Warmer and wet in Houston, but maybe not stormy. Still some rain in the forecast though. We got rain several times yesterday, and that kept temps down. It was comfortable for me to wear long pants…
After a day messing with windows and puttering around the house, I attended the final meeting for my daughter’s “finishing” school- Cotillion Club. She’s far from finished but at least knows about some of the finer points of moving in “society”. At the very least she now knows that there are things she doesn’t know. Known Unknowns as it were. She’s not big on arbitrary rules so I’ve been explaining how useful politeness, and social graces are. Knowing what to do in a situation is FAR easier than figuring it out on your own, and far less stressful. And you can always choose to break or ignore the rules, but to do so out of ignorance is not desirable.
Every class and culture has signifiers, norms, rules of behavior and decorum. Marc MacYoung has written extensively about violence for example, and the people who commit it. He explains clearly the norms, rules, and behaviors associated with the kind of people and the cultures in America that routinely experience violence. Miss Manners has done the same for a different segment of our world, and a Protocol Officer would describe yet another segment. I figured that knowing a bit more about the culture and expectations of the social class above ours would be a good thing for my girls. It certainly can’t hurt. And while I don’t aspire to that society, I’ve worked in it and along side it, and knowing something about how it works is very helpful.
The same can be said for societies and cultures adjacent to ours but “lower” as well. I try to pass some of that along too. Some of it was very painful to learn. Some of it might be described as “street smarts”. There aren’t any ‘finishing’ schools that I know of that prepare one to move among those groups, outside of three letter agencies and possibly social work orgs. You might not think you’d want to fit in with those groups, but I can tell you that you absolutely don’t want to stick out or inadvertently give offense or offer reasons to be targeted. You certainly benefit from recognizing and seeing the indicators that others might miss. And while you are unlikely to “pass” as one of them, every culture appreciates someone following their rules, and most are willing to cut someone who is trying some slack… and it’s important to recognize when your best strategy is to play on your outsider status so that you get ALL the benefit of the doubt and aren’t punished for not following the rules.
One of the reasons I go on and on about getting out and practicing in the secondary economy NOW, while you have other choices, is to begin learning how to move and do business in that world. Even when there isn’t any element of criminality, it’s still a different way of doing business, and of conducting oneself, and very often there is a black or grey market aspect that is unavoidable. Sometimes it’s the product, but often it’s the people. They are from marginalized cultures or circumstances. They move through the world in a very different way from someone with a Gold card, a steady job, and a clean criminal history.
It’s very useful to be able to cross cultures and interact with people in different places and ways, whether that means putting on a suit and going to the country club, or putting on a carhart and going to the diner, or a sundress at the farmers market. Having stuff is going to be important to us all in the near future, but having the ability to get along with different groups of people might be the difference between success and disaster.
It takes practice and a sharp eye. Stack some time around people. Stack some stuff.
nick
AI is the only new thing moving hardware in tech right now.
A lot of jerks exist in tech, but Gates is unique in that he wants to be regarded like Feynman.
Gates would even settle for Bob being Metcalfe – another jerk who founded and ran a company (3Com) into the ground but Metcalfe’s name still sits at the top of the key paper on Ethernet.
Ethernet isn’t “Ethernet” anymore with the switches taking over for hubs at Gb speeds, but WiFi is definitely Ethernet.
Instead Gates has his name on the flight logs to Pedo Island and is widely credited with the Visual C++ srand/rand functions … which give me nightmares.
Gates isn’t even Philippe Khan who he regarded as a poseur. Khan, futzing around with a soldering iron and his cell phone one day, invented the cell phone camera. Maybe you’ve heard of it.
I’ve heard rumblings that Gates is back involved with day to day decisions at Microsoft with regard to AI. God help us all.
One of the bright young stars at the tolling company left and co-founded several AI startups in the last few years, including this hot mess.
That sure is an impressive page. Singular.
https://www.tractatus.ai/
Fancy Lad. Concordia grad. Not the one on TV, but a private school outside of Austin.
The tolling company loved them Fancy Lads.
In one rant session before my firing, I was told I was not as good at my job as Fancy Lad was at his.
Ok. We’ll see who rusts first.
I’m sorry for your loss, sir. My boy, Choco the doxie, turns nine today. MrsAtoz got him as a pup for Father’s Day. I’ll be a blubbering idiot when he passes. I can’t image reading a book in the recliner without him sleeping between my legs.
