THE VATICAN TAKES A TOUGHER STANCE ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE.

WOULD YOU CLICK IT?

CES is one of the biggest tech events of the year. It’s when everyone convinces you that you need to buy a terrifying robot Einstein for some reason.

But Nick Offerman aka Ron Swanson and American Greetings — yeah, the greeting card company — trolled all of them.

Promising “a device like none other,” Offerman and America Greetings delivered just that. Offerman took to the stage to present… a regular greeting card that looks like:



via Mashable

Offerman, who was there to present the product had this to say:

"When I started dating my wife — her name is Megan Mullally, she's a very beautiful actress and singer and goddess — she and I loved giving each other cards," he told a crowd at the press event. "It's a very important part of our relationship, and so we've continued that practice.

"Even though there are times when it's more appropriate, of course, to send a text or an email ... when you really want to get a sentiment across, there's nothing like the artifact of the handwritten card." 

D'awwww... now go buy one for you mother or something.

H/T Mashable

Hannah Deau’s rental apartment has envy-inducing architectural features like a brick wall, high ceilings, French doors, Spanish tiles, and around 20 plants. READ MORE...

Behind the Music: Taylor Swift

Its all green technology, it runs on pretentious snobbery...

Unlike medical doctors, Chiropractors can't bury their mistakes.

The service will run between Edinburgh and Cardiff passing through Birmingham New Street

Dư luận Chile đã có những phản ứng mạnh mẽ sau vụ việc một cận vệ của Chủ tịch nước Lương Cường bị cáo buộc lạm dụng tình dục trong khi đoàn Việt Nam đang có chuyến thăm chính thức Chile.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Officials inside the Secret Service clashed over whether they needed a warrant to use location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on smartphones, with some arguing that citizens have agreed to be tracked with such data by accepting app terms of service, despite those apps often not saying their data may end up with the authorities, according to hundreds of pages of internal Secret Service emails obtained by 404 Media. The emails provide deeper insight into the agency's use of Locate X, a powerful surveillance capability that allows law enforcement officials to follow a phone, and person's, precise movements over time at the click of a mouse. In 2023, a government oversight body found that the Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement all used their access to such location data illegally. The Secret Service told 404 Media in an email last week it is no longer using the tool. "If USSS [U.S. Secret Service] is using Locate X, that is most concerning to us," one of the internal emails said. 404 Media obtained them and other documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Secret Service.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The judge describes Holly Le Gresley and Adriana Orme's actions as "abhorrent and sadistic".

Pistiwan Jameel described migrants as "pigeons" or "sticks" as he facilitated illegal crossings.

1. 'I have found ways...': Ravichandran Ashwin gives an insight on his mind games with Steve Smith  The Times of India
2. 'I have figured out Steve Smith': R Ashwin tries to get inside Australia star's head ahead of India's series opener  Hindustan Times
3. 'His Time At Delhi Capitals...': R Ashwin Reveals How He Broke Steve Smith's Sound Game Plans  News18
4. BGT 2024-25: Ashwin says over the years he found ways to break Smith's 'sound game plans'  Daijiworld.com
5. I've found ways and means to break it down: Ashwin on Smith's batting  The Hindu

1. Global carbon market gets green signal at COP29 under Paris Agreement's Article 6  The Hindu
2. Why India and China have pushed against climate change-related trade measures at COP29  The Indian Express
3. COP29: G77, China agree to use new NCQG draft text as basis for finance negotiations  The New Indian Express
4. Video | UN Scientists Warn Of 'Rising Emissions' Worldwide  NDTV
5. COP29 gets momentum with consensus on creation of carbon credits standards, India wants to conclude work  The Times of India

Reading depends on spoken language. This is a simple statement with profound consequences for children whose spoken language differs from the language they are expected to read. For most children, the language skills they bring to school will support learning to read, which is mainly learning to understand their spoken language in a new form: print. However, some children’s language skills differ in important ways from the classroom language variety, and teachers rarely receive sound guidance on how to enhance their literacy instruction to meet these children’s needs.

