Fluff

A Tort in Time

Biscuit the Tortoise is safe and we should celebrate that daily. Also, Elon Musk thinks himself a private general, a Florida man tried to hamster wheel his way across the Atlantic, the UAW strike is very possible, and a pretty big statue unveiling.

Endeavorance

Sep 8, 2023 — 3 min read

DO NOT FEAR: BISCUIT IS SAFE

Okay I know you were probably worried about Biscuit, but if for some reason you weren't following the biggest story of the century, Biscuit is a 100 year old African tortoise who accidentally wandered out of his owners home in Louisiana and was lost in the wide world.

Passers-by called in to animal control after spotting Biscuit in a drainage canal. Animal control was able to get out there, grab the Great Tort, and take him to safety. Biscuit's pet human later arrived to pick him up, and reportedly it took quite a long time for Biscuit to travel the short distance from the animal shelter to the truck.

There are very few things I know for sure in this life, but one of them is this: we love Biscuit.

General Musk Has War Plans

Elon Musk cut off Starlink access to Ukraine to thwart an attack that Ukraine was making against a Russian navy fleet according to a new biography about him.

According to the book, Musk was "concerned about escalation to nuclear conflict," and so he made a unilateral decision to leverage his global communications network to interfere with international geopolitics. Y'know, that thing that a single human being should totally have the ability to do.

Ukrainian officials have said that due to these actions from Musk, Russian ships were able to fire on Ukrainian cities as a part of their ongoing effort to destroy coastal cities and grain shipments.

I'm starting to think this Musk guy isn't very chill.

A Floating Hamster Wheel And a Dream

A dude from Florida attempted to cross the Atlantic in a sort of hamster-wheel-like floating device. He was on the inside of the floating wheel thing, and could run inside of it to "paddle" the device as it floated.

It was… rickety as hell. But kinda worked! Sorta. That is, it worked in theory until the Coast Guard caught up to him and was like "bro, fuckin' stop"

This is reportedly not the first time this man has tried to do something like this, and the Coast Guard classified his actions as "manifestly unsafe"

The guy also apparently claimed to have a bomb with him, seemingly in an attempt to fend off his arrest. Turns out he didn't have a bomb, just a rickety flotation device and a pocket full of dreams.

UAW Strike Lookin' Likely

The United Auto Workers are nearing a strike, planned to start on September 14th if the workers and the businesses cannot reach an agreement.

Among the demands from the workers are a significant compensation adjustment of about 46% (over the course of several years) as well as a four day workweek.

The United Auto Workers note that their effective pay rate has decreased over the years. Here is UAW president Shawn Fain:

We went to Ford and proposed a double-digit wage increase, just like the Big 3 CEOs have received over the last four years. […] We also have a lot to make up for. In inflation adjusted dollars, our starting pay today is $10 an hour less than what it was in 2007

Ford has come back with an offer of a 9% wage increase over the course of the next contract, as well as a one-time 15% bump. They call that "generous," despite enormous bonuses and pay raises for executives every year.

On This day…

On this day in 1504, Michelangelo's statue of David was unveiled to the public. The statue was so massive that in order to get it into place for the unveiling, it took 40 men half of a week to move the statue a half mile.