72F and wet, but the sky is clearing and I can see sunlight. Might get a nice day after all.
n
The WuFlu wasn’t developed in a Chinky lab:
Chinese scientists create mutant Ebola virus to skirt around biosafety rules – and it causes horrific symptoms and kills group of hamsters
Sure.
Probably a true statement. The job was not to write code. The job was not to solve the engineering problem or the specific business need. The job was not even to make money for the employer. The job was to make the boss comfortable and not stressed.
I suck at the job, too. I’m fantastically good at the coding and the production of a system which solves the customer’s need (or at least does what the contract requires, not always the same thing) but I question managerial diktats, I don’t worry about the feewings of “team”mates who are not interesting in doing their jobs, and I have no use for corporate HR slugs.
The tone of this statement —
because the olympics are really about out victiming one another…
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13385151/Victims-Nazi-human-sacrifice-skeletons-buried-naked-missing-hands-feet-terrible-fate.html
article is more interesting for the rest of the stuff they padded it out with…
n
I have been to Mexico twice. Once when I was living in San Antonio and we drove down to the border and walked across. A disgusting town full of vendors wanting to gouge people. Wife like this set of silver earrings. Our first offered price was $40.00. Haggling got it down to $20.00. We still said no and went on our way. On the way back we stopped again at the same place and the offer provided to us was $5.00. We took it but still feel like I got conned.
The second time was to visit my aunt. Her and her husband had leased a place for a trailer in Mexico and spent their winters in Mexico. After my uncle died she still went to Mexico for the winter. On her last trip we got called by the property manager and said that Della was becoming a real problem. So I made the journey to see what were the issues.
Aside from her less than desirable living conditions, her dementia was a very real issue. We did drive to a local eatery in town one evening. We came to find some local rummaging through the car. I also got gouged on the shuttle from the airport to her place. The driver demanded $25.00. I said no, too much. He said to pay or he would get the police. Corrupt as I suspected the police in the area were, I paid the amount. The trip should have been $5.00 which is what I was told when I got the shuttle.
Never, ever will I visit Mexico again. Even if I won a trip in a contest I would refuse the prize.
I started with computers in 1969. IBM 1401 using transistors. Spunky little machine that could run in 100F temperatures without issue. It involved a lot of card handling if the cards did not swell too much from humidity. In that case the IBM engineer on site would adjust the card gate.
I graduated to the Burroughs machines which used integrated circuits. There was still some card handling as all our COBOL source was maintained on punch cards. Many jobs required a lot tape handling.
The biggest project I was involved, which failed due to poor management, was while at National Bancshares Corporation in San Antonio.
The IT department had been sold to MTech. The plan was to move all the IT operations from Burroughs to IBM system in Dallas. Use a big pipe from the phone company to transfer data to and from the locations. Tape drives, check sorters, printers, ATMs and all the teller terminals. A huge, and very costly pipe in 1988.
The biggest problem was the Burroughs terminals. Every field on the screen, every attribute change (bold, italic, underline) require two characters to define the field. On IBM terminals the attributes were in a background layer and did not affect screen real estate.
I was to write the conversion program from the IBM banking system and software to the Burroughs equipment. I had six months to write the code, not nearly enough time. And it did not solve the screen real estate problem. Five fields on a line would take 10 spaces from the screen on the Burroughs terminals.
I told management, my boss, his boss, and everyone else involved. The solution proposed was not going to work. One thing was the pipe was not big enough to transfer a days worth of work. It was simply too much data. The screens would never work. The vendor of the IBM banking system offered to modify the screens, which was going to take two years.
There was test set up to test what we had so far. No one got beyond the login screen. It seems that the IBM banking software would crash if the teller number was not exactly six digits. Turns out the IBM terminals zero filled numeric fields whereas the Burroughs did not. That lack of six digits caused the IBM software to crash hard. A poorly written piece of software in my opinion.
The numerous known problems, the unknown problems, and a generally poor IBM environment, meant the system would fail. This was told to management who persisted their solution would work. Managers who did not understand computer systems
I left in March 1988. All vacations were cancelled a couple of months before but I had already scheduled a trip to Oak Ridge to house hunt. I had already accepted the new job and had not told MTech. I went on the trip anyway and when I got back I was terminated. I was never given the chance to resign and present my resignation letter. A person resigning would have looked bad to Mike Brigs, the project manager. Firing look better on his record. It also voided any compensation due from MTech, basically two pay as my resignation was effective in two weeks.
