The local newspaper in the small town of Atascadero, on the central California coast, reported that the silvery column had been found atop Pine mountain where dozens of local hikers made the trip to view it – and post their pictures on the internet.
“The three-sided obelisk appeared to be made of stainless steel, 10-feet tall and 18 inches wide. The object was welded together at each corner, with rivets attaching the side panels to a likely steel frame inside,” the Atascadero News reported.
🚨 🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨 🚨
There is currently a monolith at the top of Pine Mountain in Atascadero!!
I watch Perry Mason reruns. The real show, not the Freddie Silverman semi-regular movies that resembled Matlock more than the the original TV noir show that ran for more 9 seasons.
In the original series there was only color episode, The Case of the Twice-Told Twist, which was the only episode of the original series to be filmed in color.
It was intended to be a dry run for a 10th season, which was to go full color, but it was canceled at the end of season 9.
It was just ……… wrong.
First, Perry Mason is clearly a product of black and white TV, but second, the script just ……… off somehow.
In going for color, they decided for a more frenetic direction, with William Hopper as Paul Drake chasing a potential witness down a Mexican street, and repeated split second car stripping that looked like they had come out of a heist movie.
The full color version makes the episode more real, and some of the conventions of the show, smoking, drinking, and ethnic stereotyping, become far more jarring, as opposed to a relic of a bygone era.
Finally, the episode was replete with references to Dickens, specifically Oliver Twist.
If you are a Perry Mason fan, I’m not sure if I would recommend it unless you want to watch it stoned.
I think that it would be good to watch stoned.
All in all, it’s the second weirdest bit of TV I’ve seen this year, after the Presidential debates.
Always fun to get RT’d but we’re about ten minutes away from actual French people coming in here and telling me all the mistakes I made (I’ve counted three so far!!)
Before this, I never truly understood the deep existential angst that is Gritty before this, and it is completely appropriate that it is being said in French. (with subtitles)
My idea was to go through a lottery process, but this is also an elegant solution to the problem, assuming that the Indian body shops don’t manage to incorporate kick-backs into their recruiting.
I still favor a bid process for H1B applications though:
The Trump administration has proposed changes to the H-1B visa that will see it abolish the current lottery process and instead prioritise highly paid workers.
“Modifying the H-1B cap selection process by replacing the random selection process with a wage-level-based selection process is a better way to allocate H-1Bs when demand exceeds supply,” says a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement of the proposed policy.
“If finalized as proposed, this new selection process would incentivize employers to offer higher wages or petition for positions requiring higher skills and higher-skilled workers instead of using the program to fill relatively lower-paid vacancies.”
………
“The H-1B program is often exploited and abused by U.S. employers, and their U.S. clients, primarily seeking to hire foreign workers and pay lower wages,” said Acting DHS Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli. “The current use of random selection to allocate H-1B visas …. fails to leverage the H-1B program to truly compete for the world’s best and brightest, and hurts American workers by bringing in relatively lower-paid foreign labor at the expense of the American workforce.”
………
The document also suggests that economic benefits could possibly include:
A better chance of attracting skilled and highly paid workers to apply for the H-1B, plus the prospect of higher wages for visa applicants because paying them more would rank them more highly as visa applicants;
Increased job opportunities for lower-skilled US workers who would otherwise have to compete with H-1B visa-holder;
Increased wages for H-1B recipients whose earnings fall into middling earning bands.
This appears to actually be an well thought out and thoughtful policy.
I credit a few million monkeys chained to typewriters.
The debut instantly made Ocasio-Cortez—who admitted to having little experience with Among Us beforehand—one of the most popular streamers on the Amazon-owned video streaming service. Her peak of 435,000 viewers put her in the top 20 most popular streams ever on the site, according to data gathered by TwitchTracker, an echelon that’s dominated by major gaming brands with massive marketing departments. As of this writing, the AOC Twitch account has over 571,000 followers, and her debut video clip has attracted over 4.73 million views.
