[turtle]

Florida Man...
blows hand off in fireworks related incident.

I loved playing with fireworks as a kid but I've come to realize 10 fingers is better than 9 or less. Never mind the whole hand being detached from his body.

[turtle]

Somebody took out two Georgia Guidestones

I hadn't even heard of this place before reading about it. Kinda wild "story" behind it from what I've gathered reading others talking about it.

[kscherer]

I guess we didn't need them?

[turtle]

Personally I happen to agree, but that is because I disagree greatly with the etchings on those stones.

[Bryson]

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature. (Note, some translations say Unite humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature…not maintain.) Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity. Unite humanity with a living new language. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts. Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world order court. Avoid petty laws and useless officials. Balance personal rights with social duties. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

500 million would require a pretty large population decrease*, for sure. The rest seems pretty uncontroversial to me.

Maybe "improving fitness" sounds a bit like eugenics...


*=ie: Genocide. Although I suspect the original intent was for these to be used by a post-apocalyptic society who are presumably already well under the 500 million.

[chucker]

Sounds fash.

[kscherer]

Yeah, those "commandments" look like they were written by a buffoon*. Which leads me to believe the perpetrator of this "disaster" is likely amongst those who would like to live.




* Whereby "buffoon" is someone willing to exterminate 7 billion people. I recommend the Buffoon in question lead by example and volunteer to be the first to be exterminated.

[Bryson]

It's all a bit Thanos. Only more so. He only wanted 50%, not 83%.

[Brad]

Back in May, John Oliver's Last Week Tonight had a segment about those big rocks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEa3sK1iZxc

Originally Posted by John Oliver The stones feature weird aspirational instructions, mostly vague catch-all edicts like "protect people and nations with fair laws" and "balance personal rights with social duties" and "guide reproduction wisely improving fitness and diversity". You know, some broad, feel-good precepts mixed in with some light to medium eugenics.

Yes, it's a circuitous route covering some pretty wild territory along the way, but I promise he gets there.

If you don't want all the weird context that leads up to it, I guess you could skip to 9:32.

[drewprops]

It's been fascinating to read the comments about the guidestones. It's a Rorschach test. Some see The New World Order, some see Facism, some see Khan Noonian Singh's eugenics war, some see them as a simple, idealistic instructions for how to rebuild society after a disaster.

The candidate who called for this act should be prosecuted. This is another example of how mass communication serves to fuel radical actions; she tweets a demand for the stones to be destroyed and someone acts. We are going to continue to see these acts by the people in Ameristan.


...

[drewprops]

Them's the Breaks. Boris Johnson resigns.

...

[turtle]

Anyone know more about this resignation? I just saw that tons of his top brass left recently and were pushing for him to get out before they pushed him out.

What did (or didn't) he do?

[Brad]

Last night I was reading about the wave of resignations before Boris finally announced his. I've been totally out of the loop on the latest UK political scandals/news, and the best summary I found at the time was from a post on Reddit:

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has had an absolute shit ton of scandals - one after the other - and he’s sort of been able to hold on because the scandals have been bad, but not bad enough to force him out - he survived a Vote of No Confidence. There is also an ongoing rising cost of living crisis, which has been putting additional pressure on his government. However, recently there was another scandal that seems to have been the final straw. An MP called Chris Pincher has been reliably accused of sexual assault (obligatory r/NominativeDeterminism link) relating to multiple incidents over the last few years. Some were investigated by police, but these investigations were dropped, either at the request of the alleged victim, or for reasons unknown (police in the UK don’t really tend to comment much on criminal investigations). Johnson originally claimed not to know about these allegations, as he promoted Pincher to a senior level government position shortly after some of them. However, as emerging evidence began to disprove his claims, he then changed his story to knowing about the allegations, but claiming that all complaints were resolved. As further evidence disproved this as well (there were a fresh round of complaints made against Pincher, and it turns out that Johnson was briefed about these complaints) he finally admitted that promoting Pincher was a “mistake”. Shortly after, the (then) Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and the (then) Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, resigned from their positions in the cabinet (but not as MP’s), citing a lack of confidence in Boris Johnson’s leadership. They claim not to have coordinated their resignations, even though they resigned within minutes of each other. This then triggered a cascade of similar resignations from various government ministers (one, Michael Gove, was fired), leaving Johnson with a lot of key positions in his government unfilled. However, Boris keeps refusing to resign. Despite clearly having lost support from a large segment of his party, there are still some politicians loyal to him, and he’s now in the process of trying to fill all the empty positions in his government with whatever loyalists he can find. At Prime Minister’s Questions today he was pretty much mocked most of the time (even by his own party), and his reputation has clearly gone down the toilet. Normally the process to remove a sitting prime minister would involve a “Vote of No Confidence”, but there has already been one not too long ago, and rules state that another vote cannot be held for twelve months. However, a committee of senior politicians may be in the process of changing the rules to enable a new VoNC. And to top it all off, there’s a risk of the Labour Party (the main opposition party) losing their leadership too. Kier Starmer and Angela Rayner (the leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party, respectively) are being investigated by police for violating lockdown restrictions. As they have called on Boris Johnson to resign for also violating lockdown restrictions, both Starmer and Rayner have themselves committed to resign if fined for violating lockdown restrictions. Durham police should be concluding their investigation around about now, so we may soon end up with absolutely no-one in charge at all. UPDATE: Boris has now said he’s going to resign, but plans to remain PM until around October while a successor is chosen.

