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So, TR and I were out smoking and drinking coffee this morning and he tells me about this British bird who was walking around where she used to live, looking at all the old landmarks, and comes across this US MAIL mailbox painted up like an American flag. She instagrams or tweets or some shit a picture with a caption of "What the hell is this?". She gets some joking responses back like "freedom rings, baby!" and responds tongue-in-cheek "I'm all for immigration but they need to assimilate". I get a chuckle out of this because I like to see people not taking themselves seriously all the time.

That got me to thinking. There are a whole lot of folks in the US who are of the opinion that immigrants should be able to wag their entire culture over here, making no efforts at assimilation whatsoever. It made me wonder if they would say the same thing if a couple million Texans moved over to Sweden, kept right on being Texans at everyone, and demanded legal changes to better fit their Texan sensibilities. I'm dead certain they wouldn't. This tells me what they say is a lie and their beef is very specifically with the US's dominant culture/laws/etc... but that they are too cowardly to say so openly.

When you guys hear of Desiato you most likely think of the dead rock star at the restaurant at the end of the universe. I think of an old online friend from a couple decades back, Tim Poesch. I got an email from him a couple weeks ago, unfortunately when all my equipment was screwing up.

        The March Win 7 update disaster hit both of my laptops. It just kept the big HP from seeing my other devices and vice versa, but the little Acer was crashing often. I reinstalled the Acer’s OS and apps, but for some reason I couldn’t get Thunderbird to get to my email account.

        My nearly decade old Kyocera phone was likewise acting up, telling me its storage was full when it was actually nearly empty, then its apps started crashing. I’d been checking email with the phone until I could get Thunderbird working right.

        I saw Tim’s email but couldn’t read it. I was finally able to read it a couple of days later. He said he’d run across Random Scribblings during a random Google search, and it made him nostalgic for the old days, so he ordered a copy from B&N.

        Tim was part of a small world-wide group of us with popular web sites. His was a realaudio/shoutcast/podcast (why do they keep changing the neme?). Others in our group were Yello There and his hilarious parody of Blue’s News, Dopey Smurf who got slashdotted after he posted an explanation of how rail guns work (his site was down for a month), Flamethrower, who was actually a bunch of British college students pretending to be one guy, with another podcast of hilarious British vulgarity. We all had a LOT of fun!

        As soon as I read Tim’s email and before I could reply the damned phone’s email crashed and it wouldn't come back up. A week later I discovered the stupid mistake that kept Thunderbird from connecting—I’d had Wi-Fi shut off.

        Duh!

        With Thunderbird working again I looked for Tim’s email so I could answer it; I’d gotten nostalgic myself putting Random Scribblings together.

        It was gone. Apparently the phone’s email client had eaten it.

        Tim, if you happen to run across this post, please email again!

Les Moonves and CBS Face Allegations of Sexual Misconduct

Six women tell The New Yorker that CBS chief Les Moonves sexually harassed them

Leslie Moonves, current CEO of CBS

You can't kill what has already gone full #MeToo. You can only cauterize the wound with a CEO-sized resignation.

Previously: Law Firm Kills WaPost Exposé of 60 Minutes Producer

Now we need the exposé of the Amazon Post to see why they caved and missed their chance for a big scoop. From The New Yorker's article:

Fager has tried to keep the allegations about the treatment of women at “60 Minutes” from surfacing publicly. According to the Times, in 2015 Fager took over the writing of a book about “60 Minutes” after the original author, Richard Zoglin, began asking people about the subject. In April, as two Washington Post reporters, Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain, were reporting an article about the allegations of harassment at CBS News, including complaints about Fager and Rosen, lawyers retained by Fager threatened to sue the Post, and presented testimonials about Fager’s good character. “There was this ham-handed effort to make women at the show say Jeff was a wonderful person,” one producer said. “It was so obvious we were doing it with a gun to our heads.” Fager’s lawyers also attacked the professionalism of the two reporters. In the end, the paper published a story that included complaints of harassment against Charlie Rose from dozens of women, but not allegations about Fager or Rosen. In a statement, the Post said, “The reporting throughout was vigorous and sustained and fully supported by Post editors. Nothing that met our longstanding standards for publication was left out. Nor did outside pressures, legal or otherwise, determine what was published.” CBS employees told me that they were alarmed by the attempts to kill the reporting. “The hypocrisy of an investigative news program shutting down an investigative print story is incredible,” one told me.

