I'm not from Seattle -- 90 miles north of it. Anyway, I lived in Santa Barbara for one year and I went absolutely berserk. It rained only in January -- the rest of the time it was totally cloudless, and I hated it. The most boring weather ever. I couldn't get out of there quickly enough.
Where I live, there is always something happening in the sky and I love it. Besides, without clouds, you can't have interesting sunshine -- the type where the air itself seems to turn gold -- requires the just the right level of recent drizzle, thick cloud cover, sun peeping in from a shallow angle above the horizon -- you get the most amazing super-saturated colors. It's like living inside some special effect.
In contrast, bright garish light washes every color down to some shade of gray. And gives you cancer.
Please please please -- do your level best to convince Californians how great Texas is. I'm sure many Washingtonians would even pay you for your efforts.
It never sets as early as 3 pm. Even today, it didn't set till after 4, but that just means more time to enjoy a hot milky drink, like cocoa or a latte, while sitting by a stove or fireplace.
Sun makes me depressed, hard contrast light gives me a headache, and bleached out colors are ugly.
Drizzle and soft light are delightful. And when the sun does slip some light sideways under thick cloud cover, the air turns golden, and all the greens of the trees and reds of the flowers become supersaturated. Love it.
That's how I like it. The sun just causes cancer and makes you wrinkle. That said,
Three guys are camping, one from Washington, one from Kentucky, and one from California. They're sitting around chatting when the guy from Kentucky pulls out a bottle of whiskey, takes a big swig, corks it, throws it in the air, whips out a pistol, and shoots the bottle before it hits the ground.
He then turns to his slightly shocked companions and says "no worries -- we got lots of good whiskey where I'm from."
The Californian then does the same thing with a bottle of wine -- takes a swig of wine, corks the bottle, tosses it, and shoots it before it hits the ground, remarking "no worries -- where I'm from, we've got lots of good wine."
The guy from Washington pulls out a bottle of Hales, pops the top, drinks it all, carefully sets the bottle down so it doesn't break, and shoots the Californian dead. The guy from Kentucky is shocked, but the Washingtonian says "no worries, where I'm from we have lots of Californians, but I really do need to recycle this bottle."
In the post 911 world, you should be extra careful with hyperbole. Our government has become corrupt, scared, violent, and cruel. It holds an incredibly cynical view of citizen's rights and justice under the law. It kowtows to the billionaires' every whim.
A salient example of s/sheep/lamb/ is the drug war which has become ever more violent over time as penalties for getting caught become ever more draconian. If you're going to do a life (or close to it) sentence for getting caught, might as well just kill the person trying to catch you or witnessing what you are doing, and improve your chance of remaining free.
First of all, the settlement, as the folks at Better Markets have pointed out, may wipe out between $100 billion and $200 billion in potential liability -- meaning that the bank might just have settled "for ten cents or so on the dollar."...
Moreover, the settlement is only $9 billion in cash, with $4 billion earmarked for "mortgage relief." Again, as Better Markets noted, we've seen settlements with orders of mortgage relief before, and banks seem to have many canny ways of getting out of the spirit of these requirements....
There's also the matter of the remaining $9 billion in fines being tax deductible (meaning we're subsidizing the settlement), and the fact that Chase is reportedly trying to get the FDIC to assume some of Washington Mutual's liability.
But overall, the key to this whole thing is that the punishment is just money, and not a crippling amount, and not from any individual's pocket, either. In fact, the deal that has just been completed between Chase and the state represents the end, or near the end, of a long process by which people who committed essentially the same crimes as Bernie Madoff will walk away without paying any individual penalty....
A few more notes on the deal. This latest settlement reportedly came about when CEO Jamie Dimon picked up the phone and called a high-ranking lieutenant of Attorney General Holder, who was about to hold a press conference announcing civil charges against the bank. The Justice Department meekly took the call, canceled the presser, and worked out this hideous deal, instead of doing the right thing and blowing off the self-important Wall Street hotshot long used to resolving meddlesome issues with the gift of his personal attention.
I suppose you would have been in favor of imprisoning and fining people who sat on the Whites Only stools at lunch counters in the 60s. That makes you a fucking asshole.
oops, I meant to replace the first link with the second link, not double up. Anyway, the first link is more marketingish, the second link is a little more informative about the process, although what I said above basically outlines it.
You go up to the counter in a minimart, hand over cash, get a ticket with a number on it, sort of like an account number I guess. You can then spend that online till you are out of money providing of course that the site accepts UKash. https://www.ukash.com/en-GB/whats-ukash/
I don't know if there is anything like that in the US, but it comes close to anonymous... of course there's the security video footage at the store (maybe), and if there is shipment involved, the receipt address, and your IP address when ordering -- but all of those things could be handled.
I don't want "reasonable" restrictions on guns, either. If you don't like the second amendment, you have to amend the constitution.
I don't hunt. I'm not a member of the NRA. I wear socks and sandals, don't eat mammals, vote for Greens. And I totally agree. The second amendment is what it is and if there is to be restriction, it must go through the constitutional process.
