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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:25:07 GMT -8
The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
Have a Cuppa' Sexual Abuse
Sexual exploitation has been uncovered on tea farms that supply some of the UK's most popular brands, including PG Tips, Lipton and Sainsbury's Red Label.
More than 70 women on Kenyan tea farms, owned for years by two British companies, told the BBC they had been sexually abused by their supervisors.
Secret filming showed local bosses, on plantations owned by Unilever and James Finlay & Co, pressuring an undercover reporter for sex.
Three managers have now been suspended.
Unilever faced similar allegations more than 10 years ago and launched a "zero tolerance" approach to sexual harassment as well as a reporting system and other measures, but a joint investigation for BBC Africa Eye and Panorama found evidence that allegations of sexual harassment were not being acted on.
The BBC's Tom Odula spoke to women who worked on tea farms run by both companies. A number told him that because work is so scarce, they are left with no choice but to give in to the sexual demands of their bosses or face having no income.
"I can't lose my job because I have kids," said one woman.
Another woman said a divisional manager stopped her job until she agreed to have sex with him.
"It is just torture; he wants to sleep with you, then you get a job," she said.
One woman also told the BBC that she had been infected with HIV by her supervisor, after being pressured into having sex with him.
This Story Isn't Really About Tea. It's About Third-World Poverty.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:31:33 GMT -8
Come in Mystery Guest and Sign In, Please
Surprise and joy in Kyiv after Biden the mystery guest shuts down Ukraine’s capital
Residents and officials alike hailed Monday's high-risk visit as a historic moment that carried huge symbolism ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
After almost a year of war, Kyiv is used to the unexpected.
On Monday the surprise was a welcome one, with Ukrainians hailing President Joe Biden's visit as a historic moment that carried huge symbolism ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion.
Before news of Biden's secret trip filtered out, residents of the Ukrainian capital reported closed roads and unusual traffic jams, stoking the social media rumor mill with suggestions of a high-profile guest. Few expected to see the president of the United States walking around the center of town soon after, an unannounced ambassador of hope that the Western alliance backing Kyiv's defense against the Kremlin's attacks can remain strong.
Evheniy Lazarenko, 30, told NBC News he was surprised given the dangers involved, which made Biden's presence all the more appreciated.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:37:26 GMT -8
O, we don't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan
The whole state of Michigan, the whole state of Michigan
We don't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan, we're from Ohio the QOP
In today’s Republican Party it is no longer enough to deny that Donald Trump lost in 2020. The true Republican diehards demand that their leaders deny that Republicans ever lose any election.
That played out at the Michigan GOP convention over the weekend, with Trump’s pick for state party chair being defeated by a candidate who is even more extreme an election denier. It took three rounds of voting—counted by hand because Republicans have also made it an article of faith not to accept voting technology, even at their own convention—but Kristina Karamo prevailed over second-place finisher and Trump endorsee Matt DePerno.
Karamo ran for secretary of state in 2022, losing by 14 points. DePerno ran for attorney general, losing by 8.6 points. But DePerno conceded that he had lost, while Karamo refused to concede. At the state party convention, she made that part of her campaign message, saying, “Conceding to a fraudulent person is agreeing with the fraud, which I will not do.”
When it comes to 2020, DePerno has been an election denier in good standing, having made his name as a Republican and earned Trump’s endorsement on the basis of his quest to prove fraud in that election. He’s even faced a criminal investigation for tampering with voting machines in 2021. That is the kind of stuff that gets you Donald Trump’s endorsement to lead a state Republican Party. But apparently it is not enough for Michigan Republicans. “Matt ran out on us; he didn’t fight for us,” one delegate told The Washington Post.
Election denial isn’t Karamo’s only angle, though. At the convention, she said, “My goal number one as a Christian is to bring people to Christ, and secondarily to save our country.”
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:38:53 GMT -8
The Truth About Fox Noise
The former producer said he sensed himself being brainwashed while consuming all of the right-wing content from the Fox & Friends hosts and guests. He felt himself transforming into one of the millions of Fox addicts across America. “People don’t care if it’s right; they just want their side to win. That’s who this show is for,” he said. “It’s sad.”
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:40:25 GMT -8
Awarding the QOP Nomination to DeathSentence May Be Premature a Year Before the First Contest.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:41:28 GMT -8
Will He Bring Paper Towels to Clean Up a Toxic Chemical Spill?
