General Discussion, Thursday, January 14, 2021

Posted on January 14, 2021 by Stella

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30 Responses to General Discussion, Thursday, January 14, 2021

  1. WeeWeed says:
    January 14, 2021 at 6:27 am

    Mornin’ all!

    Liked by 4 people

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  2. Menagerie says:
    January 14, 2021 at 7:32 am

    Stella, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I’ve worked probably a hundred puzzles on my iPad since you posted that link. I love it, and so does Conner. He’s learning to solve increasingly harder ones. Slowly, because he is impetuous, but I think it is very good for him. Something so much better than a video game, and we could never get them to not lose real puzzle pieces.

    My only problem is I am limited as to the number of pieces I can make work on the iPad. So far 120 is the limit, otherwise I can’t sort things out enough to solve it.

    Thanks for the tip!

    Liked by 6 people

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  3. WeeWeed says:
    January 14, 2021 at 9:00 am

    Betty – giving ol’ Keith Richards a run for his money!

    Liked by 5 people

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  4. auscitizenmom says:
    January 14, 2021 at 9:07 am

    Mornin’ all. Sunny and cold, well, sort of. I still need to put batteries in my thermometer so I can know how cold it actually is. And, I still have to put up my Christmas decorations. That means many trips up and down the stairs. But, my legs are getting stronger, so that is getting easier. Hope you all stay warm and have a nice day. Try to ignore the news for now.

    Liked by 5 people

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  5. litenmaus says:
    January 14, 2021 at 11:44 am

    Yesterday started with the wind and ended with the wind.

    By 11:30 a.m. the wind had taken out the power.

    At noon, I watched a 25 pound rock go rolling across my back yard.

    At 1 pm, I watched several windows in the abandoned garage across the street explode from the wind pressure.

    By two oclock the skies were so dark from the dirt blowing in the wind that I couldn’t see across the street.

    By midnight, the temperature in my house was at 40 degrees and the wind was still howling.

    Electrical crews got the power back up about one last night and I was finally able to get a wee bit of sleep.

    This morning I’ve been out and picked up a two gallon bucket full of glass shards that were embedded or lying around, there’s 6 to 8 inch drifts of dirt in front of my patio, my door, my windows etc and my flag was shredded into nylon strings that are now wound up in the pulley system and I have no idea how I’m going to get the remnants off the flag pole. This morning it’s about 32 degrees, the sun is shining and it is blessedly silent.

    When she’s on a tear, Mother Nature can be a beotch!

    Liked by 4 people

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  6. just stevie says:
    January 14, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    Good afternoon…peekin in from work! The wind is moving south so we have red flag fire warnings here in OK today and tomorrow.

    Wanted to shout out to Menagerie…that response to the daily devotional on Open Thread was so awesome! Loved it!

    Still waiting and praying for God to move on Trump’s behalf! The left needs some serious comeuppance straight from Heaven…IMHO!

    Liked by 4 people

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    • The Tundra PA says:
      January 14, 2021 at 2:52 pm

      serious comeuppance straight from Heaven

      I agree completely, stevie. I’ve said for a while that the only “reset” big enough will be a Black Swan event of Biblical proportions. Like a Carrington Event, a 3-day EMP from giant sun spots that takes out all electronics world wide and boots the world back to about 1870.

      Liked by 1 person

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  7. stella says:
    January 14, 2021 at 3:01 pm

    They are right (and I know this is NewsWeek) that it is important that we work NOW to fix our elections. What do you think about their suggestions?

    https://www.newsweek.com/election-reform-can-improve-ballot-access-while-preventing-fraud-opinion-1560611

    Snippets:

    Skepticism about mailed ballots, whether “absentee” or otherwise, is neither new (a 2004 bipartisan commission, headed by Jimmy Carter and former Republican secretary of state James Baker, found that mail ballots are “the largest source of potential voter fraud.”) nor restricted to the United States (France has banned all types of vote by mail since 1975). Most countries have restricted their use, and ballot harvesting seems to be a uniquely U.S. phenomenon…

    We propose the following two reforms to help increase ballot access:

    (1) Make election day a mandatory holiday. Moving it to Sunday wouldn’t be enough, because so many people work in retail and food service. If adding another holiday seems excessive, we’re confident Washington and Lincoln would be delighted to see President’s Day repurposed for such a good cause.

    (2) Make polling places accessible. Open new polling places in urban areas (along mass transit lines with extra buses and trains on election day, in apartment lobbies, etc.) and in remote rural areas (stores, churches). Some of this is already being done, but much more is needed, and there should be many more polling places than at present.

    Here are two measures to prevent fraud:

    (3) Issue everyone a voter ID when they register. The ID would work like a credit card; present it and you could vote at any polling station, anywhere in the country, using a paper ballot that gets a unique ID number and goes back to the relevant district to be counted (the authorities could even transmit a copy of the ballot electronically to allow an initial count, but it would wind up back in your precinct to be counted officially by hand). Once you’ve voted, the system knows you’ve cast a ballot so you can’t vote again. Credit card companies manage something very much like this—you can spend practically everywhere and you can’t go over your limit anywhere. Most democratic countries require a photo identity card as proof of voter’s identity. A fully modern version would enable voters to cast ballots more easily.

    (4) Abolish absentee and mail-in voting. Voters will have access to polling stations beyond their precinct and even out of state (with the “credit card” you can vote while attending a conference in Chicago even if you live in New Jersey), and at U.S. embassies overseas or military bases (again with the “credit card” this shouldn’t be an insurmountable problem). That way there is always an official chain of custody for the ballot. Eventually the ID card system could be replaced with anthropometric ID, (e.g. iris scans).

    Finally, here are two more suggestions meant to reduce various forms of information manipulation before an election.

    (5) Shorten the early voting period. Reduce early voting to no more than three days before election day, to include the weekend, such that all voters have roughly the same information when they vote.

    (6) Abolish proxy voting. Given the voter ID that allows one to vote anywhere in the country and at embassies or military bases abroad, there would be no need for proxies. As for the infirm, we should designate voting officials to visit severely handicapped people, who register in advance, in their homes or residential care facilities, just as census takers now visit people at home. Safeguards can be put in place, such as allowing partisan observers to accompany the vote taker.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Menagerie says:
      January 14, 2021 at 8:26 pm

      All seem reasonable and responsible suggestions to me, although I am not sure about the home visits for the infirm. On one hand, that should cut down on the nurses aide voting for 27 patients. On the other hand, I see some people, potentially lots, falling through the cracks. Also, who does the visitation and what follow up do we have?

      All those questions that could quite easily be addressed. What do you think about it? I can hardly believe the source.

      I have had the thought that nothing will make me want to unite with those who put us in this situation,yes liberals, but disgusting Republicans too. As close as I can come to imagine dropping some of my animosity would have to come from a bipartisan voting reform push.

      Liked by 1 person

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  9. stella says:
    January 14, 2021 at 6:14 pm

    This should be good.

    Liked by 3 people

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