Those who are willing to try to parse it down into meaninglessness, give the government the exact tool it needs to destroy all the other amendments, and as Snowden has shown, that's insanely dangerous. Like how the Third Party Doctrine basically makes the 4th Amendment meaningless.
Anyway, my liberal biased view is that the NRA should NEVER budge, and that all the other Amendments need an organization as equally rabid. Otherwise, the police state wins.
While I don't agree with her being denied entry, one of the key similarities of the spree shooters in the last several years has been depression and having that depression treated with drugs.
Way to miss the point. Just exactly how does a DHS rent-a-cop get access to her medical records? That's pretty freakin nuts.
Those getting fat off the status quo certainly realize they are shifting the costs associated with fossil fuels to everyone else in the world in a Tragedy of the Commons type of manner. This is exactly why the fossil fuel industry is so keen on denying global warming -- if people start to think that industry should bear the true costs of its products, rather than let that industry shift those costs to humanity for free (another form of privatizing profits and socializing losses) -- then there is going to be a hit on their bottom line when it becomes clear that fossil fuels are not in fact cheaper than other sources of power when all costs are factored in. To keep their position, the fossil fuel industry must pretend there are no consequences to pollution, and convince as many people of that as possible.
You could try a quartz infrared spaceheater. Nothing calms a cat like having a "fire" to sleep by. It's like cat heroin. Hot air from forced air ducts won't cut -- it's gotta glow.
Boris looks like he was former KGB, then went through some rough times, then found me. Oddly, he also tends to wag his tail, like he grew up with dogs.
My cats used to do that and I got tired of it, so I set my phone to ring a particular ring tone at feeding time. It took them three meals at most to connect the breakfast/dinner bell to breakfast/dinner, and now they never hound me for food at all. They will gather around when the time nears, but they don't start clawing at my legs or batting my face while I sleep. They wait patiently, hear the bell, and run to the kitchen.
Also, one thing that keeps them happy, is to play with them for about 15 or 20 minutes before dinner -- cats are wired to hunt, kill, eat, groom, sleep. This works really good at keeping down fights between cats because they're all so satisfied.
1. land that is used to grow corn for ethanol is necessarily not used to grow other types of food for people and livestock.
It isn't just that other food can't be grown on farmland, unused land perviously set aside for conservation is being tilled to plant corn, which releases stored CO2 from the soil. Massive amounts of additional fertilizer are being applied -- fertilizer is made from natural gas. This fertilizer is increasing the size of the Gulf Dead Zone.
Corn is not sugar cane. Brazil can get away with ethanol because sugar cane is 6x more productive than corn: favorable corn estimates have an energy return about 1.3x energy expended while cane returns about 8x energy expended. If we were to have a rational ethanol policy, we'd make friends with Cuba and buy rum for our cars.
Yes. There is an unwritten exception for Federal Employees of course. For example, see James Clapper lying to Congress about scooping up phone data. Lying to Congress is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Clapper hasn't even lost his job, let alone faced prosecution.
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He doesn't know any better. He probably even carries an umbrella.
Free Cascadia!
I'm not from Seattle -- 90 miles north of it. Anyway, I lived in Santa Barbara for one year and I went absolutely berserk. It rained only in January -- the rest of the time it was totally cloudless, and I hated it. The most boring weather ever. I couldn't get out of there quickly enough.
Where I live, there is always something happening in the sky and I love it. Besides, without clouds, you can't have interesting sunshine -- the type where the air itself seems to turn gold -- requires the just the right level of recent drizzle, thick cloud cover, sun peeping in from a shallow angle above the horizon -- you get the most amazing super-saturated colors. It's like living inside some special effect.
In contrast, bright garish light washes every color down to some shade of gray. And gives you cancer.
Please please please -- do your level best to convince Californians how great Texas is. I'm sure many Washingtonians would even pay you for your efforts.
It never sets as early as 3 pm. Even today, it didn't set till after 4, but that just means more time to enjoy a hot milky drink, like cocoa or a latte, while sitting by a stove or fireplace.
And thick wooly socks.
I'm not being snide -- it's very comfy -- love it.
Sun makes me depressed, hard contrast light gives me a headache, and bleached out colors are ugly.
Drizzle and soft light are delightful. And when the sun does slip some light sideways under thick cloud cover, the air turns golden, and all the greens of the trees and reds of the flowers become supersaturated. Love it.
I also like mold, moss, and mushrooms.
That's how I like it. The sun just causes cancer and makes you wrinkle. That said,
Three guys are camping, one from Washington, one from Kentucky, and one from California. They're sitting around chatting when the guy from Kentucky pulls out a bottle of whiskey, takes a big swig, corks it, throws it in the air, whips out a pistol, and shoots the bottle before it hits the ground.
He then turns to his slightly shocked companions and says "no worries -- we got lots of good whiskey where I'm from."
The Californian then does the same thing with a bottle of wine -- takes a swig of wine, corks the bottle, tosses it, and shoots it before it hits the ground, remarking "no worries -- where I'm from, we've got lots of good wine."
