Post by mhbruin on Apr 5, 2022 9:23:43 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 562 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
987,990 Total confirmed deaths
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 5)
There was some rain in the Nor Cal. A little more in the ten-day.
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I Have Dropped the NBC COVID Data. It Makes No Sense.
I am still tracking the CDC data.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
For All of You Who Believe the Russian Denials, ... (Including TucKGBer)
A satellite image of Bucha in Ukraine appears to show bodies lying in the street nearly two weeks before the Russians left the town.
The image from 19 March, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by the BBC, directly contradicts Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's claim that footage of bodies in Bucha that has emerged in recent days was "staged" after the Russians withdrew.
The satellite image shows objects that appear to be bodies in the exact locations where they were subsequently found by Ukrainian forces when they regained control of the town north of Kyiv.
Along another section of the road, the image shows what appear to be more bodies on the ground.
I Kano Believe This
A Nigerian atheist has been sentenced to 24 years in prison by a high court in the northern state of Kano after being convicted of blaspheming Islam.
Mubarak Bala, the 37-year-old president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, pleaded guilty to all 18 charges and asked for leniency.
He has been in detention since 2020.
A group of Muslims had filed a petition to the authorities accusing Bala of posting uncomplimentary messages about Islam on social media.
Kano has a majority Muslim population. It is one of around a dozen states in northern Nigeria where Islamic law is practised alongside secular laws.
Bala could have faced the death penalty if he was tried in an Islamic court.
How Can You Tell Something Is a Scam? If Previous Guy is Involved
Much has been written and said about “Truth Social,” and 99% of that reporting is completely wrong, as it talks about the site as if it was ever intended to be a real thing. It was not. We are in late-stage capitalism where entrepreneurs no longer think about how to build better mousetraps. Instead, they spend their waking hours coming up with schemes where they can make loads of money just talking about how they MIGHT make a mouse trap — or maybe not.
Such is the case with Trump and “Truth Social.” The key thing to understand is that Trump has already gotten paid and has no more intention of building a real social network than he had of operating a viable airline or running a legitimate university. He never intended “Truth Social” to be a real site, so all of you who are fretting about how Devin Nunes could possibly manage the site can put your minds at ease. It was just another scam, and Nunes is the perfect guy for that — an ultra-obedient lapdog who could face the prison risk instead of Trump.
How does this work? Simple, but not so simple. One of Trump’s fellow money-launderers, Patrick Orlando, whom Trump undoubtedly met while participating in Russian money laundering schemes with Deutsche Bank, the world’s foremost money laundering organization, set up a thing called a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). SPACs are emblematic of the final late stages of capitalism. These are lovingly called “blank check” vehicles. They allow a fraudster, or even a legitimate entrepreneur, to set up a dummy corporation and to sell shares to the public with basically no business plan at all. They simply state they will invest the money in something, sometime. The investors have the right to pull out their money once those prospective investments are revealed.
That’s basically it. There are practically no rules. The only real rule is that you can’t do this with an investment already planned. That is to say, you can’t plan an investment, then fund it using the zero-disclosure permitted by hiding behind a SPAC. But that is, obviously, exactly what Trump and Orlando did, which is why they needed to find the stupidest dumbass on the planet to take the fall if anybody decides to prosecute this. Enter Devin Nunes, His only relevant qualification is his ability to go to prison if necessary.
So Trump and Orlando hatched this scheme, or maybe Orlando hatched it and convinced Trump to put his name on it. Either way, it doesn’t matter. The point is that when Trump’s name was added to the story, the SPAC shares took off, which really doesn’t matter because those people are eventually going to lose all their money unless they are in on the deal too. The key point is that the initial frenzy raised $290 Million and that money (less any where shareholders bailed out within their rescission period) has presumably been transferred to Trump, Nunes, and Orlando “on the other side” of the deal, i.e. Truth Social. The story to the SPAC investors will be, “Sorry guys, I guess we just made a bad investment. You know how tough it is in the social media world.”
And that’s it. That’s the whole game. It doesn’t matter if it flops. Indeed, Trump is doing nothing to promote it. The sooner it flops like Trump Air and Trump U. and Trump Steaks and Trump Wine, the better. It is remarkable that a man who has never succeeded at any business enterprise is still able to fleece so many people so easily, but that is the nature of late stage capitalism.
Previous Guy Would Laugh All the Way to the Bank, But I Don't Think He Laughs.
Stock in a company planning to buy Donald Trump's new social media business plunged Monday on a news report that two key staff members left and a regulatory filing that it will miss a key deadline to file its annual financial statements.
