the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

Can’t make this sh-t up

Why not? Aliens demanding where to live and now transportation out of the country. Now busing them is a cool idea to the sanctuary city clowns ?

Looks like CA, NY, ME and other states' residents are going to fork over a little extra on their Federal Taxes...

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Don’t file your taxes yet, IRS says amid confusion over state benefits[/SIZE][/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2023/02/07/dont-file-your-taxes-yet-irs-says-amid-confusion-over-state-benefits/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2023/02/07/dont-file-your-taxes-yet-irs-says-amid-confusion-over-state-benefits/')

By Jacob Bogage February 7, 2023

The Internal Revenue Service is telling taxpayers – including more than 16 million in California – to hold off filing their taxes until the agency can issue guidance on state-issued inflation payments.

Dozens of states, including Maine, distributed stimulus-like payments or tax rebates in 2022 to counter inflation, which reached a 40-year high in 2022. The IRS on Tuesday said it needed more time to determine which of those payments are federally taxable, and told taxpayers not to submit returns until it finalized those rules.

“For taxpayers uncertain about the taxability of their state payments, the IRS recommends they wait until additional guidance is available or consult with a reputable tax professional,” the agency said. “For taxpayers and tax preparers with questions, the best course of action is to wait for additional clarification on state payments rather than calling the IRS.”

Faced with a glut of excess revenue stemming from wage gains in 2021 and 2022, nearly two-dozen states issued payments to combat inflation over the summer. California’s middle class tax refund distributed payments worth between $200 and $1,050; close to 16 million taxpayers have received the payouts already, and 23 million are eligible.

New York awarded inflation relief payments worth $270 for average to low-income residents and enacted rent and property tax relief. Oregon sent one-time $600 checks to low-income households, and Georgia gave tax filers a $500 credit after they submitted their 2021 return.

The tax status of those payments will vary by state, and depends on the program’s stated purpose, tax professionals say.

If the payments were for pandemic relief, for example, they should be exempt from federal tax because they fall under disaster relief. If they were for inflation or other economic relief, they’re probably taxable.
“It’s all up to what the [state] legislature decided,” said Jared Ballew, director of government relations at Drake Software. “Was it for the benefit of that money, or is it like a tax refund, which would be taxable on a federal level?”

The holdup threatens to complicate a tax season that so far IRS officials and tax policy experts say has run relatively smoothly. But the agency has struggled to implement some tax code changes backed by President Biden and other prominent Democrats, although they were signed into law several months ago, or even earlier.

“They had the opportunity to see this coming,” Ballew said.

The landmark Inflation Reduction Act that was enacted last year included tax rebates for consumers that purchase American-made electric vehicles.

But the IRS has left in place broad guidelines that include vehicles without the requisite amount of U.S.-made parts, allowing them to remain eligible for the tax break for a longer-than-expected period.
Another of Biden’s key legislative victories, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, levied taxes on transactions worth $600 or more that were made through third-party payment apps, such as Venmo and PayPal.

The IRS delayed guidance on that question, too, saying it will not apply until the 2023 tax year.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-off-duty-cop-shot-attempted-robbery-dies[/URL]

Isn't anyone concerned that Santos would harm another congressman or worse, go postal?

How does this person still have a job let alone be allowed to enter the building???

It almost seems like the whole thing is a joke and the script for a bad movie or test to see how easy it is to infiltrate a political party and get elected when you appear to have no typical characteristics or traditional bonds to that party
I keep thinking he’s gonna pull off a mask one day and he’s gonna be Borat????

It almost seems like the whole thing is a joke and the script for a bad movie or test to see how easy it is to infiltrate a political party and get elected when you appear to have no typical characteristics or traditional bonds to that party
I keep thinking he’s gonna pull off a mask one day and he’s gonna be Borat????

Or Jimmy Hoffa...

Alot of condemnation but ZERO action!

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/news/acorn-woodpeckers-hoarded-over-700-183138700.html[/URL]

[[IMG alt="USA TODAY"]https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/g1p5LuNOaDOdBJfyuqX8fQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTIwODtoPTQ4O2NmPXdlYnA-/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2020-11/092f7540-26ea-11eb-bdb4-b7283677d9f5[/IMG]]('https://www.usatoday.com/news/')
[HEADING=2]Acorn woodpeckers hoarded over 700 pounds of nuts in California vacation rental[/HEADING]

Woodpeckers stacked over 700 pounds of acorns 20 to 25 feet high in a California home’s chimney.

