Try out my quantum mechanics course (and many others on math and science) on https://brilliant.org/sabine. You can get started for free, and the first 200 will get 20% off the annual premium subscription.
Correction to what I say at 8 minutes 54 seconds: Chile, not China, sorry about that!
Today we’ll talk about mysterious radiation bursts, a superfluid that supposedly recreates the early universe, good news from the Webb telescope, plans to intercept the next interstellar object, why you shouldn’t make things more complicated than necessary, a new device against tick bites, and the good and bad of social media. And of course the telephone will ring!
00:00 Intro 00:35 Mysterious Radiation Bursts 03:39 Superfluid Simulates Early Universe 05:53 Good News from the Webb Telescope 07:11 Plans to Intercept the Next Interstellar Object 09:37 Complexity Increases Uncertainty 12:08 New Device to Prevent Tick Bites 13:27 Social Media and Democracy 15:11 Sponsor Message
Red and inherently conservative. That’s the assumption many people have about the South.
While there’s an element of truth to this, things are changing. Partisan polarization may still reign in American politics, but the red and blue demarcations are not so clear-cut anymore. While Republican lawmakers have skewed evermore rightward, the voters they represent are far more moderate.
What were considered solidly red states a generation ago—think Texas, where President Joe Biden earned 46.48 percent of the vote in 2020 (the highest percentage for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976) despite Republicans projecting a landslide victory, and Georgia, which President Biden carried in that election—are increasingly purple, with bits of both red and blue.
Beto O’Rourke may have lost to Governor Greg Abbott in the midterms, but the results in South Texas denied Republicans their desired narrative of Hispanic voters abandoning Democrats in droves. Beyond the national political headlines, we’re seeing pockets of safe spaces and cities emerge in otherwise conservative environments. Political views are more nuanced and people are focusing more on what needs to be done as opposed to what politics dictates.
For example, although legislators in Texas have managed to pass a conservative agenda—from the open carrying of guns to abortion restrictions to voting rights—people are fighting for change at the grassroots. Consider how people are advancing the protection of voter rights or how communities are coming together to contest the ban of certain books from schools and libraries.
Red with an increasing number of blue spaces is the new reality of the South.
Yet, things are changing in the South—anti-abortion sentiment is not as dominant as it was before.
One survey showed that 60 percent of voters in Texas support abortion being “available in all or most cases.” Only 11 percent favor a complete ban. These results are perhaps unsurprising given that the passage of SB 8 provided an early example of the impact of restrictive abortion laws.
Beyond Texas, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham received immediate blowback back in September after introducing a bill that would outlaw abortion nationally after 15 weeks, with very few exceptions.
In Virginia, 67 percent of residents want abortion to be legal in most cases, and in deep-red Kentucky, 52.6 percent of voters rejected a ballot measure aimed at denying any constitutional protections for abortion in the recent midterms.
Critics may decry the backwardness of the South, but in reality, some of the most significant progressive shifts in America’s metropolitan areas have come in traditionally conservative states like Texas and North Carolina.
Texas legislators failed to pass several bills that would provide financial relief to families affected by the 2021 electrical blackout, but polls show that Texans overwhelmingly support measures to create new disaster systems and upgrade facilities. In North Carolina, only 36 percent of residents supported HB2—a failed “bathroom bill” that would have forbidden transgender and gender nonconforming residents from using facilities that reflect their gender. The public was more concerned about how the bill would hurt the state financially.
Southerners are showing what it means to put ideological boundaries aside and focus on what needs to be done in communities.
LGBTQ+ communities in the South continue to face discrimination. In the state capital, half of Austin’s LGBTQ+ bars are facing displacement due to redevelopment. Despite the threat, these local leaders are still not deterred from standing up for their safe spaces.
A friend of mine who identifies as a lesbian runs a bar that, in the daytime, serves as a coffee shop for children who have nowhere else to go. She doesn’t consider herself aligned with either party, and her only concern is creating pockets of safe spaces amid all the chaos.
Many people fail to realize that Southerners have always been able to open their doors and hearts to offer support where it’s needed despite any differences in views, beliefs, or opinions.
People may not agree on specific cultural values and issues—take abortion, for example—but that doesn’t stop them from working together on others. Southern communities still come together to empower vulnerable households so that they get out of poverty and succeed. They are working together to fight against things such as environmental injustice and inequities in the healthcare system that disproportionately affect communities of color.
Southerners have always been able to open their doors and hearts to offer support where it’s needed despite any differences in views, beliefs, or opinions.
More than that, Southerners realize that to achieve meaningful, sustainable change, we need to go beyond individuals and organizations and look to change government policy.
