True to her word, Cavanaugh has slowed the business of passing laws to a crawl by introducing amendment after amendment to every bill that makes it to the state Senate floor and taking up all eight debate hours allowed by the rules — even during the week she was suffering from strep throat. Wednesday marks the halfway point of this year’s 90-day session, and not a single bill will have passed thanks to Cavanaugh’s relentless filibustering.
I actually watched the oscars last weekend for the first time in years because I was weirdly emotionally invested in Everything Everywhere All at Once winning, and I’m glad they did.
That movie touched me a way few movies have in my life, and I hope it’s success makes more room for studios to take risks again instead of just churning out safe stories we’ve seen over and over already
More dangerous than the unpopular positions DeSantis holds are the popular positions he does not hold. What is DeSantis’s view on health care? He doesn’t seem to have one. President Joe Biden has delivered cheap insulin to U.S. users. Good idea or not? Silence from DeSantis. There’s no DeSantis jobs policy; he hardly speaks about inflation. Homelessness? The environment? Nothing. Even on crime, DeSantis must avoid specifics, because specifics might remind his audience that Florida’s homicide numbers are worse than New York’s or California’s.
DeSantis just doesn’t seem to care much about what most voters care about. And voters in turn do not care much about what DeSantis cares most about.
It will be interesting to see how Ron scrambles back toward the center. Even capturing every trump voter in Nov, will leave him far short of election.
My mother, who spent decades teaching English to high school and middle school students, was born on March 15. The “ides of March” jokes last a lifetime…
There’s been some discussion here by Kathy and others on the recent reported near collisions at airports. I’ve wondered if it’s real or a ‘Summer of the Shark” thing. WAPO has a guest column by a retired pilot saying incidents are indeed up and the situation is dangerous. He blames it on difficulties in ramping up post-COVID* and long term underfunding of the FAA.
* I hate writing “post COVID” as COVID don’t know it’s over. But you know what I mean.
But I’d still like to see a more formal analysis of both type and frequency of these incidents. Before the pandemic, an Air Canada narrow body neatly lined up for landing with a taxiway in San Francisco, and came within 100 ft of hitting a plane taxiing there.
The taxiway held two or three widebodies, and at least one narrow body. I’ve no idea how such a crash would play out, but there were many hundreds of people and several planes fully loaded with fuel awaiting their turn to take off. It would have been a major catastrophe.
The thing is that neither the AC pilots nor the tower controllers noticed anything amiss. it took a warning from one of the pilots in the taxiway to avert disaster. This points to systemic issues.
In Mexico most apartment buildings are owned by the people living in them, not rented. The way it works a developer puts up a building, then sells individual apartments (with 2-3 parking spaces per unit). the developer also hires a contractor to manage the common areas, parking garage, elevators, etc. When most of the units are sold, the owners take control of the contractor managing the property, and can either keep them or replace them.
Individual apartment owners can rent their unit if they want. Some people buy such units to rent them out, others rent them out if they move.
There are also apartment buildings put up for rental purposes, but the model above is the predominant one. Office buildings do tend to be rentals only.
@Kathy: So the majority of units are what we’d call a condominium apartment, or condos. Common in the States, especially here in FL, where the unit owner often rents it out seasonally. One notoriously collapsed a couple years ago because the condo association hadn’t kept up with maintenance. I believe they’re a relatively small share of multi-family units. I’m having trouble framing a Safari query to find actual numbers. All I get is a list of arguments for or against renting. Perhaps a case for Chat GPT or the new Bing.
This is, IIRC, largely driven by our income tax credit for mortgage interest.
As many have said for a while: DeFascist is overrated politician with negative charisma. His fanboys are deluding themselves to think that what can be sold to disproportionately old, disproportionately white, disproportionately weird Florida will be bought by Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina.
In 2001 there were approximately 5.3 million condos and co-ops, accounting for 5 percent of all occupied housing units, according to the American Housing Survey (AHS)3 (exhibit 2). Of these, 1.5 million (28.5 percent) were renter occupied and 3.8 million (71.5 percent) were owner occupied.4
At least where I’m at, “condominum apartment” is an architectural style that describes the physical layout of the unit, not the ownership or occupancy. e.g. Most of the units in my development are apartment style and also owner occupied year round.
