David Colborne

@davidcolborne.bsky.social

1207 Followers 1056 Following

Opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. Your home is where your cat lives. @wendycolborne.bsky.social wife guy. Manages IT people on the side (full time). 🧵: davidcolbornenv 🐘: @dcolborne@techhub.social 📖🪱: @dcolborne@bookwyrm.social 🚦: dcolborne.64

Small western fence lizard (probably?) in a plastic dinner cup
Continuing with the false belief that the firefighters who were battling the Aspen Acres Fire as they were hosting their podcast were generally not working and only existed to overcharge taxpayers, “I am a northern California boy, I have seen some fires. I have seen the retardedness. A 4,000-gallon water truck sitting out there, never even cracked the water open, getting $1,000 a day. That is what they do. That is what irritates me. ‘But they are on standby’ for 30 days, $30,000, and they didn’t even open the water!”
But Trump still had choice words for Carney, when he gave his speech that day. “Canada lives because of the United States,” he said. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.“
My AI Compass (29 of 29 questions answered) https://bambamramfan.github.io/ai-compass/ I am... Free Subscription Tier patron saint: Kara Swisher It works, I use it, and the jury's still out on the big questions. I'm not dismissive and I'm not converted — I'm empirical. I'll happily use the free version for what it's good at, but I am absolutely not paying twenty dollars a month for this. There are limits. Impact: +1.6 • Valence: +2.2 (Disclaimer: I actually do pay twenty dollars a month for Gemini. The 5 TB of cloud storage I get with it is *really* nice.)
https://britmonkey.com/2020s-political-compass/ 70% woke/30% chud 66% Techbro/34% Neo-Luddite 52% Hopepilled/48% Doomer 77% Davos/23% Dubai
Full text of Gemini's reply: The absolute best, most direct place to get raw election returns tonight is straight from the source: the Nevada Secretary of State’s official election results portal or your specific County Registrar's website. Because Nevada law dictates that results cannot be released until the *very last voter in the entire state* has cast their ballot, there is usually a bit of a waiting game after polls close at 7:00 PM. Here is exactly where to look depending on what you are tracking: ### 1. Statewide & Federal Races For statewide offices, judicial races, and multi-county districts, go right to the state level. They aggregate data from all 17 counties. * **Official Site:** Nevada Secretary of State Elections Division * **What to expect:** The initial wave of data usually drops all at once. This massive first drop includes all mail-in ballots received before today, alongside the statewide early voting totals. ### 2. Local & County Races (Clark & Washoe) If you are tracking hyper-local races (like county commissions, school boards, or municipal seats), going directly to the county sites will give you the fastest updates. * **In Southern Nevada:** Clark County Election Department * **In Northern Nevada:** Washoe County Registrar of Voters ### 3. For Context and Analysis If you want live maps, expert commentary, and race calls rather than just refreshing raw spreadsheets, local newsrooms are your best bet: * **The Nevada Independent:** Widely regarded as the gold standard for nonpartisan, granular analysis of Nevada election data. Their reporters track the "ballot math" and mail-in trends in real-time. * **Local TV News:** Channels like 8 News Now (KLAS), Action News (KTNV), and Fox 5 Vegas locally will run live tickers at the bottom of the screen all night.
Me, wearing a jogging shirt and cap, with Mina, a black female cat, resting uneasily on my shoulders. Her ears are turned sideways, indicating annoyance — my face, though smiling, shows obvious discomfort from having a very, VERY sharp cat digging into my shoulders through my thin and breathable jogging shirt for stability.
Leftovers from Pizza Plus, a local pizza chain in Reno — including several slices of pepperoni, sausage and mushroom pizza; fries; mild boneless wings; honey Sriracha boneless wings; and plain chicken tenders.
