Official Off Topic Discussion Thread #1

[Ulu]

I agree Jeff.

If I was a would be thief and fancied my chances robbing households the last place on earth I'd be doing it is in a country where it is legal to own a firearm, and use it, if you feel threatened….

It varies widely, from place to place, what might happen, If you shoot, and under what circumstances.

I can’t claim a lot of experience here, because although I’ve owned dozens of guns, I’ve never had to point one at another human being or a dangerous animal.

The few animals that I did shoot were mostly innocent ones trying to survive in a brutal desert. A few years back I shot a possum that was harassing all the neighborhood dogs from the top of our 6 foot fences.

I used an air rifle because it’s illegal to fire bullets in the city limits. It was about 2 o’clock in the morning, and I wasn’t clean about it. It reqired a second shot, and the animal suffered greatly.

It’s been well over 50 years since I went out hunting and shot an innocent animal for fun. If I was being attacked, that would be another thing. But I remember going out to promontory point in Utah just to blast jackrabbits.

In all that time I have stuck strictly to target shooting.

 

[skjl47]

MSN

Hello; Here is the most screwed up dog story yet. No violence, no mauling and no deaths, just a modern type "it has to be someone elses fault". You likely know the sort of person. Sort of the opposite and logical outcome of everybody gets a trophy.

Now i first confess to not completely understanding the logic of having a dog and not taking it for a walk yourself. I will also confess to not understanding what seems to me a sort of fad of having a dog when your lifestyle makes such very hard.
(side note- I live near an expanding college campus. One which has grown from a sleepy small college to a local behemoth. Seems nearly all the students have dogs. Some more than one. I can only imagine what dorm life is like and in fact do not want to know first-hand.)

So, back to the link. I have not owned a dog since the early 1980's. (was not a dog parent by the way. I owned the dog. Another odd life twist = pet parent) Things were simple enough back then. Now dogs get medical care on a level in terms of cost with human health care. Costs a lot. So where is the next level of false logic coming from? First level is having a dog which you cannot walk yourself. Second level is expecting a low a low wage dog walker to help foot the bill for something a dog (a dumb dog by owners very words) eats.

Made me think of why i finally stopped driving a school bus. I drove for 13 years. I understood i was liable for the safety of my passengers. From 1st graders to 8th graders most years. The first few years I could maintain discipline on the bus. Yes i did use corporal punishment. I used a paddle. Worked very well. As time went by the "experts" took away the paddle, then writing lines, then stopped all forms of punishment. In addition I could not personally kick a student off the bus nor could i get the school principal to use his authority to do so. There is a final straw episode after which I declared I needed to be able to kick unruly kids off my bus for safety reasons or I would quit driving. The bosses let me quit. But i am off topic a bit.

Had a friend in the medical field. He earned well. Had a low paid housekeeper come clean his house after his wife left. One weekend he gets around to cleaning up a portion of the property. After timing some branches and other work he decides to block the spot the housekeeper had been parking in for many months. he did not tell her of the change, just filled a black five-gallon bucket with gravel and sat it in front of the spot. The woman drove into the bucket causing big damage to her car. ( I saw the bucket after the fact and had to tell him it was hard to spot. ) He refused to help her with a car repair and was very self-satisfied he was not in the wrong. Would have been tiny potatoes financially for him but devastated the woman.

To those who hire someone to walk your dog, too bad if i offend. To those who walk their own dog good for you and please clean up if they deposit on a walking trail.

 

[esoxlucius]

Here is the most screwed up dog story yet.

The owner of the dog works full time, lives on their own and the complex where they live has extremely dog unfriendly greenery on site! Who'd have a dog given those circumstances, it's borderline animal cruelty!

They say the five year old corgi is "low in intelligence/wisdom", lol. In this case I'd say the owner is very much lacking in intelligence and wisdom too!

If I was the hired help I'd tell the idiot where to go!

 

[skjl47]

My boyfriend makes twice as much as I do but insists we split everything 50/50. Is that fair?

Hello; I guess the link is clickbait, but it strikes a chord. A decent exploration "equity" & "equality".

The story turns out to be biased but that is not the main point, at least for me. The scenario is one makes $50K & the other makes $100 K. That the couple are in a romantic relationship is of less interest to me, but a big sway point for the author.
The rent is $1000 I think so an equal split is $500 each. That makes sense. What the link leaves out is a real-world situation would be for the $50K person. On their own they would have to pay the full $1000. So, they are $500 ahead with a fair split of costs. The author wants a better deal for the lower wage earner.

Not clear why the higher wage earner is making more. Did they work hard at gaining some more critical skill? Are they doing some sort of much more dangerous or physical job? None of that sort of thing matters within the realm of equity. All that seems to matter is the one with less income ought to get a better deal simply because the other earns more. Now as a public-school teacher in KY I could have gone for such a deal. There is a flaw in the thinking of course.

In this particular example the couple are in a romantic setup. The author goes into feelings and definitions of relationships a lot. I get it. I was married twice. Both times I was the sole earner even though in one marriage the wife had a college degree which I managed to get paid off. So I was apparently being very "equitable" and did not exactly know it at the time. Worked out well for the wives as they had plenty of time for their boyfriends, but a topic for another day. I will say this though; the grass was apparently not "greener" as both tried to come back after the divorces.

Of course, I acknowledge to have missed some important points about equity as it has been applied currently. Perhaps other will fill in about the current spins

 

[jjohnwm]

DIY projects are cool. DIY car-builds are especially cool.

Dogs are great. People suck. Cats are...cats...

