[blackshoe]

I just set up Amazon Prime and Hulu. Next step: tell TWC to stick it. I'll keep the internet access, but the rest is going. I'll have to look into the wire.

[y66]

 jjbrr, on 2015-August-15, 21:14, said:

I recently dropped my cable because TWC is a disaster, and I picked up an Amazon Fire ($30 one time cost; I already have Prime so nothing extra for lots of features) and supplement it with Hulu($8/month). Was able to re-watch all 5 seasons of The Wire. Still feel strongly that The Wire is the best tv series of all time. Can't take you seriously if you think it's not in the top 3.

Anyway, sort of weird to call Omar a bad guy. It's an interesting discussion I suppose; I'd argue Omar is less of a bad guy than, for example, McNulty in season 5 with the fabricated serial killer murders.

I agree it's inaccurate to characterize Omar as a bad guy. He may be a super violent outlaw but he has a moral code that Moses probably would have admired (perhaps not publicly). Moses would probably also agree that McNulty, who has his share of admirable and lovable moments, is also frequently an asshole.

[1eyedjack]

I never thought of omar as a bad guy. It's all in the game, y'all.

[mike777]

TWC does seem to get worse and worse.

I love the dvr options but they seldom work 100% right.
Now my old old tv in bonus room seems not to work at all...seems I need an adapter but not sure where it goes on an old tv.

Last month they increased my internet speed 50% not sure I notice the difference
In a few weeks they are increasing speed another 600%. ty google for forcing twc to improve in my home town.

[mike777]

In my local town, a mistrial in the case of a white cop killing an unarmed black man.


As I watch tv, local news tv is breathlessly waiting a riot.
Reporters tell how fans in terror at local downtown minor league park tonight, local downtown Friday night club scenes disrupted. So far much about nothing.


We have a mostly black city council, black mayor, black top cop. we rank last out of 100 cities in economic mobility for poor minorities.

[PassedOut]

 mike777, on 2015-August-21, 20:31, said:

We have a mostly black city council, black mayor, black top cop. we rank last out of 100 cities in economic mobility for poor minorities.

Any idea why your city ranks last? I lived for 20 years in a city with black mayors and blacks holding most governmental positions, and the city did very well.

[mike777]

 PassedOut, on 2015-August-21, 21:58, said:

Any idea why your city ranks last? I lived for 20 years in a city with black mayors and blacks holding most governmental positions, and the city did very well.

great question.


NO, to be honest I do not understand the measurement.


I live here 15+ they talk first, second and third about edu. All the money...talk...teachers, rebuilding...etc etc etc seems to go to poor.
In rest they do build new building...( new population) but I hardly think students do well because of that....

fwiw my tiny area public school always seems to rank first or close to first in reading and math...100% levels. On my tiny tiny block no one goes to public school.

We have Latin School 2 miles away....very expensive but they go
We have a tiny few Catholic Schools but they go
We have country day,,,a bit farther away but they go
We have many many private schools if you think of my city as triangle, apex at downtown...base at sc border.

next door they home school
-------


We were the first very first area school for "forced busing" roughly 1970 in USA
private schools exploded
-------

--------



Let me compare to my old home town Chicago.....Roseland, Pullman......which has become the pits however Roseland has a new bright shiny huge prison looking b uilding....my school was 100years old... when I graduated.....
Pullman looks the same....great...old and great.

-----------

Let me compare to LA where I lived for many years..and basically no one..I mean on one wants to send their kid to public school if they have an option. This goes on and on for decades.....and billions.

[Winstonm]

What age in history does the current U.S. Presidential campaign idiocy most remind you of? I'm thinking perhaps the Rome of Nero.

[kenberg]

 mike777, on 2015-August-21, 22:43, said:

great question.


NO, to be honest I do not understand the measurement.


I live here 15+ they talk first, second and third about edu. All the money...talk...teachers, rebuilding...etc etc etc seems to go to poor.
In rest they do build new building...( new population) but I hardly think students do well because of that....

fwiw my tiny area public school always seems to rank first or close to first in reading and math...100% levels. On my tiny tiny block no one goes to public school.

