Cold, clear, kinda damp. Yesterday started out below freezing. It did get into the 60s during the day, but what a start. Today should be very similar.
Did some stuff around the house in the morning, and then headed to my secondary to drop off all the stuff still in the back of my pickup. Then off to Costco to buy a 75″ TV. They are giving away the additional 3 year insurance with big TVs so for ~$1K I got the TV and the extension. Took that out to my client’s house and unloaded it into the garage. Tried to install the mounts I had, but neither was going to be good. Made it to the electronics store just before close and bought two new heavy duty full motion mounts. Then home to make dinner.
Today I’ve got to mount the TVs. I’ve got a friend helping me. Freaking TVs are too big. It’ll take a bit longer than I expected because I’ll have to hang the mounts first, but should be done in a couple of hours. Then I’ve got some pickups to do, and some getting ready for the plumber tomorrow. It just never ends.
Should be a mad scramble of a day.
Trying to stack some do-re-mi, and get work done while there are parts and workers.
Take a look at what you can ‘bring forward’ and get done now. You might not be able to later.
Oh, and stack all the things.
n
On the face of it, this makes little sense. The dollar (and every other currency) is already effectively digital. Bank transfers do not use armored trucks – they use electrons. How many payment apps are there – also digital?
The article claims that a big motivation is to streamline the transaction process, thus reducing transaction fees. They do this by removing middle-men: you would have a digital wallet provided by the government. And the government would be handling the transactions.
IMHO that is the main motivation: full tracking of all transactions by the government. Uncle Sam knows exactly what you buy, when, and from whom. Even private transfers between individual people would be tracked.
Two further aspects:
– The government could restrict who you can pay, and who can pay you. Get on the wrong side of some government agency, and you could simply be cut off.
– Asset forfeiture: The police don't even have to find cash, they can just take your digital assets. Remember OFD's adventures with the IRS randomly emptying his bank account?
Sounds like a bad idea all around…
Roberts and the liberals with Hermione Granger (Kagan) writing the dissent, the Chief Justice submitting his mea culpa separately. That's going to be the pattern for a while.
Yikes! Thoughts and prayers.
RIP.
I've always believed Universal was a bit too fast to pull the "Back to the Future" ride, but the mechanical part of the experience was rough near the end of the run.
https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2022-02-08/douglas-trumbull-visual-effects-master-2001-a-space-odyssey-blade-runner-dies
Yeah, don't remember much about the ride, but Trumbull and then Dykstra invented most of what we consider special effects. Add Ub Iwerks and the multiplane camera and you've got the trinity of movie visual effects.
n
Add Brian Johnson, who worked for Garry Anderson and, later, Lucas.
"Caddyshack" is back on Netflix this month with another early bit of Dykstra's work — The Gopher.
Dykstra and the editors who worked on the film after the initial editing pass from Harold Ramis made that flick a classic.
Even private transfers between individual people would be tracked.
Two further aspects:
– The government could restrict who you can pay, and who can pay you. Get on the wrong side of some government agency, and you could simply be cut off.
— the legal framework for this is already in place. It was included in one of the bills last year, and is part of the 'war on terror'. If you aid or abet, including buying from or buying for, someone they've named as a terrorist you get cut off too.
Considering the .gov and .fed willingness to declare conservatives to be domestic terrorists, nothing good can come from this.
n
My company has a $150 a month surcharge on each tobacco user unless the complete a Tobacco Cessation program, yearly, administered by the insurance company.
They define tobacco use as "cigarettes, e-cigarettes (i.e. vaping), pipes, cigars, chewing tobacco, tobacco packets, and hookah tobacco."
Since we are a defense contractor we are under the Federal definition of marijuana, so it is an illegal drug even if it is legal by state law. We don't have random testing, however.
I'm sure this meets the letter of the law as changed by Obamacare. ACA allowed for a tobacco surcharge.
That is probably what it will take. But don't press your luck. Give it one shot then back away. It is ultimately your father's decision and tough as it may be, you will have to accept that decision. You don't want to alienate the relationship with your father.
What decisions has the government made regarding personal liberties that was ever a good idea? I will give you several minutes to think of an answer that does not exist.
Then the person has to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees to get the money returned. Just think, no more police calling for their fund raisers. Need some new equipment, just seize a few digital wallets. Simple. Guilty until proven innocent.
Does anyone really believe they will only cut off terrorists? Which is exactly why a privacy coin (such as Monero) must succeed.
@lynn best wishes for your mom.
