Free Republic

I’ve made that same argument that we should go back to calling that function the “personnel office”. “Human Resources” implies a utilitarian view of people which frequently is at odds with human dignity.

I saw a documentary that mentioned the Romans did know that lead was poison, but as Pierrem15 said in a earlier post, the continuously flowing water, plus mineral deposits mitigated a lot of the risk.

It is amazing how the Romans engineered aquaducts and other structures to move water where it was needed. Truly amazing!

That quote is golden! Thanks for the laugh this morning! That’s right up there with his answer to Megyn Kelly with “Only Rosie O’Donnell”.

Option 2 has been done in the H&K P7, but my guess is will be tricky to keep the dimensions similar.

It’s the vague way synodality is used. Sure it may have a place to bring in different perspectives to answer prudential questions, like how best to serve a particular community, but it has no place when it comes to discussing matters of doctrine that are settled.

My biggest worry is that the resource demands for AI datacenters are very high. Both in terms of power and also for water to keep things cool.

I’ve seen in my neck of the woods that the utilities don’t mind subsidizing at least part of those upgrade costs on residential subscribers.

Unless we are able to get a large amount of reliable base band power generation in place (e.g. nuclear) I fear consumers are going to see their utility costs skyrocket.

I think that was called the Cozy Restaurant. I used to go there in the 80s back when I lived near Frederick. Really neat restaurant but sadly closed now.

They had a big collection of old items from the early 20th century, including a telephone switchboard and old sewing machines. Was very cool to explore after dinner.

Your experiences are very interesting. Japan is one place I would love to visit, and I had the opportunity of getting to know a few wonderful Japanese citizens who were coworkers many years ago. I’m just starting to self-learn the language basics. I’d appreciate any resources you recommend or found helpful.

That’s what I tend to prefer. It’s not that I want to get rid of all stuff, but I’ve found that junk tends to fill all the spaces available.

I’m sure that’s why we see an explosion of storage companies everywhere selling space for whatever doesn’t fit in homes.

Back before 9/11 closed off a lot of access I was on a trip with a group in DC and I remember walking the tunnels under the capitol to the house and senate buildings. Some of the underground sections I walked were for service personnel and others who needed to move things around. Can’t do that any more but it was a lot of fun to explore.

There should be something related to real student loan reform/relief. Not letting people off the hook, but helping those who still have to pay while rewarding those who diligently paid, and helping those who chose the trades.

Tax reform should be pushed with real measures to provide relief to working people. The tax cuts from Trump’s previous term should be made permanent and possibly improved.

Historically, the incumbent party loses house seats in the off-year election and the left will spare no expense to take back the house and grind Trump’s agenda to a halt. Trump has to have a coherent plan to counter that.

I like your last point... I’ve been in favor of a flat tax since I read “Flat Tax Revolution” by Steve Forbes. I also agree the current tax code is a horrible design and intended to pick winners and losers at the behest of lobbyists. I’d much prefer a simplified flat tax.

Sadly, I think you’re right.

Actions certainly have consequences, but I’ve been think of a couple of aspects that should be considered. I know that many of these won’t be that popular on this forum, and I agree, but some kind of out-of-the-box thinking needs to happen and unfortunately, I don’t see current politicians wanting to upset the status quo, which is sad:

Political: we are less than two years from an election that will once again determine who controls the House. If Democrats win then Trump essentially becomes a lame duck for the last two years of his presidency — you just know they will try to impeach him again if for no other reason than to stop regular business from occurring. Historically, the trend doesn’t favor Republicans. Being heavy handed and threatening student loan borrowers now could backfire politically. You just know the left will push forgiveness policies everywhere and historically, it has a good chance of working.

Forgiveness: We all know that due to the Government taking student loans onto themselves they perpetuated the environment that colleges could just jack up the price and students have no way to discharge the debt. Unless this issue is solved forgiving loans is just a temporary fix to the problem. That the public school system — likely with encouragement from the Federal Dept. of Education has encouraged this practice of pushing students into the college pipeline whether or not it makes economic sense has contributed to the problem. Yes the kids took out the loans, but that wasn’t completely done in a vacuum.

There is no way a solution will be fair for everyone, but my proposal is to consider a few or all of the following. Other members of this forum may have some thoughtful criticism or other ideas. Many or all of these might be unworkable in the current climate:

1. Get the government out of the student loan business — they can still award grants — and return those functions to the private sector.

2. Encourage the private sector to establish a risk ranking based on expected degree return-on-investment and the particular college to determine how to fund college. Colleges who fail their graduates may be forced to pay a certain percentage of student loan costs in the calendar year they get a low ranking. Essentially create something like a credit score, but for colleges and the degrees they offer so students can shop for the best return on investment.

3. Establish block grants to encourage states to rein in public universities and have them cut out the fat and focus on educating students with the goal to reduce tuition and costs significantly to make both 4 year public universities and community college more accessible. Cover 100% (tuition, transportation, books, fees) of high school students who substitute a college level course in place of a high school course. This will get the motivated kids out of the clutches of the public school sooner.

3. Recalculate all student loans, current and past to be principal + 1% (for nominal servicing) to get rid of the usurious charges that hamper our citizens who want to get ahead. Allow for financing for a 20-40 year period. While relief is needed, people should still be responsible for the principal.

4. For those who diligently paid off their loans, allow them to deduct the difference in interest payments after their loans have been retroactively recalculated over 10 years with no marriage penalty for spouses who have already paid off their loans.

5. For those who went into the trades and decided against college, permit them to deduct 5 years prior and 5 years of future the costs of training, tools, uniforms, and supplies purchased in service of their career.

6. Companies should be given generous deductions for subsidizing tuition and training for hires, but the priority has to be US citizens.

Considering the Federal Government blows billions (even trillions) on foreign wars and waste, it seems there should be a way to solve this problem. It might be an opportunity to have a new “Contract for America” like that which broke Democrat control over the house back in ‘94.

If Republicans show no spine, have no unity, and don’t have coherent policies, than historically the incumbent party will be hit hard in the next off-year election and that will gridlock a lot of good the Trump administration could do.

I’m not optimistic though, I think there’s still a lot of uni-party that is biding their time for Trump to go away forever before everything goes back to business as usual.

They did show her a mirror. Unfortunately it was in an SNL skit and the “mirror” just reinforced her ego instead of showing her the truth.

You’d think that, but they are highly trained Swiss military. Personally, I wouldn’t want to have to mess with a trained soldier wielding a halberd, not to mention any backup weapons you can’t see.

It’s been years since I’ve seen a Birdman Weapon Systems ad. As I recall there was one instance where I think a state legislator used those ads to rant their anti-gun views not realizing they were parody ads.

I had a box a few years ago. They changed the recipie, and not in a good way. The letters were more puffed up and didn’t have the definition that the old ones did.

I remember originally the letters were more distinct and softened similarly to Post’s other cereal Honeycomb but the new version was way too puffy, had no clear way to discern letters and became more mealy and tasteless when softened.

A similar thing I think happened to Honeycomb which you can still get. Not quite the same as I remember it.

Anyone still miss the metal license plate you used to get in Honeycomb cereal?

Neil Diamond (twice)
Engelbert Humperdinck
The Monkees (Mike Nesmith couldn’t attend but Davy, Peter, and Micky were there)
Rolling Stones
Dave Matthews Band
The Corrs (opened for the Rolling Stones)
Kansas (twice)
AC/DC (probably the best concert I’ve been to)

Outside of concerts, I’ve also been to a bunch of musicals, symphony concerts, and opera, which are also a lot of fun.