Digital World Acquisition Corp. dropped more than 10% in midday trading on a Reuters report that two key executives — one the company's chief technology officer — had left the company, citing two anonymous sources.
If This is True, ... Sickening!
George Carlin Had 7 Words You Can't Say On Television. Amazon Want to Top That.
Amazon is mulling a plan that would limit what words employees are allowed to use on an internal messaging app, according to documents obtained by The Intercept this week.
The proposal, first created in November 2021, is part of an effort to create an internal social media network to recognize employees with posts called “Shout-Outs.” The Intercept, citing the documents, said the plan was meant to foster happiness among workers and increase productivity, part of a broader push to gamify the work done inside its facilities.
The project, which has not launched, is also meant to include an “auto bad word monitor” to block out profane language and some inappropriate keywords. But, it may also bar a large list of terms as part of its pilot program, including: “I hate,” “This is concerning,” “petition,” “diversity,” “fairness” and “restroom,” among others.
“Our teams are always thinking about new ways to help employees engage with each other,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Intercept.
Of Course She Went There
How Many Ways Can You Be a Moron in 13 Words?
Daddy's Little Boy
The North Carolina Highway Patrol has released another dashcam video from a traffic stop of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) when he didn’t have his driver’s license and was speeding, according to the officer on the scene.
Cawthorn was cited in October for driving 89 mph in a 65 mph zone after he was pulled over in Buncombe County, according to Queen City News in Charlotte, North Carolina, which petitioned to obtain the video.
During the stop, Cawthorn said the car was his, then appeared surprised when the officer told him the vehicle was registered to his father.
“It looks like it’s registered to, I guess, your dad,” the officer said after checking.
“Is it really?” Cawthorn can be heard saying.
It was one of three traffic violations Cawthorn wracked up in five months, according to law enforcement records.
Queen City News earlier obtained a dashcam video from when Cawthorn was pulled over in Polk County in January. He was cited then for driving 87 mph in a 70 mph zone.
“XX Chromosomes, no Tallywacker.”
The QOP Continues To Solve Non-Existent Problems
Georgia's legislature approved a bill expanding law enforcement's power to investigate election fraud over the objections of voting rights groups, adding to a wave of Republican-backed legislation passed after former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
The legislation passed late Monday would give the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the state's top investigative agency, the authority to initiate probes of election crimes. Under current law, the secretary of state's office looks into allegations of irregularities and can ask the GBI for assistance as needed.
If Only This Had Happened in Georgia, They Would Have Something to Investigate
A former Trump administration official now running for Congress in New Hampshire voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, potentially violating federal voting law and leaving him at odds with the Republican Party’s intense focus on “election integrity."
Matt Mowers, a leading Republican primary candidate looking to unseat Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire's 2016 presidential primary, voting records show. At the time, Mowers served as the director of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's presidential campaign in the pivotal early voting state.
Four months later, after Christie's bid fizzled, Mowers cast another ballot in New Jersey's Republican presidential primary, using his parents' address to re-register in his home state, documents The Associated Press obtained through a public records request show.
Legal experts say Mowers' actions could violate a federal law that prohibits “voting more than once” in “any general, special, or primary election." That includes casting a ballot in separate jurisdictions “for an election to the same candidacy or office.” It also puts Mowers, who was a senior adviser in Donald Trump's administration and later held a State Department post, in an awkward spot at a time when much of his party has embraced the former president's lies about a stolen 2020 election and has pushed for restrictive new election laws.
Senators Want the Straight Dope
Senate Democrats are calling on a government watchdog to investigate McKinsey & Company over claims that the consulting giant skirted federal conflict-of-interest rules, a sign of growing concern on Capitol Hill that lucrative government contracts are being doled out to firms with dual loyalties.
In a letter to the Department of Health and Human Service inspector general, who has jurisdiction over the Food and Drug Administration, lawmakers encouraged investigators to probe McKinsey's alleged "failure ... to disclose potential conflicts of interest when [it] entered into contracts with the FDA on issues related to opioids, while simultaneously working for numerous opioid companies."
Representatives for McKinsey have denied any wrongdoing.
Other senators joining the effort include Sens. Patty Murray, Joe Manchin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin.
"We know that McKinsey worked with Purdue Pharma to 'turbocharge' sales of OxyContin, and it is deeply troubling that McKinsey was getting paid by opioid manufacturers such as Purdue Pharma at the same time it was working for the FDA," Hassan wrote. "We must get to the bottom of these reports and understand the full scope of McKinsey's involvement in fueling this crisis, as well as discover what more the FDA needs to do to avoid future conflicts of interest."
