MERCURY RETROGRADE, I repeat, we are in a time of MERCURY RETROGRADE. This particular periods will be characterized by abnormally high rates of spillage, breakage and other forms of alcohol abuse.
Other than that, there’s not a lot. On Tuesday there will be change/chaos/disorder (but not necessarily malice) in domestic matters thanks to a brief hookup between the moon and MERCURY RETROGRADE.
The Moon in Virgo declares that this is the Week of the Woman(tm), so half the world (but unfortunately no libertarians) will have a good time. While Aquarius will have a bit of a disruption thanks to MERCURY RETROGRADE, on Monday, it will add Venus to its harem of planets, so literally everything will be awesome, unless you’re a boxer.
So while the stars are saying everything is going to be great, the cards are saying “yeah right, bitch.” Divinatory technique smackdown week is a go! Just FYI, any time a wands card is reversed, there’s also a suggestion of erectile dysfunction. Enjoy!
Aquarius: Ace of Wands reversed – Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish
Pisces: Page of Swords reversed – The evil side of authority, spying, what is unforeseen, unprepared state, sickness
Aries: Knight of Wands reversed – Rupture, division, interruption, discord.
Taurus: 5 of Swords reversed – Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonor, loss
Gemini: 2 of Cups – Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy
Cancer: The Hanged Man – Wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy
Leo: King of Wands reversed – Good people being severe, the downside of honesty
Virgo: 3 of Wands – Established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, commerce, discovery, able co-operation in business
Libra: The Chariot reversed – Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat
Scorpio: Ace of Cups reversed -House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
Sagittarius: Queen of Swords – Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation
Capricorn: 9 of Cups – Concord, contentment, physical bien-être, victory, success, advantage, satisfaction
In before the hungovers!
Libra: The Chariot reversed – Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat
Because FYTW!
No comment
Well, shit
Clearly Not Adahn needs to find his happy place.
HA!
I need to start a gofundme.
https://www.amazon.com/Penn-International-VIS-Speed-Reel/dp/B074WJB3W8/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Penn%2BInternational%2BVIS%2FOffshore&qid=1612111333&sr=8-1&th=1&psc=1
Thatsbadass
That’s a work of industrial art, that is.
Oh my.
At that price shit just got reel.
You have some serious fishing in mind I take it.
Are we entirely sure we haven’t been in Mercury Retrograde – or SOME flavor of retrograde – since very early in 2020?
Sagittarius: Queen of Swords – Widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation, separation
I’m safe, I think.
FYI, any time a wands card is reversed, there’s also a suggestion of erectile dysfunction.
Whiskey. Always blame the whiskey.
So… same shit different week?
DEG! We keep missing each other somehow. In answer to your question of a couple of weeks ago (that I never got back to because, again, we keep missing each other); yes that really is her. No it is not me. Stuff from a previous life to try and make some money.
Ahh… that makes sense.
I’m getting this vague sense that something might be wrong from this article, NA. Is it . . . possible . . . that it’s ***MERCURY RETROGRADE***?
Gemini: 2 of Cups – Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy
Now it gets good. Farg!
Weather update: There is not one friggin cloud in the sky. Purple mountains all around covered in new snow but nothing down here as God intended. *eyes snow board bag on top of the cabinets* I took a drive this morning just to take a drive. Well, that and I was almost out of tequila.
Cold, grey, and wet here in Seattle. Wife and I are planning a nice long walk in the afternoon. Along the Sound, through a forest, to the butcher shop. About six miles round trip. We’re gonna wait till it’s reeeaaally rainy. Booze is well stocked. Big fat pork chops for dinner.
WA is the most beautiful place in the united states the three days a year the sun comes out. Been there. I went a bit crazy because I am not used to no sun and didn’t deal with it well. You seem to have a bit more of a positive outlook on life than I did though. Enjoy the walk!
Running in the cold and rain is optimal; you don’t get overheated. Plus the rain reduces the number of obstacles (bikers, runners, pedestrians, dogs) out on the sidewalks and trails.
