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sheeeit

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Everything posted by sheeeit

  1. sheeeit

    Getting old sucks

    This whole thread sucks.
  2. sheeeit

    High

    My man.
  3. Pretty good article but doesn't reaaly drill down into the issues. I am sure like many here, I have been to Portugal a few times and loved it. But their drug plan is now facing significant problems similar to cities/states here that have largely decriminalized drugs. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/ One of the biggest issues has to do with mental health. It is much, much easier to have a person in Portugal commited involuntarily to a mental health institution. I do think our laws in the US are too lenient on this. It is certainly a touchy issue and has the ability to be abused but I think the pendulum on involuntary commitments has swung too far.
  4. Its a tough issue for sure. Not sure if it means much but purely by the numbers, the annual number of overdose deaths in Oregon have doubled since 2020. https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/PREVENTIONWELLNESS/SUBSTANCEUSE/OPIOIDS/Documents/quarterly_opioid_overdose_related_data_report.pdf The problem with the Oregon law was that they did one good thing in making "open air" or "public" drug use not a felony but they fucked up the end game by not making treatment mandatory. If you look at any counseling plan for the families of addicts they all say some variation of keep loving them but stop enabling them and you must follow through on consequences. I think a fairly sensible plan would be a law similar to the Oregon law but give a first offender the voluntary option to seek no cost treatment and no jail time. As seeen already, almost no one will do the voluntary treatment (under 1%). But give them the chance. A second offender should only have a choice between jail and treatment and a third offender probably needs jail or they must voluntary be committed to a mental health facility. I also think this should be something the Feds should help with on cost. Build or takeover a number of facilities scatterrred throughout the country that only treat addicts that are facing jail time. Work with local businesses and let the patients start working while still under treatment in the facility. It would not be overly expensive. We could fund the entirety of the program with a fraction of the money we send overseas. I think it is critical to input the job training with the program. Once the initial withdrawal episodes are over, get them on a routine where they are doing something meaningful. But still have a facility to live in where they get counseling, medication, safety, food etc. Being hopeless is a terrible thing.
  5. Nothing in this post negates what I said. The unarguable fact is that in the Fall of 2005 residents of Gaza had virtually no limitations on importing/exporting goods and services that were not weapons. Food, clothing, other goods etc were inspected by Israel, as any country would do coming off of the hostilities, but there were no embargos. But instead of building up their new territory they justed started launching rockets/missiles into Israel. Literally within months of the Israeli pullout. Also, note to all peoples everywhere, if you rely on a country for your water, electric, technology, fuel etc, you probably should not fire rockets at them.
  6. there is context here that is very important. I actually think you bringing that up is the one being disingenuous. I may not have my dates exactly right but Israel vacated Gaza and turned it over to the Palestinians in 2005. Initially, there were no restrictions on trade. Within the first six months of taking control, over 1000 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. 1000. Even then the Israelis did not restrict trade. Additionally, there were several suicide bomb terrorist attacks, as well as a tunnel attack on Israel from Gaza. It wasn’t until Hamas became the elected leader of Gaza that Israel really started to take control. And, the thing that nobody really seems to talk about that much, Egypt also imposed the same kinds of restrictions on the flow of goods into Gaza.
  7. When you say that the regulations usually don’t amount to anything, you may be correct, but it does not appear so in the case that was brought. As I read the case, there was a mandate some 40 years ago by a federal agency to force certain fishing vessels to keep federal watchdogs on their ships to make sure that they were observing safe fishing practices. Congress was mindful at the time that this would put a large financial burden on the fishing companies and capped the amount they would have to pay for the federal monitors at 2% to 3% of their daily haul. However, now the federal agency is mandating that the amount the fishing vessels must pay for their federal oversight is 20% of their daily haul. Obviously, that is a massive increase. These fishing companies have sunk lots and lots of money and time into their equipment, and now suddenly face the prospect of not being able to make a profit. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that international fishing companies that fish in the same waters are not subject to these costs, which allow them to sell their fish at a lower cost. This would seem to be unsustainable for the US fishing vessels. My understanding of what has happened to date is that the various courts have determined that the Chevron guideline is in play and as a result, the federal agency has complete authority to impose the higher fees. In reading the responses on here, from most of the posters, it seems that the argument is that the regulatory agencies should have more control than the courts in these matters as the regulatory agencies have industry specific knowledge that the courts would not. However, simply imposing a higher fee has nothing to do with anything industry specific in this case. We eat lots of fish in the US, and our domestic fishing operations are pretty critical to our food supply. It seems in this case that the funding for the federal agency was drawing up and as a result, the agency just arbitrarily pushed those costs onto the businesses. I know everybody on here likes to make fun of people that complain about federal overreach, but this certainly seems like a good example of it. I can see why this particular case made its way to the Supreme Court.