It describes units where the entire living area is on one floor and then stacked up with multiple other units in a single building, as opposed to a townhouse condo
He doesn’t want to say it plainly, and rightly so as it is wise for a board to determine it’s the problem say so instead of just one person, but there are a lot of rookies in the system right now. Not just pilots and controllers, it’s the people that load, dispatch, tow planes, maintain them, et al. The COVID break caused a lot of retirements to happen.
For decades rookies were a small portion of the community and the system which existed was properly structured for that condition. A slew of newbs is a very different condition and the industry must adjust.
Welp, the power is off at my place, and has been since 11am yesterday. It is predicted to be off for perhaps another 36 hours.
We got hit with a really strong windstorm yesterday about midday. Many parts of Santa Clara County got smacked. Interestingly, though, Palo Alto did very well in comparison to many other neighboring cities. Further thickening the plot is the fact that unlike all those other places (including me), Palo Alto runs it’s own power system, rather than using PG&E.
Because that socialist hellhole Palo Alto has power that works and lots of other people, depending on the fiduciary responsibility inspired by the free market, don’t have power.
Hayek was right about prices and allocation, but very, very wrong about serfdom.
Just had my annual review at work. Passed with flying colors (of course). Except for one thing: I’m a grumpy old man. 😀
Our company tries very hard to be a fun company (and it is). But I’m not into the “fun” things that most other people are. e.g., they’re shutting down both Wisconsin plants for an afternoon and taking everyone to see the Broadway tour of Disney’s Lion King.
1) I don’t like Disney shows.
2) I despise musicals.
3) I’d rather not sit in a theatre with 1,000 other people.
I got “dinged” because of that. 😛 Didn’t affect anything, it was just a comment by the HR VP (my boss’ boss).
@Stormy Dragon: I always thought “condominium” and “apartment” were mutually exclusive. This definition from a mortgage site matches my understanding.
The biggest difference between a condo and an apartment is ownership. An apartment is defined as a residence that is rented, often as part of a larger residential building. A condo can be similar in structure to an apartment — usually a unit within a larger residential building — but condos are owned instead of rented.
@Mu Yixiao: I have been in a similar situation. Maybe more than once. What I think I should have done (in your situation) was to go, and when co-workers asked me what I thought, reply to the effect of “well, musicals aren’t my cup of tea”. Of course, if you liked it, against all odds, say so. But if they follow up, you can say something like, “It’s nice to be here with y’all”. So you go because of your co-workers, not because of the attraction. You can even say something like “I love that you liked it!”
I’ve seen condo developments here that contain an apartment style building and several freestanding houses. Just because something is possible, it doesn’t mean it should be done. I wanted to murder that developer so bad.
That would require that I sit in a crowd of 1,000 people (I have slight social anxiety, and truly dislike being in large crowds) and spend 3 hours suffering through a Disney musical. They don’t pay me enough for that–and I spent 25 years actually getting paid to sit through (work at) musicals.
I’m not the only one saying they aren’t going to go (it’s in May)–even though we’re getting our hourly rate during that time. Some people have kids to pick up from school (factory shifts are early-in, early-out), might have other obligations, or just don’t like musicals.
I applaud the company for the opportunity, but it tweaks me as wrong get “angry” at employees who don’t enjoy the same things the bosses do. This company is incredibly diverse and welcoming to all kinds of races, ethnicities, sexualities, genders, neuro-atypicalities, etc. But… you don’t like musicals?!! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! (Okay, I’m getting melodramatic because I find the whole thing funny and ridiculous.)
{sigh} “Grumpy old man” will now be forever on my permanent record.
But on the other side of compassion for others, I offer…
Minnesota Republican votes against free school meals bill because ‘I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry’
A Republican state senator voted against a bill to feed schoolchildren, arguing that hunger wasn’t a problem there because he hadn’t met anyone without enough food.
Sen. Steve Drazkowski made the remarks on the floor of the Minnesota State Capitol on Tuesday before voting on HF 5, which would provide free school lunch and breakfast for students in the state.
“I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry,” said Drazkowski. “I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don’t have access to enough food to eat.”
Fortunately, 4 Republican legislators joined their Democratic colleagues, and the bill passed despite Mr. D’s willful ignorance.
