Here’s my improvement to elections in this country. It’s the ultimate implementation of Citizens United.
1) One man, one vote.
2) It is legal to buy votes at or above a minimum per vote price to be established by a National Auction.
3) Any taxpayer, or fully taxable organization, can participate in the auction. Money raised by organizations is taxed as income. (Gotta stop the churches from cheating)
4) Since the government deems votes to be priceless, no seller is subject to gains taxes.
So, each voter is guaranteed a minimum price, say $100. If you want to sell your vote, you register as a buyable vote, but you don’t have to sell unless the bid goes above your reserve. The auction begins at $101. The auction winner MUST buy at least one vote, selected at random to avoid buying your spouse’s vote. The money WILL change hands. Keeps some lowly 1%er from driving the price up.
We’ll still wind up with an oligarchy, but it will be a benevolent oligarchy.
Oh hell. Out of no where I got sicker than hell yesterday. Quite literally fine one minute and then doubled over puking my guts out the next; it scared the hell out of paul. He had to practically carry me to my chair because I was so out of it.
I felt pretty good when I finally crawled back out of my chair after sleeping for 3 or 4 hours and was able to enjoy a cup of coffee with paul before he left for work. Thus I presumed everything was fine when I got up to tend to a few of the morning tasks around here.
About three quarters of the way between fluffing up couch cushions, straightening up the coffee table, tidying up the kitchen after paul got egg shells all over the kitchen floor this morning making his breakfast, and tending a couple of living room plants I felt shaky, the room went fuzzy, and I hit the floor in front of my ficus plant.
Ruh roh. The passing out happened without nausea? That doesn't sound like a norovirus. But maybe it's a secondary reaction. Maybe hit an ER if it happens again?
Also, let’s be clear about the PAB’s appeal to SCOTUS: he’s not saying he didn’t do insurrection crimes, he’s saying I’m allowed to do insurrection crimes.
OK. Dr. Phil. Yes, you have a PhD, and you are not a psychologist, but you are able to discern what kind of test PAB actually took.
It was a test of BASIC COGNITIVE FUNCTION. Is the processing in your cerebral cortex WORKING AT ALL? is the question posed. If you are not in a coma or suffering from an acute head trauma or experiencing disordered thinking, YOU ACED IT.
He could be the useful kind. He could be writing books and teaching classes on whatever it is he actually has a doctorate in. Grifting people with tough love psuedopsychology was more lucrative, though.
I don't get this line: Parents are also struggling to buy bigger cars to haul around their growing families while simultaneously socking away some money in college savings plans.
You don't actually need an SUV/Truck that is the size of a Manhattan apartment to drive around in. My wife and I both have EV sedans and are constantly annoyed by the massive vehicles on the road, because you can't see over or around them and if you end up between two of them in a parking lot, you're basically pulling out blind.
Giant SUVs with "drivers" paying attention to anything but driving are why I parked my beloved motorcycle 10 years ago. Loved riding it but not enough to die for it.
Where I live it seems that half the population owns an enormous pickup truck, and when I park my small Hyundai SUV between two of them, I can't see to back out of the parking space. It is hugely annoying.
My parents hauled 3 kids around in a Ford sedan for 25 years without anyone complaining. We even drove from Missouri to NYC and Mexico in it twice.
Unfortunately I drive a 20-yr-old car with a Blue Book value of about $200, which means if it gets totaled or badly damaged in an accident, I will get almost nothing from my insurance company, so I dropped all my coverages except Liability.
I really hate the giant vehicles, because of the reasons you say, and I'm always getting honked at this one intersection where you can't see oncoming cars if a giant one pulls next to you.
That said, my dream car is a 1942 Chrysler Town and Country, so I guess I can't talk about big cars.
Yeah, no love for "growing families." I joined ZPG, now called Population Connection, on the first Earth Day. I had none. Why does anyone have more than two (notwithstanding multiple births, of course)?
Same. I actually made the decision at the ripe old age of 7, in 1959. Being a kid in my situation was pretty terrible, and I didn't want to bring anyone else into a world like that. At 7, it didn't occur to me that I could maybe change things. Aside from entering my last chapter with no offspring to look after me, I don't regret my decision.