Filed under: Europe, Austria, News

No. It's all wrong. Those fake mountains.The captain is a vampire. And there's only one Julie Andrews. Two minutes was enough #SoundofMusic

- Paola (@Paopalinaa) December 6, 2013

Continue reading And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is...

And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is... originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: North America, United States, Hotels and Accommodations

• it's warm and you're not
• former mayor Bob Filner is under house arrest, so there's less of a chance you'll get harassed
• you want to ice skate outside but don't like the cold

Continue reading Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate

Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Donald Trump’s policies risk making the US dollar a source of global instability Expert comment LToremark 13 November 2024

Although Trump favours a weaker exchange rate, his policies are likely to have the opposite effect. The risk is that the US dollar could become too strong, which is bad news for the global economy.

President-elect Donald Trump has a dollar problem. In recent months he has shown a clear preference for a weaker exchange rate to support the competitiveness of US exports and help reduce the US trade deficit. And yet, as the market has sensed since the US election, the much more likely outcome is that his policies end up strengthening the greenback. The risk is that the US dollar – which is expensive already – becomes more obviously overvalued, and this could increase the risk of global financial instability. 

The dollar has been on a rollercoaster ride in the past few decades. From 2002 until 2011, for example, the dollar weakened by around 30 per cent in inflation-adjusted, trade-weighted terms, according to BIS data. Yet in the years since 2011, the dollar has strengthened and is now at a more appreciated level than at any time since 1985.

What shapes this rollercoaster, broadly speaking, is the global balance of economic vitality: when the US economy gains momentum relative to the rest of the world, the dollar tends to strengthen; and vice versa. 

After China joined the WTO in 2001, the balance of economic vitality shifted decisively away from the US, in favour of China and other emerging economies. This was the decade of the commodity boom: the longest, biggest peacetime increase in commodity prices in nearly 200 years during which a sustained surge in China’s economy supported GDP growth across the developing world. The dollar weakened as a result.

But after 2011, a combination of factors – including the eurozone crisis and its aftermath, together with the sagging of the Chinese economy – tipped the balance of economic vitality back in favour of the US. The dollar strengthened once again.

And since both the European and Chinese economies remain very fragile, the balance of economic vitality seems likely to keep favouring the US dollar.

Two more considerations also point to a stronger US dollar under a second Trump administration.

The first is the exchange rate implications of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports. When the US imposes tariffs on a trading partner, the foreign exchange market tends to sell that trading partner’s currency, forcing it to weaken to offset the dollar-price increase induced by the tariff. This helps explain why the Chinese renminbi depreciated by some 10 per cent in 2018 after Trump began imposing trade restrictions on China in January of that year. 

More widespread tariffs on a whole range of US trading partners should therefore strengthen the dollar more broadly.

A stronger dollar should also result from the macroeconomic framework Trump seems likely to deliver. He will certainly want to extend his 2017 tax cuts beyond 2025 when they are currently due to expire, so a more sustained loosening of US fiscal policy seems likely. Since boosting the US economy will create inflationary pressure, the market will expect interest rates to end up higher than they might otherwise be. The resulting combination of looser fiscal and tighter monetary policy tends to be a stronger currency.

The dollar probably has a fair amount of room to keep going up, since it is not obviously overvalued just yet. The US current account deficit – the broadest measure of a country’s trade deficit, and a rough but useful measure of financial vulnerability – was a little over 3 per cent of GDP last year. 

This is around half the level it reached in 2006, just before the 2008 global financial crisis, meaning the risks arising from an overvalued dollar may be for the latter part of Trump’s second presidency.

A strengthening dollar is also not great news for the rest of the world economy. A strong dollar tends to depress global trade growth, restrict developing countries’ access to international capital markets, and make it more difficult for countries whose currencies will be weakening to keep inflation under control.

If and when the dollar becomes unsustainably expensive, a further problem will present itself: how to deal with an overvalued currency without risking a lot of financial dislocation.

