Now this is odd, to say the least:
Not a whole lot of info yet.
Airport open following vehicle fire in car rental overflow area. @InkyM @ACKCurrent pic.twitter.com/3o048KtJRY
— Nantucket Airport (@AirportACK) November 28, 2022
I don’t smoke. I don’t vape. And if I did, I would not have inhaled anything made in China. That decision came about well before I saw the video below, which purports to show the method of testing of vape products in a Chinese vape factory.
Gee golly gosh, it sure is a mystery how some epidemics seem to spread so quickly…
But he seemed like such a sensible, straight-laced and rational fella…
The state of Minnesota has charged the Department of Energy’s recently-hired head of spent nuclear fuel management with felony theft, court documents show.
According to a criminal complaint filed Oct. 27 in Minnesota’s 4th Judicial District Court, Sam Brinton, who began working in June as DOE’s deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition, is accused of stealing a bag from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport’s baggage claim area in September.
Under Minnesota law, the crime with which Brinton was charged carries a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both.
Walking the red carpet of the #Oscars2018 representing LGBTQ youth with the @TrevorProject was the definition of affirmation for The #genderfluid life I’m finally starting to live freely and fully. #WeHearYou #WeAreHereForYou pic.twitter.com/ePlWgVgGrd
— Sam Brinton (@sbrinton) March 5, 2018
I wonder how J Edgar’s FBI would have handled this situation.
I’m not the biggest fan of dress codes, but there’s something to be said for having some friggen’ *dignity.* This is the look of the men who got us to the moon:
On the other hand, there may be some small benefit here. “Looks crazy” stands a chance of mapping fairly linearly to “is crazy.”
A day or two back I posted about “Established Titles.” In short… nah. I had wondered if the recent surge in interest in ET being less than entirely above-board might have some effect on any of the YouTubers who have been raking in sponsorship money from them… and lo and behold, one of the more entertaining YouTubers, “Casual Geographic,” posted this:
So as many of you have made me aware, a brand I’ve promoted twice has been exposed for pretty much being a scam (or at the very least, incredibly misleading). That’s obviously a massive failing on my part and on me and me alone. I can see now how the brand was meant to be intentionally misleading. For example, their website claims it’s a “fun, novelty product” but explicitly had us say things like “the first x people will receive a plot right next to mine” (which ,not gonna lie, should have been a red flag). Clearly implying that you’d be purchasing a physical plot of land, which clearly is not the case. So the two videos where I promoted them have been archived and I’m in the process of returning the money received from the partnership as well as cutting ties contractually. As soon as I can be sure I’m not in a position for the brand to come after me legally, I’ll repost them with the sponsored segments removed. I’m sorry for promoting what is essentially a grift and apologize to anyone that gave this brand money because they trusted me. Obviously it doesn’t really matter what my intentions were because either way I promoted it but I hope you all understand that I’d never willingly push a dishonest product and am genuinely sorry that I did.
Well done.
I don’t have much animosity towards those who were paid to promote this; the YouTube business model, much like the pre-Musk Twitter model, is seriously broken. Videos that could and should earn the makers *substantial* sums could and often did get demonitized on a whim, sometimes regularly; YouTubers who should make a good living by being entertaining and informative could find their incomes slashed due to false flagging and simple incompetence, with a heavy dose of shady politics. Thus it’s not unreasonable that they’d jump at the opportunity to sign on lucrative sponsorships, and the “buy a plot of land and be called a Lord” thing is sufficiently both weird and mundane that on first glance it probably seems fun and harmless.
If you’ve bought into Established Titles, or you “bought and named a star,” don’t feel bad. If you did so for the entertainment value, for the conversation value… then it’s worth what you feel it’s worth. If you bought in as an investment… well, that’s kinda dumb. Your financial planning is bad and you should feel bad. But speaking as a guy with a surprising number of toy spaceships and a vast number of model kits that will certainly never be finished, I’m not gonna knock someone for buying objectively useless stuff just because you want to. Where I get twitchy is when they sell it to you dishonestly.
Anyway good on Casual Geographics. I heartily recommend this feller. He talks about critters in a way that’s both informative *and* incredibly entertaining. A fair amount of nature red in tooth and claw, so be advised.