I believe it is Union Pacific (and probably some others) that is a no smoking workplace and simply will not hire smokers. As part of your pre-employment drug screening they check for cotinine which is present in the system for 3 to 4 days after tobacco use. It's been several years since I applied there, but there also used to be a pop-up on their employment website which very clearly told applicants they don't hire smokers and you will be tested for tobacco use as a condition of employment. It's already been challenged in court and upheld.
Invalidating anti-miscegenation laws.
That they passed in the first place. You don't get much credit for fixing your own screw-ups.
Who is “they”? Government is not a monolith. Should you need a further example: enshrining a right to, say, free exercise of religion.
And the right to free exercise would be taken away by whom? Perhaps… government?
Possibly, yes! Although you also seem to think “government” is a single monolithic entity, which is incorrect. Anyway, the question asked about decisions to protect personal liberties that were a “good idea”. A wide ranging protection for free religious exercise, one that prohibits, say, a single rogue municipality from flat out banning a particular religion, is a good idea.
The enshrinement process was the drafting of the constitution, with ratification by all the states.
Aside from amendments* there has never been a comparable adoption of top-level rule making.
So slavery, enshrined in the original document, was later removed.
“They” are the ones finding restrictions is the laws that do not exist, passing laws restricting freedoms, and in recent years simply promulgating rules by executive and administrative fiat that are baldly unlawful.
Henry Ford tried to get his employees to give up tobacco off the job when he started the River Rouge complex. Didn't succeed.
There are numerous personal choices that have health consequences. The question is whether an employer can penalize a worker for making their own choice.
Tobacco use? Obesity? Drugs legal and otherwise? Not eating your veggies? Too much fast food?
If the job description says “must be able to lift 50 lbs”, your employer cannot require you to manually load a boxcar with 100-lb bags of cement.
And the job description cannot include arbitrary requirements. So if the job description doesn’t legally include non-smoker, what is the justification for the back-door penalty on off the job behavior?
@drwilliams raises some good points that I agree with. Sadly, technology has made it easier for those who want to control us to compromise our freedom and privacy. Reform is overdue, but I am careful with my wishes.
“Sadly, technology has made it easier for those who want to control us to compromise our freedom and privacy. ”
First you have a solution, and then you have people willing to define the problem it will solve.
Certain things are okay to hate. For example. tobacco smokers are bad, but weed smokers are not anymore. Not hiring obese people is sizeism or fat shaming or body shaming or whatever, but not hiring smokers is okay. Both impact productivity, insurance costs, and so forth. However, only the latter seems to be okay to not hire. Tobacco smoking has become quite the appalling sin. I am related to a couple of smokers and when they're outside smoking in public they get looked at like they have a glass pipe and are smoking crack. I take that back. I think the crack smokers actually have an easier time of it. In 2022, smoker = trash. Hating on tobacco use has become quite trendy.
First you have a desire for money or power, then you find something which you can claim will solve a problem, then you convince people that there is a problem, then you provide your solution.
Smokers have been ghetto-ized for some time. More than a decade ago, Chicago changed its "rules" to allowing smoking only beyond 25 feet from any public doorway. Immediately, all ashtrays were removed, since they would grow feet at that distance.
About 6 months later, the Tribune bemoaned that they were shocked!, shocked! to find that the streets and gutters were packed with dead butts everywhere.
Doug Trumbull did visual on "The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot" with Sam Elliot. I thought it would be a joke, but Elliot was great in it.
And, I just downloaded "Silent Running", one of my favorites with Bruce Dern.
My best for your Mom, Mr. Lynn. Hip breaks are debilitating for the elderly.
Pearls Before Swine: Coffee Table
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/02/09
That is literally a coffee table.
Filed my federal taxes today. Expect to have the refund by the end of next week. I don't have to deal with state taxes or that annoying Hall Tax in TN. Glad I don't live in California.
My best for your Mom, Mr. Lynn. Hip breaks are debilitating for the elderly.
Thanks to all !
Mom has had both hips replaced with implants. Apparently when she fell last weekend, something inside her hip started bleeding. This was the hip that was replaced three years ago. The pool of blood (a hematoma) started pressing on her leg nerve which is incredibly painful, 100 on a 10 point scale according to her. The surgeon opened her up and removed the hematoma. He left the wound open for now and put in a wound vac to drain the blood. He did not cauterize the bleeder for now.
Mom is just not doing well. She is 80 and a very weak 80.
"SpaceX satellites burning up and falling out of orbit after solar storm"
https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/SpaceX-satellites-falling-out-of-orbit-solar-storm-16844807.php
"Up to 40 of the 49 small satellites launched last week have either reentered the atmosphere and burned up, or are on the verge of doing so, the company said in an online update Tuesday night."
