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The company I work for does not have a specific time period for leave, but one of my co-workers just had their first kid, and he took 3 weeks also.

Exactly

Honestly can't believe anyone pays for this when there are so many options out there that don't cost a penny.

I had five months of paid paternity leave with my son. I have a very stressful job. I have over 500 employees in my span of control (obviously directors who work for me, managers for them, etc, etc). But like everyone, work is “stressful.” Without question, those 5 months of pat leave were the hardest job I’ve ever had, by orders of magnitude. I think some folks on here are baby boomers, who I believe the stat is that something like 80% never changed a diaper… And if it shows my lack of work ethic, GOOD. I know on my death bed I won’t say “I wish I had spent one more month on that project to make my company another couple million.” I will say “I wish I had 1 more minute with Liam.”

What an America First Foreign Policy Looks Like Marco Rubio is doing a brilliant job as Secretary of State. A prime example of his implementation of an America First foreign policy is the abolition of USAID and relocation of aid programs inside the State Department. On the State Department’s Substack, Rubio lays out the rationale for this change, putting to shame the Democrats’ absurd “millions will die” mantra: Every public servant has an obligation to American citizens to ensure any programs they fund advance our nation’s interests. During the Trump Administration’s thorough review of thousands of programs, and over $715 billion in inflation-adjusted spending over the decades, it became apparent the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) fell well below this standard. USAID had decades and a near-infinite taxpayer budget to advance American influence, promote economic development worldwide, and allow billions to stand on their own two feet. Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War. Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown. On the global stage, the countries that benefit the most from our generosity usually fail to reciprocate. For example, in 2023, sub-Saharan African nations voted with the United States only 29 percent of the time on essential resolutions at the UN despite receiving $165 billion in outlays since 1991. That’s the lowest rate in the world. Over the same period, more than $89 billion invested in the Middle East and North Africa left the U.S. with lower favorability ratings than China in every nation but Morocco. The agency’s expenditure of $9.3 billion in Gaza and the West Bank since 1991, whose beneficiaries included allies of Hamas, has produced grievances rather than gratitude towards the United States. The only ones living well were the executives of the countless NGOs, who often enjoyed five-star lifestyles funded by American taxpayers, while those they purported to help fell further behind. This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end. Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency. We will not apologize for recognizing America’s longstanding commitment to life-saving humanitarian aid and promotion of economic development abroad must be in furtherance of an America First foreign policy. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/07/what-an-america-first-foreign-policy-looks-like.php

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2025/4/25/24417392/buffalo-bills-address-sexual-assault-allegations-against-maxwell-hairston

Happy and safe 4th everyone. This brings back a memory….. On July 3 a few years ago I’m at the park playing tennis with a bunch of regular guys and the jets from Dobbins Air Force Base start practicing their 4th of July exhibition right over the park. And they stayed over the park and kept coming back like it was a private showing. We’re all WTF? This feels like it’s just for us! One guy is a retired Admiral and he starts chuckling. One of his pilot buddies is in charge and he talked him into a private showing for our “park people”. He said “this guy just flies big ass planes for Delta now, he loves doing this sh!t!” ✈️

Most Americans Like America A Lot, And The Left Should Stop Ignoring This Fact Jesse Singal Almost every cohesive human group has beliefs, practices, or claims that other groups find strange. In most cases, at least in the modern, developed world, this doesn’t matter. We’re pretty good at live-and-let-live. I find Catholic and Muslim and Orthodox Jewish rituals weird, but as long as no one is dragging me to church or mosque or synagogue, that’s all fine with me: Do your thing. I’m sure you guys find my beliefs weird. In some cases, though, groups that are hoping to change the world can be stymied by the fact that they have adopted beliefs others are very skeptical of. One example, in many progressive and lefty circles, is the idea that the United States is extremely evil or unfair or just otherwise bad. This takes a lot of different forms. On foreign policy, we are an evil, imperialist “empire” extracting resources from vulnerable countries at the cost of distant, dark-skinned people’s lives. Domestically, we’re little better: Everything is so stacked against the poor, and inequality has run so rampant, that if there was ever anything like “the American dream” — itself a propagandist phrase, of course — it has long since been strangled to death by the oligarchs. {snip} The question shouldn’t be what the United States has done wrong — or not just what it has done wrong — but how it has behaved relative to other nations with similar levels of power. And it’s here where the progressive and lefty views of an especially or uniquely evil U.S. collapse entirely, I think. But I just don’t think that the U.S. has acted in a particularly horrific manner, either at home or abroad, given its power. The U.S. does not suddenly decide it wants to annex some foreign territories and launch a ground invasion and/or a bunch of cruise missiles. The U.S. does not, for the most part, repress its own citizens in anything like the way actually repressive regimes do. If law enforcement mistreats someone, and it’s captured on video, it becomes a national story. There are all sorts of responses to these claims: Yes, police departments close ranks and sometimes enjoy state laws that shield violent or otherwise negligent officers from responsibility. Yes, “Well, we’re not as bad as other empires” is thin comfort for dead Iraqis. But I’m sorry: We are a gentle superpower, at home and abroad, by any reasonable standard. Or gentle enough that it’s silly to pretend we’re especially or uniquely bad. https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/most-americans-like-america-a-lot?

