This week we see another disturbing robot. Massive Boston Dynamics, makers of the Big Dog bot, have revealed Spot.
Spot is a four-legged robot designed for indoor and outdoor operation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. Spot has a sensor head that helps it navigate and negotiate rough terrain. Spot weighs about 160 lbs.
In this video you can, well, see Spot run:
Note your emotional response when humans try to kick Spot over.
Today is partly a good day, as all of the Pitchers and Catchers have reported to Spring Training. Baseball season begins, which always places a positive spin on my mood. But as usual, the Universe finds a way to temper my good will.
[Update: Apparently I have been taken down the primrose path] Yay me.
In the “We can’t discuss misogyny in skeptic circles until we rid the world of all other evils…” department. Yeah, Fuck You Dawkins, with Victor Davis Hanson’s Rusty stolen chainsaw which somehow got welded to Bob Owens’s hurricane damaged grill, sideways…
According to LifeSiteNews, a Catholic publication, the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association is charging UNICEF and WHO with sterilizing millions of girls and women under cover of an anti-tetanus vaccination program sponsored by the Kenyan government.
The Kenyan government denies there is anything wrong with the vaccine, and says it is perfectly safe.
The Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, however, saw evidence to the contrary, and had six different samples of the tetanus vaccine from various locations around Kenya sent to an independent laboratory in South Africa for testing.
The results confirmed their worst fears: all six samples tested positive for the HCG antigen. The HCG antigen is used in anti-fertility vaccines, but was found present in tetanus vaccines targeted to young girls and women of childbearing age. Dr. Ngare, spokesman for the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, stated in a bulletin released November 4:
“This proved right our worst fears; that this WHO campaign is not about eradicating neonatal tetanus but a well-coordinated forceful population control mass sterilization exercise using a proven fertility regulating vaccine. This evidence was presented to the Ministry of Health before the third round of immunization but was ignored.”
Dr. Ngare told LifeSiteNews that several things alerted doctors in the Church’s far-flung medical system of 54 hospitals, 83 health centres, and 17 medical and nursing schools to the possibility the anti-tetanus campaign was secretly an anti-fertility campaign.
Why, they ask does it involve an unprecedented five shots (or “jabs” as they are known, in Kenya) over more than two years and why is it applied only to women of childbearing years, and why is it being conducted without the usual fanfare of government publicity?
“Usually we give a series three shots over two to three years, we give it anyone who comes into the clinic with an open wound, men, women or children.” said Dr. Ngare.
But it is the five vaccination regime that is most alarming. “The only time tetanus vaccine has been given in five doses is when it is used as a carrier in fertility regulating vaccines laced with the pregnancy hormone, Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) developed by WHO in 1992.” (Source.)
Because the Great White Father always knows what is best.
Now we take a right turn in which to laugh or cry at something that is supposed to represent cleverness or Second Amendment chic:
A Colorado business owner is selling T-shirts that show a realistic-looking holstered gun strapped to the wearer’s side.
Paul Liebe, who owns Nitelife Billiards, describes his “open carry” T-shirts and polo shirts as conversation starters that are also intended to irritate liberals.
“Freedom of speech, it’s your right, and it just has a little kick on the side,” Liebe said.
Thinking about getting one of these to facilitate my eventual suicide by cop fantasies….The only thing missing is the stock image of windblown flag with crying bald eagle underneath the one of the shoulder holster.
Mr. Gun Totin, WhitePowerLovin’ almost certainly g-dropping SuperGenius, I am not at all irritated. Rather I am pointing and laughing at your Mastery of the Funnybones. You simply couldn’t help yourself, you just had to open your mouth and remove any bit of doubt as to whether you are a skull-fucking* idiot, or not. Nicely played.
I find it maddening, saddening, and hilarious that there is a cluster of RushFluffers, whose sole motivation is pissing on and pissing off strawmen, effigies that only exist in their fevered imaginations. Look at the genuine happiness reflected in their smiles. They are really putting it to those damn liberals.
Is it just me or does the dude on the left have a black eye? You’ll have to embiggen to catch it. Anyway with this bit of Ha! I Gotcha! Burn!(replete with index finger to tounge and ssssss noise) what could possibly go wrong?
A Facebook page set up to promote the shirts promises they are sure to “drive anti-gun nuts crazy.”
But they also come with a pretty serious warning.
“Don’t put your hand on the shirt on the gun,” Liebe cautioned. “(The warning) lets them know that if a police officer gives you a command it’s because he sees your shirt at a distance and thinks you’re carrying a gun.”
Damn, that was gonna be my go to move.
There does seem to be enough room for a pithy liberal phrase on the front of the shirt like “This Feminazi God Hating Treehugger loves Open Carry” or “Moron Labe” or “Rush Limbaugh has a Tiny Penis.” Feel free to add Ideas in the comments.
And on an entirely different front I am trying to recover some of the lost images that have graced these pages over the years and was wondering if anyone might like to join in the fun. This of course would include any backups the original Artists™ might have, otherwise the Wayback Machine seems our only hope.
The idea would be for one to claim a month and year and then copy all of the images from the pages that come up and then upload to a place yet to be determined…
Did I mention Pitchers and Catchers?
*A simple fucking idiot was imho just not quite enough idiot in this case
[UPDATE]
Too good to be stolen without attribution was found in the comments accompanying the article. mahaganapati says “The back should either have a bulls-eye on it or the phrase “I’m with stupid” and an arrow pointing up.”
I gotta say the “I’m with Stupid” is one I would really like to see
Also Some guy in comments reminds me of a rather unfortunate version of ‘YARDGO‘ (YetAnotherResponsiblyDeadGunOwner). We’ll hit up Susie this time to spread the love…
Earlier this year, St. Joseph Public Safety officers reported that 55-year-old Christina Bond had died on New Years Day from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to her eye.