The project ultimately did fail. NBC also failed and went under government control to handle the remaining assets. Several people lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in accumulated retirement funds. I was luck as when the IT was absorbed by MTech the money was taken over by another company. People in the bank when it folded lost all their money as the retirement funds were contributed by NBC and were NBC assets when it folded.
I have been able to get $118.00 a month for the last 18 years. Fairly good for a six year employment with NBC.
Ebola kills too quickly for the bug to be an effective pandemic mechanism.
Tom Clancy established the requirements for Ebola weaponization 30+ years ago.
@drwilliams: Sorry for your loss. Pets are family, and it’s hard losing them. He had a good life, though, and went peacefully. Maybe it helps, picturing him living his best life in the green fields of wherever-land.
There are different Mexicos.
However. Don’t be American. Americans are not well-liked. As soon as the locals found out we were from Europe, they became much nicer. Also, they stopped trying to charge us nutty prices, like Ray and his taxi.
The location in Mexico where my aunt had her place was a couple hundred miles south of the border, and several miles inland from the coast. Far away from the border locations. The property in which she lived was leased from a Mexican land owner as Americans cannot own property in Mexico. There were probably 50 lots within the property. People would bring fifth wheels, or trailers into the space, then built around it. That skirted some weird Mexican law.
I felt safe in the area for the most part. The people were friendly. The workers in the RV park (for lack of better term) worked hard and were paid fairly well by the residents. It was probably good work by Mexican standards.
When I moved my aunt out she owed money to a couple of the workers. She had a small color TV that I offered to one of the workers in exchange for what was owed. He jumped at the offer. Another worker whom she owed a lot more more money I offered him her car. It would have cost me more than the car was worth to bring it back to the states. And I did not want to deal with it, honestly. He really jumped at the offer. I suspect he got a lot more in the car than what he was actually owed.
I was able to sell her location without making another trip to Mexico. It was handled through the property manager and using email. No legal documents, just words in email, which I guess counts as legal in Mexico.
Yes, I have found that out. Americans can be jerks. I have learned that on my trips to Europe. The wife and I try to act like locals as much as possible. Respect the locals, don’t be demanding, rude or otherwise obnoxious. It helps that we are with locals that speak the language and are not staying in hotels, with a couple of exceptions.
When I went to the Philippines in 1973 I decided to go off-base (Clark AFB in Angeles City). A town next to a military establish is generally bars and whores. Something I wanted no part of for fear of getting some really bad organ rotting disease.
I got into a Jeepny (sp) and asked for a drive around the country, not the city. The driver insisted he knew someone with excellent p*ssy. I said no, take me into the country. His entire demeanor changed and he became much more pleasant. Off we went for about a 4 hour drive out in the country. We stopped at some local place in hills for lunch and I offered to pay for his meal. The people at the eatery were quite nice, much different than in Angeles city.
At the end of the four hours I asked what I owed. I think it was about 200 pesos, about $30.00. I paid him $40.00 and thanked him for the ride. He said if I needed a ride again, look for his Jeepny.
I did go into town one night with a guy named Ronald Reagan (seriously). He took me to some bars, we saw some shows (really raunch), and got plastered. I bought what I thought was chicken from a street vendor. It was dog (which I immediately discharged with force). We wandered back to the base down a street we were explicitly warned to not travel. Yeh, that was scary from what little I remember.
We got back to the base through a hole in the fence to avoid the gate guards. Next I remember is mamma-son hitting me with a broom to move from the toilet so she could clean. That was the last time I have been drunk.
So, made it back from our trip to Northumberland Dark Sky Reserve – bit of a disappointment as we had cloudy skies most of the week, still, we got one night which was clear-ish and managed to enjoy some fabulous views once our eyes had adapted to the dark, first time we’ve got a naked eye look at the Milky Way.
Got some great hill walking done, some wildlife viewing and managed to visit a couple of good castles (Including Bamburgh where they filmed a lot of the Netflix series The Last Kingdom).
Was amazed at the performance of our car (Skoda Roomster, with a small 1.2l TSI petrol engine), which despite my beloved packing like we were fleeing the zombie apocalypse got us about 450 miles on one tank of petrol, so only had to refill for the journey back. Cruised without strain at 80mph on the motorways and had no problem going up some pretty steep hills in Northumberland.