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
I Don't Know If This Qualifies Chuck for Best or Worst, But He Knows How to Rub It In
Barkley, who earlier “guaranteed” victory for Kansas, danced to The Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” and repeatedly tried to get the attention of North Carolina alum Smith.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Frozen Is More Than a Disney Movie. When Russia Asked About the Money, The West Says It Will Not Let It Go.
More than 60% of Putin's war chest has been frozen by sanctions but more needs to be done, Liz Truss has said.
The foreign secretary said "crippling" sanctions are pushing the Russian economy back "into the Soviet era".
More than $350bn (£266bn) of Russia's $604bn foreign currency reserves are unavailable to the regime, she added.
Frozen 2 - Can Putin Face This?
The United States stopped the Russian government on Monday from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at American banks, in a move meant to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and eat into its holdings of US dollars.
Under sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, foreign currency reserves held by the Russian central bank at US financial institutions were frozen.
But the Treasury Department had been allowing the Russian government to use those funds to make coupon payments on dollar-denominated sovereign debt on a case-by-case basis.
On Monday, as the largest of the payments came due, including a $552.4 million principal payment on a maturing bond, the US government decided to cut off Moscow's access to the frozen funds, according to a US Treasury spokesperson.
An $84 million coupon payment was also due on Monday on a 2042 sovereign dollar bond.
Report From the Kyiv Region
As Ukrainian forces continued to wrest territory back from Russian occupiers one village, town, and highway at a time, the strangest thing happened. If Russia didn’t manage to hang onto the suburbs around these cities, they were expected to keep a sizable force in the north; even if they were switching the focus of their invasion to the east and south. That’s because keeping Russian forces in the north, if only along the Belarus border, would force Ukraine to also keep a significant defensive force in place.
Only Russia didn’t do that. With the exception of a few small units that seemed to wander off and become the subject of that most euphemistic of military euphemisms, the “mopping up operation,” Russia simply ran for the border, Ukrainian shells chasing them all the way. What’s more, they didn’t stop when they reached Belarus. The airfields south of Gomel are no longer filled with Russian helicopters. the highways no longer lined with Russian forces. Those that can still move, have moved. They’re outta there.
Teaching Kids Something Practical
In a metro station in Kharkiv, a young woman holds up a toy car, a stuffed bear and a juice carton to a group of elementary school-age children.
"These are objects we come across in our daily lives," Julia Gorlenko, from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, explains. "They're bright and colorful. But they can also be dangerous."
She points at a replica model of a small plastic munition that a child might easily mistake as a toy. "This one can rip off your head, your hand or your leg."
As Russia continues its weeks-long bombardment of Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv's children are getting a harsh lesson in the realities of war.
Gorlenko is teaching them how to identify Russian explosives. The children are given coloring-in exercises that show them the difference between a grenade and a small football, or a gift box and a stick of dynamite.
"We used to play with all the toys in the sandpit," says one of the children, 6-year-old Semen, "but now I will be afraid to take them. If you take a toy out of the sandpit, (something) might explode."
Ukraine is Moving Faster than Merrick Garland
The prosecutor general’s office estimates the country is using about 50,000 investigators from five different law enforcement agencies to investigate war crimes. They are conducting interviews across the country and meticulously documenting evidence that they hope to use in war crimes prosecutions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the military force he sent to invade Ukraine.
So they have fanned out across Ukraine, addressing small groups of mostly female and elderly displaced people in churches, classrooms and auditoriums like this one in Kosiv. They explain that one day, there may be compensation for their lost loved ones, personal injuries and property losses, and that Russia can only be held accountable if its victims tell their stories in painstaking detail.
I Am Sure Coal Joe Manchin Is Celebrating
The European Commission is proposing a ban on Russian coal as part of a new package of sanctions, a move that responds to possible war crimes in Bucha,European Union officials said Tuesday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the latest sanctions package seeks to ban Russian coal imports, sanction four Russian banks and ban Russian vessels from E.U. ports, among other measures. The proposal will be debated by E.U. ambassadors on Wednesday.
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If a Butterfly Flaps It's Wings In China, Does That Affect Us? How About Locking Down a City?
War. Inflation. And now, Covid lockdown deja vu in China. It is a perfect storm for the global supply chain - how goods and materials get from other countries to you and me.