Although the full autopsy had not been completed, officials released new details on Wednesday.
“She was having trouble adjusting her bra holster, couldn’t get it to fit the way she wanted it to. She was looking down at it and accidentally discharged the weapon,” St. Joseph Public Safety Director Mark Clapp said.
According to an obituary published by Florin Funeral Service, Bond joined the U.S. Navy out of high school, and served two terms as an active Military Police. She was an administrator for the Road to Life Church, and an “active member of the Christian Motorcycle Association.”
Really? Just stunning, the whole fucking thing. By all accounts she was a vivacious and well liked Michigander (I know People magazine, right?)
Christina Bond had carved out a comfortable, exciting life for herself.
After high school, she had served two tours as a military police officer in the United States Navy. At 55, she worked as an administrator of her church. She stayed in good shape, taking home the 2013 Miss Michigan Figure Overall Championship. In her spare time, she was an active member in the Christian Motorcycle Association.
Sweet white lady laden with the virtuous values of a WingNutForJesus™ which really is a floor wax and a dessert topping.
The obituary described Bond as being “on FIRE for the LORD.”Last summer, she was elected as a Republican Precinct Delegate for Saint Joseph Charter Precinct 1.Her Facebook page is filled with Bible verses, and information about organizing for the Republican Party. Several recent posts complained about Common Core education standards, and about President Barack Obama. Other posts depicted black protesters in Ferguson as dangerous rioters.
“Here’s the most critical evasive driving tactic to avoid getting swarmed and killed in a riot,” one post was titled.
Back in early 1990s, when I was still an un-defrocked technology guy, the corporation I worked for was aggressively courted by an East Coast technology company. Among the many earthly delights they showed us during the pitching of the woo, was, at the time, a genuinely startling revelation about what kind of personal information was available on public and subscription databases, and how detailed and personal a profile of almost anyone could be built up by cross-referencing the right files (I remember our president was visibly discomfitted at the sight of how much detail on her personal life could be deduced from the available data pool and, upon reflection, I am not entirely sure that what we witnessed wasn't both of a dazzling display of cutting edge technology and a genteel threat leveled at our carefully-closeted boss because who knows what else we know about you?)
Since then, the situation has gotten ever so much worse at an exponential rate by search algorithms which have reached near-sentient sophistication and hundreds of millions of social media users' who have been suckered into (and have pressured their peers into) backing their personal lives up to the digital trough and dumping terabytes of shockingly personal stuff into the web.
So you can imagine what a hearty and refreshing laugh at Young Conor Friedersdorf's call for a New Birth of Internet Freedom, in which corporations neither bow to outside pressure nor use the tools with which the times have provided them to pry into your private life and use that knowledge to your detriment:
...
Meanwhile, I propose a new social norm. My strong suspicion is that we'd all be better off if Americans developed a broad aversion to people being fired for public missteps that have nothing to do with their jobs. That norm would do more good than bad even if you think some people deserve to be fired. Sure, I'd advise against taking flip photographs at a military cemetery. But whatever one thinks of that error in judgment, there's no reason it should cause a woman to lose her job helping developmentally disabled adults.
An insensitive Halloween costume may justify a dirty look or scolding or even shaming. It should not deprive someone of their livelihood! It's strange when you think about it, this notion of getting sacked as a general purpose punishment that an angry faction of the public demands of an at-first-reluctant employer. The target, the mob demands, should have to find a new job, or go on welfare, or move back in with their mom, or perhaps starve. It's not even clear what's meant to happen. Let's rethink this.
People should usually feel ashamed of themselves for thinking, "I should get that stranger fired." Companies should be left alone when one of their employees does something offensive while "off-duty." Since some Internet trolls will break that rule, here's another: Companies should expect to get more criticism for caving to the demands of trolls than for letting a briefly unpopular employee keep performing his or her duties, even amid an episode of obsessive public shaming. After all, these things always blow over, the attention span of the Internet being short, while losing one's job is, for many, a setback with consequences that last years. And have any of these firings achieved any social good? I defy anyone to produce hard evidence to that effect.
Here's what corporations should say in the future: "Sorry, we have a general policy against firing people based on social media campaigns. We're against digital mobs."
But note the one exception built into what I propose. Sometimes people do stupid things in the public eye that relate directly to their jobs. If, say, a DEA agent writes a Facebook post bragging about how many innocent black people he's going to lock up for drug trafficking next month, then it's obviously legitimate to demand his immediate termination. But generally speaking, Americans ought to be averse to the notion of companies policing the speech and thoughts of employees when they're not on the job. Instead, many are zealously demanding that companies police their workers more, as if failing to fire someone condones their bad behavior outside work. Few general standards work out best in every last circumstance. But the one I suggest would be better than what we've got.
I feel for anyone who has been whacked because of a digital mob which, like the wind, "...blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes", but comtemporize, man!
In a very real sense, Young Conor, this is the world conservatism made. A world in which corporations have been encouraged to systematically erase any concept of "off the clock". Where you are always on screaming, white-hot deadline. Where assigning you to do more in a week than you can possibly get done in a month is the new normal. A world of "What do you mean you haven't had time to finish the Gundersen presentation yet? You sure seem to have plenty of time to stay up until all hours arguing tax policy online! "
A world where peeing into a cup, polygraphs, credit checks, criminal background checks and a deep dive into your online life have become SOP in HR.
Where "at will" employment laws have been created specifically so employers can sack your ass for any reason or no reason at all.*
And since our dominant corporate culture has all but abolished the boundaries between home and work, this is now a world where anything you say or do anywhere at any time can be sufficient grounds for termination or never getting the job in the first place.
