Lurker > WingsOfGood

Very rural areas like mine wouldn't have anywhere to shop at all without Walmart. Outside of grocery stores, literally nothing else is here.

Boob shot at about 1/3 mark.

I need the guy who modeled Leon's face to go buy the game now

Fun Fact: Blackrock is one reason why housing is super expensive in NYC.

No one should have sympathy for that corporation no matter where you lean as they are screwing multiple countries over.

I was trying to figure out wtf BlackRock had to do with this. Thank you for the context.

Yeah, that's pretty fucked up.

Clarence Thomas has accepted undisclosed luxury trips from GOP megadonor for decades, report says

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted secret luxury trips from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow for more than two decades, ProPublica reported.
The trips appear to violate a law requiring disclosure for private jet flights.
Thomas has come under fire from ethics experts and other critics over his wife Ginni Thomas political activities.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted secret luxury trips from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow for more than two decades in apparent violation of a financial disclosure law, a ProPublica report revealed Thursday.
Thomas has vacationed on Crows 162-foot superyacht, flown on the real estate developers private jet and spent time at the GOP donors private resort and other exclusive retreats, ProPublica reported, citing documents and dozens of interviews.

Thomas, the 74-year-old conservative associate justice who has served on the nations highest court since 1991, has not reported the trips on his financial disclosures as required by law, the nonprofit newsroom reported.
The investigation offers more fuel for Thomas critics, who say his refusal to recuse himself from cases touching on issues related to his wifes political work in conservative circles including her involvement in schemes to overturn the 2020 election poses a conflict of interest.
Ethics experts and ex-judges interviewed by ProPublica were incredulous. Thomas seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations, Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at the watchdog group CREW, told the outlet.
When a justices lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust, Canter said.
Spokespeople for the Supreme Court and Crow did not immediately respond to CNBCs request for comment on the investigation.

In a statement to ProPublica, Crow said, The hospitality we have extended to the Thomass over the years is no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.
Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, never asked for any of the gifts, nor for any of the contributions the Crows have made to projects celebrating the justices life and legacy, the megadonor said. Crow added that he and his wife have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue.
Crow, a Texas real estate magnate, became friends with Thomas after he joined the Supreme Court. He has given more than $10 million in publicly disclosed political donations, and unknown amounts to groups that arent required to reveal their donors, ProPublica reported.
Thomas typically spends about a week each summer at Topridge, Crows private lakeside resort in the Adirondacks, and flight records show he has used Crows plane numerous times, according to the news outlet.
In 2019, shortly after the court shared its final opinion of the term, Clarence and Ginni Thomas took off on Crows private jet for a nine-day vacation in Indonesia aboard the donors yacht a trip that cost more than $500,000, according to ProPublica.
The report also cited records showing that Thomas had been at Topridge at the same time as major GOP donors, corporate executives and a leader of the conservative American Enterprise Institute during a July 2017 trip.
A painting hanging inside the lakeside resort shows Thomas and Crow smoking cigars and chatting with conservative figures, the report said. They include Leonard Leo, the influential Federalist Society leader credited with helping former President Donald Trump pick his judicial nominations and shift federal courts to the right.
Crow contended in his statement that he was unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case.
Supreme Court justices are constrained by fewer ethical restrictions than lower rungs of the judiciary. Some groups have called to implement a code of ethics for the high court.
But justices still submit financial disclosures, and experts say they are required to disclose all gifts valued at more than $415. While there are exceptions to that requirement, transportation is not one of them.
If Justice Thomas received free travel on private planes and yachts, failure to report the gifts is a violation of the disclosure law, Kedric Payne, senior ethics director for the Campaign Legal Center, told the outlet.

French pension protesters occupy finance firm, torch restaurant favored by Macron

A new wave of unrest over a pension reform engulfed Paris and other French cities Thursday, with enraged protesters occupying the building of the US-based investment firm BlackRock and setting fire to a popular restaurant favored by President Emmanuel Macron.
Dozens of trade union members streamed into BlackRocks Paris offices in the historical Centorial building, where they set off firecrackers and chanted slogans directed at the companys private pension fund.