When disruptions take place in China, it is significant because about a third of the world's entire manufacturing capacity is based in the country.
If you're buying something online there's a very good chance it was made in Shenzhen - a city of 17.5 million in the south east where roughly half of all China's online retail exporters are based.
So, when Shenzhen went into a six-day lockdown on Sunday after a massive surge in Covid cases, it sent shockwaves through the world's businesses. The restrictions have since widened to other major cities and provinces like Shanghai, Jilin and Guangzhou.
Factories had to suspend production, and cities turned into ghost towns.
The number of ships waiting at some Chinese ports has already increased, according to project44 which monitors how freight is moving across the world. "We saw a 28.5% increase in the number of vessels waiting outside of the port of Yantian which is a major export port to Europe and North America," says Adam Compain, senior vice president of project44.
Report from Shanghai
The COVID-19 outbreak in China’s largest metropolis of Shanghai remains “extremely grim” amid an ongoing lockdown confining around 26 million people to their homes, a city official said Tuesday.
ADirector of Shanghai's working group on epidemic control, Gu Honghui, was quoted by state media as saying that the outbreak in the city was “still running at a high level."
“The situation is extremely grim," Gu said.
China has sent more than 10,000 health workers from around the country to aid the city, including 2,000 from the military, and is mass testing residents, some of whom have been locked down for weeks.
Most of eastern Shanghai, which was supposed to reopen last Friday, remained locked down along with the western half of the city.
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How Do You Kill a Hydra?
German authorities on Tuesday, in coordination with the U.S. Justice Department, shut down the Hydra market, a Russian-language site they described as the world’s largest and longest-running illegal marketplace on the dark web.
German investigators said they seized cryptocurrency worth about $25 million and said the site specialized in drug dealing. The site’s infrastructure was shut down in Germany, the result of an investigation that began eight months ago.
“Today the German Federal Criminal Police, in coordination with U.S. federal law enforcement, seized the servers of Hydra Market,” the Justice Department said in a brief statement. More details would be revealed later in the day, it said.
German authorities said the site had been active at least since 2015, offering illegal drugs, intercepted data and forged documents. They said it had more than 17 million customer accounts.
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Maybe Someone Just Found It Between the Couch Cushions.
Priceless notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin, one containing his famous "tree of life" sketch mapping out his theory of natural selection, have been mysteriously returned to Cambridge University more than 20 years after they went missing.
The university launched an appeal to get the notebooks back in 2020, in partnership with antique book experts, local police and Interpol, the international policing agency.
And to the astonishment of staff at the university's library, on March 9, the notebooks were returned.
Wrapped in plastic and left in a bright pink gift bag, with no obvious signs of damage, they were left outside the librarian’s office on the fourth floor of the grand 17-story library building, the university said in a statement Tuesday.
There was no clue as to who returned the books, just a message inside a brown envelope that read: "Librarian, Happy Easter X"“My sense of relief at the notebooks’ safe return is profound and almost impossible to adequately express," Cambridge University Librarian Jessica Gardner said.
“They may be tiny, just the size of postcards, but the notebooks’ impact on the history of science, and their importance to our world-class collections here, cannot be overstated.”
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If He Can Win the US Open on a Broken Leg, ...
Tiger Woods says "as of right now I feel like I am going to play" in the Masters -- and he thinks he can win it.
"I don't have any qualms about what I can do," he said at a news conference, responding to a question about whether he can win the tournament.
The 15-time major champion has been away from competitive golf for over a year, having suffered serious leg injuries in a car crash in February 2021.
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987,990 Total confirmed deaths
New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Apr 4 | 25,537 | 537 |
| Apr 3 | 25,074 | 572 |
| Apr 2 | 25,787 | 576 |
| Apr 1 | 26,106 | 584 |
| Mar 31 | 25,980 | 605 |
| Mar 30 | 25,732 | 626 |
| Mar 29 | 25,218 | 644 |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 |
| Mar 24 | 27,235 | 732 |
| Mar 23 | 27,134 | 753 |
| Mar 22 | 27,545 | 787 |
| Mar 21 | 28,657 | 861 |
| Mar 20 | 27,786 | 901 |
| Mar 19 | 27,747 | 909 |
| Mar 18 | 28,274 | 972 |
| Mar 17 | 29,317 | 1,035 |
| Mar 16 | 30,040 | 1,052 |
| Mar 15 | 30,934 | 1,107 |
| Mar 14 | 32,458 | 1,186 |
| Mar 13 | 34,113 | 1,187 |
| Mar 12 | 34,253 | 1,210 |
| Mar 11 | 34,805 | 1,198 |
| Mar 10 | 35,269 | 1,197 |
| Mar 9 | 37,146 | 1,179 |
| Mar 8 | 37,879 | 1,161 |
| Mar 7 | 40,433 | 1,208 |
| Mar 6 | 42,204 | 1,259 |
| Mar 5 | 43,665 | 1,281 |
| Mar 4 | 45,555 | 1,319 |
| Mar 3 | 49,888 | 1,413 |
| Mar 2 | 53,016 | 1,558 |
| Mar 1 | 56,253 | 1,674 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 76.9% | 65.5% | 44.8% |
| % of Population 5+ | 81.7% | 69.6% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 86.5% | 73.9% | 46.4% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.3% | 75.4% | 48.2% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 89.0% | 67.2% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 5)
There was some rain in the Nor Cal. A little more in the ten-day.