For example, the Texas House refuses to accept federal money for Medicaid expansion, which means millions of poor people don’t get healthcare. However, nearly 70 percent of Texans support Medicaid expansion.
All this action has proven just how much the South is not defined by red versus blue or conservative versus liberal.
States, much like cities, are not one thing. They are laboratories that can be experimented in to effect change that benefits everyone. All the efforts being made by Southern communities (from reproductive health to economic) are essentially a window into the persistence of blue cities in red states.
There’s still the issue of politics, however.
The distraction of partisan politics is real, and it often frustrates what can be just basic improvements in the living conditions of people who live two blocks away.
Think about the recent gubernatorial debate between Abbott and Beto O’Rourke. The two accused each other of lying to Texas voters and getting facts wrong. As the New York Times put it, “The Texas governor’s debate was heavy on attacks but light on race-changing moments.”
The debate touched on major issues—from immigration to abortion rights to the reliability of Texas’ power grid to gun policies—but did it really go beyond talking points? What are elected officials in local, state, and federal offices doing to address voters’ concerns?
It’s time we focused on what matters. We must ask ourselves if politics is supposed to be the origin of fundamental issues, or if it should grow out of the issues we face. The latter is what we want.
Our focus should be on ensuring that partisan politics don’t make us lose sight of what we’re trying to achieve—communities where everyone can thrive.
We need to remember that whether we’re looking at issues of voting rights, racial equality, poverty, and climate justice, or at creating safe havens in unlikely environments, the South sets the tone for the rest of the nation.
As the great scholar W. E. B. Du Bois brilliantly put it, “As the South goes, so goes the nation.”
Of course, party platforms will take positions on specific issues, but the issues we face matter more than party platforms. It’s up to us to do what is right.
Expectations of a significant Republican Party takeover of both chambers of Congress failed to materialize, as Democrats retained control of the Senate and GOP gains were lower than expected in the House. The Onion polled all 330 million Americans to ask why the midterms “red wave” didn’t come to fruition.
Whether you are an artist gathering inspiration, a scholar researching a specific art historical topic, or a community member with a general interest in learning about an artist or artistic style, having an art-specific library at your fingertips is a major asset. And while many people view museums and galleries as places to see art, they may not realize that spaces like these often also have publicly available libraries. Earlier this year, on a visit to the Texas Panhandle, I was excited to see an array of art institutions with these great public resources.
Old Jail Art Center – Albany
The Old Jail Art Center’s library.
The Old Jail Art Center’s library.
Center for Contemporary Arts – Abilene
The Center for Contemporary Arts’ library.
The Center for Contemporary Arts’ library.
East Lubbock Art House Free Library
East Lubbock Art House’s free library.
Amarillo Museum of Art, Pool Resource Library
The Amarillo Museum of Art’s Pool Resource Library
The Amarillo Museum of Art’s Pool Resource Library
We got the sun back out yesterday after a dreary Monday. We should hold on to at least some sun today, though clouds may at times block it out. The next 8 or 9 days will feature quick moving systems that impact the region every couple days, possibly culminating in a wetter period right around Wednesday and Thursday of next week. Those odds have inched up a bit since yesterday. More on that in a second.
Today
We aren’t expecting any adverse weather today, so you can confidently go about your plans without issue. You’ll see both clouds and sun but probably more clouds than sun overall. It will remain chilly with highs only in the mid-50s. A continued breeze at times, especially into tonight, will enhance the chill, with gusts of 20 to 25 mph near the coast.
Thursday
A chilly start to the day won’t get a whole lot better tomorrow. Clouds should dominate early Thursday with more sunshine in the afternoon. A system passing by overhead will bring a non-zero chance for some showers, sprinkles, or light rain, but it would seem most of that should fall well offshore. Highs will be in the mid-50s again.
Friday
As systems continue to move along briskly, Friday should be a mainly quiet day between them. It will be quite cold in the morning.
Morning lows on Friday will be in the 30s outside the city and away from the coast, with mostly 40s elsewhere. (Pivotal Weather)
We’ll warm from the 30s and 40s into the mid-50s. Sunshine should be around in the morning, but it may fade behind increasing clouds through the day. There could be a few showers very late in the day southwest of Houston, toward Matagorda Bay or into portions of Fort Bend and Brazoria Counties.
Saturday
The forecast for Saturday is a bit trickier with a system passing just offshore. This looks like a farther south version of what happened in our area Monday. In other words, most of the heavier rain should stay offshore, but there will be at least scattered showers or periods of rain in the Houston area and points south. Places north of the Brazos Valley or Conroe may see little to no rain on Saturday. That said, trends in recent days have been toward slightly higher rain chances. Rain totals look to be about a quarter-inch or so in Houston, with higher amounts south and lower amounts north. We’ll watch to see if this changes at all.
