(California Court of Appeal) - Upheld a decision of the Contractors' State License Board finding that a large contracting company violated California law by failing to obtain a building permit before replacing a boiler. Affirmed the denial of the company's writ petition.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that citizen groups lacked a valid basis to challenge a city council's decision to approve the construction of an eight-unit multifamily residential building. Affirmed denial of a writ petition, in a case involving compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act.

Phishing scammers need a little help scamming you!

A very lame attempt at defrauding Yahoo! users.

A fake Chase e-mail that has PHISHING written all over it.

Fresh Off Their GRAMMY Nomination For Their CD, Teach Me Thy Statutes,the PaTRAM Institute Will Record Their Next CD In Saratov, Russia This August.

How strong is our economy if it can’t absorb shocks? If growth comes at a great expense to future generations? And where is the scorecard that tells us how we are actually doing?

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirmed a judgment in a dispute between two creditors of an agricultural produce company that filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. One of the creditors was another produce company that did business with the debtor. Because the goods were perishable agricultural commodities, the case involved the federal Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - Affirmed a conviction and sentence for federal drug trafficking conspiracy where a defendant pleaded guilty and waived his right to appeal except on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel or prosecutorial misconduct. Defendant's appeal argued that a factual basis did not support his guilty plea, which he could argue as this type of challenge falls outside the scope of a valid waiver. However, in affirming the Fourth Circuit held that a factual basis did, in fact, support his plea.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - Held that the United States should be substituted as a party defendant in a lawsuit in which two defendants were tobacco industry businesspeople who had agreed to perform undercover work for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The question before the Fourth Circuit was whether the United States should be substituted as a party defendant. The panel held that the answer was yes, and thus reversed the district court's ruling on the matter.

The world has lost more than one quarter of its land-dwelling insects in the past 30 years, according to researchers whose big picture study of global bug decline paints a disturbing but more nuanced problem than earlier research.

How strong is our economy if it can’t absorb shocks? If growth comes at a great expense to future generations? And where is the scorecard that tells us how we are actually doing?

The world has lost more than one quarter of its land-dwelling insects in the past 30 years, according to researchers whose big picture study of global bug decline paints a disturbing but more nuanced problem than earlier research.

The legendary pianist was 81 years old.

The presidential candidate talks about police oversight.

Skinny broccoli dip. Use all the leftover cheese at home and enjoy.

craving more? check out TasteSpotting

No, you still can't edit tweets

Although editing published tweets still remains strictly verboten on Twitter, the microblogging anger echo chamber intends to prompt English-speaking iPhone-wielding users to double-check content before posting a reply that they might regret.…

On accorde "The World of Art Award" (WAA) aux artistes, aux galeries et aux musées qui poursuivent les "meilleures pratiques" dans l'art et la culture. Cette concurrence cherche à attirer dies artistes, galeries, les musées qui redéfinissent des normes de l'excellence d'art. Ceux qui défie des trends et des tendances existantes dans l'art et la culture.

If you were to Google the definition of a comedian you would see it defined by Dictionary.com as an entertainer whose act is designed to make an audience laugh. Likewise the New York Times has a comedy critic, Jason Zinoman, who defines comedy in a moment of reflecting on his own career of analyzing them.

This often dictates the form of my column, since while the goal of comedy is to make you laugh, what’s fascinating about the art form — especially these days, when it’s so fragmented and aesthetically diverse — is that there are many ways artists accomplish that goal.

However, if you were to ask one furry who considers himself one, 2 Gryphon, you’d find an entirely different etymology of the word, and what the job of a comic is.

It's the JOB of the comic to bring forth uncomfortable things and question them in a way that makes people think about them.Since that has become "wrong", expect that the Western world will not be laughing as much. https://t.co/EIExUX5W2h— 2, The Ranting Gryphon (@2_gryphon) June 9, 2019

It is this quote that we are going to be over-analysing today. I have broken this down into three main points as to why this definition of the job of a comedian is not only a fundamental misunderstanding of the role, but also a resignation of the foundational principles of comedy.

read more

Are accountants destined to be the anthropologists of the cyber era? Gillian Tett appears to suspect such. Continue reading →

Online criminals have been systematically targeting TurboTax, filing fraudulent tax returns of individuals, and diverting their tax refunds to prepaid debit, cards, stealing their personal information, and using and impairing their credit ratings. Continue reading →

we know how politics works in the United States. Whoever—whatever political party gets into government is going to merge with the bureaucracy pretty damn fast. It will be in a position where it has some levers in its hand. And so, as a result, corporate lobbyists will move in to help control those levers. So it doesn’t make much difference in the end. What does make a difference is political accountability, a general deterrence set to stop political organizations behaving in a corrupt manner. Continue reading →

