Funny to Me Headlines

[abbey1227]

Nov 26, 2022 2:44:01 GMT merh said:

FRANCE – COURT DECIDES EMPLOYEES CANNOT BE FORCED TO HAVE FUN
25 November 2022

A top French court has ruled that you cannot fire an employee on the grounds that they are not “fun” enough and won’t partake in work drinks and team-building activities, in what could be a landmark decision.

Mr T, who has not been named, was a senior adviser for Cubik Partners, a Parisian management consultancy and training company that promises to “make management more humanist again while durably improving performance”.

The company who’s motto is “fun & pro” organised a host of social events for staff in order to bolster team spirit. Fun is strongly emphasised on the company’s website, for example “Cubik is a “fun and professional” daily life: you have to have fun while working and our customers love it! (Have you ever put on a hen's hat in training?)”.

When Mr T refused to take part in these activities, the company accused the ex-employee of being square and boring, difficult to work with and a poor listener. Furthermore, they decided to fire him in 2015 on the grounds of “professional inadequacy” and because he lacked the party spirit it was seeking to promote.

However, Mr T argued that he simply did not share the company’s definition of “fun” and that he was entitled to “critical behaviour and to refuse company policy based on incitement to partake in various excesses”.

Seven years later, the Paris’ Court of Cassation has finally agreed with him. In its ruling, made earlier this month but only revealed this week, the appeals court pointed out that it was not everyone’s cup of tea to “forcibly participate in seminars and end-of-week drinks frequently ending up in excessive alcohol intake, encouraged by associates who made very large quantities of alcohol available”.

Nor was it everyone’s definition of “fun” to engage in “practices linking promiscuity, bullying and incitement to get involved in various forms of excess and misconduct”.

It said that the company’s values of “fun” violated the ex-employee’s “fundamental right to dignity and respect of private life” and that he was simply exercising his “freedom of expression” by not taking part.

In its ruling, the court decided that the “fun and pro” culture translated into “humiliating and intrusive practices regarding privacy such as simulated sexual acts, the obligation to share a bed with a colleague during seminars, the use of nicknames to designate people and hanging up deformed and made-up photos in offices”.

It ordered Cubik Partners to pay the ex-employee €3,000, however, he has demanded a further €461,000 in damages – a request that the court will examine at a later date.

it IS one of the most annoying things in corporate land these days.  "We're hip! We're fun! Be a team member and have fun, too!"      Meanwhile they'll often drop you like a rock at the first opportunity.

[merh]

Nov 26, 2022 2:56:40 GMT abbey1227 said:

Nov 26, 2022 2:44:01 GMT merh said:

it IS one of the most annoying things in corporate land these days.  "We're hip! We're fun! Be a team member and have fun, too!"      Meanwhile they'll often drop you like a rock at the first opportunity.

Meetings are such  waste of time.

[merh]

Nov 26, 2022 2:54:10 GMT abbey1227 said:

Nov 26, 2022 2:47:30 GMT merh said:

I don't remember that 

I saw it when it was released around 2000.

I don't see Judas as a bad guy.
He was doing what was expected of him.
He tried to return the silver.
He was regretful.
Hung himself.
The rope broke so he fell to his death on the rocks below.

They were trying to figure out where he came from........Van Helsing had kept him trapped for years, while using his blood to stay alive himself, in order to deduce the source of his origin.

Sorta like Cain being cursed to walk the Earth forever, Iscariot was doomed the same fate for his role.

His character is a regular person burdened with a horrible spot to be in.

The movie had him hanging near the end, as the Sun came up.........and he was 'redeemed' in some sorta way.

My uncle maintained that suicide is a sin, but Judas didn't commit suicide since the rope broke which meant God forgave him for betraying Jesus.

[merh]

Nov 26, 2022 2:50:36 GMT abbey1227 said:

U.S.
INSIDER
Meet a first-generation attorney with $347,000 in student debt who can't land a job and says 'there are a substantial number of people like me that are being forgotten'

Steve Pederzani, who is on SNAP and rental assistance, pushed back on Biden's argument that student debt relief should not go to lawyers.

Yet aren't lawyers part of the problem?

