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bzalma · 1 year

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Marine Policy not Crop Insurance

Lloyd’s Marine Policy Only Insured Against Loss of Property in Transit

Barry Zalma

Apr 25, 2023

Read the full article at https://lnkd.in/gTJjXtie and see the full video at https://lnkd.in/gmasQvMB and at https://lnkd.in/gFMHfmY2 and at https://zalma.com/blog plus more than 4500 posts. Lloyd’s Marine Policy Only Insured Against Loss of Property in Transit

After Hurricane Irma damaged its property, Pero Family Farm filed an insurance claim. Lloyd’s accepted coverage for part of the claim but denied coverage for the rest. Lloyd’s sued seeking declaratory judgment that the insurance policy did not cover the denied portion of the claim. The district court granted summary judgment to Lloyd’s.

In Certain Underwriters At Lloyd’s London Subscribing To Policy No. B0799MC029630K v. Pero Family Farm Food Co., Ltd., No. 20-12711, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit (April 10, 2023) the Eleventh Circuit interpreted the policy.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Pero grows vegetables (primarily peppers and beans) that it prepares and packages for either retail sale at grocery stores or wholesale by food service companies. The seeds Pero uses are either prepared by Pero from its own vegetables or purchased from third-party seed providers. Pero plants some of its seeds in fields it owns or leases in Florida. But Pero also sends seeds to Trans Gro, a third-party plant grower. Trans Gro plants the seeds and grows the seedlings in its greenhouses in Immokalee, Florida, until the seedlings are mature enough to be transported to Pero’s fields and planted in the ground.

Once Pero harvests its vegetables, it transports them to its cooled storage facility in Delray Beach, Florida, where it cleans, sorts, stores, and packages the vegetables. Pero packages some of its vegetables in plastic packaging. It then transports the vegetables from the Delray Beach facility to its final customers. The Policy

In its 2015 insurance application, Pero stated that its “primary operations” were “[g]rower, [p]acker, [s]eller of vegetables[,] mainly [p]eppers and [g]reen [b]eans”; that the “[t]ype of [g]oods to be [i]nsured” was “produce, primarily peppers [and] beans”; and that it sought to insure “[d]omestic shipments” of “[g]reen beans [and] peppers on vehicles (dump trucks) moving from field to packing house[;] seed is also stored on location.” The policy contained a Florida choice of law provision.

Subject-Matter Insured

All goods and/or merchandise of every description incidental to the business of the Assured or in connection therewith.

The policy limits were $150,000 for “[a]ny one domestic inland conveyance” and $5,000,000 for “[a]ny one location.”

Pero’s Insurance Claim

On September 10, 2017, Hurricane Irma struck South Florida. Pero submitted a claim to Lloyd’s for the damage it suffered as a result of the hurricane. Pero sought coverage for the loss of vegetables stored in the coolers at its packing house in Delray Beach, as well as: (1) seedlings that had been growing in Trans Gro’s greenhouses in Immokalee; (2) plants that had been growing in Pero’s fields; and (3) plastic coverings that had been placed over the plants growing in Pero’s fields.

Lloyd’s accepted coverage (and issued payment) for Pero’s loss of the vegetables in its coolers that were in transit but denied coverage for the damage to the seedlings growing in Trans Gro’s greenhouse, the plantings in Pero’s fields, and the plastic coverings on Pero’s fields that were not in transit.

The Lawsuit

Lloyd’s sued Pero seeking a declaration that the policy did not cover the damage to the seedlings, plantings, or plastic coverings. Lloyd’s alleged that coverage was not due under the policy because:

1 “[t]he seedlings, planted crops, and crop covers were not in transit at the time of the loss,” so “there [was] no ‘in transit’ coverage”;

2 “[t]he seedlings, planted crops, and crop covers were not in storage at any location as defined by the [policy],” so “there [was] no ‘location’ coverage”; and

3 “[s]eedlings and immature plants are crops and the [policy] d[id] not provide crop coverage”-because Pero “specifically sought cargo coverage for the transit and storage of fresh harvested produce, dry seeds[,] and packaging from field to storage and while in storage,” not “crop insurance.”

Summary Judgment for Lloyd’s

The district court granted summary judgment for Lloyd’s and denied Pero’s motion because “the unambiguous language in the [p]olicy d[id] not provide coverage for Pero’s damaged seedlings, plantings, and plastic coverings.”

DISCUSSION

The Eleventh Circuit agreed with Pero that the policy’s language was clear and unambiguous. But it also agreed with Lloyd’s and the district court that the policy did not cover Pero’s damaged seedlings, plantings, and plastic coverings.

The policy unambiguously covered goods or merchandise only while they were in transit or, by extension, “in store” as “stock” at a “location” during the transit process:

"Within the geographical limits of this policy, cover hereunder shall attach from the time the Assured assumes an interest in and/or responsibility for the subject [-] matter insured and continues uninterrupted, including transit, stock[,] and location coverage until that interest and/or responsibility ceases."

The geographical limits of the policy were from a beginning point to an end location, and anywhere goods or merchandise stopped in between. Coverage “continue[d] uninterrupted, including transit, stock [,] and location coverage,” during that trek.

The policy was titled “Marine Cargo Insurance,” and “cargo,” although not defined in the policy, was generally understood, at the time, to mean “[g]oods transported by a vessel, airplane, or vehicle.”

Consistent with the “Duration of Voyage Clause,” the policy’s title, and the claims procedure, the policy’s other provisions showed that it covered goods or merchandise only while in transit or in storage during the transit process.

The policy’s “Information” section said that the policy covered “[t]ransits from field to packing house.” And the statement of value attached to the policy noted that Pero’s Delray Beach “packing house” held “[s]tock/[i]nventory” valued at $5,000,000-the same amount as the policy’s per “location” coverage limit.

Pero’s 2015 insurance application which was attached to and made a part of the effective policy, which the Eleventh Circuit must treat as part of the contract, explained that the policy covered only goods or merchandise in transit or in storage during the transit process. Specifically, the application documents showed that Pero sought to insure “[d]omestic shipments” of “[g]reen beans [and] peppers on vehicles (dump trucks) moving from field to packing house” and the “seed . . . stored on location.”

