owner is worth reading and is a wonderful response...as you can tell, I don't really like most 'bloggers', especially those that offer their services in exchange for something in return from the business. Talk about high end mooching, eh? Here's the article (parts of it, I didn't copy all of it, it's in today's edition of "Women's Health", titled "The Hotel This Influencer Wanted To Stay At For Free Is Now Billing Her Millions", Story by Tess Koman • 1h ago). Score a win for the owner, IMHO.

Now don't get me wrong, but I would suspect that any business that needed to drum up business, etc. already has things going on that would do the same thing, generate more business for the business, and not need the services of a 'blogger'. It seems that I hear all of the time of blogger efforts to score freebies from a score of businesses that write about their encounters with so called bloggers, it seems to be kind of an ongoing practice within the blogger community.

+++
Soon after YouTuber Elle Darby asked Dublin's White Moose Cafe and Charleville Lodge if she could stay for free, NY Mag reports the hotel's owner Paul Stenson shut her way, way down.

In a January 16 Facebook post, Stenson screengrabbed Darby's apparent email in which she asked for a comped stay essentially in return for traffic to the hotel. She notes her tens of thousands of YouTube and Instagram followers as proof this arrangement would be beneficial to the hotel.

"Thank you for your email looking for free accommodation in return for exposure. It takes a lot of balls to send an email like that, if not much self-respect and dignity," Stenson's reply begins. He continues:

If I let you stay here in return for a feature in your video, who is going to pay the staff who look after you? Who is going to pay the housekeepers who clean your room? The waiters who serve you breakfast? The receptionist who checks you in? Who is going to pay for the light and heat you use during your stay? The laundering of your bed sheets? The water rates? Maybe I should tell my staff they will be featured in your video in lieu of receiving payment for work carried out while you're in residence?In future, I'd advise you to offer to pay your way like everyone else, and if the hotel in question believes your coverage will help them, maybe they'll give you a complimentary upgrade to a suite. This would show more self-respect on your part and, let's face it, it would be less embarrassing for you. Best regards, Paul Stensonwww.charlevillelodge.ieP.S. The answer is no.

(rest of article goes on)...

I don't know if this owner's excellent response to this request of freebies from the business will stop this practice, but as a business owner owning 10 units of a very small lodging business (trout fishing), even 1 unit given up for free for a duration of time would have cut into my operating expenses, being that there were numerous other lodging businesses also competing for business in the area.

Enjoy, especially for those of us who do have small Mom and Pop businesses.

This news, more than likely reported on in DU many times, is sweet, especially with the fact that these scumbags, who thought that they were reporting on the 'NEWS', knew that it wasn't news, knew that it was manufactured, knew it was made up, fake news.

No wonder tRUMP uses this moniker 'fake News' so much, his buddies over at Faux/Fox News told/instructed him to use this term (or both of them colluded together, knowing full well whatever they were saying was all fake), in order to boost both of them up in the Polls as well as Ratings.

In Raw Story: Fox News is in a 'world of hurt' and facing a 'gargantuan verdict' in billion dollar lawsuit
Story by Tom Boggioni • Saturday

Reacting to reports that Fox News hosts were spreading 2020 election fraud conspiracies on-air while privately texting each other that there was no truth to them, a former high-ranking Department of Justice official claimed the conservative network can expect to lose big in the lawsuit filed against it by Dominion Voting Systems.

etc.

In my opinion, feeble as it is, there are no limits to how much I feel Fox/Faux News should lose. The punishment should be enough to compel others to not do this, shape fake/faux news in such a misleading manner, while pretending to be a News organization, when in fact it wasn't. It was a bunch of story tellers basically, making everything up.

I didn't post the entire thing/article. Articles are coming out regarding the highest in a while Home Interest Rates.

My comment regarding this is perhaps, just perhaps those of us w/ CDs, etc., will at least perhaps get a better rate of interest on our CDs, our interest rates paid on our Savings, etc. Perhaps one good thing coming along w/ this news of higher interest rates for home ownership.

did w/ McCabe and Comey by performing very intensive audits against their returns, etc.) sounds like something that tRUMP would do, anyone in their right minds would believe that tRUMP would do something like this against two of 'his enemies', no questions asked.

As for someone still maintaining tRUMP's innocence, let me remind people that the IRS would not perform such intensive audits on lower income persons, the waste of tax dollars against the so-called benefits gained from such an audit would kind of defeat the purposes of the audits.

Although I don't know the specific 'triggers' that the IRS uses in determining who gets an audit or not, the trigger points have long been a debate among tax accountants and auditors (although there are some obvious answers, but there are like 10 different items that are considered as to who gets an extensive audit or not).

Another biggie that I wanted to mention here is that we shouldn't stop at looking at just the IRS for tRUMP's revenge-filled orgies. I strongly suspect that the entire width and scope of federal programs and / federal agencies were leaned on by tRUMP and his coharts to insert pressure on those that angered tRUMP and / or his enablers. It only is logical. Did your state lose tax dollars for various (and illogical) reasons? Did residents of your state suffer any adverse efforts from mismanaged federal programs? I do seem to recall where the red states did seem to gain the upper hand on some issues when tRUMP was first in office, and blue states suffered (this is when news articles came out by the dozens touting the vast gulf in blue states' tax dollars paid and tax dollars received (vs. red states)).

One other thing I recall (from a friend of mine selling some wetlands acreage in southern MO), is that he did have some issues, but setting aside other comparable acreage was acceptable. However, the agency dealing w/ such issues could be, on the other hand, be totally against others for some unfathomable reason. Thus, the sale of this particular property would suffer.

awesome display of giving such a nice token (the hearts) to so many fellow DUers. You couldn't ask for a better group of people.

will have a job forever more, if we want. This blurb about COBOL being so dominate still, 60 years later, is surprising some (not me). The reason it wasn't surprising to me is that it costs money to come in afterwards, and rewrite code, and some things written in old code still does a better job. Nice to have job security, eh?

