Post by mhbruin on Dec 18, 2021 9:11:15 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 494 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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As Much As I Despise SC Fans, Jailing Them Would Be Over the Top
For most fans in cricket-obsessed India, an unexpected loss in Twenty20 World Cup competition on Sunday to archrival Pakistan meant heartbreak and despair. For a few Indians, cheering for the wrong team — Pakistan — brought serious consequences.
In Indian-controlled Kashmir, a restive majority-Muslim region on the India-Pakistan border claimed by both countries, police raided a hostel where medical students were seen cheering for Pakistan and opened an anti-terrorism investigation, local media reported. In Uttar Pradesh, a state in northeastern India, seven people were detained on suspicion of sedition, state officials and police announced. Five were arrested.
An Indian student has now spent nearly two months in jail for celebrating Pakistan’s victory in a cricket match.
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Ode to A Bawdy, Fertile, Redhead
"The bawdy, fertile, redheaded matriarch of a sprawling Jewish-Mexican-Redneck American family has kicked it."
This is a line from an obituary to Renay Mandel Corren, a Texan woman who died on Saturday at the age of 84.
The tribute by her son, Andy, has taken social media by storm after it was published in The Fayetteville Observer.
The colourful piece says there will be "much mourning in the many glamourous locales she went bankrupt in".
This includes her hometown of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, where Corren "first fell in love with ham, and atheism," and Fayetteville and Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, where "Renay's dreams, credit rating and marriage are all buried".
Mr Corren writes that his mother's death is not good news for her "many surviving children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, many of whom she even knew and, in her own way, loved".
Here's the full obit
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Here's the Perfect Christmas Gift For Your MAGA Friends
Necklaces and accessories claiming to "protect" people from 5G mobile networks have been found to be radioactive.
The Dutch authority for nuclear safety and radiation protection (ANVS) issued a warning about ten products it found gave off harmful ionising radiation.
It urged people not to use the products, which could cause harm with long-term wear.
There is no evidence that 5G networks are harmful to health. The World Health Organization says 5G mobile networks are safe, and not fundamentally different from existing 3G and 4G signals.
Mobile networks use non-ionising radio waves that do not damage DNA.
Don't The British Know How to Spell "Ionizing"?
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This Is Good News, But How Foolish Do You Need to Be To Believe That They Won't Post Your Nude Video on the Web?
Hundreds of people tricked into making explicit videos for porn websites have been awarded the rights to the videos and millions of dollars in damages.
The sites, GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys, had been the subject of a long-running legal battle.
The US Department of Justice has ruled that rights to videos and images produced by the now-defunct sites belong to the women.
More than 400 victims can now ask for the online footage to be removed.
They are likely to enforce notices ordering the firms, including Pornhub and Google, to take down the material.
GirlsDoPorn producer Ruben Andre Garcia was sentenced in the summer to 20 years in federal prison for coercing women into appearing in sex videos.
The latest ruling is part of a restitution order from the prosecution of Garcia, who also went by the name Jonathan.
Originally, women responded to adverts for clothed modelling work and were then told they would be highly paid for anonymous adult video shoots.
About As Foolish as Believing the Check Is In the Mail
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Bali May Call You ... But Not in 2020
A tourism powerhouse has logged just 45 international visitors in 2021
Back in 2019, the Indonesian island of Bali welcomed around 6.2 million international arrivals. This year, they've logged 45.
Almost all of that small handful of tourists reached the island by private yacht, as the island's Ngurah Rai International Airport has been closed to international flights nearly all year. While the airport officially reopened to international flights in October, so far it's handled only domestic flights, primarily from Jakarta.
To come to Bali, foreign visitors have to get a $300 business visa, take multiple PCR tests and buy special health insurance.
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Someone Give This Professor a Medal
Kenyon Wilson is the associate head of performing arts at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and decided to put an Easter egg in the syllabus for his music seminar class this past semester.
University forces professor to change syllabus that threatened to dismiss students who argue against BLM, abortion or same-sex marriage
University forces professor to change syllabus that threatened to dismiss students who argue against BLM, abortion or same-sex marriage
The hint read: "Thus (free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five), students may be ineligible to make up classes and ..."