Santa Rosa exterminator Nick Castro made the discovery during a December vacation rental inspection for mealworms in Glen Ellen, California, according to [the Press Democrat]('https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/woodpeckers-hoard-over-700-pounds-of-acorns-in-glen-ellen-vacation-rental/').

When Castro cut a hole in a bedroom wall, 700 pounds of acorns came rushing out.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Castro, owner of [Nick’s Extreme Pest Control]('https://www.facebook.com/Extremepest/'), told the outlet. “The more acorns I pulled out from the wall, the more there were. It felt like it wasn’t going to end.”

Woodpeckers stacked over 700 pounds of acorns 20 to 25 feet high in a California home’s chimney.

Woodpeckers stacked over 700 pounds of acorns 20 to 25 feet high in a California home’s chimney.

Woodpeckers stacked over 700 pounds of acorns 20 to 25 feet high in a California home’s chimney.

A pair of acorn woodpeckers, known for hoarding large amounts of acorns, had pecked holes in the two-story home’s chimney stack, Castro told the Press Democrat.

He estimated the woodpeckers were adding to the stockpile for two to five years.

Castro’s crew filled eight garbage bags full of the birds’ hoard. Because the acorns were covered by fiberglass and rat droppings, the bags were so heavy that Castro’s crew could barely pick them up, he quipped.

Although acorn woodpeckers, found in oak and mixed oak-evergreen forests on the West Coast and in the Southwest, typically harvest the nuts in dead trees, these birds can also choose unusual spots for storage, Castro said — especially as they adapt with evolving landscapes.

It almost seems like the whole thing is a joke and the script for a bad movie or test to see how easy it is to infiltrate a political party and get elected when you appear to have no typical characteristics or traditional bonds to that party
I keep thinking he’s gonna pull off a mask one day and he’s gonna be Borat????

I thought he was talking about Joe.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://share.newsbreak.com/30eyi0w3[/URL]

Shades of Python's Scott of the Antarctic sketch with the electric killer penguin. And people thought there were loopy...

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]The Biggest Penguin That Ever Existed Was a ‘Monster Bird’[/SIZE][/HEADING]
Fossils found in New Zealand highlight an era after the dinosaurs when giant flightless birds prowled the seas for prey.

[IMG alt="An illustration shows a giant penguin emerging from the surf onto a sandy beach. It towers over several other smaller penguins on a bright day with green mountains in the background."]
An artist’s concept of Kumimanu and Petradyptes penguins on an ancient New Zeleand beach. The larger of the two weighed almost 350 pounds and is the heaviest penguin known to science. Credit...Simone Giovanardi

New Zealand has been a haven for earthbound birds for eons. The absence of terrestrial predators allowed [flightless parrots]('https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/science/giant-parrot-new-zealand.html?searchResultPosition=5'), [kiwis]('https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/science/a-theory-on-how-flightless-birds-spread-across-the-world-they-flew-there.html?searchResultPosition=46') and [moas]('https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/science/birds-extinction-is-tied-to-the-arrival-of-humans.html?searchResultPosition=37') to thrive. Now researchers are adding two prehistoric penguins to this grounded aviary. One species is a beefy behemoth that waddled along the New Zealand coastline nearly 60 million years ago. At almost 350 pounds, it weighed as much as an adult gorilla and is the heaviest penguin known to science.

Alan Tennyson, a paleontologist at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, discovered the supersize seabird’s bones in 2017. They were deposited on a beach known for large, cannonball-shaped concretions called the Moeraki Boulders. The churn of the tide cracked open several of these 57-million-year-old boulders, revealing bits of fossilized bones inside.

Dr. Tennyson and his colleagues identified the fossilized remains of two large penguins. The humerus of one, at more than nine and a half inches long, was nearly twice the size of those found in emperor penguins, the largest living penguin. Other boulders yielded bones from a smaller, more complete penguin species that also appeared to be larger than a modern emperor penguin.

The researchers described the ancient birds [Wednesday in the Journal of Paleontology]('https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/abs/largestknown-fossil-penguin-provides-insight-into-the-early-evolution-of-sphenisciform-body-size-and-flipper-anatomy/8D4A78B2CA0A716134F8E60169A633FD'). They named the larger penguin Kumimanu (a mash-up of the Maori words for “monster” and “bird”) fordycei and named the smaller penguin Petradyptes (“rock diver”) stonehousei.

