That's whole grain wood too!

What should you do when you hit a deer and it breaks your headlight? Take a headlight out of your John Deere, of course!

It’s no surprise that the sore winners at Fox News are already working to demonize people that don’t love the Felonious p***y grabber as much as they do. But in this case, they really ought to come up with better material.

Media Matters caught the delusional exchange on Fox & Friends this morning. It started out with cohost Steve Doocy saying “people are all entitled to their opinion” but since Trump just won a four-year term, “just deal with it.”

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President Joe Biden passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris because he was concerned about our country under another Trump administration. There is no ill will between the two, and when Biden stumped for Harris, he looked proud. So, it's not unusual for the two to have a private lunch together unless you are Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wasn't having any of it.

"And we know that today, a week after the election, President Biden and Vice President Harris had a private lunch," Doocy asked. "How awkward was that?"

"I don't even understand," Jean-Pierre said. "Why would it be awkward?"

"Because the president got squeezed out for her, and then she kept him at arm's length, and then she lost, and now she's back," he said.

"Why would you characterize it as awkward?" Jean-Pierre said. "They have regular lunches. They meet and talk regularly. Why would you call it awkward?"

"There's no weirdness about the way that things have unfolded so far," she continued. "Did you see them together yesterday as well, when they honored our veterans and were together during the day, making sure that we didn't forget the brave men and women that fought for this country?"

"Did you see them together yesterday?" she asked. "Did you see the show of force together?"

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Fox News legal editor Kerri Urbahn told 'The Story with Martha McCallum that Trump could force a pardon from Gov. Hochul by threatening to withhold federal funds to New York unless she pardons his 34 felonies.

This shouldn't come as a surprise since Urbahn was the Director of Public Affairs for the Department of Justice under Attorney General Bill Barr during the first Trump administration.

This segment was prompted by the judge delaying a decision on Trump's 34 felony convictions for another week.

MACCALLUM: Governor Hochul could also pardon President Trump on these charges because it is a state charge, right?

URBAHN: Yeah that's right and look she needs to really be thinking through this because New York state needs federal money and they get a lot of it.

And there is a lot that the federal government could do in terms of pulling funding from both the city and the state of New York. There's a bunch of ways to do it through the Justice Department and other places, and you know, at the end of the day it's all politics.

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I DON'T KNOW DENISE sometimes I feel like we live in a slum

This photo was taken by passing photographer, Saber Miresmailli, who then took to the internet to find the lovely couple.  Responses have been tremendous and a Twitter user came forward claiming to know the couple.  The photographer then made a statement on his Facebook page saying that, until they come home from their honeymoon and claim the picture, their identities are unconfirmed. 

Finally, they have returned from their honeymoon and even did an interview with ITV News London.  They say they were shocked at the attention they got and basically agree that it's a very nice picture. 

Real Madrid player and underwear model Cristiano Ronaldo became slightly less ridiculously good looking last week and kicked a soccer ball around with a clueless kid in the streets of Madrid.

He wore a shaggy wig with fake mustache/beard, sunglasses and a baggy sweatsuit, and he carried a blue backpack. Look… he’s just like us!

The two played juggled the ball around a bit without drawing any attention.

He eventually removed his disguise, revealing his true identity to the boy and everyone else in the street who immediately pull out their phones to take pictures.

Before walking away, he gave the boy a hug and signed a ball for him.

It's perfect for styling your bedroom! READ MORE...

It is adorable, practical, and so green. READ MORE...

I'm using it all winter, because it's made to withstand the outdoors! READ MORE...

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I TOLD those scientists they should be finding a cure for breast cancer instead of playing around with that atomic energy nonsense, but NO....

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

And how have they changed over the past few years?
( Photos: 2, Comments: 72 )

‘Where people have made genuine mistakes they shouldn’t be prosecuted’ says transport secretary Louise Haigh

The airline reported a revenue decrease of $61m compared to the same time last year

Mysterious metal group Sleep Token are one of three headliners announced for Download festival.

For many Welsh speakers, Eryri and Yr Wyddfa are the names they have used all along.

The news comes a day after confirmation that he will leave the BBC's Match of the Day.

