Carborendum

You're absolutely right. A 90-year-old woman with 200 extra pounds on her, who subsisted on a diet of largely bacon and sugar couldn't possibly have had a heart attack had it not been for COVID. What was I thinking?

And I don't deny racial hardships that Blacks have experienced in this country. I don't think anyone versed in history would argue otherwise. But to say that these individual events are the root cause of why blacks fail en masse in America TODAY simply doesn't look at the facts of history. Why do you think it is that so many black families succeed today? You look at the disproportionate black population in poverty stricken areas. But have you seen just how many blacks succeed in America DESPITE these horrific events of history that you point to? The NUMBER ONE reason why they succeed is a strong family unit. The NUMBER ONE reason they fail is a weak family unit. With the lone exception of some Hollywood types, EVERY demographic will clearly show that Blacks with strong family units will succeed at rates similar to any other race with strong family units. Blacks with weak family units will fail at rates similar to any other race with weak family units. You want to help Black people in America? Stop decrying racism as the culprit, and start requiring stronger families.

Again, you can take a single event in history and make it all about that one point. See the attachment. The great black migration.pdf Blacks moving from the South to the North made 3x what they made in the South. White / Black income disparity continued. EVERYone had wages increase (in terms of real dollars - i.e. adjusted for cost of living and inflation) during this period. What people don't take into account is the generational effect of income -- just as they use generational income as a bludgeon to hammer their point home. White people came here with nothing as well. They went through poverty for a couple centuries before the war. Many went off into indentured servitude due to poverty. Parents had to secure servitude for family when they didn't have enough to feed the family. Those who came out of servitude very often ended up begging or dying. Those who survived built wealth across many generations. Gradually increasing. Blacks only started this cycle since the end of the Civil war. They have even better opportunity to build this generational wealth just as whites did. But they lack the family structure to carry this onward to future generations and follow the same path to wealth as 99% of whites did. Asians came to America with nothing. But they had strong family values. Parents worked their tails off at multiple minimum wage jobs to make sure their kids could go to college. They emphasized how important it was to study. Education was the path to success. And guess what, Asians achieve wealth in fewer generations than any other immigrant group. When Blacks suffer from fatherless homes, broken homes, etc. what hope is there for generational growth? If generational growth is not going to happen among Blacks because of broken homes how is it that part of the argument is that whites have generational wealth? Why don't blacks shoot for the same thing instead of wanting everything NOW!? EXAMPLE: Larry Elder His father lived in the Jim Crow South. He moved to a less racist state, California, where they still had "white entrances" and "black entrances" (so much for less racist). He worked his tail off for decades, getting only three hours of sleep a night. He used his skills as a cook to eventually open his own restaurant. He made the sacrifices to make sure his kids went to college. Larry and his brother both went to college (Larry has a Law Degree) and were very successful. They are both very wealthy. Generational sacrifice. Generational wealth. And instead of encouraging these kinds of inspiring stories, they want to extort money on a nationwide scale? All because they don't understand the importance of families. Not so inspiring.

I'll repeat my mother's experience. She tested positive when she had a mild flu-like episode. She recovered fine. A short while later (think it was about a month or two) she had a heart-attack and died. Her death certificate indicated "heart-attack" but someone gathering statistics included her in the COVID deaths because she tested positive within "some time frame" of her death. This is not to say that COVID isn't serious. It very often is. But it isn't as serious as the media make it out to be. I don't know why I find myself walking this line. Why do I feel like I'm the only one who realizes that it truly is a serious disease that we ought to be taking precautions for, while at the same time believing that it is still being blown WAY out of proportion?

Scenario: I don't have a very good relationship with another party, despite some sincere efforts on their part to establish a rapport. I decide to make a video "tongue-in-cheek" mocking their beliefs and making veiled threats (tongue-in-cheek). The other party doesn't react well. I respond by saying, "Pffbbt! It's not my fault you can't take a joke." What kind of person am I here? What kind of relations am I building here?

Ahem... unless you haven't noticed, we're talking about children here. That's the entire theme of this thread.

I thought you might like that.

To "weigh" something is to put the load of an item (the anchor) onto something to support it (the chain). So the chain feels the "weight" of the anchor. When we say "weigh anchor" means we're lifting the anchor up. We're ready to go. The prefix "a" before "weigh" is short for "at" -- meaning the condition of being. e.g. "Adrift" means that at the moment, we're drifting. So "anchors aweigh" means the anchors are either the condition of being lifted, or is a command to put them into that condition.

