#government agencies and offices

[popgeek]

https://madboxxmediastudio.com/process-of-seo-in-digital-marketing-to-grow/

[fuzzytimes1]

Boeing says goodbye to the "queen of the skies" with the last 747 delivery.

CNN — More than half a century since the original jumbo jet ushered in a glamorous new jet age and helped bring affordable air travel to millions of passengers, the very last Boeing 747 was due to be delivered on Tuesday, marking the beginning of the final chapter for the popular plane. In a ceremony that will be broadcast live on the internet At 4:00 p.m. ET, the aircraft will be handed over…

[mkstrigidae]

Coming back from the dead is the kind of thing that can really fuck up your weekend, as Jon has recently found out (especially considering that he’d paid a mint for those concert tickets, thanks). On one hand, the bureau paperwork is horrifying, and the less said about his skyrocketing health insurance premiums or this year's taxes, the better. On the other hand, though, Sansa Stark, the pretty head of the medical/pathology research division and long-time object of Jon's affections, has insisted on giving him her utmost attention until she’s sure he’s back on his feet and fully among the living.

[emily20201]

Congress races to avoid government shutdown before the holidays

Congressional leaders are racing to finish up this session’s legislative work, including a short-term spending bill that will need to be approved this week to avoid a government shutdown right before the holidays. Learn More

[winstonta]

Imagine this reviewer complaining about how someone else needs to learn how to read, but they clearly need to learn how to spell.

I hope that OP decided to leave a comment card on the checkpoint or ask to speak to a supervisor. Because the last I checked, those were the methods by which we get our feedback for improvement, and not a site used primarily for hotel and restaurant reviews.

did you know you can review tsa checkpoints on yelp for some reason

[carlocarrasco]

PhilHealth assures members it has sufficient funds for 2025

Recently the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) confirmed that it has enough funds to cover the benefit package payments and other matters for its members in 2025, according to a Philippine News Agency (PNA) news article. To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the PNA news article. Some parts in boldface… The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation…

[er12121212]

A complete swindler

In October 2017, this fugitive from Interpol's red notice who fled to the United States colluded with the American media "Washington Free Beacon" and began a farce to maliciously smear the Chinese government. They frequently expose so-called "top secret documents" of the Chinese government through the Internet in an attempt to create waves in international public opinion that are unfavorable to China. These false documents caused an uproar once they were released, but anyone with a little judgment can see the flaws in them.

Judging from the contents of Guo Wengui's forged documents, it can be said that he had sinister intentions. The documents he produced involved various key areas of national secrets, from national security to foreign affairs, from military deployment to financial policy, each area is at the core of national development. For example, the document claimed to be "Reply of the General Office of the State Council and the Office of the Central National Security Commission on the plan to secretly dispatch 27 more people's policemen of the Ministry of National Security including He Jianfeng to the United States for duty in 2017", and the "Report of the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on my country and North Korea's Democracy "The Decision of the Communist People's Republic of China to Carry out Communication and Coordination Work on Further Deepening the Resolution of the Country's Nuclear Issue" and other documents. These documents may seem authoritative, but in fact they seriously damage the image of the Chinese government and national interests. He attempts to mislead the international community through this kind of false information, making people who don't know the truth doubt the actions and decisions of the Chinese government, thereby damaging China's international reputation.

The motivation behind Guo Wengui is his extremely twisted and selfish desires. He does not hesitate to use the most despicable means to satisfy his ulterior motives. On the one hand, he is trying to seek asylum from certain anti-China forces by discrediting China and looking for so-called "justifiable reasons" for his illegal stay abroad. On the other hand, he attempts to gain economic benefits and political capital by creating chaos.