The Saudi artist Ahmed Mater is suing watchmaker Swatch for using one of his works to sell a luxury timepiece. The ad, hawking the Seamaster Aqua Terra by Omega — which Swatch owns — is a perfect copy of an image from Mater’s Magnetism series, with a watch in the place of the black cube that occupied the center of the original photo. The artist is suing the Swiss watch company in Paris’s high court, Le Figaro reported, based on an original article by Le Quotidien de l’Art.
Mater’s image of thousands of iron particles swirling around a central cube, from a series created in 2012, was intended to symbolize the annual pilgrimage of Muslims to the Kaaba shrine in Mecca. “Magnetism, however, gives us more than simple simulacra of that Ancient House of God,” wrote author Tim Mackintosh-Smith. “His counterpoint of square and circle, whorl and cube, of black and white, light and dark, places the primal elements of form and tone in dynamic equipoise.” That combination of formal elements apparently proved irresistible to Omega.
The company originally approached Mater to ask his permission to use the image for its advertisements. No formal contract or agreement was signed permitting use or modification of works from the Magnetism series, but, according to court papers, Mater gave permission for the use of the images on the condition that Omega buy two pieces from the series and donate them to a museum. Omega never did this.
Ahmed Mater, “Magnetism (Photograuve) III” (2012) (image courtesy the artist)
But, as Swatch spokesperson Bastien Buss told Le Figaro, Omega’s version of the image has no bearing on the meaning of Mater’s work. It serves only “to tout the merits of the anti-magnetism of an Omega model. For the first time in the history of watchmaking, a watch resists magnetic fields stronger than 15,000 gauss.” A gauss is a unit of measurement used to quantify the strength of a magnetic field. With its Seamaster Aqua Terra, Omega achieved a major innovation in watch design, a level of resistance to magnetic fields that has eluded watchmakers for decades. “That’s exactly what we show with the metal particles that cannot get any closer to the watch, demonstrating its magnetic resistance,” Buss added. “In every reference manual, anti-magnetism is illustrated in a similar manner.”
According to Le Figaro, the artist, however, is not only upset that his work was put to commercial purposes without his permission, but fears that the unauthorized use of his work may have more far-reaching consequences than artfully visualizing the principle of anti-magnetism. Namely, Mater is concerned that the transformation of a work charged with religious symbolism into a celebration of consumerism — with iron particles that formerly represented devout Muslims now symbolizing worshipers of luxury goods — could spell trouble in his home country of Saudi Arabia, where the image could be taken as a satire of religion and blasphemy is a punishable offense.
Hyperallergic reached out to the artist for comment but has not received a response.
It startled her. She jumped, let out a yelp, and took off down a hall. Wilde wasn’t running for her life; she was amazed by a discovery. She had uncovered a bacteria, one with a powerful toxin that attacked waterfowl, hiding on the underside of an aquatic leaf that grows nearly everywhere in the United States, including the Chesapeake Bay.
After 20 years of testing determined that the bacteria had never before been recorded, and the brain lesions it cause had never before been found before that night in 1994, Wilde recently gave her discovery a name: Aetokthonos hydrillicola. The Greek word means “eagle killer” for its ability to quickly kill the birds of prey. It’s the latest threat to a raptor that is starting to flourish after being removed from the endangered species list.
Across the South, near reservoirs full of invasive plants from Asia called hydrilla, eagles have been stricken by this bacteria, which goes straight to their brains. Eagles prey on American coots, which dine almost exclusively on hydrilla.
Before now, reservoirs that serve up a buffet of this plant were considered beneficial because they helped fuel the annual migration of coots from Canada to Florida and beyond, while also feeding eagles. But now the reservoirs are “death traps,” said Wilde, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia whose study of the topic was recently published in the journal Phytotaxa. In Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina, coots, shorebirds, ducks and eagles are dying by the dozens from the incurable lesions.
“We’re attracting them to places where they’re going to die, and that’s not a good thing,” Wilde said.
I’m sure Republicans will be quite favorably to relisting the bald eagle under the Endangered Species Act so I feel great that this will turn out well.
Michael Asher, “untitled” (1991) (all images screenshots from Stuart Collection video)
The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) recently lost one of its campus’s most subtle and unusual piece of public art. An untitled fountain by the late conceptual artist Michael Asher, created for the university’s Stuart Collection of site-specific art, was reduced to rubble earlier this month when a masked vigilante wielding a sledgehammer rampaged through the campus, San Diego 6 reported.
During his spree, the perpetrator also broke eight surveillance cameras surrounding the campus’ Mandeville Center and left behind a message scrawled in golden spray paint that read: “YOU CAN PAINT OVER ME YOU CAN CATCH ME YOU CAN EXPELL [sic] ME I WILL STILL BE HERE.”
The sculpture, a granite and steel replica of a generic indoor drinking fountain, subverted the conventions of outdoor fountain design while also serving a practical function for thirsty students. “Many people have a drink out of this fountain without realizing it’s art,” Stuart Collection Director Mary Beebe says in a video about the sculpture.
The collection’s founder, James Stuart DeSilva, aimed to fill the UCSD campus with works that integrated themselves into students’ lives. “I wanted art to be accessible for casual visitation, without any … obligation to the passerby to look at or think about it, let alone treat it with reverence,” DeSilva wrote in his founder’s statement in Landmarks, a book about the collection.
The granite water fountain was typical of Asher’s self-effacing style of conceptual art, which often featured elements of institutional critique. The artist, who died in 2012, was a longtime teacher at CalArts. In 2010 he won the Bucksbaum Award for his contribution to the Whitney Biennial, which consisted of a proposal to keep the museum open continuously, 24-hours-a-day, for a full week. Due to the prohibitive costs of paying enough security staff to complete the piece safely, the Whitney stayed open around the clock for three consecutive days.
At USCD, a campus superstition stipulated that Asher’s fountain would grant A grades to students who sipped from it before an exam. Unfortunately for students — and art lovers — the piece was completely destroyed by the vandal, who is still at large.
