“Pay them more.”
— President Biden whispers in response to questions about worker shortages. pic.twitter.com/8OtMvzizFT
— The Recount (@therecount) June 24, 2021
Biden reminds reporters questioning his strategy that, after decades on Capitol Hill, he knows Congress better than they do
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 24, 2021
‘We have a deal’: President Biden hailed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan Senate deal to renew the nation's infrastructure and stimulate the world’s largest economy https://t.co/R0lGEuduk2 pic.twitter.com/AZwvznlvnO
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 25, 2021
Per the BBC:
… Less than half the money in the eight-year proposal is new spending. It includes $109bn for roads and bridges, $66bn for railways, $49bn for public transport and $25bn for airports, according to a White House statement.
A further $73bn would be pumped into power grid and $65bn for expanding Americans’ access to broadband internet.
The package is meant to be paid for with unused coronavirus aid money and returned state jobless benefits.
Democrats also argue the bill’s proposed $40bn investment in the Internal Revenue Service for beefed-up enforcement would generate a net gain of $100bn in extra tax revenue…
The president wants to enact another, roughly $6tn spending package that would roll in his party’s priorities on climate change, education, paid leave and childcare benefits. It is being drafted by Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist.
That measure is expected to include tax increases on the wealthy and corporations. It would be passed by a budget reconciliation process that would not require any Republican votes in the Senate.
The most powerful Democrat in the US House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, made clear they would not pass one bill without the other.
“There ain’t going to be a bipartisan bill without a reconciliation bill,” Mrs Pelosi said.
Mr Biden echoed that sentiment in later remarks from the East Room of the White House: “If this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it. It’s in tandem.”…
Today, after months of negotiation, a group of Democratic and Republican senators came to an agreement to invest in our nation’s infrastructure. The details of the plan can be found here. https://t.co/fIGJTrckOr
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 24, 2021
voting reform? problematic for the gop in terms of winning elections
environment? huge ideological tripwire
everyone loves infrastructure, even though they like to performatively complain about how it will be paid for
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) June 25, 2021
If McConnell is trying to sink the deal, here's his problem:
If he pressures the Group of 21 Rs to abandon it, then that frees up Manchin, Sinema etc to do the whole thing by reconciliation anyway.
So infrastructure still happens, just without Rs getting any credit. https://t.co/XSszmZxBNQ
— Bill Scher (@billscher) June 25, 2021
Baud
Communist.
lollipopguild
I have a hard time understanding why Mcconnel was not hit by a bolt of lightning right after he said”It makes your head spin.”
Wanderer
Thank you President Biden.
pluky
Now that’s what I call messaging that gets the point across.
debbie
Sigh. Glenn Beck and the others demanding Biden take a cognitive test are going to jump all over that whispering. But I’m glad there’s a bill for “traditional” infrastructure and that there will not be an increase in gas taxes.
OzarkHillbilly
@lollipopguild: It’s harder to hit a moving target. My guess would be the lightning couldn’t draw a clear bead on it.
Suzanne
Trying to decide who I hate most: TFFG, Turtle, or their cadres of die-hards.
Baud
@lollipopguild:
Electrons have standards.
Kay
I want Democrats to do a “crackdown on white collar crime”. Use those words. It wouldn’t cost that much additional since we already have a huge investigatory/policing/prosecution apparatus- it’s just a matter of focus and finding the will and frankly, courage, to aggressively police America’s burgeoning white collar crime gangs, organizations, conspiracies, what have you.
There should never be an announcement or speech or crime-fighting program without a white collar crime piece added. Get in the habit of all crime discussions including both parts of the picture.
I think it would also be popular with voters and also new- I don’t think it has been presented as a vital piece of our crime-fighting strategy but that’s just convention and there’s no reason not to offer a comprehensive crime picture when discussing it.
OzarkHillbilly
“Pay them more.”
The heads of our beknighted Job Creators everywhere explode.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@Suzanne: It isn’t ranked choice voting. Equal hate works.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
The past forty years have been about “motivating” people to become wealthy through pain, and once you’ve made it, everything becomes easy. The winners are coddled, no sacrifice expected, no relief extended to the losers. Society became the bastard son of a ménage a troi of Ayn Rand, Jean Calvin and Girolamo Savonarola for about 40% of the population.
It would be nice to see something different.
Baud
@Bluegirlfromwyo:
I like to cycle my hate so as to avoid hate fatigue.
debbie
@Kay:
The first step is to convince conservatives that white collar crime is even a crime and that it does impact even their lily-white asses.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: They could start with this racketeer influenced and corrupt organization: Billionaire Peter Thiel amasses $5bn tax-free nest egg in retirement account
Oooopps, my bad, no laws were broken.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
But if they spend time on white collar crime, who will frequently pull over people of color for excessive window tinting, dangling air freshener, wide turns and inoperative taillights? I’m so confused….
Kay
My youngest is starting a temp job in a factory tonight – 3rd shift, just weekends. Twenty dollars an hour. They make interior components for commercial vehicles and I assume they are tired of paying their regular employees overtime or the regular employees are refusing overtime. Should be interesting for him. Up until now he’s only worked retail.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Undervaluing the original contribution might be a way to get him, but that’s iffy.
Baud
@debbie:
We could rename it black collar crime.
MomSense
@Suzanne:
All of them, Katie.
Kay
@debbie:
I think it will be rhetorically easy to make it conventional and ordinary to include that category in crime coverage. Media love crime stories- they’re interesting. Let’s broaden the category.
Imagine you’re listing to “guns in the street” etc, the ordinary crime speech, and then there’s a shift and financial crimes. fraud, tax evasion are then discussed. It’ll be normalized in no time and everyone will do it.
debbie
@Baud:
Or stick to calling it the actual crime: Extortion, tax cheat, whatever.
debbie
@Kay:
I’m also interested in seeing how staffing up the IRS and increasing enforcement as part of the infrastructure bill turn out.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Can he say “carpal tunnel”?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: To be honest, short of shooting all the creative accountants, I don’t see a solution. Not that that will stop me from bitching/whining about the obscenely wealthy.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Good morning, Sunshine ???