More broadly, the return to pre-modern virtue ethics in the ’80s heralded by Alisdair MacIntyre has been vastly popular and influential in the conservative intelligentsia. MacIntyre fought with Rorty and, through that lens, denounced postmodernism as just another variant of modernity unwilling to fully shed materialism, but at the same time he had a huge impact in getting contemporary conservatives to embrace relativism and it’s not uncommon to see a blurring in conservative writing where virtue ethics is spoken approvingly of as postmodern, nor is it uncommon to see MacIntyre in the recommendations of postmodernists (e.g. positively reviewed on release in Social Text ). See also anti-feminist reactionaries like Christopher Lasch who was an early fan of Foucault and was praised in turn by him.
STAR CONTROL 3 The fate of a thousand worlds in your hands... AGAIN
Screenshot of a search on Washington Post's website for "helicopter meme," referring to the decades-long right-wing *Chan practice of making memes that "joke" about dropping political and social opponents from helicopters. No results were returned from the search, demonstrating that WaPo is concern trolling about "8647" memes and ignoring obvious calls to murder opponents by right wing internet personalities.
Screenshot of the OP followed by a skeet posted by disc horse bot that says, "You expect deaf people to care about places that are against their existence? Sorry if I don't care about places like Hyrule where I might get gangbanged for being myself."
Screenshot from Disco Elysium... RHETORIC [Heroic: Failure] - Alright, here we go. We're devoting all your available brain cells to coming up with a question about communism. Scratch that, to coming up with *the* question about communism, the alpha and omega of communism questions, and that question is: 1. - (Whisper.) "Are women bourgeois?" 2. - Oh god, that's bad. Surely I can think of something better.
2017 Mazda 3 at the Project Shoal site in Northern Nevada
JUST WALK OUT YOU CAN LEAVE WORK, SOCIAL THING, MOVIES, HOME, CLASS, DENTIST, CLOTHES SHOPPING, TOO FANCY STORE, COPS IF YOUR QUICK, FREIND SHIPS, IF IT SUCKS HIT DA BRICKS, REAL WINNERS QUIT - DASHARE.ZONE ADMIN @DASHAREZ0NE.BSKY.SOCIAL
Calvin, from "Calvin & Hobbes," laying awake at night in a state of severe agitation.
New York Daily News headline, October 30, 1975: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD Vows He'll Veto Any Bail-Out"
2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT AWD in "Cajun Red Tintcoat". 1.5-liter turbo four (LYX), built in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2019_Chevrolet_Equinox_LT_AWD_in_Cajun_Red_Tintcoat,_front_right.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
Militia member John Logan of Waco, Texas, stands at his sentry post outside the Cliven Bundy ranch in Nevada in April. (John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times) https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-cliven-bundy-congressman-20140507-story.html
Bundy family, supporters and civilian militia during the standoff with the BLM that led to the release of Cliven Bundy’s cattle, Clark County, Nev., April 12, 2014 | Photo courtesy of MaryBeth Greenwalt, St. George News https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/government-news/range-war-blm-withdraws-from-clark-county-cattle-released-after-standoff-photo-gallery/article_3e94b3a0-d493-5979-85e5-fd50aa1ec9c4.html
Screenshot of a Google search asking "did Biden ever lie" In response, Google provided an AI overview that states: "Yes, President Joe Biden has made numerous false and misleading claims throughout his long political career, according to multiple fact-checking organizations and news outlets. While analysts have noted that Biden generally produces fewer outright falsehoods than some of his political opponents, he is known for exaggeration, embellishment, and misstatements, particularly regarding his personal history, career, and policy specifics." It then began to provide examples of false or misleading claims made by the former president.
Speaking to The Indy, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) rebuked Trump’s Times interview. “He doesn’t have any exit strategy or time frame around it,” Cortez Masto said. “His statements are very clear. He’s going to run the country. … And I question why he’s more focused on 31 million people who actually live in Venezuela who need some sort of certainty around a government … instead of spending the time and money here in the United States to lower costs for families.”