In between gasp-filled games full of Among Us‘ usual accusations and back-biting, Ocasio-Cortez directed viewers to “make a voting plan” via IwillVote.com. She also found time to talk about universal health care with her fellow players and share some thoughts on the world-building of Among Us itself. “When it comes to video games, it’s the lore,” she said on the stream. “How did these people get here? What year are we in? Et cetera.”
My son watched some clips, and thought it was brilliant.
It appears that there has been a tiny air leak in the International Space Station for months that they have been unable to identify, and they finally found it using loose tea leaves:
The International Space Station has been leaking an unusual amount of air since September 2019.
At first crew members held off on troubleshooting the issue, since the leak wasn’t major. But in August the leak rate increased, prompting astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the orbiting laboratory to try to locate its source in earnest.
Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, announced on Thursday that crew members had finally pinpointed the leak after devising an unusual test: They let tea leaves guide their search.
The cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin released a few leaves from a tea bag in the transfer chamber of the Zvezda Service Module, the section of the station’s Russian segment that houses a kitchen, sleeping quarters, and bathroom. Then the crew members sealed the chamber by closing its hatches and monitored the tea leaves on cameras as they floated in microgravity.
The leaves slowly floated toward a scratch in the wall near the module’s communication equipment — evidence that it was a crack through which air was escaping.
I think that it was a joke, though one can never be sure:
All is fair in love and cod war. And with the EU’s coastal states under pressure to give way on Britain’s demands for greater fishing catches in its waters post-Brexit, any old argument is worth a try.
When the issue of the future access of European fishing fleets was being discussed by EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday the Belgian government’s representative, Willem van de Voorde, made a notable intervention.
To the confusion of some, and the delight of others, the ambassador cited a treaty signed some 350 years ago by King Charles II which had granted 50 Flemish fishermen from Bruges “eternal rights” to English fishing waters. It was an important historical footnote illustrating the long relationship between Belgian fishermen and British waters, Van de Voorde suggested.
I hope that this was a joke, but one can never be sure with those wily Belgians.
………
“I wasn’t quite sure what he was on about but I think he was joking,” said one confused diplomat who had listened to Van de Voorde’s intervention. “But, then, you never know.”
The wheels really do seem to be coming off of Trump’s Evil Minions™ right now:
Conservative operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman were charged on Thursday for allegedly orchestrating a series of robocalls aimed at suppressing the vote in the November presidential election, Michigan authorities said.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a slew of charges against Burkman, 54, and Wohl, 22, including conspiracy to commit an election law violation and using a computer to commit the crime of election law – intimidating voters. Prosecutors allege the two political operatives were using a robocall system aimed at scaring Detroit voters away from using mail-in voting ballots. The calls, which were made in August, went out to nearly 12,000 Detroit residents.
Both Wohl and Burkman face four felony counts and a maximum sentence of 7 years in prison.
The voice on the call attributed to Wohl and Burkman attempts to trick listeners into not sending in mail-in ballots, falsely warning that the information would be used to track fugitives, collect on credit card debts, and enforce “mandatory vaccines.” The calls also told residents to “beware of vote by mail.”
………
Wohl and Burkman didn’t respond to immediate requests for comment. In August, Burkman denied being behind the robocall, claiming it was suspicious that it was connected to his personal cell phone number.
“No one in their right mind would put their own cell on a robocall,” Burkman told The Daily Beast.
The attorney general’s office added that during the investigation into the robocalls, investigators communicated with officials in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois—all of whom reported similar robocalls being made to residents in their states. All the calls, they said, were made to residents in “urban areas with significant minority populations,” the Michigan attorney general’s office said.
………
The Michigan charges aren’t the only legal charges facing the pair. Wohl has been charged with two felonies over alleged violations of California securities law. On Saturday, The Daily Beast reported on a secret FBI investigation into Wohl and Burkman over the leak of confidential juror questionnaires and grand jury testimony in the trial of Trump associate Roger Stone.
