foxbat

Cook changed his name to Tim Apple after Trump called him Tim Apple during their meeting and after Trump double-down on claiming that 1) he actually said Tim Cook Apple really fast, but the Cook part was really soft and the "fake news" didn't report that he said Tim Cook Apple and 2) he also claimed that he said Tim Apple to save time which you also posted in the Donald Trump thread.

What surprises me in this issue is that they were busted by the FBI and not the testing boards. Felicity Huffman's daughter increased her test score from a 1,020 to a 1,420. The girl in Florida, that ETS decided to call out and make insinuations about, had her score go from 900 to 1,230 ... which is less of an increase than Huffman's daughter. BTW, I don't think it's a Hollywood issue but more a money issue. According to ABCNews' coverage of the incident ... emphasis is mine, "Hollywood actors, including Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, and a slew of chief executives are among 50 people charged in a nationwide college admissions cheating scam, according to court records unsealed in Boston Tuesday." https://abcnews.go.com/US/hollywood-actors-ceos-charged-nationwide-college-admissions-cheating/story?id=61627873

If daylight savings time really doesn't save energy and doesn't help farmers, then wouldn't it make more sense to lock in standard time than locking in the artificial daylight savings time? In another words, once we go back this fall, never change the clocks again. Worked for Indiana for a long time until it tried to keep up with the Joneses. Then again, maybe Indiana isn't the best state to use since, even as small as we are, we still have two times zones to start with.

Community patrols aren't necessarily breaking news ... although MCP was originally because of the rumor that they were patrolling specifically to enforce Sharia law.

Too bad he's focusing on saving time by abbreviating names and not focusing on the fact that the new numbers just came out that says that there'll likely be a deficit on his budgets for at least the next two years ... $1 trillion or more.

Was looking at it, actually, from the standpoint that a person who did nothing more than vote in an election in Texas, who had been a convicted felon that had served their time, got five years when Mr. Manafort got less for a whole bunch more. Like you said, apples and oranges, but just interesting how one guys gets a bunch of breaks despite the code and someone gets none for, frankly, what is a lesser issue.

Tell me about it ... Smollett will probably go away a lot longer.

Or here either ...

I don't know. Manafort was pretty ballsy in holding his ground and even screwing up again after being arrested.

The line quoted was Rivera's. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone has an issue with debate, but what she's getting from most people, especially on Fox, is she's crazy, she's a lunatic, she has big teeth and eyes, and also an extreme debate on the far-end of the spectrum that's not about debate, but instead about shutdown. For example, someone might make the statement that there should be a high-speed "autobahn" between Chicago and Indy that would have no upper limit ... the proposal then goes on to point out several benefits. If AOC proposed it, there would be memes about bullet cars and how other cities with these are all socialist. While an unlimited-speed autobahn might well be an unattainable possibility, is there indeed benefit to a protected, separated higher-speed dedicated road between the two cities where the speed might be limited to 100 mph as opposed to unlimited? What does that do to the benefits described in the original proposal and, does it still warrant a look even at decreased benefits or do the decreased benefits end up making it unfeasible. In either case, a debate about the idea rather than the person's teeth or age or eyes or college dancing is probably more productive.

I bet her business probably had a windfall in revenue that year of $130,000 from "a tip."

Interesting support from an unlikely source ... https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/geraldo-rivera-goes-off-script-091605566.html FTA: For the second day in a row, Fox News correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera defended Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a frequent target of ridicule on the conservative network. “I may be the only person in the country who supports both Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Rivera told Martha MacCallum on Wednesday. ... On Wednesday, Rivera went even further in his defense of Ocasio-Cortez, slamming the “bogus” talking points used against her, including the ones getting plenty of air on his own network: “To be so harsh on her, as if the Green New Deal was going to be legislation that’s gonna go into effect and cows can’t fart and airplanes can’t fly, I think that that is a bogus way of looking at her and the class that she represents. This is the most diverse, it is in many ways the youngest, it is the most integrated Congress we’ve ever had. Let them express these ideas.”

That's a scary thought of Trump with a gun ... move over Dick Cheney, you've got company.

Interesting articles talking about the recent PG&E bankruptcy claim is going to end up costing some $30 billion in resultant costs and talking about how the issues of climate change are likely to hit consumers as remaining utility companies pivot to address it. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/pge-questions-coming-bankruptcy#gs.03gei5 https://psmag.com/environment/when-the-climate-changes-the-public-pays-the-price https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2019/01/24/pge-is-just-the-first-of-many-climate-change-bankruptcies/#55ca22297e5f From the Forbes article about PG&E: 3. Customers, who already pay the second-highest rates in the country, are facing annual increases of 12 – 24% over the next three years. The rate increases will likely go on for decades. ... 5. Taxpayers nationally will pay, due to FEMA and other federal agencies’ disaster relief costs.

