Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into 2 posts to try to narrow the problem down. The previous post got flagged so presumably this one won't be
'Tree police': Quebec town charges $200 fee for homeowners with treeless yards - "In the town of St-Amable, Que., it's plant or pay up. As of this year, the municipality located 30 kilometres northeast of Montreal is imposing an annual tax of $200 for residents who don't have a leafy tree in their front yard, with a goal of reducing heat islands and improving biodiversity... Ménard said the town hired a mobile mapping company called Jakarto to scan lawns, and it found that about 1,200 of 3,000 yards were missing trees. Notices were sent out and the town held two sales to offer trees at a discount, which resulted in most residents complying. He said about 400 homes received the $200 charge when the tax bills went out this year... St-Amable is the first town she knows of that is taxing treeless yards, but she says plenty of other cities have adopted measures along similar lines, such as imposing a fee for parking lots or charging developers for each tree they cut down. The advantage of using taxes, she said, is that enforcing them involves less bureaucracy compared with the traditional ticketing process. "When it's a (bylaw), the city has to verify, send a ticket, enforce the regulation, and possibly go to municipal court, so it adds really significant costs," she said... Simon Lacoste, a resident and former St-Amable mayor, believes the city's approach is "unfair and abusive." He said he's heard from several residents who were taxed despite having trees, while he said others thought they had complied only to be told their trees didn't count because they were considered shrubs."
Insurrection Barbie on X - "During the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Milwaukee election officials allegedly processed ballots in secretive back rooms, blocking observers from watching the action. According to The Federalist, windows were covered, mail bins were stacked to obscure views, and the elections director, Paulina Gutierrez, reportedly kept these areas off-limits, even to folks like state Rep. Dave Maxey, who got a stern talking-to when he tried to peek inside. One room supposedly held stacks of blank ballots, and Gutierrez was seen hauling blue bags around, raising eyebrows about what was really going on. The city claims it’s all legit—sorting ballots by ward and such—but the lack of transparency is maddening. Wisconsin law says observers should have a clear view of the public parts of the process, yet here we are with frosted glass and restricted access. Sources say it’s a “perception issue,” which is putting it mildly. Here is my problem with this; every time democrats, who are in charge of administering elections in blue counties, pull stuff like this it makes every single sane person question the results of the election, and I would like to understand who that benefits? We cannot continue to watch things like this and then see no action afterwards because while I am not saying this would’ve changed the outcome, what I am saying is that this is against WI state law, it’s shady and it makes everyone question the legitimacy of the race."
Need help restoring the open tabs that are saved in Computer1, to Computer2, but Computer1 does not work | Firefox Support Forum | Mozilla Support - "You will normally find these files in the sessionstore-backups folder:
Meme - "Marketplace listing $10 - Bulbasaur Pokemon plushie for sale"
Patti LuPone and Andrew Lloyd Webber Have Ended Broadway's Best, Two-Decade Feud - "“This is détente, ladies and gentlemen.” These were Patti LuPone’s words on Thursday night when she met Andrew Lloyd Webber at the Hit Factory in Manhattan to rehearse “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” which LuPone will perform at the Grammy Awards on Sunday. It’s been 24 years since Lloyd Webber fired LuPone from the lead role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, which she had originated in London, and replaced her with Glenn Close, who won a Tony for that Broadway performance in 1995. Thus began a two-decade-plus feud between LuPone and Webber, who had originally enthusiastically selected LuPone for the role of Desmond... LuPone didn’t come away from her Broadway firing with nothing, though. Webber paid her off in court, where she walked away with $1 million. The diva turned around and used that cash to buy her Kent, Connecticut, home a pool, which she famously named the “Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool.” “On blissfully sunny days in the woods, we toast Andrew Lloyd Webber by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool,” LuPone told The New York Times in 1996. “The best thing that could have happened was getting fired from that show.” Though she might have been pleased with her chunk of change and luxurious swimming pool, this feud did follow LuPone for several years. LuPone and Close never had a rift on the same level as the one between she and Webber, but the two actresses didn’t speak for nearly 20 years, until they were both at the Kennedy Center Honors to honor Broadway darling Barbara Cook.
Meme - David Paton @cricketwyvern: "If you want to see how badly wrong has been the UK’s approach to child sexual abuse, look no further than the @BrookCharity Traffic Light Tool, used throughout the UK for many years as an important safeguarding resource. It says 13 year olds having sex or having an interest in porn should be seen as “safe & healthy” & worthy of “positive feedback”. ..."
David Paton on X - "... It will come as no surprise that Brook was prominent in opposing the ban on puberty blockers. Groups like @BrookCharity should never again be allowed anywhere near children or schools & should certainly have no role in guiding government policy."
Meme - Facebook Careers: ""As a Latina, being rooted in resilience means knowing I can survive anything. My family emigrated from Nazi Germany to Buenos Aires with nothing. Wor..."
Liz Truss on X - "Grisly that we have MPs in Britain that back cousin marriage, downplay Islamist terrorism and seek to suppress talk about predominantly Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs. There will be a real battle in 2029 to end the appeasment of this ideology. People need to step up."
