Sun - HIMARS Owns the Night! QOP Hates Charging Stations

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Today's Worst Joke in the World

Autopsy Club party Saturday.  Open Mike night.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees

If You Have Access to Showtime, Super Pumped is a Really Good Account of the Rise of Uber

Thousands of leaked files have exposed how Uber courted top politicians, and how far it went to avoid justice.

They detail the extensive help Uber got from leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and ex-EU commissioner Neelie Kroes.

They also show how the taxi firm's former boss personally ordered the use of a "kill switch" to prevent raiding police from accessing computers.

Uber says its "past behaviour wasn't in line with present values" and it is a "different company" today.

The Uber Files are a trove of more than 124,000 records, including 83,000 emails and 1,000 other files involving conversations, spanning 2013 to 2017.

They were leaked to the Guardian, and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a number of media organisations including BBC Panorama. They reveal, for the first time, how a $90m-a-year lobbying and public relations effort recruited friendly politicians to help in its campaign to disrupt Europe's taxi industry.

While French taxi drivers staged sometimes violent protests in the streets against Uber, Mr Macron - now president - was on first name terms with Uber's controversial boss Travis Kalanick, and told him he would reform laws in the firm's favour.

Uber's ruthless business methods were widely known, but for the first time the files give a unique inside view of the lengths it went to in achieving its goals.

They show how ex-EU digital commissioner Neelie Kroes, one of Brussels' top officials, was in talks to join Uber before her term ended - and then secretly lobbied for the firm, in potential breach of EU ethics rules.

At the time, Uber was not just one of the world's fastest-growing companies - it was one of the most controversial, dogged by court cases, allegations of sexual harassment, and data breach scandals.

Just Use Eminent Domain

With a megadrought draining water reserves in the West, states are looking for alternatives to handle water rights, many of which were set more than 100 years ago when water supplies were far more abundant.

Back then, just posting a sign next to a water diversion was enough to be considered a right, one which could still be honored now. But the climate crisis is now straining those rights. There just isn’t enough water in California to satisfy what’s been allotted on paper.

For years, debate has raged in California about the best way to fix the water rights system for life in the modern era. Many of the senior water rights held in the state were set before 1914 when the permit system was established and when mining was big business.

“It’s an old water system that many perceive isn’t set up to deal with current climatic and hydraulic conditions,” Nathan Metcalf, a water rights attorney for California law firm Hanson Bridgett, told CNN. “It’s just not really set up to deal with climate change and the changing needs for water both from an environmental standpoint, and then there’s also the rub between agriculture and municipal.”

Recognizing the dour effect of climate change on the state’s hydrology, Democrats in California’s Senate have proposed using $7.5 billion in state and federal funds to “build a climate-resilient water system.”

Of those funds, $1.5 billion would be used to buy land with senior water rights from holders willing to sell them voluntarily in prioritized waters. The Democrats argue “fundamental changes” to the state’s water system are “needed to realign demand, supply, and the flexibility of the system.”

The proposal, which has yet to work its way through the legislature, would look to “retire water use incrementally from multiple water uses in a basin and across wide geographies” which would help provide clean drinking water while also improving fish habitats and wildlife refuge conditions.

“The problem with trying to regulate the senior water rights is that it’s a property interest, so you always run the risk of a takings claim by taking that property,” Metcalf said.

A takings claim could be brought by property owners against the government if it seizes private property for public use. Owners could also make a takings claim if regulations go too far in restricting their use of the land.

This Will Be a Waste of their Time



Their Answer to the Affordable Housing Crisis

A Nevada couple was found secretly keeping a cache of weapons and living with their two kids at a northern Nevada children’s museum where they worked, authorities said.

A janitor at the Children’s Museum of Northern Nevada was arrested late last week, KRNV-TV in Reno reported Friday. The 41-year-old man has been charged with child neglect and endangerment and possession of a suppressor and a short barrel rifle.

Authorities discovered the arsenal in a storage room, they said. A police report listed an AK-47 rifle, three handguns, a pistol, ammunition, knives and a taser that could have been reached by a child. The stash also included drug paraphernalia like a bong and a used marijuana joint.

Officials realized the family was living in the museum after the man’s 2-year-old child was spotted walking nearby unsupervised, the Carson City Sheriff’s Office said. It was not the first time police interacted with the man over his child being left alone. But this time, the toddler’s older sister gave deputies the museum as their address.

Authorities, along with a museum board member, then walked through the property and saw signs people had been living there. Sleeping bags, mattresses, clothes and food were among the items found in areas off-limits to visitors, the sheriff’s office said.

The janitor’s wife, a museum manager, was also living there, investigators said. But they did not identify her or say if she would face any charges.

