The A/C came yesterday, but is still not installed. It was warm enough inside yesterday night that I did not sleep well, Tomorrow I have PT with Courtney. Since no rain is forecast, I’m going the take the regular bus. The trip takes longer, but I spend such a shorter time waiting that my total time spent will be less. Still, I’ll be tired enough that I’ll probably have just a Personal Update. Later: The A/C is in and working great!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:45 (average 4:40). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: Within hours of news Tuesday that PayPal had pulled the plug on a 400-job facility in Charlotte because, it said, the state’s new law "perpetuates discrimination," the Republican Party started a mad display of Yosemite-Sam style finger pointing.
First, the state’s GOP Vice-Chairman Michele Nix questioned whether PayPal was ever even worthy of North Carolina.
So after PayPal was forced to settle after violating economic sanctions on Cuba, Sudan, and Iran, and even processed payments for someone looking to buy nuclear-weapon technology on the black market, the California-based company now has a problem doing business in North Carolina?
Yeah, we didn’t want your nasty 400-job expansion anyway. Hurrumph. Now those are some serious biz-dev skills. Work it, Michele!
My, how times have changed. Just a couple weeks ago, McCrory was singing PayPal’s praises:
“North Carolina is the ideal destination for innovation-based, worldwide companies like PayPal,” said Governor McCrory. “Today’s announcement means that we can add another prominent name to the state’s growing list of technology businesses with major operations here.”
Kudos to PayPal!! May thousands of companies pull the plug on the Fascist Republican Theocratic Dictatorship of McCrorystan.!!
Rest in peace.
From NY Times: Donald L. Blankenship, whose leadership of the Massey Energy Company catapulted him from a working-class West Virginia childhood into a life as one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Appalachia, was sentenced on Wednesday to a year in prison for conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards.
The prison term, the maximum allowed by law, came in Federal District Court here six years and one day after an explosion ripped through Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine, killing 29 men. Although Mr. Blankenship was not accused of direct responsibility for the accident, the deadliest in American coal mining in about 40 years, the disaster prompted the inquiry that ultimately led to his conviction. Federal officials have said that last autumn’s guilty verdict was the first time such a high-ranking executive had been convicted of a workplace safety violation.
This is one Republican I’m happy to see in a cell, but serving less than 13 days for every miner he murdered is a major understatement. He’d do more time had he stolen a loaf of bread to feed his family.
Cartoon:
15 Responses to “Open Thread–4/7/2016”
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Glad to hear of the AC victory, sleep well.
You go, PayPal, far from N despicable C!
NY T: I have to agree with you, the one year sentence is quite a bit too small.
Cool cartoon.
DK: Way to go, PayPal. Set the example for other companies that would like to go to NC to expand their business!! Just say NO!! (I'm thinking Texas too)…..sadly.
NYT: He should have gotten more time given for the lives lost, (29) and an extra year for good measure!
Yelling to Blankenship: “You don’t miss your kids like we miss ours,” one man yelled.
“You don’t,” someone screamed, “even know their names!”
Such a tragedy!!
Rest in Eternal Peace, Mr. Haggard. Loved your music. You will be missed.
Cartoon: Booker T. Washington
Born of slaves, Booker T. Washington worked his way through Hampton Institute and Wayland Seminary. By the age of 25, he was named the president of the Tuskegee Institute. Washington was known for being one of the best orators of his time who used his oration skills to be the voice for African-Americans.
*blackenterprise.
Good luck w/your PT tomorrow. Glad your AC is working, that will help you to feel comfortable when you are in kitty nap mode. Enjoy the rest of your day, take care, and Thanks, Tom
4:10 Both looks and sounds familiar. Edible? What if there were a frog on the pad?
"The A/C is in and working great!" Now that's what we like to hear!
DKos – Kudos to PayPal indeed. I am sorry for Charlotte, which used not to be as benighted as the rest of the state, and probably still isn't.
YouTube – Indeed. Always sad.
NY Times – Glad they pointed out this was the maximum passible sentence for the charge. He also received the maximum fine for the charge, though it's peanuts. The sentencing judge is the daughter of a miner – not one of the ones he killed, that would be a conflict of interest, of course. Had there not been plenty of evidence that he instructed his direct reports to ignore safety issues, that he didn't want anyone working doing anything except running coal, I wonder whether he would even have been convicted. (Believe me, that's not the way the military works. You there, you in charge, you responsible, you pay for it.) "He’d do more time had he stolen a loaf of bread to feed his family." Yes – or if he'd stolen $31.00 worth of chocolate.