Expect a good deal of clouds outside of that, with highs in the 50s. A breeze of 15 to 20 mph will be possible, especially near the coast once again.
Sunday
Clouds may linger behind Saturday’s system keeping Sunday cool but dry. Sunshine should gradually break back out though. We should do yet another day of (say it with me again) mid-50s after a morning in the 40s.
Next week
Let’s start with this: Confidence in any specific details for next week’s weather is fairly low. We can speak generally though. Monday looks a bit unsettled with a chance of showers as one disturbance swings through. Tuesday will probably be dry with winds shifting back onshore for the first time in a bit. That will bring clouds and shower chances to the region on Wednesday, especially west of Houston. All that congeals into a storm that drags a front through on Thanksgiving, turning us somewhat cooler for the weekend.
Differences in modeling give us confidence in a storm system impacting us Thanksgiving. But details between the models remain drastically different. Stay tuned! (Pivotal Weather)
The problem right now is determining exactly how that storm behaves on Wednesday and Thursday, as that will ultimately dictate specifics. Models are split between a very aggressive storm with a chance for strong storms and heavy rain, especially Wednesday night (the European model) and a much less aggressive system with a chance of showers mostly (the GFS model). The European model would have meaningful impacts on travel and events. The GFS model would not. Truth be told, I think our confidence has increased a little in the last 24 hours that at least some portion of the holiday will be wet. Beyond that, we can’t say much else. Stay tuned.
Monday and Tuesday will probably see morning lows in the 40s and highs in the 50s or low-60s. We could push 70 on Wednesday or Thursday with humidity before turning cooler and drier into the Friday and weekend period.
Fundraiser
Our annual fundraiser continues this week. Thank you to all who have helped contribute to keep pushing us along for another year! You’ve still got time to purchase or donate to directly support our work. You can click here to do that. If you don’t wish to purchase merchandise and just want make a contribution, click here and check the box that says “I’d like to make a donation only.”
I work for a small company within a very niche field. The owner has been running it for decades and is an expert at this craft, and is in very high demand. The service the company offers is so specialized that the job takes about six months to a year of training, even with relevant prior experience. It was a perfect fit for me in a lot of ways. The only red flag I saw when I first accepted the job was seeing how high the turnover rate was. Only one coworker I saw on a 10-person team had been there for longer than a couple of years.
Well, I’ve passed the two-year mark of working here and I’ve hit my limit too. While the day-to-day work is pretty good and satisfying, the communication style and conflict resolution from management/owners are incredibly stressful. It’s hard to summarize since it’s a bunch of tiny miscommunications and friction in otherwise perfectly normal work days. Little mistakes are taken personally and, while it isn’t super frequent, you never know what will trigger a random hostile and accusatory reaction from management or the owner. It seems that it takes about two to three years for all those little moments to build up enough for employees to leave. While I’m disappointed to be at this point, I am ready to move on too as I am bordering on burnout from constantly walking on eggshells.
The problem I am having now is that the company also has a history of offering massive 20-30% raises, but only to employees who are already out the door. To almost everyone else, these desperate offers are too little too late, as previously dedicated star employees already exhausted all other options before they even considered leaving. But for me, as stressed as I am working here, there is a price where I can be bought and convinced to stay.
Unfortunately, I can’t ask for a raise outright. The owner has emphasized many times before that they only offer raises based on merit, not need. I have been working myself into the ground for the past year to try to hit that point. I have taken on the responsibilities of other positions, I have been put in charge of training people. I have anticipated needs and worked ahead on projects to meet deadlines. I often stay late, and I haven’t taken any time off for vacation all year. When I sat down for my two-year review, my boss praised all these things about my work ethic and dedication, describing me as an essential part of the team and someone they have “big plans for” … and then offered me an insultingly low pay bump to cover inflation. I had already brought up to the owner that the ratio of my workload to pay is unsustainable for me, and that I am actively looking for side gigs and part-time work to supplement my paycheck. I have asked if there is anything more I could be doing to justify a merit-based increase in base pay. All I got was some hemming and hawing and a vague suggestion about showing more initiative. (Which is a personal quality of mine that they had praised before.)
So, it is clear I am not going to be getting a raise unless I turn in my two weeks’ notice. I am the second most senior member of my team and the only one other than the owner qualified to help train new employees. I know they need me, but in my 2+ years here, quitting is the only time I’ve ever seen them offer raises to anyone. To me it feels scummy to look for other work and accept another job somewhere else, only to potentially turn them down when my current office offers me a big raise to stay with them instead. Obviously, I am looking for another job that I would be happy at and well compensated, but if I can’t, would it be wrong to accept another random job just to hear what my current company would counteroffer? Is this situation I am in more normal than I thought? Am I missing something obvious?
