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Trump’s pick for defense secretary doesn't want women serving in combat




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How a Republican trifecta makes way for Trump’s rightwing agenda




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Justice Dept. employees stunned at Trump's 'insane,' 'unbelievable' choice of Matt Gaetz for attorney general




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Gaetz pick shows value Trump places on loyalty — and retribution — as he returns to Washington




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Liberals pressure Senate Democrats to confirm more Biden judges while they can




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Couldn't have asked for a better company to serve India with: Deepinder Goyal on Swiggy listing

Zomato chief executive officer Deepinder Goyal took to social media to congratulate rival food delivery platform Swiggy on its stock market debut on Wednesday. The Sriharsha Majety-led company listed on the bourses with an 8% premium over its IPO price.




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India's edible oil imports dip 3% to 159.6 lakh tonnes in 2023-24: SEA

India's edible oil imports saw a slight dip of 3.09% in the 2023-24 oil year, reaching 159.6 lakh tonnes. This decrease is attributed to a boost in domestic oilseed production and a slight decline in demand due to price increases. Despite the overall decrease, sunflower oil imports actually rose, while imports of other oils like palm and soybean oil decreased.




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Not buying shoes? Bata India MD Gunjan Shah says inflation has hit lower-price segment customers

Bata India is adjusting its strategies due to changing consumer spending patterns. The company is introducing more affordable products and partnering with quick commerce platforms like Zepto to cater to budget-conscious consumers while continuing its premiumization efforts and offline expansion plans.




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Wrangler launches six new stores, aims 60 new outlets by 2025

Wrangler has expanded its retail footprint in India with the inauguration of six new stores. Located in Ujjain, Goa, Indore, Bilaspur, Katihar, and Bareilly, these additions bring Wrangler's total store count to 58 across India.




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Prosus, Tencent made billions of dollars in Swiggy IPO

According to the company's draft red herring prospectus (DRHP), Prosus invested nearly Rs 9,055 crore ($1.07 billion) in the online food platform and made Rs 26,927 crore ($3.2 billion) in IPO, thus netting a $2.12 billion profit from its investment.




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A winter wish to warm up buyers

Indian retailers are preparing for the upcoming winter shopping season despite a slowdown in consumer spending. They are ensuring ample inventory to avoid missing sales opportunities. While demand for winter wear has been unpredictable in recent years, retailers remain optimistic about sales. They are hoping for a strong winter to boost sales of seasonal products.




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Cooking oil prices surge 13% in a month, no post-Diwali reprieve

Cooking oil prices in India rose significantly. Palm and sunflower oil prices increased. International prices surged due to production issues. India's demand for cooking oil remained high. The situation surprised the industry. FMCG companies faced pressure to increase prices.




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India Glycols partners Amrut Distilleries, plans to demerge spirits biz

As part of its strategy to enter the premium whisky market -- that is witnessing the fastest growth in the alchoBev segment -- IGL will distribute and sell select Amrut brands in the premium segment across markets in north India.




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Quick Commerce captures nearly half of Kirana sales; market projected to hit $40 billion by 2030

India's quick commerce market is booming and is set to reach USD 40 billion by 2030. This surge is driven by consumer demand for fast deliveries, with 46% of consumers reducing their reliance on traditional Kirana shops. Quick commerce platforms are projected to capture 21% of total Kirana sales by 2024.




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Rural demand, government spending to drive growth in second half of FY25: ICICI Report

India's economic growth in the second half of this financial year will be driven by rural demand and government spending. The rural economy is gaining momentum. Consumer durables and non-durables are showing strong performance. The manufacturing sector is also exhibiting growth. However, there are signs of a slowdown in industrial growth.




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Global luxury sales to fall 2% in 2024, among weakest years on record, Bain says

Sales of personal luxury goods are projected to decline by 2% this year, marking the industry's weakest performance since the 2008-09 financial crisis. This downturn, attributed to price increases and economic uncertainty, has particularly impacted China, a key market for luxury brands. The shrinking customer base and shift towards higher price points have prompted concerns about the industry's recovery timeline.




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India's smartphone market to exit 2024 with single-digit annual growth

India's smartphone market is expected to exit 2024 with a low single-digit annual growth, as Apple posted its largest-ever quarterly shipment in India with 4 million units in the third quarter (Q3), according to a new report.




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Apple overtakes Samsung in Q3, clocks record shipments in India: IDC

iPhone shipments in the third quarter of 2024 crossed 4 million units for the first time, driven by steep discounts, multiple financing options, and a strong demand for premium handsets during the festive season, said research firm IDC in a report released Wednesday.