Wohl and Burkman became notorious online in 2018, after a failed attempt to manufacture a sexual assault allegation against Robert Mueller collapsed in spectacular fashion. Since then, they have tried to create hoaxes against other Trump opponents, but the schemes always fail almost immediately, often due to Wohl and Burkman’s own errors.
Seriously, these folks are flipping out.
My deepest wish is that the inevitable shrapnel that results from their flying to pieces so spectacularly only injures their fellow travelers.
As you may, or may not, be aware, there is a segment of fan-fiction called “The Omegaverse”, which is one part Supernatural fandom, and two (or maybe three) parts bad wolf science.
What you may not be aware of, unless you read the rather incomplete New York Times story, which tended to focus on a genre of literature that features, estrus, involuntary impregnation, involuntary sex, male pregnancy, and a lot of other stuff that makes Furries look like Mike Pence.
I understand why the Times focused on this, it’s salacious, and salacious sells.
It’s also kind of dull, unless it’s your thing, at least to me.
I am a cat person, thank you very much.*
What I find interesting is the use, and in this case abuse, of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) take-down provisions for a clearly unlawful purpose.
Well, that, and one the principals in the dispute committing perjury and lying to her fans, but again that is simply salacious, and does not address the larger issues here.
As many of you (OK, both of you) are are aware, the DMCA contains a safe harbor provision which says that so long as a platform responds promptly in response to a take down notice to material posted by a user, they cannot be held liable, much in the same way that you cannot sue a bookstore for a book that is defamatory, just the author and publisher.
What the process means is that there is very little upside for platforms to investigate whether or not an actual copyright violation occurs. They will simply take the material down when a DMCA complaint, and if the complaint is in error, or maliciously wrong, it is no skin off of their nose.
What happened in this case was that the author, whose innovation appears to be bringing heterosexual relationships into the Omgaverse, and her publisher, went after another author for literary features of the genre, rather than any actual plagiarism, and sent out dozens of DMCA take-down notices to attack a rival in the genre.
It’s a classic case of misusing the DMCA for non-IP purposes.
Well, Lindsay Ellis gives a hysterically funny description of what went down here, and why what happened was wrong, and why the DMCA needs to be fixed.
It’s an hour long, but it’s well worth the watch.
*No, not THAT sort of cat person, NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT, at least not from a literary perspective.
A Tucson landmark won’t be going extinct anytime soon. Attempts to remove a fiberglass dinosaur statue outside of a McDonald’s have been thwarted. A group called Christians Against Dinosaurs denounced the T. rex statue on its Facebook page and called for its followers to rally in an effort to remove the statue. “Please help! This McDonald’s has this dinosaur and refuse to remove it!” according to the Arizona Daily Star. “This is in Tucson, Arizona. Call the manager and demand the removal of this blasphemy!” ……… When reached via Facebook, Christians Against Dinosaurs told Patch that the group’s mission is no joke. “We’re fed up with everybody acting like the people of Tucson are imbeciles and we want to help,” a spokesperson for the group said. “Having a big dinosaur outside a cultural hub like McDonald’s makes Tucsonians look like they’re mentally deficient and that isn’t right.”
No, YOU are making, “Tucsonians look like they’re mentally deficient.”
The Biden campaign immediately disavowed the endorsement, but this is the day when the campaign went from weird to being narrated by Rod Serling:
2020 is officially M. Night Shyamalan’s worst movie.*
I mean, I thought this shitshow had already jumped the shark when the mistresses of minstrel, Diamond and Silk, decided they were ready to talk about systemic racism, but this infamous year has apparently decided to pull an Evel Knievel over a mile-long row of sharks as the alt-right favorite with America’s most punchable face, Richard Spencer, has announced his endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
On Monday, the tiki-torch boy-band leader (he changed the name of his group to “White Sheet Boys” because “NSYNC With White Supremacy” doesn’t roll off the tongue very well) tweeted an image of his photo next to the words “I’m with Joe” and a quote from an earlier tweet of his that reads, “Liberals are clearly more competent.”