I really want to convince you not to stay — when you get another job, take it rather than trying to leverage it into a counteroffer!
You’re nearing burnout, constantly walking on eggshells, going above and beyond only to be told to “take more initiative,” and dealing with a manipulative owner who’s trying to convince you that what sounds like a massive amount of overwork doesn’t quality for you for anything more than a cost-of-living bump.
Until it affects them, that is. Because that’s what “you’ll be offered a huge raise but only when you’re walking out the door” is all about. They don’t care about paying you what your work is worth to them when you’re the only one who’s affected. Once it looks like it’ll affect them, they swing into action. And you know what, sometimes an otherwise decent manager falls into that trap — but this is their system. They designed it this way. They’ve had plenty of chances to realize, “Oh crap, we’re losing people because of money over and over and then we end up needing to swing big to keep them at the last minute” but they don’t care. They’re perfectly happy to wring every ounce of energy out of you that they can while underpaying you, until the literal last minute they have to do something about it.
This is not a place to stay. That kind of mindset is going to permeate all kinds of other parts of your daily life too (and indeed, it sounds like it does).
But none of that answers what you asked. You want to know if you can ethically line up another offer if you just want to use it to get a counteroffer. Some years back, I would have told you no, you can’t ethically do that. But with a greater appreciation than I used to have for how much capitalism screws over most workers and how much you’re on your own within that system, I’m less inclined to tell you that you shouldn’t play the game in a way that benefits you. You’d be wasting the time of the other company, but it’s not like companies never waste applicants’ time.
However, the ethics of the situation really only come into play if you’re dead-set against taking another job and would never seriously consider an offer somewhere else. But I don’t think that’s the case! A better way to look at it is this: You should be job-searching and you should be open to other offers. Your current company sucks! You should go into those interviews with an open mind, and you should be willing to take an offer if the job is right for you. You can balance any offer you get against any counteroffer your current company might make, and make the best decision for yourself. That’s a normal part of job-searching and it’s not unethical.
In the six weeks since announcing that Internet Archive has begun gathering content for the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC), the project has quickly grown to more than 25,000 items, including ham radio newsletters, podcasts, videos, books, and catalogs. The project seeks additional contributions of material for the free online library.
You are welcome to explore the content currently in the library and watch the primary collection as it grows at https://archive.org/details/dlarc.
The new material includes historical and modern newsletters from diverse amateur radio groups including the National Radio Club (of Aurora, CO); the Telford & District Amateur Radio Society, based in the United Kingdom; the Malta Amateur Radio League; and the South African Radio League. The Tri-State Amateur Radio Society contributed more than 200 items of historical correspondence, newspaper clippings, ham festival flyers, and newsletters. Other publications include Selvamar Noticias, a multilingual digital ham radio magazine; and Florida Skip, an amateur radio newspaper published from 1957 through 1994.The library also includes the complete run of 73 Magazine — more than 500 issues — which are freely and openly available.
More than 300 radio related books are available in DLARC via controlled digital lending. These materials may be checked out by anyone with a free Internet Archive account for a period of one hour to two weeks. Radio and communications books donated to Internet Archive are scanned and added to the DLARC lending library.
Amateur radio podcasts and video channels are also among the first batch of material in the DLARC collection. These include Ham Nation, Foundations of Amateur Radio, the ICQ Amateur/Ham Radio Podcast, with many more to come. Providing a mirror and archive for “born digital” content such as video and podcasts is one of the core goals of DLARC.
Additions to DLARC also include presentations recorded at radio communications conferences, including GRCon, the GNU Radio Conference; and the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo. A growing reference library of past radio product catalogs includes catalogs from Ham Radio Outlet and C. Crane.
DLARC is growing to be a massive online library of materials and collections related to amateur radio and early digital communications. It is funded by a significant grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a digital library that documents, preserves, and provides open access to the history of this community.
Anyone with material to contribute to the DLARC library, questions about the project, or interest in similar digital library building projects for other professional communities, please contact:
Kay Savetz, K6KJN Program Manager, Special Collections kay@archive.org Mastodon: dlarc@mastodon.radio
Economically speaking, should one look up to the businesspeople who build skyscrapers, or look down at them? Calculation is involved in reaching the answer obtained in this study:
“The bottom line of all of this is that skyscraper construction sometimes takes place in the context of a contest between rival builders. This paper carries out a game-theoretic analysis of such a skyscraper contest. A builder is assumed to have a payoff function that depends in part on profits, as derived from a standard model of urban spatial structure. Builder payoff also depends on whether the builder has developed the tallest structure in his or her market. The paper considers both simultaneous- and sequential-move skyscraper games. The main conclusion that emerges from the analysis is that the contest results in dissipation, with the value of the tallest-building prize at least partially lost in the poor economics of skyscrapers.”