| Percent of Average for this Date | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 74% (62% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 66% (55%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 62% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 46% |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 55% |
| Snow Water Content - South | 52% |
I Have Dropped the NBC COVID Data. It Makes No Sense.
I am still tracking the CDC data.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
For All of You Who Believe the Russian Denials, ... (Including TucKGBer)
A satellite image of Bucha in Ukraine appears to show bodies lying in the street nearly two weeks before the Russians left the town.
The image from 19 March, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by the BBC, directly contradicts Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's claim that footage of bodies in Bucha that has emerged in recent days was "staged" after the Russians withdrew.
The satellite image shows objects that appear to be bodies in the exact locations where they were subsequently found by Ukrainian forces when they regained control of the town north of Kyiv.
Along another section of the road, the image shows what appear to be more bodies on the ground.
I Kano Believe This
A Nigerian atheist has been sentenced to 24 years in prison by a high court in the northern state of Kano after being convicted of blaspheming Islam.
Mubarak Bala, the 37-year-old president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, pleaded guilty to all 18 charges and asked for leniency.
He has been in detention since 2020.
A group of Muslims had filed a petition to the authorities accusing Bala of posting uncomplimentary messages about Islam on social media.
Kano has a majority Muslim population. It is one of around a dozen states in northern Nigeria where Islamic law is practised alongside secular laws.
Bala could have faced the death penalty if he was tried in an Islamic court.
How Can You Tell Something Is a Scam? If Previous Guy is Involved
Much has been written and said about “Truth Social,” and 99% of that reporting is completely wrong, as it talks about the site as if it was ever intended to be a real thing. It was not. We are in late-stage capitalism where entrepreneurs no longer think about how to build better mousetraps. Instead, they spend their waking hours coming up with schemes where they can make loads of money just talking about how they MIGHT make a mouse trap — or maybe not.
Such is the case with Trump and “Truth Social.” The key thing to understand is that Trump has already gotten paid and has no more intention of building a real social network than he had of operating a viable airline or running a legitimate university. He never intended “Truth Social” to be a real site, so all of you who are fretting about how Devin Nunes could possibly manage the site can put your minds at ease. It was just another scam, and Nunes is the perfect guy for that — an ultra-obedient lapdog who could face the prison risk instead of Trump.
How does this work? Simple, but not so simple. One of Trump’s fellow money-launderers, Patrick Orlando, whom Trump undoubtedly met while participating in Russian money laundering schemes with Deutsche Bank, the world’s foremost money laundering organization, set up a thing called a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). SPACs are emblematic of the final late stages of capitalism. These are lovingly called “blank check” vehicles. They allow a fraudster, or even a legitimate entrepreneur, to set up a dummy corporation and to sell shares to the public with basically no business plan at all. They simply state they will invest the money in something, sometime. The investors have the right to pull out their money once those prospective investments are revealed.
That’s basically it. There are practically no rules. The only real rule is that you can’t do this with an investment already planned. That is to say, you can’t plan an investment, then fund it using the zero-disclosure permitted by hiding behind a SPAC. But that is, obviously, exactly what Trump and Orlando did, which is why they needed to find the stupidest dumbass on the planet to take the fall if anybody decides to prosecute this. Enter Devin Nunes, His only relevant qualification is his ability to go to prison if necessary.