I was just reading something that laid out how the traditional 30-year mortgage is working now, with interest rates back at historical levels. Basically, the bank gets 8x more money than the person who sold the house gets.
The trick to homebuying is to find something cheap enough that one can afford the monthly payment, and then pay two to four extra principal payments per year. The easiest way is to add about an additional 20% of the monthly principal payment to every monthly payment.
But that assumes 1) you can find a house you can afford, 2) you can get that mortgage, and 3) you have enough excess income to make those additional payments.
The cost of all other necessities has risen to the point that many of us simply don't have that kind of jack.
I've bought the cheapest home on the market four different times. This time around it's a hundred year old bungalow that was moved here in 1940. Everything needs upgrading, but the cost of said upgrades are out of reach. At my age it doesn't make sense to worry about paying it off. I "only" owe $102K, but it might as well be $1M. I'll just sit here while entropy takes over.
In the last couple of years, I was faced with the decision of trying to get this place, paid off before I retire, or spending the money on upgrades. I decided that the maintenance and improvements put in increase the value of the place, and make it more comfortable to live here.
For me, I’m convinced it was the right decision. The biggest bite the bullet was replacing the non-functioning boiler, which meant upgrading the entire system. it was pricey, but no regrets.
I talked to my son yesterday, who lives in Oregon with his lady love. They are paying a third more to rent an apartment than I am paying for principle, interest, insurance, and taxes. And I’m getting some equity in the process. I struggled in the early years, but I never missed a payment. Now it’s a manageable 15% of my take-home, and it’s my happy place.
I live in a small remote coastal town that of course, has a lot of 2nd homers buying up what few family homes we have here to live in when they come for 2-3 months out of the year. Places stay empty the rest of the time. Which means that the tiny house on the main road right across from the gravel pit sitting on less than a 1/4 acre and is in desperate need of renovation (and that's just what I can see from the outside), the owner just put it on the market for over $300k.
South Lake Tahoe is considering a vacancy tax to discourage it. The proceeds would go toward new affordable housing projects. The wealthy have always found ways to buy themselves out of uncomfortable situations, though. They'd rather pay a law firm to tie shit up in court than pay the taxes.
My wife and I drive little gas-powered stick-shift vehicles. We're probably going to transition to EV's when it's time to replace them.
We live in a city. Big vehicles are stupid in a city. Twice a year or so I rent a hauling vehicle at Home Depot or U-Haul. It's perfect. The other 363 days a year I don't have to have the damn thing.
Trouble is, it's very hard to actually find a sensible vehicle. Families need station wagons for a few years, but those have been replaced with enormously expensive light trucks. Those trucks are, as you've observed, insanely dangerous on the roads. Their drivers don't know how to drive a truck, either, so the rest of us have to adjust our driving to stay on the safe side of them.
There are no "light" trucks anymore. From the 90's through the 2000's I owned a string of toyota half ton's starting with a 1980. They were affordable, reliable, fixable and now are collectable, for whatever reason, so no longer affordable. The current Toyota half ton's are bloated and way too expensive.
22R’s for the win! I was talking to someone here about that just the other day. Bought mine for $1000 with 100,000 miles on it. Sold it for 500 with 325,000 miles on it, and he drove it out the driveway.
Never really understood the college savings plan thing. Sure, have a college savings account, and watch the college knock down your financial aid award by the same amount.
Worked for us in AK. Since the kid was born we put all his $'s into an AK 529 college savings account. He was able to use it on any Western Network college that accepted him. He got a great reduced tuition and 3/4 of his college tuition is being covered.
The problem is that nothing has inflated in price more over the past 40 years than college tuition. Public subsidies of higher education have dropped from about 72% of the cost to about 27%. Colleges have adopted the corporate management model, adding squadrons of executives with their pay, perqs, and assistants.
While focusing on how students can finance the livelihoods of executives, we forget that an educated populace is the backbone of a democracy. It's not supposed to be a private speculation scheme, but here we are. And nobody has any vested interest in examining that.