Meme - "GREEK (LESBIAN) FETA. sheep milk, Essex Street Cheese"
Kate Ferguson on X - "Love this story 🍔 Greedy civil servants caught trying to buy posh Five Guys burgers on taxpayer-funded card Their order was declined - b/c their government credit card was turned off in waste crackdown. Cabinet Office froze 20k cards"
Thread by @the_culturist_ on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "This 600-year-old altarpiece might be the most complex and deeply symbolic artwork in history. It will change what you think a painting is capable of doing — because this isn't detail for detail's sake. Step *inside* it and you'll see why... (thread) 🧵
Flying car arrives in France: 160km/h in the air and on the road - "Pal-V has been working on this flying car prototype since 2008. Named "Liberty," the three-wheeled vehicle, equipped with a propeller and rotor, was certified for use in 2020. What's special about it? It can be used on the road and in the air! For the first time, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has issued a technical no-objection statement regarding a vehicle of this type"
Steve Jobs once said what he really thinks about consultants — to a group of consultants - ""You should do something." He made the comment at a lecture at MIT back in the spring of 1992, and he didn't stop there. Consulting misses critical elements of a meaningful job — autonomy, the space for failure, and growth opportunities, he said. As a result, consultants only gain a two-dimensional experience, he said, comparing it to a wall covered with pictures of fruit. "You never get three-dimensional," he said. "You never taste it.""
I went to London’s newest in-person singles event and realised why we’re all so rubbish at dating - "So, if we’re all sick of the hellish cycle of the apps – and there are more and more IRL alternatives – why are so many of us still on them? My theory: dating apps take the most uncomfortable part of dating (rejection) and gently fade it into the background until you don’t even realise it’s happened. When you “like” someone’s profile, they vanish off into the ether, and the next profile appears in front of you. You don’t know if that person you just “liked” has totally balked at the idea of going on a date with you specifically, or if they’ve just not picked up their phone in a few hours. The apps make rejection silent and comfortable. If Hinge forced you to face this element – if it showed you a big red X and played an obnoxiously loud buzzer noise every time you liked someone who didn’t like you back – we’d barely make it a day before swiftly deleting our accounts."
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You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.jsonlz4 to replace the current file with Firefox closed.
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https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/scrounger.html"
"Lily started this chat.
Have you fucked it?"
"Yes, are you interested? In talks. I'll let you know. Sorry, it's not available."
"Bettina G. Manager, Rotational Network Engineering"
Wilfred Reilly on X - ""Posh" what? Europe is remarkably poor. As I've noted before, the mean West Virginian or Black Mississippian has an income higher than the average across virtually all of Europe."
Jan van Eyck's (and his brother Hubert's) Ghent Altarpiece was centuries ahead of its time in 1432. When closed, it depicts the Annunciation in intentionally muted colors, anticipating what's to come... Open it up, and color and light explode at you — out of the darkness comes revelation. Everything that the Fall, prophets, and Annunciation led up to is revealed in the coming of Christ. There's too much detail for one thread, but you have God flanked by Mary, John the Baptist, Adam, and Eve. Standing on an altar below is the Holy Lamb, the symbolic description of Jesus in John's Gospel. God sits on a central throne, crowned in jewels and light. Note: nobody is sure if it's Christ or God the Father, but ambiguity is the point — Van Eyck was expressing the mystery of the Incarnation.
But this painting comes alive not through narrative, but in each and every microscopic detail. They're not just there to show off — every single ornament, color, fabric, and plant is a conscious symbolic choice... Notice the pelican by God's right hand. She feeds her young with blood by piercing her own chest: a symbol of Christ's sacrifice. For a sense of scale, those chicks are not even 1 cm tall.
Symbols are everywhere. Mary is crowned in lilies marking her purity, columbines her humility, and roses her love. In fact, there are ~75 plant species present, none chosen at random — the clovers all have 3 leaves to reflect the Holy Trinity. John the Baptist has a Bible open, and you can count every letter. Van Eyck makes sure we know which passage he's on: "Consolamini" is the visible first word of Isaiah 40:1, an Old Testament prophecy fulfilled by John. It goes right down to the floor tiles. Each one is decorated with monograms of Christ and Mary. This acronym, "AGLA", denotes "Atha Gibor Leolam Adonai" ("Thou art mighty forever, О Lord").
It's more mind-blowing when you realize *when* this was painted: the early 15th century. This was a huge leap in realism from Gothic art only decades before, and the Ghent Altarpiece was the first truly monumental oil painting. But notice the other symbolic detail woven through all this — light. God's robe shimmers with it, while Adam and Eve dwell in darkness, for they're yet to experience the light of Heaven.
But Van Eyck goes well beyond clever symbols. Look now at the heavenly choir. You can tell from their mouths and expressions that each is singing a different part: soprano, tenor, bass. But zoom in closer... A jewel worn by one of the angels contains a reflection, made by just a few tiny brush strokes. A reflection of what? It's the exact window this altarpiece was made to live next to, in Saint Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent. Van Eyck even painted fake shadows around the FRAMES of the altarpiece to capture the light's direction.
There's an important idea in medieval Christianity and in all Van Eyck's paintings: that light itself is divine. Gothic wonders like Saint Bavo's were designed specifically to maximize it inside...
But why go to such lengths to render earthly reality in all this detail? To pull you into the heavenly reality. Van Eyck makes it so tangible you could reach out and touch it. And the closer you inspect life, the more you find traces of God inside it. Just as light permeates and reflects in every inch of this painting, God himself is woven into the very fabric of being..."