This would have led students to a locker that contained a $50 bill, free to the first student to claim it.
But at the end of the semester, when he went to check the locker, the bill was still there.
"It an academic trope that no one reads the syllabus," Wilson told CNN. "It's analogous to the terms and conditions when you're installing software, everyone clicks that they've read it when no one ever does."
The class was made up of 71 students.
But Not This One
A professor at Iowa State University has come under fire for threatening to discipline students who submit projects or papers opposing abortion, the Black Lives Matter movement or same-sex marriage.
The threat was made in the professor's English 250 syllabus, which was posted online and released by the Young America's Foundation (YAF) on Monday. The conservative group said a "whistleblower" tipped them off about the threat.
In the syllabus, the professor says the course's goal is to help students "develop skills in written, oral, visual, and electronic communication."
It also includes a "GIANT WARNING" for students: "Any instances of othering that you participate in intentionally (racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, sorophobia, transphobia, classism, mocking of mental health issues, body shaming, etc) in class are grounds for dismissal from the classroom," the syllabus read.
"The same goes for any papers/projects: you cannot choose any topic that takes at its base that one side doesn't deserve the same basic human rights as you do (ie: no arguments against gay marriage, abortion, Black Lives Matter, etc). I take this seriously."
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Blame It On the Boomers
Early retirement — whether forced by the pandemic or made possible otherwise — is having a huge impact on the labor market. And data show that retiring boomers, far more than "lazy" millennials, are the biggest force behind the labor shortage.
It's Always Easy to Blame the Younger Generation
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How About "Gayditch"?
Real-life quidditch, inspired by the magical game in "Harry Potter," is changing its name, citing author J.K. Rowling's "anti-trans positions in recent years."
US Quidditch and Major League Quidditch announced in a joint news release Wednesday that they will conduct a series of surveys over the next few months to decide on a new name for the sport, which resembles soccer and field hockey, but as a contact sport with broomsticks.
“For the last year or so, both leagues have been quietly collecting research to prepare for the move and been in extensive discussions with each other and trademark lawyers regarding how we can work together to make the name change as seamless as possible,” Major League Quidditch Commissioner Amanda Dallas said in the release.
The leagues say there are a few reasons for the name change. Among them is that the name "quidditch" is trademarked by Warner Bros., which produced the "Harry Potter" movies, and as a result the sport's expansion has been limited in its sponsorship and broadcast opportunities.
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There Are More Bi-Sexuals in the QOP Than Bi-Paritsans
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Got A Feelin' 22 Is Gonna' Be a Good Year
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More Crimes for DOJ to Ignore
To most of us, Kanye West’s short-lived presidential run was just one more sideshow to the existing circus surrounding everything former President Donald Trump touched in 2020.
West was largely dismissed, and some even felt that perhaps he was going through a mental health crisis and tried to simply look the other way at much of what he said and did, dismissing it as symptoms of an illness.
But either way, it has come to light that West’s run as a supposed “independent” was in actuality funded by an underground group of Republican political operatives, according to The Daily Beast, and West’s campaign failed to report it. That could be a violation of federal laws.
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Slowhand Has Become Slime
Eric Clapton is not satisfied with flushing what remains of his reputation over Covid vaccinations. Now he is going after a 55 year old widow in Germany for trying to sell a concert CD that her late husband bought at a department store in 1987.
When a German woman listed an Eric Clapton CD on eBay over the summer, she thought the rock music purchased by her late husband decades earlier could fetch her around $11 in the online marketplace if she was lucky. Instead, it somehow got the attention of Clapton, who sued the woman for copyright infringement and accused her of selling a bootleg CD of one of his live shows from the 1980s.
The Düsseldorf regional court judge sided with Clapton in his lawsuit and ordered the woman to pay nearly $4,000 in legal costs.
