Wednesday Afternoon SugarLinks – Unite And Take Over

by | Jun 7, 2023 | Daily Links | 149 comments

California Senate passes bill to stop employees from confronting shoplifters

The California Senate has passed a bill that would establish new workplace violence prevention standards in California. Not everyone is happy about it.

The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 553, now progresses to policy committees in the State Assembly. Among other things, it would prohibit employers from “maintaining policies that require employees to confront active shooters or suspected shoplifters.” It also would require all non-healthcare employers to provide active shooter training to workers.

The bill comes as retail crime is on the upswing, with several retailers, including Target, blaming theft, particularly organized retail crime, as eating into their profits. It also comes amid rising theft-related violence. In April, a 26-year-old Home Depot security guard, Blake Mohs, was shot to death while trying to stop a theft in progress inside the company’s store in Pleasanton, Calif.

“With growing awareness of workplace violence, California needs smarter guidelines to keep workers safe in the office or on the job site,”said Senator Cortese (D-San Jose). “Under my SB 553, employers would be prohibited from forcing their workers to confront active shoplifters, and all retail employees would be trained on how to react to active shoplifting. The legislation has other provisions that keep people safe at work. Let’s take every reasonable step to prevent another workplace assault or shooting.”

How about arresting shoplifters? Anyone? Anyone?


 

NYC’s drug-themed vending machine cleaned out of crack pipes overnight: ‘They should re-stock’

City officials’ new drug-themed vending machine is a huge hit with local addicts — who wasted no time cleaning it out overnight as they stocked up on its free crack pipes, lip balm and Narcan.

“Yes, I love it,” drug user Evelyn Williams told The Post while standing at the “public health” vending machine in Brownsville, Brooklyn, on Tuesday. “They put it in yesterday, and it’s empty already.

By 1 p.m., a drug-prevention-program worker was starting to restock the machine with more drug-test strips, Narcan and condoms — predicting the vending machine could need to be refilled “maybe twice a day, depending on which items go quite quickly.’’

“We have a lot of addicts and heroin users over here,” Williams said. “They should re-stock it immediately!”

Self-described crack smoker Minoshi Calpe, 56, had walked away with the second-to-last product in the vending machine — a fentanyl test strip — around 11 a.m. while sniffing that the glass used for the free pipes might not be up to her standards.

“I like the Pyrex because it’s a little thicker,’’ she said, also lamenting that “you can’t even sell that [vending stuff] because the programs give you all that stuff” already for free.

Oh, will the city not think of the discerning crack user, the gourmet, those whose standards are so very high, smoking only the best crack, shitting on only the nicest stretches of sidewalk? The churlish might think crackheads should be happy with what they get, but cheap crack pipes lower the tone of the entire neighborhood.


 

Mike Pence, Who Won’t Interact Alone with Women Other Than His Wife, Launches Presidential Bid

It’s official: Former Vice President Mike Pence (R) is running for president. And I, for one, think that a man who still can’t bring himself to condemn former President Donald Trump—despite Trump recently suggesting his supporters who chanted “Hang Mike Pence” on Jan. 6 might have been justified—is exactly the tough guy we need to get this nation back on track.

In an impotent little video shared on Fox News and on Twitter on Wednesday morning, the sentient dish rag declares that “different times call for different leadership.” He then proclaims, “Today, before God and my family, I’m announcing I’m running for president of the United States.”

Interacting with God and his family has never been a problem for Pence, it seems. On the other hand, interacting with the legions of women voters he’ll soon have to appeal to does present a bit of a challenge for the former vice president. For all his recent tough-guy swaggering, posing in comical photos riding a motorcycle, Pence, you’ll recall, has said he refuses to dine alone with any woman but his wife, Karen Pence—also known (primarily by Pence) as “Mother.” Pence doesn’t even attend events with alcohol without Mother, and when duty calls and he’s forced to work late nights at the office, he recuses female aides and is staffed only by men.

“Why won’t you be alone with young women, Mike? Why won’t you open yourself up to a false allegation or at least feed the rumor mill? Why did you learn the real lesson of #metoo?”


