the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

Scientists Overlooked the Snake Clitoris, Until Now​

Missed for decades, this anatomical revelation opens the door to seduction and female stimulation potentially playing roles in snake mating.

You’ve probably seen a snake’s forked tongue, but it’s not the slithering animal’s only forked body part. Male snakes sport forked genitals called hemipenes that look a bit like pink cactuses and often have spines to match.

What’s good enough for him is good enough for her in the suborder Serpentes. In a paper published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists provide the first proper scientific description of the hemiclitores, or a bifurcated clitoris in female snakes. The study also challenges a longstanding bias in biology — linked to cultural attitudes and a dearth of women in the field — that has left female sexual anatomy woefully understudied in many species.

Not only do snakes have hemiclitores, the study’s authors report, but the organs also contain nerves and erectile tissue, suggesting they serve a reproductive function and are not merely vestigial.

If subsequent research confirms the presence of a functional clitoris, it could challenge the assumption that snake sex is coercive.

“Now we can consider whether mating in snakes is not about coercion but instead about stimulation and seduction,” said Megan Folwell, a doctoral candidate at the University of Adelaide in Australia and an author of the study. “Maybe there is something the males are doing that makes the females more inclined to participate.”

Ms. Folwell’s study of the hemiclitores began when she noticed there were reams of publications describing the many shapes and sizes of snake hemipenes, but only scant mentions of female sex organs. That includes the clitoris, a structure present in all mammals, all lizards and some birds. The few papers she did find either offered no anatomical description or provided incorrect ones.

To investigate, Ms. Folwell set about dissecting the tail of a female death adder. Once she cleared away the muscle and connective tissue covering the snake’s genitals, the hemiclitores stared her in the face.

When Ms. Folwell showed her findings to Patricia Brennan, who studies genital morphology at Mount Holyoke College and is a co-author of the paper, Dr. Brennan said the find was so shockingly obvious that she almost fell out of her chair.

To confirm their initial observations and learn more, the researchers used multiple techniques to examine the anatomy of eight other species of snakes from four families.

Together, these analyses established the snake hemiclitores’ bona fides.

“I had never heard of snake hemiclitores, but it’s completely logical that they would be there and even be functional,” said Kurt Schwenk, a herpetologist at the University of Connecticut who didn’t participate in the research.

Ms. Folwell and her co-authors also encountered substantial variation in size and shape among the nine species tested, with the cantil viper having the largest hemiclitores at 1.2 inches long and 0.7 inches wide and the Guatemalan milk snake at just 0.1 inches long and 0.06 inches wide.

“If the hemiclitores were nonfunctional then there is no evolutionary reason for them to be different across species,” Dr. Brennan said.

Marvalee Wake, an evolutionary morphologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study, said the inference that the hemiclitores were functional seemed reasonable but added that “now they have to demonstrate it experimentally.”

Ms. Folwell said the next steps for this research would include investigating the types and locations of nerves present in the hemiclitores and then trying to establish what roles the structures may play during mating. Many snakes engage in sensual-looking courtship behaviors such as wrapping and rubbing their tails together.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/17/...7744&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity
“This discovery could really change how we understand mating in snakes,” Dr. Brennan said, “and it just shows how much we’ve been missing by largely ignoring female anatomy.”

Even in other groups of animals where the existence of a clitoris is not in question, such as lizards, investigations of its function have been hemmed in by cultural attitudes.

“Darwin described females as coy and passive participants in sexual selection,” said Malin Ah-King, an evolutionary biologist and gender researcher at Stockholm Univesity in Sweden who was not involved in the study. “These Victorian gender notions influenced Darwin and have been with us in evolutionary biology ever since.”

In an extreme example of a male-centric point of view, Dr. Brennan said one study of lizard hemiclitores went so far as to suggest their function might be to stimulate the male during mating.

“Now that more researchers are exploring the female side of things we get to know more of the details of what’s really there,” Dr. Ah-King said. “Each person’s perspective has limits, and this research shows how bringing in more perspectives can give us a more complete picture.”
 