No Reports On Whether He Is Looking For Orphans to Sue
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The Grand Jury is Forbes-ing Ahead
On Thursday Forbes reporters Randall Lane and Chase Peterson-Withorn testified to one of two special grand juries convened by Cyrus Vance that are investigating Trump’s business dealings and have already criminally indicted the Trump Organization and its CFO. They were not cooperative witnesses. For three months they resisted testifying, but on Wednesday the judge ruled they must. Vance wasted no time, they were brought before the grand jury and testified the very next day. Lane published an article about the testimony on Friday.
According to Lane their testimony was very brief and laser focused on Trump. In particular, Lane’s testimony focused on his September 2015 article entitled “Inside Trump’s Epic Fantasy That Has Driven Him For 33 Years” that detailed Trump’s decades long obsession with the Forbe’s net worth estimate. Peterson-Withorn testified regarding his May 2017 article entitled “Donald Trump Has Been Lying About The Size Of His Penthouse.” The purpose of their testimony was to verify, under oath, the accuracy of their prior articles.
Lane’s testimony included:
That he never encountered anyone as obsessed over his net worth as much as Trump.
That Trump wanted his net worth inflated. Trump told Lane, “I look better if I’m worth $10 billion than if I’m worth $4 billion” because the higher number “was good for financing.”
In Lane’s first interview with Trump, in 1993, Trump called him from the hospital, where his then wife Marla Maples, had just given birth to Tiffany.
That Trump told Lane Forbes’ $530 million estimate for the value of Trump Tower should be increased to “$2 billion or $2.5 billion or $3 billion.”
That Trump told them the value of his apartment in Trump Tower was double the $100 million of their estimate. Trump claimed the apartment was 33,000 square feet. The article by Peterson-Withorn documented that the apartment was only a third that size.
That Trump, without solicitation, suggested to Lane that the headline for his 2015 story be “The King.”
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The QOP and Business Groups Show They LOVE Their Workers to Death
A federal appeals court panel on Friday allowed President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for larger private employers to move ahead.
The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a decision by a federal judge in a separate court that had paused the mandate nationwide.
The rule from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration was to take effect Jan. 4. With Friday’s ruling, it’s not clear when the requirement may be put in place.
Republican-led states joined with conservative groups, business associations and some individual businesses to push back against the requirement as soon as OSHA published the rules in early November. They argued that OSHA was not authorized to make the emergency rule.
They Might Consider That Sick and Dead Employees Hurt Productivity and the Bottom Line
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Apparently Kennedy's Friends Don't Like to Stay Healthy
Guests invited to a holiday party at the home of dedicated coronavirus vaccine opponent Robert Kennedy Jr. received invitations instructing them to get vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 before attending, sources told Politico.
Kennedy appeared to confirm the report, explaining to Politico that he was unaware of the instructions in the invitations, which he said were handled by his wife, actor Cheryl Hines of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
He noted that the party was for Hines’ Hollywood friends and fellow cast members, who apparently like to stay healthy.
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Now Is the Winter Of Our Discontent
If you're vaccinated, "we've done the right thing, and we will get through this," White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said.
"For the unvaccinated, you're looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm."
THESE are the Times That Try Men's Souls ... And Their Immune Systems
COVID cases in New York state triple, hit new record on Friday
New York state reported 21,027 positive COVID test results on Thursday, a new single-day record, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday.
This brings the positivity rate in New York to 7.98%. The state also reported 60 new COVID-related deaths over the last two days.
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If She Is Convicted, It Would Be Weird to See Kyle Rittenhouse Free and Her in Prison
Kimberly Potter, the white former Minnesota police officer on trial for fatally shooting Black motorist Daunte Wright, broke down in tears on Friday as she testified to being deeply sorry for mistaking her handgun for her Taser during a traffic stop.
Potter, 49, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree manslaughter charges, which carry maximum sentences of 15 and 10 years respectively. Potter has said she thought she was drawing her Taser when she shot Wright in the chest with her Glock 9mm handgun on April 11.
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This Seems Like Way Too Much
A truck driver was sentenced earlier this week to 110 years in prison for a 2019 crash that left four people dead and several others injured in Colorado. By Friday, more than 3.4 million people had signed a petition, asking Colorado Governor Jared Polis to grant clemency to Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, or commutation for time served.