And another post explaining how he's resigning but staying in the PM role for a few months:

It is and it isn't, functionally its the same, the way UK politics is structured there MUST be a prime minister, the role cannot ever be vacant. so when any PM steps down as leader of their party they are stepping down as PM, they just have to hang around like a bad smell in a caretaker role for a few months, and generally due to the reasons why they resigned they don't wield nay political clout to do anything major as that caretaker PM. If they resign instantly the cabinet has to appoint an interim but the interim is functionally even more of a lame duck with no political power than a stepping down PM. Also finding an interim isn't easy as they need to be able to do the job for a few months whilst also not be challenging for the future leadership. Jonson is resigning as PM, the job of PM just has a really long notice period.

[709]

Originally Posted by drewprops The candidate who called for this act should be prosecuted. This is another example of how mass communication serves to fuel radical actions; she tweets a demand for the stones to be destroyed and someone acts. We are going to continue to see these acts by the people in Ameristan.

It's all very Taliban-ish, I agree.

[709]

Originally Posted by drewprops Them's the Breaks. Boris Johnson resigns. ...

The Chief Mouser assures us it will all be over soon.

[kscherer]

** Missing … umm people? **

Caldwell Police looking for missing mother and daughter

I have no idea why these two ladies are missing, and I certainly hope there is no foul play involved. But, something tells me they're on an self-induced meth-hunt.

[PB PM]

Could be worse, 8 out of ten times a missing person comes back in a body bag.

[Anonymous Coward]

The circumstances in this report are old, but the story is new. Uber had illegal help from politicians in Europe and Canada to be established.

[drewprops]

Originally Posted by Anonymous Coward The circumstances in this report are old, but the story is new. Uber had illegal help from politicians in Europe and Canada to be established.

Remember how much dirty pool the CEO of Uber pulled a decade ago?

...

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by kscherer ** Missing … umm people? ** Caldwell Police looking for missing mother and daughter I have no idea why these two ladies are missing, and I certainly hope there is no foul play involved. But, something tells me they're on an self-induced meth-hunt.

Originally Posted by PB PM Could be worse, 8 out of ten times a missing person comes back in a body bag.

Well, shit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really "daily news", but another new article on the BBC. "The P'urhépechas were the only indigenous group in Mexico the Aztecs failed to conquer – but despite that feat, they were nearly lost to history. Not really "history is written by the victors" since Spain conquered the area, but even growing up in California, I learned about the Aztecs and Incas, but not this civilization in the north and west of Mexico.

[Anonymous Coward]

More detailed coverage of Uber's European dealings by the BBC. The recent articles are based on whistleblower correspondence leaks to The Guardian.

[PB PM]

This a literal WTF story. Guy gets on a Toronto bus, pours a flammable liquid on a women he doesn’t even know, and lights her on fire. Long story short, if you didn’t guess, she died.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...olma-1.6517447

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by PB PM This a literal WTF story. Guy gets on a Toronto bus, pours a flammable liquid on a women he doesn’t even know, and lights her on fire. Long story short, if you didn’t guess, she died. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...olma-1.6517447

While I'm against the death penalty, some of humanity is trying its damndest to change my mind.

[Ryan]

Brewery sued by customers who thought their hard seltzer had “nutritional value.”

https://businessden.com/2022/07/12/d...-hard-seltzer/

You were drinking *hard liquor* not green tea you dunderheads. Of course it’s bad for you.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by Ryan While I'm against the death penalty, some of humanity is trying its damndest to change my mind.

If there is no doubt of guilt, it is the most effective punishment for heinous crimes.

Originally Posted by Ryan Brewery sued by customers who thought their hard seltzer had “nutritional value.” https://businessden.com/2022/07/12/d...-hard-seltzer/ You were drinking *hard liquor* not green tea you dunderheads. Of course it’s bad for you.

We have become overly litigious. Most lawyers now recognize that a company will settle out of court to avoid a long and expensive lawsuit. It's nothing short of legalized theft.

[kscherer]

** Stupid Selfie Humans **

Selfie-taking American tourist falls into Mount Vesuvius crater

The headline says all that needs saysing.

It's just a matter of time before Paul get his wish and a selfie-doof drops into a steaming lava pool for clicks. The good news:

The tourist and family members were cited by Carabinieri police because they went off the authorized path to get closer to the crater on Saturday afternoon, apparently to take a selfie, the LaPresse news agency said.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by kscherer If there is no doubt of guilt, it is the most effective punishment for heinous crimes.

Not only no doubt of guilt, but also no doubt that the law is fair and just, and that it is being interpreted correctly. It turns a judge into a deity.

(Besides, it’s absurdly expensive for the state.)

[turtle]

Yeah, keeping them alive for the rest of their life is way more expensive than a couple of bullets or some electricity.

Oh, that wasn't what you meant was expensive what it?

Pure numbers, I would bet it is cheaper the execute than to keep alive. One time "large" expense to execute and a daily cost to keep alive. Especially when they are younger than say, 70 years old.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by turtle Pure numbers, I would bet it is cheaper the execute than to keep alive.

So now we’re adding “what if the death penalty were implemented completely differently than it actually is” to the weird hypothetical?