Maybe this is the kind of spinach got????

How Can Tainted Spinach Cause Hallucinations?​

A food recall from Australia sheds light on an unusual aspect of brain chemistry.

Delirium. Fever. Hallucinations. Not what you expect when adding baby spinach to a salad, but these are among the alarming symptoms dozens of Australians have experienced after consuming what are thought to be contaminated batches of the leafy greens.

More than 100 people reported symptoms, including at least 54 who have sought medical help, after eating baby spinach that the authorities believe to be tainted. Four major supermarket chains have recalled products containing the suspect spinach.

The authorities said that the spinach had caused “possible food-related toxic reactions” with those affected experiencing symptoms including delirium, hallucinations, blurred vision, rapid heartbeat and fever.

Some Australians took to social media to jokingly ask how they could obtain hallucinogenic spinach. “Never have I been so interested in salad,” one Twitter user said.

But the authorities have stressed that the symptoms are far from pleasant.

“They’re unable to see properly, they’re confused, they’re having hallucinations,” Darren Roberts, the medical director of New South Wales’s Poisons Information Center, said of the victims in an interview on local television. “And we’re talking about scary hallucinations; it’s nothing that’s fun.”

Its producer, Riviera Farms in the state of Victoria, said it believed its product had been “contaminated with a weed.”

What weed could make spinach hallucinogenic? The health department of the state of Victoria has said that the symptoms suggested “anticholinergic syndrome,” a type of poisoning mainly caused by plants in the Solanaceae family, which includes nightshade, jimson weed and mandrake root.

Anticholinergic plants and drugs inhibit the production of a brain chemical called acetylcholine, which is linked to memory, thinking and the visual system, according to Dominic ffytche, a professor of visual psychiatry at King’s College London, who specializes in visual hallucinations (and who really does lowercase his last name). Acetylcholine can also be lost naturally and is linked to Alzheimer’s, some type of dementias and other neurodegenerative diseases, he said.

Hallucinations caused by a suppression or loss of acetylcholine tend to be “formed,” Professor ffytche said, that is concrete and recognizable, usually taking the form of people, objects and landscapes. This is distinct from “unformed” hallucinations, when people might see shapes, patterns and colors.

Furthermore, hallucinations caused by a lack of acetylcholine are linked to the memory system, so they tend to involve people the sufferer knows or recognizes, he said. “It could be deceased relatives, or people that are vaguely familiar to them in some way.”

Those experiencing more extreme symptoms can have difficulty determining what is real, he said.

“When you lose an understanding that they are hallucinations, they tend to become distressing,” he added. “You become sucked into the story where something bad is going on and people are trying to hurt you or harm you in some way.”

Exposure to anticholinergic plants can have severe effects but is rarely fatal. It is also relatively uncommon: In 2020, there were 856 cases of exposure in all of the United States, none of which resulted in death, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
 
Don't think Elon Musk will be asked to write any Management Books. Must be nice to piss away 40 Billion Dollars...

Twitter Users Say Elon Musk Should Quit as C.E.O.​

After weeks of turmoil since he bought the company, Mr. Musk surveyed Twitter about whether he should remain in charge, and said he would abide by the result.

Elon Musk asked Twitter users Sunday if he should step down as head of the social media site. More than 17 million votes were cast and delivered a clear verdict: 57.5 percent said he should quit, in a Twitter “poll” that closed after 12 hours on Monday.

Mr. Musk had said that he would abide by the results of the vote. After voting ended there was no immediate response from Mr. Musk on Twitter.

If he follows through, Mr. Musk would be handing over the reins of the company that he bought for $44 billion in late October. The turbulent weeks since then have been marked by mass layoffs at the company, falling advertising sales, executive resignations and various high-profile user accounts suspended for infractions of newly invented policy.

On Sunday, Twitter announced a policy to prevent users from sharing links and user names from other social platforms, like Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon, and then apparently curtailed the same policy.