Prior to the trump pandemic, there was a pilot shortage. Airlines began to ease it by guaranteeing pilots hired by regional partners and subsidiaries, which pay far lower salaries, the option to move up to the major airline for better pay.
When the pandemic struck, this kind of fell by the wayside. Additionally, airlines used up a lot of PPP funds to entice their older, more experienced, more expensive pilots to take early retirement. I suppose this also happened with cabin crew, mechanics, and back office personnel.
When demand came roaring back, the airlines were caught short. Delta recently announced a deal with its pilots for a massive pay increase over five years. Cabin crew and the rest will want a similar deal. they won’t get it (pilots are by far hardest to get and train), but odds are they’ll get something.
It’s going to take a while to get things sorted out.
And in the more good news category, a Florida man who spent the past 34 years behind bars walked out of court in Fort Lauderdale a free man on Monday after he was exonerated.
Just think, it only took 34 years to free an innocent man. DeSantisstan, what a country!
I’ve opted out of all the extramural activities at work.
There have been two exceptions.
One was (pas tense) the annual office Xmas party. It used to be held in the parking lot, so missing it wasn’t much of an option. As the company grew, they moved it off site. I attended the first of those, maybe the second, not the third*, and then the pandemic hit and I’ve stayed away ever since.
The other was a meal at the boss’ house some years ago. Pretty much I’d no idea that’s what we were doing, and at the time we went out to eat often. Sometimes, if work permitted, to a nice place downtown.
Now and then a coworker has a party, or puts together a gathering, or gets married, and invitations are issued. I always beg off.
*even when I went, I pretty much ate and left. I didn’t stay for the “dancing” to torturously loud “music,” nor the abortive socializing that went on. Sometimes I stayed for the brief period where some coworkers are given a certificate and small gift for 5,10,15,20,etc years with the company.
One I didn’t attend, I missed getting mine. I’ve no idea where the certificate wound up. I used to keep it under my desk, but it kind of vanished. The gift, a Kindle Oasis, I sold to another coworker.
That was a very nice, very thoughtful gift, and the perfect example why I’m impossible to buy gifts for. I mean, you’d think a voracious reader would love any kind of Kindle, even if she has two smart “phones” and a tablet. But my habits rendered the Kindle a nice paperweight at best.
“I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry,” said Drazkowski. “I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don’t have access to enough food to eat.”
That’s a humble brag about his ability to avoid poor people.
@Mu Yixiao: I avoid office social gatherings like the plague, and try to sabotage them in the planning phase.
Once, when our SF team was going to be visiting Seattle, I objected to us going out drinking to bond, because we shouldn’t be pressuring people to drink.
It was pointed out that at the moment I made this argument I was sitting in our meeting with a glass of scotch in front of me. I countered that there’s a difference between my insubordinate day drinking and the company encouraging people to drink.
(For the Seattle goes to SF trip, they had a cocktail making class and a Segway tour, in that order. Several people went to the emergency room with broken bones. I told my boss that I didn’t want to hear any shit about me blowing off the trip)
@Gustopher: I was also responsible for a team-building exercise being a day of silent meditation/mindfulness/etc. I left the company before it actually happened, and apparently they all sat quietly, cursing me.
I had suggested a team-building experience of us all being in isolation tanks, which everyone somehow thought was a serious and good idea, but they weren’t able to find enough tanks at the same time, so they went with the silent meditation instead.
@gVOR08: Condominium associations differ according to state. It’s a mechanism of owning an apartment….but not completely, because what we individually actually own is the right to the inside of the apartment unit. A lot of the other stuff in our building (pipes, hot water heaters, the first floor part which contains the lobby and the maintenance rooms) is commonly owned.
People keep squawking about our monthly assessments but we definitely won’t have any special assessments: when the roof needs to be replaced we’ll have the money already put aside.
Yep, he’s a charmer. Another comment of his from the floor:
“Hunger is a relative term… I had a cereal bar for breakfast, I guess I’m hungry now,” Drazkowski said. “I didn’t see a definition of hunger in the bill… most reasonable people suggest hunger means you don’t have enough to eat in order to provide for metabolism and growth.”
Yeppers, the compassion is just rolling off his tongue.
