Sweetbriar Dam. Can you see the woman in the water? Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Sweetbriar Dam. Can you see the woman in the water? Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Sparrows. Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes shakes hands with Vice President-elect Mike Pence before Pence speaks at Carrier Corp Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, in Indianapolis. CREDIT: AP Photo/Darron Cummings.
As part of the deal President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence struck with Carrier, the company has promised to make a $16 million investment in its Indianapolis facility — an investment management plans to use on developing technology that will allow them to replace human workers with robots.
The company’s plans were confirmed by Greg Hayes, CEO of United Technologies, Carrier’s corporate parent, during a CNBC interview earlier this week.
“We’re going to… automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive,” Hayes said. “Is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost labor? No. But we will make that plant competitive just because we’ll make the capital investments there. But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.”
This news comes on the heels of Trump blasting Chuck Jones, president of the United Steelworkers 1999 union that represents Carrier workers, for the sin of correctly pointing out that Trump exaggerated the number of jobs his deal “saved” during a December 1 news conference at the factory. Trump said the company agreed to keep 1,100 jobs at the Indianapolis factory when the real figure is closer to 800, with 550 workers at the factory facing layoffs despite Trump’s deal. In addition, Carrier still plans to ship 700 jobs from a separate factory in Huntington, Indiana, to Mexico. And as part of the deal, Indiana taxpayers will dole out $7 million in tax breaks to the company.
After Trump smeared him on Twitter, Jones received threats against his family.
After all this, it would be nice if people finally understood that Trump does not give one tiny little shit about jobs. He put on a show, then wandered off to something else, having no attention span, but he did make sure to tweet nastiness about Mr. Jones, who now gets to endure a mass amount of harassment, like others who have been the subject of Trump’s bile. The Celeb-elect is busy treating the presidency of a whole country like it’s a game, a new asset to play with, at least until he gets bored, which won’t be long, given his history. He has once again stated that he will not divest, so he’ll be violating that constitution so beloved by Trumpoids, who are unsurprisingly quiet about this violation. I guess it’s okay if conservative assholes figuratively set it on fire; it’s only wrong if those awful lefties do it. So, if nothing else, all you Trumpoids can stop the “jobs, jobs, jobs” talk. It’s not as though that was ever believed by any sort of majority, and trying to keep up the thin facade will not work. Trump and his cronies have theirs, why on earth would you ever think they care about yours?
Despite Trump’s pro-worker campaign rhetoric, the details of the Carrier deal and Trump’s nomination of fast food executive Andrew Puzder as labor secretary suggests he doesn’t have an issue with companies replacing humans with machines. Puzder is a proponent of replacing human workers with robots, telling Business Insider last March that machines are “always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.”
CNN, citing a McKinsey & Co. study, reports that “45 percent of the tasks that U.S. workers are currently paid to perform can be automated by existing technology. That represents about $2 trillion in annual wages.”
Oh, there’s love for the workers, alright. Workers that don’t require payment and have no capacity to complain. Love for human workers? Not there.
Full story at Think Progress.
A couple of weeks back an anti-Muslim Facebook group called the Aussie Infidels told its followers to send Christmas cards “smeared in bacon fat” to the local Muslim association.
The Lakemba mosque has issued a statement not to wish anyone a Merry Christmas. Anyone who would like to send a Christmas card smeared in bacon fat to Lakemba, here the address:Lebanese Moslem Association71-75 Wangee RoadLakembaNSW 2195
It’s unclear what provoked the status. There are no recent public statements from the Lakemba mosque or the Lebanese Muslim Association about Christmas.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1155407184575696&set=a.353875768062179.1073741827.328911403891949&type=3
People are having a wonderful, humor filled time, happily mocking the idiots who couldn’t think of a single thing to do this solstice, other than to try and spread hate and fear. You can see a whole lot of the responses at BuzzFeed.
Many thanks to Intransitive for this one, cheered my day!
The resemblance between Mike Hot-Pence (Glen Pannell, left) and VP-elect Mike Pence (right) is uncanny. Just, one wears pants, the other doesn’t.
Glen Pannell has found a great way to be a one-person resistance, his resemblance to Mike Pence being the key. What started as a bit of Halloween fun has morphed into doing good for people. Many cheers for Mike Hot-Pence!
You see all sorts of things in Times Square these days, Spidermen fighting Elmos, naked cowboys — and now pants-less vice president-elects.
There’s a new character in Times Square and he looks an awful lot like Mike Pence.
