@Jolly said in Walmart to close all Portland stores: Try the Drift Roses, too. Low maintenance. Yes, I have 6 of those, a smaller bloom, and smaller plant, but lots of flowers non-stop from last to first frost. I trim them maybe once every 1-2 months in season. Not much of a fragrance. I have them along the edge of a walkway and I don't want them to take over the walk so I keep them down to 1-2 feet high. They would probably get a lot bigger if I let them go. And I still keep 6-7 hybrid tea roses even though they need more maintenance because they have big blooms with a strong fragrance. I usually have a few of these blooms cut in vases in the kitchen for most of the summer.

Murder! Lock her up.

@jon-nyc said in "How to pronounce.": @Renauda said in "How to pronounce.": In American movies and TV my ear always hears the word vehicle pronounced Vee-hickel. Around these parts the “h” is devocalised or silent so the word sounds as Vee-ickle. I think only a certain type of sheriff deputy pronounces it that way. I never have done so. It's de rigueur in Appalachia. Seriously, that's the standard.

@Jolly said in UK rationing vegetables: @Doctor-Phibes said in UK rationing vegetables: @LuFins-Dad said in UK rationing vegetables: @Doctor-Phibes said in UK rationing vegetables: My understanding is that the main reasons are European drought and disease and domestic fuel prices. I haven't watched this season of Clarkson yet, but I don't suppose there's any more red tape than normal - i.e. there's lots, but there's always lots. From watching the show, I gathered that the loss of the EU subsidies combined with the much lower cost for EU vegetables compared with the high cost of production in the UK (due to the red tape) has forced the UK farmers into different crops. Then the drought and disease in the EU hit and there’s no domestic production to pick up the slack. They told me that Brexit was going to make everything better. It would be, at least in agriculture, if the Brits would get some of their idiotic laws out of the way. Clarkson highlights something that's currently happening in the U,S, - the small farmer is getting killed. In GB, it's cheap EU produce. In America, it's factory farming. They told me that getting away from the Euro bureaucrats would mean the British could finally govern themselves. Apparently the Euro bureaucrats were doing a better job.

@jon-nyc said in "Pope Harry": I call bullshit, Liz Truss didn't have time to get fitted for the gown. LOL!

It's not clear to me what would happen if they declared the funding mechanism unconstitutional. Would the Fed have to cease funding immediately? Would CFPB then just bleed out in a few months if Congress didn't appropriate any new monies? Makes me wonder if this could be one of those instances where Scotus wants to do something but balks based on real-world implications.

@George-K I'm sure it could be revisited by congress at any point, regardless of the population.

Mental health problem. Has no business being in that loose of an environment. Tell ya something ya ain't gonna like...Even idiots like that understand pain. The pain must not be lethal and must be administered while the patient (or student) is engaged in the violent act. It's predicated on the ascending levels of violence police use. Sounds awful, doesn't it? It works. Adjacent to my old hospital was a very large mental facility for the non-criminally insane. 99% of the patients were no problem, but a very few could cause you grief and be a menace to staff and other patients. The hospital police (before the day of tazers) found a standard P24 was too much, but simply pulling a patient off of somebody was no deterrent. They eventually settled on a bar of soap in a sock. It was an effective attitude adjuster.

When I moved to LA in 78 it amazed me how much water they just dumped on the ground. Everything was irrigated, even growth by the freeways. Crazy when you live in the desert.

Hey, a little understanding, please! Some days, that's all it takes!

@George-K that's an unrealistic Nigerian scam email. No grammar errors.

@LuFins-Dad said in Veto Time: … But, there’s nothing preventing fund managers from considering ESG anyway… There never was. … That’s wrong. The Trump administration finalized a rule in October 2020 that prevents ERISA-covered plans from investing in ESG vehicles. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-labor-rule-discouraging-esg-investing-in-retirement-plans-is-finalized-over-swell-of-objections-11604089492 … The rule finalized Friday stipulates that fiduciaries for private pension plans covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) cannot invest in ESG vehicles that sacrifice investment returns or take on additional risk. It specifically requires that ERISA plan fiduciaries “select investments and investment courses of action based solely on financial considerations relevant to the risk-adjusted economic value of a particular investment or investment course of action.” …

@Mik said in Man plans, God laughs: @Jolly said in Man plans, God laughs: @Mik said in Man plans, God laughs: So I few to Fort Lauderdale yesterday, burning my last 100k Delta miles. Arrived about 9;30, rented a car and I was quite a way down the Keys when my SIL called to tell me my brother, who was also there at my uncle's house, just tested covid positive. Swell. No way i can be around them and then fly home Saturday, by which time I'd be very contagious if I caught it. I think they're all going to get it. Luckily my adopted mom lives in Ft Myers, so I called her and she was glad to have me. It worked out, but I drove around a whole lot of Florida yesterday. That's what I got for Cats' birthday. I dunno, God could have let you get there one day earlier... Good point. Indeed. Dodged a virus, and still had a good time. That's better than getting sick while away from home, or bringing it back to your lovely bride. I say you are fortunate to skip that. Give yourself a bourbon to congratulate yourself for a good call.

@jon-nyc said in Racing the HOA…: venery What's the plural of that?

@LuFins-Dad That theory seems to be complicated by the fact that Trump won a larger share of the vote in Philadelphia in 2020 than he did in 2016. He even picked up a third ward. He lost ground in the suburbs. Like the polling said he was going to.

@Renauda I've tried a bunch of different speakers over the years before settling on B&Ws. Started with AR3s, then Kef Cantata (similar to their 105), followed by B&W 802 Matrix, 801 Matrix, and current 800 Nautilus. I still have a pair of 805 S3's that I'm not currently using and a pair of Infinity speakers that I use for a second system. Still, until this week most of my listening was through Sennheiser HD 800 or a pair of eletrostatic Stax headphones that, while older, are amazing.

@jon-nyc said in Bill is looking pretty svelte: @George-K And still different when Epstein was with him. LOL. Did Epstein ever fly on AF1?

It's kinda funny as I'm deferring SSA for 18 months to claim the maximum I can receive - so it makes sense that the program should go bankrupt fairly soon after that.