FirstCircle

With their new drive to undo the left-liberal foundations that recast them as villains and to avoid another bout of Biden-esque regulation, tech’s billionaires found in Trump the perfect political partner. Together, they forged an alliance that fused deregulation with political repression—accelerating tech’s pursuit of profit, dismantling the very agencies meant to protect workers, and slashing social protections like healthcare, all while eroding the social and political conditions that once fomented the tech workers’ revolt against them. Indeed, what defines the power of the tech oligarchy is precisely their ability to operate not just as economic but as political actors—shaping public discourse, installing politicians, setting policies, and even redefining the terms of governance itself. Ironically, the very class solidarity developed through the countless tech worker protests, open letters, and walkouts helped provoke its own gravest threat: a unified tech elite hell-bent on stamping out the movement.

• Police, fire, and medical personnel responded to a shooting at the Seattle Center on Sunday around 6 p.m. The venue had hosted hundreds of thousands of visitors over the weekend for the annual Bite of Seattle food festival.
• The three people killed in Sunday's shooting include a 19-year-old man, a 44-year-old man, and a 56-year-old woman.
• Four surviving victims were treated for their injuries and released from medical care while a fifth victim, a 2-year-old boy, remains at Harborview in satisfactory condition.
• Two guns were recovered and authorities believe at least two people may have been shooting at each other, though any motive for the shooting is unclear.
• One shooting suspect, a 15-year-old male, is in custody and police are still searching for at least one other suspect. Anyone with information is encouraged to call 206-233-5000; tips can be provided anonymously.
• A candlelight vigil in honor of the shooting victims is scheduled to take place at 8:30 p.m. on Monday at the Seattle Center's International Fountain.

Cook has openly embraced Trump, particularly in his second term, attending the president’s inauguration, presenting him with an engraved golden trophy, and giving money to the White House to help construct the president’s $300 million pet project ballroom.

The relative workplace calm may be over. “I hope we never find out, but I seriously started wondering what our leadership would do if an Apple employee was summarily executed by our government,” wondered one employee.

Many workers claimed hypocrisy between Apple’s longtime professed commitment to progressive values and causes and the extent to which its CEO has cozied up to the Trump administration. “But but but…. we changed the Apple website to MLK last Monday, so that cancels out.” Another pointed sarcastically to the company’s recent announcement of Black History Month Apple Watch bands. “Went to hang out with the guy who didn’t even acknowledge MLK Day and took away park access on the day,” commented one worker.

For some, the affront was personal. “As a lifelong Minnesotan and an Apple badged employee for over half my life I feel pretty abandoned by the company that has told me it stands for humanity more times than I can count,” wrote another worker. “Silence on ICE violence speaks volumes.” Another pointed out the “Three retail locations in the Twin Cities and not a peep” from Cook. “This isn’t leadership. This is an absence of leadership.” To which a colleague quickly countered: “I disagree, this IS leadership. This is intentional, nobody travels to the white house by mistake.”

An Apple employee who has spent decades at the company said they had noticed a marked cultural and political shift within Apple under Cook’s tenure. “A lot of people are talking about how Steve Jobs would have never given a gold bar to a politician,” referring to the 24-karat gold trophy Cook presented Trump at the White House in August.

During Friday’s episode of The Paul Allen Show on Twin Cities radio station KFAN, Allen, Chad Greenway, and Alec Lewis opened the show discussing the intense cold weather in the region. One person mentioned the recent story about a Los Angeles Rams player putting cayenne in his socks to stay warm, and Allen mentioned the urban legend about trees “exploding” from cold weather.

Umprompted, Allen then interjected by asking, “In conditions like this, do paid protesters get hazard pay? Those are the things that I’ve been thinking about this morning.”

A few minutes later, the conversation switched to football, and Allen once again worked a paid-protester reference into a discussion about NFL coaching hires.

“Everybody’s catching strays this week. [Brian] Flores, Kevin Stefanski from Baker [Mayfield], Charlie ‘Biyatch’ caught one out of nowhere. They’re just all over, paid protesters caught one this morning,” he said, referencing his earlier comments.

The FDA initiated the first recall in an Aug. 19 notice, announcing certain raw frozen shrimp products processed by Indonesian company PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati (doing business as BMS Foods) had tested positive for Cesium-137, also known as Cs-137. A handful of manufacturers sold these products under different brand names to retailers nationwide.

