When I lived in Sacramento, I drove through a rough area on my way to the freeway for my commute. And on this drive I passed what had to be the worst looking rental property in town. About six or so units, they were so crappy, so slum lord looking (I used to do property maintenance, and so knew what I was looking at), so much crap sitting around that should go to the dump (dead refrigerators and used mattresses, old wood leaning up against walls, etc.), that it was depressing to even drive past and look at the old and run down cars parked on and around the property. But, given all of that, it had one thing going for it:
It was home to someone. A home that they could afford, a home to keep the rain out, a home to go to at the end of the day and dream of better things.
And one day, on that daily drive to my job, I noticed that there was chain link fencing around the front of the property, blocking all access to it. Attached to that fencing was a white placard, and while I don’t know exactly what it said, I can guess, again from experience:
CONDEMMED.
Now the people who lived there had no home. No place to go to, no place to sit and dream of a better life. Why? Because that was the bottom rung on the housing market, and if you could only afford that shithole there wasn’t much else for you, as you would have left that place as soon as you could.
So, where did those people go? Did they move into another place, a family members home, packing more and more people in? Did they move into a homeless shelter? Did they move into their car, sleeping on a quiet street, or, if they didn’t own a car, were they literally on the street, with no shelter from the rain?
Why was the housing complex condemned? California has strict laws about rentals, and I can see this place not meeting whatever code called for. Many of these laws are to prevent fires, or, at worse, keep them from spreading. Again, by not meeting this code, which can keep people from living in fire traps, people were (possibly) made homeless.
Is it better to be homeless, or live in a shithole? I know were I fall on that question, but it is something that needs to be asked.
Oregon used to not allow you to pump your own gas, and, as far as I am aware, New Jersey still wont allow it. This, of course, mean that someone else needs too, and, as this job does not take much in the way of training or brains, It doesn’t attract the best people. Indeed, fast food is higher up the job chain.
Now, Oregon has made it legal to pump your own gas, and the job of pump attendant has fallen away. There are still some stations that specialize in pumping your gas for you, and as someone who is handicapped, I tend to use that company. A very nice, older woman is usually the person working, and, true to form, she doesn’t seem to… together… in life. But, as this job doesn’t take much even at the busiest times, that is OK. But I got to thinking last time I filled the tank, is this better or worse than someone being on welfare, or the dole, as the Brits would say?
A make work job or being on welfare, which is worse? Economically? Socially? Living in a homeless shelter, or in a below code apartment? At what point is even marginal utility better than being only suitable for a handout?
That is the question.
Bring back mean housing like cold water flats, boarding homes, and even cage housing if you want to reduce homelessness. Of course these have been zoned out of existence for reasons of compassion.
I’m surprised the boarding homes haven’t been brought back in the bigger metro areas, and branded as “Pod living” or the like.
They considered doing something like that in my town. I forget what the fancy name was.
Boarding homes require a level of compliance and courtesy that is less common now than it was 70 years ago.
Remember when Barney Fife was chucked out of his room for cooking (IIRC)?
Surely you’re not saying we have the resources
To save the poor from their lot?
There will be poor always, pathetically struggling
Look at the good things you’ve got!
Driving past a hovel in the middle of the asshole of the world my companion remarked that there should be some kind of government program to help people like that. I dryly suggested that if you gave that person a million dollars today within a year they would be broke and back in that same hovel with pigs running in and out of the doorless entrance.
She thought for a moment and said. “You are right. It just breaks my heart but you are right.”
As some people might remember, my wife is running a non-profit to provide low-income housing, albeit on a very small scale so far (thanks to those who donated!). We are finding that the homeless or near-homeless often are their own worst enemy, primarily due to bad habits that get in the way of getting or retaining a job and keeping housing. Her program only takes people who really want to improve their situation by changing the habits. We turn down many people who you can just tell don’t fit that mold. Mental illness is also a problem for some — it just gets in the way of their being able to function in society; we had to get rid of a couple of tenants who were too disruptive.