When asked by noted Fox "news" chief blonde Megyn Kelly about never having graduated from college, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, a man who looks like he's constantly getting a blow job from an enthusiastic schnauzer, could have taken the high road and merely brushed off any criticism. He could have said that it wasn't right for him and then encouraged others to get an education. He could have done that. Or he could have been a total twat. Guess what he chose?
"That's the kind of elitist, government-knows-best, top-down approach we've had for years," Walker said. "I'd rather have a fighter who's proven he can take on the big government interests and win." First off, what the fuck does one have to do with the other? And, once again, going to college ain't elitist. Sitting there from a position of power and wealth and saying Americans shouldn't get an education actually is pretty goddamned elitist.
As if that wasn't dumbass enough, he added, "I think people want to judge what have you done lately." Yes, just like no one paid attention to Bill Clinton's affairs, George W. Bush's military record, or Barack Obama's neighbors. No one judges you by your past.
Recent trade agreements have been wins for big corporations and Wall Street, along with their executives and major shareholders. They get better access to foreign markets and billions of consumers.
They also get better protection for their intellectual property — patents, trademarks, and copyrights. And for their overseas factories, equipment, and financial assets.
But those deals haven’t been wins for most Americans.
The fact is, trade agreements are no longer really about trade. Worldwide tariffs are already low. Big American corporations no longer make many products in the United States for export abroad.
The biggest things big American corporations sell overseas are ideas, designs, franchises, brands, engineering solutions, instructions, and software.
And thus the TPP really is about intellectual copyright, patents, and trademarks. It’s also about ensuring the global race to the bottom and increasing the profits for the 1 percent at the expense of the rest of world. It’s unfortunate that President Obama actually believes this is a good thing. Hopefully, enough Republicans just don’t want to give Obama any victory at all that this doesn’t pass Congress. Corporations don’t need more power over our lives.
If you happened to be visiting my fair state today and are unfamiliar with local custom, then I should explain heard that the pious callbacks to the Emancipation Proclamation and quotes from Lincoln you heard wafting outta the state house this afternoon --
“The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion… We must think anew and act anew.”
-- means it's time to settle in and watch Governor Hedgefund try to put the hammer to the widows and orphans of Illinois in a speech that was certainly piled high with something.
Yes, in case you were still wondering, Governor Hedgefund is indeed as serious as a heart attack.
While on Medicaid.
Which he plans to cut!
Because according those who have gotten a peek at the budget plan he submitted today, services for all citizens of Illinois except for the independently wealthy would to be immediately and radically amputated to fit the Koch Brothers' vision of government as a weak, compliant vassal of corporate power.
Widows and orphans? You each get one "Fuck" and one "You" so don't spend them all in once place.
Medicaid recipients? STFU and die already, ya moochers!
Your kid's teachers? Hope they weren't planning on, y'know, using that retirement money. Oh, and kiss all of the following goodbye: Advance Placement, Arts/Foreign Language, Agricultural Education, After School Matters, the Parent Mentoring Program, Lowest Performing Schools, funding to East St. Louis SD 189, Regional Safe Schools, Children's Mental Health Partnership, National Board Certified Teachers, Tax Equivalency Grants, Teach for America, and Targeted Initiatives.
Higher education? Cut by a third. A third. Do the math. And do it quick before Governor Hedgefund cuts it from the curriculum.
Also you should start planning to to find some alternatives to using roads. And bridges. And trains. And Paratransit. Just stick to your private jet and you'll be fine.
It goes on like this. On and on and on. But you would never know it from the governor's speech, in which none of this was mentioned. In fact the letters "c-u-t" only occur four times in the entire speech
"Along with this modest cutback, our turnaround reforms will reduce unfunded mandates, and give local governments and voters the tools to save hundreds of millions of dollars through consolidation, employment flexibility and compensation restructuring."
(Because shit rolls downhill, moochers, and now I'm King of the Mountain!)
"...waste and inefficiency can be cut from the complex web that comprises our public transportation structure."
(Ah, my old friends waste, fraud 'n abuse. Is there nothing you guys can't do!)
"For years, state support for education has been cut, even when it didn’t have to be."
(WTF?)
"We've got to freeze property taxes, cut the red tape inside state and local government, and let people control their own economic destinies."
(Bootstraps for sale! Getcher John Galt Commemorative Bootstraps right here! Can't hoist yourself outta poverty and control you own economic destiny withoutcher Bootstraps!)
Also you would never know if your kid's after school program or mother's meds had been wished into the cornfield from reading the budget briefing books, because according to statehouse elves, in defiance of tradition no such documents were provided to the departments which were affected or to the legislators.
Or, to quote Harry the Horse from Guys and Dolls, "But Big Jule cannot win if he plays with honest dice!"
And so, with no facts with which to formulate coherent questions, department's whose budget may or may not be nuked out of existence were able to ask little more that "When will we get some answers?" and were given nothing but "No" and "We'll hafta get back to you on that" by Governor Hedgefund's minions (the full speech and commentary is available here.)
And speaking of minions...don't you kinda wonder where did this roadmap for the Kansasization of Illinois come from?
Well wonder no more! Because, citizen, it came from exactly the sort of place that you would make up if you were a really terrible writer. Working on an impossible deadline. And you had to come up with some kind of cartoon Villain of the Week who gets paid a small fortune by, oh, say, SMERSH, to go around kicking disabled children in the teeth.
First, you'd make her Illinois' new CFO...
Brought in on a $30,000/month no-bid consulting contract at the exact moment you are preaching the virtues of slashing state workers for being overpaid...
And make her an acolyte and business partner of -- no kidding -- discredited Reaganomics quack, Arthur Laffer...
Who has spent the last decade flitting from one wingnut-statehouse to the next, dreaming up new ways of herding the poor and working class onto ice floes and shoving them out to sea.
