Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalNew York sues SiriusXM, accusing company of making it deliberately hard to cancel subscriptions
New York’s attorney general filed suit Wednesday against SiriusXM, accusing the satellite radio and streaming service of making it intentionally difficult for its customers to cancel their subscriptions.
Attorney General Letitia James’ office said an investigation into complaints from customers found that SiriusXM forced subscribers to wait in an automated system before often lengthy interactions with agents who were trained in ways to avoid accepting a request to cancel service.
“Having to endure a lengthy and frustrating process to cancel a subscription is a stressful burden no one looks forward to, and when companies make it hard to cancel subscriptions, it’s illegal,” the attorney general said in a statement.
The company disputed the claims, arguing that many of the lengthy interaction times cited in the lawsuit were based on a 2020 inquiry and were caused in part by the effects of the pandemic on their operations. The company said many of its plans can be canceled with a simple click of a button online.
https://apnews.com/article/siriusxm-lawsuit-radio-letitia-james-83a61cca949b445a0f47b0af7c7146b9
Hurray for Letitia James. I had hell's own time canceling mine! Now they are sending me crap again!
Mother of Black child, 10, sentenced for urinating in public refuses to sign probation terms
The mother of a 10-year-old Black child who was sentenced by a Mississippi judge to three months of probation and a book report for urinating in public has refused to sign his probation agreement and has asked for the charge against her son to be dismissed, the family’s attorney announced Tuesday.
Latonya Eason, the mother of Quantavious Eason, had initially planned on signing the agreement to avoid the risk of prosecutors upgrading her son’s charge, as they threatened, but she changed her mind after reading the full agreement Tuesday, attorney Carlos Moore said.
“We cannot in good conscience accept a probation agreement that treats a 10-year-old child as a criminal,” Moore said. “The terms proposed are not in the best interest of our client, and we will take all necessary steps to challenge them.”
The terms for Quantavious’ probation were similar to those prosecutors would demand of an adult, including sections that prohibited the use of weapons and demanded he submit to drug tests at a probation officer’s discretion, Moore said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mother-black-child-10-sentenced-urinating-public-refuses-sign-probatio-rcna130554
This is outrageous! Take it to trial and make it a national cause!
Elon Musk says letting workers unionize creates 'lords and peasants'. What?
Steven GreenhouseIn case workers need any additional arguments for why labor unions are good for them, a powerful new argument comes from none other than Elon Musk. Last month at the New York Times DealBook Summit, a gathering of lords of finance and industry, Musk said: “I disagree with the idea of unions … I just don’t like anything which creates a lords and peasants sort of thing.”
That the world’s richest human dissed the idea of unions should certainly be seen as a selling point for unionizing. Musk’s statement shows that he realizes that unions can be highly effective in harnessing the collective voice and power of workers, not just to limit the autonomy of power-hungry CEOs like him in managing their companies, but also to counter the capricious and often officious way he runs things. Musk is allergic to the idea of letting workers and their union have a voice in how to run – and improve – things.
Musk also sought to slime unions by saying: “Unions naturally try to create negativity in a company.” He seems to conveniently forget who has created the negativity at his companies. After acquiring Twitter, Musk fired four-fifths of its 7,500 workers. There, it was Lord Elon, not a union, that created a tsunami of negativity.
Not only that, Musk – making Twitter’s workers play a twisted game of Survivor to vie for the remaining jobs – seemed to gloat when employees worked 20 hours a day and slept in the office as they tried to impress him that they should be spared his axe. Indeed, Musk reportedly told employees to sleep in the office.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/20/elon-musk-unions-tesla
Eloon Mush, the world's richest a__hole.
Could we possibly
get another "Posts" button on the bottom of the page so we don't have to scroll up every time after reading all the replies? A small thing, perhaps, but annoying all the same, and one thing I liked on the last update. Thanks in advance.
Family vlogger Ruby Franke expected to enter plea agreement in child abuse case
Former family vlogger Ruby Franke is expected to enter a plea agreement Monday in Washington County, Utah, after being charged in September with six counts of felony child abuse.
The Utah mother of six had an audience of nearly 2.3 million subscribers before her family YouTube channel “8 Passengers” was removed from the platform. She and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested in August after police found one of Franke’s children with open wounds after escaping from Hildebrandt’s home, and another one of her children in similar malnourished condition at Hildebrandt’s home.
Franke, who has been held without bail since her arrest, is pursuing “personal growth and rehabilitation” by apologizing to and trying to reconcile with members of her family, according to a statement released by her law firm Friday.
“Our client is working with the prosecutor’s office and anticipates resolving this matter quickly by entering a plea agreement with the court on Monday, December 18th,” the statement read.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/family-vlogger-ruby-franke-expected-enter-plea-agreement-child-abuse-c-rcna130149
IMNSHO, plea deals should not be allowed in such heinous cases.