“We are finding that the homeless or near-homeless often are their own worst enemy, primarily due to bad habits that get in the way of getting or retaining a job and keeping housing.”
My sister who is a liberal and social worker constantly tells us this to the point that when she sees homeless people begging on the street now, she rarely gives them any money.
At some point I may write an article on our experiences.
Those government programs already exist and have existed for decades.
Some people don’t want them, bless their hearts.
I would agree with this based on the living situation my eldest just escaped. The people in that house aren’t going through some bad luck. They are all making bad decision after bad decision, and don’t see that they’re doing anything wrong.
I did not specify but this happened not in the USA.
“ the homeless or near-homeless often are their own worst enemy”
With some (a few?) exceptions, they are homeless for a reason. And while some (a few?) want to get past that reason, many don’t.
Having listened to JCSS recently I immediately recognized this passage.
One of my favorites.
It comes to mind quite frequently when people are arguing about the poor and homeless.
A factor to consider: Nearly all ‘primitive’ people discovered by more advanced cultures are described as uniformly the most attractive people the observer has seen.
The fittest for survival are seen as more attractive for obvious reasons. Another way to put it is that nature tends to kill off less fit critters. Less fit is seen as ugly, that is the psychology that nature has engineered.
Is it better to be ugly and alive or dead? Ask an ugly person if you want to know the answer.
As an ugly person, I prefer being alive, thanks.
I think that is a poor attempt to make my point. More simply in a more savage world the homeless, poor, mentally ill, sick etc would simply be dead.
I dont get to decide who lives or dies and I dont want that responsibility. If someone is living poorly it is better than not living at all.
I tossed in the ‘I dont get to decide’ bit because I am always stunned by the arrogance of some people that think they are somehow qualified to do so. Not just decided who can live but how those that do, do live.
You’re not a clipboard type, I guess, not interpersonally anyway.
I dont know the history of boarding. Is it forbidden these days?
Generally zoned out of existence.
I think if you work for the CIA and use water, then it is generally accepted.
I’m surprised the boarding homes haven’t been brought back in the bigger metro areas, and branded as “Pod living” or the like.
I think I have seen a few stories about hipster variants of communal/rooming houses.
And groups of tiny houses are hipster trailer parks.
Less comfortable trailer parks.
Attached to that fencing was a white placard, and while I don’t know exactly what it said, I can guess, again from experience:
CONDEMMED.
I saw this coming.
New Jersey still wont allow it.
Yep. Still not allowed. I won’t stop for gas in NJ because of it. Though, NJ used to have very cheap gas despite mandating full serve because at the time NJ had very, very low gas taxes. One of the lowest in the country at the time as I recall. NJ has since raised its gas tax and is now #8 in the country.
A very nice, older woman is usually the person working, and, true to form, she doesn’t seem to… together… in life. But, as this job doesn’t take much even at the busiest times, that is OK. But I got to thinking last time I filled the tank, is this better or worse than someone being on welfare, or the dole, as the Brits would say?
I’m on the better than being on the dole side.
The low taxes are how they hid it. The issue is full service only is driven primarily by women. It’s like Prohibition and women’s suffrage. The NJ legislature was finally ready to kill it and more than few male legislators heard an earful from their wives. My wife who is a typical Team Red fan refuses to listen to any argument about cost or choice when it comes to lack of self service. She likes and wants no part of the repeal. It’s truly bipartisan.
When I was a kid, you could get full-service gas or serve yourself with a price differential.
Exactly. But the “fear” and likely reality is that some businesses will only offer self serve even if they can charge more for full serve.
And unless you have a mega sized station if you have mandated full serve for a fraction of your pumps you may as well be full serve at all the pumps. The labor cost is likely roughly the same.
It drives me nuts.
One of the state senators who was instrumental in killing the bill to allow self-serve in NJ was asked why he opposed it, and his answer was “I don’t like pumping my own gas.”