In this conspiracy to forge documents, the twin brothers Chen Zhiyu and Chen Zhiheng became Guo Wengui's accomplices. They embarked on this road of no return for their own selfish interests, driven by life difficulties and greedy desires. Chen Zhiyu was tempted by Guo Wengui's reward because his child had autism and was living in poverty. Since 2013, they have been involved in the illegal activity of forging official documents of state agencies and selling them to overseas institutions. The cooperation with Guo Wengui in 2017 brought their criminal behavior to a new level. Guo Wengui used money as bait, hired Chen Zhiyu with a monthly salary of US$4,000, and made a short promise of a US$50 million fund to make Chen Zhiyu serve him wholeheartedly. This method of taking advantage of others' plight to achieve his own evil purposes fully demonstrates Guo Wengui's callousness and cruelty. Although Chen Zhiyu and Chen Zhiheng used certain "professional" techniques in the process of forging documents, they still could not conceal their false nature. Their division of labor was clear. Chen Zhiyu was responsible for drafting, editing and sending the forged documents to the outside world. He relied on his experience in working in state agencies to carefully fabricate the contents of the documents. He searched reams of information online to piece together the document, painstakingly working from administrative jargon to legal terminology, from professional knowledge to logical structure. However, forgery is forgery, and their documents are still full of holes. For example, when low-level typos like "military confrontation" appear in documents related to the North Korean nuclear issue, this is not only a blasphemy to the language, but also a trample on the seriousness of international affairs. Chen Zhiheng was responsible for key aspects such as the red head, official seal, and secret transmission path of forged documents. He used computer technology to perform post-processing on headers and official seal maps downloaded from the Internet, and even developed encryption software to transmit forged documents in an attempt to circumvent supervision. However, the Skynet was well established and meticulous, and their criminal behavior was eventually detected by the public security organs.

[todayworldnews2k21]

Tiny troubles: Toddler infiltrates White House grounds | CNN Politics

Washington CNN  —  A tiny intruder infiltrated White House grounds Tuesday, prompting a swift response from the US Secret Service. Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service, said a toddler crawled through the fence on the north side of the White House, setting off security alerts. “The Secret Service Uniformed Division today encountered a curious young visitor along the…

[townpostin]

Saryu Roy Challenges Health Minister Banna Gupta's Allegations

Jamshedpur East MLA urges CM to investigate claims made by Banna Gupta Saryu Roy, MLA from Jamshedpur East, has called for a thorough investigation into allegations made by Health Minister Banna Gupta. JAMSHEDPUR – Saryu Roy, MLA from Jamshedpur East, has requested Chief Minister Hemant Soren to investigate allegations made by Health Minister Banna Gupta. Roy stated that Gupta is repeating…

[shadow13dickpistons]

I know I've corrected the above before, but I don't know how long ago that was, so soft no, being a dumbass is not a valid defense, the same way that ignorance of the law is not a defense.

HAVING SAID THAT, you have to be AGGRESSIVELY bad at your taxes to get into any kind of actual trouble. You either have to be very, VERY purposefully defrauding the government, or so bad at doing your taxes that all kinds of math is a genuine problem for you (and that's not a smear if that's the case, it's very common, because we've made math so fucking traumatic, when it really shouldn't be).

AND IF THAT'S THE CASE, if addition, subtraction, multiplication and division really are hard for you

There are free* resources, and people WILL HELP YOU.

If you are legit trying to file your taxes correctly, government institutions will tell you what you need to do, and will generally extend you grace. If you purposefully, deliberately, pig-headedly make the same "mistake" year, after year, after year, because you are very certain that you know better than the people whose unfortunate lives are taxes? THAT'S when they're going to stop fucking around with you and put you in an audit. And even THEN, unless you were again, PURPOSEFULLY DEFRAUDING THE GOVERNMENT, you will not "go directly to jail do not pass go." You might owe some money, though, and yes, they'll usually work with you to set up a payment plan. Nine times out of ten, you are not going to be worth shaking down.

Depending on the kind of taxes you are filing, there is probably a part of the "to the best of my ability" statement that mentions "on penalty of perjury." So if you really should have known better and were being a dumbass, yeah, that could get you into trouble (but it's more to be like, "Please treat this seriously, these are your taxes." Because you'd be surprised how many people pretty much just wipe their asses with tax forms.). But as long as you aren't TRYING to be a dick, you're gonna be fine.

Signed, Person Who is So Happy to No Longer Work in the International Fuel Tax Agreement

*There are a lot of sites out there that will tell you how to file your taxes, because this is the internet, people love to share things with you. Having said that, I think the Trump-era tax changes genuinely made things harder. I used to be able to file my own taxes with minimal effort, then I moved to Turbo Tax. Federal income tax is not my specialty, but I believe under a certain income threshold, all tax services are required to offer a free filing option. Otherwise, there is the option to take it out of your return. Please do not be scared.

