|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 9:31:36 GMT -8
The doctor said I’m going deaf. It was hard to hear.
You Can Pick Your Friends and You Can Pick Your Nose, But You Should Be Careful in Picking Client
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his attorney, Joe Sibley, reportedly sat in silence and facing away from one another during an appearance in court on Friday morning.
CBS News' Scott MacFarlane reports that Giuliani and Sibley "aren’t speaking to each other. Not at all."
The reporter added that the two men had even "pivoted in their chairs away from each other."
Sibley this week made a number of potentially insulting comments about his client as he tried to limit the damages that a jury will award the man once known as "America's mayor" for his response to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.
Things got off to a rocky start on Monday when Giuliani once again made false claims about plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom Giuliani had already been found liable for defaming.
That led Sibley to argue that Giuliani's age had caused him to not think clearly about the words that were coming out of his mouth.
"This has taken a bit of a toll on him," Sibley said. "He’s almost 80 years old. I think he was sitting here all day at trial at his age."
Sibley also implicitly compared his own client to people who still believe that the Earth is flat.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 9:35:42 GMT -8
The Insane in Ukraine Picks a Wierd Way to Complain
A village councillor in western Ukraine has thrown grenades on to the floor of a council meeting, wounding 26 people, police say.
The attack took place on Friday morning at the village council headquarters in Keretsky in the western Transcarpathian region.
Police have not yet commented on a possible motive for the attack, which has left six seriously wounded.
The meeting was being livestreamed on Facebook when the incident took place.
Councillors had been holding a heated discussion about their budget for 2024 as well as this year's financial results and holding a vote on awarding the council chief a bonus.
Almost 90 minutes into the meeting, the footage shows one of the village councillors shouting, objecting to the budget. The man, wearing a dark jacket, then leaves the room, taking another man with him.
A few minutes later he returns and stands in front of the door. Shortly afterwards he takes several grenades out of his jacket pockets.
He briefly tries to attract people's attention, saying "May I, may I?", before tossing the grenades into the middle of the room. Moments later they explode.
"As a result, 26 people were wounded, six of whom are in a grave condition," the police statement said, adding that medics were trying to resuscitate the man who threw the grenades. There have been no further updates on his condition since then.
Many Ukrainians have access to weaponry due to the war with Russia, but there is no evidence yet that the attack was related to the conflict.
Keretsky is a village of some 4,000 people not far from the Hungarian border.
Ukrainian police say the SBU security service will investigate the incident as a "terrorist attack".
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 9:40:08 GMT -8
NBC Explains More of What is Wrong with Medicare Disadvantage
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 9:42:47 GMT -8
Help Us Jack Smith. You Are Our Only Hope
Or Maybe There is Other Hope
Even a 2% Chance of a Previous Guy Win is Terrifying, and It is Higher Than That
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 9:47:56 GMT -8
Biden May Have Accomplished the ImprobableThe U.S. hasn't dodged a recession (yet). But these signs point to a soft landing.For nearly two years, forecasters have hoped the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes would slow the economy enough to bring down inflation without causing a recession. This week, that rare feat, known as a soft landing, appeared to shift from possibility to likely scenario. Although recession risks are still historically high, it's a change from last year, when a soft landing seemed to be little more than a pipe dream. Barclays has been predicting a mild recession next year but Jonathan Millar, the research firm’s senior economist, is no longer worried about the threat. “The economy continues to power forward, inflation has come down” and the Fed is poised to lower rates, Millar says. “At this point, there’s no reason to write down a recession” in the forecast. After the Fed news, Gregory Daco, chief economist of EY-Parthenon, says he lowered his recession odds from 50% to about 40%.
He Pulled Us Out of a Recession and May Have Avoided Another. Yet He Gets No Credit.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 9:52:25 GMT -8
So Little Remorse. So Few Words.
The apology letters that Donald Trump-allied lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro were required to write as a condition of their plea deals in the Georgia election interference case are just one sentence long.
The letters, obtained Thursday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through an open records request, were hand-written and terse. Neither letter acknowledges the legitimacy of Democrat Joe Biden’s win in Georgia’s 2020 election nor denounces the baseless conspiracy theories they pushed to claim Trump was cheated out of victory through fraud.
“I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” Powell wrote in a letter dated Oct. 19, the same day she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.
“I apologize to the citizens of the state of Georgia and of Fulton County for my involvement in Count 15 of the indictment,” Chesebro wrote in a letter dated Oct. 20, when he appeared in court to plead guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
The letters written by the other two defendants to plead guilty — Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis and bail bondsman Scott Hall — were longer and more specific. Ellis read her letter in open court on Oct. 24, tearfully telling the judge that she looked back on her involvement in challenging the election results with “deep remorse.”
“What I did not do but should have done, Your Honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true,” she said. “In the frenetic pace of attempting to raise challenges to the election in several states, including Georgia, I failed to do my due diligence.”
Hall, who pleaded guilty Sept. 29, wrote in his five-paragraph letter to the citizens of Georgia, “I owe you an apology.”
“I wish I had never involved myself in the post-election activities that brought me before the court,” he wrote, explaining that he got involved after observing what he thought were some irregularities.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 9:55:36 GMT -8
This Teacher Gave His Students a Real First-Hand Lesson About Hate
A middle school teacher in Warner Robins, Georgia, is facing charges for allegedly threatening to kill a student who criticized his Israeli flag.