“Do you know how many hands has touched the gas pump handle? How am I supposed to munch on my Taco Bell as I drove down the road with my hands contaminated by the germs of ten thousand fingers?”
Refuelling gloves. Duh
Refuelling gloves. Duh
Well played.
*with a whiny voice*
“The glove dispensers are always empty!”
When I was younger we had a service station that offered both full and self service. My mom appreciated the guys check tire pressure, oil level, windshield washer fluid, and what-not.
Full service has gone the way of the Dodo, and I haven’t seen one for at least 20 years here in Texas.
Concierge gasoline would be nice.
I saw a story recently by some Berkley college student about sharing a house with a bunch of other girls. I kept waiting for the moan about how it was unfair to have to share bedrooms and bathrooms, but she said it was a great experience. It was as if these girls had stumbled onto something truly unique and innovative. I bet her mom and dad got a good laugh out of it.
I’ve lived through both, happily and unhappily crowded. The good memories of the former outweigh the latter.
Recipe for meningitis.
This also brings to mind my still unanswered question of what will we all do when AI and robotics makes us unemployable. That is not some pie in the sky distant future. We are in it now and it will happen within our lifetimes, maybe a lot sooner than we think. I think most people will just want to get stoned and fuck all day.
When that time comes what will you all do?
One of the benefits of retirement up until now has been that only old people get to retire. That is, mature, wiser and more disciplined people. What about younger less wise people with too much time on their hands? Looking at the children of the idle rich does not give me much hope.
when AI and robotics makes us unemployable.
I don’t believe that will happen.
The roboEnts are already in the prototype stage.
I want a gardening robot that plows the ground, plants the seeds, takes care of the weeds and pests, and harvests the vegetables. All powered by solar energy.
In a robot manufacturing world, human crafted products might command a premium, allowing people to make a living. And if everyone has a solar-powered gardening robot, then people will be less likely to starve.
Won’t we a need a repair robot to repair the gardening robot? And who will repair the repair robot?
I just finished reading Farmer Boy to my seven year old.
The Wilders worked incessantly, but they lived well. I don’t know how long it took Almanzo’s father to acquire all his capital (barns, tools, land, etc.), but by the time Almanzo was nine years old, the way their lives were described sounds pretty comfortable and safe (as safe as a farmer’s life can be, considering weather and pests and the like). They had it set up where they produced everything they needed, from food to clothes, and any extra was sold on the market for “boughten” products.
But they worked from before dawn to after dusk to survive and thrive.
They also wasted nothing. Everything they grew was used for some purpose.
They did it without robots.
But think if we had robots that could do all that. We would need to decide what to grow, and then punch the orders into the robot and let ‘im go.
Re: repair robots.
Of course, unless you want to do the repairs yourself.
A whole industry could be built up around “Gardening Robot Repair for Dummies.”
Farmer Boy is what I call the “food porn” book.
I have a Dunham story tickling my mind about the guy who took the bullwhip to the “big boys.” Now, I don’t know if that actually happened or not, but there was a newspaper article with that story in it about that time. Then again, newspapers back then printed fiction.
I can’t find it with a google search, but I did pay to download the article. I may post it when I get to my office.
Also, the Wilders had lots of kids and at least two strapping young men to help.
Now, they lost their “fortune” (the subtext; not sure how they’re defining fortune) going to Louisiana with Eliza Jane and investing in something she recommended. Rice maybe? I can’t remember.
Eliza Jane was something else.
She had “bossy-know-it-all-who-is-really-clueless” type personality.
She wasn’t all bad, I guess. She did cover for Almanzo’s messing up the guest parlor.
So Laura and her daughter Rose didn’t get along. If you ask Rose, Laura was controlling. If you ask Laura, Rose was totally out of control. Given Rose’s life and adventures, I’m going to assume Laura was controlling insofar as she wanted Rose not to die of stupidity.