For afternoon walks, we invested in some decent rain gear, and resolved our minds to “we’ll get wet.” Basically at this point we look for puddles to jump into and splash through everything. And again, less obstacles on the trails. Also we’re drinking screwdrivers with breakfast, so should be feeling fine.
Depends where you are. We get 3 months of boring blue sky on the east side.
I was in the CG. Westport. It was an interesting time in my life. Me and whats her face number one did do a camping trip to the Olympic Peninsula in the VW camper van I drove there from Key West and that was cool. Both the drive and the camping trip. Life at 45 MPH is not so bad when you usually go too fast and are kind of lucky to be alive.
You should see the locals when it goes 3 days without clouds – just unrelenting sunshine. They get very confused.
If I skied x-country, I could go right outside my door this morning. By Wednesday I’ll probably be in sandals.
I’m in sandals now. Socks and sandals but ya. Sandals.
The snowpocalypse has begun here.
Thursday, bombardment
Yep, the shelves in the local Giant this morning looked like some Soviet-era supermarket.
The last time I was actually in a grocery store prior to a snowstorm there were three groups of people. 1) people buying what appeared to be normal recurring groceries, 2) the milk and bread people* and 3) people buying beer/wine. I was in the latter.
*I do not understand these people.
Don’t forget the eggs. As I’ve said (too often, I’m sure,) we call them the French toast zombies. (Used that name for an ad hoc band once, filling in with a friend whose bandmate had bailed on account of the threat of bad weather.)
Hrrmm… I have bread and eggs, I could make french toast… but I’d have to make my own syrup.
Mapleine, sugar, and water. I doubt you have Mapleine.
I could make a compote instead.
Grape jelly on French toast is lovely. Honey will do in a pinch.
Mapleine?
LOL I was waiting for that!
Maybe you’re born with it?
*remembers childhood spice cabinet*
I was. Heh.
I got honey but no jelly.
I got dried fruit and sugar.
I’m not going to make french toast.
That is a horrible Haiku.
OK GT & Hype get gold stars for this sub-thread.
: (
Maybe just lots of butter & powdered sugar?
Or even cinnamon sugar.
Fixed it-
Honey, no jelly.
I got dried fruit and sugar.
Not making French toast.
T-minus a few hours here.
Oh never mind. From the radar it looks like about T-minus 10 minutes.
I hope I don’t need anything.
Gray, dreary, and cold.
Snowed here this morning from 430ish to 1030ish (got about 4″ on the deck) then changed to sleet then changed to rain. It is a wet mess as I expected.
Credibility
President Joe Biden and a strong majority of congressional Democrats say they can pass a bill to increase hourly minimum wage to $15 an hour or more by March, with or without any Republican support.
Biden and top Democratic lawmakers have reignited a push to increase the federal minimum wage for the first time in 12 years, promoting legislation that aims to pull 28 million full-time workers out of poverty by 2024.
——-
“With the economic divide, I mean, I want to see a $15 minimum wage. It should actually be $20,” said Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, according to an Associate Press article published Saturday.
Democrats have cited an Economic Policy Institute study which found one in nine U.S. workers are paid wages that keep them in poverty despite working full-time. Congressional Budget Office research suggests 27 million Americans could be pulled out of poverty by a $15 wage hike, but 1.3 million workers could lose their jobs because companies would reduce their workforce in order to pay workers the higher rate— something Republicans have dubbed a no-go amid pandemic job losses.
Moderate Republicans including Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and Representative Tom Reed of New York agree with raising the minimum wage, but expressed worries to the AP about including such legislation in the next COVID-19 relief bill.
“The more you throw into this bucket of COVID relief that’s not really related to the crisis, the more you risk the credibility with the American people that you’re really sincere about the crisis,” Reed told the AP. Murkowski agreed and said tying the $15 hourly wage hike to the pandemic relief bill “complicates politically an initiative that we should all be working together to address.”
Sure, why not? It’s only money. What could possibly go wrong?