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Samara Capital-backed Agro Tech Foods acquires Del Monte Foods from Bharti Enterprises

The size of the deal is estimated at over Rs 1,300 crore. With the transaction, both Bharti and DMPL will receive shares of ATFL as consideration and will become public shareholders of ATFL post the transaction. Additionally, ATFL (through DMFPL) will acquire an exclusive, perpetual license for the Del Monte brand in India.




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Loss-making Burberry puts focus back on outerwear in turnaround plan

The company reported a loss for the first half of its financial year and announced a 40 million pound ($51 million) cost savings programme, as new CEO Joshua Schulman laid out his turnaround plan.




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Wearables brand Noise posts loss in FY24, revenue growth flat amid slump in sector

Operating revenue remained largely unchanged at Rs 1,430 crore compared to Rs 1,426 crore in FY23. The company, which secured its maiden fundraise last year, saw a 40% surge in employee benefit expenses at Rs 71 crore, while finance costs rose nearly 50% to Rs 29.5 crore. Total expenses increased to Rs 1,460 crore from Rs 1,432 crore in FY23.




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CAIT alleges unfair trade practices against quick commerce companies

Indian traders are worried about quick commerce platforms. CAIT says these platforms are using unfair practices to control the market. They are accused of hurting small businesses like Kirana stores. The traders want the government to take action. They want stricter rules for these platforms to protect small businesses.




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Amazon launches an online discount storefront to better compete with Shein and Temu

In a blog post on Wednesday, the company said the new Amazon Haul storefront will mostly feature products that cost less than $10 and offer free delivery on orders over $25.




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India festive season sales log 12 pc growth at Rs 1.18 lakh crore, smaller cities lead

Driven by tier 2 and 3 cities, India's e-commerce sector registered a gross merchandise value (GMV) of approximately $14 billion (more than Rs 1.18 lakh crore) in this year's festive season, marking a 12 per cent growth over last year's festive period, a report said on Wednesday.




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Matthew 26:41

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41




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Romans 15:4-5




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[Video] Swimming With Bears reflects creativity and resilience on "Patient Disguise"

Texas indie-rock quartet Swimming With Bears reflects creativity and resilience on formidable anthem “Patient Disguise,” weaving pain and loneliness into an air of euphoria and vibrance.  Juxtaposing contrasting emotions with…




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Amelie Aldner's 'Touch Me' is a warm embrace for the soul

Swedish singer-songwriter Amelie Aldner shares a special moment with her new song, "Touch Me." This song feels like a warm hug on a cold night in Sweden. "Touch Me" gives…




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HOLYMAMI shares her inner mythical beast with explosive new single "Centaur"

HOLYMAMI is back with her new song, "Centaur," celebrating her Sagittarius spirit. Known for her unique mix of music styles, HOLYMAMI combines punk rock's powerful sounds with catchy rap and…




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Suki Summer's anthem 'Nothing At All' channels retro vibes with modern attitude

Artist Suki Summer is making a splash with her bold new single, "Nothing At All." Blending the rough edge of 70s rock with the lively sounds of 80s synth music,…




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Kendra & the Bunnies drops authenticity with "Manic Pixie Nightmare"

Kendra Muecke from Kendra & the Bunnies is someone's muse. In her latest single, "Manic Pixie Nightmare," she takes a sledgehammer to a crazy pixie's dream girl. By refusing to…




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BREIS's new single "Gimme Dat" is all about self worth

UK rapper/songwriter/educator BREIS (pronounced breeze) returns with a new informative and enlightening single, "Gimme Dat" that breaks down the dynamics of the music industry. Backed by producer Soliheen's plucky synths…




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Quinja's anthem single "West Jewel (Amapiano Remix)" gets a shiny revamp

L.A-based Nigerian-American rapper/songwriter Quinja closes out the year with the Amapiano remix of her single "West Jewel." The original version was released in late 2023  before her debut project and…




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Mr Pigeons' "Ivory" album shines brightly in shades of light and love

Mr. Pigeons has again demonstrated his artistic evolution with his latest album, 'Ivory,' showcases underscored by themes of love, hope, and self-reflection. The album 'Ivory' navigates the complexities of vulnerability…





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The Frst shares 'Love In 3D' ft. Kellin Quinn, Craig Owens, & The Almost

The Frst is back with a new song, "Love In 3D." This energetic track brings a magical feeling that fans of the music scene will love. It features well-known singers…




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10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won

The key to taking effective action in a Trump world is to avoid perpetuating the autocrat's goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion and disorientation.