But for some users, including former supporters of Mr. Musk, the chaotic weekend was a breaking point.

Mr. Musk’s latest actions with Twitter were “the last straw,” Paul Graham, a founder of the start-up accelerator Y Combinator, tweeted on Sunday. Mr. Graham had supported Mr. Musk’s takeover, but on Sunday he wrote, “I give up. You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my site.” His account was briefly suspended.

Last week, Twitter suspended about two dozen accounts that tracked the locations of private planes, including one that followed Mr. Musk’s private jet, justifying the decision with a new policy that banned accounts if they shared another person’s “live location.” The accounts of some journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other outlets, were also suspended last week, seemingly under the same policy, and then reinstated after Mr. Musk asked users if they should be allowed back. Fifty-nine percent responded yes, in a Twitter “poll” with 3.7 million votes.

After asking users whether he should stay on as chief executive of Twitter, Mr. Musk said in another tweet: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.”

There are signs that Mr. Musk’s ownership and focus on Twitter are interfering with his other business ventures. Since Mr. Musk acquired Twitter, the value of Tesla has sunk. The car company’s share price was $225 on Oct. 27, the day Mr. Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter. On Friday, Tesla shares closed at $150.

Last week, Mr. Musk disclosed that he had sold another $3.6 billion worth of Tesla stock. This year, Mr. Musk has now sold $23 billion worth of Tesla stock, much of it after he pledged in April to stop selling shares to finance his Twitter deal.

“Attention focused on Twitter instead of golden child Tesla has been another big issue for investors and likely is behind this poll result with many Musk loyalists wanting him to leave as C.E.O. of Twitter,” analysts Daniel Ives and John Katsingris at Wedbush Securities wrote in a note published shortly before the Twitter vote closed.

Musk’s resignation from Twitter would be a “a major step forward,” they added, with the billionaire finally realizing that there has been “growing frustration around this Twitter nightmare that grows worse by the day.”

On Monday, Tesla shares rose 3.4 percent in premarket trading to about $155.
 
Roccus7 said:
Such a shame, the even named it after me!! On the bright side, I bet the hotel restaurant had a lot of fish specials for dinner!!

Berlin Hotel’s Huge Aquarium Bursts, With 1,500 Fish Inside​

A 50-foot-high, 264,000-gallon cylindrical tank called AquaDom, housed in a Radisson in the German capital, spectacularly collapsed, sending waves of water through the building and onto the street.

Debris outside the Radisson Hotel in central Berlin on Friday. The hotel was evacuated and the authorities were checking for structural damage.

Debris outside the Radisson Hotel in central Berlin on Friday. The hotel was evacuated and the authorities were checking for structural damage.Credit...Christoph Soeder/DPA, via Associated Press

BERLIN — The entrance to the five-star hotel looked like a bomb site. Mangled Christmas decorations, twisted poles and window frames, even tiny shampoo bottles littered the street — and among them, the bodies of the blast’s victims: nearly 1,500 tropical fish from a 50-foot tank called the AquaDom.

Any sea creatures that survived the initial blast of the cylindrical AquaDom, billed as the largest tank of its kind in the world, had little hope of rescue. In frigid, 19 degrees Fahrenheit weather, they lay frozen on the street outside the Radisson Hotel, in Berlin’s central Alexanderplatz.

“It’s a tragedy for the fish,” said Markus Kamrad, an official at the Berlin Senate responsible for animal protection. “We were lucky that it happened at a time that only two people were slightly injured. But it’s unfortunate, of course, that so many fish died.”

The tank burst at 5:45 a.m., rescue services said. Had it happened later in the day, the result could have been human tragedy, too.

The AquaDom, in the center of the hotel atrium, had a diameter of 38 feet and was wrapped around a glass elevator, where visitors could view the sea life inside. Police officers at the scene shook their heads at the thought of what could have awaited them had the tank broken just a few hours later in the day.

The AquaDom aquarium in 2015 in the Radisson atrium. Its makers have described it as the largest cylindrical free-standing aquarium in the world.