Benjamin Reese, a seventh grade social studies teacher at Warner Robins Middle School, was arrested Dec. 8, a day after the incident. He is being charged with making a felony terroristic threat and misdemeanor cruelty to children in the third degree.
The incident reportedly began after a student asked the 51-year-old teacher about the Israeli flag he had in his classroom and remarked she found it offensive, according to Macon CBS affiliate WMAZ TV.
After Reese told the student he was Jewish and had family members who still lived in Israel, the student reportedly told him she found the flag offensive “due to Israelis killing Palestinians.”
Reese allegedly told the student she was being antisemitic and then got angrier, according to several different witnesses who reported hearing him tell the student variations of “I’ll kick your ass. I should cut your motherfucking head off,” and “I will drag her ass into the parking lot, slit her goddamn throat and kill her.”
One faculty member said she heard the teacher tell the student, “You don’t make an antisemitic comment like that to a Jew.”
Witnesses said the student responded negatively at Reese’s comments, but kept calm, even as Reese screamed at her and two other students to get out of his classroom, according to the Macon Telegraph.
Reese allegedly kept screaming at them and making violent threats as they walked down the hall. A witness said they later heard Reese cursing in his classroom that he “should not be spoken to like that because he is a Jew.”
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 10:06:44 GMT -8
Costco is There If You Want to Make a Bad InvestmentCostco has found a new hit with online shoppers — gold. The retail warehousing giant sold more than $100 million of the precious metal in its first quarter, which ended Nov. 26, Costco CFO Richard Galanti told analysts during the company's earnings call Thursday. The 1-ounce bars typically sellout within a few hours after they are loaded to Costco's website, Galanti said back in September. The PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan series appeared to be unavailable Friday. Gold enthusiasts on Reddit said the bars were going for slightly more than $2,000 as recently as last week. Customers are limited to two bars per Costco membership, which would make it difficult to build a real position in the precious metal. Members generally seemed satisfied with their purchase though, with a 4.9 star rating on Costco's website with nearly 800 reviews. Some customers did complain about stiff state sales taxes. Spot gold prices have jumped about 12% this year. JPMorgan is forecasting a breakout rally for the precious metal in 2024 with a peak of $2,300 an ounce as interest rates are expected to fall, according to the bank's commodities outlook published earlier this month. The investment bank said gold could retreat to $1,900 an ounce in the coming months, but that would set investors up to position themselves for the midyear rally. Gold is on pace for a weekly gain on a weaker U.S. dollar and lower Treasury yields after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled three rate cuts are in store for 2024. The precious metal was trading at $2,036.19 an ounce Friday morning. One important note on Costco's gold bars: They are non-refundable. Don't Take My Word For It. Ask the Motley Fools. (The Good Graphs are Near the End.)
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Dec 15, 2023 10:11:23 GMT -8
Still Not as Good as Surf City: "Two Girls for Every Boy"
Anyone who has suspected that there are more women than men where they live, or vice versa, will find fodder for their suspicions in new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Whether it refutes or confirms their suspicions likely depends on where they live.
Women outnumber men in the largest urban counties east of the Mississippi River, along the Eastern Seaboard and in the Deep South, while the West skews male, according to data released last week from the 2022 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, the most comprehensive source of data on American life. Those numbers were also backed up by age and sex figures from the 2020 census released earlier this year.
There are limitations to what can be concluded from the data. Still, Nancy Averbach, 57, doesn't find the numbers surprising. She lost her husband eight years ago, and has since found it hard to meet a compatible partner.
Across the U.S. in 2022, the most recent year that figures are available, there were 96.6 adult men for every 100 adult women — and in the Atlanta suburb of DeKalb County, where Averbach lives, that ratio was 87.1, according to the survey. An equal ratio of men to women would be 100.
"It’s really tough to find quality men who share similar values,” Averbach said. There aren’t many singles groups that cater to her age group, she says, and when such groups put on events, they usually attract more women than men.
Her county has a low sex ratio, which means there are more women than men. A high ratio indicates there are more men than women.
The sex ratio numbers don’t reflect sexual preference, gender identity or whether those surveyed are looking for partners. The figures also don’t reflect intersex people, who, historically, have had relatively scant data collected on them.
The ratios vary by geography, in part because of the presence of certain institutions and industries with gender imbalances. In the most populous counties in the West, this is especially discernible. San Diego, for instance, has several male-dominated military bases, which is reflected in the sex ratio. In Austin, San Francisco, Seattle and San Jose there are plentiful jobs in tech, a sector where men account for around three-quarters of the workforce.
Adding to the imbalance are the effects of historic racism in the U.S., including high rates of incarceration and the mortality gap, which have lowered the number of men in some communities, said Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina.
Among U.S. counties with 500,000 residents or more, the areas where adult women outnumber adult men most noticeably were in Baltimore, New York, Atlanta and Philadelphia, as well as Birmingham, Alabama; and Memphis, Tennessee; where the ratios ranged in the mid-80s.
The biggest imbalances of men to women, with ratios above 103 for those age 18 and over, were recorded in the West, in counties that are home to Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Austin, as well as California counties that are home to San Francisco, San Jose and Bakersfield, where agriculture and energy are two of the biggest industries.
At birth, the sex ratio in the U.S. has historically been 105 men for every 100 women. The ratio inverts around age 30. Since the mortality rate is higher for men than it is for women at almost every age group — due to violence, drinking, smoking, job hazards and suicide — that ratio decreases with age, until at age 90 or above there are typically about two women to every man.
Or Sunset City: Two Old Women For Every Old Man
|
|