IBM and West Virginia University’s Center for Disability Inclusion (CDI) today announced they are developing a first generation mobile workplace accommodation case management app to help U.S. businesses create inclusive workplaces for employees with disabilities.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) et SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) annoncent aujourd’hui des projets communs pour accompagner leurs clients dans la modernisation de leurs systèmes et processus afin d’accélérer leur présence dans l’économie numérique. Les deux compagnies envisagent particulièrement d’innover ensemble pour créer de nouvelles solutions qui augmentent la valeur ajoutée du client en s’appuyant sur des extensions cognitives, des expériences client et utilisateur renforcées ainsi que des fonctionnalités sectorielles. Tout ceci doté de la SAP® Business Suite, du logiciel 4 SAP HANA® (SAP S/4HANA) et disponible sur site et dans le Cloud.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) et Boursorama, filiale du groupe Société Générale, renouvellent leur accord par la signature d’un contrat de Cloud hybride d’une durée de 5 ans afin d’enrichir l'offre de nouveaux produits et services proposés par la banque.

@IBM et Hardis Group signent un accord mondial pour transformer la chaîne logistique à l'heure du #client connecté #smartercommerce

IBM Security today announced a new capability from IBM Trusteer that helps banks identify fraudulent accounts before they are opened. The technology also protects consumers even if they are not a customer of the bank being targeted with the fake account.

IBM Australia and the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne, today announced the launch of the IBM-Melbourne Institute 'Innovation Index of Australian Industry’ second edition. The Study revealed that the annual increase in the rate of innovative activity in Australia in 2006 was only 0.7 percent, with only four industries experiencing an increase in the annual rate of innovation in that period: communication services; mining; finance; and the insurance industry.

After I reviewed Railroad Rivals , the publisher (Forbidden Games) sent me Raccoon Tycoon to evaluate. It’s by the same designer, Glenn Drover. He’s an award winning, well known designer credited with the creation of more than 25 different board games. I’ve only ever played one other game of his (Railroad Rivals) so I’m not sure if it’s the case across all his games, but there’s definitely a similarity in creative style evident in these two games. Like Railroad Rivals, Raccoon Tycoon is a mid-weight strategy game that can be played in under 90 minutes, featuring elements of auction/bidding, set collection, and price speculation.

In Raccoon Tycoon, players take on the role of capitalists building businesses, towns, and railroads, financed by speculative production and selling of commodities. This all takes place in a land populated by adorable anthropomorphic animals -raccoons, skunks, cats, and dogs, just to name a few. One thing I wondered during play was whether we were also animals in this story. I assume so, and in that case, it would have been extra awesome if identity cards giving each player an animal persona and backstory were included in the components. Identity cards would help reinforce the theme and pull players deeper into the story. An idea for an expansion perhaps, with differing special powers granted to each persona?

Over a series of rounds, players take turns completing actions, until either all the railroads or towns are sold, which marks the last round of the game. At that point, play continues until each player finishes the current round and victory points from railroads, towns, buildings, and building bonuses are tallied to determine the winner (victory points from mission objectives are tallied at this time if playing with the Kickstarter exclusive expansion).

Drover shows restraint in the action options available to players; there are only five possible choices on a turn. Players can produce various commodities and raise commodity prices (as directed by the price/production cards in their hand), sell a self-selected quantity of a commodity to reap the financial reward, start a bidding war to buy shares in one of the railroad companies, purchase a building (a business), or purchase a new town. Sometimes the action selection is limited by one’s financial resources – if you don’t have enough money to buy anything you’re going to need to produce or sell. Other times your options are wide open (these are the moments when a bit of analysis paralysis can creep in) and you’ll need to make careful decisions to optimize your economic fortunes. Strategy tips we’ve learned along the way:

• The Auction House is a great building to purchase if it comes up early in the game. So much of Raccoon Tycoon centers on buying railroads and if you have this building, you’ll make $5 every time one is purchased. That money can really come in handy for buying towns or winning railroad auctions.
• Unless you’re worried about a competitor tying your score or you’ve got a mission card that specifies cash as a victory point condition, it’s best to focus the last few rounds on spending your cash to purchase towns and railroads (or stockpiling commodities if you’re playing with the Kickstarter exclusive expansion and commodities are tied to your mission). Money is otherwise worthless at the end of the game.
• It’s better to win auctions when it’s not your turn. Let others start auctions on their turns while you focus on winning them. This will force your competitors to use their valuable turn action to attempt a rail purchase while you gain the chance to buy one and still have your turn action available to accomplish other tasks. Of course, to do this, you’ll need to ensure you always have a pile of cash at the ready in case a railroad you need to complete a set comes up for bidding.
• Each building owned extends the owning player’s commodity stockpile limit by 1, so if you’re playing with the Kickstarter exclusive expansion and your mission card is tied to amassing commodities, focusing on building purchases (especially the warehouses which each increase the limit by 4) in tandem with stockpiling commodities will allow you to get the maximum amount of victory points.

The artwork for Raccoon Tycoon is provided by Jacoby O’Connor and Annie Stegg. It’s quite nice; there’s a Thomas Kinkade kind of feel to the railroad and town card illustrations, while the box cover art is reminiscent of folk art.

The components for Raccoon Tycoon are well made. This seems to be a hallmark of the publisher, Forbidden Games. There are thick cardboard tiles (buildings), plastic coated cards (railroad, town, price/production cards, and mission cards), wooden tokens (commodities), plastic coated paper money, a giant artsy wooden raccoon (start player token), the rule book, and the main game board.

I want to especially call attention to the plastic-coated paper money because it’s a brilliant way to provide economic resources that approach the quality and enjoyment of metal or clay coins, but at a fraction of the cost. Kudos to the design team member who made that decision. The only deficiency in the components is the lack of player aids. This is a problem with many games published today so I don’t want to beat up too much on Forbidden Games specifically, but it’s just so frustrating. They’re such a valuable item to offer players and they don’t add much to the cost of production, so I don’t understand why so many times player aids are not included. To get us through our first game, I photocopied the action choices from the bottom of page 6 in the rulebook and handed out the sheets to each player.

Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of games with people outside of my core game group. I volunteer at a local youth center playing games with teens once a month, I play with relatives who visit from out of town, and my husband and I bring games on work or personal travel to play with people we meet. There’s a strong demand in such situations for games that can be taught and learned easily but are complex enough in strategy to keep myself (or any other advanced gamers who end up in the mix) engaged. Raccoon Tycoon meets that demand. It’s fun, it’s clever, it’s adorable in its theme and artwork, and it can be played in a reasonable amount of time; a great choice for an addition to any game library.

-------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Forbidden Games
Players: 1-5
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): 60-90 minutes
Game type: set collection, auction/bidding, price speculation
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

1. Kareena Kapoor is missing her shopping sprees with Saif Ali Khan, shares throwback pic from Morocco  Hindustan Times
2. A Glimpse Of Kareena Kapoor's "Saturday Mood" With Saif Ali Khan  The Newsopedia
3. Bollywood actors share their secret workout moves amid lockdown  NEWS9 live
4. Sara Ali Khan says brother Ibrahim is ‘definitely interested’ in joining Bollywood: ‘It’s a dream right...  Hindustan Times
5. Sara Ali Khan on Ibrahim Ali Khan’s acting aspirations: It’s a dream right now, making it a reality is on him  PINKVILLA
6. View Full coverage on Google News

If you have an Adsense account you’ve probably heard some of the horror stories about people having their Adsense account banned, their earnings held by Google, and being basically left out in the cold with no revenue coming into their site. And while it can happen without warning (Google is notorious for making policy changes and not notifying anyone or always offering a clear explanation) most of the time it’s the fault of the owner of the site. This is either because they didn’t take the time to terms of service and had their Adsense account banned. Or they got caught trying to cheat the system and as a result have a banned Adsense account.

Perhaps you didn’t read Google’s terms of service, or you tried to get others to click on your ads. Either way your Google Adsense account has been disabled and you either got a nice little email telling you this or you can’t log onto Adsense at all. You’ve probably heard of many horror stories on blogs, forums, or on YouTube telling about how they were banned by Adsense, their earnings now held by Google, and their stuck with no income from their site. If this has happened to you there are some things you can do to try and reinstate your banned Adsense account. I can’t make any promises that you’ll get your account back, but these are some things you can try.

Google Adsense it’s usually the first place people go who want to monetize their websites and blogs with the hope those Adsense earnings will net them some big cash. Normally these ads will be matched to your site based on the content and browsing history of the people visiting your site. The goal is to tailor make ads that will hopefully be appealing for people to click on......................