The AquaDom aquarium in 2015 in the Radisson atrium. Its makers have described it as the largest cylindrical free-standing aquarium in the world.Credit...Jörg Carstensen/Picture Alliance, via Getty Images

Even hours after the AquaDom burst, an entire block of the street outside the building remained soaked by 264,000 gallons of water that rushed out of the lobby, uprooting plants and ripping out telephones that lay strewn among hundreds of chocolate balls from a neighboring Lindt chocolate shop, also battered by the force of a wave of water that local media estimated would have weighed about 100 tons.

The impact of the water erupting onto the street was so powerful that local seismographs picked up on it. Several shops nearby were damaged — with chairs upturned and windows shattered.

The police have said they have no suspicion of foul play. Local media said the cause was likely a technical fault.

In the early afternoon, a special rescue unit of Berlin firefighters rushed to the scene, wearing hard hats and equipped with carabiners and ropes: They were going to scale the top of the tank, and descend deep into the buildings’ basements.

“We have to pump out a mass of water. We have to check and completely stabilize the building here. Also — and this is our No. 1 priority right now — we have to save the living fish that are in the basement,” said James Klein, spokesman for the Berlin Fire Department.

Even hours after the AquaDom burst, an entire block of the street outside the building remained soaked by 264,000 gallons of water that rushed out of the lobby, uprooting plants and ripping out telephones that lay strewn among hundreds of chocolate balls from a neighboring Lindt chocolate shop, also battered by the force of a wave of water that local media estimated would have weighed about 100 tons.

The impact of the water erupting onto the street was so powerful that local seismographs picked up on it. Several shops nearby were damaged — with chairs upturned and windows shattered.

The police have said they have no suspicion of foul play. Local media said the cause was likely a technical fault.

In the early afternoon, a special rescue unit of Berlin firefighters rushed to the scene, wearing hard hats and equipped with carabiners and ropes: They were going to scale the top of the tank, and descend deep into the buildings’ basements.

“We have to pump out a mass of water. We have to check and completely stabilize the building here. Also — and this is our No. 1 priority right now — we have to save the living fish that are in the basement,” said James Klein, spokesman for the Berlin Fire Department.

The few guests who remained outside the building in the morning, waiting for a chance to re-enter to search for their things, seemed hardly reassured by the good fortune of the basement fish. One woman, who asked not to be identified because she said she was in shock, said she still could not believe that no one had been killed.

The hotel released a statement saying it was trying to determine what caused the aquarium to burst.
“Members of our leadership team are on site, and, together with the authorities, are looking into the cause of the incident,” the statement said. “We have immediately closed the hotel until further notice and are relocating guests.”

About 100 firefighters responded to the scene, cordoning off the intersection outside the Radisson as they checked for structural damage and evacuated guests. The two people who were taken to the hospital were cut by shards of glass from the burst tank.

The AquaDom was built in the hotel in 2003, and promised visitors that they could “discover Nemo, Dory and many other colorful fish up close.” It housed clown fish and angel fish, trigger fish and parrot fish, among many other kinds.

The makers of the AquaDom described it as the largest cylindrical free-standing aquarium in the world. The tank had only recently been renovated and reopened to the public.

Fabian Hellbusch, a spokesman for the real estate company that owns the aquarium, Union Investment, said the reason the tank burst was “not yet clear.”

He added, “We are currently trying to get a more detailed picture of the situation and the damage caused in coordination with the police and fire department on site.”

A video made by Sandra Weeser, a member of the federal Parliament who was staying at the hotel, showed the wreckage of the giant tank amid mangled debris.

In an interview on local television, Ms. Weeser described waking up to a shock wave that she thought was a small earthquake before falling back asleep.

When she got up an hour later, she was guided by fire rescuers out of the building, where she spotted a parrot fish, frozen to death.

“It’s a picture of devastation,” she said.
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BROKEN FISH TANK.webp
 
Those pesky scientists are resetting the dates in the Bible again...