  8. Let’s try to leave all politics out of it, and just debate the law. But isn’t what you seem to be lamenting above with your football team analogy kind of exactly what is happening now? If you own a fishing company like the one the case is based on or an energy company or a technology company or just about anything and you base your business model and your research and development and the hundreds of billions of dollars that go into that based on a set of rules under a Democrat administration, and then those regulations can change dramatically in four years under a Republican administration you can potentially be screwed just like you are worrying about above. Take the EPA as an example. I think everyone would agree that the mandate given to the EPA under a John Kerry administration would be wildly different than under a Ted Cruz administration. So isn’t what the courts are potentially saying is the state of Oregon can regulate the fishing industry in Oregon whatever way the Oregon legislature sees fit. It seems to me that everyone here is saying this is going to give judges more power, but I think it is really just trying to restore power to state legislatures. from a purely theoretical standpoint I’m not sure I would disagree with that.
  9. There is a lot of truth in this. I do think that the Biden admin is being a little flaky in this deal. BB may well be a complete piece of shit, but he told the US what he was going to do when they started this offensive and we supported him right up until the point that we seem to not be supporting him. I think the whole concept of a measured response is simply absurd. This is war for the Israelis. Either one weapon delivered to Israel is too many or there really should be no limit. Our government under any administration is so busy trying to appease every loud voice that we wind up pissing everyone off. as to a two state solution, it obviously sounds logical and the only sane thing to do from our perspective as Americans. From Israel’s perspective, they literally just tried it with Gaza, and it resulted in tens of thousands of missiles being shot into Israel, thousands of dead Israelis and tens of thousands of dead Palestinians. It was an absolute disaster by all accounts. I can certainly understand why Israel does not want to try that again. As to BB,s popularity, I think those opinion polls are not very accurate. I don’t think anyone likes to see mass killing, but deep down I think the majority of Israel’s are OK with this war going on until Hamas is effectively neutered. The absolute horrificness of the Hamas attacks just steeled Israel to the point that they are not going to stop this time. I hope for everyone’s sake that it can be done quickly and then BB rides off into the sunset.
  10. I did a little checking and you are correct, that Pizza Hut is transitioning away from dine in stores. Ironically, they actually added more than they closed in 2023, but The trend is downward. But they do still have over 1000 dine in restaurants, and several hundred in California, and the truth remains that having in-house delivery drivers for those locations is a loser.
  11. Adding to the answers above, those places do a pretty sizable percentage of their sales in takeout/drive through.
  12. LOL. My condolences on Mr Gattis. That is tough work for sure. Associated payroll taxes (especially in Cali) and insurance alone add up to nearly 15% already. We are also talking about Pizza Huts which almost all still have an in house dining option. Pizza Hut makes money from in house dining and drive through business but barely breaks even or loses money on their in house delivery business.
  13. You have county commissioners putting in writing that they will not stop trucks delivering women to New Mexico for abortions? Are you sure this "beta test" isn't just in your head?
  14. The generally accepted average for "cost of employees" is 25%-40% of wages. https://web.mit.edu/e-club/hadzima/how-much-does-an-employee-cost.html California is higher as there is an additional 7% or so for state payroll taxes. But, we can just use 15% and the calculus doesn't change much. I have studied this stuff a bunch. Low cost pizza has to do delivery of some kind to stay competitive. It is cheaper to offload that delivery cost now than to do it internally. It is not even close. And the employer headaches suck. If your in house staff has a guy out (cook, wait staff etc), everyone else can make up the difference generally. If your delivery driver is out you are stuck and your customers get mad and go to another restaurant.