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m a little worried about him. I think it’s really hard work and while retail is also hard work it’s a different kind. He’s very gregarious and friendly and he’s smart but he has just never done a long shift with that kind of constant busting ass. My middle son (who adores the younger) did the same temp job and he said “he’s not cut out for it” :)
He just has to keep it for the summer. What if they’re mean to him?!? No one is mean to him. He’s not used to it.
WereBear
This is a WIN. I’m going to be happy about it :)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: Mr DAW worked in a plastics factory the summer before college. ONE summer. Best of luck to your baby. Good for him for hustling for work
satby
Biden just keeps plowing ahead, doesn’t he? Truly the man for the times.
In more personal news, I have an end date in mind for my (really, I mean it this time!!!) retirement: October, before I leave for my super cheapie vacay in Europe. It’s been a rough couple of years for all of us; and having lost a couple of friends in India to covid and facing the potential loss of a dear one here to end stage heart disease, it’s just time to dial work back and concentrate whatever time I may have left on my family, friends, and the volunteering that’s been pushed to the side. I see too many people dribble their lives away until they lose the chance to live those vague dreams
theywe all have.debbie
@satby:
You certainly deserve it! ?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: Good for you. Retirement is great.
I did it early because Mr DAW’s salary meant I could afford to and I wanted to write. I remember telling people that in academia, it was easy to throw so much of your energy into the job that you not only didn’t do other things you wanted–you forgot what those other things even were.
satby
@debbie: aw, thanks!
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Thanks. It’s injection molding which is really semi-skilled so I think he’ll just do toting and carrying and set-ups. His female friend dyed the tips of his hair bright blue and I noticed he cut if off yesterday which makes me a little sad- he likes to fit in and maybe he thought blue hair would draw attention. Maybe he’s just sick of bright blue highlights :)
Cameron
@Kay: White collar crime? What’s with the “white?” Why do you hate white people? Why do libtards inject Collar Race Theory into everything?
OzarkHillbilly
Not to minimize your worries, because it is hard work, and there are all kinds of people doing it and the chances are pretty good that someone will be mean to him, maybe intentionally, maybe not. Just think of it as a *learning experience* and if in 2 or 3 days/weeks he decides he really doesn’t want to do it… Well, he was looking for a job when he found that one.
**was working for a small contractor many years ago and this kid showed up for work. He was the son of a famous football player and a rising collegiate football star in his own right. My boss handed him to me and said, “We need to get that drywall upstairs, you and J take care of it.” And so we did. Spent the next 2 or 3 hours hauling 4×8 sheets of 5/8 firecode up a spiral staircase and the rest of the day hanging it.
The next day, he did not come back. He learned something: That whatever else he was gonna do with his life, right now he was gonna stay in school and get a degree.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I’ll keep my fingers crossed and believe it when I see it.
Cameron
Would there be any interest in having a post dedicated to what’s in this bipartisan bill? The only articles I’ve seen haven’t been very informative, since they’ve been by grievance-lefties who I don’t consider especially reliable.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@lollipopguild:
Some would say it is because Satan is the lord of this world. Should you then conclude that this must mean Senator McTortoise is his faithful servant, I wouldn’t try very hard to talk you out of that.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/rudy-giuliani-law-license-suspended-hilarious.html
That is some world-class unethical lawyering. That is bad enough by itself, but what strikes me is the inherent stupidity in his responses to the inquiry. Regardless of what you think about the underlying matter, you don’t respond to a tribunal with so many missing puzzle pieces – that’s just REALLY shitty, incompetent lawyering.
This man is wealthy, connected and powerful while being a total moron. He’s been close to the levers of power in this country for decades, yet turns out work like this.
I guess this is the same Rudy that burned the somewhat orderly world of the NY Italian mob at the behest of the far more violent and corrupt Russian mob while a US attorney. The same Rudy that located his emergency command center in the buildings that had already been attacked by fanatic terrorists. The same Rudy that married his cousin, and got punked by Sachs Baron Cohen, and made an announcement from Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
satby
I gotta say that’s SO true. And I have never encountered so many people as I have here who think it’s a binary choice: work, or sit at home waiting to die. They actually say that. If they ever hoped to travel, or just have leisure time with their families and friends they’ve forgotten. Saddest thing I’ve ever heard. NOPE, not me.
Kay
@Cameron:
I read this article yesterday about tax evasion and experts said they underestimated the extent of the problem- the Propublica series on the wealthy not paying taxes brought it to the fore. If I were a politician I would present that as a crime wave. Why not? That’s what it is.
“Murders are up, gun violence is up and have you see the stories on tax evasion? Folks, we literally have a problem – in Scranton we call that ‘crimes’.
Just roll it right in there. In six months they’d all be doing it.
OzarkHillbilly
Sad to say, he was probably right to. Had a young kid as a laborer who painted his fingernails. Everyone (except moi, of course) gave him shit. And no matter how often I asked, “What do you care?” they just couldn’t get over it. (this was not that long ago, 15 yrs?)
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, you’ll see it. I remember that you invited me to swing by if I ever took that x-country trip ??
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: After my first back surgery, many moons ago, I was fully rehabbed and got a job working on grain elevator construction. They used slip forms with big jacks and the job was to carry the steel rods to the form and screw them in. I lasted one day
https://youtu.be/iMfs0nWRtdE
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Ugh. The “affidavits”. Rudy doesn’t know those are sworn statements? Jesus. I’m thrilled he’s Trump’s lawyer. Trump should be terrified.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Oh shit… That’s right. Me and my big mouth. ;-)
Suzanne
@satby: Good on you, and congrats!
You’re absolutely right: live your dreams while that window of opportunity is open.
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
And yet, he’s whining about not being able to speak and defend himself. //
Geminid
If both the “bipartisan” and reconciliation infrastructure packages do indeed pass, I think the table will be set for several years of strong economic growth. Republicans will not be able to campaign in 2022 and 2024 on the issue of a “weak economy.”