Interesting ... showed up on a different network without a subscription requirement. On my home computer, it's now asking for a login which I don't have either. Sorry. I did find the following on Haaretz's Twitter site and it seems to link to the article without asking for an id/password:

It's not as if there haven't been plenty of incidents afforded the GOP ... or more specifically afforded by the GOP. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-how-gop-s-anti-semitic-and-neo-nazi-campaigns-fared-in-midterms-1.6633483

You don't want everyone cookie cutter ... hopefully not. In this current state, if everyone we like Rep. Omar or if she was like everyone else, it might be hard getting back to, potentially, some growing level of bi-partisanship. I think Pelosi acted accordingly and, one thing that Pelosi has been very good at is "half-time adjustments." I think by working the vote and having all Democrats vote on it, she sends a general message without having to come crashing down on Omar ... THIS TIME. I think she also buys herself the ability to be tougher, if there is a next time, without blowback from the base. I expect that there will also be a few "Hey can I see you for a minute" meetings where Pelosi does a one-on-one behind closed doors. The GOP has Steve King and folks like Louie Gommert and some of Freedom Caucus guys. The Democrats have Omar, AOC to an extent, and some others who are going to realize that winning a district election doesn't mean you get to bang the Speaker's gavel. I've seen this in business many times as well as in academia ... sometimes you save the "boot in the butt" approach for later and use the "Do I look like I'm worried about getting my boot dirty" whisper approach. I think that Omar will also learn, potentially the hard way that, even though President Obama is gone, he's not so easily forgotten in the Democratic ranks and you don't score any points in the Democratic Party by false bravado attacking him. Time will tell.

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of "from end to end" and also run contrary to the argument that the wall has to be completed all the way across to do what the President is saying that a wall will accomplish? I'm not seeing a huge clamoring for walls for the folks on the border. One that does come to mind is Yuma, AZ, while Douglas, AZ mayor says he'd rather see the money put into infrastructure and education. Town like Nogales, AZ and Columbus, NM where walls/barriers currently exist lament the impacts to the economy and labor market. What you hear many mayors, city councils, etc. expressing for their communities is that instead of walls, they'd like to see more money put into ports of entry and the "accouterments" that come with that. Note that cities of McAllen, Hidalgo, Laredo, Pharr, and Mission combined to send a letter to President Trump expressly addressing this issue in terms that said no to the wall and yes to increases in beefing up activity at ports of entry. This is also similar to sentiments expressed out of El Paso. Their letter points out that 90% of drug seizure are coming through those legal ports of entry which also tracks pretty closely with CBP. CBP also indicated that drugs being seized at non-port-of-entry locations has been declining. In one instance, they point out that 2017 confiscations away from ports of entry was a third of what it was just five years earlier in 2012. At the same time, CBP is reporting increased hard drugs traffic at ports of entry. CBP indicates that, over the past five years, cocaine seizures at ports of entry have increased over 30%, heroin seizures are up 40%, and meth seizures are up 250%. And the benefit of beefing up ports of entry includes the same kinds of things that El Paso has seen ... more law enforcement presence. El Paso often points to the fact that they have PERSONNEL not walls that works toward them having a low crime rate compared to the average of the other 32 largest cities in the country. The other more important item attached to increasing personnel is that it's flexible. If all of a sudden Canadian borders become problem areas and things die down in the south, the personnel is movable ... a wall isn't. If more folks start bypassing southern lab routes and start coming by boat, the personnel is movable. If more resources are needed at ports of entry, personnel are movable ... a wall isn't. http://time.com/5499188/mcallen-residents-not-supporting-border-wall/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/09/border-mayors-ports-entry-donald-trump-speech/2525604002/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2019/01/08/most-hard-drugs-get-smuggled-into-u-s-through-ports-entry/2517586002/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2018/02/23/united-states-mexico-border-patrol-drugs-seized/353260002/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/us/border-wall-crisis-mexico-usa.html https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article152402734.html

As your recent actions show that discussion or knowledge isn't really the end goal.

