DL Open Thread: Thursday, December 23, 2021

Shop-Rite To Deep-Six Cashiers.  Most of them anyway.  You know, to ‘improve the customer experience’.  Not quoted in the article? Anybody from the Kenny family.  Pretty weak article, TBH.

Amazon Takes Advantage Of Tax Break Intended To Help Impoverished Communities:

Amazon has been heavily expanding into areas that the government designates for special tax incentives, according to a new analysis that comes amid growing regulatory scrutiny of the e-commerce giant.

The company has located delivery stations, fulfillment centers and even an air hub in “opportunity zones,” regions across the country where investors can qualify for capital gains tax breaks under a 2017 law.

The initiative had bipartisan backing and was intended to incentivize investment in some of the most economically distressed regions of the country. But critics of the program have raised concerns that such programs further enrich wealthy investors and corporations for projects that would have happened without government assistance. And because there aren’t requirements that investors and corporations publicly report how they are using the tax breaks, it’s difficult to measure impact. Experts say it’s impossible to know if the program is having the intended effect of creating jobs and affordable housing — or simply exacerbating economic divides.

I’m Sick. Must Be…Anthrax.  Especially since the outbreak occurred at a QAnon Freedum Event. Couldn’t be Covid:

A group of unvaccinated people who attended a huge conspiracy conference in Dallas earlier this month all became sick in the days after the event with symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath, and fever. Instead of blaming the global COVID pandemic, however, the conspiracy theorists think they were attacked with anthrax.

“There’s a 99.9% chance it’s anthrax,” Oltmann said on his podcast, even though no one had tested positive for anthrax poisoning and none of the other 3,500 attendees have so far reported suffering the effects of anthrax.

I’m taking a stand in strong support of more QAnon Freedum events.

Super-Vaccine On The Horizon?:

The achievement is the result of almost two years of work on the virus. The Army lab received its first DNA sequencing of the COVID-19 virus in early 2020. Very early on, Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch decided to focus on making a vaccine that would work against not just the existing strain but all of its potential variants as well.

Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein.

8 Months With Madison Cawthorn=Divorce Proceedings:

Earlier this month, he argued for the reversal of Roe v. Wade on the House floor by labeling women “earthen vessels sanctified by almighty God.”

In November, he reacted to Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal by urging his supporters to “be armed, be dangerous.”

That same month, Cawthorn claimed people in Washington were “trying to insert their woke politics into our culture, trying to destroy Western civilization, trying to take all of our morality away from everyone, trying to make everyone genderless, sexless, and just absolutely Godless.”

“I just don’t want to be married to someone changing the world,” the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Cawthorn said.  At least, not that someone.

First Phase Of Delaware’s Minimum Wage Increase Takes Effect Jan. 1.

Part of a plan to increase the state’s minimum standard rate of pay to $15 per hour by 2025, Delaware’s rate will rise from $9.25 to $10.50 per hour.

According to the Delaware Department of Labor there are 34,800 people in the First State that earn minimum wage and 53,000 people that earn $10 an hour or less.

More than 87,000 people will get a raise on January 1, thanks to the General Assembly.  Or, to be specific, the Democrats in the General Assembly.  Just thought you’d like to know.

What do you want to talk about?