I think this is what McConnell and McCarthy fear. Republicans did their best to hamstring Barack Obama with austerity, and were fairly successful. They wanted to do the same to Joe Biden. But the Georgia Senate runoffs scuppered that plan.
gene108
From the BBC link:
Seems like Mitch may get the out he wants to torpedo the infrastructure bill, and deny Biden his win.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Things are changing though. My middle son is working in Kalamazoo MI on a huge job – they did an “all call” for electricians and they’re there from all over; Florida, Arizona, Georgia. He’s staying in his van at Western Michigan University- the university is allowing them to park there because the younger ones are trying not to spend the per diem. They go to a gym for showers. He says it’s a really eclectic group, compared to his usual co-workers. The younger cohort are less conventional.
Raven
A resident missing in the Surfside apartment collapse told her son the building was making loud “creaking noises” a day earlier, he said.
“She just told me she had woken up around 3, 4 in the morning and had heard like some creaking noises,” her son, Pablo Rodriguez, told CNN on Thursday after part of the 12-story building tumbled to the ground. “They were loud enough to wake her.”
“It was like a comment that she made offhand, like that’s why she woke up and she wasn’t able to go back to sleep afterwards,” he added. “Now, in hindsight, you always wonder.”
Both his mother and grandmother are missing. Rodriguez told the cable network his hope is dimming.
“You always hold out hope, until you definitively know. But after seeing the video of the collapse, it’s increasingly difficult, because they were in that section that was pancaked in.”
About 100 people are missing after the structure near Miami came down with a roar early Thursday.
The building had been sinking for years and was deemed unstable, a researcher at Florida International University told USA Today. He stopped short of saying that was the cause.
“This is an extraordinarily unusual event, and it is dangerous and counterproductive to speculate on its cause,” former Surfside Mayor Daniel Dietch told the newspaper.
Raven
@Kay: Maintain a low profile at all times.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: It’s a thrice told tale. Not sure why I stuck with it, other than I actually enjoyed the work when I was young and was getting well paid. 20 years later, not so much on the enjoyment part but where else was I going to get a job paying $40/hr (or there abouts)
You’d have laughed at me yesterday. Spent all of Tuesday getting all my heavy work for this week done because I had some surgery yesterday and knew picking up anything more than 10#s would be verbotten. Those gurneys they use suck donkey D and every time I moved I’d grimace and whine a little bit because every damned thing hurt after the day before. Poor nurses were apologizing to me at every turn.
OzarkHillbilly
You’re right, they won’t. Instead they will campaign on how strong the economy is and tout their contributions to it. Doing none of the work while taking all the credit is what they do and their constituents buy it every time.
gene108
@Kay:
The media hates math more than they love crime stories.
Financial crimes involve more math than the average reporter wants to deal with or maybe capable of understanding.
I see the public all on board for busting white collar crime. IIRC, sometime in 2015 or 2016 Trump talked about busting Wall Street crooks or something like that and got more support from Republican voters.
I just don’t see the media being able to keep up.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: In my spine surgery last week I had to lay flat for 24 hours. Everything was great until the nerve block wore of and then, bam! I got two hits of morphine mixed in with the oxycodone and other oral meds and they did nothing! The good news is that I’ve been off the opioids since Monday and have walked over a mile the last two days. The literature from the neurosurgeon says you can drive 1-2 weeks after so I’m going to start today (not my truck)!
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
Miami-Dade officials are currently holding a press conference. The number of missing/unaccounted for has gone up to 159 since that report was filed ?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@gene108: For that, you really need reporters who are specialists in that kind of crime. There aren’t many and their stories aren’t usually high profile.
@OzarkHillbilly: You hurt just riding on the gurney? That’s impressive, but not in a good way
Soprano2
*sigh* I am so frustrated by the idea that the very real labor shortage is an easily-solvable problem. Saying “pay them more” isn’t any better than saying “just cut off their unemployment benefits and they’ll all go back to work”. You should drive down the major business streets where I live, and see the signs that say “help wanted” or “hiring”. It would be fantastic to be a teenager looking for a job right now. (Oh, and of course these idiots don’t understand that a resurgence of Covid is going to make the problem even worse.) Not all of that can be solved with higher wages – even higher-wage employers here are having trouble finding employees. We have both an Amazon warehouse and a new Costco trying to hire hundreds of workers, plus a Big Shots golf place just opened; they’re hiring 150 employees. The unemployment rate here is around 3.7%; in normal times that would be considered full employment! To their credit, the local paper ran a good story about this problem a couple of weeks ago, in which they talked about the student and foreign worker visa problem that’s affecting Branson, as well as the dearth of safe, affordable child care. No one wants to hear that this is a complicated problem, though – everyone wants a simple answer. I hope it’s better by fall, but for now it’s crazy here.
Raven
@SiubhanDuinne: They are trying to put as good a face on it as possible but, if they find anyone alive, there won’t be many.
SiubhanDuinne
@gene108:
David Fahrenthold is going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting on behalf of his media colleagues.
Raven
@Soprano2: Bass Pro is hiring!
satby
@SiubhanDuinne: The video of that is horrible. Less than a minute for most of the building to just disintegrate.
Soprano2
@Raven: Bass Pro is 1) a terrible place to work according to my husband (it could have gotten better since he worked there, to be absolutely fair, but I doubt it) and 2) one of those employers that is always hiring. LOL
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
Oh, I know. It’s already conforming to the standard earthquake / tsunami / wildfire / hurricane / tornado / avalanche / mudslide template.
OzarkHillbilly
Yes they are, thank dawg, but it’s slow. I haven’t been on a job site in 7 or 8 years and I know things aren’t as I remember. FTR electricians have always had a more cerebral culture than carpenters who tend to be a bit neanderthal. Your sons factory will have it’s own culture. As Raven said, best to “Maintain a low profile,” at least until he gets his footing.
Soprano2
@Kay: I wish you were advising the White House, Kay, because this is a brilliant idea! It would be wildly popular with people, too, because everyone feels like wealthy people get away with all kinds of shady stuff normal people would get in trouble for.
sanjeevs
Derek Chauvin to be sentenced today.
Uncle Cosmo
(FTFY.)
And a good thing too! ;^D
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
Things were super easy for lawyers in his generation.