With regard to legal ports of entry, realize that, since 2007, visa overstays have outnumbered southern border crossings each year and, based on trending data from Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), the undocumented alien population of the US has been pushing toward a tipping point, if it isn't already there, where more are here on overstayed visas than illegal border crossings. In 2014, they estimated 42% of the undocumented population was overstays and that 66% of undocumented aliens were from visa overstays. They estimated that overstay portion had grown to 44% in 2015. So it the idea is to funnel folks through legal ports of entry, that system doesn't work all that well. As for that wall stopping people, note that the current wall structure had over 9,000 breaches between 2010 and 2015 as reported by CBP. So if the idea is that folks are taking the easy way around, then why are there so many folks who aren't, as the President claimed, getting to the wall, turning right and then turning left when they get to the end of the fence?. Earlier this year, some 350+ people entered the country UNDER an existing wall. And we haven't even scratched the surface yet as to issues of environmental impact, private land that will need to be wrestled from the owners, and impact on many of the bi-cultural cities on those borders and the impact on socioeconomic issues. In short, the wall is a great political rallying cry, but it won't have nearly the impact that folks think that it will. And, once it would be build and folks realize that there are all kinds of other ways around, like catching a flight out of Mexico to Canada and then cross there. What does the wall do for us when coyotes figure that they can convince people of the following: When the average cost of coyotes tends to be around $4,000 - $10,000 for access from the south, an extra $400 will be minimal. By the way, realize that there are already coyote equivalents that get people here from Africa, Europe, and China, with costs that range from a couple thousand all the way to six figures ... and the vast majority of those aren't coming through the southern border. In answer to the question, what happens once the wall is built and the breaches happen, the coyotes start using similar methods to non-Central American, non-SouthAmerican, non_Mexican counterparts, and others just come in and overstay? The Maginot Line comes to mind. https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/693488.pdf https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-visa-overstays-border-wall/ https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-01-18/nearly-400-migrants-tunnel-under-border-wall-to-enter-united-states-from-mexico https://openborders.info/human-smuggling-fees/

This is the same thing that happens with El Paso. El Paso has traditionally had a crime rate that's lower than the US average for cities over 500,000 citizens. You can see in the graph below, from the FBI's UCR data, that El Paso's crime rate decreased in similar fashion to the average of the other 32 largest cities in the US Trump blustered that El Paso used to be a dangerous city before it got border fencing and now it's one of the safest when he was getting ready to make his PR trip to El Paso. El Paso has always gotten a bum hit being a border town, just like Laredo, McAllen, Edinburgh, and Brownsville. Those cities are safer than Indianapolis ... by far. Cities along the border will tell you that it isn't the walls that make the cities safer. Many, like El Paso, have been safer than the US average for a while. What border towns will tell you is an increase in PERSONNEL certainly doesn't hurt impacting the rates for the better. Still, Trump's digs at El Paso concerning crime mirror the same issue that many border towns run into ... folks keep trying to scare the bejeezus out of other folks by making claims against those that they claim to help. https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/05/fact-check-state-union-trump-el-paso-crime-rate-fence/2784362002/ https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/opinion/2019/02/15/violent-crime-el-paso-before-and-after-border-fence-column/2875181002/ http://www.epbusinessjournal.com/2016/02/border-communities-have-lower-crime-rates/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/feb/08/donald-trump/no-border-barrier-did-not-drive-down-crime-el-paso/

That's interesting because the "old Muda" used to complain an awful lot about timeouts and posts being censored on GID, often railing against and goading moderators.

Lafayette moved from tubs, to a trash container item, those big black trash containers, for recycling. These containers are larger than the trash containers that the city provides to residents. As such, it doesn't require a different processing for the containers as the trucks are already situated for picking up the large black containers. I haven't confirmed it, but I suspect that the reason that the recycles container is bigger than trash is that it "encourages" homeowners to "utilize" the additional capacity of the recycles container, thus shifting the total bulk of the household outputs. I've not had a chance to look into this, but I know that before the big containers, we easily filled one bin with recyclables and had asked the city for an additional two bins to be able recycle more weekly. Even then, we got to a point with bins full that we were tossing recyclables at the end of the week in with the trash or keeping a separate box that we could put in next week's collection. The new black containers easily hold more than three tubs/bins worth of recyclables and we end up filling it every week. I'm kind of interested in seeing what Lafayette has seen in terms of average household increase in recyclable volume since putting in the new containers and moving away from bins.

It'd probably be better, in that case, for the city/municipality to just have the populace not worry about the sorting part. Studies that I've seen indicate that single-stream tends to increase participation rates although sometimes at the expense of end-recovery. If however, the pickup guys are, in essence, single-streaming the stuff that homeowners are actually separating, then that loss is already factored into the equation. It would seem that letting homeowners single-stream, instead of burdening them with the Sisyphean task of sorting, would generate more participation ... as well as less burden/hurdles on homeowners.