THIS OLD LADY CALLED US AND SAID “I had a temper tantrum at the library :/“ and I genuinely didn’t know what to say so I asked, “what’s wrong?”
And she says apologetically, “well I THOUGHT y’all had seven books on hold for me but it was only one…but I wouldn’t listen and insisted y’all had seven so I’m afraid I was quite rude.”
And I said something well meaning like “well, we all live and learn, right?”
And then she proceeds to tell me that she called her best friend and confessed, “I’ve made a fool out of myself at the library :/“ and her friend said “no, you were a bitch at the library” and she said, “you’re right, I was an ass,” and then told me that best friends aren’t afraid to set you straight and that she’s been friends with her since 1964 and then oh my gosh and then she said “yeah they’ll call you a bitch but don’t worry, they still love you. I know now not to fuck with the library.”
And she talks like my nana and I’m trying to stifle my laughter and I said in my best stern voice “well now ma’am, I don’t want to seem like I’m encouraging this behavior, but I suppose we can let you check out books again, IF you promise not to cause a ruckus a SECOND time,” and she replied “oh I don’t need encouraging! It comes naturally!”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy speaks at an election night event celebrating GOP gains in the 2022 midterms. | Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images
Get ready for more oversight, investigations, and maybe even impeachment.
Democrats have lost control of the US House of Representatives and are now staring down at least two years of gridlock — and even more animosity — in Congress.
Republicans won’t have the large majority they hoped for ahead of Election Day, however. Democrats were projected to lose at least 10 seats in the House, according to the Cook Political Report. The wind appeared to be under the GOP’s wings in the final weeks of the campaign, as concerns about inflation dominated in the polls and their closing message on crime appeared to resonate. Republicans needed just five seats for control. With some races still uncalled, they’re not on track to get too many more than that.
It’s an unusual margin for the party of the incumbent president, which typically fares poorly in midterm elections, and especially so given President Joe Biden’s approval ratings, though slightly up from their previous low, are still underwater. But seemingly buoyed by their defense of abortion access, pro-democracy stance, and stylistic differences with the GOP, Democrats managed to run ahead of expectations.
The small Republican majority will mean the likelihood that major legislation is passed in the new Congress is slim, particularly because Democrats held the Senate — and Biden still has veto power, though he indicated on Twitter that he’s willing to work with Republicans if they come to the table to address “the need to lower costs, protect the right to choose, and preserve our democracy.”
But even with a small majority, Republicans will still have power over what comes up for votes, investigations, and oversight.
“They don’t hand the gavels out in small, medium, and large size. There’s one size gavel with the ability to subpoena and hold this government accountable,” current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is in line to be the new House speaker, said on Fox News Wednesday night. “I believe that this conference will rally together.”
McCarthy has also already indicated that he intends to refuse any increase to the debt ceiling absent cuts to programs that are priorities for Democrats, including clean energy investments and Social Security.
The most significant consequence of Republican control in the House might be even more partisan ugliness than we’ve seen over the last two years. In August, before the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, McCarthy gave a preview of what’s to come: “I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it,” he said in audio posted to Twitter by a Main Street Nashville reporter.
Republicans are ready to take revenge
Republicans are coming into power ready to get back at Democrats for what they perceive as four years of overreach, including their two impeachments of former President Donald Trump (with 10 Republican votes on the second occasion) and their investigation of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Biden and his family — including the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden — are Republicans’ top targets. They also want to probe the origins of Covid-19 and the US’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is expected to lead a broad investigation of the Justice Department and the FBI following the August raid on Mar-a-Lago, which led to calls from Trump-aligned candidates to “defund the FBI.”
In July, some Republicans were also pushing for an investigation of the House select committee investigating January 6, suggesting it might involve subpoenaing members of that committee, including outgoing Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois once they are private citizens next year. They were also considering whether to investigate Pelosi’s role in Capitol security enforcement; intelligence and security failures; and the treatment of insurrectionists who have been jailed for their involvement, seemingly in a bid to rewrite the narrative of what happened that day.
Trump allies have also reportedly advocated for hearings and investigations into his groundless claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
A big question is whether Republicans will move to impeach Biden. Republicans have already filed nine impeachment resolutions against Biden and officials in his administration, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) alone accounting for five of them. But party leadership is hesitant to act on them too hastily. The GOP could also pursue the impeachment of members of Biden’s Cabinet, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Attorney General Merrick Garland, among others.
