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Reports highlight high injury rates at Amazon facilities—40% higher than industry averages—due to intense productivity demands. Employees have shared accounts of urinating in bottles to meet quotas and enduring unsafe environments…. Amazon has actively opposed unionization efforts, with workers alleging psychological tactics to discourage organizing. The company has been accused of firing employees who advocate for better conditions…Investigations revealed instances of underpaying vulnerable workers, including new parents and those on medical leave, even during periods of record profits.

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#Superb_Owl_Sunday hall of fame legend:

Picasso’s beloved pet rescue owl, Ubu, who inspired the famous artist to create a whole series of owl drawings, paintings, and ceramics.

“While Pablo was still working at the Musée d’Antibes, [Michel] Sima had come to us one day with a little owl he had found in the corner of the museum. One of his claws had been injured. We bandaged it and gradually it healed. We bought a cage for him and when we returned to Paris we brought him back with us and put him in the kitchen with the canaries, the pigeons, the turtledoves. We were very nice to him but he only glared at us. Any time we went into the kitchen, the canaries chirped, the pigeons cooed and the turtledoves laughed but the owl remained stolidly silent or, at best, snorted. He smelled awful and ate nothing but mice. […] Every time the owl snorted at Pablo he would shout, ‘Cochon, Merde,’ and a few other obscenities, just to show the owl that he was even worse mannered than he was.” — Françoise Gilot, as quoted in _A Picasso Bestiary_

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#Superb_Owl royalty:

Plate, c. 1525-50

Hispano-Moresque (Manises, Valencia, Spain)

Tin-glazed earthenware with luster decoration, 2 1/16 x 18 1/16 in. (5.2 x 45.9 cm)

On display at The Walters Art Museum 48.1099

“Heraldic animals-such as this fantastical owl wearing a crown-appear widely in Hispano-Moresque pottery, with each center of production developing its own decorative elements. The floral and foliage patterns surrounding the owl, as well as the interlocking lines and circles comprising its torso, were favored during the first half of the 16th century in the town of Manises in the province of Valencia, Spain.”

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November 2024

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“His funding freeze play was supposed to be part of a well-planned, shock-and-awe takeover. The slapdash result suggests that the minds behind MAGA 2.0 are still a slopcore mess.”

Excerpt;

“The original memo said that it sought to end the “use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies,” whatever that means. Follow-up OMB directives over the next few hours tacked on exemptions for some programs but gave no insight into when others would come back online. Lawmakers, especially among Democrats, denounced the moves as illegal and unconstitutional.

“Chaos followed. The federal government disburses trillions of dollars each year to states, counties, cities, tribes, companies, nonprofits, and individuals. Failure to deliver that expected and allocated money would lead to layoffs at a wide range of organizations and businesses, put low-income Americans in dire financial straits, and wreck state and local budgets. “

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A couple of American Tree Sparrows showed up the other day. They came back today, so I guess they are hanging out here for a bit. Here you can nicely study their ID details a bit - eye ring, beak colors, head marks and colors and the spot on the chest. They are on the smaller size, like Juncos and Goldfinches. I have seen them on feeders before but very rarely so. I have a very soft spot for the native American sparrows, they are all looking so pretty and make fun noises. I guess the fact that they are not here all the time makes them even more special.

(Tree Sparrows visit a bird bath on the ground.)

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Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

Excerpt:

“As Christina Jewett and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times explained, the authors of Project 2025 called for the cuts outlined in the new policy, claiming those cuts would “reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of leftist agendas.” Dr. David A. Baltrus of the University of Arizona told Jewett and Stolberg that the new policy is “going to destroy research universities in the short term, and I don’t know after that. They rely on the money. They budget for the money. The universities were making decisions expecting the money to be there.”

…………………………..

Since when is research related to health a “leftist agenda”?

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“Speaking of Greenland, there’s a question for you that I want to pose: What is the difference between Greenland and Donald Trump? Greenland is not for sale,” the Minnesota Democrat and former presidential candidate joked, drawing some boos from the audience.

“Okay, for any Republican Trump administration person out there that wants to throw eggs at me as a result of that joke, you can’t because they’re too expensive,” she responded, referencing the skyrocketing price of eggs nationwide, drawing more laughs.”

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