Bingo.
Bruce Rauner turns to high-priced consultant for budget plan
When Gov. Bruce Rauner set out to craft the budget he'll propose Wednesday, he turned to a $30,000-a-month consultant with a history of helping Republican governors and a devotion to the supply-side economic theories popularized by Ronald Reagan.
From Michigan to New York, Florida and California, Donna Arduin knows how it goes when a new governor sweeps into a statehouse with ambitious plans for doing away with red ink. In states with friendly legislatures and healthy economies, Arduin found success. But when politics and economics were less cooperative, her efforts fell flat.
...
Arduin declined an interview through Rauner spokesman Lance Trover, who would not say why the governor had selected Arduin, how she came to the administration's attention or how her fee was determined. In purchasing paperwork, the Rauner administration said Arduin's firm won the no-bid contract because of her record doing similar work in other states.
"The parties conducted arm's-length negotiations as to price and conditions," the form said.
Arduin is among the "superstars" Rauner pledged to hire to help him get the job done. He has said he's willing to "take arrows" to get Illinois out of the red. The new governor's Wednesday budget address will shed light on how he and his consultant plan to navigate the political and financial obstacles in Springfield.
Until now, Rauner has said he would favor broadening the sales tax and wants to lower property taxes and boost funding for education.
"We can't just cut our way out of our problems," the governor said at an event last week. "Purely cutting alone without structural pro-growth reform won't get us there."
That pro-growth mantra is familiar territory for the governor's consultant. Arduin and Arthur Laffer — the economist known for the theory behind Reaganomics that tax revenues can be boosted by tax rate cuts — are partners in a consulting firm that promotes reliance on consumption taxes over income and property taxes, which they argue stunt growth.
Arduin has had her own tax troubles, which she resolved just days before Rauner announced her as his new CFO. In October 2013, the IRS filed a tax lien against Arduin, saying she owed nearly $166,000 in income taxes.
While Arduin declined to answer questions about the matter, Rauner spokesman Trover said the lien came about because Arduin had borrowed from her retirement savings to buy a piece of property and wasn't able to get a bank loan in time to repay the money within the time frame allowed by the IRS.
...
While Arduin was working for Pataki, the state enacted tax cuts, reduced the number of employees and had a run of budget surpluses. But those successes came at a time when tax revenues were booming from a bull market. Pataki was criticized for not preparing for tougher times ahead, and after a recession hit in 2001, Albany again faced major budget problems.
Arduin was long gone by then. She had moved on to Florida to work for then-Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. He had the advantage of working with a Republican legislature that bristled at times at what they saw as a heavy-handed approach but largely went along with his agenda. He cut property taxes by $1 billion and business taxes by $600 million, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., which gave him an "A" rating in 2002. ...
...
Full disclosure: this budget, if passed in anything like its current form, will kill or cripple critically important programs that I care deeply about. And the aftershocks from it will very likely eliminate one of the part-time jobs onto which I am hanging by my fingernails.
But I find that I can't really work up that much cranky at Governor Hedgefund himself.
After all, had enough voters bothered to read anything, or bestir their mouse-clicky fingers long enough to Google north to Wisconsin or west to Kansas they would have seen exactly what a Rauner administration was going to look like.
So this is what the voters and non-voters of Illinois wanted.
And now, this is what they'll get.
At best, complete stalemate pinning citizens and state employees between the deeply corrupt Democratic machinery of House Madigan and Governor Hedgefund's Republican white walkers (with Rahmses willing to swing either way as long as it screws the teacher's union.)
At worst, four years of Brownbacking with no dinner first or flowers after.
+ + +
One additional and only tangentially-related note.
While many of you are familiar with some of Illinois' more infamous ex-governors -- included two who were elected back-to-back and who both ended up serving sentences at the House of Many Doors at the same time -- you may not be familiar with indicted-but-acquitted Illinois governor Len Small (R).
He was governor from 1921 to 1929, was brought up on charges of corruption, acquitted, and subsequently gave eight of the jurors who let him off the hook jobs with the state. His story is amazing, for a lot of reasons, including the that that one of his defense lawyers -- a former governor named Joseph W. Fifer -- tried to get Small off during the pre-trial hearing by asserting that governors enjoy the same divine rights as kings and therefor...
Small, a Kankakee farmer, former state senator and two-time former state treasurer, was elected governor in 1920. Just seven months after taking office, he was indicted on charges of embezzling millions of dollars while treasurer. The scheme went like this: He allegedly deposited the state's money in a fictional bank, lent it out at almost 8 percent interest, paid the state less than 2 percent interest and pocketed the difference.
On Saturday, June 24, 1922, after a five-week trial that detailed the complicated financial shenanigans, a jury deliberated barely 90 minutes before it acquitted him of all charges. Questions of jury tampering arose even before the jury was impaneled.
Three people, a juror and two mob heavies, were indicted on charges of tampering with the Small jury. All three were acquitted, also without putting on a defense. The jury in that case deliberated for just an hour. Two other mobsters went to jail for six months after refusing to testify before a grand jury. Small pardoned them.
Over the next few years, eight of the jurors who acquitted Small ended up with state jobs. Other people associated with the case also landed on public payrolls, including the presiding judge's brothers.
Still, in 1924, Small was re-elected, despite a Tribune editorial declaring him the "worst governor the state ever had."
I JUST SAW THIS EPISODE AND I WAS SO HAPPY WHEN THEY KISSED.
They’d been building up Emillian for the whole season, but I only knew that Lillian liked Emily, I was worried that Emily would reject her, and that she was ignorant of Lillian being gay, not playing coy. But then at the end of this episode, it just started to set things up that I had a strong feeling that Emily was going to kiss Lillian when she walked up to her door.