It is. It all got rolling when the last of the Baby Boomers graduated from college in the mid-70s. A lot of colleges were founded in the 1950s and '60s to accommodate the Boomers, and they faced closure when that demographic pig passed out of the python.
So, they made a deal with Business. Colleges would implement vocational programs as 4-year degree programs, in areas employers had traditionally had to train people for. This saved huge money for large employers, and created a massive group of captive consumers for colleges. The Federal Government sealed the deal by backstopping loans, adding the additional treat of a massive subsidy (in effect) for the lending industry.
In return, employers would require those degrees.
That's when the notion that one has to go to college to get a decent job started. And the rest just followed, very predictably.
I remember my mom being advised against a college savings plan for exactly that reason. Rules may have changed since then, though, and I suppose it depends a bit on your income level. If it's high enough that they're not going to get you subsidized loans anyway, the plans might make sense.
Watching Mission Impossible on TV as a kid, and it gets to the end of the tape, which says if caught the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your action. I thought it referred to a letter typer lady with big hair and a pointy bra.
Jonesing for Neil Young (and Joni Mitchell) as my music source is Spotify and they both left in protest of that Rogan asshole. I considered dropping my sub but damn I do love Spotify as a product.
I think that in the same way as he has just made overt the racism and fascism that had largely been disguised, he has just made overt the gaping chasms in the legal system that privilege the wealthy and powerful. That is, it's not just Trump who plays them like a fiddle, he's just made it painfully apparent. Maybe part of why McConnell despises him.
My ex-temporary housemate left behind his small refrigerator, his expensive Breville air fryer, his expensive Breville Barista expresso coffee machine and his huge set of Le Creuset cookware when he moved into the VA Patriot Place apartments 2 months ago. I've been asking him to come and pick them up ever since, but he never did, and now that he has been kicked out of Patriot Place for breaking the rules and is homeless as far as I know (his family don't know where he is), I set it all out on my back porch yesterday, all in boxes except for the fridge, and where it can't be seen from the street, and told him "Come and pick this stuff up by 7 pm on Friday, March 1 or it will all be donated to the Habitat Restore." It was all still sitting on my back porch at 10 pm.
His family says they don't want this stuff, so I have just called Habitat and they will pick it up this afternoon. I thought about selling it to recover some of the $500 I loaned him last year that I will never get back, but for some reason my Ethics Sensor kicked in and I decided to donate it all. I want nothing more to do with this guy, I don't even want money from selling his stuff, because he is a parasite and a lunatic and he poisons everyone he comes in contact with. I figure someone out there would be absolutely delighted to buy these things from Habitat for a huge discount, and I don't want the bother of selling things on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace right now, and Habitat needs the money more than I do. I've already wasted too many hours in my life over this guy and I don't want to invest one single hour more.
You don't know this guy, he truly is an evil parasite. I wouldn't want anything in my house that he ever touched because it would always remind me of him.
Holding onto his stuff only maintains a link with him. You want him out of your life. If you save it for him sooner or later he will figure out a way to get back at you.
I used to know someone like this. It is all about the drama and the stress - for him and for you. That's how he connects with people.
I don't want one single thing in my house that would ever remind me of him. He is a truly evil person. It would be like having something in your house that Donald Trump handled on a daily basis. No way. It's a bad aura. I don't even want to sell it. By donating it to Habitat it erases the evil aura.
Yes, it's very nice, but I already have very nice cookware - a 50-yr-old set of Lustre Craft stainless steel cookware that is in pristine condition because I take very good care of it. My aunt bought it for her daughter's wedding 50 years ago, but the daughter didn't want it for some unknown reason, so Aunt kept it in her basement in the original boxes and gave it to me 30 years ago. I absolutely LOVE this cookware.
Very nice! The original set of All-Clad I bought for myself almost 30 years ago (which happened as soon as I landed my first decent-paying job) is still with me, and it will most likely outlive me.
