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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 9:27:33 GMT -8
After Quasimodo's death, the bishop of the cathedral of Notre Dame sent word through the streets of Paris that a new bellringer was needed. The bishop decided that he would conduct the interviews personally and went up into the belfry to begin the screening process. After observing several applicants demonstrate their skills, he decided to call it a day when a lone, armless man approached him and announced that he was there to apply for the bellringers job. The bishop was incredulous.
"You have no arms!"
"No matter," said the man, "observe!"
He then began striking the bells with his face, producing a beautiful melody on the carillon. The bishop listened in astonishment, convinced that he had finally found a suitable replacement for Quasimodo.
Suddenly, rushing forward to strike a bell, the armless man tripped, and plunged headlong out of the belfry window to his death in the street below. The stunned bishop rushed to his side.
When he reached the street, a crowd had gathered around the fallen figure, drawn by the beautiful music they had heard only moments before. As they silently parted to let the bishop through, one of them asked, "Bishop, who was this man?"
"I don't know his name," the bishop sadly replied, "but his face rings a bell."
The following day, despite the sadness that weighed heavily on his heart due to the unfortunate death of the armless campanologist, the bishop continued his interviews for the bellringer of Notre Dame.
The first man to approach him said, "Your excellency, I am the brother of the poor, armless wretch that fell to his death from this very belfry yesterday. I pray that you honor his life by allowing me to replace him in this duty."
The bishop agreed to give the man an audition, and as the armless man's brother stooped to pick up a mallet to strike the first bell, he groaned, clutched at his chest and died on the spot.
Two monks, hearing the bishop's cries of grief at this second tragedy, rushed up the stairs to his side. "What has happened?" the first breathlessly asked, "Who is this man?"
"I don't know his name," sighed the distraught bishop,"but he's a deadringer for his brother."
MMHGA (Make Melania's Hair Great Again)
According to the latest FEC filing from Donald Trump's Save America PAC, not only has it paid out $27 million to cover the former president's legal fees as it burns through cash, but it has also funneled more than $100K to Melania Trump's stylist since last July.
In August, it was reported that long-time Melania stylist Herve Pierre Braillard was the recipient of $108,000 in fees and, despite reports that the former president and his related PACs are spending more than they are taking in, those fees have continued unabated.
In August, CNBC reported, "The drop in fundraising by the Trump PAC suggests the small-dollar donor operation that has helped the former president and his allies run a political fundraising juggernaut could be dwindling." The PAC reportedly had just $3.6 million in the bank.
In a post to X late Wednesday night, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin highlighted the most recent filing with a screenshot showing Braillard getting a payout of $18,000 a month for "strategy consulting" each month, with an additional $2,500 on top of that in December.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 9:29:48 GMT -8
Even the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Finds It Nuts
According to the editors of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, conservatives who are buying into internet conspiracies about Taylor Swift, her romance with NFL star Travis Kelce and how it is an elaborate plot to steal the 2024 election need to step away from social media and go outside and get some fresh air.
In the editorial that went to press on Thursday, the editors called the far-right obsession about the pop singer and her latest beau "frankly, weird."
Case in point, they noted, is a belief that the highly publicized romance combined with Swift's liberal leanings is an elaborate "psy-ops" scheme that has been elevated to "lunacy" by people like conservative provocateur Vivek Ramaswamy who recently wrote, "What your kind of people call ‘conspiracy theories,’ I simply call an amalgam of collective incentives hiding in plain sight.”
With a mocking, "Connect the dots, sheeple," the editors wrote, "Yet the paranoia on the right about a romance between the most popular singer in the world and an NFL player does make Republicans seem, frankly, weird. Americans who want a return to normalcy won’t find it in a movement that demonizes two of America’s healthier entertainments."
Summing up they added, "Maybe the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl, or maybe not. Maybe Ms. Swift and Mr. Kelce will live happily ever after, in a world-historical setback for the art form of breakup songs, or maybe not. Maybe she will endorse Mr. Biden again, or maybe not. But the CIA isn’t orchestrating it all, and neither are the Illuminati, the Freemasons, Elvis, JFK, Bigfoot, Opus Dei, or alien lizard people living among us."
Are MAGAs Required to Root for the Liberal Bastion San Francisco to Win the Super Bowl?