Joe Falco
@gene108:
Any Democrat in support should counter back and argue that the bill will be high because we have put off for too long what should have been done long ago and the problems this bill is trying to address will get only more expensive as time goes on unless we start paying now. Democrats should use the analogy of a broken home that, because small damages were not fixed at the beginning, they became bigger problems and now the homeowner has to spend more to get their house back to a livable condition. To borrow a line from Lincoln, a divided house cannot stand and neither can a broken house. Even if one or two rooms is really nice (the rich), the rest of this country cannot live in a rapidly unequal condition.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
That is brilliant. And go after the real problem children, not just another Martha Stewart hit job. And then do it again. And then do it again. It serves justice, and as the high-profile cases like Harvey Weinstein show, the press loves it as it delivers eyeballs to “news” programs.
Raven
@Soprano2: I doubt it has gotten better.
Joe Falco
@sanjeevs:
Cool. I hope he rots in prison.
Soprano2
This is one of the circles of hell as far as I’m concerned. Hanging drywall was the worst part of our kitchen renovation. I will always hire people to do this for the rest of my life; whatever they charge is worth it!
OzarkHillbilly
Good. I’ve always only took them so I could sleep and dealt with it when awake.
Heh, mine says, “Don’t walk too much.” 2 lines later it says, “Don’t sit too much.” Fortunately, my surgery was semi minor and I only have to be careful for a few days.
WereBear
@satby: Great decision! Go for it.
jonas
@Baud: Reminds me of this classic bit.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
Essentially, he built a legal crusade and PR campaign off of a bunch of YouTube/Daily Caller/Breitbart/Blaze/Free Republic commenters quoting each other quoting him.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: 35 years of framing and hanging has taken it’s toll.
NotMax
Infrastructure … infrastructure … (riffles through file labeled Miscellany for something which found interesting enough to squirrel away). Ah, there we go.
Non-boring boring: there are tunnels and then there are t-u-n-n-n-e-l-s.
WereBear
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Having read several books on the BIG case I now know he just waltzed in and took the credit.
Of course.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I sometimes think “fair” is really the only word that matters. People just want it to be fair. It’s genuinely a threat to the country, too. If the top aren’t paying the middle and bottom will no longer feel they must and if the “by consent” stop complying – the 95%- they have a real problem. The thing only works at all because most people comply. They couldn’t hire enough IRS agents if they had broad noncompliance. It’s 150 million people, give or take. This implied contract we all entered into can’t be breached.
WereBear
@satby:
I believe you live in my home state… and yes. Got it in one.
germy
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: A point that Republicans always gloss over when they suggest raising the retirement age. Not everyone has a desk job, and a lot of physically demanding jobs leave you arthritic and in near constant pain as early as your late 50s or early 60s. And “greeter at Wal-Mart” is not a substitute career.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think they should make a big show of going after Medicare and Medicaid fraud, too. I heard an interview once where they said that every dollar invested in rooting out this fraud gained the government seven dollars of return. How can you not sell that as a big win for ordinary people? Most of this fraud is done by doctors and hospitals, which is why Republicans are reluctant to pursue it. I think they should make it ordinary to want to root out this abuse of the health care system. It’s one reason health care costs and health insurance costs are high.
And yeah, fair is the biggest thing – people don’t like the idea that others are getting away with something they can’t. So, use that to go after people who have been “criming” for decades without any pushback. You’re right, it is a crime wave, and it’s one that’s costing the ordinary citizen a lot of money. How much better could the government make infrastructure or state colleges and universities if we crack down on this crime?
germy
@WereBear:
Reminds me of Alan Dershowitz, who got an unearned reputation as a “brilliant” lawyer, when his only role was to give statements to the press while the other lawyers did the work.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Sherrod is having a lunch for Dems in the rural counties next week. I’m going so I’ll say it to him.
Soprano2
@satby: Everyone who suggests raising the full retirement age from 67 has a cushy desk job like mine. They should come and look at some of my co-workers, who have been doing construction-type jobs their whole life. I always say it’s not the age, it’s the miles on your body that make the difference.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: When my dude said “recovery in 1-2 weeks” it sold me! That’s pretty good for spine surgery.
Gin & Tonic
Speaking of infrastructure, I got a quote to install air conditioning in two rooms (each ~150 sq ft) of the house using what’s called a split-mini: condenser sits on the ground outside, running piping to the two wall-mounted units upstairs. One multi-zone condenser, LG brand. Quote is for $7500. This is a simple install, unit is located directly below one of the bedrooms and right outside the electrical service panel, which can easily support the load (I upgrade to 200-amp service about 10 years ago.) Every installer is running way behind, so getting another estimate will take at least a month. Does this price seem reasonable? It’s a locally well-known business, not some guy out of the back of his truck.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s hokey but you could present it as a “corruption tax” or a “fraud tax”. I’m shameless so I would do it.
You really can’t break it down enough for these people.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: I think that’s about right. I paid $7500 for a new hybrid heat pump/gas furnace with NO ductwork.
Amir Khalid
@sanjeevs:
Chauvin had his lawyer ask for just probation. I doubt the judge was amused.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
Does it come with a heat pump? That sounds kind of high for air only.
eta: what’s with this font?
sab
Jeezus phuck. Biden got Rob Portman off his toadstool for once to do rhe right thing and spend money on something besides Congressional payroll. I am in awe.
Kay
Sherrod’s lunch is vaccinated only, which I thought was brave. As you all know there are anti-vacc Democrats. I seem to know all of them personally, unfortunately.
Ken
The Senator’s statement that he can spin his head completely around would indicate some degree of demonic possession, according to the movies.
WereBear
@Kay: It is a fantastic idea! And Sherrod Brown will actually listen.
Baud
@satby:
Congratulations! You deserve it. Can’t wait to here about your travels.
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It’s both a heat pump and an A/C, although I’m not sure how well a heat pump works when it gets really cold. Looking at the model numbers of the inside units and the condenser, it seems the basic equipment runs them under $2,500, plus whatever’s needed for electrical connection and piping up the wall. They said it’s a 1-day job.
