Wow

@Mik said in Negotiating Medical Bills: Well, there's gone to collections and then there's sold to collections. If it has been sold to collections you have a lot of room because they pay pennies on the dollar for bad debt. If you offered them $3K for a $6K bill they'd be all over it. Indeedy. Aside to George: I've had this happen, too, so be careful. Keep all your proof of payment. Zombie debt is absolutely a thing.

Not sure this would freeze either, but still delicious. https://thesuburbansoapbox.com/chilled-strawberry-soup-brunchweek/ This would probably freeze well. https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a45873/copycat-olive-garden-zuppa-toscana-recipe/

I thought this was a pretty powerful ad. Yes, of course you can say some words were take out of context, but still effective. The last part for me I thought was good - "Has your party left you?" link text

@George-K said in Spoiler alart!: Is that why the forum was down for a while this AM, you were working on that? Yes, it's all thanks to my ingenuity and hard work!!!! ::: Actually, the real story is that the "spoiler" feature has always existed but has never worked right because NodeBB has been referencing an outdated version of the "spoiler" plugin. That outdated plugin stopped being available a while ago, not idea exactly when. NodeBB got restarted this morning for other reason (not my doing), and because it was referencing the outdated plugin that's no longer available, the restart kept failing. It's only when I look into why the restart kept failing that I learnt that there is a "spoiler" plugin. I wasn't even trying to make "spoiler" work, I just wanted to get NodeBB over the failed plugin so it can restart correctly. It's just a nice bonus that by some dumb luck I got NodeBB to reference an up-to-date version of the "spoiler" plugin. So now we have a working "spoiler" feature. :::

@Klaus said in RIP Ennio Morricone: @George-K said in RIP Ennio Morricone: Link to video They screw up the melody with an additional note at 1:27. It's not an accident : they repeat the mistake at least two more times. The timing of that whole bit is off - in the original it's much looser and freeer. The British version sounds like a bunch of white ukelele players.

LuFin, I went searching for Covidexitstrategy.org. It also says this: "The color trend now takes into account a state's CASES PER MILLION PER DAY. If the incidence rate is low (less than 40) it will not turn a state completely red. This impacts: Alaska, Montana, Michigan, Maine, and West Virginia. They are now yellow instead of red because of their low incident rate." It depicts these maps from May 28-June 7. Not so good.

Beautiful. So beautiful.

@Axtremus said in "Threats to National Security": And the unasked question is: "Why are we doing business with them?" For the businesspeople, it’s mostly greed. For Trump, it’s stupidity. Barack Obama had the astute strategy of uniting the Pacific Rim nations through the Trans-Pacific Partnership that excluded China, and that would have economically kept China in check. Trump unraveled the TPP and got into a senseless ”trade war” with China that needlessly served up the American agricultural industry as collateral damage, made his administration impotent against the Chinese government’s other transgressions because he’s too desperate to strike a trade deal that he so far cannot close with China, and pissed off just about every other trading partner that could have coordinated with the USA to keep China’s economic influence in check. You've said some stupid things before, but that one set a new record for stupid.

Good posts, @Larry !! I remember reading years ago, about the economics of the North vs. the South, and how that was the largest issue in building the animosity between the North and South. I do recall via various books, it was quite complicated what was going on, and that slavery was more of a fuse to the explosion, not a central topic. When the war began, it was not about slavery, as slavery alone as an issue was certainly not enough to result in a civil war. I need to read about those times again, I've forgotten so much from my interest of years ago. But, why should I? It's not like anyone on the street or anywhere is interested in having a good discussion. Maybe I'll consider it when freedom of speech is back in vogue, and people once again enjoy discussing interesting times and interesting ideas. I'm fortunate enough to belong to this forum, where freedom of speech still exists. We're just gosh, so old-fashioned.

Yes, I've gone over the political utility of that division many times here. First, racism is established as an idea doppelganger for "evil", then frame every political issue with the outline of which side is racist and which side isn't. Voila, advantage left on every political issue. And it really is every political issue with them. Speaking of Matthew Yglesias from that other thread, he is a prime perpetrator of this sort of framing and messaging, and he does it with these factors explicitly in mind.

@Aqua-Letifer said in Is this Aqua?: @Jolly said in Is this Aqua?: BTW, the coon's name is Amal. Like the carburettor? And I take it you're okay with his/her stopping by regularly? Like the opera.

@Copper said in Broken Trees: And I eagled the 18th hole today. That is awesome!! Makes everything else a little tiny bit better!!

Where all the whites shop....

@Mik said in Example why satire doesn’t work anymore: Words fail. Nah. Words don't fail. People do.

Actually something related happened to me with my daughter when she was in 7th grade. She has internet access as long as she followed simple rules - no establishing accounts on websites without our prior approval and without us having her id and password. Well, she didn't realize that dumb old dad was a bit more technologically savvy than she was and I found a MySpace account where she was being trolled by a 26 year old. After I found him and addressed the situation with him personally I addressed it with her. She fessed up and so, in keeping with the maxim that if you tell the truth you will be in a lot less trouble I did not levy a penalty. So a week later I found one of her other accounts where she was telling the story and talking about she was still getting to her secret accounts that dad didn't know about..ha ha. Yer gonna think ha ha. She had no technology access at all and very little freedom for almost a year and did a whole lot of work around here. Like the mule, sometimes you just have to get their attention.

I have a local produce subscription. Other than that its all a la carte. Just ordered some venison osso buco and a rack of NZ red deer.

No, he wandered out of view a few minutes after I took the picture and I haven't been outside to see.

@Mik said in Weird dreams: You’re gay. Definitely. lol

@xenon said in UK - 78% of those tested as positive are asymptomatic: Pre-symptomatic is different from asymptomatic. It's hard to gather that data though. Why can’t they retest that cohort in a week?