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Argento "Loose" Ends

Posted by takyon on Monday September 03 2018, @02:49PM (#3499)
10 Comments
/dev/random

Previously: NYT: #MeToo Leader/Victim Settled With Her Own Accuser

Just some further developments.

Italian Filmmaker Wears "Weinstein is Innocent" Shirt on 'Suspiria' Red Carpet

Her father directed the original film. The article discusses Italian attitudes towards #MeToo.

Asia Argento's Episodes on Parts Unknown No Longer Streaming After She's Accused of Sexual Assault

CNN has stopped streaming episodes of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown that include Asia Argento after a sexual assault allegation was made against her.

“In light of the recent news reports about Asia Argento, CNN will discontinue airing past episodes of Parts Unknown that included her, until further notice,” a CNN spokesperson tells PEOPLE.

Argento, 42, appeared in the Rome and Southern Italy episodes of the show and directed a Hong Kong episode, during which Bourdain said, “To fall in love with Asia is one thing. To fall in love in Asia is another. Both have happened to me.”

A Buenos Aires episode, which did not feature Argento, was also removed from CNN Go for unspecified reasons, according to BuzzFeed News which was first to report.

Leah McSweeney and Asia Argento’s war of words could escalate

When Penthouse columnist Leah McSweeney lambasted Asia Argento last month in a column called “Can We Talk About Toxic Femininity?,” she was hit with an angry legal letter from Argento’s team, she said.

McSweeney posted the letter on Instagram after she wrote in the opinion column that Argento, who has accused Harvey Weinstein of rape, instead “had a sexual relationship with Weinstein, which resulted in a transactional, consensual union, because — let’s be honest — that’s how Hollywood works.”

Rose McGowan Says Asia Argento Admitted to Sleeping With Young Actor

Rose McGowan, one of the leading voices of the #MeToo movement, said Monday that her partner had exchanged text messages with the actress and director Asia Argento in which Ms. Argento said that she had indeed slept with the actor Jimmy Bennett — an act that Ms. Argento recently denied.

In a lengthy statement, Ms. McGowan also said that her partner — the model Rain Dove — told her that in text messages, Ms. Argento had said that she had been receiving unsolicited nude photos of Mr. Bennett since the time he was 12 years old and had not informed the authorities or told him to stop sending the photos.

So she did the deed, but little Jimmy may have been thirstier than he remembers.

Rain Dove speaks out about Asia Argento allegations

Argento complained, Dove told CNN, that she was being extorted for money by Bennett and initially denied having sex with him. Argento later contradicted herself in an alleged text exchange with Dove, which Dove shared with CNN.

"The Public knows nothing, only what the NYT wrote. Which is one sided. The shakedown letter. The horny kid jumped me...," an alleged text from Argento read.

"So it was rape? Or an attempted sexual action?" Rain Dove replied in a text viewed by CNN.

"I had sex with him it felt weird. I didn't know he was a minor until the shakedown letter," Argento allegedly wrote in response.

2013 photo, with comments

Damage control:

The future of #MeToo: 'The movement is bigger than Asia Argento'

And finally, some real cheese.

I Resigned My Contract This Evening

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 03 2018, @05:53AM (#3497)
9 Comments
Career & Education

Dear $CHIEF_EXECUTIVE_OFFICER,

I hereby resign my contract with $CLIENT_COMPANY, if you will agree to release me from it.

Starting around Wednesday evening last week I want completely out of my Damn tree. Friday evening I dialled 9-1-1 to request ambulance transport to an Emergency Room. I slept there that night then Saturday morning was transported to a psychiatric hospital.

Mental hospitals don't release you when you're completely sane again rather they do so when they feel you're simply capable of living life on your own. This because there is always a shortage of available beds.

It is difficult for me to type this correctly because I am still quite symptomatic.

When I get back to the office I'll make sure I have a clean build of my sources then will send them to you .

This was a small contract; I was to be paid upon completion so there are no considerations about giving any money back.

I gave $CHIEF_EXECUTIVE_OFFICER the contact info for four of my friendly competitors.

U.S. Attempted to "Flip" Russian Oligarchs, To No Avail

Posted by takyon on Sunday September 02 2018, @12:13AM (#3494)
5 Comments
Career & Education

Agents Tried to Flip Russian Oligarchs. The Fallout Spread to Trump. (archive)

In the estimation of American officials, Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin, has faced credible accusations of extortion, bribery and even murder.

They also thought he might make a good source.