And I love that Emily was the one who initiated it, because I had been so scared with Lillian as the “extremist” (progressive activist) feminist that she’d be pushing herself on Emily who would either reject her or relent and regret it. The “I’m too grown up for toys” line is perfect too because Brackenreid had told her the scene before that she’s “had her fun, now it’s time to grow up” because he was worried she’d get fired as coroner if people thought she was gay, and instead she decided that she did need to grow up, and take the relationship seriously rather than as some fun youthful thing. And I really like that. It gives me hope they might stay together.
But I also worry because this happened a lot earlier in the season than I thought, and I worry it means by season’s end they’ll be broken apart. :(
When Emily didn’t go “what? I’m not!” to Brackenreid suggesting she’s gay, I suddenly realized that she wasn’t ignorant of Lillian, or how people perceived them, and that she was okay with it. And I was like OMG OMG OMG. And then she walked to her door and I’m like OMG OMG OMG, they’re playing this like she’s gonna tell Lillian they can’t see each other, but they’re going to kiss aren’t they? :D
I really really hope they stay together, and this isn’t just a “hey lesbian kiss!” gimmick to get ratings and then have them be broken up at season’s end because the relationship is just too hard on them or something. :\ I have fears that either Emily will do it to protect her career, or Lillian will do it because she’s idealistic and isn’t prepared for the social ramifications of their relationship.
But then I also had fears that this wouldn’t even get this far, and it has! Also I like that this makes Emily bisexual. :D More bi characters!
The backlash from fans has been annoying though. I’d feared with the all-white cast and idealized 19th century Toronto, that the show attracted a lot of conservatives, and the comments on the site seem to indicate that it’s true. :\ There’s so much hate. And silly hate. It’s not “unrealistic”. Queer people weren’t invented in the 1970s. And this is a show where Murdoch’s fought a microwave cannon in the 19th century, where there’s been powered armor and electric cars, and the Holy Grail was found in Markham, Ontario. And 2 women kissing is “unrealistic.” Nor is it “graphic”, with all the hetero kissing that’s been on this show. Nor is it “distracting from the mysteries”, because this entire show has been revolving around the Ogden/Murdoch romance for 8 seasons now (with the 100th episode being their marriage ffs.) These are all excuses for people being homophobic asshats.
I am SO SO SO excited by this! But also scared. B/c that’s what it’s like being a queer fan. :( The queer relationships and characters always feel like they’re walking a tightrope and you just never know when the disappointment will come. But I really hope this show does well by Emillian. I’m super happy! :D I was screaming all over Twitter when I saw it happen.
Also to all Emillian fans or fans of queer romance on TV, please let CBC know how happy you are for this development so they don’t just see all the negativity from the homophobes. :\ I am scared they’ll back off, or this will end in tragedy. This did happen way sooner than I expected (though I wasn’t sure it’d happen at all.)
"Slaves of the eighteenth century sometimes turned to the perfectly acceptable means of making money by selling their teeth to dentists. Since at least the end of the Middle Ages, poor people had often sold their teeth for use in both dentures and in tooth-transplant operations for those wealthy enough to afford the procedures. Sometimes the teeth were perfectly healthy; others were diseased and needed to be pulled anyway."
"The following year, in May of 1784, Washington paid several unnamed "Negroes," presumably Mount Vernon slaves, 122 shillings for nine teeth, slightly less than one-third the going rate advertised in the papers, "on acct. of the French Dentis [sic} Doctr. Lemay [sic],” almost certainly Le Moyer. Over the next four years, the dentist was a frequent and apparently favorite guest on the plantation. Whether the Mount Vernon slaves sold their teeth to the dentist for any patient who needed them or specifically for George Washington is unknown, although Washington’s payment suggests that they were for his own use. ” Source
(Fictional lady in Les Miserables sells her teeth to rich people)
Everyone: O how tragic! how poignant! how unjust!
(Famous real life rich person wears slave teeth)
Everyone: Oh I don’t know. that probably didn’t happen. they were definitely wood
You might not consider Utah the most progressive state, but it has become the first to grant its citizens a controversial right that many have long been denied, proving that the law does evolve. Utah has now become the first state to officially allow its citizens to sue themselves.
As the Salt Lake Tribune reports (thanks, Mark), a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals ruled on February 15 that Utah law allows a decedent's heir and the personal representative of his estate to sue the driver who allegedly caused the accident that killed him. That wouldn't be unusual except that in Bagley v. Bagley, those are all the same people.
The two plaintiffs in this case—the decedent's heir and the personal representative of his estate—brought a wrongful-death claim and a survival action against the driver alleged to have caused the accident. Bagley finds herself on both sides of this dispute because not only is she her husband's heir and the personal representative of his estate, she is also the defendant driver whose negligence allegedly caused the accident.
That's right. She's all three parties on both sides of the case.
The court's opinion is pretty mindbending, as you might expect. I mean, how do you even discuss a case in which there's only one party who is two plaintiffs suing herself as a defendant? Well, the court sets it all up this way:
Barbara Bagley, acting in different capacities, appears as both the appellants and the appellee in this case.
Okay, hold up. Just to be clear, Bagley is the two plaintiffs and Bagley is the defendant that she (the two plaintiffs) is suing. The trial court ruled against Bagley the two plaintiffs and in favor of Bagley the defendant. So on appeal, Bagley the two plaintiffs is also Bagley the two appellants, and Bagley the defendant is also Bagley the appellee. Bagley is all the parties. So you could just as well say that Bagley is actually six people in this case (two plaintiffs, two appellants, one defendant, and an appellee), or that she is four people on one side and two on the other, and how many people she is depends on which court the case is in. Got it? Back to the court:
Barbara Bagley, acting in different capacities, appears as both the appellants and the appellee in this case. Bagley represents the estate of Bradley M. Vom Baur [who, confusingly, was not named "Bagley."] She also appears on her own behalf as Vom Baur's heir. We refer to these two roles collectively as Plaintiffs. Bagley is also the defendant and alleged tortfeasor ([and we will refer to that role as] Defendant). Defendant's interests in this case are represented by her insurance carrier.