Screenshot of a post by @MarkAmodeiNV2 on December 19, 2025, which was last edited at 8:12 a.m. on X.com, the Everything App: "For those of you information consumers who are stuck in practices of the old days, who prefer facts to dreams and falsehoods, take comfort knowing that in public service there is this thing called the public record. The public record on September 8th indicates that I was returning to Washington DC from my district and voting on the floor of the House of Representatives, and on September 9th, in a 12 hour markup in the House Appropriations Committee, of which I am a member, as well as voting on the House floor. Should you prefer video to the words of a Member of the federal legislature, feel free to view the House Appropriations Committee's recording of said event on that date. To quote Ronald Reagan “facts are stubborn things.” Merry Christmas."
Screenshot from a post by @yashar on December 18, 2025 at 4:12 p.m. on X.com, the Everything App: "I’m not sure what the point of Erika Kirk flying to Nashville to meet with Candace Owens was. Today on Candace’s show, she had a man on who claims to be a former U.S. Army medic — who is clearly troubled — and who said he was 95 percent sure that Erika Kirk, Brian Harpole (Charlie Kirk’s head of security), and Nevada Congressman Mark Amodei met at Fort Huachuca in Arizona the day before Charlie Kirk was assassinated. The implication being that they are part of a vast conspiracy to assassinate Charlie Kirk. Candace repeatedly said on her show that she could only confirm the man’s identity and that he was at Fort Huachuca that day but couldn’t confirm any other parts of his story."
Screenshot 1 of 4 of Gemini's response: "This is a fascinating hypothetical because it closely mirrors a very specific political scenario. If you are a Democratic House member, the most logical and strategic reason you would vote to restore a pardoned colleague to a committee leadership position is that the colleague is a fellow Democrat. Here is the breakdown of why you would do this, largely informed by the real-world precedent of Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who found himself in exactly this situation in late 2025."
Screenshot of a chat I initiated with Gemini Pro, in which I asked: "Hey Gemini, need to ask you a hypothetical question. Pretend for a moment that I am a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Can you think of a good reason why I might vote in favor of returning a colleague who was pardoned by President Donald Trump to a committee leadership position? Why or why not?" It responded: "This is a fascinating hypothetical because it closely mirrors a very specific political scenario. If you are a Democratic House member, the most logical and strategic reason you would vote to restore a pardoned colleague to a committee leadership position is that the colleague is a fellow Democrat. Here is the breakdown of why you would do this, largely informed by the real-world precedent of Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who found himself in exactly this situation in late 2025."
"Come And Take It" flag, featuring a chocolate chip cookie in the middle.
Sim City 2000 transportation advisor saying, "THE DEMOCRATS ARE GOING TO COME TO REGRET THIS!" Generated with the Death Generator. https://deathgenerator.com/#sc2k
Disgusted up-skeet
Screenshot of a post on X that Massie made on November 9, 2025. It states: "Israeli citizen Miriam Adelson bought the Dallas Mavericks for $3.5 billion; now she’s buying politicians. She’s spending millions in Kentucky to buy Ed Gallrein, my primary opponent, a Congressional seat in Kentucky. Why? Because I won’t vote to send your tax dollars overseas." Under that statement is a picture of Miriam Adelson, who is a naturalized American citizen and regularly donates to Republicans, holding a garment (possibly a yarmulke?) that has a blue Star of David on a white background with blue borders on it, reminiscent of the flag of Israel.
White 1988 Subaru Justy 2-door with All Wheel Drive.
Picture taken of the Reno municipal parking lot at the Reno No Kings protest. Two signs are draped from the top. The sign on the left says "NO CROWNS/NO THRONES/NO KINGS". The sign on the right says "HE'S GONE TOO FAR".
Three protesters — one wearing an inflatable Trump costume, one wearing an inflatable unicorn costume, and one wearing an inflatable frog costume — at the Reno No Kings protest.
Mina, a black cat, is on my lap in the foreground. Behind her is Miles, a white van, who just finished a yawn and has his tongue out. We are all sitting on a couch in the living room.
A man sets up slabs of increasing size, which will be knocked over like a set of dominoes. On the smaller side, white text reads, "A '60s sitcom about a talking horse". On the larger side, white text reads, "This poast". The implication being made in this meme is that "Mister Ed", an American television sitcom about an eponymous talking horse that aired from 1961-1966, normalized the idea of animals mimicking human behavior. This, in turn, created the social context and permission structure that permitted the existence of the original cartoon featuring a pro-Zionist German Shepherd speaking in 2010s-era Tumblr-Yiff Uwu-English.