So Trump and Orlando hatched this scheme, or maybe Orlando hatched it and convinced Trump to put his name on it. Either way, it doesn’t matter. The point is that when Trump’s name was added to the story, the SPAC shares took off, which really doesn’t matter because those people are eventually going to lose all their money unless they are in on the deal too. The key point is that the initial frenzy raised $290 Million and that money (less any where shareholders bailed out within their rescission period) has presumably been transferred to Trump, Nunes, and Orlando “on the other side” of the deal, i.e. Truth Social. The story to the SPAC investors will be, “Sorry guys, I guess we just made a bad investment. You know how tough it is in the social media world.”
And that’s it. That’s the whole game. It doesn’t matter if it flops. Indeed, Trump is doing nothing to promote it. The sooner it flops like Trump Air and Trump U. and Trump Steaks and Trump Wine, the better. It is remarkable that a man who has never succeeded at any business enterprise is still able to fleece so many people so easily, but that is the nature of late stage capitalism.
Previous Guy Would Laugh All the Way to the Bank, But I Don't Think He Laughs.
Stock in a company planning to buy Donald Trump's new social media business plunged Monday on a news report that two key staff members left and a regulatory filing that it will miss a key deadline to file its annual financial statements.
Digital World Acquisition Corp. dropped more than 10% in midday trading on a Reuters report that two key executives — one the company's chief technology officer — had left the company, citing two anonymous sources.
If This is True, ... Sickening!
George Carlin Had 7 Words You Can't Say On Television. Amazon Want to Top That.
Amazon is mulling a plan that would limit what words employees are allowed to use on an internal messaging app, according to documents obtained by The Intercept this week.
The proposal, first created in November 2021, is part of an effort to create an internal social media network to recognize employees with posts called “Shout-Outs.” The Intercept, citing the documents, said the plan was meant to foster happiness among workers and increase productivity, part of a broader push to gamify the work done inside its facilities.
The project, which has not launched, is also meant to include an “auto bad word monitor” to block out profane language and some inappropriate keywords. But, it may also bar a large list of terms as part of its pilot program, including: “I hate,” “This is concerning,” “petition,” “diversity,” “fairness” and “restroom,” among others.
“Our teams are always thinking about new ways to help employees engage with each other,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Intercept.
Of Course She Went There
How Many Ways Can You Be a Moron in 13 Words?
Daddy's Little Boy
The North Carolina Highway Patrol has released another dashcam video from a traffic stop of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) when he didn’t have his driver’s license and was speeding, according to the officer on the scene.
Cawthorn was cited in October for driving 89 mph in a 65 mph zone after he was pulled over in Buncombe County, according to Queen City News in Charlotte, North Carolina, which petitioned to obtain the video.
During the stop, Cawthorn said the car was his, then appeared surprised when the officer told him the vehicle was registered to his father.
“It looks like it’s registered to, I guess, your dad,” the officer said after checking.
“Is it really?” Cawthorn can be heard saying.
It was one of three traffic violations Cawthorn wracked up in five months, according to law enforcement records.
Queen City News earlier obtained a dashcam video from when Cawthorn was pulled over in Polk County in January. He was cited then for driving 87 mph in a 70 mph zone.
“XX Chromosomes, no Tallywacker.”
The QOP Continues To Solve Non-Existent Problems
Georgia's legislature approved a bill expanding law enforcement's power to investigate election fraud over the objections of voting rights groups, adding to a wave of Republican-backed legislation passed after former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
The legislation passed late Monday would give the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the state's top investigative agency, the authority to initiate probes of election crimes. Under current law, the secretary of state's office looks into allegations of irregularities and can ask the GBI for assistance as needed.
If Only This Had Happened in Georgia, They Would Have Something to Investigate
A former Trump administration official now running for Congress in New Hampshire voted twice during the 2016 primary election season, potentially violating federal voting law and leaving him at odds with the Republican Party’s intense focus on “election integrity."
Matt Mowers, a leading Republican primary candidate looking to unseat Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, cast an absentee ballot in New Hampshire's 2016 presidential primary, voting records show. At the time, Mowers served as the director of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's presidential campaign in the pivotal early voting state.
Four months later, after Christie's bid fizzled, Mowers cast another ballot in New Jersey's Republican presidential primary, using his parents' address to re-register in his home state, documents The Associated Press obtained through a public records request show.
Legal experts say Mowers' actions could violate a federal law that prohibits “voting more than once” in “any general, special, or primary election." That includes casting a ballot in separate jurisdictions “for an election to the same candidacy or office.” It also puts Mowers, who was a senior adviser in Donald Trump's administration and later held a State Department post, in an awkward spot at a time when much of his party has embraced the former president's lies about a stolen 2020 election and has pushed for restrictive new election laws.
