America - The Official Thread

[Jezza819]

Florida Governor signs bill into law requiring schools to set aside at least one minute of silence each day for in his words, "It's important to be able to provide each student the ability every day to reflect and be able to pray as they see fit,"

Here comes the push to get prayer and "their" god back into schools.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/politics/florida-public-schools-moment-of-silence/index.html

 

[TenEightyOne]

Florida Governor signs bill into law requiring schools to set aside at least one minute of silence each day

That's an abuse of gun rights.

 

[UKMikey]

I guess the old adage of 49% of all doctors and nurses are below average holds true here.

Dammit I only just got this one as well. 49% of everyone is below average.

 

[Danoff]

The problems of wages and demands are closely related. You can either choose wages that are too low to live comfortably, or responsibilities that are too high to live comfortably. Either way, human needs are fundamentally disrespected.

No.

There are jobs which pay well that offer good quality of life. It's up to the individual to choose and pursue them. I can say from experience though that people get caught up in the social pressure and stigma associated with having less, or not earning as much, and end up taking on more than they want - which leads to stress and less happiness (but more money, which doesn't solve that). Corporate culture, in many cases, especially large companies, assumes that you want to move up the ladder, get more responsibility, make more money, take on a "leadership" role, etc. etc, and there are so many people that buy into this, and people that encourage it, or people that exhibit choice affirmation bias and want you to make the same mistake they did, that it's hard to resist the social pressure. There are some environments, like law firms, where the career path is up or out. You either make partner or you get canned, no room for longtimer associates. The assumption will be that you want to make partner, and if you choose not to, the new assumption is that you couldn't make partner. These kinds of up or out situations are not the norm though, but it's still hard to resist the temptation to take more money. Promotions are always a good thing right?

I think that we're on the tip of this realization socially. A lot of people would take a pay cut to work from home:

64% of workers at America’s biggest tech companies would take permanently working from home over a $30,000 raise.

That's a mixed question, some of it is money vs. money, but a lot of it is quality of life vs. money. And of course you'd never expect to see that number hit 100% partly because for some, the quality of life is assigned to not working from home.

Getting promoted beyond the perfect mix of quality of life/income is easy to do, and it's something that we, as a society, don't raise enough awareness around. It's also really hard to judge. There are some posh jobs out there, the trick is getting one, recognizing it, and not letting yourself get tempted out of it.

 

[McLaren]

The Republican National Committee is going after President Biden for his Wednesday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, accusing him of handing Russia a "win."

RNC Communications Director Danielle Alvarez in a statement Wednesday argued that "giving Putin a meeting is just the latest win that Joe Biden has handed Russia," attacking the president for "foreign policy failures" that have "strengthened Russia at the expense of our country."

https://theweek.com/us/1001633/house-overwhelmingly-votes-to-make-juneteenth-a-federal-holiday

Pretending your former President didn't openly say he believed Putin over his own intelligence agency, but ok....

 

[Danoff]

https://theweek.com/us/1001633/house-overwhelmingly-votes-to-make-juneteenth-a-federal-holiday

Pretending your former President didn't openly say he believed Putin over his own intelligence agency, but ok....

Oh now giving someone a meeting is super meaningful and important... handing them a win... whereas when it was the Ukraine it was definitely not (part of) bribery.

 

[TexRex]

Biden Aggravation Disorder.

 

[Jezza819]

On Wednesday the U.S. House of Representatives passed the approval of a new federal holiday recognizing Juneteenth, or June 19th, which recognized as the end of slavery because that's the date Federal Troops liberated the last Confederate strongholds in Galveston, Texas.

The measure passed 415-14. Two of those no votes came from Alabama. And I'm not surprised that one of them came from Mo Brooks.

Brooks told AL.com that the end of slavery “ought to celebrated as much as the Fourth of July,” but the bill “should have been celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation or the passage of the 13th, 14th, or 15th amendments or the end of the Civil war… rather than a date apportioned in one state.”

https://whnt.com/news/house-votes-to-create-juneteenth-federal-holiday-two-alabama-reps-vote-no/

Oh and also he is suing the process server that served his wife on the Capitol Riot lawsuit.

https://www.al.com/news/2021/06/mo-...-unlawful-serving-of-lawsuit-on-his-wife.html

 

[Danoff]

Brooks told AL.com that the end of slavery “ought to celebrated as much as the Fourth of July,” but the bill “should have been celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation or the passage of the 13th, 14th, or 15th amendments or the end of the Civil war… rather than a date apportioned in one state.”

Lemme see if I can play along.

"but the bill shouldn't have been celebrating the emancipation proclamation, since the proclamation was directed only to the confederate states. Furthermore, the date of effect of the emancipation proclamation is already a federal holiday, New Year's Day."

"but the bill shouldn't have been celebrating the 13th amendment, since the emancipation proclamation had already freed the slaves, and since there were still slaves held in confederate states until juneteenth. Also, we already have MLK day only a few weeks before the date in January that the 13th amendment was signed"

"but the bill shouldn't have been celebrating the 14th amendment, since that amendment is not broadly directed to slavery, and which would be better celebrated on the date of the emancipation proclamation, or the 13th amendment, or even juneteenth. Also, the 14th amendment date is only 5 days after the 4th of july"

"but the bill shouldn't have been celebrating the 15th amendment, since that amendment is not really directed to slavery at all.."

