Linkee-poo on a Tueselday

Alligators. Eyeballs. You know the deal.

"A large asteroid could be reclassified as a dwarf planet -- which could make it the smallest in the solar system -- after new research revealed its shape, astronomers said on Monday." Aw it's so cute.

The Hidden Brain podcast on bullshit jobs. "In 2013, anthropologist David Graeber wrote an article in which he described these types of positions as 'bullshit jobs.' He received a flood of responses from people for whom this label struck a chord — people who felt their work was, essentially, meaningless." Anyone who has worked in a large organization has seen this. When there are more than 2 VPs, and delineated between "executive" and "junior" VPs, you know there are plenty of BS jobs (and mostly this is to higher "good people" by other "good people"). This also goes for several of the "c-level" jobs (a lot of those are just executive VP's and grade inflation combined).

"Officials in Georgia are looking for a convicted rapist serving a life sentence who was accidentally released from prison by mistake, the state department of corrections said." Oopsie.

"An estimated 1.5 million more people in California are set to lose power on Tuesday as a utility firm tries to stop damaged cables triggering wildfires." There's also some evidence (and admission) that while PG&E cut off power to customers to stop possibly setting off wildfires, they didn't actually stop charging the high-voltage lines that are the actual culprit and may have ignited some fires.

How goes Brexit? "The PM said 'nobody relished' going to the polls weeks before Christmas but this Parliament had 'run its course' and was 'incapable' of settling Brexit." There's been a surge of young people registering to vote. And an early election might disenfranchise them if it's over the holiday break.

"Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said in a statement Tuesday morning that he was satisfied that conditions had been met to go to the polls before Christmas." It's beginning to look a lot of like Christmas.

"But our call of the day from strategists at UBS warns a big threat is lying in wait for equities: earnings expectations." the market news pundits are starting to retreat from their "everything is fine" stance.

"The Iraqi authorities have declared a night-time curfew in the capital, Baghdad, on the fourth day of a fresh wave of anti-government protests."

About the president's description of the al-Baghdadi raid. "A few of those colorful details were wrong. Many of the rest were either highly classified or tactically sensitive, and their disclosure by the president made intelligence and military officials cringe, according to current and former U.S. officials."

"The United States will repel any attempt to take Syria's oilfields away with 'overwhelming force' whether the challenger is Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) or forces backed by Russia or Syria, the Pentagon has warned." It's beginning to look a lot like a war crime (seizing a sovereign entity's natural resources) and the next step of implementing the "New American Century" plan (one of the authors of which was John Bolton).

Next. "A White House official and decorated Army officer who listened to President Trump's now-infamous call with the Ukrainian president was so alarmed by what he heard that he reported it to a top national security lawyer, according to his prepared testimony." He's up next to testify.

"Vindman, an Army combat veteran who served in Iraq, will become the first official who listened in on Trump’s phone call with Zelensky to speak with investigators, providing a firsthand account of what House Democrats have said is a blatant abuse of power by the president. His opening statement leans heavily on his military service and a 'sense of duty' to his country." And the smear campaign has already started, including the president tweeting, "I don't know who this is."

"Derek Harvey, who works for Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, has provided notes for House Republicans identifying the whistleblower’s name ahead of the high-profile depositions of Trump administration appointees and civil servants in the impeachment inquiry. The purpose of the notes, one source said, is to get the whistleblower’s name into the record of the proceedings, which committee chairman Adam Schiff has pledged to eventually release. In other words: it’s an attempt to out the anonymous official who helped trigger the impeachment inquiry." One asshole hires another. Plus some inside baseball on the misinformation campaign forming on the conservative side heading into public hearings.

"Even while proclaiming an undisputed intelligence and military success, Trump took a moment to needle and to complain about 'poor leadership' and time wasted by U.S. intelligence in the past." One, he's an asshole. Two, the intelligence services are probably the last bastion that he knows can bring him down.