“This shifting landscape is forcing companies and consultants to adapt on the fly, with many acting preemptively to guard against the legal threats…”
Yeah, it’s all about “poor storytelling.”
May their rebranded “IED” continue to blow up in their faces.
@drwilliams – I am sorry for your loss. I think “unexpectedly and quickly” is the best way for any being to go, but it is harder on the loved ones who don’t have time to prepare. I know what you mean about seeing them out of the corner of your eye for some years.
This also seems to be true in the software world. A lot of the new business for my team has dried up, as customers are now wanting to spend their money on AI “solutions”. It seems that every PHB has dreams of firing their workers and replacing them with AI. (And their bosses will be happy to eliminate them when they no longer have a team under them.)
This has led the development management where I am to make the following decisions:
Build a new application that provides a service that our customers may find valuable. Great.
Make sure that it is loudly and clearly using a specific AI brand for its “smarts”.
Build the application in a UI framework, frontend, and backend language new to the development team, but are all currently Hot Skillz.
Use a “cool” IDE to develop this application, instead of the IDE that has been used for all the current applications, and has been in place for years.
Allow customers to upload their own documents to “feed” the AI, but supplement this with “knowledge” from the internet. There is no need to vet any of the internet sources.
Deploy this in an all-new “cool” infrastructure that is hideously expensive and needlessly complicated.
Sell this cool expensive new service to our large corporation customers who are clamoring for AI everything.
What could possibly go wrong?
Every. Single. Developer. has the title of “software engineer”, and although a few are worthy of the title, they are the “old guard” and are having to learn all of this new carp to be effective Meanwhile, the second-tier players are loving that they get to play with all the new toys, and they can even use AI to write their code for them…
My team is on the infrastructure side, and I’ve seen this train coming, just like agile (people who don’t know what they are doing building applications for people who don’t know what they want) and devops (That’s nice, junior. Do you understand separation of duties, testing requirements, and maintenance windows? No? Developers are not going to be pushing code to production or even staging. Ever.)
We’re ready for the next clusterF, and we can support the new environment. The risks and potential expenses have already been well documented and distributed. The response so far has been that customers will be willing to pay whatever it takes…
Maybe this won’t turn into a slow-motion train wreck, just because customers will buy anything AI.
Ha, ha. The judge in tRump’s joke-trial threatens him with jail. Let’s see if he has the balls. The judge’s gag order is basically anything he says. Geeze.
Yep, I would not be surprised to find my next package of toilet paper from Costco to say something about AI.
Partitioning Baton Rouge & the Importance of Dissolving Old Political Boundaries
Seceding should be a basic political right, at any political level. Not individual houses, of course, but above some sensible size. Whether it’s a neighborhood seceding from a city, or a region seceding from a country, there should be a sensible process that allows it.
Or a state seceding from a country. Looking at you California, a huge drain on the federal coffers. Or let the states, with a major majority, throw a state out of the union. Looking at you again California.
Here in TN there are some cities that want to annex rural areas to get the land, or rather the taxes from the land. Property owners that have only been paying county tax will now be on the hook for additional city taxes, with the city providing very little in services. Fire protection, big deal. Water and power are already provided. Police protection? They are better off without the local police.
There has been talk here of Oak Ridge annexing Oliver Springs where I live. Oliver Springs is struggling financially. If Oak Ridge were to annex, we would be on the hook for taxes for Oak Ridge schools, yet unable to send kids to Oak Ridge schools as the city of Oak Ridge would not provide school bus service. In fact, Oak Ridge would provide nothing that Oliver Springs does not provide. Our taxes would go up almost 150% from where they are now. All to benefit Oak Ridge.
@brad, that is the core conflict of the Civil War. The southern states were under the impression that they were in a voluntary association of states, that they could withdraw from. Abe Lincoln the Usurper broke faith with the founding fathers and used the army to force the states to remain.
That changed the very nature of the country from states united to “THE UNITED STATES”.
n
The Prog Dems running San Antonio have a cozy relationship with the military commands at the bases around the city so annexation was focusing on unincorporated areas of Bexar County where the residents and the state/county government were limiting the military training exercises, especially at night.
Texas passed an anti-annexation ballot measure at some point in the last decade.
We stopped at a Love’s outside Baton Rouge last month, and the Amsih hookers were out during daylight hours, even working the crowd inside the store.