Between 2014 and 2016, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn Mr. Deripaska into an informant. They signaled that they might provide help with his trouble in getting visas for the United States or even explore other steps to address his legal problems. In exchange, they were hoping for information on Russian organized crime and, later, on possible Russian aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to current and former officials and associates of Mr. Deripaska. In one dramatic encounter, F.B.I. agents appeared unannounced and uninvited at a home Mr. Deripaska maintains in New York and pressed him on whether Paul Manafort, a former business partner of his who went on to become chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, had served as a link between the campaign and the Kremlin.

The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader, clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia’s richest men, nearly all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V. Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said.

Two of the players in the effort were Bruce G. Ohr, the Justice Department official who has recently become a target of attacks by Mr. Trump, and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled a dossier of purported links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The systematic effort to win the cooperation of the oligarchs, which has not previously been revealed, does not appear to have scored any successes. And in Mr. Deripaska’s case, he told the American investigators that he disagreed with their theories about Russian organized crime and Kremlin collusion in the campaign, a person familiar with the exchanges said. The person added that Mr. Deripaska even notified the Kremlin about the American efforts to cultivate him.

"Thanks, but no thanks."

The Attention Gift Hypothesis

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday August 30 2018, @08:41PM (#3491)
8 Comments
Science

I sat up all night long last night to compost my very latest Wall Of Text.

Don't feel the need to read it all at once.

Or at all: I have just as many if not more Haters than Fans not just of my websites but as well as my great many articles, essays, rants and manifestos.

It's time for a Totally _Righteous_ Reuben Sandwich from one of Downtown Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square food carts.

Off to lunch!

McCain to U.S.: "It doesn't have to be this shitty"

Posted by takyon on Thursday August 30 2018, @06:12PM (#3490)
46 Comments
Career & Education

How McCain Got the Last Word Against Trump (archive)

By the time he died on Saturday, Mr. McCain had carefully stage-managed a four-day celebration of his life — but what was also an unmistakable rebuke to President Trump and his agenda. For years, Mr. Trump had used Twitter and the presidential bully pulpit to mock and condemn the senator. In death, Mr. McCain found a way to have the last word, even quietly making it clear through friends that Mr. Trump was not welcome at the services.

“I think it’s fair to say that they have a very different view of this country and what this country means, here and abroad,” said Mark Salter, the senator’s longtime friend and co-author who sat with Mr. McCain — often with a lump in his throat — during the many discussions about his looming death. “His overall message was: ‘It doesn’t have to be this shitty.’”

The series of events honoring Mr. McCain is the kind of grandiose spectacle that is normally reserved for someone who became president, not someone who twice failed to do so. Friends said that Mr. McCain was surprised by the level of interest in his death even as he planned it.

When advisers suggested that his coffin should lie in state at the Arizona Capitol, Mr. McCain said he believed the legislature would never approve such a rare honor for him, recalled Rick Davis, who had been at Mr. McCain’s side for decades and served as his 2008 campaign chairman. “Every inch of the way, he underestimated what he thought this would be about,” Mr. Davis said.

The memorial events this week began in Arizona on Wednesday, when Mr. McCain’s body was taken to the Capitol, and will continue Thursday at a service at North Phoenix Baptist Church. The procession will then shift to the nation’s capital, when Mr. McCain’s coffin will arrive at an air base outside Washington as the president holds one of his raucous campaign-style rallies for supporters in Indiana.

By the weekend, when virtually all of official Washington — Democrats and Republicans alike — gathers at the National Cathedral for a nationally televised farewell, Mr. Trump is expected to have retreated to Camp David, where White House aides hope he will contain his anger at the attention being lavished on Mr. McCain.

[...] Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian activist who survived two poisoning attempts for his opposition to the government of President Vladimir V. Putin, said that Mr. McCain, who was widely seen as one of the Russian leader’s fiercest detractors, had also asked him in April to be a pallbearer. “He spoke the truth regardless of party or political situations,” Mr. Kara-Murza said. “That was his defining characteristic.”

In Washington, a town where Mr. Trump has given Mr. Putin an open invitation to visit, Mr. Kara-Murza said that Mr. McCain’s choice of a Russian pallbearer — one repeatedly brought to the brink of death for challenging his country’s authoritarian brand of politics — was “actually pretty symbolic.”

John McCain: Sarah Palin 'excluded from his funeral'

I Have Been Coughing Up Phlegm For Six Solid Hours.

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday August 30 2018, @07:18AM (#3488)
4 Comments
Code

Is that bad?

At least it's not green. Green is bad.

A two pack a day friend I once had denoted his own phlegm as "Lung Cheese" yet strangely uncritically accepted such Cheese.

I am otherwise awake enough and functioning mentally well enough to write code.

