SIKE! [DOT 26/4/21]

26/4/21 MegMegMcGee 35

Just kidding!

Shady shit going on here.

CEO of vaccine maker sold $10 million in stock before company ruined Johnson & Johnson doses
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/emergent-robert-kramer-stock-sales/2021/04/25/de151434-a2b6-11eb-a7ee-949c574a09ac_story.html

This affects us all!

India sets another daily covid case record; U.S. pledges assistance
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-coronavirus-deaths-pandemic/2021/04/25/ec0f208a-a51c-11eb-b314-2e993bd83e31_story.html

Sprots!

Ugh, what a degen.

I mean, sign me up.

15 French volunteers leave cave after 40 days without daylight or clocks
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/25/deep-time-team-ends-40-days-underground-in-french-cave

Congrats! It’s 2021 though and this is only the second woman director to win?

Have a good day!

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35 Comments

    • To be fair, Keith is bringing this on himself if he’s keeping his lunch in the book drop. CEOs dumping stock are just evil. 
       
      I’m honestly not sure how that lunch thing works. Is Keith keeping his lunch in the book drop? Why? Are the squirrels using the book drop to enter the library and stage an Ocean’s 11 style heist from the staff refrigerator? (This should be what happens as it is the coolest answer to this conundrum.) Or is Sally in Cataloging stealing Keith’s lunch and framing the squirrels for the theft? How? Did she murder a squirrel and leave it under a pile of books with Keith’s lunch bag shoved into its paws? The Sally in Cataloging theory could explain why Keith is hiding his lunch in the book drop. But books are heavy, and as someone who empties a book drop on a regular basis, I would be concerned about the structural integrity of Keith’s lunch once 70 lbs. of books end up on top of it. 
       
      I have so many questions. 

        • A reasonable supposition but how does the squirrel pull open the book drop? And how does the squirrel then leave? I’m supposed to think the squirrel scales a metal chute to make a getaway? Then pushes open the drop door? 
           
          No, the only explanation is a team of squirrels working in tandem. Which raises more questions. What’s in it for them? Does the primary squirrel carry the lunch out to share with his co-conspirators? See metal chute, above. Does the primary squirrel grab the lunch, and run for the front door when he or she sees it open? Do they just let the primary squirrel dine happily, and then work to set it free based on principles of altruism? Or do they rotate primary squirrel duties so every squirrel gets a taste of Keith’s lunch? 
           
          Why isn’t Keith’s lunch in the refrigerator? What does Keith eat that squirrels find so irresistable? Why should we yell that we aren’t a squirrel? Is someone now guarding the book drop against squirrel incursions? Are they armed? If I forget to yell will my book be blasted to smithereens or sliced apart by the library’s book drop laser grid (again, the coolest scenario albeit unlikely except for maybe the Seattle Public Library relying on that sweet Gates funding)? 
           
          If the book drop is guarded, is it morally acceptable to threaten squirrels for being squirrels? Who is guarding the book drop? Did the library bring in an anti-squirrel beagle (coolest answer again)? Is the beagle trained to relax its vigilance if it hears the magic phrase “NOT A SQUIRREL.”
           
          You pull on one thread and the whole thing explodes into a snarled ball of unanswered questions and conjecture. 
           
          The only thing I know for sure is that somehow, Keith is to blame for all of this. That guy sucks. 

              • @bryanlsplinter I have an anti-squirrel hound, a Bloodhound/Treeing Walker Coonhound mix. She’s very effective but comes with her own set of issues. She’s needy, demanding, very high maintenance. But she’s cute, funny, and loving. I highly recommend the anti-squirrel breeds.

          • Complete speculation, but just because the absurdity of it has me giggling this morning;
            1. Jumps down from the roof and *pushes* the drop open, then slips inside it😉
            2.Steals lunch, then runs out the front door, when the next patron enters!
            3.Food is what’s in it for them…. they’re running the Squirrel version of The Forty Elephants…
            4. Keith is DUMB.
            4.b. Keith thinks that just because he keeps his lunch in his Thunder Cats Lunchbox (WITH the matching Thermos!), the Squirrels will leave it alone… 
            Keith does not understand that these are The Forty Elephants of Squirrel-culture, and no spandex-clad cat-people are going to scare THESE badass squirrels away from a tasty stolen meal!
            5. See 4. Keith is DUMB.
            6. No. Library budgets are too tight to allow staffing to guard the drop-box. Keith repeatedly submits requests to his superiors, for said funding… but Keith’s supervisors were the first folks to realize point 5. (And point 4!).
            7.Not armed, because point 6.
            8.Keith tried to convince the County Sheriff to let him “Borrow” the search-and-rescue K-9’s (bloodhounds, not beagles, sorry!), buuuuut the library patrons complained at the dogs’ constant howling… And Parents didn’t like the fact that the cadaver-trained dogs were constantly coming over to their small children and “alerting” whenever the children had a dirty diaper.
             
