Cowboy Who?

Sen. Ted Cruz, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stressed Greenland’s strategic location in the Arctic and its natural wealth of critical minerals.

In brief: A coastal low pressure system will bring (mostly) moderate rain showers into the Houston area today and tonight. Although we don’t expect any significant flooding, this will be a wet, windy, and dreary day and night. Friday is colder and windy, followed by sunnier conditions this weekend. Sunday looks rather nice with highs of about 60 degrees.

Thursday

After cold, northerly winds since Sunday evening, Houston’s pattern will now change somewhat today as winds shift to become more easterly. This is due to the presence of a coastal low pressure system that will bring increased rain chances today and tonight. Pretty much everyone will see rainfall, but how much, and when?

I think we’ll see an initial pulse of light to moderate showers this morning, with perhaps a slight reprieve during the middle of the day. The best chance of moderate or heavier showers will come later this afternoon, and especially during the evening as a slug of moisture moves up the coast from the southwest to northeast. We should then see the potential for moderate showers through the night, and possibly into the morning hours on Friday. The system should exit to the east between sunrise and noon on Friday.

Most of Houston is likely to pick up 1 to 3 inches of rainfall, and we could see some heavier bullseyes for coastal areas. I do not think these rains will cause any significant flooding issues, and therefore I am not putting a Stage 1 flood alert into place. Additionally, in the Houston metro area none of this will fall as freezing precipitation (the story could be different north of Huntsville or College Station). But do plan to take a little extra time out there because it will be fairly wet later today and tonight.

Temperatures will be in the lower 50s closer to the coast, and in the 40s further inland. The cold weather will be compounded by a strong easterly wind which may, at times, gust as high as 30 mph. So all in all, not a fun day or evening to be outside.

Friday

After the coastal low departs, we’ll see increasing northwesterly winds, and this will usher in another push of colder and drier air. So Friday will be a cold day, with highs in the lower 40s, and breezy conditions adding some wind chill on top. As skies clear out we’ll see ideal conditions for cold weather on Friday night, and much of the Houston area should see one more freeze. It will be light in Houston, but some areas in Montgomery County and to the northwest of Houston may see a hard freeze.

Saturday and Sunday

After the chilly start, the rest of the weekend looks sunny and warmer. Highs on Saturday should reach about 50 degrees, with nighttime temperatures a few degrees above freezing in the metro area. Sunday will be mostly sunny and warmer, with highs of around 60 degrees. Time to get back in the pool?

Next week

Most of next week looks to be slightly warmer, with highs in the 50s to lower 60s, and low temperatures in the vicinity of 40 degrees. This is fairly typical weather for mid-January. We’ll see a mixture of clouds and sunshine. As we head toward next weekend highs may climb toward about 70 degrees. There’s still a fair bit of uncertainty about weather for the Houston Marathon on Sunday January 19, as it looks like a front will be trying to come through next weekend. Temperatures, and any rainfall, will depend on the timing and strength of that front. Right now I’d ballpark start line temperatures at about 50 degrees, but there remains a wide variance in possibilities.

For quite a while now, a growing number of people who have the Space City Weather app on their iPhones, iPads and Macs have stopped getting notifications. (Android users were not having the same problem.) We mentioned this in last month’s SCW Q&A post, in which we admitted our bafflement..

Hussain Abbasi, our developer, has been banging his head against his monitor, trying to figure this out. The code for the app was doing what it was supposed to do, he said. He tried tweaks to the tool we use to send app notifications, without success. He took his time looking at different combinations of devices and operating system versions. Nothing he tried put an end to our frustration and your annoyance at not being alerted when a new item was posted.

But last week, Hussain noticed posts in user forums on the web indicating that other apps were having the same problem. And he learned that, with the release of iOS/iPadOS 18, Apple had made a change in the way notifications are handled. Our app’s code was doing what it was supposed to do, but things were different on Apple’s end.

Which brings us to a simple fix.

First, if you are no longer getting notifications from the SCW app on your Apple device, make sure you have notifications turned on. Tap the same 3-line menu you’d use to change cities, tap the gear icon upper right of the city picker, then choose Notifications. Make sure the toggle buttons for the notification types you want are on.

If notifications are turned on and you haven’t been getting them, do this: Delete the app and reinstall it from the App Store. Apparently this re-registers it with Apple, and adopts the changes to the notification system.

If you have an iPhone, iPad or Mac with the app installed and you are still getting notifications, you need do nothing. However, if they suddenly stop coming, you now know what to do!

We have tested this with our own devices and it seems to work. But if for some reason it doesn’t work for you, make sure you have in place the latest version of your device’s operating system and that app notifications are turned on. Update your device if needed. Then try deleting the app, restarting the device, then reinstalling the app.

And if that doesn’t work, send us details from the Feedback feature, also in the SCW app’s settings. As always, thanks for reading Space City Weather and using our app! And to everyone who sent in Feedback reports about this issue, we appreciate you. They were a big help.

Update: Hey, look! It works!

The post This Majestic Photo: Was It Worth The 6-Car Pileup We Caused To Get It? appeared first on The Onion.

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Noting with frustration that the 4-year-old’s viewing habits had likely destroyed his YouTube account forever, local man James Ratliff told reporters Monday that the AI-generated Russian videos his son had been watching were ruining his own recommendations for AI-generated Russian videos. “Goddamn it, what is this shit?” said the 47-year-old father, who despite years of training his algorithm to suggest a steady stream of glitchy, propaganda-filled videos from accounts with names like “Patriot Eagle 1776” now had to click around dozens of poorly rendered cartoons that his child had watched and that were made by the same malicious foreign agents. “Seriously, who does YouTube think I am? I’m a grown man who wants to watch exposés of the deep state [created by the Kremlin to spread disinformation and destabilize the U.S. government]. I’m not some child who wants to watch a bunch of deformed-looking singing bears [created by the Kremlin to spread disinformation and destabilize the U.S. government].” At press time, Ratliff confirmed he’d created a separate account for his son so they could mindlessly fall down their respective rabbit holes and be brainwashed separately.

The post Child’s AI-Generated Russian Videos Ruining YouTube Recommendations For Father’s AI-Generated Russian Videos appeared first on The Onion.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Coworkers are very concerned that I’m not wearing a coat

I am a relatively young woman (late 20s) in a workplace in which many of my coworkers are twice my age or more, and the profession is heavily skewed female. I’ve been at this workplace for about four months.