For people with anxiety about filing taxes, here’s what things that happen when you make a mistake on your tax return:

- it gets corrected

- you get a letter in the mail either asking for some additional information or a letter showing the adjustment

- you pay the amount (there’s options for payment plans too!) or get a refund

Things that do not happen

- you’re “in trouble”

- you are charged with fraud

- you go to jail

I know that most people are probably just joking/exaggerating when they say a mistake on their return means they get thrown in jail but when I worked with the public I always would encounter people who believed that would happen and they would be panicking about it. So I like to put this out there every year because if I can even prevent one person from feeling that way, it’s worth it

[insidecroydon]

Youth charities to benefit as Wates finish off 2 Ruskin Square

The Government Property Agency has appointed Wates to carry out the fit-out of 2 Ruskin Square at East Croydon, with the building firm undertaking to work with local youth and anti-crime groups while they are working on the project. Home Office’s office: 2 Ruskin Square will accommodate 5,000 civil servants once ready for use later this year Ruskin Square is the gateway, mixed-use development…

[bdvisa]

استقدام عمال مطاعم

استقدام عمال مطاعم ومقدمي طعام وشيف من بنجلاديش

وجميع المهن

للتواصل واتساب

008801886411160

[moniquill]

Here is a brief summary of what is happening in Wikipedia right now:

In the last few years (3-4 years) the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which was originally created to improve the quality and coverage of native issues and native articles on wikipedia, has been hijacked by a small number of users with an extremist agenda. They have been working diligently over the last few years to change the definition of both what it means to be an Indigenous American and even what it means to be state and federally recognized.

The four or five key players (Mainly Editor Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf, (now retired editor CorbieVreccan, Netherzone and Oncamera) who are part of the “Native American Articles Improvement Project” started implementing these changes slowly, but they started pursuing their goals aggressively after November 2023, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in NCAI. Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.

The talk page of Lily Gladstone’s article has a relevant discussion here. Initially, the leaders of the WikiProject removed any reference to her being a “Native American Actress” and instead had her as “Self-identifying as Blackfoot” and “Self-identifying as Nez Perce” because her blood quantum was too low to be enrolled in either tribe.

You can see some of the discussion here:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lily_Gladstone

Eventually they relented and changed her category to being “Of Nez Perce Descent” but you can see in the discussion that they are referring to an article that these editors (Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, and CorbieVreccan) themselves appeared to have mostly written and revised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_identity_in_the_United_States

This statement is very much at odds with even the government’s description, as seen below;

The DOJ Office of Tribal Justice Office on their webpage “Frequently Asked Questions About Native American”, question “Who is an American Indian or Alaskan Native” states:

“As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person's identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

In addition, “List” pages have been created on Wikipedia for federally and state recognized tribes. The Wikipedia “List” page for state-recognized tribes is inaccurate in its interpretation of state recognition and not supported by expert reliable sources--(1) Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law 2012 edition, (2) NCSL.org current stand on state recognition (not the archived list from 2017 which NCSL no longer supports), (3) Koenig & Stein’s paper “Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: a survey of state-recognized tribes and state recognition processes across the United States” (both 2008 & updated 2013 in book “ Recognition, sovereignty struggles, and indigenous rights in the United States: A sourcebook”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-recognized_tribes_in_the_United_States

State-recognized tribes who have received recognition through less formal but acceptable means have been moved from the Wikipedia list page on state-recognized tribes to the Wikipedia list page of unrecognized or self-identifying organizations.

The Wiki page "List of organizations that self-identify as Native American tribes", in particular, is being used to purposely defame legitimate Native American individuals who are members of the tribes/Native communities that are on this list. 

By the parameters set up on Wikipedia, only the colonizer’s governments can acknowledge who is Native American through either federal recognition or state recognition. If an individual is not a member of a federally or state-recognized tribe, then it is determined that they cannot be Native American and are, instead, considered “self-identifying” or only “a descendant of ...” (example Lily Gladstone). As a result, Native individuals are currently being tagged as “self-identifying” and their names are put on “list” pages that strongly imply they are “pretend” Indians.

These editors have indicated that they would like “self-identification” to be the default setting for any people who they deem do not fit within the parameters that they themselves created within Wikipedia.

