Two weeks ago, PayPal announced plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte and employ over 400 people in skilled jobs. In the short time since then, legislation has been abruptly enacted by the State of North Carolina that invalidates protections of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens and denies these members of our community equal rights under the law.

The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal’s mission and culture. As a result, PayPal will not move forward with our planned expansion into Charlotte.

This decision reflects PayPal’s deepest values and our strong belief that every person has the right to be treated equally, and with dignity and respect. These principles of fairness, inclusion and equality are at the heart of everything we seek to achieve and stand for as a company. And they compel us to take action to oppose discrimination.

Our decision is a clear and unambiguous one. But we do regret that we will not have the opportunity to be a part of the Charlotte community and to count as colleagues the skilled and talented people of the region. As a company that is committed to the principle that everyone deserves to live without fear of discrimination simply for being who they are, becoming an employer in North Carolina, where members of our teams will not have equal rights under the law, is simply untenable.

While we will seek an alternative location for our operations center, we remain committed to working with the LGBT community in North Carolina to overturn this discriminatory legislation, alongside all those who are committed to equality.

We will stand firm in our commitment to equality and inclusion and our conviction that we can make a difference by living and acting on our values. It’s the right thing to do for our employees, our customers, and our communities.

Dan Schulman, President and CEO, PayPal

400 jobs .... yoink!

Heckofajob, McCrory.

This week is the 22nd anniversary of my acquisition of two important things: my first copy of Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted and my beloved Tele^Plus.

From a medium format slide taken by Carla.
Before the neck and pickguard turned all mellow and yellow.

And I bought them at the same time, at Buzzo's Music in Geneseo, NY. Here's the receipt, which I kept in my wallet for 21 years. Last time I noticed it sitting there behind my NY fishing license from 1987 it was starting to come apart, so I scanned it.

$13.98 for the CD. $599.95 for the guitar. I got a $160 trade-in on my old guitar (which looked like this) and the rest I paid with the proceeds from being a medical test subject. Ah, the good old days.

Happy anniversary, guitar!

A Florida couple was arrested Tuesday after an argument led a woman to strike her husband in the back of the head with a burrito, police said

Research has determined nine historic cannons displayed for the past 60 years at a recreated French and Indian War fort in upstate New York were originally aboard a British warship that sank in the Florida Keys in the 18th century, according to an underwater archaeologist who led the project.

...

A full-size replica fort was built on the same footprint of the original in the Adirondack village of Lake George. Before the tourist attraction opened in the summer of 1954, the fort's owners sought Colonial-era cannons to display on the ramparts. Among the artillery pieces purchased were nine guns discovered a few years earlier off Looe Key, now part of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Local newspaper stories about the fort's purchase said the cannons were bought from Art McKee, a well-known Florida treasure hunter who salvaged the weapons after the Smithsonian Institution recovered other shipwreck artifacts from Looe Key, named for the British ship believed to have sank there along with a captured Spanish vessel it was escorting.

The '50s newspaper articles also said the cannons bore insignia indicating the weapons belonged to the British Crown. Those markings have since disappeared after being exposed to decades Adirondack winters. A 1967 arson fire destroyed many of the fort's records pertaining to artifact acquisitions, adding to the murkiness surrounding the cannons' origins, Zarzynski said.

I visited that Fort many times as a kid. And I think we had a prom dinner there once? I never worked there, but friends of mine did. Lake George's insane tourism scene kept teenagers from all over the area employed, every summer.

Let's listen to Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band!

You're welcome.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a Frito Lay truck stalled, so the driver, identified as Zachary Basinger, pulled over to the right shoulder.

Troopers said Roberto Rodriquez was driving a semi-truck carrying Busch beer and attempted to move to the center. Another vehicle prevented him from doing so, and he swerved back into the right lane, hitting the Frito Lay truck.

The crash caused the Frito Lay truck to overturn. The beer truck was cut open, sending dozens of beer cans onto the interstate.

The beer truck pushed the Frito Lay truck, causing it to flip over and spill chips all over the interstate.

Neither driver was injured.

RIP Phife Dawg

John Ehrlichman, a Nixon aide, recalls something:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Did you know: when it comes to determining the number of people in a legislative district, prisoners count as residents of the district where the prison is, even though they can't vote in that district (or any other) ?

I'm sure that leads to zero problems.