https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/whale-with-harness-could-be-russian-weapon-say-norwegian-experts

Marine experts in Norway believe they have stumbled upon a white whale that was trained by the Russian navy as part of a programme to use underwater mammals as a special ops force.

Fishermen in waters near the small Norwegian fishing village of Inga reported last week that a white beluga whale wearing a strange harness had begun to harass their fishing boats.

“We were going to put out nets when we saw a whale swimming between the boats,” fisherman Joar Hesten told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It came over to us, and as it approached, we saw that it had some sort of harness on it.”

The strange behaviour of the whale, which was actively seeking out the vessels and trying to pull straps and ropes from the sides of the boats, as well as the fact it was wearing a tight harness which seemed to be for a camera or weapon, raised suspicions among marine experts that the animal had been given military-grade training by neighbouring Russia. Inside the harness, which has now been removed from the whale, were the words “Equipment of St. Petersburg”.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2019/04/23/pineapple-on-pizza-is-easy-to-hate-at-least-in-theory/?utm_term=.1987fe621eea&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1



At some point in the never-ending debate over whether pineapple belongs on pizza, the haters, maybe with tongues pressed against cheek, invoked Godwin’s Law. Yep, they compared those who like the tropical fruit on pies to Hitler. One said they were worse than Hitler. The comparison would become a common insult, occasionally even flung back at the snobs who turn their nose up at a pineapple-topped pizza.

Many foods have taken their lumps over the years. Avocado toast, cake pops and kale Caesar salads come to mind. But nothing has sustained the hate like Hawaiian pizza, the most recognizable pie that features chunks of the divisive fruit. According to recent data from YouGov Omnibus, nearly a quarter of Americans say pineapple is one of their least favorite pizza toppings. Those who live in the Northeast or are older than 55 hate pineapple toppings even more. Only two ingredients generate more loathing among American pie eaters: oily anchovies and slimy eggplant.

Celebrities, politicians, chefs and even minimum-wage pizzamakers count themselves as members of this pineapple hate group. Gordon Ramsay, a chef never at a loss for words, once opined, “You don’t put . . . pineapple on pizza.” He used a colorful adjective before “pineapple,” to emphasize his disdain. The president of Iceland said he would outlaw pineapple on pizza if he could, a statement that made him an instant hero in some circles. A couple of years ago, a University of Arizona undergraduate tried to add pineapple to her barbecue chicken pizza, but the pie arrived sans fruit, with a note from the campus restaurant: “Couldn’t bring myself to put pineapple on it. Thats gross. Sorry.” A $5 bill was taped to the pizza box.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what’s behind the animosity toward pineapple on pizza. Pineapple itself was No. 10 on a list of the most-popular fruits purchased in America last year, behind bananas and oranges but ahead of pears, cherries and avocados (!!). It probably goes without saying that none of the top 20 fruits in America is a common pizza topping, though some, such as pears and apples, make an occasional cameo. Jonathan Allen, co-owner of the superb Pizza CS in Rockville, Md., told me that he ate Hawaiian pizza as an undiscriminating kid but now frowns on pineapple on any kind of pie, especially on the Neapolitan rounds served at his restaurant. He doesn’t like the texture. A sign over the counter at Pizza CS reinforces Allen’s stance: “No slices. No pineapple. No ranch.”

https://heavy.com/news/2019/04/john-earnest/



John Earnest is a 19-year-old San Diego man who is accused of shooting four people, killing one, at Chabad of Poway synagogue in California before he was arrested. Earnest posted a 4,000-word anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and white supremacist manifesto he wrote and published online before the shooting and said in a post on 8chan that he would be live streaming the attack, but no video of the shooting has emerged. A Facebook page he linked to in the post has been deactivated.

John T. Earnest was taken into custody by police a few blocks away from the synagogue after the shooting, which Poway Mayor Steve Vaus has called a “hate crime.” He fled from the scene after an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who was working as a security guard at the synagogue shot at him. At least 100 people were inside the synagogue. A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to help the victims of the shooting.

Earnest was being interviewed by detectives after he was taken into custody. Earnest has no prior arrest record and the FBI said there had been no reports about him made before the shooting. San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said they are investigating the case as a homicide and are also looking into the possibility of hate crime charges and federal civil rights violations.