Anyway. Rose didn’t want to go to school. She hated it, most likely because she wasn’t challenged. So Laura let her not go to school. BUT Eliza Jane offered to host her in Louisiana so she could go to high school and graduate there. Rose jumped at the chance, Laura said “well, why not,” and Eliza Jane ended up being a really good influence/mentor to Rose.
I already did a Dunham story with Laura at the center of the plot (or rather, the impetus of the plot), and that my main character pretty much built her life and profession around Laura (in Mansfield).
I think most people will just want to get stoned and fuck all day.
I think you answered your own question.
I was referring to people like myself. I am married and never had any use for dope. Also, I quit drinking a couple of years ago.
Garden, keep bees, collect more guns and books…I guess I would do the same things I do now.
I have (or had) a narrow strip of land (9 acres) along a small river. It would have been perfect to built a 3 apartment long building. I could have done most of the work myself. Then the zoning laws… There would have been so much over sight that I’d have had to hire it would not have been economically viable. Instead, I gave it to my niece and asked her not to sell it until I died. She will never build there, as a city girl.
I’m putting an adjacent piece on the market now, the prices have become unbelievable. It’s almost easy to understand squatters that move into unused property. Everyone has to live somewhere, tough to live in a tent in a MN winter.
Thanks, Zwak, interesting and something that is tough to solve
Why was the housing complex condemned? California has strict laws about rentals, and I can see this place not meeting whatever code called for.
An offshoot of “That job sucks. We’d rather see you starve.”
I am in search of non-political positivity that doesn’t just remind me of what is missing.
I had tried to write that as a joke, but it turned so cruel and mean-spirited that I didn’t like the person who wrote it.
Stop the presses!
Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk’s eldest child, has spoken out publicly about her father, saying that Musk “definitely [did] a Nazi salute” at two rallies in January and that he is part of a White House that’s “cartoonishly evil”.
In a new interview with Teen Vogue, her second interview with the media since she publicly denounced her father last year, Wilson, 20, said that the things her father has been doing in the federal government were “fucking cringe”.
“The Nazi salute shit was insane. Honey, we’re going to call a fig a fig, and we’re going to call a Nazi salute what it was,” Wilson said. “That shit was definitely a Nazi salute.”
Wilson entered the public eye last year after Musk spoke about her in a podcast, saying that he had been “tricked” into signing documents so that Wilson, who was 16 at the time, could receive gender-affirming medical treatment.
Teen Vogue, a totally reliable source. Why wouldn’t we listen?
I bet dollar to donuts that if Musk croaked tomorrow, his eldest child would be celebrating his death on one hand and at the same time going to the executor of his estate hoping that he left her a crap load of money despite her hatred of him.
I hope he already had the good sense to cut xer off.
Man, the whole “we found a relative of someone we hate who agrees with us” bullshit just pisses me off. It doesn’t provide any objective insight or logical argument. And it’s not just the left, Fox News does this crap too.
It’s an incredibly disgusting tactic meant to prove some stupid ass point. “See, this person we hate is so bad that even their own kid hates them!”
Families are complex and messy and to use that to your political advantage is an incredibly immoral thing to do.
One of my recent favorites in this genre.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-dei-mother-in-law-lakshmi-chilukuri/
Well, at least she sounds really smart and thoughtful. I mean in totally not fucking cringe sort of way honey.
The first thing that the cult does is isolate the mark from their family.
Further, ‘Vivian’ may be proof that IQ is not heritable…
Her mother may have been a dumb shit.
Anyone who truly believes that Elon gave a Nazi salute is a fucking moron who couldn’t be relied on to tie their own shoes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-hZr-kLpbw
(Could someone please remind me how to skip to 3:33 ?)
Right click on the video and select copy at current time.
Merci buckets*, Rhy.