All animals are innocent; they all do what comes naturally. Only people are guilty. But I've dispatched a huge number of animals (including fish) during my life...for food, for defense of property i.e. pest control, for fur, for humanitarian reasons...and have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Nobody who eats meat and/or wears leather has any right to judge me...and a spandex-clad vegan has, by definition, already proven to have poor judgment, so...

Okay, I'm done now. This thread has officially gotten too silly for my taste.

 

[esoxlucius]

Of course, I acknowledge to have missed some important points about equity as it has been applied currently. Perhaps other will fill in about the current spins

I don't really see how "equity and equality" have anything to do with this to be honest. It's more a case of basic fair play really imo.

It's not as if the gap in earnings is slight, one's earning TWICE as much as the other, so course there has to be a difference in "housekeeping input" between the two parties.

Either that, or bicker and quarrel until the relationship breaks down, which it will in the end.

The wife and I both earn, me from working, the wife, who can't work, earns her money from renting out houses which she bought with a windfall she got over 10 years ago.

Our incomes are pretty similar and we both put equal amounts into the "housekeeping" pot. A slight difference in earnings wouldn't bother either of us, but if one of us earned substantially more than the other then common sense would prevail and we'd work something out.

Again, it's all common sense and fairness really imo.

 

[skjl47]

MSN

Hello; I may have judged too soon when saying my last dog post is the strangest of late. This one exceeds by a bit. A dog owner who is a lawyer is suing the IRS so as to be able to claim her dog as a dependent.
I personally want to classify this in the same category as such things as a biological man can get pregnant and the like. I do not like the idea at all.

A thing which stood out was that she spends more than $5000/year on the dog. I have not had a dog in decades so may be out of touch. $5K seems a lot for a dog.

 

[skjl47]

I don't really see how "equity and equality" have anything to do with this to be honest. It's more a case of basic fair play really imo.

It's not as if the gap in earnings is slight, one's earning TWICE as much as the other, so course there has to be a difference in "housekeeping input" between the two parties.

Either that, or bicker and quarrel until the relationship breaks down, which it will in the end.

The wife and I both earn, me from working, the wife, who can't work, earns her money from renting out houses which she bought with a windfall she got over 10 years ago.

Our incomes are pretty similar and we both put equal amounts into the "housekeeping" pot. A slight difference in earnings wouldn't bother either of us, but if one of us earned substantially more than the other then common sense would prevail and we'd work something out.

Again, it's all common sense and fairness really imo.

Hello; I do understand and see a romantic relationship or marriage much the same way. I did not begrudge footing all the bills for years of my marriages. From my side it was not a financial arrangement.
I think the author of the link was trying to make a different sort of point. Casting the situation in a romantic setting becomes sort of like the "have you stopped beating your wife" question.
I hope the term "equity" fades away next year.

 

[skjl47]

MSN

Hello; I get that animal do what comes naturally and are in that sense innocent. There arises a question about the consequences of what animals do naturally. We are as a society trying an experiment or few with animals both wild and domesticated. At least I and my neighbors are with regard to bears. The link is about pumas. The thing in the link which caught my attention was when the stomach contents of many pumas (mountain lions) was examined turned out the average contents of the stomachs was 52% domestic animals (dogs & cats)

 

[Ulu]

The owner of the dog works full time, lives on their own and the complex where they live has extremely dog unfriendly greenery on site! Who'd have a dog given those circumstances, it's borderline animal cruelty!

They say the five year old corgi is "low in intelligence/wisdom", lol. In this case I'd say the owner is very much lacking in intelligence and wisdom too!

If I was the hired help I'd tell the idiot where to go!

Personally I don’t like the idea of keeping a dog in the city. But then again I don’t believe people should live in cities either.

Even here in the suburbs where we have a third of an acre for the dog to run around, I don’t quite like the idea of keeping one here. I do it so my wife will feel more secure.

My beloved wife lived in the country all her life, but she wants to live in town. We live in the suburbs on the edge of town, which is close enough that everything is very convenient.

I lived in all kind of screwy places growing up. Usually the kind of communities that grow up around military bases and depend on them for economies. I would probably live in the country, if it wasn’t for my wife’s desires.

She struck me as very much a country girl when I met her, but what people are and what they want to be are rarely the same thing.

So we set up in a house in the suburbs, and after decades of planting it’s the nicest lot in the neighborhood (and the second largest.)

While what people are, and what people want, may be at odds, who people truly are always comes out in the end.

My woman, who doesn’t want to live in the country, spends her time planting and watering 1000 different things.




She seems to have a large budget for flower pots and garden ornaments.


All in all she’s done a lovely job of things, so I rarely complain about matters of equity or equality.

If I had twice the income she would’ve quit working as a teacher 30 years ago.

Sometimes my income was higher than hers and sometimes her income was higher than mine. In those instances were my income was higher she would always say that I should pay more because I made more. In those instances where my income was lower she would always say I should pay more, because I am the man.

Women don’t really want equity or equality. What they want is defference. They want you to defer to their wishes, and they think that is the trail to happiness.

But once in a while you have to spank them, verbally, economically, sometimes even physically, so they will understand that the man only pays more because he wants to support. Not because he is a slave.

In 35 years it never quite got to the point where I had to actually spank my wife, but several times she tried to size up to me and I made her realize that I was twice as strong as her and I could pick her up and throw her down.

Now my wife is not a weak or timid woman, and she once earned a black belt in American style karate and jujitsu.

But I am almost a foot taller than her, and I am twice as strong. No feminine desire for equity or equality can overcome real world statistics like that.