Month: July 2018

Clueless, Rich, and Narcissistic

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I am referring to Elon Musk, who met with workers and said that he, “Would Allow” them to unionize if he did not personally resolve their issues.

Mr. Musk, you are not the person who makes that decision. Your workers make that decision, period, full stop.

That’s how the system works, no matter how much you want to “disrupt” it.

What’s more, you are not allowed to threaten loss of benefits to employees if they choose to unionize:

In a June 2017 meeting with Tesla employees, CEO Elon Musk solicited their complaints about safety issues and promised to address their concerns, so long as they refrained from trying to organize a union, the National Labor Relations Board alleges.

 The new claims emerged last month as a trial got underway over a complaint filed against Tesla by the NLRB, a government agency tasked with enforcing U.S. labor laws.

 During the June 7, 2017, meeting, Musk allegedly solicited employees complaints about safety issues, and “impliedly promised to remedy their safety complaints if they refrained from their union organizational activity,” the NLRB said.


………

Musk has made his disdain toward the United Auto Workers’ two-year union campaign at Fremont well known, but publicly he’s even gone so far as to call for workers to hold a unionization vote. The NLRB’s latest allegation appears to be the first documented claim of the CEO directly appealing to workers to refrain from organizing activity.  

 ………

 In its filing, the agency said Musk’s statements violated sections 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act, which says “It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed” to organize a union.

“For example, employers may not respond to a union organizing drive by threatening, interrogating, or spying on pro-union employees, or by promising benefits if they forget about the union,” according to the NLRB’s website.

And, BTW, he also tweeted that if they voted to unionize, that the would lose their stock options, which is a violation of black letter labor law.

But he’s a Silicon Valley big wig, and laws are for little people.

Here is hoping that the judge will disabuse him of this notion.

I Did Not Expect This in the Chronicle of Higher Education

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I tend to think of the Chronicle of Higher Education as the official journal of bullsh%$ jobs in academe.

As such, I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that they published an article calling out BS jobs in the university world: (%$# mine, and the original is paywalled)

I would like to write about the bullsh%$ization of academic life: that is, the degree to which those involved in teaching and academic management spend more and more of their time involved in tasks which they secretly — or not so secretly — believe to be entirely pointless.

For a number of years now, I have been conducting research on forms of employment seen as utterly pointless by those who perform them. The proportion of these jobs is startlingly high. Surveys in Britain and Holland reveal that 37 to 40 percent of all workers there are convinced that their jobs make no meaningful contribution to the world. And there seems every reason to believe that numbers in other wealthy countries are much the same. There would appear to be whole industries — telemarketing, corporate law, financial or management consulting, lobbying — in which almost everyone involved finds the enterprise a waste of time, and believes that if their jobs disappeared it would either make no difference or make the world a better place.

Generally speaking, we should trust people’s instincts in such matters. (Some of them might be wrong, but no one else is in a position to know better.) If one includes the work of those who unwittingly perform real labor in support of all this — for instance, the cleaners, guards, and mechanics who maintain the office buildings where people perform bullsh%$ jobs — it’s clear that 50 percent of all work could be eliminated with no downside. (I am assuming here that provision is made such that those whose jobs were eliminated continue to be supported.) If nothing else, this would have immediate salutary effects on carbon emissions, not to mention overall social happiness and wellbeing.

………
And then there’s higher education. (emphasis mine)

 In most universities nowadays — and this seems to be true almost everywhere — academic staff find themselves spending less and less time studying, teaching, and writing about things, and more and more time measuring, assessing, discussing, and quantifying the way in which they study, teach, and write about things (or the way in which they propose to do so in the future. European universities, reportedly, now spend at least 1.4 billion euros [about 1.7 billion dollars] a year on failed grant applications.). It’s gotten to the point where “admin” now takes up so much of most professors’ time that complaining about it is the default mode of socializing among academic colleagues; indeed, insisting on talking instead about one’s latest research project or course idea is considered somewhat rude. All of this will hardly be news to most Chronicle readers. What strikes me as insufficiently discussed is that this has happened at a time when the number of administrative-support staff in most universities has skyrocketed. Consider here some figures culled from Benjamin Ginsberg’s book The Fall of the Faculty (Oxford, 2011). In American universities from 1985 to 2005, the number of both students and faculty members went up by about half, the number of full-fledged administrative positions by 85 percent — and the number of administrative staff by 240 percent.