On the way out of New Orleans, I stopped at Flying-J instead. Not much cleaner, but prostitute free.
I noticed that the Gecko had a new Clayton lot at the corner of the property, along the access road serving the westbound ramp. They don’t waste any time at starting the “synergy”.
No NFM electronics or Dairy Queen yet, but I imagine those are both coming.
Southern Oregon and northern CA have been trying to secede and form a new state called “Jefferson”. And many of the northern and eastern mountain counties of CA would be glad to break away from the insane leftist fantasy that is Cacafornia. But neither OR nor CA would agree.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-4/#article-4-section-3
Eastern Oregon would like to become part of Idaho. Eastern Oregon is more conservative than the urban liberal areas in the big cities of Oregon. Generally called the ‘Greater Idaho Movement’ (link), of which the “Jefferson” initiative is a related issue. The Idaho legislature passed a resolution in 2023 authorizing a study of the issue.
As you drive I-5 north near the Oregon border, you can see a few signs about the “State of Jefferson”.
But, none of these efforts will succeed.
Drive out to Coos Bay and spend the afternoon walking the streets and stopping in the stores.
The two SW Oregon counties including Coos Bay effectively fought a tax war with Governor Kitzhaber over a decade ago. Hard feelings probably linger.
“When helping others may be hazardous to your freedom”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/05/when-helping-others-may-be-hazardous-to.html
“Friend of the blog Lawdog has written an emotive and (I think) very important article titled “Meditations On Duty“. Here are a few excerpts.”
“I find myself in a position that I’ve never been in before. All of my life I have known that if people needed to be helped, I should help them — I’ve literally been a Boy Scout. All of my adult life I have known that if there is gun-fire, I will run to that sound and protect people.”
“I … don’t know anymore.”
Me too. My first instinct now is to not be there when something bad goes down.
My wife managed to nail the curb yesterday with her Highlander while exiting a roundabout. The result was a blown front tire (less than 10,000 miles) at the bead. So instead of calling me, she called the help line for our insurance. They had a guy there in less than 30 minutes who put her spare tire on for her. My involvement in this was that I bought her a vehicle that A) has a spare tire and B) is not a donut tire that is severely limited in duty. My back has been flaky lately and she knew that lifting those tires would not do it any good.
So she went directly to Sam’s Club and they ordered two new Michelin Defender tires for her. She has an appointment to get them installed Tuesday.
I love it when a plan comes together.
My 2019 Highlander with 90K miles is close to needing a new set of tires. The current set has lasted about 40K miles, I believe.
I’ve used “America’s Tires” (Discount Tires) for decades. Good quality, good service, good prices. I always buy the “Best” (out of their ‘good/better/best’) tires. And get the tire warranties that get me free pressure checks, free rotations (with rebalancing), and replacement warranties if they don’t last enough miles as specified.
Might be time for a new battery also (still has the original). I have a portable jump starter thing in the car if needed. (This one, currently $50.) Will probably get the new AGM battery from Wally World (WalMart).
“Medicare and Social Security go-broke dates are pushed back in a ‘measure of good news’”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/medicare-social-security-broke-dates-203025797.html
“Medicare’s go-broke date for its hospital insurance trust fund was pushed back five years to 2036 in the latest report, thanks in part to higher payroll tax income and lower-than-projected expenses from last year. Medicare is the federal government’s health insurance program that covers people age 65 and older and those with severe disabilities or illnesses. It covered more than 66 million people last year, with most being 65 and older.”
“Meanwhile, Social Security’s trust funds — which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035, instead of last year’s estimate of 2034. Social Security would only be able to pay 83% of benefits.”
Oh don’t worry, I’ll break the funds next year.
Might be time for a new battery also (still has the original). I have a portable jump starter thing in the car if needed. (This one, currently $50.) Will probably get the new AGM battery from Wally World (WalMart).
I replaced the battery in the wife’s 2019 Highlander last year. Texas is tough on batteries with the heat.
“May their rebranded “IED” continue to blow up in their faces.”
DIE
Ordered 8gb chip for the all in one. at $20 delivered I’m probably keeping the machine for some reason. They had chinese branded memory at $13 plus tax, but if I’m buying used memory I’d prefer crucial.