“C’mon, man! Money’s just an idea!
That’s not entirely wrong, tho.
Gold, Platinum, Silver and Copper all have at least a limited applications. If you’re talking fiat, no argument.
If you’re talking Fiat, just make sure he takes precious metals (slaps knee)
If you’re talking Fiat, you’ve got strange taste in cars.
I wasn’t going to judge.
Wow that was bad:
a few limited applications
just make sure your mechanic takes precious metals
Think some more my way.
Just another nasty ploy to increase unemployment in low-cost states, which doesn’t include too many run by Democrats. And 1.3 million workers could lose their jobs? In this environment? If 27 million are going to be affected by this, I’d say they should multiply that estimate by a factor of ten.
Not that we’re going to see the money anyway. I make less than $15/hr, and when I do overtime, I find that over a quarter of it is taken out in various taxes.
That is because there is a withholding threshold table. So if you make $X amount on your usual paycheck, you get Y% taken out.
If you go over a certain threshold of gross pay, you get quite a higher percentage taken out. It sounds like with overtime, you go over the threshold.
Each dollar I make in overtime has ~12% taken out for federal income tax, 5.9% for NYS, 6.2% for SS, 1.45% for Medicare, and then a bit for NY’s family leave which, as I mentioned a few weeks back, started out at 1.60 per biweekly pay period in 2019, went up to 2.85 last year, and is now at 5.20. And that’s without overtime.
To add, I worked at a place where I got paid once a month. Withholding on that was significantly higher than it would have been with biweekly or twice monthly pay.
The 2020 (federal) withholding tables have changed that to where withholding should be relatively close to your final tax burden if you have a simple tax situation. I’d still get a refund because I can claim the 401k credit, but a modest one.
Of course, this also resulted in a lot of people getting smaller refunds, and our idiot media deliberately leading people to believe this meant they were paying more in tax. I ran the numbers when the Trump tax reforms went through, and paid about $400 less under the new brackets than the Obama-era brackets. So the idea that the Trump tax cuts only helped the rich is complete bullshit, but everybody here already knew that.
I forget that things change. I haven’t worked a paycheck job in 17 years and I know how to maximize my deductions. My husband takes the maximum allowed exemptions, but we pay so much in health insurance and 401(k) that we still end up with a refund because of various other credits. I have ordered our financial life around the Schedule C, although the house repairs were killing us.
However, I do still remember not making much as a single and still owing Uncle Sam. Just after 9/11, the Bush stimulus only meant my debt was forgiven.
At least withholding can be adjusted. Used to bug the heck out of me by coworkers that would conflate withholding percentages and final taxable amounts. “Lump sums are taxed at a higher rate.” Gahhh!
Yeah; it’s just that I know what my paycheck is with a standard 80-hour biweekly pay period, and how much gets taken out of marginal dollars above that.
They’re continuing to pound on the hospitality sector.
legislation that aims to pull 28 million full-time workers out of poverty by 2024.
And drives another 56 million into it when their jobs are eliminated altogether?
Narrator: “There are not 28 million Americans living in poverty, you lying sacks of shit.”
Alaska needs to purge Murkowski in the next election.
Well, Alaska Republicans tried that a few years back.
Scorpio: Ace of Cups reversed -House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution
His truth is marching on
with or without any Republican support.
As if they care about having Republican support to pass legislation. (See: PPACA)
promoting legislation that aims to pull 28 million full-time workers out of poverty by 2024.
Assuming they still have jobs.
It should actually be $20,” said Representative Rashida Tlaib
Sure. Why not $50? It is not as if I and others have had to learn/labor and gain experience to get to where I and others earn north of $20/hr these days.
I’m willing to compromise. In Tlaib’s district, it will be $20. Everywhere else, whatever the employee and employer agree to.
They recently remodeled our local McDonalds. I know #youpeople are way to classy to go to McDonalds but I do go there some mornings when I am too lazy to make myself breakfast for my drive to work. The new remodel included four order here screens and the counter is shrunk by four feet. from what I can tell there are four people on shift there now when there used to be maybe double that.
Sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffins #FTW
Yep, that automation came here six or seven years ago already. I’d say the average McDo’s around here has had a 40 to 45% staff haircut from the early Oughts, and they’re probably pumping through the same amount of meals, if not more.
And I’m a fan of the McMuffin, and occasionally (because it’s a ridiculously good value compared to everything else on the menu) the double cheeseburger, which should be available for breakfast, dammit.
-Taurus: Degradation, …destruction, … dishonor…-
The 3 Ds. I can work with this.
Mornign, Glibs.
Heeey!
‘Afternoon, UCS.
Fall of Civilizations
https://youtu.be/2JHCfe86A8U
I watched a few of those. Pretty good.
Virgo actually looks good this week.
*Scrolls down to Sagittarius (the wife)*
Fuck
Aries-Capricorn household here – I think I’ll just defer to her this week.
Sounds like too much work to me.
Aw, crap, I hadn’t even thought of that. Lessee, Pisces . . . Page of Swords reversed – The evil side of authority, spying, what is unforeseen, unprepared state, sickness.
Well, that explains why she’s shitting on me today, even though I made breakfast and have been doing the vacuuming and washing up.
Farg.
Leo: King of Wands reversed – Good people being severe, the downside of honesty
Well, at least I’ve dealt with that previously.
Hey egould310, Some musical nostalgia for you. The Woodies were a band that had a huge following in the Tampa Bay area of the mid to late 1980s but they refused to tour outside of the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater area so eventually broke up.
First is their 1987 appearance on a Clearwater Cable Access show – https://youtu.be/twxvwzEWrCw
Then the 1989 video for the song Part Of My Act – https://youtu.be/DkTahfJ7lUs
Because it was ultra-late in the morning links….
Using the back door to kill an industry:
This is evil, and I’m a little bit more than pissed that UPS and FedEx have followed suit due to the government banning using USPS to ship vape products.
I know several vape shop owners, and I know they’re already looking to buy trucks and form their own shipping, but I’m sure the bUiLd YoUr OwN sHiPpInG cOmPaNy argument will begin, and I’m sure it’ll be smothered by the left as well. It’ll either be banned outright, or else regulated so much it’s nearly impossible.
The states have become addicted to tobacco tax revenue and will do anything to keep it flowing it, whatever the cost to the payees. See lotteries.
I agree.
But I’m not sure tobacco settlement cash is what pushed private shipping companies over the edge.
I don’t understand this. Who is to blame here?
Ultimately, Trump. He signed the fucking thing.
Never mind that the Dems snuck it in a spending bill.
This doesn’t even affect me, but I find it highly offensive.
It definitely affects everyone. I run a small specialty business in a totally different industry. I tell people constantly that the government is an elephant and small businesses are ants. It will crush you and not even notice. The whole industry I’m in was nearly crushed back around 2013-14
This is even worse. Issues that should take a constitutional amendment are now routinely shoved through budgets or decided on a beurocrat’s whim.
I think that’s what started the ball.
Trump signed Omnibus bill, which included a ban on shipping vaping products via USPS, along with a fuckton of regulations.
UPS/DHL/FedEx follow suit instead of trying to navigate the new regulations.
This is exactly the result that anti-vapers have wanted all along. They couldn’t push through a ban based on attacking the product or industry directly, so they go after the things the industry relies on for survival: shipping.
Fuck all of these assholes with a rusty chainsaw. Not only will this be the end of a thriving industry, but it’ll also keep people on cigarettes instead of switching.
You can ship liquor and weed. But you can’t ship anything at all that has any connection to vaping at all.
This is ultra-fucked. It’s almost exactly the same behavior exhibited with social media, only without the overt collusion.
Government makes it clear they want to see the death of something they can’t get rid of through legal channels, and private companies make sure it happens.
Nationalizing private enterprise without nationalizing private enterprise.
Now you get it.
It’s the dictionary definition of fascism.
