Official Off Topic Discussion Thread #1

[Desert Bus]

I feel like if I keep engaging in this discussion I will become angry and also dispense opinions others disagree with so I will pop up again when a new topic I care about arises. I've seen forests devastated by unchecked deer populations cause we killed the wolves and cougars etc. BUT I will leave you with this cool video about wolves and also the knowledge that I'm a big fan of VHEMT (no link, y'all know how to Google):

 

[skjl47]

Two lesbian women were making some idiot “protest video”. One of them kept blocking traffic. The other shot the video you see on the news, from the curb.

The perp blocked an official ICE truck, with its red lights going, stopping her car across the whole road.

She was ordered out of the car at gunpoint by officers, and decided she didn’t have to obey the two big guys pointing guns at her.

She floored the gas and her engine roars, but the tires just spin for a second. Then the car starts moving.

She hits an officer in the leg and is pushing him back on the ice. He is sliding but he doesn’t fall. He shoots her through the glass from 6’ and she dies with her foot on the gas.

He shoots at her twice more for good luck. Maybe it was anxiety. Maybe he was mad she tried to run him down.

It doesn’t matter to her now. The car runs off, crashing down the street.

Officers attempt to save her but she is history.

All this is seen in the slow motion version of the video, and also in another video, taken by someone else from the opposite side of the street.

Meanwhile the governor of Minnesota says he will mobilize their guard to fight with federal agents. I wonder how that’s gonna go over?

I’m thinking FBI agents are going to show up at the governor’s mansion at 2 AM with a warrant and a set of handcuffs.

Hello; your description is very much how the videos I have appear to me. I have not yet seen a slow-motion version. In one version the ICE agent in front of the car/SUV looks to be grazed while he is both trying to get out of the way and firing a pistol. A feat which saved him from more serious injury and stopped the threat.
Some new information is that agent was dragged by a vehicle some distance and received a serious leg injury. Perhaps over 30 stiches by a report. I do recall seeing such a video but am not sure such is the same officer. If that turns out to be true, I can imagine that officer also saw a fellow officer at the car door with his arm inside the window trying to open the door. He very well could have thought the other officer was about to be dragged much as he was.

From a civilian point of view the incident escalated the moment the woman blocked the road in front of the ICE vehicles. A further escalation when she refused the shouted orders to get out of the car. Then even further when she put the vehicle in drive and headed toward the officer. Does not much matter if she intended to hit the officer or even if she saw him. The SUV accelerated directly at the officer. That the officer was able to move enough to save his life does not change the fact a vehicle was coming at him.

I also video of the governor and mayor soon after the incident. That rhetoric will get more people in harm's way. I do not know what the national guard leadership will do. Hopefully they will have a lot of flat tires or some such and hold back. There are times when we are on the cusp of lifechanging events. This could be one such.
I do not have a good grasp on why some are so determined to defend a group of immigrants who came in with bad intent and once in the country willfully acted on that bad intent.

 

[skjl47]

I will become angry and also dispense opinions others disagree with

I've seen forests devastated by unchecked deer populations cause we killed the wolves and cougars etc

Hello; The idea is to make comments without being vulgar. Not that you should not speak your mind. It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with anyone on here if you keep it clean. You joined in 2006 so have witnessed the more open forum and the troubles not too many years ago. The site is a shadow of it's former self. Some have been run off. Others have left due to disgust of the way things were run.

Hello; Back a few decades I included in my lesson plans a segment about predator prey relationships. But there is another dynamic at play in some cases. We have as you say eliminated some of the big deer predators. However such alone did not result in the deer population problems you mention. I used a county in maybe Ohio. The way it played out is enough folks were able to stop deer hunting in at least one county, maybe more. Within a year or few the deer had stripped native foliage and had begun to come into residential areas looking for food. They devastated lawns bushes, gardens and anything else that could be eaten. There are plenty of humans who like to kill deer.

 

[skjl47]

IMHO, as some religious zealots I know who kill every snake they see, anywhere they see it, out of some silly notion that they are "doing God's will".

Hello; Back a few years ago there was a healthy population of what i call "black snakes" around my place. Even had one who climbed the wall of my house and made its way into my basement for the winter. Did not have to worry about mice. Then a man and his family moved in next door. One day the wife calls me to come help. I go over to find a small blacksnake in her yard. She wanted me to kill it. I refused and tried to tell her it was a good thing to have it around. So, she called her husband from work. I explained again how they were lucky. The snake by then had gone into the crawl space. Later he told me he had killed it.

A thing was they were nasty folk. The husband asked me to help because there were noises in the attic. I looked and found lots & lots of mouse to rat sized droppings. I checked in the kitchen and found more of the same. The family left uneaten food around. Dirty dishes in the sink. Unsecured food containers. A feast for rodents. Also, likely what the snakes were showing up to eat.
Anyway, i figure he killed my snake first chance he got as I have not seen it in a couple of years now.

I stopped and watched it climb the brick wall one day in the fall. It would squeeze a section of the body into a mortar joint and then expand it a bit. Used that part of the body as an anchor and moved another section some. Repeat over an over to go vertical or horizontal. I suspect it was going into the small notch near the electric powerhead pipe. Found it near the basement door a following spring one year.

There is a 20 acre cow pasture next door so the mice look for a warm place in the fall and the snakes follow. That family moved last month so maybe the snakes can reestablish. I need to reset some traps now that I think of it. When the mice in that families house no longer have a feast they will start roaming.