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 9:31:02 GMT -8
Note to Nikki: Previous Guy Literally Want to Put People into Camps.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says only when Barack Obama became President did America "really" start to face racist "division," that under the nation's first Black president "everything became about race and gender, and that's when "you just felt, people felt like they were being put in camps."
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:06:37 GMT -8
The Latest Comedy Stylings of Previous Guy
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:25:35 GMT -8
One Person Can Make a Difference --- In a Bad WayTeen is accused of orchestrating hundreds of swattings — including against his own homeACalifornia teenager who is allegedly behind a flurry of swatting incidents across the country targeting schools and the homes of FBI agents has been arrested in connection with a swatting attempt at a Florida mosque last year, according to court documents filed by state prosecutors. Alan Winston Filion, 17, was arrested last month at his home in Lancaster, California, and extradited to Florida on Tuesday, court documents say. He was charged as an adult on four felonies, including charges related to false reporting that triggered law enforcement response. Filion entered a not guilty plea to the charges. He is being held without bail at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility. Filion is allegedly behind hundreds of swatting incidents across the country targeting high schools, historical black colleges, and the homes of FBI agents, according to a motion filed by the government to secure Filion’s detention in the Mosque case. He even allegedly targeted his own home. In May of last year, deputies from the Seminole County law enforcement responded to a caller who said he was armed with a handgun and explosives and was entering the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida, to carry out a mass shooting, according to county records. Upon their arrival, officers said they saw a woman and her two children at the building’s entrance and identified the call as a hoax after speaking with them, records show. According to newly-unsealed court documents obtained by NBC News, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI have tracked Filion’s posts on Telegram offering up his swatting services, as well as recordings of swatting calls. They allege he was responsible for hundreds of swatting incidents, including in Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. The swatting attempts allegedly have included bomb threats at high schools and a nongovernmental organization that researches extremism.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:31:41 GMT -8
A Mooving Story That Will Make You Go "Bah!"
Thousands of sheep and cattle are stranded off the coast of Australia after their ship was turned back by violence in the Red Sea, raising concerns among animal welfare groups about conditions on the vessel as the government decides what to do with them.
The ship, MV Bahijah, left for Israel on Jan. 5 from Fremantle, a port city in Western Australia, with 15,000 sheep and 2,500 cattle on board, according to Mark Harvey-Sutton, chief executive of the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council.
On Jan. 20, the Australian agriculture and fisheries department said the ship had been ordered to return to Australia “due to the worsening security situation” in the Red Sea, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels based in Yemen have launched drone and missile attacks on commercial ships in what they say is retaliation for Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip.
The attacks have greatly disrupted maritime traffic in the Red Sea, a key shipping route, leading the U.S., the U.K. and others to launch strikes against Houthi targets as the Israel-Hamas war continues to expand throughout the region.
Australian officials said Thursday that the ship had been allowed to dock at the Fremantle Port but that no livestock could be unloaded due to Australia’s biosecurity regulations, which are among the strictest in the world.
The ship has been “resupplied essential provisions” and is undergoing routine cleaning, and a registered veterinarian is on board, the agriculture and fisheries department said in an update.
On Wednesday, two other veterinarians engaged by the department boarded the ship to examine the animals and found “no signs of significant health, welfare or environmental condition concerns,” it said, adding that along with biosecurity, the animals’ health and welfare are its “highest priorities.”
The department said it was working closely with the exporter to determine next steps for the animals as it considers whether to allow them to be re-exported.
Once marked for export and shipped out of the country, livestock cannot be sold in the domestic market again, Harvey-Sutton said.
“It’s a multibillion-dollar industry, and a lot of our market access is actually underpinned by the fact that we do not have a large number of livestock diseases,” he said. “And one of the ways that we maintain that status is by not letting animals go back on farm.”
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:35:02 GMT -8
January Polls That Don't Mean Much.
Fresh polling from 61 battleground districts shows House Republicans have good cause to be worried about losing their paper-thin majority this November.
Generic results from the polling conducted by the progressive consortium Navigator Research start out badly for Republicans:
Favorability ratings of both congressional Republicans and Democrats are underwater, but Republicans are 10 points less popular (-21 to -11).
Nearly 2 in 3 voters in these districts say House Republicans are prioritizing the "wrong things.”
Nearly 2 in 3 battleground voters also view congressional Republicans as "more focused" on noneconomic issues, with just 23% calling them "more focused" on economic issues.
None of that is particularly great for House Republicans, but wait—there's more. When Navigator moves away from generic comparisons between the parties and actually names individual lawmakers from voters' districts, things really fall apart for the GOP.