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I love how they voted against it because they felt the name wasn't right. I suspect that the holiday will continue to be referred to as Juneteenth and not Independence day, so their entire point is invalid. But they know that.

 

[FuriousDemon]

Potential for a sequel to "Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV"?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...gnition-test-14-house-republicans/7743927002/

 

[Famine]

Texans ignoring ERCOT's "request" to set their home thermostats to 78F (26C) overnight are having their internet-connected thermostats reset remotely to the "requested" temperatures:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/texas-remote-controlled-smart-thermostats/

(this seems to apply to customers who are part of an "energy saving scheme")

 

[McLaren]

Texans ignoring ERCOT's "request" to set their home thermostats to 78F (26C) overnight are having their internet-connected thermostats reset remotely to the "requested" temperatures:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/texas-remote-controlled-smart-thermostats/

(this seems to apply to customers who are part of an "energy saving scheme")

Oh boy, I can't wait to see how my fellow Texans react to that news.

 

[Joey D]

Oh boy, I can't wait to see how my fellow Texans react to that news.

Governor Abbott...*squints eyes*....you've yee'd your last haw.

 

[Danoff]

Oh boy, I can't wait to see how my fellow Texans react to that news.

Friggin Biden and the green lefties changing our thermostats for the environment. [/s]

 

[UKMikey]

Oh boy, I can't wait to see how my fellow Texans react to that news.

I know my rights. There has to be something in HIPPA Section 230 that makes this illegal.

 

[ryzno]

One of the many reasons I don't run out and buy the newest tech.
I'll keep my 30 year old car and my non-smart thermostat.

 

[Joey D]

One of the many reasons I don't run out and buy the newest tech.
I'll keep my 30 year old car and my non-smart thermostat.

Smart thermostats are a pain in the ass anyway. Our apartment complex installed Nests and while it's nice to be able to adjust the temperature from bed, it has a million different eco modes that I can't be bothered to figure out. Still the default one changes the temperature when it doesn't sense movement for some time, so when I sit my lazy ass at the computer for hours on end, it changes the temp to 78. I typically keep the temp at 72, which is a perfect balance of comfort and not having a crazy electric bill, so when it goes to 78 my fatass sweats.

 

[FuriousDemon]

Just go to the Nest app, delete everything from the "Schedule" tab and disable Auto-Schedule. It will be back to the "dumb" thermostat with ability to control it remotely. (I guess can also disable Home/Away Assist)

 

[Northstar]

I've always wondered how much smart thermostats actually save people. I'm sure if you take the time to set everything up they can save a few bucks, but I get the impression most people just use is as a nice looking programmable thermostat (and don't do anything else to make their house more efficient), especially if it's a DIY install.

They've also always struck me as a "sounded cool at the time" sort of purchase. Sure you can change your temperature with your smart speaker, but how often do you adjust the temperature in your house?

 

[EngieDiesel]

I've always wondered how much smart thermostats actually save people. I'm sure if you take the time to set everything up they can save a few bucks, but I get the impression most people just use is as a nice looking programmable thermostat (and don't do anything else to make their house more efficient), especially if it's a DIY install.

They've also always struck me as a "sounded cool at the time" sort of purchase. Sure you can change your temperature with your smart speaker, but how often do you adjust the temperature in your house?

Most "Internet of Things"/smart home devices really don't offer any major benefits over their older counterparts, people just get attracted by the new shiny that promises convenience by automating trivial tasks, but give no consideration to security or functional concerns.

Like, say, when an outside entity remotely messes with them without your consent, or has been sending streams of data to an unknown server in some other part of the world for unknown reasons, or just stops working in a couple years and the company that made it no longer provides support for it (or even exists anymore), so you have no choice but to pull it off the wall and spend a couple hundred bucks for a new one that works the same way but has a slightly rounder screen on it. All of which have happened with these types of things over the last few years.

 

[Keef]

@TexRex @McLaren At least three of my prescription and non-prescription medicine containers say to store at 77F. Which means Governor Abbott wants Texans to spoil their medicines and succumb to illness. He has once again ignored science and the medical field and has recommended that people simply die rather than take care of Texas.

(and don't do anything else to make their house more efficient)

I'm pretty sure there is also a lot of conflicting information out there on what is actually more efficient. Is a lower power bill more efficient? Less water usage? Less power usage? Usage at various times of the day? Intermittent usage over a long period or sustained usage over a single period?

