Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a plan to pay for the Green New Deal: a 70% tax on the super-rich

How can America possibly fund a radical transformation into a carbon-free economy, centered on preparing for the coming centuries of climate crises? ACO knows: a 70% tax on people with more than $10,000,000/year in earnings: “I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country...If that’s what radical means, call me a radical." (via Mitch Wagner)

at 6:00 pm | | | 18 comments

Masters Class in Dad Jokes

Mark Marino is following up on his previous course on "how to write and read fake news" with an unaccredited Masters Class in Dad Jokes: "In this classy class, we’ll explore the ins and outs of jokes only dads would tell. Patronize the patriarchy with us as we explore a form of humor so painful to hear they’re endEARing. You don’t have to be a dad, have a dad, or have bagged a dad (ahem) to be in this course. All it takes is a shameless love a puns and a sense that no joke is too corny. Learn to make young people groan or maybe just to appreciate the punning paters in your life!" (apply here)

at 5:44 pm | | | 4 comments

Minnesota Attorney General's suit catalogs the many lies of Comcast

Late last year, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson sued Comcast for lying and lying and lying and lying and lying to the people of Minnesota, all the time, because Comcast is a garbage company, universally loathed by every person who has ever come into contact with them, with the sole exception of FCC Chairman, noted coward, and former telcoms exec Ajit "Fucking" Pai. (more…)

at 4:37 pm | | | 1 comments

Gamer who attacked wife on livestream reinstated by Twitch (UPDATE: banned again)

Last month, an Australian Fortnite player who streamed himself attacking his wife off-screen while his screaming children watched was charged with assault and banned from Amazon-owned Twitch. But after only two weeks, the service has restored Luke Munday's account and is profiting from his newfound notoriety.

Twitch and Munday and Munday’s attorney didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Daily Beast.

Munday, who goes by “MrDeadMoth” on Twitch, was a small-time streamer until the night of Dec. 9. That’s when his pregnant girlfriend, unhappy that he had missed dinner with his family, asked him to stop playing Fortnite and chatting with his Twitch fans.

Angered, Munday went off-screen, but kept the camera running. After Munday left the stream, a slapping sound could be heard on the video, while his girlfriend cried and their two children, both toddlers, were heard screaming.

There are three stages to how tech platforms keep their racist, sexist, criminal celebrities afloat in the face of criticism.

1. Smiling and promising to do better.
2. Smiling, teeth clenched, silently, like the creepy Fassbender robot from the new Alien movies.
3. Mask-off distinterest in criticism, trending toward open hostility.

Welcome to 2, Twitch! (YouTube's been at 3 since the Pewd N-bomb.)

UPDATE: He's been rebanned, reports The Verge.

at 3:13 pm | | | 14 comments

Great moments in Buck Rogers: Twiki offers a toast

In the year 1987, at the John F. Kennedy Space Center, NASA launched the last of America's deep space probes. The payload, perched on the nose cone of the massive rocket, was a one-man exploration vessel - Ranger 3. Aboard this compact starship, a lone astronaut - Captain William "Buck" Rogers - was to experience cosmic forces beyond all comprehension. An awesome brush with death: in the blink of an eye, his life support systems were frozen by temperatures beyond imagination. Ranger 3 was blown out of its planned trajectory into an orbit a thousand times more vast, an orbit which was to return the ship full circle to his point of origin - its mother Earth - not in 5 months, but in 500 years.

I highly recommend you read Philip Francis Nolan's Armageddon 2419 A.D.

at 1:43 pm | | | 18 comments

'Sanctuary city' picks up trash for Federal government shutdown over border wall

Blessed with an abundance of National Park attractions right in the midst of their metropolis, San Francisco leaders have decided not to let garbage pile up.

SF Examiner shares:

Trash has been piling up at San Francisco landmarks run by the National Park Service during the federal government shutdown, but city officials are now stepping in to pick up some of the slack.

Public Works started trash collection Wednesday at Lands End, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, picking up piles of refuse that had built up near garbage cans since the shutdown started Dec. 22.

Now, Public Works officials told the San Francisco Examiner, they’ll also pick up trash at Aquatic Park.

The focus will be on servicing public garbage cans and the areas immediately around them “that we can immediately access,” said Rachel Gordon, a spokesperson for Public Works.

That means city staff won’t be making any long hikes through Lands End for pickups any time soon, but the department is asking people to remember to “pack it in, and pack it out,” to help play a part in keeping the parks safe and clean.

“We’re stepping in because it’s still part of San Francisco,” Gordon said. “We want a good experience for our visitors and residents there.”

Pictured is Muir Beach, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Volunteers have been picking up garbage in the GGNRA, but traffic in and out becomes a nightmare due to the lack of signage, narrow roads, locked parking lots, and lack of space for the many, many disappointed visitors to turn around.

at 12:12 pm | | | 12 comments

Watch: Ocasio-Cortez responds to dance-phobic Republicans with a new dance on Capital Hill

In response to the old-fart Republicans who thought they finally had a gotcha moment by digging up a college dance video of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she fired back with the best tweet of all – a new dance inside a hall on Capital Hill.

Granted, this one isn't nearly long enough, or as joyous as her first one, but it's still fantastic. Notice how she comically peeks over her shoulder before she begins. Once she realizes the coast is clear, she dares to dance to Edwinn Star's "War."

In case you missed it, here is Ocasio-Cortez's "scandalous" dance that threw frightened Republicans into a tizzy.

at 10:59 am | | | 78 comments

Califonia's haunted wineries host different kinds of spirits

I don't drink wine, but living in Northern California I still end up visiting wineries in Napa and Sonoma with friends and visitors. Next time we're headed on a wine tasting trip, I'm going to suggest we hit the spooky spots described in this Mysterious Universe guide to haunted California wineries, starting with this one:

Sitting within the wine country of Sonoma, California is a winery called Bartholomew Park Winery, and it is imbued with quite a colorful past that perhaps makes it unsurprising that it should be haunted. In its days before putting out fine wines, Bartholomew Park Winery underwent several metamorphoses, being used at one time or another as a women’s prison, a hospital, and a morgue, before becoming a vineyard and winery in the 1830s, after which it was acquired by European immigrant Agoston Haraszthy, who also happens to have been the owner of the equally haunted Buena Vista Winery, which we’ll get to later. It then became the Hacienda Cellars winery, with the wine cellars being right there in the old hospital, going on to become the Sonoma Valley Wine Museum and then the Bartholomew Park Winery in 1992...

This rather grim past came back to haunt the winery in the 1970s, perhaps literally, when the body of a former prisoner at the old prison was supposedly found buried within one of the walls of the establishment, and the main building and its basement are situated right atop what was once the morgue. Since the beginnings of the winery there have been tales of employees hearing disembodied voices singing or whispering, as well as moving objects, roving cold spots, footsteps when no one else is around, and the eerie sound of a piano playing. Most of the paranormal phenomena is concentrated within the area that was once used as the morgue and within its dank basement.

"A Tour of Haunted California Wineries" (Mysterious Universe)

photo: "Spirits of Cognac" by Pesco

at 10:42 am | | | 2 comments

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