By creating 3-D models of Kumimanu’s humongous humerus and comparing its size and shape with the flipper bones of prehistoric and modern penguins, the researchers estimate that the “monster bird” weighed a whopping 340 pounds — 15 pounds heavier than Lane Johnson, the right tackle anchoring the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line in the Super Bowl.

According to Daniel Ksepka, a paleontologist at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., and an author of the new study, the Kumimanu’s fragmented skeleton makes it difficult to pinpoint its height. Dr. Ksepka estimates that it stood around 5 feet 2 inches, giving it a stocky build. Petradyptes was not a lightweight, either. It weighed 110 pounds, making it heftier than modern emperor penguins, which top out at 88 pounds.

Both Kumimanu and Petradyptes plied the waters off New Zealand during a sweet spot in oceanic history, according to Dr. Ksepka. The asteroid impact that ended the dinosaur era had wiped out most marine reptiles while the ancestors of seals and whales were still on land. This meant there were few things that would mess with a black-bear-size penguin.

“If you’re a little one-pound penguin, a gull can just rip your head off,” Dr. Ksepka said. “But a 300-pound penguin is not going to worry about a sea gull landing near it because it would just crush it.”

Despite their prodigious size, Kumimanu and Petradyptes possessed primitive flippers reminiscent of modern seabirds like auks and puffins that fly and dive. Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin who studies the evolution of diving in birds and was not involved in the new study, said it would make sense for early penguins like Kumimanu and Petradyptes to retain several features left over from their ancestors’ airborne lifestyle.

[IMG alt="A black-and-white skeletal diagram of three penguins in profile, with the largest at left, an emperor penguin at right and the second fossil skeleton in the middle."]
A skeletal sketch comparing, from left, Kumimanu, Petradyptes, the two new fossil penguins, and an emperor penguin. Credit...Simone Giovanardi

The new species add evidence that prehistoric penguins became huge before they fine-tuned their flippers into paddle-like appendages. Heavier seabirds are able to dive deeper and longer than their lighter counterparts, Dr. Ksepka said. The extra paunch would also have helped these penguins stay warm in the water.

While Kumimanu was mighty, it didn’t crowd out its smaller penguin cousins. “You have super large penguins eating the largest prey items and you also have mid-sized and smaller-bodied penguins, and they can all specialize within a crowded penguin environment,” Dr. Clarke said.

Despite plenty of seafood and little competition, these penguins could probably grow only so big.

“I believe that Kumimanu is close to the upper limit of a flightless seabird and I do not expect substantially larger penguins to be found,” said Gerald Mayr, a paleontologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt who described the closely related [220-pound Kumimanu biceae]('https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/science/ancient-penguins-kumimanu.html'). Dr. Mayr, who was not involved in the new study, notes that heavier birds would most likely crush their eggs into yolky smithereens.

As some of the earliest fossil penguins, Kumimanu and Petradyptes reveal just how quickly penguins packed on pounds after they stopped taking to the skies.

“Once you know you’re not flying anymore,” Dr. Ksepka said, “the sky’s the limit.”

Isn't anyone concerned that Santos would harm another congressman or worse, go postal?

How does this person still have a job let alone be allowed to enter the building???

Apparently he & Romney got into it last night. I kinda saw the exchange but didn't know what it was about.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/us-elections-government/ny-george-santos-trades-insults-mitt-romney-ritchie-torres-20230208-igtwbfuhffcehaqaelyvlgybxy-story.html[/URL]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://share.newsbreak.com/30eyi0w3[/URL]

It’s their culture.

Someone is going to be mad....

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/about-half-a-billion-dollars-worth-of-cocaine-enough-to-service-the-new-zealand-market-for-30-years-was-found-floating-in-the-pacific-ocean/ar-AA17eVEk?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=c26923e0377849abab0b9f2f264285b3&fullscreen=true#image=1[/URL]

Someone is going to be mad....

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/about-half-a-billion-dollars-worth-of-cocaine-enough-to-service-the-new-zealand-market-for-30-years-was-found-floating-in-the-pacific-ocean/ar-AA17eVEk?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=c26923e0377849abab0b9f2f264285b3&fullscreen=true#image=1[/URL]

REAL MAD

REAL MAD

Someone forgot to make a pick-up........

Someone forgot to make a pick-up........

I'm sure it'll be the last thing they ever forget..........

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Stone Age discovery fuels mystery of who made early tools[/SIZE][/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2023/02/09/stone-age-discovery-fuels-mystery-of-who-made-early-tools/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2023/02/09/stone-age-discovery-fuels-mystery-of-who-made-early-tools/')

By MADDIE BURAKOFF February 10, 2023

NEW YORK — Archaeologists in Kenya have dug up some of the oldest stone tools ever found, but who used them is a mystery.