You can view the author talking about this article here (or watch the whole episode, the first hour and a half is very informative). You can also try your hand at a choose your own adventure style playing out of Trumps second term.




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And ya know getting them out will be a bloody story

Content Warning: Incredibly ugly upcoming U.S. Politics. Stephen Miller and Donald Trump's public promise for a "bloody story" - plans for sweeping raids and mass deportations of 10 to 20 million people living in America are expected to start when Trump assumes office and begins on day one.

People living all across the United States, from farm camps in the backwaters of Florida to the ethnically diverse neighborhoods of major cities will likely be greviously impacted. Currently it is expected that the combined utilization of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), National Guard, local police, trained and armed civilians and possibly even the US Military will take part in the raids to capture legal and illegal immigrants. Sympathetic police departments will have their funding slashed if they don't participate in the raids. Surprisingly, some research suggests a majority of Americans support mass deportations and concentration camps, which was reflected in the election results. Whether the popular support continues after it begins depends on the effectiveness of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security's indoctrination and propaganda programs that they have already been preparing for this moment, as well as the mass media's whitewashing of the proceedings as an "affordable housing program," among other things. So the question is, what can we realistically expect? ICE's "Citizens Academy" program offers up some clues...

The academy trains civilians to operate multiple firearms, use lethal force, perform surveillance on immigrants, and conduct raids while also acting as a public relations initiative to try and sway public opinion about ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the HSI unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "We ran Border Patrol Citizen Academies back when I was an agent as well," Jenn Budd, former Senior Border Patrol Agent, whistleblower, and author of Against the Wall told Unicorn Riot. "The entire goal is to indoctrinate locals into why it's okay for us to violate people's rights." The training materials that show where to strike people with batons to subdue them are but the tip of the iceberg in terms of violence. While the ICE presentation on using force contains the "Monadnock Baton Chart" (presumably named after baton manufacturer Monadnock) showing the degrees of damage inflicted on a suspect based on where they're struck with a baton, the majority of this part of Citizens Academy training covers when to use deadly force.
What could happen to the people swept up? The program is generally portrayed as mass deportations, but already it has become clear that many countries (even Mexico) are expected not to welcome the tidal wave of migrants. Instead, the prison-industrial complex which is being flooded with investment money is gearing up to build large scale prisons and camps to house them. Many of these migrants can be expected to be kept there for years on end, with the Supreme Court supporting indefinite detetion of immigrants, an affirmation of long standing U.S. policy. Slavery in America is still legal in the prison system (even California voter's just reaffirmed) and many companies could stand to make a lot of money off of the cheap workforce. The prior Trump administration focused on breaking families up, but this time they promise to include everyone in the family, no matter the immigration status, even denaturalization of American citizens. How will it be payed for? The operation is projected to cost upwards of $300 billion or much more and this has frequently been cited as a major reason that the invisioned plans will falter. If Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) plans for freeing up $2 trillion of the yearly federal budget succeeds, there appears to be plenty of money to reallocate. Even without these slush funds, Trump has already declared that the operation has "no price tag." Some recent and historical parallels In China, many Uyghurs have been put into forced labor prison camps for decades now, and the Xinjiang region has long been at the technological vanguard of state of the art large scale surveillance and population control research and development. American and Western tech companies can take what they have learned in Xinjiang and finally bring it home for wide spread use domestically. During the Holocaust, many "good Germans" helped to report their neighbors, and already Americans are arguing whether it is ethical to call in ICE on theirs. America has a long history of anti-immigrant campaigns and attacking ethnic communities, including Operation Wetback in 1953-54, the Japanese Internment Camps during WWII and tracing back to events like the Trail of Tears and traditional American slavery, to name a few. Hoping for the best While the years of preparation for Project 2025, combined with the GOP's complete control of all of the branches of the federal government suggests things are going to be harder to stop. It is good to remember that for all intents and purposes this will be an unimaginable kakistocracy and the revolving door of grifters is likely to spin even faster than it did during the first Trump administration. Major logistical questions remain - how fast can they actually scale up, for example, or deal with the massively inflated costs, bribes and outright theft chipping away at the budget. The chaos caused by replacing 50,000 federal employees with largely incompetent hacks while gutting government agencies left and right alone will likely slow down any plans significantly due to the complex and tightly coupled systems that make up the US government. Fortunately the ACLU and many other organizations and Democratic state governments vow to legally fight back against the upcoming operations. And lastly, it is likely that there will be large scale public action. Whether it is in the form of protests, strikes or imaginative work arounds for whatever crackdowns that are coming, there many Americans who will push back.