  15. The issue with delivery drivers is a tough one. I am all for people getting paid whatever they can. California is one of a few states that have outlawed a minimum "tipped wage". Essentially, the delivery drivers were going to get a $20 min wage, plus mileage reimbursements, plus all of their tips. From an economic standpoint (and I am using round numbers to make the point), the cost to have those employees just doesn't work. On average, a Pizza Hut delivery person will make 3 deliveries per hour. That driver's cost per hour to Pizza Hut is approximately $34/hour ($20 wage plus 30% for mandatory taxes/benefits/insurance etc, $8 in mileage reimbursement). An average Pizza Hut has about a 40% gross (as opposed to net) margin. So that driver has to deliver at least $80 worth of pizza per hour just for the store to break even. The average price of a delivery is $25. 3 deliveries a shift equals $75. Adding in a $2 delivery fee basically justs get the owner to a break even point. Also, drivers for places like Pizza Hut are usually required to help with dishes, folding boxes, clean up after shift etc. Most people do not want to do that so they drive for one of the delivery companies. As a result, staffing for drivers for Pizza Hut was very difficult. It became too much of a customer relations pain in the ass than it was worth. So they just cut out a portion of their business that was not profitable and was causing customer issues. Easy decision. And the customer experience was actually better as there is an almost unending stream of drivers available to deliver for them through the services. I will be shocked if any delivery heavy restaurants have their own drivers much longer.
  16. Saw the thread bump. Was curious if anything ever happened here.
  17. lol. I am not interested, at all, in rehashing Trump. I would prefer to never have to hear about him ever again. But this topic has to do with the NYT. This article is by the Columbia Journalism Review. Google them if you want to learn what they do, but they are considered the gold standard in journalism ethics by everyone. The attached article is very long. It goes directly to the point of what I have been saying. The short version is that supposed respected papers, most notably the NYT and WAPO, essentially abandoned their journalistic ethics when reporting on Trump. https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php
  18. What is your point? The NYT article clearly insinuated that these collectives may be running afoul of the IRS like they are doing something illegal or somehow committing tax fraud. The collectives don't get to just say they are non profit. They approach the IRS asking for status as a 501(c)(3) entity. Either the IRS grants it or it doesn't. If the IRS comes back later and changes their mind then the collectives will have to re classify. Nothing will change with the NIL program.
  19. I do not think the NYT is a rag. But it has become way more left leaning in the last 10 years. Part of that is simple numbers. The vast majority of journalism students are liberal, the vast vast majority of journalism professors are liberal and the majority of print newsrooms are liberal. It would be impossible for journalism to not lean left. But the fact that you posted this is the perfect example that you are just like the people you seem to detest. Anyone could start with Trump Russia collusion headlines and stories in the NYT. They willfully printed stories that were inaccurate or complete fabrications. They clearly did not do their own reporting or their own verifying because, as we know, virtually all of the nefarious allegations proved to be false. But let's just examine a few things the NYT has done regarding big headline grabbing stories in the last few years that might cause a person to think that they were biased. 1) The NYT headline and story about Israel Bombs Hospital in Gaza. I suppose the NYT can be sort of excused initially but not really. First, they said the information was "from Palestinian spokes people. Obviously trying to insinuate that it wasn't Hamas saying it but supposedly unbiased Palestinians. Lending credibility. Second (and almost worse for a supposed venerable outfit) they put a picture under the headline of a bombed out building. Now, of course, they admit the info was from Hamas and admit the picture was not the hospital in question. Someone with more compassion than me might forgive the original headline and story because it was a race to get out the news. But there can be no excuse for the blatant picture misrepresentation. That is like National Inquirer level for a political publication. Can you see why Israeli's might think the NYT is biased? 2) Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. This one was really bad. The NYT used headlines saying he had been killed during the insurrection by someone bashing him in the head with a fire extinguisher. Someone on this thread made the absurd statement that the NYT always sources the people in their stories. Its just bullshit. In this case they said "according to two law enforcement officials". They obviously just either made up the quotes or, certainly, did absolutely zero investigating on their own. They kept the articles coming for months. They even then tried to insinuate he died from mace or pepper spray from one of the insurrectionists. These were Pulitzer winning journalists. Jan 6 was a big deal in America. Tensions were very high. Yet somehow the NYT and multiple Pulitzer winning journalists couldn't fact check a huge incident like this? Not a single phone call to his family or the doctors or anyone? The reporting absolutely flamed the fires. It was 3.5 months before they finally printed a retraction that the officer sustained no injuries on Jan 6. Obviously the damage was done. 3) Russian Bounty Stories. The NYT pushed this story full scale in the months leading up to the election. The NYT claimed not only that the bounties were real and that US soldiers were murdered but that also Trump knew about it and did nothing in response. They used "intelligence officials" as their source. No one identified. They ran stories right through the election. Months after the election the NYT "updated" the story to say that the intelligence was never confirmed and no US soldiers had ever been killed or even injured. You think they run a story like that about Biden or Obama? 