 

[Desert Bus]

Hello; The idea is to make comments without being vulgar. Not that you should not speak your mind. It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with anyone on here if you keep it clean. You joined in 2006 so have witnessed the more open forum and the troubles not too many years ago. The site is a shadow of it's former self. Some have been run off. Others have left due to disgust of the way things were run.

Despite being on this site for almost 20? (WOW) years, I never really posted in the Lounge until recently. I don't know the culture here in this thread and would prefer to stick my feet in the water before jumping in.

I try to be polite, but I know I can be an argumentative jerk. I like meaningful discussion better. It just gets better results, ya know?

I know myself better than I know anyone else and I know that I really don't feel like getting upset about people and things on the internet. Benn there done that, Life is better if I don't.

Peace and Love to y'all.

(Also I have opinions about the site declining but I also have food in the oven so everyone will just have to wait on those because I NEED a perfect med-rare on this pork loin.)

 

[jjohnwm]

Despite being on this site for almost 20? (WOW) years, I never really posted in the Lounge until recently.

I'll bet that you had an excellent reason for that...and the past few days here have probably reminded you what that reason was...

 

[skjl47]

I have not yet seen a slow-motion version.

Hello; I saw a slow motion version of the shooting tonight. In the seconds or fractions of a second before the first shot was fired the front left tire begins to spin on the icy street. The tire is steered to the left as it begins to spin. You can see the officer at the door trying to open the door apparently trying to get the driver out of the car. You can see the other officer (shooter) in the background apparently just before the first shot is fired.
Gotta figure the shooting officer could hear the engine rev and the tire spinning. Seems very likely he can know which direction the SUV was starting to go.
What cannot be determined, by me, is the sequence regarding the first shot and the steering wheel getting turned to the right. This seems to be worth knowing but likely is not critical.

I have been hearing on TV today that the two women had been stalking the ICE agents most of that day. Not sure how true this claim is so far. Story appears to be they would drive to where the ICE vehicles were and block the road with the Honda. Maybe did this some number of times?
Might explain why the officers decided to order the woman driver out of the SUV. Perhaps after a few times they decided to arrest the two women.

A rumor yet to be convincingly determined is that some of the protesters against ICE are bring paid to protest. That would be worth knowing about. What seems to be closer to being confirmed is there was an app in use which helped protesters find the ICE vehicles. Plenty enough money available already known about in the fraud cases already convicted.

Would make sense that those being enriched from the fraud would try to keep it going. The strategy, to me, appears to be to try to create a public outcry against ICE in this particular case. Looks like lines are being drawn and at some point, we each will have to pick sides. Not clear if i will be allowed to remain in the middle much longer.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; I am watching C-SPAN's WASHINGTON JOURNAL this morning. A man named Brian Blase from the Paragon Health Institute is a featured guest. He is explaining how the fraud has been working within the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) extended subsidies. The part which expired this past January 1st and was put in back during the pandemic.

Way too much detail for me to explain in a post. C-Span usually keeps an archive so you should be able to find and watch.

Seems there are over 30% of folks signed up in the program who never use the insurance and apparently do not even know they have the insurance. It is a large number of such people and amounts to something at or over $30 billions of what amounts to fraud. According to Mr. Blase those monies go to insurance companies. Seems agents can offer folks free gift cards in ads is one way and when people sign up for the gift cards they get signed up for the subsidy. The agent gets $6000 for each such sign up and the insurance can charge a fee per person. I may not have this down pat so look it up if you want to dispute.

Ulu's post a few days ago seems to have hit things correctly. Something like the imbedded opportunity for fraud is the purpose of the legislation. As another aside I have been hearing for years that the insurance companies did & do write the legislation for ACA & later the subsidies. If correct the insurance gang was not satisfied with the loopholes written into the initial ACA and got additional loopholes added during the pandemic within the subsidies.

These revelations might also explain in part why so many folks are so active in terms of protests about the canceling of such legislative loopholes. Many, if not most, may get a piece of the fraud in some way. Such would mean the protests are not necessarily about the childcare centers, the food for children programs, the loss of health insurance for individuals. That the protests are more about their potential to lose their cut of the fraud.

Maybe we ordinary citizens will have learned another lesson similar to the ones learned during the pandemic. That the push for a mandated ineffective vaccine was more about the money to be made than our well-being. I forget just now which top dog coined the phrase "never let a crisis go to waste". Maybe we should add to the end of that the following. "Never let a crisis go to waste to do some fraud" ???

I get that I am guessing about a lot of this. It does finally make sense as to why legislators so often allow loopholes into so many of such programs. Also, why so many so actively protest the possible loss of such programs. What the rest of us see as waste, fraud and abuse is actually monies going into their pockets in complicated schemes. Getting to where you cannot swing a cat without hitting a fraud scheme.

 

[skjl47]

Maybe we ordinary citizens will have learned another lesson similar to the ones learned during the pandemic.

Hello; well did not take long for a pandemic era fraud to be in the news. Ran across this moments ago.

MSN

Specifically is about small business loan program set up during Covid.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; Interesting irony. A few days, weeks, months ago local authorities refused to cooperate with federal authorities. Now the local authorities are upset because the federal authorities are not cooperating with them on the recent ICE shooting.