A little after 10AM Eastern Time
You can try docking it yourself with this sim.
The Universe Is Expanding Because Of Main Character Energy
31 minutes ago
A blog by a "sucker" and a "loser" who served her country in the Navy.
If you're one of the Covidiots who believe that COVID-19 is "just the flu",
that the 2020 election was stolen, or
especially if you supported the 1/6/21 insurrection,
leave now.
Slava Ukraini!
A Minnesota venture capitalist has lost his job and had his office lease terminated after he was accused of racially profiling a group of black entrepreneurs in a video that went viral on social media.This is akin to Central Park Karen, who persisted in acting ignorantly even though she knew that she was being taped.
Tom Austin, who ran the F2 Group, was filmed asking a group of five black men about whether they were tenants of the MoZaic East building on Lagoon Avenue in Uptown Minneapolis.
President Donald Trump, the historically prolific tweeter of political barbs and blasts, threatened social media companies with new regulation or even shuttering on Wednesday after Twitter added fact checks to two of his tweets. He turned to his Twitter account — where else? — to tweet his threats.Let's be clear on this: Twitter didn't censor Trump's tweets. All they did was fact-check two of them.
One of Donald Trump's first acts when he moved into the Oval Office in 2017, was to restore to a central position the bust of Winston Churchill that Barack Obama had moved out in favour of a bronze of Martin Luther King Jr."Peace in our time" rang as hollow as what Trump was saying for five weeks:
...
Donald Trump is not imbued with the gift of soaring Churchillian rhetoric; there have been no "we shall fight them on the beaches" moments. Nor has he conjured the Rooseveltian calm when delivering one of his fireside chats. There have been days of infamy, but they have been invariably generated by things that the president has said, rather than what has been done to the United States.
And anyway, for a self-styled war leader he must at least face the charge of ignoring the warnings about the enemy he was confronting in the early stages, appearing more Neville Chamberlain than Winston Churchill.
Jan 22: "It's one person coming in from China and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine."
Feb 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
Feb 10: "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I hope that's true. But we're doing great in our country. China, I spoke with President Xi, and they're working very, very hard. And I think it's going to all work out fine."
Feb 11: "In our country, we only have, basically, 12 cases and most of those people are recovering and some cases fully recovered. So it's actually less."
Feb 24: "The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC and World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock market starting to look very good to me!"
Feb 26: "When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."
And again, when you have 15 people [with coronavirus], and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.May 27, 2020:
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has reached a somber milestone: As of Wednesday afternoon, the highly infectious viral disease has taken more than 100,000 lives nationwide.Heckuvajob, Trumpie. Keep lying to yourself and your supporters about the great job you've been doing.
Four Minneapolis officers involved in the arrest of a black man who died in police custody were fired Tuesday, hours after a bystander’s video showed an officer kneeling on the handcuffed man’s neck, even after he pleaded that he could not breathe and stopped moving.In what universe is it OK to handcuff a guy, put him prone on the asphalt and then kneel on his fucking neck?
"He was ordered to step from the car … after he got out he physically resisted officers … officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and the officers noticed the male was going into medical distress," Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said."Medical distress"... yep, brought on by a cop kneeling on the the dead guy's neck for ten minutes.
Kathleen M. Carley and her team at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Informed Democracy & Social Cybersecurity have been tracking bots and influence campaigns for a long time. Across US and foreign elections, natural disasters, and other politicized events, the level of bot involvement is normally between 10 and 20%, she says.Nothing seems to change. The Russians flood Facebook and Twitter with all sorts of baseless conspiracy theories and similar bullshit and Trump and his army of flying monkeys swallow it whole.
But in a new study, the researchers have found that bots may account for between 45 and 60% of Twitter accounts discussing covid-19. Many of those accounts were created in February and have since been spreading and amplifying misinformation, including false medical advice, conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus, and pushes to end stay-at-home orders and reopen America.
Given the “precipitous drop in air travel” over the last few months, rental car companies at Philadelphia International Airport found themselves with more cars on their hands than their airport lots could handle, Calter said.The same thing is happening in California:
“In an effort to address this, rental cars are being stored at off-site locations, including the Wells Fargo Center parking lots," she said.
Throughout the U.S., rental car companies have parked hundreds of thousands of unused cars as COVID-19 runs its methodical course, sickening Americans and grinding the economy to a halt. Particularly decimated is the travel industry. People aren’t traveling through airports, so no one is renting cars.If Hertz truly tanks, there may be a huge glut of used cars on the market.
Seen from above, places such as Dodger Stadium and Santa Anita racetrack look as if it’s a big day at the yard, when, in fact, the stands are empty.
...