………
Still, a neo-Nazi like Spencer—who the Southern Poverty Law Center described as “one of the country’s most successful young white nationalist leaders,” a “suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old,” and “a kind of professional racist in khakis”—throwing his lot behind the Democratic ticket is one weird plot twist.
Anyway, according to Andrew Bates, the director of rapid response for Biden’s campaign, Biden is rejecting Spencer’s friend request.
“When Joe Biden says we are in a battle for the soul of our nation against vile forces of hate who have come crawling out from under rocks, you are the epitome of what he means,” Bates tweeted. “What you stand for is absolutely repugnant. Your support is 10,000% percent unwelcome here.
Go to link above for a video of someone punching Richard Spencer in the face.
*Obviously, the author is younger than I am, as evidenced by the Serling/Shamalan dichotomy in analogies.† †Also, I’ve only seen one of his movies, The Last Airbender, which was so bad that it scarred me for life.
The Republican Party will hold its convention next week, and apart from some discussion of where exactly President Trump will deliver his address, almost no details have been made public about what it will look like. But on Monday, as Democrats were staging the first night of their convention, The Post’s Josh Dawsey reported this remarkable piece of news:
The St. Louis couple who became famous after wielding guns at protesters on their private street will be part of the largely digital Republican National Convention next week, Trump advisers said this week.
The couple — Patricia and Mark McCloskey — will appear on behalf of the president during the virtual weeklong event and express their support for him, the officials said.
As I said on Twitter, at this point if you told me that Derek Chauvin would be addressing the Republican convention from his jail cell, I’d barely be surprised.
The down side, is that it looks like other movie scripts are showing themselves as well, things like A Clockwork Orange, The Terminator, 12 Monkeys, Blade Runner, Death Race 2000, Gattaca, the whole sequence of Mad Max, Brazil, The Handmaiden’s Tale, and, of course, Idiocracy.
Giant Swamp Rats are appearing in Kraus Baker Park in Texas and residents of the area fear that they may contaminate the water and destroy the ecosystem. They are massive in size and are apparently feeding alongside the ducks. One video posted shows exactly how invasive they have been.
Female Nutria can have babies starting from the age of 4-6 months old and they can produce up to three litters a year. Each litter can have anywhere from 2-13 young. These rats eat 25% of their bodyweight everyday. Since they are alongside a water source they are fearing that they will contaminate it with parasites.
Wildlife experts are asking the community not to feed them in hopes that they will leave the area naturally. If worst comes to worst however they may have to resort to more drastic measures to hopefully relocate them.
I am so done with 2020.
H/t Sharon* for the link.
If you want to suggest other movies that mirror this time, feel free to comment.
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
A woman swimming off Bailey Island in Harpswell on Monday afternoon was attacked and killed by a shark in what one expert says is the first such fatality recorded in Maine waters. The woman has not been identified pending notification of her family. She was swimming offshore near homes on White Sails Lane when a witness saw her being attacked by what appeared to be a shark, the Maine Marine Patrol said. Two kayakers brought the victim and another woman to shore, where a crew of Harpswell emergency responders met them. The woman died at the scene. The second woman, who was swimming with the victim, was not injured, said Jeff Nichols, a marine patrol spokesman. “This is the first documented fatality ever in Maine,” James Sulikowski, a former University of New England professor and researcher who conducts shark research in Maine and locations worldwide, said in an interview Monday evening. “Shark interactions with humans are very rare in Maine. “My guess is that the person was mistaken as a food item. In this area of Maine and depending on how close to shore the event occurred, my guess is it was a white shark.”
Photos from Killen and independent journalist Donovan Farley went viral on social media. The woman hasn’t been identified, but she’s been dubbed by some as “Naked Athena.”
The officers shot pepper balls at her feet. Another protester ran out in front of her with a homemade shield, Killen added, but she sidestepped him and his shield.
………
About 10 minutes after she arrived, the officers left. The woman left soon after without any additional fanfare.
Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh are literally extolling the heroism of cannibals, and cannibalism, as a justification for opening up while the pandemic runs rampant.