Heather Gilbee, the author of the change.org petition wrote, "We are not trying to make it seem any less of a tragic accident that it is because yes, lives were lost."
In April 2019, the truck Aguilera-Mederos was driving lost its brakes, CBS Denver reported. He passed one of the state's runaway truck ramps as he descended from the mountains, a point the prosecution focused heavily on during the trial.
He then crashed into several cars stopped on eastbound I-70 in Lakewood, sparking a massive fire. The highway was shut down in both directions for roughly 24 hours, according to the station.
The crash killed 24-year-old Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano, 67-year-old William Bailey; 61-year-old Doyle Harrison and 69-year-old Stanley Politano.
Aguilera-Mederos was ultimately convicted of 27 counts, including vehicular homicide.
Homicide? Really?
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Bored? You Could Try This
A few weeks after the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, Michelle Garra signed up to volunteer with Court Watch PG, a Maryland-based organization that trains people to monitor trials to keep judges and prosecutors accountable.
Interest in organizations like Court Watch PG, which train volunteers to observe both real and virtual court proceedings and report problematic practices by judges and prosecutors, has risen since the Rittenhouse trial as more people cite concerns about bias in courts. While the methods of reporting vary by organization, most use the compiled data to alert the public about issues and sound the alarm to officials, among other things.
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In Case You Were Wondering, Roger Stone Has Committed Crimes
Roger Stone, longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump, appeared Friday before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, where he said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to every question asked of him.
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I'd Like A Big Mac, An Order of Racial Equality, and A Large Coke
McDonald's will pay $33.5 million to a former baseball player who owns multiple franchises to end a lawsuit he brought against the company, accusing it of racial discrimination.
Herb Washington, who is Black, owned more than a dozen restaurants in Ohio and Pennsylvania when he filed a lawsuit in February that said the company has treated White owners more favorably and denied him the opportunity to buy restaurants in more affluent communities.
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CDC doesn't do a good job of reporting around holidays.
Doses Administered 7-Day Average | Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses | Number of People Fully Vaccinated | New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Dec 18 | 1,562,366 | 241,205,528 | 203,727,446 | ||
| Dec 17 | 2,065,555 | 240,775,382 | 203,479,206 | 125,775 | 1,182 |
| Dec 16 | 2,043,207 | 240,321,022 | 203,159,327 | 122,296 | 1,179 |
| Dec 15 | 1,795,384 | 239,975,167 | 202,748,005 | 119,546 | 1,187 |
| Dec 14 | 1,904,464 | 239,553,956 | 202,504,037 | 117,950 | 1,143 |
| Dec 13 | 1,951,329 | 239,274,656 | 202,246,698 | 117,890 | 1,147 |
| Dec 12 | 1,984,721 | 239,008,166 | 201,975,235 | 116,742 | 1,131 |
| Dec 11 | 2,020,853 | 238,679,707 | 201,688,550 | 116,893 | 1,131 |
| Dec 10 | 1,721,570 | 238,143,066 | 201,279,582 | 118,575 | 1,146 |
| Dec 9 | 1,583,662 | 237,468,725 | 200,717,387 | 118,052 | 1,089 |
| Dec 8 | 1,611,831 | 237,087,380 | 200,400,533 | 118,515 | 1,092 |
| Dec 7 | 1,781,389 | 236,363,835 | 199,687,439 | 117,488 | 1,097 |
| Dec 6 | 1,780,807 | 236,018,871 | 199,313,022 | 117,179 | 1,117 |
| Dec 5 | 2,264,301 | 235,698,738 | 198,962,520 | 103,823 | 1,154 |
| Dec 4 | 2,009,864 | 235,297,964 | 198,592,167 | 105,554 | 1,150 |
| Dec 3 | 1,700,056 | 234,743,864 | 198,211,641 | 106,132 | 1,110 |