*You’ll get the reference someday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdSavg_i_lw
https://youtu.be/z-hZr-kLpbw?t=214
Right-click, ‘copy video URL at current time’ (or you can do the math and append the t=seconds manually)
Yeah, I knew t and s entered into it.
“(Could someone please remind me how to skip to 3:33 ?)”
You also just stop the vid at 3:33, click on “Share” and then check the box which shows “Start at…”
Crazy people say crazy things? Who knew?
Adele?
“…Teen Vogue…”
*sound of screeching tires*
Aaaaaand I’m out.
Econtalk had an episode with a French urban planner, where they talked about small apartments in New York and how they were a good temporary solution for people just starting out. I think it was this episode: https://www.econtalk.org/alain-bertaud-on-cities-planning-and-order-without-design/
Last summer we stayed in an AirBnB in an old tenement in the Bowery in NYC. The interior was fixed up, but I bet it was a real dump back in the day. No way I would want to live there. Small, bad ventilation, little natural light, little privacy. But if my other alternative was to live on the street, this would have been the better choice. For that matter, we chose this AirBnB because we didn’t want to pay the even more outrageous prices hotels were charging.
My mom used to talk a lot about her college living situation at UC Santa Barbara (before it was a UC and when it was actually in Santa Barbara). She was in a sorority house which was basically a regular house. There were about 10 women sleeping on bunk beds in the garage. That would be considered unbearable now. When she moved to SF she lived in a boarding house, which was actually in a nice part of town and probably was a pretty decent place, but that’s probably been zoned out of existence.
The whole completely internal “air shaft” with windows in the back really blows me away. The first time I was in one I was astounded.
https://www.villagepreservation.org/2022/05/17/the-evolution-of-tenement-typologies-in-the-east-village/
We were in one of those. The bathroom window opened up to the airshaft. For some reason there was no curtain in the window, so if we hadn’t hung up a towel, the neighbors could have seen us shower. I don’t really care if they see me, but I didn’t want a bunch of pervs looking at my daughter. It was fine for a few days, but I probably would have gone crazy if I was locked down in a place like that during Covid, and I can’t imagine what it must have been like at the turn of the century with poor lights and no a/c. It also makes me think that, how bad must the alternatives have been that people chose to live in those places?
Seen a similar situation. Have a neighbor, probably paranoid schizophrenic, but managing to maintain her house with regular help from local charities (rides to store/shopping, etc). Pulling enough in SS disability to keep it together. The FUCKING ASININE response to covid tipped her over the edge I think. Long story short/minimize details, I’ve brought her a pre-paid phone so she could reconnect with the charities, food, water, propane – utilities are off. Wrt to the later, her house is in very bad shape now, bad roof, leaky pipes probably (if the water was on), etc. Wood piled inside to keep warm and cook (no power). I expect I really should call social services to get her back in line, but I’m not – I suspect the would do a welfare check, declare her house “uninhabitable” and lock her out. So is homeless better than what she’s doing now? I don’t think so, so we stay with the status quo. Hard to improve her lot because getting anyone involved would probably end up with her being worse off with a condemned house.
Elon Musk is uniquely driven, self-centered and distant. Not at all like other creative personalities.
Nobody ever called Pablo Picasso an asshole.
To his face?
When Dalí learned that Picasso had been selected as the artist to paint the primary mural of the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, Dalí raged against him and claimed “Picasso was a great Reactionary.” After Gen. Francisco Franco’s victory over the Republican government, Dalí cultivated the dictatorship and became a favored artist of the regime.
It’s all good now!
I was not provided with the opportunity.
I still wonder why he gave up art but kept painting.
Yeah, they did. He was a solid gold asshole and lots of people pointed that out. That is what I have heard. I never actually met the guy.
A whole industry could be built up around “Gardening Robot Repair for Dummies.”
Naturally, you’d never be able to resist the urge to hop up your gardening robot; you know, bigger stronger faster. Soon there would be gardening robot competitions.
NASGARden
Gardening Killbots!
