Gromnir

The stimulus bill includes a tax break for the 1% we earlier highlighted this curious tax boon for the wealthy included in the stimulus bill, but the linked opinion article does a fair job o' explaining. "Let's pause for a moment to review: The new relief provision only benefits those who can list more than $500,000 in excess business losses -- typically artificial losses from depreciation that have more than wiped out their business income on paper -- AND more than $500,000 in other income from wages or other sources now that the cap on the tax break has been removed. Pity such people in a time of pandemic? Congress did. "Who are they? The Times and other accounts refer to this category as the "top 1%" of taxpayers, according to Internal Revenue Service data. These are people who are likely making millions, writing off millions more in paper real estate losses, all the while really hating the taxes they must pay." when a bit o' normalcy returns, Congress needs re examine this provision. similar but different... Red and Blue America Agree That Now Is the Time to Violate the Constitution have mentioned previous how when we talk o' the government taking away freedoms we ordinarily don't mean it in the same way as does gd. is a mistake to think o' government as a threat to The People. one should always be conscious o' the fact the greatest threat to freedom in this country is not tyrants acting 'gainst the will o' the people but rather the tyranny o' the majority. particular in times when fears is stoked, democracy becomes dangerous. japanese internment in ww2 were not evil government acting in spite o' popular will but rather government responding to widespread anger and fear. in 2020 we look back at japanese internment and wonder: how could the government do such a thing? wrong query. the Constitution (the Bill of Rights in particular) is designed, consciously and with full awareness, as a limit on democracy. decades hence, school children will look back at 2020 and lament how the government took civil liberties away from people in violation o' the Constitution. just like patriot act. just like korematsu. just like... etc. gotta break the cycle. gotta recognize it is The People demanding safety and security and offering freedom up on the pyre as a sacrifice. yeah, trump and others is gonna grab for power for self interest, but biggest threat is your neighbors and the guy in the mirror. HA! Good Fun!

would be nice if it were a denver thing. so denver is buckwheats? bad enough, but our experience suggests it is a bit more widespread. in another post we mentioned how our older family members were not taking this situation serious. referenced two aunts specific. the 82-year old lives in midwest. the 79-year old lives in socal. ... y'know, for driver training classes in US high schools, students is shown blood on the pavement and similar such films to try and drive home the scope o' dangers from driving when st00pid. such lessons is having admitted limited and short-term impact on teens, but short-term may be enough in this situation. am knowing this sounds like a cruel solution, but am thinking it might be worth showing film o' people suffering from severe respiratory distress to, well, everybody. if you have ever watched somebody die as they struggle to breathe, chances are it had an impact 'pon you. am knowing film ain't same as in-person viewing a friend or loved one die from pulmonary embolism or similar, but am thinking far too many do not yet comprehend what it is they are facing, not the reality of it. the following is gonna be a bit graphic, so please do not read if you are sensitive to such descriptions regardless, am doubtful shady's experience is anything other than the norm as we see it here and am knowing our family, spread 'cross the country, is replicating the indifference o' the older generations to warnings 'bout the need for social distancing. people clear don't get it, not yet.

Who got special deals in the stimulus and why they got them "A provision for the FDA to approve “innovative” sunscreens—that happen to be made in Florence, Ky., by L’Oreal—appeared in the bill, which was steered in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky." not mentioned in the article is the single line from the bill, kinda hidden, which returns the real estate depreciation tax cut that the 2017 tax deal removed. is hard to explain how big this is... for rich folks. is gonna be multiple years o' no tax payments for the wealthy attributed to this single provision o' the stimulus deal. we need something to help Americans, and like it or not, this stimulus is it. unfortunate, the deal represents much o' what is wrong with Congress. HA! Good Fun!