Doutbless there are more than a few readers old enough to remember when “buying a star” was a thing. You’d send someone money, they’d send you a certificate telling you which of the bajillions of stars in the sky is now yours, and let you know that your name for it has been entered into some “star registry” or some such. I suspect most people of average-and-above intelligence knew that it wasn’t anything of any real seriousness; it had no force of law behind it and is wholly unrecognized by the International Astronomical Union. It was uncharitably a scam; charitably, a briefly amusing gag gift, maybe a nice gesture for a friend or family member.
Something similar has popped up in recent months: “Established Titles.” You can pay someone fifty bucks to buy one square foot of Scotland and call yourself “Lord” or “Lady.” The idea seems to have a *lot* of similarities with the star naming bit from decades past. I’m unschooled in British/Scottish law but I do know there’s this bit in the US Constitution:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-9/clause-8/
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
If I’m reading that correctly (who knows), this says two main things:
1) The UNITED STATES won’t issue titles such as “Lord” and “Lady,”
and
2) Nobody holding some sort of governmental office in the US will be allowed to accept such a title from a foreign power.
So (again assuming I’m reading this correctly), Joe Schmo can be freely granted a title of nobility from the Brits, no problem. But Representative Bill Yahoo or Senator Joe Schmuck is legally barred from doing so. It would, it seems, be a Federal crime for an officeholder to spend fitty bucks and buy themselves that one square foot. Shrug.
Me, personally, I’ve no interest in it. I’m an American; the basic idea of being called a “Lord” or being in any way associated with royalty is distasteful; any American who takes such a title seems to me to have something a little askew about them. But I have little problem with anyone else if they want to buy into this… just so they do so with adequate knowledge of what it really is.
YouTube has been *crawling* with “Established Titles” sponsorships for a few months now, rivaling the “World of Warships,” “World of Tanks,” “League of Legends” and “Raid Shadow Legends” sponsorships that lousy up so many videos. I’m just glad that YouTube has a fast forward function. > > > > Some YouTubers, though, are less sanguine about this. If you’ve been tempted to spend money on this, perhaps as Christmas gifts, maybe take a look. Some points:
1) These “souvenir plots” aren’t registered with the Scottish government, You don’t actually own the land.
2) You don’t actually become a “Lord” or “Lady.”
3) “Established Titles” is apparently a *Chinese* company. Send them $50, and you end up not actually owning a bit of Scotland, not actually being a “Lord,” and actually funding the Chinese Communist government.
Uuuuuuuugh. The levels of cringe here are *astonishing.*
This is the sort of nonsensical prattle you’d expect to find alongside discussion of star signs, reiki, aromatherapy and an incorrect usage of “namaste.” Soon Atlantis and the Anunnaki will make an appearance.
A fire truck got int he way of a jetliner in Lima, Peru: nobody won.
Yow.
The policies that the British government have enacted over recent years of allowing the mass invasion of Britain are, it seems, finally getting the British citizens mad enough to, maybe, do something about it. Britain seems to have a number of problems, including but not limited to:
1) Their National Health Service provide free health care to everyone… including the “migrants.” But the “migrants” aren’t funding new hospitals or more doctors; they’re just consuming the available resources.
2) The “migrants” aren’t building new housing; they’re simply being *given* housing. Houses, apartments, hotel rooms are disappearing from the market and being filled with, mostly, military age males from antagonistic nations.
3) The utilities, from electricity to natural gas to the water and sewers were built assuming the British population… not the British population PLUS an occupying foreign force.
The answer is obvious: first, prevent new “migrants” from landing; second, mass deportations. None of this is likely to occur. Why is the British government doing this to the British people? Fark if I know. The only explanations that seem to make any sort of sense sound a whole lot like conspiracy theories. But reality is what it is.
Here’s a thought… take a few hundred thousand of the military age migrant, give each of them an AK-47 and two magazines, and drop them off in Luhansk. Wacky hijinks ensue.
NASA spent *decades* launching the Shuttle, so it’s a little surprising that the launch of the SLS caused this much damage.
Huh.
Criminals are getting bolder in San Francisco. And why shouldn’t they? The local and state governments have given them the green light. I kinda expect much the same in Illinois when the Purge becomes law here in a couple months.
This is what people keep voting for.