Because the insurance policy clearly and unambiguously did not cover the portion of Pero’s claim that Lloyd’s denied, the district court properly granted summary judgment for Lloyd’s and denied partial summary judgment for Pero.

ZALMA OPINION

Insurance policies are contracts and must be interpreted as written if unambiguous. The policy obtained by Pero was not insurance of its crop but was limited to coverage for that portion of its crop while it was in transit. The hurricane caused damage to some of the crop and merchandise in transit but did not insure other damages caused by the hurricane to property not in transit. Lloyd’s used simple, clear, unambiguous language that both parties agreed was unambiguous and the Eleventh Circuit applied the insurance contract as written.

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Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE, now limits his practice to service as an insurance consultant specializing in insurance coverage, insurance claims handling, insurance bad faith and insurance fraud almost equally for insurers and policyholders. He practiced law in California for more than 44 years as an insurance coverage and claims handling lawyer and more than 54 years in the insurance business. He is available at http://www.zalma.com and [email protected]

Follow me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=barry-zalma-esq-cfe-a6b5257

Write to Mr. Zalma at [email protected]; http://www.zalma.com; http://zalma.com/blog; daily articles are published at https://zalma.substack.com. Go to the podcast Zalma On Insurance at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/barry-zalma; Follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bzalma; Go to Barry Zalma videos at Rumble.com at https://rumble.com/c/c-262921; Go to Barry Zalma on YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysiZklEtxZsSF9DfC0Expg; https://creators.newsbreak.com/home/content/post; Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims-library.

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#insurance #claims #insurance claims #marine #marine insurance #transit #lloyd's #hurricane #crops #crop insurance #transit insurance #insurance books #amazon.com

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bestandfree · 2 years

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Karz insurance 10 process

Karz Insurance Karz Insurance is a full-service insurance company that provides coverage for cars, homes, and businesses. Karz Insurance was founded in 1991 and is based in Omaha, Nebraska. The company has over 700 employees and offers a variety of insurance products, including car, home, and business insurance. Karz Insurance is a member of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners…

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centrally-unplanned · 7 months

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Gonna make this a quick one since I just don’t have the spoons for a really big effort post: Pre-CCP 20th Century China Did Not Have Feudal or Slave-like Land Tenancy Systems

Obviously what counts as “slave-like” is going to be subjective, but I think it's common, for *ahem* reasons, for people to believe that in the 1930’s Chinese agriculture was dominated by massive-scale, absentee landlords who held the large majority of peasant workers in a virtual chokehold and dictated all terms of labor.

That is not how Chinese land ownership & agricultural systems worked. I am going to pull from Chinese Agriculture in the 1930s: Investigations into John Lossing Buck’s Rediscovered ‘Land Utilization in China’ Microdata, which is some of the best ground-level data you can get on how land use functioned, in practice, in China during the "Nanjing Decade" before WW2 ruins all data collection. It looks at a series of north-central provinces, which gives you the money table of this:

On average, 4/5ths of Chinese peasants owned land, and primarily farmed land that they owned. Tenancy was, by huge margins, the minority practice. I really don’t need to say more than this, but I'm going to because there is a deeper point I want to make. And it's fair to say that while this is representative of Northern China, Southern China did have higher tenancy rates - not crazy higher, but higher.

So let's look at those part-owner farmers; sounds bad right? Like they own part of their land, but it's not enough? Well, sometimes, but sometimes not:

A huge class (about ~1/3rd) of those part-owners were farming too much land, not too little; they were enterprising households renting land to expand their businesses. They would often engage in diversified production, like cash crops on the rented land and staple crops on their owned land. Many of them would actually leave some of their owned land fallow, because it wasn’t worth the time to farm!

Meanwhile the small part-owners and the landless tenant farmers would rent out land to earn a living…sometimes. Because that wasn’t the only way to make a living - trades existed. From our data, if you are a small part-owner, you got a substantial chunk of your income from non-farm labor; if you owned no land you got the majority of your income from non-farm labor:

(Notice how that includes child labor by default, welcome to pre-modernism!)

So the amount of people actually doing full-tenancy agriculture for a living is…pretty small, less than 10% for sure. But what did it look like for those who do? The tenancy rates can be pretty steep - 50/50 splits were very common. But that is deceiving actually; this would be called “share rent”, but other systems, such as cash rents, bulk crop rents, long-term leases with combined payment structures, etc, also existed and were plentiful - and most of those had lower rent rates. However, share rent did two things; one, it hedged against risk; in the case of a crop failure you weren't out anything as the tenant, a form of insurance. And two, it implied reciprocal obligations - the land owner was providing the seed, normally the tools as well, and other inputs like fertilizer.

Whether someone chose one type of tenancy agreement or the other was based on balancing their own labor availability, other wage opportunities, the type of crop being grown, and so on. From the data we have, negotiations were common around these types of agreements; a lot of land that was share rent one year would be cash rent another, because the tenants and market conditions shifted to encourage one or the other form.

I’m doing a little trick here, by throwing all these things at you. Remember the point at the top? “Was this system like slavery?” What defines slavery? To me, its a lack of options - that is the bedrock of a slave system. Labor that you are compelled by law to do, with no claim on the output of that work. And as I hit you with eight tiers of land ownership and tenancy agreements and multi-source household incomes, as you see that the median person renting out land to a tenant farmer was himself a farmer as a profession and by no means some noble in the city, what I hope becomes apparent is that the Chinese agricultural system was a fully liquid market based on choice and expected returns. By no means am I saying that it was a nice way to live; it was an awful way to live. But nowhere in this system was state coercion the bedrock of the labor system. China’s agricultural system was in fact one of the most free, commercial, and contract-based systems on the planet in the pre-modern era, that was a big source of why China as a society was so wealthy. It was a massive, moving market of opportunities for wages, loans, land ownership, tenancy agreements, haggled contracts, everyone trying in their own way to make the living that they could.

