I’ve lived in Ohio for over 20 years and today was the first time going to the @OhioStateFair. This year’s butter sculpture celebrated @NASA’s Apollo 11 astronauts. pic.twitter.com/NvKwozvptE
— ?Jazia (@JaziaB) July 28, 2019
To @RepCummings with love from Ghana, where we’re solemnly observing 400 yrs since the first enslaved Africans arrived in America. Thank you Elijah for fearlessly speaking truth. pic.twitter.com/tEz266LI3U
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 28, 2019
******
It was a (small, but not to me) Pell grant that enabled me to attend an out-of-state college. I understand that Pell grants have changed, not for the better, in the almost 40 years since then, but this still seems like a worthy idea:
Yesterday I announced that, as president, I’ll establish a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities. https://t.co/ldwuC9RiIE
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 28, 2019
Oh and btw Warren is a co-sponsor on Kamala Harris' legislation on pell grants for all the performative progressives out there.https://t.co/T9tdMC6y1f
— swats (@swatnot) July 28, 2019
I know some people are confused about this policy but I’m a black woman who was a pell grant recipient who has a non-profit business. This plan would help me and my community specifically. You might not be the focus of this plan but no need to be angry about it, she’ll have more. https://t.co/2JFM1v96NT
— Maya Contreras (@mayatcontreras) July 28, 2019
Judging from my experience (and that of some of my classmates), grants targeted this way would also be useful to graduates hoping to return to their ‘decaying’ rust-belt post-industrial hometowns, or those ‘forgotten’ ex-coal-mining or Midwestern family-farm hamlets. You know, the sacred haunts of the White Working Class!
• student loan forgiveness
• for pell grant recipients
• who start a small business
• that survives three years
• in a disadvantaged neighborhood***only up to $20k forgiven** pic.twitter.com/6wx5gH5tme
— dunder mifflin, this is diane (@dianelyssa) July 28, 2019
A lot of ignorant replies here. People with massive student loan debt can and do start businesses all the time. (I’m one of them.) Harris’ plan is directed at POC entrepreneurship without running afoul of the constitution which prohibits giving money based on race. Smart. https://t.co/Yy8VPbbUX8
— Candice Aiston (@CandiceAiston) July 28, 2019
Student loan forgiveness for business owners in disadvantaged communities? Bullshit. Student loan forgiveness for podcasters who quit their day jobs after reaching $500/month on Patreon? My exact kind of communism.
— M A S S P O L I T I C S (@OfficialSynanon) July 28, 2019
Raven
I still owe about 5k, would it forgive that when I retire???
Baud
Fixed.
eclare
@Baud: @Baud: Hahaha…that sculpture was awesome!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
Sending positive thoughts for Scotian, Little Imma and the rest of the BJ Jackal Family that need them???
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: My first thought too.
eclare
@rikyrah: Me too. Did you see Joel Hanes was at the garlic festival?
Patricia Kayden
Loving that photo of Speaker Pelosi and the African American Representatives in Ghana. Democrats aren’t perfect but we try to be inclusive and welcoming. Republicans have decided to go balls to the walls with their shrinking White base.
As to Senator Harris’ proposal, it’s good to see how creative our candidates are when it comes to actually helping the working and middle classes. This is what we’ll get if we vote out Trump next year. Works for me.
LesGS
@eclare: Not Joel himself, but family members. Still horrible.
Sab
Anyone who went to the Ohio State Fair:
Where do the butter sculpted cow and calf fit into the whole sculpture? Were they depicted as watching the moon (made of blue (i.e. goat) cheese) or were they up there with the astronauts?
Whatever. It looks awesome.
eclare
@LesGS: Oh my bad, it was late. But yeah, still awful.
eclare
@Sab: Isn’t there a line in a childrens’ poem about how the cow jumped over the moon? I thought the cows were looking at the moon and thinking about jumping over it.
Sab
@eclare: That makes sense. Thanks.
Sab
I was wrong. Blue cheeses are penicillin laced cheeses. They can be cow, goat, sheep, water buffalo or whatever cheese. More of the famous varieties are sheep or goat than cow, but that’s just random.
Baud
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/29/746051105/kamala-harris-releases-medicare-for-all-plan-with-a-role-for-private-insurers
ETA: Looks like she read my comments wishing for a middle way between Biden and Bernie. Pressure now on Warren to chart out her own position.