In general, it's as ill-advised to get your cosmological understanding from a college sportsballer as it is to get your football commentary from an astrophysics graduate student. Unfortunately, there is an asymmetry in which of these cautions holds sway with the general population.
Here’s my improvement to elections in this country. It’s the ultimate implementation of Citizens United.
1) One man, one vote.
2) It is legal to buy votes at or above a minimum per vote price to be established by a National Auction.
3) Any taxpayer, or fully taxable organization, can participate in the auction. Money raised by organizations is taxed as income. (Gotta stop the churches from cheating)
4) Since the government deems votes to be priceless, no seller is subject to gains taxes.
So, each voter is guaranteed a minimum price, say $100. If you want to sell your vote, you register as a buyable vote, but you don’t have to sell unless the bid goes above your reserve. The auction begins at $101. The auction winner MUST buy at least one vote, selected at random to avoid buying your spouse’s vote. The money WILL change hands. Keeps some lowly 1%er from driving the price up.
We’ll still wind up with an oligarchy, but it will be a benevolent oligarchy.
I'm glad that's Nex' case isn't being brushed under the rug.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/education-department-opens-investigation-nex-benedicts-oklahoma-school-rcna141469
Yay!
Oh hell. Out of no where I got sicker than hell yesterday. Quite literally fine one minute and then doubled over puking my guts out the next; it scared the hell out of paul. He had to practically carry me to my chair because I was so out of it.
I felt pretty good when I finally crawled back out of my chair after sleeping for 3 or 4 hours and was able to enjoy a cup of coffee with paul before he left for work. Thus I presumed everything was fine when I got up to tend to a few of the morning tasks around here.
About three quarters of the way between fluffing up couch cushions, straightening up the coffee table, tidying up the kitchen after paul got egg shells all over the kitchen floor this morning making his breakfast, and tending a couple of living room plants I felt shaky, the room went fuzzy, and I hit the floor in front of my ficus plant.
It's going to be a long day.
OMG! What the? What is going on? Do you have any idea?
Oh Skeptic!
One task at a time please!
But you did get some sleep?
Big *gentle* hug!
Ruh roh. The passing out happened without nausea? That doesn't sound like a norovirus. But maybe it's a secondary reaction. Maybe hit an ER if it happens again?
The only thing that needs "tending" is you, with tenderness.
I second the good suggestions below: rest, eat, hydrate, and call paul if need be. Please.
I am so sorry. Don't try to do anything except rest.
When did you last eat something? Are you OK?
Oh my gosh. Did you hit your head? Should you call paul? Please sit and rest. Drink water. I'm so sorry.
Media logic:
Biden must prove he is mentally fit to be president! Voters have a right to know!
Oh, the Supremes delayed Trump’s criminal trial? That’s a perfectly fine political strategy. Very savvy! Very brilliant! A gift to Trump! Bravo!
Also, let’s be clear about the PAB’s appeal to SCOTUS: he’s not saying he didn’t do insurrection crimes, he’s saying I’m allowed to do insurrection crimes.
Chilly but sunny Chicago morn. The sparrows are out this morning, a-hoppin' and a-cheepin' and darting about.
𝐄𝐥𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐤 𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲
Not The Onion.
That asshat cofounded OpenAI.
This is how Skynet begins.
/s
Elon Musk really needs an assistant who is allowed to tell him to just shut up and put down his phone/computer/whatever when he's being insane.
That is what your loving family members are for. Oh, right all of his relatives hate him -- especially his children.
Setting more money on fire, I see.
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
It must be getting harder and harder for the Onion to come up with things that are more absurd than reality these days.
I just snorted tea out my nose.
Your mother was a Samovar . . .
I wish everyone would demand this kind of scrutiny for Trump’s 91 felonies.
Dr Phil Challenges Joe Biden To Take a Cognitive Test And Prove He Has ‘Nothing To Hide’
https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/dr-phil-challenges-joe-biden-to-take-a-cognitive-test-and-prove-he-has-nothing-to-hide/
Fuck that useless meddling fuck.
Why should he be called Dr? When was the last time he delivered a baby?