 

“Shoplifters of the World Unite”
The Smiths
Non-album single (January 1987)

 

Learn to love me, assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a list of crime
My only weakness is, well, never mind, never mind, oh

Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Hand it over, hand it over, hand it over

Learn to love me and assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a listed crime
But last night the plans for a future war was all I saw on Channel 4

Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Hand it over, hand it over, hand it over

A heartless hand on my shoulder, a push and it’s over
Alabaster crashes down, six months is a long time
Tried living in the real world instead of a shell
But before I began
I was bored before I even began

Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Hand it over

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

149 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “California Senate passes bill to stop employees from confronting shoplifters”

    OFFS!!!

    • kinnath

      Among other things, it would prohibit employers from “maintaining policies that require employees to confront active shooters or suspected shoplifters.

      • Pat

        No employer that carries liability insurance would ever have such a policy in the first place, and every major corporation started giving their employees the “give it up smooth and don’t make any trouble” speech as part of their onboarding process back in the ’70s, coincidentally when we were pursuing the same social policy as we are today. But California is here to protect the workers.

      • Ownbestenemy

        My guess is gives cover for when they fire an employee who is impassioned and attempts to stop the shoplifter. Companies can just point to the law and avoid uncomfortable news coverage of canning a single mom who fought of a would-be shoplifter at the small business she works at.

      • Sean

        “I was just stealing it back!”

      • Fatty Bolger

        I doubt any retailers have that requirement, but does the law also apply to security contractors?

      • DEG

        When I worked for a grocery store in the 90s, we got no such talk.

        The store was and still is a publicly traded company.

        Where I was, we didn’t have too many incidents of shoplifting. I remember management confronting the shoplifters. Sometimes they’d have employees keep an eye on suspected shoplifters, but management would do the confronting.

      • Nephilium

        The retail jobs I’ve had all had in the rules that we were not to confront suspected shoplifters, at most we were to monitor and notify either management or loss prevention. This was in the mid/late 90’s.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I’d wager that all employees who have gone after shoplifters are doing it purely out of their own violation.

      • DEG

        purely out of their own violation.

        I like that typo.

      • R C Dean

        And its not even a typo because it would be against policy.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I figured the call back to SF was prudent

    • Tonio

      “It also would require all non-healthcare employers to provide active shooter training to workers.”

      That’s just plain weird. Why the exemption for healthcare?

      • Pat

        Health facilities are gun-free zones, so they don’t need active shooting training.

      • R.J.

        For a second I thought that meant “provide shooting training.” Which I favor. 100% sure the person is stealing? Shooty shoot shoot.

      • Pat

        Lol, yeah, that should be “shooter” not “shooting”

      • Ownbestenemy

        Can’t find that statement in the actual bill. My guess is since it is amending California’s labor code, they fall under a different provision?

      • Chafed

        I’m just delighted by the prospect of the state imposing yet another cost on my business.

      • R C Dean

        I had the same question. My go-to answer for this kind of thing is “good lobbyists”.

        I had active shooter training at the hospital. It turned into a very interesting discussion about impromptu weapons, starting with the fire extinguisher outside my office. Separately, I told the HR trainer that I was all on board with “run, hide, fight” because it was a great short description for setting an ambush. The training was subsequently amended to “run away, hide, fight”.

    • Ownbestenemy

      The legislation has other provisions that keep people safe at work. Let’s take every reasonable step to prevent another workplace assault or shooting.”

      It reads like an OSHA regulation and similar requirements to document the event. How does that equate to a reasonable step to prevent anything.

      • Bobarian LMD

        OSHA: “We’ll know who to blame when all the bodies are cleaned up.”

    • Mojeaux

      Does this apply to Korean business owners with rooftops?

  2. KSuellington

    As anyone not a politician could foresee, I immediately thought upon hearing that NYC was putting drug paraphernalia in “free” vending machines that it would be cleared out by the first druggie that came by.

    • Tonio

      “you can’t even sell that [vending stuff] because the programs give you all that stuff”

      • Sean

        *sad trombone*

      • KSuellington

        They give assloads of that stuff free here in Ess Eff, but that wouldn’t stop the dude who spent the previous three hours scouring the ground for an imaginary lost crack piece from pushing A8 fifteen times or so until he got every last pipe like some crack addicted Gollum.

      • Chafed

        How soon before SF starts installing those vending machines?