Archaeologists Devise a Better Clock for Biblical Times​

A new approach to studying the history of Old Testament conflicts, courtesy of Earth’s geomagnetic record.

When it comes to assigning dates to military campaigns described in the Bible, the parameters of the debate take on almost biblical proportions. Exactly when did the Amalekites wage war against the Hebrews in the wilderness? Did Joshua fight the Battle of Jericho in 1500 B.C. or in 1400 B.C. — or at all?

Such uncertainty exists, in part, because the radiocarbon analysis that scientists use to date organic remains is less accurate for certain epochs. And, in part, because archaeologists often disagree over what the timelines for different narratives should be. But a new technique, which makes use of consistently reliable geomagnetic data, allows scientists to study the history of the Levant with greater confidence.

Many materials, including rocks and soils, record the reversals and variations over time in earth’s invisible geomagnetic field. When ancient ceramics or mud bricks that contain ferromagnetic, or certain iron-bearing, minerals are heated to sufficiently high temperatures, the magnetic moments of the minerals behave like a compass needle, reflecting the orientation and intensity of the field at the time of burning. The new methodology can provide a sort of geobiblical clock.

“Based on the similarity or difference in the recorded magnetic signals, we can either corroborate or disprove hypotheses” about when certain layers of sediment might have been destroyed during biblical battles, said Yoav Vaknin, a doctoral candidate at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University at Jerusalem, who pioneered the technology. “It all fits together perfectly, better than I had ever imagined.”

Mr. Vaknin’s research, published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, harnesses information from 20 international scholars to map out a geomagnetic data set of 21 layers of historical destruction across 17 sites in the Holy Land.

The project is an attempt to check the historical authenticity of Old Testament accounts of the Egyptian, Aramaean, Assyrian and Babylonian offensives against the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and conflicts between these two realms. For those readers without a scorecard, the principals included Shoshenq I (1 Kings 14: 25-26), Hazael (2 Kings 12:18), Jehoash (2 Kings 14:11-15), Tiglath-pileser III (2 Kings 15:29), Sennacherib (2 Kings 18-19) and Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:1-21).

“With this new data set, we can narrow things down to a decadal level,” said Thomas Levy, an archaeologist at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved with the study. “That is super important when trying to connect ancient historical events to the archaeological record.”

The real significance of the research is in the interdisciplinary connections, said Oded Lipschits, an archaeologist and one of the study’s co-authors: Experts in the new technique, known as archaeomagnetism, gain “chronological anchors” from the work of archaeologists — footholds in the historical timeline. “And in return, archaeology gets a new tool for dating, whose main application is in the first millennium B.C., a period when radiocarbon is less effective and impossible to rely on.”

The study stands apart not only for its content, but also for its researchers. All but one of the study’s authors are archaeologists — many of them with contradictory views on biblical history and the chronology of the period.

Rather than provide absolute dates, Mr. Vaknin’s database compares magnetic readings of burned materials at various sites. Where historical evidence has already established precise timelines, nearby sites can also be dated.

To understand the mysterious mechanism of earth’s magnetic field, geophysicists track its changes throughout history by using archaeological relics — furnaces, ceramic shards and roof tiles — that contain ferromagnetic minerals.

In a 2020 paper, Mr. Vaknin and his colleagues used floor fragments and smashed pottery from a large, two-story building excavated in a Jerusalem parking lot to recreate Earth’s magnetic field, as it was on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, 586 B.C., which is recognized as the date when Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army annihilated the First Temple and the city of Jerusalem.

The more recent study reconstructed the magnetic field recorded in burned remains at biblical sites in present-day Israel that were razed by fire. Using archaeomagnetic readings that have been preserved for millenniums in mud bricks, in a mud beehive and in two collections of ceramic objects and historical information from ancient inscriptions, the team analyzed layers of ruin left behind by military conflicts.