The does nothing to convince me that he isn’t actually Mike Lindell without his toupée
That fucker Phil is NOT a gawd damned doctor.
Moot point. Trump has failed his by bragging about it.
Can we get an opinion from a real doctor please?
But he played one on teevee, they way Huey Shortfingers played a success on teevee.
You first, Dr. Fail
I challenge Dr. Phil to eat my shorts.
I'll ask the question: Is Dr. Phil licensed to provide health care and if so what is his specialty? He can kindly shut the fuck up.
OK. Dr. Phil. Yes, you have a PhD, and you are not a psychologist, but you are able to discern what kind of test PAB actually took.
It was a test of BASIC COGNITIVE FUNCTION. Is the processing in your cerebral cortex WORKING AT ALL? is the question posed. If you are not in a coma or suffering from an acute head trauma or experiencing disordered thinking, YOU ACED IT.
Who the fuck he think he is?
He's someone who is losing his audience that follow whatever snake oil he is promoting and gets told by his agent to keep his name in the press.
Important, while i.. Who?
A doctor.
But not the useful kind.
He could be the useful kind. He could be writing books and teaching classes on whatever it is he actually has a doctorate in. Grifting people with tough love psuedopsychology was more lucrative, though.
Looks like it IS psychology, so he definitely knows he's lying here.
Same field as Mary Trump, actually. Clinical psychology.
Dr Phil is, and always has been, a fraud.
Lewis Black did a righteous rant on "Dr" Phil awhile back.
Why is no one challenging the Supreme Court not to delay Trump’s trial and prove he has nothing to hide?
Challenging how, using what mechanism?
Americans’ cost of living remains a massive headache, even as recession fears fade
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/02/economy/american-dream-cost-of-living-housing-childcare/index.html
I get this. Things are very expensive right now.
I don't get this line: Parents are also struggling to buy bigger cars to haul around their growing families while simultaneously socking away some money in college savings plans.
You don't actually need an SUV/Truck that is the size of a Manhattan apartment to drive around in. My wife and I both have EV sedans and are constantly annoyed by the massive vehicles on the road, because you can't see over or around them and if you end up between two of them in a parking lot, you're basically pulling out blind.
Giant SUVs with "drivers" paying attention to anything but driving are why I parked my beloved motorcycle 10 years ago. Loved riding it but not enough to die for it.
Where I live it seems that half the population owns an enormous pickup truck, and when I park my small Hyundai SUV between two of them, I can't see to back out of the parking space. It is hugely annoying.
My parents hauled 3 kids around in a Ford sedan for 25 years without anyone complaining. We even drove from Missouri to NYC and Mexico in it twice.
At this point in parking lots when I'm between two massive vehicles I just remember that my auto insurance is automatically deducted monthly.
Unfortunately I drive a 20-yr-old car with a Blue Book value of about $200, which means if it gets totaled or badly damaged in an accident, I will get almost nothing from my insurance company, so I dropped all my coverages except Liability.
Me too. I have 2009 Toyota RAV4 and my daughter is on me to update. But I haven't had a new car since the 90's. I Iike previously used cars.
Plus the growing families bit. This may sound hard-hearted but I didn’t have a second kid because I couldn’t really afford it at the time.
That's not hard-hearted. That's reality.
And it meant you could take better care of your child.
I really hate the giant vehicles, because of the reasons you say, and I'm always getting honked at this one intersection where you can't see oncoming cars if a giant one pulls next to you.
That said, my dream car is a 1942 Chrysler Town and Country, so I guess I can't talk about big cars.
𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑢𝑦 𝑏𝑖𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑢𝑙 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑠.
The 'bigger cars' they are struggling to buy are likely decked out Tahoes or somesuch.
They could do like WE did when WE were hauling kids and stuff: get a cheap minivan.
Yeah, no love for "growing families." I joined ZPG, now called Population Connection, on the first Earth Day. I had none. Why does anyone have more than two (notwithstanding multiple births, of course)?
Same. I actually made the decision at the ripe old age of 7, in 1959. Being a kid in my situation was pretty terrible, and I didn't want to bring anyone else into a world like that. At 7, it didn't occur to me that I could maybe change things. Aside from entering my last chapter with no offspring to look after me, I don't regret my decision.