      • Not Adahn

        And deprive a union crack pipe hander-outer of a good government job?

      • KSuellington

        I can’t believe they don’t have them already.

      • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

        They have concierge service. Vending machines are so non-GMO.

      • Spudalicious

        You’re forgetting druggie justice. The dopers waiting in line for their crack pots will beat him bloody for taking all of them.

      • R C Dean

        Even the crack addicts understand economics better than our rulers.

    • slumbrew

      The deuce you say!

    • Not Adahn

      If it doesn’t require anything it’s not a vending machine; it’s a dispensing machine.

      • R C Dean

        + 1 ackchually

  3. Count Potato

    Never change, Jezebel.

  4. The Late P Brooks

    It also would require all non-healthcare employers to provide active shooter training to workers.

    Run away.

    Okay, everybody, get back to work.

  5. Tundra

    Perfect song for a fucked up world.

    I have to admit, my grandfather gave me that Pence advice when I first started my career. Overall, I think it’s smart. I’ve seen several business romances crater marriages.

    That said, Fuck Pence. He’s a freak.

    • Mojeaux

      The “Work Wife” and “Work Husband” bullshit is total cringe.

      • slumbrew

        So very much yes.

        i.e., “my just-in-case affair partner”

      • Ownbestenemy

        “What honey? It’s just a bit of flirting at work, of course I still love you” should be on a Hallmark Card

      • creech

        Had one of those relationships for twenty years and we managed to keep our hands off each other.

      • R C Dean

        I’ve had what could fairly be called a “work wife” at two jobs that I can think of off the top of my head. There wasn’t even any flirting that I know of (although my Flirtometer 2000 is notoriously unreliable). Just an alloy of friendship and a good working relationship – we had each other’s back and all that.

      • Mojeaux

        Having each other’s back and having an excellent working relationship isn’t what I would call a “work wife.” Well, hell, what I object to is actually calling someone your “work wife” out loud. Super cringe.

      • rhywun

        One of my “work husbands” and I took every lunch and smoke break together.

        Sure, I was insanely attracted to him and not vice versa and it was only many years later that it occurred to me that I might have been in the presence of a sociopath.

      • Ted S.

        It’s OK, we’re all sociopaths here.

      • rhywun

        I’ve had a couple “work husbands” in that sense.

        Nothing remotely close in 20 years, though. Making friends doesn’t get any easier as I age, I guess.

      • DrOtto

        What about work girlfriends? That’s totes OK, correct? Asking for a friend.

  6. The Late P Brooks

    With growing awareness of workplace violence, California needs smarter guidelines to keep workers safe in the office or on the job site

    Ban work.

    • Bobarian LMD

      They are working on it, but you eat an elephant with small bites.

      • pistoffnick

        *wonders what elephant meat tastes like*

      • R C Dean

        I’m wondering what hippo meat tastes like.

  7. Drake

    This doesn’t look like it will end well.
    https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1666180197719195648

    “South Dakota landowners in McPherson County facing an eminent domain lawsuit from Summit Carbon Solutions to build a carbon capture pipeline on their property for ethanol plants in Iowa.

    It shows an armed security guard flanking surveyors as they enter private land without permission for a pipeline they don’t even have the permit to build yet.”

      • Not Adahn

        “Is that level 4 plate?”

    • Pat

      No oil, no injuns, no celebrities, clearly fake news.

    • kinnath

      Interesting.

      Iowa just passed a low that prohibits using eminent domain to do surveys (driven by these pipeline projects). It doesn’t kill the pipeline, but property owners can deny access to surveyors.

      • dorvinion

        Had some good wins the last few years so I wonder what the holdup is

        Course I’m still waiting on the no front license plate bill to make it through

      • R C Dean

        “I wonder what the holdup is”

        The check from the pipeline company cleared?

  8. R.J.

    I don’t blame Mike Pence for the whole women thing. Every asshole in the world is out to frame him with women to make him look like a hypocrite. Remember Borat?

    • Grummun

      Yes. Hate on Mike Pence for being a card-carrying eGOP stooge, but the thing with the women is just not-unwarranted caution in this age.

  9. Mojeaux

    Bringing this over from dedthred:

    I’m a little tired of “I’m autistic!” I’m hearing this everyfuckingwhere.