"SpaceX said a geomagnetic storm last Friday made the atmosphere denser, which increased the drag on the Starlink satellites, effectively dooming them."
Oops.
Yup, this is rocket science.
"Park Outside: Kia and Hyundai Recall 485K Vehicles Due to Fire Risk"
https://www.pcmag.com/news/park-outside-kia-and-hyundai-recall-485k-vehicles-due-to-fire-risk
"The Kia K900, Kia Sportage, Hyundai Santa Fe, Santa Fe Sport, Santa Fe XL, and Tucson can all catch fire."
It ain't just the electric cars.
Well, that was interesting. My return got rejected by the IRS. The message:
Yeh, right, that means a lot to me. Since I am using Turbotax, and Turbotax is doing all the calculations, there is an error in Turbotax. According to Turbotax that is a known error and will not be fixed until February 18. Gotta love tax preparation software with bad calculations and have to wait on updates. Annoying to get open Turbotax in November and find programs updates for taxes that were filed eight months in the past.
After more research the problem is in the Turbo Tax filing on their servers. The fix is to file after February 18. There is nothing wrong in the Turbotax software but in the software that is being using by Turbotax to do the efile.
The field names in the message show the IRS is still using old code. It would be much easier for the taxpayer to reference the form name and line number rather than require a magic decoder ring.
Now I have to wait almost 10 more days to file which of course delays my refund by much longer than 10 days as the filing will be in the thick of everyone filing.
Not all of the states ratified all of the amendments. Notably, a huge chunk of The South has never debated the 17th, providing for direct election of Senators, and Utah rejected the 17th amendment.
Taxes? Arrange to owe, then no hurry to file. 🙂
I sometimes get updates on paperwork after April 15. Tax guy usuallyt holds it until next years filing. Never paid a penalty or interest.'ext t
Ack! Editor is wonky. Serves me right for tweaking Ray.
Good thing I didn’t tweak SteveF 😉
I did. But MIL died and left money to the wife. We gave our 10% to the church which resulted in large itemized deductions. Sometimes the best laid plans go kerflop.
Well. Huh. I was somewhat on track to sell Mom's house. But then a quarter million dollar bill for her final helicopter ride kicked that into the ditch. Never got another bill so let's try again.
County tax bill says the place is worth $60 grand. Zillow says $90. Ok, between $64 and $120. Zillow says it has two baths which is not true. A couple of other "value your house" sites on the realtor's web site has the between $65 and $178. Wow.
Maybe the realtor will get it sold. I sent an e-mail saying all of the appliances worked a couple of years ago. The beds are new but now about 3 years old. There are two dining room sets.
Wiring and plumbing was to code when Dad and Mom built the house. So, "as-is".
I'm not greedy but actually, after it's all done, I'm good with the 60 grand in in my pocket. Anything more is just extra frosting / gravy / ice cream.
Anyway, while the house was being cleaned out because of the leaking bathroom sink hose, a tiny pin hole mist of a leak, filled the house to the thresholds with water. And bedding just touching the floor wicked it up in to the beds. Oh, and all of the books? Their spines melted.
High humidity isn’t good.
But there were folks walking down the street from both directions offering to buy the place.
It should sell quickly.
As in, put a sign in front.
Hyundai and Kia are in a cr*p category all their own. There is a reason that Hyundai has a 10 year warranty.
I had another thought but I forgot it.
Then I had a different thought.
Selling the house also saves me almost $60 a month for utilities that are padlocked at the water meter and turned off at the main breaker in the house.
Plus another $350 or so for Property taxes.
You ever work the math as to much beer you can buy for a thousand bucks?
Or dog and cat and emu food?
Grin.
Oh. I did offer the house to my brother. Just take it, I'll change the deed and all the BS and it's all yours. His response was not suitable for polite company.
Lot's of "no effing way" he would live the RGV ever.
I'm guessing Hyundai and Kia are sort of like Toyota and Datsun way back in the early '70's.
Then there was a friend's Subaru two door thing. Not avocado green but close. Ran pretty good for it being 1978 and a few years old.
The doors popping open on hard left or hard right turns was an interesting feature.
I've never wanted to touch another Subaru.
Anecdote, but my girlfriend's Hyundai Elantra is such a good and reliable car she's thinking about upgrading to a new(er) model Hyundai crossover. She bought the car used 10 years ago. She plans to give her old car to her son, to replace the even older Elantra (2004) he's driving.