I leave the building for my lunch break, we all walk to the parking lot together upon closing for the day, and I find myself occasionally going outside for one reason or another. I live in a cold climate, but I hate wearing coats for short trips outside partially because I run hot and partially because of neurodiversity-related sensory issues. I am usually just wearing a thin cardigan if I’m wearing any layers at all.

Nine times out of ten, if a coworker spots me leaving the building, they will literally gasp or admonish me in some way for not wearing a coat for what is essentially a 50-foot walk to my car. One has even taken me aside and inquired if I was able to purchase a winter coat and offered to help me buy one, which was an incredibly kind offer but made me feel embarrassed.

I know they’re asking out of concern and genuine care, but it makes me feel disrespected and not taken seriously as a fellow professional. I am one of the youngest members of the professional staff and more than one coworker has noted that they have children older than me, so I feel as if I constantly have to prove myself.

I usually respond to these comments with something plain (“Thank you, but I’m okay”) or joking (“I’m fine, I’m actually part yeti”) but they continue. How can I reframe my thoughts so that these comments stop bothering me as much as they do?

It’s the age thing that’s making this feel as weird as it does; if your coworkers were all your same age and making the exact same comments, I bet it would read differently. But because you’re the youngest — and very aware of it — the comments are landing as if they think you need mothering, which makes you feel babied.

Would it help to reframe it as “these are kind people who would express the same concern to a 50-year-old coworker”? I don’t know if that’s true — people do often want to caretake younger coworkers in ways they wouldn’t with older ones — but I also don’t know that it’s not true, so if we’re talking about mental reframing, that might be the way to go. Also, if you’re generally respected at work and taken seriously, it might help to center that in your head — yes, you might be getting more caretaking directed at you because you’re younger, but if your work is taken seriously, that’s what really matters. (If it’s not, that’s a whole different issue, but then that would be more the issue than The Coat.)

Also, it might help to start responding with, “I have coats! I just run hot and often don’t wear them.” It might not stop the concerned comments, but it’ll at least establish that you’re not the Little Match Girl.

Related:
I’ve accidentally convinced my coworkers that I’m homeless – but I’m not!

2. Asking to work remotely after getting a tattoo

I work in municipal government under a mayor who banned remote work this year for all municipal employees. Currently, we are only allowed to ask to work remotely if there are extenuating circumstances and if it’s not a recurring request. We can only do so for a day at a time, and it must be approved ahead of time by my grandboss.

I am getting a (huge) tattoo for my birthday next week. I am taking the day off for the all-day appointment. The day after, I would be fine to work, except the placement of the tattoo makes it impossible to wear pants in the immediate healing stage. Ideally, I could work from home for the next two days so I don’t use up all my vacation time for this. A doctor’s note is required for sick time. However, I don’t know how to word my request to work remotely! I am the only person in my relatively small department who has requested to work from home under the new policy, and I have used it two or three times since the summer. I am worried that asking for remote work the day after my birthday looks like I am planning to party hard and be hungover — bad optics. I’m hoping you can help me formulate the request to work from home, or that the commenters can give advice on wearing clothes over a large lower back piece.

Well … I don’t think you should.

To be clear, you should be able to! If your job can be done effectively from home, there’s no reason you should need to use vacation time for this. But look at the facts: your job frowns on remote work and only allows it under unusual circumstances, you’ve already used it a few times since the summer, you’re the only one in your department who has, and the request would be for the two days after a day you’re already taking off. It looks bad. I’m not saying that’s reasonable; it’s not. But that’s the reality you’re working with, with your particular employer’s culture on this.

You’d probably be better off getting the tattoo on a Friday and using the weekend for it to heal. I’m sorry, I know that sucks! Your workplace has made their stance pretty clear, though, and this will use too much capital.

3. I think my employee is using AI to produce bad writing

I’m a new manager and am almost certain the employee I’m managing is using AI.

I think AI works great for certain jobs, but the problem is that he’s using it to generate articles/comms that need to have a lot of nuance. Not only are the same mistakes coming up, but I worry the tone is obvious to others familiar with AI, which is a bit of a reputational risk.

I’d ideally want to have a frank discussion about common AI pitfalls so he can avoid those issues, but I’m conscious it may come across as an accusation, which he can deny anyway. Should I just act as if the output is his work and give my edits as normal?

Have a conversation with him! Give your edits — both specific edits and broad pattern edits (tone, voice, etc.) — and then say, “I don’t know if you’ve played around with AI for any of this, but some of it reads as sounding AI-generated, so either way it made me realize we should talk about why we don’t and can’t use AI.” If he says he hasn’t been using AI, you can say, “Okay, good. Let’s take a minute anyway to talk about why it’s something we can’t use, in case it ever does come up.” So you’re not getting into whether or not he did; you’re just laying out the reasons your team can’t. And then explain the voice issues, nuance, accuracy, concerns about proprietary info, copyright, or whatever AI problems are relevant in your field (likely all of those at some level or other).

4. Will a new employer let you roll over unused vacation time from your last job?

I know someone who is job searching to move to a new city. He works at a hospital in a health care capacity, and has worked at his current employer for 15 years. His vacation accrues with the number of hours worked; if he works extra hours, he accrues more vacation time.

He believes he has heard that employers will roll over vacation hours accrued to one another — i.e., that his unused vacation time could be picked up and made already available by the new employer. I told him that there are employers that will allow for negotiating accrual rates (“my previous employer supplied 20 days of vacation accrued over the year, can you match that”), but I’ve never heard of a company providing the accrued but unused time from a previous employer. The hospital system he is currently employed at is only in one state; this isn’t something where you would find it across the nation.

Is this something you’ve heard of happening, and if so, in what situation? I really can’t picture this in a nonprofit health setting.

No, that’s not a thing that typically happens when you’re moving to an entirely new employer (as opposed to moving around internally). You’re right that you can often negotiate the amount of vacation time you earn each year so that you don’t go from, say, six weeks a year to two, but employers don’t typically “roll over” whatever unused vacation time you have from somewhere else. That’s the other company’s accounting system, not theirs! (Ideally unused time would be paid out when you leave, but not every state requires that. It would be a particularly weird request in states that do … although, really, it’s likely to come across as a pretty strange request everywhere.)

5. My coworker’s out-of-office reply keeps (wrongly) sending people to me

Would you consider the ability to put together an out-of-office auto-reply a pretty basic, table-stakes skill?

I have a colleague, Barb, who is relatively new to our company (less than a year). We both work in IT and have mutually dependent jobs — think project manager (multiple projects across multiple teams) and team lead (accountable for stakeholder relationships and work prioritization for a team). Barb’s first big project was with me and my team, although she has other accountabilities as well.