The findings help settle a longstanding debate over how exactly the Kingdom of Judah fell and disproves claims that the ancient settlement of Tel Beit She’an, a magnet for conflagrations and epic sieges, was razed in the ninth century B.C. by the Aramaean armies of Hazael of Damascus. Magnetic dating indicates instead that Beit She’an was burned to the ground some 70 to 100 years earlier; this links the destruction to the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq, whose campaign was described in the Hebrew Bible and in an inscription on a wall of the Temple of Amun in Karnak, Egypt, which mentions Beit She’an as one of the king’s conquests.

Curiously, other data indicate that, about a century later, Hazael’s soldiers set fire to several settlements: Tel Rehov, Tel Zayit and Horvat Tevet, in addition to Gath, one of the five royal cities of the Philistines (and home to Goliath), whose destruction is noted in 2 Kings 12:17. The study, which examined the geomagnetic records at all four sites at the time of demolition, strongly suggests that they were burned during the same military offensive, according to the researchers.

Mr. Vaknin spent four years pioneering the application of paleomagnetic research to biblical archaeology, aided by his doctoral advisers, Dr. Lipschits, Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University and Ron Shaar of the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Besides helping to date archaeological contexts, the technology provides invaluable information on Earth’s magnetic field, one of the most enigmatic phenomena in geoscience. “Since instrumental recording of the field started about 200 years ago, the field’s strength has declined, and there is a danger that we might lose it completely,” Dr. Ben-Yosef said. “Understanding this trend and how dangerous it is requires data on the past behavior of the field.”

Earth’s magnetosphere is a protective bubble that deflects solar winds, streams of charged particles from the sun that gust through the solar system, and cosmic rays from deep space. Scientists theorize that the magnetic field is generated by a layer of molten iron and nickel in the planet’s outer core, about 1,800 miles below the surface, that is in continual flux around a solid iron core. As ferromagnetic particles in ancient artifacts cool, their magnetic moments are baked into the alignment. So long as the objects don’t heat up again, they will retain what is effectively a fossilized magnetic field. Each reheating beyond a certain temperature wipes out all previously recorded magnetic signals, so that the date is always of the most recent firing.

From around 800 to 400 B.C., as a result of changes in the percentage of radiocarbon in the atmosphere, the resolution of radiocarbon dating during those years is so limited that archaeologists seldom use it.

Dr. Ben-Yosef said he hoped that the new dating method would finally settle questions about the fall of the Kingdom of Judah. While it is widely accepted that the Babylonians laid waste to the Judean polity in 586 B.C., some researchers, relying on historical and archaeological evidence, argue that the invaders were not solely responsible. The intensity of the magnetic field as recorded in the destruction layer of the site of Malhata — a city on the southern periphery of Judah — is different and significantly lower than the one recorded in the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom.” This means that the two destructions cannot be related to the same event,” Dr. Ben-Yosef said.

The archaeomagnetic data provided clear evidence that Malhata was destroyed decades later, a scenario that fits the notion that the Edomites, Judah’s southern neighbors, took advantage of the weakness of the Judahites after the Babylonian attack, decimated their southern cities and raided their territory.

“These events are reflected in the Hebrew Bible,” Dr. Ben-Yosef said. “They explain the animosity toward the Edomites by several prophets, notably Obadiah.”

Scholars who had partly absolved the Babylonians should feel vindicated, he added. “Now, the magnetic results support their hypothesis. The big deal about this research is that after decades of work on establishing a reference database, we finally reap the fruits of our labor, and what we saw has become a potent dating tool in biblical archaeology that, undoubtedly, will become part of the tool kit of archaeologists working in the Holy Land.”
 
jpd said:
nypost.com

Man with WWI explosive lodged in his rectum sparks bomb scare, hospital evacuation

Oh, shell no! The World War I relic measured almost 8 inches in length and more than 2 inches in girth.
nypost.com nypost.com
Click to expand...
It’s believed the pervy patient inserted the item up his anus for sexual pleasure.

“An apple, a mango, or even a can of shaving foam, we are used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be,” one doctor declared. “But a shell? Never!”

WTF!!!