Baud
At some point liberal society will believe me about the NYT.
I don’t want Biden, but he’s not the oldest candidate in the primary.
Betty Cracker
Catching up on the news about the possible poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Reminds me of what happened to Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine about 15 years ago.
Baud
@Baud:
WaPo story. Focuses more on politics than substance.
Mustang Bobby
Good morning, everyone. Been away from commenting for a while because for some reason the site comes up cattywampus via Firefox on this particular computing device. Anyway, to catch up: my last day on the job at Miami-Dade County Public Schools is three weeks from today. My official retirement date is August 31, but I need to burn off vacation days or lose them. What that means also is that I’ll be going to work part-time which means I will have more time to write and drop in here more often. See ya around!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: It’s all about the horse race.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Awesome news for us. Congratulations!
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: Great!
Kay
@Baud:
Yeah, it is good they’re backing off it. I have to say though I think Bernie’s funding is better – it’s more reliable and consistent and I don’t think lower income people won’t pay – they pay for Soc Sec and Medicare now and they’re fully aware they have payroll deductions- they just need to be able to afford it.
5% of gross is “reasonable” in Ohio, where 9% of gross is “affordable” under Obamacare- same idea, different terms. 9% is too high. I think charging everyone brings everyone in. This is a group effort. It should be paid for by just about everyone.
eclare
@Mustang Bobby: Congratulations!
Baud
@Kay:
To be honest, I just felt uncomfortable putting all our eggs in the full on single payer basket, and having the only alternative be Biden’s Obamacare+ or Buttigieg’s plan, which I think is just a buy in. It’s nice to have something in the middle.
Baud
@Kay:
I also have very serious doubts about a four year transition period, which I think will be a logistical upheaval. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like a heavy lift.
Kay
@Baud:
Bernie’s banning private insurance still makes no sense to me. Social Security is taken out of wages (as his 4% tax will be, I imagine) and people still have 401k’s. I swear to God it was just pure, sticking it to the man cussedness.
satby
@Mustang Bobby: Congratulations!
@rikyrah: Good morning and echoing your thoughts for our ailing jackals and relatives. Hoping joel hanes’ relatives wounds were minor. Was a little unclear last night.
mrmoshpotato
There’s something disturbing about butter sculptures. So much butter in one place, and it doesn’t even have to fight its way out of the wrapper to drown us all like lobsters.
debbie
@eclare:
Used to go to the fair every year when I was a kid. The butter sculpture was always one of the highlights, if only to dream what it would be like if I could have that much butter on my bread!
Baud
@Kay:
He has to be the purest on this issue and on student loans/free college. His base is invested in that identity.
Kay
@Baud:
Oh, please. It’s a moving target. Even Bernie knows that. 10 years is a moving target. They’re not going to throw a hundred million people off health insurance. There is no Democrat in Congress who would do that. Their whole thing has been “covered” for 50 years. Not even Bernie is so pure he becomes a far Right Republican and contemplates taking it away. Never, ever happen.
debbie
@Sab:
They’re off to the side of the astronauts, sort of like the animals at the manger.
debbie
@Mustang Bobby:
Lucky you! Congratulations!
eclare
@Baud: I think so too, healthcare is 1/6th of our economy.
Baud
@Kay:
Sometimes I think they believe their own rhetoric that if they pursue the most extreme position, whatever is negotiated will be better. It’s not completely wrong if you assume that a negotiated resolution is the inevitable outcome. But in the real world, complete failure is also a very likely outcome.
debbie
@Kay:
It doesn’t seem like any of these plans take into consideration how the insurance companies will react. As hateful as they are, they need to be factored in, or this will all be pie in the sky.
mrmoshpotato
Is the Moon still made of cheese?
Baud
@eclare:
Right. The debate always seems to assume that we’ll just replace insurance companies with the government and nothing else will change. It’s almost as of providers and medical suppliers don’t exist, the way we discuss the issue. They’ll just go along like nothing has changed.
I get that you can’t get into the weeds in a campaign, but we also can’t ignore the roadblocks that we’ll have to deal with to get where we want to go.
satby
@Kay:
Bernie knows that a lot of what he tells his cultists isn’t very possible.
@Baud:
Failure in the pursuit of pure ideology isn’t possible Baud, it just moves us one step closer to socialist nirvana. Sarandon said so.