In theory, these are support-staff. They exist to make other peoples’ jobs easier. In the classic conception of the university, at least, they are there to save scholars the trouble of having to think about how to organize room assignments or authorize travel payments, allowing them to instead think great thoughts or grade papers. No doubt most supportstaff still do perform such work. But if that were their primary role, then logically, when they double or triple in number, lecturers and researchers should have to do much less admin as a result. Instead they appear to be doing far more.

This is a conundrum. Let me suggest a solution. Support staff no longer mainly exist to support the faculty. In fact, not only are many of these newly created jobs in academic administration classic bullsh%$ jobs, but it is the proliferation of these pointless jobs that is responsible for the bullsh%$ization of real work — real work, here, defined not only as teaching and scholarship but also as actually useful administrative work in support of either. What’s more, it seems to me this is a direct effect of the death of the university, at least in its original medieval conception as a guild of self-organized scholars. Gayatri Spivak, a literary critic and university professor at Columbia, has observed that, in her student days, when people spoke of “the university,” it was assumed they were referring to the faculty. Nowadays it’s assumed they are referring to the administration. And this administration is increasingly modeling itself on corporate management.

To get a sense of how total the shift of power has become, consider a story I heard recently, about a prominent scholar who had just been rejected for a named chair at Cambridge. The man was acknowledged to be at the top of his field, but he didn’t even make the shortlist. The kiss of death came when a high-ranking administrator glanced over his CV and remarked, “He’s obviously a very smart guy. But I have no use for him.” That judgment settled the matter. When even Cambridge dons are presumed to exist to further the purposes of managers, rather than the other way around, we know the corporate takeover of the global university system is complete. (emphasis mine)

 ………

 But it’s possible to connect the dots. Let me begin by introducing a concept: managerial feudalism. Rich and powerful people have always surrounded themselves with flashy entourages; you can’t be really magnificent without one. Even at the height of industrial capitalism, CEOs and high-ranking executives would surround themselves with a certain number of secretaries (who often did most of their actual work), along with a variety of flunkies and yes men (who often did very little). In the contemporary corporation, the accumulation of the equivalent of feudal retainers often becomes the main principle of organization. The power and prestige of managers tend to be measured by the number of people they have working under them — in fact, in my research, I found that efficiency experts complained that it’s well-nigh impossible to get most executives, for all their “lean and mean” rhetoric, to trim the fat in their own corporations (apart from bluecollar workers, who are ruthlessly exploited). Office workers are typically kept on even if they are doing literally nothing, lest somebody’s prestige suffer. This is the real reason for the explosion of administrative staff in higher education. If a university hires a new dean or deanlet (to use Ginsberg’s charming formulation), then, in order to ensure that he or she feels appropriately impressive and powerful, the new hire must be provided with a tiny army of flunkies. Three or four positions are created — and only then do negotiations begin over what they are actually going to do. True, if the testimonies I’ve received are anything to go by, many of those people don’t end up doing much; some administrative-staff will inevitably end up sitting around playing fruit mahjong all day or watching cat videos. But it’s generally considered good form to give all staff members at least a few hours of actual work to do each week. Some managers, who have more thoroughly absorbed the corporate spirit, will insist that all of their minions come up with a way to at least look busy for the full eight hours of the day.

There is a lot more there, but it does describe a cancer at the core of academe, and at the core of the current MBA driven managerial culture.

Yeah, This is Working So Well

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In response to new sanctions against new sanctions against Iran, Russia is planning to invest fifty billion dollars in the Iranian energy industry:

Iran has touted $50bn worth of potential Russian investments in its oil and gas sector as it seeks to deepen its relationship with Moscow, amid mounting pressure from the US to curb the country’s energy exports and diplomatically isolate Tehran.

………

“Russia is ready to invest $50bn in Iran’s oil and gas sectors,” Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said during a visit to Moscow that included a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. “Military and technical co-operation with Russia is of major importance to Iran.”