keep in mind there is also significant misapprehensions 'bout lethality o' covid-19 compared to previous pandemics. 1% mortality assumes 2020 first-world health care under ordinary circumstances. compare lethality o' spanish flu, smallpox and black death results in a serious underappreciation o' the lethality o' covid-19. one reason why death rate in italy is so high is 'cause health care resources in that country is overwhelmed. a patient, forced to survive covid-19 w/o all the benefits o' 2020 medical care is not facing the spectre o' 1%. failure to adequate anticipate surge ADDS to functional lethality. furthermore, lethality and transmissibility is equal significant considerations. covid-19 actual spreads more readily than first assumed. ebola, as terrible and lethal as it is, spread nowhere near as quick as covid-19. fact we got so many asymptomatic covid-19 folks spreading through respiration is making the disease functional more deadly. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna disagree. polarization and gaslighting, supported by media sources which is more interested in promoting a particular ideology than factual accuracy is gonna result in an unsupportable narrative nevertheless becoming gospel for a significant portion o' the population. if you ain't been paying attention to trends from the last decade, you will be shocked and horrified by the lengths folks is gonna go to in an attempt to reimagine and marginalize what should be inarguable tragic. as much as you need steel yourself for many weeks o' social distancing in an effort to keep the spread o' the pandemic from overwhelming limited healthcare resources, am thinking you also need prepare self for the aftermath which has frightening large numbers o' people in multiple nations convinced this were all much ado 'bout nothing... relative speaking. we are lucky. this pandemic, as bad as it is gonna get 'tween now and release o' a vaccine more than a year hence, coulda' been much worse. this is not a civilization ending pandemic, but the next one might be. with increased globalism becoming the norm, the possibility o' worldwide pandemics growing outta control too fast for nations with current levels o' preparedness to respond is increasing. as such,we are getting a harsh but valuable warning from the universe. can either learn from it or suffer a far worse fate when a truly terrible pathogen spreads through every city and township o' the the world a decade (or sooner) from today. as insane as it may sound in this moment, we are lucky, lucky this ain't far worse. polarization. gaslighting. lack o' education. improbable as it may appear to those o' us who see images from italian and spanish and nyc hospitals being overwhelmed, there is a real possibility that we, as a people, don't genuine learn anything from today's experience. don't be surprised if such posts age better than you believe is reasonable. HA! Good Fun!

mentioned elsewhere we were gonna check out the met's tannhäuser offering. occurred to us tannhäuser, in an extreme small portion, may be one o' the better known (to american audiences) wagner operas... albeit with liberties taken. HA! Good Fun!

well, you did (purposeful) leave out the bit before the colon: "improbable but not impossible." tell us cyndi lauper is an improbable but not impossible option for democrats emerging from a brokered convention and we would need concede the possibility. our fatalism has us believing democrats will, by accident as 'posed to intent, do whatever is in trump's best interest, but am past the point o' caring. o' the possibilities available for the democratic nomination, none is trump. given debacle o' past three years, and in particular the past three months, am gonna vote not trump regardless o' who that ends up being. even so, am holding out hope for ms. lauper 2020. HA! Good Fun!

am recalling pbs buffalo went after levar burton when he resurrected the reading rainbow show via a kickstarter campaign. seth macfarlane contributed ~$1 million to the kickstarter. am embarrassed to admit we never bothered to see what were the resolution o' the legal kerfuffle, 'but given he is still reading but not using "rainbow," am assuming some kinda settlement were reached which allows mr. burton to continue. is our opinion gaiman's best work is found in his kid friendly and ya catalog, and that ain't a backhanded compliment. the graveyard book is one o' the best stories we has read since 2000... period. no qualification as a children's book needed. applause for mr. burton and gaiman respective. HA! Good Fun!

y'know what's really exploitive? _________. reroll is no biggie 'cause __________. *insert favorite dismissive emoticon here* disadvantage for us, having been on crpg boards since last century, is fact these balance arguments is like living groundhog day. same bad arguments getting repeated over and over and overandoverandoverandoverandoverandover. bg3 is not pnp. bg3 is a single-player crpg. re-load is a known and predictable quantity. ps:t went so far as to make dying part o' the mechanics and dying were in fact necessary to advance the game. nevertheless, reload happened and were anticipated in ps:t and scores o' similar crpgs. reroll, on the other hand, is utter outside control o' developer as the range o' possible attribute spreads is vast. HA! Good Fun!