This is, I believe, a fairly recent phenomenon. When I was a child, all the fruit had full flavor. Over the years, I began noticing that unless it was frozen or canned, it just didn't have much flavor at all. Quite a twist from previous years where fresh meant "fresh" and canned / frozen food was inferior. I came to understand why that was. It was a change in the processes they used for producing and preserving foods. It was around the 80s and 90s where a lot more effort was made in both husbandry/horticulture as well as genetic engineering of fruits and vegetables. There were two categories of foods: 1) Does it look good? 2) Does it taste good? For some reason, there was a bit of a problem getting both to be combined into the same fruit. And at the same time, what size were they? Original fruit tasted fine, but they were all misshapen or discolored or too small. So, they were not marketable as fresh fruit. The genetically engineered fruit had a great appearance, but lacked flavor. Further, the frozen and canned fruits could be picked at just the right time of ripeness and immediately frozen or canned with much less delay from picking to packaging. Fresh fruit, OTOH, had to sit in shipping, storage, and display. This meant that they were picked at random times to meet shipping requirements. Ripening was an afterthought. So, if you got one that tasted good or not was just blind luck.

Some of you will think I'm an idiot for not knowing this sooner. But... I was just reading a book about a famous sailor / captain with my daughter and came across an interesting discovery. The phrase is not "Anchors away!" (which I never really understood). It is "Anchors aweigh!" Very different meaning. Thought I'd share.

That's about $6/sq ft for just the pennies. That's pretty expensive floor cover. Wait, those are British pence. That's about $8/sq ft.

Sooo.... you're trying to make me jealous... Well... it's working. Dang, man.

What statements did they say that were not true?

I taught three kids how to drive a stick already this summer. I'm teaching a fourth one to drive, starting on the stick. He just got his permit yesterday. I also want to teach my wife to drive a stick. But she's not all that motivated. I would like to teach my older daughter, but she's on a mission now. The last two are too young.

Wait a minute... Did you say "Palmyra"? In July? I have one son entering the MTC in late August. Waitaminute... did I say... Another son is still working with paperwork for his mission. Apparently, they're wondering about his mental health. What? My son? Yeah. So, it could be a problem. We'll see what happens.

First, let me say that in today's world, we understand that parents, not grandparents make these types of decisions for the children. We also understand that wealthy grandparents can "bribe" the parents into doing things with the grandchildren for money. Then it is up to the parents to accept or reject that bribe (ehrr - ehmm gift). And I'm on your side of the control / ethics argument. What I'm offering is that perhaps (without knowing all the details) the reality of the situation may be that the grandparents don't have to do much twisting of arms to accomplish this. Perhaps, it is more of an aid than a domination. We don't know the details and all the family dynamics. So, it's difficult to judge. But I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt when the end goal is one that I would think would be a good one. But I could be wrong.

I have no idea what this means, or to whom it refers in what situation.

I took the black vs white test. I gamed the test. Here's what it bases it on: 1) If you go fast with the button, that implies an association is made in your mind. 2) If you go fast with one descriptor (e.g. black) and slow with another descriptor (e.g. bad) then it implies a lack of association (bias). 3) If you go fast with both, or slow with both, it doesn't say much. It isn't a matter of milliseconds difference. It is a pattern of establishing your designation for each hand. Since it is difficult for the human mind to associate two things to one hand, it is understood that we will make an assignment of one descriptor to each hand. But if the associations between a pairing of descriptors (e.g. black and bad) are already in your head, then they will go equally fast when they are paired on the screen. This all makes sense. But the result is preposterous because there is no way to adjust for outlier behavior (which, BTW, I'm full of -- or at least I'm full of...something). Once I figured out the theory behind it, I gamed it thusly: I did fast associations with races. I did slow associations with the other traits. I purposefully slowed my responses to traits to 3 seconds for the trait on the white side, and 2 seconds for the trait on the black side. It got me a positive affinity for blacks and a negative affinity for whites. Now, that may sound right because of the times. But the problem is that I gave the same timeframe for the respective races for both positive and negative traits. So, shouldn't it have been equal? Something was not right about that test.

I just re-took the test for Asian vs Whites. I purposefully took at least three seconds to answer ALL of the association questions. And now it says I have a slight association of European with American and Foreign with Asian. Yeah, even though I purposefully took three seconds for both European and Asian as well as foreign and American. I was a freaking machine with the 3 second counting. And they didn't take any of the European to American as hesitation. But they did take the Foreign to Asian as hesitation. I may not know exactly how, but they stacked the deck.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that it doesn't take literal milliseconds into account. I'll be that they stacked the deck on the test. This DOES NOT MEAN they did it on purpose. I see it as a confirmation bias in their methodology. They are just as prone to preconceived notions as anyone else. A lot of people see neutrality as a bias against a disaffected party. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem philosophy. And such thinking would obviously carry over into the measurements on the tests. Hence, stupid test.

This reminds me that a lot of the time is not just about the law itself, but about the procedures being followed. This is true in engineering as much as it is in law.

Dang it all! Boys, put your guns away. We're cancelling our trip to Harvard.

It implies I was a millisecond more tired with my fingers.

Exactly correct. But the details of the proceedings were what was disturbing. Why did she not even listen to the wife's testimony? Why, when the wife's lawyers tried to speak on her behalf, did she dig in even deeper and get mad at them for bringing it up? BTW, the judge in question runs on a Republican Ticket. Not that that means much nowadays in Texas.

So far I see one melon on each of 5 plants. One plant died a 6th plant hasn't shown any melons yet.