P
Piano*Dad
Posts
-
Regime Change in Iran ... -
Regime Change in Iran ...... could come soon ...
In some places, security forces have chosen to side with protesters. Always a bad sign for any regime.
Casualties among the police and the Basij (volunteer thugs of the worst sort) suggest people are fed up enough to be fearless ... and armed.
-
Corporation for Public Broadcasting ... -
WWII mapsMy WWII-vet father saved "end of war" Stars and Stripes papers. We have this politically incorrect one framed ...
Inside is a full set of maps documenting the entire Pacific theater.
-
Meanwhile, in VenezuelaUS war-games about the situation were not hopeful about the proverbial day after. Maduro's regime could easily be replaced with chaos as parts of the army, pockets of loyalists, and FARC guerrillas in Colombia all jockey for control of Venezuela's oil and narco wealth. Machado's claim that she could assert immediate authority make little sense, and the Trump mafia seem unlikely to want to put her in control, since that would diminish their capacity to line their pockets by raping Venezuela's wealth in the future.
-
Kennedy Center -
Merry Christmas AllBest Christmas gift ever! Our daughter-in-law went into labor around 11 P.M. on Christmas day and delivered around 5:00 today.
Haven't a clue why the program on this side rotated the image ...
cid:24E9E146-E34F-496F-835F-C1F36D7F5099
edit by wtg:
-
Who’s decorating for the holidays?@wtg said in Who’s decorating for the holidays?:
@Piano-Dad Impressive! When do they start putting that display up?
Most of it is permanent, hiding among the bushes and trees.
I suspect it's mostly LED, so not particularly expensive to operate compared to the older systems.
-
Who’s decorating for the holidays?Not me. We're out in Las Vegas preparing to welcome granddaughter Raven on New Year's Eve!
But one of our neighbors goes a little crazy every year ...
-
One reason they were holding up the release@Steve-Miller said in One reason they were holding up the release:
I just read on Reddit that someone has figured out how to recreate the redacted parts. Items redacted by previous administrations cannot be recreated, but more recent redactions can be reversed.
It’s Reddit, so not necessarily reliable info, but if it’s true things could get real interesting.
One wonders if whoever did the redacting knew full well that a simple command or two could reveal the covered, but not missing, text. It's not rocket science to do redaction. Just putting black over the text with a few keystrokes doesn't do the job.
Alternatively, they're just truly incompetent.
-
Theft at the Self-Checkout LinesAx asked about Christian conceptions (pun intended) of sin in another thread.
I'm am so old-school RC that the thought of cheating at a self checkout line is noxious to me. I would feel soiled.
-
Virtuoso tubaThe Edgar Meyer of the tuba world! Amazing.
I just sent a suggestion to the head of the Virginia Symphony asking if they might be interested in bringing her down for a concert.
-
Is illegal immigration a sin in the Christian sense?The concept of "illegal immigration" is modern. You will find nothing scriptural addressing the modern conception of "illegally" crossing a border.
The broader issues of "uphold the law" versus "welcome the foreigner" are addressed here.
I don't think you will find any support for ICE raids in here.
https://biblehub.com/q/bible's_view_on_illegal_immigration.htm
-
Try these questions from South Korea's "very hard" English examWell, I got 3 of 4. I missed the last one because I misinterpreted what they meant by "where it fits."
Yeah, pretty hard test for a non-native speaker of English.
-
Hey, how about this place? :-)In Ann Arbor, MI.
A friend of mine posted that it looks like the Venetian in Las Vegas threw up all over an apartment!
https://www.redfin.com/MI/Ann-Arbor/414-S-Main-St-48104/unit-10/home/99381131
https://ssl.cdn-redfin.com/photo/173/mbpaddedwide/388/genMid.25062388_29_1.jpg -
Great sentencesGandalf's response to Frodo's anguish about what he had to do with the ring ... "I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo ...
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
-
25th Amendment. Seriously.He isn't a businessman, unless Don Corleone is just "a businessman." His record in business is abject failure. His record in extortion and in profiting from influence ... golden.
-
Mitt Romney says Tax the Rich!He is what used be called a conservative, before the "read my lips" people joined with the White Nationalists to capture the GOP.
Kill the carried interest loophole!
I'm OK with limiting the stepped up basis, somewhat. Capital gains taxation has always been messy because you pay on pure inflation as well as on real capital gains. This is why we have all sorts of provisions to allow people to avoid paying capital gains taxes on large increases in the price of homes that have been held for a long time, through lots of inflation.
By all means, raise the FICA cap. It's so easy to ensure the long term viability of the social security system by doing that.
Means testing for benefits? Oooh, much more controversial, especially if done ex post. I have paid into the system my whole life. You tell me that I can't collect next year (or significantly cut my long-expected benefits) and you'll lose millions of elderly voters. Third rail stuff. Don't go near it. The beauty of the social security system is that it's the almost perfect example of "targeting within universalism." It's a program whose main beneficiary is lower-income elderly, but it's a popular program because that targeting is wrapped in a universal system that also benefits everyone who pays in.
-
Candy store memoriesSears and Roebuck candy and peanut counter, Coral Gables ... 1960s. I remember it well. The smell of fresh, warm, roasted cashews!
-
My. God.
