• CALIFORNIA IS AMONG THE TOP THREE “JUDICIAL HELLHOLES IN THE NATION, with uninjured serial plaintiffs filing hundreds of meritless lawsuits targeting small businesses, by predatory trial lawyers taking over 88% of settlements – effectively legal shakedowns. …According to latest Report from American Tort Reform Ass’n, targets are mostly small businesses with few financial resources, no powerful lobby to defend them or contribute to elected officials (especially immigrant-owned mom/pop businesses), over 600 this year representing half the accessibility lawsuits filed in America, and costing an effective ‘tort tax’ about $2,000 per Californian annually, while nearly 750K jobs are lost… The state’s Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act, passed twenty years ago, was intended to protect workers, but now allows frivolous no-injury lawsuits which usurp Court calendars and, combined with the State’s unique ‘lemon law’, provide windfall for attorneys.” CA dropped this year from being  #1 in the country, surpassed by Pennsylvania and Georgia.  [CALIFORNIA GLOBE – 12/10/22
  • THE PHONETIC SOUND OF PROFANITY IS APPARENTLY “UNIVERSAL ACROSS LANGUAGES” and research (just reported in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review) also found that ‘consonant’ sounds – like letters P, T, K, D, or CH in the word chair – are most offensive as swear words, compared to ‘ringing’ sounds – such as L, R, W, Y.  Based on testing 86 swear words in five languages, with some 215 speakers of six languages who neither spoke or understood the words, the study also found that “(1) sound symbolism, or resemblance between speech & meaning is common; (2) that swearing can increase tolerance to pain; and somehow, (3)  that people who swear are more trustworthy.” [BIGTHINK – 12/12/22]
  • ODDS & ENDS:  Remember the ‘Every Vote Counts’ mantra, which most disbelieve?  A recount in Massachusetts this week let to flipping the midterm race for State House of Representatives, when “stray marks, different colored inks, and names written but also ovals marked” were technically rejected, and the outcome was a winner by one-vote margin!    //    Pandemic shutdowns and paranoia led to many skilled people voluntarily leaving jobs, to take time off, shift to digital work at home, or just to learn & develop new skills, captioned by media as ‘The Great Resignation.’ Today’s emerging trend by big companies are ‘Returnships’ (Amazon/ Oracle/ Accenture/ Goldman Sachs/ etc. )– where recruitment programs are designed to encourage & entice experienced professionals back to the workplace by offering positions without traditional internship steps backward in work level or compensation.  //   Latest important Guinness World Record, by a woman living in Ireland, is “pulling on 19 pairs of underpants in 30 seconds,” reported this week by United Press International.
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

George Carlin on the idiocy of our society – very smart, but crass & politically incorrect!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLODGhEyLvk

SNL parody ad FOR getting Covid:   https://patriotpost.us/videos/93283?mailing_id=7148&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.7148&utm_campaign=weekend_snapshot&utm_content=body