The government wants to throw away pensions, it wants to force people to fund their own retirement with private pension funds, but what we know is that only the rich will be able to benefit from such a setup, said protester Franoise Onic, a school teacher.

The temporary occupation of BlackRock came on the 11th day of nationwide strikes and demonstrations decrying Macrons plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years in an apparent bid to keep Frances pension system from going bust.

Loudly chanting the French anti-pension reform protesters favorite slogan, On est la (We are here), the demonstrators retreated from the BlackRock building after about 30 minutes, leaving its lobby filled with smoke from the firecrackers.

I don't know if anyone has given you a complete explanation but basically:
BlackRock wants to take securities that are backed by mortgages and corporate mortgages that are effectively WORTHLESS, and put them into people's pensions as "investments". This gives BlackRock a revenue stream where if the underlying assets fail, people's pensions are wiped out. (AKA the people provide 'liquidity' for failing assets. People are being forced to bail out these big companies through their pensions.)
This happened back in 2008 and hasn't really stopped, and now that commercial real estate companies are going bankrupt (Evergrande comes to mind) it's starting to hurt banks and big companies like BlackRock, and they're trying to find a way to pass the buck to someone else while still making epic-fucktonnes of money.
I'm fuzzy on the details and specifics, but I believe that's the general synopsis.**edited slightly for clarity**
**edit 2**
Oh, and because of the retirement age limit change too.

Demonstrators forced their way intothe building that houses BlackRocks office in Paris Thursday, taking their protest against the governments pension reforms to the worlds biggest money manager.

The meaning of this action is quite simple. We went to the headquarters of BlackRock to tell them: the money of workers, for our pensions, they are taking it, Jerome Schmitt, spokesman for French union SUD, told CNN affiliate BFM-TV. BlackRock declined to comment.

Nationwide protests against the French governments plan to raise the retirement age for most workers from 62 to 64 have now entered their 11th day. The government triggered special constitutional powers last month to push the controversial legislation through parliament without a vote.
The changes mean that, from 2027, people will have to work longer to receive full state pension benefits.
BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager, has played no part in the pension reforms. But workers targeted the company because of its work for private pension funds, according to protester Franoise Onic, a school teacher who spoke to Reuters.

Yet revelations as to how the company obtains images for their database of nearly 30 billion photos have caused an uproar. Last week, CEO Hoan Ton-That said in an interview with BBC that the company obtained its photos without users' knowledge, scraped from social media platforms like Facebook and provided them to U.S. law enforcement. The CEO also said that the database has been used by American law police nearly a million times since 2017.

Reed Charles O'Connor (born June 1, 1965) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2007.

Somebody explain to me why one judge in Texas is allowed to single-handedly determine what health care for the entire country will be like

Who appoints federal judges?
Supreme Court justices, court of appeals judges, and district court judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate, as stated in the Constitution. The names of potential nominees are often recommended by senators or sometimes by members of the House who are of the President's political party. The Senate Judiciary Committee typically conducts confirmation hearings for each nominee. Article III of the Constitution states that these judicial officers are appointed for a life term. The federal Judiciary, the Judicial Conference of the United States, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts play no role in the nomination and confirmation process.
How are new judgeships created?
Court of appeals and district court judgeships are created by legislation that must be enacted by Congress. The Judicial Conference (through its Judicial Resources Committee) surveys the judgeship needs of the courts every other year. A threshold for the number of weighted filings per judgeship is the key factor in determining when an additional judgeship will be requested. Other factors may include geography, number of senior judges, and mix of cases. The Judicial Conference presents its judgeship recommendations to Congress.
What are the qualifications for becoming a federal judge?
The Constitution sets forth no specific requirements. However, members of Congress, who typically recommend potential nominees, and the Department of Justice, which reviews nominees' qualifications, have developed their own informal criteria.

