destruction of National Monuments” Dilbert invoked, and it carries nothing resembling the “years in jail” he promised. Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit. He is such a piece of shit. (A liar knows the truth and chooses not to tell it; a bullshitter doesn’t care if what he says is true or not.”

Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer, skipped the jokes entirely. “This pathetic person hides its staggering incompetence by endless claims of victimhood. It’s never their fault, it’s always ‘the others’. Can’t fix a pool? It’s a conspiracy! America, he’s not the victim. We are. Of his incompetence & our choices. So reject this pathetic person.”

Dilbert’s also spent the weekend diligently working to make his MOU blow up in his face. The latest attempt came Saturday afternoon when he threatened to impose tolls in the Strait of Hormuz if a deal with Tehran is not completed within 60 days, a warning that comes as U.S. and Iranian officials offer differing accounts of who controls the strategic oil corridor. He claimed in a Lies Anti-Social post there would be “NO TOLLS” in the waterway during or after the ceasefire period unless the two sides fail to reach a final agreement by then. “…there will be NO tolls after the 60 day period has expired, unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America, should the deal not be completed, for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East for purposes of both past, present, and future reimbursement of costs,” Dilbert wrote from Camp David, where he is spending the weekend. The strait’s on- again, off-again blockade has choked off supply routes, roiling the global economy and causing crude oil prices to briefly peak at near record-highs of $126 per barrel in late April. Never fear, as bad as any situation gets, Dilbert can always make things worse.

Here’s some really good news: There is a lot of evidence out there that the corporate world is rapidly bailing on AI. They cost too much, are far too inaccurate to be genuinely autonomous (given that they aren’t actually intelligent), and don’t increase productivity in a way that threatens human labour on any meaningful scale. Forrester Research found that 55% of employers who laid off workers because of AI now regret that decision. OrgVue found something almost identical, with 55% of business leaders admitting they made the wrong call eliminating jobs and replacing them with AI. Earlier this year, Gartner predicted that half of all companies that replaced customer service or operational employees with AI will be forced to restaff those roles. Sinch, a cloud communications company, surveyed 2,500 AI decision-makers across multiple industries and countries and found that AI customer communications agents have a 74% rollback or shutdown rate. Customer communications was once considered one of the easiest jobs for AI to replace, yet it is failing catastrophically. Robert Half and Orgvue found that 32% of HR say organizations have already had to rehire positions previously replaced by AI, explicitly because AI couldn’t actually replace these roles. This has been dubbed the “AI boomerang effect”. This is when companies that once bullishly ploughed headlong into AI layoffs are having to rapidly U-turn, given that their ignorance and unfounded confidence in the technology has been laid bare.

Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign is already producing measurable economic consequences inside Russia. During the St. Petersburg summit, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak acknowledged publicly for the first time that Russian oil production has declined since the beginning of the year. He attributed the slowdown to unscheduled maintenance work at refineries — a bureaucratic euphemism for facilities damaged by Ukrainian drone strikes. Several major refineries in central Russia have been forced to reduce output or suspend operations altogether after coming under attack. Ben Hodges, former commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe, argues that Russia’s greatest strength through the centuries is now its disadvantage: its vastness. “Now, because of what Ukraine has accomplished in terms of long-range precision strike, what once was Russia’s strength is now a major vulnerability. They cannot protect everything. Every refinery, every shipyard, every factory - everything - is now reachable, including targets in Siberia.”

The full text of Dilbert’s double-down with Italian Prime Minister Giogia Meloni he released yesterday reads: “Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France. She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon (But so did NATO, for that matter!). She wouldn’t even let us use Italy’s landing strips or runways, a great logistical inconvenience, and this despite the fact the U.S. contributes hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year to protect Italy, and other “so-called” NATO Allies. Now, after the United States defeated Iran militarily, she wants to be friends again in order to get her “numbers up.” No thanks!!!” The Italian response - using a vulgar colloquialism - ran as a headline on the front page of the Italian newspaper Libero today: “Trump e un Coglione,” which translates to “Trump is an Asshole.” That he is, that he is. Meloni got her start back in the 80 and 90s as a political streetfighter (literally!). She could probably still kick Trump’s fat ass if it came to it. Beware, Dilbert!

Remember, you are not the crazy ones, and we were made for these times. Regardless of what you may feel right now, act as if you believe that and redouble your efforts.

“Neither let us be slandered froim our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.” - Abraham Lincoln

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