June 29, 2022

Man fires handgun at teens who said they mistakenly pulled in his Va. driveway (arrested and charged

Spotsylvania County man is facing charges after deputies said he fired a gun into a vehicle occupied by three teens who said they wound up in his driveway by accident.

Spotsylvania County deputies were called to the 6300 block of Grace Hill for a dispute. They were met at the address by Brent Alford, 49, of Spotsylvania County, who told deputies he noticed a vehicle was parked in his driveway.

Armed with a handgun, Alford went to investigate, deputies said. Inside the vehicle were three teen siblings, aged 17, 16 and 15, who said they were lost and had driven down Alford's driveway by mistake.

The teens were attempting to find a party near Alford's home, they told deputies, and were attempting to turn around in the driveway when Alford began banging on the vehicle window and yelling at them.


The 17-year-old driver was startled and quickly attempted to drive away, deputies said. According to the report, Alford fired one round from his handgun into the back of the vehicle, hitting the trunk.

The bullet traveled through the taillight and hit items in the trunk before landing in the center of the back passenger area under the seat cushion.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/man-fires-handgun-at-teens-who-said-they-mistakenly-pulled-in-his-va-driveway-deputies/ar-AAYXE0K

June 29, 2022

Democrats Post-Roe Message To Voters Is Bad, Opinion

As a reward for voting, the agenda for which these voters voted in historic numbers has been largely stalled, or derailed completely, not by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) but rather by two Democratic senators more interested in grandstanding for the cameras than in getting things done. And voters have watched as the very ideology they soundly rejected is advanced by a Supreme Court hellbent on accomplishing through the courts what Republicans have failed to accomplish at the ballot box.

For years, Republicans have been explicit with their voters: vote for us and we will use a take-no-prisoner approach to using every lever of power to advance the agenda. It has been a widely successful strategy for them. It has allowed them to do everything from pack the Supreme Court to pass former President Donald Trump's tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy with 50 votes in the Senate, instead of the usual 60.

Republicans play for keeps, and their voters know it. It is time for Democrats to play by the same playbook.


To win, Democrats must replicate the Republican strategy. Democrats need to drop the generic vote blue and "everything will be OK" message and make an explicit pact with voters: If you reward us with an even bigger majority, Democrats will get rid of the filibuster and end senators Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema's unlimited veto power over an agenda the vast majority of Americans support.

Democrats need to be clear that if voters deliver them a slightly expanded majority, they will codify Roe into law, pass universal background checks for gun purchases, restore voting rights, expand the Supreme Court to restore balance, and advance much-needed economic relief with 50 votes, not 60. It's what the Republicans would do.

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-post-roe-message-voters-bad-opinion-1719533

June 28, 2022

creepy home repair company in NC forces employees into hour long daily prayer sessions

home repair company’s mandatory daily Christian prayer sessions for its employees were becoming “less tolerable” for an atheist construction manager who refused to continue attending — resulting in his firing in North Carolina, federal officials said in a lawsuit.

His boss told him “he did not have to believe in God, and he did not have to like the prayer meetings, but he had to participate” before the worker was fired in the fall of 2020, according to a complaint filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the Greensboro-based business. This came after his pay was cut in half.


The worker was asked to lead a prayer session on one occasion, despite making his beliefs known, prior to losing his job with Aurora Pro Services, the EEOC said.

Now the company is being sued for religious discrimination and is accused of punishing workers who did not want to attend the meetings, which also involved Bible readings and roll call, the agency said in a Tuesday, June 28, news release. The meetings were mandatory from at least June 2020.

This comes after another worker, a customer service representative, was fired in January 2021 after she felt the meetings, which went on for nearly an hour, were becoming “cult-like” and stopped attending due to her agnostic beliefs, according to the lawsuit. An agnostic individual does not commit to any view regarding the existence of a higher religious power.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/atheist-worker-fired-after-refusing-to-attend-company-s-christian-prayer-in-nc-feds-say/ar-AAYY0Et

June 28, 2022

WI School district: Book about Japanese interment camps "too diverse and sad" , all about oppression

District Rejects Book That's Too ‘Diverse' And ‘Sad' For High School English Class

The Muskego-Norway school district in Wisconsin has removed approval for a book about Japanese internment camps that was to be assigned reading for high school sophomores. This is based on the premise that the award-winning novel is "too diverse" and lacked the proper balance.

During a June 13th Educational Services Committee Meeting, parent Anna Zielke took notes and released them for public viewing. She questioned why the committee was rescinding approval for, When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka. This historical fiction novel was released in 2002, has won numerous literary awards, and is based off of her own experiences in a Japanese internment camp during WWII.

One committee member noted that she didn't like the book because the characters were nameless and that the work had many bad reviewscamps, many parents support their children learning about this tragic truth.
. Another committee member defended this position also noting that it was chosen as a "diverse" book but did not meet the educational requirements because it could not be all about "oppression." While the material in question does display a one-sided view of the sensitive history of America's Japanese internment

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/district-rejects-book-that-s-too-diverse-and-sad-for-high-school-english-class/ar-AAYVHPS

June 28, 2022

Kendrick Lamar "God Speed for women's rights"

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TyV2OW3Ug9o

June 28, 2022

nurse resigns after controversial tweet

I prescribe meds.. I can also choose not to prescribe them,” the nurse, identified online as Shawna Harris, allegedly tweeted, according to screenshots. “So from now on.. if you are a white male who votes conservative, your penis needs to ask God for the power to rise. No more Viagra.