OTOH, I used to budget $1000/year for tires/repairs/maintenance to my GMC Sierra 1500. Some years it was not enough.
The crossovers are the Hyundai/Kia models subject to the recall.
Whatever happened to Isuzu? I can remember the Isuzu Trooper, Isuzu Rodeo, and Isuzu Amigo all being fairly popular in the 1990s. It's like they suddenly disappeared from the car market 15+ years ago.
Low sales and poor strategic thinking due to being half owned by GM in the 90s.
I don't remember that, precisely. All I remember is Joe Isuzu bragging about trading the queen an Isuzu car for the crown jewels and then a beefeater with a bayonet chasing him off the screen. And I saw it on television so I know it really happened.
A Subaru Brat? Ironically, those are highly sought after right now.
The bolted in rear seats were intended to allow the truck to evade the "Chicken Tax", but the Brats with the seats left as-is were popular in the 70s and early 80s.
Very few survive. I've seen one around town. You can see a pristine, restored (by Subaru itself) example at Ronald Reagan's ranch.
Joe Isuzu got a real acting gig as the neighbor on "Empty Nest". The show ran for seven seasons.
That "coffee table" is perfect. Anything larger should be called a "clutter table."
In the old days, Ford and GM had recourse through their finance operations, but cheap money via the Fed means the dealers can blow off the manufacturers … for now.
The Fed even owned 85% of Ally (former GMAC and Chrysler Finance) for a while.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/gm-and-ford-warn-dealerships-stop-charging-over-sticker-price-or-well-cut-supply
BTW, only 10% of Ford dealers? That seems a bit low. Who is putting Mavericks on the street for $20k? That isn't happening around here.
The 6-cylinder Isuzu Rodeo was arguably their best vehicle. Honda thought it was good enough to badge as the Honda Passport in the early 1990's. The second generation was a solid mid-size SUV when introduced in 1998. IIRC the awkward and ugly back tailgate-mounted spare survived the 1998 makeover but disappeared a couple years later as it was relocated underneath.
>> There are numerous personal choices that have health consequences. The question is whether an employer can penalize a worker for making their own choice.
Tobacco use? Obesity? Drugs legal and otherwise? Not eating your veggies? Too much fast food?
If the job description says “must be able to lift 50 lbs”, your employer cannot require you to manually load a boxcar with 100-lb bags of cement.
And the job description cannot include arbitrary requirements. So if the job description doesn’t legally include non-smoker, what is the justification for the back-door penalty on off the job behavior?
When I've seen it, it's presented such that being a non-smoker is way to 'earn' a discount on your health insurance. Similarly for other behaviors such as obesity, reducing your BMI by a certain percentage gets you money added to your HSA.
Many large companies are self-insured, with the "insurance company" acting just as the plan administrator, so every claim dollar not paid out for a smoking-related illness is a dollar the company can spend elsewhere.
As for job descriptions, I can't speak for unions, but otherwise, unless you're a C-level exec, you're most likely classified as "employed at will," so 'no smoking' is not likely to be covered therein. Probably a good candidate though to work for one of the tobacco companies.
>> Tobacco smoking has become quite the appalling sin.
The years of denial of harm by the tobacco companies doesn't help.
U.S. Capitol Police are Nancy's own little Stasi:
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/02/09/capitol-police-issue-an-unbelievable-statement-after-accusations-of-spying-on-congress-n519831
>> Tobacco smoking has become quite the appalling sin.
"The years of denial of harm by the tobacco companies doesn't help."
Yeah, the U.S. Surgeon General's report only came out in 1964. Some people haven't had a chance to see it.
Ottawa police practicing before applying to
Bull Connor'sNancy Pelosi's police force:https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/02/ottawa-police-use-physical-force-to-arrest-great-grandfather-78-for-honking-in-support-on-freedom-convoy/
With Rick Scott, it is a legitimate concern.
At one point, about 13-14 years ago, I almost ended up working for Scott at Cyberguard, via a questionably-legal scheme my bosses at the Death Star hatched to essentially steal the NetClient and sell it back to the rightful owners as well as other Cyberguard customers. The plan was for all of us in the group to take forced severance packages and work as Rick Scott’s employees. Long story, but, thankfully, it didn’t happen.
Scott has an interesting, checkered past. Google is your friend.
That was one train wreck I managed to dodge in a career full of them.
"A.F. Branco Cartoon – True North Strong and Free"
https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-true-north-strong-and-free/
"Left-wing mainstream media ignore the horrific left-wing riots while demonizing the Canadian trucker protest. Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022."
Wow, is that ever true. Oh, Canada !