Still, all of that doesn’t have the White House too worried. Officials are reportedly hoping that Republican efforts will backfire and allow Biden to contrast himself against the party in the lead-up to 2024, should he choose to run.
Exactly how much House Republicans are able to accomplish will depend on their ability to remain relatively unified. Their caucus will have a lot of ideological diversity, and there are likely to be vocal members of the far right calling for even more aggressive action on impeachment and investigations, as well as more moderate members demanding the party avoid overreach. McCarthy already faced the first test of his ability to cater to various segments of his caucus in his bid for speakership, and it is unlikely to be his last.
Update, November 17, 10:22 am: This story was originally published on November 16 and has been updated to include comments from McCarthy and Biden reacting to Republicans capturing the House.
Country singer and songwriter Dolly Parton has been awarded a $100 million Courage and Civility award by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his partner, Lauren Sanchez, with the money to be directed toward charities of Parton’s choosing. What do you think?
In-N-Out is In-N-At it again. In our many posts on the burger chain, we’ve discussed the company’s habit of what I’ll call trademark tourism. In posts that have focused primarily on its trademarks in Australia, we’ve detailed out how In-N-Out will conduct a popup restaurant in these countries that it otherwise has zero brick and mortar presence in, usually once a year or so, simply to satisfy the use-in-commerce requirements to retain its registered trademarks. This allows the company to lock up language and branding in a country it refuses to operate in generally, other than these bullshit events designed solely to allow it to keep these trademarks active and registered.
It should be obvious to everyone that this sucks. It wasn’t the point of trademark laws in general and it’s a naked attempt to game the system on a technicality. But In-N-Out keeps getting away with it, and not just in Australia.
Way back in 2019, Tim Horton’s asked asked Canada’s trademark office to review the trademark In-N-Out has for “double-double,” the chain’s famous burger order. As in Australia, In-N-Out has no permanent storefronts in Canada. But, just as in Australia, the company shows up with its popup trucks every once in a while to keep its registered mark.
In 2019, Tim Hortons Canadian IP Holdings Corporation requested a review of In-N-Out’s ownership of the trademark. If a company holds a trademark, but cannot show that it has been used over the last three years, the trademark can be expunged, leaving the word or phrase free game for another user to register. But the Canadian Intellectual Property Office decided that In-N-Out Burger had been actively using the trademark, because of the company’s annual burger sales at the Langley Good Times Cruise-In.
“In addition to using its cookout trucks in certain locations in the United States, the owner [In-N-Out Burger] has also used its cookout trucks to sell food products in Canada for many years,” wrote Timothy Stevenson, a member of the Trademarks Opposition Board, in a Nov. 1 ruling.
There’s a reason Tim Horton’s has an interest in this particular trademark. In Canada, a double-double is best known as a coffee order with two creams and two sugars.
Now, Tim Horton’s probably doesn’t want to risk a trademark infringement suit from In-N-Out, especially when the latter doesn’t even truly operate within the country other than this one event it does. An event in which In-N-Out makes no profit, by the way. The company covers its own costs and then the rest goes to charity. There’s nothing wrong with that, obviously, but I’m driving the point here that In-N-Out isn’t clinging to this trademark because it wants to do business in Canada. It clearly doesn’t.
The annual burger sale is not for profit. It covers its costs, and then any money above that goes to the Cruise-In Society, which distributes the cash to local charitable causes.
But according to the trademark office, that doesn’t matter. All that In-N-Out needs to do is participate in this charity event once every three years and it gets to keep its trademark.
Again, that isn’t what trademark laws are designed for. The public is very much not being served by allowing the company to retain the mark. For 364 days a year, there’s no public confusion even possible in Canada.
Trademark tourism of this kind simply shouldn’t be allowed, full stop.
The Democrats will retain their control of the Senate after incumbent Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto won a tight reelection race, defying polling expectations and giving Democrats the best overall midterm performance for a sitting party in 20 years. What do you think?
Fox News host Jesse Watters is claiming that Democrats are working to keep women single, pointing out that 68% of unmarried women voted blue in the recent election cycle, and that once women “settle down and fall in love,” they will vote Republican. What do you think?
SAN FRANCISCO—As part of his initiative to streamline the back end of the platform, Elon Musk reportedly demanded Tuesday that the remaining Twitter servers explain to him in detail what all the wires were for. “These ones here—what do they do, exactly?” the company’s new owner and CEO said during a visit to Twitter’s…
Security officers at a South Florida airport reported finding a handgun hidden inside a raw chicken packed in a traveler’s luggage on a flight heading out of the United States. What do you think?