Edit: my, I’m feeling salty today.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Been waiting for Warren to drop a healthcare plan. Upon a quick read-through, Harris’s proposal seems sensible to me. I was pleased that she pointed out 7 million have lost insurance under Trump and that another 20 million or so are at risk of losing their coverage if the Trump admin-backed lawsuit succeeds. Was also glad she pointed out the estimated death toll of the GOP states that refused Medicaid expansion. That issue deserves a lot more coverage, IMO.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Right. However heated the debate on our side gets about the particulars, everyone Dem wants to improve people’s health care, every GOP idea makes people worse off.
Baud
@satby:
Stay salty, my friend.
Keith P.
Your moment of Zen – a young Glenn Beck dressed up as a Ghostbuster.
Baud
Booker sticking around.
mrmoshpotato
@satby:
LOL
Baud
Hopeful speculation.
Baud
@satby:
rikyrah
@eclare:
I did???
rikyrah
@Baud:
????
Don’t a number of European countries, with better healthcare than us , also have private insurance?
rikyrah
@Baud:
I know ???
Dammit, start attacking Biden on his long phucking record ??
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I know…I feel for the gentleman …. dealing with a Demon ? like Putin.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I haven’t read the transition plan. What happens to the employer contribution for people who now get their insurance through their employer? I assume it doesn’t go to the employee, who now pays more taxes. Is it a windfall for employers?
Also, as I look at the Trump government, or any R government really, I’m not sure I want them managing my health insurance with no options. I suppose they manage it now since I’m on Medicare, but that’s a little perilous.
Baud
@rikyrah:
I haven’t heard of any country completely banning private insurance, although I think the role it plays is different in different schemes.
eclare
@satby: I agree with salty satby!
Betty Cracker
While catching up on the weekend posts, I saw Cole has taken up canning. Maybe we can talk him into putting up a jar or two of peaches as a prize in a random drawing for contributors to an ActBlue fundraiser or something.
I don’t do any canning that involves boiling jars, etc. — it’s hot enough around here already — but I do make refrigerated tomato jam sometimes. It’s fabulous on bagels.
A family down the road have a cottage business canning preserves, jams and jellies and selling jars of local honey. They have a small unmanned stand on the side of a country road with a sealed cash box — it’s on the honor system.
The mister and I stopped by yesterday and bought a jar of fig jam and mixed berry preserves — strawberry, blueberry and blackberry. It’s wonderful. I’ve been thinking about trying to make mead, in which case I’ll need vast quantities of honey. Maybe I can make a bulk deal with the folks down the road.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: But but but he has THE data.
Ohio Mom
@Mustang Bobby: Congrats, and I hope you know the site is wonky in one way or another for most of us. A new site is underway, we all waiting eagerly.
See you around!
satby
@Baud: thanks, but I can’t read it, no subscription. But he describes how he came to volunteer in his book, which is a great read BTW.
eclare
@Baud: I think Switzerland is totally private, but that is a much smaller population to deal with than the US. When I was in the UK, everyone had NHS, which worked fine for me, but if you wanted “extras” there was private insurance. I read what NHS covered, and thought, why bother? Also, a lot of employers used “we’ll pay for your private insurance” as a perk.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
I have an outdoor kitchen specifically for this purpose.
Baud
@eclare:
Less wait? Private rooms? Don’t know much about the NHS.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: We have a propane burner we use for brewing beer (or making a low country boils, etc.) outside, but it’s definitely not a summer activity, at least not for me. The last thing I’m going to do in a Florida summer is tend boiling cauldrons, indoors or out!
PST
Matt Gaetz doesn’t know Elijah Cummings from John Lewis. Maybe when he’s been in Congress half as long as either of them he’ll get a clue, but of course I don’t really think so. He was criticizing Lewis for going to Ghana this week.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@PST: My god, they’re like clichés. You couldn’t put this stuff in a book. Your editor would laugh in your face.
Searcher
@OzarkHillbilly: Full summer kitchen or just like a stove on the porch?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I canned when I was younger and I’m glad I know how to do it but honestly commercial canned tomatoes are delicious, so I felt like there wasn’t that much difference :)
Commercial canned tomatoes are better than commercial fresh tomatoes. They don’t can the crappy, tasteless ones they sell fresh.