If you're more timeless than trendy, don't go all in on these decorating ideas and materials. READ MORE...

Trump In Cinema is dedicated to displaying some of movie history's best moments with Donald Trump at the center of them. Some of these photoshops are too perfect. Others as just... troubling.

Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said on Thursday that a Republican plan to shield businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits is “dangerous.”

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suggested that he would not support additional relief funds to households and businesses unless the package also includes a measure shielding businesses from liability for coronavirus infections.

But Napolitano argued that the provision would be anti-conservative and violate states rights.

“Can the Congress tell state courts that they cannot hear claims of liability when someone goes into a public accommodation and contracts coronavirus?” the Fox News analyst explained. “Congress has been very reticent to do that. Conservatives who believe in states rights have been very reluctant to interfere with the operation of state courts.”

Napolitano pointed out that the only other instance where Congress has restricted state courts is a law that prohibits gun manufacturers from being sued over gun violence.

“I think that this liability shield business is very dangerous,” he added. “The decision of whose fault someone was harmed by should be decided by juries and not by politicians.”

Microsoft has patched a worm-like vulnerability in its Teams workplace video chat and collaboration platform that could have allowed attackers to take over an organization's entire roster of Teams accounts just by sending participants a malicious link to an innocent-looking image. The flaw, impacting both desktop and web versions of the app, was discovered by cybersecurity researchers at

I am so glad someone is doing this zine! I have been trying to find time to try and put together this exact thing!
Please submit!!!
It's Down to This

For info and submissions contact: responsezine@gmail.com

“It’s Down to This” is a new zine compilation that aims to give space to step back, take a deep breath and reflect on where we’re at.

Reflecting on our experiences with community accountability processes, survivor support, or general efforts to cultivate community response to sexual violence- this is a space to talk about our experiences with this work, what we have learned, where we want to go from here, what we feel, what we want others to be able to hear, see, think about, engage with.

It is an attempt to further give voice to our efforts and experiences in doing this work, to give space and voice to silence. To know and hear how we have survived in this work, how we have sustained this work, or why we burned out. To further document our attempts at figuring out what community accountability looks like, or what it even is. To be able to reflect and grow from our mistakes and epiphanies.

SEEKING: stories, essays, interviews, comics, artwork and thoughts reflecting on working around accountability and community response to sexual violence:

What has it looked like? What has it entailed? What could it look like? Who does it involve? In what ways? How is a community responsible? How is a community involved? What can an accountability process look like? What has it looked like? What works? What doesn’t? What were the fuck-ups, the successes?

*These questions are asked with the assumption that confidentiality will be respected and that stories will not be shared if they are not yours to share.

*The word ‘community’ is used with the awareness that it is often used problematically.

Looking for submissions that:

- explore the importance of accountability and support work as an act of community building and collective liberation, that express the importance of this work within social justice movements.

-reflect on the support, empowerment, recovery and growth that have come out of this work

-reflect on the pain, trauma and frustration of this work or which is inherent in this work.

-develop ideas and methods of sustainability around this work

-look at the social and political contexts in which community accountability and response to sexual violence and partner abuse grows and exists.

-share our stories

Anonymity and confidentiality will be respected.

DEADLINE: October 22nd, 2010

For info and submissions contact: responsezine@gmail.com

Feel free to send in ideas/proposals and ask for feedback!

The Windows 10 Mail program supports multiple email accounts, so I'll show you how to add one.

Add an Account to the Microsoft Mail Program from Ask Leo!.
Get the newsletter: https://newsletter.askleo.com

Environmental News  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hotels could be 'commandeered'

Family members aren't allowed into hospitals nor can they take part in funerals. Crematoriums are overloaded. The horrors of coronavirus still have a firm hold on northern Italy.

L'Europa è più di una mera alleanza di egocentrici. Non esistono alternative agli Eurobond in una crisi come questa.

In victories over the Bucks and Clippers — two of the NBA's finest teams — LeBron James showed how much of a difference-maker he is for the Lakers.

Dear Readers, As we embark on a new year, I want to take a moment to thank you for reading and to look back at the highlights of 2014.

Rondell Russell, 22, was taken into custody soon after he shot 48-year-old Otis Adams during a confrontation at Russell’s building on Powell St. near Pitkin Ave. in Brownsville, part of NYCHA’s Seth Low Houses, about 10:10 p.m. Thursday.

Firefighters led one man to safety