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  • My favorite are the idiot kids driving their Daddy's car in the snow, thinking it's some sort of monster truck, and getting stuck because it's just a freakin jacked up car.

    Thankfully that season is coming soon!
    "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

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    • Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

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      • My spam folder has improved so much since the end of the election cycle. Now, it's almost all about my physical shortcomings, social failures, financial distress, and chances to get rich quick.

        Such an improvement!



        Trust me?
        I'm an economist!

        Comment


        • No porn? No Russian bride proposal?
          Chimo

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          • I still get something like 40 emails a day about real estate listings. I bought a house more than 5 years ago. It's worse than the damn car salesmen.

            Which reminds me, I need to start looking at minivans.
            "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

            Comment


            • I had a surgery in my left foot 1 hour back. The pain is unbearable. Drinking Vodka to numb the pain. More later.
              Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

              Comment


              • Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                No porn? No Russian bride proposal?
                Plenty of both, but a bucketload fewer urgent appeals for political donations.
                Trust me?
                I'm an economist!

                Comment


                • Originally posted by DOR View Post
                  Vietnam Veterans’ Income in Retirement
                  CBO October 2022 – cbo.gov/publication/56696

                  {{{ snip }}}
                  Those with better education might, on average, have higher lifetime earnings, perhaps more saved for retirement, perhaps a defined benefit pension plan, etc.

                  Pre-1965 there were draft deferments for college students, and that changed in 1965 to deferments available for college students of adequately high class ranking and/or who scored adequately high on an exam. Among those with lower ranking and/or lower scores who were drafted while attending college, presumably some did not return to college to complete their degree when they returned home from serving, and for some that could disadvantage them for life.

                  Related article quoted below.

                  Originally posted by The_Harvard_Crimson

                  LBJ Wants Your GPA: The Vietnam Exam
                  In 1965, a college education was no longer a get-out-of-jail free card for the Vietnam War.


                  by Laura E. Hatt
                  23 May 2016

                  At the outbreak of the Vietnam War, Harvard students were safe from the draft. College undergraduate and graduate students were automatically awarded draft status 2-S–deferment for postsecondary education–and could not be forced to serve. For those opposed to the war, it was a get-out-of-jail-free card.

                  In 1965, that changed.

                  The war in Vietnam was escalating, and the U.S. army found itself in need of more recruits. In fact, by the fall of 1965, the U.S. Defense Department would order the highest enlistment quotas since the pinnacle of the Korean War: 27,400 men in September, and 33,600 in October.

                  To meet these demands, the U.S. military began to draw from a new pool: college men. The policy, Director of Selective Service System Lewis B. Hershey announced, would affect only a small percentage of the 1.8 million college students in the country—“only a thousand or two a month.”

                  These thousands weren’t selected at random. Instead, the Selective Service System (SSS) instituted a system of academic evaluation under which local draft boards would defer students based on intellectual ability. This ability was determined by two factors: class rank, and score on a national aptitude test known as the Selective Service Qualification Test. Undergraduates with a high class rank, or a test score above a certain cutoff, were draft-exempt. Everyone else could be sent to the front.

                  “At that point, things changed,” recalls Timothy K. Wright, who was a Harvard graduate student at the time. “Everybody had a number and if you had a low number–even if you were in college–you had to show up.”


                  Put to the Test
                  Harvard responded warily to the SSS decision to use class rank to determine draft status. Harvard had not previously ranked its students, and many students and faculty worried that rankings would foster “grade-grubbing” and prevent academic risk-taking.

                  "Are [professors] willing (and able) to function professionally in a situation wherein they hold life-and-death probability powers over their students?" Sociology Department chair John R. Seeley asked in a 1966 memo. “We might refuse to be professors under such an invasion or misuse of our role. We might cease to grade at all (except privately for information for each student) or we might grade every one equally high."

                  An October 1966 referendum showed that 72 percent of the Harvard undergraduate respondents felt that Selective Service should not use class rank to determine 2-S deferment.

                  Harvard administrators, too, were concerned. In an effort to standardize grading and make draft designation “fairer,” then-President Nathan M. Pusey ’28 and then-Dean of the College John U. Munro ’34 suggested a solution: adopt the aptitude test already in use at schools across the country.

                  The test, officially called the Selective Service Qualification Test, and colloquially known as the “Vietnam exam,” was scored out of 150 points. Undergraduates needed to score at least 70 points to secure draft exemption, and graduates needed to score 80. The first sessions were administered on Harvard’s campus in the spring of 1966.

                  As much as Harvard students disapproved of class rankings as a determinant of draft exemption, they liked the Vietnam exam even less. According to the 1966 referendum, a vast majority of students surveyed–90 percent, in fact–felt that the exam should not be the sole means of draft selection.