You have us, Biff.
"But that's not what everyone else is driving! We can't do something DIFFERENT!"
The rent is still too damn high, and home buying is impossible.
I think this is why it pisses off a lot of folks (including me) when people say that the economy is doing great.
I was just reading something that laid out how the traditional 30-year mortgage is working now, with interest rates back at historical levels. Basically, the bank gets 8x more money than the person who sold the house gets.
The trick to homebuying is to find something cheap enough that one can afford the monthly payment, and then pay two to four extra principal payments per year. The easiest way is to add about an additional 20% of the monthly principal payment to every monthly payment.
But that assumes 1) you can find a house you can afford, 2) you can get that mortgage, and 3) you have enough excess income to make those additional payments.
The cost of all other necessities has risen to the point that many of us simply don't have that kind of jack.
I've bought the cheapest home on the market four different times. This time around it's a hundred year old bungalow that was moved here in 1940. Everything needs upgrading, but the cost of said upgrades are out of reach. At my age it doesn't make sense to worry about paying it off. I "only" owe $102K, but it might as well be $1M. I'll just sit here while entropy takes over.
In the last couple of years, I was faced with the decision of trying to get this place, paid off before I retire, or spending the money on upgrades. I decided that the maintenance and improvements put in increase the value of the place, and make it more comfortable to live here.
For me, I’m convinced it was the right decision. The biggest bite the bullet was replacing the non-functioning boiler, which meant upgrading the entire system. it was pricey, but no regrets.
I talked to my son yesterday, who lives in Oregon with his lady love. They are paying a third more to rent an apartment than I am paying for principle, interest, insurance, and taxes. And I’m getting some equity in the process. I struggled in the early years, but I never missed a payment. Now it’s a manageable 15% of my take-home, and it’s my happy place.
Housing prices are ridiculous.
I live in a small remote coastal town that of course, has a lot of 2nd homers buying up what few family homes we have here to live in when they come for 2-3 months out of the year. Places stay empty the rest of the time. Which means that the tiny house on the main road right across from the gravel pit sitting on less than a 1/4 acre and is in desperate need of renovation (and that's just what I can see from the outside), the owner just put it on the market for over $300k.
I'm starting to think that second homes should have the crap taxed out of them to discourage people from doing this.
South Lake Tahoe is considering a vacancy tax to discourage it. The proceeds would go toward new affordable housing projects. The wealthy have always found ways to buy themselves out of uncomfortable situations, though. They'd rather pay a law firm to tie shit up in court than pay the taxes.
Yes. They should be.
My wife and I drive little gas-powered stick-shift vehicles. We're probably going to transition to EV's when it's time to replace them.
We live in a city. Big vehicles are stupid in a city. Twice a year or so I rent a hauling vehicle at Home Depot or U-Haul. It's perfect. The other 363 days a year I don't have to have the damn thing.
Trouble is, it's very hard to actually find a sensible vehicle. Families need station wagons for a few years, but those have been replaced with enormously expensive light trucks. Those trucks are, as you've observed, insanely dangerous on the roads. Their drivers don't know how to drive a truck, either, so the rest of us have to adjust our driving to stay on the safe side of them.
There are no "light" trucks anymore. From the 90's through the 2000's I owned a string of toyota half ton's starting with a 1980. They were affordable, reliable, fixable and now are collectable, for whatever reason, so no longer affordable. The current Toyota half ton's are bloated and way too expensive.
22R’s for the win! I was talking to someone here about that just the other day. Bought mine for $1000 with 100,000 miles on it. Sold it for 500 with 325,000 miles on it, and he drove it out the driveway.
Never really understood the college savings plan thing. Sure, have a college savings account, and watch the college knock down your financial aid award by the same amount.
Worked for us in AK. Since the kid was born we put all his $'s into an AK 529 college savings account. He was able to use it on any Western Network college that accepted him. He got a great reduced tuition and 3/4 of his college tuition is being covered.