Filed under: Europe, North America, France, United Kingdom, United States

The litany of year-end travel-related lists continues. Today, it's TripAdvisor, which unveiled its most reviewed cities. Leading the way: London, Rome and Paris, according to the Telegraph. The top U.S city was New York, which ranked fourth overall -- a stunning blow for American exceptionalism.

Continue reading London, Rome, Paris Top TripAdvisor's Most-Reviewed Cities List

London, Rome, Paris Top TripAdvisor's Most-Reviewed Cities List originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 17 Dec 2013 14:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Arts and Culture, North America, United States

Joanne and Gary, rival travel agents compete for their industry's top honor, the Globel Prize, while trying to address their clients' impossible demands in an Off-Broadway comedy that debuts this week, "Craving for Travel."

The 85-minute, two-actor, 30-character comedy was commissioned and produced by Jim Strong, president of the Dallas-based Strong Travel Services travel agency.

"Travel agents are always asked to do the impossible, and this play shows how that is done, from finding the impossible rooms to making dreams come true," Strong told the "Dallas Morning News." "I decided to bring it to life on stage as a comedy in New York."

From "Craving for Travel's" press release:

With their reputations on the line, travel agents Joanne and Gary will tackle any request, no matter how impossible, and any client, no matter how unreasonable. Full of overzealous travelers, overbooked flights, and hoteliers who are just over it, Craving for Travel reminds us why we travel-and everything that can happen when we do.

"Craving for Travel" opens Thursday at the Peter J. Sharp Theater, where it'll run through Feb. 9. Tickets are $32.50 and $49. They can be purchased at CravingForTravel.com, 212-279-4200 or the Ticket Central Box Office (416 W. 42nd St., 12-8 p.m. daily). More than half of the shows are already sold out.

Continue reading Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible

Off-Broadway Comedy 'Craving for Travel' Showcases Travel Agents Trying to do the Impossible originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 07 Jan 2014 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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. 

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.

Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon can identify with third baseman Nolan Arenado, which puts him in position to offer support rather than advice.

The 2019 MLB season feels so close now. Spring Training has begun. Players are taking the field. So it's time to rank the best of the best.

Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado said Thursday he won't make Opening Day a hard deadline for negotiations on a possible multiyear contract.

The baseball field is Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado's refuge from contract talks. But Tuesday's breaking news -- Manny Machado's 10-year, $300 million contract with the Padres -- made its way onto the field.

Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election, but asserting that he did became a prerequisite for Republicans standing for nomination to Congress or the Senate to win their primaries. An entire party became a vehicle for disinformation.1 Trump did win the 2024 presidential election, and key to that victory was building on the success of that lie. If you control enough of the information ecosystem, truth no longer matters.Another telling example: Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are not eating cats and dogs. US vice president elect, JD Vance, the source of that claim, admitted as much even as he justified it. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I'm going to do,” he said.2Disinformation in politics is nothing new. History is replete with claims that were fabricated to advance political aims. Although...

Terminally ill adults in England and Wales who are expected to die within six months would be able to get help to end their lives if their applications were approved by two doctors and a High Court judge, under proposed new legislation.1Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the bill, said it provided the “strictest safeguards anywhere in the world.” The law would apply only to people who have full mental capacity and are terminally ill. Mental illness and disability are both excluded as eligibility criteria, and a person would need to declare twice in writing that they wanted to be helped to die.A person who wished to end their life would have to administer the medication themselves. It will remain illegal for a doctor or anybody else to end a person’s life. No doctor will be obliged to participate in any part of the process.The bill would also make it...

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...

The current system for delivering NHS cardiovascular disease (CVD) health checks is not working effectively and must be reviewed to ensure that it reaches people with the highest risk, the National Audit Office has said.1In a review of the commissioning, delivery, and performance of CVD health checks the watchdog found that just over one in 12 people (8.8%) who were eligible attended a health check in 2023-24—which, if maintained, would equate to a five year coverage of 44%.Health checks were first introduced in 2009, with the aim of reducing ill health from CVD by offering everyone aged 40-74 without a pre-existing heart condition a check-up every five years. However, problems have arisen since the responsibility for commissioning these checks was transferred to local authorities in 2013, said the National Audit Office.The move led to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) losing its ability to influence local authority performance,...

OM team members Tami and Alu share how henna opens doors to the hearts of the Somali people, living in Cape Town.