I do love learning new (to me) words, especially when they're employed perfectly, as Treasury Secretary Bessent did in his reply to Fauxcahontas. Today’s word: “Sciolistic”

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mongo have great pain between her ears

Sciolistic is an adjective that describes someone or something showing only superficial, shallow, or fake knowledge. [1, 2]

Meaning and Usage

  • Definition: Relying on or showing a small, unprofound amount of learning while acting like an expert. [1, 2]

  • Example: "His sciolistic argument collapsed as soon as the scientist asked for real data."

  • Related Forms:

    • Sciolism (noun): The practice of talking or giving opinions about things you barely understand.

    • Sciolist (noun): A person who pretends to have great knowledge but is actually just a smatterer. [1, 2, 3]

  • Origin: From the Late Latin word sciolus (meaning a "smatterer" or someone who knows little), derived from scire ("to know"). You can read more about its history on Merriam-Webster. [1, 2, 3]

Scott Bessent Levels This Progressive Senator With an Economics Lesson for Dummies

On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blasted a letter from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren criticizing the Trump administration’s recent coordinated effort to support the Japanese yen. Warren suggested the administration had effectively opened a new line of credit for one of America’s closest Pacific allies, and warned that taxpayers could be left holding the bill if Japan’s stagnant economy left it unable to repay. 

Bessent’s response was simple and sharp: Sen. Warren had, as usual, gotten the basic facts wrong. The United States did not lend Japan money. Instead, the Treasury exchanged euros it already held for Japanese yen, changing one existing currency into another rather than extending any new credit, spending new taxpayer money, or creating a debt Japan would need to repay. Japan therefore has no loan outstanding to the United States, and American taxpayers are not exposed to the risk Warren claimed they would be.

"In her latest sciolistic letter to me, @SenWarren made it clear that she knows even less about foreign exchange markets than she does about banking. What is equally shocking, but not surprising: not a single member of the media mob has a rudimentary-enough level of financial market literacy to spot her remedial error," Bessent wrote on X, over his official response to the Senator's letter.

"To reiterate: under @POTUS , the United States delivers for America’s trusted partners. For a fuller explanation, I recommend Senator Warren take any entry level course in international finance for her and her staff, or I can personally give her a tutorial on Foreign Exchange for Dummies," he added. "Although I am not holding my breath, I hope her next letter will demonstrate that she has learned the difference between a currency purchase and a swap or a loan."

This came after the yen fell to roughly a 40-year low against the dollar, raising concerns that its rapid decline could further strain Japan’s already slow-growing economy. A weaker yen makes imported goods, including energy and food, more expensive for Japanese households and businesses, fueling inflation and increasing pressure on the country’s financial system. 

That matters to the United States as well because Japan is one of America’s most important strategic allies in the Pacific and a central partner in countering Chinese influence. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said stabilizing the yen was important not only for Japan, but for financial stability across Asia more broadly. By helping curb swings in the currency, Washington sought to prevent a problem in a key ally’s economy from rippling through regional, and potentially global, markets.

Japan’s economy has faced years of weak growth, while its low interest rates have helped continue to push the yen lower.

Meh — give him an Israeli pager and set him loose; won’t take long

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Judge axes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confession in long-delayed 9/11 terror case — in major blow to feds

That’s not too surprising, given our interrogation techniques used in the early days after 9/11. Have I mentioned that I still use my license plate frame that proclaims “I’d Rather Be Waterboarding”? Years ago, my son John pointed out that “Dad, probably just 10% of the people who read that will get it”. “But those are precisely the people I want to annoy”, I told him. He paused, then said, admiringly, “that’s so efficient”.

As the years have passed, I suspect that fewer and fewer people will remember and be annoyed by my plate, but perhaps a discussion of Mr. Mohammed’s treatment back then will revive memories of the term, and I can be flashed with single fingers again.

Diversity is our strength

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“Whip me, beat me, o my master — throw me to the floor and ravish me at and for your pleasure”.

What, another Murphy post? Well, he keeps providing new material.

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Scumbag Dem. Who Left His Wife and Kids for Younger Woman Calls Trump Voters 'Spiritually Adrift'

Sen. Chris Murphy wants you to know America is spiritually adrift — which is rich coming from a guy who split from his wife of 17 years, parked the kids primarily with mom, and was soon out cuddling a progressive media strategist while the divorce paperwork was still a future problem. 

Ahem.

In a CT Mirror sit-down this week, Murphy recast Trump’s win as proof the country is lonely, empty, and missing its moral compass, as if voters didn’t reject his party on purpose and as if the nation’s soul is the one that needed a lecture.