PC only has one slot, and it’s so-dimm. I can’t put my hands on my shoebox of memory, I looked, and $20 is cheap to keep something out of the landfill. Freaking win10 license costs more than that.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13387951/Matthew-Colangelo-paid-democratic-national-committee-political-consulting.html
— but I’m sure there is no politics involved, just a man who wants a fair trial and execution…
n
Is this coming from the ilk of the people who told us that the Chinese Bioweapon was no-way, no-how developed in a lab, or that the total number of “undocumented migrants” in the US is under ten million, or that … ?
And there is your margin of cheat…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13387417/vote-2024-election-six-states.html
we are going to get to the point where even in honest elections, only the blue hives will matter because of the concentration of people there.
n
12 GB should be enough, but all bets are off if the graphics are integrated like I imagine they are.
Sweet summer child
Toyota is finally starting to skimp on the spare tires in an attempt to save weight and increase MPGs if only by a tiny amount. Because Uncle.
The new Corolla hybrid has a well for a spare but no spare.
I drove for a week on the Camry spare.
The tire stores here won’t touch a repair on any tire more than six years old. I don’t know if that is Texas law or Federal, but I had to buy all new tires at 31,000 miles recently.
One thing I learned from my Solara tire replacement earler this year is that the chain stores and Sam’s/Costco will sit on stock. I last had the tires replaced in 2017 at Sam’s, but the date code was 2015.
The tire shop clerk laughed and said that it wasn’t uncommon.
A number of local cities were doing that in California in the 1990’s, it actually became a race to see which city could become the biggest.
California City, Ca., is still the 3rd largest city in California … with a current population of just 15,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City%2C_California
Oddly the state stepped in, finally, and put a stop to it. Someone’s toes in Sacramento must have gotten stepped on.
Locally Lancaster & Palmdale were annexing square miles at a time – but refusing to offer any services, fire or police or sewer systems or storm drains or anything on top of the existing county services.
Never ascribe to cheat that which can be explained by people voting their conscience.
11,000 Georgia Libertarians flipped the Senate by voting for Orange Man but supporting their own fringe candidate in the Ossoff-Perdue race.
Then the Republicans didn’t show up for the runoffs.
Trump may yet be acquitted, but that will be one more score for Big Mike to settle with The Orange Devil.
I think all of the cases being weak was a deliberate choice to set up the score settling by someone at the top of the ticket. “Settlin’ the score” will also mean at least the two Senate seats going Dem in Florida and Texas.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/05/wayne-root-my-warning-president-trump-this-crisis/
n
11k ain’t 20k
n
It seems to me that ‘cheating’ is only indicated if your candidate loses, even though there is no hard and definitive evidence of enough ‘cheating’ to make a difference in the outcome..
IMHO.
Oh, Rick, your trolling is so deadpan.
And are accusations of ‘trolling’ only valid if someone disagrees?
IMHO, yes.
Bless your heart.
“Where Unsold EVs Go to Die: European Ports Are Drowning in Chinese EVs That Nobody Wants to Buy”
https://thelibertydaily.com/where-unsold-evs-go-die-european-ports-are/
“Le Monde reports Belgium’s ports drowning under glut of Chinese electric cars: ‘Some are parked here for a year, sometimes more’”
Whoa ! That is a lot of cars on the concrete.
@rick, do you REALLY believe that 153 million votes were cast? About half the population of the US, including every man woman and child?
n
Yes. Many sources verify those numbers. Including this one: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/
Although those numbers are perhaps difficult for conspiracy theorists to believe.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registered-voters-in-the-united-states/
You are proving my point that less than 100% turned out.
72M under 18 leaves a pool of potential voters at 258M.
Quick google says only 161M registered in the ENTIRE US. And we know there are more registered than actually eligible.
You are suggesting that we had 95% voter turnout 153M of 161M, which if even 5% of registered voters are duplicates, dead people, felons, or otherwise REALLY means 100% voter turnout…
100% voter turnout.
When many places say that historical participation rate is more like 50-70 percent…
Someone is deluded and it isn’t me.
n
Don’t argue with him.
He can’t handle the cognitive dissonance. He’s far from alone in that.
Orange Man is bad, and that’s all there is to it. If he’s not guilty of something, he should be convicted anyway. Because rude and mean tweets.
There are people who will willingly suspend disbelief, accept late-night sudden appearance of ballots from nowhere, accept that Joe Biden, who did not campaign, got more black votes than Obama, so long as they can sleep at night believing that Trump lost, and the election was fair.
