This is such a touching story about fatherhood.
Murphy, a male bald eagle who was living alone in the World Bird Sanctuary, Valley Park, Missouri, was so eager to be a dad that he tried to “hatch” a rock.
His dream came true when the Sanctuary replaced the rock with a rescue eaglet.
Murphy puts humans to shame, especially men who “sow their wild oats,” abandon the babies they sired, or are cold or abusive fathers.
~E
Man caught pooping in aisle of a Safeway store in San Francisco. (Khon2)
Matthew Lynn reports for The (UK) Telegraph, May 7, 2023:
San Francisco should be one of the best retail centres globally; an easy place to sell every kind of luxury good, fashion essentials and high end electronics. The money is there, as well as the people to spend it.
Yet this week, the department store Nordstrom announced it was shutting its locations in the city, joining a growing exodus of big name retailers. Household brands are in despair over the damage inflicted by an ultra-woke local government….
Nordstrom’s announcement was yet another blow for San Francisco’s battered retail industry. The company told employees it would not be renewing its leases at the Westfield Mall, nor at the Nordstrom Rack across the street, due to the “changed dynamics” in the city.
The “deteriorating situation in downtown San Francisco,” Westfield Mall told the Washington Post, has left both customers and staff unsafe.
The retailer is hardly the first to put up the “closing down sale” signs. The upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods has shuttered a flagship store; the H&M, Gap and Banana Republic have all left. While some British high streets risk becoming boarded-up wastelands, they could soon look positively vibrant compared to what used to be known as “the golden city”.
There is no great mystery here. Under its ultra-woke Mayor, London Breed, San Francisco has been testing out a wide array of faddish, progressive policies. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, Breed was one of the first to jump on the “defund the police” bandwagon, cutting $120 million from the law and order budget.
Sales and corporate taxes have been pushed up. Homelessness has been tolerated right across the city centre. Motorists reportedly leave car windows and doors unlocked to deter overnight break-ins.
Last summer, a groups of business officials wrote to officials threatening to stop paying taxes if politicians failed to clear litter from the streets and stop people from openly taking drugs….
The quality of life has deteriorated steadily in San Francisco, not least for those who cannot afford to escape to the wealthier suburbs. Businesses are shunning the city, perhaps deterred by an increasingly unfavourable local tax, social and regulatory environment.
In 2021, foreign direct investment into new projects in San Francisco fell to their lowest level since 2009. And as shops close, real estate prices are tumbling. Let’s not forget that one of the big reasons the San Francisco based First Republic Bank had to be rescued was because of expected losses on property loans. The city is slipping into a vicious cycle of decline from which it is hard to see any exit….
There is a lesson in the closure of Nordstrom in San Francisco. It is one of the wealthiest places in the world. It has a per capita income of $160,000 (£126,000), according to figures from the Federal Reserve….
It is often complacently assumed that businesses will just take any amount of punishment so long as there are still customers with money to spend. You can push taxes up to any level you like, let crime run out of control, turn the streets over to vagrants, and impose as many virtue-signalling rules and regulations as you can think of, and they will stoically put up with it all because they need the market. San Francisco is a warning that that is simply not true.
There is always a final straw. That was true of Nordstrom and the golden city…. Ultra left local governments can destroy even successful cities – and once it starts it is almost impossible to reverse.
~E
Posted in Crime, drugs, Finances, The Left, woke culture
Tagged Nordstrom, poop in San Francisco, San Francisco
Remember my post of April 13, 2023, “Sales of trans-woke Bud Light plunge“?
Bud Light tried to rescue the catastrophe by:
Despite those efforts, things are only getting worse for Bud Light and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch.
The New York Post reports that “Bud Light’s sales drop is accelerating amid Dylan Mulvaney fiasco — and is now spilling into other Bud brands”:
Nationwide retail sales of Bud Light were down 23.4% versus a year ago in the week of April 29 — worse than the 21.4% decline it suffered a week earlier, according to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ data.
Meanwhile, as beer drinkers discover how many other beer brands fall under the Anheuser-Busch umbrella, the backlash is widening, according to the fresh data.
The company’s flagship Budweiser brand took an 11.4% sales hit for the week ended April 29. Sales of Bud’s Michelob Ultra brand — the third-biggest-selling in the US behind No. 1 Bud Light and No. 2 Modelo Especial — were down 4.4%, according to Bump Williams data.
“It’s not just a Bud Light issue,” said Bump Williams, chief executive of the consultancy.
