Dog Days [DOT 15/8/2020]

15/8/20 MegMegMcGee 21

Can you guys believe it is halfway through August? Where did the summer go? (Don’t answer that…)

Saturday Morning Brain Drain is headed your way to keep you entertained.

In the meantime, you can catch up on this, this or this.

And of course, I’m subjecting you to my news round-up below.

Don’t worry, Rip will be back with all the links he’s been saving up for you over the last two days. If I’ve missed anything, drop it below for me. Happy Saturday!

This is shaping up to be a disaster.

Postal Service warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/usps-states-delayed-mail-in-ballots/2020/08/14/64bf3c3c-dcc7-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_uspsstates-230pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

If you don’t follow and read Lyz Lenz what are you even doing with your life?

An inland hurricane tore through Iowa. You probably didn’t hear about it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/14/iowa-derecho-attention-aid/

‘Rona update:

If the United States allowed coronavirus infections to run rampant to achieve possible herd immunity, the death toll would be massive, especially among vulnerable people, the nation’s top infectious doctor said.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained the risks during a live Instagram session.”If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people without symptoms … a lot of people are going to die,” Fauci said.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/14/health/us-coronavirus-friday/index.html

Nature is healing:

Bald eagle attacks government drone and sends it to bottom of Lake Michigan
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/14/eagle-drone-attack-lake-michigan

Stonks!

Stock market news live updates: Stocks end mixed, S&P 500 hovers just below record
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-august-14-2020-222013541.html

Sprots!

Bayern’s brilliance, not Barca collapse, the story in historic Champions League contest
https://www.espn.com/soccer/uefa-champions-league/story/4159858/bayerns-brilliancenot-barca-collapsethe-story-in-historic-champions-league-contest

Enjoy your weekend!

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21 Comments

    • European allies agreed that the potential of weapons flowing in and out of Iran poses a threat, but were furious that the US withdrew from the nuclear agreement but still claimed to be a participant and have the ability to snapback sanctions.
       
      “You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” said one Security Council diplomat.

      I can’t take all the winning…

  2. Happy Ferragosto, everyone! This is an ancient holiday/practice in Italy. The Emperor Augustus gave everyone a day off and employers gave their employees little bonuses. When the Catholic Church came along they wanted to keep this tradition but wanted to gloss over its secular roots. So they moved it from August 1 to August 15, which is the Feast of the Assumption. Why you would celebrate Jesus’s Mother ascending to Heaven by going to the beach I don’t know. 
     
    Italy famously used to practically close down for the entire month of August. The cities would be deserted and the holiday locales filled to the brim. They’ve cut back on this but Italian friends of mine and friends who work in Italian companies here in the US still traditionally get a couple of weeks off. This is in addition to their far more generous vacation policies than the US has. I wish the US had at least one pubic holiday in August. I guess we have Labor Day, so that’s close enough.

      • I was wondering if Ferragamo was still alive. He died in 1960! He wasn’t that young, he was 64. But since it was 1960 he would have died during a month-long Ferragosto—he died on August 7th.

          • Aaaaaarrrrrghhhh!!!
            I had SOOOO MUCH TO SAY, Hannibal!!!!
            And I lost my comment…
            But suffice it to say, YES, PLEASE LET’S CELEBRATE FERRAGAMO!!!😍🤩🥰😀😃😃😃😃🤗🤗🤗
            AND that i will add more Geekery later! (because, for the folks ’round here who are *not* fashion geeks and/or Shoe Whores like  *yours truly,*–FERRAGAMO WAS GROUNDBREAKING in fashion & particularly FOOTWEAR, for his innovations which got the shoe industry successfully around & PAST the rationing era!!!)
            And in the meantime, here is a starter link to check out;
            https://www.ferragamo.com/museo/en/usa/discover/shoe_collection/

    • I would gladly give up 10% of my annual salary to get 6 weeks of vacation which is pretty much what European workers get when they start a job (8 weeks after 2 years in most Euro nations.) 
      I would get all green with envy when my European coworkers took off for 3-4 weeks in the summer.  Here in North America it is all about vacation shaming especially from bosses.  I don’t really get those who do because managing productivity while dealing with worker absences is a large chunk of the job (it took me a while to realize that the bosses who bitched constantly about absences were usually the shittiest bosses.)
      However on the mitigating side, August used to be my productive month as there was hardly anyone to hound/bother me from Europe.
       