………

Mr Velayati, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top diplomat, also used a media interview during his visit to say that a Russian oil company had already signed a $4bn deal with Iran that “will be implemented soon”, without providing details. He added: “Two other major Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Gazprom, have started talks with Iran’s oil ministry to sign contracts worth up to $10bn.”

………

The suggestion of deeper co-operation between the two countries’ energy industries comes eight months after Russian companies signed preliminary agreements to invest up to $30bn in Iran’s oil industry, as part of a visit by Mr Putin to Tehran.

………

But Mr Trump’s decision to rip up that accord and threaten to sanction companies that trade in Iranian oil has led Tehran to work with Moscow. Hardline Iranian politicians have urged Mr Rouhani’s government to expand co-operation with Russia and China to replace European companies unwilling to risk the wrath of Washington.

This is a foreseeable result of bad policy. 

Sanctions after sanctions, particularly without the support of allies, is like pushing on a string.

Linkage

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Here is the hold music in question:

And Now the Post Primary Endorsement

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The state Democratic party has just endorsed Kevin de León for US Senate over incumbent Dianne Feinstein by a 2:1 margin:

California Democratic Party leaders took a step to the left Saturday night, endorsing liberal state lawmaker Kevin de León for Senate in a stinging rebuke of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

De León’s victory reflected the increasing strength of the state party’s liberal activist core, which was energized by the election of Republican Donald Trump as president.

The endorsement was an embarrassment for Feinstein, who is running for a fifth full term, and indicates that Democratic activists in California have soured on her reputation for pragmatism and deference to bipartisanship as Trump and a Republican-led Congress are attacking Democratic priorities on immigration, healthcare and environmental protections.

De León, a former state Senate leader from Los Angeles, received 65% of the vote of about 330 members of the state party’s executive board — more than the 60% needed to secure the endorsement. Feinstein, who pleaded with party leaders meeting in Oakland this weekend not to endorse any candidate, received 7%, and 28% voted for “no endorsement.”

………

It’s not clear that the endorsement will have a significant effect on the general election. Feinstein crushed De León in the June primary, winning every county and finishing in first place with 44% of the overall vote. De León finished far behind with 12%, which was enough for a second-place finish and a ticket to the November election under the state’s top-two primary system.

………

This was the second go-around for an endorsement fight in the Senate race. Ahead of the primary at the party’s February convention in San Diego, where a larger contingent of 2,700 delegates voted, De León won 54% — short of the 60% required to secure an endorsement. Feinstein received just 37%.

In a scenario where only a Democrat can win this seat the calls for unity are bullsh%$, vote for the better Democrat.

Feinstein’s time has passed.

*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers, though we have never met, either in person or electronically.

Yeah, 80% of the Way to Bond Villain Status

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One of the cave divers involved in the Thai soccer team cave rescue suggested that Elon Musk had no clue what he was talking about.

Elon Musk responded by called the cave diver a pedo:

The Elon Musk story took a bizarre turn Sunday morning, as the world famous entrepreneur took to Twitter to suggest a critic of his submarine rescue plan is a pedophile.

Musk’s tweet was directed at British cave diver Vern Unsworth, who had participated in the rescue of 12 Thai children and their soccer coach from a water-filled cave. In a recent CNN video news report, Unsworth had belittled Musk’s plan to deploy a mini-submarine made by SpaceX engineers to rescue the children.

“He can stick his submarine where it hurts,” Unsworth said when asked about Musk’s plan. “It just has absolutely no chance of working.”

Musk tweeted Sunday that he’ll send a sub through the cave to prove it could have worked, followed by an attack on Unsworth:

“We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.” Musk tweeted.

Seriously, this guy made his fortune by figuring out how to ignore banking laws, and by getting lucky.

The idea that he is a visionary, as opposed to a self-absorbed and conceited ass does not match the facts at hand.

If the above doesn’t make you wonder about Musk, the fact that he is a major donor to a Republican PAC dedicated to preserving their House majority should give you pause:

Now reports indicate that Musk was one of the top donors for a Republican PAC named Protect the House.

Filings show that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO donated $33,900 to the PAC, which is dedicated to keeping Republicans in control of Congress. The PAC raised over $8 million in quarter two, according to filings compiled by ProPublica.