In the past, scientists assumed that our direct ancestors were the only toolmakers. But two big fossil teeth found along with the tools at the Kenyan site belong to an extinct human cousin known as Paranthropus, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

This adds to the evidence that our direct relatives in the Homo lineage may not have been the only tech-savvy creatures during the Stone Age, said study author Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program.

“Those teeth open up an amazing whodunit — a real question of, well, who were these earliest toolmakers?” Potts said.

The tools date back to around 2.9 million years ago, when early humans used them to butcher hippos for their meat, the researchers report.

Older stone tools have been found in Kenya, dating back to around 3.3 million years ago, long before our own Homo ancestors appeared. Those tools were a bit simpler and so far have only been found in one spot, said Shannon McPherron, an archaeologist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who was not involved with the study.

The latest discovery matches up with a much bigger tradition known as the Oldowan toolkit. These same kinds of tools show up across Africa and beyond during more than a million years of prehistory, Potts said, showing they really caught on among early humans.

They held a rock in one hand and hit it with another stone, chipping off thin, razor-sharp flakes, explained anthropologist Kathy Schick of the Stone Age Institute in Indiana, who wasn’t involved in the research.

With the rocks and flakes, early humans could slice and crush a wide range of materials, said lead author Thomas Plummer, an anthropologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. And the tools from the Kenya site — likely the most ancient Oldowan tools found to date — suggest this gave them an advantage in a key area: eating.

The site, known as Nyayanga, is a lush, hilly landscape on the shores of Lake Victoria. Since starting excavations there in 2015, researchers have found a trove of artifacts and animal bones, along with the two Paranthropus teeth.

Slice marks on several hippo bones show they were cut up for their meat, which would have been eaten raw as a hippo steak tartare, Plummer said. The early humans also likely used their tools to break open antelope bones for their fatty marrow inside, and to peel the outer rinds of tough plant roots, the authors concluded.

“Stone tools are allowing them, even at this really early date, to extract a lot of resources from the environment,” Plummer said. “If you can butcher a hippo, you can butcher pretty much anything.”

In the past, it was easy to assume that our direct ancestors were the ones using these tools, Plummer said. But the teeth make it hard to rule out that other early humans were picking up tools of their own, researchers said — even extinct cousins like Paranthropus, with their big teeth and small brains.
The mystery will be a tough one to solve.

After all, we can’t say for sure whether Paranthropus onacockei was using these tools, or just happened to die in the same place, Schick said: “When we find hominin fossils with stone tools, you always have to ask, is this the dinner or the diner?”

Hmmm, a foul odor in a state capitol. I wonder where that could possibly be coming from????

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Officials unable to pinpoint source of foul odor in the air in Augusta area[/SIZE][/HEADING]
The Augusta Fire Department said the smell is not coming from the city, but that the investigation is ongoing.

Live Free or Die?

[URL unfurl="true"]https://nypost.com/2023/02/10/students-protest-after-new-hampshire-school-district-bans-urinals/[/URL]

Live Free or Die?

[URL unfurl="true"]https://nypost.com/2023/02/10/students-protest-after-new-hampshire-school-district-bans-urinals/[/URL]

Are you surprised? It’s easier for you to except Johnny dressing alongside of Susie if no shared space. Unless peeps wake up and other peeps don’t censor others from bringing it out, it won’t stop.
I posted pics from children’s books from public library I took personally. Taken down as they were too graphic for this group. Apparently two cartoon boys sucking dick is only appropriate for 10 and under to view. This is pedophilia to you and me but not the woke so they censor and classify those that don’t agree as domestic terrorists, racists, and white supremists, bigot is favored by some of the woke too.
Some of the so-called racists just got a Drag Queen Story Hour cancelled here in East Meadow. Amazing what you can find out about these Drag fags on social media profiles. One of the two that were to read to the kids listed itself on Twitter as a MAP, (Minor, Attracted, Person). They don’t even hide their sexual attraction to kids and yet the head of the library was disappointed so many calls and peeps coming in asking why this was even going on. That library didn’t even list this on their bi-monthly schedule. How’s that for sneaky. So it was cancelled and the pedos moved it to tomorrow at a private venue here in hauppauge where they can I guess drink Jesus Juice or whatever pedos do with kids. Family day they call it.