Not long after Barb started, she had some PTO scheduled and asked if she could list my name in her out-of-office auto-reply. I said that of course she could list me for project X that we were working on together. But I didn’t know her other work, so I didn’t want to be listed as the contact for those other efforts. A few months later, we had more or less the same conversation. Barb asked to list me in her out-of-office; I said only for the project that we were working on together. Time passes, and another PTO comes around. No asking to use my name, which is fine. But then I get a message from a person on a related team asking about something that is Barb’s responsibility. Because Barb listed my name (and only my name) in her out-of-office message. I didn’t check the other two times, but I’m guessing she listed me then as well.

Part of me thinks this is so small and not worth following up on. But also, this feels like part of a pattern, where she asks questions in a “I’m new here” way, but when she doesn’t like the answer, she does what she wanted anyway.

She’s been in the business world for 20+ years, as have I. I am baffled that someone with this level of experience doesn’t have a grasp of out-of-office message patterns. And even if the pattern at this company is different from what she’s experienced before, being told no twice and just ignoring it really annoys me.

Are my expectations unreasonable? That an experienced project manager (1) would be able to put together an out-of-office message without any drama and at the very least would learn after one iteration and (2) wouldn’t blatantly ignore a colleague’s explicit “no”?

Your expectations are not unreasonable on either count. That said, this is probably less about her not knowing how to put together an out-of-office and more about general incompetence and/or intransigence.

Why not just say, “Hey, please stop listing my name on your out-of-office replies; I’m getting messages from people about things I’m not involved in”? And then if she does it again: “I saw you listed me in your out-of-office again. Is there a reason you’re doing that even though I asked you not to?” And meanwhile, just direct anyone who messages you back to Barb: “I’m not sure why she listed me as the contact; I’m not the right person for that, so you’ll need to check back with her.”

The allegations made against the six companies were filed Tuesday as an amended complaint in the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against RealPage. The DOJ originally filed the lawsuit against RealPage in August 2024, alleging the company was using its software as a pricing scheme that was harming millions of American renters. 

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I was out for a few days recently for personal reasons and came back to discover that two of my colleagues have done something incredibly thoughtless that has completely screwed up a major work product for me and then lied about it to my supervisor, saying I was involved in the decision. I am livid about it, but I don’t know how to cope with this anger in a work situation.

They are desperate to talk it out with me and apologize, mainly to make themselves feel better rather than to help me out at all, but for now I’ve sent a message saying that I’m not able to have the discussion with them.

My instinct is to just stop talking to them because I don’t feel I can trust them again, but that’s not practical in our work situation and would make everyone else in our close-knit, incredibly friendly team really uncomfortable.

Do I just accept their apology and try to get over it, or is there a socially acceptable way to reject someone’s apology? My supervisor (who is not their supervisor) is being helpful with trying to sort out the work stuff but isn’t getting involved in the interpersonal aspect.

Your choices aren’t to just accept the apology or reject it. You can sidestep that binary entirely and instead explain why you’re concerned despite the apology.

For example: “I appreciate you apologizing, but I’m really concerned about why it happened. I of course understand mistakes happen, but you lying to Jane about it could have caused serious issues for me.”

“Concerned” is better framing for most work issues than “angry.” That doesn’t mean you can’t be angry, but the bar is typically very, very high to frame things as anger at work. But you can be deeply, gravely concerned without bumping up against that convention. (More on that here.)

On a similar note, if “lying to Jane about it” feels too harsh for your workplace culture (it will for some, despite being true), you can say “misrepresenting it to Jane.” That’s frankly a pretty BS softening — they lied! it’s a lie! — but in some work cultures it’ll go over better / help everyone move forward if you’re not quite as plain-spoken about it. (Is this is a weird, wildly inauthentic thing about work culture? Yes, absolutely.)

From there, you’re right that you can’t just stop speaking to colleagues, particularly if you need to work with them. You don’t need to trust them again — and it sounds like you’d be wise not to — but you do need to be reasonably civil to colleagues, including ones you don’t trust. That said, you can certainly limit your interactions to mostly work-related ones. (I say “mostly” rather than “exclusively” because you still need to, for example, return a courteous “good morning” and otherwise engage in at least minimal pleasantries in order to be considered professional and because obvious hostility or freezing-out will make people around you feel uncomfortable.)

That doesn’t mean that you’ve forgotten what happened, just that you’re treating them civilly because you are a professional.

Mac Whitney has been making art since he was a boy on the family farm in Kansas. He “never quit,” he says.

He started by making his own toys. “World War II was going on and you couldn’t buy any,” he explains. His family was “always hard up.” They raised wheat, purebred Duroc hogs, and honeybees. In addition, his father taught biology at the local college. His mother was “a maker.” She was “always making something out of nothing,” says Whitney — dresses for his two older sisters, for instance.

Now nearing 90, Whitney is still making art, bending and cutting steel, driving forklifts, climbing onto the second-story roof of his studio to repair a leak, building a large metal shed during the Pandemic. All on his own. “He’d build a bridge if it was up to him,” says artist Scott Madison, who worked as Whitney’s assistant in the 70s. A legend in his own time, Whitney is one of Texas’ most prominent artists, known for his massive abstract works of iron and steel, as well as lighter lyrical metal pieces seemingly hand-drawn in the air.

His sculptures, prints, and paintings are being shown in Houston simultaneously at Gallery Sonja Roesch and Andrew Durham Gallery through Jan. 25. 

A Wonderland on the Northeast Texas Prairie

Whitney started working on the family farm when he was fifteen, learned welding in vocational class in high school in order to repair farm equipment, and then invented some things when he was 20, like a two-wheel trailer for towing cars and a post-puller. His early sculpture was created out of old pieces of farm equipment, remnants of horse-drawn threshers and mowers found in Kansas fields.

After receiving his Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Kansas in 1968 (and after losing three fingers of his left hand to a table saw while making furniture), he was offered a show at the short-lived Main Place Gallery in Dallas. At the time he was making sculpture out of cast acrylic.

He decided to move to Dallas, where he became part of an internationally-known group of artists in Oak Cliff, an area then known as Dallas’ “Left Bank.” The group included George T. Green, Jack Mims, Jim Roche, and Robert (Daddy-O) Wade, known as the Oak Cliff 4 — or 5, a number which controversially did or did not include Whitney, usually because his abstract work was categorically different from the figurative, more culturally Texan art of the others. Hard to imagine that the loner Whitney cared.