    Maybe you’re not autistic, you just have different interests from other people, aka “normies.” Normal is a setting on a dryer. Why can’t people just be weird and be okay (or not) with it instead of having to have a label?

    And half these “autistic” people think they’re the opposite sex.

    This microrant brought to you by this tweet thread (which is itself a hot mess): https://twitter.com/somenuancepls/status/1666458627291357187

    • Nephilium

      I’ll bring over my response as well (yep, saw your response too):

      Because too many people use the “I’m autistic”/”I’m on the spectrum” to give themselves an excuse to avoid making an attempt to blend in and be able to work with normies.

      • Mojeaux

        I will be the first to admit I’m unemployable due to my grating personality. I take full responsibility for this (it may or may not have to do with some undiagnosed autism I don’t care about, but that’s neither here nor there). I just don’t know how to fix it. Anyway, my solution was to find an industry where I could work from home.

      • Ownbestenemy

        We are beginning to suspect that our ‘normal’ kids feel left out with their ‘abnormal’ friends (they claim all kinds of shit) and thus adjust their moods/actions accordingly. Right now we have a teen that is “too stressed” because of car trouble.

        The one friend came in hot complaining and declaring she will write scathing letters to the school district because they misspelled her name on the diploma. As she was doing so, I went and gathered up some storage items of decades of misspelled trophies, jerseys and even a gift recently from my wife.

        These people are groomed to have something wrong with them even when nothing is wrong.

    • R.J.

      Noh! I will drink in peace and not read it.

      • Mojeaux

        She makes good points overall, but still misses the obvious one. I will extend her the grace that she may not be far enough in her life journey to get the obvious one.

    • Pat

      I won’t deny that autism exists as a cluster of symptoms that might be diagnostically useful, but the “autism spectrum” has become the modern equivalent of an ADHD diagnosis back in the ’90s.

      Why can’t people just be weird and be okay (or not) with it instead of having to have a label?

      Because our entire social structure now is based on victim hierarchy. There’s no social value in being weirdo, but there’s plenty of social value in being a clinically-diagnosed “non-neurotypical” minority persecuted by the “neurotypical” normalkin.

      • Mojeaux

        That is a lovely MCM home, but it’s not my style of MCM. The Mondrian-ish exterior isn’t my cuppa.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      Some general thoughts from my experience and research.

      There is something going on here. The kids crowing about it on social media are no more autistic than the ones proclaiming to be trans are trans. But diagnoses are increasing at significant rate. Yes, the diagnostic criteria has been broadened, but that only accounts for about 30% of the increase over the past two decades. Autism is diagnosed using validated measures with high sensitivity and specificity. No one is diagnosed with autism for being weird.

      For anyone with experience in autism (healthcare providers, parents, siblings, etc), there is no confusing a person who has autism with a unautistic person who just “isn’t normal” or “doesn’t fit in”. Just zero confusion. Possibly some borderline cases of what was formerly known as mild Asperger’s, but that’s a different beast than autism now grouped within the ASD umbrella.

      No parents are getting autism diagnoses for their kids for fun. It is a miserable, grueling process that feels like grieving for the death of your child. Grieving is the overriding theme from study after study on parents’ experiences with diagnoses. The measures can also cost in the high hundreds to thousands of dollars to administer with an unmet deductible. This isn’t like getting adderall for ADHD.

      • Pat

        No parents are getting autism diagnoses for their kids for fun.

        I take your point, but given the number of clout chasing TikTok moms getting their kid any specious diagnosis they can for internet sympathy, I don’t think it’s completely unheard of either.

        Back in the mid-late ’90s my step brother was a live-in nanny/caregiver for special needs children, and one of the families he worked with had an adopted autistic boy with significant, but not debilitating symptoms. Even back then, the parents were… I don’t know, let’s say on the “Munchausen spectrum.” They weren’t abusing the kid, and certainly weren’t inventing his condition, but they were very invested in the idea of being the “good people” who adopted and cared for this poor autistic boy. It was sad to see. They did by him right by conventional measures, but had substantially no real connection to the kid at all.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I’m following and am sure there are TikTok moms parading autism, but I doubt their kids have actual diagnoses. Maybe a few somehow got false diagnoses, but I’d bet the vast majority are making it up. Just like moms making up cancer diagnoses, etc for attention.