| Dec 2 | 1,428,263 | 234,269,053 | 197,838,728 | 96,425 | 975 |
| Dec 1 | 1,116,587 | 233,590,555 | 197,363,116 | 86,412 | 859 |
| Nov 30 | 1,152,647 | 233,207,582 | 197,058,988 | 82,846 | 816 |
| Nov 29 | 937,113 | 232,792,508 | 196,806,194 | 80,178 | 804 |
| Nov 28 | No Data | 72,008 | 719 | ||
| Nov 27 | No Data | 72,139 | 721 | ||
| Nov 26 | No Data | 73,962 | 742 | ||
| Nov 25 | No Data | 82,440 | 887 | ||
| Nov 24 | 898,833 | 231,367,686 | 196,168,756 | 93,931 | 989 |
| Nov 23 | 1,126,545 | 230,669,289 | 195,973,992 | 94,266 | 982 |
| Nov 22 | 1,521,815 | 230,732,565 | 196,398,948 | 93,668 | 1,009 |
| Nov 21 | 1,774,196 | 230,298,744 | 196,284,442 | 91,021 | 985 |
| Nov 20 | 2,136,513 | 229,837,421 | 196,128,496 | 90,823 | 996 |
| Nov 19 | 1,952,717 | 229,291,004 | 195,920,566 | 92,852 | 1,047 |
| Nov 18 | 1,870,564 | 228,570,531 | 195,713,107 | 94,260 | 1,069 |
| Nov 17 | 1,811,047 | 228,175,638 | 195,612,365 | 88,482 | 1,032 |
| Nov 16 | 1,608,906 | 227,691,941 | 195,435,688 | 85,944 | 1,028 |
| Nov 15 | 1,582,519 | 227,133,617 | 195,275,904 | 83,671 | 1,029 |
| Feb 16 | 1,716,311 | 39,670,551 | 15,015,434 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 72.7% | 61.4% | 29.1% |
| % of Population 12+ | 83.0% | 70.6% | 31.6% |
| % of Population 18+ | 85.0% | 72.4% | 43.3% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 87.4% | 53.9% |
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As Much As I Despise SC Fans, Jailing Them Would Be Over the Top
For most fans in cricket-obsessed India, an unexpected loss in Twenty20 World Cup competition on Sunday to archrival Pakistan meant heartbreak and despair. For a few Indians, cheering for the wrong team — Pakistan — brought serious consequences.
In Indian-controlled Kashmir, a restive majority-Muslim region on the India-Pakistan border claimed by both countries, police raided a hostel where medical students were seen cheering for Pakistan and opened an anti-terrorism investigation, local media reported. In Uttar Pradesh, a state in northeastern India, seven people were detained on suspicion of sedition, state officials and police announced. Five were arrested.
An Indian student has now spent nearly two months in jail for celebrating Pakistan’s victory in a cricket match.
--------------
Ode to A Bawdy, Fertile, Redhead
"The bawdy, fertile, redheaded matriarch of a sprawling Jewish-Mexican-Redneck American family has kicked it."
This is a line from an obituary to Renay Mandel Corren, a Texan woman who died on Saturday at the age of 84.
The tribute by her son, Andy, has taken social media by storm after it was published in The Fayetteville Observer.
The colourful piece says there will be "much mourning in the many glamourous locales she went bankrupt in".
This includes her hometown of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, where Corren "first fell in love with ham, and atheism," and Fayetteville and Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, where "Renay's dreams, credit rating and marriage are all buried".
Mr Corren writes that his mother's death is not good news for her "many surviving children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, many of whom she even knew and, in her own way, loved".
Here's the full obit
--------------
Here's the Perfect Christmas Gift For Your MAGA Friends
Necklaces and accessories claiming to "protect" people from 5G mobile networks have been found to be radioactive.
The Dutch authority for nuclear safety and radiation protection (ANVS) issued a warning about ten products it found gave off harmful ionising radiation.
It urged people not to use the products, which could cause harm with long-term wear.
There is no evidence that 5G networks are harmful to health. The World Health Organization says 5G mobile networks are safe, and not fundamentally different from existing 3G and 4G signals.