I got to work at Midnight Monday night. I spent less than five minutes staring at my source then quite grimly quit Xcode then hung out on the Net until the trains started running again about 5:30.

What I regard as "today" but no one in their right mind would actually so regard led me to arrive at work at nine Monday evening.

I've been able to somehow extract from deep within myself the Moral Fibre required to Deliver Value to my client for six hours or so.

For me, that's a good day but for a whole lot of really good reasons I promised a delivery "today" for various values of "today".

In my own particular internally-consistent system of Postulates and whatever Gödel Escher Bach calls the means by which one can start with some postulates, apply some operators to eventually arrive at an item that is contained within any particular internally-consistent system - Help Me Out Here, I'm Begging You! - all possible values of "today" commence when I somehow drag my sorry ass out of my beloved warm, comfortable bed right up until I pass out on the sidewalk while waiting for the MAX Yellow Line from Pioneer Courthouse Square to North Portland's Delta Park / Vanport Station.

While it often slips my mind, despite my Totally Whacko sleep/wake patterns I really do have a completely normal Circadian Rhythm. It's just that my Circadian Rhythm has very little influence over when I feel the need to sleep or when I'm ready to wake up and start my day.

I actually sleep far more than anyone I have ever met but when I actually do so is all over the map.

I have no understanding of why I sleep or awaken without correlation to my otherwise-normal Circadian Rhythm nor have any of the many Medical and Mental Health Professional I have quite desperately begged for insight from.

The one thing I can say is that whether I'm able to focus on my code as opposed to my great many Walls Of Text quite closely tracks my Circadian:

I always feel totally trashed as well as freezing cold starting around 6:30 AM until 8:00 or so. Just now at Midnight I'm at my mental peak so I would do well to stop composing such a great many Walls Of Text that I may Deliver Value to my client...

... just after...

... I submit to SN...

... what I regarded as...

... what for me is an uncommonly concise...

... as well as effectively argued...

Wall Of Text

KTHXBAI!

SALUTE: John Sununu

Posted by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 29 2018, @02:07PM (#3487)
35 Comments
Code

Camerota asked Sununu about the Washington Post’s report that the president personally rejected plans for a White House statement to honor McCain.

“That was printed in the Washington Post,” Sununu said. “And I have to be honest with you, I don’t give much credence to what I read –”

Camerota interjected — noting that CNN confirmed the information.

“We also have that reporting,” she said.

Sununu scoffed at this.

“Yeah, well, same thing applies, Alisyn.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2018/08/27/cnns-sununu-torches-cnns-camerota-for-trying-to-turn-mccain-tribute-into-a-trump-bashing-event-n2513452

I remember Sununu from years past. I never liked him, or disliked him. He seemed like the average politcian - probably dirty, but not terribly dirty. He did stuff that needed to be done, and no one really had to take notice of him, I guess.

Today, I have to salute him. He says that WaPo lacks credibility - as well as CNN. WAY TO GO JOHN!!!

I'm about sick of CNN. At work, they've recently put television in the break room. I don't know why - I guess they have their reasons. I spend VERY little time in the break room, but I'm finding that it's too much time. All I have to do is walk through, and I hear disgusting crap, all tilted far left. Trump this, Trump that, and "Did you hear what Trump did now?" FFS, it's tiresome. (Is this the first "resistance" in history to bore the opposition to tears?)

This skank, Camerota, was purpotedly there to talk about McCain. I never thought highly of McCain, but that's beside the point. The purpose of the interview is to honor the dead guy. Camerota, instead, insists on stabbing at Trump. She dirties the name of the dead guy, to win points against Trump. "We have excellent reporters". Bullshit. You stupid bitch, reporters REPORT THE NEWS!! They don't insist on shaping the news, or creating the news, or even telling you what the news means. Just report the news!!

Sununu definitely got the better of this skanky wannabe.

I Just Feel On My Sword

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 29 2018, @01:18PM (#3486)
13 Comments
Code

To: the-boss@client.com, his-coder@client.com
Subject: This Is Very Embarrassing

I just a couple hours ago realized that my code was A Multitude Of Sins.

I'm now making rapid progress and will stay at the office until I have a meaningful build to deliver.

(Attempting to salvage what's left of my repution.)

I'm now feeling a whole lot more confident that I can reliably do what you're paying me to do today.

Disconcertedly,

Mike

Do Yer Worst.

Another rant on clothes

Posted by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 28 2018, @03:29PM (#3485)
71 Comments
Code

Aaaaaargh. This is going to be news to precisely no one who knows a woman or is one, but I'm gonna say it again anyway: womens' clothing SUCKS.