4) Nick Sandman. The NYT headline was "Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous Peoples March". The story was completely one sided, no comments from any of the "boys". Weeks later an "updated" story to "provide more context" went up. No boys "mobbed" anyone. 5) Caliphate. The NYT promoted, sponsored, ran multiple stories etc on this report from one of its prized reporters. The story won a Peabody and was nominated for a Pulitzer. Again, months and months later, the NYT admits that the story was likely bullshit. They gave back the Peabody. 6) Duke Lacrosse. NYT first reported the story. Then after it became apparent the story was wrong, the NYT wrote a lengthy article defending itself and the reporter and later admitted to leaving out all exculpatory information. The reporter, Selena Roberts said this "I wrote that a crime didn't have to occur for us to inspect the irrefutable evidence of misogyny and race baiting that went on that night" That is the standard for the NYT? It doesn't matter if we get a story wrong and ruin lives if we "feel" it was bad? 7) 1619 Project. The NYT promoted the story vigorously. Multiple "fact checkers" were called on by the NYT to check the story/essay. Multiple fact checkers came back to the NYT and pointed out numerous errors. The NYT published the essay without any corrections. Months later they admitted that many of the historical points were in fact false and had to "correct" the story multiple times. This is the NYT. They can not do stuff like this and be considered a venerable institution. Like I said, I do not think the NYT is a rag and I truly believe it is a worthwhile publication. But I can absolutely see the argument made from some. And those that blindly champion it are just as wrong as those that now won't read it.
  20. I read most of this topic and have some comments. While I think it is stupid to disregard an article because of someone's belief that the publication offering it is biased, I can see where they are coming from. And, those that vigorously defended the NYT seem just as obtuse if given a true read. The cry from the detractors was that if the article was in the NYT then it would be biased, socially liberal and/or not very informative on a subject like NIL. So I read the article and, to be certain, it had a biased, socially liberal lean and was pretty devoid of any real news. I believe that anyone who is a college football fan, regardless of school, knows more about the NIL situation in college football than was shared in the article. So the article, presumably, was directed to people other than college football fans. Looking at the article in those terms (people reading the article that do not know much about college football) it really is very biased. Starting with the headline "Best Teams Money Could Buy" is obvious clickbait but it still paints the picture that these four teams were somehow unique. It is WAY down the article that it even insinuates lightly that other schools do the same thing. I would bet that if you polled every just passing college football fan that read the article, almost all of them would think Washington was a major NIL player and the primary reason they were in the playoff. Obviously that is untrue. Just within their own conference their NIL program is dwarfed by USC and Oregon. Next, there was this little nugget in the article "They have also undermined the push for gender equity by immensely favoring male athletes." What purpose does that have in the article? When I first read it I assumed they would have some follow up or some evidence that it was true but it was just a throwaway line. It was a socially liberal throw in. Again, a person that is just a casual football fan but active NYT reader would infer that schools are somehow lessening their commitment to womens sports when that is absolute bullshit. They also suggest the IRS is investigating as if there is some nefarious stuff going on because most of the collectives are registered as non profits. For fucks sake, the only ones that could possibly have an issue with the IRS are the players not reporting their money. The collectives put in their own money for the lion's share of the funds. The collectives make no profits. It is, again, a shitty angle especially to non fans. They say it has created an "imbalance" with teams. As any fan knows the imbalances between programs has been in place since WW2. But for the ignorant it reads that the 4 teams are big bad wolves and the others are sheep. So, as said, it is silly to just ignore an article because of the source but I can see the argument and the article did nothing to help argue against it.
  21. Great example!! Absolute movie star. Not a great actor. Not terrible at all but would have never made it strictly as an actor.
  22. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/nyregion/adams-migrants-destroy-nyc.html Too funny.
  23. sheeeit

    High

    Given the crowd, he must have deserved it.
  24. sheeeit

    High

    Unless you guys know each other really well, this was of absolutely no value to the question asker.
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