Around 1983 Whitney bought a 22.5-acre property on forested Red Oak Creek in Ovilla, outside of Midlothian, south of Dallas, on the northeast Texas prairie. There he built his own studio and modest living quarters out of corrugated metal. The compound is a wonderland, crowded with  shining, soaring, thrusting, reaching, folding, bowing, rusting rhythmic figures in iron and steel, some red or yellow, standing, stepping, dancing, in and out of the shadows of oaks and junipers into the tall prairie grasses. Even the tree branches and piles of cut logs seem to swing and tumble to the force of Whitney’s creativity.

References to farm equipment — tillers, hoes, saw blades, and more — abound. “There are all kinds of beautiful elements in farm equipment,” Whitney told an interviewer in 2014. “Most people don’t give a damn.”

Parked here and there are old cars and trucks, tall cranes, and other equipment that Whitney uses to force the heavy metal to bend to his will. “You can bend three-quarter-inch plate any way you want to bend it,” he said, describing the process of using his two-ton 1951 Chevrolet winch truck and 200-feet of cable. “But it’s dangerous. You can get your head lopped off.”

He likens the process to being a solo mountain climber, asking himself, “Can I climb that son of a bitch without gettin’ killed?” Working from a maquette for the big ones, Whitney calculates, engineers, cuts and bends all his pieces on his own, figuring out whether it will work and stand up or not. 

Cut curves of flat, rusted metal plate lie around in the grass under the trees as well as on the floor of the spacious studio where Whitney forges his sculpture, surrounded by enormous stacks of steel plate, coiling power cords, fire safety equipment, and high on a top shelf, an old toy Radio Flyer wagon and a couple of wooden sleds.

When it gets too hot to throw flames, Whitney retreats to his upstairs studio to work in two-dimensions, most recently using the curving slices of flat metal to outline tumbling, floating shapes painted on canvas.

Whitney cites as primary influences the artist David Smith, who worked as a welder and also drew on his farming background for his large-scale geometric sculpture, as well as Julio González and Alexander Calder.

In Houston, his public work can be seen in Stude Park off Interstate 10, a 50,000-pound, 50-foot-tall soaring monument in red, titled “Houston,” installed in 1981. More recently the Houston Airport System acquired a piece, “Batson,” created in 2001 of interlocking U-shaped welded steel, now painted red. No connection to Billy Batson, says Whitney, the boy who turns into the superhero Captain Marvel by saying the magic word “SHAZAM.” Most of Whitney’s titles are drawn from place names on the map of Texas.

 

Mac Whitney: Interconnected Elements will be simultaneously on view at Gallery Sonja Roesch and Andrew Durham Gallery, in Houston through Jan. 25.

The post Mac Whitney: Man of Steel appeared first on Glasstire.

Allison lost his primary last year, after being targeted by his party over his vote to kill school vouchers.

A popular thrift store at 1811 Gessner Rd, Houston, TX 77080, has a new name, Value World. The thrift store remains under the same ownership as it had under the name Value Village. This is presumably a move by the company that owns the stores officially named “Mercantile Thrift Stores” to align their operations in Houston with their locations in Ohio and Michigan. The company was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1955 and expanded to ...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I work in a country with strong job protection, have a boss who is reluctant to do performance improvement, and I just transitioned out of managing a team. One of my reports was a recent-ish hire I’ll call Pam, who is mid-career but entry-level. Pam volunteers for an optional LBGTQ+ employee resource group. She originally joined the group at my suggestion, as a straight ally. (Pam described herself as straight woman with a husband and said she was worried about being seen as homophobic because she is originally from a non-LBGTQ-friendly country.) Pam is now the group lead for our region, which is unusual for an entry-level employee. I accidentally found out that Pam is describing herself as gay/bi/queer, out only to folks associated with the resource group.

I am skeptical. I think Pam is straight and exploiting the group … and I’m unsure what my responsibility (if any) is here, as an employee and as a human being. I also think I could be wrong, and I know Pam is a landmine. Knowing the landmine part, though, I feel uneasy for folks in the group, none of whom I know particularly well.

Here’s why I think Pam isn’t being truthful. In her short time with our company, she has consistently demonstrated misplaced ambition, attention-seeking, and moral challenges. Pam believes that just spending time around higher-ups will get her promoted, even after being repeatedly told to deliver on her work commitments first. The LBGTQ+ group provides her face time with directors. Pam also craves attention to a disruptive degree: she has DM’d and called busy senior managers 20+ times a day about trivial or non work-related matters and created drama by inventing crises, then casting herself as the heroine. Coming out to coworkers she barely knows and swearing them to secrecy … could be true, but sounds a lot like another “Pam Show” episode. Lastly, Pam has not shown good ethics in the rest of her work. She refuses to do tasks or sabotages them because they are “not important” enough, actively hides her lack of understanding and progress, and disregards instructions. She repeatedly makes careless mistakes, blames others, and breathlessly chases execs like they’re pop stars while disdaining to speak to anyone below senior IC level (i.e., almost everyone who she needs to interact with and learn from). She gets in a spooky rage when spoken to about these problems, brags about how attractive she thinks she is, and tells outright lies that have affected my relationship with my manager.

All in all, Pam is not skilled or productive or pleasant to be around and if it weren’t for the labor law protection, I would have fired her outright. So I feel conflicted about her representing an employee group of any kind, even without suspicion of pretense. Pam is a big reason I asked to return to independent contributor status. I think she’s kind of off her rocker and poses a risk, and was not comfortable managing her when I’m not empowered to mete out consequences. By risk, I don’t mean physically dangerous, but her behavior has been so outside workplace norms that I wouldn’t trust sensitive data or anyone’s reputations and careers around her.

I have no one at work I can discuss this with. Do I continue to keep my concerns to myself?

Leave it alone. You might be right that Pam is straight and pretending not to be in order to gain some form of advantage with people in the LBGTQ group, but it’s also possible that she’s not. It’s not uncommon for someone to describe themselves as straight to one group of people, while being out in another group where they feel safer, or to have their identity genuinely evolve over time. Either way, it’s not something you should get into investigating or opining on. The potential harm if Pam is faking it is vastly outweighed by the messiness and harm of trying to police what sexual orientation people claim (particularly at work).

Also, there are much, much bigger issues with Pam! If you were still her manager, my advice would be to tackle those issues very assertively; refusing to do work and sabotaging projects, repeated mistakes, refusing to follow instructions, creating fake crises, interrupting senior managers, and fits of all rage would all be more than enough to focus on without worrying about how she’s identifying to the LBGTQ group, and are all squarely within her manager’s purview.