It's a system that left many poor, and to be clear injustices, robberies, corruption, oh for sure were legion. Particularly during the Warlord Era mass armies might just sweep in and confiscate all your hard currency and fresh crops. But, even ignoring that the whole ‘poverty’ thing is 90% tech level and there was no amount of redistribution that was going to improve that very much, what is more important is that the pre-modern world was *not* equally bad in all places. The American South was also pretty poor, but richer than China in the 19th century. And being a slave in the American South was WAY worse than being a peasant in China during times of peace - because Confederate society built systems to remove choice, to short-circuit the ebb and flow of the open system to enshrine their elite ‘permanently’ at the top. If you lived in feudal Russia it was a good deal worse, with huge amounts of your yearly labor compelled by the state onto estates held by those who owned them unimpeachably by virtue of their birthright (though you were a good deal richer just due to basic agriculture productivity & population density, bit of a tradeoff there).

If you simply throw around the word “slavery” to describe every pre-modern agricultural system because it was poor and shitty, that back-doors a massive amount of apologia for past social systems that were actively worse than the benchmarks of the time. Which is something the CCP did; their diagnosis of China’s problem for the rural poor of needing massive land redistribution was wrong! It was just wrong, it was not the issue they were having. It was not why rural China was often poor and miserable. It could help, sure, I myself would support some compensated land redistribution in the post-war era as a welfare idea for a fiscally-strapped state. But that was gonna do 1% of the heavy lifting here in making the rural poor's lives better. And I don’t think we should continue to the job of spreading the CCP's propaganda for them.

There ya go @chiefaccelerator, who alas I was not permitted to compel via state force into writing this for me, you Qing Dynasty lazy peasant.

#Chinese history discourse blog #essay

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probablyasocialecologist · 8 months

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Agricultural production is worth protecting; food and fiber are too important to be subject to the increasingly cruel vagaries of the weather and global trade. But as it stands, the [Federal Crop Insurance Program] is maladapted to the challenges of our modern world, where places like Arizona are routinely smashing through high heat records and water in the West is becoming increasingly scarce. While home insurers like State Farm are pulling out of California and Florida due to the mounting costs of climate disasters, the FCIP is doing the opposite: insulating farmers from the true cost of doing business. The average return for home and auto policies is about 60 cents per dollar spent on premiums. Farmers receive an average of $2.22 for every dollar they put into crop insurance. As a result, between 2000 and 2016, farming businesses—mostly large ones—collectively pocketed $65 billion more in claim payments than they paid in premiums. They were paid to plant crops that never came to market.

#agriculture #farming #usa #big ag #crop insurance #Arizona

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collapsedsquid · 1 month

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Jager filed claims on the falsified lower precipitation measurements, thereby increasing the benefits received from his crop insurance policy. In return for their rain gauge activities, Esch and the two unidentified co-conspirators received payouts, as outlined in the plea agreements. Incidentally, one of the co-conspirators turned on the group and extorted Esch in particular. The unidentified male threatened to expose the entire enterprise to authorities in exchange for Esch paying the man's bond for release from jail and giving several five-figure payments to the man's girlfriend. Esch, according to his plea agreement, even shrugged off the man's admitted theft of an all-terrain vehicle from Esch in exchange for the man's silence. In August of 2023, a month before Jager and Esch reached their plea agreements with prosecutors, this unidentified male co-conspirator escaped from prison. This triggered a nationwide manhunt and caused Esch and his family "to go into hiding," as stated in a court document. Two weeks after the escape, the co-conspirator was found dead.

All these "simple american hardworking farmer" guys totally convinced on Hillary Clinton body count shit, folks it's projection they're all murdering each other to cover up their schemes to defraud the government of a couple mil crop insurance

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mariacallous · 7 months

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As France grapples with soaring temperatures and ever more ruinous droughts, a full-blown water war is unfolding in the country, with heavy clashes, injuries, and arrests.

Tensions are running high over the use of giant artificial reservoirs for irrigation, which some farmers rely on to cope with water scarcity but which critics say are making the problem worse, accelerating the depletion of limited groundwater resources for the benefit of only a handful of big producers.

It’s one of many conflicts over water access breaking out with growing frequency all over the world, as climate change dries soils, increases temperatures and makes crops thirstier, and reduces the annual snowpacks that traditionally replenished freshwater flows. Water diversion in China is stoking regional ire. In Central Asia, access to scarce water resources is exacerbating cross-border tensions. Climate change and upstream dams, as well as poor water management, are drying out Iraq and Iran. Egypt and Ethiopia have been at odds for years over an upstream Nile River dam that threatens downstream countries. Western U.S. states are bickering over the dwindling resources of the once-mighty Colorado River, while in Germany and Chile, contentious access to water is fueling domestic strife.

“Water is a common good. No one can claim it as their own,” said Julien Le Guet, a spokesperson for Bassines Non Merci (Basins No Thanks), an activist group. This month, Le Guet and several other defendants went on trial over various unauthorized demonstrations against the construction of a new mega-reservoir in Sainte-Soline, in western France.

A rally held in March, in particular, turned into a violent confrontation with the police that left 47 officers and 200 demonstrators wounded. Some local farmers also denounced damage to their crops and the pipes linking their fields to the new basin. Fresh protests took place at another construction site nearby and in Paris over the last few weeks, with more actions planned in the near future.

Estimates vary between 100 and several hundred retention basins in France, giant plastic-lined craters spanning 20 acres on average that are filled by pumping groundwater in winter for use during the scalding summer months. And their number, whatever it is, is growing. The project in the Deux-Sèvres region (which includes Sainte-Soline), led by a private cooperative of local farmers, entails the construction of 16 new reservoirs that would store more than 6 million cubic meters of water—the equivalent of 1,600 Olympic swimming pools. Another 30 reservoirs are due to be built in the nearby Vienne region.