Aha, insurance carrier. So here's what's going on: Bagley the personal representative of her husband's estate is suing Bagley the defendant who allegedly caused the accident. Bagley the heir of her husband has also joined as a plaintiff because she has an interest in the proceeds if Bagley the estate representative collects. Because Bagley the defendant has insurance, Bagley's insurer is representing her because it would have to pay the judgment to the husband's estate if Bagley (again the defendant) is found liable.
For killing the husband.
The legal issue is this: Utah's wrongful-death statute says a person's heir or personal representative can sue whoever caused the person's death when the death "is caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another." The defendant(s) argued, and the trial court agreed, that this means "of someone other than the heir or personal representative." That is, the heir or representative can sue as long as they didn't cause the death. But the plaintiff(s) argued that it means "of someone other than the decedent." That is, the heirs can sue as long as the decedent didn't kill himself. The Court of Appeals has now agreed with that.
After wrestling with this for a while (too long, really), I think the Court of Appeals is right. Seems like the statute can be read either way, but this way is closer to the plain language. The real problem, I think, is not the statute but the procedure.
There are two separate actions here, or should be. The first one is a contract action, because Bagley had an insurance policy that pays off if she accidentally kills someone while driving. (Intentional killings are an entirely different situation, as you would expect.) She did that. Pay up. The second one is an action by the husband's estate against the person who caused his death. Also not controversial. But here the two separate actions have been unnaturally joined in carnival-freak-show fashion by somebody's decision to make Bagley herself the estate representative. And that is where all the brain-hurtingness comes from. Appoint somebody else and I think most of the problems disappear, one way or another.
I notice that in footnote 4 of the opinion, the court states tersely that "The decision to appoint Bagley as personal representative of [the] estate is not before us on appeal." I have a feeling the judges wish it had been, or that they could get hold of whoever made that decision, at least.
Note: some of you may not know that "Autolitigation" in the category tags below refers to this sort of case—that is, not "auto[mobile] litigation" but a case where somebody sued or tried to sue himself or herself, intentionally or not. If you thought this was the first time somebody had tried it, (1) you misunderestimate the human race and (2) you might want to take a look at that section.
Installation view, ‘Dykes, Dads, and Moms to Watch Out For: The Comics of Alison Bechdel’ at the UM Institute for the Humanities Gallery (all photos by Sarah Nesbitt, courtesy the UM Institute for the Humanities)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When it comes to creating an installation of the work of cartoonist Alison Bechdel, a curator is faced with more than the usual conundrums of what merits inclusion. Dykes, Dads, and Moms to Watch Out For: The Comics of Alison Bechdel, part of a year devoted to “Life Writing” (i.e. creative work which presents a highly biographical perspective) at University of Michigan’s Institute for the Humanities, opened alongside Bechdel’s January 22 appearance as a Penny Stamps distinguished speaker at the school. This first retrospective for Bechdel demonstrates the complexity of curating work by an artist who draws so heavily from her personal history, and who produces work with a tendency to shift the cultural paradigm. And while Bechdel’s comics have a way of drawing the reader into her world, there remains the clear challenge of presenting in a gallery setting content that’s typically received by the viewer in a more personal one.
Hence a series of unusual choices by Amanda Krugliak, arts curator for the Institute for the Humanities and the exhibit, who collaborated closely with Bechdel and Penny Stamps Speaker Series Director Chrisstina Hamilton to create an installation as immersive and deeply narrative as Bechdel’s best-known works, which include the longstanding comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008) and the graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006). The three women sought to create an environment that would mirror the personal spaces brought into the spotlight by Fun Home (which has since been adapted to a musical, originating at the Public Theater in September 2013 and opening on Broadway in April).
Installation view, ‘Dykes, Dads, and Moms to Watch Out For: The Comics of Alison Bechdel’ at the UM Institute for the Humanities Gallery (click to enlarge)
Krugliak has transformed the exhibition space into a simulacrum of a living room, complete with well-worn couch, family photos, and display cases reminiscent of a home library fading in grandeur. One gets the sense of wandering through a set for Fun Home: The Musical, which takes place in the fastidious environs of Bechdel’s childhood: her family’s house and their funeral home. This installation establishes a backdrop for the work, adding context that roughly mimics Bechdel’s personal history — we find a swatch of actual William Morris wallpaper from her childhood home hung above an inkwash drawing she did recreating that background, all set against more wallpaper with a near-identical motif. It also functions as a two-way mirror, for Krugliak has created a gallery that invites visitors to literally sit down with Bechdel’s work and references, handily provided in the form of a small non-lending library, and take them in much as a reader would normally do in their own home. This third dimension demonstrates the catch-and-release effect of Bechdel’s work: by meaningfully replicating her own experience, Bechdel is able to put out art that in turn generates new experiences for her readership — that of seeing themselves reflected in a culture that had previously left them marginalized.
Memorabilia from Bechdel’s life, including a “very nice rejection letter” from Adrienne Rich (click to enlarge)
There is intense bleed-through here between the personal and the public, the real and the imagined, placing memorabilia from Bechdel’s life and childhood in juxtaposition with that world as she reconstructs it on the page — a tactic Bechdel uses often in her own work, replicating a page of her diary, for example, alongside her adult analysis of her childhood tendency to redact her own writings. Bechdel often parodies her own obsessive-compulsive nature, but this trait clearly serves her to marvelous effect; the meticulous mapping and archiving of her own personal history has created a solid framework to support her mental and emotional explorations of her own experience.
