2022 Current Events Discussion Thread

[Ironhorse]

Good idea: buying a load of Forever stamps right before they go up in price.

Do you actually still mail things?

I'm about to go to the post office tomorrow to mail some government forms. With a paper check.

("You still have paper checks?" I hate that I have to...)

We have this thing around here where thieves have gotten hold of the keys for the mailboxes and are rifling them for mail with checks. They bleach out the information on the check and put their own information in. They've even been holding up mailmen at gunpoint to take their keys. I will only hand outgoing mail to the mailman or take it to the post office.

So they steal the keys at gunpoint to then go to a mailbox to empty that out and go through what's in there, but they don't take the bag strapped over the mail person's shoulder?

They're most interested in the blue collection boxes from what I heard reported.

[Robert K S]

We have the rob-the-mailbox-to-commit-check-fraud problem here, too. There have been arrests.

[BigDaddyMatty]

Where the Crawdads Sing Author Wanted for Questioning in Murder

Zambian officials seek to question Where the Crawdads Sing author Delia Owens in connection with a murder possibly committed by her husband during the 1990s, when the pair lived and worked in that nation as conservationists. Several plot points in the novel appear to mirror the incident, potentially making it sort of a fictionalized If I Did It. A feature film adaptation of Crawdads opened yesterday.

[opusthepenguin]

Where the Crawdads Sing Author Wanted for Questioning in Murder

Zambian officials seek to question Where the Crawdads Sing author Delia Owens in connection with a murder possibly committed by her husband during the 1990s, when the pair lived and worked in that nation as conservationists. Several plot points in the novel appear to mirror the incident, potentially making it sort of a fictionalized If I Did It. A feature film adaptation of Crawdads opened yesterday.

Sounds like a new season of True Detective if you ask me.

[cinemaniax7]

Steven Spielberg Directs First Music Video, for Marcus Mumford’s ‘Cannibal’

[MarkBarrett]

Just to bump this from page 4:

For the Johnson/Truss post it's fine to insult readers' intelligence and name the UK as the place.

[opusthepenguin]

Just to bump this from page 4:

For the Johnson/Truss post it's fine to insult readers' intelligence and name the UK as the place.

Cool! Ok, everyone reading this is a moron. Also, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are from the UK.

[Volante]

Just to bump this from page 4:

For the Johnson/Truss post it's fine to insult readers' intelligence and name the UK as the place.

Cool! Ok, everyone reading this is a moron. Also, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are from the UK.

(Pedantry: Boris Johnson was born in New York)

[MinnesotaMyron]

Just to bump this from page 4:

For the Johnson/Truss post it's fine to insult readers' intelligence and name the UK as the place.

Is it ok to insult people's intelligence by joking about needing a truss to help heal their injured johnson?

[opusthepenguin]

Just to bump this from page 4:

For the Johnson/Truss post it's fine to insult readers' intelligence and name the UK as the place.

Cool! Ok, everyone reading this is a moron. Also, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are from the UK.

(Pedantry: Boris Johnson was born in New York)

Fine. Everyone reading this EXCEPT VOLANTE is a moron.

[DBear]

Instagram fined $400 million for failing to protect children's data
Dublin--Ireland's data privacy regulator has agreed to levy a record fine of 405 million euros ($402 million) against social network Instagram following an investigation into its handling of children's data, a spokesperson for the watchdog said.

Instagram plans to appeal against the fine, a spokesperson for its parent company, Meta, said in an emailed statement.

The investigation, which started in 2020, focused on child users between the ages of 13 and 17 who were allowed to operate business accounts, which facilitated the publication of the user's phone number and/or email address.

excerpt from CNN Business

[LucarioSnooperVixey]

It is important not to confuse current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss with Lynn Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.

[jeff6286]

It is important not to confuse current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss with Lynn Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.

Given the Partygate scandal that eventually lead to the ouster of her predecessor, would Boris Johnson be Eats, Drink, and Leaves?

[Woof]

It is important not to confuse current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss with Lynn Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.