There is a word for that….fastist…fastixm….I am not sure…it’s right on the tip of my tongue….siftism….fashisn….
Fantashmicism
For the first time in my entire life. I may now understand the point of Fantasia
Regulators declares vapes to be dangerous goods.
Shippers are forced take expensive measures. Instead, the shippers declare they won’t ship these dangerous goods.
Retail operators are forced out of business.
UPS, FedX, and DHL are being rational and/or currying favor with the regulators.
It’s always safe to start with hating government.
Who is to blame, every Congress critter that did not vote against the 5500 page monstrosity.
There is too much tax money in tobacco. I am surprised it took this long.
^this
I see a nice opportunity for someone willing to work the black and gray markets…
I personally know 2 owners of Regionally large players in vape juice manufacture and distribution. They went from pooling $40k together to being a multi-million dollar per year company in 3 years.
Both companies are already in the process of buying their own delivery trucks to ship product to other stores in the region.
But making some stuff and shipping it via a shipping company is quite different from making stuff and handling the logistics of shipping it nationwide from end to end.
If the industry wants to survive, they’re going to have to form mega-distributors with warehouses and depots all over the place in order to facilitate shipping outside of very small areas.
Much less what it would take to have a home delivery service involved.
And even after they’ve built their own shipping and delivery service, there’s no way the government doesn’t slam that door shut with onerous regulations.
Watching “Trading Places” and realized the FCOJ story would be a good way to explain how GameStopGate happened.
I was thinking that myself the other morning
Junk silver has gone up 10% since Wednesday.
Fucking Redditors.
What about colloidal silver?
Yeah – I just looked at JM Bullion, and they had this advisory at the top of their page:
Attention Customers: Due to increased order volume, we are currently experiencing shipping delays of 5-10 days from cleared payment.
Shit, I have to start looking at gold. And at property where I can bury it.
We have a location where we could bug out to and go off grid, but we have no actual property there. It would take a while to set something up.
Sadly, needing a bugout location is now necessary.
Unfortunately, none of it will ever be far enough.
Yeah. The best anyone can do is a backwater Google maps hasn’t bothered with.
I got a couple acres and several shovels. Heavy equipment rental place down the road if you want to bury it deep + 1 running an excavator is fun!
“…running an excavator is fun…”
Yes they are. My father-in-law, for his 60th birthday, rented a bunch of excavators, skidsteers, and bulldozers and a big old dirt lot to play with them in.
Love it. At work, I move snow with a giant Massy Ferguson because it is the most comfortable thing we have that moves snow and make the young guys use the skid steer and the Gator. We all use the shovels when needed though. I’m not a total dick.
SD Bullion:
Update: Due to unprecedented silver demand, SD Bullion is unable to accept any additional orders until the market opens Sunday evening.
I was going to buy on Wed, then decided to wait until the weekend.
Oops.
Relevant
Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish
I know I kinda wing it when I cook but my chili usually turns out ok*. Plus it’s my bday. *cracks beer* Happy Sunday Fun-day!
*I am cooking it differently this time though. Simmering on the stove top as opposed to using the crockpot.
Happy birthday!
Congrats, RS, from me and your new friends
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfy18ynhWNU
Happy birthday to you sir!
Happy Successful Trip Around the Sun, Scum.
I have sourdough bread rising on the counter. Gonna grill salmon and bratwurst for supper (and for my lunches though out the week*)
*yes, I am the guy that stinks up the break room microwave with his leftover salmon.
Have a great day, mang!
I missed the comment that it is your birthday.
Happy Birthday!
Tough shit, honey
Danielle Seal likens going for a walk during the pandemic to an extreme sport.
“When I go [and walk] the dog I have to ask people to stay two meters away,” she told CNN. “And that’s what really upsets me. If you try and squeeze past me, you are putting my life in danger. Going for a walk is an adrenaline-seeking extreme sport.”