Ken
Call me overly cynical and suspicious, but this immediately makes me think the former mayor is somehow linked to the cause. Bribes from building owners to pass inspections, perhaps.
narya
@Soprano2: Agreed. But also too: I’m tired of working. I’ve had mostly jobs where I just wiggle my fingers, but it’s still work. It’s unrewarding and tiresome, even if my paycheck is decent. By my current age, my dad had been retired for a year; I have to wait another 3.5 years to collect full SS. I keep trying to figure out a way to shave some time off of that. On a brighter note, my best friend’s last day of work is TODAY! So happy for her.
sab
@Soprano2: Half of my husband’s high school buddies retired early on Social Security because their bodies broke down after a lifetime of hard physical work. Bad backs, bad knees, lymphoma etc from a lifetime of exposure to industrial chemicals.
I used to be incandescent with rage, but that is dehabilitating. Calm down and focus, and then fight back.
Jeffro
@Kay: just tell him that not having bright blue or neon green highlights at this point actually is the sign of a true rebel at this point, on a par with not having a tattoo =)
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Kay: I worked for a summer at a job in exactly that kind of factory in Grand Rapids, MI the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in college.
It was boring and repetitive and I sucked at it. I could not BELIEVE how much faster the full timers could slap together taillight and console assemblies. Of course, part of the problem was nobody ever showed me the most efficient way to complete any of the assembly tasks they gave me. Then about a week before I was going back to college the foreman said I needed to get my rates up and I was like, this is my last week but if you want people to get their rates up you need to show them how. But, the bottom line is I just was not conditioned, mentally, to try to slap those things together as fast as possible and honestly nobody told me that was the goal.
The next summer I worked at a furniture manufacturer buffing desk parts after they sprayed them with lacquer and then were quick dried in an open door oven. That was a hot job but I managed to keep up with the assembly line. Crazy thing is if memory serves they didn’t give us dust masks or anything so I was probably breathing in lacquer dust all summer long. I’m sure that won’t cause problems ever…at least it was only for a couple months.
Taken4Granite
@Gin & Tonic: That’s ballpark for a similar job I had done at my house a couple of years ago. One unit outside, two ductless units above (one in the living room and one directly upstairs in my bedroom).
IIRC you are in RI, where labor costs should be similar to where I live (NH).
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Gawd damn! 1-2 weeks? They’ve come a long ways baby. A guy I used to work with (and now cohabits with my little sis) has 2 cadaver disk replacements and moves pretty well. I’m still hesitant (because I’m a scaredy cat). If my neck ever gets really bad I’ll look into it but right now it’s just an “every now and again” thing and I can tolerate that.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Sounds high to me. We got a new A/C and heat pump thingie for 1200 SF plus duct work for less than that.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: You’ll need supplemental heat there and the electric strips in a heat pump are $$$$ to run. Our Bosch Hybrid is awesome and so much quieter that the 20 year old unit was,
Kay
@Jeffro:
They’re so cute with the hair dying. They have one female friend who does all their hair, boys and girls. That’s what I will miss most with all kids grown and gone- the in and out, their bustling around and drama.
JCJ
@Kay:
Eclectic electricians?
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: This was a lamonectomy which takes much less bone than a laminectomy. This surgeon and his colleague have great reps here. When I mentioned that his colleague said what they did you me 50 years ago when I broke my back would be considered “barbaric” now he said “oh, what we would have to with THIS surgery 10 years ago would be considered barbaric now”! The reason I went ahed was because we thought Bohdi might hang in there longer and it wasn’t sensible to wait with such a short recovery (the still want me not to lift over 10lbs for 6 week). We decided and the old dude checked out. So much for plans.
Kathleen
debbie
@Raven:
Great news!
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: We briefly looked at adding a mini split to our family room at the other end of the house from the furnace/heat pump. It was spendy, and we probably would have needed to upgrade the panel. They’re very nice systems.
Last summer we ended up fixing some ducts that were disconnected when the addition was put on a decade before we bought the place, and got a new central heat pump + gas furnace. Around $15k all together. The heat pump keeps the bills down, and the furnace is quieter for heating at night. We’re in NoVA so it doesn’t get below freezing a lot, but when it does nothing can beat gas heat.
Around 2500 sq feet, built 1963.
Peace of mind and lack of call-backs are worth a lot.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Production, those sorts of jobs, are different. The closest I came was working at a commercial laundry – same kind of controlled speed by the longer term workers. It isn’t that they’re fast, so much, it’s that they’re consistent. I would be super speedy and then flag.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: My neighbor paid about 15 K for 3 mini-splits with 2 compressors about 3 years ago, so that sounds about right to me.
boatboy_srq
Scher forgets that Manchen and Sinema had the opportunity to do just this with the For The People Act. McConnell has less to fear than Scher presumes.
Kay
@JCJ:
He thinks the Nevada and Arizona junior apprentices are more open minded than the Ohio and Michigan. Like, vegetarians and marshal arts and things. They’re choosing to be “travelers” so they’re probably less attached than the older people. Fewer responsibilities. He doesn’t even have a cat.
OzarkHillbilly
According to my neighbor, OK for a bedroom, not so much any living space. She had a pellet stove and that took care of the MS’s shortcomings.
Baud
@Kay:
This doesn’t apply to Cole, but I nonetheless feel like it should be a rotating tag.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I once had a reporter ask me about an assessment (Regulatory Impact Analysis) of a federal regulation I wrote that said the total cost was less than one tenth of one percent of industry revenue and the reporter was trying to back that statement out to what total revenue was based on the estimated total cost of the rule and the way he proposed doing it (which I assume he thought was the right way) was all wrong. We’re talking a reporter for the WALL STREET JOURNAL – the #1 financial newspaper in the world – and the guys can’t do basic percentages.
That was over a decade ago, coming out of the great recession, and I was like no wonder the banksters got away with it. Nobody knows enough math to catch their fairly easy to spot chicanery, which I’m guessing is hiding in plain site if you have the patience to dig into public accounts and the ability to do basic math.
The real problem with white collar criminal prosecution as I understand it (and my understanding may be wrong) is that you have to prove intent, and the nice clean cut well spoken businessman swears he just made some honest mistakes and didn’t mean to rip anyone off he pinky swears and the jury believes him because they can’t figure out any of this stuff either. Nevermind that he was paid $10 million that year to be a super duper expert in his field and not screw up so the idea that he made honest mistakes is pretty laughable.