Mobile networks use non-ionising radio waves that do not damage DNA.
Don't The British Know How to Spell "Ionizing"?
--------------
This Is Good News, But How Foolish Do You Need to Be To Believe That They Won't Post Your Nude Video on the Web?
Hundreds of people tricked into making explicit videos for porn websites have been awarded the rights to the videos and millions of dollars in damages.
The sites, GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys, had been the subject of a long-running legal battle.
The US Department of Justice has ruled that rights to videos and images produced by the now-defunct sites belong to the women.
More than 400 victims can now ask for the online footage to be removed.
They are likely to enforce notices ordering the firms, including Pornhub and Google, to take down the material.
GirlsDoPorn producer Ruben Andre Garcia was sentenced in the summer to 20 years in federal prison for coercing women into appearing in sex videos.
The latest ruling is part of a restitution order from the prosecution of Garcia, who also went by the name Jonathan.
Originally, women responded to adverts for clothed modelling work and were then told they would be highly paid for anonymous adult video shoots.
About As Foolish as Believing the Check Is In the Mail
--------------
Bali May Call You ... But Not in 2020
A tourism powerhouse has logged just 45 international visitors in 2021
Back in 2019, the Indonesian island of Bali welcomed around 6.2 million international arrivals. This year, they've logged 45.
Almost all of that small handful of tourists reached the island by private yacht, as the island's Ngurah Rai International Airport has been closed to international flights nearly all year. While the airport officially reopened to international flights in October, so far it's handled only domestic flights, primarily from Jakarta.
To come to Bali, foreign visitors have to get a $300 business visa, take multiple PCR tests and buy special health insurance.
--------------
Someone Give This Professor a Medal
Kenyon Wilson is the associate head of performing arts at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and decided to put an Easter egg in the syllabus for his music seminar class this past semester.
University forces professor to change syllabus that threatened to dismiss students who argue against BLM, abortion or same-sex marriage
University forces professor to change syllabus that threatened to dismiss students who argue against BLM, abortion or same-sex marriage
The hint read: "Thus (free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five), students may be ineligible to make up classes and ..."
This would have led students to a locker that contained a $50 bill, free to the first student to claim it.
But at the end of the semester, when he went to check the locker, the bill was still there.
"It an academic trope that no one reads the syllabus," Wilson told CNN. "It's analogous to the terms and conditions when you're installing software, everyone clicks that they've read it when no one ever does."
The class was made up of 71 students.
But Not This One
A professor at Iowa State University has come under fire for threatening to discipline students who submit projects or papers opposing abortion, the Black Lives Matter movement or same-sex marriage.
The threat was made in the professor's English 250 syllabus, which was posted online and released by the Young America's Foundation (YAF) on Monday. The conservative group said a "whistleblower" tipped them off about the threat.
In the syllabus, the professor says the course's goal is to help students "develop skills in written, oral, visual, and electronic communication."
It also includes a "GIANT WARNING" for students: "Any instances of othering that you participate in intentionally (racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, sorophobia, transphobia, classism, mocking of mental health issues, body shaming, etc) in class are grounds for dismissal from the classroom," the syllabus read.
"The same goes for any papers/projects: you cannot choose any topic that takes at its base that one side doesn't deserve the same basic human rights as you do (ie: no arguments against gay marriage, abortion, Black Lives Matter, etc). I take this seriously."
--------------
Blame It On the Boomers
Early retirement — whether forced by the pandemic or made possible otherwise — is having a huge impact on the labor market. And data show that retiring boomers, far more than "lazy" millennials, are the biggest force behind the labor shortage.
It's Always Easy to Blame the Younger Generation
--------------
How About "Gayditch"?
Real-life quidditch, inspired by the magical game in "Harry Potter," is changing its name, citing author J.K. Rowling's "anti-trans positions in recent years."
US Quidditch and Major League Quidditch announced in a joint news release Wednesday that they will conduct a series of surveys over the next few months to decide on a new name for the sport, which resembles soccer and field hockey, but as a contact sport with broomsticks.
