It’s only the second time in the nation’s history that its credit rating has been cut. In 2011, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. of its prize AAA rating after a prolonged fight over the government’s borrowing limit. The Government Accountability Office, in a 2012 report, estimated that the 2011 budget standoff raised Treasury’s borrowing costs by $1.3 billion that year.
At the same time, the huge size of the U.S. economy and historic stability of the federal government has kept its borrowing costs low. Global investors often flock to U.S. Treasury securities during periods of economic turmoil, lowering the interest rate paid by the U.S. government.
The Pentagon has said the deployment is “in response to recent attempts by Iran to threaten the free flow of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters." Some 20% of the world’s oil passes through the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the wider world and the U.S. views it as crucial to both its national security and keeping global energy prices stable.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Union leaders told striking Hollywood writers Tuesday night that they plan to meet with representatives for studios to discuss restarting negotiations after the first official communication between the two sides since the strike began three months ago.
The Writers Guild of America sent an email to members saying that the head of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major studios, streaming services and production companies in negotiations, requested a meeting on Friday to discuss the resumption of contract talks.
It was not immediately known whether a similar overture was made to union leaders for Hollywood actors, who have been on strike since July 14.
Asked about the prospect of talks with either guild, a spokesperson for the AMPTP in an email said only that “We remain committed to finding a path to mutually beneficial deals with both Unions.”
Issues behind the strike include pay rates amid inflation, the use of smaller writing staffs for shorter seasons of television shows, and control over artificial intelligence in the screenwriting process.
In the US, you would get arrested or shot before meaningfully changing the symbol. In the Czech Republic, an artist group did just about that on the president’s residency and faced no charges.
That’s basically what the artist group did. They pretended to be construction workers on the scaffolding (including hard hats), turning the ❤ into a ❓by adding a lamp and covering the left half.
They also pretended to be electric repairmen, replacing pedestrian traffic light symbols with people in weird positions (peeing or tripping), and as roof tilers at Prague Castle again, replacing the 100-year-old presidential flag with a pair of giant red shorts to caricature our then-president’s pro-Russian views and shamelessness. Very cool and chaotic neutral, which I approve. (Username czechs out)
If it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid. Interesting stuff in that wiki article and a ballsy move with the faked nuke video. That’s not something I’d want to have to defend in court, particularly if people think it’s real and injure themselves or others in a panic. Anyone seeking to follow in their footsteps should pay attention to the old advice: Czech yourself before you wreck yourself.
Unlike first world countries, our citizens never received training on how to act in case of nuclear blast. There are bunkers but few people know where they are and how to access one, and nobody has any in their backyard. We have sirens that officials could use to broadcast emergency messages and tell people what to do but they obviously weren’t activated. So the only thing that happened was several distressed old people calling the station.
Tbh the camera was asking to be hacked. Somehow they knew that its broadcast equipment was in an insufficiently secured building and the connection between the camera and transmitter was unencrypted, plain old PAL video. For the hack, they only needed to capture some normal video from the cam or film a nearby location, edit it, store it on a portable video player (they used a laptop with perhaps a video-out peripheral but most digital cameras from back then will do), gain entry to the facility, connect the player, and use a portable analog TV and ordered list of cycled-through locations in the Panorama program to press play at the right moment. About as technically advanced as something I could do if I had the balls, lol. Needless to say, all remote cameras were upgraded to digital soon after that.
Pretty cool, nice to know that it at least gave the people in charge a reason to make some upgrades. As for the panic thing, I was thinking more about the actions of those who would take it at face value and try to “settle some scores” or raid the local Wal-Mart supermarket before the next bombs fell on their heads. We’ve got a lot of people and there’s a percentage of the population who will choose to do the dumbest possible thing at the drop of a hat.
The artists did have the courtesy of including their URL at the bottom of the screen so people who knew about the Internet knew it was fake. Also if the sirens did not activate on their way to the supermarket (don’t say Walmart if you mean a general supermarket pls), they would reconsider. Anyway, not many people actually watch a program that is literally just mountain panoramas and weather information, the geopolitical situation was quite stable back then, and anyone with a bit of common sense would realize that the Giant Mountains would not be a prime target for any attack.
I went with Wal-Mart specifically to paint a picture of the faulty decision-making in the scenario, figured its infamy would still work internationally but I’ve edited the previous comment. Part of it was misremembering the setting of the 2004 “Dawn of the Dead” remake but that took place in a mall like the original. The past few years (and, to be honest, most of the ones before that) have shaken my confidence in the idea of common sense around here as well.
Why the downvotes? It’s true. It does not work all the time (taking down Elon’s “𝕏” is too daring) but you can avoid suspicion 90% of the time. That’s how I stole neodymium magnets from a public noticeboard using a reflective vest, a random timetable printout and a screwdriver. (They had switched to glued-on notices anyway so the magnets were left unused in a corner, and playing with magnets makes my inner kid happy.)
Somebody’s mad at me so they’ve been going through my profile and voting a bunch of comments down to zero / slightly negative (or as close as they can get with ~30 accounts).
Once upon a time he did seem to be okay (as far as billionaires can be).
Musk almost seemed philanthropic with his ventures of bringing forward the future with SpaceX and Tesla. Then almost suddenly he started to be vocal about certain politics and various bad practices came to light in how he behaved or treat his workforce.
In fact, it’s only until relatively recently it seems where the ultra wealthy seemed to be quite under the radar. Bezos, for example. Before and during his divorce you never really heard much about him. He seemed pretty likable in many ways. Then suddenly that changed, the media perception shifted and these people started getting lots of publicity and they were clearly unable to curate their image any longer.
I wish I remembered the site, but there’s a website that has images of the objects and backgrounds from csa materials that people can see and if you recognize a distinct object like a unique art piece or bedsheets in this case, you can report where you know it from.
All pictures are sanitized in the below website links - I am loathe to suggest reddit under most circumstances these days, but in this case I’ll make an exception: r/TraceAnObject is active and has links to a few websites where you can try to help ID stuff:
Lots of people claim to be lovers of science and ignore or are oblivious to the fact that the majority of the history of science is filled with crazy shit. Glad TSF paid up, an acknowledgment that wrong was done.
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