Stargate SG-1’s Christopher Judge wants to make a Jaffa spinoff series

There’s been no official momentum on anything Stargate-related since the end of Origins (which has since been compiled into a film-style cut, combining all the webisodes), but it's worth noting Judge is still actively involved with the franchise in an official capacity as host of the Stargate Command streaming service’s Dialing Home interview series. So he’s certainly in proximity to the ears that would need to be bent about a new web project. Judge also wrote several episodes of SG-1 over the years, helping craft the mythology of the Jaffa from behind and in front of the camera. So he certainly has the know-how and skill set.

GateWorld has been a lot more active lately.

Tree Frog Poison and Other New Ways Hollywood Is Self-Medicating

Phyllomedusa bicolor

R. Kelly answers his critics with a 19-minute song, 'I Admit'

New R. Kelly song ‘I Admit’ details singer’s long list of scandals

The R. Kelly boycott is working

Song. Lyrics. Wiki.

Prognosis: Negative?

After Elon Musk called a rescue diver a "pedo", all sorts of people have been crawling out of the woodwork to bash him. But this bit takes the cake:

SpaceX — which Musk touts as replacing NASA and colonizing Mars — has been a literal failure to launch. So many of its rockets have burned up or crashed that Musk, for reasons unknown, has made a blooper reel.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Northrop Grumman's Faulty Payload Adapter Reportedly Responsible for "Zuma" Failure

SpaceX celebrates its many failures in hilarious new blooper reel

I'll let you judge whether the other attacks in the article (mostly about Tesla) are accurate.

‘60 Minutes’ Boss Hired Law Firm Over #MeToo Story

One of television’s most powerful men, 60 Minutes Executive Producer Jeff Fager, hired a law firm that boasts about “killing stories” for a Washington Post investigation into him, three sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast.

The story was a deep dive into what CBS managers knew about former anchor Charlie Rose’s alleged sexual misconduct, but due to the aggressive tactics of law firm Clare Locke, the sources said, the story was “effectively neutered.”

Clare Locke also did work for former Today show host Matt Lauer and current New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush, three sources say. Both men were accused in news publications of sexually harassing women. The law firm was also recently hired by David Pecker, the CEO and chairman of American Media Inc., parent company of the National Enquirer, to try and shut down a negative story from a newspaper, according to two sources.

Accused Russian agent Mariia Butina tried to trade sex for influence, say prosecutors - Previously, the FBI had said Butina was trying to establish relationships with a "gun rights organization," which NBC News has reported is the NRA.

The gunslinging Russian woman accused of cozying up to American officials to infiltrate the U.S. political system — at the behest of her Kremlin-linked mentor and with the help of her American boyfriend — allegedly tried to trade sex for influence.

The "Red Sparrow" scenario was unveiled Wednesday in a government memorandum that laid out the reasons why prosecutors believe Mariia Butina, 29, should remain jailed until trial.

During a detention hearing in federal court on Wednesday afternoon, Butina pleaded not guilty to being an unregistered foreign agent and was again ordered held without bail.

I'm out of town for a couple weeks and taking no tech with me except my phone and a USB drive with a bunch of SG-1 and my ssh keys on it. I may have time occasionally to rhetorically bitch-slap someone but not to hold up a serious conversation or to unfuck the servers if you folks break them while I'm gone. Which is basically to say that if you guys set the place on fire and want it put out, I hope you drank plenty of water beforehand.