samhexum

Thai king’s mistress Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi victim of mass nude photo leak Hundreds of nude photos depicting the official mistress (say what?!?) of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn have been leaked to anti-monarchy activists, a report said Tuesday. Some 1,400 selfies of Sineenat “Koi” Wongvajirapakdi — many of them sexually explicit — were allegedly leaked earlier this year to prominent critics of the Thai monarchy living abroad, according to the Daily Beast. “There were 1,400 photographs from four different iPhones. Some of them were very intimate photos,” one of the recipients, British commentator Andrew MacGregor Marshall, told the outlet. Marshall said he received a letter — initially sent to an address he no longer uses — containing an SD card with the photos. The letter bore what he presumes to be “a fake return address” associated with German intelligence headquarters in Berlin, he told the Daily Beast. “I made the decision not to publish them,” said Marshall. “They had obviously been sent to me without her consent, but also I just saw this is as a factional palace game.” Marshall said he received the mysterious letter in August, around the same time that Wongvajirapakdi, 35, was released from detention following a feud with Thailand’s queen to join the king’s harem of “sex soldiers.”(say what?!?) Reports at the time of Wongvajirapakdi’s detention in October 2019 said she had tried to usurp the queen. Marshall also said he received a threat around the time he was sent the SD card. “Earlier in August my house in Scotland was surveilled and a threat was left on the doorstep so it was quite a worrying time and the last thing I wanted was to get dragged into palace politics,” he told the Daily Beast. While Marshall did not publicly release any of the photos, he confirmed that he had received them in support of another critic of the Thai monarchy, Pavin Chachavalpongpun, who did release them. “From the timing of the whole thing it was clearly an attempt to sabotage her return to court,” Marshall told the outlet. “In any royal court you get factional fighting. It is a notorious element of palace life. When you are a monarch with a wife and queen and you appoint consort, it is a recipe for vicious infighting.” (say what?!?) The eccentric billionaire king, 68, was reportedly rushed to the hospital following a coronavirus scare in October, but has not since been reported to be in ill health.

However, I'm sure some animals crave your protein. Bears and otters for example.

2019 first-round draft pick Dwayne Haskins is in hot water with the NFL and Washington Football Team over a viral Instagram story depicting him partying maskless with strippers. The photos originally appeared on Instagram user @kalabrya‘s account, which is now private, and were reposted on Twitter by Rudy Gersten. In one story, a woman is sitting on the Washington quarterback’s lap with both parties holding wads of cash without masks on. Another story shows five maskless women wearing Washington No. 7 jerseys (Haskins’ number) sipping mimosas around a table. “I want to publicly apologize for my actions this past Sunday,” Haskins wrote on his Twitter account, which he made private after his apology. “I spoke with Coach Rivera yesterday and took full accountability for putting the team at risk. It was irresponsible and immature of me and I accept responsibility for my action. I also want to apologize for creating a distraction for my team during our playoff push. I will learn and grow from this and do what’s best for the team moving forward.” Gersten further pointed out that, “Haskins wore his favorite sweatshirt last night eliminating any deniability.” “The Washington Football Team is aware of social media posts showing QB Dwayne Haskins partying maskless in a strip club, was in contact with the NFL yesterday about the matter and is handling the matter internally, I’m told,” NFL insider Tom Peilssero wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “Going to a nightclub without PPE is considered ‘High Risk COVID-19 Conduct,’ punishable by a maximum fine of one week’s salary or up to four-game suspension,” Pelissero said of Haskins, who faced previous fines this year for a separate COVID-19 violation. Pelissero added that NFC East-leading Washington does not plan to release the 23-year-old, who is the lone healthy quarterback on their roster with Kyle Allen out for the year and Alex Smith dealing with a calf injury. Haskins was relegated to third-string in early October behind former undrafted free agent Allen and veteran Smith, who hadn’t played in a NFL game since 2018. At the time, Haskins was also battling a non-COVID-19 stomach bug and dealing with the unexpected death of his puppy, Nipsi. “Our full focus is on the Panthers game,” a team source told Chris Russell of 106.7 The Fan.