I’m selective about what I participate in, but I think it’s really cool that the company does all this stuff for the employees*. Some of them just aren’t for me. And it’s not always because I’m a curmudgeon. I don’t join the various raffles, because I’d like other people to win stuff. I haven’t entered the March Madness pool because I don’t care about basketball, and I know that others really do (we’ll have the games shown on 2 large screens in “Town Square” (the area that acts as a lobby, a meeting space, and a place to eat).)
But I was sitting in Town Square cheering on Croatia (where my family came from) and Morocco (where a work-friend is from) during the World Cup this past autumn. I went around to all the events at our “internal trade show” this winter. I’ll sometimes take a slice on Pi Day. I join in the pot-lucks and lunch events for our department, and even make some of my own (“Hey, I felt like cooking and can’t eat all this. Come on up and have some.”).
And I’ve started going to Thirsty Thursdays–a semi-occasional gathering in a common area near R&D where one guy hosts whiskey tastings (though additional contributions are welcomed).
I’m not anti-social (mostly just asocial), and I like most of my colleagues (in at least a “I’ll have a drink with them” way). I simply feel that any of the (very generous and often amazing) opportunities for “fun” be presented as just that–opportunities, not requirements.
=====
* They’ve taken every (Wisconsin) employee to every Star Wars movie. The last one involved renting multiple screens and hiring a fleet of busses.
I see an NBC report that the Russian jets who interfered with and caused the downing of our Reaper drone had high level approval. This strikes me as unsurprising. Over the years there’s been a lot of reporting that Russian pilots do nothing without orders from controllers. It occurs to me the Russians should make more use of drones. Their manned aircraft are largely under ground control, they might as well go all the way. The article also notes that Russian ships are on site, but whether by good luck or good planning, the Black Sea at that point is 5,000 feet deep.
Our story is that the Russian pilots were recklessly screwing around and got too close, bending a propeller blade on the Reaper. That smells like allowing the Russians a diplomatic way out. A nose, wingtip, or tail surface that got into a spinning prop would have taken damage.
It smells like BS to me as well. The narrative they did a maneuver like the RAF did on the V2s doesn’t wash. The Predator’s cruise speed is only 70kts, and no fighter can get anywhere near that slow. Closing speed would still be about 50kts, too fast for delicacy. I suspect they shot it down and there is a valid fear of how the public might react to that were it generally known. Leaving an escape route, as you say.
Nobody tolerates spying in a war zone. We probably anticipated this would happen.
I rarely suggest meeting friends at a bar unless I know 1) they drink and 2) they don’t have a drinking problem (and no, finding out isn’t easy if one is subtle about it). far safer, and usually less noisy, to meet at a Starbucks or similar establishment.
I simply feel that any of the (very generous and often amazing) opportunities for “fun” be presented as just that–opportunities, not requirements.
That would be great.
Last year, the prognosis was for us to be chest-deep in Hell Week work by the time the office party usually takes place. So the boss and one of the managers organized a lunch outing followed by drinks (there it is!) and a party at the manager’s house.
That’s nice, for such people as care for that kind of thing.
Me, I’d have way more fun knocking off early and going home to read or watch TV. Not to mention September or October last year was still a bad time for indoor dining or any kind of gathering.
My personal hell is crowded with loud “music” and decent food.
Just had my annual review at work. Passed with flying colors (of course). Except for one thing: I’m a grumpy old man.
Me too! On both counts — flying colors (and a very unexpected raise), and “…but you’re a grumpy old man.”
Fortunately, I had a recently-deceased colleague who was a VERY grumpy old man. I am getting by on a platform of “You’re right, but at least I’m not Mike F____.”
Anyone mildly familiar with bird anatomy, say anyone who’s ever eaten a chicken wing, should know that deboning a wing would be neither easy nor cheap.
Maybe selling chicken breast nuggets as “wings” is a bit deceitful, but not really that much. Wings are kind of part of the breast. I recall raw breasts with wings attached before wings became a menu item in the 90s.
So maybe this restaurant should change the name of the item, but I hardly see there was any harm. It’s not as if they were selling pigeon instead of chicken.
Nebraska lawmaker 3 weeks into filibuster over trans bill
I actually watched the oscars last weekend for the first time in years because I was weirdly emotionally invested in Everything Everywhere All at Once winning, and I’m glad they did.