Danielx
@Gin & Tonic:
sounds on the high side, but…
rikyrah
@satby:
go satby :)
Baud
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Two related problems. Usually, you have to prove intent. Also, the line between lawful and unlawful behavior is often not as sharp as with violent crime and ordinary theft.
Also, the complexity problem you mentioned for some of these schemes.
rikyrah
@Cameron:
Try here:
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/establishment-bar/joey_shades_brings_home_the_bacon/
OzarkHillbilly
Has anybody else seen this?
I feel like I just missed it yesterday. Either way, I love it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic: Yes, the price seems ballpark reasonable. I had mini-splits installed last year for around that price. Not that you need this advice, but you could get a second or third quote to be sure
ETA: We love our new system. Works great and is super quiet.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Kay: Yeah they were faster from the start but A) they had been doing it a lot longer and hence had more practice, B) they were probably all aware of the fact that someone was tracking their rates and I was not until there was a week left, and C) I’m guessing because they weren’t the temporary smart aleck college kid someone actually showed them the most efficient way to do the job.
I did learn that I didn’t want to be a factory worker, though certain aspects of it are not all bad. One of which is you really never take your work home with you. Another is there’s no ambiguity in your work – it either comes out right or it doesn’t. In knowledge based jobs there’s often a lot of guesswork and judgement and always more information out there that might be helpful or refute your ideas, so even when you’re not on duty work creeps into your mind because you can think about different and better ways of doing it whether you’re on the job or not.
But factory work is SO BORING and there’s not much room for advancement and I’m not sure most of the skills you learn transfer to other types of work so if the factory work dries up you have nowhere else to go. That’s one of the things that justifies higher wages for those folks – the opportunity costs for specializing that line of work, which is non-transferrable to other work environments and hence lock you into that or nothing, are high and wages should be high to reflect what those workers are giving up in taking those jobs.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: Watergirl posted it a couple days ago,
Link
Kristine
@satby: I’m glad you’ll be taking that time for yourself–enjoy it!
I know too many folks from the old day job who waited too long and missed out. I’m pretty much a homebody, but just having that time to myself to do what I want changed my attitude towards my house, my life, everything.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
My cousin has a heat/ac pump upta camp and it does a great job in the winter.
I’m getting an estimate next month for my house.
Uncle Cosmo
@Ken: To paraphrase Linda Blair in the iconic movie,
** Re Congress, cue Kit Marlowe‘s Mephistopheles, junior Senator from Pandaemonium: Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it…
Jager
@OzarkHillbilly:
My grandson is a licensed plumber/rock climber/surfer. His girlfriend painted his fingernails. He got some shit from a guy on a job. He kicked the guy’s ass.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: OK. thanx. Not surprised. I was busy all day Tuesday getting stuff done before my surgery.
artem1s
@gene108:
No, if Moscow Mitch screws with the reconciliation the infrastructure deal drafted by the milquetoast GOP members is dead in the water. Freeing up Biden to do one giant infrastructure reconciliation without all the restrictions Portman and the other spineless gobs foisted on the bill in the name of bi-partisanship.
Mitch will still throw shade and the dumbass GQP base and media will lap it up. But it won’t matter when the money starts rolling out the door. Taxes for the rich are coming bitches, tick tock MF.
raven
@Jager: I used to fight anyone who said shit about my hair. I won some, I lost some and some I shoulda never showed up for!
CaseyL
@satby: Congrats on the “No Shit, I Mean It This Time” retirement – and yay for the European trip! I hope you have a wonderful time.
persistentillusion
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s about what I paid in 2019 for nearly the same set-up, garage with apartment. FWIW.
satby
@Baud: Thank you!
I don’t know, I may just there about my travels.
rikyrah
Go 46 ??
Aggressively Black Bianca (@TheeKHiveQueenB) tweeted at 8:54 AM on Fri, Jun 25, 2021:
Biden quietly transforms Medicaid safety net https://t.co/sEHMzlpcj6
(https://twitter.com/TheeKHiveQueenB/status/1408423452818644994?s=03)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
As I remember you’re in New England. If you’ve got stand alone heat by fuel oil or gas, you’re fine. The heat pump is fine for temps over 35, but those internal “emergency strips” that kick in lower run a fuckton of kilowatts and are pretty wimpy at 10 degrees and under. And forget actual “warmth” when your thermostat hits 0 and below – you’ll be opening cabinets under sinks and running drips to keep pipes from freezing.
rikyrah
????
Lynn V (@lynnv378) tweeted at 9:16 AM on Fri, Jun 25, 2021:
OMG!!! DeSantis is literally using this presser to talk about the fcuking Southern Border, cartels, & to fcuking shout out Hannity. WTAF man!!! You have 4 people confirmed dead, almost 160 missing, & people whose lives are upended. What a fcuking rat ass piece of shit.
(https://twitter.com/lynnv378/status/1408428777001062400?s=03)
Kay
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
A lot of them hate it so they try retail or service type jobs- bank tellers, like that, but they come back because the pay in those jobs is so low. Every single manufacturing facility here offers benefits too- health and retirement, so it really is a better deal for them. There’s one “quality” manufacturing facility here where they do precision work- they make the machines that make things. There’s a kind of golden handcuff effect because their retirement plan is really well managed and generous. They retire with a lot. I knew the facility manager for years (they sent him to Canada) and he was just a very smart guy. I was pleased he was managing their retirement. He did well by them.
Service industries just can’t match that kind of reliable income. My son was doing electrical at a plant where they make pop bottles. All automated. The facility is one big integrated machine- he said it was spooky because there are no “operators” – no lower level people, so they use low light. They knew down to the penny how much they were losing per hour when one of the lines went down. It’s a whole different scenario than service work.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
They’ve managed to get away with “Death Tax” for years. I don’t see any substantive difference.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, but you live in Florida. Here in New England, people get paid a living wage.