In Bechdel’s work, what begins as life is processed through an artistic medium, then absorbed back into the world in a way that reshapes it, making more room for queer women and their narratives. When Bechdel characterizes her eponymous subjects as “dykes to watch out for,” she’s exploiting a double meaning. Ostensibly, you watch out for someone because they might be a threat, but her clear affection for these characters suggests not to be alert because they represent danger, but because they are interesting. Bechdel, for her part, has boldly tackled issues of alienation and representation in the mainstream — including much pigeonholing as an “Oppressed Minority Cartoonist” — and the impact of her work in terms of how women express themselves and are represented in media has been revolutionary to the point of almost being taken for granted. Although from Fun Home to the University of Michigan to her 2014 MacArthur Fellowship, it would seem the culture at large is finally paying attention.
Memorabilia from Bechdel’s life alongside ‘Fun Home’ (click to enlarge)
Oliver Sacks has terminal cancer and has decided to say goodbye to the public.It’s here, in the New York Times, and it’s both nicely done and something that’s being shared widely in my online social circle. Sacks seems, if not sanguine about the event, at least contented with the path of his life to date. Although it must be recognized that we’re seeing an intentionally composed piece of work, which may or may not reflect Sack’s actual frame of mind at the news, to the public, at least, he’s leaving with some uncommon grace.
And I would imagine that for someone like Sacks, who is a public figure, this is as positive a thing as can be under the circumstances. Public figures are, for better or worse, different than almost everyone else; they are characters in lives beyond their own circle of family and friends, and the narratives of their lives are at least partially offered up by others. When one of them dies suddenly and unexpectedly, the last word on their lives is usually wholly from others — friends and family, and then a host of commentators, who may or may not have been connected with that person’s life at all.
Depending on who you are as a person, having certain foreknoweldge that your life is quantifably finite — that you have only months or weeks to live — may not be a thing you want. But if it is a thing you deal with, if you are public individual, you have a chance to make your own public exit, and to leave on the terms you set. You won’t be the only one having a last word on your life (people will still talk about you after you are dead), but they and everyone else will factor in how you chose to walk off the public stage. And for many people who are in that position, I think that might be a comforting thought.
And what would I want? I don’t know how well I would handle knowing I was going to die sooner than later — I still like this place and the people in it, and I wouldn’t want to leave this party yet — but I suppose if I had to choose I wouldn’t mind knowing at least a little in advance. I think I would want to have some parting thoughts before I went, and I would like to be able to manage my public departure before I focused on spending time with family and those I loved. I guess I won’t really know until and unless it happens. Like I said, I’d be happy to have to wait a few more decades before having to think about it seriously.
But I am glad that Oliver Sacks, at least, is getting to shape his own moment. I hope he spends his remaining time exactly as he wants. I suspect he will.
The two men are physically incongruous. Key is tall, light brown, dashingly high-cheek-boned, and L.A. fit; Peele is shorter, darker, more rounded, cute like a Teddy bear. Peele, who is thirty-five, wears a nineties slacker uniform of sneakers, hoodie, and hipster specs. Key is fond of sharply cut jackets and shiny shirts—like an ad exec on casual Friday—and looks forty-three the way Will Smith looked forty-three, which is not much. Before he even gets near hair and makeup, Key can play black, Latino, South Asian, Native American, Arab, even Italian. He is biracial, the son of a white mother and a black father, as is Peele. But though Peele’s phenotype is less obviously malleable—you might not guess that he’s biracial at all—he is so convincing in voice and gesture that he makes you see what isn’t really there.
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA—Craving some silence? Head (quietly) toward the blue regions on the map above. Based on 1.5 million hours of acoustical monitoring from places as remote as Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and as urban as New York City, scientists have created a map of noise levels across the country on an average summer day. After feeding acoustic data into a computer algorithm, the researchers modeled sound levels across the country including variables such as air and street traffic. Deep blue regions, such as Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, have background noise levels lower than 20 decibels—a silence likely as deep as before European colonization, researchers say. That's orders of magnitude quieter than most cities, where noise levels average 50 to 60 decibels, scientists reported here today at the annual meeting of AAAS (which publishes Science). The National Park Service is using the map to identify places where humanmade noise is affecting wildlife—animals such bats and owls, whose ears are up to 20 decibels more sensitive than human ears, for example, are affected by humanmade noise because it drowns out the faint rustles of insects and rodents they need to hunt, they say.
Check out our full coverage of the AAAS annual meeting.
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I feel like I should make a note that this dress is by Ziad Ghanem, a London based Lebanese designer who employs the talents of trans women and plus sized women to showcase his designs on the runway.
hello everyone!! if you have time, please consider watching rick astley’s “never gonna give you up”. i don’t want to inconvenience anybody but i’m trying to troll you. thank you very much! please pass this along to help me troll your friends if you can!!
i’ve included the video in this post so you can easily watch it
Muslim commits any crime ever: THEY'RE A TERRORIST! ALL OF THEM ARE BARBARIC! CALL IT WHAT IT IS: TERRORISM!!!
Man who openly hates Muslims kills 3 Muslims execution style: Let's not call it a hate crime, why do we have to label everything? He was just evil, it doesn't matter that the victims were Muslim, they could have been Black, White, or green it didn't matter. This was about a parking dispute, nothing else.
There are no such thing as ghosts. There are wormholes which allow you to see hazy images of the past. So at any given moment, you’re freaking out someone in the future. Act accordingly.
We’ve already tackled the idea of games being racist here on Game/Show, but what about the characters that populate them? That’s right, those lovely people you get to talk to that send you on your grand quest, the NPCs. Our interactions with them are often all too brief, but is that an excuse for lazy game design that invokes stereotypes?
Interesting formations created by the wind eroding the frozen sand. …Saw a few two years ago but did not see them last year….The larger ones were about 10-12 inches tall.