            Also, Keith was nearly fired when Clyde, the Sherriff’s favorite K-9 officer, was summarily banned from the library for life, for peeing on the leg of the head librarian AND every lower library shelf, whilst trying to mark “his territory”…
             
            9. So Keith decided to sneak in his cat…which the Assistant Librarian was severely allergic to… 
            (Keith is now on his second written warning.)
            10.Keith IS definitely to blame, and he 100% DOES suck! (Hence, written warning #2!)
             
            😉

            • Gotta be beagles. Beagles are fast enough to catch squirrels (seen it) and in conversations with them over the years I’ve noticed a strong animosity toward squirrels. Your golden retrievers and dachshunds don’t bring the right attitude. 

          • Let’s not blame Keith for not using the refridgerator. 

            Signed,

            I never use the work fridge because (1) it’s clear across the other side of the floor and I am a fat person who likes being close to their food and (2) I’ve had jobs in the past where my lunch would get taken by an asshole coworker. 

  4. My notifications aren’t working and I’ve been on hold with Deadsplinter customer service for several hours now.  That’s how my day is going.
    At least the hold music is good.

  6. I’m pretty sure that Boris and Natasha are behind the library squirrel plot. They have brainwashed Rocky and Bullwinkle will need to blunder into a solution.

  7. Did y’all see this one?
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/26/sabrina-the-teenage-witch-oklahoma-woman-vhs-tape-charges
     
    It’s just WILD.
     
    I don’t know whether to be impressed or just sad, at her casual mention of having been let go from multiple jobs over the years….
    That, “…it all made sense…” bit.🙃
     
    Like, HOW OFTEN was this poor woman let go from jobs?
    How much income over the years has she LOST, because apparently *someone else* rented a movie on her account, and rather than ANYONE saying anything to her over the years like, “Hey are you aware…?”  Folks just cut her loose.
     
    And I know, “Check your credit scores!” And all that…. but realistically,  when you’re poor and getting cut from multiple jobs, and NOT getting calls to interview after applying at others… you HAVE shitty credit, and you’re just *not* that likely to bother with RUNNING a credit check, because you already know you’ve got shitty credit….so you’re NOT likely to find anything that could bring you back to this sort of thing…
     
    Not to mention, *20+ YEARS,* so the rental part would have most likely dropped off her credit history, since it’s longer than the 7-or-whatever years things stay on there…
     
    Makes you wonder, how many folks this sort of thing happened to over the years.
     
    Also makes you wonder, if some asshat local DA may try to go after her voting record, just to try to nail her for “voting illegally”🙃

    • An important thing to remember is that just because something no longer shows up on your credit report DOES NOT MEAN it won’t show up on a background check. Things like declaring bankruptcy can prevent you from ever holding certain types of jobs (usually in the financial sector).
       
      I talked about my financial woes back in ’95 yesterday but one of the reasons I worked several jobs seven days a week for years was because I would not declare bankruptcy. I wouldn’t ever be able to get a job in a bank or other financial firm, and at the time I was a copywriter who specialized in investment and financial writing. If I’d done it, my career would have been ruined, and I’m not sure people ever get that part explained to them. 
       
      And realistically, expecting almost anyone to understand the byzantine process of background checks and credit histories is ridiculous. So yeah, this probably has happened to a LOT of people who didn’t know why or didn’t have the resources to try to correct the problem. 
       
      Finally, how does a fucking video tape turn into felony embezzlement? Even back then, it was like $20 and should have been capped at the replacement value of the item. That’s some predatory shit, right there. 

      • …many years ago I lived in a shared house that got burgled & one of the things they took were tapes from blockbuster (told you it was years ago)…though oddly not the ones from a different video store…anyway…blockbuster tried to charge us for the replacement cost…turns out they weren’t regular grade tapes apparently because they wanted three figures for each

        …since we were students at the time I pretty much laughed in their face & told them to take it up with the insurance they surely had for that sort of thing & stop trying to extort money out of people who just got robbed…but I can see that sort of policy tracking with a slow escalation to claiming something like felony embezzlement for failure to return something you didn’t know was rented under your name?

        • Huh. Just did some fast research because my Blockbuster memories are hazy. Seems there used to be a “rental window” that occurred after a movie had left theaters and then it was made available to video renters. Seems that those early video-store copies could cost up to $120 each. The store was expected to rent the hell out of it and make their money back before the video was available for retail sale. So that price did actually happen. 
           