SPRINGFIELD, ILL. (TND) — A nurse who tweeted she was going to start basing her prescribing methods on her patient’s political and religious affiliations has resigned.

“A Sarah Bush Lincoln Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN), who posted a discriminatory message on social media over the weekend, has resigned,” the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health (SBLH) Center in Lincoln, Illinois, said in a statement following backlash over the nurse's tweet.

https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/nurse-resigns-after-saying-she-wont-prescribe-meds-to-white-males-who-vote-conservative-sarah-bush-lincoln-aprn-viagra

June 28, 2022

Joining women in solidarity wearing black and Not Celebrating the 4 th of July ,

https://twitter.com/RoArquette/status/1541411900470071297

June 27, 2022

Stolen: bronze statue gifted to Cincinnati by Mussolini's Rome

https://twitter.com/TanaWeingartner/status/1537853744892858374

In 1931, Rome, under control of Benito Mussolini, gifted a statue of the Capitoline Wolf—a scene from the legendary founding of Rome—to the Ohio city of Cincinnati which was named after the Roman statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. The bronze statue, depicting Romulus and Remus suckling on a wolf, is a replica of the Lupa Capitolina at the Musei Capitolini in Rome and has been located in Cincinnati's Eden Park for almost 100 years. On Friday though, some idiot—or gaggle of idiots—sawed off the statue at the wolf's paws and stole it. From WVXU:

Several years ago, the statue was the center of some controversy in Cincinnati because of its ties to Mussolini. Then-City Council member Chris Seelbach raised the idea of removing the statue from the Twin Lakes area of Eden Park after a 2015 report in the Cincinnati Enquirer.

"Statues from the monster that was Benito Mussolini don't belong in our parks," Seelbach wrote in 2020 tweet responding to the newspaper article. "Museums? Maybe. But not Cincinnati parks." […]

Cincinnati Parks is requesting anyone with information about the theft contact Cincinnati Police.


https://boingboing.net/2022/06/20/stolen-bronze-statue-gifted-to-cincinnati-by-mussolinis-rome.html

June 27, 2022

original goal was $20K for ND abortion clinic to move states. Gofundme raised $630k in two days

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A fundraising campaign to help North Dakota's sole abortion clinic move a few miles away to Minnesota has raised more than half a million dollars in two days.

The Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo will have to shut down in 30 days as part of the state's trigger law that went into effect Friday, when the U.S. Supreme Court removed the constitutional right to abortion.


A GoFundMe page set up Friday to benefit the transition had raised over $515,000 from more than 6,000 donors as of late Saturday afternoon. The original goal was $20,000.

Abortion is legal in Minnesota and the state's governor signed an order to help protect people seeking or providing abortions from facing legal action from other states.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/red-river-womens-clinic-new-location

https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/Fundraising-for-North-Dakota-abortion-clinic-move-17265855.php

June 27, 2022

NASCAR pit stop speed: Fuelers are tall former offensive lineman who can hold two 82lb fuel cans

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/the-need-for-speed

The Need for Speed
A former Cardinal athlete coached NASCAR pit crews into racing shape—and made the sport even faster.

As he recovered from back surgery in the winter of 1991, Andy Papathanassiou was coming to grips with the end of his sports career. Then a NASCAR race popped up on his TV. A former offensive guard on the Stanford football team as well as a shot putter and discus thrower for Cardinal track and field, Papathanassiou, ’89, MA ’90, noticed something familiar about the pit stops.

“I saw this uniformed group performing this coordinated team activity in competition with other teams, with one group ultimately helping bring their car to the winner’s circle with high-fives and Champagne and all that,” he says. “It clicked for me as an athletic event, not a mechanical event.”

-------------------

The FUELER ranks are full of tall former offensive linemen. Why? The job includes positioning and holding up two 82-lb. fuel cans while executing fancy footwork to exchange the cans, set the plug properly, dodge the tire changers and avoid spraying fuel. “The fueler is the guy who can blow everyone up,” says Papa.

The TIRE CARRIER has to jump over the wall and sprint while carrying two 45-lb. tires. Think linebacker or fullback. He drops off the tire for the right front and then runs to the rear, where he positions a new tire and rolls the old one to the wall so it’s out of the way. He also makes quick adjustments to the rear springs and to the tape that restricts airflow into the grille.

The JACKMAN needs a linebacker’s combo of strength, size and speed to steer a 27-lb. jack into position and lift the car in one stroke. He then places a new front tire into position for a tire changer. He repeats his moves on the wall side of the car, positioning a new rear tire. Once the tires are on and fueling is complete, he drops the car and pulls the jack, which signals the driver to go.

The main task for the two TIRE CHANGERS is to bolt the tires to the car—in seconds. Quickness, hip flexibility and hand-eye coordination are key; long arms are a plus. Hockey goalies, shortstops and second basemen make great tire changers—if they have a deft touch. “The lugs have to be on tight enough that they don’t loosen but not so tight that you waste time getting them off on the next stop,” says Papa.