I never did anything except tomatoes and pickles. I still grow pickling cucumbers but now I grow them to eat fresh- I like the size of them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I don’t blame you. I do what I need to do outside then retreat to the AC as much as possible. I don’t bake in the summer just yet because I haven’t yet built my cob oven. It’s coming.
Searcher
@Baud: You know, making absurd claims — running your car on water, a Nigerian prince wants to send you millions, we’re going to build the wall and make Mexico pay for it, we’re going to completely eliminate private insurance in four years — is also a well known technique for scammers to winnow down the audience to the people dumb enough to give them money.
eclare
@Baud: I think those were part of the private insurance perks, like I said, I just didn’t think it was necessary. I fell and gouged a leg pretty badly while I was there, so I walked down the street to the nearest hospital (same one where Kate has had her kids). They asked my name, religious affiliation (if I died? I don’t know), triaged me, treated me in the ER, and I was in and out in three hours on a Thursday night. No bill, no statement, nada. That was good enough for me.
Baud
@Searcher:
That’s why I tell people that Baud!Care! will cover their pets.
Baud
@eclare:
Yeah, but would you have done that if you didn’t have access to reliable health care? #MoralHazard.
OzarkHillbilly
@Searcher: Stove and grill with cabinets and counter space (over counter lights too). I should have put in a small sink from the gitgo but it would have been a pita. Now it’s an even bigger pita but the more I do out there, the more I want one.
sigh….
The list grows longer.
eclare
@Baud: Hahaha…actually I blame the Tube. That damn gap.
ThresherK
@Baud: Will Baud!Care! bring my late pets back from the dead?
Kay
My son already went to what will be his Danish health care provider because he had to be cleared (again) for immigration and he was impressed. He wouldn’t have had that much contact with US health care though because he’s young and relatively healthy.
He said you have to speak to a pharmacist before buying OTC meds and they record the purchase just like US does for prescriptions, which he thinks Americans would freak out about- those people who are always convinced everything is a gubmint plot to track them, but never object at all when private sector entities track their every move. He doesn’t care that “they” know he bought aspirin.
Steve in the ATL
@eclare:
Say it three times fast!
Steve so far in the sticks he’s surprised to have Internet
Lapassionara
@Baud: This. Medicare sets reimbursement rates, and many healthcare providers feel they are too low. Some do not take Medicare patients, or at least try not too. This is a huge group of people, doctors, nurses, lab technicians, etc. Many of them found the ACA acceptable because it did not force lower reimbursement rates, and in fact, in some cases, expanded their pool of patients.
I know that insurance companies also try setting reimbursement rates, but it is my understanding that those are generally higher than Medicare.
I don’t know how we achieve anything like MFA in this political environment.
Baud
@ThresherK:
It will reunite you with your pets one way or the other.
Baud
@Kay:
I remember during the metadata debates that people were told that what the NSA was doing worse than what private companies do because Facebook can’t arrest you.
eclare
@Kay: Interesting. Keep us updated on his experiences, I’m curious, as I’m sure we all are, how other countries get better outcomes for less cost.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
Yup, notably Switzerland and the Netherlands.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Your tomato jam sounds intriguing. Is it sweet or savory? Can you share the recipe? Thanks!
ThresherK
@Baud:
Humana called and wants you to get your own damn advertising slogan.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
That’s only because they can’t make any money off of you if you are in prison.
Kay
@eclare:
He does fintech- he designs and programs “frictionless” payment systems- and he thinks people are naive about how much information is collected on them. His coworkers are a really odd bunch. Some of them have this whole ethos about how institutions are “skimming” – rent seeking- on payment systems and not adding any value. They also go on and on about bitcoin but if you can stay awake past that detour their philosophy about how taking a small cut of every transaction is this giant rip off is interesting. They think they are doing good things for society. Some of them. Some of them are just cranky libertarians.
Kay
@Baud:
It is hard to be generous. We get a lot of concerns from parents at the school about privacy. I think that’s completely legit but they have to be consistent. How about you, the parents, stop putting their names and faces and every detail about them on Facebook? I don’t know, man, I think I detected the leaker and it’s them.
eclare
@Kay: Hmmm…unless you operate strictly on cash and don’t have any of those “customer” cards, I don’t see how you avoid information collection. A long time ago I dated a guy who thought he was a modern day Einstein by not using his real name on a Kroger card. But he paid with stuff with a debit card. Kroger knows how to compare, idjit.