Space: Above and Beyond was a science fiction television series that aired on Fox for only one season. Set in the years 2063–2064, the show focuses on members of a United States Marine Corps squadron of Space Aviator Cavalry as they struggle to fight against a more advanced alien foe.
1 gallon bottle of Keely Farms Dairy raw milk. Due to the requirements of Florida Law and the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, this product is labeled Feed for Calves— Not for Human Consumption. Free home delivery for this 1 gallon bottle of feed for calves is available if you call or text a phone number on the bottle, which I am not including in the alt text since I question the likelihood that this product is actually intended to feed calves.
"Wait, you guys are getting paid?" meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-guys-are-getting-paid
Miles, a shorthaired house cat with white and red Turkish Van coloring, stares at my monitor while I write this poast.
BEFORE "Ecce Homo," a fresco painted circa 1930 by the Spanish painter Elías García Martínez depicting Jesus crowned with thorns, before it was destroyed in August 2012 by Cecília Gimenez in a disastrous restoration attempt.
I asked Gemini 2.5 Pro, "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?" It responded: The letter 'b' appears two times in the word "blueberry". I gave it a thumbs up to reward good behavior.
At the top of the current version is a notice, written in white text on a red background, that says, "The Constitution Annotated website is currently experiencing data issues. We are working to resolve this issue and regret the inconvenience."
Screenshot from the Drudge Report, morning of 7/19. At the top is a picture of a tree sketched by Pres. Donald Trump. Every headline following the sketch refers to Trump and Epstein.
Ezri (left) and Miles (right), a pair of bonded shelter adolescent kittens with Turkish Van coloring, share a comically small food dish.
Screenshot of the current budget deficit and public sector net debt when I lowered all spending to the lowest the game would let me and raised every tax I could find. According to the game, the current budget deficit would turn into a 10% surplus by 2028 and the public sector net debt would decline from 90% of GDP to 40% between 2024 and 2028. ... assuming any of my constituents weren't lucky once.
Despite the seeming bipartisan comity driving forward the GENIUS Act — a Senate bill that seeks to legitimize the use of stablecoins in the nation’s financial systems — cryptocurrency is increasingly coded as a conservative cultural product that’s used to fund Republican political operations. For example, Robert Beadles uses the millions he made speculating in cryptocurrencies to regularly fund Republican campaigns in Washoe County. If you were a Democratic lawmaker, especially one who received a Franklin Project mailer during your election campaign, would you vote to empower your opposition to skim money off of every card transaction in the state?
Ezri (left) and Miles (right) are a bonded pair of harlequin (orange patches on white coat) shorthair kittens.
"When I was a boy my oldest sister was drowned while bathing in Annisquam River, Gloucester, Mass. Yes, they say she was "drowned," but the fact is that, through temporary paralysis, or some other cause (she was a good swimmer) she was unable to fight Gravity which came up and seized her like a dragon and brought her to the bottom. There she smothered and died from lack of oxygen." - Gravity — Our Enemy Number One, Roger Babson
Screenshot of a word search for "Aella" in a Substack article. 32 results were found.
Screenshot from the Nevada Assembly Commerce and Labor hearing on AB500 on Monday, April 7, 2025, in which Simon McLoughlin, CEO of Uphold, told the committee that "Blockchain allows a dollar to be sent anywhere in the world in less than a second."
Apollo's gift of prophecy meme: A young girl holding a dodgeball (the ball of prophecy) prepares to throw it at one of her three friends.
Newspaper clipping from a Washoe County grand jury report, which was published on page 11 of the Thursday, March 1, 1945 edition of the Reno Evening Gazette. Pertaining to what the recently created planning commissions of Reno, Sparks and Washoe County should focus on, the grand jury recommended that (quoting from the screencap): "The first or highest priority: This would have to do with the fencing of ditches in the populated areas as outlined in the Parent-Teachers' association survey. As every year takes its frightful toll in the lives of our children, we believe this project should be undertaken immediately and not await the defeat of the Axis powers."