The FDA published an expanded recall notice on its website on Dec. 19, one of 12 notices that have been issued in the growing recall.

Cs-137 is a radioisotope of cesium, meaning it is a chemical element that emits radiation as it breaks down. It is man-made and is produced by nuclear fission, according to the FDA. In the United States, it is used in medical devices and measurement gauges.

Because it is widespread around the globe, trace amounts can be found in the environment, including soil, food and air, the FDA said. Agencies, including the FDA and U.S. Customs & Border Protection, test for, monitor and regulate the presence of the substance due to the risks associated with long-term exposure.

The FDA said low-level radiation exposure over time can lead to serious health complications. Exposure to Cs-137 alone can cause burns, acute radiation sickness, cancer and death. Due to the risks, governing agencies restrict potential exposure to lessen the possibility of these long-term impacts.

Two civilian women and an officer were injured by the shooter, who Eddy identified Saturday as 77-year-old John Drake, of nearby Mullan, Idaho.

Eddy said he didn’t know Drake’s motive, and he’s “not sure we ever will.”

He said Drake shot two women who were sitting in a pickup outside the sheriff’s office, in the legs. He initially said an officer was shot in the ear inside the sheriff’s office but clarified Saturday that the officer, who law enforcement has not identified, got hit in the ear with a glass shard caused by Drake’s gunfire.

Eddy said all three victims’ injuries were minor. Drake had several guns with him at the time of the shooting, he said.

Eddy said Saturday that no one ever expects someone to come into the sheriff’s office and open fire.

I think it's called a "baffle". The original one, which was probably between 12-15 years old, held up well but eventually started coming apart such that drops of crud could spray up and out of the disposal on occasions when the motor was on. I was expecting a tedious and potentially expensive repair that would involve removing the unit from the sink. But it turns out, at least with the brand I have (Insink--or), that the baffle is designed to be easily replaced. All you have to do is reach in and yank out the old one (nothing holds it in but friction), then plug the new one back in its place. Done.

The old baffle had all kind of nasty brown crud on the bottom of it and there are horrors inside the unit of course, but it's working fine. I don't often use the unit and that no doubt accounts for its longevity. The best part, apart from how easy the fix was, was how cheap it was - the baffles themselves cost me less than $10 each online.

The police surveillance company Flock has built an enormous nationwide license plate tracking system, which streams records of Americans’ comings and goings into a private national database that it makes available to police officers around the country. The system allows police to search the nationwide movement records of any vehicle that comes to their attention. That’s bad enough on its own, but the company is also now apparently analyzing our driving patterns to determine if we’re “suspicious.” That means if your police start using Flock, they could target you just because some algorithm has decided your movement patterns suggest criminality.

Flock appears to offer this capability through a larger “Investigations Manager,” which urges police departments to “Maximize your LPR data to detect patterns of suspicious activity across cities and states.” The company also offers a “Linked Vehicles” or “Convoy Search” allowing police to “uncover vehicles frequently seen together,” putting it squarely in the business of tracking people’s associations, and a “Multiple locations search,” which promises to “Uncover vehicles seen in multiple locations.” All these are variants on the same theme: using the camera network not just to investigate based on suspicion, but to generate suspicion itself.

A trash collector strike in the Boston area is entering its fifth week with no resolution in sight, leading to overflowing dumpsters, exasperated politicians and a string of lawsuits.

More than 400 garbage haulers belonging to a local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have been on strike since July 1 after failing to reach an agreement with their employer, Republic Services Inc., on demands for higher wages and better benefits. The work stoppage is affecting trash collection for residents in 14 Boston-area suburbs from Canton to Gloucester.

Apartment buildings and restaurants, places that generate greater volumes of trash, have been the most affected, with politicians warning teeming piles of garbage are rodent magnets and a public health crisis. Temperatures in downtown Boston are set to reach 97 degrees on Tuesday — which would match the city record for that date set in 1933, according to the National Weather Service — making the situation even stinkier.

Republic has said it’s offered to increase wages for the striking trash haulers by 16% immediately and by 43% over the five years of the proposed contract. The Teamsters have countered that the total value of the compensation agreement, including health insurance and other benefits, is still about $4 less per hour than what competitors Capitol Waste Services and Star Waste Systems offer their employees.

https://archive.ph/13m7v