[abbey1227]

Nov 26, 2022 12:20:50 GMT merh said:

Nov 26, 2022 2:56:40 GMT abbey1227 said:

it IS one of the most annoying things in corporate land these days.  "We're hip! We're fun! Be a team member and have fun, too!"      Meanwhile they'll often drop you like a rock at the first opportunity.

Meetings are such  waste of time.

"Yeah, let's all go over this thing for the umpteenth time. Also, let's bring up things that only the biggest of morons need reminding about."  

[abbey1227]

Nov 26, 2022 12:23:38 GMT merh said:

Nov 26, 2022 2:54:10 GMT abbey1227 said:

They were trying to figure out where he came from........Van Helsing had kept him trapped for years, while using his blood to stay alive himself, in order to deduce the source of his origin.

Sorta like Cain being cursed to walk the Earth forever, Iscariot was doomed the same fate for his role.

His character is a regular person burdened with a horrible spot to be in.

The movie had him hanging near the end, as the Sun came up.........and he was 'redeemed' in some sorta way.

My uncle maintained that suicide is a sin, but Judas didn't commit suicide since the rope broke which meant God forgave him for betraying Jesus.

That's a neat little loophole someone invented

[abbey1227]

Nov 26, 2022 12:24:44 GMT merh said:

Nov 26, 2022 2:50:36 GMT abbey1227 said:

U.S.
INSIDER
Meet a first-generation attorney with $347,000 in student debt who can't land a job and says 'there are a substantial number of people like me that are being forgotten'

Steve Pederzani, who is on SNAP and rental assistance, pushed back on Biden's argument that student debt relief should not go to lawyers.

Yet aren't lawyers part of the problem?

[merh]

Men should ejaculate 21 times a month to protect against prostate cancer, study suggests
Greg Evans
1 days ago

OK chaps, let's talk about prostate health.

It's a sensitive but important issue for men around the world. The gland which produces semen is obviously very important but disorders in the area are increasingly common amongst men over 50. An enlarged prostate can cause urination to be frequent and painful and in addition, prostate cancer is now the third most common cancer in American males.

So, how can this be fixed?

Well, sensible things like diet, exercise and regular checkups are the most effective way to keep your prostate healthy. However, a new, much more enjoyable method has been discovered by researchers at Harvard University.

In a published journal named European Urology, it is indicated that high levels of sexual activity can reduce the risk of contracting prostate cancer.

The study observed the sexual habits of 32,000 men and in conclusion, determined that those with a higher rate of ejaculation were less likely to have prostate tumours.

The author of the study states: "We found that men reporting higher compared to lower ejaculatory frequency in adulthood were less likely to be subsequently diagnosed with prostate cancer. This large prospective study provides the strongest evidence to date of a beneficial role of ejaculation in the prevention of prostate cancer."

So, how many times should you be ejaculating a month? The panel of researchers belive that 21 will protect you from prostate cancer. During a discussion with Ultimate Health, the experts said: "Twenty-one ejaculations or more per month can protect you (males) from prostate cancer."

The study found that men who ejaculated at least 21 times a month had a 33% lower risk of prostate cancer than those that didn't

Quite why this helps the prostate hasn't quite been determined yet but scientists have speculated that it may flush toxins out of the system.

Of course, ejaculation alone isn't going to entirely save your prostate. Experts says that obesity, tobacco, high-fat processed food and heredity are also factors that will lead to prostate cancer so cut those out for your own sake.

Dr. James Balch believes that a good diet is a positive thing to aspire towards when protecting one's prostate.

"If a man wants to stay out of the operating room and avoid cancer of the prostate, he needs to go full blast to avoid the high-fat junk foods and environmental toxins that contribute to prostate problems and to start a wise nutritional program that includes the basic supplements that affect the prostate."

If sex and a healthy diet weren't enough tomatoes, organic coffee, plant-based fats, exercise and no smoking will also help prevent prostate cancer.

Gents, now you know what you have to do.

[abbey1227]

Nov 28, 2022 20:47:48 GMT merh said:

Men should ejaculate 21 times a month to protect against prostate cancer, study suggests
Greg Evans
1 days ago

OK chaps, let's talk about prostate health.

It's a sensitive but important issue for men around the world. The gland which produces semen is obviously very important but disorders in the area are increasingly common amongst men over 50. An enlarged prostate can cause urination to be frequent and painful and in addition, prostate cancer is now the third most common cancer in American males.

So, how can this be fixed?

