Category: Current Events

Tennessee Gov Yanks Business’s Choke-Collar

Richard D Hailey, Facebook
h/t Joe Mannix on A♠

I was going to do this as a video, but decided that I’m a bit too angry to be trusted with a camera and a microphone. The governor of Tennessee told everybody that he would not be extending his safer at home executive order, and that he would allow local governments to begin reopening their businesses when it expired.

Business owners reacted, bring in inventory, stocking shelves, bringing back employees, and spending money to get ready to reopen.

Today, just a couple of days before businesse were going to reopen, the governor issued a new executive order. Only some businesses would be allowed to reopen. Others would have to remain closed. Restaurants could open, but bars could not. Gyms could open, but swimming pools and bowling alleys could not. Stores could open, but playgrounds, amusement parks, theaters, auditoriums, arcades, race tracks, etc could not.

All of the theaters in Pigeon Forge were planning on reopening following the governor’s original announcement. They brought back their casts and crews, spruced up the theaters, and got everything ready to open up.

Now they can’t. All that time, effort, and yes, money, has been wasted as the governor, at the last minute, took away their hope.

This will be devastating to these businesses. Many of them will fail because of the governor’s about face. In a cruel parody of the last minute reprieve of the death row inmate, instead of offering a reprieve, the governor’s call has pulled the switch on Sevier County. …

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Gladys Calls Cops on Pokemon

The Karens/Gladys Kravitzes of the world need a big mirror.
h/t Misanthropic Humanitarian on A♠ Overnight Thread

Fox5DC: Neighbor calls police on mom, daughter playing Pokemon Go

Amy Kellems decided that while everyone was self quarantined in their homes amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, it was the perfect opportunity for her and her daughter to play Pokemon Go in her empty neighborhood in Minnesota.

That was until the two were pulled over in their driveway after their neighbors reported a suspicious vehicle on their street. …

Oopsie, said neighbor Gladys. That cake says it all. SORRY WE CALLED THE COPS ON YOU. Article says, the Mom “posted about the humorous incident on her Facebook page.” Humorous. Right. SHE CALLED THE COPS! Not funny.

Hope the daughter learned something.

Austin Williams, the author of this article, felt the need to remind us that

Pokemon Go has been at the center of controversy after many of its users have been the victims of crime while playing the game.

OH, please! And, some South Korean kid died playing games non-stop in a cybercafe. No relation.

Why Does Trump Hate Pangolins?!?

Why does Trump hate pangolins?!?
Why does Trump want epidemics?!?
The despicable media — in this case, the Guardian — blame Trump.
h/t Tami on A♠

Pandemic shines harsh light on Trump’s failure to protect pangolins

For more than five years, wildlife conservationists in the US have been clamoring for the government to provide Endangered Species Act protections to pangolins, a group of imperiled ant-eating mammals that are widely, and often illicitly, trafficked for their scales and meat. The Trump administration, however, has refused to act and that refusal has suddenly taken on grave new implications.

Earlier this year, scientists in China identified pangolins, along with bats, as one of the possible animal hosts involved in the transmission of the deadly coronavirus from wildlife to humans.…

The Trump administration also wants to cut more than $300m from programs run by the state department and USAid that promote habitat conservation and combat wildlife trafficking in Asia, Africa and elsewhere, according to a February report from the US Global Leadership Coalition. In light of threats such as Covid-19 and the climate crisis, the report asserts, the administration’s proposed cuts are “out of touch with America’s interests”.

Covid-19, scientists and advocates argue, has proven that this is not a time to reduce the US’s commitments to protecting and restoring the world’s ailing animal populations.…

Hmmm. Call me cynical, but maybe preserving the animal that carries a bunch of dangerous viruses isn’t the right course?

ATT, NSA, and You

Ryan Gallagher, Henrik Moltke, The Intercept
THE WIRETAP ROOMS
The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities
h/t JackStraw on A♠

…The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.” It is a collaboration that dates back decades. Little known, however, is that its scope is not restricted to AT&T’s customers. According to the NSA’s documents, it values AT&T not only because it “has access to information that transits the nation,” but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T’s massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.

…“It’s eye-opening and ominous the extent to which this is happening right here on American soil,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “It puts a face on surveillance that we could never think of before in terms of actual buildings and actual facilities in our own cities, in our own backyards.”

…Among the pinpointed buildings, there is a nuclear blast-resistant, windowless facility in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood; in Washington, D.C., a fortress-like, concrete structure less than half a mile south of the U.S. Capitol; in Chicago, an earthquake-resistant skyscraper in the West Loop Gate area; in Atlanta, a 429-foot art deco structure in the heart of the city’s downtown district; and in Dallas, a cube-like building with narrow windows and large vents on its exterior, located in the Old East district.

Elsewhere, on the west coast of the U.S., there are three more facilities: in downtown Los Angeles, a striking concrete tower near the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Staples Center, two blocks from the most important internet exchange in the region; in Seattle, a 15-story building with blacked-out windows and reinforced concrete foundations, near the city’s waterfront; and in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, a building where it was previously claimed that the NSA was monitoring internet traffic from a secure room on the sixth floor.

Read it all: THE WIRETAP ROOMS