Alien Radio
@Kay: Your son’s friends are right. Banks are rent seeking on seigniorage, that is the issuing of money, on top of the means of transacting the money. It’s a service that should be publicly owned and a cryptocurrency (NOT BITCOIN) issued by government and good for payment of taxes could free up a huge amount of economic energy into the economy, there’s a huge amount of slack and wastage, by design as each bit is a rent seeking opportunity.
OzarkHillbilly
Overload can be a problem, but if you want a little release from the sometimes overwhelming anger you feel, David Simon’s twitter feed can be a balm to one’s soul:
I’d be in the “I have better things to do” camp but he destroys trolls just for the pure pleasure of it.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: He does have a way with words. Up there with Ms. Cracker.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: It can be sweet AND savory — you can add whatever spices you like to customize. I usually make it with cherry tomatoes because that’s what my husband grows most often, but I’ve also had success with plum tomatoes. I don’t use a formal recipe anymore and can’t remember where I found the base recipe I originally used, but my current process is:
1. Cut the tomatoes up in halves or quarters (depending on size) and put them on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, add salt and pepper and any other spices you want, e.g., cumin, cinnamon, garam masala, etc.
2. Add a couple of minced garlic cloves or ginger and a teaspoon or so of brown sugar. Squeeze a little lemon juice over it, then toss.
3. Roast at 350 until most of the liquid is evaporated and they have a jammy consistency. (You can also simmer the tomatoes in a large saucepan if you’d rather not roast them, but you have to pay more attention).
That’s it! It’ll keep in the fridge for a week or so.
Kay
@Alien Radio:
They made me aware of it in a way I wasn’t before, so when I see my own transactions or the business transactions I think about it, and I think about how 1/10 of a cent multiplies. Everyone taking a tiny slice.
Kay
@Alien Radio:
I don’t buy individual stocks, generally, but I did buy a small amount of a Michigan bank stock so I see the numbers stand-alone (I don’t do that with the 401k fund) and that is a profitable business! Yowza. Those 1/100ths of a cent add up! This quiet little local bank in Michigan is a money machine :)
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I already do something similar, I don’t use any sugar, I also roast red onions with the tomatoes and the garlic. I sometimes add green chilies and then blend everything together and use it as roasted tomato salsa. I will try your version the next time I roast tomatoes.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Roasting onion and chiles along with the tomatoes sounds really good. My husband also grows jalapeño peppers at the same time as tomatoes; I bet that would work in a jam too!
tobie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think DeLauro and Schakowsky’s Medicare for America Act is (in secret) a transition plan to single payer. It makes Medicare the default option for anyone who doesn’t have employer provided insurance. Employees who don’t like their group plan at work can switch to Medicare with their employer subsidy. And the improved and expanded Medicare will provide the standard for all insurance coverage. It’s a good plan and is conceived to ensure that there is no disruption of service as enrollment in Medicare rapidly expands. Frankly it’s the only responsible pathway I’ve seen to single payer.
germy
eclare
@Betty Cracker: Aren’t those the peppers used to make pepper jelly?
waratah
@Baud: Why could the senators not go with the plan two lady house representatives have written. Is there a rule they cannot back their plans.
Balloon juice did have a mention one time when Beto switched from Medicare to their plan.
Very simple if you do not have insurance you can immediately sign up for Medicare if you do not like you private insurance or cannot afford the copay you can sign up for Medicare.
People who want private insurance ca keep it.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
Kick her out of the coven!!
tobie
A propos of nothing: Has anyone watched the new Netflix documentary The Great Hack? I didn’t learn anything new per se, but the documentary put together a clear picture of Cambridge Analytica’s London operations and its close connections with Facebook and concluded with a pretty amazing assertion that psychographics and psy ops used to be considered weapons-grade equip in the UK and private enterprises needed govt approval to use it abroad.
ETA The irony was not lost one that a digital behemoth like Netflix was producing a documentary on the dangers of digital behemoths.
rikyrah
@Mustang Bobby:
Congratulations :) :)
eclare
@tobie: I read a review, and I plan to.
Betty Cracker
@eclare: Yes — another thing that is great on bagels, IMO.
@Immanentize: Swamp witches have no-cauldron recipes for potions!