Supporters say that as the weather gets hotter and drier—2023 had the hottest summer on record globally—the basins are an indispensable life insurance for farmers and a way to reduce the pressure on water resources when they are at their lowest. France has recently been experiencing its worst droughts ever; in July, more than two-thirds of its natural groundwater reserves were below normal levels.

“Irrigating without basins means to continue pumping groundwater, even when there’s less of it,” said Laurent Devaux of Coordination Rurale, a farmers’ union.

The problem, critics say, is that the reservoirs are siphoning precious groundwater for the benefit of a small minority. Just 7 percent of French farmland is equipped with irrigation canals, and only some of the irrigated farms around the reservoirs are actually connected to them. The basin in Sainte-Soline will be directly linked to barely 12 farms out of a total of 185 in the area. According to Le Guet, of all the irrigated farms in the region concerned by the Deux-Sèvres project, the ones that will be connected to the new basins use twice as much water on average as the others.

“This is not just a conflict between certain farmers and environmentalist groups,” said Laurence Marandola, a spokesperson for the Confédération Paysanne farmers’ union, which opposes the basins. “All of us farmers need water,” she said.

And there is less and less of it. Due to the combined effects of global warming and over-pumping, Europe’s groundwater resources have been steadily declining in recent decades, with a yearly loss of some 84 gigatons of water (roughly the equivalent of Lake Ontario) since the turn of the century—just like what’s happening elsewhere in the world, from much of the U.S. to the Middle East.

Critics, including conservationists, small farmers, and scientists, slam the reservoirs as a particularly wasteful method of storing water. Keeping it out in the open, rather than underground, means that some of it evaporates and the remaining part heats up, filling with toxic bacteria, said Christian Amblard, an honorary research director at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. “You’ve got, at the same time, a loss of quantity and quality. It makes no sense,” he said.

Finally, these reservoirs are accused of perpetuating what critics call an unsustainable agricultural model that consumes too much water and accelerates global warming. More than 60 percent of Europe’s arable land is used to feed livestock—which, globally, is responsible for over 30 percent of the world’s emissions of methane—a powerful greenhouse gas. The crops that are grown for animal feed include corn, which occupies one-third of all irrigated land in France and demands lots of water in the summer—hence the need for solutions such as the reservoirs.

“The mega-basins are delaying a transition to a responsible, resilient, and water-efficient agriculture,” Amblard said.

That transition would entail, among other things, working to make soils more capable of retaining water and pivoting away from meat and dairy production, according to experts. With up to 15 billion euros in public aid doled out to the French agriculture sector every year, the necessary financial resources shouldn’t be hard to find, Amblard said. “The agricultural sector is one of the few where the ecological transition can be carried out without leaving anyone by the wayside,” he said.

So far, though, successive French governments have shown little appetite for that, handsomely subsidizing the reservoirs instead—which current French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau praised as “virtuous.” Taxpayers will foot 70 percent of the 76-million-euro bill for the ones planned in the Deux-Sèvres. If farmers have an outsized political and financial influence in the European Union as a whole, in France they are a political power unto themselves.

French authorities have also been cracking down hard on the anti-basins movement. Police have come under heavy criticism for their handling of the Sainte-Soline protest, with the Human Rights League, a French nongovernmental organization, denouncing the indiscriminate firing of rubber bullets and the hindering of first-aid workers by the security forces in a bid to “prevent access to the basin’s site, whatever the human cost.”

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has described some of those taking part in the protests as “eco-terrorists” and has taken steps to dissolve Les Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth’s Uprisings), a vocal, and sometimes violent, environmental group.

“We are increasingly the target of legal actions, investigations, and surveillance,” Le Guet said. “Over the last year, court summons have been raining down,” he said, adding that the movement will continue to hamper new basin construction, nonetheless.

The debate looming in France is a familiar one from the American West to the headwaters of the Nile. The basins “are being politicized and isolated from their context, with the farmers who back them being unfairly designated as villains,” Devaux said.

But “there simply isn’t enough water in the underground reserves to carry on like this, extracting these amounts of water for agriculture,” Marandola said. “And what is done with the water that’s taken should be decided in a democratic way, for every single drop.”

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haggishlyhagging · 6 months

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Agricultural fertility is a matter of vital concern to the peoples of the ancient world, who cannot take fertility for granted and believe that fertility is fragile. Ancient religions provide a way to participate in the creation of fertile abundance and to ensure its continuation. They address a human desire to do everything possible to make the earth fertile and to make the crops grow. In Mesopotamian thinking, labor is divinely ordained and, indeed, the purpose for which humans were created. The gods give humankind the tools of labor and instruct the people on their use. Actual work, however, is only one sphere of activity. The ancient pagan religions also provided a cult of fertility in which people sang, danced, and performed other rituals in order to experience and aid the perpetuation of nature.

It was not ignorance that impelled people to perform these rituals, for they were practiced long after the neolithic revolution, long after the ancients learned that if you put a seed in the ground it will grow, long after people domesticated plants and animals to ensure their food supply. But the ancient farmers were also very aware that sometimes you could put a seed in the ground and it wouldn't grow. The ground might be too saline, or the birds might eat the seed, or locusts might devour the growing plants, the weather conditions might not be right, the earth might have become contaminated. There are so many reasons that a seed might not grow that it is a miracle every time it really does so. Pagan religions celebrated this miracle by offering a ritual life through which one can participate in this miracle. Of course. the fertility ritual does not really "cause" fertility—if it could, rituals would not have to be repeated. But in performing these rituals, the celebrants acknowledge their dependence on fertility and their desire to participate in assuring the continuation of the natural cycle.

