Linkee-poo Tuesday's alligators are bitey little bastards

John Singleton, and so it goes.

"The leader of Venezuela's opposition, Juan Guaidó, on Tuesday declared 'the start of the end of the usurpation,' in a dawn address in which he was flanked by men in military fatigues and armored vehicles in the capital Caracas." And here we go.

"Astronomers have spotted wildly wobbling jets of particles spewing out of a black hole, and they think this unusually rapid motion could be happening because the black hole's strong gravity is warping space around it." There's been mornings I've felt exactly the same. Although this article has a better animation to explain what is happening.

"Indonesia is moving its capital city away from Jakarta, according to the country's planning minister… Jakarta, home to over 10 million people, is sinking at one of the fastest rates in the world… Half of Jakarta is below sea level. One of the main causes of this is the extraction of groundwater which is used as drinking water and for bathing." (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)

How goes Brexit? "The latest talks between ministers and Labour to try to end the Brexit impasse were "positive" and "productive", the PM's de facto deputy has said."

"Now, with two confirmed cases of HIV, the (New Mexico) Department of Health has issued an alert to anyone who may have had an 'injection-related procedure' at the spa. That includes procedures like the vampire facial, which stars like Kim Kardashian have had done."

"The city of Cleveland has an ordinance, known locally as the Fannie Lewis law, that requires contractors working on projects that receive more than $100,000 in city funds to hire city residents for at least 20% of the construction work hours." Now that's being challenged in Ohio's Supreme Court and the state is moving a law to remove all such ordinances. And self-rule continues to slip away.

"If you think you notice a pattern here, you’re right. After years of inertia, courts and regulators are starting to take on companies that categorize employees as contractors in order to avoid wage and benefit costs. With inequality and the declining middle class becoming major issues in the 2016 presidential race, politicians (at least on the Democratic side) are now also vowing to do something about the plight of contingent workers. 'I’ll crack down on bosses who exploit employees by misclassifying them as contractors or even steal their wages,' Hillary Clinton said in her big economic-policy speech in July." That was written in 2015. They went on to talk about adjunct faculty; "Nowhere has the up-classing of contingency work gone farther, ironically, than in one of the most educated and (back in the day) secure sectors of the workforce: college teachers. In 1969, almost 80 percent of college faculty members were tenure or tenure track. Today, the numbers have essentially flipped, with two-thirds of faculty now non-tenure and half of those working only part-time, often with several different teaching jobs." Since then, nothing has changed and the situation has only gotten worse as tenure track professors retire and/or transfer to other colleges and universities (losing tenure, but believing other places have a better focus on educating the next generation of people who will keep us alive). (Grokked from NK Jemisin)

"Activists say 40 million Muslims and 30 million Dalits not on (India's) electoral rolls, raising fears of targeted suppression." (Grokked form Laura J Mixon)

"For the first time in more than 200 years, a Japanese emperor has abdicated the Chrysanthemum Throne."

"The elusive leader-at-large of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has appeared in a new clip released by the jihadi organization, appearing to disprove long-standing rumors about his death or failing health." So it appears as if the "confirmed" reports of al-Baghdadi were premature.

"A 33-year-old man in the New Zealand city of Christchurch has been arrested after a package containing a suspected explosive device and ammunition was found at a vacant property, police said."

"President Trump has filed suit against Deutsche Bank and Capital One in an attempt to block congressional subpoenas for his business records… The lawsuit by the president, sons Donald Jr. and Eric and daughter Ivanka, was filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan. The Trump Organization and the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust are among other plaintiffs." Good luck with that.

"US President Donald Trump wants asylum seekers to pay a fee to have their applications processed in the latest move in his crackdown on migration… The direction was given in a presidential memorandum on Monday, which called for a slew of new rules." Just wait until Trump finds out about the public comment period.