Sadly, There's One Born Every Minute

When the Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund bought $25 million in cryptocurrencies, with the fund's chief investment officer touting their potential, retired fire Capt. Russell Harris was concerned.

Harris, 62, has attended the funerals of 34 firefighters killed in the line of duty. He was already worried about his pension after an overhaul by state and city officials cut payments as they grappled with the ability to pay out benefits. He didn't see crypto, unproven in his eyes, as an answer.

“I don’t like it," Harris said. "There’s too many pyramid schemes that everybody gets wrapped up in. That’s the way I see this cryptocurrency at this time. There might be a place for it, but it’s still new and nobody understands it.”

The plunge in prices for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in recent weeks provides a cautionary tale for the handful of public pension funds that have dipped their toes in the crypto pool over the past few years. Most have done it indirectly through stocks or investment funds that serve as proxies for the larger crypto market. A lack of transparency makes it difficult to tell whether they've made or lost money, let alone how much, and for the most part fund officials won't say.

But the recent crypto meltdown has prompted a larger question: For pension funds that ensure teachers, firefighters, police and other public workers receive guaranteed benefits in retirement after public service, is any amount of crypto investment too risky?  (YES!)

Many public pension funds across the U.S. are underfunded, sometimes seriously so, which leads them to take risks to try to catch up. That doesn't always work out, and the risk extends not just to the funds but to taxpayers who might have to bail them out, either through higher taxes or diverting spending away from other needs.

Defending Kavanaugh's Rights, While He Strips Rights From Millions of People

A steakhouse chain is being flooded with phone calls and fake reservations over its defense of Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's "right" to "eat dinner" at one of its restaurants, where demonstrators gathered outside to protest his support of overturning Roe v. Wade.

Morton's this week sent a memo to its restaurant managers telling them to brace for more backlash to its remarks defending the jurist, Politico reported Saturday. Kavanaugh was one of five justices who voted last month to overturn Roe, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the United States and afforded a constitutional right to the procedure.

"Currently we are experiencing a massive wave (trending at #2 on social media now) of negative response to our comments yesterday as well as being bombarded at the local level with phone calls and fake reservations on Open Table," Scott Crain, the SVP and COO of Morton's, wrote to restaurant managers in an email obtained by Politico.

"I am making you aware of this because there is a good chance that your restaurants will also potentially have some people reaching out for comment and/or making (bogus) reservations over the next few days," Crain continued. "As I stated yesterday, our comment is always 'No Comment.' We don't respond, we don't retweet, we don't post on Instagram or Facebook, we don't do anything."

"Again, we do NOT insert our political beliefs at any time - not with an employee, not with a fellow manager, and most certainly NOT with a guest," he added in the memo.

The North Carolina QOP Want to Dismantle EV Charging Stations

HB 1049 is the North Carolina House Bill that basically demonizes electric vehicle charging stations because consumers aren’t getting free fossil fuels alongside them. The bill was sponsored entirely by Republicans: Reps. Keith Kidwell, Mark Brody, George Cleveland, Donnie Loftis, and Ben Moss. It requires businesses to disclose the percentage of what they’re charging customers that is “the result of the business providing electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at no charge.” Businesses more than likely would be handing customers receipts showing 0%, given the Energy Department’s estimate that it costs just $6 for an EV with a 200-mile range and a 54kWh battery that is fully depleted to be completely recharged.

The bill also requires publicly-funded EV charging stations on state-leased or state-owned property to come with free gas and diesel pumps. The same goes for county and city property. And if anyone in those groups with EV charging stations on their property can’t adhere to those terms, the bill requires the Department of Transit to develop a system to disperse $50,000 for the sole purpose of using that money to dismantle EV charging stations.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
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Invasions Have Consequences



HIMARS Owns the Night

The first season of the Ukraine War was the assault on Kyiv, ending with Russia’s humiliating retreat. The second season was the Battle of Donbas, which ended on a cliff hanger with Russia taking Severodonetsk and Lysychansk (and with it, Luhansk Oblast) amidst horrific casualties on both sides. Season three has just begun, and it picks up our heroes in their continued defense of the rest of Donbas (Donetsk Oblast) while “setting the conditions” for the liberation of Kherson. But mostly, Season Three is about logistics, and the latest cast member, HIMARS, is stealing the show.

Prior to last night, there had been anywhere from a dozen to 18 ammo and C2 (command and control) targets hit by HIMARS and other Ukrainian long-distance rockets. But last night, the floodgates opened.





It certainly looks like Ukraine has a long list of targets to hit, limited only by the $840,000 ammo pods the United States can deliver. At some point, however, when they’re closer to the big expected late-summer, early-fall counterattack, these strikes will start hitting Russia’s air defenses, preparing the way for drones and warcraft to pummel Russia’s front-line defensive emplacements.