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Can’t. She’ll put a curse on the lot of us.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Tricky, those swamp witches…. But it is good to know they might melt in the heat and humidity if you add cooking smells.
OzarkHillbilly
It is not for me to forgive you but I will say, “Well said. sir, and well done.”
joel hanes
@eclare:
Joel Hanes was at the garlic festival
I was not.
My granddaughter and her husband’s extended family were right at the shooting site, and my gdaughter’s SIL and niece both sustained superficial bullet wounds. Grandson-inlaw sprained his ankle running from shooting while carrying 1-year-old.
As far as I know at this time, all three received initial treatment at hospitals are now recovering at home.
That six-year-old kid who was killed could just as easily have been my one-year-old great-grandson, whom I help care for three mornings a week, and who is learning to say “blue” and “red”.
joel hanes
@Sab:
Wonderful domestic blue cheeses from Carr Valley in Wisconsin; they make varieties from cow, sheep, and goat milk. The Glacier Pentacream is luscious; the Baa Baa Blue is astoundingly flavorful.
Maytag blue cheese from Iowa is reliably sharp-flavored and rich; it’s a cow-milk blue cheese. Both highly recommended over the usual grocery store blue cheeses.
Point Reyes in California also makes a good blue.
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
How’s the Immp doing this morning?
eclare
@joel hanes: Oh I knew extended family was there, I thought you were there too. I’m glad it doesn’t sound like anything too serious physically, but mentally, that has to be rough. The tolls these shootings take on this country are immense, physically and mentally.
satby
@joel hanes: as happy as we are to hear your family members are ok, it’s a stark reminder that some other families needlessly lost their beloved children last night.
I hope for a day when we aren’t the victims and prisoners of the out of control gun humpers in this country.
MomSense
@joel hanes:
Oh Joel, just reading this news now. I’m so sorry. Such a traumatic experience for your granddaughter and her family. Sending you all my sympathy. I have some extended family who were students at the STEM school in Colorado. Even if they survive physically, it’s a long road to recovery emotionally.
This fucking gun violence epidemic has to be dealt with. We are all held hostage to this gun sickness.
tobie
@joel hanes: Oh my. This cuts close to home. Your whole family must be feeling utterly shaken today.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Make mead! Make mead! And if you want to buy in more bulk than your neighbors can provide, Dutch Gold out of PA will deliver in quantities anywhere from a five-gallon paint bucket size to a shipping container!
J R in WV
@Mustang Bobby:
Glad to see you back, again!!
And way congratulations on your rapidly approaching retirement !! I love it. I enjoyed my work, puzzle solving for money I called it, debugging complex systems, etc. But glad to be done with it.
joel hanes
@tobie:
We’re feeling damned lucky today, thanks.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne:
Sleeping right now. He had a barium test on the new connection and that took all his energy. Barium cocktails always suck. Awaiting results…..
daveNYC
Harris’ plan is remarkably limited in scope. You need to have a Pell Grant, you need to have opened a business in a certain neighborhood, and you need to have kept that business running for three years. And after all that you max out at 20k forgiven. If you want to help grow businesses in poor areas, subsidized loans for those areas seems better for the job; and if you want to help alleviate college debt, increasing the scale of the Pell Grant program (or anything like Bernie or Warren are talking about) seems like a better idea.
This proposal seems to be kind of half-assed as far as achieving either goal.
Immanentize
@joel hanes:
Damn! I am so happy to hear that your tribes injuries were not more serious. I am feeling I am not as well suited for this current world as I once believed.
joel hanes
@Betty Cracker:
The last thing I’m going to do in a Florida summer is tend boiling cauldrons
My maternal grandmother kept a huge garden, and canned serious quantities of green beans and tomatoes and sweet corn every summer.
Her canning kitchen was in the basement.
When my mom was a teenager, one 90 degree day on which they’d been lugging in baskets of tomatoes and then spending hours scalding and boiling, my mom swore an internal oath : “When I grow up, I will never ever can one thing myself!” She’s 87 now, and she never has.
I miss my grandmother’s canned “shelly” green kidney beans, which featured lots of salt and some bacon cracklings and a touch of bacon grease.