The lawsuit alleges that before property managers began using RealPages software in around 2009, the student housing market in the U.S. was competitive, with landlords offering concessions and giveaways as incentives. It says that RealPage called such maneuvers leaving money on the table.
With the software, landlords in the highly concentrated market for student housing found they could set a top tier price, the lawsuit says. It adds that the company claims to have a comprehensive data set that includes key performance indicators for nearly 1,000 universities. YieldStar Student, pricing software tailored for student housing, served more than 50 clients as of 2019, the company claimed, according to the suit.

Clients submit detailed internal data on the rent they are charging for each unit to RealPage, the lawsuit says, citing the company. The companys software recommends a price for each unit, it says, giving landlords the courage to charge an inflated price by the implicit assurance that all of their competitors were doing the same.

ProPublica reported previously that RealPage said its software helped its clients outperform the market by 3 to 7%.

The lawsuit said the collusion among property managers using the software eliminated the need for discounts or lower rent prices even at the start of the school year traditionally a time when competition for student renters is the fiercest.

Even if some beds remained empty, the monopoly rents RealPage helped extract from the rented units justified the unrented units, the lawsuit says.

Once RealPage was widely adopted by student housing purveyors, the lawsuit says, landlords shifted from the previous competitive market share over price strategy to a new collusive price over volume strategy.

Pushing price over volume is characteristic of a cartelized market, the lawsuit says.

Pressure Grows on Real Estate Tech Company Accused of Colluding With Landlords to Jack Up Apartment Rents

A Texas-based real estate tech company is facing a new barrage of questions about whether its software is helping landlords coordinate rental pricing in violation of antitrust laws.
Seventeen Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter Monday to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission asking the agencies to investigate RealPages rent-setting software. In an Oct. 15 story, ProPublica detailed how RealPages pricing algorithm uses competitor data to suggest new prices daily for available apartments.

In the letter, Reps. Jess Chuy Garca and Jan Schakowsky, both from Illinois, and other Democratic leaders said that if big property managers and RealPage formed a cartel to artificially inflate rents and decrease the supply of apartments, they could face potential criminal prosecution.

he representatives noted that RealPage became dominant in the industry after it purchased its largest competitor in 2017. The Justice Department reviewed the merger but allowed it to proceed.Our constituents cannot afford to have anticompetitive and potentially per se illegal practices drive up prices for essential goods and services at a time when a full-time, minimum-wage salary does not provide a worker enough money to rent a two-bedroom apartment in any city across this country, they said.

A major driver of inflation, median U.S. asking rents grew year-over-year by as much as 18% this spring, before the growth rate slowed this fall, according to a study by real estate firm Redfin. This came, the representatives noted, after the 10 biggest publicly traded apartment companies saw profits rise by more than 50% last year, to almost $5 billion.

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission did not respond to requests for comment.
The House letter adds to growing legal and regulatory pressure on RealPage. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown recently sent a similar request to the FTC calling for a review of the companys practices. Last month, renters filed a lawsuit in San Diego alleging the company facilitated collusion among nine of the nations biggest property managers. Two more lawsuits have been filed since then. All of them seek class action status.

One suit filed Friday on behalf of two Seattle renters alleges a broad pattern of collusive behavior by RealPage and a group of 10 large property managers.

It says that in addition to using RealPage software to inflate rents in downtown Seattle, property managers had employees call competitors regularly seeking detailed nonpublic information on what they were charging which the employees would change their prices to match. The lawsuit quoted what it said was a former employee of Greystar, the countrys largest property management firm.
Youd call up the competition in the area, the former employee said, according to the lawsuit. Sometimes thered be a list of 10 people to call. Sometimes just one. Youd ask what they are charging for their apartments. Then youd literally change the prices right there on RealPage. Manually bump it up.