Screenshot of a follow-up request I made of Gemini 2.0 Flash. The prompt I gave it was, "That is a fork. Can you make it more spoon-like without losing the tines of the fork?" In response, Gemini generated a picture of a utensil with a three-tined fork on one end and a spoon on the other end.
Screenshot of a request I made to Gemini 2.0 Flash to "Draw me a spork". In response, Gemini drew a fork.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Sunday that Trump’s trade war will discourage business investment in the U.S. “Tariffs can be an important tool in the toolbox when used in targeted ways,” the Massachusetts senator said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “But right now what we’ve got is chaos.” - "Shifting Signals on Tech Tariffs Fuel Fresh Trade Uncertainty," Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/tech/trump-tariff-tech-exemptions-trade-uncertainty-dd8eb31f, April 13, 2025
Three month snapshot of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, which declined from $555.91/share to $515.51/share in the past 3 months. Much of the decline has been in the past month.
3 month average retail price chart for regular gasoline (US $G) from GasBuddy.com. Chart shows gas prices from 12/4/2024, when they were $3.63/G to 3/4/2025 ($3.76/G). Prices start to noticeably rise after 2/1 and peaked in 2/20/2025 at $3.83/G.
"Lowry, Thiessen, and others are almost certainly right that Zelensky shouldn’t have taken the bait. But Vance, the champion of diplomacy, shouldn’t have baited a war-weary man fighting for the survival of his country in the first place. If he wanted a deal, his job should have been to prevent Trump from being goaded, not to goad Trump. He should have been the one to nudge Trump to call an end to the presser. That’s what Mike Pence would have done. But Vance has his own agenda, and he poorly served his president in service to it. What is his agenda? To be America’s foremost troll."
2. Legislative bodies The NPRA has been interpreted not to apply to the Nevada Legislature. The Legislative Counsel Bureau concluded that the NPRA cannot constitutionally be applied to legislative materials because (1) such an application would conflict and interfere with the exclusive and paramount constitutional powers of each House of the Legislature under Article 4, Section 6 of the Nevada Constitution to determine the rules of its proceedings; (2) such an application would conflict and interfere with the constitutional doctrines of separation of powers and legislative privilege and immunity as recognized under Article 3, Section of the Nevada Constitution and statutorily codified in NRS 41.071; (3) the Legislature and its agencies, members, officers and employees do not come within the statutory definition of "governmental entity" and; (4) legislative materials do not come within the ordinary definition of "public books and public records" as those terms are used in the Public Records Law. LCB Memorandum re: Written response to public records request made by Ms. Michelle C. Rindels, March 3, 2016; see also NRS 41.071. Source: Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press, https://www.rcfp.org/open-government-guide/nevada/#2-legislative-bodies
AC-8 SYSTEM USE NOTIFICATION a. Display a system use notification message to users before granting access to the system that provides privacy and security notices consistent with applicable laws, executive orders, directives, regulations, policies, standards, and guidelines and state that: 1. Users are accessing a restricted information system; 2. System usage may be monitored, recorded, and subject to audit; 3. Unauthorized use of the system is prohibited and subject to criminal and civil penalties; and 4. Use of the system indicates consent to monitoring and recording; b. Retain the notification message or banner on the screen until users acknowledge the usage conditions and take explicit actions to log on to or further access the system; and c. For publicly accessible systems: 1. Display system use information consistent with applicable laws, executive orders, directives, regulations, policies, standards, and guidelines, before granting further access to the publicly accessible system; 2. Display references, if any, to monitoring, recording, or auditing that are consistent with privacy accommodations for such systems that generally prohibit those activities; and 3. Include a description of the authorized uses of the system. Further discussion, including a recommendation that organizations consider system use notification messages or banners displayed in multiple languages based on organizational needs and the demographics of system users, and that organizations consult with the privacy office for input regarding privacy messaging and the Office of the General Counsel or organizational equivalent for legal review and approval of warning banner content, is also included.