Glen Pannell wears a suit, tie, no pants — just short shorts — and goes by “Mike Hot-Pence,” raising money for Planned Parenthood, the environment, and soon, the Trevor Project for LGBT youth. He raised over $300 for Planned Parenthood and the Natural Resources Defense Council the first weekend in December.
Pannell kept hearing, “you look like Mike Pence! You should be him for Halloween,” so much that he did it. But the actor/director and designer thought that wasn’t creative enough, so Pannell stepped out as “Sexy Mike Pence” and hasn’t turned back.
The activist, who’s gay, said he wants to use his resemblance to Pence to champion causes Pence has opposed.
Pannell finds a “patch of sunlight” in Times Square and carries a repurposed whey protein bucket for donations, because “Mike Hot-Pence cares about the environment.”
Pannell designs the labels himself. When speaking to the News, he remembered he needed to make and print one for his upcoming charity, The Trevor Project. (Glen Pannell).
“I am raising money for groups that would be especially vulnerable during a Trump/Pence administration,” he said. The donations, which Pannell screenshots and posts on his Twitter feed, are donated in the name of “Mike Hot-Pence.”
Pannell says he isn’t interested in being immature or disrespectful. Rather, he wants to use his resemblance to call attention to Pence’s record as a public servant.
“His policy over the last 16 years makes me very afraid for the next four years. I want to make it about the issues.”
And Glen is doing a great job, too. If you’re in NYC, and see Mike Hot-Pence, be resistance minded, and send some pennies his way.
Full story at NY Daily News.
Susan Olsen.
According to Towleroad, writer/producer Leon Acord-Whiting complained about ‘Two Chicks Talkin’ Politics’ host Susan Olson, who once portrayed Cindy Brady on the popular sit-com. On LA Talk Radio’s Facebook page, Acord-Whiting wrote, “It is wildly irresponsible for LA Talk Radio to allow a Trump fanatic to co-host one of their programs, where she can spew her idiotic lies unchecked.”
Acord-Whting, added, “I think LA Talk Radio needs to give “Cindy Brady” her walking papers. I will not listen to or appear on any shows there from this point forward until she’s gone. This isn’t just disagreeing on, say, tax plans or foreign policy. Susan Olsen spreads outrageous misinformation & it is dangerous and unprofessional.”
Proving his point about being “unprofessional,” Olson returned fire by first calling the producer a “little piece of human waste,” before encouraging her followers to track him down.
She then private messaged Acord-Whiting with a homophobic screed which he in turn provided to her bosses.
“Hey there little p*ssy, let me get my big boy pants on and Reallly (sic) take you on!!! What a snake in the grass you are you lying piece of sh*t too cowardly to confront me in real life so you do it on Facebook,” she wrote. “You are the biggest f*ggot ass in the world the biggest p*ssy! My Dick is bigger than yours Which ain’t sayin much! What a true piece of sh*t you are! Lying f*ggot! I hope you meet your karma SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY”
Olsen later followed with a second message, telling Acord-Whiting, “I sincerely hope you reap all that you deserve Karma wise. What a pathetic little c*nt you are. Hell is waiting for you. ENJOY!”
Yes, Ms. Olsen starred all those naughty words. A bit boggling, that. Ms. Olsen also found out what happens to many people when their employer discovers what they do on facebook – they find themselves unemployed.
In a statement posted on Facebook Saturday morning, La Talk Radio said they have fired Olsen, writing: “LA Talk Radio takes pride in its close and collaborative relationship with the LGBT community, and will continue to provide a home for those who have hopeful and positive messages of togetherness and tolerance to share with our listeners. We will not tolerate hateful speech by anyone associated with our radio station and have severed our ties with a host that veered off the direction in which we are going.”
Towleroad has this story in two parts, with screenshots: one, two.
Scott Lively.
Time for word salad with Scott Lively, the rabid bigot who managed to implement his evil in Uganda, and who is hopeful about implementation here, once Trump is in power. Lively believes that all queer people should be put to death, if they act on their orientation in any way. Just a small bit here:
If Trump had taken a strong pro-family stand on LGBT issues, he would have opened up a huge new battle-front in the war for the presidency with virtually no support from conservative GOP leaders (nearly all of whom have retreated from that fight due to the ferocity of the leftist cartel on “gay rights”). And he would have energized the Bernie Sanders bloc of the Democratic base, especially the young people, the most thoroughly brainwashed portion of the US electorate on LGBT issues due to nearly monopolistic “gay” influence in public education and the entertainment media.