The shooting occurred on the final day of Passover and exactly six months to the day of when a gunman opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 worshippers and wounding several others. The accused shooter in that mass shooting was arrested. He was motivated by his anti-Semitic views, according to investigators.

Earnest said in his manifesto that he was inspired by the Tree of Life gunman along with the New Zealand mosque shooter, who killed 50 people in Christchurch on March 15, 2019.

https://heavy.com/news/2019/04/anna-conkey/

?quality=65&strip=all

Anna Conkey has been identified as the 31 year old woman who walked into a church in San Diego holding her 10 month old baby and a handgun. Conkey interrupted an Easter Day service being held in the auditorium of the Mount Everest Academy on Sunday morning. The pastor, Benjamin Wisan said Conkey had attended the church before but had left. In fact, Conkey has had negative interactions with her church in the past, and this is not the first time that church members have called the police on her.

On Sunday, the pastor said that Conkey seemed confused and he described her as being “not in her right mind.” He said that instead of speaking, Conkey was just uttering random words, and that nobody could understand what she wanted.

Alert parishioners tackled Conkey and removed her weapon. The pastor said that the gun turned out to be unloaded, although police have not confirmed that. Conkey was taken away by police and her baby was taken into protective custody.

Here’s what you need to know about Anna Conkey:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/04/13/watch-same-movie-over-over-study-shows-youll-enjoy-it-more-than-you-think/?utm_term=.4e07bfd05dcb&wpisrc=nl_optimist&wpmm=1

By reflexively seeking out novelty instead of returning to the tried-and-true, we may be leaving many of life’s enjoyments unenjoyed



If you’ve spent any time around little kids, you’ve probably noticed they have an almost limitless capacity to repeat activities they enjoy: getting tossed in the air by an obliging adult, say, or watching the same movie over and over and over again.

New research from Ed O’Brien at the University of Chicago suggests that adults could stand to learn from the toddlers in their lives. In controlled experiments involving hundreds of volunteers, O’Brien has found that people typically enjoy repeating leisure activities much more than they thought they would.

Those who repeat enjoyable activities, like watching a movie or going to a museum, seem to pick up on nuances and dimensions of the experience they missed the first time around, the study found. By reflexively seeking out novelty instead of returning to the tried-and-true, we may be leaving many of life’s enjoyments unenjoyed.

Many previous studies have shown that, when it comes to leisure time, people have a general tendency to seek out novel experiences. In the language of social science, O’Brien said, “Filling leisure with novel experiences indeed disrupts adaptation and promotes discovery."

Or, in the more poetic formulation of 18th-century English poet William Cowper, “Variety’s the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/social-equity-fresnos-west-side-lost-in-the-war-on-drugs-and-now-it-hopes-a-revival-will-be-tied-to-marijuana/2019/04/12/64580252-54a5-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html?utm_term=.eb87769a8fef



FRESNO, Calif. — The West Side loses, often.

It lost to the city’s wealthy north in the competition for school funds. It lost businesses to more stable neighborhoods. It lost children to prison and gangs, including Kayla and Aaron Foster, siblings killed four years apart in an intimate block-by-block war financed by the drug trade.

Now the neighborhood is looking to an element of that war for its revival. The community wants one of its own to receive permission to sell marijuana, a drug the young foot soldiers from the Fresno Hoover gang such as Aaron Foster fought to sell along its streets.

The competition for lucrative retail licenses has been fierce since California voters decided in 2016 to make marijuana legal for recreational use. But Fresno is behind the curve when it comes to cannabis, making it a contested front in the push to ensure the benefits of legal marijuana accrue to those who suffered most in the war on drugs.