Well, sensible things like diet, exercise and regular checkups are the most effective way to keep your prostate healthy. However, a new, much more enjoyable method has been discovered by researchers at Harvard University.

In a published journal named European Urology, it is indicated that high levels of sexual activity can reduce the risk of contracting prostate cancer.

The study observed the sexual habits of 32,000 men and in conclusion, determined that those with a higher rate of ejaculation were less likely to have prostate tumours.

The author of the study states: "We found that men reporting higher compared to lower ejaculatory frequency in adulthood were less likely to be subsequently diagnosed with prostate cancer. This large prospective study provides the strongest evidence to date of a beneficial role of ejaculation in the prevention of prostate cancer."

So, how many times should you be ejaculating a month? The panel of researchers belive that 21 will protect you from prostate cancer. During a discussion with Ultimate Health, the experts said: "Twenty-one ejaculations or more per month can protect you (males) from prostate cancer."

The study found that men who ejaculated at least 21 times a month had a 33% lower risk of prostate cancer than those that didn't

Quite why this helps the prostate hasn't quite been determined yet but scientists have speculated that it may flush toxins out of the system.

Of course, ejaculation alone isn't going to entirely save your prostate. Experts says that obesity, tobacco, high-fat processed food and heredity are also factors that will lead to prostate cancer so cut those out for your own sake.

Dr. James Balch believes that a good diet is a positive thing to aspire towards when protecting one's prostate.

"If a man wants to stay out of the operating room and avoid cancer of the prostate, he needs to go full blast to avoid the high-fat junk foods and environmental toxins that contribute to prostate problems and to start a wise nutritional program that includes the basic supplements that affect the prostate."

If sex and a healthy diet weren't enough tomatoes, organic coffee, plant-based fats, exercise and no smoking will also help prevent prostate cancer.

Gents, now you know what you have to do.

Can we get a hand here? 

[abbey1227]

WE'VE DONE IT! Great job everyone!




American EVs reduced gasoline consumption by just 0.54% in 2021
The data is in a new report on EV use from Argonne National Lab.

Jonathan M. Gitlin - 11/28/2022, 11:37 AM

[merh]

Nov 29, 2022 4:06:42 GMT abbey1227 said:

WE'VE DONE IT! Great job everyone!




American EVs reduced gasoline consumption by just 0.54% in 2021
The data is in a new report on EV use from Argonne National Lab.

Jonathan M. Gitlin - 11/28/2022, 11:37 AM

Starfish 

[abbey1227]

Nov 29, 2022 8:45:57 GMT merh said:

Nov 29, 2022 4:06:42 GMT abbey1227 said:

WE'VE DONE IT! Great job everyone!




American EVs reduced gasoline consumption by just 0.54% in 2021
The data is in a new report on EV use from Argonne National Lab.

Jonathan M. Gitlin - 11/28/2022, 11:37 AM

Starfish 

que?

[merh]

TIL after fighting in WWI, A. A. Milne had PTSD so severe, he was reminded of whizzing bullets by buzzing bees, and cannons firing by balloons popping. Wanting a lighthearted distraction and a way to explain to his son the difficulties of war, he wrote Winnie the Pooh stories as his way of doing so.

[merh]

Nov 29, 2022 8:59:00 GMT abbey1227 said:

Nov 29, 2022 8:45:57 GMT merh said:

Starfish 

que?

The story centers around a little girl on the beach at sun rise and just when the tide started receding, leaving hundreds or thousands of starfish on the sand. The starfish were lying helplessly on the wet sand. They could not go back into the ocean, and soon they would be eaten by the birds and other predators. Obviously they needed help to go back to the water in order to survive. The compassionate little girl, who understood the helpless nature of the starfish and felt the urge to save them, started picking up the starfish and gently throwing them one at a time into the water. Very ardently she was repeating this process.
A young man, who was jogging on the beach, stopped for a few seconds and asked the little girl, “what are you doing with the starfish? “The little girl replied that she was helping the starfish survive, because they could not go back to the water on their own. The young man told the little girl that as there were a lot of starfish on the beach, she could not possibly make a difference to them. Upon hearing that, the little girl gently threw another starfish into the water, and said “I made a difference to this one” and then she smiled to the astonishment of the young man.
This moved the young man so much that he could not resist picking up a starfish and throwing it into the water before resuming his jogging. Such is the impact the compassionate act of the little girl made on the mind of a young man.