        It’s not easy getting a diagnosis. The ADOS is considered the gold standard since the early 2000s. It takes a couple hours to complete and the items are generally evaluated based on clinician observation of the child running through a series of validated exercises designed to elicit certain behaviors. The TikTok mom can’t train her 5 year old how to behave for a positive hit on the ADOS. The clinicians also have to be specially trained to use the ADOS and often have yearlong wait lists. Other diagnosis approaches exist, but can be equally onerous. One involves a diagnosis determined by a panel of experts from different clinical and therapeutic disciplines.

        They did by him right by conventional measures, but had substantially no real connection to the kid at all.

        Good on your brother, that’s a very hard job. My wife did something similar for several years of private caregiving. Her best friend quickly quit working in a group home for severely autistic teenagers after having every type of bodily fluid thrown on her (think being spidermanned walking through the doors). That’s really sad about the parents, but unfortunately not uncommon. There are instances every year of parents giving up and going the murder-suicide route with their autistic child because their world is so dark.

      • juris imprudent

        the number of clout chasing TikTok momshumans

        Seriously, you don’t need to feed my misanthropy.

      • Homple

        It is now the fashion to manufacture for yourself a mental condition and flaunt it–a cheap and easy way to get attention.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    Oh, will the city not think of the discerning crack user, the gourmet, those whose standards are so very high

    Nobody likes taking a crack hit off no name aluminum foil. Reynolds or GTFO.

    • Mojeaux

      Snob.

    • kinnath
  11. Timeloose

    NYC’s drug-themed vending machine cleaned out of crack pipes overnight:

    Who is going to bail out the mini rose in a glass tube and the stainless steel wool industries?

    Big Gov ruining another industry.

    • Pat

      That and his constituency being the neocon/CoC alliance, which bailed on the Republican party in 2016. And also he has a personality like wallpaper paste.

      • The Other Kevin

        I’m with everybody else, I just don’t see why he’s bothering.

      • Tundra

        There has to be a solid grift in running, somehow.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Fundraising money. Keep his parasite career as a politician going. Get hired as a lobbyist or sit on a board.

    • R.J.

      He is not my dream guy, at all. I understand how he is. But he’s a RINO regardless of his faith or other positions. Just another RINO.

      • juris imprudent

        This always cracks me up – some longtime, dead-center-establishment Republican and someone calls him a RINO. Christ, it’s worse than the Libertarians.

      • R.J.

        Granted he would improve some things. He would still allow the military industrial complex to make the calls, and would not reign in or remove the FBI. If you have proof otherwise, let me know. I hate the Repubs as much as the Democrats, I have no use for either.

      • Fatty Bolger

        He would still allow the military industrial complex to make the calls, and would not reign in or remove the FBI.

        So, typical Republican.

      • R.J.

        Yes. Those, I call RINOs for now. The playfield is tilted. Republicans are either aggressive culture warriors who will take us away from foreign entanglements, or they are useless, shiftless nothings who go along to get along like Pence or McConnell. Actually that isn’t fair to Pence. He did at least cut taxes. McConnell is useless all together.

      • juris imprudent

        No actually he wouldn’t improve one fucking thing. The eGOP sucks donkey balls. So do the RINOs and so does anyone I’ve left out.

        Politics will never do anything but make everything worse.

      • Brochettaward

        I mean, if the majority of your elected representatives are frauds who don’t represent the base, then I guess you have to question what the party actually is. RINO, regardless of the actual words that compromise the acronym, simply means fraudster who is little different from the Dems. And that summarizes Pence besides his extreme love for the Jesus.

      • Pat

        They used to just call them Rockefeller Republicans, but the term’s aged out.

      • juris imprudent

        what the party actually is

        Not Democrats, that’s all.

  12. Shpip

    By 1 p.m., a drug-prevention-program worker was starting to restock the machine with more drug-test strips, Narcan and condoms

    Shouldn’t that be “drug use facilitation worker”?

    On second thought… I’m going to propose something similar to my local government. I’d like to have a “gun violence prevention worker” constantly restocking a taxpayer-funded “free” ammunition vending machine at my shooting range. Think they’ll go for it?