https://www.unacast.com/covid19/social-distancing-scoreboard is knee-jerk to draw too many conclusions, but is interesting to look at the data. HA! Good Fun!

people tend to use fascist the way vol uses nazi. if you do something bad and lacking what the speaker deems appropriate social consciousness, then fascism is an appropriate label? am not blaming vol as is many who reflexive use nazi and fascist functional interchangeable. nevertheless, from our pov, fascism is one o' the most common misused labels. umberto eco did a fair job o' coming up with fourteen common traits o' fascism, but keep in mind there is hardly universal consensus mr. eco got it right. am suspecting most obsidian posters has used fascist label in rl or on internet. am also betting the vast majority o' us has not considered what is the essential qualities o' the pejorative epithet we throw 'bout with such frequency and abandon. reminds us o' J. Stewart attempting to define obscenity for First Amendment purposes "i shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material i understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ("hard-core pornography"), and perhaps i could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. but i know it when i see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." am guessing most o' us would struggle to adequate define specifics o' fascism, and would likely be surprised at just how difficult it is to so define. nevertheless, am similar believing many believe they know it when they see it. regardless, we do recommend doing a search for umberto eco + fascism. HA! Good Fun!

for those disappointed in the new star trek show, there is nevertheless something worth watching from captain picard. current reading a sonnet daily. HA! Good Fun!

apologies for double. our suggestion regarding bg3 point buy and reroll, not that anybody at larian or anywhere else for that matter has reason to listen to our game suggestions, would be to make reroll a post completion unlock. after game has been completed once, then the options box for the reroll feature becomes subject to interaction and let folks go-to-town with +90-minute rolling sessions to achieve attribute spreads more in-line with a high-level character than a starting adventurer. problem being am suspecting there is a whole lotta folks who want reroll included. end o' consideration. reality is reroll doesn't hurt folks such as Gromnir save for it renders any kinda meaningful balancing efforts pointless. larian does have a built-in defense to insulate 'em from balancing considerations as they may choose to blame inequities 'pon d&d rules as 'posed to considering how crpg differences makes pnp rules a starting point rather than a final judgement. regardless, becomes kinda stoopid to expend effort on balancing when from start you got reroll. there is gonna be cheesy exploitive nonsense which works in bg3 which ain't possible in pnp 5e. exploits will work not in spite o' faithful implementation o' 5e rules but because. am suspecting presence o' reroll is a harbinger which warns us in advance o' larian indifference to balance, which will not doubt come as a welcome relief to many. and those o' you who is utter dismissive o' crpg balance, we know what you look like in rl. HA! Good Fun!

attractive nuisance. funny bit o' law which basic means that even if you diligent warn people o' dangers, 'cause kids is stoopid you need take extra precautions. construction sites is most notorious examples. plaster warning signs 'round equipment and hidden dangers ain't enough to protect contractor 'cause is a given kids will ignore such signage and play in construction sites. contractors gotta take extra precautions beyond what is strictly reasonable 'cause there will be those kids who ignore good advice regarding dangers o' heavy equipment and nail guns and thin bits o' plywood covering holes filled with stagnant muddy water and bits o' metal and/or glass. legal reasoning is that kids is dumb and they cannot help themselves so contractors need be a bit more responsible. is sad but true that the reasoning for attractive nuisance applies equal to snot-nosed kids trespassing at construction sites as it does to 20 and 30 somethings who is faced with point-buy v. re-roll in a crpg. the path to self-destruction is easy to see, and for little kids and gamers, is impossible to avoid? HA! Good Fun!