The guy from Washington pulls out a bottle of Hales, pops the top, drinks it all, carefully sets the bottle down so it doesn't break, and shoots the Californian dead. The guy from Kentucky is shocked, but the Washingtonian says "no worries, where I'm from we have lots of Californians, but I really do need to recycle this bottle."
In the post 911 world, you should be extra careful with hyperbole. Our government has become corrupt, scared, violent, and cruel. It holds an incredibly cynical view of citizen's rights and justice under the law. It kowtows to the billionaires' every whim.
Hyperbole can get you seriously fucked.
Sorry massa, didn't mean to sit on the whites only seat. I'll go pay the fine I should morally have to pay now for breaking this fine and just law.
A salient example of s/sheep/lamb/ is the drug war which has become ever more violent over time as penalties for getting caught become ever more draconian. If you're going to do a life (or close to it) sentence for getting caught, might as well just kill the person trying to catch you or witnessing what you are doing, and improve your chance of remaining free.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/nobody-should-shed-a-tear-for-jp-morgan-chase-20131025
A DDoS is a virtual sit in.
http://www.google.com/search?q=sit+in+civil+rights&tbm=isch
I suppose you would have been in favor of imprisoning and fining people who sat on the Whites Only stools at lunch counters in the 60s. That makes you a fucking asshole.
oops, I meant to replace the first link with the second link, not double up. Anyway, the first link is more marketingish, the second link is a little more informative about the process, although what I said above basically outlines it.
In Canada and Europe there are some services like UKash: https://www.ukash.com/en-GB/
You go up to the counter in a minimart, hand over cash, get a ticket with a number on it, sort of like an account number I guess. You can then spend that online till you are out of money providing of course that the site accepts UKash. https://www.ukash.com/en-GB/whats-ukash/
I don't know if there is anything like that in the US, but it comes close to anonymous ... of course there's the security video footage at the store (maybe), and if there is shipment involved, the receipt address, and your IP address when ordering -- but all of those things could be handled.
I don't hunt. I'm not a member of the NRA. I wear socks and sandals, don't eat mammals, vote for Greens. And I totally agree. The second amendment is what it is and if there is to be restriction, it must go through the constitutional process.
Those who are willing to try to parse it down into meaninglessness, give the government the exact tool it needs to destroy all the other amendments, and as Snowden has shown, that's insanely dangerous. Like how the Third Party Doctrine basically makes the 4th Amendment meaningless.
Anyway, my liberal biased view is that the NRA should NEVER budge, and that all the other Amendments need an organization as equally rabid. Otherwise, the police state wins.
Way to miss the point. Just exactly how does a DHS rent-a-cop get access to her medical records? That's pretty freakin nuts.
Those getting fat off the status quo certainly realize they are shifting the costs associated with fossil fuels to everyone else in the world in a Tragedy of the Commons type of manner. This is exactly why the fossil fuel industry is so keen on denying global warming -- if people start to think that industry should bear the true costs of its products, rather than let that industry shift those costs to humanity for free (another form of privatizing profits and socializing losses) -- then there is going to be a hit on their bottom line when it becomes clear that fossil fuels are not in fact cheaper than other sources of power when all costs are factored in. To keep their position, the fossil fuel industry must pretend there are no consequences to pollution, and convince as many people of that as possible.
You could try a quartz infrared spaceheater. Nothing calms a cat like having a "fire" to sleep by. It's like cat heroin. Hot air from forced air ducts won't cut -- it's gotta glow.
But yeah, I was thinking of Pavlov when I put them on the dinner bell. I was surprised at how instantly they picked it up.
Boris looks like he was former KGB, then went through some rough times, then found me. Oddly, he also tends to wag his tail, like he grew up with dogs.
Is your cat waking you up to get fed?
My cats used to do that and I got tired of it, so I set my phone to ring a particular ring tone at feeding time. It took them three meals at most to connect the breakfast/dinner bell to breakfast/dinner, and now they never hound me for food at all. They will gather around when the time nears, but they don't start clawing at my legs or batting my face while I sleep. They wait patiently, hear the bell, and run to the kitchen.
Also, one thing that keeps them happy, is to play with them for about 15 or 20 minutes before dinner -- cats are wired to hunt, kill, eat, groom, sleep. This works really good at keeping down fights between cats because they're all so satisfied.
wish I'd saved a mod point for you. Very funny.
It isn't just that other food can't be grown on farmland, unused land perviously set aside for conservation is being tilled to plant corn, which releases stored CO2 from the soil. Massive amounts of additional fertilizer are being applied -- fertilizer is made from natural gas. This fertilizer is increasing the size of the Gulf Dead Zone.
source: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/11/5902607/the-secret-dirty-cost-of-obamas.html
Corn is not sugar cane. Brazil can get away with ethanol because sugar cane is 6x more productive than corn: favorable corn estimates have an energy return about 1.3x energy expended while cane returns about 8x energy expended. If we were to have a rational ethanol policy, we'd make friends with Cuba and buy rum for our cars.
Yes. There is an unwritten exception for Federal Employees of course. For example, see James Clapper lying to Congress about scooping up phone data. Lying to Congress is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Clapper hasn't even lost his job, let alone faced prosecution.