:rolleyes:
 
So this is why they're talking about a Salt Water License? Seems that in NY, you don't get what you pay for, you get what you vote for, IMO. Crap, Maine state legislators only make about $26,000 + tiny per diems. Needless to say, being a representative here is NOT the day job...

$32,000 Raises: What Brings N.Y. Lawmakers Back to Albany in December​

Lawmakers will return for a one-day special session to approve raises for themselves that will make them the highest-paid state legislators in the nation.

ALBANY, N.Y. — With inflation raging and the midterm election in the rearview mirror, New York’s lawmakers are making a special return to the State Capitol on Thursday on important business: to give themselves a $32,000 raise.

The wage increase to $142,000, which comes four years after the lawmakers got their most recent holiday-time bump in pay, will make the state’s 213 elected legislators the best compensated in the nation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But that organization also counts New York’s legislators as among the hardest-working lawmakers in the country, despite a seemingly ever-shortening legislative calendar.

That calendar only counts days in Albany in the official legislative session, a January-to-June ritual that can range from quick, gavel-in, gavel-out days to epic all-nighters. But lawmakers also note their work extends far beyond their time in the capital, addressing constituent concerns and drafting legislation in their home districts, just like legislators in other states.

That time away from Albany also affords many lawmakers the opportunity to earn additional income. Such outside earning has long been a source of concern for good-government groups, who worry about the potential corruption and conflicts of interest.

As part of Thursday’s deal to raise their pay, lawmakers agreed to sharply limit such additional income, a move hailed by Legislative leaders as a major step in stamping out Albany’s well-deserved reputation for money-driven malfeasance.

The new base pay for New York lawmakers will rise to $142,000 from $110,000, a salary that is roughly twice the median household income in the United States, albeit in a state where a hamburger can cost you $50.

The limits on outside income will not be absolute: Lawmakers can still earn up to $35,000 a year for outside jobs, and legislative leaders, committee chairs and ranking members of finance and codes committees will continue to earn an additional stipend — commonly known as a “lulu” — for their work. The $35,000 limit also doesn’t take effect until 2025, unlike the raise, which will take effect on Jan. 1, when a new Legislature is seated.

Indeed, the looming calendar-flip is why lawmakers flocked back to the capital on Thursday for a so-called special session, a mechanism used in the past to address issues like gun control.

Carl E. Heastie, a Bronx Democrat who serves as Assembly speaker, expressed support for the raise earlier this month, suggesting that just coming to Albany is enough to justify a boost in pay.

“People don’t realize the sacrifice that they make being away from their families,” Mr. Heastie said. “I don’t think there’s enough money in the world that could compensate you for being away from your families.”

Considering the makeup of the Legislature — where Democrats hold a supermajority in both the Assembly and the State Senate — it was not surprising that Republicans could safely attack the raise and still be assured of receiving it.

Rob Ortt, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, said in a statement on Wednesday that the pay hike was “patently offensive to the people we represent.”

“It’s no secret that the high cost of living and violent crime are the top two issues for New Yorkers,” Mr. Ortt said. “Yet, Albany’s one-party ruling class continues to put their own misplaced priorities first.”

“This would make the Grinch blush,” he added. “Taxpayers shouldn’t forget.”

The criticism was not limited to political opponents of Democrats. Blair Horner, the executive director of New York Public Interest Research Group, seemed bewildered by the big raise, saying “this number came out of nowhere,” as lawmakers negotiated in secret.

“It’s the public’s money,” Mr. Horner said. “The public deserves to know what is the rationale.”

Mr. Horner’s organization was one of a coalition of good-government groups that decried the wage increase, citing loopholes in the law that still allowed “income from entities where the legislator would have a fiduciary responsibility to a client.” The groups also opposed allowing lawmakers to continue to draw earnings from family-owned businesses; lawmakers can also receive royalties from intellectual property or capital gains or investments.

New York is one of only a few states where making laws can make you a six-figure salary: California, with more than twice the population of New York yet many fewer state lawmakers, had held the mark for highest base pay.