                  Some feared that the exam advantaged those with wealth and access to education, further exacerbating class imbalance in the military. “The whole thing was designed to create class unrest. If you qualify as sufficiently elite, then you get out of [the draft],” Eric Lessinger ’68 said. “It sets people up against each other.”

                  Drafting a Response
                  By the 1965-1966 academic year, growing anti-war sentiment had resulted in the emergence of several large movements on or near campus, including the Boston Draft Resistance Group, “The Resistance,” and the Harvard-Radcliffe branch of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

                  Initially, SDS had lacked a strong anti-draft program. Its primary membership was students, after all, a population which had been draft-exempt until 1965. This changed after the erosion of the 2-S deferment. Galvanized by this new vulnerability and seeking to consolidate its place as the leading anti-war organization in the country, SDS staged a national protest against the exam.

                  Quincy House draped in anti-war bedsheet banners
                  Quincy House draped in anti-war bedsheet banners By Courtesy of Harvard University Archives, HUPSF Student Life (473)
                  The protest was based on a “counter-exam”–a four-page leaflet printed 500,000 times and distributed by SDS members stationed outside 850 examination centers across the country. The protest took place on May 14, 1966, the date of the very first Vietnam exam.

                  “If the US divided the money being spent on the war among everyone in South Vietnam what would that amount be?” the counter-exam asked. “Answer: $866 per person, making [South Vietnam] the country with the highest per capita income in Asia.”

                  “Some of it was straight education. Some of it was a little funny. Some of it was clearly pointed and polemical. We were just trying to make a point,” Michael S. Ansara ’68, regional coordinator of SDS during the administration of the counter-exam, said.

                  Organizers perceived the effort as a success. “This exam put SDS on the map around the country,”John F. Maher Jr. ’60, New England coordinator of SDS, said.

                  Other Harvard students were reluctant to protest the Vietnam exam. Under a system of draft deferments based on class rank within schools, Harvard students were competing with one another. Under a system based on a national test, they were competing with students from universities and colleges across the nation. Students at top-ranked schools often found themselves better prepared for the exam than their peers at less well-resourced schools. For many Harvard students, the Vietnam exam offered a distinct advantage in the competition for draft deferrals.

                  Perhaps for this reason, neither popular discontent nor the catalyst of the counter-exam led to immediate change. “It didn’t stop any college from participating. It didn’t stop any dean from doing the rankings,” Ansara said. Harvard would continue to submit class rank and test score information to the SSS, and students would–apart from occasional protests–for the most part acquiesce.
                  Last edited by JRT; 17 Nov 20,, 13:58.
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                  • Well, it's random what police finds sometimes...

                    Germany: Police find cannabis plantations, weapons caches in Rhineland

                    Police in Aachen have found three professionally run cannabis plantations and masses of weapons in a large operation. It took authorities several days to transport some 1,000 weapons out of the site.

                    [...] The securing and transport of the weapons took several days, even with the help of colleagues from other police forces, the statement said.
                    Basically they first uncovered the plantations, then looking into a side building called in some help. Operaion ended up with 200 police officers and a EOD team on site, just to make sure. Was three weeks ago, and they're still counting.

                    From the pictures it seems that gun collection was rather ... diverse. And looks a bit like they were grabbing anything full-auto they could illegally acquire, no matter the caliber or feed method, with a slight focus on WW2 weapons. The number 1,000 is a bit misleading though. So far police has filed 500 charges for illegal weapons possession and 8 for war weapons control law violations - which hints that a number of the below weapons may be e.g. semi-auto reproductions or in a deactivated state, since i'm seeing way more full-auto than 8 guns. The remaining 500 items were weapon parts also recovered, some of which are in the below pictures. Ammunition was also found (you can see some cans with belts in the left picture).

                    Click image for larger version  Name:	Bild_3.jpg Views:	0 Size:	558.8 KB ID:	1568742Click image for larger version  Name:	Bild_4.jpg Views:	0 Size:	314.5 KB ID:	1568743Click image for larger version  Name:	Bild_2.jpg Views:	0 Size:	588.2 KB ID:	1568744

                    Oh, they of course also confiscated about 6,000 plants with a market worth per harvest of a couple million Euro.

                    The odd thing about the whole operation is the age of the guys who ran those plantations. They were in their mid-70s, with some men and women hired on for "gardening" in their mid-60s. Only two were younger men - in their 30s - one dealer for their product arrested locally and one guy who fled with fake papers to Hungary (where he was arrested for extradition).