The top donors of the PAC include Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas casino magnate, and Robert McNair, the owner of the NFL’s Houston Texans. Although Adelson and McNair’s contributions far outweighed Musk’s — Adelson and McNair each gave $371,500 respectively, while Musk gave $33,900 — Musk was one of the top 50 donors of the PAC.

Seriously, there is nothing more pathetic than a rich businessman who believes his own PR.

Destroying Any Ideals Remaining in Israel

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It is not surprising that Benjamin Netanyahu’s relentless pursuit has led to a bill legalizing discrimination in Israel:

Israel is in the throes of political upheaval as the country’s ruling party seeks to pass legislation that could allow for Jewish-only communities, which critics have condemned as the end of a democratic state.

For the past half-decade, politicians have been wrangling over the details of the bill that holds constitution-like status and that Benjamin Netanyahu wants passed this month.

The proposed legislation would allow the state to “authorise a community composed of people having the same faith and nationality to maintain the exclusive character of that community”.

In its current state, the draft would also permit Jewish religious law to be implemented in certain cases and remove Arabic as an official language.

“In the Israeli democracy, we will continue to protect the rights of both the individual and the group, this is guaranteed. But the majority have rights too, and the majority rules,” the Israeli prime minister said this week.

A vote on the bill is expected next week, although a final draft has yet to be agreed on. The legislation has been compared to South African apartheid by Israeli parliamentarians, and several thousand Israelis protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

This is positively repulsive, and it another one of Netanyahu’s attempts to cling to power while new allegations of corruption erupt.

If history is any template, it is the actions of self-serving leaders in Israel, like Netanyahu, that will threaten the existence of the state far more than external threats.

Burn Motherf%$#er, Burn

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I was waiting for someone to sue Apple for hacking their iPhones when they crippled older phones with OS updates:

The saga of class-action lawsuits looming over Apple’s iOS battery management took a new turn last week – as the Cupertino giant was accused of violating American hacking laws.

A complaint [PDF] filed in the US federal district court of northern California lists a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act among the charges filed against Cook and Co.

The lawsuit, submitted on behalf of everyone in America who bought an iPhone or iPad that had been subject to performance throttling on devices that suffered from diminished battery capacity, accuses Apple of illegally tampering with devices, amongst other things.

The suit argues that the iOS update slowed down a device in order to preserve battery life. In doing so Apple intentionally “damaged” its hardware without user knowledge or permission, violation of the CFAA, the plaintiffs – Alex Rodriguez, of Alaska, and scores of pals – claim.

“Apple violated [the CFAA] by knowingly causing the transmission of iOS software Updates to Plaintiff and class members’ devices to access, collect, and transmit information to devices, which are protected computers as defined in [the CFAA] because they are used in interstate commerce and/or communication,” the complaint reasons.

“By transmitting information to class members’ devices, Apple intentionally caused damage without authorization to class members’ devices by impairing the ability of those devices to operate as warranted, represented, and advertised.”

I really hope that Apple gets hung out to dry on this one.

Apple’s view of iPhones seem to be that, notwithstanding the money that people pay for the devices, it is Apple, Inc. that owns them.

They need to be disabused of this concept.

Rule #1 of AT&T:

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AT&T will lie and f%$# with consumers, regulators, and judges.

Rule number 2 is see rule 1.

Case in point, after getting a federal judge to rule in their favor, because he saw no downside to end users, (an unnecessarily narrow view that has been promulgated by the right wing fof decades) AT&T promptly raised rates on users.

It comes as no surprise then, that the government ignored Judge Leon’s recommendation not to appeal, and file an appeal anyway:

AT&T recently defeated the DOJ’s challenge to their $86 billion merger with Time Warner thanks to a comically narrow reading of the markets by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon. At no point in his 172-page ruling (which approved the deal without a single condition) did Leon show the faintest understanding that AT&T intends to use vertical integration synergistically with the death of net neutrality to dominate smaller competitors. In fact, net neutrality was never even mentioned at the multi-week trial.

The trial did a wonderful job showing how modern antitrust law does a dismal job policing companies that dominate both the conduit to the home (wireless, wired connection) and the content running over it. And shortly after Leon signed off on the deal, AT&T got right work… being AT&T.