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amazon prime has a few danny kaye titles including the inspector general and the court jester. no matter how ridiculous, we can't keep self from smiling when we see danny kaye stuff. seems like a good time for a few o' his movies. HA! Good Fun!

in retrospect am seeing how tchaikovsky would be an effective distraction for a bored babushka, but were not our goal in posting. regardless, am glad it helped. april 1 will be nixon in china, which am admitting we only know one aria from the entire opera. will likely check out tannhäuser as well. not a sooper popular wagner opera, but were a kinda/sorta/slight inspiration for gaiman's neverwhere. only have seen one performance o' tannhäuser and were not met quality. aside: fact comrademaster didn't dr00l all over himself when presented with a freebie link to the 2007 met performance o' eugene onegin makes us serious question his cred. HA! Good Fun!

well, am gonna hope folks take this serious and we starve the virus 'nuff so we can get to whatever is the new normal sooner rather than later. largely automated workforce and ubi? not anytime soon, but maybe this kinda thing gets us headed in the right direction. in any event, good luck. we went and did shopping for folks this AM. none o' the area stores have 24 hour availability anymore as they need shut down for deep cleans every eve, so we were at a "local" store at 6AM. local for us is a 25-minute drive. mostly older folks were clustered at the entrance o' the supermarket when we arrived. we got more than a few grocery stores which offer senior hours, but most is doing such on specific days as 'posed to entire week. anyways, we get to store at 6AM and manager announces to those assembled: almost no tp; few paper products in general; produce and egg deliveries would be taking place at 9AM; fresh meats were well-stocked. we did manage to get kleenex for a few folks on our list. there were a couple bags o' jasmine rice on shelves. nothing else for rice folks. couple bags o' black beans were all that were available for legume lovers. no potatoes. frozen vegetables were in short supply. prepared frozen foods were plentiful. could fill your freezer with frozen pizza if you so desired. milk were well stocked. plenty o' apples and lettuce and bananas. tomatoes were abundant and looked surprisingly good for the season. a few varieties o' soups were absent, but most were available and in numbers. hit and miss. weird part were how in spite o' fact the shoppers were mostly older, they had almost zero respect for social distancing, even those people wearing masks and gloves were crowding together. literal had one woman brush past us to get at the yogurts she wanted. weren't just customers neither. we asked bakery guy which packaged bagels were cinnamon-raisin (decided not for Gromnir btw) and the guy came out from behind his counter and got in our personal space in a way we wouldn't like even if there weren't covid-19 to worry 'bout. we had specific asked if he could point out the desired bagels "from a distance." dunno, feels like older folks in particular ain't taking social distancing serious and others is almost going out o' their way to show they ain't scared. regardless, shopping were quasi successful. next week am gonna try for a costco run. we could personal avoid shopping for a month (or more) w/o trouble as am well and good stocked with everything but stock-- chicken, beef and vegetable. our senior friends feel bad 'bout us doing shopping for 'em so am suspecting they keep their lists brief so as not to overwhelm us. have pointed out how is better for everybody, Gromnir included, if our friends have us do shopping which will carry 'em through at least a couple weeks, but is so tough for people to accept help. HA! Good Fun!

our baked beans is heavy on the jalapeno. the recipe is also heavy on bacon-- 1lb bacon:1lb beans. as healthful as is beans, with bacon, molasses and brown sugar making major contributions, our baked bean recipe deserves a surgeon general warning label. beans need soak overnight and then takes 'bout 6ish hours at 250 to fully bake, so is not a 5PM decision for a 6PM meal kinda thing. positive side: 'tween the plentiful bacon and jalapeno, the house smells delicious whilst cooking continues. is one o' our more popular potluck offerings. maybe not quite on par with our mac and cheese, but is in the tight group o' potential second bests. am assuming folks have an overabundance o' legumes n' such at the moment, so later we might post recipe... gonna head to store for 6AM opening. HA! Good Fun!

