I did not know this

[Jay Mysteri0]

An 11-year-old was given an allotment of 'undesirable' land. Beneath the surface was millions of dollars worth of oil.

After oil was discovered under her land, Sarah Rector received marriage proposals for her wealth.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[lizkat]

And yet some Americans today still assert there's no history of systemic racism in the USA.

Under the law at the time, Native Americans and Freedmen who possessed substantial wealth had to be assigned white guardians

'

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

Jackie Robinson, Carly Simon didn't just cross paths, they were like family

It’s a story that sounds like “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of.” When Jackie Robinson and his family were between homes -- stymied in their search because of the racist real estate practices of the early 1950s -- they were taken in by a white Connecticut couple that helped

www.mlb.com

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

🤔

 

[SouprMatt]

🤔

The only “victims” of this crisis appear to be wealthy landlords and banks. But somehow, I have a feeling they’ll figure out a way to force average income people to shoulder the burden for them.

 

[ronntaylor]

The only “victims” of this crisis appear to be wealthy landlords and banks. But somehow, I have a feeling they’ll figure out a way to force average income people to shoulder the burden for them.

Let's hope it doesn't implode during the summer/right before the Presidential Election. Whoever wins (steals?) the election will have to suffer the backlash if it results in another big recession a la 2008.

 

[SouprMatt]

I did not know that the CEO of Houston's electric utility company is the 12th-most overpaid CEO in the nation. He got 37.8 million dollars last year.

https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/centerpoint-energy-texas-17791714.php

Also of interest, this privately-run public utility (which has a monopoly, created by the government) - made $6.1 billion in PROFIT last year.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

I wasn't aware of this quote from MLK Jr. I learned it from reading about Harris being "Black enough".

The 'Kamala ain’t Black' conspiracy theory explained

OPINION: If the online debate over Kamala Harris’s blackness has left you puzzled, don't worry—we have answers.

thegrio.com

Apparently, Kamala Harris is not Black.

I’m not laughing; that’s my asthma acting up!

While it is easy to dismiss this claim by using the age-old method of genetic testing called “eyesight,” theGrio decided to investigate this hilarious hypothesis seriously. Here’s what we found.

What is Black?​

To effectively debunk this allegation, we must first agree on what people are saying.

While there are numerous stories and tweets claiming Harris descended from a white slaveowner, those stories just prove people’s ignorance of America’s true history. Slavemasters often raped their human property, which explains an American Journal of Human Genetics study showing the average African American’s genome is nearly a quarter European. Loving vs. Virginia didn’t cause that; the sexual violence of racial terrorism did. As one teenager wrote: “It is fair to remember that almost the total of race mixture in America has come, not at Negro initiative, but by the acts of those very white men who talk loudest of race purity.”

To be fair, what does a 17-year-old kid named Martin Luther King Jr. know about racism?

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/.../kick-dust-letter-editor-atlanta-constitution

During the summer after his sophomore year at Morehouse, King wrote this letter to the editor of Atlanta’s largest newspaper. Although King does not make clear his reasons for writing, the letter was probably written in response to the racially motivated murders of two black couples in Walton County, Georgia, and of Macio Snipes, a black World War II veteran.1 In the letter, King is critical of those who attempt to “obscure the real question of rights and opportunities.” Years later, King, Sr., observed that he and his wife had “no intimation of [King, Jr.’s] developing greatness … until as a teenager he wrote a letter to the editor of a local paper which received widespread and favorable comment.” 2

Editor Constitution:

I often find when decent treatment for the Negro is urged, a certain class of people hurry to raise the scarecrow of social mingling and intermarriage. These questions have nothing to do with the case. And most people who kick up this kind of dust know that it is simple dust to obscure the real question of rights and opportunities. It is fair to remember that almost the total of race mixture in America has come, not at Negro initiative, but by the acts of those very white men who talk loudest of race purity. We aren’t eager to marry white girls, and we would like to have our own girls left alone by both white toughs and white aristocrats.

We want and are entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens: The right to earn a living at work for which we are fitted by training and ability; equal opportunities in education, health, recreation, and similar public services; the right to vote; equality before the law; some of the same courtesy and good manners that we ourselves bring to all human relations.

M. L. KING, JR.
Morehouse College.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

After my time on twit last night, I decided to stay away.

Unfortunately disappointment seems to follow wherever I go on the internet

NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick Raises $4 Million to Create AI Comics

Colin Kaepernick, former NFI quarterback has raised $4 million in investments for Lumi, a new AI-based platform for publishing comics.

bleedingcool.com

 

[lizkat]

After my time on twit last night, I decided to stay away.