501(c)(3) organizations – eliminate completely or tighten restrictions?
– I am for eliminate completely
I am a member of an organization that is 501(c)(3).
So, I guess that I am biased.
But, I don’t have a problem with them.
I was trying to find the page that said what exact type of nonprofit this site is.
I gave up.
The “About Us” page says this (you may have found it already):
We are a registered Texas Non-Profit Foundation. We are NOT a 501(c)(3) and any donations you may make to help keep the lights on are NOT tax-deductible.
Of course it doesn’t say what it is.
I am biased, too, because of my wife’s non-profit. Of course, not all non-profits are created equal. With the exorbitant salaries at some, clearly somebody is making hay, even if there is no net profit on the books. At my wife’s, all the board members — including me — take no salary. The only people who get paid are the electricians, plumbers, etc., who do work on the property. So maybe stricter requirements would be good, although I’m sure people would find work-arounds for them.
– I am for eliminate completely
Abolish “nonprofit” as a class/concept. Certainly as a marker of any sort of moral or ethical superiority.
I love this. Wanna add more but gotta rush Dad to phys therapy for his knee replacement. A similar thing for me is employment. *Any* work is better than unemployment. My walking on tendinitis’d hips for 8+ miles a day likely isn’t good for shit, but it doesn’t bark in pain. Any work is work.
I had my vocational rehab intake today. The nice lady said a big part of what they (try to) do is to help certain people acquire Survival Jobs. Just simple shit, though I don’t know what that is. I came prepared, with my intro letter, med docs and especially my x-rays and craniectomy brain scan. She was all on board with my scheme, which we actively talked about once I sussed her out:
Pretty much, I do a great job of “passing.” I fit the Disabled box for companies, while also being educated and quite capable. (Of certain things. No math.) (I still quibble with myself about how disabled I really am, though then I remind myself I had a seizure Feb 7. Damn good puppy.) She was kinda excited. Intake done, and they wanna do a Neuro test of some sort. (Free to me. Supposedly $2k otherwise. My pics were persuasive.) Then this gal Lexi (“You’ll love her!”) is gonna get in touch. We’ll see how shit plays from here.
Good luck; I hope it works out for you.
Also, for your dad’s physical therapy.
My dad was doing some sort of physical therapy a couple of years ago, and he thinks (but can’t prove) that the physical therapist pushed him too hard, and broke his back. He has been suffering from a broken back since then.
Have you considered freelancing editing on Fiverr or similar sites?
The MSM has no clue how to report on aircraft accidents. I read three articles all focusing on focusing on the Delta crash airplane’s 140kts airspeed which is appropriate for landing. It’s the rate of descent we care about. Finally found a useful article.
https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/canadian-investigators-highlight-crj900s-descent-rate-prior-to-february-toronto-crash/162293.article
In a preliminary accident report released on 20 March, the agency says the CRJ900 had been descending at 1,098ft/min the instant before it hit runway 23 with 3g of vertical acceleration. The landing caused the jet’s right-side main landing gear to fail, with the TSB noting that the gear’s shock struts “are designed to absorb energy” of a 720ft/min descent when the aircraft is at its maximum landing weight.
Ouch!
I’ll email you my freelance editing rates.
Annnnnnnnd…he misses the tag. This couldn’t be more perfect.
My freelance rates are extremely low.
You could have stopped at “The MSM has no clue how to report.”
Or “The MSM has no clue.”
140 Vref might be a tad high for a CRJ900 (won’t be at MTOW) but not unbelievable. What would be interesting is the trend on final, was it 1000+fpm all the way down, or just in the last moment. I do remember watching that video and thinking they didn’t try to roundoff. I have had a wind shear event that went from “nope you aren’t going to ever land” to “down elevator, bam, you are now on the runway and bent your left gear”
I posted a video shortly after the accident where a pilot went through the video and did some geometry to determine where and how fast the aircraft was going in the last moments.