That movie touched me a way few movies have in my life, and I hope it’s success makes more room for studios to take risks again instead of just churning out safe stories we’ve seen over and over already
According to Donald Trump, Queen Elizabeth II “kissed my ass.” Sure she did, Donny.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-says-hillary-clinton-obama-others-kissed-my-ass-in-letters?ref=home
@CSK:
Like most terrible people, Trump confuses courtesy for fawning submission
@Stormy Dragon:
Indeed he does. Just as he claims that people don’t ask him for endorsements, they come to him begging and weeping and pleading for endorsements.
Michael Caine turned 90 yesterday. Happy birthday to one of the greats.
Perhaps groomer Ron will be Scott Walker redux.
Is Ron DeSantis Flaming Out Already?
It will be interesting to see how Ron scrambles back toward the center. Even capturing every trump voter in Nov, will leave him far short of election.
@Sleeping Dog:
And on top of that, Trump’s minions are filing a 15-page complaint against DeSantis with the Florida Commission on Ethics.
My mother, who spent decades teaching English to high school and middle school students, was born on March 15. The “ides of March” jokes last a lifetime…
There’s been some discussion here by Kathy and others on the recent reported near collisions at airports. I’ve wondered if it’s real or a ‘Summer of the Shark” thing. WAPO has a guest column by a retired pilot saying incidents are indeed up and the situation is dangerous. He blames it on difficulties in ramping up post-COVID* and long term underfunding of the FAA.
* I hate writing “post COVID” as COVID don’t know it’s over. But you know what I mean.
@gVOR08:
Interesting read, thanks.
But I’d still like to see a more formal analysis of both type and frequency of these incidents. Before the pandemic, an Air Canada narrow body neatly lined up for landing with a taxiway in San Francisco, and came within 100 ft of hitting a plane taxiing there.
The taxiway held two or three widebodies, and at least one narrow body. I’ve no idea how such a crash would play out, but there were many hundreds of people and several planes fully loaded with fuel awaiting their turn to take off. It would have been a major catastrophe.
The thing is that neither the AC pilots nor the tower controllers noticed anything amiss. it took a warning from one of the pilots in the taxiway to avert disaster. This points to systemic issues.
Old what’s her name? was born on the ides of March.
I thought it was funny till she threw me out after 16 years.
The 9 Types of Girlfriends
I have some vague memory that the world was supposed to end on March 15, 1982.
Guess not.
From yesterday’s comments on housing:
In Mexico most apartment buildings are owned by the people living in them, not rented. The way it works a developer puts up a building, then sells individual apartments (with 2-3 parking spaces per unit). the developer also hires a contractor to manage the common areas, parking garage, elevators, etc. When most of the units are sold, the owners take control of the contractor managing the property, and can either keep them or replace them.
Individual apartment owners can rent their unit if they want. Some people buy such units to rent them out, others rent them out if they move.
There are also apartment buildings put up for rental purposes, but the model above is the predominant one. Office buildings do tend to be rentals only.
@Kathy: So the majority of units are what we’d call a condominium apartment, or condos. Common in the States, especially here in FL, where the unit owner often rents it out seasonally. One notoriously collapsed a couple years ago because the condo association hadn’t kept up with maintenance. I believe they’re a relatively small share of multi-family units. I’m having trouble framing a Safari query to find actual numbers. All I get is a list of arguments for or against renting. Perhaps a case for Chat GPT or the new Bing.
This is, IIRC, largely driven by our income tax credit for mortgage interest.
@CSK: The world did end. You’re now in a simulation.
@Sleeping Dog:
As many have said for a while: DeFascist is overrated politician with negative charisma. His fanboys are deluding themselves to think that what can be sold to disproportionately old, disproportionately white, disproportionately weird Florida will be bought by Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina.
@gVOR08:
Slightly old info, but probably not too far off of current.
According to HUD:
@gVOR08:
At least where I’m at, “condominum apartment” is an architectural style that describes the physical layout of the unit, not the ownership or occupancy. e.g. Most of the units in my development are apartment style and also owner occupied year round.
It describes units where the entire living area is on one floor and then stacked up with multiple other units in a single building, as opposed to a townhouse condo
@DrDaveT:
The most amazing thing about March 15 is that every year since 1978 I’ve turned 27.