Mr. Horner noted that the sizable raise might be a reflection of the pay of another Democrat-dominated body — the New York City Council — where members make $148,500 a year in base salary, though those members are subject to term limits, unlike Albany’s elected representatives.

While the bill is expected to pass both houses easily, the final decision on the pay raise will lie with Gov. Kathy Hochul, a recently re-elected Democrat. As of Thursday, Ms. Hochul has not officially said she will sign off, though recent remarks suggested that she would do so.

With lawmakers already making the trip back to Albany, some editorial boards were calling for Ms. Hochul to use the raises to extract concessions from lawmakers, as others dreamed of a more robust special session.

Michael Kink, the executive director of the Strong Economy for All Coalition, said that he didn’t begrudge lawmakers for wanting a raise — “They have a very important responsibility,” he said — but thought that they should spread the wealth by raising the minimum wage, something proposed in a separate bill currently pending in Albany.

“It’s good economic policy. It’s good politics,” he said. “And it would demonstrate that the Legislature is considering all New Yorkers that are facing cost of living pressures.”

That said, Mr. Kink wasn’t optimistic that lawmakers would spent much more time in Albany than necessary, with a looming winter storm expected to inundate large swathes of upstate, and the generally bad press that such self-imposed raises tend to create.

“Rightly or wrongly,” he said, “legislative pay increases are probably not so popular.”
 
Is It Illegal To Rent A Storage Unit To Live In New York?

Read More: Can You Legally Live In A Storage Unit In New York State? | Can You Legally Live In A Storage Unit In New York State?

As many people around New York face rent and housing crises due to rising costs, creative solutions may arise. Storage units offer secure, dry, well-lit spaces, sometimes climate-controlled and with electricity. And people have turned shipping containers into livable, sometimes luxurious dwellings, right? But, is it legal to live in a storage unit temporarily or long-term?

Read More: Can You Legally Live In A Storage Unit In New York State? | Can You Legally Live In A Storage Unit In New York State?
 
www.yahoo.com

Social Security denies disability benefits based on list with jobs from 1977

He had made it through four years of denials and appeals, and Robert Heard was finally before a Social Security judge who would decide whether he qualified for disability benefits. Two debilitating strokes had left the 47-year-old electrician with halting speech, an enlarged heart and violent...
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Washington Post

Social Security denies disability benefits based on list with jobs from 1977​


He had made it through four years of denials and appeals, and Robert Heard was finally before a Social Security judge who would decide whether he qualified for disability benefits. Two debilitating strokes had left the 47-year-old electrician with halting speech, an enlarged heart and violent tremors.

There was just one final step: A vocational expert hired by the Social Security Administration had to tell the judge if there was any work Heard could still do despite his condition. Heard was stunned as the expert canvassed his computer and announced his findings: He could find work as a nut sorter, a dowel inspector or an egg processor - jobs that virtually no longer exist in the United States.

"Whatever it is that does those things, machines do it now," said Heard, who lives on food stamps and a small stipend from his parents in a subsidized apartment in Tullahoma, Tenn. "Honestly, if they could see my shaking, they would see I couldn't sort any nuts. I'd spill them all over the floor."


He was still hopeful the administrative law judge hearing his claim for $1,300 to $1,700 per month in benefits had understood his limitations.

But while the judge agreed that Heard had multiple, severe impairments, he denied him benefits, writing that he had "job opportunities" in three occupations that are nearly obsolete and agreeing with the expert's dubious claim that 130,000 positions were still available sorting nuts, inspecting dowels and processing eggs.
 
jpd said:
Who knew?? I'd better stay on the couch so I don't get cancelled....

time.com

The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise in the U.S.

And six other surprising facts about the history of fitness in America.
time.com time.com
Click to expand...
Anything that doesn’t have to do with thug life is racist. Your lifestyle is under attack
See this chick? Her name is JuJu (WTF), she’s deaf. She was maced by the pedo’s and Antifa yesterday evening. Amazing, she ran to the White Supremest side of the street for protection.
 

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