--snip--

60-year-old programming language understood by fewer and fewer developers underpins many more applications than previously thought, new data suggests.

According to a report from IT modernization company Micro Focus, there are currently more than 800 billion lines of COBOL code in daily use across the globe, roughly three times more than anticipated.

What’s more, almost half of the developers surveyed actually expect the volume of COBOL in their organization to increase over the next twelve months, while a similar proportion say they expect COBOL applications to live on for at least another decade.

COBOL conundrum
The typical narrative surrounding COBOL is that the waning number of developers familiar with the language has the potential to cause significant problems, due to the variety of mission-critical apps it props up in sectors such as government and banking.

--snip--

Article in Tech Radar, dated Feb. 4, 2022

in FL. Disgusting and pathetic. Perhaps one day someone will have the courage to charge these people w/ reckless and careless indifference to life. Against all medical advice too. Funny, I never saw the MD tag after desantis' name. Murderer is a far better moniker and is far more apt. I'm speaking too for those friends of mine who unfortunately live in FL and some of them are terrified in going out...no wonder the death toll is rising in FL.

--snip--
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis highlighted his state as an "escape hatch" for those seeking to escape "authoritarian" mandates during his State of the State address on Tuesday, even as coronavirus continue to rise in the Sunshine State.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, DeSantis rose to national prominence over his handling of the virus. He received high accolades from many Republicans while drawing ire from some health experts over his staunch opposition of mandates and shutdowns.

He boasted about these policies during his address, pointing to Florida as standing "strong as the rock of freedom.
--snip--

--snip--
From an article in the Mike Parson, Governor of Missouri, does not understand how websites work. He held a press conference earlier this week in St. Louis to once more reiterate his desire to prosecute a St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalist for looking at the source code of a state-run website.

In October 2021 reporter Josh Renaud reported that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website source code had exposed the social security numbers of over 100,000 school teachers, administrators, and counselors. He published the story only after he’d reported the problem to the state and the vulnerability had been resolved.
--snip--

And Governor Parson wants to encourage job growth in the state of MO, especially in the high paying field of IT? It certainly doesn't look good from any IT professional looking to hire any IT professional from the state of MO, or any IT outfit looking to move to MO and run a Data Center or any other IT-related business. This governor is pathetic and can't admit that he made a mistake. Good grief, what really worries me is what other areas have they (he and his administration cronies) screwed up? SMH ... another reason why these morons should never have been elected (well, actually, when our other former governor resigned, Parson stepped in, and was awarded the governorship). A giant pathetic mistake.

From The Verge, Dec. 31, 2021, 4 hours ago.

In just a few moments ago via the St. Louis news media. As a long term STLMO city resident, perhaps this will keep these PRO teams from misleading cities and others as to their true long term plans...

--snip--

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege the league broke its own relocation guidelines and accuse the team of not telling the truth about what their plans were.

--snip--

Added the link in:

https://www.kmov.com/news/historic-agreement-790m-settlement-reached-in-rams-relocation-lawsuit/article_a628a80c-4d1e-11ec-95c4-b7e1e45c3784.html?block_id=1057680

If reproduced earlier in DU, my apology for the duplicate.

Republicans have become the Death Wish Party
Lucian K. Truscott IV 10 hrs ago

I took some liberties here in shortening the article, so forgive me, but you can go out to the article itself, if so interested at:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/republicans-have-become-the-death-wish-party/ar-AAMgezq?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

...snip...
The primary motivation now for the Republican Party is to limit information on COVID 19, and in at least in 13 states (and possibly more) you have a legal right not merely to have a death wish but to inflict it on others by refusing to get vaccinated against COVID. In 21 more states, bills have been introduced that would limit any requirements that individuals produce evidence that they have been vaccinated. In six of those states, the laws specify that schools, including public primary and secondary schools and public colleges, cannot require coronavirus vaccines, even while the same schools continue to require vaccinations against whooping cough, polio, measles and chicken pox.
...snip...
We all know that 99% of all recent COVID 19 deaths are from persons not vaccinated. Below is stuff on Missouri (my state), a damn shame...also, I carry my vaccination card proudly. I will not be a party to anyone else's death, nor will I let the state of MO force me to do so either. This is wrong, patently so.
...snip...
In Missouri, where just 39 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, the situation is so bad that the CDC and FEMA have sent teams of specialists to the state to help stop the spread of the disease. "We've been seeing a much younger population," Dr. Harold Jarvis, an emergency physician in Springfield, Missouri, told CNN. "We're seeing a lot of people in their 30s, 40s, early 50s. We're seeing some teenagers and some pediatric patients as well."

Missouri is one of the states that has passed a law forbidding the requirement of a COVID vaccine or evidence of vaccination such as a so-called vaccine passport.
...snip...

In short, to summarize why the republican party is pushing for this, is that they want Pres. Biden to fail in his immunization push against COVID 19. This party is advocating for the death of fellow Americans to prove some dubious point that Pres. Biden is a failure.

Pathetic, isn't it? And, more so to the point, guess who's falling victim to this latest republican tactic to have Pres. Biden fail? Republicans in rural areas as well as other areas republicans are dominant. Most reasonable people have already gotten their vaccines and I suspect any other future booster vaccines that may be offered down the road. It's sad that people are literally dying for thier beliefs, despite how ignorant as these beliefs are, too.

Be safe my friends.