He's going to jail and she's playing Baldur's Gate 3

Each spring, about 30,000 black-tailed gulls flock to a nesting site around a shrine in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture. The gulls, which are called umineko or "sea cats" because of their cat-like cries, form an impressive site as they soar through the sky. Among visitors to the shrine were an American woman living in Aomori and her visiting family; an elderly man who enjoys chatting to the birds; and locals fond of these feathered harbingers of spring. For 3 days, we asked people what the umineko mean to them.

You're welcome I watched this last night at like 4am and enjoyed it. (They don't really sound like cats at all to me but go off umineko)

Thousands of members of the United Automobile Workers union went on strike Friday at three plants in three Midwestern states in what was the first strike simultaneously affecting all three Detroit automakers.

The union and the companies — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler — remained deadlocked in negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement when the current contract expired at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday.

As the deadline neared, workers started to fan out at the targeted plants — in Michigan, Missouri and Ohio — to protest.

At the outset, the strike will idle one plant owned by each automaker, and could force the automakers to halt production at other locations, shaking local economies in factory towns across the Midwest.

“We are using a new strategy,” the union’s president, Shawn Fain, said in a video streamed via Facebook on Thursday night. “We are calling on select locals to stand up and go out on strike.”

In the 88 years since it was founded, the union has called strikes aimed at a single automaker, and a handful have halted production for several weeks. G.M. plants were idle for 40 days in 2019 before the company and the union agreed on a new contract.

The plants designated for walkouts on Friday represent only a small portion of all the unionized factories of G.M., Ford and Stellantis and of those companies’ 150,000 U.A.W. members.

This limited strike, however, could hamper the automakers because the sites produce some of their most profitable trucks, such as the Ford Bronco sport utility vehicle and the Chevrolet Colorado pickup. And Mr. Fain has made it clear that the walkout could grow wider if contract accords remain elusive.

“This is certainly a different approach, and Fain is talking tough and has got tough proposals,” said Dennis Devaney, a former member of the National Labor Relations Board who is a labor lawyer in Detroit.

The affected plants include a G.M. plant in Wentzville, Mo., that makes the GMC Canyon as well as the Colorado, and a Stellantis complex in Toledo, Ohio, that makes the Jeep Gladiator and Wrangler. At Ford’s Michigan Assembly plant in Wayne, which makes the Bronco alongside the Ranger pickup, only workers from the assembly area and paint shop will walk out, Mr. Fain said.

The G.M. plant employs 3,600 hourly workers, according to the union, and the Stellantis plant 5,800. The union said about 3,300 workers at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant would be affected.

The union has demanded a 40 percent wage increase over the next four years, pointing out that the compensation packages for the chief executives of the three companies have increased about that much, on average, over the last four years.

Mr. Fain, who took office as union president this year, has also called for cost-of-living adjustments that nudge wages higher in response to inflation, shorter workweeks, improvements to retiree pensions and health care, and job security measures like the ability to strike at plants that are designated for closing. In addition, he wants changes to a wage scale that starts new hires at about $17 an hour and requires eight years for them to climb up to the top U.A.W. wage of $32 hour.

So far, the manufacturers have met Mr. Fain about halfway on wages but have opposed almost all of the other demands.

On Thursday, G.M. said its latest offer included a 20 percent wage increase over the life of the new contract, including a 10 percent raise in the first year, and cost-of-living adjustments, but only for more senior workers. G.M. also said it would allow new hires to reach the top wage after four years on the job.

“We put forward a compelling and unprecedented offer,” G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said in a video posted to a company website Thursday night. “It addresses what you’ve told us matters most: wage growth, job security and long-term stability.”

She also suggested that meeting most or all of the union’s demands could hurt the company’s prospects as it invested tens of billions of dollars in its transition to electric vehicles.

“We are at a crossroads on our path to transform the company,” she said. “Make no mistake: If we don’t continue to invest, we will lose ground, and it will happen fast. Nobody wins in a strike.”

Ford and Stellantis also made new proposals to the union in the 48 hours before the deadline but did not release details.

The Biden administration said Thursday that President Biden had spoken with Mr. Fain and with leaders of the auto companies about the status of the negotiations. A senior White House official said that Mr. Biden was not pressing the companies or the union on the particulars, but that he was encouraging all parties to stay at the table and to make sure that workers got a fair contract.

The union’s demands for significantly higher pay and new benefits are a sharp departure from the past 20 years, when the automakers were ailing and the U.A.W. was forced to accept major concessions to help the companies survive.

But more recently, G.M., Ford and Stellantis have been reporting near-record earnings. In the first half of this year, Ford made $3.7 billion and G.M. made $5 billion. Stellantis reported profits of 11 billion euros (about $11.9 billion).

Mr. Fain, who came up as an electrician at Chrysler and worked in the union administration before he was elected president, campaigned by promising to take a more aggressive and confrontational approach to this year’s contract negotiations.

In speeches to union members, he has frequently highlighted the pay of the automakers’ chief executives. Last year, Ms. Barra took home $29 million. Jim Farley of Ford made $21 million, while Stellantis’s chief, Carlos Tavares, was given a package worth about $25 million.