    • Shpip

      Maybe even a free html tag vending machine. I’d buy that for a dollar use that at no cost to me.

      • Mojeaux

        Gotcha covered, fam.

    • slumbrew

      That song always makes me think of this scene now.

  13. DEG

    On the other hand, interacting with the legions of women voters he’ll soon have to appeal to does present a bit of a challenge for the former vice president. For all his recent tough-guy swaggering, posing in comical photos riding a motorcycle, Pence, you’ll recall, has said he refuses to dine alone with any woman but his wife, Karen Pence—also known (primarily by Pence) as “Mother.” Pence doesn’t even attend events with alcohol without Mother, and when duty calls and he’s forced to work late nights at the office, he recuses female aides and is staffed only by men.

    I read this and knew it was a Jezebel link.

    • Sean

      is staffed only by men.

      Sounds gay.

    • The Other Kevin

      See my comment above. They won’t even have to dig for dirt or make shit up. They can just go back a few years and change the dates on their articles.

    • Animal

      I’m with Pence on this one. When I’m at a client site, I will not say again not meet one-on-one with a female colleague in a closed room. Not in the current social environment. Either a big conference room with lots of glass and all doors open, or in a cubicle with traffic going by.

    • The Other Kevin

      Let’s go after the front runner on bullshit charges, genius move. Be careful what you wish for.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        But he’s so dangerous, so disrespectful of democratic norms, that we have to disregard those norms to destroy him.

      • Tundra

        I’m starting to side with the people who think the donks really want him to be the nominee.

      • KSuellington

        They really really want him to be the nominee. Both because they think he is the most easy to beat and they are utterly fixated on him. Without him, they have nothing. I am among the camp who thinks Trump will almost surely lose, but they are playing with fire, as they have an utterly shit candidate and the country is pissed. There is the possibility they could lose to him again.

      • Brochettaward

        I’m firmly in the camp that no Republican will be allowed to win and at this point, it’s about giving them the biggest fuck you possible. And putting Trump back up after all their bullshit smears is about as effective a fuck you as you’re going to get.

      • R.J.

        Most likely you are right. If so you have to come get your BBQ and cobbler before we are all taken to the camp.

      • rhywun

        It’s early but Trump has a firm lead against all his primary opponents.

        He will lose in the general, and for the same reasons he lost last time.

      • DrOtto

        Broken pipes?

      • Penguin

        They say “[Trump is] so dangerous” unironically after he started 0 wars, and after the worthless crooked shit they voted for has pushed the US to the brink of WWIII.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Yeah, but have you read his mean tweets?

      • juris imprudent

        And he doesn’t even tweet anymore. So it isn’t like you are going to casually stumble over one. You’d never know a thing if the MSM wasn’t obsessed with reporting everything about him.

    • Zwak , who will swing for the crime, in double time!

      “we had to burn down the village to save it.”

      But, seriously, this is the kind of shit that kicked off the Spanish Civil War. Sure, the remnants of the old empire were still around and not being of any use whatsoever, but going through and doing everything to destroy the middle class values in the (all but) name of Marxism; killing priests, land “reforms”, destroying education, and so on. It was no wonder that Franco staged a coup, the only surprising thing was it wasn’t 100% effective.

      And I am sure every one here can see the same pattern.

  14. rhywun

    lol inspired music choice

  15. Tundra

    I’m sitting here surprised at how sad I am about the Sheik. Obviously, as an ’80s kid I loved him, but even as an old man his Twitter account cracked me up daily.

    Also, I was just at the grocery store and there was a masked up, gray haired, unhappy prog female with a shirt that read: “No More Silence – Time To End Gun Violence”

    I was really thinking the bitch needed a good Camel Clutch.

    • Old Man With Candy

      /shakes fist at clouds

      Professional wrestling ceased to be after the retirements of Bruno Sammartino, Bobo Brazil, and Haystacks Calhoun.

    • rhywun

      I only know him from his Howard Stern appearances and holy shit what a force of nature.

    • KSuellington

      Heheheh. I would pay good money to watch you tell such a specimen, “you look like you need to be given a really good Camel Clutch.” To frigging funny. RIP Iron Sheik, as a fellow 80’s kid I always thought he was the best WWF villain.

