1/ Yesterday I gave kudos to TX for the quality of their online tax system and telephone support. I mentioned as an aside that this was not necessarily a Red state - blue state thing, that red states like FL have terrible government systems and support.
2/ For my sins, today I was forced to register one food sales location at the FL Dept of Agriculture @freshfromFL today. This should have been a trivial process given the relative triviality of the registration. But the @freshfromFL systems were awful and totally non-intuitive.
3/ Worse, the agency is apparently using this as an excuse not to ever notify me again by mail of the annual renewal for the license. As if I can remember to check 20 systems in each of 10 states constantly for renewal dates. This is the new scam I have found in many states...
4/ to extract late fees from businesses. They will not mail any renewal reminders but are more than happy to mail reminders that you are late and now owe them large late fees
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Public Service Message: I have ridden roller coasters all over the world, and the relatively new Velocicoaster at Universal Orlando is the best I have ever ridden. At my son's urging I went there for a day solely to ride that ride and I was not disappointed
It is not the highest and does not have a huge drop. It does not have a crazy gimmick like the 400 ft straight up launch of top fuel dragster in CP. It is just awesome. Every turn and move I have ever heard of in a coaster.
It has numerous inversions, including a stretch where you cruise upside down, without a shoulder restraint, only an advanced lap bar. The real highlight is the mid-ride launch -- amazing technology. And no G force sickness like I get on rides like I get on Magic Mtn Goliath
I wondered last year what the long-term plan was in NZ and Australia with a zero-COVID strategy that made no sense given that it could not be maintained in a (now semi-)free society forever. Apparently there was none.
Atlas Shrugged rightly gets grief with its awkward characterization, but don't think of it as a novel -- think of it as a paper-based simulation that takes socialist-statist ideas and says, "let's trying running these to their conclusion."
I have always felt that "believe all women" was an absurd overreach, an exhortation no rational, observant person should be willing to accept as a general rule. The proper statement, imo, was and is "take women seriously"
There is a real problem that needed to be solved. Various law enforcement bodies often did not take accusations of sexual violence seriously, patting women on the head and sending them on their way. This case was a great example
"The report found that FBI agents in Indianapolis—who received an initial visit from USA Gymnastics to report Nassar on July 28, 2015—didn’t take the claims seriously, document the evidence they received or transfer the allegations to the FBI’s resident agency in Lansing, Mich. "
Here is one reason why: Maybe 15 years ago, when cell phone power cables were power only, there was pressure for government to do this same thing, to mandate one standard among a variety of barrel power-only connectors.
But had they been successful, where would we be today? Technology has moved fast and the cell phone power connector is for more than power, it is also a data connection (less important today in the days of wireless but critical in early smartphone development).
This is simply madness -- with a looming worldwide shortage of cereal grains (due to Ukraine war and other factors) and the real potential for famine later this year, Biden mandates that more food be burned in cars
I can't tell if this is bad energy policy -- since every study not funded by ADM has shown zero to negative fossil fuel savings from corn ethanol. Or if it is pandering to the midwest corn lobby ahead of this election.
Whatever the motivation, it feels like a policy decision from the last third of Atlas Shrugged -- chasing the political problem of this moment (eg gas prices) at the absolutely predictable expense of the political problem of the next moment (food prices and grain shortages).
If we forgive student loans, it should come with an admission that the product was so entirely flawed that a 100% refund is warranted. And then everyone who paid cash should also be fully refunded. And then we should shut down all the suppliers of the product as a scam business.
Seriously, why else would be be talking about giving full refunds to people unless there was an implicit assumption the value was entirely missing? In other product liability situations we give folks like a 50-cent coupon. We are talking here about $200,000 refunds!
And why, having acknowledged this sort of systematic product failure, would we then allow the product to continue to get sold in the same way at the same prices to a whole new generation of suckers?