Pagan prayers and rituals reflect the idea that fertile abundance is the result of harmonious interaction among various powers in the cosmos. Cultic acts and liturgy may propitiate the various divine powers and facilitate their joining together. In Sumerian cult, this conjoining was achieved sexually in the ritual of the sacred marriage. In later periods, even when sacred marriage was no longer part of the official state cult, it clearly continued in sacred and popular literature. Was there ever a time in which fertility and vegetation were thought to come directly from the womb of the earth mother? This claim, very often assumed in modern recreations of paganism, can only be true (if at all) for the prehistoric period. There may be prehistoric evidence from Old Europe and possibly from Çatal Hüyük that the mother-goddess had this vital function and the all-powerful position that results from it. The historical evidence, from the writings of Sumer and Babylon, indicates that the conceptualization of fertility was much more complex than the simple idea of earth mother and her womb. There are certainly goddesses of vegetation, and the breast of the goddess Nisaba is sometimes considered the source of grain. But more common are the many indications that fertility required many gods, and that no one god was able to insure it. Agricultural abundance depended on an interaction of forces and their divine embodiments, upon the fertility of the earth and its fertilization by water, and upon the joining of the power of life with the exercise of agriculture. This conjoining of forces could be aided by sexual activities on the fertile bed, sexual intercourse into the body of the young nubile goddesses. Even when sexual union is not part of the ritual, this union of forces is the essential metaphysical idea.

-Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth

#Tikva Frymer-Kensky #mesopotamian mythology #fertility rites #pagan rituals

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cock-holliday · 2 years

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File Under “O” for “Other”

The X-Files Drabble

Rating: G

WC: 1093

“It’s October 1st,” Mulder announced softly over his shoulder in the bullpen, causing Scully to lift her gaze from the folders on her desk.

“Meaning?”

“It’s the beginning of spooky season,” he replied with a waggle of his brow.

Scully’s lips curled into the start of a smile, her eyes hooded in amusement.

“I see,” she drew out, closing the folder and sitting back in her chair, “And this will undoubtedly affect our background checks?”

Mulder put on an air of seriousness, steepling his fingers as he leaned on Scully’s desk, “Could have any manner of effects on people. This time of year increases paranoia, delusions, but there is also a highly-catalogued spike in unexplained phenomena as we approach All Hallows’ Eve.”

“Mm,” Scully hummed, an entertained sparkle in her eye despite her crossed arms.

“Crop circles, change in behavior of animals, missing and maimed cattle,” Mulder continued with a shake of his head, “We could be heading into some dangerous territory this month, Agent Scully.”

Scully snorted a laugh, leaning forward across her desk so that she could feel the ghost of Mulder’s breath on her cheek, “You and I are on a very tight leash, Mulder…” she reminded him, “We don’t have wiggle room to go chasing cow-snatchings.”

“I think,” Mulder countered, trying to suppress a grin, “That cow-snatchings would be extremely detrimental to the insurance claims of our dear farmers.” Mulder pressed a hand to his chest, “And as a government employee, I take the plight of the good folks at the heart of America very very seriously.”

Scully rolled her eyes, sitting back and looking around the bullpen, scanning for any potential eavesdroppers. Once she seemed satisfied they wouldn’t be overheard, her gaze flicked back to Mulder.

“You find something?”

Mulder’s grin widened and he nodded, “The case in Idaho.”

“The weapons stockpike?” Scully checked.

Mulder nodded, “Now, the rancher said something has been stalking his property.”

Scully’s eyes narrowed, “Mulder…the owners of the nearby ranch are in a domestic partnership. They went to California but it’s not recognized anywhere else. He was being homophobic.”

“True,” Mulder nodded, “But something did snatch his dog.”

Scully tipped her head to the side, weighing her options, “The neighbors could have killed his dog. He could have killed his dog as justification for violence on the neighbors. Someone else could have killed his dog.”

Mulder nodded, “You don’t think he’s jumpy enough to go after whatever did this?”

Scully sighed, “Whoever,” she corrected, “And I don’t know, Mulder, maybe.”

“Sounds like a potential hate crime.”

“Mulder,” Scully began softly, stacking the folders on her desk, “Same-sex partnerships are not a protected class. Potential violence–possible as it may be, would be a state issue, not a federal one.”

Mulder pursed his lips, “Look at the address of the neighbors.”

Scully shuffled her files, drawing out the one in question and opening it. She flicked her gaze to Mulder’s expectant expression before searching for the address. “13 Jennison Lane,” she read aloud, quirking a brow, “‘13?’”

Mulder snorted a laugh, “No, keep reading. 13 Jennison Lane, Utah,” he explained, “They live right on the Idaho-Utah border. Which means…”

“Traveling to a neighboring state with the intent to commit a crime is a federal issue.”

“Bingo.”

Scully smiled, clearly entertained, then her expression faltered, “What is your interest in the case, Mulder?”

Mulder tipped his head to the side.

“If we really think there is a potential for violence, we can pass this along to the nearest FBI branch,” Scully explained, “We don’t have to fly out there. Why do you want to go?”

Mulder bit his lip, deciding. He chanced a glance around the room before leaning in closer to Scully. She met him halfway, tipping her head forward to hear him better.

“They live near Bear Lake,” he began, “Locals have been reporting for the last few years a spike in animals disappearing. Not that uncommon. Spikes in the fall months can even be explained by preparation for the long winter. Something is hunting them,” Mulder paused, his forehead nearly bumping into Scully’s. He leaned in closer, making Scully’s spine tingle as he breathed into her ear, “This time last year someone saw a creature drag a bear into the lake.”

Scully snapped her head back, shooting Mulder a look of disbelief, “A bear?”

“A real honest-to-god grizzly,” Mulder nodded, “Dragged into the water by what the witness described as a ‘crazy-fast man.’”

Scully rolled her eyes, “A man?”

“‘Crazy-fast.’”

Scully snorted.

Mulder just shrugged, “Maybe that’s what took his dog.”

Scully heaved a sigh, folding her arms over her chest once more, “You don’t really think so, do you?”

“Maybe,” Mulder pressed, “Wouldn’t it be good to find out? If it really is a creature, that might stop this feud altogether. If he thinks his neighbors are something to attack then it’s a federal issue. Win-win.”

“Mulder,” Scully chastised, though not without some amusement, “I wouldn’t call a potential for a hate crime ‘win-win.’”

“You said it yourself, it’s not federally recognized as a hate crime,” Mulder insisted, “The only jurisdictional exception we have is that they live in two different states. Who else would bother with investigating this?” Mulder shook his head, “You think local PD will care?”