The company had made repeated promises before, during and after the trial that the merger would only result in price reductions and other wonderful things for consumers. But with the ink barely dry on the deal, AT&T quickly began raising rates on its streaming video services, eliminating promo offers providing free HBO to its wireless customers, jacking up the price of the company’s unlimited data wireless plans, and imposing bogus new fees on those same subscribers. Most of these moves were expected as AT&T tries to recoup some of the monumental debt incurred by its endless quest to grow ever larger.

Initially, the DOJ stated it wouldn’t appeal its court loss, even though Leon’s myopic ruling opened the door to the idea. But the DOJ clearly sees something in AT&T’s recent moves that gives it additional ammunition for another shot at the merger, so it’s appealing the judge’s ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit according to a DOJ filing (pdf).

Leon’s ruling essentially said that there had to be a showing of direct and immediate harm to consumers for the merger to be stopped, which ignores issues such as the political effects of market dominance and barriers to entry, which figured far more prominently in the legislative intent of the Sherman Antitrust Act when it was passed over 125 years ago.

In fact, the idea of consumer well being wasn’t even a concept at the time the law was passed.

The consumer harm standard is a fig leaf first pushed by Robert Bork over 40 years ago in order to gut antitrust enforcement.

Silly Rabbit, Party Unity is a One Way Street

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A @DemSocialists-backed candidate beat a self-funder in Montgomery County, so a centrist Dem is running as an independent, potentially spoiling the race for her party. https://t.co/EwTB6tNfi8

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 11, 2018

Have you noticed the pattern?

The Democratic establishment calls for unity, and then, once one of their own loses a primary, they they do their level best to sabotage the the winner in the general election:

Longtime Democrat Nancy Floreen launched an independent bid for Montgomery County executive on Wednesday, calling the Republican and Democratic nominees for the office “flawed extremes” and urging residents of the affluent and liberal suburb “to put principle and pragmatism above purely party politics.”

Montgomery’s 1 million residents have not chosen a non-Democrat to the top political job since 1974. But Floreen, an at-large council member, has been elected countywide four times. She could be a formidable opponent for Democratic nominee Marc Elrich, a progressive with strong union backing who also holds an at-large council seat and has supported rent-control laws and charging impact fees to developers.

“I am determined to give Montgomery County a third, independent choice come November,” Floreen said in a statement explaining her decision to drop her longtime Democratic affiliation to run as an independent.

………

Elrich narrowly defeated Potomac businessman David Blair in the June 26 Democratic primary, a six-way contest that was not decided until late Sunday after provisional and absentee ballots were counted.

………

Throughout the primary campaign, business leaders expressed concerns about Elrich, saying he would prioritize the social safety net and holding developers accountable over boosting economic development and improving the county’s business climate.

………

But former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow, who also sought the Democratic nomination for county executive, said she will back Floreen, whom she described as best positioned to lead the county at a time of tepid growth when, some say, businesses and residents are moving elsewhere because of high costs.

“I understand the idea that we should all support the Democrat, but I’m really worried about the future of our county,” Krasnow said.

The business leaders supporting Floreen include Bob Buchanan, chairman of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp., who said this week that she is “a person the business community has come to rely on.”

(emphasis mine)

The (small d) democratic process is all well and good, but they need the campaign donations from the real estate developers.

This is pathetic.

Crazy as a Bagfull of Cats

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There has been a second incident of Novichok poisoning near Porton Down in England.

While this the Russian nerve agent is described as persistent, this does not mean “eternal”, and for something like VX, which is the most persistent of the better known agents, would be likely be degraded to harmlessness in about a month, particularly in the mild and wet climate of southern England.

Thus, I found the most recent poisoning to be perplexing, until I discovered that the Novichok came from a bottle that the man had apparently found dumpster diving.

This would explain how the Novichok remained viable for so long, but the idea that a crack Russian assassin team would dose the door knob of the Skripal and then take the left over agent and throw it in the dumpster.

I can see the need to carry more than is necessary, and the need to dispose of the excess afterwards, but anyone with even a modicum of knowledge would know how to deactivate Novichuk before disposing of the container.

Basically, you would dump it in a bucket of household bleach.

None of this makes sense as an FSB/GRU assassination team.