“It’s an Anheuser-Busch portfolio problem now.”
Anheuser-Busch’s smaller US brands also got dinged, with its Natural Light brand down 5.2% and its Busch Light seeing a 1.8% drop.
The widening sales declines mark a painful hit for Bud’s dominant US beer business. Last year, sales of Bud Light topped $4.8 billion, according to the Connecticut-based firm….
“If Bud Light doesn’t fix its trend by the end of this month, it will continue to lose market share because it will lose Memorial Day. That kicks off the summer season,” Williams told The Post. “There has to be a sense of urgency for InBev to correct these trends.”
It’s the fourth consecutive week of double-digit sales drops linked to Anheuser-Busch’s brief marketing tie-up with the transgender influencer, which began on April 1 when Mulvaney posted videos of herself sitting in a bubble bath drinking Bud Light.
“Anecdotally we are hearing that sales of Bud Light are declining more rapidly at bars and restaurants where some consumers don’t want to be seen drinking it or they are getting into arguments over the brand,” said Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights.
Rival brewers, meanwhile, are gaining market share at Bud Light’s expense. Coors Light and Miller Light each saw a more than 20% sales increase in the week ended April 29 compared to a year ago, according to Bump Williams and Nielsen data.
Pabst Blue Ribbon was up 18.9% while Keystone Light saw a 15% bump over the same period.
~E
Posted in The Left, woke culture
Tagged Alissa Heinerscheid, Anheuser Busch, Bud Light, Daniel Blake., Dylan Mulvaney
Posted in cats, dogs, Funnies, God's creation
Here’s the pic:
About the pic: On January 17, 2023, climate activist Greta Thunberg, 20, was hauled away and briefly detained by police while protesting the expansion of a coal mine in western Germany. According to Reuters, the young activist, along with a group of protesters, were warned by police that they would be “removed by force” if they did not vacate the mine site. Reacting to videos circulating on social media of Thunberg seen laughing with police before she was hauled away, viewers accused Thunberg of staging the arrest, which both Thunberg and the German police denied. (BBC)
Here’s The Body Language Guy’s video analyzing the incident:
You know the drill:
This contest will be closed at the end of Tuesday, May 16, 2023.
‘To get the contest going, here’s my caption (from Shakespeare’s Macbeth):
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.
For the winner of our last Caption Contest, go here.
~E
Posted in Caption contest, Fun, Funnies, Hoaxes, The Left, woke culture
Tagged climate change, Greta Thunberg
Our writers dutifully voted for their #1 and #2 captions. Each #1 vote is worth 4 points; each #2 vote us worth 2 points.
And the winner, with two #1 votes and one #1 vote, totaling 10 points, is:
Here’s his caption:
Well, Creepy Uncle Joe just learned a new technique.
In 2nd place are Anonymous and Brain Heinz (each with one #1 vote), and GregB (with two #2 votes), each with 4 points each:
Anonymous: “That’s even less acceptable than ‘pull my finger’– jeez!”
Brain Heinz: “Look, he still had mustard on his face from lunch. I was just grooming, er, I mean cleaning him up.”
GregB: “This looks like the human version of a gecko with his tongue sticking out as he eyes his prey just before he zaps its unaware prey with its tongue and then devours it.”
Vett is in 3rd place, with one #2 vote and 2 points:
“Wanna know what else I can do with my tongue?”
For all the other caption submissions, go here.
Be here later for our next very exciting caption contest!
~E
I really like Dr. Steve Turley’s videos. He’s a staunch Conservative, but is positive and optimistic, instead of the typical down-beat, depressing news.
~E
Posted in The Left, woke culture
Tagged Alissa Heinerscheid, Anheuser Busch, Bud Light, Dr. Steve Turley, Dylan Mulvaney
Here’s the pic:
About the pic: On April 10, 2023, the Dalai Lama, whom Tibetan Buddhists venerate as a god, issued an apology after a video went viral showing the supposed deity and spiritual leader kissing a young boy on the lips and then asking the child to “suck my tongue” at an event last February in northern India. In a statement saying he “regrets” the incident, the office for the Dalai Lama said he “wishes to apologize to the boy and his family, as well as his many friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused,” and that “His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras.”
You know the drill:
This contest will be closed at the end of Tuesday, April 25, 2023.
‘To get the contest going, here’s my caption:
The Dalai Lama sucks!
For the winner of our last caption contest, go here.
~E