None of that is yours to address anymore since you’re not her manager (although I hope you fully filled in whoever is now her boss about those problems — and if Pam continues to cause issues for your work in your new role, you should raise that to her boss). But you can comfortably put her participation in the LBGTQ group or anything she says about her sexual orientation in the “not my business” column too.

Compared to similar high-income nations, Americans spend twice as much on healthcare, yet have lower life expectancies and higher infant mortality rates. The Onion looks at the key facts and figures behind the U.S. healthcare system. 

39%: Americans in national survey who reported delaying emergency medical care “due to financial limitations or having just put a lasagna in the oven”

7: Bones in human body covered by the average private insurance plan

8.9 Billion: Ibuprofens taken to deal with it instead 

0: Boys your age who have been as brave as you when getting their blood drawn

150 degrees Celsius: Temperature at which a household spatula will effectively cauterize a wound

16,000,000: Hours spent annually listening to muzak version of “Uptown Girl” while slowly losing consciousness

3: Maximum number of days a coma patient has in hospital before having body dumped in street 

5: Separate Xanax prescriptions you can have at the same time, if you play your cards right

8:34 p.m: Time of preventable death 

63: Age most health insurance providers would prefer you live to

140: More pages of paperwork to fill out

The post U.S. Healthcare System By The Numbers appeared first on The Onion.

“Trump threatens ‘economic force’ to make Canada ‘51st State’ after PM resignation.” — The Independent

America, you know Canada as your hat. We’d like to keep it that way.

As you may be aware, Donald Trump has been flirting with illegal expansionist fantasies again. They include possibly invading Panama, taking over Greenland in some kind of rent-to-own scheme, and, of course, making Canada the fifty-first state.

We are flattered to be asked, but think maybe this whole thing is moving a little too fast. We’re super busy with work, and there’s that thing with our mom, who is now our dad. It’s complicated.

Canada has been right here, hanging out with America’s frosty bits, for 157 years. It’s been great, mostly. You seem to like us when you remember us. Everyone needs a friend who can explain the rules of curling. And we love you too. Or, at least, we love certain aspects of you.

In true Canadian form, we tend to steer clear of the parts of you we love somewhat less, like The Masked Singer or LaGuardia Airport. We enjoy Florida by simply avoiding the hurricanes and the con men. The swamp mosquitoes are nothing compared to the maple syrup suckers we have buzzing around Tuktoyaktuk.

The problem with becoming the fifty-first state is that it becomes impossible for us to ignore you. You already make it a challenge, but we manage. We call it the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Us Aboot It” policy. If you haven’t already noticed, much Canadian stuff is just ripped-off American stuff, only less exciting and toxic.

Something American that most Canadians dislike very much, Donald Trump, is making himself most difficult to ignore with his gracious offers to join your Great Nation.

We realize not all Americans embrace President Trump and his… ideas. In a way, your relationship with Trump is like our relationship with Nickelback. They’re both living symbols of our countries that we desperately wish weren’t living symbols of our countries. They’re both things we don’t know how we created, somehow managed to get rid of, and now seem okay with having back again, despite all previous evidence.

Some of you point out that the United States is vastly superior to Canada, a point we’re hard-pressed to argue. You have Captain America; we have Dudley Do-Right. You sent a man to the moon; we sent our troops to Afghanistan armed with Nerf guns and shitty coffee.

We deeply admire your boldness and your sheer nerve. Like the way you serve Cool Whip unironically and seem to have a bottomless supply of Fast and the Furious films.

We concede to your efficiency. Just go up to any American and say, “Thank you.” Instead of wasting time and effort forming the actual words “you’re welcome” like some Canadian chump, Americans lift nary a lip, grunting an efficient “uh-huh.” You don’t even have time for eye contact. Saskatchewan could never.

We share a lot of the same societal ills too. Like headlights being way too bright and convenience store cashiers suddenly wanting a tip because of the criminally unaffordable cost of living, which is something else our great democracies have in common.

The problem with the United States is that while so many things are undeniably awesome, there are simply too many things that are unexplainably terrible. Canada would not enjoy or improve this situation. We think you’ll agree with us if you think it through.

Are you sure you want to absorb a country with a population larger than California? Especially when most of our citizens are resigned to paying 60 percent income tax in exchange for mediocre health care and a military armed with bear spray and lacrosse sticks?

That’s forty million people who believe that no one should be allowed to own a handgun, but everyone should know how to take down a charging polar bear.

In fact, the only place we allow concealed carry is Churchill, Manitoba, because the polar bears wander right down the main street, and we can’t lose any more kindergarteners. Concealed carry is the only option when it’s minus fifty, and your rifle needs to be under your parka, or else it will freeze.

While we deeply appreciate the offer and are sincerely flattered to be included, we apologize. We must decline. We simply do not have the intestinal fortitude it takes to be American.

We Canadians long for the days when Stormy Daniels was just the weather guy on CBC Moose Jaw’s Action 6 Accuweather, when our nation’s greatest shared challenge was how to promote trickle-down economics without actually allowing any trickle, and when bacon was just bacon.

We hope you understand. We’re happy to revisit this subject next Thanksgiving. Which is in October, motherfuckers. Look it up.

In brief: Houston is not done with the colder weather, but our low temperatures will now moderate slightly for the next couple of days. As a coastal low pressure system approaches we’ll see increased rain chances on Thursday, and the potential for heavy rainfall Thursday evening and during the overnight hours into Friday. Sunshine returns on Friday.

Wednesday

Temperatures, generally, are in the mid- to upper-30s across most of the Houston region this morning. This is due in part to increasing cloud cover, which will also limit high temperatures today to the lower 40s. It will still feel quite chilly outside, however, as winds from the north gust up to 20 mph. So although we’re done with freezing temperatures for a bit, the brisk conditions are not going away. Lows tonight will drop into the upper 30s again for much of the region.

Thursday, Thursday night, and Friday morning

By Thursday morning we’ll start to see the possibility of light showers developing across Houston, and this pattern will continue through much of the day. With high temperatures in the mid-40s (even warmer near the coast) there is no threat of freezing rain or sleet in the Houston area. It appears as though the main impulse of showers and storms, due to a low-pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico, will move in on Thursday night. The best chance for heavy rain will therefore occur during the overnight hours, and closer to the coast. Much of the area is likely to pick up 2 to 4 inches of rainfall, with higher isolated totals possible. This system should push east of the area by Friday morning, (mostly) bringing an end to rain chances before noon.