Unfortunately disappointment seems to follow wherever I go on the internet

Kaepernick unfortunately does not seem to realize yet that just as he has had to put in hard work and personal effort to arrive at the heights of a professional NFL player, there are equivalents in dues to be paid by artists in other fields.

Meanwhile Lumi itself looks ready to cash in on a fad that may or may not return something on Kaepernick's material investment, but will for sure mislead some kids, some of his fans and others into thinking they can score big and fast off a particular and easy to use crayon in the box of online tools used by graphic artists.

Welp. We all have to learn stuff the hard way. And, we all get to see some folks get away with shortcuts to fame and wealth too. I'm just sad that there's so much push by so many AI developers to cash in on the low hanging fruit of a technology that deserves a longer period of thoughtful development ahead of poorly constrained releases to the public... and to investors.

Maybe Kaepernick can turn this around by assiduously following up on what happens to the people who use Lumi -- and to artists whose manual comics-crafting ends up affected by the shortcuts available to Lumi users-- and then he can let us know whether he continues to think it was a good idea or a premature investment. The question is whether the media will give space and time for such reporting. More likely they move on now to the next clickbait regarding the promise of poorly understood "artificial intelligence."

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

😏

Grand Theft Auto Comes To Life In Punk Singer’s Alleged Crime Spree And High-Speed Chase

“Saint Anthony” is charged with leading police on multiple car chases, stealing a bike and trying to kidnap a store manager.

kotaku.com

Sometimes we come across news that makes it seem is if there are real life “Grand Theft Auto” characters walking among us. Take the lead singer of an LA punk band who made his way to the other wise peaceful region of Yosemite National Park and allegedly spent the day tearing shit up in a very un-punk way.

The LA Times reports that Anthony Mehlhaff — lead singer of a punk band called Cancer Christ — may have turned into a real life Trevor from GTA V on August 21. According to local authorities, Mehlhaff began his Yosemite visit by harassing a pregnant waitress at a restaurant. It only got wilder from there, according to the Times:

The front man for a hardcore Los Angeles punk band named Cancer Christ faces a slate of criminal charges after allegedly going on a “terrorizing trek” through Yosemite National Park and surrounding areas Wednesday, according to local law enforcement.

Anthony Mehlhaff, 40, allegedly assaulted a restaurant employee, led park rangers on a car chase, crashed the car, stole a bicycle and then threatened workers at another lodge with a knife, according to Mariposa County Sheriff Jeremy Briese.

Then, Mehlhaff allegedly stripped to his underwear, attempted to kidnap a store manager, stole that manager’s car and started ramming it into another vehicle on a local road, crashed again and was taken into custody before assaulting deputies during an assessment at a local hospital, Briese wrote in a statement about the incident.

“This man drove all around our county terrorizing our visitors and community members,” Briese said. “I am extremely happy that no one was seriously injured. This man’s behavior was erratic and dangerous.”

Mariposa County Sheriffs arrested Mehlhaff and charged him with everything from vehicle theft and robbery to kidnapping. He’s being held on $100,000 bail. According to the Times, in social media posts Mehlhaff refers to himself as “Saint Anthony” while he and his band seem to think of themselves as a religion and their fans, “congregants.

 

[Thomas Veil]

I have this unnatural love for theme songs…sometimes pretty obscure ones.

If you’ve ever listened to the Countdown With Keith Olbermann podcast, you’ve probably heard this sinister-sounding tune he uses to introduce the daily segment where he talks about the legally shady stuff that Trump does.

Normally you only get to hear about 30 seconds as Olbermann begins the segment. But on the September 16th episode, at the end, he played the entire thing. And it’s kinda catchy in its own way, like an old crime show theme.

I’m also enough of a theme buff to know that the Star Trek and Hogan’s Heroes themes actually have lyrics.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

I was not aware of the history of the Top Gun competition made famous by the movies. I especially wasn't aware of who won the very first one.

Then again, that may have been for a reason.

‘Mission Accomplished’ – Tuskegee Airmen recognized for 1949 Top Gun victory

In 1949, the 332nd Fighter Group from Lockbourne AFB, Ohio, won the U.S. Air Force’s inaugural Fighter Gunnery Meet “Top Gun,” a worldwide gunnery competition where the best pilot teams came together

www.af.mil

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFNS) --
“We’re finally being recognized for something we accomplished 73 years ago,” said retired Lt. Col. James Harvey III, former fighter pilot with the 332nd Fighter Group, best known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

In 1949, Harvey, alongside the 332nd FG from Lockbourne Air Force Base, Ohio, won the U.S. Air Force’s inaugural Fighter Gunnery Meet “Top Gun,” a worldwide gunnery competition where the best pilot teams in the U.S. Air Force came together to compete for the top spot.