This is your city on socialism

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Los Angeles Socialist Nithya Raman Brags About Getting Crosswalk Done, There's Just ONE Big Problem

We're not sure which is more embarrassing here, that it took almost a year to put in a crosswalk OR that she thinks painting a bunch of yellow lines across a cracked street is something to brag about.

What we do know is socialism sucks and Nithya Raman's posts prove it more and more, every day.

Horse dung or kale, who cares? Compost is compost.

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Once, asked by a girlfriend what his father was like, John paused and, I’m told, replied “he thinks quinoa is a government conspiracy”. Boy, did he nail it.

But right up there, or down there, with quinoa is kale: horrible stuff, and PJMedia’s Stephen Green captures the fraud that it is in a short essay. I’ve excerpted it here, but treat yourself and read the whole thing; far, far tastier than a wadded clump of green poison.

The Horrible Truth About the World's Worst Vegetable

If you've never tried kale, imagine large crinkly leaves of lettuce that somehow retain a texture that is at once rubbery yet unpleasantly crunchy, no matter how long you boil it, broil it, fry it, sauté it, or whatever the hell else my lovely bride has done to make Hell Lettuce almost-but-never-quite palatable. 

Torn into manageable smaller-than-bite-size pieces in an Italian soup loaded up with so much parm that you have to wonder about any remaining health benefits was the one and only way Melissa reliably got me to ingest it. 

Today, however, is Liberation Day. Today I learned that everything you thought you knew about kale is a lie.

…. Thanks to professional carnivore Sama Hoole, I just learned that kale only "became a superfood because a publicist in New York invented a trade association that did not exist."

"Before all that," Hoole continued, "the biggest kale buyer in America was Pizza Hut. Not for the menu. They bought it by the ton, fourteen thousand pounds of it in 2012, and laid it round the salad bar to hide the ice."

Kale, in short, was the stuff they put food on.

"Nobody was meant to eat it. It was the doily."

I did a little digging, and Hoole might have actually undersold the mostly imaginary American Kale Association's origins and effort. On the nutrition side, Hoole is on shakier ground — but maybe not by much, if you're getting older and what you need is more protein and iron.

"You could eat a kilo of the stuff, which would take you most of an afternoon and do something permanent to your jaw, and still not catch up with two eggs [worth of digestible protein]. The iron is the non-haem sort your gut mostly turns away at the door."

Devoid of the iron and protein Melissa thought we were getting and with all the chewability of a truck tire, kale is just celery for masochists. As soon as this column goes live, I'll forward it to my lovely bride with the note: "Never again."

So it's OK. You don't have to pretend to like kale any longer.

None of us do.

Reminder: our power grid, our automobiles, air traffic control, satellites, and so on, are all vulnerable to cyberattacks

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Medical device maker Boston Scientific says a cyberattack is causing a ‘global disruption’ to its operations. “Boston Scientific said the cyberattack has affected its ability to ship and process orders, but has not said whether the disruption extends to customers with medical devices and implants.”

A cyberattack on U.S. medical device maker Boston Scientific is causing an ongoing “global disruption” to its operations, according to a federal regulatory filing on Wednesday. This is the latest health tech giant to face a cyberattack in recent weeks.

The Massachusetts-based company, which makes medically implanted devices like pacemakers and defibrillators, confirmed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that on Tuesday it began experiencing “disruptions and limitations of access” to its IT systems and business applications critical for its operations.

Boston Scientific said the cyberattack has affected its ability to ship and process orders, but has not said whether the disruption extends to customers with medical devices and implants.

When asked by TechCrunch, Boston Scientific spokesperson Chanel Hastings shared the company’s public statement but would not comment on whether patients are affected by the cyberattack, say what steps patients should take, or answer questions about the nature of the incident.

Boston Scientific treats around 48 million patients a year, according to its website.

The company’s public statement said that its investigation is ongoing and that a timeline for its restoring its systems is not yet known.

It’s not clear what caused the cyberattack at Boston Scientific. …. [It] is the latest health technology company to have been hacked this year, including medical device makers Abbott Laboratories and Medtronic. Earlier this year, Iranian-backed hackers were blamed for a cyberattack on U.S. medical device maker Stryker, which allowed the hackers to remotely wipe tens of thousands of employee devices across its Windows network by abusing a centralized device management portal provided by Microsoft.

According to public internet records, Boston Scientific relies largely on Microsoft and Amazon Web Services for its corporate infrastructure.