Bond market follower for years leads me to an Occam's razor view, because there is no single data point that argues against it. The Fed is more inclined to lower rates than otherwise. Neutral now, but certainly mort likely to lower than raise. That makes the $ less in demand.

Happy 4th of July to the half of the US that actually like this country. To the other half, LOL!!!!!

It's like this. When you are in a hole, do you sit there and say woe is me, or do you start climbing out? Most people only have a cursory knowledge of the Sabres: PLAYOFF DROUGHT! And from that they assume everything about the team is horrible. It isn't. They have good players. They have drafted well. They were 9th in the league in scoring. Their problem is much like the Bills last year; they are bad on defense and give up too many goals. So they are adding better D and players with grit this year. Now they did lose a scorer in JJ Peterka that they haven't fully replaced. The wild card is Josh Norris who they traded for last year. His rep is as a scorer but he's been injured a lot. Do you remember the Bills drought? This is the same thing. The Bills were never the worst, they were just bad enough. And one magical year, they caught a break and broke the drought. I'm hoping the same happens this year. But being miserable all the time just gives me an ulcer and doesn't have any impact on what happens on the ice.

Trump 2.0 is a Wrecking Ball. And he’s wrecking the right stuff. Glenn Harlan Reynolds Less than six months ago, I wrote: The Left Gave Us Trump 2.0. And they’re not going to like it. https://instapundit.substack.com/p/the-left-gave-us-trump-20? Right after the election, I wrote that Trump was going to come in like a wrecking ball. https://instapundit.substack.com/p/like-a-wrecking-ball Boy, did I nail it, or what? With the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” Trump has crushed a lot of Democratic dreams and plans, and — as I predicted right after the election — he’s also starting to lay an institutional foundation for Republicans. The Big, Beautiful Bill is more big than it is beautiful, but the only way to get the changes that were needed through without a filibuster was through reconciliation. And the changes got through, and that is beautiful. It’s just the reality of our system that to get things done you have to buy votes. Elon Musk, Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, et al. don’t like that, and they’re not exactly wrong not to like it, they’re just wrong to think that we could have gotten what was needed any other way. {snip} My suggestion for the GOP is that they now start hitting the Democrats with single-subject bills that will have to be voted up or down, and that will be very politically expensive for Democrats to oppose, when they’re clearly presented without a lot of extraneous legislative cover. Will some of them be filibustered? Maybe, but if they are, the Democrats look bad. (And if they’re really important bills, the GOP can drop the filibuster with a majority, as the Democrats did already.) At any rate, as we go into the Fourth of July weekend, remember that it’s not just a calendar date, but that it’s really Independence Day. And especially this year. https://instapundit.substack.com/p/trump-20-is-a-wrecking-ball?r=9bg2k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

That was my back of the envelope calculation. I got my statement for the 2nd quarter by e-mail today. My gain was 8.01 %!

So he Knox'd his wife up Sorry it's all I got 🤷🏻‍♂️

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming the Bills here. I suspect they definitely looked into it. You can read into that what you will. For me, it means they weren’t all that concerned.

Good advice above. I’m old enough to remember Yankees bleacher tix being $1.50–we were incensed when they doubled them to $3! Totally agree on the downtown advice—I’ve been an uptown/UWS guy most of my life (preference-wise; I’ve lived in the ‘burbs for ages), but only recently discovered downtown (thanks, kids!) Great bookstores, restaurants/bars/cafes, shops, vintage movie theaters, Washington Square park, etc. I go in and hang there most weekends. And there’s a Wegmans on Astor Place. Off the beaten path, non-sports suggestions— Central Park—just walking around from any entrance. Museums—world-class. Met (most variety), Guggenheim/MoMA/Whitney—all more modern, Frick House—older stuff. My favorite part of living here. Yakitori Totto—55th and 8th. Great Japanese izikaya bar food. Meat skewers. Great stuff. Not cheap, but not super expensive either. The kind of place you don’t find often outside Japan. Broadway/Off-Broadway—world class theater. You can do a month visiting here and still not see it all—enjoy!

Brody Dalle! Tal Wilkenfeld

Although I don't generally encourage the practice, it's always good for a laugh when someone quotes Billsfuk.c and I see his lame attempts to tag me. Number of tags I'm notified about: Zero point zero. On second thought maybe I should change my settings so I get notified about the tags and then complain to mods about excessive tagging like the King did? Nah, because that would require me to actually complain to mods about anything for the first time in 20 plus years. Sorry, still on full ignore Billsfuk.c.

Great statement on Gutfeld last night: "Libs shed crocodile tears over Alligator Alcatraz."