“For the last year or so, both leagues have been quietly collecting research to prepare for the move and been in extensive discussions with each other and trademark lawyers regarding how we can work together to make the name change as seamless as possible,” Major League Quidditch Commissioner Amanda Dallas said in the release.
The leagues say there are a few reasons for the name change. Among them is that the name "quidditch" is trademarked by Warner Bros., which produced the "Harry Potter" movies, and as a result the sport's expansion has been limited in its sponsorship and broadcast opportunities.
--------------
There Are More Bi-Sexuals in the QOP Than Bi-Paritsans
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Got A Feelin' 22 Is Gonna' Be a Good Year
--------------
More Crimes for DOJ to Ignore
To most of us, Kanye West’s short-lived presidential run was just one more sideshow to the existing circus surrounding everything former President Donald Trump touched in 2020.
West was largely dismissed, and some even felt that perhaps he was going through a mental health crisis and tried to simply look the other way at much of what he said and did, dismissing it as symptoms of an illness.
But either way, it has come to light that West’s run as a supposed “independent” was in actuality funded by an underground group of Republican political operatives, according to The Daily Beast, and West’s campaign failed to report it. That could be a violation of federal laws.
--------------
Slowhand Has Become Slime
Eric Clapton is not satisfied with flushing what remains of his reputation over Covid vaccinations. Now he is going after a 55 year old widow in Germany for trying to sell a concert CD that her late husband bought at a department store in 1987.
When a German woman listed an Eric Clapton CD on eBay over the summer, she thought the rock music purchased by her late husband decades earlier could fetch her around $11 in the online marketplace if she was lucky. Instead, it somehow got the attention of Clapton, who sued the woman for copyright infringement and accused her of selling a bootleg CD of one of his live shows from the 1980s.
The Düsseldorf regional court judge sided with Clapton in his lawsuit and ordered the woman to pay nearly $4,000 in legal costs.
No Reports On Whether He Is Looking For Orphans to Sue
--------------
The Grand Jury is Forbes-ing Ahead
On Thursday Forbes reporters Randall Lane and Chase Peterson-Withorn testified to one of two special grand juries convened by Cyrus Vance that are investigating Trump’s business dealings and have already criminally indicted the Trump Organization and its CFO. They were not cooperative witnesses. For three months they resisted testifying, but on Wednesday the judge ruled they must. Vance wasted no time, they were brought before the grand jury and testified the very next day. Lane published an article about the testimony on Friday.
According to Lane their testimony was very brief and laser focused on Trump. In particular, Lane’s testimony focused on his September 2015 article entitled “Inside Trump’s Epic Fantasy That Has Driven Him For 33 Years” that detailed Trump’s decades long obsession with the Forbe’s net worth estimate. Peterson-Withorn testified regarding his May 2017 article entitled “Donald Trump Has Been Lying About The Size Of His Penthouse.” The purpose of their testimony was to verify, under oath, the accuracy of their prior articles.
Lane’s testimony included:
That he never encountered anyone as obsessed over his net worth as much as Trump.
That Trump wanted his net worth inflated. Trump told Lane, “I look better if I’m worth $10 billion than if I’m worth $4 billion” because the higher number “was good for financing.”
In Lane’s first interview with Trump, in 1993, Trump called him from the hospital, where his then wife Marla Maples, had just given birth to Tiffany.
That Trump told Lane Forbes’ $530 million estimate for the value of Trump Tower should be increased to “$2 billion or $2.5 billion or $3 billion.”
That Trump told them the value of his apartment in Trump Tower was double the $100 million of their estimate. Trump claimed the apartment was 33,000 square feet. The article by Peterson-Withorn documented that the apartment was only a third that size.
That Trump, without solicitation, suggested to Lane that the headline for his 2015 story be “The King.”
--------------
The QOP and Business Groups Show They LOVE Their Workers to Death
A federal appeals court panel on Friday allowed President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for larger private employers to move ahead.
The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a decision by a federal judge in a separate court that had paused the mandate nationwide.
