I’ve lost 30 pounds since May.
Good work!
PA Nature news: They’re hopefully going to reintroduce the marten back into forests across the state.
A small bit of good news that’s also pretty puzzling: A boy was successfully and safely rescued from inside of a “Hello Kitty” claw machine. My question is: how did he get in there?
It’s a good thing your link showed a preview to the article, because I was going to ask how many quarters it took to retrieve him.
From the lede of the article you quoted:
having climbed through chute to reach prized plushies
Seems kinda obvious to me, but maybe I missed something.
No, that makes sense. I guess my eyes skipped over that bit somehow.
Greece is voting to legalize same-sex marriage and it’s expected to pass. This is excellent and very appropriate for the week of Valentine’s Day, but it doesn’t allow same-sex parents to have kids by surrogate mothers.
Dads are rocking it out.
The vote did pass!
I know it’s not yet law, but the rare sight of the US Government apparently trying to help people should be applauded. Here’s hoping it gets to the President’s desk.
Good job, Democrats.
Astrazeneca Suddenly Figured Out They Don’t Have To Charge $640 For Inhalers (wonkette.com)
Unfortunately, I have no idea what any of my medicines would cost if I didn’t have Medicare and gap insurance. I pay about $900/year for my supposedly generic Diskus 2-ingredient inhaler. That’s 720 doses, so $1.25 per puff, or $75 per 30-day inhaler. Maybe that price will start to go down one of these years, although I don’t see Advair mentioned as one of the target companies.
I know it’s a rarity, but if it works and can be widely and reliably used to help people who need new organs, I call it good news.
In an era where lots of newspapers are closing down and journalists are losing their jobs, another news website opened today. It’s called Hunterbrook Media and it has an interesting business model.
Hire journalists. And data scientists. No paywall. No ads. No donors. Do investigative reporting of companies. Release your story to a hedge fund before you release it to the public. Send copies to the relevant regulators. Hedge fund supports the news room financially, and they hope makes money hand over fist by shorting the stock of bad guys. Journalists are cheaper to hire than hedge fund MBAs.
This won’t save the world, but it might make it a little better. Their first story concerns misrepresentation from America’s largest mortgage lender. “Litigators and finance professors told Hunterbrook UWM’s conduct could constitute fraud and run afoul of laws passed after 2008 to protect borrowers.”
In the coming weeks and months, our investigations will expose a fossil fuel conglomerate supporting a junta, an agricultural giant expanding operations in a region known for forced labor, and an energy company destroying an ecosystem. We believe many of the corporations we will report on are also lying — to customers, communities, partners, shareholders, and the world.
We will be regularly publishing global news reports as well, starting with foreign correspondents on the ground in Mongolia, Namibia, Brazil, Vietnam, Peru, Botswana, and India.
Ho-ho-ho:
Hunterbrook repeatedly sought comment from UWM and its senior officials over four days, including sending basic questions about UWM’s publicly-available information. UWM declined to comment directly and instead responded with a cease-and-desist letter, sent by an outside law firm. UWM’s lawyers claimed that four days was not a “reasonable” opportunity to comment. Hunterbrook counsel responded that “it was evidently more than enough time for UWM to direct you and your firm to send Hunterbrook Media a six-page letter threatening a strategic lawsuit against protected First Amendment activity.”
Best wishes to our newest newsroom.
PS: Goddamn, it gets better and better. Pass word to team of shysters, proceeds of lawsuit go to local news reporting. Or rather I suspect pennies on the dollar go there, but still.
- The nonprofit Hunterbrook Foundation signed an agreement to share data analysis and research with the experienced plaintiff’s litigation firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP — and let the firm know we would be publishing today. We hope this provides an avenue for homebuyers to recover potential damages from UWM. Proceeds the Hunterbrook Foundation receives from such litigation would be used to fund local news.
UWM = United Wholesale Mortgage, in case anyone is wondering. Looks promising!
This sort of goes here. I thought @LH75 would be interested to know I used their cake recipe that was posted back in 2020 to enter a contest at work today. I think it was their grandma’s chocolate cake? I doctored it up with a pinch of cayenne, some fudge icing, and a sprinkle of cinnamon imperials, and it went over big. I’ll share the glory if we win!
I am very glad the cake turned out!
In the past two years I’ve completely given up past food, got started on kidney-positive medication, all but given up video games, worked out a better sleep schedule, and got a rowing machine (more on this in a much longer post).
The difference has been overwhelming. No more out of control diarrhea. No more getting exhausted from a simple stair climb. Losing actual weight. More energy. Less insomnia (still working on this). Better state of mind overall.
And a lesson that’s stuck with me through life. Your parents, your teachers, your BFFs and trainers and bartenders and drivers can nag and lecture and berate you all they want, but the only self-improvement that’s ever going to stick is what you decide you need, and it’s up to you to make it work, no one else. Validation for what I always knew was the truth is nearly as gratifying as the actual physical benefits I’ve received.
That and ESPN had an absolute barn-burner of a women’s gymnastics championship. 
I agree for such lifestyle changes you have to be internally motivated and do your own thing. I’ve had a bit of a self-care renaissance which includes exercise and improved nutrition if not weight loss. I did it by using an app to create a morning routine with tiny habits, and as the routine solidified it was not hard to just expand the scope of my activities.
I’ve been meditating for about three months now for 60-90 minutes per day. I know that is a lot. I recently scaled back to limit it to 60 for now (two separate 30 minute sessions.) I have been getting up at 5:30am to do this while the house is still quiet. But the impact has been remarkable. I’m just not as bothered by things as I used to be. I’ve made peace with my anger. It’s like turning around to face the bogeyman that has chased you all of your life and discovering the bogeyman is made of air, just a phantom that comes and goes, empty.
I’m learning not to be attached to what other people think about me or anything else. I don’t expect as much from my child or husband. I’ve found a spiritual community at a Zen temple I attend every week. It hasn’t been easy, there’s been a lot of struggle but I’ve learned a lot as a result of the struggle. I’ve had some specific trauma issues for over twenty years. I never thought they would ever be resolved, I just thought I had to live with it for the rest of my life. And suddenly this entire part of me that I had closed off has opened up. Even if I didn’t feel some spiritual benefit from meditation, that alone would be worth it.
I wouldn’t say it’s had a dramatic impact on my tendency to overeat but I’ve been suffering a lot less when I do. I’m not as hard on myself as I used to be because I’m learning to just be aware of what’s going on without judgment. People frame this as acceptance but I think that implies some kind of receptive emotional state. It’s easier for me to just think of it as awareness, which is not colored by emotion. It’s just paying attention. And it makes a difference.