Drs call it Static Benjamin Button Syndrome or “BS”. It’s amazing. I aged until 27 and then stopped. What a miracle.
@Beth:
Beth Button.
@gVOR08:
He doesn’t want to say it plainly, and rightly so as it is wise for a board to determine it’s the problem say so instead of just one person, but there are a lot of rookies in the system right now. Not just pilots and controllers, it’s the people that load, dispatch, tow planes, maintain them, et al. The COVID break caused a lot of retirements to happen.
For decades rookies were a small portion of the community and the system which existed was properly structured for that condition. A slew of newbs is a very different condition and the industry must adjust.
Welp, the power is off at my place, and has been since 11am yesterday. It is predicted to be off for perhaps another 36 hours.
We got hit with a really strong windstorm yesterday about midday. Many parts of Santa Clara County got smacked. Interestingly, though, Palo Alto did very well in comparison to many other neighboring cities. Further thickening the plot is the fact that unlike all those other places (including me), Palo Alto runs it’s own power system, rather than using PG&E.
Because that socialist hellhole Palo Alto has power that works and lots of other people, depending on the fiduciary responsibility inspired by the free market, don’t have power.
Hayek was right about prices and allocation, but very, very wrong about serfdom.
@Beth:
Is the myth about HRT taking off 20 years true? =)
Just had my annual review at work. Passed with flying colors (of course). Except for one thing: I’m a grumpy old man. 😀
Our company tries very hard to be a fun company (and it is). But I’m not into the “fun” things that most other people are. e.g., they’re shutting down both Wisconsin plants for an afternoon and taking everyone to see the Broadway tour of Disney’s Lion King.
1) I don’t like Disney shows.
2) I despise musicals.
3) I’d rather not sit in a theatre with 1,000 other people.
I got “dinged” because of that. 😛 Didn’t affect anything, it was just a comment by the HR VP (my boss’ boss).
@Stormy Dragon: I always thought “condominium” and “apartment” were mutually exclusive. This definition from a mortgage site matches my understanding.
@Mu Yixiao: I have been in a similar situation. Maybe more than once. What I think I should have done (in your situation) was to go, and when co-workers asked me what I thought, reply to the effect of “well, musicals aren’t my cup of tea”. Of course, if you liked it, against all odds, say so. But if they follow up, you can say something like, “It’s nice to be here with y’all”. So you go because of your co-workers, not because of the attraction. You can even say something like “I love that you liked it!”
Just some suggestions, that’s all.
@Beth:..I aged until 27 and then stopped.
I remember when I was 39. I woke up the next day and I was 75.
@Stormy Dragon:
I dunno, but it definitely helps me to delude myself
@MarkedMan:
I’ve seen condo developments here that contain an apartment style building and several freestanding houses. Just because something is possible, it doesn’t mean it should be done. I wanted to murder that developer so bad.
@MarkedMan:
They are, and yet the realtors in this area insist on calling a certain type of condo an “apartment condo”.
@Jay L Gischer:
That would require that I sit in a crowd of 1,000 people (I have slight social anxiety, and truly dislike being in large crowds) and spend 3 hours suffering through a Disney musical. They don’t pay me enough for that–and I spent 25 years actually getting paid to sit through (work at) musicals.
I’m not the only one saying they aren’t going to go (it’s in May)–even though we’re getting our hourly rate during that time. Some people have kids to pick up from school (factory shifts are early-in, early-out), might have other obligations, or just don’t like musicals.
I applaud the company for the opportunity, but it tweaks me as wrong get “angry” at employees who don’t enjoy the same things the bosses do. This company is incredibly diverse and welcoming to all kinds of races, ethnicities, sexualities, genders, neuro-atypicalities, etc. But… you don’t like musicals?!! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! (Okay, I’m getting melodramatic because I find the whole thing funny and ridiculous.)
{sigh} “Grumpy old man” will now be forever on my permanent record.
😛
@Mu Yixiao:
Oh, heck, that’s been on my permanent record since my choice for President included Nixon and Humphrey…
@Stormy Dragon:
But on the other side of compassion for others, I offer…
Minnesota Republican votes against free school meals bill because ‘I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry’
Fortunately, 4 Republican legislators joined their Democratic colleagues, and the bill passed despite Mr. D’s willful ignorance.
