DougH

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Posts posted by DougH


  1. On 12/22/2020 at 2:23 AM, Baksteen said:

    Interview with the director of the Dutch Institute for public health and environment (in Dutch, but Google translate is your friend).

    https://www.nu.nl/coronavirus/6097969/van-dissel-over-coronamutatie-moet-echt-nog-het-nodige-worden-onderzocht.html

    In a nutshell, don't panic. If it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. But we're going to do research anyway; in case it's just Billvon.

    Very interesting and informative, thank you for the share.

    Thoughtful interviewing and straight forward answers, that is rather refreshing. 


  2. On 12/16/2020 at 12:50 PM, ryoder said:

    Some people are just too fucking stupid to be allowed to roam freely!>:(

    https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/texas-wedding-photographers-have-seen-some/

    Just read the first 4 paragraphs. 

    I honestly think people that callous, and selfish, with such a complete lack of concern for other human beings shouldn't be sharing our air. >:( They are going to go on and breed the next generation of terrible selfish humans, it is a real shame.

    "She recalled one conversation from that wedding, before she left the reception. “I have children,” she told a bridesmaid. “What if my children die?” The bridesmaid responded, “I understand, but this is her wedding day.”

    Speechless.


  3. I haven't hit the boogie circuit in a few years, but I will remember Mark from many of the awesome trips I made when I was a newer jumper. He was welcoming, fun, an all around great guy. He was also one hell of a pilot, and he did a great job getting us to altitude. Blue skies.

    • Like 2

  4. 9 hours ago, Westerly said:

    the main bullshit about the vaccine is that we waited so long to approve it. i said it two months ago and I was exactly right. I said that what will likely happen is the vaccine will be determined to be safe and effective and all the testing would have been for nothing. well that is EXACTLY what happened. the report came out today. it's highly effective, less than 0.5% of people have a severe reaction and not ONE single person died from the vaccine. so imagine if we would have just skipped the testing and just started production right away. we would have already made tens of millions of doeses by now and who knows how many tens of thousands of lives would have been saved. but what do i know. i guess I was right by sole chance, right?

    You won't let this go will you? You can shout it from the roof tops in every thread but it doesn't change the fact that your position on this is asinine.


  5. 16 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

    I don't think anecdote trumps data. Student debt overwhelmingly effects the poorer and the minorities among society.

    Again you are comparing college graduate to college graduate. You shouldn't extol the virtues of data when you are using the statistics wrong.

    Roughly 30% of the US population has 4-year degrees.

    Minorities have an even lower percentage of college degrees against their peer group, something like 10 or 11% for Latinos and 17% for African Americans.

    Student debt may overwhelmingly affect poorer and minorities due to multiple circumstances, but that isn't consistent with how degrees and education debt is distributed.

     


  6. 1 hour ago, SkyDekker said:

    When universities have money to build lazy rivers on their campus, while students from non-rich families have to get into thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt, there is likely a problem.

    I was a from a upper middle class family. I had some help from my parents early on, but I personally funded the majority of my cost of earning my degree.

    I didn't qualify for grants, subsidized loans, or any type of direct government assistance. 

    So what bucket do I fall in to?

    I would argue that a big part of the problem was government intervention in the first place. It wasn't the small percentage of wealthy students that caused this inflation, and if they were already lucky enough to walk away fully debt free then their families were paying full price already.

    You are missing the boat when you compare between college students. This isn't lower income/wealth student versus higher parental income/wealth student. It is college educated versus non-college educated, who will disproportionately be stuck footing the budgetary expenditure of outright student loan forgiveness. 


  7. 16 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

     

    These ideas are somewhat contradictory. It does nothing to remove moral hazard, it merely shifts the cost. And likely not by much as the taxpayer guarantees many of those loans. Education has been moving from something for a more elite layer of society to more of a requirement in life while at the same time the schools have moved from public institutions toward private corporations. There is a thorny problem here with the high levels of debt and I have seen no good ways of solving it in any way that would be fair.

    What I suggested further above is closer to fair.

    No outright forgiveness, peg repayment amounts to some measure of annual income and maybe net worth, and maybe consider forgiveness of the remainder at the age SS would kick in.

    There should be a general benefit to the economy by freeing up spending for some of the lower earning highly burdened college borrowers. No one gets an entirely free ride, it is less regressive, and it sticks the taxpayer with the bill further down the road. Many of the loans would just get repaid in full by the borrowers if they are higher income earners, which would result in less being paid by non college educated taxpayers.

    • Like 1

  8. 12 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

    Why? Lots of corporations have been bailed out. Trump has made a business out of refusing to repay loans and then using historical losses to not have to pay taxes on these "windfalls". You elected him president. But, god forbid a student gets a loan forgiven. What a horrible example that will set.