A Monumental Prehistoric Discovery In Siberia Rewrites Human History, Scientists Say
New evidence unearthed from ancient fortresses in Siberia is totally rewriting our understanding of how complex societies evolved.
Radiocarbon dating of artifacts has revealed that Eastern Russia’s Amnya I and Amnya II sites are around 8,000 years old—centuries older than similar structures in Europe.
Despite their age, the settlements are by no means basic, consisting of roughly 20 houses dug into the ground to protect from sometimes-frigid temperatures, and fortified with stakes and trenches.
Once occupied by the hunter-gatherers who roamed the boreal forests of the East Siberian taiga, the houses—and the technology and pottery excavated around them—are calling into question the long-held idea that agriculture was necessary for the development of complex social structures and settlements.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88xbxv/a-monumental-prehistoric-discovery-in-siberia-rewrites-human-history-scientists-say
How a well-timed legal assault unraveled Mississippi's stellar record in vaccinating kids
On the fourth floor of the Mississippi Department of Health, Dr. Daniel Edney sits at a desk cluttered with reports and medical journals. As the highest-ranking public health official in a state that regularly ranks lowest in nearly every health indicator, Edney’s got a lot on his mind.
The elevator to his office is broken. A bucket and pieces of his ceiling sit in a pile on his floor — debris from a leak he can’t ignore much longer. “Public health in all its glory in Mississippi,” he said. “We’re trying to fix things.”
His to-do list is long: maternal death, infant death, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, teen births, poverty. The need goes on and on, while Mississippi spends less money on public health per resident than almost any other state. Nearly a third of the state’s rural hospitals are at "immediate risk" of closing. More than 40% of the jobs at the health department are currently unfilled.
This spring, less than a year into his tenure, another problem dropped in Edney’s lap: childhood vaccines.
For the first time in more than 40 years, Mississippi began granting religious exemptions from the state’s strict requirement that every child receive five vaccines — diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; polio; hepatitis; measles, mumps and rubella; and chickenpox — before attending day care, public school or private school.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mississippi-anti-vaccine-religious-exemptions-school-public-health-rcna130004
Mississippi Goddamn.
Ohio prosecutors broke rules to win convictions and got away with it
Ernie Haynes never imagined that taking care of his three grandsons after his daughter's drug overdose death would turn him into a felon at the hands of a longtime Ohio prosecutor known to sidestep the rules intended to protect a defendant's rights in criminal trials.
A week after his daughter died in December 2017, the court granted temporary custody of the children to their biological father, a man Haynes said also struggled with drug addiction. When Haynes refused to give up his grandchildren, Wood County authorities arrested him and charged him with six counts of abduction. The action sparked a five-year legal battle to clear his name.
"We never got to grieve ... because immediately we were plunged into this hell," said Haynes' wife, Marcella Haynes.
Ernie Haynes, 59, didn't know it, but the assistant prosecutor who would try his case, Thomas Matuszak, had a track record of repeatedly violating legal standards to sway juries at trials and win convictions, according to court findings. He would do the same in Haynes' case.
And it wouldn't be the last.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1216111092/ohio-court-prosecutor-misconduct-due-process-rights
They're about like Texas prosecutors. Anything for a "win".
I had to change browsers, and I am PISSED!
I've been using Vivaldi for almost 10 years now, and I like it, but today I had to change back to Safari because Vivaldi went crazy. For any of you not familiar with it, Vivaldi is made by the same outfit as Opera, and it's very fast and not subject to craziness usually. However, today after It seized up and I had to restart my computer, it suddenly refused to have more than one tab, and I couldn't make it do otherwise. I got frustrated and got out of it, started again, and same thing. I finally went back to Safari, which I rarely use unless on vacation, and I'm not happy. I'm especially unhappy with one site, which rejects my password although my saved passwords site says it's correct, rejects my email, which I know is correct, and general is uncooperative. I want to go back to Vivaldi but it's not cooperative either. What to do?
No charges filed after police shot an 11-year-old who called for help, officials say
A grand jury in Mississippi determined that there was no criminal conduct on behalf of the officer who shot and wounded an 11-year-old boy in his home who had called authorities for help.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch says her office will take no further action against Sgt. Greg Capers, the officer who shot Aderrien Murry.
In a statement released Thursday, Fitch says her office completed its review into the May 20 incident involving Capers in Indianola, Miss., and presented it to the grand jury in Sunflower County, Miss., on Wednesday — which then handed up the decision.
"As such, no further criminal action will be taken by this Office in this matter," Fitch said.
Carlos Moore, the attorney representing the family of Aderrien Murry, told NPR that despite the grand jury's decision, the shooting was not justified and he will continue to pursue the case.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1219460589/aderrien-murry-update-shot-no-criminal-conduct-mississippi-police
And if that ain't Missishitty in a nutshell.......
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Virginia
Member since: Wed Jun 1, 2011, 07:34 PM
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