Named Democratic lawmakers score a net-positive favorable rating from their constituents (41% favorable to 34% unfavorable) while named Republican lawmakers are 4 points underwater (36% favorable to 40% unfavorable).
In job approval ratings, named Democrats outperform named Republicans at net +5 points (40% positive to 35% negative) versus net -6 points (33% positive to 39% negative).
Bar graph showing positive/negative ratings for named Democrats and Republicans.
And while Republicans are generally more trusted than Democrats on handling the economy (44% to 35%) and fighting inflation (42% to 32%), start naming names and Democratic lawmakers outperform their GOP counterparts.
But You'd Rather Start Out Ahead than Behind
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:36:54 GMT -8
I Don't Know of Anything He Won in the Court of Appeals
Reporter: “Do you plan to use campaign funds or some of the PAC monies to pay penalties in the New York fraud and defamation cases?”
Trump: “I don't understand, what?”
Reporter: “Are you thinking of potentially using campaign money to pay the penalties that you [indecipherable].”
Trump: “What penalties?”
Reporter: “The New York fraud case, the defamation case.”
Trump: “I didn't do anything wrong. I mean that's been proven, as far as I'm concerned. And actually we won in the Court of Appeals. You probably saw that. That case has been largely won in the court of appeals. That was a political case, coordinated with the White House by the attorney general, I assume is what you're talking about. And we won that case, largely in the Court of Appeals.”
Reporter: “Carroll .. the defamation case.”
Trump: “That’s a ridiculous case.”
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:39:11 GMT -8
Things have Gotten ComplicatedThis Superconducting Experiment Just Broke PhysicsResearchers just witnessed a superconductor behavior that defies our current understanding of physics. At a certain electron density, quantum fluctuations—the phenomena that make superconductors stop being superconductors—just… stop. The team behind this discovery has no idea why it happens, but looks forward to finding new physics to explain their discovery. Superconductivity is an inherently organized state of being, and fluctuations are the exact opposite. Bring on the fluctuations, you kill the superconductivity. So, the team wanted to get a good look at these disruptive little buggers. In order to do so, they heated one side of their material until it was no longer behaving as a superconductor, but instead acting as an insulator. This causes the quantum fluctuations to produce quantum vortices—little whirlpools of magnetic field that researchers can track to study fluctuations. Throughout this entire experiment, the team had been maintaining a certain density of electrons flowing through the material. And after they established their gradient, they began to change those density levels. And here’s where it gets weird: at a certain density, the quantum fluctuations just… stopped. Poof. And no one knows why. According to physics as we know it, that really shouldn’t have happened. If particle physicists are saying they have no idea what’s going on, things have gotten really complicated.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:41:26 GMT -8
When They Are Losing Women Who Are More Numberous and Vote More, What's the QOP Going to Do? Go After More Men.
“This is the blue-collar realignment of the Republican Party, and what I can tell you is for every Karen we lose, there’s a Julio and a Jamal ready to sign up for the MAGA movement,” [Florida Rep. Matt] Gaetz told Newsmax. “That bodes well for our ability to be more diverse and to be more durable as we head into not only the rest of the primary contests but also the general election.”
Gaetz’s comments reveal something about an emerging Republican belief: misogyny and homophobia, especially if aimed at the stereotype of an educated, liberal, middle-class white woman (a “Karen”), can help the party win over Black and Hispanic men with sexist views. As ridiculous as Gaetz may sound, the idea that Trumpian masculinity might win over a more ethnically diverse constituency is not new. In 2020, the New York Times reported that Democrats feared Trump’s “macho appeal” to Hispanic men.
The mortar of this would-be coalition, as Gaetz’s rhetoric implies, is traditional ideas about gender, expressed in hostility toward women and abhorrence of LGBTQ Americans. Gender traditionalism, defined as holding strict beliefs about gender roles, does not necessarily manifest as opposition to equal rights for those who do not adhere to its dictates. One can hold traditional beliefs about gender for religious or ideological reasons and still acknowledge or support the rights of those who do not.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:44:28 GMT -8
This Bill Is Not Kosher
As part of a new "kosher cell phone" law proposed by Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, LGBTQ helplines could be blocked on so-called kosher cell phones – the special phones preferred by members of Israel's ultra-Orthodox sector that cannot send text messages or access the internet.
