Road sign hijacking.
In the Montrose neighbourhood of Houston, Texas, an electronic road sign was “hijacked” to read: “Due to Weather Go Fuck Yourself”. The road sign does not belong to Houston Public Works, and the owner has not been found. It has since been turned off by a city inspector. (11 Sep)
AI In the News. This week, former NBA player for the Orlando Magic, Brandon Hunter, died at age 42 on September 12 following a collapse during a fitness class. MSN used an AI bot to write his obituary, stating “Brandon Hunter useless at 42” in the headline. The rest of the article was even more unintelligible, referring to him as an NBA “participant”, and that he was “handed away” at the age of 42. The bot “reports” that in high school he “acheived vital success as a ahead (sic) of the Bobcats” school team. He also apparently performed in “67 video games” over two seasons. The article was deleted the next day after MSN received complaints. All of these AI problems come on the heels of MSN firing much of its staff of human journalists this past December, to replace them with AI bots. (Sep 14) This is a recurring topic.
Kicking out the ladder from underneath you. American billionaire tycoon and kid at the debating table vying for running mate to Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, has promised to “gut” the H-1B visa program, dismissing it as a form of “indentured servitude that only benefits the company”. This is after he, himself the child of immigrants, has used that same program 29 times to hire immigrants to enrich his own pharmaceutical company. He has been previously criticized for his restrictionist immigration views. (Sep 16)
Names for your baby. Australian journalist Kirsten Drysdale recently gave birth to a young boy, and named him “Methamphetamine Rules”. It was either that or “Nangs Rule”, she said to reporters. This was part of a stunt to test the naming regulations of the Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages in her home province of New South Wales for an article on legal baby names which was aired by the Australian Broadcasting Company on September 20. The stunt backfired, since the name was actually approved, and she is now petitioning to have her son’s name changed into something more normal. It appears as if the approval of the name was in error, saying that it “slipped through”, and is considered to be a “highly unusual event” that it was approved. Unfortunately, her son’s birth record will now permanently have his first-assigned name, as well as any subsequent name change. (19 Sep)
Wanting to get in on a good thing. After a successful legal battle which resulted in the overpaid Board of Directors of Tesla having to return $700 million in excess compensation to shareholders, the winning lawyers now want $10,ooo per hour in return for their legal services, for a total of $229 million in legal fees, which if appproved, would be the largest legal payout ever in a shareholder lawsuit. There will be a hearing in Deleware set in October to approve this new settlement. Corporate star attorneys typically request a maximum of $2000 per hour, by way of contrast. (21 Sep)
Fight for your right to eviction party. In Berkeley, California, the Property Owners Association (BPOA) there threw a cocktail party at Freehouse Bar, next to Berkeley university campus, in celibration of the end of the eviction moratorium in honor of landlords in the area. It drew protestors, which then resulted in fisticuffs on both sides. Protestors left the venue shortly after the fights broke out. The BPOA says that there were many that could have paid rent but chose not to during the moratorium. But if that were true, that would be fraudulent, and there were few or no convictions of tenants due to fraud to anyone’s knowledge. Berkeley and the surrounding San Francisco Bay area have suffered from high rents and property values for some decades. (13 Sep)
Fined and jailed for eating redneck food. Indonesian food influencer Lina Lutfiawati had garnered thousands of followers on Tik Tok, showcasing food of many kinds from many cultures. But her most recent consuming of pork rinds on video was too much for the Indonesian Muslim clerics, and she was arrested. Touching pigs is taboo in Indonesian Muslim culture, and is in violation of blasphemy laws. Muslims make up almost 90% of the Indonesian population. (21 Sep)
Boebert steals the show, gets bad reviews.
Republican congressperson Lauren Boebert, previously known for her verbal catfight in a ladies’ room with her fellow flaky colleague Marjorie Taylor-Greene, among other notable congressional lunacy, has recently been ejected from a theatre showing of the musical Beetlejuice in Denver with her date, a 46 year-old bar owner named Quinn Gallagher – 10 years her senior, for vaping, singing, using her phone to record the show, and mutual masturbation (over the clothes), all caught on surveillance camera, which also showed complaining nearby patrons. Their ejection from the theatre by threat of police being called was accompanied by such hubristic parlance as “Do you know who I am?” and “I’m going to contact the mayor!” Her most recent apology regarding this incident was for her “maybe overtly animated” behaviour at the theatre that day. Political pundit and occasional drama critic Ann Coulter gave the Boebert performance 1 star. (17 Sep)
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