The rule from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration was to take effect Jan. 4. With Friday’s ruling, it’s not clear when the requirement may be put in place.
Republican-led states joined with conservative groups, business associations and some individual businesses to push back against the requirement as soon as OSHA published the rules in early November. They argued that OSHA was not authorized to make the emergency rule.
They Might Consider That Sick and Dead Employees Hurt Productivity and the Bottom Line
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Apparently Kennedy's Friends Don't Like to Stay Healthy
Guests invited to a holiday party at the home of dedicated coronavirus vaccine opponent Robert Kennedy Jr. received invitations instructing them to get vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 before attending, sources told Politico.
Kennedy appeared to confirm the report, explaining to Politico that he was unaware of the instructions in the invitations, which he said were handled by his wife, actor Cheryl Hines of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
He noted that the party was for Hines’ Hollywood friends and fellow cast members, who apparently like to stay healthy.
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Now Is the Winter Of Our Discontent
If you're vaccinated, "we've done the right thing, and we will get through this," White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said.
"For the unvaccinated, you're looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm."
THESE are the Times That Try Men's Souls ... And Their Immune Systems
COVID cases in New York state triple, hit new record on Friday
New York state reported 21,027 positive COVID test results on Thursday, a new single-day record, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday.
This brings the positivity rate in New York to 7.98%. The state also reported 60 new COVID-related deaths over the last two days.
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If She Is Convicted, It Would Be Weird to See Kyle Rittenhouse Free and Her in Prison
Kimberly Potter, the white former Minnesota police officer on trial for fatally shooting Black motorist Daunte Wright, broke down in tears on Friday as she testified to being deeply sorry for mistaking her handgun for her Taser during a traffic stop.
Potter, 49, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree manslaughter charges, which carry maximum sentences of 15 and 10 years respectively. Potter has said she thought she was drawing her Taser when she shot Wright in the chest with her Glock 9mm handgun on April 11.
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This Seems Like Way Too Much
A truck driver was sentenced earlier this week to 110 years in prison for a 2019 crash that left four people dead and several others injured in Colorado. By Friday, more than 3.4 million people had signed a petition, asking Colorado Governor Jared Polis to grant clemency to Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, or commutation for time served.
Heather Gilbee, the author of the change.org petition wrote, "We are not trying to make it seem any less of a tragic accident that it is because yes, lives were lost."
In April 2019, the truck Aguilera-Mederos was driving lost its brakes, CBS Denver reported. He passed one of the state's runaway truck ramps as he descended from the mountains, a point the prosecution focused heavily on during the trial.
He then crashed into several cars stopped on eastbound I-70 in Lakewood, sparking a massive fire. The highway was shut down in both directions for roughly 24 hours, according to the station.
The crash killed 24-year-old Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano, 67-year-old William Bailey; 61-year-old Doyle Harrison and 69-year-old Stanley Politano.
Aguilera-Mederos was ultimately convicted of 27 counts, including vehicular homicide.
Homicide? Really?
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Bored? You Could Try This
A few weeks after the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, Michelle Garra signed up to volunteer with Court Watch PG, a Maryland-based organization that trains people to monitor trials to keep judges and prosecutors accountable.
Interest in organizations like Court Watch PG, which train volunteers to observe both real and virtual court proceedings and report problematic practices by judges and prosecutors, has risen since the Rittenhouse trial as more people cite concerns about bias in courts. While the methods of reporting vary by organization, most use the compiled data to alert the public about issues and sound the alarm to officials, among other things.
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In Case You Were Wondering, Roger Stone Has Committed Crimes
Roger Stone, longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump, appeared Friday before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, where he said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to every question asked of him.
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I'd Like A Big Mac, An Order of Racial Equality, and A Large Coke
McDonald's will pay $33.5 million to a former baseball player who owns multiple franchises to end a lawsuit he brought against the company, accusing it of racial discrimination.
Herb Washington, who is Black, owned more than a dozen restaurants in Ohio and Pennsylvania when he filed a lawsuit in February that said the company has treated White owners more favorably and denied him the opportunity to buy restaurants in more affluent communities.
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