    There is a different moral hazard when you compare defaulting on a loan to a business entity, versus paying off an individuals debt with collective taxpayer funds.

    One stiffs a business that was a willing party to the transaction, the other burdens an individual that had nothing to do with the loan, and didn't benefit from it in any way.

    I say change the laws that protect student loan debt from bankruptcy. Make the schools guarantee the loans through some mechanism so they have skin in the game. I bet that curtails costs and results in more thoughtful lending practices.


  9. 9 hours ago, markharju said:

    3) It doesn't fix the underlying problem - bureaucratic bloat in academia

    4) It doesn't "forgive" anything - it just transfers the debt burden to others who never consented to it....

    I tend to agree with you on these points. Forgiving these loans outright is simply subsidizing inflated tuition, and sticking tax payers with the bill. It is regressive since the majority of tax payers don't even have college degrees or the higher earning potential that a degree generally allows one to achieve.

    It doesn't solve the problem of inflated tuition, underselling the trades to our youth, etc.

    Something income based that set payments as a percentage of your disposable income would be a little bit better. There should be no immediate loan forgiveness, peg the payments to income and have them continue until retirement age.

    It still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, being a responsible borrower who paid off my loans in full over the last 13 years, and it should leave a sour taste in the mouth of non college graduates, but at least it isn't a instant freebie.

     


  10. I blew my ankle up on a tandem work jump. Weird winds that day and I got some lift and then sink off a thermal on final, we landed hard despite a flare to my toes. I let my legs take as much of the impact as possible, and my left ankle "stuck" as we continued forward.

    The result was an unharmed student, and a dislocated left ankle with a bimalleolar fracture. It looked like my fibula was hit with a sledge hammer, and I had several surgeries to include external fixation, then internal fixation with one plate w/ 6 screws, and another 2 screws on the opposite side.

    It was 3 months before I was weight bearing, and almost 9 months before I was jumping.

    Do as much as you can to maintain mobility in the ankle, and do as much PT as you can get coverage for. Don't rush back to jumping, and also work on your balance and proprioception.

    I am probably 95% 5 years later. I do have less mobility in that ankle, and it does get cranky sometimes, but most days I barely noticed that it happened.

    Best advise I can give would be to get a knee crutch if you have any extended period of time before getting weight bearing. Google iWalk 2.0. It will make your mobility 10000x better and it will help will help you fend off some atrophy in the upper leg. Worth every single penny.


  11. I struggle with this subject, and I have a lot of conflicting viewpoints.

    I think that the government and higher education institutions are largely to blame for the huge increase in the cost of a college degree relative to inflation.

    Where is the pound of flesh from these universities and colleges that enriched themselves and their staff offering degrees with low return on investment that came with ever increasing tuition bills. What about the lending industry that was protected by the fact that student loans aren't dischargeable.

    I also think that the US society at large has responsibility for this blind promotion of college. There are a lot of dumbass boomer and gen x parents out there that pushed their kids to go on a college path with zero plan, backed up by their kids high school guidance counselors. These kids were following the plan laid out for them, and were stuck paying grossly inflated tuition that others used to make a tidy profit from.

    From a personal responsibility stand-point it does chap my ass. I have paid off all of my college debt, almost 50k, that I incurred earning my BS in accounting. Do I get a rebate? 

    I think any forgiveness plan needs to be paired with a complete overhaul of the system in general because right now it is nothing short of another tax payer funded ponzi scheme.

     

    • Like 1

  12. 12 hours ago, headoverheels said:

    And what did we get for it?  At least we got a lot of restaurants and nail salons from our Vietnam engagement.

    Nothing. Our country is worse off, our veterans are worse off, the region is much worse off. The defense contractors are rich, fat, and happy though. We still can't manage to get a well run VA for our soldiers that we maimed in the process. 


  13. 40 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

    When I have a cold, I keep away from people, and might even tell the people where I volunteer so they can either change what I do that day or tell me not to come in.

    Seems polite

    You must be a communist! How dare you set us all on the slippery slope of considering our impact on others. You are both giving up privacy by volunteering your sacred health data and are on board with the invasion of your person by wearing a minorly inconveniencing item on your face. 

    Freedom must be unfettered by any personal responsibility.

    Never forget, my body my choice, unless it is some 15 year old rape victim in a conservative state, then it is gods life gods choice > my body my choice.

     


  14. On 10/24/2020 at 2:03 PM, Westerly said:

    I wouldent say they are a fool, more like they are just being disrespectful and uncaring. A mask doesent do much to protect YOU from COVID, unless it's an N-95 that has been properly fitted and seal tested, and even then it only offers some protection as the virus is smaller than the the minimum size particle the mask is rated to stop. The point of a mask is to stop you from infecting others, which is why not wearing one implies you dont care about other people. 