First, and biggest problem: they all assume that if you're a given size in one measurement, the rest of you matches up too. This couldn't be further from the truth. According to a standard size chart, I have the waist of a 12, the hips of a 14 or 16, and the bust of a 16. This makes finding anything with a proper fit basically impossible. You *have* to go with the larger measurements, which means 1) high-rise and mid-rise jeans are too big around the middle and 2) there is simply no way I can wear a dress or other one-piece clothing item without alterations.

Second: why the bloody hell do sizes *differ* from manufacturer to manufacturer?! In some brands I'm a 12 waist, in some a 10, in one a 14 (wtf), and of course everything else varies as well. This varies brand by brand, even if you're shopping in the same store. If you wonder why we take eleventy hojillion items to the dressing room and spend so much time trying stuff on, THIS is why.

Third: pockets. Full stop. Yes, this is getting better, but it's hard to find pants that have the number and size pockets mens' pants do. I know, I know, we're supposed to splash out several hundred dollars on some ruinously expensive branded handbag. Screw that. I don't have the money, and even if I did it wouldn't be spent on a handbag. And good grief are they ugly, with their diamond patterns or repeated monograms or whatever. No, my messenger bag does fine for all my carry-stuff-around needs, and you can't fit a laptop in a $400 Gucci handbag. I may be femme but I'm not stupid, or lipstick for that matter.

In my opinion, the lack of pockets is something more cynical and sinister than just a ploy to get women to buy handbags: it's a deliberate removal of our agency. And false pockets, the ones that are just sewn-on seams with no actual depth, can DIAF.

Fourth: Quality and price. Mens' clothing seems a lot more substantial and I wear what pieces of it I can for that reason. It's also cheaper, aside from suits and formalwear. I can get a men's size L t-shirt (flaps on me like a tent but the M won't fit my chest...) for something like $5 at Shopko. I have *never* seen a womens' shirt for that price outside a very low-end thrift store, and the equivalents are smaller, thinner, made of less-durable materials, and MORE expensive.

Fifth: too much of our clothing is basically candy wrappers. What I mean by this is it exists mostly to imply what's under it, either by showing a lot of skin or, less greasily, indicating by color or pattern that "the person wearing this is demure, defenseless, meek, quiet, and perfectly happy to be basically an object." I really think sometimes that all the pink and floral pattern stuff is some sort of salve to mens' fragile egos, or at the very least a way of firmly separating the two sexes by clothing and letting all concerned know who stands where in the power dynamic.

Now yes, I'm aware 2/3 of the time men are not looking at our clothes specifically. And yes, I am very much aware most of this stuff is done to compete with *other women,* which is another game I flat-out refuse to play. It still pisses me off, and many a time I've been standing in the changing room thinking to myself "Madokami have mercy, WHAT does a girl need to do to get something functional, well-fitting, and decently-priced that *doesn't* tell the world I'm a simpering moron with no aims in life other than to lasso a guy?!"

There's way too much politics surrounding clothing, is what this boils down to. Politics, and something a level or two under it, also. I'm very aware that by not "playing the game" I'm shut out of many social interactions, and for interviews I do the "pretend to be perfectly normal" game with light makeup and the "appropriate" clothes, but what a crock. Do men worry about this stuff? It doesn't seem like it.

Soggy Jobs Now Has a Cafes Section

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 27 2018, @01:45PM (#3483)
11 Comments
Business

Both in Washington State.

My Cafe section is only a prototype. I'm going to build out Clark and King - Seattle and Redmond - Counties, Washington, Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington Counties, Oregon and Alameda County, California (for Peets).

Then I'm going to ask Peets' and Starbucks' MIS people to work with me to set up automated data feeds. That way when a new cafe starts hiring, it will appear on Soggy Jobs that very same day. In the unfortunate event that one goes Tits Up, it will disappear into the ether. Fall off the edge of the Earth. Stop phoning home.

It's common for cafes not to have websites, but many of them have either Facebook or Twitter. I could link those but then my table rows would be two wide to fit on smartphones.

Is there a way to make table rows take up two lines without embeddeding a two-row table in a table row?

Some have neither website, Facebook nor Twitter. If there's just one location I plan to provide their street addresses.

I'll be going to breakfast at the Portland Rescue Mission soon.

In other news, late tomorrow morning I'll be setting out QR codes for BitCoin, Ether and LiteCoin so I can accept crypto tips when I sing on the street.

Just yesterday I added Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" to my Set List. Please to be suggesting folk songs, show tunes and American patriotic songs that I could sing. I do it A Capella, so whatever I sing can't have long instrumental sections.