We have Latin School 2 miles away....very expensive but they go
We have a tiny few Catholic Schools but they go
We have country day,,,a bit farther away but they go
We have many many private schools if you think of my city as triangle, apex at downtown...base at sc border.

next door they home school
-------


We were the first very first area school for "forced busing" roughly 1970 in USA
private schools exploded
-------

--------



Let me compare to my old home town Chicago.....Roseland, Pullman......which has become the pits however Roseland has a new bright shiny huge prison looking b uilding....my school was 100years old... when I graduated.....
Pullman looks the same....great...old and great.

-----------

Let me compare to LA where I lived for many years..and basically no one..I mean on one wants to send their kid to public school if they have an option. This goes on and on for decades.....and billions.

Browsing, I found "The Equality of Opportunity Project which lists 100 Commuter Zones.
http://www.equality-...ty-rankings-100
I dunno if this is what you are referring to.

I can see reasons for skepticism about these rankings.

For example, Minneapolis ranks second highest.
Minneapolis is in Hennepin County.
They also rank counties.
Hennepin ranks 24th.

So going from city to county produces a pretty substantial effect. A possible explanation of sorts: I don't see St. Paul anywhere on the list, so I am guessing it is included as part of the Mpls CZ, but St. Paul is in Ramsey county, not Hennepin. So the St. Paul data is included in making the Mpls CZ rank high, but switching to county data loses that advantage. The problem of course is that as much as I like St. Paul, I cannot see any reason why growing up in St. Paul instead of across the river in Mpls would raise one's income.

So I am thinking that we should base no action or opinion or anything on this study until it gets worked through a bit.

[Al_U_Card]

 Winstonm, on 2015-August-27, 09:39, said:

What age in history does the current U.S. Presidential campaign idiocy most remind you of? I'm thinking perhaps the Rome of Nero.

Every previous US presidential election campaign (more or less).
Any political process that takes more than one month should be made unconstitutional....here, Harper started a 70 day campaign, the 2nd longest in Canadian history and way more than our usual 4-6 weeks.

[y66]

A pig farm in Middletown, Pa. Some American pork producers will soon be adding drug-free labels. Credit Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

From New Type of Drug-Free Labels for Meat Has U.S.D.A. Blessing

Quote

As meat companies scramble to eliminate antibiotics from their products to address consumer and regulatory concerns, the federal Agriculture Department has quietly opened a new front in the debate over the use of drugs in the livestock and poultry industries.

In the next few months, consumers will start seeing the phrase “produced without ractopamine” on packages of Organic Buttercroft Bacon from Tendergrass Farms, a company that markets “natural” and organic meats.

Ractopamine hydrochloride is among a class of drugs called beta-agonists, which are used to add muscle weight to animals in the weeks before slaughter. Animals gain weight while eating less, making them cheaper to raise. By some estimates, 60 to 80 percent of pigs raised in the United States are given the drug.

But the European Union, China, Russia and many other countries prohibit imports of one or more of beef, pork and turkey raised with ractopamine out of concern that its effect on human health is unknown.

For that export market, Smithfield Foods, Tyson and other major meat companies have for several years produced meats from animals raised without the drug, and in 2013, the U.S.D.A. came up with the Never Fed Beta-Agonists Program to certify such meat as ractopamine-free.

That program was for only the export market, however, and those companies have continued to use ractopamine in raising animals for meat for the domestic market.

Now, the Agriculture Department is permitting other producers to use new language to advertise how the animals were raised without such drugs.

David Maren, a founder of Tendergrass Farms, which markets organic and “natural” meats, had been trying to get wording approved for some time. “I’d been talking with the U.S.D.A. about this over the last year or so, and they kept telling me I couldn’t use the word ractopamine,” he said.

“Then all of a sudden, they changed their minds.”

Tendergrass Farms now can carry a label that says, among other things, “Made from organic pork raised on family farms with a vegetarian diet and no ractopamine (a beta-agonist growth promotant) or antibiotics — ever!”

A spokesman for the Agriculture Department, which has already given a second company permission to use similar language on its packaging, said it had not banned using the word ractopamine on a label.

“Our job and our goal is to make sure that the label is truthful and not misleading — and misleading can mean, among other things, missing facts necessary for a consumer to understand the claim being made on a label,” said Philip Derfler, deputy administrator of the food safety and inspection service, which oversees meat labeling.

He said the agency approved Tendergrass’s label after the company changed it. “Factors came together in way they hadn’t come together, that’s all,” Mr. Derfler said. “A label statement that only says a company doesn’t use growth promotants, for instance, doesn’t provide enough information to the consumer.”