It was on a proper path to the touchdown zone and then suddenly descended below the path.
So, vertical speed at impact was much greater than just shortly before impact.
Interpret as you wish.
3g of vertical acceleration.
Somebody was in a hurry. The pilot must have needed to shit.
Well, had a discussion with somebody on Twitter this morning that’s kinda related. How far should we as a society go to save stupid people from themselves? Who decides who’s too stupid to live? Him? Me? Some disinterested or overly enthusiastic do-gooder bureaucrat somewhere?
The fundamental issue is that there isn’t one kind of stupid.
There are lots of stupid people that are very well educated. And they tend to be the kind of people that want to control the lives of other stupid people.
I’m not even sure that stupid is the problem, per se. I know too many really smart homeless people, and too many people who are clinically retarded, but who live very comfortable and fulfilling lives with surprisingly little assistance.
A worse problem than stupidity, I think, is laziness and poor executive function…
Yes. The real issue is impulse control and decision making.
This guy gets it. Impulse control is the biggest culprit in most people’s misery. The really chronically poor people I have seen made some of the dumbest life decisions imaginable and they were all because of poor impulse control.
“There are lots of stupid people that are very well educated.”
Hey, now!
“ The real issue is impulse control and decision making.”
Yup. A consistent lack of impulse control and a history of bad decisions (mostly due to short term thinking, IMO) gets bundled up under the term “stupid”.
I have to draw a line between helping stupid people, and setting up an infrastructure that claims to be there to help stupid people but merely perpetuates itself.
As for helping stupid people, you can only help them as far as they’re willing to help themselves. Eventually, all you can do is make sure they don’t take other people with them.
We as a society shouldn’t do a fucking thing. If you want to do something, I might be interested in helping out though.
I would say that the stupid person does most of the deciding.
The Lady, or the Tiger?
How you coping, Moj?
Thanks, ToG. Holding up okay, I guess. Got left-sided chest pain, but just had an echo and I saw the pix. Heart is right and tight, so I’m thinking the stress and anger is getting to my body.
Went and got Mom. Didn’t make it to the hairdresser because she’s not as strong as she thought she was. Barely got her in the house, but she’s resting and comfortable in the room I fixed up for her.
I told her I didn’t want to talk about Cunty Aunt Susie, although I am not to use the word “cunt” in her presence, but of course, it comes up because I say, though her being sick and all my chores related to that are demanding—that’s not a problem. It’s life stuff. It happens. It must be dealt with.
It’s the property and Susie that’s got me wound up because she is a child holding her breath, and she’s gotten away with it so long because people don’t call her bluff. I don’t see her as a worthy opponent. I see her as a child throwing a tantrum, and I’m the parent who’s not going to give a shit if she turns blue holding her breath because she WILL breathe at some point.
However. I told Mom that Susie has as much to lose as she does if the property goes to auction, and Mom said something I’ve started to wonder about: “I don’t think she understands that.” So, if I think of Susie as a child, she’s a retarded one. Do I let a retarded child have her way to save the smart child’s assets?
Um, probably not?
Uhhh… How clever are your lawyer, CAS, and her lawyer? Your mother, for that matter.
Do I let a retarded child have her way to save the smart child’s assets?
50% of zero is zero. From what you’ve described, it doesn’t seem likely that your mother will see any money if CAS has the choice to decide. That’s the whole point of the petition, right?
I’m sorry to see you going through all of this.
Yes, that’s the point of the petition. But if the retard can’t figure out she’s going to get nothing by holding her breath, then …
Gay.
rage knows no bounds
🎶…Someday we’ll find it
The rainbow protection
The MAGA
The Normies
And me
La-dee-dee-DAH-dee-dee…”🎵
OT – Don’t know if this was one of the reasons for your question the other day.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/plex-ups-its-price-for-first-time-in-a-decade-changes-remote-streaming-access/
Hrm – will probably bite the bullet on Lifetime now – been paying yearly for too long anyway.