Cartoon – And you know what? Repubs don't even care that if he had spent his life on a plantation, none of his discoveries would have been made, and they (well, their ancestors) would have lost mucho dinero and some would have been bankrupted. They's rather have had him on a plantation anyway. Talk about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
Too bad not having your A/C installed in time has cost you a good night's rest, but I'm sure you will have caught up with that now that it works so well, TomCat. Good luck with your bus trip to see Courtney. Don't let her wear you out completely.
DK: Good job by Kerry Elevelt by showing the 180° turn the GOP made within weeks. From high praise with open, welcoming arms to being thrashed for "process[ing] payments for someone looking to buy nuclear-weapon technology on the black market", that someone probably being a Republican from the US of A (my insinuation). They're in for some major job losses in NC, because there are already 120 major business leaders and CEOs threatening to go the way PayPal has gone. Kudos to them.
NYT: Blankenship still had more than enough money to buy the best defense lawyer he could get and of course it paid off. One year is laughable, but better than no jail time at all. I'd hope he'd run into some old employees of his in prison, but with his money he'll probably get send to a very "nice" one with lots of modern facilities he can use and with non-violent prisoners only to keep him out of harms way.
3:38 A frog knocked me off the water lily.
2:54 I had the pond drained of fishies and any other wildlife edible by Puddy Tats!
Glad you have AC again.
Given that 78 of NC's 100 counties have higher unemployment still than was true in 2008 (i.e., no jobs recovery) losing 400 jobs should matter to these lawmakers.
RIP Merle.
Agreed on insufficiency of penalty…I don't think worker health and safety laws carry the same mandatory minimums as theft in our laws sadly.
Hope your portable AC fills the bill!
Hey, man! Glad your AC is in and working for you! It gets a lot hotter up there than it used to! Wonder why? Could that be the fictional Global Warming thing that all the crazies in the left are complaining about? Say it ain't so!
Glad that PayPal and others are pulling their corporate money out of N. Carolina! They need to pull ALL their money out of that part of the South! They are all passing laws akin to the N.C. law! Sickening that in 2016, people still act that way! Discrimination of any kind is something that should have been left in the last century!
Merle was a legend and will be missed! RIP, Merle Haggard!
That dude in the mining "accident" needs to be doing LIFE!!!
So glad your AC is working! How did we ever live without it?
Daily Kos: I hope many more companies pull their business from NC, Georgia, and Mississippi. Money speaks way more than people do. If enough companies pull out the craven politicians will have to change their stance.
YouTube: Merle Haggard was an authentic musician.
NY Times: HIs sentence is a travesty. Those men were dependent on the company to keep them safe and they did not, at his direction. I still feel he should have been charged with murder. Our new governor, Bevins, a republican, is trying to do away with state inspections of coal mines because it "costs the companies too much? Guess human life is not as important as cost to the companies.
Cartoon: Thanks for this, I did not know about it and am actually surprised that a black citizen got the honor in 1940.
Puzzle — 2:54 I had the pond drained of fishies and any other wildlife edible by Puddy Tats!
Daily Kos — A shame that McCrory didn't learn from Nathan Deal who is just a spit and a holler down the coast. Dumb and dumber, but at least Dumb Deal got the message!
Youtube — I am not a country music fan and as a result I don't know Merle Haggard's music, but I can certainly appreciate finding a way to overcome adversity, and that is how Haggard lived as I understand things.
NY Times — Having previously read a great deal about Blankenship when I was researching The Fall of King Coal for my 05/10/2015 posting, this slap on the wrist prison term is scandalous. I know the charges were whittled down. Personally, I think he should have been charged with negligent homocide at the very least. Even 1 year for every worker killed in the Upper Big Branch mine disaster is not enough . . . that would be 29 years in prison. He'd never see daylight again.
Cartoon — No doubt! That is definitely a Republican modus operandi. From Wikipedia:
Big Merle Haggard fan – new big fan of PayPal.
Totally disgusted with Blankenship's sentence. Disgusted with southern "religious freedom" laws. Ok, just disgusted with all things Republican…
Thanks all!! Hugs!!