Senators Want the Straight Dope
Senate Democrats are calling on a government watchdog to investigate McKinsey & Company over claims that the consulting giant skirted federal conflict-of-interest rules, a sign of growing concern on Capitol Hill that lucrative government contracts are being doled out to firms with dual loyalties.
In a letter to the Department of Health and Human Service inspector general, who has jurisdiction over the Food and Drug Administration, lawmakers encouraged investigators to probe McKinsey's alleged "failure ... to disclose potential conflicts of interest when [it] entered into contracts with the FDA on issues related to opioids, while simultaneously working for numerous opioid companies."
Representatives for McKinsey have denied any wrongdoing.
Other senators joining the effort include Sens. Patty Murray, Joe Manchin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin.
"We know that McKinsey worked with Purdue Pharma to 'turbocharge' sales of OxyContin, and it is deeply troubling that McKinsey was getting paid by opioid manufacturers such as Purdue Pharma at the same time it was working for the FDA," Hassan wrote. "We must get to the bottom of these reports and understand the full scope of McKinsey's involvement in fueling this crisis, as well as discover what more the FDA needs to do to avoid future conflicts of interest."
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
I Don't Know If This Qualifies Chuck for Best or Worst, But He Knows How to Rub It In
Barkley, who earlier “guaranteed” victory for Kansas, danced to The Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” and repeatedly tried to get the attention of North Carolina alum Smith.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Frozen Is More Than a Disney Movie. When Russia Asked About the Money, The West Says It Will Not Let It Go.
More than 60% of Putin's war chest has been frozen by sanctions but more needs to be done, Liz Truss has said.
The foreign secretary said "crippling" sanctions are pushing the Russian economy back "into the Soviet era".
More than $350bn (£266bn) of Russia's $604bn foreign currency reserves are unavailable to the regime, she added.
Frozen 2 - Can Putin Face This?
The United States stopped the Russian government on Monday from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at American banks, in a move meant to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and eat into its holdings of US dollars.
Under sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, foreign currency reserves held by the Russian central bank at US financial institutions were frozen.
But the Treasury Department had been allowing the Russian government to use those funds to make coupon payments on dollar-denominated sovereign debt on a case-by-case basis.
On Monday, as the largest of the payments came due, including a $552.4 million principal payment on a maturing bond, the US government decided to cut off Moscow's access to the frozen funds, according to a US Treasury spokesperson.
An $84 million coupon payment was also due on Monday on a 2042 sovereign dollar bond.
Report From the Kyiv Region
As Ukrainian forces continued to wrest territory back from Russian occupiers one village, town, and highway at a time, the strangest thing happened. If Russia didn’t manage to hang onto the suburbs around these cities, they were expected to keep a sizable force in the north; even if they were switching the focus of their invasion to the east and south. That’s because keeping Russian forces in the north, if only along the Belarus border, would force Ukraine to also keep a significant defensive force in place.
Only Russia didn’t do that. With the exception of a few small units that seemed to wander off and become the subject of that most euphemistic of military euphemisms, the “mopping up operation,” Russia simply ran for the border, Ukrainian shells chasing them all the way. What’s more, they didn’t stop when they reached Belarus. The airfields south of Gomel are no longer filled with Russian helicopters. the highways no longer lined with Russian forces. Those that can still move, have moved. They’re outta there.
Teaching Kids Something Practical
In a metro station in Kharkiv, a young woman holds up a toy car, a stuffed bear and a juice carton to a group of elementary school-age children.
"These are objects we come across in our daily lives," Julia Gorlenko, from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, explains. "They're bright and colorful. But they can also be dangerous."
She points at a replica model of a small plastic munition that a child might easily mistake as a toy. "This one can rip off your head, your hand or your leg."
As Russia continues its weeks-long bombardment of Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv's children are getting a harsh lesson in the realities of war.
Gorlenko is teaching them how to identify Russian explosives. The children are given coloring-in exercises that show them the difference between a grenade and a small football, or a gift box and a stick of dynamite.
"We used to play with all the toys in the sandpit," says one of the children, 6-year-old Semen, "but now I will be afraid to take them. If you take a toy out of the sandpit, (something) might explode."
Ukraine is Moving Faster than Merrick Garland
The prosecutor general’s office estimates the country is using about 50,000 investigators from five different law enforcement agencies to investigate war crimes. They are conducting interviews across the country and meticulously documenting evidence that they hope to use in war crimes prosecutions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the military force he sent to invade Ukraine.