Roger Moore
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
The term you’re looking for is “hubris”. My best guess is that he thought the whole thing was a show, and all he had to do to skate on it was show up and put in the minimum effort. Consequences are for little people, and he never believed they would actually punish someone powerful and well connected like him.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Thing is, I don’t really *need* heating from this thing, I have a regular oil-fired furnace with baseboard circulation. Maybe it’ll work in the spring and fall, when it’s chilly in the morning and I don’t want to fire up the furnace.
satby
@narya: It’s a cost / benefit analysis since over your normally expected lifetime the total payout ends up being the same. I took SS at 62 because I wasn’t being considered for the kind of high paying job I used to have in IT. But honestly, my full retirement age is still a year away, I just turned 66 last month, and I had no intention of staying at my IT job past 65 even if I had been given the option. On different accounts I was on, we had three fatalities of managers who had heart attacks at work. The stress isn’t worth it.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Sounds like you’re on the right track then. I’m sure getting 50/50 BJ opinions helps!
There go two miscreants
That is a very good point that I haven’t seen before.
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yeah, see my reply to raven. I’ve got regular heat, this is primarily for A/C, now that we’re getting older and there seem to be more hot days in the summer. We’re pretty well wooded, so it’s really hot in the house only about a couple of weeks every year. This is a luxury, not a necessity.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: I wouldn’t expect any different here.
MattF
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Giuliani’s main distinguishing trait is shamelessness. Zero twinges of conscience, zero concern about consequences. And this has always been true about him.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ohio recently had a 1.2 billion corruption case and Nan Whaley, a mayor and Democrat, is trying to get traction on the idea that we are all paying for this. There are victims of corruption- we’re the victims. She has not been successful so far, but what we know is they key is repeating it over and over.
Jager
@raven:
He’s had the same experience. He’s 5-11 and if he gets ahold of you with those rock climber hands, you’re finished. Interesting kid, he has a 99 Ford Econoline van for work, surfing, and climbing. He also has a 1 owner 86 Benz SL, He lives in a one-room cabin in the hills outside of Santa Cruz. Keeps threatening to go back to school and get his degree in construction management so he can straighten the business out.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: thought that said calvin coolidge.
Geminid
Last week President Biden nominated Thomas Nides for Ambassador to Israel. Nides served in the Obama administration as Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, and currently is a managing partner at Morgan Stanley bank. Nides’ biography in The Times of Israel is a trip in the wayback machine:
Betty Cracker
@Kay: It amazes me that massive corruption cases generate comparatively little outrage. It seems like Hunter Biden’s stupid laptop got more attention (even though there was no evidence of any government corruption on it) than the towering edifice of corruption that undergirded the entire Trump administration from top to bottom.
I tell myself that’s because the Trump admin pumped out too many scandals for people to wrap their minds around, but then corruption scandals blow up on the state and local level, and people are mostly ho-hum about that too. Maybe everyone just assumes corruption, nepotism, etc., are inevitable and nothing can be done about it. Not true!
Matt McIrvin
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I used to live in a connected townhouse in Massachusetts that only had an electric heat pump for heating. It worked OK, but the style of house was part of the reason for that, and the bills would go up if it got cold enough for the auxiliary coil heater to kick in.
Once we really got socked because the fuse protecting the actual heat pump blew (the condo people had put in the wrong capacity fuse!) but the auxiliary heat was still working, so all we noticed was that the heat seemed a little feeble until the electric bill came
I think there’s going to be a big push to improve these things so we can decarbonize home heating (my understanding is that there’s a lot of upside to be had in terms of programming them better, and also tricks like using a buried probe in the ground to help deal with the thermal gradient, sort of poor man’s geothermal heat).
SFAW
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Well, technically — but only if one considers Rhode Island part of New England.
raven
@Jager: It’s probably a good thing I was a lightweight.
SFAW
@MattF:
And his racism.
ETA: His shamelessness, his racism .. and his stupidity.
Amongst his main distinguishing traits are …
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
Every rise in the number breaks my heart.
Watched the video. That building went down in under 20 seconds.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
OK, clearly I missed something. What’s up?
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: The Hunter Biden laptop story got more attention than it deserved, but it was way less than the trump campaign thought it would. They thought this “scandal” would be a game changer, but I think smarmy Ted Cruz was correct in his judgement that it would not “move a single vote.” This was a major waste of messaging and focus in the last weeks of a close campaign.
But trump’s campaign managers gave him what he wanted, and he got what he deserved.
PST
@Kay:
I remember having one of those jobs the summer after my freshman year of college. It was a factory that made a kind of second-rate imitation Naugahyde, presumably for those who didn’t want to pay for the luxury of real Naugahyde. It was so boring minding machines with their endless spinning rollers and emerging strips of material that I started having LSD flashbacks — and unlike a few of my coworkers, I was clean as a whistle that summer.
rikyrah
@Kay:
CLAPCLAP CLAP CLAP
catclub
I really wish it were automatic to include a pipe in the ground for the heat pump on very cold (air temperature) days.
catclub
Mine was in a cheap furniture factory. I ran an air powered drum sander that made smooth curves (yeah, right, with no training) in chair rungs.
Also, starting the sander was tricky so I ended up whacking my thumb if i did not grab it firmly. I remember the one day I did that because the next day I got hit by a pickup truck while I was on my bike. End of factory work for that summer.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Thank the Senator for his movement on upping the SS payments.
WaterGirl
@Kay: I agree, Kay.
We’ll see their violent crime wave – caused by all the thugs and “those people” who aren’t working because the government is paying too much in unemployment” – and raise with their white collar crime and rich people cheating on taxes and causing rural Americans to have to pay higher taxes.
This does not have to be a one-way street.
Uncle Cosmo
@satby: Auguri on your upcoming trip!
I’ve been over the Pwnd 40-odd (very odd) times, all as a tourist, all but 3x solo, most everywhere east of Portugal and west of Ukraine. If you care to pose some questions and/or entertain some advice that might be worth what you pay for it (i.e., nothing), let me know how to reach you via e-mail & I’ll contact you.
Geminid
@catclub: Running a heat excange coil into a pipe in the ground also makes cooling more efficient. A central Virginia HVAC company says their geothermal installations save 30-60% of heating costs, and 20-50% on cooling. Even with higher upfront costs, there is an estimated 20% savings over the system’s lifetime. And they note that for new construction, the cost would be included in the morgtage.
PST
@Uncle Cosmo: I know I’m butting in, but why not do that here for all to see. Everyone is restless and yearning to get away. We could learn a lot.
rikyrah
@Kay:
My mother was from rural Mississippi. She had decided to slack off.