Scully knitted her brows together, carefully regarding Mulder, “Is this about the lake or isn’t it?”

Mulder’s expression tightened, “It’s both. I think something has been feeding in the area, and will likely venture out again soon. I also think with heightened tension, another missing animal or person will get pinned on the wrong culprit.”

Scully nodded slowly, taking the information in.

Mulder stood from his chair, reaching for the coat draped across the back of it, “October is a time for increased paranoia. Its effects tied not just once throughout history to pinning that which we can’t understand on those we reject as ‘other.’”

Scully smiled sadly, rising with him, “You want to redirect the angry neighbor.”

Mulder nodded.

Scully sighed, wanting to reach out and touch Mulder, but she hesitated in such a public space. She found herself relating to the neighbors. The otherness. The watchful eyes. Feeling like there wasn’t anyone in your corner. Maybe there wasn’t.

“You think we can protect them? These partners?”

A lot of unsaid words hung in the silence between them. Mulder shrugged.

“No one else will,” he said quietly, “I think we should try.”

“Others ought to stick together,” Scully offered softly.

The start of a smile played on Mulder’s lips. He nodded again, “Exactly.”

#txf #txf fanfic #txf season 6 #my writing #boy howdy I haven't posted my writing to tunglr dot com since 2015 #what year is it #day 1

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 5 months

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So, my tentative employer was unable to complete my background check because they couldn't confirm one of my old jobs. They need me to upload my W2s, but I don't have them anymore because this was literally two presidential administrations ago, so they told me to ask the IRS to send me copies. I spent the last hour and a half trying and failing to set up an account with the IRS; I couldn't upload all my documents because my scanner kept cropping half an inch off the side of my birth certificate even though the glass is the exact right size (not that it would have done me any good because the scanned image was covered in VOID VOID VOID watermarks specifically designed to prevent anyone from scanning it). Just then my mom called me, and as I was explaining to her what I was in the middle of she reminded me that I didn't file taxes the years I worked at the job in question because she and my dad claimed me as a dependent until I was 23 or 24 so I could get insurance through their Obamacare. The IRS doesn't even have the relevant W2s because I never gave them! This was a complete waste of my time! I'll either have to call my old boss and see if he can email me ANY documentation that proved I worked there (W2s, pay stubs, an employee ID number, anything), or else I'll have to tell the HR lady at my incoming job that I can't prove I worked there and they'll have to strike it from my record.

If I fail to get this job because I can't prove I was a cashier at a fucking seasonal fireworks tent for two months a year in college, I am going to self-immolate on the steps of city hall. I am so fucking close to having a job after three months of desperation, and I literally cannot afford to lose this. If I lose this, I'm fucked. I have no money. I am destitute.

I have two job-related appointments tomorrow; one with the HR department to get fingerprinted, and one with the health department to piss in a cup to show them I'm not a drug addict. I'll try to explain my situation to someone while I'm there, but I'm sure the HR lady will tell me that the background checks are handled by a third-party and I'd have to explain the situation to them directly, but I've checked and the third-party website doesn't have an option to explain a lack of identification, they just want me to upload the missing documents which I do not have and can not get, so I think I am truly, utterly, undeniably fucked six ways to Sunday.

We'll see how it goes, but I don't trust bureaucrats to do anything but screw me over.

Wish me luck tomorrow...

#job search #personal #might delete later #vent #rant #whatever

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krishak-rastra-sandesh · 2 years

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बारिश से फसल को हुआ है नुकसान! मुआवजे के लिए इस राज्य सरकार ने खोला पोर्टल

बारिश की वजह से नुकसान का सामना कर रहे किसानों को राहत देने के लिए हरियाणा सरकार ने फसल क्षतिपूर्ति पोर्टल को खोल दिया है. फसलों को हुए नुकसान के ल‍िए कि‍सान मुआवजे के ल‍िए आवेदन कर सकते हैं. Image Credit source: TV9 Digital खरीफ सीजन की फसलों में इस बार माैसम की मार पड़ी है. मसलन बीते महीने मानसून की बेरूखी के चलते कई राज्यों में बारिश कम हुई थी. इस वजह से कई राज्यों को सूखे जैसे हालातों का…

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#crop insurance #crop insurance claims #haryana farmers #Haryana Govenment

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bzalma · 1 year

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Fraudster Must Stay in Jail

Obesity, Diabetes, and Covid Not Basis for Compassionate Release

Read the full article at https://lnkd.in/gnWfwg_W and see full video at https://lnkd.in/gf2nu7QC and at https://lnkd.in/gQv48cb6 and https://zalma.com/blog plus more than 4450 posts.

The US Congress, feeling sorry for federal prisoners amended the law to create The First Step Act to allow a District Court to shorten a sentence when there exists extraordinary and compelling reasons to release the Prisoner. In United States Of America v. Earl Lee Planck, Jr., Criminal No. 5:20-CR-24-KKC-MAS-1, United States District Court, E.D. Kentucky, Central Division, Lexington (March 1, 2023) Earl Lee Planck, Jr moved the USDC for compassionate release under the statute.

Planck was originally sentenced Planck to a prison term of 56 months after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States Crop Insurance Fund, and tax evasion. He is scheduled for release on March 4, 2025.

The First Step Act allows the court to grant a motion for compassionate release filed by the defendant himself after the defendant has fully exhausted all administrative rights to appeal a failure of the Bureau of Prisons to bring a motion on the defendant’s behalf or the lapse of 30 days from the receipt of such a request by the warden of the defendant’s facility, whichever is earlier.

The compassionate release statute permits the Court to “reduce the term of imprisonment” and “impose a term of probation or supervised release with or without conditions that does not exceed the unserved portion of the original term of imprisonment.” The Court may grant this relief only if it finds that “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warrant such a reduction, and the reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.

Planck did not set forth any circumstances that the Court could find extraordinary and compelling. He stated he has various medical conditions that put him at an increased risk of serious complications if he contracts COVID-19, including heart disease, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, diabetes, and obesity.