BASTARDS!

I misunderstood the (original) thread title... I thought you were trying to get the attention of drug users. MY BAD! My head's a little foggy after my morning joint. ??:rolleyes:

http://synd.imgsrv.uclick.com/comics/co/2020/co201222.gif Fauci says new COVID-19 strain from UK is likely in US now Dr. Anthony Fauci said the new mutation of COVID-19 that has spread across the UK is likely already in the US — and may even have originated here, according to a top virologist — but does not appear to affect the “protective nature” of the vaccines being used. “When you see something that is pretty prevalent in a place like the UK — there are also mutations that we’re seeing in South Africa — and given the travel throughout the world, I would not be surprised if it is already here,” Fauci told PBS Newshour’s Judy Woodruff. “When we start to look for it, we’re going to find it,” he said, adding that “you have to make that assumption” the mutated bug is in the US. “Certainly, it is not yet the prevalent one, the way it seems to have assumed that prevalent nature in the UK,” Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday. “But we’re going to be looking for it right now, and I’m sure, sooner or later, we’re going to run into it and find it,” added the nation’s top infectious diseases expert. Meanwhile, Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, joined a number of other infectious diseases experts who said the variant may not have even originated in the UK in the first place. “It may very well be here. It may have even started here. The sequencing in the US is so sporadic,” Luban said, according to The Washington Post. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, said: “It makes sense that it was detected first in the UK because they have probably the world’s best surveillance program. “It would not shock me at all to find out that it also is circulating in the US,” she added, the paper reported. The experts suggested that the new strain was identified in the UK first because the country has a strong monitoring system that has studied tens of thousands of genomic sequences of viral samples, according to the report. The US has lagged in sequencing and does not have nearly the same level of virus surveillance, The Washington Post reported. Fauci said that since the bug that causes COVID-19 is an RNA virus it tends to mutate a lot. “Most of the mutations have no functional relevance,” he said. “This one has a suggestion that it might allow the virus to spread more readily. “We’re still seeking out evidence to prove or disapprove that. But let’s make an assumption that it is, in fact, making the virus more transmissible, even though it hasn’t been proven yet,” Fauci continued. “It doesn’t seem at all to have any impact on the virulence or what we call the deadliness of the virus. It doesn’t make people more sick. And it doesn’t seem to have any impact on the protective nature of the vaccines that we’re currently using,” he said. “So, it’s something you take seriously, you keep your eye out on it, and you do tests to determine if there is more functional relevance than we seem to believe that there is,” Fauci added. The top doc also said he thinks a travel ban from the UK “might be premature.” “I don’t think that that kind of a draconian approach is necessary. I think we should seriously consider the possibility of requiring testing of people before they come from the UK here,” Fauci said. “But I don’t think that there is enough evidence right now to essentially lock down any travel from the UK, but seriously to consider the possibility that you might want to require people who are coming here to be tested within a period of time, you know, 24, 34, or 76 hours before they get on a plane to come to the United States,” he added. On Tuesday morning, Fauci will receive Moderna’s jab alongside Health Secretary Alex Azar, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, and frontline workers at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. I blame Harry and Meghan. I picked out the pic with the crotch shot.

No, Like a CARRIE-fantasy type of fetish... or worse, a 'didn't know what was happening when I got my first period' fantasy type of fetish.

I don't think I have the spicy ones (at least nothing says they are). I just don't like spicy anything at all, so what's just their flavoring could be, to me, a little spicy. I like my chicken nuggets crispy, so I made another batch (2 batches finished the bag) and let them bake for twice the instructed time. Better. For sure... TOTALLY worth trying for free.

It was carrying 294 propane tanks. There was black ice on the road. The driver's okay.

Overturned tractor trailer on fire with explosion along the Long Island Expressway service road. I hope it wasn't carrying vaccines.

I hope you know my head is exploding because I'm trying to hold in all the possible sarcastic replies.