And somehow they think they have moral high ground from those of us who made a career out of analyzing data and complex systems, and have doubts. And those doubts are compounded by the officials who refuse to improve the systems, or recognize that there are flaws.
Oh, and cool! Now I’m a conspiracy theorist, because I don’t like irregularities in my elections.
Well, I know which side of that I want to live on.
Marine environment on the water. They don’t intend for those cars to move again.
The problem with a Big Mike candidacy is that it will be Put Up Or Shut Up for the Dems on a number of issues should he win.
Student loans. Amnesty. Reparations. SALT deduction. New Tonymobile tax credits. Child care. Medicaid for All.
People forget that until Uncle Ted assumed room temperature in Summer 2009, Obama had a fillibuster-proof majory in the Senate and plenty of margin in the House. What did he accomplish when he could have done anything?
Nada.
The healthcare bill had to pass on Reconciliation and required nationalizing the student loan program to pay for it, compounding the problem of forgiveness.
You are familiar with the origin of the term “conspiracy theorist”, are you not? And the popular theory which the term was intended to deride, a theory which turned out not to be as delusional as TPTB claimed?
Speaking of seceding….. Three of six Central Texas neighborhoods vote to disannex from Austin
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/austin-disannexation-vote-results-19441484.php
Today’s annoyance is I ordered some mustard from Big River. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001SB22CO?tag=ttgnet-20
Can’t get it here anymore. The Best By date is Jan 15, 2024. “This item isn’t eligible for return”. What the heck?
I mean, I know the stuff is still good. It’s mustard after all. I complained to Big River. I’ll wait and see what happens. If nothing else, I’ll store it in the bottom crisper drawer in the beer fridge.
Sheesh.
The big boss lives out that way, but his house is closer to Mopac, inside Loop 360. The city would never let the tax base inside the loop go easily.
drwilliams, I’m sorry to hear about your cat. It’s never easy.
As for “passing it down” I think critters do. Dogs, anyway. I don’t know how they do it but Penny seems to know stuff I taught Wilma and Fred. They were gone before Penny arrived but their son Dino was here. Shrug. A mystery.
Take it up with the credit card company if Amazon won’t budge.
Thanks to all who offered condolences on the passing of my cat.
A large part of the gut punch was his age–he was only ten–and the total lack of any indication that his health was anything but excellent. Now I find out that sudden cardiac arrest in cats is recognized but little is known about it. There’s not a darn thing I could have done.
Yes, I am thankful that he didn’t suffer. I’ve lost cats to kidney disease, leukemia, and diabetes. The latter only after staving it off for five years with daily insulin and a raw meat diet, and then only because the manufacturer of the insulin that kept him stable screwed up their plant and had to close it.
“Uncle Ted assumed room temperature in Summer 2009”
Not for long if there is an afterlife.
Anything soaked in alcohol burns brighter…
n
@paul
Looks like you got the last of the Amazon Inglehoffer Stone Ground in jars, but it’s still available:
https://beavertonfoods.com/product/inglehoffer-original-stone-ground-mustard-4-oz/
https://beavertonfoods.com/inglehoffer-national-brand/
Now I’m thinking about brats and beer…
One of my (many, many) cats died like that; my wife said he yelped once, ran a few steps and then dropped. My wife is a nurse, and recognized that he’d just died on the spot. He was a bit chubby, but only 8 or 9, and had apparently been in good health right to the end.
On the other hand, an across-the-street neighbor’s cat had moved in with us (because she did NOT want him) after several years of not-so-benign neglect. Nemo lived with us for another 5-6 years, and had to have been at least 24 when he finally purred his last.
@Ray Thompson
Nope. For starters Northern California wants to stay.
So do a lot of the non-coastal areas.
Then there’s the matter of the national forests and other federal lands, which below to all the people of the United States.
And finally, there are the ports, which are also federal property.
Much easier to just throw up walls around the blue shiiteholes and expel them. We can connect one-way roads to Mexico for any that want to leave. Southbound only, no re-entry.
Since LA and the rest of the cities don’t have their own water supply, the problem will solve itself shortyly after the walls go up.
@Ray: California pays $5 for every $1 it receives in federal funding. Tennessee, for example, pays less fed money but gets more fed $$$
https://smartasset.com/data-studies/states-most-dependent-federal-government-2023
@Nick: 228M registered voters in 2020, and 209M active registered voters.
https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/document_library/files/2020_EAVS_Report_Final_508c.pdf
@RickH: Stand up for yourself every now and then.