P.S. But I don’t blame Biden for this. He’s doing everything he can while having to work with a difficult Congress and even worse SCOTUS.
The problem is that nothing has inflated in price more over the past 40 years than college tuition. Public subsidies of higher education have dropped from about 72% of the cost to about 27%. Colleges have adopted the corporate management model, adding squadrons of executives with their pay, perqs, and assistants.
While focusing on how students can finance the livelihoods of executives, we forget that an educated populace is the backbone of a democracy. It's not supposed to be a private speculation scheme, but here we are. And nobody has any vested interest in examining that.
I'm pretty sure that's all by design.
It is. It all got rolling when the last of the Baby Boomers graduated from college in the mid-70s. A lot of colleges were founded in the 1950s and '60s to accommodate the Boomers, and they faced closure when that demographic pig passed out of the python.
So, they made a deal with Business. Colleges would implement vocational programs as 4-year degree programs, in areas employers had traditionally had to train people for. This saved huge money for large employers, and created a massive group of captive consumers for colleges. The Federal Government sealed the deal by backstopping loans, adding the additional treat of a massive subsidy (in effect) for the lending industry.
In return, employers would require those degrees.
That's when the notion that one has to go to college to get a decent job started. And the rest just followed, very predictably.
I remember my mom being advised against a college savings plan for exactly that reason. Rules may have changed since then, though, and I suppose it depends a bit on your income level. If it's high enough that they're not going to get you subsidized loans anyway, the plans might make sense.
Watching Mission Impossible on TV as a kid, and it gets to the end of the tape, which says if caught the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your action. I thought it referred to a letter typer lady with big hair and a pointy bra.
Rosemary Woods?
Got some snow last night!
https://substack.com/@bluepnwcats/note/c-50769751?r=gc3ns
Sometimes I forget about Neil Young, but some of his older stuff I like a lot.
Long may you run, my friends!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVM8_jAL86w
We love Neil; we're going to a concert in May.
Jonesing for Neil Young (and Joni Mitchell) as my music source is Spotify and they both left in protest of that Rogan asshole. I considered dropping my sub but damn I do love Spotify as a product.
We always have the YTube, my friend. Right after this song about your colon ...
Okay, I've hit all the high points of my To Do List for today, so I can settle back and watch the Everton-West Ham United match while working on:
The Corpse in My Office, Chapter 12
Matzoh Do About Nuttin' (a holiday porn story)
Final Round (another Thursday Prompt story)
Upgrade to Freedom
I woke up at 3:30 this morning, but didn't get out of bed until 4:30.
Loser assmouth is playing the courts like a fiddle 🎻...
Just how the fuck does such a disgusting demented motherfucker aquire such power?
I think that in the same way as he has just made overt the racism and fascism that had largely been disguised, he has just made overt the gaping chasms in the legal system that privilege the wealthy and powerful. That is, it's not just Trump who plays them like a fiddle, he's just made it painfully apparent. Maybe part of why McConnell despises him.
Velshi, (on now) just ran through a list of assmouth's promises if once again, elected and it is scaring the crap out of me.
He would be Putin v 2.5.6.0.9 with a little Mussolini/ Hitler thrown in!
Front for a conspiracy.
It’s the one thing that asshole is good at.
By being born to a rich monster. And then being mentored by another monster.
It’s as mind boggling as it is infuriating.
My ex-temporary housemate left behind his small refrigerator, his expensive Breville air fryer, his expensive Breville Barista expresso coffee machine and his huge set of Le Creuset cookware when he moved into the VA Patriot Place apartments 2 months ago. I've been asking him to come and pick them up ever since, but he never did, and now that he has been kicked out of Patriot Place for breaking the rules and is homeless as far as I know (his family don't know where he is), I set it all out on my back porch yesterday, all in boxes except for the fridge, and where it can't be seen from the street, and told him "Come and pick this stuff up by 7 pm on Friday, March 1 or it will all be donated to the Habitat Restore." It was all still sitting on my back porch at 10 pm.