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:45:33 GMT -8
Living in a Libertarian Paradise. (No Gangstas Allowed)
The libertarian paradise of Rio Verde Foothills is nestled out in the desert near Scottsdale, Arizona.
It was formed specifically to avoid the rules and regulations required for civilized society, and it is situated in dry, harsh conditions. For example, Arizona law requires developers to plan for 100 years of water use. Every new development has to engage in a process for securing water rights in compliance with the law. Rio Verde Foothills avoided that requirement by exploiting a big loophole in the law: It only requires it for subdivisions larger than five homes. You can guess what developers in Rio Verde Foothills did to circumvent that—they built five-home lots. For them, it was an easy payday, and the self-styled “rugged individualists” who chose to live there could brag about keeping government off their backs and paying fewer taxes. The area doesn’t even have a government.
Problem is, they live in a desert. Humans need water to survive.
For a while, all was good; Rio Verde Foothills was supplied by Scottsdale. Water trucks would roll out to a tap at the edge of town, fill up, then truck that water to individual homes, filling a standard 5,000-gallon tank buried in their yards.
But for years, the city warned that the agreement could not continue in perpetuity. It needed the water for its own growth. Rio Verde Foothills ignored the issue—until the day that Scottsdale finally cut them off.
"We've been telling them for five years since this began that we are not their permanent water solution," said Valerie Schneider, Scottsdale Water's Public information officer. "At some point, we have to realize this is our water, we're in a drought, we're in a Colorado River shortage so we have to take a stance."
One resident hilariously told The Guardian that “her community didn’t ‘want a handout’ from Scottsdale. They want time to figure out a plan and, to her, Scottsdale shutting the water off is unneighborly and un-American.” Apparently, five years wasn’t enough. And … funny to hear a libertarian talk about being “unneighborly.” Isn’t that literally their thing? That woman had more to say:
“Think of the sacrifices some Americans have made for each other. And then these people are sitting here saying, ‘Well, you know, you should just dry up and die.’ Really? I just find it mind-blowingly unpatriotic,” she said.
Let me find that head-mushroom-cloud emoji … 🤯
Nothing says “AMERICA FUCK YEAH” more than putting up a house in the middle of a desert, without any regard to infrastructure, in a place designed to avoid laws, regulations, and government, and then crying when someone else won’t cater to your needs and whims. AMERICA!
Residents have had two options: one, have the private water haulers find other sources of water, which they’ve already done. But those sources are further out and are just as subject to being cut off, as Scottsdale did. This increases uncertainty and costs. Libertarian free-market principles can get pricey!
The other option was, well, government.
Incorporating could give the community more options for water supply in future but forming an official town or city brings requirements, such as paved roads, street lights, more taxation and rules.
Dear god, could you imagine? Well, what about creating a new water district? That could also work!
When some proposed forming their own self-funded water provider, other residents revolted, saying the idea would foist an expensive, freedom-stealing new arm of government on them. The idea collapsed.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:52:37 GMT -8
I Have Been to a Tailgate Before a Utah Football Game. Nice People and Plenty to Drink
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:55:36 GMT -8
She Didn't Go To the Clinic Looking for a Hand-Out. She Was Looking for a Hand.
For nearly a decade, Heather Rendulic lived – as she put it – as a one-armed person in a two-armed world. Then, for a month in 2021, she got a respite.
A stimulator implanted in her neck sent electrical signals into her spinal cord and she could suddenly control her left hand, which had sat mostly immobile since she suffered a series of strokes in her early 20s.
The first day the implant was turned on, researchers asked her to open and close her hand – and she could.
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"My husband and mom were with me. We were in tears and just overjoyed," said Rendulic, now 33.
Over the course of those four weeks, she got better and better at picking up small blocks, moving them and letting them drop. She drew with her left hand, though she admits she's "not an artist whatsoever." She ate Chick-fil-A nuggets without her dominant arm. And the best day of all was when researchers bought her a nice juicy steak she could cut on her own.
Rendulic was one of two stroke patients in a pilot clinical trial at the University of Pittsburgh. The results, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, mark the first time such stimulation has been used to restore arm and hand movements to people immobilized by stroke.
The technique, called epidural stimulation, was developed to treat people paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. So far, a small number of people around the world who were told they'd never move their arms or legs again have regained some motion – standing, stepping, even peddling a bicycle.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:57:43 GMT -8
Tha's 5 Down. 38.4 Million to Go
5th person confirmed to be cured of HIV
Researchers are announcing that a 53-year-old man in Germany has been cured of HIV.