The USDC noted that the Court sentenced Planck below the advisory guideline range of 78 to 97 months. He has not yet served even half of the sentence imposed by the Court and he has available treatment for his conditions and the availability of vaccines.

Therefore the Court ordered that Planck’s motion for compassionate release was denied.

ZALMA OPINION

Defrauding the government’s crop insurance program takes money out the U.S. Treasury and is taken more seriously by federal judges than defrauding private insurers. The fact that Mr. Planck got fat, couldn’t sleep, and has created heart disease and high blood pressure does not create a ground for compassionate release. Fraudsters, whether they defraud private insurers or the federal government insurance plans, deserve prison and should stay for their full sentence. The USDC had no compassion for a prisoner who got fat in jail and ruined his health.

Subscribe and receive videos limited to subscribers of Excellence in Claims Handling at locals.com https://zalmaoninsurance.locals.com/subscribe.

Consider subscribing to my publications at substack at https://barryzalma.substack.com/publish/post/107007808

Follow me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=barry-zalma-esq-cfe-a6b5257

Write to Mr. Zalma at [email protected]; http://www.zalma.com; http://zalma.com/blog; daily articles are published at https://zalma.substack.com. Go to the podcast Zalma On Insurance at https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma; Follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bzalma; Go to Barry Zalma videos at Rumble.com at https://rumble.com/c/c-262921; Go to Barry Zalma on YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysiZklEtxZsSF9DfC0Expg; Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims-library.

Subscribe and receive videos limited to subscribers of Excellence in Claims Handling at locals.com https://lnkd.in/gfFKUaTf.

Consider subscribing to my publications at substack at https://lnkd.in/gcZKhG6g

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE is available at http://www.zalma.com and [email protected]

Follow me on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/guWk7gfM

Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://lnkd.in/gWVSBde.

#insurance #claims #insurance claims #fraud #insurance fraud #crop insurance fraud #convicted #sentenced #compassion #compassionate release #insurance books #amazon.com

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vinsuranceservices · 8 months

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What is general insurance ?

General insurance, also known as non-life insurance, is a type of insurance that provides coverage for a wide range of risks and losses that individuals, businesses, and organizations may face in their day-to-day activities. Unlike life insurance which focuses on providing financial protection in the event of a person's death, general insurance covers various aspects of property, liability, and other non-life-related risks.

General insurance policies are designed to protect against unexpected events that could result in financial loss, damage, or liability.

Types of general insurance,

Property Insurance: This type of insurance covers physical assets such as homes, buildings, vehicles, and other possessions against risks like fire, theft, vandalism, and natural disasters.

Health Insurance: Health insurance provides coverage for medical expenses and healthcare services. It can include coverage for hospital stays, doctor visits, prescription medications, and more.

Motor Insurance: Also known as auto insurance, this type of insurance covers vehicles against various risks such as accidents, theft, and damage caused to third parties.

Travel Insurance: Travel insurance offers protection against unexpected events that can occur during a trip, such as trip cancellations, medical emergencies, lost baggage, and travel delays.

Liability Insurance: Liability insurance provides coverage for legal liabilities arising from injuries or damages caused to third parties. This can include personal liability, professional liability (errors and omissions), and product liability.

Business Insurance: Business owners can purchase various types of insurance to protect their enterprises, including property insurance for business assets, liability insurance for potential legal claims, and business interruption insurance to cover losses due to operational interruptions.

Homeowners Insurance: This type of insurance covers homeowners against property damage, liability, and other risks related to their homes.

Marine Insurance: Marine insurance covers risks associated with shipping, transportation of goods by sea, and maritime-related activities.

Crop Insurance: Agricultural businesses can purchase crop insurance to protect against losses caused by factors like adverse weather conditions, pests, and disease.

Engineering Insurance: This type of insurance covers risks associated with engineering projects, equipment, and machinery.

#bikeinsurance #insurance #general insurance #car insurance #property insurance

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vishal0713 · 9 months

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"Unveiling the Future: How Data Science is Revolutionizing Upcoming Industries"

Data science continues to have a substantial impact on various industries, and its scope is expected to expand as new technologies emerge and businesses realize the potential of data-driven insights. Here are some upcoming industries where data science is likely to play a significant role:

Healthcare and Life Sciences: Data science can aid in personalized medicine, drug discovery, predictive analytics for patient outcomes, and healthcare operations optimization.

Financial Services: Financial institutions use data science for fraud detection, risk assessment, algorithmic trading, customer behavior analysis, and credit scoring.

Retail and E-Commerce: Data science helps optimize inventory management, pricing strategies, recommendation systems, and customer segmentation for targeted marketing.

Energy and Utilities: The energy sector benefits from data analytics for smart grid management, predictive maintenance of equipment, and energy consumption optimization.

Manufacturing: Data science improves manufacturing processes through predictive maintenance, quality control, supply chain optimization, and demand forecasting.

Agriculture: Precision agriculture utilizes data science to optimize crop yield, resource allocation, pest control, and environmental monitoring.

Transportation and Logistics: Data science plays a role in route optimization, fleet management, demand forecasting, and autonomous vehicles.

Telecommunications: Data science assists in customer churn prediction, network optimization, and personalized service offerings.

Media and Entertainment: Content recommendation, audience segmentation, and analyzing viewer engagement are areas where data science is making an impact.

Real Estate: Data science helps in property price prediction, market trend analysis, and investment decision-making.

Environmental Conservation: Data science aids in monitoring and analyzing environmental data, including climate patterns, pollution levels, and habitat preservation.

Education: Data science can personalize learning experiences, assess student performance, and optimize educational resources.

Government and Public Services: Data-driven decision-making is becoming increasingly important for optimizing public services, policy formulation, and resource allocation.

Insurance: Insurers use data science for risk assessment, claims processing, fraud detection, and customized pricing.

Travel and Tourism: Data science enhances traveler experiences through personalized recommendations, pricing optimization, and destination insights.

Pharmaceuticals: Data science plays a role in drug discovery, clinical trials optimization, and pharmacovigilance.