“We’re the ones who get sent to prison, and the most unfair thing would be if now the corporations are allowed to come in and make millions selling what sent us to prison,” said Aaron Foster II, Kayla and Aaron’s father and a West Side elder who has been shot multiple times himself. “We don’t want outsiders coming in.”

https://www.cracked.com/article_26312_the-black-hole-picture-spawned-saddest-conspiracy-theory.html



On April 10, the world laid eyes on an image never before thought possible: a real, only slightly very blurry picture of a black hole 55 million light years away. The viral image of the supermassive black hole M87 was met with the delight of astronomy fans (and the slight disappointment of Muse fans momentarily expecting a new tour announcement) everywhere. Everywhere except the darkest parts of the internet, where the black hole was attacked by another bottomless black void: male insecurity.

https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/1116139000572645376

During the well-deserved post-victory back-patting, many singled out Dr. Katie Bouman, a computer scientist who as a PhD student in 2016 led the team that developed the algorithm used to process the staggering amount of data gathered by the Event Horizon telescope into a single coherent image. Not only did Bouman deliver the kind of zoom-and-enhance skills most TV CSI characters would swab a million crime scene condoms for to get, but many also noted that her amazing work mirrored that of female computer nerd pioneer Margaret Hamilton, whose computer coding helped achieve another space first -- putting a man on the moon.

https://twitter.com/MIT_CSAIL/status/1116007460039483392

But that's just what the wo-Man wants you to believe. Dissenting voices are claiming that not only was the black hole a hoax, but it was a hoax to make some silly broad look good. The wild conspiracy theory is led by MRA pick-up artist Daryush Valizadeh, who calls himself Roosh V and is basically an Entourage T-shirt given sentience. As the David Koresh of incels, Roosh (who also doesn't believe in the moon landing, so suck it, Margaret Hamilton) led the charge by claiming on Twitter that the black hole was faked to prop up Bouman, in yet another attempt by the world of astronomy to emasculate real men by pretending women can do something other than make babies and/or buy him the Doritos he likes from the store.

https://twitter.com/classiclib3ral/status/1116354324127461377

Despite the immediate compliance of his most blue-balled followers, Roosh was once again the target of a lot of ridicule (which does seem to be his M.O.) for pretending to believe that large institutions will gladly spend millions of dollars to make women feel good about themselves. But if your misogyny is as untethered as a black hole, why stop there? Was Rosalind Franklin just a plant by Big Feminism? Did Mary Anning only discover a bunch of dog bones, and her beta cuck partners were too polite to correct her? Did the French give a medal to Marie Curie just to shut up their mistresses? We'll never know until science stops its endless over-promotion of women.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/04/17/great-white-sharks-are-afraid-orcas-new-study-shows/?utm_term=.c866ed5fabe5



Jaws is afraid of Free Willy.

A new study published in Nature this week demonstrated that when pods of orcas entered an area around South Farallon Island off the coast of San Francisco, the great white sharks in the area cleared out — and didn’t return for months.

No ocean predator is more fearsome in the public imagination than the great white shark, but even they appear to steer clear of orcas, highly intelligent pack hunters that have been observed on rare occasions to attack great whites — and eat their livers.

“On one occasion, we had 17 sharks that we were tracking simultaneously at the island when a group of orcas showed up,” said Salvador Jorgensen of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, who led the study that involved Stanford University and Point Blue Conservation Science.

“We were able to see from the data all the sharks leaving the side of the island the orcas had arrived on,” he said, “and within a few hours had vacated the island completely.”

The findings are the result of 27 years of research, but Jorgensen suspected the two predators had been doing this dance for a while.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/economy/minimum-wage-raise/index.html

New York (CNN Business)Corporate America has been, shall we say, evolving on the minimum wage in recent years.

Last month, McDonalds — the most recognizable name in America's lowest-paying industry — announced it would no longer lobby against minimum wage hikes. A few months before that, Amazon proclaimed that it would fully meet activists' demands for a $15-per-hour baseline and that it would throw its considerable lobbying weight behind an increase in the federal floor. Then, just last week, Bank of America outdid them both, setting its own minimum at $20.

Who is left fighting the case against a higher minimum wage? American small businesses.
As a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 nationwide awaits a vote on the House floor with 205 Democratic co-sponsors, life in the opposition is getting lonelier for the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation's largest advocacy group for small companies.

"We're playing defense on this one, to state the obvious," said Jon Kurrle, vice president of federal government relations at the NFIB, which has about 300,000 members. "A larger company can absorb costs in a way that a smaller business can't, and also make technology investments in a way that not all small businesses can."

Although the wage premium for working at a large company has decreased over time, big businesses still achieve economies of scale through centralized HR and benefits departments. They also have the upfront capital needed to invest in automation, such as the purchasing kiosks now in place at McDonalds, that will make businesses less subject to labor costs in the future.