This problem last occurred in early 1985, when the dollar was universally reckoned to be dangerously dear. At that time the US was able to call on trading partners who depended on the US security umbrella – the UK, Germany, France and Japan – to negotiate the ‘Plaza Accord’, which coordinated a series of interventions in the foreign exchange market that allowed the dollar to decline in a measured way.  

It is virtually unimaginable that something similar could be negotiated today, not least because Chinese policymakers believe that the post-Plaza strengthening of the yen in the late 1980s led to an economic disaster for Japan. Beijing will not play ball.

Without much scope for a negotiated decline in the dollar, more chaotic alternatives seem likely. 

One is that the market decides suddenly that it no longer has an appetite for expensive dollar-denominated assets, and this might lead to a messy adjustment in the foreign exchange market. 

Implications of the new US presidency: what awaits Ukraine? 19 November 2024 — 2:00PM TO 3:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 13 November 2024 Online

After 1000 days of Kyiv’s resistance, experts discuss how to secure Ukraine’s and Europe’s future.   

The 19 November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

The 19^th November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

Having been given time to adapt, largely due to the slow release of Western military aid, the Russian army is pressing home its advantage. Along the entire eastern frontline, the Russians are simultaneously bombarding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities. With the election of Donald Trump in the US, it seems to many that the tide has turned definitively in Putin’s favour at the political, as well as the military, level.

Trump’s declared ambition to resolve the war in 24 hours implies a Russian-American deal, cutting Kyiv out of negotiations. Such an ‘agreement’ would endanger the country’s future and expose the rest of Europe.

This webinar will cover:

• Ukraine’s strategy of resistance in the context of Trump’s White House.
• The immediate risks during the transition period.
• How Kyiv sees Europe’s role in the new geopolitical environment. Will Kyiv completely give up on the US?
• The extent to which Germany, Ukraine’s second largest donor, can step in.  

Rockies owner, chairman and CEO Dick Monfort expressed optimism that the team can reach a multi-year contract with third baseman Nolan Arenado, beyond the one-year, $26 million agreement that was finalized recently.

Here's an early look at how the Rockies' 25-man roster could shape up on Opening Day.

The start of Spring Training is almost here and it's time for the annual tradition of predicting the Blue Jays' 25-man roster. MLB.com will revisit these projections midway through camp, and then again at the end of Spring Training to see how close we came.

With each passing day, the hype continues to grow around Vladimir Guerrero Jr., but MLB Pipeline's top-ranked prospect seems to be keeping a pretty level head throughout all the chaos.

bmj;387/nov12_10/q2481/FAF1faJulia and Malcolm Donaldsondonaldson20241111.f1Malcolm Donaldson was a distinguished paediatric endocrinologist with a string of research publications to his name—but he was also happy to play second fiddle (almost literally) to his wife Julia, the celebrated author of much loved children’s books, including The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom.Malcolm, a talented musician and performer, accompanied his wife as she toured festivals, schools, and libraries in the UK and around the world. Together they performed the stories, with Malcolm acting characters ranging from an accident prone dragon to a comic cattle thief. His star role, in the words of Julia’s literary agent, was “a particularly suave fox” in The Gruffalo.Malcolm met Julia Shields when they were students at the University of Bristol and they married in 1972. Donaldson went on to work in Brighton, London, and Lyon, France, before moving back to Bristol to be a senior registrar in paediatrics. Six...

At one of my first meetings as an elected council member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, we approved a report called Access All Ages. It encouraged less ageist thinking and bias among healthcare staff that might lead to them denying older people surgery.1 But sometimes an operation isn’t the best option. Among patients who have surgery, 14% express regret and 15% experience complications, which are at least four times as likely if they’re frail or physically inactive.2 The Centre for Perioperative Care has published information on the importance of exercise before surgery,3 but that alone may not be enough.We need shared decision making,4 including asking patients what matters to them. The public should be primed to ask about BRAN—the benefits, risks, and alternatives to surgery and the likely result from doing nothing.4 A slew of data supports this approach, especially from the POPS initiative (Perioperative Care of...