@dazedandconfused:
Prior to the trump pandemic, there was a pilot shortage. Airlines began to ease it by guaranteeing pilots hired by regional partners and subsidiaries, which pay far lower salaries, the option to move up to the major airline for better pay.
When the pandemic struck, this kind of fell by the wayside. Additionally, airlines used up a lot of PPP funds to entice their older, more experienced, more expensive pilots to take early retirement. I suppose this also happened with cabin crew, mechanics, and back office personnel.
When demand came roaring back, the airlines were caught short. Delta recently announced a deal with its pilots for a massive pay increase over five years. Cabin crew and the rest will want a similar deal. they won’t get it (pilots are by far hardest to get and train), but odds are they’ll get something.
It’s going to take a while to get things sorted out.
And in the more good news category, a Florida man who spent the past 34 years behind bars walked out of court in Fort Lauderdale a free man on Monday after he was exonerated.
Just think, it only took 34 years to free an innocent man. DeSantisstan, what a country!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/florida-broward-country-sidney-holmes-exoneration-1.6779397
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Well, actually, DeSantis could take credit for Holmes’s release.
@Mu Yixiao:
I’ve opted out of all the extramural activities at work.
There have been two exceptions.
One was (pas tense) the annual office Xmas party. It used to be held in the parking lot, so missing it wasn’t much of an option. As the company grew, they moved it off site. I attended the first of those, maybe the second, not the third*, and then the pandemic hit and I’ve stayed away ever since.
The other was a meal at the boss’ house some years ago. Pretty much I’d no idea that’s what we were doing, and at the time we went out to eat often. Sometimes, if work permitted, to a nice place downtown.
Now and then a coworker has a party, or puts together a gathering, or gets married, and invitations are issued. I always beg off.
*even when I went, I pretty much ate and left. I didn’t stay for the “dancing” to torturously loud “music,” nor the abortive socializing that went on. Sometimes I stayed for the brief period where some coworkers are given a certificate and small gift for 5,10,15,20,etc years with the company.
One I didn’t attend, I missed getting mine. I’ve no idea where the certificate wound up. I used to keep it under my desk, but it kind of vanished. The gift, a Kindle Oasis, I sold to another coworker.
That was a very nice, very thoughtful gift, and the perfect example why I’m impossible to buy gifts for. I mean, you’d think a voracious reader would love any kind of Kindle, even if she has two smart “phones” and a tablet. But my habits rendered the Kindle a nice paperweight at best.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
That’s a humble brag about his ability to avoid poor people.
@Mu Yixiao: I avoid office social gatherings like the plague, and try to sabotage them in the planning phase.
Once, when our SF team was going to be visiting Seattle, I objected to us going out drinking to bond, because we shouldn’t be pressuring people to drink.
It was pointed out that at the moment I made this argument I was sitting in our meeting with a glass of scotch in front of me. I countered that there’s a difference between my insubordinate day drinking and the company encouraging people to drink.
(For the Seattle goes to SF trip, they had a cocktail making class and a Segway tour, in that order. Several people went to the emergency room with broken bones. I told my boss that I didn’t want to hear any shit about me blowing off the trip)
@Gustopher: I was also responsible for a team-building exercise being a day of silent meditation/mindfulness/etc. I left the company before it actually happened, and apparently they all sat quietly, cursing me.
I had suggested a team-building experience of us all being in isolation tanks, which everyone somehow thought was a serious and good idea, but they weren’t able to find enough tanks at the same time, so they went with the silent meditation instead.
@gVOR08: Condominium associations differ according to state. It’s a mechanism of owning an apartment….but not completely, because what we individually actually own is the right to the inside of the apartment unit. A lot of the other stuff in our building (pipes, hot water heaters, the first floor part which contains the lobby and the maintenance rooms) is commonly owned.
People keep squawking about our monthly assessments but we definitely won’t have any special assessments: when the roof needs to be replaced we’ll have the money already put aside.
@Gustopher:
Yep, he’s a charmer. Another comment of his from the floor:
Yeppers, the compassion is just rolling off his tongue.