In fact, the only scenario that has a comprehensible narrative is that there is some lunatic at Porton Down is doing the whole Bruce Ivins thing, which is even more frightening, because it is completely unpredictable.

This Almost Makes the British Soccer Hooliganism Worth It

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I think that there is some sort of tie between hooliganism and truly inspired protests in British society.

Case in point, the Donald Trump Dalek:

We Brits might be rubbish at a lot of things, but protesting is one thing we’ve got down to a fine art.

Especially when it comes to infusing that signature British wit into our protest materials. Take this Trump Dalek, for instance.

There was also a Cyberman Theresa May.

Brilliant!

Linkage

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The story of Korean Admiral Yi Sun-sin, arguably the finest naval officer in history: (watch the whole series of 5 videos)

Back Loaded Bribery

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Nothing to see here, move along.

I am totally not surprised that big Pharmac has been paying off researchers who sit on government advisory panels:

On a sweltering July day in 2010, seven medical researchers and one patient advocate gathered in a plush Marriott hotel in College Park, Maryland, to review a promising drug designed to prevent heart attacks and strokes by limiting blood clotting. The panel is one of dozens of advisory committees that vote each year on whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should approve a therapy for the U.S. market. That day, panel members heard presentations on the drug’s preclinical and clinical data from agency staff and AstraZeneca in Cambridge, U.K., its maker and one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. The occasion sparked little drama. In the cool refuge of the conference room, advisers politely questioned company scientists and complimented their work. By day’s end, the panel voted seven to one to approve. FDA, as usual, later signed off. The drug, ticagrelor, marketed under the name Brilinta, sold rapidly, emerging as a billion-dollar blockbuster. It cuts risk of death from vascular causes, heart attacks, and strokes modestly more than its chief competitor—and currently costs 25 times as much.

FDA, headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, uses a well-established system to identify possible conflicts of interest before such advisory panels meet. Before the Brilinta vote, the agency mentioned no financial conflicts among the voting panelists, who included four physicians. As Brilinta’s sales took off later, however, AstraZeneca and firms selling or developing similar cardiovascular therapies showered the four with money for travel and advice. For example, those companies paid or reimbursed cardiologist Jonathan Halperin of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City more than $200,000 for accommodations, honoraria, and consulting from 2013 to 2016. During that period, Halperin got $7500 from AstraZeneca to study Brilinta, and the company separately declared nearly $2 million in “associated research” payments tied to him.

Brilinta fits a pattern of what might be called pay-later conflicts of interest, which have gone largely unnoticed—and entirely unpoliced. In examining compensation records from drug companies to physicians who advised FDA on whether to approve 28 psychopharmacologic, arthritis, and cardiac or renal drugs between 2008 and 2014, Science found widespread after-the-fact payments or research support to panel members. The agency’s safeguards against potential conflicts of interest are not designed to prevent such future financial ties.

Other apparent conflicts may have also slipped by: Science found that at the time of or in the year leading up to the advisory meetings, many of those panel members—including Halperin—received payments or other financial support from the drugmaker or key competitors for consulting, travel, lectures, or research. FDA did not publicly note those financial ties.

The thing that is frightening is not the law breaking, it’s what is nominally legal.

Totally Unsurprised

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.@repjoecrowley stated on live TV that he would absolutely support my candidacy.

Instead, he’s stood me up for all 3 scheduled concession calls.

Now, he’s mounting a 3rd party challenge against me and the Democratic Party- and against the will of @NYWFP.https://t.co/Xvb6Jk8N8q

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 12, 2018

R

What a surprise.

After invoking Bruce Springsteen saying that he would support her in the general election, Joe Crowley will be on the ballot as a 3rd party candidate in the 14th Congressional district:

Even in Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s district, the Working Families Party line was won by Mr. Crowley, who had secured that party’s endorsement. Bill Lipton, state director of the Working Families Party, said he immediately reached out to Mr. Crowley’s campaign to request that he vacate the line.

To Mr. Lipton’s chagrin, his campaign declined; Mr. Crowley will remain on the ballot in November. “You’d think that given the moment we’re in,” said Mr. Lipton, “that Democratic leaders would want to help progressive forces to unite.”

It appears that the demands for unity only apply to the real Democrats, not the corporate Democrats.