It’s totally what put them on my radar.
I’m not gonna sign up though. After looking closer at it, I don’t need it.
I’ve had it for years, running on my NAS.
Video aside, I quite like it for PlexAmp for getting access to my music outside the home.
https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/
Erdogan pulling a Romania on the leading rival candidate. Maybe Turkey is ready to join the EU.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/19/istanbul-mayor-arrested-ekrem-imamoglu-days-before-likely-presidential-nomination-erdogan-ntwnfb
Who’s up for some peduncle elongation?
I know I will get some at home soon.
Braggart
Doesn’t that hurt?
No kink shaming.
I suppose the story regarding property taxes has already been covered in previous threads, but I saw this a short while ago:
The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits taking private property for public use without just compensation. But courts covered for local governments by playing semantic games, deeming property taxes a “tax” and not a “taking.” Now, local governments can confiscate people’s property in slow motion, by degrees and increments, in a long series of razor cuts, through perpetual property taxation— free from legal consequences of calling the process a “taking.”
By Jeff Childers
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/mongoose-love-thursday-march-20-2025?r=d0r3d&utm_medium=ios
From the same post (but from a different story):
It was great to see an Obama judge even-handedly applying the law, but one hidden nugget quickly became the most interesting part of the story. We learned more about the unprecedented warp speed at which the Trump team is running. the Journal reported, “A cybersecurity expert” —meaning, a hacker— “had driven from Georgia to DC in the middle of the night at DOGE’s request to help DOGE staffers access the institute’s computer systems.”
DOGE called in a hacker in the middle of the night! That, friends, is not the speed of government. It’s not really even the speed of business. This is something completely different.
This is the speed of war.
There is another story in the same post that is related to Suthen’s query about AI upthread:
They had ChatGPT review real-life convictions, to determine whether or not to overturn them.
ChatGPT did not, while humans who were presented with case files that presented the convicted persons in a favorable light *would* overturn the convictions
Posner and Saran wrote that the artificial judge “is a true formalist: it neither refers to nor bases its rulings on sympathy and avoids policy considerations” when explaining its decisions.
The researchers didn’t just leave it there. They pressed onward. They specifically asked GPT to re-evaluate the cases, this time accounting for human elements.
But it didn’t work. “While AI often acknowledges the defendant’s sympathetic traits,” they wrote, “it ultimately disregards them as irrelevant to the outcome of the case.”
“You know, Danny, I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. I didn’t want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.”
I agree. We need allodial title and get rid of the fucking income tax. I know there are lots of people that cannot imagine that world but fuck them.
On the gas pumping issue above: Here stations have a sign by the pumps next to an intercom. If you need assistance or want your gas pumped you call the clerk, no extra charge. I have only seen one instance of someone doing that. The guy was in a wheel chair. He was calling the clerk and then cancelled because I pumped his gas for him.
Also, that thing about women supporting a gas pumper law, that is some bullshit right there. You want your gas pumped for y? That’s fine. Mandating it by law? That is not fine. Fuck those people.
I remember the transition from service stations to gas stations.
I do recall stations posting full and self service prices.
Chicago Flop House from the late 1970’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61GfuwDE1xk#ddg-play
Naturally started in NYC.
https://www.wsj.com/style/fashion/sock-shoes-brave-pudding-sarah-fiszel-1b7e128b?st=rPPKSq&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Add a toe separation and those could be ninja shoes.
Sock shoes have been trending for years, with a first wave in 2017 after Vetements and Balenciaga showed versions on the runway, and a second in the 2020s, after the Row debuted their viral mesh-sock slippers. Fiszel created what might be the trend’s most literal interpretation yet.
So, moccasins- that’s cultural appropriation!
soccasins
“If it was a public company, it would be delisted immediately,” Musk said of the government. “It would fail its audit, and the officers of the company would be imprisoned.”
Full faith and credit, FTW!