The ruling would allow helpline numbers that are not available 24 hours a day, seven days a week – and therefore not considered emergency services – to be blocked on these rabbinically-certified cell phones.
Leaders of several LGBTQ organizations who run the support lines, including Havruta, Bat Kol and the LGBTQ Association, spoke out against the bill. In a statement made to Kan, they said, "During the war, the government wants to push members of the LGBTQ community who come from the most traditionalist sectors of the population to the edge, to deprive them of their only sources of support, and to desert them while they are experiencing mental distress, being forced into conversion therapy, or even contemplating suicide.
This IS Kosher
President Joe Biden on Thursday issued an executive order that targets Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the occupied territory, imposing financial sanctions and visa bans in an initial round against four individuals.
Those settlers were involved in acts of violence, as well as threats and attempts to destroy or seize Palestinian property, according to the order. The penalties aim to block the four from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them. U.S. officials said they were evaluating whether to punish others involved in attacks that have intensified during the Israel-Hamas war.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:47:24 GMT -8
The EU Steps Up Where the QOP Won't
European Union leaders approved a $55 billion support package for Ukraine on Thursday that the bloc's President Charles Michel described as "steadfast, long-term, predictable funding" for the country.
"We have a deal," Michel wrote on X.
The agreement follows months of delays caused by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who had blocked the package, and as President Joe Biden's push to replenish wartime aid for Ukraine has stalled in Congress.
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The deal locks in EU funding for Ukraine for four years.
Orbán has long been skeptical of EU policies and he is Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest ally among EU leaders. Orbán vetoed the package late last year.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:48:47 GMT -8
I Take Two of These. Hoepfully they Will Help Me Live Until 2026
Aiming to make life-saving medications more affordable, the Biden administration on Thursday sent offers to drug companies who make 10 widely prescribed drugs for older Americans.
Thursday's effort was the opening salvo over Medicare drug price negotiations. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials did not reveal how much the government's price negotiators initially offered to pay pharmaceutical companies who make drugs to treat conditions such as heart failure, stroke, diabetes and autoimmune disease.
The drugs include Eliquis, Jardiance, Xarelto, Januvia, Farxiga, Entresto, Enbrel, Imbruvica, Stelara and the insulins Fiasp and NovoLog.
Biden administration officials said the initial offers will start a back-and-forth with drug manufacturers over the spring and summer months. Final prices for the first batch of drugs will be made public Sept. 1, and the negotiated prices will take effect in January 2026.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:50:31 GMT -8
Small Banks Pay Good Dividends, But I Wouldn't Bank on Them
Plummeting regional bank stocks are giving investors déjà vu, but the underlying problem this time around is the commercial property crisis.
On Wednesday, the KBW Nasdaq Regional Bank index saw its worst day since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March, ending the day down by 6%. The decline was led by New York Bancorp, which tumbled nearly 40% on Wednesday after posting a fourth-quarter loss of $260 million due to of sour commercial real estate loans.
US property losses also sent Tokyo-based Agora bank tumbling 20%, Bloomberg reported. And Deutsche Bank AG in Europe is quadrupling its provisions, or which is money set aside to anticipate future losses, to $123 million. Even New York Bancorp set aside a huge chunk of its $552 million provisions for its commercial real estate portfolio.
The mayhem in regional banks reflects the malaise that has gripped America's commercial property sector, which has a $2.2 trillion mountain of debt due in 2027. Real estate experts have called the market a "slow moving train wreck" with a possible $700 billion default looming on the horizon.
A pandemic that wiped out demand for office spaces, combined with higher interest rates that have made borrowing money more expensive, has delivered a one-two punch to the sector. Now, landlords are struggling to pay back their loans. That's a problem for US banks — especially smaller ones.
NYCB Just Cut Their Dividend by 70%
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 1, 2024 10:54:46 GMT -8
You Can't Run if You Run Away
The Oregon Supreme Court said Thursday that 10 Republican state senators who staged a record-long walkout last year to stall bills on abortion, transgender health care and gun rights cannot run for reelection.
The decision upholds the secretary of state’s decision to disqualify the senators from the ballot under a voter-approved measure aimed at stopping such boycotts. Measure 113, passed by voters in 2022, amended the state constitution to bar lawmakers from reelection if they have more than 10 unexcused absences.
Last year’s boycott lasted six weeks — the longest in state history — and paralyzed the legislative session, stalling hundreds of bills.
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