@Kathy:
I’m selective about what I participate in, but I think it’s really cool that the company does all this stuff for the employees*. Some of them just aren’t for me. And it’s not always because I’m a curmudgeon. I don’t join the various raffles, because I’d like other people to win stuff. I haven’t entered the March Madness pool because I don’t care about basketball, and I know that others really do (we’ll have the games shown on 2 large screens in “Town Square” (the area that acts as a lobby, a meeting space, and a place to eat).)
But I was sitting in Town Square cheering on Croatia (where my family came from) and Morocco (where a work-friend is from) during the World Cup this past autumn. I went around to all the events at our “internal trade show” this winter. I’ll sometimes take a slice on Pi Day. I join in the pot-lucks and lunch events for our department, and even make some of my own (“Hey, I felt like cooking and can’t eat all this. Come on up and have some.”).
And I’ve started going to Thirsty Thursdays–a semi-occasional gathering in a common area near R&D where one guy hosts whiskey tastings (though additional contributions are welcomed).
I’m not anti-social (mostly just asocial), and I like most of my colleagues (in at least a “I’ll have a drink with them” way). I simply feel that any of the (very generous and often amazing) opportunities for “fun” be presented as just that–opportunities, not requirements.
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* They’ve taken every (Wisconsin) employee to every Star Wars movie. The last one involved renting multiple screens and hiring a fleet of busses.
I see an NBC report that the Russian jets who interfered with and caused the downing of our Reaper drone had high level approval. This strikes me as unsurprising. Over the years there’s been a lot of reporting that Russian pilots do nothing without orders from controllers. It occurs to me the Russians should make more use of drones. Their manned aircraft are largely under ground control, they might as well go all the way. The article also notes that Russian ships are on site, but whether by good luck or good planning, the Black Sea at that point is 5,000 feet deep.
Our story is that the Russian pilots were recklessly screwing around and got too close, bending a propeller blade on the Reaper. That smells like allowing the Russians a diplomatic way out. A nose, wingtip, or tail surface that got into a spinning prop would have taken damage.
@Mu Yixiao: I would love to work there lol
@gVOR08:
It smells like BS to me as well. The narrative they did a maneuver like the RAF did on the V2s doesn’t wash. The Predator’s cruise speed is only 70kts, and no fighter can get anywhere near that slow. Closing speed would still be about 50kts, too fast for delicacy. I suspect they shot it down and there is a valid fear of how the public might react to that were it generally known. Leaving an escape route, as you say.
Nobody tolerates spying in a war zone. We probably anticipated this would happen.
@Gustopher:
Alcohol is kind of a complex subject.
I rarely suggest meeting friends at a bar unless I know 1) they drink and 2) they don’t have a drinking problem (and no, finding out isn’t easy if one is subtle about it). far safer, and usually less noisy, to meet at a Starbucks or similar establishment.
@Mu Yixiao:
That would be great.
Last year, the prognosis was for us to be chest-deep in Hell Week work by the time the office party usually takes place. So the boss and one of the managers organized a lunch outing followed by drinks (there it is!) and a party at the manager’s house.
That’s nice, for such people as care for that kind of thing.
Me, I’d have way more fun knocking off early and going home to read or watch TV. Not to mention September or October last year was still a bad time for indoor dining or any kind of gathering.
My personal hell is crowded with loud “music” and decent food.
Well, Aaron Rodgers seems to be heading to the Jets.
Too on the nose following in Brett Favre’s footsteps, isn’t it? Though, to be fair, Rodgers will not have retired first and then joined the Jets.
@Mu Yixiao:
Me too! On both counts — flying colors (and a very unexpected raise), and “…but you’re a grumpy old man.”
Fortunately, I had a recently-deceased colleague who was a VERY grumpy old man. I am getting by on a platform of “You’re right, but at least I’m not Mike F____.”
Another food related lawsuit. It turns out boneless wings contain no wing meat.
Anyone mildly familiar with bird anatomy, say anyone who’s ever eaten a chicken wing, should know that deboning a wing would be neither easy nor cheap.
Maybe selling chicken breast nuggets as “wings” is a bit deceitful, but not really that much. Wings are kind of part of the breast. I recall raw breasts with wings attached before wings became a menu item in the 90s.
So maybe this restaurant should change the name of the item, but I hardly see there was any harm. It’s not as if they were selling pigeon instead of chicken.