Given the Partygate scandal that eventually lead to the ouster of her predecessor, would Boris Johnson be Eats, Drink, and Leaves?

Well played, Jeff.

[davey]

It is important not to confuse current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss with Lynn Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.

Given the Partygate scandal that eventually lead to the ouster of her predecessor, would Boris Johnson be Eats, Drink, and Leaves?

It's also important to get the book's title right: Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The absence of the Oxford comma is part of the joke.
Also worth pointing out: The past tense of lead is led...

[seaborgium]

It is important not to confuse current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss with Lynn Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.

Given the Partygate scandal that eventually lead to the ouster of her predecessor, would Boris Johnson be Eats, Drink, and Leaves?

It's also important to get the book's title right: Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The absence of the Oxford comma is part of the joke.
Also worth pointing out: The past tense of lead is led...

It's not the absence of a comma that makes the joke possible, but the presence of one (or two, if you include an Oxford comma). Really, though, the joke is only really possible in spoken form, where "eats shoots and leaves" isn't intoned any differently from "eats, shoots, and leaves" and thus you don't have to digress before the punchline to say that the dictionary used in the joke has been punctuated improperly.

[davey]

It is important not to confuse current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss with Lynn Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.

Given the Partygate scandal that eventually lead to the ouster of her predecessor, would Boris Johnson be Eats, Drink, and Leaves?

It's also important to get the book's title right: Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The absence of the Oxford comma is part of the joke.
Also worth pointing out: The past tense of lead is led...

It's not the absence of a comma that makes the joke possible, but the presence of one (or two, if you include an Oxford comma). Really, though, the joke is only really possible in spoken form, where "eats shoots and leaves" isn't intoned any differently from "eats, shoots, and leaves" and thus you don't have to digress before the punchline to say that the dictionary used in the joke has been punctuated improperly.

The absence of the serial comma is what makes the statement ambiguous (and incorrect). If there are 2 commas, the statement makes singular if absurd sense.

[seaborgium]

It is important not to confuse current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss with Lynn Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.

Given the Partygate scandal that eventually lead to the ouster of her predecessor, would Boris Johnson be Eats, Drink, and Leaves?

It's also important to get the book's title right: Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The absence of the Oxford comma is part of the joke.
Also worth pointing out: The past tense of lead is led...

It's not the absence of a comma that makes the joke possible, but the presence of one (or two, if you include an Oxford comma). Really, though, the joke is only really possible in spoken form, where "eats shoots and leaves" isn't intoned any differently from "eats, shoots, and leaves" and thus you don't have to digress before the punchline to say that the dictionary used in the joke has been punctuated improperly.

The absence of the serial comma is what makes the statement ambiguous (and incorrect). If there are 2 commas, the statement makes singular if absurd sense.

The joke isn't ambiguity; it's the absurd sense of the phrase, which requires the comma after "eats" for that sense to exist in writing. Its presence turns "shoots" and "leaves" into verbs instead of objects of "eats," whether or not there's a comma after "shoots."

[jeff6286]

In any event I’m glad my joke lead to this important discussion.

[davey]

It's not the absence of a comma that makes the joke possible, but the presence of one (or two, if you include an Oxford comma). Really, though, the joke is only really possible in spoken form, where "eats shoots and leaves" isn't intoned any differently from "eats, shoots, and leaves" and thus you don't have to digress before the punchline to say that the dictionary used in the joke has been punctuated improperly.

The absence of the serial comma is what makes the statement ambiguous (and incorrect). If there are 2 commas, the statement makes singular if absurd sense.

The joke isn't ambiguity; it's the absurd sense of the phrase, which requires the comma after "eats" for that sense to exist in writing. Its presence turns "shoots" and "leaves" into verbs instead of objects of "eats," whether or not there's a comma after "shoots."

Lynn Truss writes-
My own feeling is that one shouldn’t be too rigid about the Oxford comma. Sometimes the sentence is improved by including it; sometimes it isn’t.
Maybe she didn't intend her title as an illustration - she doesn't mention it in her section on the Oxford comma. But it seems apt to me, so I'll continue to consider it "part of" the joke...