It was price-fixing, the employee continued, according to the lawsuit. What else can you call it when youre literally calling your competition and changing your rate based on what they say?
The lawsuit quoted another former Greystar employee who described making similar calls in Seattle. The worker said someone from another property manager would call looking for pricing information two or three times a day, and added, If somebody called me looking for numbers, Id tell them and then turn around and say, now its your turn. What are your numbers?
The lawsuit said that publicly available data showed that advertised rates for the properties offered by the defendants in the suit in the Seattle area were consistently higher than those of nondefendants.

Greystar and nine other firms named in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
ProPublica found RealPages pricing software to be widely used in downtown Seattle, where rents have climbed steeply in recent years. In one neighborhood, ProPublica found, 70% of apartments were overseen by just 10 property managers, every single one of which used RealPages pricing software.
Another lawsuit, filed by the same group of lawyers earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Seattle, accused RealPage of helping landlords engage in anti-competitive behavior in the student housing market.
That lawsuit alleges that a University of Washington student paid higher rent prices because of collusion between landlords using RealPages software.
The lawsuit names as defendants some of the largest real estate firms in the world, including Greystar and Cushman & Wakefield. It accuses them of artificially inflating rent in such college towns as Seattle; Eugene, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; and Gainesville, Florida.

A spokesperson for Cushman & Wakefield, which also owns another firm named in the lawsuit, declined to comment.
In response to the San Diego lawsuit alleging collusion, a RealPage representative said the company strongly denies the allegations and will vigorously defend against the lawsuit. RealPage has said that the company uses aggregated market data from a variety of sources in a legally compliant manner. RealPage did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new lawsuits and congressional letter.
RealPage said previously that its revenue management software prioritizes a propertys own internal supply and demand dynamics over such external factors as competitors rents. In an earlier statement, the company said its software helps eliminate the risk of collusion that could occur with manual pricing involving phone surveys of competitor prices.
RealPages software uses an algorithm to churn through a trove of data to suggest rent prices. The software uses not only information about the apartment being priced and the property where it is located, but also private data on what nearby competitors are charging in rents. The software considers actual rents paid to those rivals, not just what they are advertising, the company told ProPublica.
ProPublicas investigation found that the softwares design and reach have raised questions among experts about whether it is helping the countrys biggest landlords indirectly coordinate pricing potentially in violation of federal law.

Do they still have to cost as much as they do now?

Texas.

Federal judge says insurers no longer have to provide some preventive care services, including cancer and heart screenings, at no cost

A federal judge in Texas said Thursday that some Affordable Care Act mandates cannot be enforced nationwide, including those that require insurers to cover a wide array of preventive care services at no cost to the patient, including some cancer, heart and STD screenings, and tobacco programs.
In the new ruling, US District Judge Reed OConnor struck down the recommendations that have been issued by the US Preventive Services Task Force, which is tasked with determining some of the preventive care treatments that Obamacare requires to be covered.
The decision applies to task force recommendations issued on or after March 23, 2010 the day the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. While the group had recommended various preventive services prior to that date, nearly all have since been updated or expanded.

OConnors ruling comes after the judge had already said that the task forces recommendations violated the Constitutions Appointments Clause. The judge also deemed unlawful the ACA requirement that insurers and employers offer plans that cover HIV-prevention measures such as PrEP for free.
Other preventive care mandates under the ACA remain in effect.
The full extent of the rulings impact and when its effects could be felt are unclear.
The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal on Friday. The Biden administration is also appealing OConnors earlier ruling that the task forces recommendations violated the Constitutions Appointments Clause and that requiring HIV-prevention drugs to be covered at no cost violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The challengers in the case individuals and employers in Texas lost on several of their other claims against the preventive care mandates. Its possible they file their own appeal of OConnors rulings.
The Justice Department has not filed a request that OConnors rulings be paused for the appeal. It is not clear if the administration plans to ask for that pause.
We will do everything we can to protect and defend Americans rights to the health care they need and deserve, said Kamara Jones, a Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre called the case yet another attack on the Affordable Care Act.