Friday

Another pulse of colder and drier air will push in as the coastal low exits, and Friday looks to be a breezy and cool day with mostly cloudy skies and temperatures in the 40s. With skies likely to start clearing out on Friday night, expect a chilly night, with parts of Houston likely seeing a light freeze again, and far inland areas possibly experiencing a hard freeze.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend should bring mostly sunny and milder conditions back to Houston. Expect highs of around 50 degrees on Saturday. Lows on Saturday night should remain comfortably above freezing, with highs on Sunday possibly reaching as high as 60 degrees.

Next week

We’re not going to warm up much next week, with highs likely in the 50s and lows in the 40s. There’s still not a whole lot of clarity for the Houston Marathon forecast. I expect next Friday and Saturday to see a warming trend, but there’s a chance another front comes through by or before Sunday morning to cool things down. Of course a front could mean rain so yeah, the forecast remains uncertain.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My manager constantly talks about her personal finances

I am the only direct report to a manager who constantly talks about how much money she is spending in her personal life. Her spouse owns an international company, which allows her to have a pretty nice life, but she still manages to find things to complain about constantly. Quick examples: she sent me the listing of the house they just bought (over $1 million) and pointed out everything she will have to change because it’s “outdated.” Every time we talk, she finds a way to drop in how much money she’s spending: the $20,000 closet renovation, or the $30,000 landscaping project, the $12,000 door, the $250 candle, the $400 dinner she had last night … the list goes on!

While I am not struggling financially, my spouse is a public teacher and we are not living in the same tax bracket and I am so tired of listening to her champagne problems every time we are in a one-on-one.

Is there anything I can do to say, “Stop constantly telling me how much money you’re spending”? She is already known throughout the company for having a difficult personality, but I get the brunt of her constant money talk and my resentment grows every day. I’ve asked a trusted colleague for advice but she is stumped too. I have a good relationship with her boss, my grandboss, but it feels like tattling or whining when it’s not really a performance issue from her, just her personality. Do I have to just suck it up?

What about just allowing yourself to have a more natural (and therefore pointed) response when she throws those numbers around? If you start replying with “Wow, we are clearly in very different financial situations, I could never afford that” or “That’s so different from my own budget that you’re making me think I should ask for a raise,” she might reconsider how often she shares that stuff with you. Alternately, you could straight-out say, “I’m not the right audience for this kind of thing, because on my salary I have very different money problems.” You could even add, “I’ll be honest — it’s can be hard to hear when Cecil and I are struggling.”

If she’s the worst kind of boor, that might not stop her, but there’s a decent chance it’ll make her uncomfortable enough to rein some of it in, and if nothing else, the candid responses might be more satisfying to give.

Related:
my rich friend is oblivious when he talks about money … and I’m at a breaking point

2. Applying for a job where my abusive ex’s new partner works

I am a finalist for a position with a large organization in my city. The position fits fine with my career trajectory, the colleagues seem good, the work seems interesting. I have a number of reasons I want to leave my current job and this path out seems to be pretty good. The catch is a big one though: my abusive ex’s spouse works for this employer. They are in a different department but based on what I know about their work, I expect they will interface with the department I’ve applied to.

I don’t know if my ex’s spouse knows me at all, but I know my ex to be controlling and vindictive. If I were to be offered and accept the position, it is hard for me to imagine my ex being unaware for very long. The last time I had a run-in with my ex, they tried getting my phone disconnected and badmouthed me to friends and family. I dread being anywhere near their spouse for fear they dredge anything up and threaten me, my family, coworkers, or their spouse.

The final interview is over a month away. I have a friend who is in the department I’ve applied to — do I talk to her about the situation? I am thinking I should do the interview and maybe I’ll find it’s a not a good fit and can back out naturally. Or, knowing I’m scared of what may be, should I just back out of the process? I don’t want to turn down a job just because of a harmful jackass but I am getting upset just typing this out. I am in therapy and plan on talking through the feelings with my therapist, but professionally I feel like I’m in a no-win situation.

If this were just the partner of an ex who’d been a bit of an ass, I’d say not to let that keep you from the job. But this would be putting yourself back in the orbit of a person who, the last time you encountered each other, actively tried to harm you. No job is worth that.

You’re also not describing this as a rare, perfect-fit type of job opportunity; you describe it as “fine” and “pretty good.” There are other options that will clear the “fine” and “pretty good” bar too, without jeopardizing your safety and peace of mind.

3. My coworker is constantly on her phone and the rest of us have to pick up the slack

I would love to know how much personal phone use is acceptable in office jobs. I work with someone who picks up her phone between 10 and 30 times an hour (those of us who sit around her find it so distracting that we’ve logged her usage and shown these stats to her manager). “Lisa” is texting, often long conversations that go back and forth every minute or so, and scrolling through Instagram. She has been spoken to twice about this and she improves for a week or so and then it’s back to it. She has ADHD and says she needs to use it between different types of tasks to clear her mind.

In weekly meetings, Lisa is always the one who has a list of things she hasn’t had time to do because she’s so busy and stressed, and the rest of us are getting pretty annoyed because we end up having to do more to cover her. We also worry there will be a crackdown on any phone use at all because one person is abusing the privilege.

What are the rules in other workplaces? Is this something Lisa can be fired for, especially as she’s been spoken to a few times already? Can workplaces ban phones from desks?

Yes, she can be fired for it and yes, your workplace can ban phones — but they have to want to do those things, and so far her manager doesn’t seem to be treating it as a particularly big deal, so I wouldn’t count on either of those happening. Different workplaces have different rules, norms, and expectations around phone use (anything from complete autonomy to no phone use permitted at all), so it really comes down to how your particular workplace and your particular manager feel about it.

That said, Lisa’s manager should be addressing her lower productivity. And if Lisa needs to task-switch to manage her time well, she needs to find ways of doing it that aren’t distracting to others. (That said, is the physical movement of using her phone really a distraction, or is it the annoyance of knowing that she’s once again neglecting her work? Those are two different things, and if it’s really more the second, acknowledging that to yourself might make it easier to deal with.)

Since it sounds like your manager has been willing to address the problem with Lisa when it’s been raised before, you should go back to her now and say that every time she’s talked to Lisa about it, Lisa has improved for a week but then goes right back to it, and you’re continuing to have to do extra work to cover for her, and ask that the problem be addressed in a more lasting way. If the nature of your work allows for it, you could also stop picking up Lisa’s slack and see if that makes the problem feel more urgent to your boss.

It’s possible that your workplace will respond by banning phones for everyone so you can’t discount that risk, but a decent manager wouldn’t do that; they’d manage Lisa more forthrightly.