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Stating that the component would be available in the app’s next software update, Alphabet announced Wednesday the release of a new sponsored Google Maps feature that directs every driver to Denny’s. “No matter what destination the user types in, this new promotional tool will automatically reroute…
1. Send your carefully crafted, pithy observation to the group text instead. Twenty minutes later, receive one “haha” from a high school friend.
2. Post your joke on Facebook. Attach a photo of a small child for the algorithm. Make your post invisible to your grandparents and your Aunt Jean because it includes mild sexual innuendo. One day later, return to Facebook and see that you’ve received two likes, one shocked face, and seven “care” emojis, including from your middle school choir director’s husband.
3. Post it to LinkedIn. First, you’ll have to reset your password. Respond to the email confirmation. Log in. Scroll through 347 notifications. Observe that someone named Erik, whom you have no memory of ever knowing, is doing keto and recently got a promotion. Update your resume. Fail to figure out how to make a post. Congratulate Erik on his promotion.
4. Go upstairs and knock on the door to the office where your husband is working. Wait for him to finish a conference call. Using the tone of someone making a spontaneous observation, deliver your joke. When he looks at you strangely, remember that you did the same thing yesterday, only you swapped the order of two words.
5. Post your joke to Instagram. First, Google how to make a reel. Watch instructional videos for an hour. Consider making a car selfie video instead. Remember you’re out of under-eye concealer. Maybe a still picture? Write your joke on a piece of torn paper and take a photo of your fingers holding it in front of a window. No, that’s stupid. Create a text-only Instagram story. Change the background color to rainbow. Change the background color to black. Change the font to the curly one. Change the background color to yellow. Publish it. Delete your whole Instagram account in shame.
6. Post it to TikTok—wait, you have to learn a dance first?
7. Text your mom. Receive a response immediately. She doesn’t understand your joke, but she wants to know if you have any Christmas gift ideas for your sister.
8. Try to join Mastodon. The tweets are called toots, and it looks like you need to know basic programming. Receive a message from someone in Germany asking for donations and explaining that the network discourages viral posts. Yell, “WELL, THEN WHAT’S THE POINT, JURGEN?”
9. Restart your abandoned newsletter on Substack and post your joke there. Email everyone you know, asking them to subscribe, including your relatives, former coworkers, people from college, and Erik from LinkedIn. One week later, the only people who have subscribed are your grandparents and your Aunt Jean. Text your mom to ask whether your grandma is mad because of the sexual innuendo.
10. Search online for therapists. A therapist has to listen to your jokes, right?
11. DM a friend and invite him to coffee. Over lattes, deliver your joke. He didn’t really laugh, but also the barista turned on the loud steam thing right over a crucial word. Should you repeat yourself? The conversation has moved on. This latte cost six dollars.
12. While petting your dog, whisper your joke into his fur. Stroke his ears. Whisper, “I was today years old.” Whisper, “Is this anything?”
13. Drive to the dentist’s office and tell your joke to a fish in the aquarium. Squint and imagine the tiny bubbles coming out of the fish are the like and retweet icons. Congratulate yourself. It’s doing numbers!
14. Un-deactivate your Twitter account. Post your joke. Twenty minutes later, receive a lifetime ban because joking is now only available to people who pay thirty-eight dollars a month and change their username to @ElonIsTheSmartest.
15. Go outside. The sun burns your eyeballs. Imagine your joke is a balloon that you’re releasing into the sky. But, like, a safe balloon, not the kind that kills sea turtles. Imagine going for a walk today. Imagine reading a book. Think of a joke about sea turtles. Dammit.
This is an excerpt from the author’s funny new collection, which you can buy here.
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You’ve probably all noticed that I recently switched up my personal style. That’s right, I’m wearing tunics now. That’s what this gorgeous piece of fabric draping my body is called. A tunic. It originates at my shoulders, meanders down my chest and stomach like a cool mountain stream, and ends its magnificent journey by lightly caressing my hips like a lover who’s just kind of phoning it in these days. It is my tunic. And it is perfection.
The word “tunic” most likely means something in another language, like Greek or Latin, but who gives a shit because in English, “tunic” means “suddenly, shopping at Chico’s doesn’t seem so gross anymore.” Because much like death, Jesus, or one of those square buzzy things they use at the Chili’s hostess stand, the tunic knows when your time has come. And baby, your time will come.
The tunic comes for all.
