E4 No More

I'm on a cellular connection to the nearest cell tower about 4 miles away. I have two directional antennae on the roof of my house coming in to the router. The best speed that I've ever had was 40 Mbps down and 30 up. The worst is below dial-up speeds. I'm on my 4th service provider now (not the carrier). The first two service providers must have been doing something to piss-off the carriers because they would slow down to dial-up speeds for no apparent reason. Recently, T-Mobile cut my router off completely just as the virus caused the shutdowns. Verizon is the first time the service provider and the carrier is the same, and it's currently at >1Mbps on one of their Jetpacks. I have the new service provider installed but I'm not working on it yet because I'm waiting on them to send me the login information to set-up a new SSID and stronger password. My daughter who also works from home says it's working better.

I resemble that remark!

It was very much so poorly managed. They just had a big hubbub over their budget defying the law and not balancing. That's why the new mayor was elected. He's a liberal, but he believes in a balanced budget.

When I lived in LaVergne both would fly directly over my house when they did the airshows at Smyrna. They'd circle over the lake and come over the house so low that I could hit them with a rock if I so desired. It's really the only thing that I miss about moving into the country. Well, that and a cable Internet connection.

Simple: prices go up. I don't mind paying a reasonable tax for services such as police, fire, and roads. I have problems when the taxes are wasted or directed to those who do not try to be a productive member of society. It chaps my ass to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal income tax just to have Uncle Sam give it to someone else who doesn't pay taxes. Earned Income Credit is complete Bull to me.

To be fair, it was several years ago, and I'm sure it's just like every other mass-produced firearm where triggers will vary even when they have consecutive serial numbers. I will say that I'll never allow a salesman to show me a firearm from the case, and after committing to the purchase, go in back and get another firearm to fulfill the order.

I had a FS 45. Worst trigger ever that didn't improve with use.

The topic was people moving to Nashville with higher taxes. That is an action. Peoples' actions lead to people discerning all sorts of things about them including, (among other things), their intellect. For instance, a thief is defined by their action of stealing, and a murderer is defined by their action of committing murder. When someone supports numerous policies that are plainly stupid, (particularly when history has demonstrated it over and over), then one can reasonably discern that that person is stupid. I will also point out the concept of the "educated idiot." Just because someone is educated does not make them smart, so so-called "academics" are not necessarily correct because of their position.

So you're calling me lazy. Nice...

I disagree. Stupid is as stupid does, after all. Notice that I'm not saying Democrats because I'm more of a centrist when it comes to social issues. I just have a deal-breaker issue of violations of the Bill of Rights. I feel the same about the extreme right.

Naw, liberals are stupid.

You get props for the use of a $50 word today!

I trained to use these party favors as well as the older 155mm W48: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W79

Yeah, that tends to affect most folks.

When I was a cop I studied martial arts from a friend who ran a weekly class with about a 50/50 mix of LEOs and civilians. One of the civilians was a commercial electrician by trade. One of the MisHap (what we called the Missouri State Highway Patrol) students had been issued a taser that was supposed to be VERY high powered. Well, fellas being fellas, a challenge of sorts was thrown down and the taser was applied to the bare side of the electrician. He just stood there and looked at the Trooper with an amused smirk on his face. That convinced me not to ever waste my money on them.

We'll see if Trump's conservative appointments to the 9th Circus will have any effect.

US companies moved manufacturing to China because of their cheap (slave) labor, and lack of pollution controls. What I hope to see come from this is America's realizing that this is a VERY bad idea, and bring manufacturing back to the US regardless of the increased costs. Significant pressure needs to be applied to corporate America to come off China's labor teat. Not sure companies like Walmart would survive that way, but I'm sure they can adapt if they tried.

The Corona virus came from either bats or pangolins. Scientists study diseases in other critters to get an understanding of our own viruses. Many diseases from animals cannot cross-over to humans but some can so scientists study them. An example of animal viruses cross-over is influenza (flu) which largely comes out of China. I don't know if recent science has demonstrated otherwise, but 23 years ago I was taught that the flu virus is "native" to ducks. Humans cannot get the flu from ducks because there's too much difference in our biology. In China, ducks and pigs mingle together on the farms, and pigs certainly CAN get virus transmission from ducks because they have some biological traits similar to ducks. The virus passes from the ducks to the pigs where it adapts to the pigs using the pig's cells to create a pig version of the flu. Humans can get viruses from pigs because our biology is more similar to the pig's than the duck's. The farmers get the new flu virus from their pigs and transmits it to other humans to spread further. Solution? Keep the damned ducks away from the pigs! So it seems that in the case of the Corona virus we share enough biological similarity to the bat that we get this particular virus directly transmitted from them. It went into the first human host and used it's cells to replicate and spread. Since it seems to be extremely contagious, and we have no natural immunity to it, it's much more deadly.

I guess that depends on what your definition of old is.

What Dave said. It was not bio-engineered but rather being studied in the lab. Coming back is not an appropriate description. As long as there's life forms to infect, and those life forms come in contact with each other, the virus is still around hopping from one victim to another. What's being referred to as "social distancing" happens naturally when warmer weather hits because people are out doing things, and there's more ultra-violet light exposure to kill the virus outside of the body. Thus, transmission slows way down. It will migrate between victims and then explode again when colder weather sets in and we get closer together again.

Yeah, I don't think that the virus discriminates between the states.

Back in the 80's, Plymouth/Dodge advertised that their Horizon was engineered to allow trouble free maintenance. They lied!

When they're blown out of the water.

They lied. They were responsible for any injuries while on active duty. The Marine Corps told me that my back injury could not be compensated by the VA when I got discharged because I didn't injure it in combat. Decades after my discharge, I found out that I was lied to. Now I'm fighting with the VA over it. Had I submitted for compensation at my discharge it wouldn't be a problem.

That wasn't the case with the Marines in the 80's. Is that time, or just an Army thing? We did have rare incidences of some idiot doing idiotic things. When I was in 29-Palms there was an incidence of three grunts who decided to sneak away from the pos to smoke some weed. They chose to do it at a mortar target that they didn't know was active and got killed for their efforts. There was also an instance where an ammo man in a 105 unit thought it'd be funny to remove the safety cover of a Rocket-Assisted Projectile for a fire mission programmed for a non-RAP round. The round came very close to the town of Amboy. When I was in Okinawa there was an incident of a Marine who though he'd loaded a blank into his M-16. During a movement the idiot pointed his rifle at a Korean woman walking along the road and pulled the trigger. The real bullet tore through her chest killing her instantly. I guess my point is that stupid people will do stupid things no matter whether they're warned or not.