  16. Drake

    I loved his curly-toed boots he’d use to kick the crap out of some babyface.

    • dorvinion

      It does take time for a baby fire to blow up into something noticeable so its not entirely unrealistic for lighting to cause a smolder and the blowup happens hours/days later while the sky is clear

      The longer video from some guy. No evaluation of his credibility

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKUkZ2oOFF0

      • WTF

        Kind of odd that so many all blow up at the same time though.

      • dorvinion

        It was about a 5 or 6 hour time window from first to last fire becoming noticeable

        Baby fire smolders nice and small, maybe a couple acres in some cases for a few days.
        Then the winds pick up, the humidity drops and boom, raging inferno

        Just saying its not entirely unrealistic to be natural

      • Tundra

        Not saying it isn’t. In 2023, however, there is nothing I take at face value.

      • dorvinion

        Would be interesting to see satellite fire detection imagery for the hours/days before.

        I think its a bit more sensitive than simply looking for smoke plumes in visible so it would be a better indication of when each fire got started.

    • Brochettaward

      Who cares enough about Canada to attack it?

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Especially Quebec.

    • rhywun

      No idea here, but I recall some stat around the time of the last major round of wildfires in CA and they said the percentage (in general) of forest fires that are arson was some shockingly high number. Say, 20% (I don’t remember the number but it was much higher than I would have guessed.)

      OK, chatbot gives figures ranging from 9% to 21%. Dayum.

    • Drake

      Forgot he was managed by Classy Freddy Blassy.

  17. LCDR_Fish

    Well got lucky on this inspection. Turned out better than the last two – a couple 12+ hr days, a 14 hr day and I’m done by 4 today.

    What are the odds I’ll be able to catch an earlier flight back to Atlanta from NOLA tomorrow afternoon? Looks like I’ve got 4 or 5 options with Delta so hopefully it’ll pan out. (A lot of Richmond options there but I’d rather sit in ATL than NOLA any day).

    • LCDR_Fish

      To clarify, not better than my last 2 inspections but better than the last 2 “new delivery” inspections I conducted at this shipyard. Good use of our taxpayer $$$.

  18. DrOtto

    In Glib adjacent news I heard a new song by Poppy on SiriusXM’s Octane yesterday. It was called Concrete. That is all.

  19. Sensei

    I am seriously not very happy with Canada right now.

    You can cut the air in NYC with a knife.

    • rhywun

      It’s improved a bit since around lunchtime when it looked apocalyptically orange out there.

      • Sensei

        It got quite dark too.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Sounds like a California summer.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Paging President Choo Choo

    U.S. passenger railroad Amtrak said Monday it has applied for $8 billion in government grants to modernize bridges, tunnels and other aging infrastructure along the busy Washington to Boston corridor, expanding service and building a new station in Arlington, Virginia.

    Congress approved $66 billion for rail as part of the 2021 massive infrastructure bill, with Amtrak receiving $22 billion. The bill also sets aside $36 billion for competitive grants, which Amtrak is looking to tap to help fund replacement or rehabilitation of tunnels, bridges and other aging infrastructure along the Boston to Washington corridor.

    Amtrak is seeking funding for $7.3 billion in Northeast Corridor projects including several in the Gateway Program such as the New York Penn Station Expansion, Sawtooth Bridges replacement and other projects. It wants to replace a 116-year-old bridge across the Connecticut River that would allow it to boost speeds by more than 25 mph.

    Amtrak also wants $716 million to fund 16 projects nationwide to improve long distance train reliability, reduce travel times and expand service. Funds would be used to boost train service, increase train speeds and extend service from Mississippi through Louisiana to Texas and build a new station that would add service to Arlington, Virginia.

    I’m just surprised it wasn’t already in the Inflation Acceleration Act.

  21. Sensei

    Many such offerings attributed the Licht-led network’s troubles to structural factors, the boss’s detachment from the day-to-day, and ambitious but destabilizing business ventures that didn’t pan out. One of the more intellectually honest efforts to explain CNN’s travails was penned by Washington Post opinion writer Perry Bacon Jr., who crystalized not only the problem afflicting this network but all news media in a tidy theory of everything: the press is just too darn centrist.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/surveying-medias-perverse-anti-woke-centrism/