The decision, in a case brought by employers and individuals in Texas, represents the latest legal affront to the landmark 2010 health care law. It is unclear what immediate practical effect OConnors new ruling will have for those with job-based and Affordable Care Act policies because insurance companies will likely continue no-cost coverage for the remainder of the contracts even though the Obamacare requirements in question have been blocked. Contracts often last one calendar year.
OConnors Thursday ruling is expected to kick off a new phase of the legal battle over Obamacares preventive care measures. The judge rejected other claims that the ACAs foes brought against the law including challenges to the entities that determine no-cost coverage mandates for vaccines, an assortment of womens health preventive care treatments, and services for infants and children. Its possible that the plaintiffs appeal those aspects of OConnors handling of the case, which could put at risk coverage requirements for additional preventive services at no cost.

Credit Suisse shareholders expressed their frustration at the banks impending demise by voting down a proposed CHF34 million ($37 million) pay package for managers.

Dozens of small shareholders took to the stage to express their anger at the banks leadership and to protest the fact that their shares have crashed in value to below a single franc.
They voted through proposals for chair Axel Lehmann and other board members to continue leading the company. Shareholders also agreed they will be paid a maximum of CHF13 million.
But the proposal to award managers, including CEO Ulrich Krner, up to CHF34 million in basic pay failed to muster the necessary 50% of votes only 48.23% of shareholders agreed.
Well have to think about how to respond to that, said Lehmann in response. The board will now have to come up with a new package that is acceptable to shareholders.

HOAs are allowed to discriminate based on race?

Stressed plants cry and some animals can probably hear them. Plants that need water or have recently had their stems cut produce up to roughly 35 sounds per hour, the authors found. But well-hydrated and uncut plants are much quieter, making only about one sound per hour.

Plants do not suffer in silence. Instead, when thirsty or stressed, plants make airborne sounds, according to a study published today in Cell1.
Plants that need water or have recently had their stems cut produce up to roughly 35 sounds per hour, the authors found. But well-hydrated and uncut plants are much quieter, making only about one sound per hour.
The reason you have probably never heard a thirsty plant make noise is that the sounds are ultrasonic about 20100 kilohertz. That means they are so high-pitched that very few humans could hear them. Some animals, however, probably can. Bats, mice and moths could potentially live in a world filled with the sounds of plants, and previous work by the same team has found that plants respond to sounds made by animals, too.
Crying crops
To eavesdrop on plants, Lilach Hadany at Tel-Aviv University in Israel and her colleagues placed tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plants in small boxes kitted out with microphones. The microphones picked up any noises made by the plants, even if the researchers couldn't hear them. The noises were particularly obvious for plants that were stressed by a lack of water or recent cutting. If the sounds are pitched down and sped up, it is a bit like popcorn very short clicks, Hadany says. It is not singing.

Plants do not have vocal cords or lungs. Hadany says the current theory for how plants make noises centers on their xylem, the tubes that transport water and nutrients from their roots to their stems and leaves. Water in the the xylem is held together by surface tension, just like water sucked through a drinking straw. When an air bubble forms or breaks in the xylem, it might make a little popping noise; bubble formation is more likely during drought stress. But the exact mechanism requires further study, Hadany says.
The team produced a machine-learning model to deduce whether a plant had been cut or was water stressed from the sounds it made, with about 70% accuracy. This result suggests a possible role for the audio monitoring of plants in farming and horticulture.
To test the practicality of this approach, the team tried recording plants in a greenhouse. With the aid of a computer program trained to filter out background noise from wind and air-conditioning units, the plants could still be heard. Pilot studies by the authors suggest that tomato and tobacco plants are not outliers. Wheat (Triticum aestivum), corn (Zea mays) and wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) also make noises when they are thirsty.
Chattering grasses?
Previously, Hadanys team has also studied whether plants can hear sounds, and found that beach evening-primoses (Oenothera drummondii) release sweeter nectar when exposed to the sound of a flying bee2.
So are plant noises an important feature of ecosystems, influencing the behaviour of plants and animals alike? The evidence isnt yet clear, according to Graham Pyke, a retired biologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, who specializes in environmental science.
Hes sceptical that animals listen to the moans of stressed plants. It is unlikely that these animals are really able to hear the sound at such distances, he says. He thinks the sounds would be too faint. Further research should shed more light on the matter. But Pyke says hes perfectly willing to accept that plants squeal when stressed.