Also:  New York has truly f%$#ed up election laws.

Peter Parker Weeps

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Spiderman co-creator Steve Ditko has died at age 90:

New York police confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday that one of Marvel Comics’ legendary staffers, Steve Ditko, was found dead in his apartment this week. Ditko was 90.

The creator of Dr. Strange and the original artist (plus “co-creator,” according to Stan Lee) for Spider-Man had been found days earlier, on June 29, and police told THR that they believed he had been dead for two days when he was found. Reports indicate Ditko left behind no family or survivors.

Ditko’s impact on Marvel Comics may only be rivaled by his reclusive nature in later years. After creating and developing Spider-Man with Lee in 1961, Ditko premiered lasting hero Dr. Strange in 1963, and Ditko would continue to write and draw Dr. Strange stories for Marvel until 1966. Disputes over money and friction with Lee reportedly drove Ditko to leave Marvel in 1966, and Ditko shunned the public spotlight shortly thereafter; he gave his last formal interview in 1968, though he continued contributing comics to other publishers.

Most notably in his later career, he created Squirrel Girl. 

They Got a Patent for What?

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Yes, in 2000, some troll secured a patent on the ability to pause a recorded lesson, because ……… computers!!! gross incompetence.

This is profoundly dysfunctional:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has stepped up to represent a small, independent online language teacher who has been threatened with a lawsuit by a British publisher that claims the teacher is infringing an American patent issued back in 2000 for a particular audio-based teaching technique.

What’s the secret sauce? Amazingly, the use of a pause button to temporarily stop the lesson.

………

A Virginia attorney, Christopher Foley, representing publisher Hodder & Stoughton, recently demanded that Eleftheriou halt any publication of audio lessons in the United States or face a potential lawsuit.

Hodder & Stoughton claims to represent the “exclusive licensee” of a patent originally granted to a now-deceased French teacher, Michel Thomas. The Polish immigrant, who lived for decades in the United States, claimed that he could teach anyone the basics of a European language that had commonalities with English to anyone in “a matter of days or a week.” He attracted numerous celebrity clients, including Woody Allen and Bill Murray.

Eleftheriou said that he was not “reproducing” Thomas’ method, adding that “nothing else [is] as well thought-out” as Eleftheriou’s own technique.

But however effective Thomas’ teaching technique may or may not have been, it was not patentable, according to a scathing letter sent on July 2, 2018 by Daniel Nazer, an EFF attorney who is representing Eleftheriou.

Seriously, whoever approved this patent should be fired.

This wasn’t even a pre Alice software patent.  This was just completely negligent.

Of Course, It’s Alabama

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It appears that the state of Alabama allows its Sheriffs to starve their inmates and keep the money saved for themselves..

This has risen to the level of a very public disgrace, and now the governor has put a stop to the practice, at least until the Sheriffs get a court injunction to continue to take taxpayer money in the service of cruelty:

Alabama’s governor has begun to cut off a gravy train for the state’s sheriffs: the unspent money for prisoners’ meals that the sheriffs have long been allowed to keep for themselves.

The practice, born of a bickered-over ambiguity in a state law, has let sheriffs pocket tax dollars that over the decades almost certainly ran into the millions. To curtail the practice, Gov. Kay Ivey ordered in a memorandum to the state comptroller that payments of certain funds related to jail food “no longer be made to the sheriffs personally.” Instead, the governor wrote, the money must be paid to county general funds or official accounts.

“Public funds should be used for public purposes,” Ms. Ivey, a Republican, said in a statement on Wednesday. “It’s that simple.”

Critics of the practice welcomed the governor’s action on Wednesday but said it resolved only part of the problem because it did not apply to every type of payment related to jail food.

Even so, the move is sure to infuriate sheriffs in at least some of Alabama’s 67 counties, and the governor’s order may be tested in the courts. Economic disclosure forms filed by sheriffs suggest that many do not take the leftover money, sometimes because of local laws. But some do: Records show that the sheriff in Etowah County, in northeast Alabama, for example, has taken more than $670,000 in recent years.

Right now politicians in Mississippi, Florida, and Texas are thinking, “Yes!  For once it’s not us held up for ridicule!”