Referred to as "the Dusseldorf patient" to protect his privacy, researchers said he is the fifth confirmed case of an HIV cure. Although the details of his successful treatment were first announced at a conference in 2019, researchers could not confirm he had been officially cured at that time.
Today, researchers announced the Dusseldorf patient still has no detectable virus in his body, even after stopping his HIV medication four years ago.
"It’s really cure, and not just, you know, long term remission," said Dr. Bjorn-Erik Ole Jensen, who presented details of the case in a new publication in "Nature Medicine."
"This obviously positive symbol makes hope, but there's a lot of work to do," Jensen said
For most people, HIV is a lifelong infection, and the virus is never fully eradicated. Thanks to modern medication, people with HIV can live long and healthy lives.
The Dusseldorf patient joins a small group of people who have been cured under extreme circumstances after a stem cell transplant, typically only performed in cancer patients who don’t have any other options. A stem cell transplant is a high-risk procedure that effectively replaces a person's immune system. The primary goal is to cure someone's cancer, but the procedure has also led to an HIV cure in a handful of cases.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 9:59:48 GMT -8
Remember This the Next Time You Are Annoyed by a Slow TSA Line
The woman flying out of Philadelphia’s airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. But what was more important was what she forgot to unpack: a loaded .380-caliber handgun in a black holster.
The weapon was one of the 6,542 guns that the Transportation Security Administration intercepted last year at airport checkpoints across the country. The number — roughly 18 per day — was an all-time high for guns intercepted at U.S. airports, and is sparking concern at a time when more Americans are armed.
“What we see in our checkpoints really reflects what we’re seeing in society, and in society there are more people carrying firearms nowadays,” TSA administrator David Pekoske said.
With the exception of pandemic-disrupted 2020, the number of weapons intercepted at airport checkpoints has climbed every year since 2010. Experts don't think this is an epidemic of would-be hijackers — nearly all the people caught claim to have forgotten they had the gun with them — but they emphasize the danger that even one gun can pose in the wrong hands on a plane or at a checkpoint.
Gun interceptions tend to happen more often at bigger airports in areas with gun-friendlier laws, Pekoske said. The top 10 list for gun interceptions in 2022 comprises Dallas, Austin and Houston in Texas; three Florida airports; Nashville; Atlanta; Phoenix; and Denver.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 20, 2023 10:12:26 GMT -8
Super Pig is Not the Latest Marvel Hero
For decades, wild pigs have been antagonizing flora and fauna in the US: gobbling up crops, spreading disease, and even killing deer and elk.
PNow, as fears over the potential of the pig impact in the US grow, North America is also facing a new swine-related threat, as a Canadian “super pig”, a giant, “incredibly intelligent, highly elusive” beast capable of surviving cold climates by tunneling under snow, is poised to infiltrate the north of the country.
Related: Lynx facing extinction in France as population drops at most to 150 cats
The emergence of the so-called super pig, a result of cross-breeding domestic pigs with wild boars, only adds to the problems the US faces from the swine invasion.
Pigs are not native to the US, but have wrought havoc in recent decades: the government estimates the country’s approximately 6m wild, or feral, pigs cause $1.5bn of damage each year.
In parts of the country, the pigs’ prevalence has sparked a whole hog hunting industry, where people pay thousands of dollars to mow down boar and sow with machine guns. But overall, the impact of the pigs, first introduced to the US in the 16th century, has very much been a negative, as the undiscerning swine has chomped its way across the country.
“We see direct competition for our native species for food,” said Michael Marlow, assistant program manager for the Department of Agriculture’s National feral swine damage management program.
“However, pigs are also accomplished predators. They’ll opportunistically come upon a hidden animal, and the males have long tusks, so they’re very capable of running and grabbing one with their mouth.
“They’ll kill young fawns, they’re known to be nest predators, so they impact turkeys and potentially quail.”
The wild pigs are also responsible for a laundry list of environmental damages, ranging from eating innocent farmers’ crops to destroying trees and polluting water. They also pose “a human health and safety risk”, Marlow said.
A pig is a “mixing vessel”, capable of carrying viruses, such as flu, which are transmittable to humans. National Geographic reported that pigs have the potential to “create a novel influenza virus”, which could spread to humankind.
All Pigs Are Equal, But Some Pigs Are More Equal Than Others
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