The Tuskegee Airmen were young African Americans, determined to be aviation pilots, who met with obstacles such as the widespread belief that Black people could not learn to fly or operate sophisticated aircraft.

The Top Gun team consisted of four members: Capt. Alva Temple, 1st Lt. James Harvey III, 1st Lt. Harry Stewart and 1st Lt. Halbert Alexander.

The gunnery competition consisted of: aerial gunnery at 12,000 feet and 20,000 feet, skip bombing, rocket firing, panel strafing and dive bombing.

Although the 332nd FG led the meet from start to finish, the official results for first place were recorded as “unknown” for nearly 46 years. Present-day, 73 years after the historic win, the American Association of Retired Persons’ Wish of a Lifetime organization met with Harvey to grant his “wish” – that his team be widely recognized.

“We weren’t supposed to be able to fly aircraft, we weren’t supposed to be able to win this competition, but we did and we were the best,” Harvey said.

On Jan. 11, Gen. Mark Kelly, commander of Air Combat Command, presided over the unveiling of a plaque commissioned to reaffirm the accomplishments of the 332nd FG’s win.

“We stand on the shoulders of giants in this profession, and Lt. Col. Harvey is one of those giants,” Kelly said.

Although the plaque is 73 years late, it will be displayed prominently at the U.S. Air Force Weapons School forever.

Seems they did all of that with older planes, not with the latest state of art planes their White contemporaries used.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

So, I really cut back on posting this week, and I haven't even been on twit since the election. Not that my feed has much political, but I was feeling enough disappointment & disgust about the upcoming years, I didn't need to engage.

So, imagine seeing this, knowing RFK Jr maybe in charge of health coming up.

South Carolina Residents Told to Secure Their Homes After 43 Monkeys Escape Lab

Police in Yemassee, South Carolina, are trying to track down over 40 rhesus monkeys that recently escaped from a nearby lab.

gizmodo.com

Look, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but this is how a zombie movie scenario starts. Police in Yemassee, South Carolina, are trying to track down over 40 rhesus monkeys that recently escaped from a nearby lab. While members of the public have been told to keep their homes secured and to stay away from the monkeys if they see them, the animals apparently don’t pose any health risk.


The Yemassee Police Department reported the great primate escape in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon. The monkeys somehow managed to slip out of the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center, which claims to provide the “highest quality nonhuman primate products and bio-research services.” In its latest update this morning, the department said that 43 rhesus macaques in total have fled the coop, none of whom have been captured yet by the police or lab staff.

While the lab is known to use monkeys as part of its research into progressive brain disorders, the escapees don’t appear to be particularly dangerous. The primates are all reportedly females weighing around six pounds who are too young to have been used in any research yet and to be carrying any diseases in general. Yemassee police said Thursday that there is “no health risk associated with these animals.” At the same time, no one should be trying to get nice and cozy with the monkeys if they happen to spot them.

“Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes,” the department said Thursday. “If you spot any of the escaped animals, please contact 911 immediately and refrain from approaching them.”

This isn’t the first time that primates have left the confines of the Alpha Genesis Primate Center. The Post and Courier newspaper in Beaufort County (where the town is partially located) reported Wednesday that the facility has experienced several escapes since 2014, and that it has accrued several violations handed down by the U.S. Department of Agriculture connected to these escapes and other incidents between 2014 and 2016.

Not to freak anyone, but last time the orange guy was in charge we had a pandemic he wasn't too interested in. We only had a little over a million covid related deaths last time around, that somehow people have pushed out of their minds & picked this guy again. Now he's back & bringing dead brain worm guy with him... This is like the part of the beginning of a movie you don't get to see, that explains more context in the movie.

28 Days Later - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

BTW this is one of my all time favorite movies, so the irony of possibly dying this way isn't lost on me. 😏

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

So, evidently people buy a novelty plate from Amazon and use it?

How a Woman’s Love of Star Trek Left Her With Endless Traffic Tickets

Beda Koorey hasn't driven in years, yet the 76-year-old retiree is flooded with traffic tickets—and it's all thanks to her Star Trek fandom.

www.vice.com

Beda Koorey is a 76-year-old retiree from Huntington, New York who doesn’t just have a name that sounds like it belongs to a Star Trek character but is also a huge Trekkie. So much so that she had a custom license plate honoring the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, the version of the ship commanded by Captain Kirk in the original series that aired on CBS from 1966 to 1969. Sadly, that fun license plate number has come back to haunt her, as countless across the country with Star Trek novelty plates are getting tickets—and she’s stuck with them.