Wasn't that a butter commercial?

Por que?
Or just a SoCal joke?

[merh]

Atheists Are Sometimes More Religious Than Christians

Survey shows how poorly we understand the beliefs of people who identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular.

Americans are deeply religious people—and atheists are no exception. Western Europeans are deeply secular people—and Christians are no exception.

These twin statements are generalizations, but they capture the essence of a fascinating finding in a Pew Research study about Christian identity in Western Europe. By surveying almost 25,000 people in 15 countries in the region, and comparing the results with data previously gathered in the U.S., the Pew Research Center discovered three things.

First, researchers confirmed the widely known fact that, overall, Americans are much more religious than Western Europeans. They gauged religious commitment using standard questions, including “Do you believe in God with absolute certainty?” and “Do you pray daily?”

Second, the researchers found that American “nones”—those who identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular—are more religious than European nones. The notion that religiously unaffiliated people can be religious at all may seem contradictory, but if you disaffiliate from organized religion it does not necessarily mean you’ve sworn off belief in God, say, or prayer.

The third finding reported in the study is by far the most striking. As it turns out, “American ‘nones’ are as religious as—or even more religious than—Christians in several European countries, including France, Germany, and the U.K.”

“That was a surprise,” Neha Sahgal, the lead researcher on the study, told me. “That’s the comparison that’s fascinating to me.” She highlighted the fact that whereas only 23 percent of European Christians say they believe in God with absolute certainty, 27 percent of American nones say this.

America is a country so suffused with faith that religious attributes abound even among the secular. Consider the rise of “atheist churches,” which cater to Americans who have lost faith in supernatural deities but still crave community, enjoy singing with others, and want to think deeply about morality. It’s religion, minus all the God stuff. This is a phenomenon spreading across the country, from the Seattle Atheist Church to the North Texas Church of Freethought. The Oasis Network, which brings together non-believers to sing and learn every Sunday morning, has affiliates in nine U.S. cities.

In April 2018, almost 1,000 people streamed into a church in San Francisco for an unprecedented event billed as “Beyoncé Mass.” Most were people of color and members of the LGBTQ community. Many were secular. They used Queen Bey’s songs, which are replete with religious symbolism, as the basis for a communal celebration—one that had all the trappings of a religious service. That seemed completely fitting to some, including one reverend who said, “Beyoncé is a better theologian than many of the pastors and priests in our church today.”

The Catholic-themed Met Gala in May 2018 was another instance of religion commingling with secular American culture. Fashion’s biggest night of the year saw celebrities sweeping down the red carpet dressed in papal tiaras, halos, angel wings, and countless crucifixes. These outfits, along with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s accompanying exhibition, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” drew the ire of some Christians. But it’s notable that so many celebrities, not to mention average Americans, embraced the theme with gusto. It’s easier to imagine this happening in America than in, say, staunchly secular France.

The Pew survey found that although most Western Europeans still identify as Christians, for many of them, Christianity is a cultural or ethnic identity rather than a religious one. Sahgal calls them “post-Christian Christians,” though that label may be a bit misleading: The tendency to conceptualize Christianity as an ethnic marker is at least as old as the Crusades, when non-Christian North Africans and Middle Easterners were imagined as “others” relative to white, Christian Europeans. The survey also found that 11 percent of Western Europeans now call themselves “spiritual but not religious.”

“I hypothesize that being ‘spiritual’ may be a transitional position between being Christian and being non-religious,” said Linda Woodhead, a professor of politics, philosophy, and religion at Lancaster University in the U.K. “Spirituality provides an opportunity for people to maintain what they like about Christianity without the bits they don’t like.”

Woodhead pointed to another finding in the Pew study: Most Western Europeans still believe in the idea of the soul. “So it’s not that we’re seeing straightforward secularization, where religion gives way to atheism and a rejection of all aspects of religion,” she said. “We’re seeing something more complex that we haven’t fully got our heads around. In Europe, it’s about people disaffiliating from the institution of the Church and the old authority figures … and moving toward a much more independent-minded, varied set of beliefs.”