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by kato View Post
                      The odd thing about the whole operation is the age of the guys who ran those plantations. They were in their mid-70s, with some men and women hired on for "gardening" in their mid-60s. Only two were younger men - in their 30s - one dealer for their product arrested locally and one guy who fled with fake papers to Hungary (where he was arrested for extradition)

                      Oh, they of course also confiscated about 6,000 plants with a market worth per harvest of a couple million Euro.
                      Nothing odd, that age group is the least likely to be suspected, raided or searched.

                      Young will always be susppected.

                      This is sad news because given a choice of whether to score off some one off a side street and these guys, i'd pick the latter because they are experienced and their stuff will be good which in this sense means safe to interact with and product least likely to be adulterated.

                      There is just one rule to follow. When you meet them to score you will have just one spliff and leave soon after or risk spending the night on the stairs, upside down, thinking its the most comfortable bed you ever slept in

                      Originally posted by kato View Post
                      Basically they first uncovered the plantations, then looking into a side building called in some help. Operaion ended up with 200 police officers and a EOD team on site, just to make sure. Was three weeks ago, and they're still counting.

                      From the pictures it seems that gun collection was rather ... diverse. And looks a bit like they were grabbing anything full-auto they could illegally acquire, no matter the caliber or feed method, with a slight focus on WW2 weapons. The number 1,000 is a bit misleading though. So far police has filed 500 charges for illegal weapons possession and 8 for war weapons control law violations - which hints that a number of the below weapons may be e.g. semi-auto reproductions or in a deactivated state, since i'm seeing way more full-auto than 8 guns. The remaining 500 items were weapon parts also recovered, some of which are in the below pictures. Ammunition was also found (you can see some cans with belts in the left picture).
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                      This is the dodgy part. Guess at some point they decided to diversify and take on more risk. Bad move.
                      Last edited by Double Edge; 20 Nov 20,, 18:42.

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                      • Good news finally
                        https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/27/w...scn/index.html

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                        • In good news, I got laser eye surgery recently. Vision went from 20/300 to 20/15. Other than the dry eyes and the sheer terror of going temporarily blind, a good experience.
                          "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

                          Comment


                          • Nature always finds the way...but its pretty gross.
                            Attached Files

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                            • Originally posted by Versus View Post
                              Nature always finds the way...but its pretty gross.
                              Click image for larger version  Name:	fetch?id=1569570.jpg Views:	0 Size:	68.2 KB ID:	1569580
                              Looks alien, other-worldly. Glad it does not attack humans.

                              You did not include any explanation of the picture, so I didn't know what I was looking at, and used the picture that you attached to the post to perform a graphic image web search. That found a related YouTube video posted by the PBS TV show Nova. See below.

                              Originally posted by PBS_Nova

                              The Tongue-Eating Parasite
                              Published on 26 February 2013



                              This parasite crawls into a fish's mouth and replaces its tongue.

                              Note: In this video, we refer to the parasites as "protoandritic." The real word is "protandric."

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                              Last edited by JRT; 08 Dec 20,, 15:17.
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                              • Originally posted by CNN_Travel_News

                                China flight attendants advised to wear diapers for Covid protection

                                by Lilit Marcus
                                10 December 2020

                                (Shanghai) As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, transportation officials around the world have been looking for ways to keep passengers and crew safe on board planes.

                                On November 25, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) released new guidelines for the country's airline industry, which it oversees.

                                The document, titled Technical Guidelines for Epidemic Prevention and Control for Airlines, Sixth Edition, contains advice about the best hygiene practices to carry out on aircraft and in airports.

                                What airlines are doing to sanitize planes
                                But one of those suggestions -- that personnel like flight attendants wear disposable diapers so they don't need to use the bathroom -- has raised some eyebrows.

                                A section on PPE advises cabin crew on flights to and from high-risk countries to wear "medical masks, double-layer disposable medical gloves, goggles, disposable hats, disposable protective clothing, and disposable shoe covers." The next sentence reads: "It is recommended that cabin crew members wear disposable diapers and avoid using the lavatories barring special circumstances to avoid infection risks."

                                While such advice may seem dramatic, it's no secret that lavatories can be the germiest place on an airplane. In August, a woman traveling from Italy to South Korea contracted coronavirus during her trip, and a visit to the bathroom -- the only place where she didn't wear an N95 mask -- was named as the possible source of her infection.

                                Is it safe to travel for the holidays this year?
                                Airplane bathroom design was already a hot topic before Covid-19, but the pandemic has focused efforts to come up with new solutions.

                                Japanese airline ANA announced earlier this year that it was testing out a prototype of a new hands-free lavatory door. Meanwhile, Boeing successfully applied for a patent on a "self-cleaning lavatory" that would use UV light to clean 99.9% of bathroom germs after every use.

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