4. How (and if) to tell someone they aren’t qualified to do a job

I work in a niche part of a larger field that requires its own training, usually formally through graduate school but not infrequently through more informal means. I am a practitioner and educator in this niche part (I went to grad school, and adjunct in a grad program), which is often considered fun and interesting by most people but is very often widely and wildly misunderstood. I wish I could say it doesn’t grate on me, but it does (especially by people who should know better, like people who engage with this area as patrons and users).

I was asked to coffee recently by a dear friend, A, to meet their friend, B, to talk about this specialty. B is working on a project where they must utilize skills from my profession and “are in over their head”, and A wanted to introduce me to B as a current practitioner and see if I can give advice. This happens a lot, and I really love both my job and interacting with people who find different ways into the profession rather than formal schooling! So I was happy to schedule with them both. In the meantime, I looked up B’s website and realized that this was not a problem they stumbled into–they advertise (and charge for) the skills of my profession as part of their whole deal. This happens a lot, too–many people in many fields think they are doing my job when in fact they are not, and (to me, the most important part) they have no curiosity about the entire field that exists of professionals doing this work with best practices and a whole professional organization, literature, and training structure in place.

I am not going to ask for/charge a consultant fee; I have already agreed to meet and ultimately I think B is harmless and enthusiastic. I think most people who misunderstand my field are harmless and enthusiastic! But I think this is poor timing for B, in that I am so annoyed that I can’t decide whether I should try to say, “Hey, don’t offer this very particular and skilled service if you have never even looked for a book on this, much less taken a class or talked to a professional” in addition to my professional opinions about this project specifically. B has been working for this project for over a year! Am I being petty? Is this not my business? I want to stay friends with A, too.

Do you know for sure that B is someone who “has never read a book on the subject, taken a class, or talked to a professional”? Your friend’s assessment that B is in over their head doesn’t necessarily mean that, so before you conclude anything, it’s smart to ask B more about their background in the subject.

When you meet, you could say, “I looked at your website to get an idea of the work you do and I saw you advertise llama grooming services. I don’t want to give you info you already know, so can you give me an idea of your background and training in that area and what kinds of projects you’ve worked on? That will help me understand what would be most helpful.” This is a good thing to ask regardless so you can better calibrate the level of advice you’re offering — and if it does turn out they’re advertising those services with zero skills, it’ll highlight that too.

But you can also decline to provide free consulting, remedial or otherwise. If it turns out they need a lot of help, you could explain that it’s more work than can be covered in a casual coffee but you’d be happy to recommend pros in the field (or write up a proposal of work yourself if you’re interested).

5. Should I have given more notice when quitting around the holidays?

I work for a very small tech start-up, several years old but struggling to grow. I’m the only person in my department. Previously, I worked for a VP and held a lower level individual contributor role on my team. The VP got let go, and I was given all of their responsibilities (most of which I had never done before) and a director title, as well as a small ($5,000) raise and a promise of an end-of-year bonus (that was never put in writing or specified if it was dependent on company performance). I’ve been managing all the responsibilities for our function for several months solo.

I decided I wanted to leave (largely due to the above but other reasons as well) and found a new job at a new company and gave notice yesterday. Because of the holidays, I gave them 3.5 weeks notice so they could have a little more time. When I told my CEO, who I now report to directly, he told me I was not giving them enough time and leaving the company in a bad position, since I’m the only one who can do my job and they will struggle to find a replacement quickly with the holidays. I know two weeks is really all you owe a company, but given my position as the sole person in my role and the holidays, should I have given them more time? I’m not dependent on them for a reference in the future but I am wondering if they are justified in their upset reaction.

Nope. Three and half weeks was generous and more than you needed to give. The point of a notice period isn’t to provide enough time to find a replacement and have them start (the standard two weeks isn’t nearly enough for that in most jobs) but simply to wrap things up in a basic way and transition your work to whoever will be covering it in the interim.

Feel free to ignore your CEO’s attempt to guilt-trip you. He might feel inconvenienced by the timing of your departure, but that’s how departures generally go; they’re often inconvenient, and that’s not a reason to expect someone will alter their plans. His feelings of stress don’t mean you handled it wrong.

Mike Johns was on his way to the airport when the Waymo robotaxi began circling a parking lot non-stop

Among other things, the new rules will allow citizens to comment only on topics on the current agenda, they will be limited to three minutes and no more than three people can address the same topic. Council members can also be fined $1,500 if they violate the new rules. Citizens will not be fined.

The rapper from the Dallas area was in Houston on Christmas Eve, the night before his halftime performance with Beyoncé during the Houston Texans' game at NRG Stadium. While in town, he visited The Railyard bar.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Currently reading through this stuff and the How To Live Your Life parts are like footnotes to page upon page of incorrect physics.

Today's News:

The comment follows Donald Trump's threat on Tuesday to use "economic force" to acquire its neighbour to the north.

The electricity supplier for much of the Houston region wants to make additional investments to “reliably deliver power.” This type of denial by Houston City Council is “not uncommon,” according to the city’s administration and regulatory affairs department.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned as polls indicated that his Liberal Party was set to be trounced by the opposition Conservative Party in the upcoming election. What do you think?

The post Justin Trudeau Resigns appeared first on The Onion.

Do people doubt your driving abilities?
A. Yes, I’m still earning trust as a new mode of transportation.
B. Yes, I’m still up against long-held stereotypes and tired stand-up routines.

Do strangers ever gawk at you or comment on your appearance?
A. Yes, usually in response to my spinning parts and empty driver’s seat.
B. Yes, but I’m told I should feel flattered and that I’ll miss the attention when I’m older.

Does Google own you?
A. No, their parent company, Alphabet, owns me.
B. No, they just track my every move, know my innermost desires, and can manipulate my behavior with alarming precision to increase profits.

Are you trained to let others cut you off?
A. Yes, to avoid collisions.
B. Yes, in any conversation with a man.

Have you ever suspected a mechanic was trying to rip you off?
A. No, I receive routine maintenance from a certified team of experts.
B. Yes, when I was charged extra for “premium” tire air.

Are you expected to perform unpaid labor?
A. Yes, but I can also inhabit San Francisco and Los Angeles rent-free.
B. Yes, while paying $2,600 in rent.

Do you have a lot of resources at your disposal to keep you safe?
A. Yes, I have a built-in network of sensors, 360-degree cameras, and 24-7 emergency support.
B. Yes, I have a plastic whistle, fingernails, and, in theory, the police.

Does Elon Musk believe in your autonomy?
A. Yes, Musk is a proponent of self-driving technology.
B. No, Musk doesn’t think I’m capable of independent thought due to having “low T.”

Has the government overturned your constitutional right to reproductive autonomy?
A. No… that would be dystopian.
B. Yes.