Alien Radio
@Kay: We live in a post scarcity society, but scarcity has to be manufactured in order to hide that. Hence how much productivity was waste, Some goes into offshore tax havens but the important thing is that the productivity is wasted, George Orwell covered the need for a society that can build tools that build other tools: to find some way of destroying the surplus; to create a scarcity; So that you can pay one half of the population; to enslave the other half. This is also why the Over Population meme exists, Population growth has been trending downward for a while, Educating women makes a huge difference, turns out people prefer to have fewer children they can invest more in when the likelyhood is that the child will reach adulthood. the Idea that the modern economy is capable of producing pretty much anything that most people could require and that the vast majority of economic activity is purposefully wasteful, Including the chunk going to tax havens, that you could maintain almost the same standard of life if you just reformed the monetary system and were able to capture the value of that economic activity for useful purposes, and Only Billionaires would suffer is dangerous to a lot of people,
Yarrow
@Baud: @eclare: The NHS covers everything (well, everything they allow) but the trade off can be wait times and fewer services. My go-to example is an older person who needed hip replacement. Her doctor told her she could wait for an NHS slot to become available, which required her to become so feeble that she could almost not walk (she was very active) or she could use her private insurance and get it done right away. Same doctor. Same hospital. Same surgery. Same everything. Private insurance just meant surgery while she was healthier and could recover more easily.
She was recently in hospital again. The hospital room was shared. Had to pay to get TV. There was one down the hall in a lounge but if you wanted a TV in your room you paid. Phone calls also cost but these days everyone has a mobile so it’s less of an issue.
Like any system the NHS has its advantages and disadvantages. The queue-jumping has always bothered me because poor people keep getting pushed to the bottom of the list as rich people use private insurance to get their procedures done first. And of course with Brexit there are nurse and doctor shortages as people are not taking those jobs due to the uncertainly.
tobie
@daveNYC: I agree that the plan is not thought out at all and if, say, Biden proposed it, we would be rightly roasting him over the coals for it.
Immanentize
@daveNYC: It is clearly about another goal, just like her HBCU plan. She is trying to signal the many ways that she understands the real challenges of minority communities. South Carolina needs to move away from Biden. 7 HBCU 4 year universities in S.C. serving about 10,000 students.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mustang Bobby:
Been wondering where you were. Short-timer!
OzarkHillbilly
@joel hanes: Haysoos crispo, thank dawg.
gwangung
@daveNYC: Yes, that’s how it struck me, too.
One of the main reasons new businesses fail is undercapitalization. This plan by Harris does nothing for that
WaterGirl
@Mustang Bobby: yay for us! And congratulations to you!
Brachiator
@joel hanes:
Very glad to hear that your family is okay.
I am saddened that anyone has had to endure pain, grief, terror.
Never been to the festival, but have been to Gilroy a few times. I don’t know. I’m just so tired of this madness, and that we don’t seem to be able to contain it.
Citizen Alan
@satby:
Seriously, that women’s name is triggering to me. I can’t help gritting my teeth when she’s mentioned even in passing.
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly:
I had to read 5 paragraphs before I realized to my relief that this wasn’t Kamala Harris.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
And sometimes those transaction fee “slices” aren’t so tiny.
When I contributed to Scotian’s GoFundMe page and found that it was being run in Canadian dollars, I checked the exchange rate to see if perhaps GoFundMe was chiseling me there. The rate they gave me wasn’t out of line with what was on Google.
But then later—separate transaction on my card—they hit me with an “international transaction fee” of $2.31. That did seem a little steep, but maybe it’s not out of line with “normal” currency conversion fees.
stinger
@Mustang Bobby: Good to know!
J R in WV
@ThresherK:
As a captive of Humana, I like this comment +9.9
Regarding the new release of B-J — I doubt it’s a secret but I don’t care if it is … watergirl is working on testing with the volunteers, so must be getting close. She did say that they are now in the part of development where the last 10% of production takes the last 90% of the effort, which is a really, really old software team joke that non-developer managers can’t seem to realize is NOT just a joke. It’s also a maxim of development.
Jeffery
I was in school from 1966 to 1970. Pell grants paid all of the three last years of my tuition. I didn’t know about them the first year.
StringOnAStick
@Kay: If you like the size of pickling cucumbers for eating, search out seeds for the “Picolino” variety. They’re seedless so the seeds are more expensive but the plants are incredibly productive and zero bitterness. Who I order my seeds from each year depends completely on who carries this variety. I’ve been consistently growing cucumbers since I was a kid, and I’ve never liked a variety better!