|
|
Post by mhbruin on Mar 25, 2024 9:59:41 GMT -8
Church Bulletin Bloopers
This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
You Win Some
A New York appeals court on Monday agreed to hold off collection of former President Donald Trump’s $454 million civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175 million within 10 days.
If he does, it will stop the clock on collection and prevent the state from seizing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's assets while he appeals.
The development came just before New York Attorney General Letitia James was expected to initiate efforts to collect the judgment.
Messages seeking comment were sent to James' office and to Trump's lawyers.
Trump’s lawyers had pleaded for a state appeals court to halt collection, claiming it was “a practical impossibility” to get an underwriter to sign off on a bond for such a large sum.
The ruling was issued by the state’s intermediate appeals court, the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court, where Trump is fighting to overturn a judge’s Feb. 16 finding that he lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency.
You Lose Some
A New York state judge ruled Monday that the criminal trial against former President Donald Trump stemming from a hush money payment he allegedly made to a porn actor can proceed, denying Trump’s request to have the case delayed further or altogether dismissed.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, sat alongside his lawyers as Judge Juan Merchan announced that jury selection in the case would begin on April 15.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Mar 25, 2024 10:04:45 GMT -8
In Today's Licorice News
Black licorice may look and taste like an innocent treat, but this candy has a dark side. On Sept. 23, 2020, doctors reported that black licorice was the culprit in the death of a 54-year-old man in Massachusetts. How could this be? Overdosing on licorice sounds more like a twisted tale than a plausible fact.
The unfortunate man who succumbed to excessive black licorice consumption is not alone. There is a smattering of similar case reports in medical journals in which patients experienced a sudden severe increase in blood pressure, muscle breakdown or even death.
...................
Red licorice is not real licorice. It is a candy that is flavored with artificial or natural fruit flavors, such as cherry, raspberry, or strawberry14. It does not contain the extract of the licorice plant, which is the main ingredient of black licorice125. Black licorice is the only type of licorice that has the distinctive licorice flavor and potential health benefits or risks.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Mar 25, 2024 10:06:35 GMT -8
We Are Getting Into Hot Water
Though geothermal represents only a tiny fraction of current U.S. energy production, several businesses and President Joe Biden's administration are betting on technological advances to make it a backbone of the green transition.
"If we can capture that heat beneath our feet, it can be the clean, reliable, baseload-scalable power for everybody from industries to households," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told the CERAWeek conference in Houston this past week.
Her department estimates that geothermal energy could overtake hydroelectric and solar power in the country by 2050.
Geothermal, which draws on naturally high temperatures underground and is used mainly to produce electricity and heat buildings, amounted to only 1.6 percent of U.S. energy consumption in 2022.
To ramp up production, the US government has invested more than $200 million since 2018 in an experimental site in Utah involving the drilling of exceptionally deep wells -- an approach different from the traditional, near-surface geothermal energy.
Scientists at the site have been testing, in real-world conditions, a technology known as Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), similar but different from hydraulic fracturing techniques, also known as fracking, which is used to extract oil and natural gas.
The approach involves injecting water into naturally very hot rocks -- often deeper than two miles (3 kilometers), which does not require a nearby hot spring or underground reservoir.
"In theory, you could make geothermal anywhere," said Francesco d'Avack, an analyst with S&P Global Commodity Insights.
"It also reduces the upfront risk," he said -- that is, the risk of drilling and finding nothing, which has been a deterrent for some investors in the past.
Granholm, in her speech to the CERAWeek energy conference, underscored another advantage: the US government is allowing companies to convert permits for oil or gas exploration into geothermal licenses -- reducing paperwork and delays.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Mar 25, 2024 10:08:43 GMT -8
Looking for Some Beachfront Propery? You Just Have to Wait for Around a Million People to Starve to Death.
Who wouldn't want a house on the beach? For some on Israel's far-right, desirable beachfront now includes the sands of Gaza.
Just ask Daniella Weiss, 78, the grandmother of Israel's settler movement, who says she already has a list of 500 families ready to move to Gaza immediately.
"I have friends in Tel Aviv," she says, "so they say, 'Don't forget to keep for me a plot near the coast in Gaza,' because it's a beautiful, beautiful coast, beautiful golden sand".
She tells them the plots on the coast are already booked.
Mrs Weiss heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland. For decades, she has been kickstarting Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, on Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Some in the settler movement have cherished the dream - or pipedream - of returning to Gaza since 2005, when Israel ordered a unilateral pullout, 21 settlements were dismantled and about 9,000 settlers were evacuated by the army. (Reporting from Gaza at the time, I saw many who were literally dragged out.)
Many settlers saw all this as a betrayal by the state, and a strategic mistake.
Opinion polls suggest that most Israelis oppose resettling Gaza, and it is not government policy, but since the Hamas attacks on 7 October it is being talked about out loud - by some of the loudest and most extreme voices in Israel's government.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Mar 25, 2024 10:09:59 GMT -8
The Problem is Neither Netanyahu Nor Hamas Really Wants Peace
The UN Security Council for the first time passes a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Fourteen countries voted in favour of the resolution; the US, Israel’s main ally, abstained.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Mar 25, 2024 10:13:58 GMT -8
Could Lisa Turn From the Dark Side?
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said she cannot back her party's nominee for the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump, and did not rule out becoming an independent.
"I wish that as Republicans, we had ... a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told CNN. "I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump."
In an interview, Murkowski would not say if she would remain a Republican, CNN reported on Sunday.
Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: "Oh, I think I’m very independent minded. ... I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump."
She said she was navigating her way through some interesting political times. "Let's just leave it at that," she said.
Murkowski, 66, was the first Republican senator to call for Trump's resignation after his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's 2020 election victory. She later voted to impeach Trump, a fellow Republican.
|
|
|
|
Post by mhbruin on Mar 25, 2024 10:16:30 GMT -8
The Russian War Effort Gets a Fleet Enema
Russia is likely facing a multitude of issues after Ukrainian forces attacked a Black Sea Fleet communications hub in the city of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea, according to Kyiv.
Ukraine's military said on Sunday that it struck the communications hub and unspecified infrastructure facilities, damaging Russia's Yamal and Azov Ropucha-class landing ships. The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has claimed that the Yamal was critically damaged in the attack.
Speaking on Ukrainian television, Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine's navy, said the strikes have caused communication problems on the Black Sea Peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.
"In fact, the situation for them may be even worse because a naval base is a structure that ensures the activities of the fleet as a whole," said Pletenchuk, according to Ukrainska Pravda. "Therefore, it may be not only communications; it may also be supply, maintenance, repair, and many other issues that are handled directly by the naval base."
|
|