Do you think you’ll ever see someone like you be president of the United States?
A. Maybe!
B. No, we are more likely to elect a felon or a car.

RESULTS

Mostly A’s: You are a Waymo, a self-driving vehicle with increasing popularity. Enjoy the ride.

Mostly B’s: You are a woman. Sorry!

Mix of A’s and B’s: You’re half woman, half self-driving car, designed by Elon Musk.

All A’s and B’s: You are a woman in a Waymo. Consider joining forces and driving off a cliff Thelma and Louise style!

The tech giant’s decision to end the program comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeks to mend ties with the incoming Trump administration.

In brief: The cold weather we’ve been experiencing for the last 36 hours is here to stay, as we are going to remain quite cold through Friday night. On Thursday and Thursday night we’re going to add a fair amount of rain to the mix, but fortunately this is unlikely to fall as freezing rain in Houston. The weekend looks sunny and pleasant, at least.

Cold update

Temperatures this morning have, again, fallen to just below freezing for much of the Houston area. The city’s official low temperature this morning is likely to be about 30 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. This is not near record territory, as the record low temperature for January 7 in Houston is 19 degrees, set in 1970.

However, both our daily high and low temperatures are running 10 to 15 degrees below normal, and what is unusual about this week’s weather is its sticking power. We’re going to remain quite cold, weather-wise, through Saturday. So if you received an ugly sweater for Christmas, at least you’re going to be able to put it to good use.

Tuesday

After the cold start this morning we will see sunny skies today, and this should help push high temperatures up to around 50 degrees. Believe it or not, this could be the warmest we get until at least Saturday, which will be the region’s next truly sunny day. Anyway, winds will be lighter today than on Monday, so it will feel less chilly outside. Low temperatures tonight will probably be 1 to 3 degrees warmer than Monday night, so a light freeze is still possible in the Houston metro area, but it’s not guaranteed.

Wednesday

This will be a colder day, as winds from the north increase a bit, with gusts up to 20 mph, and we see the development of some clouds. These clouds should limit highs in the mid-40s during the daytime, but also moderate nighttime highs just a bit. Most of Houston probably will only fall into the mid- to upper-30s. That’s a good thing because beginning early Thursday we’ll start to see some rain chances.

Now I know some people will be disappointed that temperatures are not a few degrees colder, giving us the chance of snow. But I have to say, if temperatures were freezing—given the atmospheric profile—we probably would be getting freezing rain rather than snow in Houston. And let me tell you, that’s miserable, and it’s a mess on roads, and it can stick to powerlines and snap them and … well, freezing rain sucks. So let’s be glad it’s unlikely to fall here. There is a slight chance of freezing rain for counties well north of the city of Houston, including Houston (which is north of Huntsville, Texas) and Trinity counties.

Thursday

This will be a cold and gray day, with an increasing chance of showers the later we go. Like, please don’t plan any outdoor activities for Thursday or especially Thursday evening. Temperatures will be in the 40s, and winds from the northeast at 15 mph with higher gusts. And then there’s the rain. I expect much of the area to pick up 1 to 3 inches of rainfall through Thursday night, with some higher totals possible. So yeah, it’s going to be cold and wet and icky. The rains will continue into Friday morning. As noted yesterday, a winter storm is likely in North Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Avoid traveling there if possible.

Friday

Some rain chances linger on Friday morning before the coastal low pressure system finally clears out. Afterward expect highs in the 40s with mostly cloudy skies. We probably will see an influx of colder air as the low moves to the east on Friday, so lows on Friday night may drop back into the lower 30s on Friday night, with some parts of Houston again seeing a light freeze.

Saturday and Sunday

Sunshine should finally return for the weekend, allowing high temperatures to reach maybe the lower 50s on Saturday, and even the 60s on Sunday. We have no real weather concerns for the weekend, so it’s something to look forward to as we’re freezing this week.

Houston Marathon

Hello, fellow runners. We’re now just 12 days away from the Houston Marathon, and we can begin to take a peek at the weather for the event. I know opinions vary, but I love cold and dry conditions. Some of you like it much warmer and even muggier. So what can we expect?

Most of next week looks to remain fairly cold. Not as cold as this week, but with lows consistently in the 40s, and possibly even 30s on some nights. However things may start to warm up some about 10 days from now. At that point there is a pretty broad divergence in the models about whether another system comes through to keep the chill going, or whether we continue to see warmer and milder weather.

So I think we cannot say much sensible about the weather yet for the marathon. It might be 40 degrees on the start line, or it might even be 60 degrees. Rain is definitely a possibility, but it’s way, way too early to make any kind of a prediction there. I’ll update the marathon forecast when there’s something I’m a little more confident in.

KOHLER, WI—To address a situation the plumbing-fixture company described as embarrassing for everyone involved, Kohler issued a recall Tuesday of 30,000 bathtubs it had shipped with a nude man already inside. “Due to a mix-up at our manufacturing plant, thousands of our freestanding claw-foot bathtubs were mistakenly sent out with a sudsy naked man pre-installed,” said Kohler spokesperson Diane McCardle, confirming reports that the thick layer of soap bubbles that had been covering the men’s bodies had dispersed during transit, leaving their genitalia fully exposed. “We’d like to apologize to our valued customers, many of whom were startled to discover a flabby older man scrubbing his pits and singing a jaunty tune inside their brand-new tub. We’d also like to apologize to these 30,000 undressed men, who were equally shocked to have a stranger interrupt them while they were enjoying a good soak. Customers can return the tub and disrobed man for a full refund, or they can keep them both at a 20% discount.” At press time, Kohler announced it would be sending out 30,000 warm fluffy towels for the pruny, now-shivering men.

The post Kohler Recalls 30,000 Bathtubs Shipped With Nude Man Already Inside appeared first on The Onion.

OTTAWA – Just hours after announcing he was stepping down as Liberal Party leader and prime minister, Justin Trudeau was begging for the job back after spending 10 minutes browsing the Ottawa housing market. “Wait, so the government doesn’t give everyone a house? And they cost how much? Wow, someone should really do something about […]

The post Trudeau immediately begs for job back after realising he’ll need to buy a house appeared first on The Beaverton.

Listen up, Canadian patriots: the day you’ve been waiting for has finally come. That’s right, Justin Trudeau, the guy you’ve been threatening to fuck for the last several years like the common sense Canadians you are, has finally announced that he’s resigning! And once you’re finished celebrating, most likely by flooding the streets with your […]

The post 5 ways to reuse your “Fuck Trudeau” flags appeared first on The Beaverton.