“Income tax, excise, estate, gift and business income tax”
None of these are paid by the state.
@drwilliams: None of these are paid by the state.
Huh? Those taxes are paid by state residents to the federal government. That’s the whole point: people who live in states you don’t seem to like are propping up others because they pay disproportionately more in federal tax dollars (federal income tax, federal corporate tax, etc) than their state gets back in federal tax dollars.
@Ray had the math backwards in saying California got more in fed $$$ than its residents paid
@Nick: 228M registered voters in 2020, and 209M active registered voters.
https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/document_library/files/2020_EAVS_Report_Final_508c.pdf
– and yet, other sources have other totals. Since the EAC seems to just be adding the results sent to them, there is the chance that it’s the equivalent of circular reasoning, our numbers add up because we added our numbers. I can’t see where statistica gets their number because I don’t want to sign up for an account. I did grab 161 from 2022 when I should have used 168 from 2020. That changes the percentages slightly. On the other hand, I used 72M for Trump when it was really 74M and change.
A quick look at EAC’s numbers and they don’t necessarily match the federal election final report either. And I left out the ~3M votes for “other”.
Reading the notes, everyone uses different source numbers, everyone counts differently, everyone ROUNDS differently, it’s almost as if it was designed to be hard to bring into one place and compare directly.
I’ll note that the FEC doesn’t even compare number of counted votes to number of registered voters. Seems to me that would be a simple integrity check… the survey “jack” linked doesn’t either, although they surely have the data by state and possibly by smaller unit as well.
The survey “jack” linked goes on a great length about the increase in mail in ballots, and offers some percentages wrt how and why some got rejected. No actual numbers though, and as I’ve stated before, that makes it easier to mislead people. And mail in ballots make fraud much easier.
You won’t find what you don’t look for.
n
That’s the whole point: people who live in states you don’t seem to like are propping up others because they pay disproportionately more in federal tax dollars (federal income tax, federal corporate tax, etc) than their state gets back in federal tax dollars.
–we’ve been down this road before, and no one has numbers that can be simply explained or trusted. EVERYONE counts the two sides differently.
n
@nick: uh, what? You disagree with the figures because you don’t like the conclusion they lead to? That’s not how this works. The burden to show support is on the person making the argument.
I also don’t appreciate the scare quotes around my name, since you don’t even have an “about” page here (on what seems to be some other guy’s blog? From the header picture?)
@nick: and yet, other sources have other totals
Show us? Your “quick Google” seems to have pulled up the number of actual voters, not the number of eligible voters or registered voters
we’ve been down this road before, and no one has numbers that can be simply explained or trusted. EVERYONE counts the two sides differently.
So nobody has trustworthy numbers? Ok, in that case, maybe @Ray shouldn’t be making statements that can‘t be supported, and others shouldn’t be upvoting statements w/o support!
In particular, the report “jack” cites counts every dollar from all the citizens of the state on one side, but only the dollars the state GOVERNMENT gets from the Feds on the other.
Other surveys have considered money paid to the citizens of the state by the FEDGOV when they count benefits received, since they are counting money paid BY the citizens on the other side.
And “jack” misses the biggest point, that only the citizens of NM get more benefit to their state GOVERMENT than they individually and collectively send to FEDGOV. EVERYONE ELSE sends more than they get back. The FEDGOV sucks up the difference.
In other words, the linked site counts what the citizens pay on one side, and what their state government receives on the other. And if you count it that way, EVERYONE is getting F’d.
n
From the header picture?
– so you know what I look like and the picture isn’t me?
I thought the About page was pretty clear…
n
I made the mistake of opening Reddit again. There are a couple of Swiss groups. On one of those is a person who has moved to Switzerland (they apparently had citizenship through a parent), and intends to renounce their US citizenship. Reason? Because they want to bail on $600k of student loans.
First, what were they thinking? Second, why does the government guarantee these loans? Otherwise, no lender would ever offer a student that kind of money. Seriously nuts.
The whole student loan program is one gigantic brain fart.
Edit: I wonder if that will actually work? For $600k, I would seriously hope that someone would come after them, garnish their wages, whatever. I suppose the lender doesn’t care, though – government guarantee…
SmartAsset smells weird.