In my apartment I keep my water heater at nearly the highest temperature it can maintain. This means that my hot water lasts for literally over an hour in the shower - I've tried it. By my showers don't last anywhere near that long which firstly has the benefit of me never running out of hot water, but also that I can achieve shower temperature at just over 50% "knob" or whatever unit of displacement you'd call that. This means that the amount of water coming from and thus into the water heater is low - any cold water refilling the tank hardly even needs to be heated since it meets scalding water and basically heats itself. Once my water heater initially got to temp it rarely ever runs anymore. I know it's well-insulated because there is basically no heat escaping through the skin which is cool despite being lava on the inside. Is this actually more efficient than otherwise? They tell you not to turn up the heater this high, but if I followed advice then my heater tank would empty in 30 minutes and a whole lot of cold water which refilled it would have to be heated to temp resulting in more and longer periods of heater usage. I prefer my method if not for efficiency (which I think is high) then for convenience.

As for air conditioning efficiency, I feel like people would have a lot better luck if they didn't stand there with the door open hollering at the dog, or teach their kids to close the damn door and not let all the cool air flow right out. Not trying to cool the back yard. And maybe close the garage door to add a buffer of insulation to the man door to the garage. Tell the wife to turn the damn lights off and don't leave the TV on to keep the animals company while you're gone - they're animals, they don't care. Edison bulbs aren't cute, they make more heat than they do light, get rid of that stupid thing. You probably don't need to do light loads of laundry and dishes four times a week - load those suckers up, save some money.

I feel like I have a lot more advice where that came from but then again I don't have a dog or kids or house and my bills are satisfyingly low.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

They've also always struck me as a "sounded cool at the time" sort of purchase. Sure you can change your temperature with your smart speaker, but how often do you adjust the temperature in your house?

Must be the odd one, it's adjusted a few times a day to keep the temperature comfortable but the A/C not running the whole time.

Not sure how the houses are built in Texas, but here 78 at night would also be toasty, with the A/C probably not turning on.

 

[TexRex]

@TexRex @McLaren At least three of my prescription and non-prescription medicine containers say to store at 77F. Which means Governor Abbott wants Texans to spoil their medicines and succumb to illness. He has once again ignored science and the medical field and has recommended that people simply die rather than take care of Texas.

I'm no expert, but I'd wager that a single degree won't result in significant degradation or reduction in effectiveness.

Anyway, per ERCOT, the grid can currently meet demand. That's likely to change, of course, and I don't think anyone should put stock in recently passed legislation to bolster the grid, however boastful the feckless feebs in Austin are about it.

 

[Roo]

As for air conditioning efficiency, I feel like people would have a lot better luck if they didn't stand there with the door open hollering at the dog, or teach their kids to close the damn door and not let all the cool air flow right out. Not trying to cool the back yard. And maybe close the garage door to add a buffer of insulation to the man door to the garage. Tell the wife to turn the damn lights off and don't leave the TV on to keep the animals company while you're gone - they're animals, they don't care. Edison bulbs aren't cute, they make more heat than they do light, get rid of that stupid thing. You probably don't need to do light loads of laundry and dishes four times a week - load those suckers up, save some money.

🙄 Whatever, dad.

 

[TexRex]

"Federal takeover of elections" seems like exactly the sort of thing critics of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would have said. What right does Washington have telling states with conservative majority governments how to run their elections?

Mitch says he's looked over states' new laws and that they don't amount to suppression, but then his word is absolute ****ing garbage.

 

[Joey D]

"Federal takeover of elections" seems like exactly the sort of thing critics of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would have said. What right does Washington have telling states with conservative majority governments how to run their elections?

Mitch says he's looked over states' new laws and that they don't amount to suppression, but then his word is absolute ****ing garbage.

The federal takeover of anything always concerns me. The government is horrendously inefficient at just about everything it does and almost always makes things ten times more expensive and complicated than they need to be. The only thing I would be in favor of is the federal government requiring mail-in voting to be nationwide and changes to the electoral college.

 

[TexRex]

The federal takeover of anything always concerns me. The government is horrendously inefficient at just about everything it does and almost always makes things ten times more expensive and complicated than they need to be. The only thing I would be in favor of is the federal government requiring mail-in voting to be nationwide and changes to the electoral college.

"Federal takeover" here is deliberately, and deceptively, sensational. It's bad faith exhibited by right trash who exhibit bad faith almost exclusively.

 

[Blitz24]

The federal takeover of anything always concerns me. The government is horrendously inefficient at just about everything it does and almost always makes things ten times more expensive and complicated than they need to be. The only thing I would be in favor of is the federal government requiring mail-in voting to be nationwide and changes to the electoral college.

Heck, if the Federal Government took over itself it might somehow get worse!

 

[TexRex]

Remember when Republicans and right-wing media responded to MLB pulling the All-Star game out of Georgia in favor of Colorado by comparing select voting regulations that happened to be more aggressive in the latter but conveniently disregarded its automatic vote-by-mail applications and high rate of vote-by-mail turnout?

Here we go again.




One wonders what John Cornyn has neglected to mention as part of this comparison. One wonders why he's chosen these states and none of the nine, if memory serves, that open in-person voting at least forty days prior to Election Day. One wonders how the states he's chosen compare to Georgia in terms of eligible voters per polling location, not only statewide average but counties with the highest ratio.

Republicans have demonstrated time and again that they are the party of bad faith, so what context has been conveniently left out of this argument?