    I need to get my winter boots because my feet are getting cold! I wonder if the residents of hell got a frost warning before I almost typed the exact same response and saw yours instead. 

    Not wearing a mask isn't about taking a chance with your health, it is about taking a chance with everyone else health by putting those around you at a higher risk of infection.

    Keep it up you super patriots!


  15. I had responded to a post earlier on FB today when a similar article popped on a local community group. Some asshat had a response, something to the tune that their missing parents must not be looking very hard to reconnect. Literally one of the most callous things I have heard.

    I don't care about your political leanings, your feelings about immigration, your assertions of their parents culpability. I honestly think you are the lowest level of human shit if you aren't horrified that children were separated from their parents, and some will never be reunited. 


  16. 51 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:


    How do you not see how truly incompetent he is?

    Probably the same reason why people have thought that there was a spaceship hiding behind a comet, or why genocidal strongmen are allowed to rise to power.

    Lack of critical thinking, cognitive dissonance, and blind dedication to charisma.


  17. 13 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

    In this case the FBI. Do you think the FBI hold on to them so Trump can have a gotcha moment?

    But, feel free to supply different data. Or just blindly believe Trump, he certainly has shown how honest and scientific he is over the last 4 years.

    "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

    Trump just goes straight to the damned lies. That is it the genius of his greatest mind, the same efficiency that he has used to run his highly successful business empire.


  18. 5 minutes ago, skybytch said:

    I have not. I will be researching that today though.  Thank you for the info (seriously). 

    As far as legal expenses, it may come in handy to have a couple lawyers that the hubby taught to skydive in the contacts list. xD

     

    That might help some, but honestly I don't think most people understand the true potential cost of having to defend themselves after a self defense shooting, even if it occurred in their own home and they did everything right.

    I have this bookmarked on my youtube account, it was one of a few informative discussions on the topic. 

     

    • Like 1

  19. 1 minute ago, skybytch said:

    I'd call the sheriff's department and tell them what happened. Same as I would if I had to shoot a rabid skunk.  If I have to go to jail, well, I'm a white middle aged female, I'm sure I would be out in no time and be treated well until the courts decide it was justified. Since we live with a 15 to 30 minute potential LE response time and I was in fear for my life, no worries about it not being justified.  

    If the shit has truly hit the fan and LE can't help, we have shovels and 5 acres to dig holes in.  Where we live, no one would see us doing so, and if they did they'd likely come help. 

    Guns aren't always there because the owner expects to kill a person with them. I have them to be sure I can eliminate dangerous wildlife that could appear on the property at any time, and because they are a blast to shoot.  The ability to defend myself and our property from dangerous humans is only a side benefit.  

    I hope you have considered being a member of one of the firearms legal defense organizations like USCCA.

    I came to a realization that if I ever used my firearms to defend myself and my family I would likely find myself embroiled in a costly legal defense that could deprive us of my freedom and finances. 

    Alive but in jail and draining our savings isn't a position I want to find myself in.


  20. 6 minutes ago, skybytch said:

    Your post has opened my eyes to what I didnt know. Where can I find the lists of items we are allowed to purchase more than one package of every few months without being a ridiculous clown?  Am I a bad person for buying two cases of tomato sauce at the same time?  We have a case and a half of bottled water and plan to buy another real soon;  is that hurting anyone else's chances of buying some?   I'm pretty hopeful that the extra two cans of coconut milk I bought last month is okay, but now I'm just not sure. 

    Your best bet would be to run it by the clown department, we are lucky to have a resident advisor right here in this thread!


  21. 8 hours ago, Westerly said:

    You realize you're the exact person who you're talking about? The type of people who buy 60 rolls of TP because they think the world is going to end. yea, that's you as you self admitted. You literately couldent have possibly outed yourself any more as one of those ridiculous clowns who buy everything off the shelf because they think zombies are going to take over. It's like when the Trump followers speak about how everyone is so dumb and their stupid actions are going to get everyone infected with Covid, but fail to realize that the group of people they are talking about includes themselves. Yea, that's what is going on here.

    You have zero basis to make that claim. Buying an extra pack over a long period of time bears no relation to the actions of the people that caused the TP shortages earlier this year because they decided to buy their 60 rolls all at once.

    I buy an extra bag of rice and other non-perishables from time to time. That must mean I am one step away from a manifesto!

    I am going to go inventory my stockpile while I chuckle to myself about the irony of your claim that other people's posts are outing them as ridiculous clowns.