New cars sales are down too, creating a glut of vehicles that Americans suddenly have little desire to purchase as they confront the coronavirus crisis.
That excess has led to choked L.A.-area ports. For example, Toyota Logistics Services at the Port of Long Beach is normally a beehive of activity as new cars are off-loaded from ships, parked and prepped at the yard, and sent off quickly to dealerships throughout the Southland. Now, Toyota Motor Corp. has leased additional storage space at a sports venue in California.
A judge rejected the request of convicted pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli to be let out of prison to research a coronavirus treatment, noting that probation officials viewed that claim as the type of “delusional self-aggrandizing behavior” that led to his conviction.
U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto said in a nine-page ruling Saturday that the man known as the “Pharma Bro” failed to demonstrate extraordinary and compelling factors that would require his release under home confinement rules designed to move vulnerable inmates out of institutions during the pandemic.
The Thompson & Knight law firm fired a Dallas-based administrative manager Friday after he allegedly posted a threat on social media against businesses with Covid-19 face mask requirements that had references to a handgun and hollow point-bullets.What kind of brain-dead -snowflake asshole does one have to be to issue an implicit public threat to shoot anyone making him wear a mask?
Screenshots of the “no more masks” rant began appearing on Twitter Friday, with several users claiming it was authored by a Kevin Bain. Bain has worked since 2009 as the law firm’s document services manager, according to his Linkedin profile.
More than 40,000 National Guard members currently helping states test residents for the coronavirus and trace the spread of infections will face a “hard stop” on their deployments on June 24 — just one day shy of many members becoming eligible for key federal benefits, according to a senior FEMA official.Does anyone not believe that this is deliberate? Trump is more than willing to use the military and the Guard as props, but he tries to fuck them over every chance he can.
The official outlined the Trump administration’s plans on an interagency call on May 12, an audio version of which was obtained by POLITICO. The official also acknowledged during the call that the June 24 deadline means that thousands of members who first deployed in late March will find themselves with only 89 days of duty credit, one short of the 90-day threshold for qualifying for early retirement and education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI bill.
The U.S. Navy has selected the design for its new FFG(X) frigate and explained why it is retiring four LCS ships early. The new frigate will be based on the Italian FREMM frigate. The American FREMM will be a modified version of the basic FREMM design and will be built by an American firm under license.The Rumsfeldian DoD had three shipbuilding programs, the Ford class CVN, the Zumwalt class DDG and the LCS classes of whatevers.
China's ruling Communist Party has set in motion a controversial national security law for Hong Kong, a move seen as a major blow to the city's freedoms.It would seem to be obvious that the Communists would regard any protests whatsoever as being subversive, even if it's one man complaining about parking enforcement.
The law to ban "treason, secession, sedition and subversion" could bypass Hong Kong's lawmakers. ... [The new law says:] "When needed, relevant national security organs of the Central People's Government will set up agencies in Hong Kong to fulfil relevant duties to safeguard national security in accordance with the law."
“Not our problem” is an undercurrent in the largely white reopen-America protests popping up daily around the country. “Not our problem” is the undercurrent when people refuse to wear masks in public. And “not our problem” is the conclusion one cannot help but draw when one studies the calendar and sees that the protests commenced around the same time that the data on racial disparities became a central story line in covid-19 news coverage.The Party of Trump might as well adopt pointy white hats as their official headgear.
The effects of COVID-19 on the health of racial and ethnic minority groups is still emerging; however, current data suggest a disproportionate burden of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups.And this:
Neighborhoods with high concentrations of black and Latino people, as well as low-income residents, suffered the highest death rates, while some wealthier areas — primarily in Manhattan — saw almost no deaths, according to the new data, which was published by the New York City Health Department.Given Trump's long history of racism, one would have to be exceedingly generous to the Grifter-in-Chief to not believe that, as soon as he was told that CoVid-19 was hammering minorities hardest, that's when he shifted gears and went full-bore on encouraging opening up everything.
The findings reinforced earlier reports showing that black and Latino New Yorkers were dying at twice the rate of white residents when the data is adjusted for age.
Humans aren't the only ones facing a pandemic — rabbits across the U.S. are currently battling a deadly disease outbreak of their own. The virus has spread to at least six states, threatening to completely wipe out the country's wild rabbit population.If we were faced with a virus with 90% mortality, the same moronic Trumpanzees would be proclaiming "but muh rights" and seeking to crowd into bars.
Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease virus type 2 (RHDV-2) spreads quickly and is highly lethal, with the latest outbreak originating in New Mexico. ... Since March, the disease has spread through New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, California and Mexico. ... Morbidity and mortality rates of the disease can be over 90 percent, the USDA said, and it poses a serious threat to domestic rabbits as well.