They're still going, now sounding somewhere between just outside and in the background. This must be some fire. It must be all the swing state democrats burning the evidence of their massive voter fraud.

And it's my neighborhood, not love. I just heard a cacophony of sirens for a couple of minutes that sounded like it was right outside & now I'm hearing a couple faintly in the background. I guess I'll be watching the local morning news.

McDonald's is long past that figure. ?

Yeah, but you don't play one on TV, so I'm not impressed. Other than giving me my specific numbers, which I wasn't hurrying in to my doctor to get, she didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. I haven't seen my PCP in about 3 years, and that visit was the first in about 5, so at least I got SOME diagnostics today. Pre-covid I'd see my neurologist once or twice a year (have had disk fusions in 2003 & 2012, & 2 mini-strokes in 2017-- my file's about an inch thick) and my pulmonologist 3 times a year so he could test my deteriorating lungs and tell me not to smoke pot anymore. He'll be so glad to know I've cut back about 30% during the pandemic (down to much more than I should). You don't get to be in the shape I'm in without intimate knowledge of what you're doing to yourself (and of the fridge & freezer, too). If you're confused, my avatar pic was taken in really good lighting on a day when I was having a good (chest) hair day. ?

And some real ones, too, if all the stories I've heard about you in back alleys are true ???

Maybe he's a space-aged robot. Gigantor, Gigantor, Gigantor. Gigantor the space aged robot, He is at your command. Gigantor the space aged robot, His power is in your hand. Bigger than big, taller than tall, Quicker than quick, stronger than strong. Ready to fight for right, against wrong. Gigantor, Gigantor, Gigantor. How many takes do you think they had to do before the 'instructor' could get through the whole thing without accidentally brushing his finger (slowly) against the model?

Nah, your glasses are dirty.

You know, speaking of whoppers, a clever vegetarian or vegan mega-hung escort could advertise that he offers a plant-based whopper with special sauce. Or if he's afraid of copyright infringement penalties, he could just say plant-based meat with cream filling.

I'm sure I'd prefer meat-based plants, but I've been curious to try some, especially since I've sent for several coupons for free items. Tonight I tried my first... INCOGMEATO (by Morningstar Farms) 'chicken' nuggets. Slightly spicy (for flavor, I guess), but edible and completely worth what I paid for it. I wouldn't ever buy them, though. I eat my nuggets plain, but these would probably better if I liked ketchup or a dipping sauce. I also have their 'burgers', as well as 'burgers' from LightLife to try, but they can be refrigerated or frozen for quite a while, so no rush. I have 2 more coupons, so maybe I'll see what other 'meat' products INCOGMEATO offers.