Seal has Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorder (CVID), a type of primary immune deficiency (PID). This means that her body does not produce protective antibodies to defend itself against pathogens like bacteria or viruses, leaving Seal and others like her extremely vulnerable to infections — even without a global pandemic.
The 45-year-old has taken extreme care during the crisis to avoid contracting Covid-19, but her situation is unlikely to change in the long-term, even as governments fixate on the glimmer of hope provided by vaccines against the coronavirus.
My freedom is not subordinate to your paranoia.
Period.
The End
Put your dog on enough of a leash that people can’t get within six feet of you.
They’re not going to be near you for anywhere near 15 minutes, anyway.
That little qualification has been conveniently forgotten. My landlord claims I “must” wear the totem in the elevator.
Was she ever so worried about the common cold and flu? They are quite similar as I understand.
You can’t have it both ways.
Those opposed to making D.C. a state have argued that statehood for D.C. can’t happen without a constitutional amendment. They say the founders intended the entire District to serve as the seat of the federal government, not as a state. But legislation put forth by nonvoting Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) every year since 1991 would not eliminate the “seat of government” that the Constitution calls for. Instead, H.R. 51 would shrink the national capital to a small complex of federal buildings, while allowing the rest of the District to become a state.
Proponents of statehood argue that this plan preserves the federal enclave — whose only requirement is that it can’t exceed 10 square miles — and escapes the need for a constitutional amendment.
Outstanding questions remain over what would happen to the three electoral college votes currently afforded to the District when it becomes a smaller federal enclave. Some have wondered whether the 23rd Amendment would have to be repealed so that the few residents of the federal enclave — namely, those residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — don’t retain them.
The only legal way to do this is to shrink DC to only the federal buildings and cede the commercial/residential land back to Maryland, not that anyone cares…
We should just build a wall to contain and then ignore them. Then live our lives as we wish.
What happened to Puerto Rico? They found out it would be a red state and suddenly that idea evaporated? Good grief.
Why do we need more states again? Oh yes, political leverage/permanent majority for a particular TEAM.
It’s all so fucking cynical.
Yeah, if it was really about “representation”, they could just join the already one-party state of Maryland.
Yep.
Good journalisming, CNN. Pick some total outlier sob story and build a generalized narrative.
Until everyone is 100% safe, no one is safe.
NPR is a fan of this tactic.
does Rufus ever drop by?
He’s working.
Rockies are gonna pay a big chunk of Arenado’s salary to get him to go away
Thanks! / STL
They’re not going to be near you for anywhere near 15 minutes, anyway.
But she’s speshul! The merest whiff of this deadly deadly disease, and it’s curtains!
Suppressors!
Republican lawmakers in statehouses across the country are moving swiftly to attack some of the voting methods that fueled the highest turnout for a presidential election in 50 years.
Although most legislative sessions are just getting underway, the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy institute, has already tallied more than 100 bills in 28 states meant to restrict voting access. More than a third of those proposals are aimed at limiting mail voting, while other bills seek to strengthen voter ID requirements and registration processes, as well as allow for more aggressive means to remove people from voter rolls.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing some politicians who want to manipulate the rules of the game so that some people can participate and some can’t,” said Myrna Pérez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center.
I love the way they frame these stories. Democrats are pure as the driven snow. Who doesn’t believe in democracy?
Republikkkin losers, that’s who.
Election integrity is racist.
Wow. They’re just writing brazen DNC propaganda now. I mean, they were before but it’s more don’t-give-a-fuck than ever.
Since 2016 it has been nothing but.
Yeah, I could generate a “high turnout”, too. I have a scanner and a little skill with Photoshop. I could generate an awesome “turnout” if I got a printer.
Democracy, bitches!
Gavin Newsom Joyfully Invites California to Reopen
That was funny.
And this is better than PornHub.
They should have gotten the required signatures in five minutes.
Fuck California. The sooner they sink into the sea, the better.
Was this the zoom call/b-day party I read about here ?
Lancashire farm makes £50,000 in pandemic by offering Zoom calls with goats
What is the tax on 50K in England, 75K?