          In this case, however, I find it extremely unlikely that a video copy of a TV show (Sabrina the Teen-Aged Witch) ever cost anything near that kind of money. So it looks to me like it was late fees compounded (amounts designated as felonies typically range from $500-$1000). Nonetheless, Blockbuster back then capped their fines at recovery value, which could (again, unlikely in this case) have been over $100. BUT they would not have kept tacking on fees and/or interest, pushing it into felony territory. 
           
          Lots of holes here still. Why were charges allowed to be filed in this situation? Normally this would be a business risk and the business would be responsible for recovery, usually through a collection agency. Did Oklahoma allow charges to be filed by video stores? Is there no actual crime in Oklahoma so the police were happy to chase video tapes of children’s shows?
           
          How did this shift to embezzlement? Under these circumstances everyone with an overdue book at the library is an embezzler, right? Who filed the complaint? I find it dubious at best to assume the business still exists. Shouldn’t the dissolution of the business void any “charges” (I still can’t believe “charges” were allowed)? A big chunk of legal theory involves damages. If the business entity is gone who had standing to keep the charges open? And that’s another thing. Is there no statute of limitations in Oklahoma? Nobody was murdered here. 
           
          Once again, as with Keith’s lunch, I have questions with no answers. But unlike Keith’s lunch, somebody paid a high price for this apparently massive fuck-up. 

            • That’s a good theory, particularly since in this case it was an ex who incurred the debt, and might have gotten conned into making a small payment that resets the statute of limitations clock. I think in some cases just acknowledging the debt might be sufficient to restart the clock, so the ex could’ve said something like, yes, I rented it so what? 
               
              I worked for a bank that was owned by a billionaire who made his billions through debt collection. He founded the bank as his “legacy,” because he didn’t want to be remembered as someone who threatened poor people to make money. Debt collection is a sleazy, sleazy industry. 

      • “And realistically, expecting almost anyone to understand the byzantine process of background checks and credit histories is ridiculous”
        It really is!
         
        Thanks for that info on the bankruptcy/ financial industry thing! I’m one of the, i suspect anyway, MANY folks who had absolutely *no* clue that this was a thing…
        I knew that certain legal convictions can leave one unable to work in care-settings (nursing homes, child care, schools–anywhere where a potentially “vulnerable” person is entrusted to one’s care)… and that OTHER convictions can keep folks out of fields like security & law enforcement (and convictions in EITHER can keep you from being a Jailer)… but I had no clue about the Bankruptcy thing.
         
        And it seems like SUCH an asanine thing, too, *especially* in light of everything since 2008, AND all the Wells Fargo (and other!) banking scandals when so many folks were foreclosed upon, or ended up going through a bankruptcy due to very little/if not NO real fault *of their own,* but simply because it was the easiest solution to getvout from under all those predatory banking practices they may have been *also* unaware of, until they were so deeply underwater.🙃

  9. So there was a really important study out of MIT on indoor covid transmission that is pretty much entirely being misrepresented in the media. (I mean, what else is new, but it still pisses me off.) The thing all media outlets have latched onto is that indoors and masked, social distancing does not affect transmission at all. With masks, viral particles that do escape are circulating in the room and are just as likely to affect someone next to you as across the room. 
    Of course the media is concluding that this means that we can start jamming indoor venues to capacity again, which is absolutely NOT the conclusion of the study. Google “MIT social distancing study” and see how the news is framing it. 
    They found a few main factors affecting indoor transmission: masking, ventilation, activity level in the room (people shouting, singing, etc), time spent in the room, and number of people in the room. Their main conclusion is that we are incorrectly focusing on distancing for safety when that’s not helpful, and we should instead be focused on time spent indoors with how many others. Hell, the fucking first paragraph summing up the significance says:

    we derive a simple safety guideline for mitigating airborne transmission that would impose an upper bound on the product of the number of occupants and their time spent in a room.

    https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2018995118

    • …you’d think degree of ventilation might be a factor, too…not saying it’s exactly practical but back when you could smoke on an airplane there was a legal requirement to entirely replace the air in the cabin every so often…& now that you can’t they save a bit of cash (I dunno, it burns extra fuel to add the drag of intake & pressurisation of the replacement air I suppose) by pretty much just recirculating it…which is a reason people pick up bugs on flights…especially long haul ones

      …so if the risk of X people in Y volume of indoor space for Zmins is a given value…you (or at least I) would assume that value to be smaller if said volume is well ventilated

      • It is! It was definitely one of the factors they evaluated and found had an impact, but it actually wasn’t as much as you’d think. The biggest factors they found were time in the room and number of people in the room (assuming everyone is masked). But ventilation and degree of activity (if people were exercising, singing, shouting) also had an impact. 

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