We can really see why the U.S. Marines are ditching all their tube artillery in favor of HIMARS.

Kherson

"New Kakhovka, Kherson region. - Yesterday's attack on the command post of the 49th army, air defense, and warehouses with missiles for air defense. According to preliminary data, more than a hundred were destroyed, about 200 were wounded, half of whom were severe, some of whom would not survive."

Nova Kakhovka is east of Kherson, and is strategically important for two reasons: 1) it is the mouth of the canal that delivers water to all of Russian-occupied Crimea, and 2) is the location of a major “filtration camp,” Russia’s version of concentration camps.

Down in Kherson, the barracks of the Russian Rosgvardia national guard—Putin’s personal army—got hit by HIMARS overnight.





And Counting



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Why Do Black Men Run From the Police?

Kerwin Webb said he knows the terror that young Black men experience when being pulled over by police.

Webb said tensions are often high and adrenaline is rushing because in too many cases, Black people have lost their lives during police encounters.

So he understands why Jayland Walker led Akron, Ohio, police on a car chase and then ran on foot before eight officers fired dozens of bullets at him. Walker suffered at least 60 gunshot wounds.

“It’s the terror of knowing that no matter what you do, this may not end well,” said Webb, who heads a job and life skills program for young Black men in Asbury Park, New Jersey. “It’s an ingrained fear for your life. What is the best way for me to try to survive? It’s the reality of being Black in America.”

The police killing of 25-year-old Walker last month has reignited a conversation about the fear and panic Black Americans feel during police stops, with some suggesting that Walker ran because he wanted to survive.

Unarmed Black people are killed by police at a rate three times higher than White people, research shows. And many high-profile police killings of Black people in recent years started with a routine traffic stop. Notably, Philando Castile was fatally shot during a traffic stop in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in 2016. And in April, Patrick Lyoya was killed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, by officer Christopher Schurr, who was trying to arrest him after a traffic stop in a case that has drawn national attention because of the circumstances leading to the shooting and the multiple videos that show Lyoya’s final moments.

Black leaders in Akron and across the country say the experience of Black people, including witnessing deadly police encounters, has created a level of fear that explains why an innocent person would still run.

Walker, a Door Dash driver, was unarmed at the time he was killed and had no criminal record.
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Cubs win!  Cubs win!

Twin newborn Sumatran tiger cubs are bonding with their mother, having been born minutes apart early on July 2 at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Eleven-year-old Lola gave birth to the first cub at 4:31 a.m. and the second at 4:49 a.m.

In a press release on Wednesday, the zoo said Lola and her cubs were doing well and had reached critical milestones, including nursing.

In a few weeks, a veterinary team will examine the cubs to weigh and measure them, according to the release. They will also find out the cubs’ sex.


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Who Won the Week?

Federal Judge Jon Tigar, for restoring several protections under the Endangered Species Act that had been gutted by the Trump administration

President Biden's first slate of Medal of Freedom winners, including Gabby Giffords, Khizr Khan, Sister Simone Campbell, Fred Gray, Simone Biles, Raúl Yzaguirre, and the late Richard Trumka

The Georgia Grand Jury that subpoenaed Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and others for their alleged role in trying to steal Biden's win there

New Zealand, for designating the U.S.-based Proud Boys thugs a terrorist organization, banning them from any activity in the country

The people of Great Britain, now that they know Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on his way out the door amid scandal and incompetence

Infrastructure week! New York and New Jersey finally sign a historic deal to start building the long-delayed new tunnel under the Hudson River

Maine Gov. Janet Mills, for signing an order protecting out-of-state women seeking abortions from the reach of abortion laws that brand them as criminals in their home states

President Biden: signs executive order protecting abortion access and women's privacy; excellent June jobs report; gas prices falling; awards 17 medals of Freedom

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, on their 76th wedding anniversary---the longest marriage among all the presidents
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How Bad Is It in Sri Lanka?

The government owes $51 billion and is unable to make interest payments on its loans, let alone put a dent in the amount borrowed. Tourism, an important engine of economic growth, has sputtered because of the pandemic and concerns about safety after terror attacks in 2019. And its currency has collapsed by 80%, making imports more expensive and worsening inflation that is already out of control, with food costs rising 57%, according to official data.

The result is a country hurtling towards bankruptcy, with hardly any money to import gasoline, milk, cooking gas and toilet paper.

Political corruption is also a problem; not only did it play a role in the country squandering its wealth, but it also complicates any financial rescue for Sri Lanka.

Anit Mukherjee, a policy fellow and economist at the Center for Global Development in Washington, said any assistance from the IMF or World Bank should come with strict conditions to make sure the aid isn’t mismanaged.

Still, Mukherjee noted that Sri Lanka sits in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, so letting a country of such strategic significance collapse is not an option.
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