However, by embracing renegade Thiel and saying Obergefell was settled law, Trump neutralized the “gay” card and kicked the can past the election. I didn’t support that tactic but I understood it. Now, while the leftist cartel is reeling from the Trump pummeling, Christian conservatives have perhaps their last opportunity to take back some ground on marriage and family values – irrespective of Mr. Trump’s personal views on the issue and the GOP’s willingness to throw the pro-family cause under the bus. The fact is that support for the sodomy lobby is driven almost entirely by fear of the Great and Powerful OZ of Political Correctness backed by media thuggery. But the curtain has been pulled back and guess what? The Wizard is as naked and impotent as the Emperor, so there is no good reason to let political correctness about homosexuality continue to trump family values in our public policy.
These bloodthirsty, thoroughly evil asses are the living embodiment of phallophobia. Speaking of bloodthirsty, evil asses, Kevin Swanson is having a fit over the movie Moonlight, which has garnered high praise from every corner. I’m really looking forward to seeing it.
From Giliell, click for full size.
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
From Kengi, click for full size.
© Kengi, all rights reserved.
Hairy Woodpecker, click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Members of the Lummi Nation burn a symbolic check in protest of the proposed Gateway Pacific coal export terminal in 2012. The terminal was eventually defeated when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ruled that the project would impact the Lummi Nation’s fishery at Cherry Point, which is protected under the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. Credit: Paul Anderson.
The Quinault own and manage Lake Quinault and the Quinault River from the lake to the Pacific Ocean, and co-manage the fisheries throughout their fishing areas—inland and at sea. But the tribe’s ancestral lands and resources are under threat by Houston-based Westway Terminals, which has applied for permits to expand its current crude oil shipping and storage facilities in Grays Harbor, Washington.
If approved, the expansion would add capacity to receive, store, and ship about 17.8 million barrels of oil annually by rail, and store an additional million barrels on site. It’s one of many proposed projects that would increase the transfer of raw fossil fuels to proposed ports on the Pacific coast, dubbed the “gateway to the Pacific,” for export to lucrative Asian markets.
In response, the Quinault have joined a growing coalition of other governments and allies to form a resistance to fossil fuel expansion along the West Coast, at the heart of which is hundreds of years of treaty rights and case law.
“We are a fishing, hunting, gathering people who care deeply about our land, water, and resources, as well as all life dependent on a healthy ecosystem,” said Fawn Sharp, the nation’s president. “These proposals threaten our economy, our environment, and our culture.”
[…]
Sharp, who is also president of the 57 Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, said the best solution to the challenges created by what she called “the temperament of greed in this country” is the grassroots momentum that rises when the people—both tribal and nontribal—share a common vision and take action in their votes, voices, lifestyles, and the lessons they convey to their families.
“We know this country can’t break its addiction to oil overnight,” she said. “But we know that, over time, it has to be eliminated from use, and we know that process of elimination is a task that must be undertaken now.”
[…]
Throughout the Pacific Northwest, strength against the persistent intimidation of the fossil fuel industry has been found in this tribal-led coalition. “Tribal people are now, and have always been, the caretakers of the land,” Sharp said. “Our words have not always been heard. But when it comes to our sacred land, air, and water, we will always take a stand on behalf of life and the natural heritage we have inherited.”
Full story at ICTMN.
Oren Lyons is a faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Council of Chiefs, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy) and a longtime international indigenous rights and sovereignty activist.
Accompanying article at ICTMN.
Two women look at their cell phones in front of portraits of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, as they arrive at the Union Jack pub in Moscow, Russia, to watch a live telecast of the U.S. presidential election on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko.
Yet explosive new reporting from the Washington Post tells us that the CIA informed U.S. senators last week that it was “quite clear” from a “growing body of intelligence from multiple sources” that Russia’s goal was to elect Trump.
The “consensus view,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators, according to the Post, is that “it is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected.”
The New York Times also reported Friday evening that intelligence agencies have “high confidence” that Russian cyberattacks had the goal of helping Trump because the Republican National Committee was hacked. The data and email traffic was not released. The hacked emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and sent to WikiLeaks gained international headlines for weeks, causing headaches for the Clinton campaign and the resignation of the DNC chair after internal party squabbles became public.
[…]
The idea that Russia actively put its thumb on the scale in Trump’s favor in a very close election where he prevailed in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by almost three million votes alarms more than Democrats.
Trump has shocked people across the political spectrum with his laudatory praise for Russia and Vladimir Putin and his desire to diminish NATO. One of his first staffing choices was former general Michael Flynn for National Security Advisor, who equated a Russian propaganda media outlet to CNN. For secretary of state, he is considering congressional Putin advocate Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), and someone who may be closer to Vladimir Putin than anyone in America: ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
“[Tillerson] has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger,” security expert John Hamre told the Wall Street Journal this week.