My grandmother told her that she wasn’t going to waste her time on school for someone not doing up to their potential. So, she found her a summer job.
In the fields, picking cotton.
My mother said she lasted two days.
My grandmother never had to worry about a bad grades after that.
Uncle Cosmo
@PST: No objections here. What do yinz want me to deliver my opinion(s) about?(Keep in mind I haven’t flown since fall 2019 and not domestically for some years prior.)
On second thought, if there’s enough demand, maybe we can get WaterGirl to put up a thread dedicated to flying advice – I’m sure there are a lot more Jackals who’d be happy to provide it.
But here’s one quick bit of advice for anyone flying to Yerp from the Boswash Corridor: You can save $200-300 over PHI/WAS/BAL on the RT by catching a Greyhound to NYC Port Authority, going up a flight or two to the Subway, taking the E-train to Queens, disembarking at the penultimate stop and walking a few minutes to board the AirTrain to JFK. Greyhound tickets could be had for not much if your travel times were flexible. I’d do RT BAL-NYC on the ‘Hound etc for <$75 and still end up a couple hundred to the good. (Flight price differentials still true in the Plague Months AFAICT; not sure about the buses.)
James E Powell
@rikyrah:
My contractor brother had his son work with him during summers. Told him, study hard because this is Plan B.
jefft452
@debbie:”Glenn Beck and the others demanding Biden take a cognitive test are going to jump all over that whispering”
Who cares?
Uncle Cosmo
@jefft452: Beck needs to take a saliva test before he’s allowed on any media. (He wouldn’t – he’d fail.)
PST
@Uncle Cosmo: I wasn’t thinking about how to get there, more along the lines of interesting places to go and things to do off the beaten track. All those trips are sure to have taught some lessons about what to avoid and what to seek out.
J R in WV
@Kay:
THIS! So much This!
No question that it would more than pay for itself if ill gotten gains and illegal conspiracies were RICOed into the Treasury.
Once the criminal leadership were jailed and banned from corporate management and stock market manipulation the cash flow into the Treasury would slow down, but the economy would no longer suffer the illegal drain of funds into secret overseas accounts.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
When I was a jerb creator it didn’t bother me at all, I fully understood that a paycheck was why people worked and that a better paycheck would get better work. Right up to the amount that made the paycheck go to their head instead of their wallet. Thing is I always ran out of money before I ever got to that point.
WaterGirl
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Were you in text mode? Along with bold, italics, etc, there is something called “code” that you can click on. It looks like the html tag for code is in your comment.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I put up a front page post about it on Wednesday.
Late Night: Former NRA President Tricked Into Speaking At Fake High School Graduation
You were probably already in bed. :-
edit: I see Ken got there at #136.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: We have to hope that with enough rope, they all hang themselves.
WaterGirl
@raven:
Now that’s rotating tag material.
evodevo
@Kay: Lemme tell ya…it will be a good thing…male children will never listen to the wisdom that comes from YOUR experience…they have to experience stuff themselves before it sinks in. My son worked for all of a month at a similar job after he flunked out of his first layabout year at college, and I’m sure it pounded home the idea that he’d better finish that degree, or he would be doing this for the rest of his life… The work was hard…the conditions were relentless and there was no sympathy from co-workers or the foreman (no whining!!). It’s an eye-opening life experience for young males.
Uncle Cosmo
@PST: Well, here’s a general suggestion: I’m a city guy, but in Yerp I prefer to stay in midsize towns rather than the megalopoli.
Example: Venice in season is a maelstrom of tourists. You still want to see Venice at least once in your life…but instead of an overpriced room there, consider Padova (Padua): Close by, on the main rail line from Roma through to Trieste and Slovenia, smaller, less crowded, a number of interesting things to see in its own right (the Scrovegni chapel frescoes by Giotto, the pilgrimage church of San Antonio di Padova with the Gattamelatta equestrian statue outside…) Half an hour by train to the Stazione Santa Lucia in Venice, from where you can board the water bus (vaporetto) #1 straight down the Grand Canal under the Rialto Bridge and debark at the Hotel Danielli, and walk a block back to the Piazza San Marco. Grab dessert at one of the gelaterie, wander about listening to the different bands at the sidewalk cafes (don’t sit down or you’ll need a second mortgage!), watch the dumbass tourists buying bags of corn to feed to the rats-with-wings, I mean pigeons…and eventually go into the Basilica San Marco. And when your sightseeing is over for the day, take the vaporetto back to the station after dusk (when all the canalside palazzos and bridges are lit) and have a late supper, maybe on the Campo San Geremia a short walk back, maybe at a trattoria in Padova after the short return train ride…
Padova is known for its galleries, sidewalks roofed over by the houses with upper floors built out over them. The streets as a result are very narrow and with the high buildings funnel sound very well, especially those pesky motorbikes I know as Vespas. If you stay in Padova and you are not (already) deaf, you must make very sure that you are NOT given one of those overhanging rooms – I spent a long sleepless night in one, aching for a pump-action 30-06 to stick out the window and litter the cobblestones with motorbikers’ bodies…
…Now, is that the sort of thing you were looking for?
Gravenstone
@Kay: Not that uncommon. A lot of places bring on summer temps because their long term employees have the gall to take vacation and things. Had a summer job at a brass plant in your neck of the woods. Everyone was shocked that I got hired because I wasn’t related to an existing employee. It was almost funny.
justsomeguy
@Kay: Great minds think alike. Early in the 2020 campaign I had advocated for Elizabeth Warren to become the “law & order” candidate by focusing on white collar crime. Given the frustrations of the masses of serfs, left-populism seems like the best way to combat right-populism.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
That sounds like a good amount of money for the benefit you will gain. LG makes good equipment, we have an LG fridge, it is the best fridge we have ever had — good design, uses LEDs instead of incandescent lamps — and is that a no-brainer or what, but was hard to find until I found this unit!
And piping the cold refrigerant instead of a duct for the cold air is brilliant.
LiminalOwl
@Uncle Cosmo: South America likewise, ar least the one time I did it (2012). Bus from Boston to NYC, then NY to Ecuador to Peru. A long, long flight though. Maybe Florida was the first stop, before Quito? Not sure.