OPINION NY’s plastic-bag ban one more thing pushing COVID-slammed bodegas over cliff By Francisco Marte Bodegas across the five boroughs have been a lifeline for New Yorkers throughout the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns. But the economic and health effects of the crisis have taken a heavy toll on small food retailers — suffering compounded by the collapse of law and order in many of the neighborhoods we serve. Which makes it all the more enraging that we now have to deal with a plastic-bag ban — an unfunded mandate that epitomizes the state Legislature’s sheer decadence and beholdenness to the boutique causes of gentry progressives at a time when the working class and small business are facing unprecedented misery. Bodegeuros continue to courageously fulfill their roles as essential workers, manning the front lines in the city’s poorest neighborhoods and providing vital resources for the poorest Gothamites. But many of us are hanging by a thread, and some have been forced to shut their doors for good due to a lack of foot traffic. As incomes drop and sales decline, bodegas need help so they can survive this downturn and assist in the city’s economic recovery. There is one easy step Albany could take to make things at least a little eaiser on us: scrapping or, at least, pausing the ban on plastic bags, which legislators imposed last year without considering what it would mean for bodegas and other small retailers that often operate on razor-thin margins. When the ban was enacted, there was much discussion about its environmental benefits to the oceans. These are minor at best, as studies have found that the United States contributes less than 1 percent of the plastic litter in the world’s oceans. But never mind that: Albany all but ignored the pressure on retailers charged with implementing the ban and allocated few resources to assist them in that effort. Now, two months since the ban went into effect, those impacts are starting to become clear. And as we predicted, the news is not good. The state failed to think through whether there would be enough paper bags available to replace plastic, and whether the cost of this alternative would be too much for small businesses to bear — if they could manage to find paper at all. The sad reality is that regulatory enforcement always falls the hardest on the most vulnerable and least politically protected segments of an industry. As bodegas and other small, independent businesses are struggling with the constraints of this ill-conceived ban, environmental advocates are blindly advocating for full enforcement without recognizing the hardship that creates. One such advocate, who led the charge for the ban, has created her own “snitch squad” — based far from New York City in Bennington, Vt. — whose members are encouraged to inform on ban violators to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. State lawmakers also failed to consider the ban’s health impact on our store owners and employees. Reusable cloth bags must be regularly washed to ensure that they aren’t spreading germs, but research has shown that a majority of shoppers don’t actually follow that protocol. In the absence of adequate supply and the prohibitive cost, many of our stores continue to use plastic bags while a legal challenge to the ban moves through the courts. We don’t condone or encourage violating the law, but this is what happens when the impact of a bad law on the most vulnerable stores isn’t fully considered. That is why we support the effort by Assemblyman Victor Pichardo and his colleagues in the Assembly to place a two-year moratorium on the ban and institute in its place a five-cent fee on plastic. This would generate an estimated $500 million a year, providing the state with much-needed revenue at a time when it faces multibillion-dollar deficits as a result of the pandemic. But more important, it will give bodegas and other small businesses some breathing room and allow them to offer shoppers what they really want: options, including the ability to choose a product that offers peace of mind when it comes to protecting their health as the pandemic drags on. It is well past time for Albany to support independent retailers and remove impediments to their success, instead of loading them down with unrealistic and unfunded mandates that only make an already difficult situation worse. Francisco Marte is the secretary-treasurer of the Bodega and Small Business Association.

Xin Xing, the world’s oldest panda and progenitor of dozens of new members of her endangered species, has died at 38. In human-age equivalent, the so-called “hero mother” of Chongqing Zoo in western China would have been about 130 years old. The announcement came Monday via social media, on the zoo’s WeChat page, nearly two weeks after the panda matriarch’s death — though the reason for delay remains unclear. The panda matriarch, whose name translates to “new star,” bore 36 of her own cubs during her long and fruitful life, many of whom now reside in countries such as the US, Canada and Japan. Xin Xing was born in the summer of 1982 at a protected panda sanctuary in Baoxing, Sichuan, and brought to Chongqing Zoo before she was a year old. Earlier this year, Xin Xing celebrated her 38th birthday in August with a party for zoogoers and “cake” made of her favorite treats, including bamboo shoots and fruit. At that time, her lifelong keeper, then 56-year-old Zhang Naicheng, told reporters for China Daily, “We spend so much time together, and she is like a family member to me.” “I want to continue looking after her and help her to live to at least 40 years old,” Zhang told iPandaNews.com last year. “We can grow old together, and make her the longest living panda.” Only one other panda, Jia Jia, who died in 2016 also at 38, has lived as long as Xin Xing. Xin Xing’s handlers began to notice lethargy and a loss of appetite in October, followed by labored breathing, imbalance and abdominal swelling. Medical experts from the China Giant Panda Conservation and Research Center and the First Affiliated Hospital of the Heavy Medical School came to tend to Xin Xing — to no avail. A post-mortem examination revealed she had died of multiple organ failure due to advanced aging. “The departure of the giant panda Xinxing makes us feel heartache, and we hereby inform friends from all walks of life who care about Xinxing,” the zoo said in their statement. There are fewer than 1,900 giant pandas left in the world, according to the World Wildlife Federation, most of which live in the temperate forests of southwest China.

It's one more.