Koorey doesn’t drive anymore. She stopped driving back in 2020. She sold her car and surrendered her license plate. Yet, opening her mailbox remains a terrifying experience because it may or may not contain a traffic ticket picked up by a stranger somewhere in the United States.

The unfortunate Trekkie gets speeding tickets, tickets for blowing through red lights, and parking and school zone violations. She once got a call from an Ohio police chief regarding a robbery involving a car with an NCC-1701 license plate. She gets tickets for motorcycle infractions. The fines addressed to her amount to thousands of dollars that she can’t pay because she’s on a fixed income, not to mention the obvious fact that she should be responsible for them in the first place.

You’d think she was a one-woman Mad Max-style marauder convoy, but she doesn’t even own a car. So how is this happening? Simple. There’s a Star Trek novelty license plate that you or anyone can buy online for dirt cheap. Here it is on Amazon, currently on sale for $17, down from the usual $20 list price. It has 4.9 stars with 1,546 reviews at the time of publication.

Apparently, there’s some kind of epidemic of people replacing their real license plate with the NCC-1701 license plate. No matter where they are in the country when they commit a traffic or parking violation, the ticket is sent to the poor Star Trek fan who once had an NCC-1701 license plate—Beda Koorey of Huntington, New York.

The New York DMV acknowledges the issue but can’t really do much about it because illegally replacing a legitimate license plate with a novelty one is more of a cop problem than a DMV problem. They do say, however, that her name isn’t associated with that license plate number in their official system.

Or, at least, that’s what they used to say, until they took a deeper look into the issue, likely because her story started getting national attention. They found that her license plate was still in fact tied to her. She is now working with the New York City Department of Finance to dispute the numerous violations other drivers have racked up on her behalf.

🤨

 

[Thomas Veil]

I did not know that before “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” there was a proposed TV series to be titled Star Trek Phase II.

That did later morph into the first movie, but not before they came up with some idea for how the Phase II ship would look.

This, apparently, is an all stainless steel Enterprise as it passes the planet Discoball.

​

 

[SouprMatt]

The lies we have all been told about Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and more…



I know it’s an hour long, but it is brilliantly done. Next time a right-winger tells you the Civil War wasn’t about slavery? Well, you came point out that it was for the south, but not necessarily for the north, while showing them the racism was worse than they imply, and not just in the south. You can also show them proof that the entire point of police and prison was to re-enslave black people after the war.

Also, there’s a great story about the Daughters of the Confederacy, and their book bans that look strikingly similar to those still happening in the 2020s.

 

[Jay Mysteri0]

How is this a good idea? Especially after causing a plane to be grounded during the fires of LA?

DJI Stops Automatically Blocking Drone Flights Over Airports and Military Bases

"The geofencing system was created as a voluntary built-in safety feature," the company writes.

gizmodo.com

DJI, which accounts for an estimated 90% of hobby drone sales in the U.S., announced this week that it will stop geoblocking its drones from flying over airports and military bases. The changes took effect on Monday on both the DJI Fly and DJI Pilot flight apps.

DJI wrote about the changes in a blog, noting that it comes after similar changes were made by the drone company in the European Union last year.


“Areas previously defined as Restricted Zones (also known as No-Fly Zones) will be displayed as Enhanced Warning Zones, aligning with the FAA’s designated areas,” the company’s blog reads. “In these zones, in-app alerts will notify operators flying near FAA designated controlled airspace, placing control back in the hands of the drone operators, in line with regulatory principles of the operator bearing final responsibility.”

The use of drones by civilians in restricted airspace is a big problem, with the most recent high-profile example in the U.S. happening just last week when a firefighting aircraft known as the SuperScooper Quebec 1 had to be grounded after colliding with a DJI drone over the Palisades Fire. The FAA had declared the area restricted and the firefighting craft’s wing was damaged from the collision. The FBI is investigating the incident.

DJI first started geofencing its drones to prohibit them from entering restricted airspace back in 2013, a time when the company notes there were few regulations in the U.S. about drones.

“The geofencing system was created as a voluntary built-in safety feature to help foster responsible flight practices and prevent DJI drone operators from unintentionally flying in restricted airspace, such as around government buildings, airports, or prisons,” the post explains.

But there’s no law that requires that kind of geofencing, and the company says it’s on the user to stay out of areas they’re not supposed to enter.

As if the gov't isn't already squirelly about Chinese companies, and we had the mass sightings of things over the skies of the northeast?