Smart Cities: The concept of smart cities involves integrating data science for efficient urban planning, traffic management, energy consumption, and public services.

Cybersecurity: Data science helps in identifying and responding to cyber threats by analyzing patterns and anomalies in network data.

As technology continues to advance and businesses recognize the value of data-driven insights, certybox is creating a difference in providing the top professional courses along with job assistance. It's essential for professionals in the field to stay updated with the latest developments and tools to make the most of these opportunities.

#certybox #data science #business analysis

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probablyasocialecologist · 7 months

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Today’s food is the product of a highly industrialized, oil-fueled, climate-changing machine built largely on lax environmental standards, loose animal welfare rules, nonexistent antitrust enforcement, and enormous government subsidies to deliver food that is plentiful, cheap, and increasingly harmful to the people who consume it and the rural communities that produce it. And don’t look to organic farms, small farmers, or local food to slowly but surely overtake today’s industrial food juggernaut. Even with the USDA widening its formerly sacred organic standards to include such wildly nonorganic practices as hydroponic fruit and vegetable production, total organic sales in 2022 totaled only $60 billion, an almost invisible drop in food’s $2.4 trillion bucket that year. Small-acreage organic farms—the farms most Americans envision when they think “farmer”—exist in spite of the USDA’s loosening standards, not because of them. American agriculture is shot through with contradictions. For example, every farmer knows that good weather and superb crops usually mean low prices and lean times. Another relates to how farmers dislike, discount, and dismiss “government” but rarely acknowledge it as their moneybags partner. (Uncle Sam sent U.S. farmers over $90 billion from 2018 through 2020.) Ethanol, too, is a massive paradox—some say fraud—that will claim one-third of the 2023 U.S. corn crop, at an estimated value of over $30 billion, even as one-in-four new cars sold in the United States is now electric, and at least seven states have banned the sale of gas-powered cars after 2035. The biggest paradox in American agriculture is Congress’s Farm Bill itself. The soon-to-be-enacted five-year update, the 2023 Farm Bill, will cost an estimated $150 billion per year. Even the common term “Farm Bill” is a misnomer: over three-quarters of the bill’s budget is devoted to SNAP, the nation’s largest food assistance program, which is a poverty relief program that also benefits the food industry. The rest of the budget goes to crop insurance subsidies, federal research grants, green energy initiatives, export subsidies, soil conservation, beginning farmer loans, and hundreds of other never-heard-of giveaways. This part of the budget often helps the very well-off: large agribusinesses. The bill is never imagined as a way to reverse the concentration of control into fewer and fewer hands. Few measures, if any, will slow the demise of rural America. Few, in fact, ever have.

#usa #big ag #agriculture #industrial agriculture

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eloquenceandemphasis · 1 year

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Cornfields

There were patterns carved in the cornfield where the stalks had been snapped and flattened into the ground, scoring the earth. The old farmer who lived in the red house on the hill claimed he had heard nothing the previous night when he came into town, grumbling and complaining about the damage to his crops. It was likely teenagers, he concluded to anyone who would listen. The Wilkerson boys had managed to tip over his tractor in the night that previous spring. It was probably them.

The Wilkerson boys, when they heard about this rumor, vehemently denied that they had any involvement.

"Do you know how long that would take?" Marcus, the elder of the two said to a news reporter who had asked. "We would have been at it for weeks with a shovel. There's no way he wouldn't have noticed us, even as blind as he is."

"Besides, we were out in Allendale getting some ice cream with the football team last night until late," Elijah, his younger brother added. "Nowhere near Jenkins' property. I reckon it was hail that did it."

Jenkins insisted that it couldn't have been hail. The previous night had been beautifully clear, with nary a cloud in the sky. There had been no hint of even a sprinkle of rain, never mind the amount of hail it would have taken to destroy that much corn. Besides, it looked like someone had carved paths into the cornfield. Perhaps it was the other corn farmer on the other side of town, Louis. He had always had it out for him. If the corn was destroyed, Louis would be the only game in town.

"He's a crazy old fool if he thinks it was me," Louis said when told about Jenkins' accusation. "It'd ruin my reputation if I did such a thing. Besides, I was out to dinner with my wife last night. It was our 30th anniversary. Is he sure that it's not damage caused by an animal?"

"No animal could have caused damage like this," Jenkins reported from his yard as he tried to salvage what he could from the destroyed corn, a little deflated now that both of his guesses had been proven wrong. The deep scores in the ground were like nothing he had ever seen before. They had to have been caused by something massive-- a tractor with a plow attached to it?

He suggested the banker who had loaned him the money for his own small tractor. He had gotten behind on his payments a month or so ago-- maybe the banker had decided to get his revenge in his own way.

"What are you even talking about?" the banker said when the police, a little tired of this whole subject, knocked on his door. "I've been home this entire past week with my daughter. She has the flu. When would I have had time to do such a thing? Look, maybe he did it himself to get an insurance payout. We all know he's a little tight on money these days. If it wasn't anyone in town, and it wasn't the weather, and it wasn't an animal, that leaves nothing except for him."

Everyone, save Jenkins, agreed that what the banker said sounded reasonable, and as the sun set over the little town, the subject was quietly dropped as an old man choosing to save his farm over salvaging his pride.

In the cornfield below the red house on a hill, something with eight eyes and far too many limbs awoke from its slumber. Indeed, the banker was correct assuming that it wasn't anyone in town, nor was it the weather or an animal of any recognizable type, but there was one other option he had failed to account for, and it was angry.

It arose from the center of the field with a mighty groan, loping from the cornfield towards the farmhouse it had fixed in its beady, luminous yellow eyes.

The old man, snoring away in his bed, knew too much. First, it would take him. Next, it would turn to the town who had ignored its presence for far too long.

#horror #but like the kind of horror a 17 year old in advanced lit would write #happy halloween #i wrote this in 2020 but forgot about it #so here it is now two years later #time to return to my own indefinite slumber #short story #writing #my writing #grif writes #writeblr #creative writing

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