So they have fanned out across Ukraine, addressing small groups of mostly female and elderly displaced people in churches, classrooms and auditoriums like this one in Kosiv. They explain that one day, there may be compensation for their lost loved ones, personal injuries and property losses, and that Russia can only be held accountable if its victims tell their stories in painstaking detail.
I Am Sure Coal Joe Manchin Is Celebrating
The European Commission is proposing a ban on Russian coal as part of a new package of sanctions, a move that responds to possible war crimes in Bucha,European Union officials said Tuesday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the latest sanctions package seeks to ban Russian coal imports, sanction four Russian banks and ban Russian vessels from E.U. ports, among other measures. The proposal will be debated by E.U. ambassadors on Wednesday.
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If a Butterfly Flaps It's Wings In China, Does That Affect Us? How About Locking Down a City?
War. Inflation. And now, Covid lockdown deja vu in China. It is a perfect storm for the global supply chain - how goods and materials get from other countries to you and me.
When disruptions take place in China, it is significant because about a third of the world's entire manufacturing capacity is based in the country.
If you're buying something online there's a very good chance it was made in Shenzhen - a city of 17.5 million in the south east where roughly half of all China's online retail exporters are based.
So, when Shenzhen went into a six-day lockdown on Sunday after a massive surge in Covid cases, it sent shockwaves through the world's businesses. The restrictions have since widened to other major cities and provinces like Shanghai, Jilin and Guangzhou.
Factories had to suspend production, and cities turned into ghost towns.
The number of ships waiting at some Chinese ports has already increased, according to project44 which monitors how freight is moving across the world. "We saw a 28.5% increase in the number of vessels waiting outside of the port of Yantian which is a major export port to Europe and North America," says Adam Compain, senior vice president of project44.
Report from Shanghai
The COVID-19 outbreak in China’s largest metropolis of Shanghai remains “extremely grim” amid an ongoing lockdown confining around 26 million people to their homes, a city official said Tuesday.
ADirector of Shanghai's working group on epidemic control, Gu Honghui, was quoted by state media as saying that the outbreak in the city was “still running at a high level."
“The situation is extremely grim," Gu said.
China has sent more than 10,000 health workers from around the country to aid the city, including 2,000 from the military, and is mass testing residents, some of whom have been locked down for weeks.
Most of eastern Shanghai, which was supposed to reopen last Friday, remained locked down along with the western half of the city.
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How Do You Kill a Hydra?
German authorities on Tuesday, in coordination with the U.S. Justice Department, shut down the Hydra market, a Russian-language site they described as the world’s largest and longest-running illegal marketplace on the dark web.
German investigators said they seized cryptocurrency worth about $25 million and said the site specialized in drug dealing. The site’s infrastructure was shut down in Germany, the result of an investigation that began eight months ago.
“Today the German Federal Criminal Police, in coordination with U.S. federal law enforcement, seized the servers of Hydra Market,” the Justice Department said in a brief statement. More details would be revealed later in the day, it said.
German authorities said the site had been active at least since 2015, offering illegal drugs, intercepted data and forged documents. They said it had more than 17 million customer accounts.
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Maybe Someone Just Found It Between the Couch Cushions.
Priceless notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin, one containing his famous "tree of life" sketch mapping out his theory of natural selection, have been mysteriously returned to Cambridge University more than 20 years after they went missing.
The university launched an appeal to get the notebooks back in 2020, in partnership with antique book experts, local police and Interpol, the international policing agency.
And to the astonishment of staff at the university's library, on March 9, the notebooks were returned.
Wrapped in plastic and left in a bright pink gift bag, with no obvious signs of damage, they were left outside the librarian’s office on the fourth floor of the grand 17-story library building, the university said in a statement Tuesday.
There was no clue as to who returned the books, just a message inside a brown envelope that read: "Librarian, Happy Easter X"“My sense of relief at the notebooks’ safe return is profound and almost impossible to adequately express," Cambridge University Librarian Jessica Gardner said.
“They may be tiny, just the size of postcards, but the notebooks’ impact on the history of science, and their importance to our world-class collections here, cannot be overstated.”
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If He Can Win the US Open on a Broken Leg, ...
Tiger Woods says "as of right now I feel like I am going to play" in the Masters -- and he thinks he can win it.
"I don't have any qualms about what I can do," he said at a news conference, responding to a question about whether he can win the tournament.
The 15-time major champion has been away from competitive golf for over a year, having suffered serious leg injuries in a car crash in February 2021.
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