FirstCircle

For anyone interested in the shared blood-lust of political regimes and Christianity, this is a good read.

I have little doubt that modern American Xians of the MAGA variety (i.e. most of them) would relish the chance of imposing their will on fellow citizens by similar (and probably more awful) means.

Home and a pickup and an Audi something-or-other apparently. Also from the photo he likes to wear Xian bling ... that gold ring ought to be worth a couple thou-, maybe more if it was melted down and the curse was off. He's probably got drawers full of gaudy crap like the ring and the lapel pin, maybe Smartmatic and Dominion will settle for the jewelry and a few pillows?

Me either, unless he's just trying to get into the news so fellow MAGA morons will see how completely fucked he is and will financially support him.

Ever the pitchman, Lindell, known as the MyPillow Guy, asked viewers of his webcast who wanted to help to call in and buy his pillows, towels and other products.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you get a public defender in a civil suit. From TFA it sounds like Pillow Crybaby isn't facing any criminal charges (yet).

Yep, just another "cost of doing business" for the builder. The big worry is of course the cost to the Company of finding another skilled worker willing to risk their neck for low pay and abuse, and the cost of project delays.

Want to know more about what happened and what's being done to remedy the safety problems at the job site? Well just piss off, because

Laveron Vetter has not seen the entirety of L&I's investigation, just the citation, because inspections involving a death are confidential per Washington State Law.

You, peon, do not have a Need To Know. Of course you can always ask the Company.

SAK Builders did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

inexplicably, in early October of last year, the city quietly approved an entirely different LUCS for Zenith Energy without even informing the public that a second application was in the works.

"It all happened without any public input," Audrey Leonard, a staff attorney with Columbia Riverkeeper, told DeSmog. Columbia Riverkeeper was formally involved in litigation defending the city's initial rejection of Zenith's LUCS. "It seemed like this was kept behind closed doors on purpose to just sort of have it be a done deal by the time it was public."

new documents and email communications obtained by DeSmog show that there is more to the story. Both city commissioners Dan Ryan and Carmen Rubio, and their top staff, were not only involved in the process, but appear to have played an influential role in coordinating the effort to push Zenith's new LUCS application over the finish line. That contradicts the public narrative that the LUCS was the result of a routine administrative process at the bureaucratic level, with elected officials above the fray.

Emails from Zenith's lobbyists at Pac/West Communications show that Zenith's outreach to city council began as soon as the company's legal challenges began to run into trouble. On February 2, a state land use board ruled that Portland had the authority to reject the permit, as long as the city provided some more evidence to justify its decision. That same day, Zenith reached out to Commissioner Ryan to invite him to visit its site. That appears to be the beginning of an effort that would last several months to court Ryan and Rubio, with the goal of getting the city commissioners to visit the site. The overtures continued through the spring, including to Rubio's office.

Rubio's chief of staff, Jillian Schoene, appears to have played a significant role in the city's relationship with Zenith over the summer, having met with lobbyists hired by Zenith, Pac/West Communications, on at least two occasions, in June and July.

Government gets the upper hand over giant fossil-fuel company's environmentally risky plans, company's future profit growth is partly imperiled, company finds government officials in key positions willing to meet with its leadership and with its lobbyists, government backs down, company profit growth plans back on track. Nothing to see here, no corruption whatsoever, move along everyone.

I'm interested in learning about what hands were greased and how. Will it be the usual campaign contributions, or will it be private jet trips to remote private resorts? The latter seems to be in vogue at the moment.

I'm into field watches and Fliegers and I love the look of this. Reminds me of my Seiko 5 SNK auto. I have freakishly small wrists so 40mm is a bit too big whereas the mid-30s Seiko is just right. I'm not familiar with this brand, would be interested in hearing what kind of rep it's got given the price-point.

Hetzner.

The fact that we have a world that is still so controlled by religions is disgusting.

Especially religions that provide absolutely zero Slack for your money. "Bob" is my savior, and he can be yours too, for a price. Terms and Conditions apply. Not available in stores.

Mr. Putin, meet Lieutenant Columbo, from the LAPD. He'd like to have a few words with you Sir. Just a few questions about this tragic accident involving an acquaintance of yours, a Mr. Prigozhin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyfywQ98dIU

You're in the running for a BoneAppleTea Prize, so that's something. There's also the Nobel Prize but that's overrated IMO. The real glory is with the Ig Nobel, you should consider submitting your work there.

I think the controversial bit was that when queried about various aspects of admittance to "heaven", the Google AI assumed that the question had to do with, specifically, the Christian idea of "heaven", going so far as to make reference to some "Jesus" entity. Christianity doesn't own the concept of heaven or an afterlife, but, apparently, the AI has been trained such that it responds to such questions from a seemingly Christian perspective. That was my take on it - the discussion is in the article, best have a look at it yourself.