His family says they don't want this stuff, so I have just called Habitat and they will pick it up this afternoon. I thought about selling it to recover some of the $500 I loaned him last year that I will never get back, but for some reason my Ethics Sensor kicked in and I decided to donate it all. I want nothing more to do with this guy, I don't even want money from selling his stuff, because he is a parasite and a lunatic and he poisons everyone he comes in contact with. I figure someone out there would be absolutely delighted to buy these things from Habitat for a huge discount, and I don't want the bother of selling things on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace right now, and Habitat needs the money more than I do. I've already wasted too many hours in my life over this guy and I don't want to invest one single hour more.
You've done right by the guy. This is on him.
You're a more honorable person than I am. Le Creuset? The Breville stuff?
Why yes, I do covet certain bourgeois trinkets. And those items are on the list.
Yes, it would be wrong to keep them for yourself. I probably would, though. Oh, sure; I'd feel bad about it. But not that bad.
You don't know this guy, he truly is an evil parasite. I wouldn't want anything in my house that he ever touched because it would always remind me of him.
OK, that'd take the greed/fun out of it for me, too. I get it.
But I would think about it for longer than feels decent.
I thought about it for several weeks, but this tiny alarm bell kept going off in the back of my brain.
Holding onto his stuff only maintains a link with him. You want him out of your life. If you save it for him sooner or later he will figure out a way to get back at you.
I used to know someone like this. It is all about the drama and the stress - for him and for you. That's how he connects with people.
Wait what, you don’t want his Breville and Le Creuset stuff? That’s thousands of dollars of high-end kitchen stuff.
I don't want one single thing in my house that would ever remind me of him. He is a truly evil person. It would be like having something in your house that Donald Trump handled on a daily basis. No way. It's a bad aura. I don't even want to sell it. By donating it to Habitat it erases the evil aura.
It's making me itchy.
It's just pretty stuff. I don't need or want any of it.
I hear ya, but I sure would have been tempted to grab the dough!
I'd have been tempted to keep the cookware. that stuff is nice.
Yes, it's very nice, but I already have very nice cookware - a 50-yr-old set of Lustre Craft stainless steel cookware that is in pristine condition because I take very good care of it. My aunt bought it for her daughter's wedding 50 years ago, but the daughter didn't want it for some unknown reason, so Aunt kept it in her basement in the original boxes and gave it to me 30 years ago. I absolutely LOVE this cookware.
Very nice! The original set of All-Clad I bought for myself almost 30 years ago (which happened as soon as I landed my first decent-paying job) is still with me, and it will most likely outlive me.
I have Revere Ware from about then and it is my whole life.
Love my Revere Ware.
Just a thought for safety, have you changed your locks?
Yes. I have keypad locks on 3 exterior doors, and the first thing I did after he moved out was delete all the codes and make a new one for myself.
Very good.
Celtic Kyrie Irving
RE: Robyn’s piece on Texas Tech DB Tyler Owens dismissing “the planets and stuff”. Not the first sportsballers to spout this type of mindless piffle.
Former (temperament jackoff) Boston Celtic believe the world is flat. And he went to Duke.
Former Red Sox outfielder Carl Everett didn’t believe in dinosaurs because they weren’t mentioned in the Bible.
And let’s not get started on Kaaron Rodgers.
Robyn with a sportsball assignment. Bet she filled up her monster wineglass after that was done
In general, it's as ill-advised to get your cosmological understanding from a college sportsballer as it is to get your football commentary from an astrophysics graduate student. Unfortunately, there is an asymmetry in which of these cautions holds sway with the general population.
I would say, “shut up and dribble,” but when they say these things, it helps us appreciate the empty spaces in their heads.
In the other hand, I do trust sportsballers when they recommend a particular plumber or car insurance company.
"And he went to Duke."
But did he really? He was an athlete for Duke.
Kinda makes you want to swing a bat at few hollow heads, doesn't it?
Or swing a shillelagh
Not to be confused with a Monster wineglass, which is the classier way to enjoy your energy drink.
Ever see her wineglass?
I’m going to order a set although I’ve been on a Scotch kick lately