An extended strike would crimp the availability of new vehicles and drive up prices. A long stoppage would also ripple through the automakers’ supply chain and could hurt other businesses as workers live off $500 per week in strike pay from the union.

The auto industry is still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic. Production halted after the coronavirus hit, sharply reducing the supply of vehicles, and domestic car inventories are about a quarter of the stock at the end of 2019.

I was just a guy, in town for the night, looking to party. I pulled up to a bar and saw a man, Barack Obama. I paid him $250 (wildest part of this story lmao) for some cocaine and we went back to my place. I lined up some slopes on a compact disc case, do one, and next thing I know - Barack Obama has a pipe out and is smoking my cocaine!?!??!

I decided this was my chance and put my hand on his thigh. He was down. We fucked - twice. So much crack was smoked, by Obama not me. AMA.

Original Link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule

Will post highlights in comment but whole article's worth reading.

My handlers are asking me to tell you not to link/tag the comment or post, to prevent accusations of brigading obviously, but there have been a ton that should be added as new taglines for the site.

The one that prompted this post:

I'm fine with interacting with people of different ideologies and cultures, but I feel like the hexbears mostly just want to harass us "tankies".

Huh? Do you mean "liberals"? Hexbears are the ones liberals and leftcoms call "tankies"

From what I can tell, which so far is decidedly little, everyone is calling everyone tankies.

just because i listened to a single track from the Elden Ring soundtrack does not mean I'd like 200 'ELDEN RING LORE' videos shoved in my face. None of them even have <10k views - they're all like less than 1,000 views.

stop recommending 'AI voice dubs this song' videos that also have <10k views jesus christ, I don't want to hear a shitty version of Frank Sinatra singing the End of Evangelion song.

oh wow I looked up a very specific Frasier clip two months ago?? Thanks for recommending nothing but Frasier videos since that I haven't watched. God forbid I watch a single Jerma clip or I will be inundated with "Jerma talks chat through making thermite" videos for half a year.

To make matters worse, you hit "don't recommend this video I don't like this video" and two days later, the very same video pops up again. I've now resorted to just "don't ever recommend this channel to me again" even for small <10k views videos because that seems to be the only way to permanently prevent the same video from showing up at a later date.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is concealing a longstanding program that retrieves and reverse engineers unidentified flying objects, a former Air Force intelligence officer testified Wednesday to Congress. The Pentagon has denied his claims.

Retired Maj. David Grusch’s highly anticipated testimony before a House Oversight subcommittee was Congress’ latest foray into the world of UAPs — or “unidentified aerial phenomena,” which is the official term the U.S. government uses instead of UFOs. While the study of mysterious aircraft or objects often evokes talk of aliens and “little green men,” Democrats and Republicans in recent years have pushed for more research as a national security matter due to concerns that sightings observed by pilots may be tied to U.S. adversaries.

Grusch said he was asked in 2019 by the head of a government task force on UAPs to identify all highly classified programs relating to the task force’s mission. At the time, Grusch was detailed to the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that operates U.S. spy satellites.

“I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access,” he said.

Asked whether the U.S. government had information about extraterrestrial life, Grusch said the U.S. likely has been aware of “non-human” activity since the 1930s.

The Pentagon has denied Grusch’s claims of a coverup. In a statement, Defense Department spokeswoman Sue Gough said investigators have not discovered “any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.” The statement did not address UFOs that are not suspected of being extraterrestrial objects.

Grusch says he became a government whistleblower after his discovery and has faced retaliation for coming forward. He declined to be more specific about the retaliatory tactics, citing an ongoing investigation.

“It was very brutal and very unfortunate, some of the tactics they used to hurt me both professionally and personally,” he said.

Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., chaired the panel’s hearing and joked to a packed audience, “Welcome to the most exciting subcommittee in Congress this week.” But members of both parties asked Grusch about his study of UFOs and the consequences he faced.

“I take it that you’re arguing what we need is real transparency and reporting systems so we can get some clarity on what’s going on out there,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

Some lawmakers criticized the Pentagon for not providing more details in a classified briefing or releasing images that could be shown to the public. In previous hearings, Pentagon officials showed a video taken from an F-18 military plane that showed an image of one balloon-like shape.

Pentagon officials in December said they had received “several hundreds” of new reports since launching a renewed effort to investigate reports of UFOs.

At that point, “we have not seen anything, and we’re still very early on, that would lead us to believe that any of the objects that we have seen are of alien origin,” said Ronald Moultrie, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security. “Any unauthorized system in our airspace we deem as a threat to safety.”

can't believe there's still politicians suffering from weather-balloon hysteria.

Congrats to President Obama for being the #2 poster on Hexbear

Don't ask how this data was tabulated because I don't even know I was searching for something else

My condolences to their son. Full thread if you want to feel bad for their children: https://twitter.com/herong/status/1515846706394501123?s=21

The perfect Amerikkkan representation in a children's card game

lmao I hope he gets desperate the next time bitcoin spikes & pays some cryptology firm to 'crack' it and they wipe it by accident.