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a couple inspired by a @Guard Dog post the following are versions o' ubiquitous internet available recipes. these is not Gromnir recipes and am not taking credit in any way. Black Bean Soup Ingredients • 2 T vegetable oil • 3⁄4 c diced white onion • 3⁄4 c diced celery • 1⁄2 c diced carrot • 1⁄4 c diced green bell pepper • 2 T minced garlic • 4 (15 ounce) cans black beans • 4 c chicken stock • 2 T apple cider vinegar • 2 t chili powder • 1⁄2 t cayenne pepper • 1⁄2 t cumin • 1⁄2 t salt • 1⁄4 t hickory liquid smoke • garnish • shredded monterey jack and cheddar cheese blend, blend • chopped green onion, sour cream 1. heat 2 T of oil in a large saucepan over medium/low heat. add onion, celery, carrot, bell pepper, and garlic to the oil and simmer slowly, for 15 minutes or until the onions are translucent. don't brown. 2. while you cook the veggies, pour the canned beans into a strainer and rinse them under cold water. 3. measure 3 c of the drained and strained beans into a food processor with 1 c of chicken stock. Puree on high speed until smooth. 4. when the veggies are ready, pour the pureed beans, the whole beans, the rest of the chicken stock, and every other ingredient in the list (down to liquid smoke), to the pot. bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 50 to 60 minutes or until soup has thickened and all the ingredients are tender. serve the soup topped with a couple T of the cheese blend and a t or so of chopped green onion T=tablespoon, t=teaspoon, c=cup and monastery lentils the lentils, in particular, is a staple for us which contains most o' the stuff we need to survive and thrive. we prefer with beef stock as 'posed to chicken for the recipe, but vegetable stock would be fine for any hardcore vegetarians and/or catholics during lent. is also noteworthy how this is perhaps the only recipe for which we use brown lentils. have tried with green and even beluga. cheap brown lentils is our favorite for this, and only this recipe. it freezes well. when we were taking care o' our sister, she insisted on doubling the sherry, and then she would add a bit o' sherry whenever she microwaved a bowl o' the lentils. she liked the sherry. we would use amontillado for no other reason than whimsy factor. HA! Good Fun! ps forgot to mention, but the lentils is one o' the few recipes for which we frequent use diced tomatoes. canned diced tomatoes is always treated with a preservative which affects taste and prevents the tomatoes from breaking down as does whole tomatoes. we avoid diced. that said, at the recommended cooking time, even if you thoroughly hand crush tomatoes in a glass bowl as part of prep, chances are you get a few annoying large and stringy tomato fragments in your monastery lentils. so our advice is to use diced or to consider cooking substantial longer and only adding parsley with ~30 (or less) minutes cook time remaining.

may have been a mistake, but am thinking use in the reagan campaign is a big reason why the song is used so wrong by so many. is a whole bunch o' protest songs we enjoy and is discouraging to reflect and realize how relevant so many is today no less than when penned. farm aid song from 80s. keep in mind we grew up on a small ranch, so the 80s farmer sufferings hit us where we lived. and a couple more from earlier decades. am not a beatles fan, but the blackbird song is an exception. the nina simone version o a billy taylor song were used in a super bowl commercial a few years past- one o' the top highlights o' the game for us. all is as timely in 2020 as they were in 80s or even 60s. HA! Good Fun!

Fauci gets frank about Trump: ‘I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down’ is another covid-19 story which appears to nevertheless be paywall protected. looks like it is at msn as well https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fauci-gets-frank-about-trump-i-cant-jump-in-front-of-the-microphone-and-push-him-down/ar-BB11yEAg “We sit down for an hour and a half, go over all the issues on the agenda,” Fauci said, adding that the group also discusses what they want to emphasize to the public that day before meeting with Trump. “Then we go in to see the president, we present [our consensus] to him and somebody writes a speech,” he explained. “Then he gets up and ad-libs on his speech. And then we’re up there to try and answer questions.” am thinking for the moment fauci is not gonna be fired as even trump needs know how bad that would look. however, fauci is scaling up his overt resistance to some o' the President's more egregious misrepresentations. is only a matter o' time before an immovable object must give way to the p00p hurling orangutan with impulse control issues in an ill fitting suit who is current the chief executive o' the USA. HA! Good Fun!

fact it is so complete misunderstood by so many makes it our favorite. song 'bout vietnam veterans screwed over by their government becomes a patriotic anthem? other notables HA! Good Fun!