Yup... so long as you don't use Robin or Alfred or Commissioner Gordon or Joker or Catwoman or, well, pretty much any aspect of Batman who matters.

But hey, you could make a schlock horror movie starring a guy in a cheap Batman suit!

The media literally aspect is legitimately troubling. I swear to god things like TikTok have actually corroded their ability to differentiate authentic videos or information from imitations and deceptions.

Because that's a super common skill among the people you went to highschool with, yeah?

this meme is dumb. Even if they aren't technically literate they've been immersed in it since birth. They can run circles around non-Zoomies when it comes to tech.

Great, thanks. Just tested the feature and it works again on the consoles.

Funnily enough though the My Nintendo codes have all disappeared from our profiles by now, so unless the player copied them somewhere they're still out of luck there.

But I took pics of all my codes out of sheer copium, so I'm good. >_>

Edit: Apparently theme codes are still broken and we can only use game codes. Oh well. >_>

I am so confused about the average Zoomer being worse than the average millenials in term of technology. Why did this happen? Of course some Zoomers are excellent and some millenials are bad, but still

Pretty sure Buddha openly rejected the idea of gods. I thought the polytheistic Buddhists were well in the minority.

Secular Buddhism has its roots in Buddhist modernism and secular humanism,[3] and is part of the broad trend of secularization that has been ongoing in the West since the recovery of classical Greek culture in the Renaissance. Many aspects of secular Buddhism are associated with the abandonment of hierarchical features of Buddhist monastic culture among some lay Buddhist practice communities in the West during the last decades of the 20th century in favor of democratic principles of civic association and the inclusion of women, disrupting traditional structures of patriarchal authority and gender exclusivity.[3]
The Insight Meditation movement in the United States was founded on modernist secular values. Jack Kornfield, an American teacher and former Theravadin monk, stated that the Insight Meditation Society wanted to present Buddhist meditation "without the complications of rituals, robes, chanting and the whole religious tradition."[4] S. N. Goenka, a popular teacher of Buddhist Vipassana meditation, taught that his practice was not a sectarian doctrine, but something from which people of every background can benefit: an art of living.[5] This essentially treats Buddhism as an applied philosophy, rather than a religion,[3] or relies on Buddhist philosophy without dogmatism. While recent scholarship has shown that such framings of Buddhist tradition were in large part rhetorical, and that teachers such as Goenka retained their traditional religious commitments in enacting their teachings and disseminating their meditation practices, such rhetorical reframing had a powerful impact on how Buddhism was appropriated and repackaged in the context of the emergent globalities of the latter part of the twentieth century.[6]

Buddhism includes a wide array of divine beings that are venerated in various ritual and popular contexts. Initially they included mainly Indian figures such as devas, asuras and yakshas, but later came to include other Asian spirits and local gods (like the Burmese nats and the Japanese kami). They range from enlightened Buddhas to regional spirits adopted by Buddhists or practiced on the margins of the religion.
Buddhists later also came to incorporate aspects from the countries to which it spread. As such, it includes many aspects taken from other mythologies of those cultures.

It really all boils down to republicans just want to ban public education. They want education to only be available for the privileged and the rest can go back to a caste system of slave workers working for the educated privileged

tbd whether they will cause them to flip or not, but i'm leaning towards not. defeat != destroy, but reminder text can be iffy.

Yea Buddhists have existed for some time.

So outside of a counterspell it's literally impossible to remove to once it hits the field? That's lame.

How do cards interact with battes? Like... is it an artifact or enchantment? Can i throw shroud on one and make it impossible to target? What happens on a boardwipe?

How do cards interact with battes? Like... is it an artifact or enchantment? Can i throw shroud on one and make it impossible to target? What happens on a boardwipe?

Take your kids out of school there's the solution.