According to recent consumer research by the Hartman Group, a consumer research firm, food labels are gaining in importance to shoppers seeking information about food and beverages. The survey, done in May with 1,562 respondents ages 18 to 79, also found that more consumers were looking for fewer ingredients in food.

Laurie Demeritt, chief executive of Hartman, said consumers were looking for food they perceived as fresher, more “real” and minimally processed. “Even though they likely have no idea what ractopamine is, the fact that it sounds like a chemical and is called out on the label will send a signal that it’s something that doesn’t need to be there,” Ms. Demeritt said. “To a consumer, that may say it’s less processed or about how the animal was treated.”

The Food and Drug Administration approved use of the drug for veterinary purposes in 1999, establishing a level for acceptable residues of the drug in meat. Ractopamine generally passes through an animal quickly, but because it typically is administered in the last weeks before slaughter, residues can be found. China, one of the largest international consumers of United States pork, has rejected American imports several times after finding residues in samples.

The Chinese crackdown on pork imports has alarmed American producers, especially because the Chinese eat parts of a pig like ears and stomachs that are hard to sell at home. And this year, there’s a glut of pork in the United States, fueling the need for producers to find other markets.

xports of pork to China dropped almost 20 percent to 337,306 metric tons in 2014, knocking sales down to $775 million, from $903 million in 2013. The country currently has a big appetite for pork because its own pig herd has shrunk by nearly 100 million pigs, according to a new research report by Rabobank.

Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork producers in the United States, did not respond to a request for comment about the U.S.D.A.’s approval of a ractopamine-free label for the United States market. But just days before it was bought by Shuanghui International, a large Chinese meat processor, in 2013, Smithfield had announced that it aimed for half of its production to come from pigs raised without the drug.

Tyson Foods, another large pork producer, also did not respond to requests for comment.

The National Pork Producers Council, the industry’s trade group, said pork was exported to 120 countries, roughly 100 of which allow the use of ractopamine. Dave Warner, a spokesman for the group, said it had not asked its members to reduce or eliminate ractopamine.

“We support allowing the market determine the use of ractopamine,” Mr. Warner said in an email. “If customers are willing to pay more, to cover the costs of additional feed, for ractopamine-free pork, great.”

Bryan Karwal, a hog farmer in southwest Iowa, said he had tried the drug in the past but no longer used it. “I can tell you, it does change the pigs,” Mr. Karwal said. “It makes them really hyper — when I tried using it, I once went into a barn and my pigs were all standing on top of each other in one corner.”

He said it would not be hard for pig farmers to eliminate the use of ractopamine, estimating that it would cost them at most $1 a pig in lost revenue.

"The Chinese crackdown on pork imports has alarmed American producers". What will those crazy Chinese food inspectors reject next?

[y66]

John Fogerty recalling Creedence Clearwater Revival's 3:30 am start time at Woodstock:

Quote

We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn ... there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud.

And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: A quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic, and in the night I hear, 'Don't worry about it, John. We're with you.' I played the rest of the show for that guy.

[Winstonm]

Let's just hope this is the last hurrah for the religious right.

[blackshoe]

As long as religion exists, there will be no last hurrah for either the religious right or the religious left — or any brand in between.

[Phil]

Trying out a place we found on Airbnb in Montana for the weekend.

[Aberlour10]

Cheated while playing Mau mau. My niece cheated better.

[kenberg]

 Phil, on 2015-September-11, 15:59, said:

Trying out a place we found on Airbnb in Montana for the weekend.

Let us know how it goes. I have never been to Montana but I expect that I would like it. I once saw this postcard with cowboys lassoing poodles. Caption: Citizens for a poodle free Montana.
Probably not everyone's idea of a good joke, but I liked it.
And I had to look up Airbnb, I had never heard of it.
So I hope we will here from you.

PS, My younger daughter got a miniature poodle for her fifth birthday and it was one great dog. So poodle lovers relax, I just liked the joke..

[Zelandakh]

 Aberlour10, on 2015-September-12, 02:00, said:

Cheated while playing Mau mau. My niece cheated better.

For those in the UK, mau mau is German for blackjack, not the pontoon variety but the uno type.

[Winstonm]

You can't be serious....

Quote

43% of Republicans could imagine supporting a military coup in the United States

source: https://today.yougov...-united-states/

[y66]

I have fond memories of fishing in the Yellowstone River near Livingston.