As federal workers file out of the State Department at the end of a Washington workday, an elite group is often just arriving in the marbled, flag-lined lobby: Billionaire CEOs, Supreme Court justices, political heavyweights and ambassadors arrive in evening attire as they're escorted by private elevator to dinner with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.Pompeo is corrupt to the core. If he gets fired, it will be because Trump believes that he's the only one who can use public funds for his personal gain.
Until the coronavirus shut them down in March, the gatherings were known as "Madison Dinners" — elaborate, unpublicized affairs that Pompeo and his wife, Susan Pompeo, began in 2018 and held regularly in the historic Diplomatic Reception Rooms on the government's dime.
State Department officials involved in the dinners said they had raised concerns internally that the events were essentially using federal resources to cultivate a donor and supporter base for Pompeo's political ambitions — complete with extensive contact information that gets sent back to Susan Pompeo's personal email address.
...
It's unclear whether the inspector general was also investigating the Madison Dinners, but two administration officials told NBC News that Linick made some type of inquiry to the protocol office last week, before he was fired. One of the officials said Pompeo's office was then notified.
Republican political operatives are recruiting “extremely pro-Trump” doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.Practicing (and retired) physicians are not scientists. They are not epidemiologists. They are mechanics and pill-rollers, with some expertise in dealing with insurance companies.
TRUMP: "We're going after Virginia, with your crazy governor, we're going after Virginia. They want to take your Second Amendment away. You'll have nobody guarding your potatoes." pic.twitter.com/0ep30Tw15u
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 19, 2020
...the president recently said that he’d like a “review” of how the coronavirus deaths are counted and studied by the government, citing hypothetical cases in which a person has the virus but is killed by other unnatural means, such as falling down a flight of stairs.Experts believe that the pandemic death toll has been underreported. But that doesn't sit well with Trump. Like the state of Georgia, Trump is trying to cook the books so that a lower number is reported. After all, cooking the books is what Trump has done all through his business life, to the point that it is a near-miracle that he hasn't done time for fraud.
Ken Osmond, the Leave It to Beaver actor known for his convincing portrayal of the weaselly Eddie Haskell on two iterations of the classic TV comedy, has died, according to his son Eric. He was 76. No further details were given.He had a life after the show:
Osmond worked as a helicopter pilot and studio propmaker before joining the LAPD, bulking up on milk shakes and bananas to make the minimum weight to qualify for the job. (He said he wore a mustache so people wouldn't recognize him from TV.)With the mustache, Osmond looked a lot like a certain famous porn star. That caused its own set of problems:
In 1980, he and his partner were on motorcycle patrol for drunken drivers when they came upon a stolen taxi driven by Albert Cunningham. Following a crash and a chase on foot, Cunningham shot Osmond; his bulletproof vest stopped two bullets, and a third was deflected by his belt buckle.
Due to his startling resemblance to legendary porn star John Holmes, a rumor started that Ken was actually Holmes and had quit the porn business to become an L.A. cop (supposedly, his superiors in the LAPD weren't entirely convinced that he actually wasn't Holmes, and he was called in by the Internal Affairs division to "prove" his identity. Holmes was renowned for the size of his male member, and Osmond stated that he settled once and for all the rumors that he was Holmes by a "visual aids" demonstration).Can you imagine the stories about when Osmond got to wave his dick at those pricks in IA?
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, criticized President Trump for firing State Department Inspector General Steve Linick on Saturday. Collins' comments come as she faces her own criticism from both Democrat and Republican voters in an election year. ... “The President has not provided the kind of justification for the removal of IG Linick required by this law,” she tweeted. “I have long been a strong advocate for the Inspectors General. They are vital partners in Congress’s effort to identify inefficient or ineffective government programs and to root out fraud and other wrongdoing.”Collins is a sterling example of a gutless wonder. She's more than willing to flap her gums about things that supposedly disquiet her, but when push comes to shove, when it comes time to actually take a stand on the stupid shit that Trump and his coterie of clowns have done, she's as much an unapologetic ass-kisser as Lindsey Graham.
A New York barber who defied stay-at-home orders and continued to "illicitly" cut hair has tested positive for coronavirus, county officials said in a public health notice this week.Covid Sam, or whatever the hell his name is, should be hammered with every possible charge.
A 32-year-old Detroit man is facing a felony charge after allegedly making "credible threats to kill" Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office said Friday.If you feel the need to show up at a protest with a visible firearm, you've already lost the debate.
Prosecutor Kym Worthy charged Robert Sinclair Tesh with false report of a threat of terrorism, a felony that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to a press release. He was arraigned on April 22.
European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.You're here, you've consented. If you don't like it, go read some other goddamn blog. It's not as if you're paying me.