One day my middle-aged pudge was happily crammed into my usual tight Old Navy tank top that says GIMME CATS AND LATTES, then boom, the very next day, an invisible hand grabbed me by the neck and pushed me into my mom’s section of Macy’s. There I wandered dreamlike until I found the Holy Grail. The motherlode. The rack of Stretch Organic Cotton Jersey Tunics waiting for me under the fluorescent lights and warm bath of the piped-in Muzak. These tunics weren’t marked down, not even by a paltry 20 percent, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care one fucking bit. I hastily yanked my Visa out of my purse and gasped, “Put it on my card! Put them all on my card! No matter the predatory interest rate!”
Friends, I’m not embarrassed to admit that I paid full retail for those damn Stretch Organic Cotton Jersey Tunics. I had no choice. There was no resisting it. Because much like Eileen Fisher’s corporate messaging would say if I worked at Eileen Fisher and they let me write their corporate messaging, one doesn’t simply wear a tunic.
When you’re a woman over forty, a tunic wears you.
Now that I’m wearing tunics, I’ve thrown away the regular shirts that have suppressed me my entire life. Regular shirts are straightjackets. Corsets. Regular shirts conceal nothing. Torso, upper arms, hips, all of that bullshit is displayed in a regular shirt, like slabs of ham in a deli case. But in my tunic? In my tunic, you can’t see any of the middle part of my middle-aged body. I’m shrouded in mystery. I’m a stylish enigma. I’m a greying fortune cookie with a fortune inside it that says, “Fuck you, I was in shape in the eighties.”
In my tunic, I’m the Man Behind the Curtain. No, the Woman Inside the Curtain. And nobody knows what’s going on inside the curtain. It hides every secret. Did I just do two thousand sit-ups, or did I just eat an entire Boston cream pie I found in the back of the freezer? Is my lower back bare, or is it inked in a regrettable tramp stamp that says “American Skank” in Chinese characters? Am I an apple bottom or a kumquat bottom? Is my stomach untouched, or is it covered in leeches because of some stupid holistic thing I’m testing out for my idiot brother-in-law Gary’s new “wellness center”? Nobody knows. Nobody cares. Nobody can even imagine. Why? Because I’m wearing motherfucking tunics now.
Sometimes when I’m feeling subdued, which is the fancy way I say “hungover from draining a box of pinot grigio,” I switch out my tunic for a tunic-adjacent item: the long, lightweight sweater. Long, lightweight sweaters are magic, and they come in a broad spectrum of colors, ranging from light beige to medium beige to dark beige.
And, per store policy, they are only sold to women born before 1980. Sorry, it’s true. Don’t even try to lie because they’ll check your ID, youngblood. Long, lightweight sweaters are soft, they are silent, and they are the length of a fairly tall twelve-year-old boy named Jeremy. “What does wearing a long, lightweight sweater feel like,” you ask? Why, I’ll tell you what it feels like: it feels like being inside one of those caterpillar cocoons your kids had in their elementary classroom, except with less oozing and more cashmere. It feels like being back inside the womb.
Whenever I’m out and about in my long, lightweight sweater, strangers ask me if I’m a therapist. “Can you help me?” they ask. “Can you solve my problems? Can you keep me off the ledge, ma’am?” I gaze at them with a Mona Lisa smile, then I put my hands in the Namaste position and whisper, “I am not a therapist. I only look like one. Any advice I give you would most definitely make your mental health rapidly decline. But if you buy me a non-fat latte, I will find motivational quotes on Instagram and read them to you in a soothing voice.”
Back to tunics.
When I’m in my tunic, I’m ready for anything that’s expected of a woman over forty. If a Nancy Meyers movie needs an extra for a beach house brunch scene, give me a call. If someone is needed to stand in front of a crowd and stare commandingly until they quiet the hell down, I’m ready to go. What’s that? The Active Adult Senior Living center needs a more-cute-than-pretty, affordable model for its new ad campaign? Hand me a can of Ensure and a tennis racket and tell me to smile, bucko. I’m ready for my close-up. Put my mug on those junk mail flyers and send them out. Because I am confident, I am fashionable, and I am ensconced in three-to-five yards of kicky magenta linen. How old am I? I’m tunic years old.
Remember, friends, a tunic is not a caftan. A tunic is not a toga. A tunic isn’t one of those stupid muumuus sold at flea markets for a dollar. A tunic is never in style or out of style; a tunic transcends style. But most of all, a tunic is a woman’s way of saying, “You know what? Nobody’s looking at me anymore anyway, so why not just relax and throw out my fucking shapewear? Why not be comfortable and self-assured for once in my goddamn life?” Yeah, it’s pretty much that last one. A glorious, comfortable future awaits. I’m wearing tunics now.
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To read an interview with Wendi Aarons about the inspiration behind writing this piece, click here.