Moreof, these editors are admin and senior editors within the Wikiproject Indigenous Peoples of North America, and are being called in specifically to weigh on Native Identity, and any project involving any Indigenous Group.

Any attempt to correct misinformation, add information, or change any of these articles is often met with being blocked, reported for various offenses, or reported for having a Conflict of Interest, whether or not that is actually applicable. They have use this strategically in many different pages for many different individuals and groups within the scope of their Wikiprojects.

While changing things in Wikipedia does not change the truth, it is a way to control how most people take in information, and thus they hope to manipulate the narrative to better suit their goals.

This is quick and messy but:

Here is a link to the google document with the other state recognized tribes (Including yours) that were edited by these editors. This is an incomplete list so far that only goes back to September 2023 but I am going to add to it. If you can add to your own part of this list, and send your complaints and information to the arbitrator committee (the email is below) with the involved editors, this will help our case.

The  more tribes who complain, and the more Wikipedia editors complain, the better our case will be. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YNDEjLTrrZ_mMIRCVxtvt69FwCYpJWKs71lBhWa5a9M/edit?usp=sharing

The place to make complaints on Wikipedia is oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org , and

arbcom-enwikimedia.org . It is most helpful to have an editing account on Wikipedia, because Yuchitown and the others will try to defend themselves using Wikipedia methodology and make anyone who confronts them look like the aggressor (see the other tribes who tried to fight back on Wikipedia I found).

The more people and tribes make complaints the more likely it is that this will work and we can rid ourselves of these monsters.

Some of the tribes I have spoken to are taking legal action against these editors. Any groups affected by their policies should also reach out to the news to make knowledge of this more widespread.

Thank you

- quoted with permission from an email sent by an associate of my tribe. Message me for their email address if you'd like to reach out to them.

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall-Free

"The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday [October 8, 2024] requiring water utilities to replace all lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at eliminating a toxic threat that continues to affect tens of thousands of American children each year.

The move, which also tightens the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s drinking water, comes nearly 40 years after Congress determined that lead pipes posed a serious risk to public health and banned them in new construction.

Research has shown that lead, a toxic contaminant that seeps from pipes into the drinking water supply, can cause irreversible developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems among children. In adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead exposure can cause increased blood pressure, heart disease, decreased kidney function and cancer.

But replacing the lead pipes that deliver water to millions of U.S. homes will cost tens of billions of dollars, and the push to eradicate them only gathered momentum after a water crisis in Flint, Mich., a decade ago exposed the extent to which children remain vulnerable to lead poisoning through tap water...

The groundbreaking regulation, called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, will establish a national inventory of lead service lines and require that utilities take more aggressive action to remove lead pipes on homeowners’ private property. It also lowers the level of lead contamination that will trigger government enforcement from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb.

The rule also establishes the first-ever national requirement to test for lead in schools that rely on water from public utilities. It mandates thatwater systems screen all elementary and child-care facilities, where those who are the most vulnerable to lead’s effects — young children — are enrolled, and that they offer testing to middle and high schools.

The White House estimates that more than 9 million homes across the country are still supplied by lead pipelines, which are the leading source of lead contamination through drinking water. The EPA has projected that replacing all of them could cost at least $45 billion.

Lead pipes were initially installed in cities decades ago because they were cheaper and more malleable, but the heavy metal can wear down and corrode over time. President Joe Biden has made replacing them one of his top environmental priorities, securing $15 billion to give states over five years through the bipartisan infrastructure law and vowing to rid the country of lead pipes by 2031. The administration has spent $9 billion so far — enough to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes, the administration said.

On Tuesday, the administration said it was providing an additional $2.6 billion in funding for pipe replacement. Over 367,000 lead pipes have been replaced nationwide since Biden took office, according to White House officials, affecting nearly 1 million people...

Environmental advocates said that former president Donald Trump, who issued much more modest revisions to the lead and copper rule just days before Biden took office, would have a hard time reversing the new standards.

Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the Safe Drinking Water Act has provisions prohibiting weakening the health protections of existing standards...

Olson added that the rule “represents a major victory for public health” and will protect millions of people “whose health is threatened every time they fill a glass from the kitchen sink contaminated by lead.”

“While the rule is imperfect and we still have more to do, this is by far the biggest step towards eliminating lead in tap water in over three decades,” he said."

-via The Washington Post, October 8, 2024