The U.S. hasn’t secularized as profoundly as Europe has, and its history is crucial to understanding why. Joseph Blankholm, a professor at UC Santa Barbara who focuses on atheism and secularism, told me the Cold War was a particularly important inflection point. “The 1950s were the most religious America has ever been,” he said. “‘In God We Trust’ becomes the official national motto. ‘Under God’ is entered into the pledge of allegiance. That identity is being consciously formed by specific actors like Truman and Eisenhower, who are promoting a Christian identity at home and abroad, over against a godless communism. It’s the Christianization of America—as a Cold War tool.” 

Over time, that dichotomous thinking has relaxed a bit. Now, a quarter of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, and secularism can mean a wide range of things. “There are ways of being secular that are more okay with hybridity, and there are ways of being secular that require more purity,” explained Blankholm. He cited the Humanistic Judaism movement, which sprang up in the U.S. in the 1960s and which rejects theism while still embracing Jewish history and culture, as an example of the former. “A term like spirituality can capture that hybridity.”

The Pew survey shows that 27 percent of Americans call themselves “spiritual but not religious.” Even though they’ve left organized religion behind, many still pray regularly and believe in God. This raises an issue for researchers, because it suggests their traditional measures of religiosity can no longer be trusted to accurately identify religious people. “I think people are doing things that don’t mirror Christianity sufficiently enough for our categories to continue to be as explanatory as they once were,” said Blankholm. “These categories are at their limit—they’re in some ways outmoded.”

Sahgal said she was aware of this problem, and sought to make the survey questions more granular so they would capture reality more accurately than the traditional questions alone would have done. So, for instance, the survey didn’t stop at asking respondents whether they believe in God. It drilled down further, asking whether they believe in God as described in the Bible or whether they believe in some other higher power.

As religiosity takes on forms that scramble our old understanding of that term, it’s forcing researchers to ask themselves anew what we talk about when we talk about religion.

“Those challenges are going to get worse—and they know it,” said Blankholm. “But I love that they’re developing a new vocabulary, because that’s exactly what we need.”

getpocket.com/explore/item/atheists-are-sometimes-more-religious-than-christians?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[abbey1227]

Nov 29, 2022 20:14:01 GMT merh said:

Nov 29, 2022 8:59:00 GMT abbey1227 said:

que?

The story centers around a little girl on the beach at sun rise and just when the tide started receding, leaving hundreds or thousands of starfish on the sand. The starfish were lying helplessly on the wet sand. They could not go back into the ocean, and soon they would be eaten by the birds and other predators. Obviously they needed help to go back to the water in order to survive. The compassionate little girl, who understood the helpless nature of the starfish and felt the urge to save them, started picking up the starfish and gently throwing them one at a time into the water. Very ardently she was repeating this process.
A young man, who was jogging on the beach, stopped for a few seconds and asked the little girl, “what are you doing with the starfish? “The little girl replied that she was helping the starfish survive, because they could not go back to the water on their own. The young man told the little girl that as there were a lot of starfish on the beach, she could not possibly make a difference to them. Upon hearing that, the little girl gently threw another starfish into the water, and said “I made a difference to this one” and then she smiled to the astonishment of the young man.
This moved the young man so much that he could not resist picking up a starfish and throwing it into the water before resuming his jogging. Such is the impact the compassionate act of the little girl made on the mind of a young man.

Wasn't that a butter commercial?

Por que?
Or just a SoCal joke?

Nice

I guess it's that sorta thinking that keeps a person like yourself still going and believing as you do. 

[abbey1227]

Nov 29, 2022 22:21:51 GMT merh said:

getpocket.com/explore/item/atheists-are-sometimes-more-religious-than-christians?utm_source=pocket-newtab

I'm not into the belief or praying.........but I have often posed the question: WHERE are people getting their morals from?

This reminded me of religious beliefs.....or laws themselves. It's ALL made up.

So what makes one more valid than the other?

[abbey1227]

NBC News
Senate passes bill to protect same-sex and interracial marriage over GOP opposition
The bill now goes back to the House for a final vote before heading to President Biden's desk.

==========================================


What's with that grouping? Has anyone recently come out against interracial marriage?

[abbey1227]

November 29, 20227:37 AM CSTLast Updated 11 hours ago
ECB warns of losses as it pays price for decade of money printing
Reuters

[abbey1227]

Muana Loa Eruption Halts Key Atmospheric Measurements