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Who was Grampa Pettibone

'About Sensations', 1948 Aviator film (slyt, 5:30) ((CW warning, sexism)) "In 1943, Lt. Robert Osborn, in collaboration with Commander Seth Warner, created the "sage of safety" character for a column in the BUAER News Letter produced by the Bureau of Aeronautics to address the increasing aircraft mishap rate. Osborn's illustrations commingled with Warner's narrative accounts of aircraft accidents." " Case in point: this 1945 Navy training film produced at Warner Bros. Cartoons featuring cartoonist Robert Osborn's character Grampa Pettibone. I'd never come across anything about this in all my years of research." 'The Grampa Pettibone collection'

the last link has PDFs.






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Seeking global perspectives from the community

Hi all, this is a message from MetaFilter's BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) board. In the interest of highlighting and growing the global perspective here on our little corner of the web, we want to encourage BIPOC members to post a bit more to the site. So we're going to use this second week of November to encourage members who don't consider themselves Western world natives (Diasporic BIPOC welcome here) to make a post or two about their culture.

To that end, we have a few suggestions/themes, but no one has to feel bound to use them, they're merely suggestions: How does your culture use rice cookers? What is one thing about your culture that people have misconceptions about or have stigmas within Western cultural perceptions? How does your country or culture view/treat cats (past and present)? What's a particular food item that is popular in your culture and what are some of the popular variants? The posts don't have to be long or filled with links, but it's ok if they are! Single link posts are absolutely fine on MetaFilter and have a long history on the site. We're doing this as a way to showcase the width and breadth of MetaFilter's global community. No other community is forbidden or discouraged from posting during this event, we merely ask other communities to highlight or share their culture with others on MetaFilter. Keep in mind that MetaFilter is more than front page posts. If there's a particular Project you've been working on, music you've created, or media you like, then you can share all these things on the Projects, Music, or FanFare pages! Our only request is that you tag these posts with 'BIPOC' or let the mods know and we'll add the tags.




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Ambient Bird / Book It: Cancel Culture Panic

Today, we’ll hear about some interspecies sonic landscapes in the form of music that's designed to be interrupted. Then, is ‘cancel culture’ a kind of modern moral panic? It’s a new episode of Book It.




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Oblique Strategies 1.0 by RemoDeVico

Oblique Strategies [Max for Live] (subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas) is...




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Micron Amp Effects Pack 1.0 by PatriceEliseEarle

Micron Overdrive v1.0 Max for Live Audio Effect Overdrive is an amplitude-based audio effect ...




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Bible Readings for November 14, 2024



Your Bible Reading Plan selections for today can be found below. If you don't have a Bible with you, just click the references to read each passage online:

Old Testament
Ezekiel 35-37  —  8.0 minutes
Job 13  —  4.5 minutes

New Testament
John 11:1-16  —  3.5 minutes
1 John 3:1-10  —  2.5 minutes

Total Average Read Time — 18.5 minutes



Browse our site:  AFTV  |  Free Book Library  |  Free Online Bible School

Was this email forwarded to you?
Click here to get your own free subscription!




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El Pulso del Fútbol, 13 de noviembre de 2024




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Services to aid in becoming an expat?

I know this topic is going to be coming up more and more, but I haven't found much information on my own. Are there reputable companies that help US citizens in all aspects of becoming expats in Europe?

From the initial research we've done, the road to becoming an expat is long and difficult. There are so many things to consider, from the types of Visas necessary to the logistics of the actual move, and all the bureaucracy in the middle. Certainly, there must be companies whose specialty is guiding Americans through it all. I'm guessing we will see a lot of scammy ones pop up, too.

Please let us know if anyone here has found and used such a (reputable) service!




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I'm working on lyrics for a song...

... about stories I tell myself. So you lived life for some amount of time. You learned some lessons. You tell yourself, Ah I see now the I should do this with that, move this way when that way comes, and so on. Then after even more experience, you discover that the story you have been telling yourself is wrong or at the very least inadequate

What is that story?
How does it make you feel to discover it has been wrong?




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Looking for e-drums for a noob

In advance of Black Friday, looking for e-drums that fit particular criteria...

I'm looking for a set of e-drums that I can basically learn to play on. My criteria:

- mesh heads
- Can connect to a computer for recording (I want to accompany myself on guitar and bass, eventually)
- Inexpensive (<$1000)
- Most importantly, has some kind of learning mode! My favorite kind of drumming-but-not-really in the past was playing Rock Band. So any kind of mode where I can play along with patterns or more would be great. Not expecting anything that will make me amazing, just something to make practice more interesting, really.

Any suggestions?