       

      • I actually had a job where I got six weeks of vacation. I couldn’t ever use it all — too much to do. When I left, I was planning to start taking every Friday afternoon off, just to keep up with it. You could only carry over two weeks to the following year, which then meant I had eight weeks to deal with. 
         
        Honestly, if I had it to do over again, I would have stayed at that job. Leaving was shortsighted. 

        • They took me off vacation based on time earned after an employee quit and needed to be paid out for 4 months unused vacation. You can be sure that loophole was closed, and carryover limitations imposed asap. Technically I can take as much time as needed. The reality is that it takes 45 to 50 hours a week to do the job. So I take a day now and then…and the company forces company-wide 5-day holidays in April, July, September, November, and December, around calendar holidays. (This includes weekends, so Thursday thru Monday. ) Everyone gets to decompress, and with all folks off there is less inbox disaster to return to.

          • I had a job where they didn’t have a vacation policy. It was ‘use your judgement” but at the end of the day people didn’t take as much vacation because the culture was such that you were shamed if you used it. 

            This makes me sad again for all the cool trips I had planned this summer… #NextYear

            • I had a job which was not only stingy on vacations but on closing the office. Want to take the Friday after Thanksgiving or New Years Eve off? That counted against vacation. Never mind no work happened. Cooler bosses would let their units know they would look the other way if people didn’t show up, but my boss was paranoid someone would notice, even though the big bosses themselves found a reason to “work” out of the office.

      • People are protesting outside the home of the Postmaster General in DC.

        I am sure we will get the civility police telling us that *this* is beyond the bounds of civil behavior and we should stick to the system, when the stooge is stiffing even senators on explaining himself.

      • i get 5 weeks actual holiday time (200 hours)
        aaand another 10 days or so in mandatory days off wich are paid but dont count as holiday for some reason
        thanks to rona i got forced to take 3 weeks off in summer tho..(i mean..dont get me wrong..im making the most of it…but i prefer to take my time in the off seasons….or winter)

    • Italy, and also–at least in the Fabric industry–see also: France!
      In other words, 
      If you are looking to procure fabric or other sewing supplies from Italy or France, ya damn WELL better be on the ball, and have your shit together *enough* to be ordering it so it can ship out in July, ‘cuz if ya didn’t, y’all are gonna have to wait until September, before anyone is gonna bother getting back to you, about *whatever it is* that you wanted to order…
       
      I learned that one year, waaaaaay back in my 20’s, when my bosses tried to get in some fabric for a client, and had me order that fabric on… either the last days of July, or the first ones in August…
      (And of course I was the one who was reprimanded, for *not knowing this information,* even though it was the first year i was doing ordering, and until i called to follow up on where our order was, *exactly NO one* had mentioned this YEARLY occurrence🙄🙄🙄)
      Now, every year, as August rolls around, I think of that job, feel incredibly sorry for whatever poor sap is in that role at the Dancewear Place, and THANK MY LUCKY STARS, that I no longer work there!😉😁🤗 
      (Also, after that first year, and learning of the August vacations, I OBVIOUSLY always started asking in May/June what things might be coming up, and reminding folks that *if we need Italian Fabric for NFL OR NBA Cheerleading Teams, WE GOTTA GET IT ORDERED NOW!!!”)

  3. Meg, this headline is misleading!😉🤣
    “Nature is healing:
    Bald eagle attacks government drone and sends it to bottom of Lake Michigan”
    Here i was, all “YEAH!!!! GO EAGLE!!!! KILLLLLL ITTTTTT!!!”
    Thinking that the type of surveillance drone that eagle killed was a CBP/police-style drone…😈😈😈
    But it turns out, poor dumb birdo was all “KILL, KILL, KILL!!!” over an environmental drone that was monitoring shoreline erosion😦🥺😯😣🙁
    So poor birb killed a drone, which was only out there, trying to protek Birb’s own territory and make sure Birb’s trees & soil don’t get eroded away…😖🙃
    Poor, sweet, good, dumb, birb!💖
     

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